Published: April 10, 2012

Book review Metacognition in Science Education

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Published: April 10, 2012

This study investigated Ontario science and biology teachers’ practices and attitudes toward animal dissection and dissection alternatives. The data was collected through a mixed methods approach involving online surveys (n=153) and subsequent telephone interviews (n=9) with secondary school science and biology teachers. The findings indicate that teachers identify strengths and drawbacks to both dissection and alternatives, but the majority continue to strongly favour traditional dissection and see it as vital to biology education. Further, although teachers expressed concerns with dissection, their concerns were overshadowed by an overall dissatisfaction with alternatives. It is argued that teachers need to engage more deeply …

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Published: April 10, 2012

Creative thinking in Environmental Education (EE) remains greatly under researched topic. Research on teachers’ conceptions of creative thinking within EE context is also limited, although their role in facilitating creative thinking in students is well documented. The small-scale qualitative study presented here investigates Greek secondary teachers’ conceptions of creative thinking in EE. Empirical data were collected based on nonstructured interviews with 20 secondary teachers with diverse backgrounds and subject expertise. Among the findings of the study is that participants view creative thinking as a thinking process that can or should be enhanced within the context of EE. All four key …

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Published: April 10, 2012

Book review The Inclusion of Environmental Education in Science Teacher Education

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Published: Jan. 10, 2012

Research design and methods in educational neuroscience involve using neuroscientific tools such as brain image technologies to investigate cognitive functions and inform educational practices. The ethical challenges raised by research in social neuroscience have become the focus of neuroethics, a sub-discipline of bioethics. More specifically here, we give an overview of neuroethical issues arising from brain imaging studies and neuropharmacology in education, from neuromyths to potential stigmatization of learners, and discuss the relevance of establishing the field of educational neuroethics. We argue that by integrating ethical positions to research design and methods in educational neuroscience, it would become possible to …

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Published: Jan. 10, 2012

During the last decade of the 20th century (the decade of the brain) large sums of money were spent in researching how the brain works in relation to our day-to-day activities. As a result, we now know to a much greater extent the roles played by various regions of the brain when we are carrying out various activities including learning. We also know that different types of rewards and instruments can stimulate specific parts of the brain which enable individuals to carry out their daily chores efficiently. These findings when applied to a classroom learning situation, which is a step …

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Published: Oct. 10, 2011

Research has shown that emotions play a significant role in the learning process and academic achievement. However, the fact that measurement of emotions during or after instruction usually requires written responses on lengthy research instruments has been given as a reason why researchers have tended to avoid research on this topic in classrooms. Consequently, we developed a short Likert-scale instrument which used only three items within the three factors of interest, well-being and boredom to measure adolescent emotions during instruction in science education. We present four different studies in four populations to assess the validity of the scale. In order …

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Published: Oct. 11, 2011

In Brunei, more girls are enrolled at the institutions of higher education than boys. The aim of this study was to evaluate if a constructivist teaching approach, enriched with interactive whiteboard technology could empower males to minimize gender differences in achievement in Chemistry. Two groups of students were taught for six weeks: one group using the constructivist teaching approach enriched with interactive whiteboard technology and the other group using a traditional teaching approach. The results of the study demonstrated statistically significant gender differences in pre-test mean achievement scores of both the groups. There were statistically significant gender differences in post-test …

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Published: July 10, 2011

Invertebrates perform many beneficial and essential ecological services for humans. Despite this, the general public tends to view them negatively. Preservice elementary teachers often find themselves in a tenuous position because they possess the same negativity toward invertebrates as the general public but have been commissioned by United States of America national and state standards to teach their future students about the very invertebrates they distain. This study investigated the effect frequent direct contact with Madagascar hissing cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) in an educational setting had on preservice elementary teacher‟s arthropod (i.e., a subset of invertebrates) attitude and likelihood of arthropod …

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Published: Oct. 10, 2011

Student labs are out-of-school learning environments that are assumed to promote students‟ interest in science. They are characterised by aspects of situated and authentic learning, a prominence of application contexts presented by scientists, and a high amount of practical work. Research has shown the potential for promoting students‟ interest in science for each of these aspects when implemented separately as a teaching approach in science education. This study aims to explore, whether (i) these aspects can be shown to be separately effective on students‟ interest even when realised jointly in the learning environment and, if so, (ii) which reciprocal effects …

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