Gender Disparities in Self-concept, Attitude and Perception in Physics and Chemistry

This study sought to determine disparities and associated factors in students’ performance in Physics and Chemistry at the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) ex- amination in Nandi North District. The research objectives included determining differences in students’ performance at KCSE in Physics and Chemistry, self-concept (perception) of, attitude toward, and perception of the usefulness of Physics and Chemistry as subjects. Students were classified accord- ing to gender, using a causal-comparative design. Majority of the students aged between 15 and 19 years. Three ques- tionnaires were administered to the form four students, and KCSE results for the years 2000 – 2004 were obtained from the District Education Office. These were analyzed using de- scriptive and inferential statistics. We concluded that boys reflected better academic achievement as compared to the girls in both physics and chemistry. The boys and girls had comparable self-concept in physics. The girls had a higher self-concept in chemistry than the boys. This may suggest that self-concept does not influence performance in chemistry since boys still out-performed the girls in spite of the girls’ higher self-concept. With regard to attitude towards chemistry and physics, the boys and girls had the same attitude, mixed and single-sex school students had comparable attitude to- wards physics and chemistry. An intervention regarding the level of preparedness of primary school pupils in dealing with the challenges of learning Physics and Chemistry at sec- ondary is recommended.

Key Practices and Interventions for Training and Transitioning UR Students from an HBCU into Advanced Degree Programs in the Biomedical Sciences

For more than 30 years, institutions funded by NIH had less than an impressive record for achieving diversity in the bio- medical workforce. To address this concern, NIH recently implemented a series of bold initiatives to bridge the gaps in NIH training programs to further promote diversity. However, critical to the success of these initiatives is the timely report- ing, from institutions with large diverse populations such as HBCUs, of evidence-based practices, strategies, and interven- tions for training and transitioning individuals underrepre- sented (UR) in the biomedical sciences from baccalaureate to Ph.D. degree programs. To this end, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the 10-year success of the NIH-funded MBRS Fayetteville State University (FSU) Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (FSU-RISE) program for training and subsequent transitioning of UR students from the baccalaure- ate degree into advanced degree programs in the biomedical sciences. We hypothesized that the FSU-RISE program would significantly increase the number of well-prepared under- graduate UR biology and chemistry students who would graduate and transition into advanced degree programs in the biomedical sciences. This article provides evidence-based findings on practices, strategies and interventions for prepar- ing UR individuals from a Historically Black College and Uni- versity (HBCU) for successful entry into Ph.D. programs

Reflections of An Undergraduate Teaching Associate

As an undergraduate teaching associate, I collaborated closely with the professor of an honors introductory biology course at George Washington University to help improve the curriculum. Assisting with course revision, implementation, and assessment was a positive, life-changing learning experience, an all-around benefit, and hopefully an inspiration for other collaborations.

Environmental Soil Microbiology: A Novel Research-Oriented Laboratory Course for Undergraduate Students

Laboratory courses have a central and distinctive role in sci- ence education. The need of improving laboratory curricular materials in environmental soil microbiology education is a must more than ever as due to the followings: (i) emerg- ing of new types of soil biological problems associated with new manipulated environments, (ii) the intimacy of human, plants, and animals to soil microbial activities, and (iii) en- vironmental soil-connected issues is the area of current re- search interests. We present a novel research-oriented labo- ratory course for undergraduates in soil science, according to the need of reforming the laboratory curriculum as called by the National Science Education Standards to advocate in- quiry and cognitivity in teaching and learning. Our inquiry- based environmental soil microbiology laboratory course provides a good pedagogical opportunity in promoting criti- cal thinking, making predictions, proposing causative factors, and presenting consistent arguments to support a position through effective scientific writing. The novelty of our labora- tory curriculum relies on the integration of three main com- ponents namely the “skill learning”, “research experience”, and “effective writing skills” which ultimately may help in optimizing students thinking performance towards research oriented mindset. The course is divided into two modules (I & II), where in module I students are introduced to the basic principles and techniques in soil microbiology. As for module II, students are assigned a research project to enhance their critical thinking and develop their conceptual skills in design- ing an experiment, problem solving, gathering and analy- sis of data, and scientific writing. The unit content can be modified to suit other specific laboratory curriculums in other branches of natural science without loss of students learning efficiency or impact.

Student Achievement in an Introductory Biology Course: Assessing Grade Motivation and Study Log Metacognition

As college educators, our main teaching goals are to increase student learning and improve student retention. This study describes how 54 science majors at a public, minority serv- ing institution reflected on their study time, study activities, and overall grade motivation in a core-curriculum introduc- tory biology course. Since 2005, less than 50% of students enrolled in this course at our university earned a final grade of “C” or better. In the Fall semester of 2009, we adminis- tered a pre and post assessment using the Science Motivation Questionnaire (SMQ) a 30-item Likert-type instrument devel- oped by Glynn and Koballa (2006) to better understand and address the student attrition from the introductory biology course. All 30 items from the SMQ were analyzed, but only 5 items relevant to grade motivation are presented in this paper. We also designed and implemented a weekly study log assessment tool for students to document their study time and study activities, wherein students submitted their study logs on a weekly basis during the course of this research study. Based on the number of study logs submitted and study time by each student, students were classified into ei- ther a high-metacognition or low-metacognition group. For our purposes, we defined metacognition as the awareness of one’s own thinking process (Merriam-Webster, 2012). The high-metacognition group submitted 75% of their study logs and earned a grade in the top 25% of the class. The low- metacognition group submitted only 25% of their study logs and earned a grade in the bottom 25% of the class. Thus both groups formed reasonable expectations for their overall class performance.

Studying Soil Catena in Arid-zone Environment: Case Study for Soil Science Students

Studing soils under their natural habitat is an important step to understand soil-landscape relationships. Combing ing field-work with laboratory analyses is an important tech- nique for learning about soils and should help students to broaden their understanding of the basic concepts of soil sci- ence and in particular of soil formation. This work provides a detailed procedure for a hands-on educational approach consisting of a field exercise combined with basic labora- tory techniques for studying a soil catena. The work involves field study of physical and morphological properties of soil pedons existing on a soil catena of Al-Batinah region, Oman. Soil samples were collected for laboratory analyses. The paper provides a package of field, laboratory, and data analysis exercise using the concept of soil catena or topose- quence for studying factors of soil formation in an arid-zone environment. Combining field work with basic laboratory analyses maximizes the benefits of studying soil-landscape relationships

The Effect of Preconceived Notions and the Lack of Fundamental Skills while Taking General Chemistry

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are vital areas of national interest. However, there has been a gradual decline in the number of Bachelor of Science (BS) degrees issued in STEM based disciplines from United States’ colleges and universities. Research indicates too few stu- dents are equipped with the mathematical and analytical skills necessary to be successful in college level mathematics and science courses. Data indicates that millions of people are discouraged from studying mathematics and science because of false assumptions about who has the ability to master these subjects. It has been shown that in General Chemistry courses some students perform exceptionally well, but a large number of students avoid and/or have a fear of General Chemistry, which results in a high drop/failure/ withdrawal (DFW) rate. This is coupled with the fact that they enter college ill-prepared in mathematics and lacking analytical and verbal reasoning/critical thinking skills. This initial negative attitude and deficiency results in a frustrating experience in General Chemistry. It is for these reasons that a study was performed to address the overall goal of deter- mining the attitudes and identifying the foundational levels of the students from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (AAMU), a Historically Black College and Univer- sity (HBCU), currently enrolled in General Chemistry and at- tempt to determine the effect on their overall success in Gen- eral Chemistry. Subsequently, it was determined that a large percentage of students believe that attitude determines their overall success, but most lack self-confidence. In addition, some appeared college ready with respect to their mathemat- ical skills, but, they were lacking in verbal reasoning/critical thinking skills. As a result of a negative attitude and a lack of foundational skills, their grades reflected such negativity and over 50% of the students earned a grade of “C” or below. These studies revealed supportive evidence as to why there might be a decline in the number of BS graduates in STEM.

Exploring Environmental Issues: Places We Live

The Project Learning Tree curriculum Exploring Environmental Issues: Places We Live was evaluated using a quasi-experimental research design that consisted of pre/post inter vention assessments measuring differences in self-assessed content knowledge, researcher assessed content knowledge, and attitudes. Treatment groups consisted of two randomly assigned groups, one group completed 3-lessons and the other group completed 6-lessons. Analysis indicated the 6-lesson treatment group demonstrated significant gains in all three categories, while the 3-lesson group exhibited significant gains in self-assessed content knowledge. The results suggest that the curriculum is valuable in delivering placebased educational content.

Study of Factors Affecting Students’ Performance in three Science Classes: General Biology, Botany, and Microbiology at Fayetteville State University

Several studies have reported the effects of class time on overall students’ performances, but there are just few on the influence of factors as absences, gender, class section, class difficulty or semester. The objectives of this study were to an- alyze the effects of the above mentioned factors (absences, class time, gender, class difficulty and semester) on college students’ performance in three science classes: Principles of Biology (BIOL 150), General Botany (BOTN 210), and Micro- biology & Immunology (BIOL 330) over a period of 3 years. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for absences showed signifi- cant differences for the number of those between the differ- ent semesters (fall, spring, and summer) and that students tend to miss more classes (P>0.05) during fall and spring than summer semesters. Gender (P>0.3515) and class sec- tion (P>0.0608) do not seem to significantly affect the aver- age grades in general biology and microbiology. Regarding gender, significant differences were observed in BOTN 210 between females and males average grades. Females tend to do better than males at least in this class. There was a moderate but strongly significant negative correlation (-0.59, P>0.0001***) between the average grades and the number of absences in almost all classes. ANOVA also showed sig- nificant differences for the average grades between the differ- ent class times at P>0.0020*. The Tukey-Kramer test revealed that students perform better in morning classes compared to afternoon classes. The class time plays a significant role in the number of absences as well. Analysis showed that the most “convenient” time for students is late morning or after noon given that they tend to result in fewer absences. In ad- dition, students tend to receive better grades in BOTN 210 that they do in BIOL 330 and BIOL 150 (Means 77.33, 69.42, and 67.82, respectively) which can be justified by the fact that the latter two are more intense than the first. Overall, absences are the only factor among those studied (absences, gender, class section, class difficulty and semester) that seem to affect student’s grades negatively in all three classes (BIOL 150, BOTN 210 and BIOL 330). Typically, factors such as gen- der, and class section do not have any effect on students’ performance. Results for class time show that students may perform better in morning or evening classes. In other cases time does not play any significant role to efficiency.

The Place of Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Teacher Education

In recent studies, teacher quality is presented as one of the most important contributing factors to student learning. However, reaching a consensus about a precise definition of teacher quality is still far from actuality in the field of education. In other words, what constitutes a quality teacher and how to educate better teachers are still highly debated issues. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) enters the scene at this moment as one of the most critical elements of improving teacher quality. This paper provides a brief description of PCK, and its value and limitations in teacher education