Students' conceptions may be the starting point for improving their understanding of the world. These conceptions play a decisive role throughout learning procedure and are often incompatible with the scientific model. Conceptions’ analysis is a tool for the advancement of a proximal development zone in which a first conceptual system can be built by students. This paper presents our first findings on 5 to 7-year-old students’ conceptions about the inverse relationship between time and speed. Considering the epistemological perspective of phenomenological primitives, our data collection is based on an experimental approach by setting up a problem situation.
The pursued main objective of this work is to verify if the new curricula take into account or not ends and orientations of the last educational reform; in particular as regards the role of the pupil in his apprenticeships, the integration of the NICT (New information and communication technologies) in the teaching process and the promotion of health education. For that purpose, we proceeded to an analysis of content education of breathing function in prescribed and potential curricula in the preparatory and secondary stages of education. The main results which stand out from this study are: (1) Internal and external incoherencies was lifted in both curricula analyzed in consideration of the orientations of the educational reform: (a) There is an epistemological gap between format of the contents and the socio-constructivism ordered by the reform as a paradigm of cognition. (b) Several paradigms of cognition coexist: behaviorism, cognitivism and socio-constructivism. (2) In the statements of curricula, there is a sliding which consists in the reduction of the concept of skill to specific objectives.
The present study focuses on Erasmus student mobility and emerging adulthood. We attempt to detect possible emerging adulthood characteristics to Greek university students, in the frame of their participation in mobility programmes. A qualitative analysis with in-depth interviews of students was applied, in order to investigate the implications of this experience for Emerging Adulthood. Interviews were addressed to Greek students from various disciplines that participated in mobility programmes in different countries and higher education environments during the past two years. The research revealed empowerment of specific emerging adulthood characteristics of the participants, while studying abroad emerges as a significant learning experience that fosters students’ developmental process to adulthood.
Which are the self-efficacy beliefs that teachers hold when they are asked to teach concepts on probabilities in preschool education? Is it possible to improve negative self-efficacy beliefs through a training program? Thirty-two preschool educators participated in our study and attended a mathematical training program on probabilities, which were lately introduced in the revised preschool curriculum. The structure of the training program centered on the “inquiry-based” pedagogical approach. The results showed that the mathematical inquiry-based training program could improve participants’ initial negative self-efficacy beliefs on teaching probabilities in preschool students and consequently may have positive effects on their educational abilities.
This study examines the role of secondary school principal in Greece during the period 1981-2018. The aim is not only to identify the limitations but also to reveal possible autonomy trends that have transformed the Greek school principal’s role. In developing our theoretical perspective, we drew on New Public Management (NPM) and school principal’s role discourse. We then examined the relevant legislative documents following documentary analysis and qualitative content analysis. Our findings firstly support the view that secondary school principal’s role in Greece was transformed to some extent at the legislative level, reflecting this way the impact of NPM practices on the Greek educational policy. Secondly, they show that there might also be some room for school principal’s initiatives that would benefit the students, especially school principal’s participation in teachers’ professional development. Thirdly, the overall legislative initiatives on the Greek school administration, could be considered as a part of its gradual modernization process aiming at devolving authority to the school principal, the teachers’ council and the school board.
This paper reports on the educational program “Something’s flying around us” that took place in the Zoological Museum of the University of Patras, based on constructivism, under the citizen science project “Ornithopolis”. The aim of the program was to support primary school pupils in identification of bird species and to enhance their awareness about urban bird diversity using exhibits and dioramas of the museum. Overall, 112 pupils were involved in the program. Pre- and post-program children’s knowledge and ideas about eleven selected bird species that are common in the Mediterranean urban areas were tested. After the implementation of the educational program bird identification skills of the pupils increased significantly. Besides, most participants seemed to be enthusiastic about birds and acknowledged their value for the ecosystem, while they also stated that they enjoyed the program. Our study indicates that educational programs in zoological museums can efficiently increase biological and ecological knowledge of pupils and have a positive impact on the attitude towards biodiversity.
This paper examines the empirical data of a broader study concerning the views of the undergraduate students of the Department of Educational Science and Early Childhood Education (DESECE) of the University of Patras, Greece (n=144) in regards to how they perceive and describe themselves as teachers during their teaching practice at schools. The paper analyzes the challenges that the students have dealt with, through an experiential approach of the teacher's profession, which appears to influence and shape their perception as teachers. The findings span nine axes and the analysis further indicates that these axes relate with both how closely the undergraduate students perceive themselves as teachers and how the teaching practice itself influences and contributes to how the undergraduate students perceive themselves as teachers.
Attitudes towards science have an important role in society, as they affect people’s scientific literacy, which is cultivated from an early age, leading to the need for scientific literate teachers. The purpose of the present study was to detect pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards science and examine whether their beliefs about science influence their scientific literacy or not. One hundred and eighty-six Primary Education students from Greece participated in the study. The participants completed an online questionnaire about themselves and their family as well as their views and their attitudes towards science. The questionnaire used in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) was adapted to the requirements of this study, in order to reveal individuals’ attitudes. The results confirmed that scientific literacy is composed of five indices, some of which are affected by gender, high school courses and year of studies. Moreover, the research data show a significant relationship between participants’ science performance and their beliefs about science.
The current Quebec Education Training Program has undergone a profound change. In particular, sciences and technology (S&T) teaching, through disciplinary competency and general domain of learning, promotes the integration of various aspects of daily life such as those associated with health education (ES) when studying scientific issues. Faced with the challenges and difficulties encountered by teachers, who are front-line actors in the educational process, to integrate ES in their classrooms, we lead research that took into account conceptions and practices of these teachers about this science and technology education in Quebec. In particular, it is a question of analyzing the speech of the teachers (obtained by semi-structured interviews) on their own practices. This analysis takes into account the dimensions of the reference framework associated with the educational aims adopted for teaching ES in S&T, the nature of the content taught, the teaching methods for this content (considering the tasks of students and teachers). In this article, we focus on the methodology of data collection (presenting the rationale of the semi-structured interview) and the analysis techniques of this data (content analysis).
The discrepancies between the final understanding of 12th graders specializing in science and their knowledge about plants defined in the curriculum : what are the final understandings of the students ? What difficulties can be noticed at the end of their curriculum ? No one can deny that if the students' understandings about plants does not reach the requirements or expertise aimed at within the curriculum once completed by the students, it is because the concept of plants is complex and because they have a specific place in the living as reflected in the complexity of their phylogeny. The various epistemological obstacles, Bachelardianly speaking, explain the difficulties encountered by the students while learning. The data results from and was compiled out of the answers of 453 12th graders specializing in Science. It enables to make a clear picture of the students' understandings.
Ce numero de la revue Educational Journal of the University of Patras UNESCO Chair est dedie a des articles de jeunes chercheurs. Il est issu du Week End Jeunes Chercheurs (WEJCh) de l’Association pour la Recherche en Didactique des Sciences et des Technologies (ARDiST) qui a eu lieu du 27 au 30 mars 2018, a Saint-Malo. Lors de cet evenement, 28 jeunes chercheurs encadres par deux experts en didactique des sciences et technologies, Patrice Venturini (EFTS, Toulouse, France) et Abdelkrim Hasni (CREAS, Sherbrooke, Canada), se sont rassembles autour du theme « Analyses et traitements des donnees qualitatives et/ou quantitatives et leur fondement epistemologique ».
In this article, we investigate the links between student’s personal epistemology and the quality of her/his argumentation. This study takes part in the AREN project (ARgumentation Et Numerique), which aim to study the impact of a digital debate tool on the learning of argumentation on pupils discussing about socio-scientific issues. After presenting our theoretical and methodological approaches, coming from various backgrounds, we show some results of this work. We highlight how articulating a study of the impact of the didactical strategy in class and an analysis of the pupil’s learning processes is complementary. The student's representation of the link between the point of view and knowledge seems to be useful to understand his quality of argumentation. Furthermore, a representation of that link as a continuum seems to be linked to a better quality of argumentation.
The term is present in French science and technology programs. To better understand what concepts are addressed in this context, it is necessary to conduct an analysis of these programs. Given the diversity of existing methodologies, corresponding to different conceptual frameworks, we performed a triangulation approach based on two different types of analysis (qualitative thematic analysis and quantitative lexicometric analysis). The methodological triangulation approach reveals no link between the evolutionary dimensions of biodiversity and social issues related to its protection. This link seems nevertheless necessary to build a biodiversity education.
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of an explicit Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) approach that emphasised conceptual knowledge of fractions on low-achieving sixth-grade students. Participants were 34 sixth-grade students, of which 10 showed low achievement in fractions (LAF) and 24 exhibited typical achievement in fractions (TAF). The explicit CRA intervention resulted in equally large effect sizes for LAF and TAF students. In addition, the large gap in fractions performance between LAF and TAF students, observed at the pre-test time, was significantly bridged at the post-test time. The effect size of the gain in the conceptual knowledge of fractions was large among LAF students. Results are discussed in terms of the CRA instructional effectiveness in fractions. Finally, instruction efficiency issues within diverse general education classrooms are considered.
This study explores the way that the pattern rule is developed in preschool age and the contribution of the manipulatives to this recognition. For this purpose, 23 preschoolers were tested in pre- and post-tests which were designed to examine the development of the pattern rule. From the results it appears that preschoolers recognize and generalize the rule in 7 steps and that the manipulatives help children on the one hand, in this recognition and generalization and, on the other hand, to construct their own manipulatives, which they then use in order to deal with other relevant mathematical situations.
The aim of this paper is to establish the significance of listening and speaking as key and powerful components of effective literacy practices. The analysis is based on the Neo-Vygotskian theory, and on the methodology of communication content analysis, and speech monitoring strategies in educational contexts. The nature of oral discourse is analyzed from a functional, an ontogenetic, and a phylogenetic perspective, but also as a tool of symbolic power and knowledge. Τhe paper constitutes a theoretical meta-analysis of the subject. Listening and speaking as active literacy processes are discussed and two major models of oral communication are outlined, the dialogic and the transmission model. Finally, the paper presents research findings on effective literacy practices and formulates conclusions on the value of enhancing strategies that promote listening and speaking in literacy practices.
The article discusses problems which emerged while we were conducting research on student dropout. The term student dropout refers to individuals who leave school before completing compulsory education. These problems relate mostly to the difficulty of those who have dropped out from talking about their own experience . The research was carried out in Greece in 2018 and 2019. In Greece, student dropout has fallen considerably in recent years to among the lowest in Europe. Nevertheless it remains a problem. Our aim is to present this difficulty, the consequences on the production of data, and the ways in which they were dealt with. We investigate the causes and consequences of this refusal, through the eyes of the people who abandoned school.
This study concerns the analysis of 2 Greek science textbooks for teaching Physics in the 2 nd grade of Greek Lyceum (K-11) regarding the scientific practices and the crosscutting concepts included. It was found that (a) certain scientific practices are used very often in the textbooks and other are used rarely or not used at all, (b) certain crosscutting concepts appear often in the textbooks and other appear rarely, and (c) the textbooks investigated do not differ considerably in regards to the frequency of appearance of scientific practices and crosscutting concepts. Relevant implications and limitations are discussed.
Understanding rational numbers is a source of difficulty with mathematics for students across ages and nationalities. This intervention study focuses on the misconception on the part of the students to think that multiplication makes the operand numbers bigger and division makes them smaller, independently of the numbers involved. In this study, a refutational text was administered to 6 th grade students to help them disengage from these misconceptions. Refutational texts directly state the erroneous beliefs and immediately overturn them by presenting the alternative correct ideas in a comprehensive and persuasive way. From the 87 6 th grade students that participated in the Pre/Post/Retention-test intervention study, 51 students (experimental group) received the refutational text. The results showed that the refutational text helped the students partly overcome the multiplication makes bigger misconception, and the results had a long-term effect. Not only the high, but also the low prior knowledge students were profited from the intervention. In addition, students managed to transfer the acquired knowledge about multiplication also to division items: the results showed statistically significantly less mistakes of the kind division makes smaller after the intervention. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.
The purpose of our research is to address the development of the concept of rock formation in the reasoning of children, by collecting the pupils’ ideas about a sedimentary rock bearing fossil molluscs. Here we present the data collected for 40 seven-year-old children, through individual, semi-structured interview s. Children's responses were categorised and interpreted. The results of this investigation indicate a transition from the diversified explanations we previously collected for preschoolers, including anthropomor phic or other fantastic elements, to the explanations based on human action or natural processes, given by seven-year-old children. Some of the scenarios envisaged by the pupils reveal the idea that the natural environment has changed in time.
