We only need to consider public media reports to appreciate that there is growing concern amongst citizens for sustainability. This concern arises from increasing appreciation that the current direction and rate of exploitation of resources is not sustainable and humanity’s actions today are arguably compromising future generations’ ability to meet their living needs. By drawing on the research of scientists, ranging from their evidence of the problems of sustainability to those promising solutions, the same press reports show strong links between sustainability and science. The appearance of such reports in the public media implies that citizens understand the interaction of science and sustainability and that they can engage critically with scientific research, including its applications and implications for sustainability. In this dissertation this understanding and capacity to engage critically is termed scientific literacy. The general question governing the research reported in this dissertation arose from this context and is: What does it mean for citizens to be scientifically literate within the context of sustainability? More specifically, because it is expected that university graduates are well educated in a socially relevant manner, with commensurate responsibilities and influence, the focus question studied in this dissertation is: What does it mean for university graduates to be scientifically literate? It became apparent from the review of the literature, that the concept of scientific literacy was multidimensional. The three key dimensions that emerged were (i) the fundamental and enduring ideas and concepts of science, (ii) the nature of science and (iii) the interaction of science with society. These dimensions provided the framework for the research reported in this dissertation. Within this framework and based on the literature, two relationships amongst these dimensions were proposed. The first relationship was that the dimensions were in a conceptual hierarchal order, with successive dimensions including the previous dimensions and expanding upon them. The second relationship was that students’ scientific literacy developed sequentially along the same hierarchy. It was proposed that development occurred sequentially, with development of concepts of science first, nature of science second and interaction with society last. It was proposed that a scientifically literate person would have reached the level of understanding that includes the interaction of science with society. Specific indicators of the successive dimensions were functional, conceptual/procedural and multidimensional, which at this highest level, includes the relationship between the first two dimensions and society. This framework and the associated indicators were used as a structure and lens for interrogating the development of scientific literacy of 244 first year university students enrolled in Australia’s Murdoch University’s foundation unit, Life and the Universe. This is one of five units from which first year students are required to select one. The units are interdisciplinary in nature with Life and the Universe being a unit that covers generic issues in science. In part because of its content and in part because it allows students from all backgrounds to enrol, it was considered suitable for studying, illustratively, the development of scientific literacy of potential university graduates. The development of scientific literacy was studied in three ways. First, participants responded to open questions about a newspaper report of science, before and after their studying in Life and the Universe, second, they responded to a Likert style questionnaire regarding the nature of science, again before and after studying the unit, and third, a subset of participants were involved in a focus group run over two years. The participants’ responses to the open questions on the questionnaire were analysed for their critical engagement with the news brief, in terms of their ability to give reasons why the text should be accepted or rejected. The nature of requests for extra information about the news brief’s content was also analysed. Analysis of the initial responses to the open questions showed that more than fifty percent of the participants in this study did not demonstrate the ability to critically engage with science reported in the news. The Likert style questionnaire assessed participants’ conception of the nature of science, with one end of the continuum reflecting a traditional view that science was a body of unchanging facts, derived from objective and value free observations, and the other reflecting a more contemporary view, that scientific knowledge was dynamic, open to change, had subjective components, and had scientists socially located so that their work was not free of values. Analysis of the initial responses to the Nature of Science questionnaire showed that more than fifty percent of the participants were located on the continuum towards the contemporary, socially located end. However, it also showed that the majority were still not sufficiently located towards the contemporary end of the continuum to view science as dynamic, with a changing body of knowledge. There was no statistically significant difference in these analyses in relation to participants’ gender, time out of school, course of enrolment or science background. Unexpectedly, the comparison in the analysis of the news brief pre and post Life and the Universe showed that the number of participants engaging critically did not increase. More expectedly, the comparison of the pre and post Life and the Universe responses to the Likert scale showed that there was overall a statistically significant increase in the group’s contemporary, socially located, perspective of the nature of science during their participation in the foundation unit. Specifically, the participants demonstrated raised awareness of the tentative and subjective nature of science and that scientists study a world in which they are a part and, as such, their work is not objective or value free. Nevertheless, there was substantial possibility of higher locations on the scale which the majority of participants did not reach. This statistically significant increase, but possibility for further improvement, is compatible with the lack of increase in critical engagement with the news brief and suggests that the statistical increase was not educationally significant. The focus group data contributed greater depth of understanding to the researcher about the range in participants’ conceptions of the nature of science. The conceptions evident were consistent with the conclusions from the open questions and Likert style questionnaire and also highlighted limited understandings of scientific processes or scientific methods. It was evident that misconceptions and naïve understandings of the contemporary nature of science were present at the beginning and retained throughout the foundation unit learning experience. These limitations helped explain participants’ inability to engage meaningfully and to question critically the science news briefs contained in the questionnaires. Data from the focus group also suggested that a limited understanding of science terms prevented critical engagement with the content of the news briefs. Following closely the focus group participants’ development of scientific literacy over a two year period, allowed the researcher to gain a greater depth of understanding of the participants’ development of scientific literacy than that which could be gained alone from the large scale administrations of the questionnaire. This experience highlighted that the development of scientific literacy was far more complex than the originally proposed sequential development across the three dimensions. The analysis of converging sources of data challenged this proposition and resulted in a reconstruction of understanding about the development of scientific literacy. It was evident that the ability and disposition to critically question and act scientifically required parallel development of science content, socially located conceptions of the nature of science and understanding of its interaction with society. It was the blended and parallel development of these knowledge dimensions, at any level, that demonstrated scientific literacy. In order to characterise the more complex structure amongst the dimensions in which parallel development occurred, a rope metaphor was used. This metaphor effectively represented the observed development of scientific literacy, as it made concrete the interwoven threads of multidimensional knowledge. It represented more realistically the complex, intertwining and multidimensional aspects of participants’ development of scientific literacy. Re-thinking the development of scientific literacy and representing the construct with the rope metaphor offered possibilities for effective pedagogy in higher education. The interaction of multidimensional threads of knowledge seems an integral part of the development of scientific literacy and suggests the need for teaching and learning experiences that are holistic in nature and driven by socially relevant contexts.

This dissertation introduces a new theoretical model for text classification systems, including systems for document retrieval, automated indexing, electronic mail filtering, and similar tasks. The Concept Learning model emphasizes the role of manual and automated feature selection and classifier formation in text classification. It enables drawing on results from statistics and machine learning in explaining the effectiveness of alternate representations of text, and specifies desirable characteristics of text representations. The use of syntactic parsing to produce indexing phrases has been widely investigated as a possible route to better text representations. Experiments with syntactic phrase indexing, however, have never yielded significant improvements in text retrieval performance. The Concept Learning model suggests that the poor statistical characteristics of a syntactic indexing phrase representation negate its desirable semantic characteristics. The application of term clustering to this representation to improve its statistical properties while retaining its desirable meaning properties is proposed. Standard term clustering strategies from information retrieval (IR), based on cooccurrence of indexing terms in documents or groups of documents, were tested on a syntactic indexing phrase representation. In experiments using a standard text retrieval test collection, small effectiveness improvements were obtained. As a means of evaluating representation quality, a text retrieval test collection introduces a number of confounding factors. In contrast, the text categorization task allows much cleaner determination of text representation properties. In preparation for the use of text categorization to study text representation, a more effective and theoretically well-founded probabilistic text categorization algorithm was developed, building on work by Maron, Fuhr, and others. Text categorization experiments supported a number of predictions of the Concept Learning model about properties of phrasal representations, including dimensionality properties not previously measured for text representations. However, in carefully controlled experiments using syntactic phrases produced by Church's stochastic bracketer, in conjunction with reciprocal nearest neighbor clustering, term clustering was found to produce essentially no improvement in the properties of the phrasal representation. New cluster analysis approaches are proposed to remedy the problems found in traditional term clustering methods.

The growing diversity of school populations around the world means that for many students the language of instruction in mainstream classrooms is not their first language. Content-based second language learning in a context such as a science classroom is considered advantageous as it enables the learner to manipulate a target language such as English in a way which is meaningful. However, science students who have yet to achieve communicative competence in English are disadvantaged when it comes to developing a deep understanding of scientific concepts. Many mainstream science teachers have concerns about this significant group of learners who can be left on the periphery of the class to cope as best as they can. Very often teachers aim to meet the needs of English Second Language (ESL) learners without any specific knowledge of the strategies which would enhance learning and ensure that learning environments encourage participation and interaction. The students themselves have not only to deal with language and sociocultural issues but must face the cognitive demands of science including negotiating its specialised language. / The study had two main purposes. The first goal was to describe the current situation with respect to nine ESL learners of science and their teachers in selected learning environments in Australia. The secondary purpose was to bring about improvement in the students' situations by employing specifically designed interventions. The study had three focal areas: the language; the teaching and learning environment; and the ESL student. It was conducted in three phases. Phase one involved investigating the current situations in the three focal areas. Phase two involved reflection, planning and development of the broad interventions and specific strategies which were used to assist teaching and learning. In phase three the strategies were implemented and their effectiveness was analysed using a multidimensional interpretive framework. Changes in communicative competence, interactional and participative competencies and academic competence were observed. The interventions which were intended to promote communicative competence for the language focus, involved integration of language and literacy instruction with science education. To improve participation and interaction in the teaching and learning environment, individual assistance was provided. In order to promote academic competence for the students, content, process and/or product modifications were made to science courses. / Data for the qualitative case studies was collected using classroom observation, teacher and student interviews, checklists of strategies and language errors, and portfolios of student work. Observations of the science classes in phase one revealed that, even for the students with very limited English language proficiency there was little ESL specialist support available. Mainstream subjects like science provided opportunities for language development, with biology lessons consistently including more activities which involved a combination of speaking, listening, reading and writing than did chemistry or physics classes. However, there was no coordinated approach to integrating language education with science education. The development of cognitive1 academic language took longer than 10 years for some of the students in the study. The non-technical language used in science lessons affected the students' understanding much more than the teachers were aware. Teachers' attitudes and beliefs strongly influenced the interaction and participation of ESL students in science classrooms. Developing language skills prevented ESL students asking and answering questions in class and academic progress in science was impeded by limited opportunities for ESL students to clarify their understanding. Achievement in science was affected by assessment instruments which were infused with specific linguistic or cultural knowledge. / After the introduction of the interventions, improvements in communicative competence occurred for all students with the greatest progression occurring in the students with less developed language skills. Interaction and participation improved markedly in the science classrooms where teachers provided individual assistance to students. Academic competence increased in all cases. The most promising approaches included: addressing the specific language needs in a particular unit of work; the development of customized materials; the provision of weekly tutorials; and the revision of assignment drafts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 251-265). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / 267 leaves, bound 29 cm

This thesis addresses the cognitive basis of syntactic adaptation, which biases speakers to repeat their own syntactic constructions and those of their conversational partners. I address two types of syntactic adaptation: short-term priming and longterm adaptation. I develop two metrics for syntactic adaptation within a speaker and between speakers in dialogue: one for short-term priming effects that decay quickly, and one for long-term adaptation over the course of a dialogue. Both methods estimate adaptation in large datasets consisting of transcribed human-human dialogue annotated with syntactic information. Two such corpora in English are used: Switchboard, a collection of spontaneous phone conversation, and HCRC Map Task, a set of task-oriented dialogues in which participants describe routes on a map to one another. I find both priming and long-term adaptation in both corpora, confirming well-known experimental results (e.g., Bock, 1986b). I extend prior work by showing that syntactic priming effects not only apply to selected syntactic constructions that are alternative realizations of the same semantics, but still hold when a broad variety of syntactic phrase structure rules are considered. Each rule represents a cognitive decision during syntactic processing. I show that the priming effect for a rule is inversely proportional to its frequency. With this methodology, I test predictions of the Interactive Alignment Model (IAM, Pickering and Garrod, 2004). The IAM claims that linguistic and situation model agreement between interlocutors in dialogue is the result of a cascade of resource-free, mechanistic priming effects on various linguistic levels. I examine task-oriented dialogue in Map Task, which provides a measure of task success through the deviance of the communicated routes on the maps. I find that long term syntactic adaptation predicts communicative success, and it does so earlier than lexical adaptation. The result is applied in a machine-learning based model that estimates task success based on the dialogue, capturing 14 percent of the variance in Map Task. Short-term syntactic priming differs qualitatively from long term adaptation, as it does not predict task success, providing evidence against learning as a single cognitive basis of adaptation effects. I obtain further evidence for the correlation between semantic activity and syntactic priming through a comparison of the Map Task and Switchboard corpora, showing that short-term priming is stronger in task-oriented dialogue than in spontaneous conversation. This difference is evident for priming between and within speakers, which suggests that priming is a mechanistic rather than strategic effect. I turn to an investigation of the level at which syntactic priming influences language production. I establish that the effect applies to structural syntactic decisions as opposed to all surface sequences of lexical categories. To do so, I identify pairs of part-of-speech categories which consistently cross constituent boundaries defined by the phrase structure analyses of the sentences. I show that such distituents are less sensitive to priming than pairs occurring within constituents. Thus, syntactic priming is sensitive to syntactic structure. The notion of constituent structure differs among syntactic models. Combinatory Categorial Grammar (CCG, Steedman, 2000) formalizes flexible constituent structure, accounting a varying degree of incrementality in syntactic sentence planning. I examine whether priming effects can support the predictions of CCG using the Switchboard corpus, which has been annotated with CCG syntax. I confirm the syntactic priming effect for lexical and non-lexical CCG categories, which encode partially satisfied subcategorization frames. I then show that both incremental and normal-form constituent structures exhibit priming, arguing for language production accounts that support flexible incrementality. The empirical results are reflected in a cognitive model of syntactic realization in language production. The model assumes that language production is subject to the same principles and constraints as any other form of cognition and follows the ACT-R framework (Anderson et al., 2004). Its syntactic process implements my empirical results on priming and is based on CCG. Syntactic planning can take place incrementally and non-incrementally. The model is able to generate simple sentences that vary syntactically, similar to the materials used in the experimental priming literature. Syntactic adaptation emerges due to a preferential and sped-up memory retrieval of syntactic categories describing linearization and subcategorization requirements. Long-term adaptation is explained as a form of learning, while shortterm priming is the result of a combination of learning and spreading activation from semantic and lexical material. Simulations show that the model produces the adaptation effects and their inverse frequency interaction, as well as cumulativity of long-term adaptation.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg, June 2017 / The language issues in South Africa recently made headlines where inclusive education in respective mother tongues has been the outcry. South Africa has been a democratic state for more than 20 years and still such language inequalities are most prevalent. The issue of language redress to accommodate the country’s educational needs and demographics remains a big concern even at University levels. The focus of this study was to investigate the challenges, concerns, familiarity and understandings of the difficulties that non-technical terms presented to B.Ed. second year University students. This case study explored whether issues with non-technical terms’ science contextual meanings and familiarity in science related fields of study were still persistent at University level. The study was conducted at an English medium South African University, with student demographics coming from mostly urban settings with mixed home language backgrounds where English was highly spoken in school. The data collected in this case study was derived from University students’ responses on a questionnaire to predetermined questions that focused on non-technical terms’ meanings followed by a semi-structured group interview. The findings in the interview with participants gave an indication to their contextual familiarity and understanding of non-technical terms’ science context meanings, with the aim to improving teaching and learning of physical sciences in schools as a preparatory measure for further University studying. Similar to the findings from studies with South African teachers and Grade 12 learners’ (see Oyoo, 2016, in press; Oyoo & Semeon, 2015) which revealed that South African school learners encountered difficulties with non-technical terms presented in the science context, this study revealed that South African University students’ also experience difficulty with non-technical terms’ science context meanings. The main sources of difficulty identified in the study were attributed to the South African language and historical background which contributes to poor vocabulary. Students’ lacked the exposure, and contextual familiarity to the language that these meanings are embedded in. This led to students’ inability to differentiate between non-technical terms’ specific scientific context meaning from terms’ everyday meaning. The lowered exposure to these terms’ actual contextual use inside and outside classroom conversations is a factor that needs to be countered. Students’ acknowledged that explicit meaning of non-technical terms’ science context meanings should have been made when learning science at school. School science instruction needs to pay special attention to details on the context of the word in use as a preparatory measure for University. This claim is more on the fact that, participants acknowledged that familiarity is the major factor to their difficulty based on their different lived experiences. / LG2017

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, August 2014. / The science teacher’s language, in the science classroom, has become a new language built with familiar Language of Learning and Teaching (LOLT) words, in this case English. This research study investigated the learners’ ideas and understanding of simple everyday words when used in the physics classroom. The study focused on bringing to light the existence of the problem of contextual meanings of everyday words in the physics classroom language. The participants in this study were mainly English second language learners and educators from 5 high schools in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, selected on the basis of their accessibility and socio-economic backgrounds. These consisted of 105 high school learner participants of physical science, (84 grade 11 learners and 21 grade 12 learners) and 5 physical science teacher participants (one from each school). The methods of data collection used were the questionnaire and the interview. The questionnaire items were developed using simple everyday words to test the learners’ understanding of every words when used in a physics context. The learners were interviewed soon after the questionnaire was marked. The respective physical science teachers were also interviewed to further probe on their learners’ answers. The findings in this study suggest that the learners have difficulties with the contextual meanings of everyday words when used in the physics classroom. The types of difficulties included learners assuming that certain words they meet in everyday life situations still carried the same meanings when they are used in physics contexts. The sources of the difficulties were that the learners thought they understood the science classroom language and the teachers also assumed that their learners understood this language. The findings also showed that the educators fail to notice that what seems clear and simple to them may be difficult and vague to their learners.

This thesis describes an analysis of science textbooks, eight years after the implementation of the Years 1-10 Queensland Science Syllabus, which suggested a move towards constructivist teaching in Queensland schools (QSSC 1999). The textbooks have been analysed for evidence of constructivism, and this has led to recommendations for writing better textbooks. This thesis has been written in five chapters. In Chapter 1, a review of literature develops a conceptual framework, which is the basis of this research. Chapter 2 describes the process used to develop its methodology, and Chapter 3 presents the results of this analysis. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the findings of this research and its implications for textbook content and design. In the literature review the themes of constructivism and the nature of science and the use of textbooks by teachers are explored. It suggests that textbooks continue to be central to developing curriculum, that they are used as a reference and as an independent learning tool, rather than as a guide to enacting curriculum. It also shows constructivist teaching closely aligns with authentic science, that it moves school science closer to that practised by scientists, and that it can engender improvements in teaching practice and in student interest. The data from this research has been collected using an analytical grid developed from three successive trials, after the literature review showed no previously developed analytical grid was suitable. In this final version of the grid, Likert scales are used to observe four dimensions of constructivism in textbook activities: coherence (use knowledge and concepts in a range of contexts), student-centredness of inquiries, language used and analysis questions to practice making new knowledge claims. The unit of analysis was ecology chapters of four middle school science textbooks. The research questions asked in this study are as follows: • Is a constructivist approach discernable in the textbooks reviewed in terms of the four dimensions of constructivism identified in the literature review? • What elements of constructivism are readily identifiable, and therefore are easily included in textbooks? • What elements of constructivism are not discernable? The results of this research have been synthesised and show no textbook could be considered constructivist, although one textbook had inquiries that could be considered exemplary. Two of the textbooks had no claim to be constructivist because they lacked inquiries, and this is where students experience the methods of scientists and practise making knowledge claims.   Other conclusions of this research include the following: •All textbooks reviewed were deficient in at least one dimension of constructivism, and those with one inquiry cannot be constructivist; •Activities and contexts made textbooks more coherent; •Technical terms were reduced compared to what has been traditionally covered by textbooks, however technical terms are also essential to scientific literacy and need to be used appropriately; •Most methods of inquiries are prescribed, so they do not allow students to solve problems in their own relevant contexts; even in those textbooks with more inquiries; •There was little evidence of hypothetico-deductive reasoning in inquiries rather data collection and simple analysis were usually suggested. Guidelines for writing better textbooks have become apparent from this research. Coherent textbooks are inherently constructivist because they apply concepts across contexts, and have more inquiries. Inquiries with a rigorous, authentic hypothetico-deductive approach arise naturally when the methods, concepts and language of science are applied in contexts that students are likely to find relevant and interesting, and where real-life problems need to be solved. Adopting these recommendations could lead to textbooks being more centrally positioned in enacting curriculum than now, because they are more likely to be constructivist (and represent the best thinking in the field).

No description available.

This thesis describes an analysis of science textbooks, eight years after the implementation of the Years 1-10 Queensland Science Syllabus, which suggested a move towards constructivist teaching in Queensland schools (QSSC 1999). The textbooks have been analysed for evidence of constructivism, and this has led to recommendations for writing better textbooks. This thesis has been written in five chapters. In Chapter 1, a review of literature develops a conceptual framework, which is the basis of this research. Chapter 2 describes the process used to develop its methodology, and Chapter 3 presents the results of this analysis. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss the findings of this research and its implications for textbook content and design. In the literature review the themes of constructivism and the nature of science and the use of textbooks by teachers are explored. It suggests that textbooks continue to be central to developing curriculum, that they are used as a reference and as an independent learning tool, rather than as a guide to enacting curriculum. It also shows constructivist teaching closely aligns with authentic science, that it moves school science closer to that practised by scientists, and that it can engender improvements in teaching practice and in student interest. The data from this research has been collected using an analytical grid developed from three successive trials, after the literature review showed no previously developed analytical grid was suitable. In this final version of the grid, Likert scales are used to observe four dimensions of constructivism in textbook activities: coherence (use knowledge and concepts in a range of contexts), student-centredness of inquiries, language used and analysis questions to practice making new knowledge claims. The unit of analysis was ecology chapters of four middle school science textbooks. The research questions asked in this study are as follows: • Is a constructivist approach discernable in the textbooks reviewed in terms of the four dimensions of constructivism identified in the literature review? • What elements of constructivism are readily identifiable, and therefore are easily included in textbooks? • What elements of constructivism are not discernable? The results of this research have been synthesised and show no textbook could be considered constructivist, although one textbook had inquiries that could be considered exemplary. Two of the textbooks had no claim to be constructivist because they lacked inquiries, and this is where students experience the methods of scientists and practise making knowledge claims.   Other conclusions of this research include the following: •All textbooks reviewed were deficient in at least one dimension of constructivism, and those with one inquiry cannot be constructivist; •Activities and contexts made textbooks more coherent; •Technical terms were reduced compared to what has been traditionally covered by textbooks, however technical terms are also essential to scientific literacy and need to be used appropriately; •Most methods of inquiries are prescribed, so they do not allow students to solve problems in their own relevant contexts; even in those textbooks with more inquiries; •There was little evidence of hypothetico-deductive reasoning in inquiries rather data collection and simple analysis were usually suggested. Guidelines for writing better textbooks have become apparent from this research. Coherent textbooks are inherently constructivist because they apply concepts across contexts, and have more inquiries. Inquiries with a rigorous, authentic hypothetico-deductive approach arise naturally when the methods, concepts and language of science are applied in contexts that students are likely to find relevant and interesting, and where real-life problems need to be solved. Adopting these recommendations could lead to textbooks being more centrally positioned in enacting curriculum than now, because they are more likely to be constructivist (and represent the best thinking in the field).