abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

2 v. : ill. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1969

"The purpose of this paper is to examine the place of science in the secondary school program. It is assumed that the place of science in the curriculum has to be justified in such a study. Justification for teaching science is approached in this paper through a study of the nature of the society that creates and maintains the school; the nature of learning and the individual; and the unique contributions that science education can make for a better adjustment of the individual to his environment. It is hoped that this paper might stimulate other science teachers to explore some of the varied references mentioned herein"--Introduction. / "July, 1949." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts under Plan II." / Advisor: Mode L. Stone, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-66).

"The purpose of this paper is to compile an annotated bibliography of science books, chosen to meet established criteria for book selection and to implement the ninth grade general science program as recommended by the Florida State Department of Education. The bibliography has been arranged by units of work as recommended for the science program, then in order of relative readability"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1953." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: Sara Krentzman Srygley, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 109).

<p>This study explored the problem of poor performance in science among students who are provided secondary school places on merit in Malawi. Existing studies of the problem are inconsistent suggesting that these studies may have shed light on some parts of a complex problem. Questionnaires, interviews and analysis of documents were used to obtain information concerning students&rsquo / conceptions of science, science learning and events that eventuated into the problem in the past. The population for this study was 89 government and governmentassisted secondary schools. From that population eighteen schools were randomly selected from each of the six education divisions in the country. One thousand five hundred secondary class 3 students drawn from randomly selected schools participated. The participating students completed a 31item learning beliefs and practices&nbsp / questionnaire with items drawn from the science education literature and adapted to the local situation and a selfefficacy and attribution of failure questionnaire. Forty students were interviewed about their concepts of science and science learning. Relevant documents found in the Malawi National Archives were analyzed to determine the origin of the problem.</p>

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The purpose of this study was to identify selected criteria in teacher effectiveness in the secondary science classrooms to find out how students feel about these criteria as compared with the opinions of science teachers and administrators.The following criteria were selected:1. Teacher's abilities in lecturing2. Abilities in laboratory teaching3. Abilities in leading discussions4. Abilities in maintaining good discipline5. Fairness in dealing with students6. Understanding of student problems7. Use of multi-media presentations.A forty-one item questionnaire based on the above mentioned criteria with two opinion questions was formulated.The population for the study consisted of 32 administrators, 34 secondary science teachers, and 747 secondary science students from 15 high schools of three sizes (small, medium, and large) in Indiana. The questionnaire was administered on-site, and the return rate for each respective group in the sample was 100 percent.One way analysis of variance was used at the .05 significance level statistically to interpret the data.Findings1. There was a significant difference found among the responses of students, teachers, and administrators for lecturing, laboratory teaching, leading discussions, maintaining good discipline, and use of multi-media presentations, but there was no significant difference found for fairness, and understanding of student problems.2. Based upon the sex of the students, there was no significant difference found for laboratory teaching and multi-media presentations, but there was a significant difference found for lecturing, discussions, discipline, fairness, and understanding of student problems.3. Based upon the grade level of students, there was a significant difference found in lecturing and laboratory teaching, but there was no significant difference found for discussions, discipline, fairness, understanding of student problems, and use of media.4. Based upon the years of teaching experience, there was a significant difference found in the opinions of teachers and administrators for lecturing, maintaining good discipline, and multi-media presentations, but no significant difference was found for laboratory, discussions, fairness, and understanding of student problems.5. The years of administrative experience had no significant effect on the opinions of administrators.6. There was no significant difference found among the opinions of administrators, teachers, and students related to the size of schools.

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The goal of this research was to investigate the knowledge high school students acquire from science instruction in Zimbabwe, and their ability to reason from and apply their knowledge based on previous learning. Science educators in Zimbabwe are concerned with improving the quality of student's achievement and that students develop a conceptual understanding of basic science rather than a rote memorisation of facts and that students become better prepared to acquire science content on their own. The research reported here utilises the discourse comprehension analysis model and methods developed by Frederiksen (1975, 1986) to investigate students' learning. Based on these methods, it is possible to examine: (a) how students acquire knowledge and understanding, and (b) how they apply what they learn to reason using their conceptual knowledge. / The design of the study involved the use of three texts each of which represented different information types within a science domain, 'gas pressure'. The content of the texts was presented by the same teacher during natural classroom instruction to classes at two levels (higher and lower) of a high school grade. The first text concerned Basic Knowledge (concepts and principles) in the domain, and the second and third texts described Familiar and Unfamiliar experiments respectively within the same science domain. In addition, for both of these experiments, several types of information were presented: Procedures, Observations and Explanations. Students' responses to comprehension questions were subjected to a conceptual (propositional) analysis and coded against an 'expert' model of the content of the texts used by the teacher during instruction to the students. The study focused on identifying the extent to which the students' responses directly matched the 'expert' model or consisted of modifications (inferences) that indicated alternative (true or false) conceptual knowledge frameworks that the students may have possessed. / The major findings of this research were as follows: Students' answers to questions about their knowledge of basic concepts comprised a large number of responses that directly matched (i.e., literally recalled) the information presented by the teacher during instruction and also included a high number of incorrect inferences. Students' comprehension of the Familiar and Unfamiliar experiments was also characterised by a high degree of 'literal learning' as shown in the generally high amounts of recall of propositional information compared to inferences. Students' responses to these questions consisted mostly of Observation information, and least of Explanations. This suggests that they were more likely to recall observed events that they were to interpret. Students' reasoning was generally poor relative to their comprehension of both experiments, and their responses consisted of more recall responses than inferences. In addition, students' reasoning about the Unfamiliar experiment was characterised by a high number negative higher-order inferences. Finally, students in the higher level displayed higher levels of competence than those in the lower level, particularly in their knowledge of Procedures and Observations in contrast to Explanation information, for both experiments.

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