<p> The rationale for this project is based on the recognition that chemistry courses tend to be taught too much from a theoretical standpoint, with little reference to everyday life. This is one of the reasons that a majority of students think that chemistry is difficult, boring, tedious, and uninteresting (Worthy, 1982). If they have the choice, many students would rather not take a chemistry course, and if they do, it will probably be their last course in Chemistry.</p> <p> It is the intent of the Ontario Curriculum Guidelines to provide some science-technology-society connections. The aim of this project is to provide supplemental science-technology society connections, and selected concrete examples of practical, everyday chemistry for teachers, so that they may enrich their classes, motivate their students, and put theory into an appropriate context. If classes are more interesting and relevant to the world of the students, then more students could be motivated to take chemistry courses and consider continuing to more advanced classes. A second purpose for this project is to stimulate a typical non-science student's interest in chemistry and science. It is even more necessary to motivate these students by providing interesting connections with the real world and suitable applications of theory and principles. These connections with the real world are important for such students, so that they will be better able to make informed decisions as scientifically literate citizens, managers, or politicians, not only for themselves, but for the benefit of society as a whole.</p> <p> To accomplish the aims of this project, two or three short hand-outs of practical everyday chemistry were prepared for each of the core topics in the Grade 11 (SCH 3A) and Chemistry OAC (SCH OA) courses. A few of the examples included Dental Chemistry, Culinary Chemistry, Insect Pheromones, and Teflon.</p> <p> Results of the survey taken from chemistry teachers showed that these hand-outs would better motivate students to study chemistry. Teachers think it is useful for their classes. They would like a compilation of these examples, if one were to be made available.</p> / Thesis / Master of Science (Teaching)

Knowledge sharing across domains is key to bringing down the cost of production and the time to market of products. This thesis is directed to improve the knowledge sharing capability of the present systems that use information and communication technologies. Systems for different domains have structures that are made up of concepts and relations with different semantic interpretations. Therefore, knowledge sharing across such domains becomes an issue. Knowledge sharing across multiple domains can be facilitated through a system that can provide a shared understanding across multiple domains. This requires a rigorous common semantic base underlying the domains across which to share knowledge.

There has been a call from the national community of biologists and biology educators to increase biological literacy of undergraduate students, including understanding and application of core concepts. The structure and function relationship is a core concept identified by the wider biology community and by physiology faculty. Understanding of the core concept structure and function across multiple levels of organization may promote biological literacy. My research focused on the development of formative written assessment tools to provide insight into student understanding of structure and function in anatomy and physiology. In chapter two I developed automated scoring tools to facilitate the evaluation of written formative assessment based on structure and function. Formative written assessments allow students to demonstrate their thinking by encouraging students to use their diverse ideas to construct their responses. However, formative written assessments are not often used in the undergraduate biology classroom due to barriers, such as time spent grading and the intricacy of interpreting student responses. Automated scoring, such as lexical analysis and machine scoring, can examine student thinking in formative written responses. The core concept structure-function provides a foundation upon which many topics in anatomy and physiology can be built across all levels of organization. My research focused on the development of formative written assessment tools and automated scoring models to provide insight into student understanding of structure and function. My research objective was to examine student understanding of a core concept in anatomy and physiology by using automated scoring. Ten short answer questions were administered to students in a junior-level General Physiology course and a sophomore level Human Anatomy and Physiology course at a large Southeastern public university, and to students in Human Anatomy and Physiology courses at two Southeastern two-year colleges. Seventeen students were interviewed to determine if their responses to the short answer questions accurately reflected their thinking. Lexical analysis and machine scoring were used to build predictive models that can analyze student thinking about the structure-function relationship in anatomy and physiology with high agreement to human scoring. Less than half of the student responses in this study demonstrated conceptual understanding of the structure-function relationship. Automated scoring can successfully evaluate a large number of student responses in Human Anatomy and Physiology and General Physiology courses. In chapter three I compared conceptual understanding of structure and function in 2-yr and 4-yr student responses. Anatomy and physiology is taught at a variety of institutions, including 2-year community colleges and 4-year research universities. Regardless of the type of institution offering anatomy and physiology, conceptual understanding of the structure-function relationship is necessary to understand physiological processes. The focus of my research was to compare conceptual understanding of 2-year versus 4-year anatomy and physiology students by using written formative assessment. I hypothesize that differences in students’ academic readiness between two-year and four-year institutions may affect conceptual understanding and student performance. Based on prior research, I predict that there will be a difference in conceptual understanding of the core concept structure and function between two-year and four-year students in anatomy and physiology, and that the students at the two-year institution will not perform as well as the students at the four-year institution, as measured by performance on the constructed response questions. Responses to eight short answer essay questions were collected from students at both types of institutions from students in human anatomy and physiology over six semesters. My results demonstrated that there is a difference in conceptual understanding of the structure-function relationship between 2-year and 4-year students in anatomy and physiology with more 4-year students mentioning SRF concepts in their responses compared to the 2-year students. A potential reason for this difference may be college readiness. There was no difference in performance between institution types on structure-function concepts examined in the A&P II course. My results suggested that students may benefit from a focus on core concepts within the content of anatomy and physiology courses. This focus should occur in both the first and second semesters of anatomy and physiology. Instructors can use written formative assessment to allow students to demonstrate their conceptual understanding within the organ systems. In chapter four I investigated how question features affect student responses to anatomy and physiology formative assessment questions. Short answer essay questions contain features which are elements of the question which aid students in connecting the question to their existing knowledge. Varying the features of a question may be used to provide insight into the different stages of students’ emerging biological expertise and differentiate novice students who have memorized an explanation from those who exhibit understanding. I am interested in examining the cognitive level of questions, the use of guiding context/references in question prompts, and the order of questions, and how these features elicit student explanations of the core concept structure-function in anatomy and physiology. I hypothesized that varying the features of short answer questions may affect student explanations. Short answer questions based on the core concept ‘structure-function’ were administered to 767 students in a junior level General Physiology course and to 573 students in a sophomore level Human Anatomy and Physiology course at a large southeastern public university. Student responses were first human scored and then scored by using lexical analysis and machine scoring. Students were interviewed to examine their familiarity with levels of organization and to confirm their interpretation of the questions. Students demonstrated more conceptual understanding of four of the structure-function concepts when answering the understand questions and more conceptual understanding of two structure-function concepts when answering the apply questions. The question prompts provided a different context which may have influenced student explanations. There was no difference in conceptual understanding of the structure-function relationship with and without the use of a guiding context in the wording of the question prompt. For question sequence, students performed better on the last questions in the sequence, regardless of whether the last question was easier or more difficult. Instructors should provide students with questions in varying contexts and cognitive levels will allow students to demonstrate their heterogeneous ideas about a concept.

Text in Afrikaans / This research describes the coats of arms and emblems of hospitals and nursing colleges in the Republic of South Africa, an aspect of nursing's heritage and history have not yet been described. Data were collected by means of questionnaires. An extensive literature review on heraldics and an analysis of the meanings contained in the symbols appearing on these devices were done. The analysis resulted in the following; the uniqueness of the individual devices, the development of nursing and nursing education, the influence of values, norms, ideals, culture, religion and history on the selection of symbols. The heraldic meanings of symbols and the meanings indicated in the questionnaires were compared with the identified core concepts for nursing. The overall finding was that any congruence was purely circumstantial. / Hierdie navorsing beskryf die wapens en embleme van hospitale en verpleegkolleges in die Republiek van Suid-Afrika, 'n aspek van die erfenis en geskiedenis van verpleging wat nog nie vantevore beskryf is nie. Inligting was deur middel van vraelyste ingesamel. 'n Uitgebreide literatuuroorsig oor die heraldiek en 'n ontleding van die betekenisse van die simbole soos aangetref op die wapens/embleme, is gedoen.Uit die analisering is die volgende bevind; die uniekheid van die individuele wapens/embleme, die ontwikkeling van verpleging en verpleegonderrig, die invloed van waardes, norme, ideale, kultuur, godsdiens en geskiedenis op die keuse van simbole. Die heraldiese betekenis van simbole en die betekenis wat in die vraelyste daaroor aangedui is, is met die geidentifiseerde kembegrippe vir verpleging, vergelyk. Die algemene bevinding is dat enige ooreenkoms bloot toevallig is. / Health Studies / M.A. (Verpleegkunde)

Text in Afrikaans / This research describes the coats of arms and emblems of hospitals and nursing colleges in the Republic of South Africa, an aspect of nursing's heritage and history have not yet been described. Data were collected by means of questionnaires. An extensive literature review on heraldics and an analysis of the meanings contained in the symbols appearing on these devices were done. The analysis resulted in the following; the uniqueness of the individual devices, the development of nursing and nursing education, the influence of values, norms, ideals, culture, religion and history on the selection of symbols. The heraldic meanings of symbols and the meanings indicated in the questionnaires were compared with the identified core concepts for nursing. The overall finding was that any congruence was purely circumstantial. / Hierdie navorsing beskryf die wapens en embleme van hospitale en verpleegkolleges in die Republiek van Suid-Afrika, 'n aspek van die erfenis en geskiedenis van verpleging wat nog nie vantevore beskryf is nie. Inligting was deur middel van vraelyste ingesamel. 'n Uitgebreide literatuuroorsig oor die heraldiek en 'n ontleding van die betekenisse van die simbole soos aangetref op die wapens/embleme, is gedoen.Uit die analisering is die volgende bevind; die uniekheid van die individuele wapens/embleme, die ontwikkeling van verpleging en verpleegonderrig, die invloed van waardes, norme, ideale, kultuur, godsdiens en geskiedenis op die keuse van simbole. Die heraldiese betekenis van simbole en die betekenis wat in die vraelyste daaroor aangedui is, is met die geidentifiseerde kembegrippe vir verpleging, vergelyk. Die algemene bevinding is dat enige ooreenkoms bloot toevallig is. / Health Studies / M.A. (Verpleegkunde)