Background
Since the advent of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), there has been an increasing focus on engineering in K–12 education. As educators and researchers have gained a better ...understanding of the nature of engineering in the decade following the release of the NGSS, there are new opportunities for growth and complexity.
Purpose
This study used an epistemological approach to seek insights from experts in the science and engineering communities about the prominent aspects of engineering for K–12 education.
Design/Method
This mixed‐methods study employed a three‐round Delphi study and a focus group meeting to elicit experts' opinions on the epistemic aspects of engineering that could shed light on the nature of engineering knowledge and practices. Constructivist grounded theory methodology was used to identify preliminary themes concerning the epistemic aspects of engineering and then to develop main themes by combining relevant themes together.
Results
The analysis process yielded 21 preliminary themes that reflect key ideas about the engineering knowledge base, engineering design activities, and values and norms of the engineering community. Additionally, the current study identified eight main themes that captured the broader patterns in the data.
Conclusions
The outcome of this study, including the preliminary themes and main themes concerning the epistemic aspects of engineering, could serve as a conceptual tool for establishing and improving students' conceptions of engineering and as a guide for designing and implementing engineering design activities in K–12 education settings.
Background
Pre‐college engineering education reform documents aim to help students develop engineering literacy. Helping students develop sophisticated epistemological views about engineering makes a ...significant contribution toward developing engineering‐literate citizenry. Despite these widely recognized benefits, research on students' and teachers' epistemological views about engineering, commonly termed nature of engineering (NOE) views, has remained stagnant due to the absence of an open‐ended questionnaire whose collected evidence of validity indicates its appropriateness for assessing students' and teachers' NOE understanding.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is threefold: (a) describing the development of a new open‐ended instrument, the Views of Nature of Engineering Questionnaire version B (VNOE‐B), (b) providing evidence in support of the VNOE‐B validity and reliability, and (c) discussing the implications of the newly developed instrument for future research.
Design/Method
We aimed to provide evidence for the content and face validity of the VNOE‐B by seeking input from a panel of science/engineering educators. Evidence for the construct validity was determined by analyzing the open‐ended questionnaire and semistructured interview responses provided by pre‐service and in‐service teachers (considered novices in this field) and experts (engineers and engineering educators).
Results
Our findings indicate that the VNOE‐B is consistently successful in differentiating between experts' and novices' NOE views. All engineering experts held sophisticated NOE views across all NOE views under study, whereas most novices held partially informed or uninformed NOE views.
Conclusion
Evidence of validity supports the appropriateness of the VNOE‐B as an open‐ended instrument for assessing adults' NOE views. Its application may guide teacher educators in determining the efficacy of teacher professional development in meeting the aim of improving in‐service teachers' NOE understanding. Additionally, VNOE‐B may potentially inform the success of pre‐service teacher training.
Epistemological beliefs refer to an individual's thinking and beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing. The present study examined two research questions: (1) how do prospective elementary ...teachers' epistemological beliefs in science change as a result of instruction specifically designed to improve their epistemological beliefs and (2) what role does the conceptual ecology for epistemological beliefs play in their development? The study was correlational with a sample of 161 prospective elementary teachers (148 female, 13 male).Self-report questionnaires tapping four dimensions of epistemological beliefs (certainty-simplicity, justification, source, attainability of truth) were given to prospective elementary teachers at two time points during an introductory science course. Results indicated that prospective elementary teachers became more sophisticated in their beliefs across all four dimensions of epistemological beliefs. It was found that one component of conceptual ecology for epistemological beliefs, thinking dispositions, was related to the development of epistemological beliefs.Prospective teachers with high thinking dispositions developed more sophisticated beliefs in comparison to prospective teachers with low thinking dispositions.
Background
The Next Generation Science Standards (2013) put a special emphasis on engineering for K-12 science education. However, a significant number of elementary teachers still feel unprepared to ...integrate engineering into their science programs. It is, therefore, incumbent upon science educators to update their elementary science methods courses to accommodate engineering especially in the states which adopted the NGSS. In this study, we taught an engineering unit in an elementary science teaching methods course to examine what instructional components and learning experiences provided in the engineering unit enhance teachers’ engineering teaching self-efficacy beliefs.
Our research questions addressed to what extent the engineering education intervention improved pre-service teachers’ engineering teaching efficacy beliefs and what instructional components and learning experiences served as sources of self-efficacy contributing to the improvement of pre-service elementary teachers’ engineering teaching efficacy beliefs. We also explored how pre-service teachers viewed the relative importance of the sources of teaching efficacy stemming from the engineering unit.
Results
The participants comprised 84 pre-service teachers enrolled in an elementary education program at a public university in the Southwestern United States. Data obtained from the Engineering Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument (ETEBI) indicated that the pre-service teachers’ personal teaching efficacy beliefs significantly improved after the engineering intervention; however, the engineering intervention had a small impact on teachers’ engineering teaching outcome expectancy beliefs. Written reflections used to explore the sources of engineering teaching efficacy and the relative importance of each source showed that cognitive content mastery and cognitive pedagogical mastery were the major sources of engineering teaching self-efficacy among the pre-service elementary teachers.
Conclusion
Our study illustrated that integrating engineering design activities with explicit-reflective instruction on the nature of engineering concepts could enhance pre-service teachers’ personal engineering teaching efficacy beliefs even though a relatively small impact was observed in their engineering teaching outcome expectancy beliefs. Also, the study indicated cognitive content mastery and cognitive pedagogical mastery were the most important sources of engineering teaching efficacy. Therefore, the study suggests that it is vital to integrate a variety of mastery and vicarious experiences in methods courses to support the development of teachers’ engineering teaching efficacy beliefs. Besides, the current study could provide an example for integrating engineering education in methods courses.
Epistemological views characterise how individuals view the certainty, source and organization of knowledge. Previous research has demonstrated some relationships between epistemological views and ...nature of science (NOS) views. These relationships may be particularly interesting for biology students who are learning about topics such as evolution which are societally controversial but not scientifically controversial. In this study, we examine the relationship between epistemological views and empirical NOS views for three classes of college biology learners in a Midwestern US university. We used the Learning Contexts Questionnaire to characterise participants' epistemological Perry levels and question 1 of the VNOS-C to characterise their empirical NOS views. Based on a series of chi-square analyses, no relationship between Perry level and empirical NOS views was identified. Significant relationships between empirical NOS views and gender and empirical NOS views and biology class were identified. These findings and implications for future work are discussed.
The Next Generation Science Standards in the United States placed a special emphasis on engineering unlike previous national science education policy documents. Some studies attempted to examine ...students’ and teachers’ nature of engineering (NOE) views, but NOE views should be better conceptualized before further exploration of students’ and teachers’ NOE views. This study sought to assess the influence of solving an engineering design problem on elementary teachers’ nature of engineering (NOE) views. We examined changes in NOE views of 30 elementary teachers from different schools in a large urban school district in southwestern United States. An open-ended NOE questionnaire coupled with individual interviews was used to collect data about participants’ NOE views before and after the engineering design experience. Elementary teachers participated in a 3-day professional development program that engaged them in designing soda can crushers. Overall, we found that elementary teachers made substantial gains in their NOE views. The result of the present study supports the inclusion of more explicit and reflective strategies to teach NOE aspects during engineering design experiences.
The main purpose of this study was to explore the factors mediating the translation of second grade teachers' nature of science (NOS) views into classroom practice after completing a graduate level ...NOS course. Four second grade in-service elementary teachers comprised the sample of this study. Data were collected from several sources during the course of this study. The primary data sources were (a) assessment of the elementary teachers' NOS views before and after the graduate level NOS course using the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire Version B (VNOS-B) coupled with interviews, and (b) a classroom observation and videotaped recording of the elementary teachers' best NOS lessons coupled with interview. We identified three distinct but related factors that mediated the translation of NOS views into classroom practice: the teachers' perspectives about the developmental appropriateness of the NOS aspect, the teachers' selection of target NOS aspects, and the relative importance placed by teachers on each NOS aspect. Author abstract, ed
Background
Fine needle aspiration (FNA) and core needle biopsy (CNB) are two commonly used approaches for the diagnosis of suspected neoplastic parotid gland lesions. We aimed to compare the ...diagnostic efficiency of FNA and CNB performed with ultrasound guidance preoperatively for the diagnosis of parotid neoplasms.
Methods
We retrospectively analysed the preoperative specimens of 113 patients (66 FNA, 47 CNB) who underwent surgical excision at our institute between 2014 and 2017. Patient selection was based on lesion type and dimension, preliminary and final pathology, imaging characteristics, clinical course, and treatment data for accurate statistical analysis. The final diagnosis was based on surgery in all of the patients. We compared the diagnostic accuracy of FNA and CNB regarding the correct tissue-specific diagnosis of benign and malignant tumours. The recurrence and complication rates were analysed to determine the safety of each technique.
Results
Among the 113 patients, the average follow-up period was 65.4 (50–88) months. Seventy-one patients (62.8%) were males, and the median age was 50 years. The most common type of surgery was superficial parotidectomy (83.2%), and the median tumour size was 30.0 mm. Pleomorphic adenoma was the most frequent neoplasm. The diagnostic rates of preoperative pathological evaluation of FNA and CNB samples were 68.2% and 91.5%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value of FNA for detecting malignant lesions were 40, 100, and 100%, respectively, and those of CNB were 100, 100, and 100%, respectively. Only one complication occurred (haematoma) in the biopsy area after CNB. No recurrences were seen after CNB and FNA during the follow-up period.
Conclusion
Our findings suggest that the diagnostic ability, sensitivity, and specificity of CNB are excellent compared with those of FNA. The only disadvantage of CNB is the need for experienced staff and good-quality equipment. The complication rates of each technique are very low, and the risk of tumour tract seeding is controversial. CNB should be considered the technique of choice when a nodule is detected in the parotid glands.
This paper articulates the importance of epistemological beliefs (EBs) and draws a parallel between EBs literature in educational psychology and nature of science (NOS) literature in science ...education. The paper stresses that EBs in science and NOS ideas have common ground and they can be best improved through explicitreflective instruction informed by conceptual change theory.The paper concludes that future studies should explore the factors that mediate the development of EBs in science and NOS ideas rather than documenting the changes in students' and teachers' EBs in science and NOS ideas after explicit-reflective instruction through pre-and post assessments.
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