•We surveyed 1500 high school students in Ecuador during the COVID-19 Quarantine.•Three-quarters of students were engaged in online or telelearning.•Students from more disadvantaged groups are doing ...less schoolwork remotely.•While the majority are mostly happy, 16 percent are depressed.
The COVID-19 pandemic has closed schools around the world, forcing school systems and students to quickly attempt remote learning. We conducted a rapid response phone survey of over 1500 high school students aged 14 to 18 in Ecuador to learn how students spend their time during the period of quarantine, examine their access to remote learning, and measure their mental health status. We find 59 percent of students have both an internet connection at home and a computer or tablet, 74 percent are engaging in some online or telelearning, and 86 percent have done some schoolwork on the last weekday. Detailed time-use data show most students have established similar daily routines around education, although gender and wealth differences emerge in time spent working and on household tasks. Closure of schools and social isolation are the two main problems students say they face, and while the majority are mostly happy, 16 percent have mental health scores that indicate depression.
Scholarly attention for Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE) has sharply increased in the past three years for its role in facilitating language learning as well as promoting language learners’ ...well-being. However, the conceptualization and measurement of FLE in China, which has the largest number of EFL learners in the world, is only just starting. Adopting a mixed-method approach, the current study examined the psychometric properties of the Chinese Version of the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale, and investigated FLE in a specific Chinese EFL context. Through surveying two samples of 1718 students and 360 students in Stages 1 and 2, a new 11-item and 3-factor model (i.e. FLE-Private, FLE-Teacher, and FLE-Atmosphere) was confirmed and validated. The students scored highest on FLE-Teacher, followed by FLE-Private and FLE-Atmosphere. The analysis of the qualitative data collected from 64 participants in Stage 3 showed that beyond the general factors linked to the teacher and peers, the individual experience of FLE is shaped by a large range of learner-internal and learner-external variables.
Recent years have seen a growing call for inquiry‐based learning in science education, and mobile technologies are perceived as increasingly valuable tools to support this approach. However, there is ...a lack of understanding of mobile technology‐supported inquiry‐based learning (mIBL) in secondary science education. More evidence‐based, nuanced insights are needed into how using mobile technologies might facilitate students' engagement with various levels of inquiry and enhance their science learning. We, therefore, conducted a robust systematic literature review (SLR) of the research articles on mIBL in secondary school science education that have been published from 2000 to 2019. We reviewed and analysed 31 empirical studies (34 articles) to explore the types of mIBL, and the benefits and constraints of mIBL in secondary school science education. The findings of this SLR suggest new research areas for further exploration and provide implications for science teachers' selection, use and design of mIBL approaches in their teaching.
Lay Description
What is already known about this topic?
Inquiry‐based learning (IBL) in science education is a pedagogical approach in which students' learning is driven by an investigative question.
The use of mobile technologies can create customized learning opportunities for science students.
Mobile technology‐supported IBL (mIBL) can enable seamless science learning experiences.
What this paper adds?
Presents a systematic review of empirical studies of mIBL in secondary school science education published from 2000 to 2019;
Describes the fundamental research foci, settings and contexts of mIBL studies;
Develops a synthesis of 31 empirical studies leading to a categorization of types of mIBL; and
Presents the benefits and constraints of mIBL in science education.
Implications for practice and/or policy
Provide opportunities for science teachers to rethink the use of different types of mIBL;
Learn how to organize activities for implementing various types of mIBL;
Inform developers and policymakers about ways of using mobile technologies to support IBL;
Outline future research developments of mIBL in secondary science education.
In this article, we describe the main phases in the development and validation of a questionnaire measuring secondary students' teleology and essentialism conceptions in the context of genetics. The ...validation process involved 714 Swiss and French secondary school students from 14 different schools. The process included interviews, several pilot studies, experts' feedback, and lasted from January 2017 to May 2018. The final version of the test consists of 20 items based on an ordinal scale, which measure teleology and essentialism conceptions in the context of genetics. Exploratory factor analysis showed a structure with three factors and Cronbach's alpha values indicated a good internal consistency of the items. We also report findings on students' genetic determinism conceptions, even though the respective items were not included in the final questionnaire because their psychometric properties were not as good as those for genetic teleology and genetic essentialism. Implications for science education are discussed.
The Effecting Principled Improvement in STEM Education epiSTEMe project undertook pedagogical research aimed at improving pupil engagement and learning in early secondary school physical science and ...mathematics. Using principles identified as effective in the research literature and drawing on a range of existing pedagogical resources, the project designed and trialled a classroom intervention, with associated professional development, in a form intended to be suited to implementation at scale. The most distinctive feature of the epiSTEMe pedagogical approach is its inclusion of a component of dialogic teaching. Aimed at the first year of secondary education in English schools (covering ages 11-12), the epiSTEMe intervention consists of a short introductory module designed to prepare classes for this dialogic teaching component, and topic modules which employ the epiSTEMe pedagogical approach to cover two curricular topics in each of science and mathematics. A field trial was conducted over the 2010/2011 school year in 25 volunteer schools, randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. Within the intervention group, observation of lessons indicated that the level of dialogic teaching was higher for one of the topic modules than others. Evaluation focused on the effectiveness of the topic modules, each trialled in more than 10 classes containing a total of over 300 pupils, and compared with a group of similar composition. Overall, at this first implementation, learning gains under the epiSTEMe intervention were no greater, although for individual topic modules the effects ranged from small negative to small positive. No difference was found between intervention and control groups either in the opinion of pupils about their classroom experience or in changes in their attitude towards subjects.
Abstract
Introduction
Many high school students report late bedtimes due to sleep homeostatic and circadian bioregulatory changes and insufficient sleep due to school start time constraints. In ...college, most students have greater freedom to shape daily routines including sleep schedules.This study examined predictors of the shift from high school to college sleep schedules.
Methods
515 (55% female, 51% Caucasian,12% international) participants, accepting admission into Brown University (mean age=18.07, SD= .33), completed a survey in May of their final high school term, including school-night, non-school-night sleep schedules, Horne-Östberg MEQ, and such sleep “struggle” items as, “in the past two weeks, how often have you arrived late to class because you overslept?” Students also reported sleep timing and MEQ in November of their first college term. Variables for both times included: school-, non-school-night time in bed (TIB), TIB midpoints for school, non-school nights.
Results
Paired-samples t-tests demonstrated that participants’ midpoint TIB was delayed by approximately 2 hours for school (2:02 vs. 4:04am, t=-44.36, p=.00) and non-school (3:57 vs. 5:40am, t=-33.20, p=.00) nights, corresponding with increased evening preference on MEQ (48.69 vs. 45.25, t=12.67, p=.00). School-night TIB was unchanged on average; non-school night TIB decreased: 8.9 to 8.3 hours (t= 8.67, p=.00). Multiple regression analyses for both school-night and non-school night TIB midpoints showed that TIB delay was associated in part with high school sleep “struggles:” awakened too early, slept past noon, late to class because overslept, stayed up until 3am. Overall effect sizes though significant were small (school-night TIB delay F=2.59, R2=.10, p=.006; non-school night TIB delay F=2.10, R=.04, p=.028).
Conclusion
Findings indicate that, first-year college students’ sleep-wake schedules delay an average of 2 hours from high school, while maintaining school-night TIB. The significant delay in timing of sleep across the high school to college transition was partially explained by high school sleep “struggles,” most of which indicated difficulty with late and insufficient sleep.
Support (If Any)
Sleep Research Society Foundation Elliot D. Weitzman, M.D., Research Grant; NIMH MH079179.
This study aimed to determine the levels of health-related behaviours (physical activity, screen exposure and sleep status) among Chinese students from primary, secondary and high schools during the ...pandemic of COVID-19, as well as their changes compared with their status before the pandemic. A cross-sectional online survey of 10,933 students was conducted among 10 schools in Guangzhou, China, between 8th and 15th March, 2020. After getting the informed consent from student's caregivers, an online questionnaire was designed and used to obtain time spending on health-related behaviours during the pandemic of COVID-19, as well as the changes compared with 3 months before the pandemic, which was completed by students themselves or their caregivers. Students were stratified by regions (urban, suburban, exurban), gender (boys and girls), and grades (lower grades of primary school, higher grades of primary schools, secondary schools and high schools). Data were expressed as number and percentages and Chi-square test was used to analyse difference between groups. Overall, the response rate of questionnaire was 95.3% (10,416/10,933). The median age of included students was 13.0 (10.0, 16.0) years and 50.1% (n = 5,219) were boys. 41.4%, 53.6% and 53.7% of total students reported less than 15 min per day in light, moderate and vigorous activities and 58.7% (n = 6,113) reported decreased participation in physical activity compared with the time before pandemic. Over 5 h of screen time spending on online study was reported by 44.6% (n = 4,649) of respondents, particular among high school students (81.0%). 76.9% of students reported increased screen time compared with the time before pandemic. Inadequate sleep was identified among 38.5% of students and the proportion was highest in high school students (56.9%). Our study indicated that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the school closure exerted tremendous negative effects on school-aged children's health habits, including less physical activity, longer screen exposure and irregular sleeping pattern.
In Sweden, adequate digital competence has been put in the spotlight due to the Swedish 2017 national strategy for the digitalisation of the K-12 school system. Based on both policy and practice, the ...aim is to explore teachers' enacted digital competence in three upper secondary schools in Sweden and thereby provide an empirical account of what the notion 'adequate' means in practice. The data consists of interviews with teachers and classroom observations. At an aggregated analytical level, the results are presented as four narrative sub-case descriptions. It is concluded that teachers' adequate digital competence is flexible in meaning, determined by local contextual conditions and enacted in activities and decisions that are based on the teachers' own value frameworks. The understanding of 'adequate' in this study does not appear to be clarified in the formulations used in the national strategy.
In this study, the conceptions of pre-university level secondary students with respect to radiation and radioactivity were investigated. A literature review determined what was already known about ...secondary school students' conceptions that differ from scientific theory, regarding radiation and radioactivity. Next, 12 Dutch students and their teachers were interviewed. Half of the already known student conceptions were confirmed in the interviews. The most persistent conception was students' inability to distinguish between irradiation and contamination. All newly discovered conceptions, such as students' idea that radiation can exist independently of the source of radiation, were discovered within a medical context. A remarkable finding was that students have full confidence in medical professionals, while at the same time they believe that all medical imaging techniques are dangerous. It can be concluded that curricular developments and changes in teaching contexts lead to changes in student conceptions concerning established topics. Knowledge of these conceptions and how to change them might be an important focus for teacher training, as teachers play a role in overcoming conceptions that do not correspond with prevailing scientific theories and, at the same time, may be a source of these conceptions.
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