A Comparison of Science Word Meaning in the Classrooms of Two Different Countries: Scottish Integrated Science in Scotland and in Malaysia

Abstract

Summary.— Many Scottish and Malaysian children study introductory science using the same teaching materials. A Scottish and a Malay sample of 14‐year‐old schoolchildren have been tested using word association tests of the meaning of a selection of 14 science concept words from the first year of integrated science. The tests clearly distinguished between the two samples. The Malay children generally produced more associates than the Scottish children and their responses were more homogeneous. Sets of semantic consensus measures extracted from the data for samples and sub‐samples showed high positive correlations for within‐nation comparisons (mean 0·95) whereas the cross‐nation correlations produced low correlations (mean 0·23). Factor analysis on the sets of SCI data for each of the 19 schools clearly produced Malay and Scottish factors. The reasons for the clear distinctions between the two national groups are discussed in terms of the detailed word association test data.

Using a word association test for the assessment of high school students' cognitive structures on dissolution

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The effects of the medium of instruction in certificate-level physics on achievement and motivation to learn

“…Research in the past few years (i.e., Kawasaki, ; Lee, ) reveals that many languages, including Japanese and Chinese, lack the vocabulary required for the precise identification of certain abstract scientific terms and concepts. Such deficiencies no doubt account for the increasing dominance of English as the world's leading MOI in science education, although it is still acknowledged that learning science through the medium of a second language constitutes a formidable task, one that involves the simultaneous mastery of science content and a new language (Isa & Maskill, ; Strevens, ). Okebukola, Owolabi, and Okebukola () also recently found that parental preferences play a major role in schools' choice of English as the MOI for science learning, with those preferring English strongly resistant to a change to home‐language instruction.…”

Prompts, cues and discrimination: The utilization of two separate knowledge systems

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