South African Physical Sciences Teachers' Understanding of Force and the Relationship to Teacher Qualification, Experience and their School's Quintile

Stott, Angela

doi:10.1080/10288457.2013.829599

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Such learners tend to have enjoyed better educational support at home throughout their lives, and therefore should be expected to be less likely to have the educational backlogs common in poorer communities (Timaeus, Simelane, and Letsoalo, 2013). It is also well established that higher quintile schools employ teachers with better content knowledge and pedagogical skill, and perform administrative functions more effectively, than do lower quintile schools (Shalem and Hoadley, 2009;Stott, 2013). It is therefore to be expected that great differences in the need to progress learners exists between schools which serve the SA middle class and those which serve poorer communities.…”

Section: Extent Of Learner Progressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consequences of the progression law in the FET phase: a case study

Stott¹,

Dreyer²,

Venter³

2015

Journal of Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The progression law, which restricts grade repetition to once within each of the four phases of basic education, has only been enforced in the Further Education and Training (FET) phase since 2013. The first cohort of progressed learners reached grade 12 in 2014. We investigate the extent of progression in 2014 in various school quintiles and the observed and speculated future consequences of the progression law in the FET phase. Our mainly quantitative data includes numbers and pass rates for the entire Free State (FS) province, with a focus on the Motheo district. We also draw on some qualitative data in the forms of questionnaires and reports from teachers and mentors working in 22 low quintile schools in Motheo. Our findings show marked differences in extents and impacts of progression between the school quintiles, with low quintile schools acutely impacted and with difficulties likely to escalate in the next few years.

show abstract

Section: Extent Of Learner Progressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consequences of the progression law in the FET phase: a case study

Stott¹,

Dreyer²,

Venter³

2015

Journal of Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is to be hoped that a person who has a BSc degree may have fewer alternative conceptions about physical sciences (Stott, 2013), and might tend to have more highly developed scientific reasoning abilities. The finding that the participants in the effective performance group had significantly fewer force alternative conceptions other than impetus suggests that higher levels of prior knowledge within a general domain enhance the likelihood of an intervention within that domain being effective.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from March to September 2011 in a variety of regions across all South African provinces. The study's convenience sample (Merriam, 2009) comprises 1,049 South African grade 12 physical sciences (PS) teachers with at least one year of PS teaching experience, and is that subset of the 1,190 teachers, described in Stott (2013), who completed both pre-and post-tests. Each of these teachers was present at a teacher workshop to which all grade 12 PS teachers from their particular school district had been invited.…”

Section: Sample and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this study we focus on Newton's First Law of Motion, where the prevalence of alternative conceptions is well established in the literature (e.g. Hestenes, Wells, & Swackhamer, 1992), including for South African physical sciences teachers (Helm, 1980;Stott, 2013). Teachereducation options aimed at addressing this situation include the short in-service teacher workshop, typically lasting about two hours, and usually held in the afternoons after school.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Electronic Tutoring as a Tool for Promoting Conceptual Change: A Case Study of In-service Science Teacher Workshops

Stott

Case

2014

African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technol

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Electronic tutors able to respond appropriately to a user's input have been shown to be effective in improving learning in a number of contexts. This study extends this research into the context of conceptual change during in-service science teacher workshops. Quantitative data were collected from 1,049 South African grade 12 physical sciences teachers who attended 54 in-service teacher workshops held by the first author across all South African provinces and hosted by volunteer schools. These teachers completed pre-and post-tests about the force concept. The teachers from each workshop were assigned, by convenience, to one of three treatment groups. The individual group (n = 296) engaged with the software between answering the tests. The plenary group (559) was taught using the tutoring software as an aid. The control group (194) received no electronic tutoring intervention. Participants also answered questions about themselves and their schools. The findings suggest that individual use of the software can be effective in promoting conceptual change in the context of the in-service teacher workshop, especially for those who already have relatively high levels of prior knowledge. However, plenary use of this software, in this context, appears to have limited effectiveness in promoting conceptual change. The patterns of engagement indicate an evolutionary, slow and iterative process of conceptual change, with limited transfer of learning across contexts. The findings suggest that multiple short modules of varying levels of advancement are more advisable than fewer, longer, less varied modules.

show abstract

“…For example, global data from South Africa shows that the science learning outcomes of grade 8 students are ranked below among the 50 countries that participated in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study in 2003. In addition, the results of passing exams national level are 61.3% which shows a low result (Stott, 2013). In addition, several other countries show poor performance in learning physics, for example, Ethiopia which shows student enrollment and graduation in physics at universities in developed countries such as the United States, England, Germany, and the Netherlands (Osborne et al, 2003;Shishigu et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploration of Students' Conceptual Understanding and Ethnophysics: A Case Study of Tifa In The Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia

Batlolona

Leasa

Papilaya

et al. 2022

jppipa, pendidikan ipa, fisika, biologi, kimia

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Contemporary culture has disturbed the local community's culture, which has been maintained since the time of the ancestors. The Tanimbar culture has been preserved and maintained. Tifa Tanimbar is a small musical instrument used for arts and cultural performances of the community. It is one of the heritage and wealth of an area different from other regions. This study shows something different, namely Tifa, in learning physics. This study aimed to analyze the conceptual physics of students based on ethnoscience on the Tifa concept in the Tanimbar Islands. The research was conducted in 10 elementary schools in the Tanimbar Islands Regency with 300 students with 175 male students and 125 female students. The questions given to test students' conceptual tests were physics diagnostic tests, totaling 6 questions. The study results informed that the average conceptual physics of students related to Tifa was 55.42. It indicates that the conceptual physics of elementary school students is still very weak with a good category. Therefore, there is a solution to develop ethnophysics-based teaching materials with orientation to local potentials affiliated with science in improving students' conceptual physics. This research implies that teachers can develop teaching materials that foster students' cognition with surrounding phenomena based on local culture

show abstract

South African Physical Sciences Teachers' Understanding of Force and the Relationship to Teacher Qualification, Experience and their School's Quintile

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

Consequences of the progression law in the FET phase: a case study

Consequences of the progression law in the FET phase: a case study

Electronic Tutoring as a Tool for Promoting Conceptual Change: A Case Study of In-service Science Teacher Workshops

Exploration of Students' Conceptual Understanding and Ethnophysics: A Case Study of Tifa In The Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About