1,720,962 research outputs found
Exploring the Relationships Between Undergraduate and High School Students’ Self-Efficacy, Engagement, and Attitudes Towards Physics
No full textThe aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between attitudes, engagement and self-efficacy in physics. The analysis was based on three Likert-scale surveys designed to measure the constructs addressed and administered online to N = 1,971 Italian undergraduate and high school students. After exploring several possible models, we validated a structural model in which attitudes play the role of the independent variable, self-efficacy represents the dependent variable, and engagement acts as the overall mediator. The results have implications for teaching in terms of understanding the mechanism underlying the promotion of students’ self-efficacy in physics
Upper secondary school students conceptual learning of optical spectroscopy
Full text linkA Teaching Intervention Module (TIM) on optical spectroscopy was designed in the theoretical framework of the Model of Educational Reconstruction. This study illustrates a proposal for a conceptual survey related to the TIM implemented in three classes of N = 60 high school students (18-19 years old). We focused the survey on the nature of colors and the interpretation of spectra. The data analysis was carried out through answers' categorization. The results show that the students acquired a good knowledge about the mechanism of spectra formation, but some aspects related to atomic emission (e.g., ionization process) would need more clarification
High School Students’ Performances in Transitions between Different Representations of Linear Relationships in Mathematics and Physics
Full text linkThis study involved 643 high school students to assess their performance in using different representations of linear functions—graphs, tables, and algebraic relationships—in mathematics and kinematics. The results show that students encounter greater difficulties when they have to interpret representations involving algebraic relations in mathematics. Furthermore, it is shown how the ability to switch from one type of representation to another is influenced by spatial reasoning skills, orientation toward physics, and self-confidence in the field of mathematics and physics. Implications for teaching kinematics and linear functions are briefly discussed
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Exploring students’ attitudes towards physics and their association with gender
Full text linkThe purpose of this study was to analyse gender differences in the attitudes towards physics in the framework of the Semiotic Cultural Psychological Theory (SCPT). According to this theoretical perspective, attitudes represent how individuals interpret their experience, through the mediation of generalized meaning with which they are identified. A view-of-physics questionnaire was used as instrument to collect data with 1562 (723 females) high school students. Using multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis, we identified four generalized meanings of physics: (a) interesting and important for society; (b) a quite interesting, but badly taught subject at school and not completely useful for society; (c) difficult to study and irrelevant for society; and (d) a fascinating and protective niche from society. The association between gender and the identified cluster was assessed by a chi-square test, which indicates a significant overlap between females and cluster (c)
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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