1,720,963 research outputs found
Does the New Science GCSE Curriculum Improve The Effectiveness of Practical Work In Key Stage 4 Classes?
Get PDFThis study was designed to consider the effectiveness of practical work under the Key Stage 4 (KS4) science curriculum implemented from September 2016 in England. Science practical work, despite being widely used in English schools, though reasonably effective at teaching manipulative skills, is considered largely ineffective in developing understanding of the underpinning concepts (Abrahams and Millar, 2008). However, the written exam now incorporates questions worth 15% of the GCSE grade on ‘required or ‘core’ practicals owing to the modifications to the practical work assessment introduced in September 2016. These modifications necessitate students to thoroughly comprehend specific practicals, which could increase the effectiveness of practical work.This study took a multi-method approach for data collection using observation of a sequence of lessons involving GCSE required practicals in four different schools in England, teacher interviews and focus group interviews with students. The data was analysed by adapting the framework used by Abrahams and Millar (2008) to accommodate ideas from cognitive load theory (CLT) (Sweller, 2020). This study concludes that teachers are the driving force, using a range of strategies, for ensuring practical work is carried out as intended. However, there is less emphasis on the development and monitoring of students’ apparatus use and techniques outlined in the curriculum. There is a focus on developing the underlying scientific concepts in post-practical sessions, largely using exam-style questions, which the study found facilitated a deep understanding of aspects of practicals through the application of ideas. However, this is only effective if they are part of a balanced spread of retrieval tasks that includes class discussion about practical results. Memorising a large volume of practical methods is causing anxiety for teachers and pupils. The study finds regular use of CLT strategies develops recall and retention of knowledge. Class discussion effects measurable epistemic progress, but effectiveness is reduced when teachers’ objectives are not clearly defined in both the ‘hands-on’ and ‘minds-on’ domains of practical work
GCSE practical work in English secondary schools
Get PDFIn England, the GCSE science curriculum has been undergoing major changes, and the new school curriculum was implemented in September 2016. One of the big changes is that the internal assessment of practical work no longer counts towards the final GCSE science grade. It has been established that assessment influences teaching, so non-contribution of practical work to the final grade may dilute the funding for practical work conducted in schools, especially in GCSE lessons. However, the GCSE science exam paper will now include questions on practical work which may allow more lesson time to be devoted to discussion of results and observations of practical work, an area of development identified in previous studies. Discussions provide opportunities for learners to make links between the practical task and the underlying conceptual knowledge, thereby increasing the effectiveness of practical work. This article aims to explore the range of literature available on the effectiveness of science practical work in English secondary schools and consider the possible effects of the removal of internal assessment of practical work from the GCSE curriculum
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
Book reviews
Get PDFReviews of several books:Developing professional practice 0–7, by Sonia Blandford and Catherine Knowles.Rethinking children and families: the relationship between childhood, families and the state, by Nick Frost.Developing professional practice 7–14, Developing professional practice 7–14, by Viv Wilson and Sue Kendall-Seatter
- …
