Developing Critical Thinking Skills among Prospective Teachers through Teaching Educational Research Course: A Quasi Experimental Approach

The study aims to develop critical thinking skills among prospective teachers. The study was experimental in nature; quasi experimental approach was used to conduct the study. The population of the study was prospective teachers studying at master level. Sample of the study was 73 prospective teachers enrolled in the educational research course in two groups. The first was labeled as the control group, while one was labeled as the experimental group. To assess the critical thinking skills of prospective teachers test was developed by the research using guidelines of Watson and Glaser test. Test was consisted of five dimensions i.e. analyzing, assumptions, deduction, and inference and interpreting information. Cronbach's alpha determined the test's reliability to be 0.80. Intervention was consisted of 10 lessons related to educational research course. The prospective teachers performed well in analyzing, Assumptions, deduction and overall CTS in post-test as compare to pre-test. There was statistically noteworthy the variation between the or before as well as post-test grades of Inference and interpreting. The critical thinking skills are essential element to compete 21st century challenges. Prospective teachers have to face many educational challenges to improve students learning, it is necessary that they should be prepared with CTS either to infuse through separate curriculum or embed with existing curriculum.

Scaffolding Understanding of Scholarly Educational Research Through Teacher/Student Conferencing and Differentiated Instruction

This article reports the results of a qualitative study of the effectiveness of a critical reading instructional intervention based on differentiated instruction (DI) and teacher/student conferencing (TSC) in improving the participants’ understanding and evaluation of published educational research. A cohort of eleven (n = 11) novice graduate students took part in a 15-week course during which they critiqued several self-selected journal articles and reflected on their experience. Results of the thematic analysis of the participants’ reflection logs revealed that their’ initial feelings of apprehension and anxiety transformed into growth in their self-efficacy as consumers and designers of educational research. Likewise, the participants benefitted from scaffolding their challenges and the provision of feedback in becoming more proficient readers and in developing supportive relationships. The study implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Educational research project in physics based on open data

One of the forms of teaching physics in high schools with a natural science specialization and in the junior courses of universities can be an educational research project. The use of modern open scientific data makes it possible to make the project interesting, modern, relevant and multidisciplinary. The implementation of such a project allows the student to understand some areas of modern scientific research and the relationship between various natural sciences. Direct comparison of the project results with published fundamental research and discussion of the differences obtained are possible. As the first example of a training project, the determination of the frequency of asteroids and large meteorites (of the Tunguska and Chelyabinsk class) falling to Earth by counting craters on the surface of the Moon and Mercury is considered. Meets the requirements of the federal state educational standards of higher education of the latest generation. For students of higher educational institutions studying in natural science specialties: physics, astronomy, geography, geology, soil science, biology, etc—, and students of engineering and technical specialties of full-time and distance learning.

Gamificación, motivación y rendimiento en educación: Una revisión sistemática

Introducción. El propósito de este artículo es revisar la bibliografía que analiza la relación entre gamificación, motivación y aprendizaje y, así, proporcionar ideas pedagógicas y didácticas para su implementación en la educación no universitaria. Metodología. Se realiza una metodología mixta, en la que se analiza una muestra intencional conformada por 37 artículos, escogidos intencionalmente siguiendo los estándares de evaluación de la American Educational Research Association (AERA, 2006), de un total de 1 706 estudios, publicados en ISI Web Of Science. Resultados. Se seleccionaron y analizaron 37 estudios escogidos intencionalmente siguiendo los estándares de evaluación de la AERA (2006), y se constata que la gamificación tiene una repercusión directa y positiva sobre las experiencias del alumnado en cuanto a su motivación y rendimiento. Discusión. El trabajo apunta a que la gamificación está siendo abordada académicamente desde dos perspectivas: como metodología orientada a la motivación del alumnado en su aprendizaje competencial; y como forma de potenciar el rendimiento académico en las diferentes áreas del conocimiento.

Distributing Epistemic Functions and Tasks - A Framework for Augmenting Human Analytic Power With Machine Learning in Science Education Research

Machine learning has become commonplace in educational research and science education research, especially to support assessment efforts. Such applications of machine learning have shown their promise in replicating and scaling human-driven codes of students’ work. Despite this promise, we and other scholars argue that machine learning has not achieved its transformational potential. We argue that this is because our field is currently lacking frameworks for supporting creative, principled, and critical endeavors to use machine learning in science education research. To offer considerations for science education researchers’ use of ML, we present a framework, Distributing Epistemic Functions and Tasks (DEFT), that highlights the functions and tasks that pertain to generating knowledge that can be carried out by either trained researchers or machine learning algorithms. Such considerations are critical decisions that should occur alongside those about, for instance, the type of data or algorithm used. We apply this framework to two cases, one that exemplifies the cutting-edge use of machine learning in science education research and another that offers a wholly different means of using machine learning and human-driven inquiry together. We conclude with strategies for researchers to adopt machine learning and call for the field to rethink how we prepare science education researchers in an era of great advances in computational power and access to machine learning methods.

Towards a Multilingual Preschool Policy

The effects of immersive strategies and the benefits of a multilingual language policy have been extensively explored in the literature; however, it is valuable to look at the actual application of a multilingual policy. Putting linguistic-educational research into practice by implementing a transformative pedagogical approach is characterized by a process of trial and error, which has remained understudied. This chapter aims to fill this gap by adopting a case study approach that focuses on the implementation of a multilingual/cultural policy at a preschool in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. More than half of the children attending the preschool come from a multilingual background. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, consisting of observations, participations, interviews, and focus group discussions with different stakeholders, this chapter analyzes the mechanisms behind the preschool's switch from negatively undergoing multilingualism to positively engaging with it.

“Disciplining” Educational Research in the Twentieth Century

Educational research expanded rapidly in the twentieth century. This expansion drove the interested “amateurs” out of the field; the scientific community of peers became the dominant point of orientation. Authorship and authority became more widely distributed; peer review was institutionalized to monitor the flow of ideas within the scientific literature; reference lists in journals demonstrated the adoption of cumulative ideals about science. The historical analysis of education journals presented in this chapter looks at the social changes which contributed to the ascent of an “imagined” community of expert peers in the course of the twentieth century. This analysis also helps us in imagining ways in which improvements to the present academic evaluative culture can be made.

Mixing Methodologies

Should research in a particular field follow the traditional or favoured methodologies associated with that field, or, if it is desirable for the empirical methods of research to be mixed, can the same not be said for the theoretical standpoint of the research design? Does mixing methodologies imply that methodologies can be placed on a sliding scale to create a new methodology from combining elements of the old; or does it imply an iterative or cyclical process, using a suitable methodology for the stage in the research? This chapter explores what combining qualitative and quantitative methods actually means in terms of social and educational research and how this can assist in developing a mixed methodological approach suitable for addressing wicked problems faced in education in the rapidly evolving Anthropocene epoch. To address these issues, the chapter proposes a new term for combining methodologies: ‘omniduction,' which encompasses induction, deduction and abduction and utilises each as the research, rather than the researcher, dictates.