Showing papers by "David Fortus published in 2013"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the relations between students' perceptions of goals emphases in their environment (by parents, peers, teachers, and schools), their own goals orientations and their engagement in science learning in and out of school (classroom and extra-curricular engagement).
Abstract: Achievement goal theory distinguishes between mastery goals (the goals of developing competence) and performance goals (the goals of demonstrating competence) [Ames [1992] Journal of Educational Psychology 84: 261–271]. In this study, we employed this theory aiming to better understand why adolescents' motivation to learn science declines with age in many schools yet not in others. We collected survey data from 5th to 8th grade Israeli students (N = 1,614). Utilizing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) methods, we investigated the relations between students' perceptions of goals emphases in their environment (by parents, peers, teachers, and schools), their own goals orientations and their engagement in science learning in and out of school (classroom and extra-curricular engagement). In addition, we compared between these relations in traditional and democratic schools and in elementary and middle school grade levels. Findings show that: (A) perceptions of the goals that significant adults (parents and teachers) emphasize were better predictors of students' motivation, in and out of school, than perceptions of the goals that peers and schools emphasize; (B) perceptions of teachers' performance goals emphases negatively predicted classroom engagement; (C) the relative effect of perceived parents' mastery emphasis on extra-curricular engagement was higher in elementary grades than in middle school grades; (D) the relative effect of perceived school's mastery emphasis was higher in middle school grades than in elementary grades; and (E) students' mastery goals orientation in science class was a strong predictor of their extra-curricular engagement. Implications for both research and practice are discussed. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 50: 952–988, 2013
88 citations
TL;DR: This article reported on South African teachers' perceptions of the educational value of new topics in a revised physical sciences high school curriculum, their content knowledge competency of these topics, and their pedagogical content knowledge in teaching them.
Abstract: This paper reports on South African teachers’ perceptions of the educational value of new topics in a revised physical sciences high school curriculum, their content knowledge competency of these topics, and their pedagogical content knowledge in teaching them. In view of the historical inequalities of the South African education system, a focus of the study was comparison of these perceptions of teachers based at schools which are diverse in terms of location, student population, and availability of resources. We adopted a mixed methods approach in collecting and analysing data from a large-scale survey of teachers through a structured questionnaire, and followed this with interviews with 10 teachers in seeking more in-depth explanations of the findings. The study revealed that teachers at township and rural schools previously designated for black students, and suburban and city schools previously reserved for white students, have a positive perception of the new topics introduced into the revised curriculum. However, teachers at all these schools expressed uncertainly as to their content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge of the new topics.
35 citations