A goal of science education is for students to develop scientific literacy. Scientific literacy involves the acquisition of factual scientific knowledge and the ability to assess the credibility of scientific assertation. Furthermore, students should be able to include ethical considerations. Realising this goal is complicated because it requires the development of argumentation skills, content knowledge, and an understanding of Nature of Science. Teachers struggle to apply effective strategies in the classroom. Few studies have shed light on usable, effective strategies. Therefore, the research goal is to identify features that encourage students to explore socio-scientific issues. To stimulate the development of scientific literary and support teachers, a web-based educational instrument was designed. In this study, the effects and influences of its features in the context of socio-scientific issues are investigated. The instrument provides a sequence of concept cartoons alternated with an interactive diagram. The instrument is deployed in 14 classrooms in both primary and secondary schools. In this paper, we present the educational instrument and report on its practical implementation and its constituent features. The results indicate that students show active involvement during their interaction with the instrument and reveal both the merits and challenges regarding the various features.
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The overall objective of project OC/EFSA/AMU/2018/01 was to support EFSA to develop in-house capacity to collect, appraise and synthesize evidence coming from literature sources in the context of food and feed scientific assessment. This objective had to be reached by offering 3 different types of training courses to EFSA staff (including Trainees) and Experts (of Panels, Working Groups and Member States). This report summarizes these trainings and their evaluation. Between 15 October 2018 and 24 November 2020, 9 trainings were delivered by a team of trainers from SYRCLE (SYstematic Review Centre for Laboratory animal Experimentation, www.syrcle.nl) and partners. A total number of 160 people participated in these trainings (an average of 18 per training), some of whom participated in more than one training (day). The individual trainings were evaluated using an online evaluation form, which consisted of general questions (e.g. about the training room or course material) and specific questions about the various parts of the training courses. The participants had the option of adding qualitative comments. Moreover, a so-called second level evaluation was used to assess the extent to which the trainings improved the capacity of participants to use the techniques explained in the courses in the context of EFSA assessments. With an average score of 8.23 (out of 10), the trainings were evaluated very positively. Major revisions of the content were only necessary for two of the courses and only after the first editions. Overall, the participants assessed their knowledge and practical skills to be higher after the training compared to before. Moreover, two of the online editions of the courses received an EFSA Golden Globe for the most successful EFSA scientific courses delivered in 2020. Based on the experiences with this series of trainings, recommendations are made for future EFSA trainings in evidence synthesis.
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Visual Thinking (VT) is concerned with the use of visual resources (diagrams, simple drawings, short texts) to represent, organize or communicate ideas or contents. VT aims to favor the understanding of concepts to `translate' to a visual representation a content or process. Lower thinking skills to remember and understand concepts are necessary as much as higher order skills to filter, manage and spatially organize contents. VT offers us a slower, but more effective, way to learn and teachers are increasingly using VT for educational purposes in their lectures. Within the VT techniques, we have set ourselves in the so-called canvas as a template that allows to visually structuring the fundamental elements of an entity or process. As an example of use in the educational field, the PBL canvas proposed by conecta13, describes a Project Based Learning process in nine steps (key competences, learning standards, evaluation method, final product, tasks, resources, ICT tools, grouping and organization and dissemination). On the other hand, we find the need to encourage Science, Technonoloy, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) vocations, especially in women, given the decreasing interest in these areas (Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Mathematics) considered more arid and boring by students. This makes us to face a paradoxical crossroad, since much of the jobs of the future will be linked to these fields. It is therefore necessary to bring the methodology of scientific thinking closer to the students by presenting it in accessible ways. Here we propose a canvas that provides a visual structure to represent graphically the various steps of the scientific method. These steps include the systematic observation, formulation of hypothesis, design of the experiment to prove or discard them, to finally elaborate some conclusions leading to development of a theory. The canvas is used as a visual tool to support the design to summarize the results of the scientific experiment, to cover the different steps in a schematic way either with text or graphically. An empty template is provided as well as different examples of the canvas covered with experiments that can be carried out in different pre-university educational levels. In order to let this canvas become part of the public domain it is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license, so that anyone can use it, copy or modify by free, with the only condition of attributing the corresponding authorship and keeping the license open.
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Using a longitudinal study on childrens’ understanding of scientific concepts, we compare the relative importance of general (e.g., standardized test scores) and microgenetic measures (interaction patterns) to characterize the development of scientific understanding over 1.5 years. A researcher worked five times with 31 children (3-5 years old, from regular and special primary schools) on scientific tasks about air pressure and gravity. The researchers scaffolding behavior and the childs understanding were coded per utterance. Furthermore, children’s standardized test scores (math and language) and information on their home environment were obtained. A cluster analysis yielded three distinct developmental trajectories, which could best be predicted by interactions between the child and the environment. In the discussion we question the validity of standardized tests
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Using socio-scientific issues as a learning context is an effective approach to achieve an important goal in science education, which is to enhance scientific literacy. It involves strengthening skills such as argumentation while also improving an understanding of the Nature of Science and imparting content knowledge. The present study evaluates the impact of a web-based educational instrument consisting of a unique combination of features designed to promote students’ development of skills and knowledge as well as to address the challenges faced by teachers in teaching socio-scientific issues. Participants included 423 students in secondary education. Students in the experimental condition received a three-lesson intervention with the educational instrument, and students in the control condition followed their regular science lessons. Findings indicated that the instrument proves effective in fostering learning outcomes while teachers benefit from the shift of managing classroom discussion to individual guidance of students. Applying the educational instrument in the classroom demonstrates promise in improving student engagement and their comprehension of socio-scientific issues.
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This method paper presents a template solution for text mining of scientific literature using the R tm package. Literature to be analyzed can be collected manually or automatically using the code provided with this paper. Once the literature is collected, the three steps for conducting text mining can be performed as outlined below:• loading and cleaning of text from articles,• processing, statistical analysis, and clustering, and• presentation of results using generalized and tailor-made visualizations.The text mining steps can be applied to a single, multiple, or time series groups of documents.References are provided to three published peer reviewed articles that use the presented text mining methodology. The main advantages of our method are: (1) Its suitability for both research and educational purposes, (2) Compliance with the Findable Accessible Interoperable and Reproducible (FAIR) principles, and (3) code and example data are made available on GitHub under the open-source Apache V2 license.
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A goal of K-12 science education is for learners to develop scientificliteracy. However, realizing this goal is being complicated by the availability ofabundant resources that vary strongly regarding their adherence to the Nature ofScience principles, particularly regarding socio-scientific issues, such as, forinstance, vaccination. It requires dedicated reasoning skills, often referred to ascritical thinking, to assess and value the arguments regarding such issues.To stimulate critical thinking, we investigate the use of interactive conceptcartoons. Instead of a single cartoon our instrument provides a sequence ofconcept cartoons. The cartoons are alternated with a diagram and concepts thatlearners have to place in the diagram, leading to a systems’ view on the subjectmatter.The instrument has been presented to teachers for expert review and evaluatedin three classrooms (6th grade) of one school (70 learners). In this paper, wepresent the interactive concept cartoon instrument and report on the study. Theresults indicate that learners are engaged when working with the instrument andlearn relevant knowledge regarding the subject matter and the Nature of Science.
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In light of increasing calls for transparent reporting of research and prevention of detrimental research practices, we conducted a cross-sectional machine-assisted analysis of a representative sample of scientific journals' instructions to authors (ItAs) across all disciplines. We investigated addressing of 19 topics related to transparency in reporting and research integrity. Only three topics were addressed in more than one third of ItAs: conflicts of interest, plagiarism, and the type of peer review the journal employs. Health and Life Sciences journals, journals published by medium or large publishers, and journals registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) were more likely to address many of the analysed topics, while Arts & Humanities journals were least likely to do so. Despite the recent calls for transparency and integrity in research, our analysis shows that most scientific journals need to update their ItAs to align them with practices which prevent detrimental research practices and ensure transparent reporting of research.
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Background: Acquiring the theoretical and practical knowhow of conducting patient and public involvement (PPI) in research is not part of the traditional curriculum of researchers. Zuyd University of Applied Sciences and Huis voor de Zorg, a regional umbrella patient organization, therefore started a 1.5-year coaching programme. Objective: To establish a community of practice by developing a PPI coaching programme for senior and junior health services researchers of Zuyd University. The context consisted of research projects conducted by the participants. Methods: A participatory action research methodology. Data were collected from reports of thematic group meetings and individual sessions with participants, field notes and regular reflection meetings with the project team. Data were analysed by reflexive deliberation. Findings: The programme comprised a kick-off meeting (52 attendees), followed by 7 group meetings with 11 junior and 9 senior researchers. The project team constructed a serious game based on the concept of the participation ladder. Questions and concerns differed for junior and senior researchers, and separate tailored meetings were organized for both groups. Between group meetings, participants received individual assignments. Group meetings were accompanied by individual coaching sessions to provide tailor-made feedback. The programme concluded with a combined meeting with all stakeholders. Conclusion: Building a community of PPI practice through action research facilitates the development of a coaching programme that fosters social learning, empowerment and the development of a shared identity concerning PPI. The role and responsibilities of senior researchers should be distinguished from those of junior researchers.
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