Goh Wee Pin, Jonathan

Competency in making inferences is an important aspect of student learning in the 21st Century, for making better-informed decisions. The purpose of our study is to investigate the type of science capital that can predict the science inference competencies of lower track students. Science capital comprises diverse social capital, cultural capital, and mental schema. A total of 1,397 Normal Academic (NA) and 637 Normal Technical (NT) Grade 7 students from 37 public secondary schools in Singapore participated in the study. Three separate science inference tests were administered to the students over one academic year, and test scores were calibrated and equated using Rasch analysis. The relationship between students’ perceptions of science capital and their development in science inference competencies was investigated using Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis. The results indicated that NA students’ self-views in science learning and their views about the nature of science were significant predictors of their scientific inference competencies. For NT students, their views about science teachers was the only significant predictors of their performance on making scientific inferences. Based on the research design and findings, we draw implications for local and international science curriculum policy. Additionally, we demonstrate the usefulness of Rasch analysis.

The underrepresentation of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields is a problem that plagues many places in the world. According to the U.S., Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration (2009), women held less than 25-percent of the STEM jobs, and are disproportionately fewer women having earned STEM undergraduate degrees, especially in engineering. In the U.K. (Kirkup, Zalevski, Maruyama, & Batool, 2010), women represented less than 12.3-percent of the workforce in all science, engineering, and technology occupations. Only one in five countries in the world have achieved gender equality in research careers (UNESCO, 2012). While Singapore is well-known for its excellent student performance in international mathematics and science tests such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), women make up less than 30-percent of the total researchers in 2012 (UNESCO, 2014). This worldwide phenomenon is often metaphorically described as the leaky STEM pipeline (Blickenstaff, 2005) which posed problems for developing and developed nations looking to harness more diverse ideas, increasing the number of productive workforce, and improving the quality of women's lives. Currently, there are no published studies in the Singapore context that specifically examine how feminist approaches to STEM teaching impact girls' attitudes (e.g., interest, self-concept, STEM career and post-secondary education decisions, and participation) towards STEM, and the construction of STEM-related identities. This is a proposal for a research study about the Singapore Committee for United Nations Women, Girls To Pioneer programme, which is aimed at promoting more women and girls in STEM fields. The programme adopts feminist pedagogies in actively engaging girls to participate in diverse STEM activities so that positive attitudes towards STEM may be developed. Using pre- and post-programme surveys, lesson videos, and interviews, we examine the impact of the Girls To Pioneers programme on diverse participants' attitudes and STEM identities. The participants are girls aged between 10-15 and recruited from schools or private centres (e.g., after school study centres) that have signed up for the Girls to Pioneers programme. The findings will have implications for Singapore STEM educators as they develop greater awareness about gender inequity issues in STEM, and learn about informal STEM efforts that can help to shape girls' attitudes and constructed STEM identities so that they can also emulate and promote such efforts in their everyday teaching.

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have gained considerable attention in education. However, PLCs are dependent on how group members collectively work and learn towards shared goals on improving teaching and learning. This would require leadership to support meaningful and productive interactions within PLC contexts, and hence, the importance of teacher leaders. In this article, we report on an ethnographic case study involving three PLCs investigating how teacher leadership supports PLC conversations using an intervention framework provided by the research team. The findings showed that teacher leadership has potential in supporting PLC conversations along three dimensions of its construct.

Policymakers and the public in many developed countries have demanded for greater public school accountability in the hope of improving academic and non-academic school outcomes, as well as decreasing the achievement gaps among subpopulations of students (Heck & Moriyama, 2010). In response, there has been a growing conversation amongst educational practitioners and researchers on how educational leadership might be linked to effective teaching, and student learning and ‘achievement’ outcomes. Educational-effectiveness researchers have attempted to link (directly and/or indirect) existing research with theory about educational processes to identify contextual, school factors (including leadership), and classroom factors (including teacher effectiveness) to student learning and ‘achievement’ outcomes (Creemers, 1994; Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008; Heck & Moriyama, 2010; Leithwood & Mascall, 2008; Scheerens, 1990, 1992; Stringfield & Slavin, 1992; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000). Also of interest are (i) possible differences in the contribution of the leadership practices, (ii) whether some practices are better performed by certain people or roles instead of others, and (iii) whether some strategic efforts to implement changes in the school’s instructional practices are more effective than others (e.g., Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008; Firestone & Martinez, 2007; Leithwood et al., 2004; Locke, 2003).

It is clear that the ‘Principal as the sole decision maker’ conception of leadership and bureaucratic organizational structures are no longer consistent with the new school leadership climate (Pearce & Conger, 2003). Proponents of this view have argued that a dispersed form of leadership is thought to enhance opportunities for the organization to benefit from the capacities of more of its members rather than a single leader (Leithwood & Mascall, 2008). Leithwood and Mascall (2008, p.530) further argued that in so doing, organizational members can develop “a fuller appreciation of interdependence and how one’s behavior affects the organization as a whole”. This clearly reflects the growing appreciation of the informal dimensions of organizations often among those who are not in positions of formal authority (Gronn, 2003; Tschannen-Moran, 2004; Wheatley, 2005). Evidently, leadership and school improvement are increasingly conceptualized as organization-wide phenomena (Manz & Sims, 1993; Ogawa & Bossert, 1995). The evidences from previous studies have provided the impetus for greater understanding of the links between leadership, teaching and learning. Clearly, these issues warrant greater empirical attention. More specifically, educators and researchers are interested in understanding of the following:
(i) Impact of educational policies and system structures on school leadership practices; (ii) Impact of leadership practices on teaching; (iii) Linkages of core leadership practices in schools (i.e., instructional leadership, distributed leadership, teacher leadership, and transformational leadership); (iv) Impact of leadership practices on student learning; (v) Impact of teacher variables (i.e., teaching competencies, engagement and job satisfaction) on student learning.

Competency in making inferences is an important aspect of student learning in the 21st Century, for making better-informed decisions. The purpose of our study is to investigate the type of science capital that can predict the science inference competencies of lower track students. Science capital comprises diverse social capital, cultural capital, and mental schema. A total of 1,397 Normal Academic (NA) and 637 Normal Technical (NT) Grade 7 students from 37 public secondary schools in Singapore participated in the study. Three separate science inference tests were administered to the students over one academic year, and test scores were calibrated and equated using Rasch analysis. The relationship between students’ perceptions of science capital and their development in science inference competencies was investigated using Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis. The results indicated that NA students’ self-views in science learning and their views about the nature of science were significant predictors of their scientific inference competencies. For NT students, their views about science teachers was the only significant predictors of their performance on making scientific inferences. Based on the research design and findings, we draw implications for local and international science curriculum policy. Additionally, we demonstrate the usefulness of Rasch analysis.

A review of the literature reveals broadness in the conceptual and operational definition of the construct on Distributed Leadership (DL), making it elusive. The elusive nature of DL is due in part to the lack of attempts at trying to unpack and measure this construct, and in part to the contested definition of the term 'leadership'. The purpose of this study is to unpack and discuss key dimensions of the DL construct. To understand the DL construct, multivariate analysis was used to reduce the dimensionality of the data collected. This was to provide a lucid interpretation of the data and build theoretical measurement model for DL. And this requires the use of a proper metric. As such, Exploratory Factor Analysis was performed on the Rasch (linearized) standardized residuals. The DL instrument consists of 25 items, and the sample involved schools leaders from Singapore (i.e., 224 Principals, 322 Vice- Principals and 686 middle-level school managers). It was a component of a larger instrument within a national study investigating school leadership practices in Singapore. The findings provided evidence, through a Rasch residual-based factor analysis, the presence of four possible factors of DL–bounded empowerment, developing leadership, shared decision, and collective engagement.

It is a generally held view amongst educators today that the development of students’ inference skills is an important aspect in their education as 21st Century learners as it requires higher order cognitive competences. Oftentimes, students in the lower tracks are considered slower learners and may have difficulties with the development of such skills. There is, however, limited empirical evidence to support such claims. As a result, there is a lack of understanding how such skills are taught, and how lower track students acquire them. The purpose of this study is to investigate lower track students’ science inference skills over one academic year, to better understand their learning and development. To determine this, three multiple-choice science inference skills tests were developed based on science syllabus and administered over a 9-month period. In total, 1397 Grade 7 lower track (i.e., Normal Academic) students from 38 Singapore secondary schools participated in the study. The students’ performances were determined through three equated tests using Rasch common-item procedures. The results showed that students experienced greater difficulty with tests over time. They particularly had difficulties with questions pertinent to graphs, tables, diagrams, or charts, or required them to extend their thinking beyond the given information. They also had difficulty in deducing answers using the elimination technique, and items that involved experiments and variables. Items that involved pattern recognition, concluding using range, application of a given concept, and limited information were easier for them. The findings also have implications for science teacher education in terms of assessment literacy, and the science teaching of lower track students.