Teo, Tang Wee

Greater emphasis on helping ''students at-risk'' improve in academic achievements has become a key concern of many countries. The relatively large achievement gaps between high and lower academic groups is an educational issue, and also, a socio-political and socio-economic one as it suggests that a sector of a population is not equipped with the necessary academic qualifications, knowledge, skills, and aptitude to take on certain types of jobs and earn a reasonably good income to sustain their living. In 2008, the school dropout rate in Singapore was 1.6 percent?1 percent was attributed to secondary school dropouts of which approximately 90 percent of these students were from the Normal Academic (NA) and Normal Technical1 (NT) steams (Ministry of Education, March 4, 2008). The dropout rate has decreased over the years. In 2010, the primary one cohort which did not complete secondary school education was 1.0% (Ministry of Education, January 16, 2012). Based on the data drawn from the MOE Education Statistics 2012, NA and NT students make up approximately 29 percent and 12 percent of the secondary school student population, respectively. This research proposal for Examining Normal Academic/Technical Students' Science Learning from a Sociological and Cultural Lens seeks to investigate Singapore Normal stream students' science curriculum experiences. While most science education research focuses on mainstream Express and specialised school students, no studies have focused on how Normal Academic (NA) and Normal Technical (NT) students learn science. As a critical lens on the topic is absent, we are particularly concerned with the lack of deeper insights into the challenges, difficulties, and tensions NA/NT students' experience that may limit their interest and ability to learn science in meaningful and productive ways. The three key research questions we want to address are: 1. How do Singapore Normal Academic and Normal Technical students experience science learning in and outside the classroom? 2. How do structures shape Singapore NA/NT students' science learning? 3. How do Singapore NA/NT students' construct their science discursive identities? We have designed a research study using qualitative methods on case studies and quantitative surveys on a large purposeful sample of mainstream Singapore secondary schools and case studies (one NA and one NT class) in one school to investigate the above issues and identify support needed in the Normal stream science curriculum. Both quantitative and qualitative methods will be used to collect generalised and case specific data. We will apply the sociological and cultural lens, specifically, the theory of agency and structure, to analyse how various cultural schema and resources in the primary and secondary structures enable or limit the students' agency. Related to this, we will also examine the science discursive identities of students using discourse analysis. The overall goal of the study is to improve the teaching and learning of science for all. The short term goal of this research is to gain deeper insights into NA/NT students' experience in science classrooms and include identifying existing schema and resources that they engage with both from within and outside the primary structure (e.g., home, institutional, and social structures) and the secondary structure (e.g., scientific discipline and practice in science classrooms) to make sense of science and to develop their science-related discursive identities. The long term goals of this research are to address current gaps in research on NA/NT students' participation in science classrooms, particularly, how they learn science, how they relate to science, their views about science lessons, the factors and forces shaping their agency, and their motivation and interest to learn and pursue postsecondary education in science-related fields. The intellectual merit of this research is to advance the knowledge base.

United States’ education reform document like the new A Framework for K-12 Science Education discussed a more scientific way of learning – the emphasis of scientific inquiry through Science Practices, which include both specific scientific skills and cognitive processes. Likewise, in Singapore, the importance of Science Practices is reflected as desirable learning outcomes in the secondary (Grade 7 – 11) science syllabuses. With the significance of Science Practices in education, this study serves to identify the challenging types of Science Practices for students, specifically those from the lower secondary (Grade 7 – 8) Normal streams in Singapore. In this research, these students were collectively known as the Low Progress group due to their weaker academic abilities. Three science inference tests with 35 individual items assessing various Science Practices were administered and responses were analysed with Rasch analysis. Thereafter, Science Practices were categorised into higher-order, middle-order and lower-order to reflect the students’ difficulty in applying them. Results showed that students struggled the most with Science Practices that required them to decipher information that were beyond their language abilities. These findings will be useful towards teaching, assessing, curriculum planning and research studies involving the academically weaker students.

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.

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.

There is increasing interest in the research of alternative conceptions in electrochemistry as it is ranked as one of the most difficult topics in chemistry (Garnett & Treagust, 1992a, b). This study is the first to be carried out within the Singapore context which specifically diagnoses students' understanding in electrochemistry. It aims to identify Singapore junior college students' alternative conceptions of redox processes in electrochemistry. Its primary purpose is to bring the curriculum planners', teachers' and students attention to the existence of alternative conceptions on electrochemistry, so as to improve the teaching and learning of this topic.

This study replicated and extended the research done by Garnett et. al. (1995), Sanger and Greenbowe (1997a, b), Ogude and Bradley (1994) and other researchers. A list of conceptual and propositional knowledge statements adapted from previous studies by Garnett and Treagust (1992a, b) helped to identify the knowledge base necessary for students to understand electrochemistry. Alternative conceptions that had been reported in several other studies were also consolidated to give a more comprehensive list of alternative conceptions related to electrochemistry.

The list of conceptual and propositional knowledge statements and alternative conceptions provided the framework for the development of an open-ended questionnaire which was administered to about sixty second year junior college students (17 to 18 years old). This was followed by semi-structured interviews with four selected students to further probe their understanding of electrochemistry.

The alternative conceptions identified in the study were very similar to those identified in previous related studies. The areas of alternative conceptions surfaced from this study include the charge law, electric current, standard half-cell, current in an electrochemical cell and charges on the electrodes of electrochemical cells.

Interestingly, one new alternative conception was surfaced from this study :

The electrodes of the electrochemical cell must be placed in two solutions of different concentrations.

The study also revealed that the textbooks used in junior colleges may be inadequate teaching and learning materials. The two highly recommended A-level textbooks by Briggs and Ramsden were scrutinised and found to have excluded content knowledge that would aid in the understanding of electrochemistry. In addition, they were found to contain information that could mislead students and cause them to develop alternative conceptions. Some of these information include stating that the charges assigned to half-cells were identified from their positions in the diagram and assigning oxidation numbers by changing covalent bonds into 'electrovalent bonds'.