WIPE - pilot testing and comparative evaluation

Evaluations of JaguarCode: A web-based object-oriented programming environment with static and dynamic visualization

Gender biases have often been observed in physical education (PE) classes, as many teachers adopt a male-biased perspective in teaching and learning. This might affect their evaluation of students’ behavior and may lead students to accept and reproduce gender biases in other social contexts. The aim of this study was to examine whether PE teachers in Greece adopt gender biases in teaching and learning, favoring male students. The sample of the study comprised 392 elementary (n = 200) and secondary education students (n = 192) attending typical coeducational schools in Greece (M = 12.56, SD = 1.6). Participants completed the Perceived Physical Education Class Environment With Respect to the Achievement of Boys Questionnaire, which the researchers used to assess students’ perceptions of gender inequalities during PE courses. The results revealed that male secondary education students reported higher scores of negative behaviors toward them, as compared to females, as well as compared to students in elementary school. The findings of this study provide valuable information on students’ beliefs about gender inequalities in PE courses that may stimulate future research in this area. Subscribe to TPE

Secondary school students are still within the age bracket of rapid physical, social and psychological changes. These changes pose a number of challenges which result to cases of maladaptive behaviour as evidenced by strikes, riots, boycotts, indulgence in premarital sexual activities, truancy, drug and substance abuse, disinterest in school and poor academic performance. Diverse behaviour modification strategies have been employed to mitigate against these negative tendencies but these maladaptive behaviours are still rampant among secondary school students. The current study sought to investigate the influence of guidance and counselling programmes in improving secondary students school connectedness in Nyamira Count,y Kenya. The study objective was to investigate the influence of guidance and counselling programmes on secondary students school connectedness. The study was guided by two theories namely: Ludwig Bertalanffy’s Systems Theory and Erik Erickson’s psychosocial development Theory. The study utilized descriptive survey design as well as ex-post facto design. The sample size of the study were 52 head teachers, 52 deputy head teachers, 52 guidance and counselling teachers and 311 students drawn from a population of 7740 form three students, 174 head teachers, 174 deputy head teachers and 174 guidance and counselling teachers. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select public secondary schools, head teachers, deputy head teachers, guidance and counselling teachers and form three students. Stratified sampling procedure was used to group the target population into four strata based on school type and gender. Proportionate sampling procedure was used to select equal representation of respondents from each stratum of public secondary school. Random sampling procedure was used to obtain the final sample from each of the stratum. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used to collect data. Prior to data collection, a pilot study was conducted to ensure validity and reliability of the research instruments and using Cronbach reliability test, reliability coefficient of = 0.727 was reported. Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyze the data. The data analysis was done with the aid of computer software- statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. The study found that there is a strong positive relationship (r = .622) between guidance and counselling programme and students school connectedness which was statistically significant ( <.005). The study recommends that all teachers in the school need to understand in depth the concept of guidance and counselling in the school setting and how it can be used to improve students school connectedness. The education ministry should organize regular seminars based on personal, social and moral practices for the schools. This will ensure that the policy on professional ethics is adhered to for improved performance. The government through the Ministry of Education and Teachers Service Commission should employ more teacher counselors in secondary schools to effectively tackle social and academic challenges facing the students. Keywords: Guidance and counselling, public secondary schools, students school connectedness, Nyamira County. DOI : 10.7176/JEP/10-22-06 Publication date : August 31 st 2019

Secondary school students are still within the age bracket of rapid physical, social and psychological changes. These changes pose a number of challenges which result to cases of maladaptive behaviour as evidenced by strikes, riots, boycotts, indulgence in premarital sexual activities, truancy, drug and substance abuse, disinterest in school and poor academic performance. Diverse behaviour modification strategies have been employed to mitigate against these negative tendencies but these maladaptive behaviours are still rampant among secondary school students. The current study sought to investigate the influence of guidance and counselling programmes in improving secondary students school connectedness in Nyamira Count,y Kenya. The study objective was to investigate the influence of guidance and counselling programmes on secondary students school connectedness. The study was guided by two theories namely: Ludwig Bertalanffy’s Systems Theory and Erik Erickson’s psychosocial development Theory. The study utilized descriptive survey design as well as ex-post facto design. The sample size of the study were 52 head teachers, 52 deputy head teachers, 52 guidance and counselling teachers and 311 students drawn from a population of 7740 form three students, 174 head teachers, 174 deputy head teachers and 174 guidance and counselling teachers. Purposive sampling procedure was used to select public secondary schools, head teachers, deputy head teachers, guidance and counselling teachers and form three students. Stratified sampling procedure was used to group the target population into four strata based on school type and gender. Proportionate sampling procedure was used to select equal representation of respondents from each stratum of public secondary school. Random sampling procedure was used to obtain the final sample from each of the stratum. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used to collect data. Prior to data collection, a pilot study was conducted to ensure validity and reliability of the research instruments and using Cronbach reliability test, reliability coefficient of ∝ = 0.727 was reported. Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyze the data. The data analysis was done with the aid of computer software- statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. The study found that there is a strong positive relationship (r = .622) between guidance and counselling programme and students school connectedness which was statistically significant (ρ&lt;.005). The study recommends that all teachers in the school need to understand in depth the concept of guidance and counselling in the school setting and how it can be used to improve students school connectedness. The education ministry should organize regular seminars based on personal, social and moral practices for the schools. This will ensure that the policy on professional ethics is adhered to for improved performance. The government through the Ministry of Education and Teachers Service Commission should employ more teacher counselors in secondary schools to effectively tackle social and academic challenges facing the students.

The low enrolment and poor academic achievement of female students in Geography compared to their male counterparts in secondary schools of Ganye Educational Zone necessitated this study. Studies have it that the instructional strategies adopted by Geography teachers in teaching could interact with gender to influence students’ academic achievement. To this end, the study investigated the Effect of Gender on Senior Secondary School Students’ Academic Achievement in Geography when Mastery Learning Strategy and Conventional Method are used for instruction. The quasi-experimental non-randomized pre-test, post-test control group design was used. The study also employed the multi-stage random sampling technique at four levels to select 207 (120 Male and 87 Female) senior secondary school two (SS II) students offering Geography from six intact classes in six co-educational secondary schools in Ganye Educational Zone in Nigeria. A 40-item Geography Achievement Test (GAT) constructed by the researcher and validated by experts in Geography education was used to obtain data. After pilot testing the instrument using 89 students from two intact classes, the data obtained was analyzed using Pearson product moment correlation coefficient statistic. A reliability index of 0.78 was obtained. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics of Mean, independent t-Test and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). The study revealed that Female students exposed to learning Geography through Mastery Learning Strategy performed better than their Male counterparts. A significant interaction effect of treatment and gender on students’ achievement in Geography was also observed. It was recommended that Geography teachers should re-assess their classroom instructional strategies used in teaching and adopt that which will give the students equal opportunities to excel in Geography. Article visualizations:

The School Principals of the 21st Century School Units undertake a very significant responsibility and an extremely pivotal and demanding role. Their tasks are equally important whether they relate to the educational issues of the school units or to relationships with the school stakeholders. In the present paper we aim to reveal the profile of the Director of Secondary Education Schools in Greece and in particular in Thessaly region, and how this is affected by the gender and course specialty. The survey involved 240 teachers from 48 secondary schools in the research area, and the research tool was a structured questionnaire based on Blake and Mouton"s educational grid. The results showed that the profile of the Heads of Secondary Education Schools in the research area is close to that of the Middle School Principal who is trying to balance between the subordinates and the school educational issues. Research has also shown that the school principals´ profile is influenced by factors such as gender and specialty.

Although school bullying is a serious form of violence, relevant studies do not agree if immigrant students are at higher risk to be involved in bullying than native students in ethnically diverse schools. The purpose of the study was to investigate the attitudes of Greek and non-Greek students about school bullying. The sample composed of 719 native and 120 non-native students attending primary and secondary schools in Greece. Data were collected via a self-report questionnaire, and the Statistical Package SPSS was used for their analysis. Results showed that positive interpersonal relationships between Greek and non-Greek students are associated with low frequency of bullying. A significant percentage of students from both groups had observed bullying between native and immigrant children. However, the majority of them had never been bullied or victimized in their school. Verbal bullying was the most dominant bullying behaviour. The importance of the findings is discussed.

Studies in different countries comparing the quality of education in private and public schools have used a variety of measurement methods to determine educational quality and findings have been mixed. For the unique situation of Greece, the variable of student admission to the Greek university system, depending on whether the student’s secondary education was in the public or the private system, provides an apt outcome variable to measure relative educational quality. We provide estimates of the effect of private secondary schooling in Greece on students’ admission to their preferred university academic department, using data from nationwide surveys conducted identically in 2000 and 2015. This repeated-measures research design allowed us to compare the same set of factors between the two administrations, thus examining for the stability or change of their contribution over time. Our final sample consisted of 4740 secondary school students. We used a weighted questionnaire to investigate the effect of private schooling on the trajectory to university. In our empirical model, a multinomial logistic regression was performed to classify subjects based on values of a set of predictor variables. Results indicate that attending a private high school offers secondary education students a significantly higher probability of stepping successfully into an academic department of higher relevance to their academic preferences and future career expectations. We also find that private high school education significantly minimizes the efforts required for a student to enter a desirable university department. Positive correlations between the attendance of private high school education and demographic attributes of both students and their families were also found. Research and policy recommendations are included.

IntroductionThe study sought to investigate and examine knowledge, attitudes, and uptake of mental health services by secondary school students in the Gweru district.MethodsUsing a qualitative approach, 15 students from three secondary schools in Gweru were purposively sampled for inclusion in this study. Data collection was through semi-structured interviews. The study utilized thematic data analysis and the following themes emerged from the study; ignorance, misinformation, indifference, lack of trust, gender differences, and alternative support.ResultsGenerally, the research findings revealed that most secondary school students were aware of the existence of mental health services although they had distorted information on the same. Poor utilization of services was largely attributed to the consideration of “formal” mental health services as the last resort for remedy after the failure of “informal” services to yield positive results. Thus, mental health services were not on the priority list of intervention measures used by secondary students in light of mental health issues. The study recommends psycho-education sessions to promote the utilization of mental health services by secondary school students.DiscussionNotably, the current study revealed that participants lacked correct information about MHS and its related utility. Munson et al. (2009) concur by stating that some adolescents believed that their mental health challenges such as mood disorders were chronic, and as such, they thought that any form of intervention could not control or remedy their illness.

This videotape demonstrates the functionality of Carnegie Mellon's GENIE programming environments. GENIE environment are publicly available on the Macintosh for Pascal and Richard Pattis' Karel the Robot teaching language. They are appropriate for use in introductory and intermediate computer programming methods courses at both the collegiate and secondary school levels. The Karel environment has been used successfully in group settings as early as the fourth grade.GENIE environments are built around syntax directed structure editors. [1, 2] Rather than edit only individual ASCII characters, the editors manipulate elements designated by a specific language grammar. Syntax errors are either prevented altogether or corrected immediately in context.Earlier structure editors often traded their syntax error prevention functionality for highly constrained and clumsy user interfaces. GENIE environments gracefully integrate text and structure editing, such that they have the "look and feel" of a good text editor, with the "intelligence" of a syntax directed structure editor.Through access to a common structure editor data base, GENIE environments combine many advanced tools for program design, comprehension and testing, all integrated in a single, uniform Macintosh user interface. Student program structures are maintained in "unparse" trees which can be mapped to and from text and graphics in many novel ways not constrained by a language's concrete syntax.[3] Different views of a common program database can be displayed and modified concurrently, emphasizing structure and design as well as implementation detail. [4] Similarly, arbitrary pieces of program structure can be hidden from view or displayed at will.At run time GENIE program can be traced at the level of expressions. Graphical data visualizations displaying arbitrary combinations of structured types are updated dynamically during run time and displayed in a representation of the program call stack. [5] Other notable GENIE features include an extensive contextual help system and a "notes" feature useful for project management, course assignments and "on-line" grading.User studies have been conducted at several universities and secondary schools throughout the United States. [6, 7, 8, 9] GENIE students in demanding courses have performed strikingly better than have students using other commercially available Macintosh software configurations.

Mathematics plays a vital role in a student's academic as well as everyday life. A large number of students experience mathematics anxiety, which negatively affects their performance in educational settings. The present study aimed to examine the overall level of mathematics anxiety among secondary students and also aimed to compare the mathematics anxiety based on demographical variables such as gender, type of school and medium of instruction. This study adopted a cross-sectional survey research design to conduct the study, and a total number of 220 secondary school students (13-15 years old) were selected as the sample through non-proportional stratified sampling techniques. The relevant data were collected using a standardized Mathematics Anxiety Scale and the collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics and t-tests. The findings of the study revealed that secondary school students experience a moderate level of mathematics anxiety. Further, the study revealed significant differences between male and female students, with male students showing higher mathematics anxiety in comparison to female students. Government secondary school students experience a higher mathematical anxiety compared to the private secondary school students and students who are studying in Odia medium secondary school had higher levels of mathematics anxiety than their English medium counterparts. The overall findings indicate that mathematics anxiety is influenced by various factors such as contextual, institutional, and medium of instruction. The study highlights the need for learner-friendly, concept-based, and supportive teaching practices to reduce mathematics anxiety among secondary school students. Improving instructional resources, reducing examination pressure, and adopting context-sensitive pedagogy may help in enhancing students’ confidence and performance in mathematics.

Since Arduino is the main entry-level platform to the world of electronic circuits and systems, there are many programming environments that try to ease the burden of Arduino textual programming on young primary students. Although block-based, most of these environments retain the imperative structures of textual programming languages, which are not easily comprehensible by such students. The proposed, in this paper, Learning-Arduino-With-Rules Introductory System (LAWRIS) tries to tackle this problem by adopting a rule-based approach: an Arduino-based pre-specified system can be programmed by constructing rules with very simple and intuitive jigsaw pieces, in a visual, web-based environment. Contrary to other programming environments for Arduino, the main logic of LAWRIS is implemented on the board side and only a configuration string is downloaded to it. Thus, LAWRIS features fast responses to both circuit input changes and program modifications, a very important characteristic for young students. It also imposes minimal overhead on the host system, allows web access of the programming environment, and has very low hardware cost.

This study aims to explain the attitude and perception of Sudanese EFL secondary school students towards learning literature to enrich their vocabulary. The study is unique as the researchers believe that no significant research in the undertaken area has been conducted in secondary schools in Sudan. The study sample consists of seventy-nine subjects: thirty girls, thirty-five boys, and fourteen teachers from Ahfad Secondary School in Khartoum. This study investigated vocabulary acquisition challenges faced by secondary school students of Ahfad due to lack of interest, lack of good study material for literature, lack of experienced and well-qualified teachers, lack of modern techniques in the EFL classroom, and the implementation of a designed curriculum. Secondary students can engage in meaningful active communication in English if they have good vocabulary, and literature is the most effective way to expand vocabulary. The study adopted qualitative methodology using a questionnaire and vocabulary building activities to perceive how literature helps vocabulary acquisition. The study results showed that the EFL subjects positively enriched their vocabulary through the existing curriculum. EFL teachers should use innovative methods to inculcate vocabulary acquisition in the heart of the EFL students to develop the spirit of reading sections.

The problem for the research. Listening skills are important for a modern person in many areas of life: at work, at home, travelling the world, etc., when immersed in the social space of culture in the fullness of its spiritual meanings. However, in school teaching of foreign languages, there is a contradiction between the large reserve listening capabilities in achieving students’ personal, metasubject and subject educational results in a foreign language and the established practice of teaching this type of foreign-language speech activity, where there are many difficulties associated with students’ perception and understanding of foreign-language information by ear. Methods of investigation. 50 ninth-graders of secondary school named after S. S. Rakitina in Murashi, Kirov Region (Russian Federation) took part in pilot testing. To obtain personal learning results, the “Methodology for studying the motivation of teaching older adolescents” was used; metasubject – L. F. Tikhomirova’s “Exclude the word” method; subject (in the field of foreign-language listening) – the method for calculating the success rate of V. P. Bespalko and A. N. Shamov. The results were processed using the sign test. The findings of the study. The final control revealed an increase in the level of proficiency in personal learning outcomes in 40% of ninth-graders; metasubject – in 45%; subject – in 61%. The reliability of the presented results is confirmed by the use of mathematical statistics methods for personal, metasubject and subject results. The results of calculating the criterion of G-signs in the experimental group: Gemp. is above ≤ Gcr.: 0 ≤ 3 for personal, 0 ≤ 5 for metasubject and subject results (p &lt; 0.05). Conclusion. The purpose of the study is achieved: the article describes the characteristics and proves the effectiveness of using the problem-oriented stimulus in the process of teaching foreign-language listening in a secondary school (based on materials from the senior stage in secondary school). The theoretical foundation and testing of a set of exercises for teaching students foreign-language listening using the components of the problem-oriented stimulus led us to the conclusion that the presented exercises contribute to the formation of personal and metasubject universal educational actions of students, increases the level of their proficiency in the oral receptive type of foreign-language speech activity.

Research in astronomy education has uncovered that many learners possess limited and fragmented understanding of stars. The corresponding misconceptions manifest in various areas such as star formation, size, the relationship between stars and planets, and their position in space and have been shown to persist across different age groups and educational settings, highlighting the need for further investigation. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study that examines secondary students’ views of stars and their evolution throughout their secondary school education. We designed and evaluated an instrument for assessing students’ views of stars in five domains (stars and the solar system, formation and evolution of stars, general properties and motion of stars, (sub-)stellar objects, as well as color and brightness). The instrument creation process involved several steps, including literature-based item development, an expert survey with faculty members, and a quantitative pilot study with a sample of N=390 secondary school and college students. This process led to a final version of the instrument that exhibits good psychometric properties. We used this new instrument in a cross-age study to investigate the alignment of secondary students’ ideas about stars with scientific views across different stages of secondary education. The sample of this main study comprised a total of N=366 learners, including 148 lower (aged 13–14 years), 151 middle (aged 15–16 years), and 67 upper (aged 17–18 years) secondary school students. Our study findings reveal a progressive development of students’ perspectives on star-related topics throughout their school education: Using analyses of variance and conducting pairwise post hoc comparisons, we observed a statistically significant increase in the proportion of responses aligning with scientific views across all aspects of stars examined in this study, as students progressed from lower secondary to upper secondary levels. We further report on widely held views of stars among our study participants that do not align with the scientific views and discuss the implications of our findings for both educational research and practice.