Volume 98 (7), November 1998

Table of Contents

Abstracts

Table of Contents

Abstracts

• Preservice Teachers' Understanding of Perimeter and Area

Ramakrishnan Menon
The Ohio State University at Lima


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        Forty-four postgraduate (elementary school) preservice teachers were given four tasks, two to assess their understanding of perimeter and two to assess their understanding of area. The teachers were asked to prepare a question that would assess student understanding of perimeter. Then they were given three problems and asked to decide whether the problems had sufficient information for a solution. The type of question prepared for the first task and the number of preservice teachers who stated that the other three tasks had insufficient information indicate a procedural understanding of perimeter and area, rather than a conceptual and relational understanding.

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• Single-sex Classes: Female Physics Students State Their Case

Janice Streitmatter
University of Arizona


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        Since the passage of Title IX in 1972, gender equity has been addressed through means that reflect inclusion and integration by gender. Recent Supreme Court decisions such as the one deeming the Virginia Military Institute's admission policies to be unlawfully discriminatory against women suggest a reinforced and perhaps narrowed interpretation of appropriate means for attaining gender equity in public schools. This case and others also suggest that publicly funded single-sex programs may be in jeopardy. This study examines data collected from a girls-only physics class in a public coeducational high school. Interview and observation data from this class, as well as from a coeducational physics class taught by the same teacher, illustrate that the girls in the single-sex class made substantial gains in both academic achievement and in perceptions of themselves as competent learners of science.

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• International Achievement Comparison: Interesting Debates on Inconclusive Findings

Jianjun Wang
California State University, Bakersfield


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        International achievement comparison has drawn dramatic attention from the American public. However, the empirical findings have been quite confusing, due to conflicting interpretations disseminated in the research community. Evolution of the existing debates is reviewed in this article with emphases on some of the TIMSS responses relevant to educational practitioners. Technical issues in developing free-response items, conducting curriculum analyses, and evaluating videotape finding are also highlighted to penetrate potentially overlooked aspects of TIMSS. The balanced discussion illustrates some of the inconclusive features in comparative education.

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• The Authority of the Calculator in the Minds of College Students

Bob Glasgow, Southwest Baptist University
Barbara J. Reys, University of Missouri-Columbia


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        A group of 25 undergraduate students was given seven estimation tasks that involved computation of whole or decimal numbers. The subjects (10 elementary education majors, 7 mathematics majors, and 8 undecided or premajors) were selected because of high achievement in their current college mathematics class. They were asked to estimate an answer to a computational task and then use a calculator provided by the researchers to determine the exact answer. The calculator had been programmed to give incorrect answers that were increasingly higher than the actual answer (beginning witha 10% error and ending with a 50% error). While the majority of subjects produced reasonable estimates, only 7 of the 25 students questioned the accuracy of the answers produced on the calculator. The study points out the subjects' lack of confidence in estimation skills, as well as a reluctance to question calculator produced results.

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• Contemplating Criteria for Science Education Reform: The Case of the Olympia School District

Deborah Tippins, University of Georgia
Katherine Weiseman, University of Oregon
Sharon E. Nichols, University of Texas at Austin


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        Proposals for current reform in science ducation elaborate national standards and a plethora of state-level interpretations commonly labeled as curriculum or learning frameworks. The purpose of this case study was to examine the dynamics of the science curriculum reform process in one of the first school districts to use the Georgia Framework for Learning Mathematics and Science as a basis for their reform initiative. The paper describes the ways in which members of the Olympia School District's Science Curriculum Committee participated in the science curriculum reform process, as well as tiehr personal beliefs about the criteria needed for reform to take place. The results highlight the nature of metaphors guiding reform efforts; the influence of social, historical, economic, and political forces on the reform process; the use of local and professional languages as discourses for communicating about reform; and the complex power relations that influence the micropolitics of reform in the Olympia School District. This study has important implications for other teachers and school districts engaged in standards-based science curriculum reform. It points to the need for reform to include reflection and analysis of the role fo teachers in the reform process and consideration of the purpose of science education reform in society.

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