Races of humans exist only as socially defined constructs.  It is widely believed that there is a difference in educational  achievement between the major "races" in America - "blacks" and "whites".  The objective here was to test the veracity of this belief by studying a population that was relatively homogenous on parental occupation.  This study found that in a population of 133 13 to 14 year old science students in an affluent public middle school, there was no gap between the academic achievement of students categorized as "black" and students categorized as "white".  Stratifying by parental occupation eliminated any distinction.  "Asian" students outperformed all other students.   Solving the inequities in education should involve consideration of parental occupation.

In this paper, the categories and influence of teachers’ classroom characteristics relative to effective mathematics teaching in secondary schools in Plateau state, Nigeria were examined. The aim was to see how students are assisted to learn mathematics from teachers engaging fully their professional practices fully. Exploratory and descriptive survey research methods were used to examine the trajectories. Sample for the study consisted of 60 trained mathematics teachers from secondary schools in Plateau state that participated in a week-long capacity building workshop on teaching new concepts from secondary school mathematics curriculum in Nigeria organized recently by the state chapter of the Mathematics Association of Nigeria. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample based on the fact that the study targeted only mathematics teachers that participated in the capacity building workshop. A 52-item TCCQ on teacher effectiveness, interest, rapport with students, etc. was used for data collection. The findings from the study revealed that mathematics teachers’ ability to teach effectively is significantly associated with many factors including the use of different strategies (χ2=52.75), revision (χ2=47.13), good lesson plans (χ2=53.93) and being friendly with students (χ2=35.66). There was no significant variation regarding how the characteristics influence teacher effectiveness based on qualification (F2, 58=0.689). Among other things, therefore, it was recommended that teachers should be committed to teaching mathematics effectively in the classroom by taking cognizance of the variables especially designing of good lesson plans and previous knowledge irrespective of their qualifications.

Research on students’ perceptions of scientists is ongoing, starting with early research by Mead and Metraux in the 1950s and continuing in the present. Continued research interest in this area is likely due to scholarship suggesting adolescents’ impressions of scientists are sourced in-part from media, which influence their interests in science and identity in becoming a scientist. A significant source of images, in which adolescents (or middle school students) view science and scientists, is in their science textbooks. A qualitative content analysis explored images of scientists in three of the major U.S.-based middle grade science textbooks published in the new millennium: sixth grade biology, seventh grade earth science, and eighth grade physical science. The Draw A Scientist Test (DAST) Checklist was employed to assess scientists’ images and the stereotypes therein. From nine textbooks, 435 images of scientists were coded and analyzed by publisher and grade level / area by DAST constructs of appearance, location, careers, and scientific activities. Statistical analyses showed significant variances between grade levels and textbook publishers of scientists. Despite scientists portrayed in active endeavors, traditional tropes of the scowling, older, solitary, white male scientist persist. This study offers insight in leveraging improved images of scientists in textbooks.

The current study investigated whether: (1) using an interactive presentation (IP) platform could affect the amount of usage of the practices of making orchestrating mathematical discourse- sequencing and connecting students' responses. (2) using an interactive presentation (IP) platform could affect the amount of narratives constructed by students. Fifty seventh-grade students participated in the study; those students were divided into control and experimental groups. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed based on voice recordings and field notes. The results revealed that the teacher using (IP) asked nearly three times more questions that connected students’ responses (i.e., questions that involved valuing students' ideas, exploring students' answers, incorporating students’ background knowledge, and encouraging student-to-student communication). We also saw that the students participated in the learning processes. The students in the experimental group presented three times as many narratives as those in the control group. We present several excerpts from the transcripts of the classroom discussions to illustrate our findings. Discussion of the implications and limitations of these results and make recommendations based on those results.

The diversity of definitions of science literacy has resulted in a diversity of measurement tools. However, adult science literacy is mainly assessed on short standardized and non-contextualized questions, thus making the study of adult science literacy more qualitative than quantitative. Here we describe the rationale, development, and validation of a questionnaire that associates the use of science in the specific science-related setting of parents of hard of hearing children with general and topic-specific science knowledge. The questionnaire went through four developmental steps: (1) gathering input from hearing rehabilitation experts and parents, (2) testing the close-ended questionnaire (n=10), (3) open-ended questionnaire (n=24), (4) online close-ended questionnaire (n=91). These all assessed general science knowledge, contextual science knowledge in the field of hearing and parents' advocacy knowledge and attitudes. These steps and the resulting assessment tool can thus inform the further development of measures of adult science literacy in context. The findings suggest that although general science knowledge enables the application of science to everyday science-related problems it only explained a small proportion of the variance in contextual science knowledge. Thus, the results strongly point to the importance of measuring adults' science literacy in a context that is relevant to the responders. The findings also underscored the disappointing outcomes of secondary science education, in that formal scientific background predicted general science knowledge but did not account for contextual science knowledge at all. This should elicit concern as to the ability of students to use science knowledge in future personally important science related contexts.

This study aims to describe the implication of the Aptitude Treatment Interaction (ATI) model integrated with character values to increase the students’ skill in solving mathematics story problems. This study applied a quasi-experimental research type using a non-equivalent control group design involving two classes with 30 students each. Data was collected using a test instrument for solving mathematics story problem. Data were analyzed using n-gain descriptive statistical analysis to see the increase in students' skill in solving mathematics story world problems. The results showed that the average score of student's aptitude in solving mathematics story problems is 91.26 which is in the category of very high. There is an increase in the students’ ability with score of an n-gain of 0.77 which is in the category of high. In addition, the results of observations related to the implementation of learning model of the ATI with a percentage of 87.5% in the category of very good. Thus, the character-based ATI learning model can be used to increase the students’ skill in solving mathematics story problem. In addition, it accommodates the character of students who are concerned with learning mathematics so that learning goals can be achieved both from cognitive and attitudinal aspects.

Scaffolding dialogue is a concept in learning that refers to the support or assistance given to individuals during the dialogue process. The main objective of this research is to create a basic structure of dialogue to help and support students during the learning process in improving their algebraic reasoning skills. Algebraic reasoning is a process in which students generalize mathematical ideas from a certain set of examples, establish these generalizations through argumentative discourse, and express them in a formal and age-appropriate way. The study was designed using the grounded theory qualitative model method, which used three sequential steps: open coding, selective coding, and theoretical coding. The research was conducted on students of the mathematics education department at Universitas Islam Sultan Agung. Data collection methods include algebraic reasoning ability tests, questionnaires, and interviews. Data analysis in grounded theory is an iterative and non-linear process that requires researchers to constantly move back and forth between data collection and analysis. This process aims to produce a theory that is valid and can explain phenomena well based on empirical data obtained during research. The dialogue scaffolding strategy framework in improving students' algebraic reasoning abilities includes instructing, locating, identifying, modeling, advocating, exploring, reformulating, challenging, and evaluating.