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Featured researches published by Bruce Waldrip.


International Journal of Science Education | 2006

An Exploratory Study of Teachers’ and Students’ Use of Multi‐modal Representations of Concepts in Primary Science

Vaughan Prain; Bruce Waldrip

As part of a long‐term research study to enhance science learning, this paper reports on an exploratory study aimed at identifying initial beliefs and practices of a group of teachers and students (Years 4–6) in Australia when the students engaged with multiple representations of the same science concepts. There is growing recognition in science education research that students need to understand and link different representational modes, such as graphic and verbal modes, in learning to think and act scientifically. This exploratory study used a multi‐site case‐study approach employing qualitative and quantitative methods. The findings indicated that while teachers used various modes to engage students and assess learning, they were not systematic in their focus on student integration and translation across modes. The study found that various factors affected students’ understanding of different modes, and that students who recognised relationships between modes demonstrated better conceptual understandings than students who lacked this knowledge.


Archive | 2013

Constructing representations to learn in science

Russell Tytler; Vaughan Prain; Peter Hubber; Bruce Waldrip

Current research into student learning in science has shifted attention from the traditional cognitivist perspectives of conceptual change to socio-cultural and semiotic perspectives that characterize learning in terms of induction into disciplinary literacy practices. This book builds on recent interest in the role of representations in learning to argue for a pedagogical practice based on students actively generating and exploring representations. The book describes a sustained inquiry in which the authors worked with primary and secondary teachers of science, on key topics identified as problematic in the research literature. Data from classroom video, teacher interviews and student artifacts were used to develop and validate a set of pedagogical principles and explore student learning and teacher change issues. The authors argue the theoretical and practical case for a representational focus. The pedagogical approach is illustrated and explored in terms of the role of representation to support quality student learning in science. Separate chapters address the implications of this perspective and practice for structuring sequences around different concepts, reasoning and inquiry in science, models and model based reasoning, the nature of concepts and learning, teacher change, and assessment. The authors argue that this representational focus leads to significantly enhanced student learning, and has the effect of offering new and productive perspectives and approaches for a number of contemporary strands of thinking in science education including conceptual change, inquiry, scientific literacy, and a focus on the epistemic nature of science.


Chemistry Education Research and Practice | 2009

Students' Dilemmas in Reaction Stoichiometry Problem Solving: Deducing the Limiting Reagent in Chemical Reactions

A. L. Chandrasegaran; David F. Treagust; Bruce Waldrip; Antonia Chandrasegaran

A qualitative case study was conducted to investigate the understanding of the limiting reagent concept and the strategies used by five Year 11 students when solving four reaction stoichiometry problems. Students’ written problem-solving strategies were studied using the think-aloud protocol during problem-solving, and retrospective verbalisations after each activity. Contrary to several findings reported in the research literature, the two high-achieving students in the study tended to rely on the use of a memorised formula to deduce the limiting reagent, by comparing the actual mole ratio of the reactants with the stoichiometric mole ratio. The other three average-achieving students, however, generally deduced the limiting reagent from first principles, using the stoichiometry of the balanced chemical equation. Overall, the students displayed limited confidence during problem-solving to determine the limiting reagent and to perform related computations.


British Educational Research Journal | 2012

Personalised learning: lessons to be learnt

Vaughan Prain; Peter Cox; Craig Deed; Jeffrey P. Dorman; Debra Edwards; Cathleen Farrelly; Mary Keeffe; Valerie Lovejoy; Lucy Mow; Peter Sellings; Bruce Waldrip; Zali Yager

Personalised learning is now broadly endorsed as a key strategy to improve student curricular engagement and academic attainment, but there is also strong critique of this construct. We review claims made for this approach, as well as concerns about its conceptual coherence and effects on different learner cohorts. Drawing on literature around differentiation of the curriculum, self-regulated learning, and ‘relational agency’ we propose a framework for conceptualising and enacting this construct. We then report on an attempt to introduce personalised learning as one strategy, among several, to improve student academic performance and wellbeing in four low SES regional secondary schools in Australia. We report on a survey of 2407 students’ perceptions of the extent to which their school provided a personalised learning environment, and a case study of a programme within one school that aimed to apply a personalised approach to the mathematics curriculum. We found that while there were ongoing challenges in this approach, there was also evidence of success in the mathematics case.


Constructing representations to learn in science | 2013

Teachers’ Initial Response to a Representational Focus

Bruce Waldrip; Vaughan Prain

In focusing on the role of representation in learning science, our early studies (2004–2007) sought to identify primary and junior secondary science teachers’ beliefs and practices around this aspect of science teaching and learning. We knew that teachers routinely incorporated different representational modes in science topics to motivate students and also expected students to describe, measure, and report findings from inquiries using appropriate scientific language or discourse.


International Journal of Science Education | 2007

Upper Secondary Bruneian Science Students’ Perceptions of Assessment

Harkirat S. Dhindsa; Khalid Omar; Bruce Waldrip

The aims of this study were to evaluate reliability and validity of the Students’ Perception of Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ), to evaluate students’ perception on assessment, and to evaluate gender‐based, grade‐based, and ethnicity‐based differences in students’ perceptions. The validity and reliability coefficients revealed that the SPAQ was suitable for assessing students’ perceptions on five assessment dimensions. The average scale‐item mean values for all the scales were less than 3.0, which indicates a need to address these dimensions of assessment at classroom level. The mean value for Student Consultation scale was 1.96 out of 4, indicating a need for special attention in this area. The perceptions of students grouped on the basis of gender and of grade level groups were comparable, but on the basis of ethnic groups were statistically significantly different. Assuming these differences to be real, does it mean that teaching approaches will need to be addressed? Future research in this area is warranted.


Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education | 2008

A Study of Teachers’ Perspectives About Using Multimodal Representations of Concepts to Enhance Science Learning

Vaughan Prain; Bruce Waldrip

This article reports on initial findings of a study that aims to devise, trial, and evaluate teaching and learning strategies to improve students’ learning of science in the middle years in schools in regional Australia through a focus on multiple and multimodal representations of science concepts. Initially, 20 teachers were surveyed about their planning and usage of different representational modes. These teachers tended to focus on resources and students’ learning styles rather than modal variation, sometimes confusing modes and resources. Few teachers expected students to be able to represent the same concept in different modes as part of understanding science. In this article we report in detail the beliefs and practices of two elementary teachers in the survey who focused on the value of representational diversity in learning science. In analyzing their beliefs and practices we identified some key implementation issues in pursuing this multimodal focus.RésuméCet article rend compte des premiers résultats d’une étude visant à mettre au point, à tester et à é valuer les stratégies d’enseignement et d’apprentissage afin d’améliorer l’apprentissage des sciences chez les élèves du premier cycle du secondaire dans les écoles régionales australiennes, grâce à une attention toute particulière pour les représentations multimodales et multiples des concepts scientifiques. Au début de l’étude, 20 enseignants ont fait l’objet d’une enquête sur les façons dont ils planifiaient et utilisaient les différents modes représentationnels. Ces enseignants tendaient à se concentrer sur les ressources et les styles d’apprentissage des étudiants plutôt que sur les variations modales, et confondaient parfois les modes et les ressources. Peu d’enseignants s’attendaient à ce que les élèves soient en mesure de représenter le même concept en se servant de différentes modalités. Dans cet article, nous présentons en détail les convictions et pratiques de deux enseignants au niveau élémentaire ayant participé à l’enquête, lesquels ont centré leur attention sur la valeur de la diversité représentationnelle en apprentissage des sciences. Dans notre analyse, nous avons déterminé la portée de certaines questions clés en matière de représentations multimodales.


Second international handbook of science education | 2012

Learning From and Through Representations in Science

Bruce Waldrip; Vaughan Prain

In this chapter, we review the two main current approaches to researching student acquisition of the literacies of science, defined as student capacity to interpret and construct science texts. Researchers have tended to focus on either analysis and construction of expert representations as a basis for investigating factors affecting student learning from interactions with these representations, or on learning outcomes when students, with teacher guidance, generate and justify their own representations. We identify strengths and challenges in each focus as well as future research agendas in this field.


Constructing representations to learn in science | 2013

A Representation Construction Approach

Russell Tytler; Peter Hubber; Vaughan Prain; Bruce Waldrip

In this chapter we lay out the principles of an approach to teaching and learning science based on student generation, negotiation and refinement of representations in a guided inquiry process. We first tell the story of how we developed this perspective, building on Chapters 1 and 2, and the research approach that led to these principles.


Research in Science & Technological Education | 2009

Identifying exemplary science teachers through their students’ perceptions of the assessment process

Bruce Waldrip; Darrell Fisher; Jeffrey P. Dorman

This paper reports on part of a large‐scale study aimed at examining students’ perceptions of assessment. This paper will report on a study utilising mixed methodology in 150 Australian middle school classrooms. The purpose of the study described in this paper was to use the Students’ Perceptions of Assessment Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (SPAQ) to identify and describe exemplary science teachers. With a sample of over 3000 science students, the reliability of the SPAQ scales ranged from 0.62 to 0.82. The exemplary teachers were identified as those whose students’ perceptions were more than one standard deviation above the mean on three of the five scales of Congruence with planned learning, Transparency, Authenticity, Student consultation, and Diversity. The construct validity of the SPAQ to identify these exemplary teachers was confirmed through interviews with students and these views are reported in the article.

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Jeffrey P. Dorman

Australian Catholic University

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Darrell L. Fisher

University of Southern Queensland

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