Problems of Education in The 21st Century, Vol. 70, 2016

Problems of Education in the 21st Century, ISSN 1822-7864 VOLUME 70, 2016
PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Scientific Methodical Center „Scientia Educologica“, Lithuania,

The Associated Member of Lithuanian Scientific Society, European Society for the History of
Science (ESHS) and ICASE (International Council of Associations for Science Education)
The articles appearing in this scientific collection are indexed, listed, and abstracted in:
Index Copernicus List of Journals Recognized by Polish Ministry of

EBSCO: Education Research Complete Science and Higher Education
Education Research Index Database Coverage List WebQualis (QUALIS/CAPES )
“Core” coverage trueserials.com
Central & Eastern European Academic Source PubGet
Database Coverage List (EBSCO-CEEAS) Excellence in Research for Australia ERA
Cabell Publishing, Inc., Directories of Academic (Australian Research Council ARC - Ranking
Journals Journal list)
JournalSeek Zeitschriftendatenbank (ZDB)
Ulrich`s Periodicals Directory / Global Serials Directory of Research Journal Indexing (DRJI)
Directory Academic Keys
The Asian Education Index Sjournals Index
SOCOLAR (China Educational Publications Import Open Academic Journals Index (OAJI)
& Export Corporation) Global Impact Factor (GIF)
List of Science Education Journals Scientific Indexing Services (SIS)
John Lamp’s IS Pages: ERA journals in a Field of GIGA Information Centre (Electronic Journals
Research Library)
PECOB (Portal on Central Eastern and Balkan Polish Scholarly Bibliography /PBN/ (Polska
Europe) Bibliografia Naukowa)
GESIS SocioGuide (Knowledge Base SSEE) European Reference Index for the Humanities and
Contemporary Science Association/AAP databases the Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS)
Electronic Serials in Lithuania ImpactFactor.pl
Publisher
Scientific Methodical Center „Scientia Educologica“, Lithuania, the Associated Member of Lithua-
nian Scientific Society, the Association of Lithuanian Serials, European Society for the History of
Science (ESHS) and International Council of Associations for Science Education (ICASE)
Editor-in-Chief
Dr., Prof. Vincentas Lamanauskas, Scientific Methodical Centre „Scientia Educologica“, Republic
of Lithuania
Editorial Board
Dr., Prof. Boris Aberšek, University of Maribor, Slovenia
Dr. Saleh A. Alabdulkareem, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia
Dr., Prof. Agnaldo Arroio, University of São Paulo, Brazil
Dr. Monica Baptista, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Dr., Prof. Martin Bilek, Hradec Kralove University, Czechia
Dr., Prof. Andris Broks, University of Latvia, Latvia
Dr. Paolo Bussotti, University of Udine, Italy
Dr. Muammer Calik, Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey
Dr., Prof. Janis Gedrovics, Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy, Latvia
Dr., Harun Yilmaz, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Turkey
Dr., Angela James, University of Kwazulu – Natal, South Africa
Dr., Prof. Vladimir S. Karapetyan, Armenian State Pedagogical University named after
Kh. Abovyan, Armenia
Dr. Kuo-Hung Huang, National Chiayi University, Taiwan
Dr. Milan Kubiatko, University of Zilina, Slovakia
Dr., Prof. Miroslaw Kowalski, University of Zielona Gora, Poland
Dr. Todar T. Lakhvich, Belarusian State Medical University, Republic of Belarus
Dr. Eleonora Melnik, , “Vodlozersky” National park, Republic of Karelia, Russia
Dr., Prof. Danuše Nezvalova, Palacky University, Czechia
Dr., Prof. Yuriy Pelekh, National University of Water Management and Nature Resources Use,
Ukraine, Ukraine
Dr., Raffaele Pisano, University of Lille 1, France
Dr. Costin Pribeanu, National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics - ICI Bucur-
esti, Romania
Dr. Agneta Simeonsdotter Svensson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Dr. Uladzimir K. Slabin, University of Oregon, USA
Dr. Laima Railienė, Scientific Methodical Centre „Scientia Educologica“, Republic of Lithuania
Dr., Prof. Borislav V. Toshev, Sofia University, Bulgaria
Dr., Prof. Milan Turčani, Constantine the Philosopher University, Slovakia
Dr., Prof. Nicos Valanides, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Copyright of this volume is the property of Scientific Methodical Centre “Scientia Educologica” and Scientia
Socialis, Lithuania. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with
proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings
Index Copernicus (IC™ Value): 90.09 (2014)

Global Impact Factor (GIF): 0.652 (2015).
Problems of Education in the 21st Century is an international, periodical, peer reviewed scientific journal, is-
sued by the SMC „Scientia Educologica“ in Cooperation with Scientia Socialis. PEC is published bimonthly.
Address: Scientific Methodical Centre “Scientia Educologica”
Donelaičio Street 29, LT-78115 Siauliai, Lithuania
E-mail: problemsofeducation@gmail.com
Phone: +370 687 95668
WEB pages: http://www.jbse.webinfo.lt/Problems_of_Education.htm; http://www.scientiasocialis.lt/pec/
ISSN 1822-7864 © SMC „Scientia Educologica“ & Scientia Socialis, Lithuania, 2016
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Contents 3
Editorial
TEACHING WITH ANALOGIES: EXAMPLES OF A SELF-HEALING POROUS MATERIAL

Boris Aberšek ........................................................................................................... 4
Articles
HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE GROWTH OF MENIAL JOBS

Łukasz Albański ........................................................................................................ 8
PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF AN

ADVANCED CERTIFICATE IN EDUCATION
Sarah Bansilal, Angela James .........................................................................................21
REFLECTIONS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TEACHERS TEACHING

UNDER ADVERSARIAL CONDITIONS
Sarah Bansilal, Thelma Rosenberg ................................................................................... 34
SMALL GROUP LEARNING METHODS AND THEIR EFFECT

ON LEARNERS’ RELATIONSHIPS
Radka Borůvková, Petr Emanovský ................................................................................. 45
AUTHENTIC SCIENCE EXPERIENCES: PRE-COLLEGIATE SCIENCE EDUCATORS’

SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES DURING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Andrea C. Burrows, Michael A. DiPompeo, Adam D. Myers, Ryan C. Hickox, Mike Borowczak,
Debbie A. French, Andria C. Schwortz .............................................................................. 59
Information
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS ......................................................................... 74
QUALITY ISSUES AND INSIGHTS IN THE 21st CENTURY .......................................... 76
PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY IN THE 21st CENTURY ................................................ 77
PROBLEMS OF MANAGEMENT IN THE 21st CENTURY .............................................. 78
2nd INTERNATIONAL BALTIC SYMPOSIUM ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

EDUCATION (BalticSTE2017) .................................................................................. 79
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
4
TEACHING WITH ANALOGIES: EXAMPLES
OF A SELF-HEALING POROUS MATERIAL
Boris Aberšek
University of Maribor, Slovenia
E-mail: boris.abersek@um.si
As disciplines reach maturity, a dynamic meta-structure is needed, which facilitates

merging and new divisions of disciplines. Under such a meta-structure, the disciplines propel
the evolution of knowledge, but adapt themselves when driving forces emerge sufficient to
provoke their adaptation (Suarez-Orozco, Satin-Bajaj, 2010). This means that on the science,
technology, engineering and math (STEM) education must give transdisciplinary view (Flogie,
Aberšek, 2015). Science-education research studies and STEM teachers’ classroom experiences
have shown that analogies and transdisciplinar point of view, when used properly, can help
make science concepts meaningful to students.
Throughout the history, analogies have played an important role in scientific discoveries,
not as proof, but as inspiration. Analogies have also played an important role in explaining
those discoveries (Kaiser, 1989). Science teachers, like scientists, frequently use analogies to
explain concepts to students (James, Scharmann, 2007). The analogies serve as initial models,
or simple representations, of science concepts.
Effective analogy use fosters understanding and avoids misconceptions (Duit, Roth,
Komorek, Wilbers, 2001). In order to use analogies effectively, it is important to understand
exactly what an analogy is, how it can help learning, and what kind of analogy is best. So we
need explanation, logical explanation summarized in the following schema (Hempel, 1970):
An analogy is a comparison of the similarities of two concepts (Hempel, 1970). The

familiar concept is called the analog (explanans) and the unfamiliar one the target (explanandum).
Both the analog and the target have features (also called attributes). If the analog and the target
share similar features, an analogy can be drawn between them.
ISSN 1822-7864
Boris ABERŠEK. Teaching with analogies: Examples of a self-healing porous material
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Figure 1: A conceptual representation of an analogy, with its constituent parts.
A systematic comparison, verbally or visually, between the features of the analog and
target is called a mapping. A conceptual representation of an analogy, with its constituent parts,
appears in Figure 1.
From Nature to Engineering Design

Bones appear to be a solid and strength substance in our bodies that make up our skeleton.
They don’t seem to change much after our teenage years. Actually, bone is a dynamic tissue
that is constantly being destroyed and reformed in a process known as bone remodelling (self-
healing). There are two main cells involved in this process, osteoblasts, the cells that create
bone, and osteoclasts, the cells that remove bone. With analogy and appropriate mathematical
model it is also possible to explain artificial self-healing material, as it is shown in figure 2
Figure 2: A conceptual representation of an analogy, from natural to artificial

self-healing material.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
6 The normal bone model (Komarova, Smith, Dixon, Wahl, 2003) is a discrete site
model for single event remodelling and internally regulated cycles of remodelling. When a
mathematical model is built, it can be adapted and used for a variety of materials, including
artificial ones. In such a way, through mathematics and analogy method we can connect base
science (biology, physics, chemistry) with their application (technology and engineering) and
understanding of the natural process can help to understand how man can recreate the natural
processes and produce an artificial material. We can transform the remodelling rule according
to Figures 2 and 3. Remodelling algorithm could be used for different class of materials (Ren,
Vesenjak, Öchsner, 2008).
Figure 3: Remodelling rule.
As Duit et al. (2001) noted, “Analogical reasoning is a key feature of learning processes
within a constructivist perspective: Every learning process includes a search for similarities be-
tween what is already known and the new, the familiar and the unfamiliar” (p. 285). STEAM teach-
ers should support students’ learning by using analogies effectively. The models presented here in
figures 2 and 3, which simulate the mechanical behaviour of bone at the organ level, could also play
a significant opportunity to understand all other similar phenomena, which are not so well known,
as are artificial, bone similar materials
References
Duit, R., Roth, W. M., Komorek M., & Wilbers J. (2001). Fostering conceptual change by analogies –
between Scylla and Carybdis. Learning and Instruction, 11 (4), 283-303.
Flogie, A., Aberšek, B. (2015). Transdisciplinary approach of science, technology, engineering and
mathematics education. Journal of Baltic science education, 14 (6), 779-790.
Hempel, C. G. (1970). Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science.
New York: Free Press.
James, M. C., & Scharmann, L. C. (2007). Using analogies to improve the teaching performance of
preservice teachers. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44 (4), 565-585.
Kaiser, W. (1989). Analogien in Physik und Technik im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert [Analogies in physics and
technology in the 19th and 20th centuries]. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 12 (1), 19-34.
Komarova, S.V., Smith, R. J., Dixon, S. M., & Wahl, L. M. (2003). Mathematical model predicts a critical
role for osteoclast autocrine regulation in the control of bone remodeling. Bone, 33 (2), 206–215.
Ren, Z., Vesenjak, M., & Öchsner, A. (2008). Behaviour of cellular structures under impact loading - a
computational study. Materials Science Forum, 566, 53-60.
Suarez-Orozco, M. M., & Satin-Bajaj, C. (2010). Educating the whole child for the whole world. The
Ross School Model and education for the global era. New York and London: New York University
Press.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Received: April 20, 2016 Accepted: April 27, 2016
Boris Aberšek PhD., Professor, University of Maribor, Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics,
Koroška 160, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia.
E-mail: boris.abersek@um.si
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
8
HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE GROWTH
OF MENIAL JOBS
Łukasz Albański
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland
E-mail: lukasz.albanski@gmail.com
Abstract
Young people are confronting a world in which they may not achieve economic strides their parents
did. Almost all will have been awarded university degree, worth far less (in the terms and conditions
of their employment) than that of their parents, if they themselves graduated from university. In the
article the author discusses the relationship between higher education and stratification. The concepts
of meritocracy and credentialism are considered and a particular attention is paid to an equal/unequal
access to education dilemma. Discussed is why a liberal arts education is losing ground and why it
is being made a scapegoat for graduate unemployment. Does the nightmare of Weber’s “iron cage of
rationalization” come true and is the contemporary university in the service of an economic order with
all the related technical requirements of machine production? In the second part of the article the role of
meritocratic discourse and educational credential inflation is considered as well as the growth of menial
jobs for young people as a case in Poland.
Key words: education at post-secondary level, liberal arts, youth unemployment, inequality, Poland.
Introduction
In a very short piece of writing, Charles Fourier (1980, p.323) addresses the pertinent
question of who will do the dirty work in a humane society. His answer was as shocking as
it was not very serious. In the half-baked idea of the socialist colonies he envisaged, little
children would do the dirty work because children just love to play with dirt. Fourier, among
most classic authors within the utopian socialist tradition, writing in the age of the Industrial
Revolution, focused much of his attention on the impact on the human condition of the new
industrial mode of production. In this little essay, he arrived at a concrete problem that would
arise in the perfect world. Writing roughly a century after the Industrial Revolution, Thorstein
Veblen was in any doubt as to whether humankind would be always divided between those
who toil and those who manage to appropriate enough of the product of work for them to live
a life of leisure. His severe depiction of the lifestyles of the upper classes has greatly inspired
subsequent criticism of the ways of the affluent. Most recently the theory of a leisure class has
enjoyed something of a renaissance, because of the bitter parody of the “one-percenters” within
the American public discourse on issues of income and social inequality (Albański, 2014).
The stratification system with its “reward packages” of unequal value has been always
under sociological investigation and the patterns of considerable inequality have been vividly
described (Grusky, 1994). So far, all known societies have been characterized by inequalities of
some kind, with a privileged few enjoying a disproportionate share of the total wealth, power,
or prestige. Some of the ideas of social inequalities have been even deeply ingrained in the
tradition of public discussions. Despite general animosity towards inequalities, many people
can accept all kinds of inequalities as long as they can imagine different outcomes. There
are no obvious external barriers forcibly preventing them from assessing personal and social
development. The restricted opportunities just made their possible success more of a challenge.
One of the most compelling universal expectations is future occupational achievements
and material success based on educational attainments. This societal expectation has been
ISSN 1822-7864
Łukasz ALBAŃSKI. Higher education and the growth of menial jobs
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
reinforced by studies that show the economic value of an education (OECD, 2012). It is 9
reasonable to assume that occupational outcomes rely solely on a work of true merit, which can
be broadly defined by educational attainment. Open and meritocratic distribution of credentials
can legitimize the system of social stratification, in as far as formal education is socially seen as
a channel through which social and economic equity for the general population can provide a
pathway for economic security and social integration (Brown 2001). Thus, the idea of education
as human capital investment constitutes the litmus test for meritocratic rule in societies (Becker,
1964). Moreover, a social system where people get power on the basis of their ability provides
a sort of solution to Fourier’s provocative question.
The logics of efficiency, however, let many people see a university degree primarily as
a ticket to a better life, and when higher education is more readily available to the population
at large, there is also a public concern on spending tax money on more practical and result-
oriented outcomes of expensive educational investments. In difficult financial times, there is
a great deal of pressure on young people to pick degrees that promise tangible benefits and
vocational training. The most recent economic downturn has tended to reinforce such claims,
especially with the hampering of employment opportunities for young people.
There has also occurred a polarization with better-paid jobs and menial jobs, which has
created a further demand for economic servants (Autor & Dorn, 2013). Perhaps, it is hardly
surprising that many graduates are engaged in the most elementary of occupations as a result of
the increase in work menial in nature rather than being involved in professional employment.
Then, if one was to add rising youth unemployment it might be expected rightly that many more
young adults will become either angry or depressed (Furlong & Cartmel, 2007). Meanwhile,
public support for higher education has weakened, because people have increasingly blamed
university for not being well-suited for labor market challenges. In respond to public grievances,
the politics of education is further and further subjected to economic systems, political ideologies
and dominant worldviews. Especially humanities and social sciences programs have been
targeted as those which hamper the full development of market forces (Côté & Allahar, 2011).
The analysis considers the issue of undermining liberal arts education at the post-
secondary level. This fact is even more disturbing if someone is attached to the belief that liberal
arts education can set us free from the confines of human ignorance. Nonetheless, the liberal
arts bias has enveloped the politics of education. Consequently, general university education
is perceived as if it had the same marketability as an applied education has. In addition, there
is a widespread mismatching of credentials in the labor market. As it happens, the collapse of
higher educational standards is driven by misguided policies. The research aims to explore
meritocratic discourses at play in the Polish context of credentials, the image of students as
economic units and investments in workforce. It argues that higher education principles are
reduced in contemporary policy context, dominated by neoliberal influences of reform and
competition, to pseudo-vocational training. In doing so, the second part of the article presents
some dominant views on higher education drawn from news websites of the leading Polish daily
newspapers such as Gazeta Prawna, Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita. It also provides a
basic insight into published data by the CBOS (Centre for Public Opinion Research) on the
university attendance and attainment in Poland.
(Un) equal Access to Higher Education
Higher education is perceived as one of the solid foundations of the welfare state. The way
in which university performs its public functions has undergone a profound transformation in
the past decades. What was once the privilege of a few affluent members of society has become
a broadly social entitlement, thanks mainly to governmental support. The transformation has
long attracted the interests of sociologists of education, because it arranges the basic interests
in stratification processes to socio-economic issues in the organization and management of
universities (Calhoun, 2006). The body of sociological literature has had as its mission to
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
10 deconstruct the notion of university as an institution of men of status and property (Bourdieu,
1996). Some studies have demonstrated that substantial academic advantages accrue to the
children of better off families (Furlong, 2009). The wider democratization of higher education
has brought important advances in a detailed knowledge of educational inequalities, but it has
also brought about a monumental challenge to the system of higher education: how to make
access to higher education more socially inclusive yet maintaining high standards high when it
is the affluent who can afford better schools and learning opportunities.
Broadened access to higher education available to the public at large does not imply
automatically any meritocratic distribution of the existing credentials. Instead of an educational
equality of opportunities, what is being observed is that the rising costs and escalating debts
to gain individual advantage through higher education degrees are likely to impoverish many
young people and their families even further, in what becomes a path to graduate unemployment
(Houle, 2013). The educational arms race has narrowed down educational possibilities to
an inflation of credentials and a new emphasis on credentials with high prestige and limited
availability. Randall Collins (2002) has warned that the easy availability of credentials can trigger
their inflation. When white collar jobs are scarce, many young adults perceive continuing study
as one of the last palatable options they have, thereby motivating them to stay on in university
longer. They predict that what will likely come next is a difficulty in finding secure jobs and
the actual impossibility to find the jobs they may have once aspired to. In the meantime, they
hope that the best response to the declining job value of their education will be the obtaining of
even more education.
However, when tertiary education increasingly helps in the absorbing of the labor surplus
by keeping young adults out of the labor force, this also raises public concerns. The public is
traditionally suspicious of the “true” beneficiaries of university education (Calhoun, 2006).
There is no difficulty in viewing university as removed from the discipline of production and
hence wholly devoted to the cultural standards of the leisure class. In the public mind, university
is perceived as a not very practical-oriented place with its specific old-age customs, that is,
too often, a wasteland for taxpayers’ money. Most taxpayers who graduated from university
long ago or who never attended university whatsoever are not attuned to what happens there,
but they just want to see the practical outcomes of the government’s spending of their taxes.
In fact, many potential students and their parents are asking the question as to the economic
credibility of higher education, especially in societies where the price of a degree is rising,
as a result of falling government subsidies (“Briefing”, 2014, June 28). There is the spread
of public sentiments in favor of utilitarian considerations. The issue of university is therefore
apparently limited to the returns in investing in a university education. Moreover, the question
as to what constitutes a high quality in higher education is narrowly addressed to the rate of
youth unemployment.
Increasingly the dominant idea of university has been rebranded to academic programs
that produce tangible results. At the same time, the channeling of students into academic
programs and the decline of vocational programs have raised the political question of the
promotion of pseudo-vocational training at post-secondary education level. Eventually many
new academic initiatives to combat unemployment among graduates have drifted towards the
course of pseudo-vocational training. Some academic programs have been reinvented to promise
that they will give students an edge in the competition for jobs. There has especially been a
constant drive to intensify the pressure of accountability on humanities and social sciences
programs. Although this ideology of higher education is based on the false premises that a
more rational-choice logic in education will produce more equality of opportunities and better
economic performance, it does provide some degree of a political solution to the introduction
of new meanings in educational inequality and graduate unemployment.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
An Unshakable Belief in Human Capital? 11
The commercialization of higher education goes counter to the idea of university as a

public institution, thereby eclipsing the education of citizens. The driving ethos of today’s public
university is to be trapped in the mindset of the corporation (Côté & Allahar, 2011). Firstly,
there is an expectation that academic scholarship will have clear quantifiable aims. Then, a
university education is instrumentally geared towards the specific needs of vocational training.
Thirdly, the “quality” in education is associated too often with accountability. Fourthly, in the
pursuit of its result-oriented mandate, university will follow the example of a business-run
organization. A corporatized type university will become engaged fully in commercial markets,
because each corporation thinks in terms of profits. The idea of education is thus justified by
their direct usefulness to the market.
The recognition that a university is a corporation will provide a growing sense of
disenchantment with some democratic and egalitarian concerns in society. On the contrary,
the elevation of democratic and egalitarian concerns in higher education lies at the bottom of
academic debates over the contemporary project of a university (Scott, 2006). It is important to
acknowledge that the university (perceived as a public institution) ought to embrace the broad
interest of the public at large. For social scientists, higher education has never been reduced to
the result of rational calculations. Neither has higher education primarily intended to develop
vocational skills. The focus is on the promotion of the education of citizens, who will constitute
an intelligent electorate (Calhoun, 2006).
Many social scientists tend to define education as “intellectual engagement.” For them,
the role of university subjected to the economic order with all the related technical requirements
of machine production depicts Max Weber’s iron cage of rationalization. In many ways, the
contemporary currents in the social sciences take issue with the reasoning behind the rational-
choice logic that is an important part of the discipline of economics on the meritocratic rules
over an individual’s achievements in education and occupational advancement. In particular,
the postmodernist party of academics sets fire to the concept of objective knowledge in favor
of socially constructed truths (Smith & Webster, 1997). In this process, however, postmodernist
academics are entirely preoccupied with identity debates. The fundaments of social authority
are subject to contestation by identity politics and academic requirements are questioned as
a result of bitter accusations of being biased against educational minorities. In their efforts,
postmodernist academics want to believe that they are fighting for a more diversified and hence
a more justifiable education. In fact, the humanities and the social sciences are strongly tied up
with distinct cultures and selected identities, but this fact is publicly recognized as a political
commitments dictate. In the eyes of the public, the liberal arts have been increasingly influenced
by political desires, associated with the privileged interests of distinct groups (gender, gay,
ethnic rights etc.), while they have forgotten about the universal values represented by an entire
society. Thus, paradoxically, those who initially promoted political correctness and social
justice are themselves accused of political biases (D’Souza, 1991). However, the core of public
criticism towards the humanities and social sciences is that they stop producing knowledge and
go into politics. Moreover, it does not help either that the language of academic debates often
becomes too socially hermetic and sophisticated to attune in any outsider.
An unintended side effect of permissive attitudes towards educational minorities driven
by the postmodernist agenda is that there is a general public perception that standards in
universities are falling, because they have to be lowered in order to accommodate the special
rights of minority groups. Especially, when academic credentials are no longer as solid and as
impeccable, the public want to be ensured greater transparency and accountability of higher
education. This means that students gaining access to a university education have the necessary
motivation and ability for the pursuit of higher education. They think of higher education in
terms of individual and societal investments. The result-oriented public mandate goes along
with the views on a university centered around rational business models. It is assumed that
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
12 the government and the taxpayer (subsidize higher education) should have a voice in the
decision-making process on how the public money is spent on universities and thus on how
universities are run, what kind of knowledge universities produce and on how responsible they
are to those who subside them (Calhoun, 2006). The public will is that the ethos of a modern
university embraces the vocational policy premised on the human capital dictate. Moreover,
a more corporate university body seems to be well attuned to public demands (“Briefing”,
2014, June 28). It seems to many people that the human capital accumulation process based
on meritocratic selection procedures will not abuse an individual’s sense of injustice, while
affirmative actions in higher education based on the collective rights of minorities will be forced
against academic standards and requirements and hence cost the individual advantage associated
with higher degrees. The corporate-type university appears to be well suited for such claims.
While the traditional idea of the university is understandably identified with a link between
the beneficiaries of university education and wealthy elites and the postmodernist idea of the
university identified with identity politics, the corporate-type university is overly preoccupied
with the bottom line (Scott, 2006). The pure business orientation does not seem to involve
any discriminatory measures against any particular group, because it is primarily focused on
profits and thus there is an assumption that in the market discrimination costs money, because
a discriminatory preference will affect productivity and profits. Moreover, the ceaseless quest
for profits suggests the greater propensity for the individual to ingratiate themselves within the
idea of university as a corporate. Multinational corporates provide the most striking instance
of a homogeneity of standards and procedures, otherwise work in a diversified environment.
Nevertheless, the main driver of the strong belief in human capital is the labor market.
The concept of human capital is narrowly applied to individual and societal investments in
education, which yield economic returns for those individuals and groups (Becker, 1964). Even
the recent economic downturn has not seriously renounced the commonly held belief in the
standard model of human capital in education, that is, a higher degree is an entry ticket to the
professional classes. The thinking of higher education in terms of the rational-choice logic
that is central to the human capital concept has become only more narrowed to be applied. As
innovations and job automation erase some job positions and change others, people will need
to top up their human capital throughout their entire lives (“Briefing”, 2014, June 28). The
dominant view is that university graduates have lower unemployment rates and higher salaries
than the overall population. The value of a degree is treated in the same way as anything else
in neoliberal economics, being boiled down to the supply and demand principle (Arrow, 1976).
The more persons who obtain advanced degrees, the more fierce competition among them for
elite jobs and the higher the educational requirements that can be demanded by employers. The
trend is considered as a part of the human capital logic, since firms seek to hire ever more of the
best educated workers and in fact, this is an endless process, while another look at the endless
pursuit of more education might bring more credential inflation to mind as well.
The logics of efficiency which are fundamental to the human capital approaches do not
necessarily describe a liberal arts education (Côté & Allahar, 2011). The concept of human
capital is successfully invoked to explain the outcomes for applied degrees, which are focused
on the concrete skills sought by employers. The humanities and the social sciences are not
defined well in terms of rationally strategic calculations. Neither is either of them primarily
dedicated to develop vocational skills. Although there are some efforts to assess their market
value, the humanities and the social sciences are applied to non-material based value systems.
As a result, one can be only educated (not trained) in the liberal arts. This means that the
acquisition of technical knowledge and the details instrumentally geared to meeting definable
goals do not envisage the humanities and the social sciences coping with the problems of
humanity. However, the human capital approaches which focus on the competency enhancing
potentials of vocational-type programs at university are intentionally blind to recognize that
education is also reliant on non-material values and norms that are not to be justified by their
marketability (Côté & Allahar, 2011). The humanities and the social sciences are usually framed
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
in the same scheme of evaluation so as to allow for the technical ascendency of the applied 13
sciences. It is not surprising that popular understanding elevates both mechanical culture and
practical knowledge with utilitarian concerns far higher than the stock of human knowledge in
the service of the liberal arts. The dire consequences of such preferences result in the sticking of
a label on the humanities and the social sciences as being intellectually inferior to the so-called
rocket sciences.
The logic of efficiency based on human capital advances a plausible explanation for
the gaining in popularity of the liberal arts programs though (Côté & Allahar, 2011). Due to
the facts that academic streams in the liberal arts are the cheapest to offer and the minimum
entrance requirement seems to be lower, it is more efficient to drag students into them than
provide the opportunity of increasing a number of students on applied science programs. Still,
the human capital approaches claim that these credentials are positioned as having a quality in
the status competition for jobs that employers use in selecting prospective employees, but the
emphasis is on jobs which do not require specialized and professional skills. Though this raises
several questions of integration into the workplace, underemployment and the signaling effect
of credential attainment. The notion that more education is better regardless of the type of that
education is here on shaky ground.
However, perhaps, what makes the belief in human capital so uncritically taken for
granted is that the concept of human capital offers a great degree of ambiguity about the course
of individual lives. More precisely, there is an abstract belief in possibility, which relies on
the confidence of individuals that they will be fully responsible to fulfill their socio-economic
destiny. However, the increasing complexity of the world economy means they will never
afford a knowledge of benefits and costs (Beck, 2000). A certain portion of uncertainty makes
it difficult to predict long-term outcomes. The very source of ambiguity is that the human
capital approaches to create the narrative about successful individuals who find themselves
overwhelmed by the prosperity they pursued and ultimately attained. Those people who failed
should blame themselves, because they located their individual resources in a bad investment.
The Role of Meritocratic Discourse and Educational Credential Inflation in Poland
In Poland, university attendance is 52% of the youth cohort, and it is on the way to
become commonplace in the education system. 74% of high school graduates go on to higher
education. 78% of the respondents perceive access to tertiary education as open and inclusive,
and thus they maintain the belief that there is mass tertiary education in Poland. Especially,
those who have a university degree (93%) are confident that everyone is able to be enrolled on
a university graduate program. In addition, they usually complain about academic requirements
and standards (51%). In their view, the academic standards are lowered in order to accommodate
the masses of students. The same opinion is accounted for by 47% of the respondents in general.
Among the critics of mass tertiary education, a distinct group is made up of employers (45%)
(CBOS, 2013a, CBOS, 2013b).
Nonetheless, the majority of the respondents (82%) still perceive educational degrees as
a currency of social respectability that can be profitably traded for access to better-paid white
collar jobs, yet an increasing number of university graduates emphasize the limited purchasing
power of their higher education diploma (57%). In this case, they think about pursuing the ever
more contested supply of rewarding jobs. 64% of the respondents believe that an engineering
diploma is a most valuable asset on the labor market. Roughly 50% of the respondents lay great
emphasis on prestige differentiations among identical credentials (CBOS, 2013b).
Roughly 85% of the respondents want their child to receive a university diploma.
Moreover, there are no significant differences between the respondents who are skeptical about
the value of higher education and those who remain confident. In fact, the respondents who have
a university diploma are highly motivated to give their child higher education opportunities. In
addition to their confidence, they often declare high expectations for a doctoral degree for
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
14 their child. Overall there is a declining number of respondents who are satisfied with technical
secondary education (from 24% in 1993 to 9% in 2013) (CBOS, 2013b).
The social surveys show that educational credential inflation builds on itself (CBOS,
2013a, CBOS, 2013b). Although an increasing number of the respondents criticize the mass
character of tertiary education and at the same time perceive the declining value of their diploma,
they do not resign from obtaining a university diploma for themselves and their children. The
educational aspirations of the respondents, apart from their own experiences with tertiary
education, seem to remain at a substantial level. They rightly expect that the more persons there
are who hold a university degree, the more competition there is among them to get a white
collar job. As long as such achievements or failures are understood rather individually than
structurally, the human capital narration is central to how individuals think of honing personal
careers. According to the respondents, it is clear enough that over their life careers, university
graduates generally do better than non-graduates occupationally and economically.
The Political Ideology of Higher Education
The topic of higher education regularly features in public and political debates. The
background of these debates lies in, on the one hand, an increasing focus on pressing problems
relating to demographic changes in the age structure of Polish society (especially fundamental
differences in universities’ revenues, employment in the higher education industry and the
number of institutions), and, on the other hand, rising costs, changing labor demand and
stagnant productivity, which have become prominent political issues. A common conclusion
drawn by politicians and policymakers is that the Polish higher education system failed to meet
labor market demands, and that a new set of reforms is needed. This does not mean, however,
that anyone suggests a revised approach to human capital and educational credential inflation
(Lewandowski & Magda, 2014). The logics of human capital led many policymakers to be
even more narrow-minded. There are no problems with the youth labor market, but universities
ignore the competency-enhancing potentials of vocational-type programs (Wesolowska, 2011,
Sendrowicz, 2014).
Two particular discursive frameworks play a significant role in constructing their
belief in education economics, one that emphasizes individual responsibility, and another
which problematizes youth unemployment and the poor marketable quality of universities.
They have come to increasingly dominate and shape the policy approach adopted. When it
comes to the discourse that emphasizes individual responsibility and critiques dependence on
social welfare provision, this provides an important part of the framework for graduates of the
humanities and the social sciences. Any liberal arts academic program does not adhere closely
to job marketability and hence liberal arts graduates must acknowledge that their university
credentials are not easily converted into job opportunities. In fact, their hopes for employment
are usually located within very limited and lower-paid institutional contexts such as the state
bureaucracy, art institutions and schools. Thus, the discourse generally emphasizes individual
responsibility for potential difficulties in finding a permanent job as well as generates feelings
about expected earnings and occupational outcomes (“Absolwenci idą na bezrobocie”, 2009,
October 19, Wielgórska 2012). At the same time, however, the discourse stresses that individual
effort is all that is required for success and continuously dismisses damages resulting from
educational credential inflation (“Absolwenci źle oceniają”, 2013, April 18). As a result, many
liberal arts graduates downplay the possibility of their education as a mobility trap factor and
make a general assumption that even good white collar jobs are scarce for them, those who
can afford them have to pay for more education in the hope of obtaining at least entry level
jobs. This discourse sits within a broader ideological framework, focused on the idea that
individuals should take greater responsibility for their situation. It defines a half-baked theory
that everything that happens has been decided in advance by the course of individual actions.
Yet the same logic is used to stick on the label of graduates of general programs as passive and
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
welfare dependent, and it places a specific emphasis on the belief that they feel confident in 15
choosing their path to unemployment. One might easily perceive the background of a political-
economic transformation reliant on strengthening the role of the market while reducing welfare
support. This makes a certain link to human capital policies by suggesting that graduates of the
humanities and the social sciences have abused the opportunities (being more successful and
economically independent) they have been granted by the market, and created for themselves
the individual’s economic misery of an uncertain future (“Absolwenci idą na bezrobocie” 2009,
October 19).
As a part of that, the complexity of higher education and its relation to the labor market
which result in graduate unemployment/ underemployment is downplayed in favor of an
argument that points to the tendency within liberal programs to ignore vocational training
initiatives and to produce ideological warfare instead. The focus on marketable quality, where
education and research are geared to the market, is driven to abandon publicly unpopular and
too abstract questions. The most recent turmoil of gender studies in Poland shows almost a clash
of civilizations between political and academic circles (Mikulska, 2014; Terlikowski, 2014).
Regretfully, much debate on the issues of gender has to do rather with ritualistic affirmation
than intellectual rigor. However, the very nature of politics itself is to demonize those who are
considered to be one’s political opponents. It is no wonder that for the general public, gender
has become a catch-all term for radical ideas around sexual reproduction, homonormative and
other social trends they do not approve of, while a liberal education hijacked by a leftist and
gender bias has been exposed as morally reprehensible.
The mission of university to provide a liberal education that contributes to the production
of a citizenry that is capable of being engaged in value-based discussions has been negated
in favor of the vocational function of a university. Those who define education primarily as
serving the needs of economy can play the card of youth unemployment to promote corporate
universities and vocational training over social responsibility and intellectual engagement. That
tendency has been prominently on display to show that departments of the humanities and
the social sciences wage ideological wars, while the question of a business engagement in
commercial markets is seriously neglected. It has emphasized the fact that public universities
do not have to bear the costs of their actions, as they would in the private sector (Łoskot-
Mirowska, 2013; Voelkel, 2014). This includes the assumption that the rise of corporatized
universities with the demands of corporate sponsors or donors would play the significant role in
the normalization of value-based conflicts. Academics would be asked to provide compelling
material justifications for their teaching and research, especially in times of an economic
downturn when the competition for resources is fierce. The marketplace of ideas is premised
on utilitarian considerations that financial interests would give universities the incentive to
focus on beneficial results. The utilitarian approach to ideas would show clearly the price of
unpopular ideas as the profit that must be forgone.
There are certain claims to confirm rational business models with their instrumental
decision-making practices as a panacea, sufficient for addressing and solving all the problems of
higher education. It also rests on assumptions about individuals, seen to make rational choices.
Thus, such self-definitions are arguably significant to imply that firstly, individuals have come to
see themselves as having a choice, which reinforces a tendency to understand one’s educational
attainment and occupation outcomes in terms of individual achievement or failure (while
disregarding the broader picture of structural inequalities). Secondly, the casualization of the
labor market and educational credential inflation mean that individuals experience persistent
insecurity, yet individuals are positioned as if in charge of their personal situation. This comes
as a result of regarding one’s situation with naïve faith in personal achievement or failure.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
16 The Rise of Menial Jobs and Almost Compulsory Tertiary Education
If current labor market trends continue, paradoxically, the university sector will transform
itself into almost compulsory tertiary education. Moreover, the mindless pursuit of another
diploma will become a dismal picture of the fall of higher education standards. Especially, when
the education system is based on the false premises that a credential constitutes a ticket into
decent white collar jobs and the ultimate level of the experience. Such credential approaches
create a vicious circle of students seeking job opportunities and attempts to attract new recruits
to courses of study begging for high numbers of students. One consequence is that there has
been seen an increasing flow of students through universities, the principal purpose for being
there is to receive a credential (Markiewicz 2013, “Najważniejsza powinna być jakość”,
2014, August 13). This means that many university students are alienated from the process
of learning, because they are likely to demonstrate a lack of intellectual engagement in the
courses that have to be taken in order to obtain the credential (Błaszczak, 2013). In many ways,
it is assumed in the mindset of modern consumerism that university education is just another
product to be delivered to its consumer’s satisfaction. Another consequence is that universities
have attempted to change a liberal education into more profitable and persuasive forms of
vocational training legitimated by a corporate mandate. The basic pedagogical principles of
a liberal education associated with its Latin meaning of freedom are, regrettably, forgotten.
Especially, when educational standards slide into marketable credentials. In addition, it helps
students to maintain an unwavering belief in the power of customer relations that they are
consumers purchasing their education. After all, they are convinced of the student-customer
model by the dominant discourse on higher education that position universities as suppliers of
easy-to-reach credentials. In particular, when students pay for their university tuition.
However, tertiary education is commonly perceived as a protective cocoon against the
violence of adult life. For many students, their continuing education means that the period of
youth has been intentionally prolonged (Sałek, 2013). Moreover, the dominant discourse on
human capital encourages them to believe that their decision is rational enough. Firstly, the
extension of educational system is believed to correlate with longer human lifespans. As a result,
the phenomenon of mass tertiary education is likely to be explained by the prolongation of youth
in human populations. Thus, students just want to benefit from a longer period of maturation
and to obtain a better education. Secondly, the corporate model of university is focused on profit
calculations. The system is rewarded by the number of students who are willing to continue
their studies. Consequently, university degrees are offered as if they were an upgraded product.
Many students are likely to buy into this idea, because it has its cultural references in the world
of high-tech gadgets. They live in a world filled with constantly upcoming devices that promise
to bring large changes. They often read the message literally. We are upgraded to obtain a better
position for job competition. However, due to credential inflation their hopes for being offered
good and steady jobs through more education are a forlorn attempt to reassure them they are
not passive. Thirdly, some students will combine study with work (roughly 40% in the age
of 18-24 and 76% in the age of 25-29, CBOS, 2013c). They are usually engaged in the most
elementary occupations, because of their lack of necessary qualifications or their youthfulness
to work in prestigious jobs. Nevertheless, many students do not complain about the kind of
work they do. Even if they do menial work, this is acceptable, because the driving ethos of such
work is that you earn your own money and get a work experience. After all, many young people
conclude that in maintaining their status of student they will be able to minimalize their needs
in comparison to those young adults who decided to struggle to maintain their households and
bring up children without secure employment and wage. Moreover, some students can count
on being helped out by parents (76% at the age of 18-24 and 52% at the age of 25-29, CBOS,
2013c). Then, if one is to add experiencing a bottleneck on their way to the labor market and
rising youth unemployment, further education is perceived as a haven to refugees from the
hostility of the labor market (Sałek, 2013).
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
While decent white collar jobs are exceptionally limited, there has been a rise in menial 17
jobs such as working in a coffee shop, serving fast food, filling shop shelf space and shipping
packages in warehouses (Lewandowski & Magda, 2014, pp. 35, 39-40). A large number of such
jobs are provided by international supermarket chains, fast food restaurant chains and large
online-based retail companies. They bear all the hallmarks of cheap prices, being poorly paid
and easy rotating jobs. In contrast to many European Union countries where the activities of
such companies are strictly regulated by law, they have been given a free hand in designing their
sales monopoly in Poland (Solska, 2014). Consequently, they use their impregnable position
to get rid of local businesses as well as exert a strong influence on local producers. Moreover,
they are very reluctant to invest money in the local labor market, while the enormous gains
from sales in Poland are transferred abroad. Furthermore, they dominate the social landscape in
Poland, because they are able to create a vicious circle of symbiosis between them and destitute
young adults who provide both cheap labor and the customer. It is no wonder that many young
adults may feel alienated. In particular, those, who invested in higher education in the hope that
they would avoid menial jobs (after all, one hardly needs a university diploma to ship packages
to the right address, make coffee or serve customers politely).
The dominance of the market ideology combined with reduced welfare support creates
a growing demand for part-time workers to be employed to do work which would have been
done within the family before (for instance, caring for children during the day, or looking after
parents when they are old). Other combined factors such as an almost lifelong commitment to
work, work conditions and the ageing Polish society just ensure the continuation of this trend.
The employment of domestic workers constitutes a category of highly gendered labor that has
come as a result of the intersection of gendered cultural norms that define housework as tasks for
women and professional employment for women who in hiring baby-sitters or maids can free
themselves from housework to keep their job position. Domestic work is marked by a hierarchy
of work tasks, and of formal and informal modes of employment. In many cases, liberal arts
graduates are preferred for babysitting due to their better education and communication skills,
because they are usually hired by upper-middle class families that are driven by the ethos of
child investment. However, domestic work has been increasingly formed through a competition
for part-time jobs. If students/ graduates decide to repair the holes in their household budgets,
they will displace others who could have worked in those jobs. It is also possible that many
liberal arts graduates will choose to migrate in search of domestic work abroad (Błaszczak,
2014, Mai 24).
For an increasing number of young people, emigration is seen as being an option
(Błaszczak, 2014, September 12). There is an enormous hiatus between the dominant view of
higher education as a persuasive alienation from doing menial jobs and the striking reality with
its package of low-skilled service jobs. Therefore, many young Poles will reduce the obvious
mental discomfort by making migratory decisions. In some way, migration can be perceived as
the source of oppositional youth culture (roughly 60% young people at the age of 18-24, and
40% aged 25-34 declare that they want to migrate abroad, CBOS, 2013d). The mass tertiary
system with its dominant ideology of human capital promises students an access to elite jobs, but
they are instead pushed into an economy where menial work is all there is available. The broken
promises have brought increasing alienation from official adult standards which promote both
education and work. Thus, migration carries a simple message “I am leaving.” Nonetheless,
migration is usually interpreted in terms of the dominant discourse on individual achievement
or failure. Many young adult migrants simply believe that their migratory decisions will
impact on leverage over individual resources such as work experience in a new environment,
foreign language fluency etc. It can be questioned though if they obtain such resources with
them usually going for menial and routine jobs. It is important to note, however, that filling
shelf space in a British and a Polish Tesco is not perceived in the same way. Migration and its
material and symbolic dimensions play a role through individuals developing a new sense of
self. It is linked to particular discourses that make possible certain subjectivities over others.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
18 The combination of experiencing migratory insecurity and regarding one’s situation through
the lens of a free choice to shape individual achievement or failure is a part of the dominant
discourse on youth, education and unemployment that positioned young people in charge of
their personal situation. It involves certain social pressures on migrants, including precisely
the concern to present the self as a cunning, industrious, self-made person. In other words, it
encourages them to normalize their migratory situation through ways of thinking and acting
that support their beliefs that thanks to migration, they avoid sharing the frustration of many of
their peers at home and fully embrace the ethos of autonomous individuals.
Conclusions
Fourier (1980, p.323) begins his essay with the following words: “fresh souls,
especially those of the young, possess energy in the exercise of patriotic virtues which is not
found in people of the world, who are ready to waver and tack about to obtain a sinecure.”
Ironically, one might envisage the current situation of young people. Since the early 1990s,
significant transformations in the labor market in Poland have taken place (from industrial to
post-industrial), which have had on an impact on the labor market position of young people.
Moreover, there have been fundamental changes in the broader political and economic contexts,
and these profound changes have determined social and educational outcomes. Universities
have produced graduates in record numbers to feed the appetite of the labor market. The
relationship between the educational and occupational levels of the population has been chosen
as an excellent marker for assessing development opportunities. Furthermore, the assumption
that future occupational achievements and financial success relied on higher educational
attainments has been universally accepted. The normalizing function of discourse has focused
on the idea of a self-made individual who has the power to influence their life situation. This is
essential to common sense conceptions of higher education as a ticket to a better life in terms
of material and economic success.
The mass expansions of higher education in Poland see the recent cohorts of young
people looking for a haven there from a stormy labor market that does not have generous
offers for young workers in terms of opportunity, remuneration, or respect for their feelings.
Especially, when common sense conceptions of higher education provide a pervasive alienation
from doing menial jobs, it highlights the tensions and contradictions. More vocational-type
oriented programs are invoked as a solution. In particular, liberal arts programs are undermined
by such thinking behind human capital ideology. In attempts to conserve the tertiary education
system, however, the pseudo vocational trainings at university bear all the hallmarks of a
Weberian iron cage controlled by spiritless specialists.
References
Absolwenci idą na bezrobocie, bo często źle wybierają zawód [Graduate students will face unemployment
because of their poor career choices] (2009). Retrieved, October 19, 2009, from http://praca.
gazetaprawna.pl/artykuly/362534,absolwenci_ida_na_bezrobocie_bo_czesto_zle_wybieraja_
zawod.html.
Absolwenci źle oceniają sytuację na rynku pracy [Graduate students found themselves in rather an
awkward employment situation] (2013). Retrieved April 18, 2013, from http://www4.rp.pl/
artykul/1001383-Absolwenci-zle-oceniaja-sytuacje-na-rynku-pracy.html.
Albański, Ł. (2014) Thorstein Veblen. In A. Kindell, E. Demers (eds.) Encyclopedia of populism in
America (pp.764-767). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio.
Arrow, K. (1973). Higher education as a filter. Journal of Public Economics, 2 (3), 193-216.
Autor, D., Dorn, D. (2013). The growth of low-skill service jobs and the polarization of the U.S.
labor market. American Economic Review, 103 (5), 1553-1597. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.
org/10.1257/aer.103.5.15.
Beck, U. (2000). The brave new world of work. Oxford, England: Polity Press.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Becker, G. S. (1964). Human capital: A theoretical analysis with special reference to education. New 19
York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Błaszczak, A. (2013, April 16). Absolwenci nie wiedzą, jak wykorzystać wiedzę ze studiów [Graduate
students do not know how to benefit from study skills]. Retrieved from http://www4.rp.pl/
artykul/1000770-Absolwent-musi-umiec-przekuc-teorie-w-praktyke.html.
Błaszczak, A. (2014, Mai 24). Polskie opiekunki podbiły Europę [Europe praises Polish babysitters].
Retrieved from http://www4.rp.pl/artykul/1112281-Polskie-opiekunki-podbily-Europe.html.
Błaszczak, A. (2014, September 12). Młodzi uciekną nam do pracy za granicą? [Do young people will
leave the country for work abroad?]. Retrieved from http://www4.rp.pl/artykul/1156522-Polakow-
kusi-praca-za-granica.html.
Bourdieu, P. (1996). The state nobility: Elite schools in the field of power. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Briefing: The future of universities. (2014, June 28). Economist, pp. 20-22.
Brown, D. K. (2001). The social sources of educational credentionalism: Status cultures, labor markets
and organizations. Sociology of Education, 74 (19), 19-34. doi: 10.2307/2673251.
Calhoun, C. (2006). The university and the public good. Thesis Eleven, 84 (1), 7-43. doi:
10.1177/0725513606060516.
CBOS (2013a). Studia wyższe: dla kogo, po co i z jakim skutkiem? [University diploma: for whom and
why?]. Retrieved from http://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2013/K_092_13.PDF.
CBOS (2013b). Wykształcenie ma znaczenie [University diploma has its importance]. Retrieved from
http://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2013/K_096_13.PDF.
CBOS (2013c). Sytuacja rodzinna i materialna młodych Polaków oraz ich postawy konsumpcyjne [Young
Poles: Family situation, material situation, and attitudes towards consumption]. Retrieved from
http://www.kozminski.edu.pl/fileadmin/wspolne_elementy/Jednostki/Biuro_Prasowe/K165_13_
sytuacja_modych_Polakw.pdf.
CBOS (2013d). Poakcesyjne migracje zarobkowe [Labor migration after the EU access]. Retrieved from
www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2013/K_166_13.PDF.
Collins, R. (2002). Credential inflation and the future of universities In: S. Brint (ed.) The future of the city
of intellect (pp. 100-122). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Côté, J. E., Allahar, A. L. (2011). Lowering higher education: The rise of corporate universities and the
fall of liberal education. Toronto, ON: Toronto University Press.
D’Souza, D. (1991). Illiberal education: The politics of race and sex on campus. New York, NY: Free
Press.
Fourier, Ch. (1980). Who will do the dirty work. In L.A. Coser, Pleasures of sociology, (pp. 323-327).
New York, NY: New American Library.
Furlong, A., Cartmel, F. (2007). Young people and social change: New perspectives. Second edition.
Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.
Furlong, A. (2009). Revisiting transitional metaphors: Reproducing inequalities under the conditions of late
modernity. Journal of Education and Work, 22 (5), 343-353. doi: 10.1080/13639080903453979.
Grusky, D. B. (ed.). (1994). Social stratification: Class, race and gender in sociological perspective.
Boulder, CO: Westview.
Houle J. N. (2013). Disparities in debt: Parents’ socioeconomic resources and young adult student loan
debt. Sociology of Education, 87 (1), 53-69. doi: 10.1177/0038040713512213.
Kenny, M. (2013). The rise of ‘The Market’ in political thinking about universities. The European Legacy:
Toward New Paradigms, 18 (1), 7-23. doi: 10.1080/10848770.2013.748118.
Lewandowski, P., Magda, I. (eds.). (2014). Zatrudnienie w Polsce 2013. Praca w dobie przemian
strukturalnych [Employment in Poland 2013. Work and structural changes]. Warszawa, Poland:
Centrum Rozwoju Zasobów Ludzkich.
Łoskot-Mirowska, U. (2013, June 5). Uczelnie nie interesuje, czy absolwenci znajdują pracę po masowych
kierunkach [Universities do not care much about graduate students’ future employment careers].
Retrieved from http://serwisy.gazetaprawna.pl/edukacja/artykuly/709060,uczelni_nie_interesuje_
czy_absolwenci_znajduja_prace_po_masowych_kierunkach.html.
Markiewicz, P. (2013, Mai 12). Większość naszych absolwentów rzeczywiście jest jak te „barany”
Hartmana [LIST] [Most graduate students behave as Hartman’s sillies (letter)]. Retrieved from
http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,13896724,Wiekszosc_naszych_absolwentow_rzeczywiscie_jest_jak.
html.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
20 Mikulska, M. (2014, January 4). Minister nauki deklaruje swobodę naukową ws. Gender [Minister of
Higher Education declares the green light for gender studies]. Retrieved from http://www4.rp.pl/
apps/pbcs.dll/article?avis=RP&date=20140114&category=KRAJ&lopenr=301149804&Ref=AR
&profile=1008&page=1.
Najważniejsza powinna być jakość kształcenia [The quality of education is most wanted]. (2014).
Retrieved, August 13, 2014, from http://www4.rp.pl/artykul/1132964-Studia-bez-matury--
Najwazniejsza-jakosc-ksztalcenia.html.
OECD (2012). Education at a glance 2012. OECD indicators. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/
eag-2012-en.
Sałek, P. (2013, March 2). Absolwent (nie) gotowy do pracy [The graduate student is [un]prepared
for work]. Retrieved from http://www4.rp.pl/artykul/986230-O-pracy-trzeba-myslec-juz-na-
studiach.html.
Scott, J. C. (2006). The mission of the university: Medieval to postmodern transformations. Journal of
Higher Education, 77 (1), 1-39. doi: 10.1353/jhe.2006.0007.
Sendrowicz, B. (2014, December 15). Uczelnie lepiej przygotują do pracy? [Do universities offer better
vocational qualifications?]. Retrieved from http://wyborcza.pl/1,132486,17133133,Uczelnie_
lepiej_przygotuja_do_pracy_.html.
Smith, A., Webster, F. (eds.). (1997). The postmodern university? Contested visions of higher education
in society. Buckingham, England: SRHE, Open University Press.
Solska, J. (2014, October 15). Biedronka czy stonka [Biedronka (this is a word game, because of the name
of a chain food store – ladybug) or potato bug]? Polityka, 10-12.
Terlikowski, T. (2014, February 10). Naukowość gender to ściema [Gender studies are ideological].
Retrieved from http://www4.rp.pl/artykul/1085886-Naukowosc-gender-to-sciema.html.
Voelkel, P. (2014, Mai 30). Rynek uzdrowi uniwersytety [The market will save universities]. Retrieved
from http://wyborcza.pl/magazyn/1,137948,16063179,Rynek_uzdrowi_uniwersytety.html.
Wesołowska, E. (2011, August 2). Absolwenci na trudnym rynku pracy: szkoły dopiero teraz uczą się
myśleć o przyszłości uczniów [The graduate student and the labor market: Universities have just
now been thinking about their employment future]. Retrieved from http://praca.gazetaprawna.
pl/artykuly/535411,absolwenci_na_trudnym_rynku_pracy_szkoly_dopiero_teraz_ucza_sie_
myslec_o_przyszlosci_uczniow.html.
Wielgórska, E. (2012, June 2). Absolwenci: Chcą pracować, mało potrafią [The graduate student: I
want to work, but I have little experience]. Retrieved from http://www4.rp.pl/artykul/885865-
Absolwenci--Chca-pracowac--malo-potrafia.html.
Advised by Miroslaw Kowalski, University of Zielona Gora, Poland
Received: February 05, 2016 Accepted: April 10, 2016
Łukasz Albański PhD., Assistant Professor, Pedagogical University of Cracow, Institute of

Educational Sciences, Ingardena St. 4, 30-060, Kraków, Poland.
Email: lukasz.albanski@gmail.com
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ 21
PERCEPTIONS OF AN ADVANCED
CERTIFICATE IN EDUCATION
Sarah Bansilal, Angela James
University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
E-mail: Bansilals@ukzn.ac.za, Jamesa1@ukzn.ac.za
Abstract
Advanced Certificate in Education programmes was offered by many South African universities to provide
opportunities for teachers to upgrade their positions. The purpose of the study was to explore Physical
Science teachers’ perceptions of their professional development. In this study we considered three
domains of professional development which are content knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge and
teacher beliefs and attitudes. This study used a mixed method approach using the form of an embedded
design. The study was conducted with 156 students enrolled in an ACE Physical Science programme. The
teachers stated that their content knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge had not only improved,
but also their engagement with actual laboratories, and conducting experiments contributed to their
teaching experiences. Hence, their self-confidence of physical science teaching evolved. The authors
recommend that the ACE programme should also include a mentoring system with teaching practicum
via school leadership and subject advisers.
Key words: content knowledge, professional development, physical science teachers, pedagogic content
knowledge, teacher beliefs, teacher confidence.
Introduction
A sector of education that has been greatly affected by the series of closures,
reconfigurations, mergers, curriculum revisions and other transformation exercises carried
out in South Africa since 1994 is that of in-service teacher education. The planning and
implementation of suitable programmes for underqualified teachers who were already in the
system increased in urgency as many teacher training colleges were closed in the 1990s. Finding
ways to enhance the professional development of practising science and mathematics teachers
has been a focus of many studies in South Africa (Stears, Good and James 2012; Sibanda and
Jawahar 2012; Bansilal and Rosenberg 2011; Kriek and Grayson 2009).
During the apartheid era teacher training was effected by the various separate education
departments which were organised according to race. Initial teacher education preparation was
segregated in that former black colleges offered a three-year diploma in Education while former
white and a few other colleges offered a four-year higher diploma in education (Council for
Higher Education 2010). In the 1990’s a decision was taken to close all colleges of education,
even those that offered opportunities for underqualified teachers to upgrade their positions.
A teacher with a three-year qualification was and is currently regarded as underqualified and
is required to complete a formal programme such as the Further Diploma in Education. On
successful completion this would render a participant fully qualified who would then have the
equivalent of a relative education qualification (REQV) of a four-year degree or diploma. The
further diploma was later replaced by the Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE), which is
the focus of this study.
ISSN 1822-7864
Sarah BANSILAL, Angela JAMES. Physical science teachers’ perceptions of an advanced certificate in education
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
22 The decision to close colleges, put pressure on the education department to provide
upgrading opportunities for these teachers and the ACE programmes were commonly offered
by many universities in response to the challenge. In fact in 2006 there were 69 different ACE’s
with over 290 specialisations (CHE, 2010).
The delivery of the programme was such that the general education modules were
offered using a distance education model. Teachers completed various assignments based
on the materials that were designed for self-study, but were complemented by teaching. The
content modules were offered via face to face contact sessions that the teachers attended during
Saturdays and school holidays. Tests and practical laboratory sessions were also conducted
during these times. There were six content modules related to the teaching and learning of
physics and chemistry and two generic education modules.
Literature Review
Avalos (2011) suggests that understanding teachers’ professional development is

complex in nature and requires both the cognitive and emotional commitment of teachers as
individuals or as a group. It is also essential that these programmes are able to develop the
necessary knowledge competence of the subject taught by the participants and the knowledge
and skills of how to present the content to the learners (pedagogic content knowledge - PCK).
Morrow (2007) considers two important questions when designing and implementing
teacher professional development programmes: what work is expected of teachers and what
are the contexts in which they work? Johnson, Hodges and Monk (2000) criticize the reflection
of research about effective in-service provision, on the dominant concerns of teachers from
Northern/Western contexts. These authors contend that teachers who work in developing
countries such as South Africa are constrained by different sets of circumstances, work in different
contexts and, as such, need different in-service provisions to those from developed countries.
Hence the models underpinning the professional development of teachers need to be evaluated
in terms of the perspectives and contexts of the participating teachers. With the emphasis of the
government on developing quality science and mathematics teachers, various international and
South African agencies have partnered with the national government to deliver interventions
aimed at improving the state of school mathematics and science by focusing on improving
teachers’ subject content knowledge. One such example is the Mpumalanga Secondary Science
Initiative (MSSI) which was a school-based system of professional development to improve
the teaching of mathematics and science at the junior secondary level (Ono and Ferreira 2010).
This intervention used the Japanese model of professional development through lesson study.
This model with its clear focus on supporting teacher development within communities of
practice in their specific school contexts experienced disruptions that arose mainly from the
constraint of time. Teachers struggled to find time for the necessary participatory planning
and evaluating of lessons that are integral to the lesson study approach. Teachers’ time was
occupied by demands to attend training workshops for revisions to the school curriculum.
Kriek and Grayson’s (2009) (HPD) model for physical science teachers in South Africa
explicitly integrated the development of teachers along the three dimensions of content
knowledge, teaching approaches, and professional attitudes. The authors argue that teacher
professionalism is about the quality of practice that a teacher demonstrates and it was because
of the integration of the three dimensions of professional development that refer to their model
as holistic. Their study found that the application of the HPD model with practising physical
science teachers supported their development along the three desired dimensions. It was found
that the improvement of teachers’ content knowledge increases teachers’ confidence, which, in
turn, stimulates them to use a variety of teaching strategies, in particular, more learner-centred
and activity-based approaches. The authors suggest that the use of more innovative teaching
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
approaches makes science classes more interesting and will lead to better understanding and a 23
more positive attitude towards science among learners.
Stears, Good and James (2012) conducted research with six physical science teachers
enrolled in the ACE programme that is under scrutiny in this study. The purpose of the research
was to explore the factors that shape the professional identities of teachers, including their
engagement in the ACE programme. The study found that the teachers’ pedagogic knowledge
as well as didactic knowledge are not valued as highly as content knowledge. The findings of
this study emphasise the value placed on subject knowledge. To these teachers the quality of
subject knowledge held by a teacher, determined the quality of the teacher. Their identities are
strongly shaped by their view of themselves as subject specialists as defined by their subject
knowledge. Pedagogic knowledge contributes very little to the identities of these teachers.
The teachers did not appear to be sensitive to the changes in didactical approach required by
the NCS (DoE, 2003) or the CAPS document (DoBE, 2011). Stears et al. (2012) recommend
that the ACE programme should include the mentoring of teachers so that the teachers can
understand their roles as more than mere deliverers of information.
Research into the professional development of South African teachers has focussed
on the different methods used and the impact of this on their development in terms of their
content knowledge and pedagogic practices. A focus on the emotional development of teachers
is lacking and this is the gap that we sought to investigate and add literature about.
A Framework for Understanding the Professional Development of Physical

Science Teachers
Many studies focusing on professional development include aspects of content

knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge and attitudes or identity or beliefs (Peressini et
al. 2004; Kriek and Grayson 2009; Bansilal and Rosenberg 2011; Brijlal 2014). Stears et al.
(2012) used a framework of teacher professional identity comprising the facets of teacher as a
subject matter specialist and pedagogical expert and didactical expert. In this study we consider
three domains of professional development which are content knowledge, pedagogic content
knowledge and teacher beliefs and attitudes and these are now elaborated on.
Content Knowledge for Teaching
Many research studies highlight the important role played by teachers’ conceptual
knowledge in developing students’ understanding (e.g., Ball and Bass 2000; Perressini et al.
2004; Adler et al. 2009; Kriek and Grayson 2009). In South Africa Kriek and Grayson (2009)
note that in order to develop a deep understanding of physics, teachers need to not only acquire
knowledge of central concepts and principles, but also develop various thinking and reasoning
skills. Content knowledge for teaching includes both school level content knowledge as well
as knowledge of concepts on the horizon. Ball, Thames and Phelps (2008) speak about horizon
knowledge for teaching mathematics. This model is adapted and used to describe it more
generally as an awareness of how science topics are related over the span of science included
in the curriculum (adapted from Ball et al. 2008, 403). Knowledge of school level topics is
what Ball et al., refer to as common content knowledge. Hence, content knowledge for teaching
includes both common content knowledge as well as horizon knowledge of physical science
concepts.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
24 Teaching Strategies
Kriek and Grayson’s (2009) category of teaching approaches and Stears et al.’s (2012)
notion of teacher as a didactic expert are closely aligned to the broader notion of pedagogical
content knowledge, which is the: “… subject matter knowledge for teaching … the ways of
representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others” (Shulman
1986, 9). Effective teachers have a repertoire of teaching strategies based on sound pedagogic
content knowledge which they constantly draw upon to make the concepts and principles of
science accessible to their learners.
One important facet of teaching physical science is that of conducting experiments as part
of the practical work that is involved in the subject. The use of practicals in science can be used
to demonstrate everyday phenomena as well as to investigate and discover laws that underpin
many models in Physical Science. Conducting and designing practicals is an important teaching
skill and is emphasised in the physical science curriculum documents, which stipulate that:
Practical work must be integrated with theory to strengthen the concepts being taught. These may
take the form of simple practical demonstrations or even an experiment or practical investigation
(Department of Basic Education (DoBE) 2011, 11)
Hence this study takes cognizance of the ways in which teachers improved their teaching
approaches and their development of skills in implementing practicals as well as integrating the
practicals with the theory.
Teacher Attitudes and Beliefs
Teaching occurs in a sociocultural context (Van Huizen, van Oers and Wubbels 2005;
Hughes 2006; Morrow 2007; Samuel 2008; James, 2009) where it “concentrates on the
connections between individual functioning and development and the sociocultural practices in
which individuals take part” (Van Huizen et al. 2005, 271). Hence professional development is
influenced by the goals, values, commitment, beliefs, attitudes and other personal characteristics
which create a sense of who the person is as a teacher. The need for the component of
professional attitudes was acknowledged by Kriek and Grayson (2009) and James (2009). One
of the important elements of teachers’ attitudes is their confidence in their own knowledge and
practice. Under this category, we looked at the confidence that the teachers displayed in their
own ability to teach the subject.
Methodology of Research
General Background of the Research
In this study the researchers look at an ACE programme for upgrading Physical Science
teachers in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The teaching on the programme was carried out
using a two-tier partnership model at four centres in KZN. Various modules were taught in
the programme. The modules were designed and planned, and the materials and assessments
were monitored by the permanent staff members of the university, also referred to as module
coordinators. The teaching was undertaken by tutors who were employed on a contract basis,
and were supervised by the module coordinators. The purpose of the study was to explore
Physical Science teachers’ perceptions of their professional development. The following
research question guides the current study:
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
• What are the physical science teachers’ perceptions of the ACE programme? 25
• Does a mixed mode delivery system/programme enhance or constrain their
professional development?
Sample Selection
The ACE Physical Science programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal was presented
across four different teaching centres within the province of KwaZulu-Natal. A total of 273
teachers were students in this programme. Purposive sampling was used and 156 teachers were
asked to volunteer to participate in the research and to respond to the questionnaire. Eight
students, two from each of the four different UKZN ACE teaching centres consented to being
interviewed, at times that were convenient to them.
Instruments and Procedures
In this study, a mixed method approach using the form of an embedded design, where
the researcher collects quantitative and qualitative data simultaneously, but one form of data
plays a supporting role to the other form of data (Creswell 2008). The quantitative data from
the questionnaire played a supporting role to the qualitative data that were elicited from the
questionnaires and interviews.
Since the purpose of the study focused on the teachers’ confidence in their ability to teach
the subject, an analysis of the teachers’ lesson plans and the observation of their lessons were
also conducted. This was done to triangulate the data, to portray consistency (Calik & Aytar,
2013). The contract lecturers were the field workers and were fully informed about the purpose
of the research and their role in collecting data. The research questions and the use of the data
collection instruments, including the data sought were discussed with the contract lecturers,
to ensure trustworthiness. The teachers were asked to respond to a questionnaire on their
confidence and ability to teach the subject – Physical Science. Some of the statements included
in the questionnaire were: my content knowledge has improved; my teaching strategies have
improved; my confidence as a Physical Science teacher has increased, and the Physical Science
results of my learners have improved. The questionnaire used a five point Likert scale: the
options (responses) were strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree and the
teachers had to choose one option for each statement. Questions in the interview concerned
teachers’ improvement of their content knowledge, what impacted on this improvement, the
nature of the impact, and on what they would like changed in the programme. Trustworthiness
concept used by Guba and Lincoln (1994) for interpretivist research was adopted where
credibility, dependability and confirmability were ensured. Credibility was enhanced during
the data collection by using tape recorders to record the interviews word for word, before
transcribing them and capturing them electronically, so as to improve accuracy. Dependability
was achieved by the triangulation of the data generation process using questionnaires and
interviews, and by asking the teachers the same questions in different ways. Also, the teachers
were given assurance of anonymity of how the researcher will use pseudonyms so that their
true identity would not be revealed, and they could therefore speak confidently and as honestly
as possible.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
26 Results of Research
The results are discussed under three headings linked to the research questions, content
knowledge, teaching methods and attitudes and beliefs.
Content Knowledge
All the teachers agreed that their content knowledge improved as a result of the
programme. The results from the questionnaire are given in percentage form in the table
below, where the letters SD, D, N, A and SA represent strongly disagree, disagree, neutral,
agree and strongly agree respectively.
Table 1. Teachers’ responses about their teaching practice.
Teaching Practice No response SD D N A SA
My content knowledge has improved 0.64 0.00 0.00 1.92 46.79 50.64
My teaching strategies have improved 1.92 0.00 0.00 10.26 48.72 39.10
My confidence as a PS teacher has

2.56 0.00 0.00 7.69 44.87 44.87
increased
The PS results of my learners have

5.77 0.00 1.28 28.85 52.56 11.54
improved
This shows that all 97% of the students agreed (47%) or strongly agreed (50%) with
the statement that their content knowledge improved. Similarly with teaching strategies, 88%
of teachers felt that there was an improvement while 90% of the respondents felt that their
confidence had improved. Of the group, 64% reported that even the results of their learners had
improved.
From the interviews, all eight teachers agreed that their content knowledge for teaching
had improved.
Teachers T3 and T4 felt that whereas previously there were school level concepts that they
were uneasy about, this is no longer the case. Teacher 5 expressed views similar to teachers 3
and 4, but specifically mentioned a section that she used to avoid, an action which was no longer
necessary.T5 said “I had never done electrostatics with my learners before because I never
knew it. I didn’t even attempt it from the textbook because I never understood it … I became
confident enough to do it on my own”. T2 said “we are currently doing some topics I’ve never
done before such as Electricity and I found it helpful”. Hence these teachers were pleased that
exposure to topics in the school curriculum had improved their knowledge.
Some felt that they gained knowledge beyond the school curriculum. Teacher T2
recounted that whereas before the course he had “been teaching the subject based on the content
learnt in high school” … the “programme … exposed me to information that [he] did not have
and validated what [he] had already known”. T2 explained that the programme exposed him to
knowledge beyond school level content.
The ACE programme as a university level programme is required to present content
equivalent to second year physics and chemistry at university. Subsequently, it seems as if some
teachers were satisfied that they learnt school level concepts enabling them to be more confident
about teaching those concepts to their learners. Some (for example T2) were pleased that they
developed knowledge beyond school level concepts. This type of knowledge is considered as
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
horizon knowledge because it serves as necessary background for the teaching of concepts at 27
school level. T1 expressed the notion of horizon knowledge as ‘advanced knowledge’ required
when you teach a subject:
When you present a topic to learners you need to have advance knowledge which requires a lot
of research. Each time we are attending contact sessions it feels like doing research and we are able to go
back to learners and explore with them.
Hence T1 has expressed his opinion about learning horizon concepts as those which
enable a teacher to know beyond what is required in the classroom and provides the teacher
with the flexibility to allow his learners to explore the content.
However, the results from the programme showed that only 48% of the group completed
the course. Only 39% of the group did so within the two-year period and the other 9% took three
or more years to complete the course. This shows that half of the group (52%) were unable to
meet the demands of the programme.
Two issues with respect to the generic modules were also revealed. Firstly, teachers did
not appreciate the delivery mode of the generic module as stated by three teachers who were
interviewed. One teacher’s comment was that it would have been preferable to have the modules
assessed on a continuous assessment basis instead of having the summative examination, for
which they did not feel sufficiently prepared. One written comment by T32 was that “there is too
much work in the education modules”. The comment suggests that the teacher was unhappy
about having to do so much self-directed work. The generic education modules required the
teachers to work with the written materials by themselves and to complete their assignments
based on these materials. The discussion classes were not designed to teach the content covered
in the materials, but were to highlight salient issues and provide guidance on the assignments.
The second issue about the generic modules was the content. One teacher T13 did not view
the actual content as useful because “it does not show me how to teach”. Twelve questionnaire
responses indicated that the modules they felt were least useful were the generic education
modules.
Teaching Methods
From Table 1, it is noted that of the 156 teachers, 88% of them said that their teaching
strategies had improved on completion of the programme. The teachers who were interviewed
were also positive about the improvement in their teaching methods.
T3 said: “The subject we are teaching is very complex and constantly requires new and
better methods of delivery to the students. The programme has helped regarding that latter.”
Some teachers such as T8 mentioned that they learnt different approaches for teaching
certain topics:
My teaching methods have improved. Through the programme I learnt different methods of
delivering the content to learners. For example, calculation of equilibrium, I learnt new and simpler
methods of calculating chemical equilibrium.
Some teachers (T6) found that they learnt new methods by watching their tutors while
others (T7) mentioned that the course materials acted as a teaching resource.
T6: I use some methods I learn from our lecturers when they teach us.
T7: A good thing about the material is that we can re-use it in our teaching in the classroom
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
28 An important aspect of teaching physical science at school is practical work. The

curriculum documents (DoBE, 2011) recommend that at least one practical activity is carried
out each term. However, conducting practicals is a challenge for many teachers. The technical
report on the National Senior Certificate examinations, recommended that “Learners need to
conduct experiments and do other practical work in order to understand” the concepts (DoBE,
p183). In South Africa the poor skills in practical work is an ongoing problem that the authorities
have tried to address but are stymied by the fact that many schools do not have laboratories.
In order to alleviate this problem, teachers on this programme were provided with science kits
which could be used for many of the experiments required in the curriculum. All the teachers
who were interviewed were pleased about the ways in which their exposure to actual laboratories
and the experiences of conducting experiments, contributed to more effective teaching.
During the programme teachers conducted practical work in the laboratories. T2 reported
that “I got more exposure to a laboratory setting and gained confidence in teaching practicals to
my learners”, showing that he developed confidence in carrying out practicals. T3 said that the
practical sessions helped improve his knowledge and he found the science kits useful because
he used these resources to conduct practicals in his class. T3 said that “because of the practicals
provided by the programme, I now have a very clear picture of what is expected of the teacher
when conducting an experiment to learners.” T4 was also very grateful for the science kits. He
responded:
Before, we used to do a lot of theory in the classroom. Now we are able to do more practicals using
the material and kits we received from the University. We now start with theory and the practicals and
learners become very excited and you find that learners are able to remember what they’ve learnt because
of the practicals. We feel happy about the equipment we receive and we put it in very good use.
T5 explained that the kits made it easier for him to teach:
“For example if we are talking about Zinc powder and Zinc lumps, I can easily explain the
difference between two to learners because they can physically see it”
T2 summarised the power offered by the science kits:
When discussing topics in the classroom I’m able to take out the apparatus and show the learners
what I am talking about. The learners don’t have to imagine what I’m talking about they can physically
see it. For example if I’m talking about a colour change, they can see the colour change
The preceding comments reveal that one of the concrete ways in which the programme
helped the teachers was in conducting experiments while also providing necessary equipment
that could be used. It also contributed to the development of practical skills, interest and positive
attitude in science for the learners.
However, some teachers felt that they needed more help with approaches to teaching the
subject. T5 explained:
“Regarding teaching methods, we concentrated more on the content and very little on
the teaching methods.”
T1 felt that there were too few opportunities for interaction with other teachers and he
would have preferred for separate modules on content and on the methods:
I feel the course offered integration of content and method only during group works
where we get a chance to interact with other colleagues and get different ideas of teaching
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
methods. There is no separate segment where there course focuses on methods. 29
T2 asked for more exposure to teaching methods beyond the level of the current focus
on content:
“I feel we should get more exposure in the methods and not more the content as the
programme currently offers”
T6 commented “Including teaching methods in the programme would really help us”.
The teachers expressed a need for more direct help with the school level content: T3 said that
“the most useful [modules] are the ones that cover content that we teach at schools with our
learners, especially the ones covering Grade 11 and 12 contents that were most useful” showing
that they felt they wanted direct help with the concepts they were going to teach. Another
aspect of the programme that may have contributed to the teachers’ professional development
was the fact that the teaching methods are modelled by the tutors. As the tutors taught the
teachers, their methods and presentation techniques would have helped the teachers develop
their own repertoire of teaching skills. In terms of conducting practicals, the modelling of the
teaching by the tutors would have been particularly useful because many teachers did not have
the experience of previously working in laboratories.
Attitudes and Beliefs
As a result of their improvement in content knowledge and teaching approaches, the

teachers’ attitudes about teaching and beliefs in themselves improved. There was agreement
by 90% of the questionnaire respondents that their confidence as a physical science teacher
improved.
As asserted by T8: I am more confident now … After gaining more information on these
topics from the course I realised how important they are. Now I am confident to teach these
topics to great depth.
Comments by T2 also conveyed that he was much more confident about practical work.
T3 noted:
“I am more empowered now as I have more knowledge, content and methods of delivering the
subject compared to before, I am very proud because we are now very respected out there”.
This comment suggests that the participation in the programme improved his knowledge
and teaching methods which seem to have been recognised by others who now respect him.
Discussion
This study revealed that the teachers perceived improvements in their content knowledge.
Teachers mentioned that they improved their knowledge of school level concepts (common
content knowledge) as well as topics beyond the curriculum (horizon knowledge) which
provide insights into their teaching of the concepts. Teachers also noted improvements in their
teaching approaches. They learnt new methods of teaching certain topics, some learnt from
observing the tutors and others used their learning materials as teaching resources. They were
particularly pleased with the provision of the kits which allowed them to carry out practicals in
their classes as well as to demonstrate some physical properties of chemicals. The kits allowed
them to bring together the theory and practical aspects in certain instances. Many South African
teachers have limited exposure to practical work from their professional development degrees
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
30 and treated practical work as a theoretical exercise, but by actually conducting practicals served
to enhance their practical skills and content knowledge as well. Also, it served to stimulate their
attitudes and make the related knowledge more meaningful (Calik, Ozsevgec, Ebenezer, Artun,
& Kucuk, 2014). Most teachers, therefore expressed a sense of confidence in themselves.
In trying to represent the findings of the study, we offer the following model in Figure
1 that is adapted from (Brijlal, 2014). As depicted in the figure, the study has shown that the
professional development of the participant teachers was enhanced by participation in the
programme. The component “confidence” emerged as a striking factor within this research.
Their content knowledge and pedagogic content knowledge improved and this improvement
led to an increasing amount of confidence about themselves as physical science teachers. Figure
1 shows the relationship that existed and was interpreted according to this research.
Figure 1. Diagram showing links between confidence and professional

development (Brijlal 2014).
The teachers were more assured about the content they were required to teach and they
had a repertoire of strategies that they had learnt. The development of their content knowledge
and PCK also impacted on their own identities and beliefs about themselves as teachers of
physical science.
The study also showed that some teachers were not yet fully confident. Four teachers
said they would have welcomed more help in mediating the content with their learners - some
asked that there should be separate modules focused on methods of teaching. These four
teachers recognised that they required help in developing their teaching approaches. Since they
had experienced teaching as a memorisation process, they used strategies to transmit content
to learners, construction of knowledge by learners was not considered. Their misgivings are
supported by a similar study conducted by Stears et al (2012) where they observed six teachers
who were enrolled on the ACE programme and found that these participant teachers placed
little value on the pedagogic aspects of teaching Physical Science. Stears et al. (2010, 251)
comment that the programme “falls short on developing teachers who are competent to follow
an inquiry approach”.
This study also found that many teachers struggled with understanding school level
concepts which was indicated by tutors as well as by the teachers themselves. This problem of
poor knowledge of school level content is an underlying problem that constrains the professional
development of teachers in a developing context such as South Africa. Those teachers who were
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
underqualified had only a three-year diploma from a teaching college during the apartheid era. 31
Many studies have noted the poor preparation of teachers from most (not all) of these colleges.
The ACE programme was offered by a university and as such had to offer content that was the
equivalent of first year university level science content in the subjects. There was therefore
a balancing equilibrium that the programme tried to achieve which was sometimes, but not
always successful. Many teachers struggled as evidenced by the high drop-out rate and the
fact that less than 50% of the group completed the programme within the stipulated time frame
of two years. What the study reveals is that the upgrading of teacher qualifications requires
a sound knowledge of school level content (common content knowledge) which can act as a
foundation upon which the advanced concepts can be constructed. Without this, the gap can be
too large as suggested by the large numbers who dropped out without completing the course.
Consequently, there is the problem of helping teachers develop a sound understanding of the
actual concepts they teach. Teachers were of the opinion that this was most important to them.
However, research indicates that teachers need to know more than what they will teach and
it is important that they are exposed to concepts at the horizon because this will help provide
them with the insight that can help them plan and sequence their teaching as well as form links
between the various topics and convey the significant ideas behind the teaching of science. The
two year part-time programme failed to provide sufficient time for more than half the group to
develop the necessary competence in the horizon concepts.
Stears et al. (2012) recommend that the ACE programme should also include a classroom
support component of mentoring so that these teachers could be supported while trying to
improve their practice. This could help in two ways. Firstly, mentorship would contribute to
helping those teachers with poor school level content knowledge to improve. Secondly, it could
help teachers develop inquiry oriented approaches which are more aligned with curriculum
reform outcomes. Ideally, classroom support should be provided by school management and
subject advisors. However, in the South African situation there has been much criticism about the
limited role played by subject advisors in supporting teachers. Teachers often teach in isolation
and have few avenues for support when they encounter conceptual difficulties. Providing
support to teachers is a dilemma (Calik, 2012) as the appointment and monitoring of subject
advisors is fraught with political problems between unions and the departments of education.
The inclusion of a classroom support component in teacher development programmes presented
by universities is a short term and limited solution. Ideally, the education department should
focus on reconstructing the provision of quality classroom support for teachers at various levels
of subject heads of departments, school management, district management and subject advisors.
Conclusions
The professional development of teachers in South Africa, a developing context, is faced

by various challenges. The large number of unqualified teachers raised questions about possible
models of professional development that could enhance both the content knowledge, the
pedagogic content knowledge of teachers and in the process increase their beliefs and attitudes in
teaching Physical Science. The implementation of an ACE programme was viewed as essential
to achieving this end. Since teachers were expected to engage with horizon knowledge and to
conduct practicals with the actual kits provided to schools, these served to instill in teachers a
greater link between the theory and practical interest in what they were teaching.
Furthermore, the classroom support in any teacher professional development programme
serves an important role as teachers are mentored in their presentation of teaching differently.
It is at these times where a teacher may be regarded as a novice experienced teacher. Change
is certainly difficult for most teachers to work with, so in their novice change state effective
guidance, rich in motivation support should be implemented. Research into the models of
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
32 mentoring in-service teachers and the effect of this on the personal and professional development
of teachers requires further research. The Department of Education as their organizational
structure have designated persons to support teachers, but this support is lacking or absent
in most instances, as finances are deciding what the role of these essential support persons is.
Teaching is a highly “emotional affair” and in South Africa, there should be no risks with how
teachers are supported but, clear, actionable practices should be identified and actioned.
References
Avalos, B. (2011). Teacher professional development in teaching and teacher education over ten years.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 10-20.
Adler, J., Pournara, C., Taylor, D., Thorne B., & Moletsane, G. (2009). Mathematics and science teacher
education in South Africa: A review of research, policy and practice in times of change. African
Journal of Research in MST Education - Special Issue, 28 – 46.
Bansilal, S., & Rosenberg, T. (2011). South African rural teachers’ reflections on their problems of
practice; taking modest steps in professional development. Mathematics Education Research
Journal, 23 (2), 107 – 127.
Brijlal, P. (2014). An exploration of the contribution of the ACE in Mathematical Literacy programme
towards the professional development of teachers in KwaZulu-Natal. Unpublished M.Ed
dissertation, UKZN.
Calik, M. (2012). A dilemma in upper secondary teacher education. Problems of Education in the 21st
century, 47, 5-5.
Calik, M., & Aytar, A. (2013). Investigating prospective primary teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge
of “Effect of human on environment” subject in process of teaching practice. Educational Science:
Theory and Practice, 13 (3), 1579-1605.
Calik, M., Ozsevgec, T., Ebenezer, J., Artun, H., & Kucuk, Z. (2014). Effects of ‘Environmental chemistry’
elective course via technology embedded scientific inquiry model on some variables. Journal of
Science Education and Technology, 26 (3), 412-430.
Department of Education. (2003). National Curriculum Statement. Grades 10 – 12. Pretoria: South Africa.
Department of Basic Education. (2011). Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). Grades
10 – 12. Physical Sciences. Pretoria: South Africa.
Hughes, J. A. (2006). Bridging the theory-practice divide: A creative approach to effective teacher
preparation. Journal of Scholarship and Teaching, 6 (1), 110-117.
Johnson, S., Hodges M., & Monk, M. (2000). Teacher Development and Change in South Africa: A
critique of the appropriateness of transfer of northern/western practice. Compare: A Journal of
Comparative and International Education, 30 (2), 179-192.
James, A. (2009). How student teachers construct and use practical wisdom to enhance their professional
development. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Pretoria.
Kriek, J., & Grayson, D. (2009). A holistic professional development model for South Africa physical
science teachers. South African Journal of Education, 29, 185 – 203.
Morrow, W. (2007). Learning to teach in South Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Ono, Y., & Ferreira, J. (2010). A case study of continuing teacher professional development through
lesson study in South Africa. South African Journal of Education, 30, 59-74.
Peressini, D., Borko, H., Romagnano, L., Knuth, E., & Willis, C. (2004). A Conceptual framework
for learning to teach secondary Mathematics: A situative perspective. Educational Studies in
Mathematics, 56 (1), 67 – 96.
Samuel, M. (2008). Accountability to whom? For what? Teacher identity and the Force Field Model of
teacher development. Perspectives in Education, 26 (2), 3-16.
Stears, M., Good, M. A., &. James, A. A. (2012). Exploring the professional identities of Physical Science
teachers enrolled in an Advanced Certificate in Education programme. Education as Change, 16
(2), 241-253.
Van Huizen, P., van Oers, B., & Wubbels, T. (2005). A Vygotskian perspective on teacher education.
Curriculum Studies, 37 (3), 267-290.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
33
Advised by Laima Railienė, University of Šiauliai, Lithuania
Received: December 16, 2015 Accepted: April 02, 2016
Sarah Bansilal PhD., Associate Professor, School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal,

Private Bag X03, Ashwood, 3605 Durban, South Africa.
E-mail: Bansilals@fukzn.ac.za
Angela James PhD., Senior Lecturer, Co-Faculty Advisor: ENACTUS, CU 139, Main
Administration & Tutorial Building, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood
Campus, Durban, South Africa.
E-mail: jamesa1@ukzn.ac.za
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
34
REFLECTIONS OF SOUTH AFRICAN
TEACHERS TEACHING UNDER
ADVERSARIAL CONDITIONS
Sarah Bansilal, Thelma Rosenberg
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
E-mail: Bansilals@ukzn.ac.za, Rosenbergt@ukzn.ac.za
Abstract
Teachers often teach under difficult conditions of which they do not have oversight. In order for teacher
development programmes to be responsive to teachers’ needs, it is necessary to understand the teaching
contexts of their participant teachers. Accordingly the purpose of the research was to identify the problems
of practice reported by 41 Mathematical Literacy teachers who teach under impoverished conditions in
South Africa. The participants identified their problems of practice and focused on one problem which
they tried to address during a two-week teaching intervention. They were required to generate a reflective
research report based on their teaching intervention, which formed the primary data source. The findings
indicate that of the 305 citations of problems, 174 were attributed to socio-economic factors, 111 to
pedagogic factors and 51 to school management factors. With most of these problems being out of their
locus of control, these teachers are forced to spend time dealing with the consequences of these problems,
instead of focusing their energy to find ways to improve their pedagogic practice. Teacher development
agencies need to consider how such teachers could be more appropriately supported.
Key words: classroom practice, non-prototype classes, problems of practice, teacher learning.

Introduction
Even with the advent of the new democracy in South Africa in 1994, the education
system has struggled to produce improved learning outcomes. South African teachers have
been subject to numerous curriculum changes, including the introduction of completely
new subjects. Hence there has been an increasing demand for effective teacher professional
development programmes that can support teachers to cope with these numerous demands.
However there is a dearth of research that focuses on the kinds of challenges faced by these
teachers, since most research about teachers’ professional development mainly reflect the
dominant concerns of researchers working in developed countries. Most South African teachers
teach under adversarial conditions that do not provide them with sufficient support and their
professional development needs are different from those commonly portrayed in most literature.
This situation has been recognized by Skovsmose (2006) who used the term “prototype” to
describe the type of classroom most commonly described in the research field. He argues that
the dominance of the discourse created around the prototype mathematic classroom should
be challenged. Skovsmose reports that 10%, 86% and 4% respectively of children aged 6-11
years lived in more developed, less developed and countries in transition respectively, where
the more developed regions include North America, Western Europe, Australia, Japan and New
Zealand. He further comments:
… we find many schools without electricity. Schools might be missing all kinds of equipment,
while students might be missing schoolbooks. Many schools are located in violent neighbourhoods,
where students might fear gangs operating in the vicinity … Contrary to all of this the prototype
mathematics classroom stays homogenous, and is well equipped. However, the statistical figures
may indicate that what has been characterized as a prototype mathematics classroom belongs to a
small minority of the sites for learning mathematics. (Skovsmose, 2006, p.269)
ISSN 1822-7864
Sarah BANSILAL, Thelma ROSENBERG. Reflections of South African teachers teaching under adversarial conditions
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Skovsmose argues that this ideal classroom over which discussions about effective 35
teaching takes place, actually constitutes a minority amongst the many real classrooms that are
found in developing countries or in pockets of neglected areas in developed countries. Johnson,
Hodges and Monk (2000) caution that developing countries should not export ideas from the
West without taking context into account, when developing teacher support programmes. They
comment that teacher trainers’ expend much of their effort in trying to change teachers. Instead
a shift in focus is advised, and teacher trainers should rather try to “understand teachers’ un-
transformed behavior” (Johnson et al., 2000, p. 180) by examining more carefully how the
environments in which these teachers practice impact on their teaching and learning. These
authors are adamant that teachers who come from the non-prototype situations are “constrained
by a somewhat different set of circumstances, have different perspectives on the work they do,
and need different in-service provision to those in developed countries.
In line with the recommendations of Johnson et al., (2000), this study was designed to
explore the experiences of a sample of teachers who teach in such non-prototype classrooms, as
they undertook a small-scale inquiry into their teaching of a Mathematical Literacy (ML) topic
over two weeks. The teachers in this study were enrolled in a continuing professional development
programme which included “planned opportunities for teacher learning” (Kelly, 2006, p. 505).
One such planned activity was a reflective practice module which was designed to encourage
the teachers to use their routines in practice as objects of their reflection. Reflective action often
originates from a problem situation encountered by teachers who are then prompted out of
their routines in order to solve the problem of practice. Hence problems of practice can become
powerful objects of teacher learning, when taken as catalysts for reflection. Furthermore, the
problems that teachers manage on a day-to-day basis in addition to illuminating the conditions
under which they teach, can also inform researchers of their learning experiences. Accordingly,
the purpose of this research was to investigate the problems of practice experienced by the
group of teachers who teach in non-prototypical classrooms.
Research Focus
Researching aspects of their own classroom practices have the potential for deepening
of teachers’ own content knowledge and their knowledge about student learning and reasoning.
(Huillet, Adler & Berger, 2011). In this study teachers were engaged in research about their own
practices, with the intention of improving their own teacher learning, while also providing data
about their teacher learning experiences.
Adler (2000, p.37) notes that the process of teacher learning “… is understood as a
process of increasing participation in the practice of teaching and through this participation,
a process of becoming knowledgeable in and about teaching”. Kelly (2006) points attention
more specifically to the contexts in which such learning takes place. Drawing on the work of
Lave and Wenger (1991), Kelly (2006, p.507) describes teacher learning as “the process by
which teachers move towards expertise” which is “closely linked to the circumstances to which
it pertains … to the particular working practices and their associated ways of thinking which
define their school circumstances”.
This perspective helps us understand how it is, that for example instrumental working
practices in schools contribute to the “development of expert teachers who adopt instrumental
stances in their working lives” (Kelly, 2006, p.513). On the other hand the working practices
of practitioners who work in an environment where decision making is collective and inclusive,
will “afford different notions of expertise for teachers … and the privileging of different
problems” (p.512). Kelly’s arguments have resonance with the finding from the study by Day
and Gu (2007) that school context was a key mediating influence on teachers’ effectiveness. The
authors are adamant that “schools are the primary site for teachers’ professional learning” and
the environments they provide can enhance or diminish “teachers’ sense of space and energy to
learn, their sense of identity, efficacy and effectiveness, and whether they sustain or jeopardise
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
36 their motivation and commitment to teach well in a range of circumstances” (Day & Gu, 2007,
p.427).
These studies suggest that teachers’ learning and hence their knowledge of teaching
is strongly influenced by the experiences they are afforded in the contexts of their working
environments. In fact the work by Spaull (2011) and van der Berg (2007) show that teacher
knowledge is a significant factor only in South African schools that work well. Van der Berg
(2007, p.871) argues that “better school management is probably the most important factor”
in improving school performance. For schools that do not work well, the effect of teachers’
knowledge may be washed out by other factors associated with school functionality. For
schools of low socio-economic status (SES), teacher knowledge is not as significant a factor in
predicting learners’ performance as it is for high SES schools. Spaull’s results “show that for
the poorest 80% of students, the impact of teacher knowledge is almost half that of the impact
of teacher knowledge in wealthier schools” (Spaull, 2011, p.22). These results suggest that the
80% of schools can be considered as non-prototype schools. Spaull comments that it “appears
highly probable that students and teachers in poorer schools face multiple constraints which
overshadow the impact of teacher knowledge”(Spaull, 2011, p.22).
Johnson et al’s (2000) environmental selection theory may help explain the findings of
these statistically based studies conducted by Spaull and van der Berg. The authors (Johnson
et al. 2000, p. 183), argue that “professionalism is not differentially distributed because of the
inadequacies of individuals within the system” but because of the “variations in the systems
within which the individuals work”. The authors comment (p.179) that the environment in
which teachers work — physical, social and political — acts to select a more limited repertoire
of behavior than those providing in-service might imagine. We often assume that teachers will
do something if they know how to do it, but such an assumption may not be warranted. Johnson
et al. (2000) propose a selection theory which is that “the selection of actual classroom practice
is constrained by the resources to hand and the normative behavior of the school the teacher
works in”. The environmental selection theory contends that “the actual classroom practice
the teacher uses for a particular group of students on a particular day with a particular topic
can only be selected from the teacher’s stock of pedagogical content knowledge” (Johnson et
al., 2000, pp.185-186). The authors make a crucial distinction between the selection process
undertaken by teachers in the well supported northern/western contexts and those by teachers
in fragile educational systems. They argue that for the former, it is the teacher who does the
selection while in the latter case, “it is the environment in which the teacher works that creates
the selection”. They comment that many teachers are free to “think what they wish” but cannot
“do as they wish” (Johnson et al., 2000, p.186).
In this study the lens that is used to understand the teachers’ contexts, is the concept of
a problem of practice. Lampert (1985) used the phrase “problems in practice” to highlight the
dilemma management role taken on by teachers when faced with particular problems during
their practice of teaching. In this study the phrase problem of practice refers to a situation
faced by a teacher which has the potential of negatively affecting the teaching practices in the
classroom.
Problems of practice can be caused by various factors. Socio-economic factors are those
which are directly related to learners’ community or family circumstances. School management
factors are those related to the (lack of) effective management of the school such as large
classes or a lack of photocopying facilities in the school. Pedagogical problems of practice
are those related to the organization, management and the teaching and learning processes in
the teachers’ classrooms. Examples of pedagogical problems could be gaps in knowledge of
learners, misconceptions of learners, incomplete homework, poor motivation of learners etc.
One of the differences between an ideal prototypical classroom and a non-prototypical
one lies in the types of problems that a teacher manages. With the former, the overriding concern
of teachers is to manage their pedagogical problems, while for the latter; the teachers have to
deal with problems emanating from different spheres.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Methodology of Research 37
General Background of Research
South African teachers have faced numerous challenges because of the many curriculum
revisions and the low levels of support available to them. The purpose of this study was to
investigate the problems that impact on the classroom practices of South African teachers. It is
qualitative in nature because of its focus on interpretative dimensions. The participant teachers
were enrolled in a part-time in-service programme at a local university to train them to teach the
subject Mathematical Literacy. The authors were facilitators in the programme and initiated the
study to learn more about the context in which the teachers worked. The study was specifically
located in the Professional Practice module, which focused on engaging teachers in reflections
about their practices.
Sample of Research
The participants in this study were 41 Mathematical Literacy (ML) teachers from two of
the most impoverished districts in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) in South Africa. They
were enrolled in the in-service teacher programme, and attended classes on a part-time basis.
Instrument and Procedures
As part of the professional practice module, teachers were asked to identify a ‘problem
of practice’, and to attempt to find ways to deal with the problem during a two-week teaching
intervention. They were required to generate a research report based on their teaching
intervention. Additional information in the form of relevant lesson plans, daily reflections, and
copies of learners work were also included in their submissions. The teachers’ reflections on
their problems of practice and their experiences in resolving such problems provided a critical
lens through which insights into their lived experiences were gained. Data for the study were
generated from these documents submitted by the teachers.
Data Analysis

The process of data analysis followed what Polkinghorne (1995) terms “analysis of
narratives”. These are studies whose data consists of narratives or stories, but whose analysis
produces categories. Stories from the participants were subjected to content analysis. Common
elements of the stories were organized according to themes based on the different kinds of
problems of practice encountered by the teachers. In order to ensure validity of the data analysis,
coding of the data was done independently by two people. These were then crosschecked and
discrepancies were addressed. The coding was then transferred to an Excel file which enabled
further numerical analysis in terms of the number of times particular problems were cited by the
various teachers. The results were used to provide answers to the research question:
Results of Research
Many teachers did a broad listing of factors which they saw as constraints to their
practice. There were 305 citations of problems identified by the participants, and these were
then categorised further into three broad themes. These were problems emanating from the poor
socio-economic situation, school management issues (SM), and pedagogic issues (P). These
are discussed in further detail. Note that the teachers’ written quotes are reproduced verbatim,
without any language editing.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
38 Problems of Practice Influenced By Poor Socio-Economic Context
The most cited socio-economic problem was the poverty of the community or parents.
For example participants T5 and T25 wrote:
My school is in a deep rural area and most of my learners are from illiterate and very poor homes
(T5)
Most parents are illiterate, unemployed and wholly dependent on govt grants (T25)
The KZN province suffers the highest rate of HIV infections in South Africa and some
teachers alluded directly to this problem, while others spoke about the related problem of
children who are orphans or living in child-headed households. T5 reported that many of her
learners were breadwinners and they had responsibilities to “fetch water, cook food, look after
siblings” which prevented them from getting their homework done. T23 wrote about the many
child headed families in her school:
There is not enough water and learners are forced to stand in queues to collect water in the
morning and afternoon. As a result learners don’t do homework and fare poorly in tests and
exams. (T23)
Another serious problem in South Africa is that of teenage pregnancies. In accordance

with the guidelines set out in South African Schools Act (1996), girls who fall pregnant are
allowed to return to school after the birth of the child, and many do. Teachers cited this as a
problem because the teenage mother has responsibilities which impact on the time they could
spend on school work. Teacher T19 reported that all except 2 girls in his Mathematical Literacy
class were mothers.
The high crime rate in South Africa also played a role in the teachers’ perceptions of their
problems. T11 spoke about the high rate of car hijacking and burglaries that took place near his
school, making them fearful for their own safety. Teacher T3 spoke similarly about the feeling
of imminent danger while at school because “gangsters invade the school and rob the teachers
of their phones and their valuable belongings”.
Problems of Practice Caused by Ineffective School Management
The issue of large classes was the most cited problem of practice. In analysing the data,
there were 32 teachers who listed their actual class sizes, with 22 reporting class sizes greater
than 50. The difficulty of dealing with such a problem is captured in the report by T25, who had
78 learners in his mathematical literacy class:
So when the teacher apply individualistic learning might a big problem because I fail to manage,
and mark the work of all the learners in the class and also to get the problem of those who are
slow, and even the cooperative learning is so difficult because of space and furniture are short/
scarce then I end up fail to conduct a groupwork because of no space of moving around the group
to help them, and then other learners copy other learner’s work, making noise, others are not
working in the group because of a huge group of 10 learners. I lost a lot of time even to allocate
the groups because not all of the time sitting in groups. Also I’m being running behind of my work
always, at the end of the day I need to record the continuous assessment because there’s some
marks from continuous assessment. (T25)
His writing conveys his sense of helplessness in trying to manage the competing demands
of attempting different teaching methods, seeing to slow learners, moving around the class to
help his learners while struggling to comply with the continuous assessment requirements.
Teacher T41 wrote that he had to make alternate arrangements out of the scheduled timetable to
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
manage the marking load created by his large classes. Two teachers (T35 and T31) wrote about 39
the practical constraints of large classes:
To make sure that all learners participate, I divide them into groups. Each group has 10 learners,
9 groups in all, unbelievable to educators who work in urban areas.(T35)
I teach Mathematical Literacy in a class of 62 learners, not enough space to walk around for the
teacher, ... 62 learners in a 7 m by 7m class.(T31)
These comments reveal that with such large classes, assessment of class work and
homework is transformed into an overwhelming task. Overcrowded classes were also cited
as the reason why teachers (such as T25 above) were not keen to use group work. Another
problem reported by ten teachers was the lack of resources such as laboratories, libraries or
even electricity. For example teacher T18 complained that his school had “no laboratories, no
electricity in classrooms only in the principal’s office and the staffroom”. Participant T26 wrote
that his school did “not have any library or computers because we use the low power electricity,
the solar”, while another wrote:
The school has insufficient material and equipment, classrooms are overcrowded and chalkboards
are not well fixed. Maybe 40 out of 500 learners have calculators, 20 out of 500 have textbooks
and 120 out of 500 have proper desks.(T11)
There were also more serious problems such as insufficient number of classrooms.
Teacher T23 described how the school tried to solve their problem of insufficient classrooms:
There are 8 classrooms for 645 learners, the governing body bought 2 tents but that was not enough.
Some learners learn under trees, a great inconvenience as there are no portable chalkboards and
learners fail to concentrate attentively. (T23)
This teacher’s comment is a reminder that such a situation (learning under the tree) still
exists. Note the teacher’s matter-of-fact tone about the “inconvenience” to the learners, without
even being angry about the school situation. Other problems that were reported were crime by
learners as mentioned by T10:
There is a lot of crime mostly the learners of our school. Police collect some of the learners while
we are learning and this disturbs teaching and learning and they will return after a few days.(T10)
Teacher T11 estimated that there were serious fighting incidents taking place between
learners at his school at least four times a week.
Many teachers recounted that they faced interruptions to teaching all the time. Some
interruptions were because of teacher workshops; cultural celebrations; or, from outside the
school. One teacher described an interruption from outside the school:
My lesson was destructed on the seventh day when there was an incident involving two women
who came to my class, got a pupil out and began to hit her. The whole school became chaotic as
learners love disturbances. I intended revising that day but I could not due to the chaos. So I could
not give them the test the following day.(T16)
Some reasons for the loss in teaching time were because of the preparations for the
annual matric dance, other teachers taking over their timetable slots to complete some tasks
with the learners because of some policy requirements. This reveals the ease with which the
official school timetable could be disregarded.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
40 Problems of Practice Impacting on the Classroom Pedagogic Environment
Socio-economic and school management problems impact on teachers’ classroom

practice. Many teachers reported that their students were second language English speakers,
who struggled to understand many of the ML tasks based on everyday contexts, because of its
reliance on language. One teacher T1 wrote:
Most learners failed to understand the phrasing of questions, meaning the language issue is
the one that influences our teaching and learning. Using code switching does not mean you
are teaching in that particular language but it is to give clarity e.g. when teaching mathematics
there are key words like terminology to reinforce understanding, code switching can be used e.g.
multiply (phindaphinda). (T1)
Here teacher T1 identified language as an issue that affected her learners’ performance
in ML. Teacher T16 felt that because his learners spoke the local language at home “they were
afraid to speak English”. For some teachers, the language presented even more challenges
because there were different home languages to consider in those areas close to the border of
Mozambique. Participant T19 wrote:
Teacher cannot communicate in English, even their Zulu is not appropriate (affected by the border
line). Their mix is IsiZulu and IsiTonga. (T19)
Teachers were also discouraged by the negative attitude or de-motivation of students to

the subject as well as a lack of classroom resources, or teaching aids that limited their classroom
practice. Other teaching and learning problems cited by teachers included students not having
the basic knowledge and skills, copying or not being able to do individual work. However,
many of these teaching and learning constraints were related to the socio-economic and school
management issues. For example, the problem of learners’ non-completion of homework is an
issue that affects the quality of learning in a classroom. However, there is often an underlying
problem related to socio-economic factors. Some of these problems included children having
too many domestic duties because their parents did not live at home (because they could only
find work in the cities). Many teachers cited experiences of learners who were responsible for
their siblings. Some teachers wrote that this problem was compounded by the fact that many
students had to walk such long distances to and from school, thus extra classes were not an
option. One teacher re-organised her lessons so that the last 15 minutes of the one-hour lesson
was devoted to homework supervision in her class. Another teacher (T2) supervised additional
study time after school: “Homework is out of reach for most of my learners not because they
hate it, but because the home situation does not allow it.”
Other constraints identified by the teachers were related to classroom management
issues. Examples of these were excessive noise in the classroom, or incomplete class work
or homework. These classroom management problems impacted directly on the teaching and
learning in the classroom. Clearly many of these problems would be minimized if teachers had
more effective classroom management techniques supported by school policies designed to
strengthen the teachers’ interventions. For example, a teacher should have some authority to
identify students who stayed away too often and procedures for dealing with high absenteeism.
Six teachers reported an unusual problem — that of noise. In the words of two participants:
In most cases when my colleagues are teaching, there is this intolerable amount of noise and
chaos and this disturbs the spirit…when learners are asked to work on a problem in class there
is noise. (T40)
My gr 11 maths lit class is the most chaotic one in the school because the learners misbehave and
are unrespecting.(T8)
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Problems of Practice and Teacher Learning 41
The table below shows the categorisation of the cited problems and also reveals how
many teachers cited the particular problem. The six highlighted rows represent the factors
which were cited most often.
Table 1. Count of various problems of practice.
Code Problem Count Code Problem Count

Poor community/ parents, unem-
SEF1 25 P1 Limited classroom resources 20
ployed
SEF2 Illiterate parents/comm 20 P2 Gaps in knowledge 8
SEF3 Domestic duties 4 P3 Negative attitude to ML, no motivation 23
orphans /staying on their own/stay-

SEF4 14 P4 Lazy learners/copying 16
ing with relatives
No parental involvement in school High absenteeism/ latecoming/ bunk-

SEF5 15 P5 8
work or supervision ing lessons
The class is not a science or com-

SEF6 Long distance to walk home 6 P6 5
merce stream
SEF7 No electricity at home 6 P7 Not doing homework 15

SEF8 Teenage pregnancies/mothers 8 P8 Class work not completed 4
Problems with groupwork/ not doing
SEF9 Single parents 1 P9 10
individual work
SEC1 High rates of HIV AIDs 8 P10 Noise 6
Problems with English as a second
SEC2 Lack of role models in community 2 P11 24
language
SEC3 Crime in community 6 SM4 Too many repeating grades 1
SM1 Crime by learners 2 SM5 ML class is very large 30
SM2 High dropout from schools 2 SM6 No electricity in school/poor resources 10
SM3 Overage learners 1 SM7 Does not have an ML class 5
The results indicate that these teachers reported 174 problems brought about by socio-
economic conditions and poor school management, and only 111 pedagogic problems of
practice. Thus, the teachers have reported that they are 1½ times more likely to deal with
problems of practice emanating from outside their classroom than a pedagogic problem that
they have been trained to manage.
Discussion
Most of the schools in South Africa are struggling because of the legacy of apartheid
policies which devastated the education system for blacks. The problems cited by these
South African teachers in their reflections about their teaching, is supported by other reports.
For example, Hugo et al., (2010) reported that one in four learners in KZN are orphans,
suggesting that many teachers are working with children who don’t have parents. The problem
of schoolchildren who are themselves mothers is a concern in the country. A recent report
(Govender, 2012) revealed that 160 754 schoolgirls fell pregnant between July 2008 and July
2010, with KZN reporting the second highest number of teenage pregnancies. A recent report
(Grobbelaar & Masuku, 2012) also highlighted the fact that there were 3500 public schools
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
42 in South Africa that have no electricity, while 2402 do not have a water supply. There are 913
schools which do not have any toilets. So these reports confirm that many teachers and learners
in the country have to learn and teach under these very difficult circumstances. Clark and Linder
(2006) call for research studies to take cognisance of the ‘non teaching’ (this refers to the high
absenteeism rate and low time in class or on task) that takes place at some schools. In Clark
and Linder’s study, they showed that during the 14 weeks they spent doing observations at
the school, teaching on almost 1/3 of school days was disrupted in one way or another. Hence
ineffective school management can result in reduced learning opportunities Clark and Linder
(2006) in their case study of one science teacher found that the reason for the overwhelming
rowdiness and restlessness of the class they observed, was the fact that the students had missed
6 out of the 23 lessons in that week and they were out of the class in the previous two lessons,
because of teachers not turning up at their class. The teachers’ experiences reported in this study
are therefore not unique and may be more pervasive than we imagine.
The findings from this study reveal the limited teacher learning opportunities afforded
to teachers who teach under trying conditions. A stable and well functioning education system
is able to offer teachers sustained support. In such a situation, teachers deal mainly with their
routine problems of practice encountered in their classrooms which can be compared to a rich
rain forest where organisms in complex systems can thrive (Johnson et al., 2000). However,
in a dysfunctional schooling context there is little support for the teacher and can be seen as
a “desert habitat in which few strategies can survive the harsh environment” (Johnson et al.,
2000, p.187). As demonstrated by these teachers’ reports of their problems of practice there
is poor understanding of the roles of the various structures in poorly functioning structures.
Problems have often become bigger because they were not been contained at the level that
they should have been. For example, in the case of criminal elements entering the school, it is
the responsibility of the school management and governing body to identify and deal with the
problem, which may include fixing a broken gate or ensuring perhaps that only school learners
are allowed into the school premises. However, if that problem is not managed at the level it
should have been, it becomes a threat to the teaching and learning situations. A learner or a
teacher may get robbed of essential things that are needed for her lesson as in the case of teacher
T3. This problem then intrudes into the teachers’ work of teaching, making their task harder. In
a system where functions at each level are compromised, each of the problems constrain the
teaching and hence the learning space afforded to the teacher.
If teachers are continually having to teach in adversarial conditions such as those reported
by our sample, learning by experience takes on a different meaning. Kelly’s (2006) explanation
about teacher learning, throws light onto the knowledge construction process taking place
amongst teachers in such situations. Teachers in the sample reported that they face more socio-
economic and school management problems, so most of their teacher learning will be focused on
managing these problems instead of learning how to be more effective teachers. Some teachers
were engaged with issues such as how many desks could be fitted into the classroom (T11; T31;
T25); how best to duplicate an assessment or design innovative teaching aids when electricity is
not available (T18; T25) and how to keep the 100 learners in the tent comfortable while teaching
(T23). Under other circumstances, these teachers may have been reflecting about how they could
introduce the concept of trigonometry; or how they could design a fairer assessment; or whether
they should use different colours of chalk to illustrate the properties of a triangle respectively.
However, this was not possible because “it is the environment in which the teacher works” that
regulated the selection of what was possible.
This study was done to raise our own awareness of the realities of the teachers who attend
our professional development programmes in an attempt to be “both responsible and responsive
to teachers, attending to both teachers’ knowledge and to teachers’ needs” Sztajn (2008, p.300).
The intentions were to use their problems of practice as a lens to better understand their
learning opportunities. Teacher learning from reflection depends on cycles of action. Hence
teacher learning depends on support and opportunities for such reflection. For the teachers in
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
this sample, it is evident that their space for teacher learning is constrained because they are 43
preoccupied with managing the problems of practice emanating from outside their classroom
instead of reflecting about pedagogical problems of practice which could activate rich learning
opportunities. As teacher educators the authors have realised that it is unhelpful to design
programmes which do not take the daily experiences of teachers from non-prototype classes
into account, when most in-service teacher students are from such situations. This study has
demonstrated that our assumptions about teachers’ learning opportunities were incomplete and
future interventions should be designed more closely around the teachers’ needs and concerns.
Conclusions
The findings raise concern that the thousands of teachers who teach in non-prototype
classes throughout the world face similar constrained environments which limit their own
teacher learning opportunities. It is incumbent upon the policy makers, education leaders,
politicians and researchers who want to improve the education outcomes, to direct their attention
to how the schools and the education system could be managed more efficiently. If the teachers’
environments can be improved, then teachers could have more authentic teacher learning
opportunities and these could result in them creating more effective learning opportunities
for their learners. There is also an urgent need for case studies of effective teacher education
practices which support teachers who teach in such difficult conditions. Research in the area
of teacher education programmes in developing countries is urgently needed to create common
understandings about how such programmes could be made more effective.
References
Adler, J. (2000). Social practice theory and mathematics teacher education: A conversation between
theory and practice. Nordic Mathematics Education Journal (NOMAD), 8 (3), 31-53.
Bansilal, S., & Rosenberg, T. (2011). South African rural teachers’ reflections on their problems of
practice: Taking modest steps in professional development. Mathematics Education Research
Journal, 23 (2), 107-127.
Clark, J., & Linder, C. (2006). Changing teaching, changing times. Lessons from a South African township
science classroom. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Day, C., & Gu, Q. (2007). Variations in the conditions for teachers’ professional learning and development:
Sustaining commitment and effectiveness over a career. Oxford Review of Education, 33 (4), 423-
443.
Govender, P. (2012). Our teens swap books for babies. Sunday Times SA, 15 April 2012.
Grobbelaar, R., & Masuku, S. (2012). Schools face crisis. Sunday Times SA, 22 June 2012.
Hugo, W., Jack, M., Wedekind, V., Wilson, D. et al. (2010). The state of education in KwaZulu-Natal: A
report to the Provincial Treasury. KZN Provincial Treasury: Pietermaritzburg.
Huillet, D., Adler, J., & Berger, M. (2011). Teachers as researchers: Placing mathematics at the core.
Education as Change, 15 (1), 17-32.
Johnson, S., Hodges, M., & Monk, M. (2000). Teacher development and change in South Africa: A
critique of the appropriateness of transfer of northern/western practice. Compare: A Journal of
Comparative and International Education, 30 (2), 179-192.
Kelly, P. (2006). What is teacher learning? A socio-cultural perspective. Oxford Review of Education, 32
(4), 505-519
Lampert , M. (2001). Teaching problems and the problems of teaching. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. In J. A. Hatch and R.
Wisniewski (Eds.), Life history as narrative (pp. 5-23). London: Falmer.
Republic of South Africa 1996. South African Schools Act (Act 84 of 1996). Pretoria: Government Printer.
Sztajn, P. 2008. Caring relations in the education of practising mathematics teachers. In B. Jaworski and
T. Woods, (Ed.), The Mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional, pp229–313.
Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Skovsmose, O. (2006). Research, practice, uncertainty and responsibility. Journal of Mathematical
Behavior, 25 (4), 267-284
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
44 Spaull, N. (2011). A preliminary analysis of SACMEQ III South Africa. Stellenbosch: University of
Stellenbosch.
Van der Berg, S. 2007. Apartheid’s enduring legacy: Inequalities in Education. Journal of African
Economics, 16 (5), 849-880.
Advised by Vincentas Lamanauskas, University of Šiauliai, Lithuania
Received: December 18, 2015 Accepted: April 12, 2016
Sarah Bansilal PhD., Associate Professor, School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pri-
vate Bag X03, Ashwood, 3605 Durban, South Africa.
E-mail: Bansilals@fukzn.ac.za
Thelma Rosenberg Lecturer, School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
E-mail: Rosenbergt@ukzn.ac.zacom
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
SMALL GROUP LEARNING METHODS 45
AND THEIR EFFECT ON LEARNERS’

RELATIONSHIPS
Radka Borůvková, Petr Emanovský
Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic
Email: boruvkovaradka@seznam.cz, petr.emanovsky@upol.cz
Abstract
Building relationships in the classroom is an essential part of any teacher’s career. Having healthy
teacher-to-learner and learner-to-learner relationships is an effective way to help prevent pedagogical
failure, social conflict and quarrelsome behavior. Many strategies are available that can be used to
achieve good long-lasting relationships in the classroom setting. Successful teachers’ pedagogical work
in the classroom requires detailed knowledge of learners’ relationships. Good understanding of the
relationships is necessary, especially in the case of teenagers’ class. This sensitive period of adolescence
demands attention of all teachers who should deal with the problems of their learners. Special care
should be focused on children that are out of their classmates’ interest (so called isolated learners or
isolates) in such class and on possibilities to integrate them into the class. Natural idea how to do it is
that of using some modern non-traditional teaching/learning methods, especially the methods based on
work in small groups involving learners’ cooperation. Small group education (especially problem-based
learning, project-based learning, cooperative learning, collaborative learning or inquire-based learning)
as one of these methods involves a high degree of interaction. The effectiveness of learning groups is
determined by the extent to which the interaction enables members to clarify their own understanding,
build upon each other’s contributions, sift out meanings, ask and answer questions. An influence of this
kind of methods (especially cooperative learning (CL)) on learners’ relationships was a subject of the
further described research. Within the small group education, students work with their classmates to
solve complex and authentic problems that help develop content knowledge as well as problem-solving,
reasoning, communication, and self-assessment skills. The aim of the research was to answer the question:
Can the cooperative learning methods help to integrate isolated learners into the class? The research was
realized as a pre-test-post-test design for the sample of 207 learners of first, second and third grades of
lower secondary school. Standardized sociometric questionnaire B-3 was used to determine the number
of isolated learners before and after using the CL methods. Consequently, using the Wilcoxon statistic test
of significance, the hypothesis was verified that the number of isolates after the CL methods is statistically
significantly lower than that of the case before using the non-traditional teaching/learning method.
Accordingly, the research results justify implementation CL methods into education.
Key words: cooperative learning, isolated learners, learners’ relationships, small group learning
methods, sociometric methods.
Introduction
The learner to learner relationships in a classroom is an important element of education.

How can you learn and participate with others if you don’t get along with them? Good
knowledge of the relationships is necessary for all teachers, especially in the case of teenagers’
class. Children can be isolated for very different reasons: their behaviors may turn other students
off. They may cut in line, talk too much, interrupt conversations, make fun of others, and butt
in during games. A child may lack an understanding of basic social skills so that he/she may
not know what to say or do around his classmates. Rather than run the risk of trying to connect
with a classmate and failing, he/she may withdraw from his/her peers and choose to spend time
alone. Staying to himself/herself is often the less painful option. Not surprisingly, these students
have trouble making and keeping friends. Beyond its effect on a child’s self-esteem, isolation
ISSN 1822-7864
Radka BORŮVKOVÁ, Petr EMANOVSKÝ. Small group learning methods and their effect on learners’ relationships
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
46 from peers can have a marked impact on his school adjustment. Isolates may have difficulty
focusing on schoolwork as their attention drifts to social concerns. Having limited relationships
with peers also denies them a valuable learning experience. It is through these interactions that
they learn the skills of developing and maintaining friendships. It is not surprising then that
children who are isolated from their peers tend to have social problems later on. Frustrating
feeling of an isolated learner receiving no choices in a group of classmates, especially in the
sensitive period of adolescence, can have a significant negative effect on her or his future life.
There are few things more painful to children than to have no friends. Just about all children
need to feel a connection with their peers. For those on the social fringe, school brings frequent
reminders of their unwanted status — being chosen last for a team, having trouble finding a
partner for an activity, having few classmates to invite to their birthday party, not having anyone
to play with during recess.
To eliminate this unpleasant feeling and trying to integrate the teenager back into the class
team, there was tried to arrange some means, method or form of work which would contribute
to the social interactions of classmates and find activities, where one can interact with other
students successfully and be with peers who are likely to be accepting. After some previous
experience with project-based learning (Emanovský & Štěpánková, 2013) and problem-based
learning (Emanovský, 2015), the method of cooperative learning was chosen for this aim. Of
course, the correctness of the assumption that this method could contribute to the integration of
learners standing at the edge of class to the class group should be confirmed by serious research.
Learner-to-Learner Relationships and their “Measurement”
In order to determine the influence of the social climate of the classroom on the achievement
of the students, it is first necessary to decide upon an effective method for measuring social
acceptance or rejection of students by their classmates (Buck, 1952). A suitable quantitative
method for measuring of learner-to-learner relationships in a classroom is sociometry. The
method was developed by the psychotherapist J. L. Moreno in his studies of the relationship
between social structures and psychological well-being (Moreno, 1953). One of essential means
in sociometry is the sociogram, a systematic method for graphically representing individuals
as points/nodes and the relationships between them as lines/arcs (McIntyre, 2003). Sociograms
may be constructed in a variety of ways. The methods described here are ones which teachers
have used and found not too difficult or time consuming. The graphically representing is based
on special sociometric questionnaire detecting learners’ positive and negative choices in the
class. Sociometry and sociograms are very important tools for teacher’s behaviour management
in the class collective. They provide a wealth of information about classroom friendship and
interaction patterns, and they can be very useful for the teacher when he/she is planning seating
arrangements or work-group composition. A sociogram’s value to a teacher is in its potential
for developing greater understanding of group behavior so that he/she may operate more wisely
in group management and curriculum development. In the classroom, many occasions occur
where the class has to be split up into small groups, which will work on particular projects, and
the particular activity involved will provide the criterion of choice (Evans, 1963). The results of
sociometric research can be applied to help make positive changes in behaviour in a classroom
setting (Sherman, 2002). The sociograms help identify various groups of learners. The pattern
of choices can show a star (someone that receives the most choices), a rejectee (he or she
that receives no positive choices and a number of negative choices) and an isolate (someone
receiving no choices). Everyone else is a member (receiving some positive and perhaps some
negative choices) (Chapin, 1950). Sociometry is based on the fact that people make choices in
interpersonal relationships. Whenever people gather, they make choices where to sit or stand;
choices about who is perceived as friendly and who not, who is central to the group, who is
rejected, who is isolated (McIntyre, 2003). Sociometry can be seen as a way of measurement
of the relationships between people in a social setting. It is undertaken to reveal information
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
about individuals in their relationship to groups, in the context of their mutual activities. In 47
education, sociometric assessment is a valuable means by which the teacher can determine the
relationships of individual learners to other ones within the class. It also allows the teacher to
track the roles which the learners play in mutual relationship within the classroom, identifying
for example the popular children who are the centre of attention, and the neglected children who
are overlooked by the majority of their peers (Hoffman, 2001).
Sociometric questionnaire is the most important and basic technique giving sociometry
information. The questionnaire is easy to administer and consist, basically, of simply asking
each member of a group to indicate his or her choice of companions for some specified activity
or occasion. Using the questionnaire can be found out the positive choices in the group, which
are sympathy, preferences, attractions, and also the negative choice - rejection. The positive
choices are detected more often. The sociometric questionnaire contains usually one or more
questions that allow all members of a social group to vote of the partners for certain situations
or joint activities. The sociometric questionnaire is set mostly in writing form. Content of the
questions depends on the specific objectives of the sociometric research. The questionnaire B-3
by Richard Braun can be also included among the sociometric questionnaires (Braun, 2012).
It uses a rating scale for two factors - influence and popularity, which are supplemented by
verbal reasoning of the assessments. The questionnaire is professionally standardized for the
population in the Czech Republic. The questionnaire B-3, which is designed for sociometric
analysis of learners of 4th – 9th grade at basic school and which is also suitable for learners of
lower secondary school, was used. The obtained data are usually processed in several ways
– using matrix analysis, sociogram and calculation of sociometric indexes (Hoffman, 2001).
Using the freeware “Sociogram” for creating the sociograms the number of isolates was
determined (Table 1).
The sociometric results that have been obtained using the questionnaire represent very
valuable source of information about learners’ relationships. Sociometric stars, isolates as
well as individuals at risk - potential victims of aggressors and aggressors themselves can be
identified using the results. Class potential is also described by responses of learners connected
with their positions in the class, so one can find out those, who are not comfortable in the
classroom. Class positions hierarchy is built from several outputs of the questionnaire, and
therefore it can be suitably used as a basis for intervention in the class. Sociometric stars have
the largest radius in the classroom, their views are respected, and so they can streamline the
educational intervention of the teacher. The rejected individuals can be also found out from the
results of the questionnaire. They are the easiest victims of the class bullying and the teacher
would be interested to know how they are satisfied in the class collective. The tendency to be
victimized by bullies has been commonly associated with low self-esteem, shyness and feeling
of isolation (O´Moore & Kirkham, 2001). In the case of negative feelings of the learner it is
necessary to find out the cause and try to change his/her position. In the case of the isolates it is
necessary to try to integrate them into the class collective.
The serious problem of sociometric methods is the question of their reliability and validity.
One early review (Mouton et al. 1955) indicated some of the limitations of sociometric procedures
from the point of view of the stability of measures. Among other problems, the stability of the
measuring instrument is confounded with the stability of persons and social structures. Validity is
especially difficult to assess in sociometry, since the sociometric indexes are so often seen as the
criteria to be predicted. Intrinsically, sociometric information represents the objective depicting
of the situation on the basis of the most relevant judges—those with whom one participates. Thus,
there has been some tendency to emphasize the prediction of sociometric status on the basis of
other characteristics rather than to use sociometric status to predict other variables (Gresham, F. M.
& Stuart, D., 1992). Sociometric procedures have been incorporated into many different types
of studies. For example, in small group research one of the common types of information
collected in post-meeting questionnaires is the set of sociometric ratings on criteria relevant
to the group participation. On this score, it should be emphasized that sociometric procedures
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
48 as classically defined have tended to merge with more general procedures for obtaining peer
ratings and rankings. The structure of self-rankings and peer rankings has been systematically
explored by various researchers, with some convergence on the types of content involved and
some crystallization of information about the stability of measures (Borgatta, 1964). Content
corresponding to that initially identified by Jennings (1947) with task and with social concerns
has continued to be central, but other concepts have also been found to recur in analyses.
Sociometric procedures have also been important to the development of several other research
areas. An extensive review of this research literature (Glanzer & Glaser, 1961) has suggested
the limitations of such approaches and has placed them in their historical context. Sociometric
techniques remain pervasive in the social sciences, having relevance to personality research,
small group research, analysis of networks of communication and group structures, and to
special topics such as the reputational study of social status in the community and the study of
segregation patterns.
Small Group Learning Methods as a Means of Improving Learners’ Relationships
By small group learning (SGL) is usually meant an organizational form of education

based on work in small groups involving learners’ cooperation. On can distinguish several
specific modern non-traditional learning methods within SGL, namely problem-based learning
(Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006), project-based learning (Baranoková, 2012; Grecmanová
& Urbanovská, 1997; Henry, 1994), cooperative learning (Cowie, H. & Rudduck, J., 1988;
Kasíková, 1997; Trabalíková, 2011), collaborative learning (Kay, 1992; Hošek, 2001)
or inquiry-based learning (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006). SGL can be considered as a
common technique in collegiate instruction that has a plethora of benefits for learners and their
relationships in the classroom.
According to Johnson, Johnson, and Holubeck (1994), small group learning can bring
improvements in areas such as tolerance and positive interactions among students from different
cultural backgrounds, the exchange and processing of information, academic achievement,
ownership of new knowledge and skills, opportunities to solve real-world problems, positive
attitudes toward the content, openness to new perspectives, motivation to learn, confidence in
one’s social skills, psychological health (e.g., social development, self-esteem) and attendance.
Fisher and Ellis (l990) emphasise that most of the definitions of a group indicate the
sharing element among members as the key factor which defines the existence of a group. The
sharing can be around perceptions, motivation or goals, as well as around tasks, such as in a
scenario group session. This sharing element can be greatly influenced by the group dynamic or
climate of the group. The structure of the group is another defining element ‐ the roles, norms,
values and power relationships that influence the behaviour of group members and tie them to
the group, providing the ‘glue’ of group structure. The structure of a group can influence the
level and success of interaction in a group. Studies have shown that when looking at long term
retention, the ability to apply knowledge and solve problems, critical thinking and development
of positive attitudes, results consistently favour small discussion classes (McKeachie & Kulik,
1975, McKeachie, 1994).
SGL is the learning method that places students at the centre of the learning process.
It is widely used to replace the traditional teaching method in which the teacher, who is the
centre, strictly follows the teaching plan and the teaching is mostly lecture-based. Teaching and
learning in small groups has a valuable part to play in the all-round education of students. It
allows them to negotiate meanings, to express themselves in the language of the subject, and to
establish more intimate contact with academic staff than more formal methods permit. It also
develops the more instrumental skills of listening, presenting ideas and persuading’ (Jacques,
1991).
Collaborative problem-solving groups are a key feature of SGL. One assumption of SGL
is that the small group structure helps distribute the cognitive load among the members of the
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
group, taking advantage of group members’ distributed expertise by allowing the whole group 49
to tackle problems that would normally be too difficult for each student alone (Pea, 1993;
Salomon, 1993). At the beginning, the students meet the problem “cold”, they do not know
what the problem is until it is presented. They discuss the problem, generating hypotheses
based on whatever experience or knowledge they have, identifying relevant facts in the case,
and identifying learning/teaching issues. The learning issues are topics of any sort, which are
deemed of potential relevance to this problem and which the group feels they do not understand
as well as they should (Savery & Duffy, 2001). Note that there are no pre specified objectives
presented to the students. The students generate the learning issues (objectives) based on their
analysis of the problem. After the discussion, the students all engage in self-directed learning.
There are no assigned texts. Rather the students are totally responsible for gathering the
information from the available library and computer database resources.
Working in groups, learners identify what they already know, what they need to know,
and how and where to access new information that may lead to solution of the problem. The
role of the teacher (known as the tutor in SGL) is to facilitate learning by supporting, guiding,
and monitoring the learning process. The tutor must build students’ confidence to take on the
problem, and encourage the students, while also stretching their understanding. The constructs
for SGL are very different from traditional classroom/lecture teaching and learning. SGL is an
instructional model that involves students in research of compelling problems that culminate
in authentic problem solution (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). PBL, in contrast to the traditional frontal
teaching, is more inductive: students learn the content as they try to address a problem. A further
benefit of SGL is the increased collaboration amongst learners. This leads to less individualism
and greater opportunities for peer learning. Barrett (2010) highlights, this method of group
learning brings a shift from an individual’s knowledge and control to group knowledge and
group control. Due to the collaborative nature of a SGL environment, students are more likely to
risk making contributions. This should lead to the development of increased self-esteem among
learners and is a further argument in favour of this strategy. Cooperative learning refers to work
done by student teams producing a product of some sort (such as a set of problem solutions,
a laboratory or project report, or the design of a product or a process), under conditions that
satisfy five criteria: (1) positive interdependence, (2) individual accountability, (3) face-to face
interaction for at least part of the work, (4) appropriate use of interpersonal skills, and (5) regular
self-assessment of team functioning. Extensive research has shown that relative to traditional
individual and competitive modes of instruction, properly implemented cooperative learning
leads to greater learning and superior development of communication and teamwork skills
(e.g. leadership, project management, and conflict resolution skills) (Felder & Brent, 2007).
The technique has been used with considerable success in all scientific disciplines, including
mathematics. The described above attribute of SGL justify us to suppose that implementation
SGL methods into education could have positive effect on learners’ relationships.
The following research was focused on so-called cooperative learning (CL) and its effect
on a number of isolated learners in a classroom. Of course, working in small groups does not
mean cooperative learning automatically. According to Johnson, Johnson and Holubec (1994):
“Cooperative learning is an educational approach which aims to organize classroom activities
into academic and social learning experiences. There is much more to Cooperative Learning
than merely arranging students into groups, and it has been described as “structuring positive
interdependence.” Students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively toward academic
goals. Unlike individual learning, which can be competitive in nature, students learning
cooperatively can capitalize on one another’s resources and skills (asking one another for
information, evaluating one another’s ideas, monitoring one another’s work, etc.). Furthermore,
the teacher’s role changes from giving information to facilitating students’ learning. Everyone
succeeds when the group succeeds.”
Slavin (1990) describes cooperative learning as an approach to organize, arrange,
systematize, assemble and classify classroom activities into academic learning experiences to
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
50 get maximum learning outcomes. So the main focus of the cooperative learning is “structuring
positive interdependence” in teaching/learning process.
The type of CL suitable for mathematical education is so-called formal CL, particularly
assignment that involves group problem solving and decision making. Formal cooperative
learning consists of students working together, for one class period to several weeks, to achieve
shared learning goals and complete jointly specific tasks and assignments (Johnson, Johnson
and Holubec, 2008). In formal cooperative learning groups the teachers’ role includes:
1. Making pre-instructional decisions. Teachers (a) formulate both academic and social
skills objectives, (b) decide on the size of groups, (c) choose a method for assigning students to
groups, (d) decide which roles to assign group members, (e) arrange the room, and (f) arrange
the materials students need to complete the assignment. In these pre-instructional decisions,
the social skills objectives specify the interpersonal and small group skills students are to learn.
By assigning students roles, role interdependence is established. The way in which materials
are distributed can create resource interdependence. The arrangement of the room can create
environmental interdependence and provide the teacher with easy access to observe each group,
which increases individual accountability and provides data for group processing.
2. Explaining the instructional task and cooperative structure, Teachers (a) explain the
academic assignment to students, (b) explain the criteria for success, (c) structure positive
interdependence, (d) structure individual accountability, (e) explain the behaviors (i.e., social
skills) students are expected to use, and (f) emphasize intergroup cooperation (this eliminates
the possibility of competition among students and extends positive goal interdependence to the
class as a whole). Teachers may also teach the concepts and strategies required to complete the
assignment. By explaining the social skills emphasized in the lesson, teachers operationalize
(a) the social skill objectives of the lesson and (b) the interaction patterns (such as oral rehearsal
and jointly building conceptual frameworks) teachers wish to create.
3. Monitoring students’ learning and intervening to provide assistance in (a) completing
the task successfully or (b) using the targeted interpersonal and group skills effectively. While
conducting the lesson, teachers monitor each learning group and intervene when needed
to improve task work and teamwork. Monitoring the learning groups creates individual
accountability; whenever a teacher observes a group, members tend to feel accountable to be
constructive members. In addition, teachers collect specific data on promotive interaction, the
use of targeted social skills, and the engagement in the desired interaction patterns. This data is
used to intervene in groups and to guide group processing.
4. Assessing students’ learning and helping students process how well their groups
functioned. Teachers (a) bring closure to the lesson, (b) assess and evaluate the quality and
quantity of student achievement, (c) ensure students carefully discuss how effectively they
worked together (i.e., process the effectiveness of their learning groups), (d) have students make
a plan for improvement, and (e) have students celebrate the hard work of group members. The
assessment of student achievement highlights individual and group accountability (i.e., how
well each student performed) and indicates whether the group achieved its goals (i.e., focusing
on positive goal interdependence). The group celebration is a form of reward interdependence.
The feedback received during group processing is aimed at improving the use of social skills
and is a form of individual accountability. Discussing the processes the group used to function,
furthermore, emphasizes the continuous improvement of promotive interaction and the patterns
of interaction need to maximize student learning and retention.
Ross and Smyth (1995) describe successful cooperative learning tasks as intellectually
demanding, creative, open-ended, and involve higher order thinking tasks. Five essential
elements are identified for the successful incorporation of cooperative learning in the classroom.
The first and most important element is Positive Interdependence. The second element is
individual and group accountability. The third element is (face to face) promotive interaction.
The fourth element is teaching the students the required interpersonal and small group skills.
The fifth element is group processing. According to Johnson and Johnson’s meta-analysis,
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
students in cooperative learning settings compared to those in individualistic or competitive 51

learning settings, achieve more, reason better, gain higher self-esteem, like classmates and the
learning tasks more and have more perceived social support.
The benefits of cooperative learning are not automatic, however, and if imperfectly
implemented, the method can create considerable difficulties for educators, most notably
dysfunctional teams and student resistance or hostility to group work. One can consider a
number of suggestions for forming teams, satisfying the five defining criteria of cooperative
learning, and minimizing the problems. Educators who have never used the approach are advised
to move into it gradually rather than attempting a full-scale implementation on their first try,
and to increase the level of implementation in subsequent course offerings. To an increasing
extent, they should see the learning benefits promised by the research, and as their expertise
and confidence in implementing the method continue to grow, student evaluations of the team
experience should improve concurrently. Most importantly, educators who are successful in
using cooperative learning in their classes will have the satisfaction of knowing that they have
significantly helped prepare their students for their professional careers.
Research Question and Hypotheses
The research question was formulated as follows:

Does the cooperative learning help isolated learners to integrate into the class collective?
The research hypothesis was formulated according to the research question:
The cooperative learning helps isolates with integration into the class more than the
frontal teaching.
Subsequently, the following null and alternative hypotheses were formulated to verify
the research hypothesis:
H0: There is no statistically significant difference between the number of isolates within
the frontal teaching and within the cooperative learning.
HA: There is statistically significant difference between the number of isolates within the
frontal teaching and within the cooperative learning.
General Research and Respondents Characteristic
The research was conducted as a single-group pre-test-post-test design in standard

conditions at lower secondary school. According to the current situation, the sample of 207
learners of first, second and third grades was available. Sociometric questionnaire B-3 was used
to determine the number of isolates before using the cooperative learning. The first questionnaire
was submitted to the learners of the research group at the end of October 2014 after the previous
one-month period of using classical frontal learning without any CL methods in the classes.
According to the initial sociometric results, working groups for CL containing approximately
the same number of isolates were created. The same sociometric questionnaire was submitted
to the learners after five-month application of CL method. Consequently, using the Wilcoxon
statistic test of significance, the hypothesis about statistical significance of difference between
the number of isolates before and after the cooperative learning was tested.
Instrument and Data Collection
The professionally standardized sociometric questionnaire B-3 by Richard Braun (Braun,

2012) was used to determine the number of isolates before and after using the cooperative
learning. This questionnaire was chosen because it allows an easy computer processing in the
form of class hierarchy, where it is easy to recognize the names of children that represent the
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
52 isolates. Moreover, the sociogram of positive relations as well as the sociogram of negative
relations is given. Special attention was paid to such isolates that were labelled with the same
order number in the sociogram and in the class hierarchy. If a positive relation from an isolate
to a learner of the rest of the class is found, these two learners will be assigned to one working
group with the intention of strengthening of positive linkages.
Based on subsequent computer data processing of the first questionnaire, the working
groups for the cooperative learning were created. The CL took place in such distributed classes
in the following almost five-month period. The classes did not mix each other during this period
and the learners worked in small groups containing approximately the same number of isolates.
The sociometric questionnaire B-3 was done by the learners after the “CL period” again. The
names of the isolated learners were obtained from the class hierarchy based on the following
computer processing of the second questionnaire. The number that represents the position in the
class hierarchy is obtained summing all positive options and subtracting all negative ones. The
“sociometric stars” have the most points and the isolates have the fewest points.
Statistical Data Analysis
The non-parametric statistical Wilcoxon test for two dependent small samples was used to
test the null hypothesis. This test is appropriate for analysing the data from a repeated-measures
design with two conditions. The advantage of the test is that it reveals small differences between
the measurements (McMillan & Schumacher, 2010). The data processing was done using the
software Statistica, version 12.

Results of Research
Sociometric Findings
The following table shows the sociometric results connected with the number of isolates
in the classes obtained from the sociometric questionnaire.
Table 1. Sociometric findings – number of isolated learners.
1.E 2.E 3.E 1.D 2.B 3.B 3.A Σ
Number of learners in the class 30 31 29 22 31 32 32 207
Number of isolates before CL 6 2 7 3 4 6 5 33
Number of isolates after CL 2 2 4 3 2 4 3 20
Null Hypothesis Testing
The difference between number of isolates before and after using CL methods is evident,
but the crucial question about its statistical significance demands the statistical null hypothesis
testing.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Table 2. Data for Wilcoxon test. 53
Number of isolates Differences

Class Differences + -
Before using CL After using CL order
1. E 6 2 4 5 5
2. E 2 2 0 - - -
3. E 7 4 3 4 4
1. D 3 3 0 - - -
2. B 4 2 2 2 2
3. B 6 4 2 2 2
3. A 5 3 2 2 2
Using the results from the Table 2, one can compute the value of Wilcoxon test criterion
T = 0. Since the table value of the criterion T0.05(5) for significance level a = 0.05 and for 5 pairs
is equal to 2 > 0, the null hypothesis H0 is rejected. The result can be confirmed by computing of
p-value as well. Using software Statistica 12, p = 0.043115 < 0.05 can be obtained. It means that,
for this significance level, there exists statistically significant difference between the number of
isolates after the frontal learning and that of after the cooperative learning.
Discussion
Students at all ages have a strong need to belong to groups. The desire to fit in provides
a major source of motivation and—at times—challenges to school rules. Students may feel
conflicting desires to belong to an ethnic or cultural group, girls’ or boys’ athletic teams, or any
one of a number of other groups. Learning to work positively within a social group is important
to maturity. Hall (1994) stresses the importance of using effective group work practice as a
method to improve social relational and emotional development, focusing attention not only
on the content of the group work activity, but also on the process and interpersonal sensitivity
gained through typical procedures (Bliss et al., 1995; Curry & Bromfield, 1998). A social
relational approach necessarily focuses upon the interpersonal (as opposed to individual)
development and uses the whole class as an inclusive site for development of group work. This
approach is modelled on the development of close relationships such as attachment, within
which trust, dependence and responsibility (Ainsworth, Stayton & Bell, 1974) establish the
bases for further relationships, social and cognitive development. Studies presented by Hall and
by Kutnick and Manson show that a social relational approach for children has positive effects
not only on their social capacities, but also on their (cognitive) learning and motivation to work
with others (Kutnick & Manson, 1998; Hall, 1994). Sainsbury and Walker (2009) have found
a more complex relationship between friendship and productivity of collaboration. Members
of the “friends” group demonstrated significantly greater competitive behaviours towards each
other than members of the “acquaintances” group, with the result that their friendships began
to deteriorate over the study period. Individuals within the “friends” group were primarily
motivated by the need for personal achievement, particularly in examinations, which was
manifest in a range of behaviours towards each other and in relation to the activities in which
they participated. Individual and collective motivation thus mediated qualitative differences
in the productivity of collaboration and extent of learning (Sainsbury & Walker, 2009). These
findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the interactions between individual and
collective behaviours, motivations and outcomes.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
54 Especially, in mathematical education it has also been observed that, even when students
are not in conflict, cooperative work may lead to a better solution than individual work
(Beaudichon & Vandenplas-Holper, 1985). Uyemura-Stevenson (cited in De Avila, 1988, p.
113) found significant relationships between learner-learner consultation and performances or
even mathematics conceptualization, more than when learner-learner consultation was replaced
with teacher-learner consultation or when both consultations were combined. Work in small
groups may also allow the exterization of various solving strategies and leads learners to a
decentration of their point of view, because it pushes them to situate their solution among the
various other ones. This ability of moving from one strategy to another one is particularly
efficient for complex problems, which cannot be solved by routines or algorithms but require
the combination of several approaches. The interpretation of the role of the diversity of points
of view is supported by research findings from Hoyles, Healy and Pozzi (1993).
It should be mentioned that the functioning of the cooperative work in small groups
has some limitations. Various immediate outcomes of SGL methods are possible even if the
learners agree on a common solution. A better solution is found than a single learner would
have produced, the agreement on a solution is based on authority arguments and the agreement
is based on cognitive grounds, but not mathematically satisfying ones even in the case of a right
solution (Laborde, 1994).
It is no surprise that the other modern non-traditional teaching/learning methods,
especially the methods based on work in small groups involving learners’ cooperation have
similar effect on learners’ relationships in the classroom. As appropriate methods with this
positive effect seem to be also problem-based learning (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006),
project-based learning (Baranoková, 2012; Grecmanová & Urbanovská, 1997; Henry, 1994),
collaborative learning (Kay, 1992; Hošek, 2001) or inquiry-based learning (Kirschner, Sweller
& Clark, 2006). The findings of researches focused on effect of project-based learning on
learners’ relationships were given by Emanovský & Štěpánková (2013) and for problem-based
learning by Emanovský (2015).
Conclusions
Learners’ relationships represent a very important factor of educational process. Some

possibilities how to investigate, describe and consequently try to improve the relationships
are shown in this paper. Particularly, the findings showed that the numbers of isolated learners
within the frontal teaching and cooperative learning are statistically significantly different. The
number of isolates occurring in the class before implementation of the CL methods, i.e., within
the classical frontal teaching, is higher than after using CL.
The mentioned above studies establish that the small group learning represents an
effective means for integration of isolates to the class collective. Small group learning gets
more positive, and therefore we consider it appropriate to implement into education. However,
it is an illusion that SGL is the only way of including isolates into the class, but the results
of the research have confirmed that it is very useful help for the marginalised children to be
incorporated into their team.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Palacky University project “Mathematical Structures”
IGA PrF 2016 010.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
References 55
Baranoková, E. (2012), Projektové vyučování jako pomoc dětem na okraji třídy [Project-based learning
as help for children standing at the edge of class]. Diploma Thesis, Palacký University Olomouc.
Beaudichon, J., & Vandenplas-Holper, C. (1985). Analyse des interactions et de leurs effets dans la
communication référentielle et la maitrise de notions. In G. Mugny (Ed.), Psychologie sociale du
développement cognitive, Bern 1985 (pp. 125-149). Bern, Switzerland: Lang.
Borgatta, E. F. (1964). The structure of personality characteristics. Behavioral Science, 9, 8-17.
Braun, R. (2012). Dotazníky B-3 a B-4, představení metody a vyhodnocování [Questionnaires B-3 and
B-4, introduction to the method and evaluation]. Retrieved from: http:// spp.ippp.cz/download/
studijni-materialy/dotazniky-B3-B4.pdf.
Buck, J. V. (1952). The sociometric technique and the teaching of general science. School Science and
Mathematics, 52, 456-461.
Chapin, F. S. (1950). Sociometric stars and isolates. American Journal of Sociology, 56, 263-267.
Cowie, H., & Rudduck, J. (1988). Cooperative learning. Traditions and transitions. London: Britannic
House.
Chráska, M. (2007). Metody pedagogického výzkumu [Methods of pedagogical research]. Praha: Grada.
De Avila, E. (1988). Bilingualism, cognition and minorities. In R. Cocking, & J. Mestre (Eds.), Linguistic
and cultural influences on learning mathematics, 1998 (pp.101-122). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Emanovský, P., & Štěpánková, B. (2013). Is the project-based learning a means of integration of isolates
into class? In G. Lee (Ed.), Advances in Education Research, vol. 13, (pp. 194 – 200). Delaware:
IERI.
Emanovský, P. (2015). Problem-based learning and its effect on learners’ relationships. Problems of
Education in the 21st Century, 63, 53 – 61.
Evans, K. M. (1963). Sociometry in school – I. Sociometric techniques. Educational Research, 6 (1),
50-58.
Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. (2007). Cooperative learning. In P.A. Mabrouk (Ed.). Active Learning: Models
from the Analytical Sciences. ACS Symposium Series 970, Chapter 4, (pp. 34–53). Washington,
DC: American Chemical Society.
Fisher, B. A., & Ellis, D. G. (1990). Small group decision making. New York: McGraw Hill, Publishing
Co.
Glanzer, M., & Glaser, R. (1961). Techniques for the study of group structure and behavior: 2. Empirical
studies of the effects of structure in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 58, 1-27.
Grecmanová, H., & Urbanovská, E. (1997). Projektové vyučování a jeho význam v současné škole
[Project-based learning at current school]. Pedagogika, 1, 37– 45.
Gresham, F. M., & Stuart, D. (1992). Stability of sociometric assessment: Implication for uses as selection
and outcome measures in social skills training. Journal of School Psychology, 30, 223–231.
Hall, E. (1994). The social relational approach. In P. Kutnick, & C. Rogers (Eds.), Groups in Schools.
London: Cassell.
Henry, J. (1994). Teaching through projects. London: Kogan Page Limited.
Hošek, D. (2001). Kooperativní a kolaborativní učení [Cooperative and collaborative learning].
Retrieved from: http://it.pedf.cuni.cz/strstud/edutech/2001_Kolabor_Hosek/INDEX.HTM#KAY.
Hoffman, C. (2001). Introduction to sociometry. Retrieved from: http://www.hoopandtree.org/sociometry.
htm.
Hoyles, C., Healy, L., & Pozzi, S. (1993). Telling a story about computers, groups and learning
mathematics. ESRC InterSeminar, Callaborative Learning. Oxford.
Jacques, D. (1991). Learning in groups. London: Kogan Page.
Jennings, H. H. (1947). Sociometric differentiation of the psychegroup and the sociogroup. Sociometry,
10, 71-79.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Holubec, E. J. (1994). Cooperative learning in the classroom.
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Stanne, M. E. (2000). Cooperative learning methods: A meta-analysis.
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis: Cooperative Learning Center. Retrieved from: http://www.
cooperation.org/pages/cl-methods.html
Kay, A. R. (1992). Collaborative learning through computer conferencing. The Najaden Papers, New
York: Springer-Verlag.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
56 Kasíková, H. (1997). Kooperativní učení, kooperativní škola [Cooperative learning, cooperative school].
Praha: Portál.
Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not
work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and
inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41 (2), 75-86.
Kutnick, P. (2005). The effect of pupil grouping: Literature Review. University of Brighton.
Kutnick, P., & Manson, I. (1998). Social life in the classroom: Towards a relational concept of social
skills for use in the classroom. In A. Campbell, & S. Muncer (Eds.). The Social Child. Hove: The
Psychology Press.
Laborde, C. (1994). Working in small groups: A learning situation? In R. Biehler, & comp. (Eds.), Didactics
of Mathematics as a Scientific Discipline. Dordrecht, AH: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 147-158.
McIntyre, T. (2003). Sociograms. Retrieved from: http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edy/pub/eres/EDSPC715_
MCINTYRE/Sociogram.html.
McKeachie, W. J., & Kulik, J. A. (1975). Effective college teaching. In F. N. Kerlinger (Ed.), Review of
Research in Education. Peacock: Itaska, Ill.
McKeachie, W. J. (1994). Teaching tips: Strategies, research and theory for college and university
teachers. (9th ed.) Lexington: Mass. Heath and Co.
McMillan, J. M., & Schumacher, S. (2010). Research in education. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Moreno, J. L. (1953). Who shall survive? Beacon House, Inc.: Foundations of Sociometry, Group
Psychotherapy and Sociodrama.
Mouton, J. S., Blake, R. R., & Fruchter, B. (1955). The reliability of sociometric measures. Sociometry,
18, 7-48.
O´Moore, M., & Kirkham, C. (2001). Self-esteem and its relationship to bullying behavior. Aggressive
Behavior, 27, 269 – 283.
Sainsbury, E., & Walker, R. (2009). Motivation, learning and group work – the effect of friendship on
collaboration. In: UniServe Science Proceedings, (pp.118-124), University of Sydney.
Salomon, G. (1993). No distribution without individual cognition: A dynamic interactional view. In
G. Salomon, & D. Perkins (Eds.), Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational
Considerations, (pp.111–138). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sherman, L. (2002). Sociometry in the classroom. Retrieved from: http://www.users.muohio.edu/
shermalw/sociometryfiles/socio_arehtmlx#what.
Slavin, R. E. (1990). Cooperative learning. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Ross, J., & Smyth, E. (1995). Differentiating cooperative learning to meet the needs of gifted learners: A
case for transformational leadership. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 19, 63-82.
Sociogram, freeware. Retrieved from: http://www.phenotyping.com/sociogram/mSociogram.html.
Trabalíková, J. (2011). Kooperatívne vyučovanie a jeho vplyv na klímu triedy v 5. roč. ZŠ [Cooperative
learning and its effect on class climate at 5th grade of basic school]. PEDAGOGIKA.SK, 2 (1),
36 – 52.
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Appendix. Sociometric Questionnaire B-3 57
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
58 Advised by Agneta Simeonsdotter Svensson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Received: March 05, 2016 Accepted: April 22, 2016
Radka Borůvková PhD Student, Department of Algebra and Geometry, Faculty of Science,
Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic.
E-mail: : boruvkovaradka@seznam.cz
Website: http://www.upol.cz
Petr Emanovský PhD., Associate Professor, Department of Algebra and Geometry, Faculty of
Science, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic.
E-mail: petr.emanovsky@upol.cz
Website: http://www.upol.cz
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
AUTHENTIC SCIENCE EXPERIENCES: 59
PRE-COLLEGIATE SCIENCE EDUCATORS’

SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES DURING
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Andrea C. Burrows
University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY USA
E-mail: aburrow1@uwyo.edu
Michael A. DiPompeo
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH USA
E-mail: M.DiPompeo@dartmouth.edu
Adam D. Myers
E-mail: amyers14@uwyo.edu
Ryan C. Hickox
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH USA
E-mail: Ryan.C.Hickox@dartmouth.edu
Mike Borowczak
Erebus Labs, Laramie, WY USA
E-mail: mike@erebuslabs.com
Debbie A. French, Andria C. Schwortz

E-mail: dfrench6@uwyo.edu,
aschwort@uwyo.edu
Abstract
Twenty-three pre-collegiate educators of elementary students (ages 5-10 years) and secondary students
(ages 11-18 years) attended a two-week science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
astronomy focused professional development in the summer of 2015 with activities focused on authentic
science experiences, inquiry, and partnership building. ‘Authentic’ in this research refers to scientific
skills and are defined. The study explores the authentic science education experience of the pre-collegiate
educators, detailing the components of authentic science as seen through a social constructionism lens.
Using qualitative and quantitative methods, the researchers analyzed the successes and challenges of
pre-collegiate science and mathematics educators when immersed in STEM and astronomy authentic
science practices, the educators’ perceptions before and after the authentic science practices, and the
educators’ performance on pre to post content tests during the authentic science practices. Findings
show that the educators were initially engaged, then disengaged, and then finally re-engaged with the
authentic experience. Qualitative responses are shared, as are the significant results of the quantitative
pre to post content learning scores of the educators. Conclusions include the necessity for PD team
delivery of detailed explanations to the participants - before, during, and after – for the entire authentic
ISSN 1822-7864
Andrea C. BURROWS, Michael A. DiPOMPEO, Adam D. MYERS, Ryan C. HICKOX, Mike BOROWCZAK, Debbie A. FRENCH, Andria
C. SCHWORTZ. Authentic science experiences: Pre-collegiate science educators’ successes and challenges during professional
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
60 science experience and partnership building processes. Furthermore, expert structure and support is vital
for participant research question generation, data collection, and data analysis (successes, failures, and
reattempts). Overall, in order to include authentic science in pre-collegiate classrooms, elementary and
secondary educators need experience, instruction, scaffolding, and continued support with the STEM
processes.
Key words: authentic science, astronomy outreach, inquiry activities, partnership building, professional
development, STEM education.
Introduction
It often requires a leap of faith for educators at all levels to try new strategies in their
classrooms. For educators, it can be unsettling as well as uncomfortable to motivate and
encourage students using means and methods that are unfamiliar. Globally, “science curriculum
reform has seen a renewed interest in a number of countries in a greater use of real world
contexts in the teaching of science” (Fensham, 2009, p. 884). Similarly, in a time when U.S.
pre-collegiate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educators embrace -
and post-secondary educators investigate and explore - inquiry and active learning movements
(Beichner, 2008), authentic science experiences are paramount for educators and their students.
One such authentic science experience occurred during the summer of 2015 when 23 pre-
collegiate educators met for two weeks to engage in astronomy activities that directly related to
the STEM content that they would teach in the 2015-2016 academic year. This pre-collegiate
STEM professional development (PD) was entitled Launching Astronomy: Standards and
STEM Integration (LASSI). An extension of prior PD experiences (Burrows, 2015), LASSI’s
team and participants targeted authentic science practices and partnerships, which for most pre-
collegiate educators is an atypical classroom construct or endeavor in practice.
Problem of Research
Educators in countries across the world are looking to incorporate real-world scenarios
as they teach (Fensham, 2009). “Students need preparation to explore, analyze, and attempt to
solve the big societal challenges of today and tomorrow, challenges that are global in nature
– including climate change, food and water security, global health, human rights, migration,
sustainability, and technological innovation” (Whitehead, 2016, p. 1) In the U.S., pre-collegiate
educators (teachers of elementary students aged 5-10 years, and secondary students aged 11-
18 years) often ignore the importance of the use of real-world scenarios and authentic science
practices in classrooms (Rule, 2006; Sadler, Burgin, McKinney, & Ponjuan, 2010; Yore &
Treagust, 2006), although they are called for in the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards
– NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013). Real-world and authentic science practices include: A)
Working toward a solution of a real-world problem, B) Exploring and summarizing current
information, C) Using scientific instruments and technology, D) Using appropriate mathematics
in the analysis of data, E) Analyzing evidence and using the findings as a basis for conclusions,
F) Developing and/or refining questions during the activity and presenting new questions as a
result of the work, G) Developing and/or refining procedures and methods, H) Communicating
the methods used and results of work to peers/colleagues for review and critique and engaging
in that process, I) Collaborating with others in meaningful ways throughout the process, and J)
Recording the results of their work where it is accessible to the broader scientific community
(Spuck, 2014). Crawford (2014) emphasizes the need for authentic science use in classrooms
as she states,
As compared with an inquiry approach that engages students in asking and answering questions,
traditional science instruction often asks students to engage in rote memorization and regurgitation
of facts. In contrast, inquiry gives students opportunity to grapple with data and construct possible
answers. On the one hand, scientists’ science is not exactly the same as classroom science in its
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
sophistication and use of elaborate equipment, scope, and duration. On the other hand, classroom 61
inquiry can resemble many aspects of a scientist’s inquiry. A reasonable goal of classroom science
teachers includes helping students learn how to think in similar ways to that of scientists, do the
kinds of work [that] scientists do, and develop insight into tenets of nature of science [emphasis
added] (see NGSS Lead States, 2013). (p. 526)
Thus, the first step to enable educators to use authentic science with their students is to
have them immersed in the experience themselves. The LASSI PD incorporated all of these
real-world, authentic science components, and emphasized the value of using authentic science
practices in elementary though secondary classrooms by engaging educators in an authentic
science experience and exposing them to others. This problem motivates the researchers’ three
questions (next section).
Research Focus: Theoretical Framework and Literature Review
An interpretivist, social constructionism theoretical perspective was embraced during this

study (Koro-Ljungberg, Yendol-Hoppey, Smith, & Hayes, 2009). The researchers grappled with
describing the group’s socially constructed view of the authentic science practice phenomenon,
while concentrating on locating and transformation during the process. The aspects of authentic
science as defined by Spuck (2014) were integrated into the LASSI experience, while the team
and educators addressed the Common Core mathematics and NGSS standards (NGA, 2010;
NGSS Lead States, 2013). In order to more fully understand the context of the LASSI PD, the
researchers offer a brief literature review on international practices, the U.S. STEM movement
and teacher certification, the use of authentic science and inquiry, and a quality professional
development system.
By utilizing international assessments such as the Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the
U.S. Common Core (mathematics) standards and NGSS (science) standards share the following
international-benchmarking characteristics (NGA, 2010; NGSS Lead States, 2013):
• Integrated science standards (rather than grade-level, subject-specific middle grade
courses)
• Physical science standards receive the most emphasis (chemistry and physics content)
• Life science standards focus on human biology and relationships among living things
• Crosscutting content, such as the nature of science, receives considerable attention
The above hallmarks of strong science programs across countries that score well on PISA
and TIMSS, resonate in authentic science practices and experiences. In the U.S. the movement
for STEM integration includes authentic science practices (Crawford, 2014).
As of 2011-2012, with ~145,000 secondary mathematics educators (where ~66% have
a major/minor in the content) and ~127,000 secondary science educators (where ~77% have
a major/minor in the content), the large majority of U.S. secondary STEM educators have a
degree (major or minor) in the disciplinary field in which they are teaching (Hill & Stearns,
2015). However, these percentages drop with middle school and elementary teachers (Baldi,
Warner-Griffin & Tadler, 2015). Thus, secondary educators are more likely to have real-world
authentic experiences through their major/minor content. Consequently, many elementary
through secondary educators have not experienced research in its pure, evolving form – in
the field or laboratory. Indeed, researchers contend, “that laboratory‐based school science
teaching needs to be complemented by … learning that draws on the actual world” (Braund &
Reiss, 2006, p. 1373), and this is authentic science practice. Since authentic science practice is
needed in order for the educators to then create lessons and implement those lessons with their
own students, PD opportunities are often the only place where educators can obtain this critical
practice.
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
62 Quality PD stresses the need for several components including: A) Improvement of

content knowledge, pedagogy, and dispositions (Crippen, 2012; Loucks-Horsley, Love, Stiles,
Mudry & Hewson, 2003; Penuel et al., 2007; Zozakiewicz & Rodriguez, 2007); B) Creation of
instructional materials (Burrows, Briener, Keiner, & Behm, 2014; Jackson & Ash, 2012; Stolk,
DeJong, Bulte & Pilot, 2011); C) Use of authentic science and inquiry practices (Marshall
& Alsont, 2014; Spuck, 2014); D) Consideration of socioscientific issues (Zeidler, 2014); E)
Iterative cycles of use and reflection (Penuel et al., 2007); and F) Partnership development
(Burrows, 2015). Astronomy and physics PDs, which lend themselves to physical manipulation
and modeling, can utilize the aforementioned components and enhance authentic science
experiences to spark the imagination of educators (Roth, 2012). Finally, student achievement
is influenced by educator expectations (Steele, 2010), and educator expectations are rooted in
understanding – like immersion in STEM practices (Burrows, Borowczak, Slater, & Haynes,
2012).
To explore the authentic science components of LASSI, the research questions included:
• How will pre-collegiate STEM educators describe successes and challenges when
immersed in astronomy authentic science practices?
• What are the pre-collegiate STEM educators’ perceptions before and after astronomy
authentic science practices?
• How will pre-collegiate STEM educators show learning gains on pre to post content
tests during the astronomy authentic science practices?
Professional Development Experiences during LASSI
In order to engage the educators fully in an authentic STEM and astronomy research
process, the pre-collegiate educators participated in self-designed research projects (described
later in this section) using the techniques, equipment, and expertise of professional astronomers.
Throughout the two-week PD, the pre-collegiate educators (elementary and secondary teachers)
were engaged with a broad range of astronomy and physics concepts to use in the classroom
(all LASSI activities are freely available and can be found on UWpd.org/LASSI) to provide the
groundwork and background knowledge necessary to transform them into researchers (Slater,
Burrows, French, Sanchez, & Tatge, 2014).
The researchers sent an email to approximately 500 STEM teachers within a 645 km
(~400-mile) radius. The researchers accepted twenty-three pre-collegiate educators that then
participated in LASSI during the summer of 2015 for two weeks. Thus, the 18 female and
five male participants were self-selected. Although all of the educators taught science (n=21)
or mathematics (n=2), they taught a variety of grade levels from elementary (n=17) through
secondary school (n=6). The LASSI team assigned participants into eight groups of mixed
grade-level pre-collegiate educators, who then self-created authentic astronomy questions
(during the morning PD) as well as investigated content activities (during the afternoon PD)
during the ten summer days.
The pre-collegiate educators were split into two primary groups, each tied to a
research facility in Wyoming – the Student Teaching and Research (STAR) telescope and the
Wyoming Infra-Red Observatory (WIRO). The researchers provided guiding questions for the
participants to direct them in developing their own research directions, if they wanted to use
them. These participant research directions (conducted in the mornings) were in addition to
a myriad of astronomy related activities and lectures (conducted in the afternoons - such as
Stellar Classification, EM spectrum, & Gravity). The starting research questions for the STAR
Projects included: A) How do we know the size (radius or diameter) of Jupiter?, B) What are
the Galilean Moons?, C) How can we measure the orbital radius (aka semi-major axis) of one
of Jupiter’s Moons?, D) What causes the resonance between the Galilean Moons?, and E) How
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
can you determine the mass of Jupiter? The beginning research questions of interest for the 63
WIRO Projects included: A) Who were the Harvard Computers, and what science did they
do?, B) How do stellar spectra compare to galaxy spectra?, C) How can we tell how far away a
galaxy is?, D) What affects the shape of an emission or absorption line?, and E) If you wanted
to request time to use WIRO with your students, what would you want to observe and why?
For context, STAR is a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with a 16-inch primary mirror,
located on the roof of the University of Wyoming Physical Sciences building. It is primarily
used for teaching purposes in introductory-level astronomy classes, as well as for public
outreach. It has a variety of eyepieces available to provide various levels of magnification for
direct viewing. LASSI participants had access to the telescope every evening during the first
week of the PD to make observations in pursuit of solving their chosen research question. PD
instructors were on hand to provide guidance and technical support during the telescope use.
WIRO (Findlay et al., in press) is a research-grade observatory located on Jelm Mountain,
about 25 miles west of Laramie, Wyoming at an elevation of 2943.1 m (or 9656 ft.). WIRO has
a 2.4 m (~7.9 ft.) primary mirror, and is the largest telescope, owned by a single university, in
the United States. Students and faculty alike heavily use it, providing data for the basis of over
100 peer-reviewed publications in astronomical journals to date, on topics from massive stars
to distant galaxies. It is equipped with an imaging camera for precise photometric observations,
as well as a long-slit spectrograph. The latter instrument was installed for use during the PD.
The first halves of three nights (from sunset until approximately midnight) were dedicated to
the PD. Each night, a small subset (3-4 participants) of the WIRO pre-collegiate educator group
was taken to the telescope, given a tour, and guided through the observing process. Given the
sensitive nature of the telescope, and the high degree of technical proficiency needed to operate
it properly, expert observers were on hand to perform most tasks. However, educators were able
to participate in preparing instruments (such as filling the camera cooling system with liquid
nitrogen), and giving commands to the telescope to point at different objects or take exposures
of various lengths. As opposed to STAR however, observing targets were selected strategically
before the PD, to provide data from a variety of celestial sources. These included bright, low
mass stars, galaxies, and quasars. These classes of objects were chosen to provide a range of
spectral features for educators to exploit in their research projects.
When doing astronomical research from the ground, the pre-collegiate educators
were always at the mercy of the weather. With limited days available to use the telescope,
unfortunately several of the dedicated observing nights were cloudy. However, this allowed
the team to expose the participants to other techniques also used by professional astronomers
– in particular, sharing data with colleagues who were more fortunate with collecting data, and
utilizing archival data, particularly from dedicated astronomical surveys.
In the case of the STAR group, given that they were primarily observing planets within
the Solar System, they utilized electronic observing tools such as Stellarium. This software
can provide, for example, images of Jupiter and the four Galilean moons, at any given date or
time. For the WIRO group, the LASSI team specifically selected observing targets that had data
available from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) (York et al., 2000). SDSS is one of the
largest and most successful astronomy surveys to date, providing images of over one quarter of
the entire sky, and spectra of many millions of objects, all of which is available to the public.
The PD participants were provided with SDSS spectra of objects when we were not able to
obtain high-quality data with WIRO. This also provided the pre-collegiate educators with an
introduction to the wealth of data SDSS has available that they may use with their students, as
well as the many outreach and education products SDSS provides.
As educators were slowly introduced to various topics (e.g. Foundations of Computing,
Gas Giants, Hubble Law, Classification, & Doppler Effect) they periodically engaged in
“expert” time during which they were tasked with developing research project ideas while
several astronomy experts were available for consultation. The researchers provide here a
sample of four projects that groups undertook during the two-week PD. Four are highlighted
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
64 here, but all eight posters for the pre-collegiate educators can be found at UWpd.org/LASSI/
lessons.html.
The Mass of Jupiter (STAR)
Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System, and has four moons (known as the
Galilean Moons) that are easily viewable with even small telescopes from Earth. Drawing from
lessons on gravitation and Kepler’s laws, which describe the motion of orbiting bodies, a group
planned to deduce the mass of Jupiter by observing the orbits of these moons. Using images
from direct observations with STAR along with electronic versions to fill in cloudy nights,
the group watched the movement of the moons to deduce their orbital periods (P). Assuming
the size of Jupiter is known, its apparent diameter through the telescope can be used to set the
observational scale and determine the maximum distance of the moon from Jupiter (assumed to
be the orbital radius, or more specifically the semi-major axis a) of the moon. Using Kepler’s
third law, which relates the semi-major axis to the period via: P2 = a3 the mass of Jupiter (in units
of the Earth’s mass) can be determined. Repeating the measurement for each of the four moons
provides independent follow up and an estimate of the measurement uncertainty. This group
also explored the idea of orbital resonance, which is established by gravitational interactions
between individual objects in many-bodied systems and set fixed ratios between the periods of
those objects.
Angular Size and Distance (STAR)
Another set of participants decided to simulate telescopic observations and methods

using a camera and various objects. In their experiment, they attempted to determine the true
linear size of objects in a photograph, by using known distances and measuring apparent sizes.
This was inspired by a question derived from the Mass of Jupiter group, as they used the
known size of Jupiter to set the physical scale in telescope images. This experiment set-up is
readily accessible and provides a simplified version of the technique, but it can be extended
to the telescopes later. The process involves one equation, the relationship between angular
size (a, in radians), physical size L and distance D: a = L/D. First, a camera is placed on a
tripod. Then, objects are placed in front of the camera at known distances (measured with a
tape measure), and images are captured of each. Then, the same is done for a quarter, which
is the “reference image” and the only object for which a direct, linear size L is measured (the
diameter of the quarter). By calculating the angular size of the quarter, and using the above
equation, the angular scale of the photographs is set. This can then be applied to the other
objects in the image, rearranging the equation to solve for L. This group was successful, and an
extra result from this experiment was the finding that deducing L for smaller objects was much
more difficult than for large objects. This is true in astronomy as well.
Classifying Spectra (WIRO)
Using nine spectra from WIRO (supplemented with data from SDSS), another group
attempted to classify the spectra as one of three object types – star, galaxy, or quasar. This
relied heavily on what they learned in the classroom activities regarding light. In particular,
this relies on principles of blackbody radiation and Kirchoff’s laws. The former describes
the continuous spectrum of a hot, dense object at a particular temperature T, while the latter
describe how this radiation is affected when it passes through clouds of gas (i.e. emission and
absorption features). In addition, the identification of quasars relies on the Doppler Effect, as
gas moving very quickly in the powerful gravitational potential of a black hole will produce
very broad emission lines. This group was able to identify three stars, three galaxies, and three
quasars in their WIRO data. The stars were clearly much cooler objects, due to the peak of
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
their continuum emission lying at very red wavelengths. They also contain strong absorption 65
features, characteristic of the atmosphere of cool stars. The galaxies were identified from their
very strong narrow emission lines, characteristic of hot diffuse gas in between stars, heated by
the intense radiation of young, newly formed massive stars. Finally, as mentioned above, their
broad emission features identified the quasars.
Hubble’s Law (WIRO)
In the early 1900’s, Edwin Hubble discovered that all galaxies appear to be moving
away from us. This ultimately led to the realization that the Universe itself is expanding.
One of the WIRO groups attempted to measure the recessional velocities (v) of the three
galaxies and quasars in the WIRO dataset, by using known emission lines (identified using
SDSS information) and their expected wavelength l0 compared to their measured wavelength
l:v/c=(l-l0)/ l0, where c is the speed of light. Because the recessional velocity is caused by the
expansion of the Universe, things that are farther away will be moving faster (there is more
space to expand between us and the object). Thus, using the current best-measured value for
Hubble’s constant H0, the group also could determine a simplified estimate of the distance d to
each galaxy or quasar: d=v/H0.
During the end of the second week of the PD, each participant group created a poster to
showcase the research question, data collected, suggestions/conclusions based on the evidence,
and other important information. These posters were disseminated to the LASSI team and other
community members at a final poster presentation session. The posters are freely available on
the UWpd.org/LASSI website under the ‘lesson plan’ tab.
Instrument, Procedures, and Data Analysis
In this mixed methods analysis, involving qualitative open responses and quantitative
scores, the researchers utilized several data collection methods. A university institutional
review board (IRB) assessed and approved this research. Qualitative data sources included: A)
Informal interviews, B) Informal journaling in a community notebook, and C) Observational
field notes. The informal interviews were held before, during, and after the daily sessions when
participants would gather and discuss a topic, and this information was compiled in a LASSI
team notebook. The informal journaling community notebook was available all day during each
PD session, and there was a page for free open responses and a starter question on the opposite
page that was different each day. Participants could add to the community journal at any time
during the sessions. The LASSI team observed (e.g. team members walked amongst the PD
groups and wrote participants’ comments and concerns in notebooks) the setting, participants,
and activities before, during, and after sessions both at the university and in the field. Whereas
quantitative data sources included: A) Formal survey question responses regarding authentic
science, and B) Formal pre/post content assessment scores from individual participants. The
formal survey (adapted to say “authentic science” from an agricultural education perception
survey using a 9-point scale) was given electronically through an email link, and the formal pre/
post content tests (researcher created) were given daily before and after each content session.
Additionally, the LASSI team consisted of three physics/astronomy experts, one computer
science and engineering expert (all with terminal degrees), two graduate students (with high
levels of physics/astronomy content knowledge), and one science education expert to guide
the process. Thus, five experts (astronomy Ph. D.s and graduate students) active in astronomy
research were an integral part of the LASSI team and participated in participant support as well
as the aspects of data collection and analysis.
Coding was used as the main form of qualitative analysis as defined by Creswell (2014).
The process included gathering the raw data, organizing and preparing for data analysis,
reading and coding the data, dividing the data into themes and descriptions of LASSI, and
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
66 finally interrelating and interpreting the meaning of the themes and descriptions. By conducting
these steps the researchers validated the accuracy of the qualitative information (2014). The
researchers ensured the trustworthiness of the data through reliability checks during triangulation
measures (Golafshani, 2003). The quantitative data was subjected to descriptive analysis (2014)
including the following statistical measures: A) Mean, B) Standard deviation, C) Pearson’s
Correlation, D) Paired t-test, E) Significance, and F) Effect size - Cohen’s d (Sullivan & Feinn,
2012).
Results of Research
Overall, the qualitative data analysis shows that educators want certainty, and are frustrated
with ambiguity even when it is a part of the process. The educators called for clear, up-front
content knowledge and end-of-project deliverables before the authentic research experience
began (Table 1). Additionally, the educators requested less inquiry and open-ended questions/
activities/projects and more concrete activities and classroom ready activities, although more
inquiry-type activities are called for in the standards. Benefits to the educators included content
to take back to classrooms, created lesson plans, and interaction with the experts. While concerns
for the educators related to specific project guidance, time management, teaching the content,
and using the project information in their classrooms (Table 1). Generally, there was a swing
from dissatisfaction with the open-ended research and project, to acceptance of the task with
disengagement, but finally engagement and excitement about the authentic science experience
along with some participant surprises.
Viewing a typical quote from each major part (beginning, middle, and end) of the PD
emphasizes the participants’ uneven journey with the process. The following participant quote
examples were written in the accessible community notebook. Beginning quotes echoed one
participant who on day-3 exclaimed, “I learned (and understand) so much more than I knew
before!.” The term “like” appears often, as does the use of the exclamation point (!). Middle
quotes boomed with uncertainty, such as a participant on day-6 who explained, “I understand
the ‘inquiry based’ approach and the ‘authentic research’ opportunities, but quite honestly this
approach felt disconnect and highly unorganized.” Ending quotes were once again optimistic,
for example one participant on day-10 boasted, “[I have] an excitement for teaching astronomy
concepts in my classroom using STEM integration.” More examples of the educators’ comments
collected during the two PD weeks are included in Table 1, and selected quotes are shown in a
progression timeline in Figure 1.
Overall, the quantitative data from the LASSI participants indicates that educators
perceive authentic science as a means to more effectively prepare students which matches
the ending comments of the participants. Educators believe that teacher preparation programs
should include authentic science integration and modeling. Moreover, educators visualize
supports (e.g. parental and administrative support), not barriers (e.g. doubts about student
capacity), to implementing authentic science (see Table 2) in their classrooms.
Comparing the astronomy/physics content knowledge pre to post scores across all eight
tests, the null hypothesis, of no pre to post change, was rejected. The eight pre to post test
questions show improvement at a significance level higher than 95% for all questions (p <
.05), and at a significance level higher than 99.99% for five of the eight questions (p < .00001).
Importantly, the effect size is large (d ³ 0.8) for all of the eight tests (see Table 3 & Figure 2).
The topics included: Foundations of Computing, Galileoscopes, Light/EM Spectrum/Gravity,
Doppler Effect, Stellar classification, Galaxies/Quasars/Gas Giants, and Hubble’s Law/Remote
Observing.
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Table 1. Qualitative samples from 2-week PD showcasing selected quotes from 67

informal interviews, community notebook, and observational field
notes for pre-collegiate educators.
Themes Informal Interviews Community Notebook Observational Field Notes

“I thought over the years that
“Repeated exposure to pretty
astronomy research had de-
much the same concepts – in
Content clined or lost emphasis, but
“I need more of the basics.” different ways – day after day
knowledge this week showed me that the
helped me finally get a grasp of
field is quite active and moving
them.”
forward at a rapid pace.”
“I feel that it would be more ben-
“Not sure of expectations for
Project guid- “More guidance on the pro- eficial to tell us the project ques-
the project…somewhat frus-
ance ject” tion or expectation on the first
trated.”
day. Why did we create that?”
Concrete “I’m used to having the answers “I’d like more classroom ready
“I need more activities.”
activities for – a lot of unknowns is surprising. activities focusing on astrono-
the PD What do I do?” my.”
“I have an excitement now for
Classroom
“I would like more ways to “I have learned a lot of new in- teaching astronomy concepts
support
specifically take all of this info formation but how is it applicable in my classroom using STEM
(activities and
and apply it to my classroom.” for elementary aged students?” integration and projects like
personnel)
this.”
“I can’t believe how easy it
can be to use STEM in my “I now have awesome astrono-
Classroom “I appreciate the time to make
classroom, and how real ex- my lessons to use in my physical
lesson plans lesson plans.”
periences can drive my stu- science class.”
dent interest.”
I have learned so much from
“I began to understand things the experts and really wish we
Expert inter-
through the help of the ex- had longer sessions with them. “I love the guest speakers!”
action
perts… and the experiences.” It has inspired me to further my
education.”
“What if all the time I’m taking
“The first week was hard –
now will be wasted time, and
Time Manage- “Wow – the time involved to knowing what to do and getting
that I will have to pedal faster
ment collect data!” enough (or any) data for our
to fit in 30 hours of work per
STAR project due to weather!”
day next week?”
“The fact that I was able to guess

“My sense of ‘uncomforta-
my way to where we were going, “How in-depth I was able to go,
bleness’ with inquiry-based
Surprises but in the end I have much more and the amount of knowledge I
learning. I haven’t had this
knowledge because of my re- gained without realizing it.”
experience in PDs before.”
search.”
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
70 Limitations
The participant sample for this study was limited with 23 self-selected participants, not
purposefully or randomly selected, and thus evaluating a group with similar perspectives and/or
motivations might skew the results. The majority of the participant pool consisted of elementary
educators (74%) not usually accustomed to research based STEM classes and/or activities/
projects. The project duration of two-weeks, although desirable for a PD, was short for a large
research based STEM project. The STEM content focused almost exclusively on astronomy
and further studies may be required to generalize these results to other disciplinary PDs. The
PD experts were accustomed to educational outreach, and consequently the partnership support
was extremely effective and usurped the research project in many areas.
Discussion
Based on the current literature, across the world pre-collegiate STEM educators are
striving to incorporate real-world scenarios and authentic scientific practices into their teaching.
This research adds clarification to the steps needed in order to engage STEM pre-collegiate
educators in authentic science practices. Since the results show that the LASSI educators were
initially engaged and excited at the start of the project, then disengaged during the middle,
and finally re-engaged in the last few days with the authentic experience, it is vital to guide
participants with clear scaffolding in objectives, process, outcomes, and support (written and
verbal forms). For some educators, disengagement during the middle (when confusion tends
to set in) might seem undesirable, however, the LASSI team found that persistence genuinely
produced a more worthwhile experience for the participants. It is apparent that those involved
with PDs look for and react to the tension between educators wanting certainty and the fact
that authentic science activities are inherently ambiguous. Importantly, the experience of an
authentic science PD alone is not sufficient for educators to translate the content and practices
learned into realized pedagogy. At the intersection of inquiry activity confusion and useful
classroom practice, a PD team can purposefully guide participants through the stages of
authentic science acceptance in order to engage the participants with the STEM practices and
show meaningful connections to the classroom. The LASSI team undoubtedly embraced this
philosophy and challenge other coordinators to do the same.
The participant challenges during LASSI’s authentic science experience were polarizing
and explicit, and a PD team can learn from these fluctuations. The community journal
showcased these extremes of confusion and clarity during the participants’ journey through the
entire process – from question creation to community dissemination. The participants used the
community journal as an anonymous feedback mechanism for the LASSI team as well as a safe
forum for expressing doubts and concerns. The LASSI team was pleasantly surprised by the
utility of the journal and the richness of the honest reactions in the participant explanations. The
PD team met daily to discuss the entries and would begin the next day’s session based on the
emergent themes identified. The researchers argue that such a journal, anonymous in nature, is
needed for continuous and honest participant input.
The partnership building support – such as experts - in place for research question
generation, data collection, and data analysis (both failure and reattempts) was crucial.
Remember that the LASSI team consisted of three physics/astronomy experts, one computer
science and engineering expert all with terminal degrees, two graduate students with high
levels of physics/astronomy content knowledge, and one science education expert to guide the
process. The breadth of knowledge shared within the LASSI team formed a well-balanced and
effective network of professionals that were available to provide participant support during
their authentic science experience – especially when the participants were uncertain about the
roadblocks over the two-weeks (e.g. weather conditions preventing data collection, reinventing
new research questions, defining a data set to answer the research question, synthesizing data
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
for community poster dissemination). When creating a PD team, the group needs to not only 71
be well versed in their content but also vested in communication and process reiteration on a
regular basis with the participants.
Conclusions
This research is significant as it addresses the vital components required in order to

engage STEM pre-collegiate educators in authentic science practices and STEM skills. The PD
team must plan for and include participants in clear communication plans, anticipating the stages
of inquiry and authentic science engagement, and guide the participants through the excitement
of the beginning, “dip” in creating and investigating in the middle, and understanding of the
entire process and product at the end. Thus, when creating a PD, a content knowledgeable
team needs to explicitly communicate the process – both participant successes and challenges
along the way - on a regular basis with the participants and engage them in discussion for
the full authentic science and partnership effect to occur. If pre-collegiate educators perceive
authentic science as a means to more effectively prepare students (which matches the ending
quotes of the participants), then PD teams should provide these experiences as often as possible.
Providing authentic science experiences and STEM skill practice extends to teacher preparation
programs as well as in-service teacher PDs.
Future studies could include larger participant samples with authentic science educator
PDs, especially those that diversify the research topics. Science educators at the collegiate
level should consider authentic science experiences for pre-service educators to either start
or continue their engagement with scientific practices in their future classrooms. Explorations
of participant disengagement during the middle of the process could benefit the STEM PD
community as a whole. Methods and means of creating well-defined, shorter (such as this two-
week experience) authentic science experiences – with a variety of experts - that can be shared
with other educators at all levels could be foundational in building meaningful experiences for
future educational authentic science and STEM skill PDs.
Acknowledgements
The researchers would like to acknowledge partial to full funding, as well as activity
trials during grant endeavors, for this authentic science study from the following grants: A)
LASSI (DOE WDE MSP #WY140202), B) Black Holes (NSF AST #1211112 & 1211096),
C) New Probe of Black Holes (NSF AST # 1515404 & 1515364), D) SWARMS (NSF DUE
#1339853), and E) Faculty PD of Solid Body Guitar Design (NSF ATE DUE #0903336).
References
Baldi, S., Warner-Griffin, C., & Tadler, C. (2015). Education and certification qualifications of public
middle grades teachers of selected subjects: Evidence from the 2011–12 schools and staffing
survey (NCES 2015-815). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Beichner, R. (2008). The SCALE-UP project: A student-centered active learning environment for
undergraduate programs. Invited paper for the National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved from
http://publish.illinois.edu/disruptivespaces/files/2014/07/SCALE-UP-Paper1.pdf.
Braund, M., & Reiss, M. (2006). Towards a more authentic science curriculum: The contribution of out-
of-school-learning. International Journal of Science Education, 28 (12), 1373-1388.
Burrows, A. C. (2015). Partnerships: A systemic study of two professional developments with university
faculty and K-12 teachers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Problems of
Education in the 21st Century, 65, 28-38.
Burrows, A., Borowczak, M., Slater, T., & Haynes, C. (2012). Teaching computer science & engineering
through robotics: Science & art form. Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 47, 6-15.
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
72 Burrows, A. C., Breiner, J., Keiner, J., & Behm, C. (2014). Biodiesel and integrated STEM: Vertical
alignment of high school biology/biochemistry and chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education,
91 (9), 1379-1389.
Crawford, B. (2014). From inquiry to scientific practices in the science classroom. In. N. Lederman &
S. Abell (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Science Education (Vol. II) (pp. 515-541). New York,
NY: Routledge.
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Crippen, K. (2012). Argument as professional development: Impacting teacher knowledge and beliefs
about science. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 23 (8), 847-866.
Fensham, P. J. (2009). Real world contexts in PISA science: Implications for context-based science
education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46 (8), 884-896.
Findlay, J. R., Kobulnicky, H. A., Weger, J. S., Bucher, G. A., Perry, M. C., Myers, A. D., … & Vogel,
C. (2016). A wide-field camera and fully remote operations at the Wyoming infrared observatory.
arXiv:1604.02446. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.02446.
Golafshani, N. (2003). Understanding reliability and validity in qualitative research. The Qualitative
Report, 8 (4), 597-606.
Hill, J., & Stearns, C. (2015). Education and certification qualifications of departmentalized public-level
teachers of selected subjects: Evidence from the 2011–12 schools and staffing survey (NCES
2015-814). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Jackson, J. K., & Ash, G. (2012). Science achievement for all: Improving science performance and closing
achievement gaps. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 23 (7), 723-744.
Koro-Ljungberg, M., Yendol-Hoppey, D., Smith, J. J., Hayes, S. B. (2009). (E)pistemological awareness,
instantiation of methods, and uninformed methodological ambiguity in qualitative research
projects. Educational Researcher, 38 (9), 687-699.
Loucks-Horsley, S., Love, N., Stiles, Kl, Mundry, S., & Hewson, P. (2003). Designing professional
development for teachers of science and mathematics. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Marshall, J. C., & & Alston, D. M. (2014). Effective, sustained inquiry-based instruction promotes higher
science proficiency among all groups: A 5-year analysis. Journal of Science Teacher Education,
25 (7), 807-821.
NGA – National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers.
(2010). Common Core state standards for mathematics. Washington, DC: National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers.
NGSS Lead States. (2013). The Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states. Washington
DC: The National Academies Press.
Penuel, W., Fishman, B., Yamaguchi, R., & Gallagher, L. (2007). What makes professional development
effective: Strategies that foster curriculum implementation. American Educational Research
Journal, 44 (4), 921-958.
Roth, W. M. (2012). Authentic school science: Knowing and learning in open-inquiry science laboratories
(Vol. 1). Springer Science & Business Media.
Rule, A. C. (2006). Editorial: The components of authentic learning. Journal of Authentic Learning, 3
(1), 1-10.
Sadler, T. D., Burgin, S., McKinney, L., & Ponjuan, L. (2010). Learning science though research
apprenticeships: A critical review of the literature. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 47
(3), 235-256.
Slater, T., Burrows, A., French, D., Sanchez, R., & Tatge, C. (2014). A proposed astronomy learning
progression for remote telescope observation. Journal of College Teaching and Learning, 11 (4),
197-206.
Spuck, T. (2014). Putting the “authenticity” in science learning. In T. Spuck, L. Jenkins, & R. Dou (Eds.),
Einstein fellows: Best practices in STEM education (pp. 118-156). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Steele, C. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And other clues how stereotypes affect us. New York, NY: Norton.
Stolk, M., DeJong O., Bulte, A., & Pilot, A. (2011). Exploring a framework for professional development
in curriculum innovation: Empowering teachers for designing context-based chemistry education.
Research in Science Education, 41 (3), 369-388.
Sullivan, G. M., & Feinn, R. (2012). Using effect size – or why the p value is not enough. Journal of
Graduate Medical Education, 4 (3), 279-282.
Whitehead, D. M. (2016). Essential global learning. Washington, DC: AAC&U Publications.
ISSN 1822-7864
development
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Yore, L. D., & Treagust, D. F. (2006). Current realities and future possibilities: Language and science 73
literacy – empowering research and informing instruction. International Journal of Science
Education, 28 (2-3), 291-314.
York, D. G., Adelman, J., Anderson Jr, J. E., Anderson, S. F., Annis, J., Bahcall, N. A., … & Boroski,
W. N. (2000). The Sloan digital sky survey: Technical summary (September). The Astronomical
Journal, 120 (3), 1579-1587.
Zeidler, D. (2014). Socioscientific issues as a curriculum emphasis. In. N. Lederman & S. Abell (Eds.),
Handbook of Research on Science Education (Vol. II) (pp. 697-726). New York, NY: Routledge.
Zozakiewicz, C., & Rodriguez, A. J. (2007). Using sociotransformative constructivism to create
multicultural and gender-inclusive classrooms an intervention project for teacher professional
development. Educational Policy, 21 (2), 397-425.
Advised by Danny Dale, University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA
Received: March 10, 2016 Accepted: April 18, 2016
Andrea C. Burrows Curriculum and Instruction Science Ed.D, Assistant Professor, University of Wyo-
ming, 1000 E. University Ave., # 3374, Laramie, WY 82071 USA.
E-mail: aburrow1@uwyo.edu
Website: http://www.uwyo.edu/seced/faculty-staff/andrea-burrows.html
Michael A. DiPompeo Physics Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate, Dartmouth College, 6127 Wilder
Laboratory, Hanover, NH 03755 USA.
E-mail: M.DiPompeo@dartmouth.edu
Website: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~mdipompeo/
Adam D. Myers Astrophysics Ph.D, Associate Professor, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University
Ave., Dept. 3905, Laramie, WY 82071 USA.
E-mail: amyers14@uwyo.edu
Website: http://www.uwyo.edu/physics/faculty-directory/adam-bio.html
Ryan C. Hickox Astronomy Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Dartmouth College, 6127 Wilder Laboratory,
Hanover, NH 03755 USA.
E-mail: Ryan.C.Hickox@dartmouth.edu
Website: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hickox/
Mike Borowczak Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Ph.D., Chief Scientist,
Erebus Labs, P.O. Box 1554, Laramie, WY 82073 USA.
E-mail: mike@erebuslabs.com
Website: http://www.erebuslabs.com/
Debbie A. French Science Education, Doctoral Candidate, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University
E-mail: dfrench6@uwyo.edu
Website: http://www.uwyo.edu/seced/faculty-staff/debbie%20french.html
Andria C. Schwortz Physics/Astronomy, Doctoral Candidate, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University

E-mail: aschwort@uwyo.edu
Website: http://physics.uwyo.edu/~aschwortz/
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
74 SCIENTIFIC METHODICAL CENTRE

„SCIENTIA EDUCOLOGICA”
/The associated member ofLithuanian Scientific Society
and International Council of Association for Science
Education /ICASE/
http://www.jbse.webinfo.lt/Problems_of_Education.htm
E-mail: problemsofeducation@gmail.com
General Information
The publication language is English and Russian. All authors must take care of the language
revision by they own. The language must be clear and accurate. The work should be written
in an impersonal style. The editor reserves the right to send the manuscript to be reviewed. If
English is a second language for the author, please consider having the manuscript proof read
and edited before submitting.
Format of Manuscripts
Abstract
The first page of the manuscript must begin with the title of the paper and an abstract which
should be in the interval of 150 - 500 words. For papers reporting original research, state in
brief: the primary objective (the research ąuestions addressed or any hypothesis tested); the
research design; the methods and procedures employed; the number of subjects; the main out-
comes and results; the conclusions drawn from these data and results, including their implica-
tions for further research or application/practice.
Key words
Please provide 3 to 5 key words or short phrases in apphabetical order.
The structure of the manuscript (recommended)
The body of the text of the manuscript must generally have the following parts:
• abstract + key words;
• introduction;
• methodology of research;
• results of research;
• discussion;
• conclusions;
• acknowledgements (if any);
• references;
• summary (only for manuscripts which main text is in Russian),
• appendix (if any).
P.S. The structure of paper can be different if the paper is only theoretical ąualitative
research.
The length of the manuscript
The manuscript should be not shorter than 5 pages (including references, tables and figures).
Manuscripts should be typed on A4, in Times New Roman 12-point font size, single-spacing,
2,5 cm with all the margins, word-document (Word 6.0 or later) format.
Problems of Education in the 21st Century, ISSN 1822-7864
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
Titles 75
The name of the paper 14-point, bold with capital letters, align left; titles in the text (chapters):
12-point bold, not numbered; sub-titles (subchapters) 12-point, italic, not numbered; before a
title of subtitle 1 empty rows, after 1 empty row before text. Text chapters must be separated
with 1 empty row. The title should be concise and informative. Avoid abbreviations.
Author names and affiliations
Full names/surnames should be provided. Please indicate affiliations of the author (s). Below
all e-mails should be indicated.
Acronyms
Acronyms should be defined the first time they appear.
Tables and Figures
Tables and figures should be valuable, relevant, and visually attractive. Tables (made with Word
or another programme) and figures must be referred to in the text and numbered in order of their
appearance. Each table and figure should have a complete, descriptive title; and each table col-
umn an appropriate heading. The texts in tables and figures should be 11-point (in some cases
10) and their width should be 12 cm at maximum. The figures should be in form of jpg (if not
done with Word or Excel); resolution 1200 dpi. Figures, tables (black and white colour, without
ground-colour) and captions should be inserted within the manuscript at their appropriate loca-
tions. All graphics (figures) must be editable. The font size should be Times New Roman for all
figures and tables. Figures should be carefully explained in the text and cited in numerical order.
It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permission to reproduce illustrations, tables, etc. from
other publications.
References
The title „References” must be used. APA style for writing references in the text and in the
reference list must be used. References in the text should be presented in brackets (Knox, 1988;
Martin, 1995). If necessary, the page can be indicated: (Martin, 1995, p.48). The list of refer-
ences should be presented after the text.
The author should make sure that there is a strict one-to-one correspondence between the names
and years in the text and those on the list. The all references should be listed in alphabetical
order by author’s name.
Notes
Note 1: Manuscripts in which references are not in the APA style will be returned without re-
view.
Note 2: References to online sources should include the type of medium (such as “serial online”
or “monograph online”), the date of that specific reference (if applicable), the uniform resource
locator (URL), and the date that the source was accessed. A source accessed online should al-
ways be referenced accordingly, even if it is also published in printed form.
Note 3: All papers must meet the criteria of originality and scientific ąuality. Obviously, they
must also comply with style and format reąuirements. The paper will not be subject to further
review, if the manuscript is NOT WITHIN THE SCOPE and/or there is POOR USAGE OF
LANGUAGE (all manuscripts must be written in clear and grammatical English or Russian).
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
76
QUALITY ISSUES AND INSIGHTS IN THE 21st
CENTURY
ISSN 2029-9575
Quality Issues and Insights in the 21st

Century is an international, periodical,
peer reviewed scientific journal, issued
by the Scientia Socialis in cooperation
with SMC “Scientia Educologica”.
Editor-in-Chief
Prof.dr. Vincentas Lamanauskas,
Scientific Methodical Centre „Scientia
Educologica“, Republic of Lithuania
Quality Issues and Insights in the 21st

Century (ISSN 2029-9575) is abstract-
ed and/or indexed in:
EBSCO - http://search.ebscohost.com
Index Copernicus - http://journals.in-
dexcopernicus.com
Directory of Research Journal In-

dexing (DRJI) - http://www.drji.org/
SearchDetails.aspx?JID=33
Electronic Serials in Lithuania -

h t t p : / / www. e p e ri o d i k a . l t / i ndex.
php?id=moksl
Editorial Board
MSc., Renata Bilbokaitė, University of Siauliai, Republic of Lithuania (Editorial Assistant)

Dr., Andrea Bernhard, Universities Austria, Austria
Dr., Prof. John Gowland Mwangi, Egerton University, Kenya
Dr., Prof. Vincentas Lamanauskas, Scientific Methodical Centre „Scientia Educologica“, Re-
public of Lithuania (Editor-in-Chief)
Dr., Prof. Liviu Moldovan, „Petru Maior” University of Tirgu Mures, Romania
Dr., Prof. Kęstutis Pukelis, Vytautas Magnus University, Republic of Lithuania
Prof. Ramayah Thurasamy, University of Science Malaysia, Malaysia
Dr., Assoc. Prof. Dalius Serafinas, Vilnius University, Republic of Lithuania
Dr., Assoc. Prof. Adriana Tafrova-Grigorova, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Bulgaria
Websites: http://www.jbse.webinfo.lt/QIIC/Quality_Issues_Insights.htm
http://www.scientiasocialis.lt/qiic/
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY IN THE 21st 77
CENTURY
ISSN 2029-8587
Problems of Psychology in the 21st Cen-
tury is an international, periodical, peer
reviewed scientific journal, issued by
the Scientia Socialis in cooperation with
SMC “Scientia Educologica”.
Problems of Psychology in the 21st Cen-

tury (ISSN 2029-8587) is abstracted and/
or indexed in:
Index Copernicus - http://journals.index-
copernicus.com
EBSCO - http://search.ebscohost.com
Contemporary Science Association/
AAP databases - http://www.contem-
poraryscienceassociation.net/journal/
view/1207
Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory - http://ul-
richsweb.serialssolutions.com/login
Cabell Publishing, Inc., Directories of
Academic Journals - http://www.cabells.
com/index.aspx
Directory of Research Journal Indexing
(DRJI) - http://www.drji.org/SearchDe-
tails.aspx?JID=110
Editorial Board
Dr., prof. Ferda Aysan, Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey
Dr., prof. Serhiy Boltivets, Grigory Kostyuk Psychological Institute of the Ukrainian National
Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, Ukraine
Dr., assoc. prof. Irena Gailiene, SMC “Scientia Educologica”, Republic of Lithuania
Dr., prof. Irakli Imedadze, Dimitri Uznadze Georgian Psychological National Society, Georgia
Dr. Julia Lakhvich, Belarusian State University, Republic of Belarus
Dr., prof. Vladimir S. Karapetyan, Armenian State Pedagogical University named after Kh.
Abovyan, Armenia
Dr., prof. Vincentas Lamanauskas, Scientific Methodical Centre „Scientia Educologica“, Republic
of Lithuania (Editor-in-Chief)
Dr., prof. Mary Anne Lauri, University of Malta, Malta
Dr., prof. Maria Ledzińska, University of Warsaw, Poland
Dr., prof. Aleksandr Lobanov, Belarusian State Pedagogical University, Republic of Belarus
Dr., prof. Guna Svence, Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy, Latvia
Dr., assoc. prof. Stanislava Yordanova Stoyanova, South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, Bul-
garia
Websites: http://www.jbse.webinfo.lt/PPC/Problems_of_Psychology.htm
http://www.scientiasocialis.lt/ppc/
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
78
PROBLEMS OF MANAGEMENT IN THE 21st
CENTURY
ISSN 2029-6932
Problems of Management in the 21st

Century is an international, periodical,
peer reviewed scientific journal, issued
by the SMC “Scientia Educologica”.
Editor-in-Chief
Prof.dr. Vincentas Lamanauskas,
Scientific Methodical Centre „Scientia
Educologica“, Republic of Lithuania
Problems of Management in the 21st

Century (ISSN 2029-6932) is abstract-
ed and/or indexed in:
Index Copernicus - http://jour-

nals.indexcopernicus.com/karta.
php?action=masterlist&id=6117
EBSCO: Business Source Complete -

http://search.ebscohost.com
Editor-in-Chief
Prof.dr. Vincentas Lamanauskas, Scientific Methodical Centre „Scientia Educologica“, Re-

public of Lithuania
Editorial Board
Assoc. prof., dr. Tsai-Hsin Chu, National Chiayi University, Taiwan (from 2011)
Assoc. prof., dr. Marek Franek, University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic (from 2011)
Prof., dr. Ivars Muzis, Riga Teacher Training and Educational Managament Academy, Latvia
(from 2011)
Prof., dr. Sonia Teresinha de Sousa Penin, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil (from 2011)
Prof., dr. Chris Rensleigh, University of Johannesburg, South Africa (from 2011)
Website: http://www.jbse.webinfo.lt/PMC/Problems_of_Management.htm
ISSN 1822-7864
PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Volume 70, 2016
2ND INTERNATIONAL BALTIC SYMPOSIUM ON SCIENCE 79

AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION (BALTICSTE2017)
„SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION:

ENGAGING THE NEW GENERATION“ 
12-15 June 2017, Siauliai, Lithuania
Dear Colleagues,
On behalf of the organizing committee, we are delighted to welcome you to Šiauliai,
Lithuania, for the II International Baltic Symposium on Science and Technology Education,
BalticSTE 2017.
The Symposium will be held in Šiauliai (Lithuania) in June 2017 during days 12-15.
We cordially encourage you to attend and contribute to one of the major events of
2017 on the field of science and technology education. We are confident that you will ap-
preciate the scientific program and the city of Šiauliai. We look forward to seeing you in
2017 in Lithuania.
Organizer of the Symposium
Siauliai University, Faculty of Education, Natural Science Education Research Cen-
tre, Lithuania, http://www.gutc.su.lt/
Scientific Methodical Centre „Scientia Educologica“, Lithuania
http://www.gu.puslapiai.lt/indeks_en.htm
Ways of Participation Paper Submission:
• Paper Presentation Original unpublished short scientific papers (2 - 3
• Oral Presentation pages) written in English should be submitted in
• electronic form as WORD files and send to the sym-
Interactive Poster Presentation
• Workshop posium secretariat via e-mail: balticste@gmail.com
• Listener Information on paper submission, format and the
review processes is available on symposium web-
Topics and Areas site.
The BalticSTE 2017 will cover all Symposium proceedings will be published before
aspects of science and technology the symposium.
education. Authors of selected outstanding papers will be in-
vited to submit extended versions of their papers for
consideration of publication in the reputed Journals
(JBSE, PEC, GU/NSE, SPVK/EPMQ).
Important Dates
Abstract/Paper/Poster Submission 20 April 2017

Abstract/Paper/Poster Submission 30 April 2017
Registration and payment 20 May 2017
Camera-ready paper submission 20 May 2017
Announcement of the Final Symposium
01 June 2017
Program
12 – 15 June 2017
Symposium Dates
(11/12 - arrival; 16/17 - departure)
Symposium Website: http://www.scientiasocialis.lt/balticste

E-mail: balticste@gmail.com
Phone: +370 41 595736; Fax: +370 41 595710
© NSERC, Siauliai University, 2015
ISSN 1822-7864
VOLUME 70, 2016
Compiler Vincentas Lamanauskas (E-mail: v.lamanauskas@ef.su.lt)

Designer Jurgina Jankauskienė
Paste-up artist Loreta Šimutytė-Balčiūnienė
Contact person Laima Railienė (E-mail: laimarailiene@yahoo.com)
English language proofreader Ilona Ratkevičienė
30 April 2016. Publishing in Quires 5. Edition 200.
Publisher SMC „Scientia Educologica“,

Donelaicio Street 29, Siauliai, Lithuania
E-mail: gu@gu.puslapiai.lt
Phone: +370 687 95668
http://www.jbse.webinfo.lt/centras.htm
Contact person: Laima Railienė (E-mail: laimarailiene@yahoo.com)

Printing Joint-stock company „Šiaulių spaustuvė“

9A P. Lukšio Street
LT-76207 Šiauliai, Lithuania
Phone: +370 41 500 333.
Fax: +370 41 500 336
E-mail: info@dailu.lt

Problems of Education in The 21st Century, Vol. 70, 2016

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Problems of Education in The 21st Century, Vol. 70, 2016

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Problems of Education in the 21st Century, ISSN 1822-7864 VOLUME 70, 2016

Scientific Methodical Center „Scientia Educologica“, Lithuania,

Index Copernicus List of Journals Recognized by Polish Ministry of

Index Copernicus (IC™ Value): 90.09 (2014)

TEACHING WITH ANALOGIES: EXAMPLES OF A SELF-HEALING POROUS MATERIAL

HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE GROWTH OF MENIAL JOBS

PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF AN

REFLECTIONS OF SOUTH AFRICAN TEACHERS TEACHING

SMALL GROUP LEARNING METHODS AND THEIR EFFECT

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE EXPERIENCES: PRE-COLLEGIATE SCIENCE EDUCATORS’

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS ......................................................................... 74

QUALITY ISSUES AND INSIGHTS IN THE 21st CENTURY .......................................... 76

PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY IN THE 21st CENTURY ................................................ 77

PROBLEMS OF MANAGEMENT IN THE 21st CENTURY .............................................. 78

2nd INTERNATIONAL BALTIC SYMPOSIUM ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

As disciplines reach maturity, a dynamic meta-structure is needed, which facilitates

An analogy is a comparison of the similarities of two concepts (Hempel, 1970). The

Figure 1: A conceptual representation of an analogy, with its constituent parts.

From Nature to Engineering Design

Figure 2: A conceptual representation of an analogy, from natural to artificial

Figure 3: Remodelling rule.

Received: April 20, 2016 Accepted: April 27, 2016

(Un) equal Access to Higher Education

An Unshakable Belief in Human Capital? 11

The commercialization of higher education goes counter to the idea of university as a

The Role of Meritocratic Discourse and Educational Credential Inflation in Poland

The Political Ideology of Higher Education

16 The Rise of Menial Jobs and Almost Compulsory Tertiary Education

Advised by Miroslaw Kowalski, University of Zielona Gora, Poland

Received: February 05, 2016 Accepted: April 10, 2016

Łukasz Albański PhD., Assistant Professor, Pedagogical University of Cracow, Institute of

PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEACHERS’ 21

Avalos (2011) suggests that understanding teachers’ professional development is

A Framework for Understanding the Professional Development of Physical

Many studies focusing on professional development include aspects of content

Content Knowledge for Teaching

Teacher Attitudes and Beliefs

General Background of the Research

Instruments and Procedures

Table 1. Teachers’ responses about their teaching practice.

Teaching Practice No response SD D N A SA

My confidence as a PS teacher has

The PS results of my learners have

28 An important aspect of teaching physical science at school is practical work. The

T5 explained that the kits made it easier for him to teach:

T2 summarised the power offered by the science kits:

methods. There is no separate segment where there course focuses on methods. 29

Attitudes and Beliefs

As a result of their improvement in content knowledge and teaching approaches, the

Figure 1. Diagram showing links between confidence and professional

The professional development of teachers in South Africa, a developing context, is faced

Received: December 16, 2015 Accepted: April 02, 2016

Sarah Bansilal PhD., Associate Professor, School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal,

General Background of Research

Instrument and Procedures

38 Problems of Practice Influenced By Poor Socio-Economic Context

Another serious problem in South Africa is that of teenage pregnancies. In accordance

Problems of Practice Caused by Ineffective School Management

40 Problems of Practice Impacting on the Classroom Pedagogic Environment

Socio-economic and school management problems impact on teachers’ classroom

Teachers were also discouraged by the negative attitude or de-motivation of students to

Problems of Practice and Teacher Learning 41

Table 1. Count of various problems of practice.

Code Problem Count Code Problem Count

orphans /staying on their own/stay-

No parental involvement in school High absenteeism/ latecoming/ bunk-

QUALITY ISSUES AND INSIGHTS IN THE 21st CENTURY .......................................... 76

PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY IN THE 21st CENTURY ................................................ 77

PROBLEMS OF MANAGEMENT IN THE 21st CENTURY .............................................. 78