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The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of blended physics laboratory experimentation on pre-service physics teachers' (PSPTs') understanding of the nature of science (NOS) during an electricity and magnetism laboratory course. The study used a non-equivalent comparison group using a pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental design that contrasted blended, virtual, and real mode of physics experimentations. A total of 63 PSPTs, 16 in blended experimental group, 26 in virtual experimental group, and 21 in real experimental group, participated in the study. Except for the type of manipulatives, the experiments in all the three cases were the same. Quantitative Likert-type questions were administered before and after the intervention and open-ended questions were administered after the intervention. The quantitative data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and ANCOVA, while the qualitative data were categorized under naïve, mixed, and informed views. The results revealed that experimenting with blended, virtual, and real manipulatives were found to be ineffective in enhancing understanding of NOS on the PSPTs'. Apart from the type of experiment used, it was suggested that adequate consideration be paid to NOS issues in the laboratory courses in order to obtain well-educated and trained physics teachers.

This study investigated the effect of dialogic practical work on students' attitudes toward physics. The sample of the study was 91 grade 11 secondary school students selected randomly from two schools in Bahir Dar town, Ethiopia. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest between groups research design was used. The treatment group participated in dialogic practical work while the comparison group conducted traditional practical work. A 30-item physics attitude questionnaire with Cronbach alpha value of 0.84 was used to collect the data before and after intervention. T-test and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze the data. The result of the study showed that there was a statistically significant difference between treatment and comparison group in favor of the treatment group with no gender differential effects. In addition, the finding showed that the most significant attitude change occurred between the high and low achievement groups. However, no significant difference was observed between the high and medium achievement groups. Dialogic practical work can be used to enhance secondary school students' attitudes toward physics.

This study examined the effect of blended laboratory experiments on pre-service physics teachers' (PSPTs') attitudes toward physics laboratories. The research design was a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test comparing groups. Participants were 63 2nd-year PSPTs' enrolled in a physics diploma program from three colleges of teacher education. The treatment groups performed blended and virtual laboratory experiments, whereas the comparison group conducted real laboratory experiments. Data were collected before and after intervention using a 34-item adapted attitude toward physics laboratory questionnaire with a Cronbach alpha value of 0.765. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, paired-sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Tukey post hoc comparisons. The findings revealed a statistically significant difference in mean post-test results between the treatment and comparison group. The Tukey HSD "post hoc" analysis revealed that the difference in mean between blended and real was statistically significant, but not on other combinations. Descriptive statistics showed slight attitudinal improvement from pre-test to post-test. This improvement was statistically significant for blended and virtual groups but not in real groups. Blending physics laboratory experiments can be used to enhance attitudes toward physics laboratories. Based on the conclusions, recommendations are made.

This case study presents the analysis of teacher-student interaction in physics classrooms. The participants of the study were three physics teachers and 131 students from three upper primary schools (Grades 7 and 8) of Ethiopia. Data for the study were collected through observation of eight video recorded physics lessons. The analysis of videos indicated the teacher-student interaction in the existing physics classrooms were characterized by the transferring of factual knowledge; Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE) and Initiation-Discussion-Computation-Response-Evaluation (IDCRE) types of interaction pattern; interactive/authoritative type of communication, evaluative feedback and use of low-level oral questions. Authoritative classroom communication, use of low-level questions, evaluative feedback; inappropriate intervention and support were the aspects of teacher-student interaction that seemed to influence the implementation of dialogic teaching as such type of classroom practices contradict the principles of dialogic teaching.

The purpose of this study was to test the best mix of reciprocal peer tutoring with direct teaching methods to improve students' achievement in secondary school physics teaching in content-focused and high-stake examination-oriented curriculum. Data was gathered from three equivalent grade-9 sections and assigned to three different intervention groups in pre-test post-test multi-level quasi-experimental design. The three groups used reciprocal peer tutoring once a week (N=46), twice a week (N=46) and three lessons in a week (N=51) for 9 weeks in two physics units. Results were that reciprocal peer tutoring helped in improving physics achievement of secondary school students (R2=0.316) in favour of low achieving (P=0.001) and female students (P=0.038) when it is used as a unilateral pedagogy. The conclusion is that reciprocal peer tutoring used as a unitary classroom pedagogy helped all students and differentially less able and female secondary school students to enhance their physics achievement to some extent without negatively impacting their learning. Further replication research with a comparison group was recommended to find a conclusive evidence if the observed failure of mixing pedagogy persists.

This investigation of physics teacher education in Ethiopia reveals a significant gap between the physics knowledge of pre-service teachers (PSTs) attained during training and that of the intended curriculum setting out expectations for their knowledge. Data were obtained by a test probing PSTs' physics knowledge (attained curriculum); analysis of teacher education curriculum documents (intended); and video-recording, observation and analysis of lectures delivered to pre-service teachers at four Colleges of Teacher Education (implemented). These illustrate that implementation focuses on high-level, abstract knowledge delivered mainly via mathematical approaches, offering limited opportunities for learning basic concepts by debate. An outcome of current practice is that physics teachers lack the necessary subject knowledge to teach effectively, leading successive generations of Ethiopian students to under-achieve. The paper argues for change to enable Ethiopia to achieve its aim of raising educational achievement and societal productivity to become a low-middle income nation by 2025.

In physics education, assessments address various forms of scientific knowledge. Most of the existing test instruments emphasise the assessment of content knowledge. These tests fail to measure the epistemic aspects of science. Thus, assessing epistemic knowledge is a theme that demands investigation. This study applies Rasch analysis to help validate an epistemic knowledge test in electricity and magnetism. Each of the initial 30 items represents distinct features of scientific reasoning. The construct dimensions are derived from Kind and Osborne's framework of Styles of Scientific Reasoning. Based on expert validation, a final 20 items were selected. The test was administered to 156 graduating in-service natural science teachers. Reliability and separation indices, person-item mapping, and principal component analysis using standardised residuals are reported. No meaningful secondary dimension was found in the test data. Invariant properties showed that the test had internal coherence. The Wright Map showed the difficulty of the test to the test takers. The overall fit statistics were within the acceptable range. Along the continuum of item difficulty, there were some notable gaps, where future test items judged to be that level of difficulty could be included. We acknowledge that there may be other reasons for these gaps.

The purpose of this case study was to determine the functions of pre-service teachers' talk and to explore how the teacher educator supports the development of conceptual understanding in a dialogic classroom setting. The participants in the study were a physics teacher educator who employed dialogic teaching to teach mechanics and 52 third-year pre-service teachers at a college of teacher education in Ethiopia. Data for the study were collected through video-recorded classroom observations of three 90-minute lessons. The Kumpulainen and Wray typology of functions of talk were used to determine the functional categories and their relative frequencies in pre-service teachers' talk. Mortimer and Scott's forms of teacher intervention were used to explore the nature of the teacher educator's support in developing understanding. The findings of the study indicated that the pre-service teachers used their classroom talk for a variety of purposes, mainly for providing responses to the teacher's questions, describing reasons and expressing disagreements in the group discussion. It was also shown that explanation, questioning, providing examples and illustrations, exploring understanding, clarifying group work activities, and encouraging for justification were among the strategies mainly used by the teacher educator to assist knowledge construction.

This study explores Ethiopian preservice primary science teachers' perception of mentoring practices. Using a survey design, the Amharic translation of Mentoring for Effective Primary Science Teaching (MEPST) was administered to 239 graduating preservice science teachers, enrolled in four teacher education colleges. In addition, we interviewed 20 students, using semi-structured interviews, to better understand their perceptions of mentoring practices. For the survey, the analysis combined confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and other relevant statistic to ensure the psychometric properties of MEPST-Amharic and to explore their perception of mentoring practices respectively. The fit indices were X[superscript 2] = 1184.287, df = 514, TLI = 0.905, CFI = 0.913, RMR = 0.074, RMSEA = 0.074 (p < 0.001) and a reliability value of 0.979. These verify that MEPST-Amharic has both factorial validity and internal consistency reliability. Most student indicated they (about 80%) did not benefit much from their teaching practices. The study also found that the mentors' personal traits were unsupportive of mentees professional development. Majority of mentees were not introduced to the necessary policy and school documents. The professional knowledge of mentees was not reinforced with timely guidance and constructive feedback. Student responses also showed that mentors lacked personality of primary science teacher, thus, they found challenging to model their mentors' science teaching. Moreover, the supports and feedbacks gained from mentors focus on class and time management issues and lesson plans respectively. To improve the mentoring practices, it is necessary to give mentors trainings in science-specific mentoring skills to make them an effective science teacher and mentor. Personal attributes and pedagogical knowledge of mentors should be emphasized.

This study aimed at assessing the current practices of middle school science and mathematics teachers in implementing scientific reasoning skills in their classrooms to enhance students reasoning and whether there is difference with respect to gender, educational level, and subjects they teach. The study group consisted of 154 teachers (43 females and 111 males) in three regions of Ethiopia. Mixed research method was used and data were collected with Likert scale questionnaire consisting of 23 questions and four major interview questions. The findings showed that the teachers moderately practice implementing reasoning skills while teaching science and mathematics to enhance students reasoning skills. They frequently used few of the reasoning skills but moderately for most of them. The qualitative data also supported this result and indicated that teachers have many challenges in implementing reasoning skills. The findings from independent samples t-test and ANOVA illustrated that there was no significant difference between teachers' practices in implementing reasoning skills to enhance students' reasoning skills with respect to gender, education level and subjects they teach. Professional development intervention was recommended to build the capacity of teachers in implementing reasoning skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One agenda of science instruction in primary schools is to develop learners’ scientific reasoning abilities and to equip them with the necessary twenty-first-century skills. Few studies have been conducted to develop measurement tools that aspire to assess primary school learners’ scientific reasoning. Most of these studies lack a theoretical model backing the development of these assessment tools. This paper introduces the model for measuring scientific reasoning (MMSR) as a theoretical model for guiding the development of assessment tools in the context of measuring upper primary school learners’ scientific reasoning. We first conceptualise scientific reasoning using a review of the literature and then present evidence to justify and validate this model for use in measuring primary school learners’ scientific reasoning abilities. Furthermore, using research in history and philosophy of science and science education, the MMSR model supports the development of assessment tools measuring learners’ patterns of scientific reasoning and also considering the nature of science across different contextual settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed at assessing the current practices of middle school science and mathematics teachers in implementing scientific reasoning skills in their classrooms to enhance students reasoning and whether there is difference with respect to gender, educational level, and subjects they teach. The study group consisted of 154 teachers (43 females and 111 males) in three regions of Ethiopia. Mixed research method was used and data were collected with Likert scale questionnaire consisting of 23 questions and four major interview questions. The findings showed that the teachers moderately practice implementing reasoning skills while teaching science and mathematics to enhance students reasoning skills. They frequently used few of the reasoning skills but moderately for most of them. The qualitative data also supported this result and indicated that teachers have many challenges in implementing reasoning skills. The findings from independent samples t-test and ANOVA illustrated that there was no significant difference between teachers' practices in implementing rea soning skills to enhance students' reasoning skills with respect to gender, education level and subjects they teach. Professional development intervention was recommended to build the capacity of teachers in implementing reasoning skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study presents the analysis of student-student interaction in physics classrooms to determine the aspects that might constrain the implementation of dialogical teaching. Interaction among students in three lesson topics from grade 7, namely 'mechanical advantage' 'efficiency', and 'types of simple machines' were analysed with respect to three features including function of students' talk, modes of students' participation in the group work and their response to each other's point of views. The results indicate that students used their talks for different purposes in which most of them seemed to have insignificant contribution to the co-construction of knowledge because of their low quality and low frequency of occurrences. The student-student interaction during the group-work session was characterized mainly by domination, 'cumulative' type of classroom talks in which members of the group accept the group leader's ideas without critical evaluation and absence of exploratory talk. The overall results likely imply that the low quality of the groupwork task and the ineffective teacher interventions potentially affect the implementation of dialogical approach in the teaching and learning of physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study attempt was made to explore the challenges of physics teacher education in Ethiopia based on data collected from 16 Teacher Education Colleges, 432 pre-service physics teachers in their final year of study, and 31 college lecturers. From the qualitative and quantitative analysis of conceptual test results, attitude questionnaire, interviews, and classroom videos the following major results were found. At the end of one-year intervention with dialogic teaching, both the comparison and treatment pre-service teachers were found to score very low in selected TIMSS items from population 2 tests. Preservice teachers slightly but significantly favored dialogic over didactic and naïve inquiry teaching but showed significant shift from dialogic to the other two after the intervention. Physics teacher education lecturers predominantly used the lecture method in their classrooms but intervention found to shift their style significantly to dialogical teaching. Finally, it was found that pre-service teachers learning is highly influenced by weak English language proficiency, low motivation, and expectation of low social status for the teaching profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]