Development of a Scoring Key to Evaluate the Creative Story Writing Levels of Secondary School Seventh Grade Students

Introduction: The study aimed to examine the prevalence of sports outside of regular school classes among primary and secondary school students. The secondary aim was to study the correlation of physical activity, students’ socioeconomic status and parents’ level of education with students’ educational outcomes. Material and Methods: Data were collected from medical records of the Croatian Institute for Health Insurance in the Osijek-Baranja County and through regular physical examination of students in the fifth and eighth grade of primary school and the first grade of secondary school. Results: Over a 5-year period, 120 boys and 141 girls were examined; 66.28% of the students were involved in sports activities in the fifth grade, 49.04% were involved in sports in the eighth grade, and in the first grade, 43.68% of students were involved in sports. No statistically significant differences were observed in the seventh and eighth grade of primary school (p = 0.076) and in the first grade of secondary school (p = 0.057). Students in the seventh and eighth grade who played sports had slightly higher grades (4.45 ± 0.68) compared to those who did not participate in sports activities (4.3 ± 0.69). Similar results were obtained for students who were involved in sports in the first grade of secondary school, who had achieved slightly better results in the seventh grade (4.41 ± 0.69) compared to those who did not participate in sports activities (4.41 ± 0,69). Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that physical activity in children could be associated with better school performance, which may have implications for sports having positive health benefits in both childhood and adulthood. (Vucic A, Bilic-Kirin V. The Impact of Physical Activity and Sports on Academic Achievement of Students in Primary and Secondary Schools in Osijek-Baranja County, Croatia. SEEMEDJ 2020; 4(2); 97-107)

Numerous persons have suggested that instruction should match the developmental level of the learner. Are “concrete operational” college students developmentally the same as “concrete operational” seventh grade students thus in need of identical instruction? Matched concrete operational seventh grade and college students were given identical classroom instruction in probabilistic and correlational reasoning. The college students performed significantly better on posttest measures which appeared to require greater processing of information while significant differences did not exist on less difficult items. Level of cognitive development, field independence, and fluid intelligence correlated moderately with posttest performance for the seventh grade students. Field independence and fluid intelligence correlated moderately with posttest performance for the college students but not pretest knowledge of specific biological concepts and cognitive level. It was concluded that college students are more responsive to instruction due either to (1) greater amount of experience or (2) greater information processing capacity. Implications for science teaching are discussed.

It has been suggested that both performance and academic well-being play a role in adolescent students’ educational attainment and school dropout. In this study, we therefore examined, first, what kinds of academic well-being (i.e., school burnout, schoolwork engagement, and mathematics self-concept) and mathematics performance profiles can be identified among lower secondary school students (Ngrade 7 = 583, Ngrade 9 = 497); second, how stable these profiles are across one school year during the seventh and ninth grades; and, third, how students with different academic well-being and mathematics performance profiles differ with respect to their educational aspirations. By means of latent profile analyses, three groups of students in seventh grade: thriving (34%), average (51%), and negative academic well-being (15%) and four groups of students in ninth grade: thriving (25%), average (50%), negative academic well-being (18%), and low-performing (7%) with distinct well-being and mathematics performance profiles were identified. Configural frequency analyses revealed that the profiles were relatively stable across one school year; 60% of the students displayed identical profiles over time. The thriving students reported the highest educational aspirations compared to the other groups. In addition, the low-performing students in the ninth grade had the lowest educational aspirations just before the transition to upper secondary school. Practical implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.

This study aims to analyze the relationship between secondary school seventh grade students’ perception of mathematical self-efficacy, mistake-handling learning awareness, and mathematical anxiety; and to define the power of mistake-handling learning and self-efficacy in predicting mathematical anxiety. In this study, relational model was used and the research group consisted of 323 seventh grade students whose ages range from 12 to 14. According to the findings of the study, when the relationship between mathematical anxiety, self-efficacy, and mistake-handling learning is analyzed, it is observed that there are significant relationships between mathematical anxieties, self-efficacy, and mistake-handling learning. Furthermore, mathematical self-efficacy and mistake-handling learning explain 51% of the total variance of the mathematical anxiety.

Understandings of the nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI), as opposed to engaging students in inquiry learning experiences, are included in science education reform documents around the world. However, little is known about what students have learned about NOSI during their pre-college school years. The purpose of this large-scale follow-up international project (i.e. 32 countries and regions, spanning six continents and including 3917 students for the high school sample) was to collect data on what exiting high school students have learned about NOSI. Additionally, the study investigated changes in 12th grade students’ NOSI understandings compared to seventh grade (i.e. 20 countries and regions) students’ understandings from a prior investigation [Lederman et al. (2019). An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students’ understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 56(4), 486–515. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21512]. This study documents and discusses graduating high school students’ understandings and compares their understandings to seventh grade students’ understandings of the same aspects of scientific inquiry for each country. It is important to note that collecting data from each of the 130+ countries globally was not feasible. Similarly, it was not possible to collect data from every region of each country. A concerted effort was made, however, to provide a relatively representative picture of each country and the world.

The conceptual understanding related to being a citizen involves not only the explicit knowledge acquired through explicit instruction and course books but also the implicit, experiential knowledge acquired in socio-cultural and political environments. Explicit and implicit conceptual knowledge we have acquired about being a citizen affects our values, attitudes and behaviours we demonstrate as citizens. The purpose of this study is to investigate secondary school seventh grade students’ implicit and explicit knowledge about the concept of citizen. The study adopted a convergent parallel mixed method. 27 students were chosen using typical case sampling for the identification of implicit knowledge, and 124 students were chosen using simple random sampling method for the identification of explicit knowledge. Data were collected from secondary school seventh grade students who were enrolled in three state schools, who had their parents’ consent and who volunteered to participate in the study. Implicit knowledge about the concept of citizen was identified using the repertory grid technique, and explicit knowledge was identified using the “Explicit Knowledge Test” about the concept of citizen including seven open-ended questions. Qualitative data obtained for implicit knowledge were analyzed using content analysis methods and Idiogrid 2.4 program. Students’ answers given in the explicit knowledge test were analyzed using a holistic rubric. Analysis of the data included the use of frequencies, percentages, arithmetic means, standard deviation, t-test, and one-way ANOVA.An analysis of implicit knowledge about the concept of citizen showed that the students interpreted the concept of citizen mostly as “being a good person” and least as “an individual who has rights”. According to the students’ eigenvalue (Euclidean distance coefficient) that reflected the difference between the “Me as a citizen” and “What kind of citizen do I want to be”, “Me as a citizen compared to other people in my environment”, “What kind of a citizen do I have to be? central elements showed that majority of the students had high eigenvalues (self perceptions) as citizens. Majority of the students were found to have “first level-insufficient” explicit knowledge about the concept of citizen; a small number of students had “second level-partially sufficient” knowledge; and there were no students who had “third level-mostly sufficient” and “fourth level-sufficient”. Students’ explicit knowledge test scores displayed significant differences according to mother’s education level, having friends with different cultural characteristics, and the languages spoken at home variables; no significant differences were determined according to gender, the location of the school, father’s education level, and mother language variables.

Sudden cardiac arrest is still one of the most frequent causes of death. Teaching resuscitation in schools was already successfully implemented in Scandinavian countries. Following arecommendation of the conference of german stateministers of education in June 2014, additional tuition for resuscitation is to be implemented in german schools starting in seventh grade. The present study aimed to assess the level of knowledge of seventh grade students in the field of life support and to implement curricular standards for resuscitation courses in secondary schools. Using astandardized questionnaire, students in seventh grade of five schools in Cologne were interrogated about their knowledge on resuscitation and defibrillation. This assessment was taken as basis for developing acurricular teaching concept by the Cologne heart centre in cooperation with the department of biology and technical didactics at the University of Cologne. This tutorial concept was integrated in scholar plans for the first time in the school year 2014/2015. At the end of the school year the students' knowledge got reevaluated. As expected, the technical knowledge of the interviewed students is low, however confidence in their own abilities is high. Most of the interviewed persons would be willing to perform chest compressions (72,26%) and dare using an automated external defibrillator (AED, 64,38%). The exact position of defibrillator pads cannot be precisely indicated by most students (8,40%), compression point, -depth and -frequency are known by just one third of students. Already one-time performance of the live-saving lesson resulted in aclear increase of knowledge about resuscitation. The willingness to perform resuscitation measures and confidence in their own abilities are high in seventh grade students. Therefore, the recommendation of the conference of german stateministers of education in June 2014 addresses the right target group. Long-term success of the presented educational concept will be analysed and reported in alongitudinal study.

The effectiveness of a one-period school-based AIDS education program on an adolescent population of seventh and eighth grade students (N = 585) was determined. An instrument based on the PRECEDE model was used to assess program effectiveness. Three-way analysis of variance indicated significant differences (p v .01) between pretest to posttest scores for knowledge, attitude, and beliefs for those who received the program versus those who did not by grade and gender of students. The intervention group scored significantly higher than the comparison group on knowledge gain for both seventh and eighth grade students and for males and females. On attitude items, a significant increase occurred from pretest to posttest for eighth grade students who received the program, but not for seventh grade students. The experimental group of eighth grade students scored higher on the attitudes component than the comparison of eighth grade students on the posttest. When attitudes were examined by gender for females in the educational intervention, an increase occurred in attitude scores from pretest to posttest. While belief scores increased significantly from pretest to posttest for the experimental seventh and eighth grade students, significant increases occurred only for experimental group females. Findings support the contention that a one-class period AIDS education program can affect more than just knowledge since attitudes and beliefs also were partially affected.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the subject jigsaw technique on elementary school seventh grade students’ academic achievements and on their problem solving skills. The study was carried out on the basis of a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group. The study group made up of control and experimental groups of 16 students in each included a total of 32 students. The research data were collected with the Narration Types Achievement Test, Problem Solving Inventory for Children and Student Interview Form for Process. Predictive statistics for the analysis of the quantitative data and the descriptive analysis technique for the qualitative data were applied. The results revealed a significant difference both in the experimental and control groups in terms of achievement before the application. On the other hand, with respect to problem solving skills, only in the experimental group was a significant difference found.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the subject jigsaw technique on elementary school seventh grade students’ academic achievements and on their problem solving skills. The study was carried out on the basis of a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group. The study group made up of control and experimental groups of 16 students in each included a total of 32 students. The research data were collected with the Narration Types Achievement Test, Problem Solving Inventory for Children and Student Interview Form for Process. Predictive statistics for the analysis of the quantitative data and the descriptive analysis technique for the qualitative data were applied. The results revealed a significant difference both in the experimental and control groups in terms of achievement before the application. On the other hand, with respect to problem solving skills, only in the experimental group was a significant difference found. ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to assess the readability of Science and Technology Textbooks for Secondary Schools through cloze procedure (CP) and the effect of the variable word on the assessment of readability through cloze tests in which different parts of the same text are deleted. The population of the study was comprised of the students at TOKI Mehmet Akif Ersoy Secondary School and Bogazici Secondary School in Duzce. The population consisted of a total of 383 students, namely fifth grade students (n=123), sixth grade students (n=81), seventh grade students (n=90) and eighth grade students (n=89). The data were collected through different cloze tests with 49 to 51 blanks, which were based on the texts extracted from the Science and Technology textbooks for fifth to eighth grade students. Three types of CP were followed on the basis of the same text. The study concluded that the texts included in the Science and Technology textbooks for fifth to eighth grade students were easily legible for the fifth and eighth grade students whereas they were legible at the grade level for the sixth and seventh grade students. Another important finding is that there was not a significant difference among the three types of CP, in which words were removed in a different rhythmic order on the same text. The results suggest that CP is not influenced by the variable word and that it can be used for assessing the readability of Turkish texts. Keywords : readability, readability formulas, filling in the blanks, cloze test

This study added to understanding of the recovery model of depression in adolescents by testing whether hope mediates the link between enhancing attributional style (EAS) and depression using two independent samples. Study 1 used cross-sectional data from 378 students (51% female) in fifth through seventh grade students. Study 2 used data from 546 (50% female) seventh and eighth grade students at two time points: January and May within the same year. Cross-sectional analyses indicated that EAS indirectly predicted depression. Cross-sectional and prospective analyses indicated that stable attributions, in particular, were associated with lower levels of depression through higher levels of hope. Notably, contrary to expectations, global attributions consistently predicted higher levels of depression. Results suggest that hope mediates the association between attributional stability for positive events and reductions in depression over time. The importance of investigating attributional dimensions is emphasized as implications and future research directions are discussed.

Results: Eighty-three eighth grade students and 71 seventh grade students completed pre- and post-diaries. When grouped by gender and grade, all subgroups showed an increase in DCI; however, this was only significant for the seventh grade girls (p=0.02). The seventh and eighth grade students had similar changes in DCI (p=0.2). Seventeen to nineteen percent of adolescents achieved the DRI of calcium after the intervention but not before while 8-11% achieved it before but not after. This was not significantly different (p=0.68). Conclusion: An educational program did not seem to impact on the DCI of these students.

A questionnaire regarding attitudes toward science and scientific knowledge (Yager & Yager, 1985b) was administered to 143 intellectually gifted (IQ > 130) and intellectually average third‐, seventh‐, and eleventh‐grade students. Measures of internal reliability on four attitude subscales and a content knowledge subscale are reported. Three‐way ANOVAs comparing grade, sex, and ability revealed significant differences between average and gifted students in attitudes toward being a scientist, usefulness of science, and, as might be expected, in knowledge of science. Similarly, there were significant differences between grades on attitudes toward teachers and toward science classes, with the most favorable attitudes expressed in third grade, next most favorable in eleventh grade, and clearly more negative attitudes expressed by students in seventh grade. There also was a significant interaction between grade level and ability regarding attitudes toward science classes. In contrast to what might be expected from reported differences between males and females in attitudes toward science, gender as a separate variable did not have a significant main effect in any of the comparisons.

The aim of this study is to define the metaphorical perceptions of secondary school students about basic values, such as justice, friendship, honesty, self-control, patience, respect, love, responsibility, patriotism and benevolence taught, in Turkish curriculum. The study used phenomenological design, and the study group consisted of a total of 114 secondary school students in seventh grade at a public school in Kars, Turkey. In the questionnaire, students were asked to convert their perceptions of the above-mentioned values into the following statement. ‘....value is like...../because.....’. The study results revealed that nearly 70% of the participants created metaphors related to base values, and the most frequent metaphor was ‘brotherhood’ that was created for the base value ‘friendship’. Also, it was found that one of the conceptual categories formed for ‘friendship’ was the only category that all the metaphors created by the participants were negative. Keywords: Value education, metaphor, secondary school education curriculum, Turkish language curriculum