From classrooms to digital resources: longitudinal changes in ocean literacy and learning sources among Taiwanese high school students

The sea surrounds both Taiwan and Japan, but they have adopted different marine education policies. This study used the ocean literacy framework published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to examine the ocean literacy of high school students in Taiwan and Japan. We also investigated the channels through which students acquired marine biology knowledge and whether parental education level and students’ attitudes toward the ocean affected ocean literacy. Tests were administered in Japanese and Chinese to assess students’ ocean literacy, attitude, and background. This study used descriptive statistics, the independent sample t-test, and multigroup structural equation modeling. Taiwanese students considerably outperformed Japanese students in ocean literacy, scoring significantly higher in five of the seven ocean literacy principles. In Taiwan, higher parental education level led to higher ocean literacy scores, but not in Japan. Access to information regarding marine biology also differed by country. These results provide a reference to high schools, teachers, and policymakers in Taiwan and Japan and can help improve curricula, learning environments, and marine education policies.

The main purpose of the study was to explore the literacy of environmental science level for senior high school student in Taiwan. This study received 90.87 % return rate from the students. After the process of data analysis, the following results were obtained: (1) On the whole, senior high school students are only above average in scientific literacy. (2) Senior high school students have lower level cognition on the science applications.(3) Senior high school students have higher level cognition on the science ethics. (4) The public senior high school students generally have higher standard of scientific literacy than the private senior high school students. (5) Female senior high school students tend (tended) to pay attention to the science ethics, while the male high school students tend(tended) to have higher level cognition on the science applications. (6) The senior high school students whose parents have higher education have higher standard of scientific literacy. (7) The senior high school students whose parents have specialized jobs have higher standard of scientific literacy.KeywordsScienceScientific literacySenior high school

Tobacco use is a major preventable cause of death in the world. This article describes and compares tobacco use prevalence for students attending junior high schools and senior high schools in Taiwan. This report uses data from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) completed among 4689 junior high school students and 4426 senior high school students in Taiwan in 2004-2005. The GYTS uses a 2-stage sampling design to produce nationally representative data for junior and senior high students in general and vocational schools. Higher smoking prevalence was observed among senior high (10.1% general schools and 15.9% vocational schools) than junior high (5.5%) school students. Smoking prevalence of girls in junior high (3.2%) and senior high schools (4.6% general and 11.1% vocational) was almost as high or higher than adult females' (4.3%) smoking rates. The pattern of smoking intensity across school years and type of school shows that the percentage of smokers who were experimenters (47.1%) was higher in junior high school and the percentage of smokers who were regular/established smokers (over 50%) was higher in senior high school. Smoking prevalence described in this report shows that there are challenges facing the tobacco prevention and control program in Taiwan. The findings suggest that schools should increase their smoking initiation prevention efforts and make available cessation programs and counseling to help students quit smoking. If effective youth tobacco control programs are not developed and implemented in Taiwan, future morbidity and mortality attributed to tobacco will surely increase, especially among women.

This study examines the curriculum components in biology favoured by high school students in Taiwan. Our sample consisted of 155 senior high school students (51 boys and 104 girls) and 137 junior high school students (74 boys and 63 girls). The questionnaire was based on the idea of a repertory grid technique and was developed to investigate the relative status of the curriculum components as perceived by the students. Descriptive statistics and t-tests were then used to analyse the data. It was found that the students favoured the curriculum components in the following order: Manipulative skills, Scientific concepts, the Application of science, Social issues, Problem solving skills and the History of science. Further comparisons indicated that there were some differences between senior high school students and junior high school students as well as between boys and girls. These findings provide us with aspects that should be seriously considered when developing curricula.

Differences in classroom climate and science related attitudes were investigated among junior high school science classes and students in Taiwan. The sample consisted of 1,269 students enrolled in 40 science classes distributed equally among ten junior high schools, five metropolitan and five rural. Classes were further classified according to sex (21 boys and 19 girls classes) and ability (19 high and 21 low ability classes). Using the Learning Environment Inventory (Anderson, Walberg, & Fraser, 1982) to measure climate, science classes in metropolitan schools, more than rural, were found to be characterized by Speed, Friction, Favoritism, Difficulty, Cliqueness, and Competitiveness. No differences were found in the classroom climates of classes in which students were grouped according to sex or ability. Using the Test of Science‐Related Attitudes (Fraser, 1981), students in science classes in metropolitan schools, in contrast to rural, expressed more positive attitudes toward the Social Implications of Science, Adoption of Scientific Attitudes, and Attitude to Scientific Inquiry. Boys more than girls recorded high scores on Leisure Interest in Science and Career Interest in Science. High ability students were found to have higher scores on Attitude to Scientific Inquiry than did low ability students. When examining the relationship between the 15 subscale scores of the LEI and the seven subscale scores of the TOSRA for the 40 classes, only 9 out of 105 correlations proved to be significant. Most differences in climate, attitude, and their interactions were attributed to school location rather than to student characteristics.

This study explores the relationships among Taiwanese high school students’ scientific epistemic beliefs (SEBs), conceptions of learning science (COLS), and motivation of learning science. The questionnaire responses from 470 high school students in Taiwan were gathered for analysis to explain these relationships. The structural equation modeling technique was utilized to reveal that the students’ absolutist SEBs led to reproduced COLS (i.e. learning science as memorizing, preparing for tests, calculating, and practicing) while sophisticated SEBs were related to constructive COLS (i.e. learning science as increase of knowledge, applying, and attaining understanding). The students’ reproduced COLS were also negatively associated with surface motive of learning science, whereas the constructive COLS were positively correlated with students’ deep motive of learning science. Finally, this study found that students who viewed scientific knowledge as uncertain (advanced epistemic belief) tended to possess a surface motive of learning science. This finding implies that the implementation of standardized tests diminishes Taiwanese high school students’ curiosity and interest in engaging deeply in science learning.

Scientific epistemic beliefs, conceptions of learning science and self-efficacy of learning science among high school students

Taiwanese high school students’ perspectives on effective mathematics teaching behaviors

Project-based inquiry and independent learning have become important learning modes for high school students in Taiwan, and academic reading literacy is a key competency for independent learning and project-based inquiry. Unlike general reading literacy, academic reading literacy necessitates an active, exploratory, and recursive approach, making it essential for completing academic assignments. In the past, there were relatively few studies on academic reading literacy, and there was a lack of questionnaires to investigate high school students’ academic reading literacy levels. This study first analyzed the concept of academic reading literacy in the literature. Then, an academic reading literacy scale applicable to high school students in Taiwan was established through focused interviews, the Delphi method, factor analysis, etc. Next, a convenience sampling survey of high school students’ academic reading literacy was conducted. Results indicated that among high school students’ academic reading literacy skills, “academic reading attitudes” scored highest, whereas “academic text sensitivity” scored lowest. This study also used structural equation modeling to analyze relationships between the components of academic reading literacy. We noted that “academic reading attitudes” had the greatest impact on other aspects; that by improving their academic reading attitudes and academic text sensitivity, high school students could improve their information retrieval knowledge and reading comprehension skills, respectively; and that strengthened high school student academic reading attitudes, academic text sensitivity, and reading comprehension skills could improve their performance in reflective evaluation.

Abstract: The present study compares the discourse organization in compositions by senior high school students in Taiwan in their Chinese and English classes and explores the influence of their teachers' writing instruction in order to extend the current understanding of students' discourse organization in the school context. The researcher collected data through the analysis of 432 writing samples taken from high school Chinese and English classes and interviewed their teachers to explore what kind of instruction they employed when teaching writing. The researcher interviewed 20 students to further probe their choices in adopting a “direct” or an “indirect” approach to writing. The findings show that, while most students often used a direct approach in their Chinese and English expository composition, different patterns of discourse organization did exist. The researcher interpreted the data as supporting the view that deductive thinking patterns may not be difficult for Chinese students in Taiwan, particularly in their English writing, and teachers' instruction and assessments of writing can be effective in this area.

Several studies have suggested health-related physical fitness (HRPF) as an important health marker and\nclosely associated with overweight and obesity among children and adolescents. However, the relationship among\nHRPF and exercise habits, weight status, and fitness attitude remains unclear. Thus, this study aimed to explore the\npossible factors, including knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy and weight status, and how these factors could affect\nHRPF among junior high school students in Taiwan. A total of 1,628 valid participants from 7th, 8th and 9th grades\nwere selected based on the stratified cluster random sampling throughout Taiwan. The fitness and Affecting Factors\nin Physical Fitness Survey data were collected in 2011. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression with\nbackward elimination were adopted to examine the significance of data. The result showed that roughly one third\n(35.6%) of Taiwanese junior high school students reached 4 standards of HRPF, all items are above 25th percentile.\nThe logistic regression model revealed that the strongest relationship with HRPF was weight status, and exercise\nhabits were significantly influenced HRPF tests among male and female students. Furthermore, knowledge and\nself-efficacy showed significant positive effects on HRPF among female students, while only attitude had positive\ninfluence on HRPF among male students. Results also demonstrated the urban-rural difference on HRPF. To be\nspecific, female students from North Taiwan showed better HRPF than female students from East, while male\nstudents from East obtained better HRPF than male students from North. In addition, male students in North also\nexhibited better HRPF compared to male students in South. Therefore, these findings suggest that government\nshould contemplate the urban-rural difference on HRPF, schools should enforce physical education curriculum\nand interventions should focus on strengthening of fitness knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy to develop regular\nexercise habit to decrease the obesity rate and to further improve HRPF among junior high school students in Taiwan.\nKeywords: children,

Although academic cheating has been found to be a common phenomenon in high schools, few studies investigate how peers influence individual cheating behavior among high school students. In this paper, we estimate the cross-gender and intra-gender interaction effects on academic cheating among high school students in Taiwan. We detect the evidence of male–male and female–female peer interactions on academic cheating. The female–female interaction effect is stronger than the male–male interaction effect. These results imply girls are more influenced by female peers on academic cheating. The cross-gender interactions (male to female, female to male interactions) are not significant. Whereas, we find that all of the social interaction coefficients become insignificant when this model allows for school-specific fixed effects.

Objectives: To assess parental influence on smoking behaviour by high school students in an Asian culture and to compare the relative importance of parental and peer influence. Methods: A 5%...

This research evaluated the risk factors associated with alcohol consumption, problem drinking, and related consequences among high school students in Taiwan. A total of 779 10th grade students from four randomly selected high schools in eastern Taiwan were included in the survey. Survey data were self-reported by students and analyzed using logistic regression methods. The results showed that alcohol consumption and problem drinking was 2.22-2.71-fold greater in male than in female adolescents. Parents and peer groups were the determinants influencing alcohol consumption, and these influences could be enhanced particularly by the drinking behaviors of fathers and peer groups, and the relationship of students with their peer groups. The probability of developing adolescent problem drinking was fourfold greater in students whose fathers had habits of drinking. Ethnicity had a notable impact on the risk of problem drinking. The occurrence of problem drinking among indigenous adolescents was 2.98-fold higher than among Hans, indicating a diversity of biological factors, social norms, and expectation for alcohol drinking between these two ethnic groups. This study suggests that a policy for preventing alcohol abuse among high school students should start by addressing the two major associated problems: a need to earn peer group recognition, and the lack of family support among at-risk students.

A positive but very modest relationship was found between measures of free voluntary reading and a measure of writing ability for 318 high school students in Taiwan.