In this Forum, NARST_A lived history.pdf nineteen different authors construct a history of the National Association for Research in Science Education (NARST) through the analysis of documents and through the personal perspectives of individuals. The history of NARST is inseparable from the biography of the individuals through whose lives it was produced and reproduced. The history of NARST is a living history that both shapes and was shaped by the biographies of its members.

You can download this multi-authored, multiple perspective Forum as a PDF document by clicking on the title above.

by DeGennaro, Donna; Brown, Tiffany L.

The design of educational experiences is often mediated by historical, institutional, and social conceptions. Although these influences can initially shape the way that educational opportunities are created and implemented, this preliminary form has the potential to reorganize. In this paper, we illustrate how history shows its presence in the ways that instructors systematically arrange a technology course for urban youth. This original approach to the course inhibits youth participation. Incrementally, however, the cultural enactments of instructors and students lead to a reorganization of activity. Through highlighting history and examining the intersection of culture, we provide insight into the ways in which adolescents of color become successfully engaged in learning technology. We focus our study by asking how co-existence and the dialectic of structure and agency play a role as youth develop an identity as a technology user. Further, this emergent learning design affords outsiders a unique view of the educational and contextual experiences of these youth. Our illustration of how history, enacted culture and identity mediate the emergent learning design stems from a grounded theory approach to analyzing video, interview and artifact data in this after-school technology course.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-008-9108-y
Online Date: 3/14/2008
Print publication date: 3/1/2009
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by Ercikan, Kadriye; Alper, Naim

This commentary first summarizes and discusses the analysis of the two translation processes described in the Oliveira, Colak, and Akerson article and the inferences these researchers make based on their research. In the second part of the commentary, we describe procedures and criteria used in adapting tests into different languages and how they may apply to adaptation of instructional materials. The authors provide a good theoretical analysis of what took place in two translation instances and make an important contribution by taking the first step in providing a systematic discussion of adaptation of instructional materials. Our discussion proposes procedures for adapting instructional materials for examining equivalence of source and target versions of adapted instructional materials. We highlight that many of the procedures and criteria used in examining comparability of educational tests is missing in this emerging research of area.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-008-9106-0
Online Date: 3/6/2008
Print publication date: 3/1/2009
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