Rwandan secondary school students' attitudes in learning chemistry: explored with task-based instruction.

This study intended to explore the contribution of Task-Based Learning (TBL) to raising students' attitudes toward learning chemistry. The study employed a quasi-experimental research design with 369 secondary school grade-2 students in Rwanda. The study randomly assigned students to two groups of differentiated instruction. Thus, the experimental group was exposed to the TBL method, while a control group was taught the teacher-centered method. An internationally standardized Chemistry attitude questionnaire of 0.831 Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient was used before and after teaching and learning activity. The Kruskal Wallis test was computed in SPSS 23.0 to measure the effect of TBLin raising positive attitudes among students in the experimental group compared to the control group. The attitude gain was measured from pre-test to post-test in attitude variables. This study showed a statistically significant difference between the control group and the experimental group (ꭓ2 = 4.118, df = 1, p < .05). Furthermore, the students perceived chemistry's importance more than the other three variables (difficulty, interest, and usefulness of chemistry). Results also showed that gender affected students' perceptions of learning chemistry. Females students developed more positive attitudes than male students. However, school location statistically affecting students' attitudes towards chemistry. The study result implies that TBL method helped to increase students' attitudes toward chemistry. Recommendations were given to implement TBL methods in the chemistry classroom.

From pedagogical content knowledge toward technological pedagogical content knowledge frameworks and their effectiveness in teaching mathematics: A mapping review.

BACKGROUND: A study to reveal existing pedagogical content knowledge or technological pedagogical content knowledge frameworks and their effectiveness in teaching mathematics is crucial to inform the reader, teacher, and researcher. This review study intended to explore the trends of the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) framework, how it has changed over time until the most recent version of technological and pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) was developed, and their effectiveness in teaching mathematics. METHODS: We initially downloaded 273 articles from the first 30 Google Scholar pages and analyzed 229 journal articles. We got 24 frameworks from 64 journal articles since Shulman's first model in 1986. About 52 out of 229 were mathematics studies. Among these studies, we found that 18 studies have extensively investigated the use of identified frameworks. RESULTS: The frameworks were presented and descriptively discussed in chronological order. The empirical studies that compared the role of pedagogical content knowledge and technological pedagogical content knowledge models among classrooms with teachers who possess and do not possess such skills were demonstrated. CONCLUSIONS: The gap in empirical studies was identified, and further studies about the intervention of PCK and TPACK models were suggested to gain more insight into the mathematics classroom.