Browsing by Subject "Technology - Study and teaching - Social aspects"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    A comparison of science teachers' and engineering students' rankings of science and technology related global problems
    (1996) Ndodana, Cynthia Bulelwa; Rochford, Kevin
    Using 262 acknowledged science educators from 41 countries, Bybee developed a scale for measuring the ranked priorities of scientists, and others, with respect to twelve major global problems related to science and technology in 1984. In 1993 this scale was re-administered to samples of 76 Cape Town science educators, 55 Transkei science educators and 129 chemical engineering undergraduates at the University of Cape Town. High correlations ranging from r = 0.68 to r = 0.90 were obtained among the four samples' mean ranked priorities on the scale as a whole, over the ten year period. Among the top six global problems in 1984, five still received consistently high overall prioritisation in 1993, namely: population growth; world hunger and food resources; human health and disease; air quality and atmosphere; and water resources. The mean ranking of war technology as a priority declined by seven places over the ten year period. Educators surveyed in follow-up studies in 1993 made numerous recommendations for teaching these global problems. These included the use of the science-technology-society (STS) approach in science education; the introduction of a core school curriculum on environmental education; the encouragement of student participation in projects which help to reduce or eliminate such global problems; and the re-allocation of money spent on nuclear arms towards the satisfaction of human basic needs such as food, housing, health and water services. In a follow-up survey of twenty lecturers in engineering at the University of Cape Town in 1993 and 1994 important goals and issues singled out by individuals included the provision of mass housing and infrastructure; sanitation; urbanisation; job creation; the abuse of high technology in communications; technological illiteracy among decision makers; abuse and reduction of oceanic resources; photochemical smog; the prediction and possible control of droughts and floods; demands on the human race of the information explosion; electromagnetic wave hazards and pollution; resource depletion education and the dissemination of knowledge; the emergence and separation of C.P. Snow's "Two cultures"; and the myth of the peace dividend. Several of these issues were then subsequently included in 1995 in an updated, modified and extended form of the Bybee Scale. Currently a reliable and validated 15-item Scale -emerging from the findings of this dissertation - is being employed by other research workers in various parts of the new South Africa. During 1995 its chief use has been offering relevant input into, and providing empirical justification for, fundamental aspects of the policy of the current Reconstruction and Development Programme, as set out in the 1995 White Paper of the Government of National Unity.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Rankings of science and technology related global problems : a comparison of gender differences among school pupils in the Northern and Western Cape Provinces
    (1996) Letsoalo, Maredi Bernard; Rochford, Kevin
    In 1984 Bybee used 262 science educators from 41 countries to develop an instrument for measuring their ranked priorities of science and technology related global problems. In 1995 the original Bybee scale was updated and clarified, and a new 15-item-version, the Le Grange Global Priorities Instrument (LGPI), was piloted, refined and validated. The new Le Grange Global Priorities Instrument (LGPI) was administered to 421 North Sotho, 433 urban Xhosa and 348 suburban Coloured high school pupils in the Northern Province and Western Cape Province respectively. The study is an enlargement of the work of Bybee and Mau (1986); Bybee and Najafi (1986); Ndodana, Rochford and Fraser (1994); and Le Grange, Rochford and Sass (1995) and it is to date the first one of its kind to be extended to school pupils. Data was collected during a seven month period from January to July 1995 as part of the normal class schedule, with the help of science teachers and school principals. The data gathered were analysed with the Statgraphics package available in the standard computer. More than 96 percent of the data gathered were used for this analysis.