Tailoring science education graduate programs to the needs of all students

✍ Scribed by Zoubeida R. Dagher; Saouma B. Boujaoude

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 159 KB
• Volume: 80
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0097-0352
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1098-237x(199601)80:1<89::aid-sce7>3.0.co;2-z

✦ Synopsis

We commend the authors for raising the issue of tailoring science education programs to the needs of science educators. Indeed, graduate programs need to be responsive to the knowledge, skills, and experiences students bring with them. This is a much more constructive attitude than the one which assumes that programs are designed to serve the majority (however defined) and that it is the task of students to adapt themselves to program requirements.

While we distill from their article this global message, we disagree with the focus on the special needs of students from low-income countries (LCs). We believe the concerns set out by Lunetta and van den Berg are applicable to all students regardless of their gender, socioeconomic status, culture, or country of origin. Consequently, no necessary distinctions between student needs ought to be made along economic divides for five reasons.

First, the geographic parameters set in the second endnote do not constitute a reliable guide to differentiate countries according to high-and low-income categories (e.g., under Asia, consider the countries India, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia).

Second, income differences within and across LCs and HCs are not good indicators of students' language competency or their goals and needs. Even if a perfect per capita income guide could be developed, we believe that identifying and categorizing student profilesheeds along economic or geographic lines is not possible. Students 'The authors base their response on their experience as students and faculty members in the United States and Lebanon.