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Pakistani Grade Ten Students Conceptions of Nature of Science

Thesis Info

Author

Salim, Shamsa

Department

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

Program

MEd

Institute

Aga Khan University

Institute Type

Private

City

Karachi

Province

Sindh

Country

Pakistan

Thesis Completing Year

2010

Thesis Completion Status

Completed

Subject

Education

Language

English

Added

2021-02-17 19:49:13

Modified

2024-03-24 20:25:49

ARI ID

1676727961677

Similar


In Pakistan, science students memorize scientific facts and laws without going into the depth of how these were developed. They consider science as a body of knowledge characterized by facts, concepts, laws and theories that are absolute and cannot be changed. The lack of understanding of scientific enterprise is rooted in the education and learning process. An understanding of current view of nature of science (NOS) is considered to be an important element of school science for developing student conceptions. So far, very limited research has been done in NOS and this has been a neglected area in our country (Halai, 2004). This study aims to assess grade ten Pakistani students' conceptions of NOS and whether these conceptions were related to selected variables. These variables include participants' gender, system of schools, students' household income, parents' educational level and students' overall grades in grade nine. A questionnaire comprising 14 modified "Views on Science-Technology-Society" (VOSTS) items was adapted for this study to assess students' views on certain aspects of NOS. After establishing its validity in the Pakistani context through a pilot study, participants' were administered the questionnaire. A multi-stage clustered sampling approach was used to recruit a representative sample (n=508) of science students of grade ten from government (n=11) and private (n=7) schools in three towns of Karachi. Participants' responses were categorized as "naive," "have merit" or "informed" conceptions. The result showed that majority of participant students' held naive views of a majority (nine out of fourteen items, 64%) of the target aspects of NOS. Furthermore, the student views of some NOS aspects were significantly related to the target variables. These included students' gender, their parents' education, students' household income, and students' overall grade in grade nine. Results of this study would provide important information about an under researched area - students' conceptions of NOS. The adapted 14-item VOSTS questionnaire would make a valuable contribution in indigenous literature. Those who want to take the same line of inquiry can use this tool to conduct large scale studies.
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ڈاکٹر شاہد رضوان

حرص و ہوس کا زہر نکل جائے دل سے کاش !
ہو جائے ختم چٹکی میں فکر ۔ غم۔ معاش

کندھوں سے اپنے بوجھ اتار اس کی یاد کا
کب تک اٹھا کے پھرتے رہو گے یہ مردہ لاش

اے عشق ! تیرے حوصلے کی داد شرط ہے
پہلو میں حسن تھا مگر آئے نہ دی خراش

تنہائی کا شکار تھا وہ شخص اس قدر
میلے کی بھیڑ میں جسے اپنی رہی تلاش

پھر یوں ہوا کہ نیند ہی آنکھوں سے اڑ گئی
یہ کس نے کر دیے ہیں مرے خواب پاش پاش

زیر ۔ زمین کوئی رگڑتا ہے ایڑیاں
پیدا بلا جواز نہیں ہوتا ارتعاش

کانوں میں تیل ڈال کے سویا نظام عدل
پیدا ہوئے ہیں چوک چوراہے میں بد معاش

شاہد ! پرائے بت پہ نہیں لازم انحصار
بہتر ہے اپنے ہاتھ سے تو اپنا بت تراش
٭٭٭

Impact of ‘Open Data’ and its Effectiveness forPakistan Social Issues: Learning fromthe UK Experience

Developmental projects are essential ingredients of prosperity and well-being. Every nation has to ensure that her people are living in a perfect and safe sociopolitical environment. However, it varies from region to region and place to place. UK as a country is a big economy which is capable of giving its people the type of security they need. For this purpose, various types of strategies have been emphasized which enable the government to look for the benefit of its people. Open data system is one of these important developments which have been initiated by the UK government to provide huge access to databases. It improves their learning and knowledge, and gives the opportunity to think ‘out of box’. It also enables people to polish their learning skills and take things out of their resources and utilize them fully. Although, there is some compulsion on the use of private data sources, yet it is necessary to know that not all data are confidential. The research looks into the pros and cons of using open data systems and to assess its impacts on the social and political development in UK. The use of open data system is not only beneficial for the people to perform their daily life tasks, it is important to evade corruption and foster great accountability of national institutions. So, there remains feeble chance of witnessing corruption in the society that could cause chaos in the nation. The use of open data systems is important for boosting up innovation and creativity for a developing country like Pakistan. Open data system has been seen playing a big part in establishing a trend of innovative growth pushed by the availability of these resources. The influence and impact of ‘Open Data’ has largely been observed during the recent Coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) where the government has utilized the data to tackle the disease in Pakistan.

Development of Food Grade Colloidal System for Delivery of Vitamin a and D

Nutritional deficiency of vitamin A and D is causing a lot of problems in the world. It is estimated that about one billion people worldwide are either vitamin D deficient or have insufficient vitamin D intake. In Pakistan about 85% of both pregnant and non-pregnant mothers have been found vitamin D deficient. Apart from this, 5.7 million children below 5 years of age and 42.5 % women were identified as vitamin A deficient in Pakistan. Being food fortification or supplementation a best approach, the food manufacturers are interested in fortifying their products with vitamin A and D. As both vitamins are restricted to fats and oils due to their non-solubility in water. Nanoemulsions are ideal solution to address this problem because this technique enhances the solubility, kinetic stability, bio efficacy and bioavailability of encapsulated material due to their smaller size. The purpose of present study was to fortify beverages with nanoemulsions of vitamin A and D. The nanoemulsions were prepared by using food grade surfactants (Tween 80 and soya lecithin), deionized water and vegetable oil (olive and canola oil). Preparation conditions for beta carotene and vitamin D nanoemulsions were optimized using response surface methodology. These nanoemulsions were further characterized against different physico-chemical parameters. In vivo study was carried out on animal model to investigate the safety of nanoemulsions. The nanoemulsions based delivery system was used to fortify the beverages with these vitamins. The results manifested that, ideal optimum preparation conditions for beta carotene nanoemulsions were 6.07% surfactant, 4.19 minutes homogenization time and 6.50% oil contents. For vitamin D nanoemulsions, optimum preparation conditions were 4.82 minutes xxii xxii homogenization time, 0.67 surfactant to oil ratio (S/O) and 7% disperse phase volume. During two months of storage studies, these nanoemulsions remained stable against phase separation and creaming. Moreover, droplet size of nanoemulsions stored at 4 °C slowly increased as compared to nanoemulsions stored at 25 °C. Additionally, p-Anisidine value of the vegetable oil (canola and olive oil) incorporated into nanoemulsions were significantly lower as compared to free vegetable oil. These nanoemulsions were stable against droplet aggregation and phase separation over a wide range of pH (2-8), salt concentration (50-400 mM) and temperature (30-80°C). During toxicity study, bi-nuclear assay, multinuclear assay and comet assay did not showed any toxic effect of nanoemulsions on animal models. During last part of study, vitamin beta carotene and vitamin D fortified model beverages was developed successfully. Hence, nanoemulsions based delivery system can be used for fortification of aqueous products with fat soluble vitamins and other nutraceutical compounds.