Learning Culture And Science Academic Literacy Practices

This study investigates the relationship between science academic literacy and learning culture among Yemeni science teachers and students at Sana a University, Yemen. This study aims to identify the patterns of the literacy practices and find causal relationships between these practices with the constructs of learning culture practiced and valued in the Yemeni education environment. The instrumentations used include teacher and student questionnaires ,classroom observations and field notes, semi-structured interviews and official documents. The findings of the study revealed that learning culture has a significant relationship on the way students and teachers perceive and interact with their academic surroundings. There is also a significant mismatch between the teachers teaching style, and students learning style preferences and the National Science Education Standards. Thus this study has implications for the review of science teacher training programs at tertiary levels, as well as the urgency for increment in quantity and quality of science learning materials towards ensuring science literacy competencies of Yemeni students to meet the benchmarked standards.

Autorentext

Angela Abu-Asba (Ph.D) is a senior lecturer of Applied Linguistics at Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur (IUKL), Malaysia. She has conducted research and published in the areas of learning and teaching styles, science learning and culture. She has worked for two years as a university instructor at Sana'a University, Yemen.