Analysis of an article on a project to renovate the science learning environment

            Chang and Lee´s (2010) paper describes an E- learning process to be applied at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) meant to improve the Science Classroom Learning Environment (SCLE). In the introduction section, the authors establish the three cycles or moves. In the first one, they provide information about the research that has been done on traditional and modern methods on learning environments. Later on, in the second move, they state that practices at school have not been innovated or improved showing significant progress. Therefore, they turn to the third move where they express what their project is about. The authors state its characteristics and its goal, namely, they aim at modernizing school practices by establishing a Center for excellence in e-Learning Sciences (CeeLS). The statement they use to introduce the third move is both descriptive and purposive. The authors use the present simple and present perfect tenses in this section and they also make descriptions by using passive voice. They also describe the research directions using the modal verb should.

            Under the subheading Project framework, on a separate section, they describe the method. The methods section does not seem to follow all the academic requirements suggested by APA (2007). The present passive and the future tenses are used. After a short introduction, they describe four stages. They include information about procedures, participants, goals and materials to be used. The information given about the participants does not seem to be very precise because they do not mention the exact number of students that take part or from exactly which courses they are chosen, the authors name a number of institutions that could collaborate but they do not specify which ones collaborate. The words participants, materials and procedure are not typed on the left margin. On the following page, the authors include a chart with a timeline which portrays the four stages in their framework. On top of this, they outline the possible results of the project.

            As regards, the references, it can be pointed out that they do not follow all the academic requirements determined by APA (2007) because the word reference is not centered and the entries are not double spaced. They have used two different quotations on page number 7. They seem to have the same source.

References

American Psychological Association (2007). Concise rules of APA style. Washington,

            DC: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

Chang, C., Y., & Lee, G. (2010). A major E-learning project to renovate Science learning environment             in Taiwan. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 9 (1), 7-12.Retreived June 28^th from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ875757.pdf