“…Also, it might be suggestive of the immense influence external examinations (which every student in Kenya has to take at the end of his/her high school education) has on these students, forcing them to take refuge in cramming as a security or safety measure against failure. This can be a key influence on student disposition towards content‐centered learning (Murphy, ) which is usually a consequence of exam driven teaching and learning. This may sometimes manifest in learning strategies, intimated by some students, such as Monica's perception of understanding implied in her claim of reading over several times the science content she does not understand; Fatima's revelation that she crams for exams only and forgets the information after: I have come to realize that I hate cramming … and now I prefer actually reading a month before the exam to find out how it applies to our real life as I just saw in the Jua Kali.…”
Despite the centrality of the informal manufacturing sector (Jua Kali) to the Kenyan society and its richness in scientific phenomena, there is no strong link between activities in the Jua Kali and school science. And, although there has been an ongoing public discourse in Kenya to industrialize, this hope is unlikely without connecting classroom science to the real world of the Jua Kali. In view of this concern, an interpretive case study was framed to investigate Kenyan high school students' views of contextualized science learning in culturally relevant real-world science curriculum. This article reports the analysis of Kenyan students' views of contextualized science learning and school science curriculum and instruction elicited through an interpretive case study approach employing interview methods. The analysis of interview data reveals that the participating students interviewed expressed views that:(1) acknowledged the richness of Jua Kali in scientific phenomena and embedded science; (2) indicated existence of a lack of meaningfulness and relevance in existing science curriculum and instruction model; (3) revealed experience of resonance of group and real life learning strategies modeled in the curriculum unit with their preferred learning modes; and (4) revealed their metacognitive assessment of the traditionally used and the new contextualized science modeled learning strategies. Thus, this article offers insight about the Kenyan students on their journey through the experience of contextualized science learning. ß
“…Also, it might be suggestive of the immense influence external examinations (which every student in Kenya has to take at the end of his/her high school education) has on these students, forcing them to take refuge in cramming as a security or safety measure against failure. This can be a key influence on student disposition towards content‐centered learning (Murphy, ) which is usually a consequence of exam driven teaching and learning. This may sometimes manifest in learning strategies, intimated by some students, such as Monica's perception of understanding implied in her claim of reading over several times the science content she does not understand; Fatima's revelation that she crams for exams only and forgets the information after: I have come to realize that I hate cramming … and now I prefer actually reading a month before the exam to find out how it applies to our real life as I just saw in the Jua Kali.…”
Despite the centrality of the informal manufacturing sector (Jua Kali) to the Kenyan society and its richness in scientific phenomena, there is no strong link between activities in the Jua Kali and school science. And, although there has been an ongoing public discourse in Kenya to industrialize, this hope is unlikely without connecting classroom science to the real world of the Jua Kali. In view of this concern, an interpretive case study was framed to investigate Kenyan high school students' views of contextualized science learning in culturally relevant real-world science curriculum. This article reports the analysis of Kenyan students' views of contextualized science learning and school science curriculum and instruction elicited through an interpretive case study approach employing interview methods. The analysis of interview data reveals that the participating students interviewed expressed views that:(1) acknowledged the richness of Jua Kali in scientific phenomena and embedded science; (2) indicated existence of a lack of meaningfulness and relevance in existing science curriculum and instruction model; (3) revealed experience of resonance of group and real life learning strategies modeled in the curriculum unit with their preferred learning modes; and (4) revealed their metacognitive assessment of the traditionally used and the new contextualized science modeled learning strategies. Thus, this article offers insight about the Kenyan students on their journey through the experience of contextualized science learning. ß
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