Challenges and Changes: Developing Teachers’ and Initial Teacher Education Students’ Understandings of the Nature of Science

Teachers need an understanding of the nature of science (NOS) to enable them to incorporate NOS into their teaching of science. The current study examines the usefulness of a strategy for challenging or changing teachers’ understandings of NOS. The teachers who participated in this study were 10 initial teacher education chemistry students and six experienced teachers from secondary and primary schools who were introduced to an explicit and reflective activity, a dramatic reading about a historical scientific development. Concept maps were used before and after the activity to assess teachers’ knowledge of NOS. The participants also took part in a focus group interview to establish whether they perceived the activity as useful in developing their own understanding of NOS. Initial analysis led us to ask another group, comprising seven initial teacher education chemistry students, to take part in a modified study. These participants not only completed the same tasks as the previous participants but also completed a written reflection commenting on whether the activity and focus group discussion enhanced their understanding of NOS. Both Lederman et al.’s (Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(6), 497–521, 2002) concepts of NOS and notions of “naive” and “informed” understandings of NOS and Hay’s (Studies in Higher Education, 32(1), 39–57, 2007) notions of “surface” and “deep” learning were used as frameworks to examine the participants’ specific understandings of NOS and the depth of their learning. The ways in which participants’ understandings of NOS were broadened or changed by taking part in the dramatic reading are presented. The impact of the data-gathering tools on the participants’ professional learning is also discussed.     

Changing Primary Students’ Perceptions of Teacher Interpersonal Behaviours in Science

The paper reports on part of a large-scale study aimed at examining students’ perceptions of teacher–student interactions. This paper will report on a study utilising mixed methodology in 12 Queensland primary classrooms. After the students’ perceptions were established, the teachers, through a consultative process, developed strategies to change the students’ perceptions of their classroom over a 3 month period. The paper reports on what strategies these teachers utilised and what changes in students’ perceptions resulted. The classroom teachers were interviewed about the change in students’ perceptions, what changes they had sought to promote in their classrooms, and what they felt had been achieved in their classrooms. The study found that students were able to articulate what changes the teacher had implemented, what their reaction was to these changes and their perception of the classroom environment as a result of these implemented strategies.     

Secondary School Students’ Understanding of Science and Their Socioscientific Reasoning

Research in socioscientific issue (SSI)-based interventions is relatively new (Sadler in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41:513–536, 2004; Zeidler et al. in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 46:74–101, 2009), and there is a need for understanding more about the effects of SSI-based learning environments (Sadler in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41:513–536, 2004). Lee and Witz (International Journal of Science Education 31:931–960, 2009) highlighted the need for detailed case studies that would focus on how students respond to teachers’ practices of teaching SSI. This study presents case studies that investigated the development of secondary school students’ science understanding and their socioscientific reasoning within SSI-based learning environments. A multiple case study with embedded units of analysis was implemented for this research because of the contextual differences for each case. The findings of the study revealed that students’ understanding of science, including scientific method, social and cultural influences on science, and scientific bias, was strongly influenced by their experiences in SSI-based learning environments. Furthermore, multidimensional SSI-based science classes resulted in students having multiple reasoning modes, such as ethical and economic reasoning, compared to data-driven SSI-based science classes. In addition to portraying how participants presented complexity, perspectives, inquiry, and skepticism as aspects of socioscientific reasoning (Sadler et al. in Research in Science Education 37:371–391, 2007), this study proposes the inclusion of three additional aspects for the socioscientific reasoning theoretical construct: (1) identification of social domains affecting the SSI, (2) using cost and benefit analysis for evaluation of claims, and (3) understanding that SSIs and scientific studies around them are context-bound.     

Students’ Views About Secondary School Science Lessons: The Role of Practical Work

This paper reports an interpretive study that sought students' views about the role that practical work plays in their school science lessons. Twenty-nine students aged between 13 and 16 years were selected from three secondary schools in England. Data were collected from initial lesson observations and in-depth interviews in order to explore students’ views about practical work. The findings suggest that students have three main reasons why practical work is important in their school science lessons: for interest and activity, including social and personal features such as participation and autonomy; as an alternative to other forms of science teaching involving a pedagogy of transmission, and as a way of learning, including memorizing and recall. The findings are discussed in the context of a critical view of previous work on the role of practical work, work on attitudes to science and on the student voice. The paper concludes that practical work is seen to provide opportunities for students to engage with and influence their own learning but that learning with practical work remains a complex issue that needs further research and evaluation about its use, effectiveness and of the role of scientific inquiry as a component of practical activity.     

Secondary School Students’ Reasoning About Science and Personhood

Science & Education - Scientific advances, particularly in evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, present many challenges to religious and popular notions of...     

Exploring Taiwanese High School Students’ Perceptions of and Preferences for Teacher Authority in the Earth Science Classroom with Relation to their Attitudes and Achievement

Educational researchers have suggested that the tension between the learner‐centred and teacher‐centred pedagogies represents a real classroom issue that influences teaching and learning. This issue may be particularly significant in East‐Asian countries such as Taiwan due to some cultural influences. For example, teacher authority is highly valued in the culture. Accordingly, the present study aims to develop a questionnaire—the Teacher Authority Survey (TAS), with actual and preferred versions—to explore students’ perceptions/preferences regarding teacher authority in the earth science course. The relationships among students’ perceptions/preferences for teacher authority, learning attitudes, and learning achievements were investigated. Six hundred and seventeen Taiwanese high school students were administered the TAS, the earth science attitudinal questionnaire, and achievement assessment. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the TAS developed in this study has satisfactory validity and reliability measures. Correlation analysis indicated that the classrooms more oriented to learner‐centredness were correlated with more favourable attitudes toward learning. Moreover, three clusters of preferred teacher authority—namely, teacher‐centred authority, uncertain authority, and sharing authority—were identified. Students who preferred sharing authority tended to have more favourable learning attitudes, whereas students in the uncertain authority group seemed to have lower earth science attitudes and achievements.     

Middle School Students’ Science Self-Efficacy and Its Sources: Examination of Gender Difference

The main purpose of the present study is to investigate middle school students?? science self-efficacy as well as its sources and outcomes as a function of gender. Bandura??s hypothesized sources of self-efficacy (i.e., mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal) in addition to being inviting with self and inviting with others were examined as sources of self-efficacy, while cognitive and metacognitive strategy use was examined as an outcome of self-efficacy. A total of 1,932 students participated in the study and were administered self-report instruments. Results showed that the relationship between science self-efficacy and its proposed sources does not change as a function of gender. All proposed sources, except for vicarious experience, were found to be significantly related to students?? scientific self-efficacy. Moreover, girls were found to experience significantly more emotional arousal and to send positive messages to others more than boys. On the other hand, no gender difference was found concerning science self-efficacy and strategy use. The findings also revealed a positive association between science self-efficacy and strategy use. Overall, findings supported Bandura??s conception of self-efficacy and suggested invitations as additional sources of self-efficacy.     

Modeling and Measuring High School Students’ Computational Thinking Practices in Science

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Despite STEM education communities recognizing the importance of integrating computational thinking (CT) into high school curricula, computation still...     

Investigation of High School Students’ Online Science Information Searching Performance: The Role of Implicit and Explicit Strategies

Due to a growing trend of exploring scientific knowledge on the Web, a number of studies have been conducted to highlight examination of students’ online searching strategies. The investigation of online searching generally employs methods including a survey, interview, screen-capturing, or transactional logs. The present study firstly intended to utilize a survey, the Online Information Searching Strategies Inventory (OISSI), to examine users’ searching strategies in terms of control, orientation, trial and error, problem solving, purposeful thinking, selecting main ideas, and evaluation, which is defined as implicit strategies. Second, this study conducted screen-capturing to investigate the students’ searching behaviors regarding the number of keywords, the quantity and depth of Web page exploration, and time attributes, which is defined as explicit strategies. Ultimately, this study explored the role that these two types of strategies played in predicting the students’ online science information searching outcomes. A total of 103 Grade 10 students were recruited from a high school in northern Taiwan. Through Pearson correlation and multiple regression analyses, the results showed that the students’ explicit strategies, particularly the time attributes proposed in the present study, were more successful than their implicit strategies in predicting their outcomes of searching science information. The participants who spent more time on detailed reading (explicit strategies) and had better skills of evaluating Web information (implicit strategies) tended to have superior searching performance.     

Science on the Web: Secondary School Students’ Navigation Patterns and Preferred Pages’ Characteristics

This study aims to explore navigation patterns and preferred pages’ characteristics of ten secondary school students’ searching the web for information about cloning. The students navigated the Web for as long as they wished in a context of minimum support of teaching staff. Their navigation patterns were analyzed using audit trail data software. The characteristics of their preferred Web pages were also analyzed using a scheme of analysis largely based on socio-linguistics and socio-semiotics approaches. Two distinct groups of students could be discerned. The first consisted of more competent students, who during their navigation visited fewer relevant pages, however of higher credibility and more specialized content. The second group consists of weaker students, who visited more pages, mainly of lower credibility and rather popularized content. Implications for designing educational web pages and teaching are discussed.     

Effects of Teacher Professional Development and Science Classroom Learning Environment on Students’ Science Achievement

Research in Science Education - Science classroom learning environment (CLE) and science teacher professional development (PD) are two important factors in students’ science learning....     

The Complementary roles of the Headteacher,the Mentor and the Advisory Teacher in Induction and School‐based Teacher Training

This article reports on the findings of a two year research project on the management of new teacher induction in five LEAs (Turner, 1992). Headteachers, mentors and newly qualified teachers in twelve schools were interviewed as were LEA officers, Inspectors and advisory teachers. The analysis showed the key roles of headteacher, mentor and advisory teacher to be different but complementary. The conclusions are drawn from a detailed analysis of some 180 interviews.     

Knowing and Learning about Science in Primary School ‘Communities of Science Practice’: The Views of Participating Scientists in the MyScience Initiative

MyScience is a primary science education initiative in which being in a community of practice is integral to the learning process. One component of this initiative involves professional scientists interacting with primary school communities which are navigating their way towards sustainable ‘communities of practice’ around the ‘domain’ of ‘investigating scientifically’. This paper describes the ongoing journey to date of eleven scientists (six astronomers and five engineers) who actively participated in MyScience over an extended period. Their views of interactions with teachers and students were analysed using attributes associated with both ‘communities of practice’ and the ‘nature of science’. Findings reveal new understandings about the evolving characteristics associated with the development of such school-community collaborations as well as affordances and barriers that may influence their further growth. The influence of these scientists’ own ‘community of science practices’ may account for some of the findings. Implications for science teaching and learning in primary school community of practice settings are discussed.     

Grade Level Differences in High School Students’ Conceptions of and Motives for Learning Science

Research in Science Education - Students’ conceptions of learning science and their relations with motive for learning may vary as the education level increases. This study aimed to compare...