Science content as an important consideration in science education research

Science education researchers have, with few exceptions, not used the conceptual content of science as an important variable in their research. Writings of two groups-philosophers of science, “are concerned with the influence of the conceptual knowledge shared by an intellectual community on the activities of that community and the psychologists are concerned with the influence of the conceptual knowledge held by an individual on that individual's behavior”, science, are concerned with the influence of the conceptual knowledge shared by an intellectual community on the activities of that community and the psychologists are concerned with the influence of the conceptual knowledge held by an individual on that individual's behavior. Suggestions are offered as to what kinds of science education research could be done in which the conceptual content of science is important.     

Multiagency working in the early years: confidence,competence and context

Research and development with regard to interprofessional practice have extended over recent decades to early years services in children’s centres (CCs). However, most children in England attend private and voluntary settings, rather than CCs. where early years practitioners have varying amounts of opportunity, training and experience to work interprofessionally. Developing our Social Practice analysis of case studies, we propose a theoretical framework for interpreting early years interprofessional practice that takes account of specific contexts, noting conditions which promote boundary-crossing competence. This paper presents selected findings from a survey of 52 early years practitioners from England about their experiences of interprofessional working, woven together with case study exemplars. Their extensive responses to open-ended survey questions showed great variation in work with other professions and in reported levels of confidence and competence. However, there were also differences depending on the setting type. Findings suggest the need to tailor training to individual contexts, and argue for securing space for practitioners to gain experience of interprofessional working through mentored opportunities.     

The development of a K-3 science program in the context of the National Science Statement and Profile

This paper highlights the challenges and problems in developing an innovative K-3 science program to support teachers in the implementation of the national Statement and Profile in science. The program has been developed by the authors in association with the Curriculum Corporation. The paper outlines the assumptions made about teachers of young children, the role of research in the construction of the program, and the extent to which the Statement and Profile have influenced the process. The resolution of a number of key problems in this curriculum development is discussed: responding to teachers' needs for a base of science discipline knowledge, developing strategies for working scientifically with very young children, and helping teachers develop an extended understanding of the nature of science. Specializations: early childhood science and technology education. Specializations: primary science education, teacher education in science, adult experiences of science and technology, and curriculum development.     

Linguistic content analysis: A method to measure science as inquiry in textbooks

A method using linguistic content analysis was developed to assess the degree to which science was portrayed as a process of inquiry within a high school biology textbook series. Linguistic content analysis is a method of encoding textual data by categorizing key words and identifying the relationships among these words. The encoded textual data were analyzed using logistic regression techniques. The measure developed for the study was shown to be highly reliable and valid. In the textbook series studied, the frequency of the portrayal of science as a process of inquiry increased from 1956 to 1965, then showed a pattern of decline in 1977 and 1985. The results further indicate that the frequency of portrayal of science as a process of inquiry was higher in introductory chapters of the textbooks and in chapters dealing with the topic of genetics and lower in chapters dealing with leaf structure. The frequency of the portrayal of science as a process inquiry was also higher at the beginning of chapters and at the beginning of paragraphs.     

Process as content in computer science education: empirical determination of central processes

Computer science education should not be based on short-term developments but on content that is observable in multiple domains of computer science, may be taught at every intellectual level, will be relevant in the longer term, and is related to everyday language and/or thinking. Recently, a catalogue of central concepts for computer science education such as algorithm, computer, and data has been empirically determined. This paper now concentrates on central processes relevant for computer science education. Experts of computer science rated 44 general-education processes regarding four criteria. By using a cluster analysis approach the following central processes for computer science education have been identified: problem solving and problem posing, analyzing, generalizing, finding relationships, classifying, and investigating.     

Exploring mentoring in the context of team science

Despite increased research into team science and collaboration, little is known about postdoctoral scholars’ pathways to becoming independent researchers, particularly as it relates to the mentoring relationship. The purpose of our study was to explore if and how the team science framework promotes collaboration and the development of independent researchers from mentees’ and mentors’ perspectives. A convenience sample of faculty mentors and postdoctoral mentees, participated in semi-structured interviews. The analysis revealed three themes for the mentees: working with others, evaluating mentoring, exploring resources, and five themes for the mentors: elaborating on scholarly productivity, mentoring style, setting team culture, strategies to develop T32 scholars, and evaluating program qualities. The findings showed that scholars were engaged in an atmosphere of collaboration fostered by their mentors and that mentors encouraged scholars’ capacity for scientific thinking. Future studies should acquire the perspectives of all team members to examine how teams function.     

Science learning in the context of discourse

The original article by Kamberelis and Wehunt (2012) discusses an interesting and important research subject in science education as it focus on classroom interactions and the characteristics of the discourse production of interlocutors. The authors start from the premise that discourse heterogeneity is constitutive of social activities, which is supported by others like Mikhail Bakhtin (Speech genres and other late essays. University of Texas Press, Austin, 1981) and Erving Goffman (Frame analysis: an essay on the organization of experience. Harper and Row, London, 1974). They also present the definitions of three key elements that organize hybrid discourse: (a) lamination of multiple cultural frames, (b) shifting relations between people and their discourse, and (c) shifting power relations between people. Finally, the authors analyze how these three elements organize students’ science discourse in the classroom and how it contributes to the creation of a micro-community of practice capable of helping the emergence of a disciplinary knowledge that is legitimized by and strengthens the identity of the group. In the present commentary, I discuss how Michael Foucault’s (1970) concept of discursive procedure may help us to analyze the (often neglected) teacher’s role in the development of hybrid discourse practices.     

Probing the amalgam: the relationship between science teachers’ content,pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge

ABSTRACT

This Special Issue aims to present evidence about the relationships between content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK); the development of these types of knowledge in novice and experienced secondary science teachers; and how CK, PK and/or PCK impact students’ learning. Since Shulman’s introduction of PCK as the feature that distinguishes the teacher from the content expert, researchers have attempted to understand, delineate, assess and/or develop the construct in pre- and in-service teachers. Accordingly, empirical findings are presented that permit further discussion. Outcomes permit post-hoc examination of a recent, collectively described, ‘consensus’ model of PCK, identifying strengths and potential issues. As we will illustrate, the relationship between CK, PK and PCK is central to this; that is, probing the hypothesis of pedagogical content knowledge as an ‘amalgam’ of content and pedagogical knowledge.     

Influence of resequencing general science content on the science achievement,attitudes toward science,and interest in science of sixth grade students

This study was designed to determine the influence of resequencing general science content on sixth grade students' science achievement, attitudes toward science, and interest in science. Resequencing content was accomplished for experimental group students through revising the order of textbook chapters in a general science course, in order to clarify content structure and establish interrelationships among major concepts. The subjects were 203 sixth grade learners randomly assigned to the two treatment groups of resequenced content and nonresequenced content. The findings revealed that students for whom content structure was clarified through resequencing general science chapters exhibited significantly higher science achievement, significantly more positive attitudes toward science, and significantly greater interest in science than students for whom general science content was not resequenced.     

Teaching,learning and the curriculum 1: The influence of content in science

Summary There are already a number of important criteria upon which topics for inclusion in science curricula should be selected and sequenced. We have recommended two additional criteria: the topic's potential for effecting conceptual change, and its potential for generating metacognitive training. Among other things, Science curricula should foster intellectual development. Such development is often a slow process of change, where new experiences, skills and understandings build on, modify and extend existing ones. Thus, topics should be evaluated in terms of their relation to existing Children's Science and to the students' metacognitive abilities. Evaluation of the appropriateness of a particular topic in a curriculum sequence should be based on such factors as its conceptual concreteness, the number and breadth of models which can be invoked, the concreteness of corroboration of results, and its predictive power. Conjointly, evaluation should take into account the nature, scope and complexity of the associated metacognitive demands. If selected carefully, topics in the science curriculum will do more than progressively sample the universe of content areas. They will develop each students ability and desire to engage in effective, independent learning.     

Gender performance in an out-of-school science context

Cultural Studies of Science Education - This article examines how school students perform gender during a visit to a science centre where they programme Lego cars. The focus is on how students...     

Loose connections: The context of science teachers' work

This paper is based on an interview study with eighty science teachers in twelve secondary schools across Australia. The study was conducted as part of the Science Education Professional Development Project. The project's brief was to develop a national strategy for the professional development of science teachers and was commissioned by the Federal Government's Department of Employment, Education and Training. The aim of the interviews was to help define the problem that a national strategy needed to address and this paper reports on one theme that emerged from the interviews, the concept of “loose connections.” Loose connections reflects the weak sense of professional community we found among science teachers and their isolation from potentially beneficial influences on their work. The paper explores implications of loose connections for a national professional development strategy such as the need to strengthen areas of professional responsibility and links between professional development and career development.     

Conceptualising the use of Facebook in ethnographic research: as tool,as data and as context

This paper explores what it means to engage as an ethical researcher in the conduct of critical ethnography. During the years in which this critical ethnography of new language learners in a midwestern high school, the ethnographer actively participated in the life of the site. This paper poses the question of what such active involvement means for research ethics. Much of the literature on research ethics deals with Internal Review Boards standards, but this paper takes a reflective, ethnographic look at the researcher's own ethical practices in order to articulate and examine the underlying principles entailed in the decisions to intervene or not in the ongoing life of the site.     

Co-development among reading,math, science,and verbal working memory in the elementary stage

With a focus on within-person effects, this study investigated mutualism among academic skills (reading, math, science) and between those skills and verbal working memory in a general population sample and groups with high or low skills from Grades 2 to 5 (2010–2016, N = 859–9040, age 6.27–13.13 years, 49% female, ethnically diverse). Mutualism was found between reading and science in all high-ability groups, and between reading/math and verbal working memory only in high-math students. These results remained the same when controlled for socioeconomic status and gender, and with sensitivity analyses. High-skill students (especially high-math students) may improve academic performance through accumulation of academic knowledge and mutualism between academic and cognition. Such mutualism may be driven by high-quality, intensive academic practice.     

哲学社会科学期刊新编辑自我定位的探讨

文章从哲学社会科学期刊新编辑的自我定位及其实现途径的角度 ,探讨如何使新编辑尽可能快地适应自身的编辑工作岗位。     

Science teaching in science education

Reading the interesting article Discerning selective traditions in science education by Per Sund, which is published in this issue of CSSE, allows us to open the discussion on procedures for teaching science today. Clearly there is overlap between the teaching of science and other areas of knowledge. However, we must constantly develop new methods to teach and differentiate between science education and teaching science in response to the changing needs of our students, and we must analyze what role teachers and teacher educators play in both. We must continually examine the methods and concepts involved in developing pedagogical content knowledge in science teachers. Otherwise, the possibility that these routines, based on subjective traditions, prevent emerging processes of educational innovation. Modern science is an enormous field of knowledge in its own right, which is made more expansive when examined within the context of its place in society. We propose the need to design educative interactions around situations that involve science and society. Science education must provide students with all four dimensions of the cognitive process: factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge. We can observe in classrooms at all levels of education that students understand the concepts better when they have the opportunity to apply the scientific knowledge in a personally relevant way. When students find value in practical exercises and they are provided opportunities to reinterpret their experiences, greater learning gains are achieved. In this sense, a key aspect of educational innovation is the change in teaching methodology. We need new tools to respond to new problems. A shift in teacher education is needed to realize the rewards of situating science questions in a societal context and opening classroom doors to active methodologies in science education to promote meaningful learning through meaningful teaching.