对科学文化和科学教育的思考——兼谈素质教育的几个问题

“科学求真 ,人文求善” ,“科学教人做事 ,人文教人做人”的二分观点值得商榷 ,传统的事实价值二分模式和主客二分模式是其理论渊源。科学作为一种文化 ,不仅求真而且求善求美。对真善美的追求是科学文化的价值内蕴。科学在本质上是人文的 ,这是科学文化与人文文化“和而不同”的根基。缺乏完整的科学文化观和科学教育观 ,是科学教育最大的不足。完整的科学教育应当并且能够既教人做事也教人做人。要充分挖掘科学文化蕴含的人文价值来教育人 ,关键在于教师要提高自身的科学文化素养     

Secondary science teachers' attitudes toward and beliefs about science reading and science textbooks

Science textbooks are dominant influences behind most secondary science instruction but little is known about teachers' approach to science reading. The purpose of this naturalistic study was to develop and validate a Science and Reading Questionnaire to assess secondary science teachers' attitudes toward science reading and their beliefs or informed opinions about science reading. A survey of 428 British Columbia secondary science teachers was conducted and 215 science teachers responded. Results on a 12-item Likert attitude scale indicated that teachers place high value on reading as an important strategy to promote learning in science and that they generally accept responsibility for teaching content reading skills to science students. Results on a 13-item Likert belief scale indicated that science teachers generally reject the text-driven model of reading, but they usually do not have well-formulated alternative models to guide their teaching practices. Teachers have intuitive beliefs about science reading that partially agree with many research findings, but their beliefs are fragmented and particularly sketchy in regard to the cognitive and metacognitive skills required by readers to learn from science texts. The findings for attitude, belief, and total scales were substantiated by further questions in the Science and Reading Questionnaire regarding classroom practice and by individual interviews and classroom observations of a 15-teacher subsample of the questionnaire respondents.     

Hermeneutics of science and multi-gendered science education

In this paper, I consider the relevance of the view of cognitive existentialism to a multi-gendered picture of science education. I am opposing both the search for a particular feminist standpoint epistemology and the reduction of philosophy of science to cultural studies of scientific practices as championed by supporters of postmodern political feminism. In drawing on the theory of gender plurality and the conception of dynamic objectivity, the paper suggests a way of treating the nexus between the construction of gender within the interrelatedness of scientific practices and the constitution of particular objects of inquiry. At stake is the notion of characteristic hermeneutic situation which proves to be helpful in designing a multi-gendered pedagogy as well.

Theory-building and theory-confirming observation in science and science education

A paper by Norris presents scientific observation as a highly inferential activity in which human senses have become secondary to instrumentation. Norris takes examples from elementary and secondary curricula to support his position. This paper examines Norris's contentions from two perspectives, that of cognitive psychology and that of the philosophy of science. It is argued here that Norris has discussed only one aspect of observation, theory-confirming observation. Another, pretheoretic or theory-building observation, is more closely related to the curriculum activities he criticized. From a cognitive psychology perspective the theory-confirming observation is of use to the expert, but for novices the absence of domain-specific knowledge and of sophisticated problem-solving processes may render theory-building observation more meaningful for instruction.     

Student teachers' attitudes toward science and science teaching

Attitudes toward science and science teaching are the subject of a mounting body of research on teachers. A widely used instrument developed by researchers in the United States appears to be relevant to the Australian context and was considered appropriate for measuring attitudes of preservice student teachers attending a College of Advanced Education in Brisbane. The findings suggest that much more effort needs to be concentrated on fostering desirable attitudes toward science and the teaching of science among future primary school teachers.     

Naturalized philosophy of science and natural science education

A major controversy in contemporary philosophy of science concerns the possibility and desirability of its naturalization. In this paper I review the philosophical controversy concerning naturalism, and investigate the role it might play in the science classroom. I argue that science students can benefit from explicit study of this controversy, and from explicit consideration of the extent to which philosophy of science can be studied naturalistically. More specifically, I suggest that such consideration can enhance students' understanding of the nature of natural science, of the nature and importance of philosophy of science, and of the relationship between the two — and that these benefits accrue to science education whichever philosophical view concerning naturalization proves to be correct. My hope is that the paper demonstrates the benefits to be gained from explicit consideration in the science classroom of an important issue in the philosophy of science.     

Sociocultural influences on science and on science identities

Angela Chapman and Allan Feldman (2016) conducted a study that aimed to exam how a group of diverse urban high school students were affected by the participation in a contextually based authentic science experience. The analysis of all data led the authors to conclude that the experience of authentic science positively influenced the science identity of students and promoted a shift in perceptions from stereotypical to more diverse views of scientists. For the purpose of this forum paper, we concentrated on the unexpected results of Hispanic students in the IAS instrument. In the authors’ interpretation, Hispanic students were classified as non science identities because they do not feel recognized as a particular kind of student in that school, being possibly more marginalized than other students. We tried to expand the discussion bringing the contribution of a sociocultural approach of science construction and of science identity to enrich some of the issues involved. Our concise analysis does not allow conclusions about the Hispanic students’ results, but we believe it helped to understand sociocultural problems involved in their science identity and to reveal the inequality in science production as one of these problems.     

The relationship between attitudes toward science and science achievement

This study investigated the relationship between elementary pupils' attitudes toward science and their science achievement. Residualized gain scores were used to analyze the data. By using residualized gain scores, the effects of individual differences can be minimized. In addition to controlling for these differences, residualized gain scores do not possess the measurement errors that are normally associated with simple change scores. The subjects of this study were 583 intermediate elementary pupils. The average class size was 21. A pretest-posttest design was used. To insure consistency in the teaching of the lesson, each teacher was given an identical detailed science lesson that included all the instructions and materials needed for the activity. The pupils were pre- and posttested. The pupils' science achievement was assessed by a test, the “Hough Pupil Process Test.” It consisted of multiple choice and fill-in questions. The attitude instrument, the “Hough Attitude Inventory,” was given to the elementary pupils involved in this study. It was field tested and found to discern attitudes. The instrument consisted of six statements to which the subjects responded by circling either yes, I don't know, or no. The analysis revealed that there was a significant relationship between the pupils' residualized gain scores on the “Hough Pupil Process Test” and their residualized gain scores on the “Hough Attitude Inventory” (r = 0.45).     

科学史与科学教学的有效契合

在科学课程的教学中,利用科学史组织教学能极大地丰富科学课堂,对学生的科学素养的培养具有积极作用。     

Genetic epistemology,history of science and science education

Conclusions The main feature of Piaget & Garcia's study (1989) is the overture of a new field of research within the Piagetian framework, namely the comparative study of individual and historical development.During the 80's, several alternative models have been offered to account for the relations between individual and historical development. However, it has been suggested that there [...] appears to be widespread agreement among Piagetians and non-Piagetians that common mechanisms and processes underlie the thinking of scientists and children at all times (Gauld 1990, p. 24–5).The development of this field of research demands that theoretical research be conducted regarding the possible patterns of relationship between individual and historical development, that should be integrated to comparative empirical research on diverse topics. Further studies would then be required to provide an empirical basis for the comparative research. In other words, this field of research demands the close collaboration between epistemologists, historians, science educators, and cognitive psychologists.We have suggested that the Piagetian model needs to provide a more convincing account of the differences between individual and historical development, and of the role of internal and external factors in the progress of science. We have also argued for an overcoming of the overemphasized structural aspects of the theory, and for an unambiguous concept of history.The non-Piagetian approaches have their own strength and may be developed as alternatives to the Piagetian model. However, our intention here is to emphasize their potential contribution to the development of Piaget's theory. In McCloskey and Kargon (1988) we may find hints to deal with the specificity of similarities in content. Nersessian (1987) provided an excellent insight on how to deal with Kuhn's concept of incommensurability. ⁵ In our interpretation, Carey's work suggest that considering the relation between content and development of structures may be a productive way of developing Piaget's theory.Finally, we would like to comment on the relationship between Piaget's theory and research on students' thinking in science. Both adopt a constructivist stance. However, the vast majority of researchers have developed a strong resistance to Piaget's theory (e.g. Novak 1978; Gilbert and Swift 1985). On the one hand, this resistance should be considered a natural and healthy tendency toward a pluralistic development of research in science education. On the other hand, it may be a consequence of the difficulty of Piaget's theory in coping with the main research findings on spontaneous reasoning. In short, while many researchers in science education have emphasized the persistence of children's, adolescents' and adults' alternative conceptions, Piaget's theory suggests that reaching the formal stage is a necessary condition to understand science. This contradiction will not be overcome while Piagetian researchers are not able to offer a better account of the differences between commonsense knowledge and scientific knowledge. Freed from the constraints of the Piagetian approach, research on alternative conceptions showed an amazing development during the late 70's and the 80's. ^6,7 Further progress, however, increasingly requires theoretical tools to manage the great amount of data already available, and models to explain, rather than just describe, individuals' thought. This task can be carried out from within different theoretical approaches. In Psychogenesis and the History of Science, Piaget and Garcia presented an updated and strong model for the relationship between individual and historical development. If used in an open-minded way, this model may contribute to the development of research in science education.This study was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico/Brazil.     

Globalisation and science education: Rethinking science education reforms

Like Lemke (J Res Sci Teach 38:296–316, 2001), I believe that science education has not looked enough at the impact of the changing theoretical and global landscape by which it is produced and shaped. Lemke makes a sound argument for science education to look beyond its own discourses toward those like cultural studies and politics, and to which I would add globalisation theory and relevant educational studies. Hence, in this study I draw together a range of investigations to argue that globalisation is indeed implicated in the discourses of science education, even if it remains underacknowledged and undertheorized. Establishing this relationship is important because it provides different frames of reference from which to investigate many of science education's current concerns, including those new forces that now have a direct impact on science classrooms. For example, one important question to investigate is the degree to which current science education improvement discourses are the consequences of quality research into science teaching and learning, or represent national and local responses to global economic restructuring and the imperatives of the supranational institutions that are largely beyond the control of science education. Developing globalisation as a theoretical construct to help formulate new questions and methods to examine these questions can provide science education with opportunities to expand the conceptual and analytical frameworks of much of its present and future scholarship. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.