The glue that makes it “hang together”: A framework for identifying how metadiscourse facilitates uncertainty navigation during knowledge building discussions

Classroom discussions have become a centerpiece of reform efforts in science education because talk mediates the joint co-constructing of knowledge in science classrooms. Although decades of research underscore the importance of talk in supporting science learning, the science education community continues to grapple with how to support teachers and students in navigating the uncertainty that is associated with doing knowledge building work. To address these challenges, we must examine not just what gets constructed (the scientific ideas), but how knowledge is co-constructed by teachers and students (the process of building those ideas) amidst uncertainty. In this study, we propose a conceptual tool for identifying organizational, epistemic, and interpretive metadiscourse markers (MDMs) in science talk. We highlight how teachers and students use these three types of MDMs as they navigate uncertainty while connecting ideas within and across multiple turns of talk, leveraging resources for knowledge building, and making interpretations about one another's ideas. We conclude with a set of suggestions for how researchers and teachers can utilize this framework to attend to the ways that MDMs index the organizational, epistemic, and interpretive dimensions of uncertainty in the knowledge building process.     

A mirror of society: a discourse analytic study of 15- to 16-year-old Swiss students’ talk about environment and environmental protection

Environment and environmental protection are on the forefront of political concerns globally. But how are the media and political discourses concerning these issues mirrored in the public more generally and in the discourses of school science students more specifically? In this study, we analyze the discourse mobilized in whole-class conversations of and interviews with 15- to 16-year-old Swiss junior high school students. We identify two core interpretive repertoires (each unfolding into two second-order repertoires) that turn out to be the building blocks of environmental discourse, which is characteristic not only of these students but also of Swiss society more generally. The analysis of our students’ discourse demonstrates how their use of interpretive repertoires locks them in belief talk that they have no control over ecological issues, which can put them in the danger of falling prey to ecological passivity. As a consequence of our findings we suggest that teachers should be endorsed to interpret their teaching of environmental issues in terms of the enriching and enlarging of their students’ interpretive repertoires.     

Taking an active stance: How urban elementary students connect sociocultural experiences in learning science

ABSTRACT

In this interpretive case study, we draw from sociocultural theory of learning and culturally relevant pedagogy to understand how urban students from nondominant groups leverage their sociocultural experiences. These experiences allow them to gain an empowering voice in influencing science content and activities and to work towards self-determining the sciences that are personally meaningful. Furthermore, tying sociocultural experiences with science learning helps generate sociopolitical awareness among students. We collected interview and observation data in an urban elementary classroom over one academic year to understand the value of urban students’ sociocultural experiences in learning science and choosing science activities.     

Examining emotional expressions in discourse: methodological considerations

This methodological paper presents an approach for examining emotional expressions through discourse analysis and ethnographic methods. Drawing on trends in the current literature in science education, we briefly explain the importance of emotions in science education and examine the current research methodologies used in interactional emotion studies. We put forth and substantiate a methodological approach that attends to the interactional, contextual, intertextual, and consequential aspects of emotional expressions. By examining emotional expressions in the discourse in which they are constructed, emotional expressions are identified through semantics, contextualization, and linguistic features. These features make salient four dimensions of emotional expressions: aboutness, frequency, type, and ownership. Drawing on data from a large empirical study of pre-service elementary teachers’ emotional expressions about climate change in a science course, we provide illustrative examples to describe what counts as emotional expressions in situ. In doing so we explain how our approach makes salient the nuanced nature of such expressions as well as the broader discourse in which they are constructed and the implications for researching emotional expressions in science education discourse. We suggest reasons why this discourse orientated research methodology can contribute to the interactional study of emotions in science education contexts.     

An investigation of experienced secondary science teachers' beliefs about inquiry: An examination of competing belief sets

The purpose of this study was to investigate the beliefs of six experienced high school science teachers about (1) what is successful science learning; (2) what are the purposes of laboratory in science teaching; and (3) how inquiry is implemented in the classroom. An interpretive multiple case study with an ethnographic orientation was used. The teachers' beliefs about successful science learning were substantively linked to their beliefs about laboratory and inquiry implementation. For example, two teachers who believed that successful science learning was deep conceptual understanding, used verification labs primarily to illustrate these concepts and used inquiry as a type of isolated problem‐solving experience. Another teacher who believed that successful science learning was enculturation into scientific practices used inquiry‐based labs extensively to teach the practices of science. Tension in competing beliefs sets and implications for reform are discussed. ? 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 936‐960, 2004.     

Durable Research,Portable Findings: Rhetorical Methods in Case Study Research

ABSTRACT

Case studies have been a central methodology employed by scholars working in the rhetoric of science and technical communication. However, concerns have been raised about how cases are constructed and collected, and what they convey. The authors reflect on how rhetoricians of science and technical communication researchers can – and do – construct a variety of case-based mixed-methods studies in ways that may make our research more portable and durable without undercutting the important and central role of case-based analysis.     

Learning from Rookie Mistakes: Critical Incidents in Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching Science to Teachers

While there is a growing literature focused on doctoral preparation for teaching about science teaching, rarely have recommendations extended to preparation for teaching science content to teachers. We three doctoral students employ self-study as a research methodology to investigate our developing pedagogical content knowledge for teaching science to teachers during a mentored internship in an elementary teacher professional development program. With our mentor, we examine critical incidents in the experience that supported new insights about teaching teachers and about ways in which beginning teacher educators need to develop their existing pedagogical content knowledge for teaching science to students in order to teach science effectively to teachers. We emphasize ways in which doctoral internships can support this learning and how our respective cultures shaped our interactions with and perceptions of teachers as learners.     

Elementary Teachers’ Perception of Language Issues in Science Classrooms

Although the importance of language in science learning has been widely recognized by researchers, there is limited research on how science teachers perceive the roles that language plays in science classrooms. As part of an intervention design project that aimed to enhance teachers’ capacity to address the language demands of science, interview data (N = 9) were collected to understand teachers’ perceptions and experiences with a wide range of issues related to language use in science classrooms. Adopting an interpretive approach to qualitative data, the analysis revealed that the teachers perceive a wide range of student difficulties related to language use in science classrooms, especially to the use of specialized terms and writing. Although the teachers are keenly aware of how language can be a barrier to learning science, they are less certain as to what students need to know about the language of science in order to master it. The findings suggested professional support that highlights the distinctive language demands of science and how these demands differ from other subject areas could be useful to these elementary school teachers.     

A validation framework for science learning progression research

This article provides a validation framework for research on the development and use of science Learning Progressions (LPs). The framework describes how evidence from various sources can be used to establish an interpretive argument and a validity argument at five stages of LP research—development, scoring, generalisation, extrapolation, and use. The interpretation argument contains the interpretation (i.e. the LP and conclusions about students’ proficiency generated based on the LP) and the use of the LP. The validity argument specifies how the evidence from various sources supports the interpretation and the use of the LP. Examples from our prior and current research are used to illustrate the validation activities and analyses that can be conducted at each of the five stages. When conducting an LP study, researchers may use one or more validation activities or analyses that are theoretically necessary and practically applicable in their specific research contexts.     

Proposing an Operational Definition of Science Teacher Beliefs

Much research has shown that a science teacher’s beliefs are related to their teaching practice. This line of research has often defined “belief” epistemologically. That is, beliefs are often defined relative to other mental constructs, such as knowledge, dispositions, or attitudes. Left unspecified is the role beliefs play in cognition and how they come to influence science teachers’ classroom practice. As such, researchers and science teacher educators have relied on an (at times, implicit) assumption that there is a direct causal relationship between teachers’ beliefs and classroom practice. In this paper, we propose an operational, as opposed to epistemological, definition of belief. That is, we are explicit about the role a belief plays in science teachers’ cognition and how that leads to classroom practice. We define a belief as a mental representation that influences the practice of a teacher if and only if the belief is active in cognition. We then turn our attention to two limitations in the literature on that have arisen via previous definitions and assumptions regarding science teacher beliefs, showing how defining beliefs operationally helps think about these issues in new ways. The two limitations surround: (1) the difficulty in precisely delineating belief from knowledge; and (2) the interconnectedness of beliefs such that they draw meaning from one another. We then show how our definition of beliefs is congruent with other models of teacher cognition reported in the literature. Finally, we provide implications arising from this definition of belief for both science teacher educators and those who conduct research on the beliefs of both preservice and in-service science teachers.     

Using Theater and Drama to Expose and Expand the Epistemic Insights of Youth Regarding the Nature of Science

Students learn about science in a range of life contexts. Unfortunately, science classrooms are often disconnected from the ways of knowing about science that are embedded in, and embodied by, the life experiences of students. Drama has been identified as a potential means by which deeper understandings of the nature of science can be derived and nurtured but research on how this might be achieved is sparse. This study uses drama methodology to explore epistemologies of science with two groups of secondary school students from very different social contexts: one from a private university preparatory school and another from an after-school community group in a low-income neighborhood. We use a combination of traditional instruments and contemporary methodologies to elucidate students’ perspectives on the nature of science. Despite the similarity in perspectives revealed by the two groups when using the more traditional nature of science testing format, we have shown how drama activities can uncover very different ways in which the two cohorts mobilize their understandings about science. We propose ways in which these methodologies may be employed by teachers to explore and expand the epistemic insights that students bring to the science classroom.     

Development and Use of a Conceptual Survey in Introductory Quantum Physics

Conceptual surveys have become increasingly popular at many levels to probe various aspects of science education research such as measuring student understanding of basic concepts and assessing the effectiveness of pedagogical material. The aim of this study was to construct a valid and reliable multiple‐choice conceptual survey to investigate students’ understanding of introductory quantum physics concepts. We examined course syllabi to establish content coverage, consulted with experts to extract fundamental content areas, and trialled open‐ended questions to determine how the selected content areas align with students’ difficulties. The questions were generated and trialled with different groups of students. Each version of the survey was critiqued by a group of discipline and teaching experts to establish its validity. The survey was administered to 312 students at the University of Sydney. Using the data from this sample, we performed five statistical tests (item difficulty index, item discrimination index, item point biserial coefficient, KR‐21 reliability test, and Ferguson’s delta) to evaluate the test’s reliability and discriminatory power. The result indicates that our survey is a reliable test. This study also provided data from which preliminary findings were drawn on students’ understandings of introductory quantum physics concepts. The main point is that questions which require an understanding of the standard interpretations of quantum physics are more challenging for students than those grouped as non‐interpretative. The division of conceptual questions into interpretive and non‐interpretive needs further exploration.     

Connections and critique: Feminist pedagogy and science teacher education

In this article, we authors and feminist science and teacher educators share assignments we developed and used in our undergraduate and graduate teacher education classes. We designed these varied assignments to help students feel comfortable with science, to begin to understand and critique the many ways science has been narrowly and powerfully shaped and has marginalized significant groups of individuals, and to begin to deconstruct scientific knowledge and construct alternative views of science and science education that are gender and culture sensitive. We also challenged them to use what they were learning to develop pedagogical strategies that would be inviting to their own students. The focus of the article is our students' reactions to these assignments and how these reactions—both inviting and resisting—informed us about their notions of science, of teaching, of themselves as learners, and of the social context in which they would teach. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 897–918, 1998.     

Modeling science teaching on science practice? Painting a more accurate picture through an ethnographic lab study

This article reports an ethnographic study of a molecular biology research laboratory, “Sally's Lab.” By studying the daily practices of the lab members, and interpreting these observations through an anthropological lens grounded in practice theory, I portray the social and cultural construction of a scientific community. Findings include an examination of how good science practice was operationalized, status in the lab was constructed, members gained or lost interest in continuing on in careers in research science, and individual members conformed to and resisted localized norms of scientific practice. These issues have direct relevance to our work as science educators, in terms of how we present science practice to our students. For example, when K–16 science students engage in activities based on authentic science practice, upon whose experiences are these simulations based? The current study shows that there is not just one acceptable way to do science, nor one set of experiences that pertain to all members within a given community of science practice. Likewise, there should not be just one way that science is presented in school, nor one set of experiences we expect all our students to take from our classes. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 387–407, 2001