Do We Have a Trust Problem? Exploring Undergraduate Student Views on the Tentativeness and Trustworthiness of Science

Science & Education - Science includes the fundamental attributes of durability and uncertainty; hence, we teach about the “tentative yet durable” nature of science. Public...     

Expediting the transfer of evidence into practice: building clinical partnerships

A librarian/clinician partnership was fostered in one hospital through the formation of the Evidence-based Practice Committee, with an ulterior goal of facilitating the transfer of evidence into practice. The paper will describe barriers to evidence-based practice and outline the committee's strategies for overcoming these barriers, including the development and promotion of a Web-based guide to evidence-based practice specifically designed for clinicians (health professionals). Educational strategies for use of the Web-based guide will also be addressed. Advantages of this partnership are that the skills of librarians in meeting the needs of clinicians are maximized. The evidence-based practice skills of clinicians are honed and librarians make a valuable contribution to the knowledge-base of the clinical staff. The knowledge acquired through the partnership by both clinicians and librarians will increase the sophistication of the dialogue between the two groups and in turn will expedite the transfer of evidence into practice.     

Learning of Core Disciplinary Ideas: Efficacy Comparison of Two Contrasting Modes of Science Instruction

Science curricula and teaching methods vary greatly, depending in part on which facets of science are emphasized, e.g., core disciplinary ideas or science practices and process skills, and perspectives differ considerably on desirable pedagogies. Given the multi-faceted nature of science and the variety of teaching methods found in practice, it is no simple task to determine what teaching approaches might be most effective and for what purposes. Research into relative efficacy faces considerable challenges, with confounding factors, ambiguities, conflations, and lack of controls being threats to validity. We provide a conceptual framework characterizing the many teaching strategies found in practice as being variants of two fundamental contrasting epistemic modes, and we disentangle conflations of terms and confusions of constructs in both teaching practice and research. Instructional units for two science topics were developed in parallel in the alternative epistemic modes, differing in concept learning paths but otherwise equivalent. We conducted a randomized controlled study of the comparative efficacy of the two modes for learning core disciplinary ideas, using operationally defined active-direct and guided-inquiry teaching methods. Five middle school teachers taught each unit in both modes over 4 years of classroom trials in an 8-day summer program for eighth grade students. Student understanding of core ideas was assessed using pre- and post-tests, and learning gains were analyzed by mode, teacher, topic, and trial year. Although routes to concept understanding were very different in the two modes, eventual student learning gains were similar, within statistical variation. Efficacy variations between and within teachers were greater than between modes, indicating the importance of teacher effects on student achievement. Findings suggest that teachers need not be bound to one mode throughout and can flexibly decide on the pedagogical approach for each concept and situation, on several grounds other than efficacy of core content acquisition alone.