Conceptual change views of teaching and learning processes in science, and also in various other content domains, have played a significant role in research on teaching and learning as well as in instructional design since the late 1970s. An important issue is whether conceptual change can provide a powerful framework for improving instructional practice in such a way that students’ levels of scientific literacy are significantly increased. In this article, the first section provides an overview on the development of conceptual change perspectives. In sections two to six, we examine the
This paper begins with a consideration of some important themes dealt with in the paper by Treagust and Duit. These include the relationship between research on conceptual change and educational practice, the significance of emotion and identity in the process of conceptual change, and role of cognitive conflict in motivating change. I then argue that the authors implicitly assert the importance of spoken dialogue as a motor for conceptual change, but do not give it the proper, explicit recognition that it deserves. I first use their own data of transcribed talk to make this point, and then go
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Neil Mercer
resourceresearchProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
In evaluating the success of teacher development programs, valid and scalable measures of teaching practice are needed. We have developed and validated the Science Lesson Plan Analysis Instrument (SLPAI) for quantitative evaluation of teacher-generated multiday lesson plans. This paper presents the SLPAI as a complement to surveys and classroom observation, and demonstrates its use in 2 pilot studies. The SLPAI was used formatively to measure the teaching practices of incoming program cohorts and tailor program instruction. It was also used to track changes in teaching practice and pedagogical
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Christina JacobsSonya MartinTracey Otieno
In the science education research literature, it often appears to be assumed that students "possess" more or less stable "images of science" that directly correspond to their experiences with scientific practice in science curricula. From cultural-historical and sociocultural perspectives, this assumption is problematic because scientific practices are collective human activities and are therefore neither identical with students' experiences nor with the accounts of these experiences that students make available to researchers. "Students' images of science" are therefore translated from
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Michiel van EijckPei-Ling HsuWolff-Michael Roth
What effects do different setups of museum exhibits have on visitors' conversations and interactions? The study reported here is an investigation of the role that labels and associated materials play in visitors' conversations and interactions at a heat camera exhibit. After we introduced a label to help visitors explore the insulating properties of clothing, we found a dramatic shift in the kinds of activities and participation structures of visitors. Not only were visitors, as expected, discussing why clothing was warm, but they were doing so in a fashion more consistent with formal
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Leslie AtkinsLisanne VelezDavid GoudyKevin Dunbar
This study examined whether parental involvement in children's science schoolwork (i.e., discussions about science, homework helping and encouragement of science interest) varies for boys and girls, and how these behaviors relate to children's science achievement beliefs (i.e., ability perceptions and task-value) at the end of a school year. We analyzed these links both for fathers and mothers and examined whether child gender moderates how parental behaviors relate to children's beliefs over time. Data were gathered over a span of a school year from 114 middle-school students (50% girls, 81%
Making assumptions is an important step in solving many real-world problems. This study investigated whether participants who could solve well-defined physics problems could also solve a real-world physics problem that involved the need to make assumptions. The participants, who all had at least a BA in physics, were videotaped “thinking aloud” while solving three well-defined and one real-world problem and then interviewed about the problem-solving process. All the problems dealt with the same scientific content. The recordings were analyzed to identify similarities and differences in the
At the 1939–1940 New York World's Fair, several thousand boys and girls, all members of a growing national network of high school science and engineering clubs, displayed their science fair projects and conducted live experiments to more than 10 million visitors. Housed in the building sponsored by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, their exhibits depicted a wide range of scientific phenomena. They also represented the conflicting values of science educators and industrialists about the societal worth of science education. In some instances, students' projects and laboratory
This paper reports on a study that employed metacognition and social cognition theoretical frameworks to explore and interpret students' views of their cognitive roles and the nature of the mechanisms that they considered influenced and mediated their learning within small group contexts. An instrumental interpretive case study methodology was used to capture students' descriptive accounts of their Year 11 Biology learning experiences, as conveyed through their recollections and reflections concerning their interactions and roles, perceptions of the learning task, and their learning strategies
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David AndersonGregory ThomasSamson Nashon
This paper discusses conceptions of identity in relation to science education and presents material from a series of interviews and focus groups with graduate students in science and technology. Given difficulties in retention and levels of significant participation by minority students indicated by aggregate data, the issue of race, as it informs critical interactions at a majority research university, is explored in terms of its effects on identity formation. It is argued that we need to look at “real-time” science to see how subtle interactions affect minority graduate students. These
Constructing scientific explanations and participating in argumentative discourse are seen as essential practices of scientific inquiry (e.g., R. Driver, P. Newton, & J. Osborne, 2000). In this paper, we identify three goals of engaging in these related scientific practices: (1) sensemaking, (2) articulating, and (3) persuading. We propose using these goals to understand student engagement with these practices, and to design instructional interventions to support students. Thus, we use this framework as a lens to investigate the question: What successes and challenges do students face as they
Nearly 79,000 questions sent to an Internet-based Ask-A-Scientist site during the last decade were analyzed according to the surfer's age, gender, country of origin, and the year the question was sent. The sample demonstrated a surprising dominance of female contributions among K-12 students (although this dominance did not carry over to the full sample), where offline situations are commonly characterized by males' greater interest in science. This female enthusiasm was observed in different countries, and had no correlation to the level of gender equity in those countries. This suggests that
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Ayelet Baram-TsabariRicky SethyLynn BryAnat Yarden