Biology Teachers as Researchers

Abstract

D o you use your research skills to find more effective ways of teaching? Probably not. You may be very skilled in the use of the research methods of the natural sciences, but these methods are not well suited for you to use to learn about your students or your teaching. While educational researchers regularly use the most rigorous scientific methods to learn about learning and teaching in general, these methods are simply not workable as a means for you to learn about your classroom or your teaching. The scientist manipulates without prejudgment, steps out of biases, and with cool logic, sees the truth in the data. Measured against these standards, your research would come up lacking. Silverman (1985) identified several reasons why you, as a natural science teacher, cannot act as a natural scientist in researching your own teaching. First, you cannot achieve objectivity by removing yourself from the feelings you have about yourself and your students. You do not treat your students as research objects. Your concerns more likely lie with assisting students rather than simply observing them. Instead of isolating your values from your teaching practice, you likely see your values as basic to the drive that keeps you in the classroom. A second reason why you cannot act as a natural scientist in examining your own teaching is that your class rosters do not lend themselves to the random sampling and organization of control groups necessary for the statistical analysis traditional scientific research requires. Any attempt to use traditional scientific methods is further complicated by the fact that classrooms, as noted by Jackson (1968), are shifting webs of values, perceptions, expectations, needs, events and behaviors. Such complexity makes it virtually impossible to identify discrete independent variables. The changing nature of students' needs and behaviors makes it unlikely that you would even want to attempt to hold variables constant throughout a study while some students' needs went unmet or unacceptable behaviors went unchallenged. There is a form of research that you can use in your classroom that is strengthened by your biases, by your desire to change the situations you are in, and