Philosophy of Chemistry in Chemical Education: Recent Trends and Future Directions

A modern understanding of the cell and its functions has been translated into learning goals for K-12 students by Project 2061's Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993 ) and by the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards (NSES) (National Research Council [NRC], 1996 ). Nearly every state has used these national documents to develop their own science standards, so that there is now a fairly broad consensus on what it is that students need to know and be able to do in science generally and in biology more specifically. While this consensus represents an important first step toward improving science education, without curriculum, instruction, and assessments that are well aligned with these goals, teachers will find it extremely difficult to help their students achieve them. Here, we first highlight a few of the key findings regarding cell biology from Project 2061's study of high school textbooks and their alignment with standards. We then describe Project 2061's current efforts to develop new knowledge and tools that educators, researchers, and practitioners can use to help all students become literate in science, mathematics, and technology. Project 2061 is a long-term K–12 education initiative of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The chapter presents a self-reflective account of the authors as teacher educators engaged in learning about philosophy of chemistry for the purpose of selecting themes to incorporate into their teaching of pre-service teachers. The authors are motivated to pursue self-study because (a) the broad content of the book, the interplay between philosophy of chemistry and chemistry education is fairly marginal, and some of their reflections could potentially benefit others as they take on a similar approach in their work; (b) the authors’ reflections can potentially serve as data sources that help interpret the broad project of infusing epistemic aspects of chemistry in chemistry teacher education; and (c) the authors’ reflections may provide them with realisations that help them improve their practices as teacher educators and chemistry education researchers. The reflections include the authors’ journeys into teacher education, background in history and philosophy of science and views on issues related to the incorporation of epistemic aspects of chemistry in teacher education. Through this reflective account, the authors discuss how they came to re-envisage themselves as teacher educators who were trying to make sense of some rather abstract and deep philosophical ideas themselves. The authors had to negotiate their professional identities through differentiated expertise in relation to science education research, philosophy of chemistry and teacher education, thus questioning their own professional knowledge.

Chemistry education research (CER) ranges from understanding the history and philosophy of chemistry, which guides on us how chemistry knowledge was developed, to the developments and application of modern technologies and tools for a more effective teaching of chemistry. CER plays a mediator role in translating recent discoveries in the field of chemistry into content that can be understood by students. Like in many academic disciplines, it is necessary for chemistry educators to pause periodically and take stock of what kind of research we are doing and where chemistry education is going. A content analysis of research papers can guide scholars with a strong indication of the extent to which journal editors and scholars prioritize research in the chemistry education field and whether there have been changes in the subject matters studied and research methods employed over time. This chapter focuses on the development of research in chemistry education in Turkey through a content analysis of 1338 research papers published in peer-reviewed journals and compares it to international research published in high status journals that publish CER. It starts with a brief introduction to the Turkish education system and teaching chemistry as a discipline in Turkey. Attention then moves to the research in chemistry education in the world and Turkey. Content analyses of CER papers published by Turkish chemistry educators are compared with CER published by highly respected international journals. The results indicated that although CER has showed a visible increase in Turkey since 2000 and the number of national and international publications is increased, there are still problems with publishing high quality research papers in respected international journals. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the status and future of CER in Turkey.

Chemistry is a substantial science by the measures of industry, economics, and politics. As an academic discipline, it underlies the vibrant growth of molecular biology, materials science, and medical technology. Although not the youngest of sciences, its frontiers continue to expand in remarkable ways. And although it shares boundaries with every other field of science, it has an autonomy, both methodologically and conceptually; this autonomy, however, continues to be unappreciated by most philosophers of science. Why is there no philosophy of chemistry? Although there have been philosophical writings on chemistry, increasingly so during recent years, curiously enough, no coherent discipline analogous to the philosophy of physics, biology, or mathematics has emerged. Indeed, some would argue that there is no subject matter here to begin with because chemistry is in the end reducible to physics and therefore without a distinct methodology or conceptual repertoire of its own worthy of philosophical consideration. One motivation for this anthology is to demonstrate that this view requires serious rethinking, particularly in the context of modern molecular science. In a 1981 review article entitled “On the Philosophy of Chemistry,” J. van Brakel and H. Vermeeren pointed out that although there is a vast amount of literature on the history of chemistry, there is precious little in the philosophy of chemistry. They observe that “even isolated articles in which the philosophy of science is applied to chemistry are extremely rare: in all cases it is clear that the published work is the outcome of a side interest of the author (most of whom are chemists who developed an interest in the philosophy of science)”. An exception to this lack of interest, cited by van Brakel and Vermeeren, is a strand of scholarly activity in Eastern Europe, particularly Russia, East Germany, and Romania, where books and articles on the philosophy of chemistry have been published since the late 1950s.

Faculty active in chemical education research from around the world ranked 22 journals publishing research in chemical education and science education. The results of this survey can be used to supplement impact factors that are often used to compare the quality of journals in a field. Knowing which journals those in the field rank as top tier is advantageous in academic environments that require researchers to publish often and for greatest impact.

The chapter provides the background to why it is important to include epistemic themes in chemistry pre-service teacher education. It includes an introduction to the book by reviewing the literature on philosophy of chemistry and its broad implications for chemistry education. Philosophy of chemistry is the disciplinary context for the consideration of epistemic issues in chemistry. It is a relatively new area within philosophy of science having been formalised with its own journals and conferences since the 1990s. Although research at the intersection of philosophy of chemistry and chemistry education has begun to emerge, the focus on chemistry teacher education is practically non-existent in the literature. The review of the interplay between philosophy of chemistry and chemistry education suggests that the recommendations are fairly abstract for the pragmatic purposes of chemistry teacher education and do not take into consideration the empirical evidence on how pre-service teachers learn. In order to focus the discussion on some concise and useful ideas on what epistemic aspects of chemistry could be included in teacher education practice, we propose a framework consisting of the epistemic aims and values, practices, methods and knowledge of science. These components are collectively referred to as the “epistemic core”. The potential benefits of teaching and learning of the epistemic core are discussed, and a summary of the whole book is presented.

This paper presents findings from a content analysis of 650 empirical chemistry education research papers published in two top-tiered chemistry education journals Chemistry Education Research and Practice and Journal of Chemical Education, and four top-tiered science education journals International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Research in Science Teaching and Science Education from 2004–2013. We found that empirical chemistry education research (CER) papers accounted for 7.7 percent of the publications in the four science education journals. The most highly published area of research was in conceptions and conceptual change and most studies adopted mixed methods. The majority of the studies were conducted in higher education contexts and in the United States. Researchers who publish prolifically in the field included Vicente Talanquer, Derek Cheung, Michael Sanger, Keith Taber, Melanie Cooper and Marcy Towns. Current research trends and gaps are illuminated and possible future work in CER is discussed in the paper.

Referebces

Development of Pisa 2015 Based Chemical Literacy Assessment Instrument For High School Students

Traditional applications of history and philosophy of science in chemistry education have concentrated on the teaching and learning of history of chemistry. In this paper, the recent emergence of philosophy of chemistry as a distinct field is reported. The implications of this new domain for chemistry education are explored in the context of chemical models. Trends in the treatment of models in chemistry education highlights the need for reconceptualizing the teaching and learning of chemistry to embrace chemical epistemology, a potential contribution by philosophy of chemistry.

Despite the enormous growth of science education research (including chemical education research) during recent decades, its impact on the practice of science education has remained relatively low. Reasons for this include the following: (i) Neglect by researchers of genuine ‘application studies’, in favour of ‘diagnostic’ ones. (ii) Undue attention in researches on ‘fashionable’ areas (e.g., pupils’ misconceptions and alternative frameworks), without adequate consideration of the practical usefulness of the findings. (iii) Insufficient elaboration by researchers of the implications of their findings for the practice of science education. (iv) Unawareness on the part of many science teachers, even experienced ones, of the findings from science education research or their tendency to ignore such findings. (v) Practitioners’ inclination to rely on ‘common sense’ and/or ‘personal knowledge’ in their practice of science teaching. To enhance this impact of science education research on the practice of science education, it is suggested that attention is paid in the planning and conduct of researches on: (1) the adoption of lines and areas of science (chemical) education research that are practice-related and, hence, potentially useful for the practitioner; and (2) the development of strategies for improving practitioners’ responsiveness towards and awareness of science education research findings, including their willingness and competence to adjust their practices in the light of such findings. These aspects are explored in the paper. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. Eur.: 2002, 3, 327-343]

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Notes on Contributors

Guest Editorial: Science education in the developing world: Issues and considerations

The aim of this study was to assess how the different aspects of nature of science (NOS) were represented in Finnish and Swedish upper secondary school chemistry textbooks. The dimensions of NOS were analyzed from five popular chemistry textbook series. The study provides a quantitative method for analysis of representations of NOS in chemistry textbooks informed by domain-specific research on the philosophy of chemistry and chemical education. The selection of sections analyzed was based on the four themes of scientific literacy: knowledge of science, investigate nature of science, science as a way of thinking, and interaction of science, technology and society. For the second round of analysis the theme of science as a way of thinking was chosen for a closer inspection. The units of analysis in this theme were analyzed using seven domain specific dimensions of NOS: tentative, empirical, model-based, inferential, technological products, instrumentation, and social and societal dimensions. Based on the inter-rater agreement, the procedure and frameworks of analysis presented in this study was a reliable way of assessing the emphasis given to the domain specific aspects of NOS. All textbooks have little emphasis on the theme science as a way of thinking on a whole. In line with the differences of curricula, Swedish textbooks emphasize the tentative dimension of NOS more than Finnish textbooks. To provide teachers with a sufficiently wide variety of examples to discuss the different dimensions of NOS changes to the national core curricula are needed. Although changing the emphasis of the curricula would be the most obvious way to affect the emphasis of the textbooks, other efforts such as pre- and in-service courses for developing teachers understanding of NOS and pedagogic approaches for NOS instruction to their classroom practice might also be needed.