Physical Science Teacher Skills in a Conceptual Explanation

David Geelan

doi:10.3390/educsci10010023

Abstract

There is a long history of philosophical inquiry into the concept of explanation in science, and this work has some implications for the ways in which science teachers, particularly in the physical sciences (physics and chemistry), explain ideas to students. Recent work has outlined a constructivist approach to developing, delivering, and refining explanations focused on enhancing student’s understanding of the powerful concepts of science. This paper reviews the history of concepts of explanation in science and in science teaching, and reports research findings that describe some ways in which science teachers have been observed to explain ideas in Year 11 Physics classrooms in Australia and Canada.

Highlights

Explaining the powerful concepts of science to students is one of the key skills required by teachers of the physical sciences [1]
The culture in the physics classrooms in these two countries was so similar that international comparisons revealed little, and the data were coded as a single large set
There remains considerable research work still to be done around explanations in science teaching, in particular around the extension of modes from physics and physical science education to biology education and other science disciplines, as well as into how to support a teacher’s development of the explaining skills

Summary

Introduction

Explaining the powerful concepts of science to students is one of the key skills required by teachers of the physical sciences [1]. An explanation in science might explain, for example, why water expands when it freezes, in terms of the structure of the water molecule and the hydrogen bonding that occurs when water moves from the liquid to solid state. Each such element of the explanation is susceptible to further explanation: the shape of the molecule is explained by covalent bonding and valence shell electron pair repulsion theory. Perhaps the most influential work in the philosophy of explanation is the 1948 paper by Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, Studies in the Logic of Explanation [6]. The expansion of a sample of gas when heated might be explained, for example, by a set of initial conditions of temperature and pressure combined with Charles’ Law

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Conclusion