The scientist’s ways in national science curricula: A comparative study between Taiwan and Vietnam

Abstract

Recent science education reforms center at having students learn the practices of scientists. In this study, we aim at exploring how science curricular documents reflect the latest updates from the “practice turn” reform. To do that, we utilize the notion of the scientist’s ways of doing science as a perspective to observe the distribution of components constituting scientific practices in national science curricula. Current literature provides several curriculum analysis frameworks based on taxonomies of cognitive demands or international tests. Still, those frameworks are either not intended for science curricula or limited in indicators and hence failed to capture an updating picture of science curricula that reflect the recent practice turn. We employ multiple case study research design and qualitative content analysis approach to compare learning outcomes in Taiwan and Vietnam’s two national science curricula. Results from this study offer maps of scientific practices across curricular documents and relevant suggestions for stakeholders to improve science curricula. The study opens a new direction on researching science curricula to make science learning approaching the scientist’s ways in reality.