Change In Science Education Research Articles

Preparing the Next Generation of Integrative Organismal Biologists.

Pursuing cutting edge questions in organismal biology in the future will require novel approaches for training the next generation of organismal biologists, including knowledge and use of systems-type modeling combined with integrative organismal biology. We link agendas recommending changes in science education and practice across three levels: Broadening the concept of organismal biology to promote modeling organisms as systems interacting with higher and lower organizational levels; enhancing undergraduate science education to improve applications of quantitative reasoning and modeling in the scientific process; and K-12 curricula based on Next Generation Science Standards emphasizing development and use of models in the context of explanatory science, solution design, and evaluating and communicating information. Out of each of these initiatives emerges an emphasis on routine use of models as tools for hypothesis testing and prediction. The question remains, however, what is the best approach for training the next generation of organismal biology students to facilitate their understanding and use of models? We address this question by proposing new ways of teaching and learning, including the development of interactive web-based modeling modules that lower barriers for scientists approaching this new way of imagining and conducting integrative organismal biology.

Addressing Climate Change Anomie in Teacher Education

This research project sought to understand how preservice teachers explore their relationship with Science and confidence in teaching about climate change in Science education amid a culture of denial regarding the impact of the climate crisis. Using data from three cohorts of students in an elementary Science methods course, this paper shares the context of climate change acceptance in the province of Alberta, Canada, the fossil fuel economic hub of Canada, and how using Journell’s framework for controversial issues alongside a critical energy literacy framework using inquiry, supported preservice teachers to address their hesitancy in Science classrooms to engage with climate change education. Science education also needs to shift as our energy and economies need to shift in response to the climate crisis. Preservice teachers, therefore, need to be supported in this transition by better understanding their relationship with Science and how to respond to the climate crisis within regions that do not necessarily support renewable or sustainable forms of energy, such as Alberta, Canada.

Investigating science teacher educator identity through the politics of domestication and critical positional praxis

AbstractThe focus on identity in the field of teaching and learning continues to grow, especially when it concerns equitable outcomes for students. While most attention is placed on students' identities and increasingly those of teachers, lesser addressed are the identities of the teacher educators and researchers broaching the issue of identity. Additionally, identity research is not often linked to relationships between self, others, and transformative action. We recognize these as gaps to be addressed and offer critical positional praxis (CPP) as a response. CPP is the public manifestation of the insights gained through our sense of identity and reflexivity. More specifically, CPP is the actions (or inactions) that express who we are in response to an event in any given social context—especially oppressive ones. In this article, we draw from our own critical autoethnographies, as a context for putting CPP into practice in identity research. Our collective analysis of these critical autoethnographies revealed how our identity development was inseparable from the ways in which we have each resisted the politics of domestication. Our autoethnographies further point to the role of dissent as central to our experiences of becoming critical science teacher educators committed to equity, diversity, and anti‐racism in education. We draw from this analysis to offer recommendations for how identity and positionality can move beyond theoretical constructs toward transformative personal and collective change in science education.

Sustainable Change in Primary Science Education: From Transmissive to Guided Inquiry-Based Teaching

Here, we present a professional development plan to achieve lasting and coherent change in science education, from conventional teaching to guided inquiry-based teaching, covering the entire primary stage. This plan is based on a review of the literature on professional development programs and on the theory of critical mass for the achievement of complex social changes. We justify the different phases of the plan with empirical indicators to assess its success. We show the results obtained in a primary school from teachers, the principal, and families. These results, together with those obtained by the students, show the success of the plan and make it possible to identify crucial aspects to achieve sustainable changes in science teaching at the primary stage.

CORRECTION ON USING COMICS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE IN SCIENCE EDUCATION: STUDENTS' SOLUTIONS AND AESTHETIC SUBTLETIES

Issue date: 15 April 2023 Original Paper: Alp, G., & Coskun Onan, B. (2023). Using comics for climate change in science education: Students' solutions and aesthetic subtleties. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 22(2), 215-231. https://doi.org/10.33225/jbse/23.22.215 Abstract. Erratum for “Alp, G., & Coskun Onan, B. (2023). Using comics for climate change in science education: Students' solutions and aesthetic subtleties. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 22(2), 215-231. https://doi.org/10.33225/jbse/23.22.215”. Keywords: erratum This document presents the appendices belonging to the published article.

Exhaustive Studies before Covid-19 Pandemic Attack of Students Conceptual Change in Science Education: A Literature Review

Exhaustive Studies before Covid-19 Pandemic Attack of Students Conceptual Change in Science Education: A Literature Review

Systematically reviewing the potential of scientific argumentation to promote multidimensional conceptual change in science education

ABSTRACT Scientific argumentation as a scientific practice has become an important issue in scientific concept learning. We systematically searched five databases to assess the potential of scientific argumentation to promote multidimensional conceptual change in science education. The systematic literature search and coding of studies were carried out by two independent reviewers. Our search uncovered 12 experimental studies that investigated 12 different types of scientific argumentation-based instructions (scientific argumentation-based instructions in this study referred to lesson activities). With the multidimensional framework of conceptual change developed by McLure, F., Won, M., & Treagust, D. F. ((2020), we performed a narrative synthesis assessing how each type of scientific argumentation-based instruction affected conceptual change through cognitive, ontological and intentional dimensions of learning. Our narrative synthesis suggests scientific argumentation might affect conceptual change through enhancing those dimensions of learning to varying degrees. Moreover, certain added scaffoldings might be particularly useful for enhancing a certain dimension of learning. Finally, the meta-analysis (random effect model) showed that overall, scientific argumentation-based instructions had a large positive influence on conceptual change (Hedge’s g = 10.49 [7.27, 13.71], I2 = 47%). Overall results indicated that scientific argumentation had the potential to improve conceptual change through offering opportunities for cognitive, ontological and intentional dimensions of learning.

Beginning school–university partnerships for transformative social change in science education: Narratives from the field

AbstractThese narratives explore what it might entail to begin school–university partnerships towards the goal of transformative social changes through the voices of two women scholars of color. Using two school–university partnerships as focal cases, we unpack the complexity, tensions, and possibilities that arise through collaborations driven by the objective to promote new and more just forms of science learning within public schools. In this article, we use three key dimensions of participatory design research (namely, critical historicity, power, and relationality) as analytical lenses through which to reflect upon school–university partnerships that we are in the beginning stages of forming. Through this methodology, we shed light on: (a) the historical genealogies of equity‐oriented work and (b) the tensions that we encountered as we strived for beginning partnerships with K‐12 schools. These narratives unveil the dynamic and contentious nature of forming school–university partnerships that always occurs within a sociopolitical landscape impacted by intersecting and powered identity markers, including those around race, gender, language, culture, and status. We provide specific recommendations for supporting education researchers who aspire to transform the learning of sciences at schools through a collaborative and sustainable partnership. These recommendations include ideas around how to collectively generate goals with schools centered on transformative science learning; attention to the role of language and race in shaping partnership role‐remediation; and creating infrastructure for developing school–university partnerships toward transformative social changes, including financial, human and relational resources, as well as new forms of recognition systems.

Long-Lasting Conceptual Change in Science Education: The Role of U-shaped Pattern of Argumentative Dialogue in Collaborative Argumentation.

Meaningful learning for conceptual change in science education should aim to help students change their existing misconceptions to develop an accurate understanding of scientific concepts. Although collaborative argumentation is assumed to support such processes, its value for conceptual change is unclear. Moreover, the roles of argumentative dialogue should be considered in studies on collaborative argumentation. In the present study, using a controlled experiment, we examined the value of collaborative argumentation for conceptual change in science education while fully considering the roles of argumentative dialogue. Twenty-three postgraduate students were each allocated to one of two conditions (individual argumentation [control group] and collaborative argumentation [experimental group]) and participated in two argumentation activities. The results revealed that collaborative argumentation had a delayed but long-lasting effect on conceptual change in science education (i.e., conceptual change induced by collaborative argumentation did not immediately indicate a significant improvement at the moments of argumentation but showed a significant improvement during the delay period). Collaborative argumentation provided opportunities for change in cognitive, ontological, intentional, and other aspects of learning. Dialogue protocol analysis revealed that long-lasting conceptual change was associated with a U-shaped pattern of argumentative dialogue (i.e., two high and one low: both deliberative argumentation and co-consensual construction frequently occurred, while disputative argumentation rarely occurred) in collaborative argumentation. A third argumentation activity was then conducted to confirm this unexpected finding. The results confirmed an association between long-lasting conceptual change and a U-shaped pattern of argumentative dialogue in collaborative argumentation. The current study sheds light on the value of collaborative argumentation for long-lasting conceptual change, deepening our understanding of whether conceptual gains from argumentation activities were contingent on a particular type of verbal dialogue powered by collaborative argumentation. Implications for science education were discussed.

Modeling temporal self-regulatory processing in a higher education biology course

The scientific literacy and conceptual understanding demands of the 21st century have necessitated fundamental changes in science education, including changes from traditional lecture to more active learning pedagogies. The affordances of such pedagogies can benefit students, but only when they are able to enact effective and efficient self-regulated learning processing. More research is needed to understand how and when students should self-regulate during science learning, as well as how to help those students who struggle to do so. In this study, we leveraged multimodal online interaction trace data from 408 college students enrolled in an introductory biology class to investigate the temporal nature of self-regulation during science education. Using latent profile analyses, we found differences in self-regulatory processing predicted course performance, with implications for the development of systems for identifying and supporting students who are likely to struggle in active learning science education environments.

Conceptualizing the margins in science education: the limits of multicultural analyses

Using a phenomenographic design, this research reports on a study of a cohort (N = 22) of graduate students’ conceptualizations of difference as they progressed through the only required diversity course in a science education program at a large, urban university in the American northeast. Data collection included biweekly course reflections, a modified Pedagogy of Science Teaching Test designed with students labeled with disabilities within its contextual framing, and biweekly ‘science for all’ lessons created by the participants that were not explicitly framed to address disability. Mixed-methods data analyses addressed to what extent these graduate students developed a critical lens toward difference (i.e., expressed, imagined, and/or imposed variations in human behavior and potential) and explored to what extent these theoretical elements transferred into pragmatic applications by the participants, for example in their lesson planning, that addressed multiple interpretations of difference to provide evidence of their capabilities to bridge theory to practice. Additionally, the case of disability as a marker of difference was also paid special attention to in light of lacking analyses in multicultural science education around issues of disability exclusion and teacher biases toward this marker of difference. The data suggest that while students in this ‘urban and multicultural science education’ course appear to be able to theorize critically about multicultural issues in urban science education (as per the goal of the course), their capacities to reflect on their pedagogical decisions within contexts that contain students labeled with disabilities, and plan comprehensive ‘science for all’ classroom learning environments, remained disciplinary focused, no matter if the students labeled with disabilities were the focal marker of difference within these contexts’ demographics or not. Emergent data analysis also suggests that disability was the least recognized and interpreted marker of difference, which led to limited ways that students took up this concept in comparison with other forms of difference such as race, class, and gender. Moreover, rather than emphasizing critical pedagogies that are pertinent for transformative change in science education for all diverse populations, the participants remained focused on narrowly defined, content-specific ways of teaching and learning science. Implications for this research include focusing on the goals of courses such as this one, attending to the unique case of disability as a liminal realm of conceptualizing difference, and supporting graduate students’ needs to aid in bridging the divide between theory and practice for both more traditional markers of difference taken up by multicultural science education (e.g., race, class, and gender) as well as disability as a marker of difference that is under theorized and lacking pragmatic application within such diversity requirement courses.

Factors Shaping the Uptake of ICT in Science Classrooms. A Study of a Large-Scale Introduction of Interactive Whiteboards and Computers

This paper characterizes how science teachers use technology in secondary school lessons, with a special focus on Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs), laptops and Digital Textbooks (DTs). This study also analyses how previous professional development or training may influence the way in which teachers use technology in their subsequent practice, as well as some possible relations with their perceptions. A total of 94 teachers from 69 secondary schools in Catalonia (Spain) were surveyed. Responses were collected and analysed combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Participants’ answers reveal the predominance of the use of IWBs and teachers’ computers, with scarce variety of uses, mostly aimed at supporting teacher-centred practices. Students’ participation in the use of these devices was low, calling into question the possible educational changes in science education. Although most teachers’ training in the use of technology seems to have caused little impact on their subsequent practices, some less frequent training approaches, such as training based on real examples, seems more effective in terms of changing teachers’ utilization of technology.

Recent Reforms in Saudi Secondary Science Education: Teacher and Student Perceptions of Grade 10 Physics

Recent research in science education for learners whose first language is Arabic suggests that learning in the mother tongue can reduce learner misconceptions, but there has been little research into the comprehensibility of science texts where Arabic is the language of instruction. This mixed-methods study describes the perceptions of substantial changes in science education, including translation of American science textbooks into Arabic, expressed by six grade 10 physics teachers and 360 grade 10 physics learners in two cities in Saudi Arabia. Factor analysis allowed themes emerging from the teacher interviews to be compared with underlying constructs from student questionnaire responses. Results reveal teachers’ and students’ concerns about adequacy of resourcing for the newly mandated student-centered style of learning, and language difficulties affecting comprehensibility of the textbook to support students’ learning. These findings suggest that science education policymakers should consider all components of constructive alignment if they wish to achieve the goals of science education reform that they set for themselves.

Disciplinary changes in science education in Hungary in the era of the Stalinist dictatorship

Abstract: In our paper we intend to summarize the main results of our research about the structural and disciplinary changes in Hungarian higher education in the early part of the 1950s. In the first part of our paper we point out the basic elements of the theoretical background to the research. Stichweh’s notion of disciplines, Bourdieu’s theory of ‘scientific fields’, and Voegelin’s concept of ‘political religion’ made it possible to describe and analyze the complex phenomena involved in the socialist transformation of Hungarian higher education. Then, in the second part of the paper, we analyze the main data gained from archival research into the structural changes in higher education institutions by using the theoretical notions mentioned above. As a result of our research, we are able to determine some peculiarities of the socialist higher education policy and socialist educational discipline.Keywords: socialist notion of discipline, scientific field, Sovietization of higher education, Soviet influence in Central-Eastern Europe

An Investigation of Science Teacher Educators’ Perceptions of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

ABSTRACTScience teacher educators (STEs) openly suggest that kindergarten–Grade 12 teachers must be prepared to teach all students, especially diverse learners, who may be marginalized in and by science; however, how STEs prepare preservice teachers to engage and empower diverse students in science teacher education needs further research. Therefore, perceptions of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) were collected from a group of STEs in a Mid-Atlantic state. The study highlighted here was part of a larger study in which 66 STEs were invited to participate in an online qualitative survey. The current article presents data from 11 STEs who consented to the online survey; 4 from this pool of 11 were then carefully selected for 3 semistructured interviews. The findings of the qualitative survey, which were commensurate with the interviews, revealed that participants articulated prerequisites of CRP or beliefs and practices that could be likened to a turn toward teaching in culturally relevant ways. The overall findings revealed the STEs’ ability to articulate the need for ideological change in science education to empower all students, but STEs were unable to describe how CRP or other substantial pedagogical changes could be used to address the needs of historically underserved or marginalized students in science classrooms. This was primarily because of their misunderstandings of what CRP is and how it can be implemented in science education. Implications for the integration of CRP within teacher education are discussed.

A framework for planning and facilitating video-based professional development

BackgroundRecent transformative changes in science education require new learning opportunities for teachers—opportunities that include rich images of classroom enactment of the reform vision. One fruitful way for doing that is to use video clips of instruction.Teachers do not, however, learn how to improve their instructional practice from simply watching and reflecting on classroom videos. The videos need to be carefully selected and embedded in professional development in ways that—through facilitator-led, participant-centered discussion—can help teachers to notice and reason about important aspects of instruction and learning that occur in the video. Consistent with the recent efforts to identify planning and facilitation approaches that guide effective professional development (PD) programs, in this paper, we adapted the Five Practices Framework for orchestrating productive classroom discussions to describe how PD facilitators plan for and enact professional learning tasks to help science teachers learn within a video-based PD program. These practices include anticipating, sequencing, monitoring, selecting, connecting and two additional practices that set the stage for the five practices (i.e., setting goals and selecting tasks).ResultsOur analyses of the video-based discussions in the PD provide insights into how the facilitators engaged teachers in video-based conversations by using the practices of monitoring, selecting, and connecting. The monitoring moves, such as clarifying, countering, and redirecting, were used by the facilitator in nearly all the PD sessions. Similarly, selecting moves were used and were consistent with the goals of the PD. Finally, analysis of facilitators’ and participants’ connecting comments indicated their increased capacity to make connections to the bigger ideas of teaching science by maintaining the cognitive demand on students’ thinking.ConclusionsThis paper provides elaborated descriptions of the five practices for planning and facilitating video-based PD and the ways in which they were enacted in a video-based PD program in science. In so doing, it proposes five practices as a guiding framework to support teachers’ learning from videos. Overall, the study’s results endorse the promise of a goal-driven, theory-informed design that foregrounds careful attention to teachers’ thinking in ways that support their understanding of complex classroom interactions.

Science and common sense: perspectives from philosophy and science education

This paper explores the relation between scientific knowledge and common sense intuitions as a complement to Hoyningen-Huene’s account of systematicity. On one hand, Hoyningen-Huene embraces continuity between these in his characterization of scientific knowledge as an extension of everyday knowledge, distinguished by an increase in systematicity. On the other, he argues that scientific knowledge often comes to deviate from common sense as science develops. Specifically, he argues that a departure from common sense is a price we may have to pay for increased systematicity. I argue that to clarify the relation between common sense and scientific reasoning, more attention to the cognitive aspects of learning and doing science is needed. As a step in this direction, I explore the potential for cross-fertilization between the discussions about conceptual change in science education and philosophy of science. Particularly, I examine debates on whether common sense intuitions facilitate or impede scientific reasoning. While contending that these debates can balance some of the assumptions made by Hoyningen-Huene, I suggest that a more contextualized version of systematicity theory could supplement cognitive analysis by clarifying important organizational aspects of science.

Fostering Change from Within: Influencing Teaching Practices of Departmental Colleagues by Science Faculty with Education Specialties.

Globally, calls for the improvement of science education are frequent and fervent. In parallel, the phenomenon of having Science Faculty with Education Specialties (SFES) within science departments appears to have grown in recent decades. In the context of an interview study of a randomized, stratified sample of SFES from across the United States, we discovered that most SFES interviewed (82%) perceived having professional impacts in the realm of improving undergraduate science education, more so than in research in science education or K-12 science education. While SFES reported a rich variety of efforts towards improving undergraduate science education, the most prevalent reported impact by far was influencing the teaching practices of their departmental colleagues. Since college and university science faculty continue to be hired with little to no training in effective science teaching, the seeding of science departments with science education specialists holds promise for fostering change in science education from within biology, chemistry, geoscience, and physics departments.

Humane Education in Brazil: Organisation, Challenges and Opportunities.

Humane education and the debate on alternatives to harmful animal use for training is a relatively recent issue in Brazil. While animal use in secondary education has been illegal since the late 1970s, animal use in higher science education is widespread. However, alternatives to animal experiments in research and testing have recently received attention from the Government, especially after the first legislation on animal experiments was passed, in 2008. This article proposes that higher science education should be based on a critical and humane approach. It outlines the recent establishment of the Brazilian Network for Humane Education (RedEH), as a result of the project, Mapping Animal Use for Undergraduate Education in Brazil, which was recognised by the 2014 Lush Prize. The network aims to create a platform to promote change in science education in Brazil, starting by quantitatively and qualitatively understanding animal use, developing new approaches adapted to the current needs in Brazil and Latin America, and communicating these initiatives nationally. This paper explores the trajectory of alternatives and replacement methods to harmful animal use in training and education, as well as the status of humane education in Brazil, from the point of view of educators and researchers engaged with the network.

Developing Context-Based Science Curriculum: Humanizing Science Curriculum

For many researchers, a humanistic approach is the most pervasive alternative to the traditional science curriculum (Aikenhead, 2007). Numerous reports and commissions address the need to reform science education in elementary and high schools. In the USA, for example, many reports call for changes in science education that ought to provide functional and useful learning for all students (Yager, 2002). In recent years, there is a new form of education being adopted worldwide. According to this new trend, the progress of learning science and the development and applications of new technology is naturally a social process. The purpose of this research is to describe the process of developing context-based science curriculum. The process of curriculum development starts with the “situation analysis” stage, this is done through documentary analysis and the review of the previous studies on science education. As a result, the proposed developed context-based physics curriculum caters for relevant objectives, content, learning activities, and evaluation methods. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v4n1s1p171