Implications For Science Education Research Research Articles

Socialized medicine has always been political: COVID-19, science and biopower in India.

In this article, we discuss the tensions surrounding science, biopower, and citizenship that have been thrown into sharp relief by the COVID 19 pandemic. We situate these tensions in the epistemological and political conflict between science, public health education, and alternative medical systems that has been rekindled by the pandemic in India. To do so, we critically examine media articles and health education documents in the form of illustrated narratives/posters to show how education, science, and biopower are inseparable; and must therefore be considered an important part of any programme of critical justice-oriented science education. We employ a biopolitical framework, drawing largely from the work of Michel Foucault, to expose relevant sociopolitical tensions between tradition and modernity, truth and power, governance and science, which are invoked in times of crisis (such as pandemics) and give shape to fundamentals issue of science and citizenship. This article attempts to add to the conversation begun by Flavia Rezende et al.’s (2021) “South Epistemologies to invent post-pandemic science education”, who related the COVID-19 pandemic to the political situation in Brazil emphasizing the necessity to reclaim indigenous ways of being and relating to nature. We draw implications for science education research and praxis that exceed any one pandemic or political crisis.

How youth use scientific argumentation in civic participation on climate change: polar bears, the Great Barrier Reef, and ‘your job as president’

ABSTRACT Civic engagement that leverages scientific concepts and reasoning is cited as a goal of science education, yet little research has attended to authentic enactments of science-related civic engagement that youth undertake currently. We shed light on this understudied area by investigating youth letters written to the (then unknown) future US president in 2016. Using qualitative text analysis, we examined youth scientific reasoning via argumentation about climate change, aiming to clarify how youth use science in conjunction with other forms of reasoning within civic engagement, specifically around two popular icons of climate change—polar bears and the Great Barrier Reef. We describe several observed trends including a high frequency of logical appeals and their co-occurrence with implicit ethical appeals. We use these findings to offer implications for science education research and practice, suggesting explicit attention to the role of morals, ethics, and politics in science-related civic engagement.

Epistemic and Political Confrontations Around the Public Policies to Fight COVID-19 Pandemic: What can Science Education learn from this episode?

Our purpose in this article is to discuss the roles for HPSS in Science Education considering the crisis of COVID-19, as well as to think what Science Education could look like beyond the pandemic. Considering the context of a pandemic as a starting point, we defend in this article the thesis that contours of public controversy involving COVID-19 bring elements that allow us to argue that Science Education needs to embrace perspectives that highlight politics as co-constitutive of science, and not in a subsidiary role to it. To defend this thesis, we begin with a theoretical framework based on arguments of science studies and from exemplary cases from history of science. Then, we analyze some of the public controversies surrounding COVID-19, in its most central aspects, trying to interpret how intertwining between science and politics took place. Brazilian case is analyzed in more details. Finally, based on educational scholarship and considering the previous discussions, we propose some implications for Science Education research and practices, both concerning the role of HPSS in its teaching and discussing critically boundaries of this research field.

Reflections on and implications of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2015 (PISA 2015) performance of students in Taiwan: The role of epistemic beliefs about science in scientific literacy

AbstractThe 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has drawn a substantial amount of attention from science educators and educational policymakers because it marked the first time that PISA assessed students' ability to evaluate and design scientific inquiry using computer‐based simulations. We undertook a secondary analysis of the PISA 2015 Taiwan dataset of 7,973 students from 214 schools to identify critical issues of student learning and potentially reshape our educational system and policies. Thus, this study sought to identify potential latent clusters of students' scientific literacy performance according to a set of focus variables selected from the PISA student questionnaires. In addition, significant determinants of students' scientific literacy and resiliency were analyzed. Cluster analysis results demonstrated the presence of four clusters of high, medium, low, and inferior scientific literacy/epistemology/affective dispositions. Specifically, students in cluster 1 compared with other clusters showed that the higher the scientific literacy scores are, the more positive epistemic beliefs about science, achievement motivation, enjoyment of science, interests in broad science, science self‐efficacy, information and communications technology (ICT) interest, ICT autonomy, more learning time, more teacher supports and teacher‐directed instructions are. Regression results indicated that the most robust predictor of students' scientific literacy performance is epistemic beliefs about science, followed by learning time, interest in broad science topics, achievement motivation, inquiry‐based science teaching and learning practice, and science self‐efficacy. Decision tree model results showed that the descending order of the variables in terms of their importance in differentiating students as high‐ versus low‐performing were epistemic beliefs about science, learning time, self‐efficacy, interest in broad science, and scientific inquiry, respectively. A similar decision tree model to determine students as resilient versus non‐resilient also was found. Various interpretations of these results are discussed, as are their implications for science education research, science teaching, and science education policy.

Exploring Elementary Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Confidence in Implementing the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to assess elementary teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of and confidence in their ability to support students in enacting the science and engineering practices (SEPs) of the Next Generation Science Standards. Findings from this study were used to inform the planning of a professional development program for these teachers. This was a mixed-methods analysis of teachers’ responses to a survey that included self-assessment ratings of their knowledge and confidence as well as open-ended questions about how students enact the SEPs in class. Responses detailing how students could enact SEPs were used to ascertain teachers’ PCK via a modified novice–expert scale as well as coded for examples of PCK. Findings from the self-report portion revealed remarkable consistency between teachers’ ratings of their perceptions of knowledge and confidence: The highest score was in SEP 4 (analyzing and interpreting data) and the lowest score was in SEP 5 (using mathematics and computational thinking) for both knowledge and confidence. Results from the open-ended questions showed that most teachers’ examples were scored as competent on the components of PCK assessed. Teachers scored highest in SEP 1 (asking questions and defining problems) and lowest in SEP 8 (obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information). Qualitative coding of responses revealed that teachers were able to describe their knowledge of curriculum, students’ ability to enact SEPs, instructional strategies, as well as limitations. Implications for science education research and teacher professional development are discussed.

Kuhn and conceptual change: on the analogy between conceptual changes in science and children

This article argues that the analogy between conceptual changes in the history of science and conceptual changes in the development of young children is problematic. We show that the notions of ‘conceptual change’ in Kuhn and Piaget’s projects, the two thinkers whose work is most commonly drawn upon to support this analogy, are not compatible in the sense usually claimed. We contend that Kuhn’s work pertains not so much to the psychology of individual scientists, but to the way philosophers and historians should describe developments in communities of scientists. Furthermore, we argue that the analogy is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of science and the relation between science and common sense. The distinctiveness of the two notions of conceptual change has implications for science education research, since it raises serious questions about the relevance of Kuhn’s remarks for the study of pedagogical issues.

Teacher education and multicultural education: Implications for science education research

(1996). Teacher education and multicultural education: Implications for science education research. Journal of Science Teacher Education: Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1-21.

The historicality of cognition: Implications for science education research

AbstractThis article discusses the growing consensus across diverse educational research domains that the historical aspects of cognition are important for understanding not only how individuals but also disciplines know what they know. After proposing and defining the new superordinate concept of historicality, fundamental interrelationships between time, events, memory, meaning, personal knowledge, public knowledge, and the histories of the sciences are explored. Relevant research findings that demonstrate the confluence of scholarly thought concerning historicality across five educationally important domains are presented for the reader's consideration. Using the historicality concept, it is suggested that the histories of the sciences be considered as “the collective mind of scientists” and viewed as vital to developing students' knowledge about science by building upon the critical distinctions drawn by Duschl (1990). The author's science teaching technique, based upon construction of historical vignettes, is introduced here because of the relationship between history and story and the documented educational effectiveness of the story format. Finally, the author adds several cautionary notes about the validity of explanations based upon historicality and anticipates future advances in our understanding of the historicality of cognition.

Toward a social‐contexts frame of reference for science education research

AbstractDuring recent decades there has been little research on social or cultural factors affecting science education. Recent literature reviews have indicated that of the studies addressing such factors, most focus on broad sociodemographic variables such as socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, and region. There is a need for research that depicts better‐differentiated social contexts for science education in their full complexity. Social scientists from several other fields have recently developed a promising model for research in context. Three critical conceptual and methodological strands of the model are discussed, along with their implications for science education research.