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This study explored the interplay between science teachers' pedagogical beliefs, scientific evidence, and diversity. This study adopts a sociocultural view of science that views science as a cultural way of knowing, and acknowledges that it is laden with cultural understandings, interpretations, and a language of its own. This paper reports findings derived from qualitative data including interviews and journal field notes observations. The interview sample comprised seven primary school science teachers and nine secondary science teachers. The findings indicated that there was a reliance on dialogic teaching strategies to teach for the school science agenda, but not for the diversity agenda. The findings show that teachers used evidence pedagogy through using their dialogic pedagogy which act as mechanisms to avoid confronting and dealing with diversity, or with the diverse students' concerns. Teachers use these dialogic pedagogies as a 'teacher-led dialogues' tool. Conclusions from the study argue that science teachers need a clear sense of their own views of science in their cultural context in order to be able to understand those of their students and to engage with these views and enhance the use of the dialogic pedagogy by integrating these cultural beliefs into the science discourse.

Understanding secondary student attitudes towards science (SAS) is important if we are to increase the number and diversity of students who pursue STEM fields and address the gender imbalance in STEM careers. Existing studies that measured SAS tended to directly translate an ordinal scale (e.g., from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree') into a set of linear scores (e.g. 5 for strongly agree and 1 for strongly disagree). We suggest that SAS constructs need to be calibrated on an interval scale in order to be meaningfully quantified. We propose the use of Rasch measurement where SAS constructs can be ranked according to their prevalence as SAS measurements. This paper implemented Rasch measurement to examine how Chinese boys and girls perceived different aspects of physics. A total of 495 boys and 490 girls from five secondary schools in Hong Kong participated in this study. An invariance analysis of SAS constructs important to boys and girls were found to have shown a similar hierarchy and that there are gender differences with respect to some but not all construct items. Main findings on how Asian boys and girls perceived physics, its implications and recommendations focusing on possible strategies to encourage girls to study physics are discussed.

Context-based learning (CBL) has influenced teaching and learning science in many countries over the past decades. Twelve years ago, a special issue on CBL was published in this Journal, focusing on CBL curriculum development. Seven papers in this current special issue on CBL now address the question of how a context influences the learning process. The papers focus on the stimulation of learning STEM subjects within contexts, how the learning process occurs and is enhanced, and the application of contexts in different settings. The approaches, results, and implications of the papers are located in a larger view that considers the question of what must be the case if a student not only engages in the tasks of learning but also succeeds at them. Concerning willingness and effort by learners, the papers draw conclusions about which STEM-related interests of students endure and are ephemeral across a decade, design criteria for maximising students’ situational interest, and students’ engagement with content and context simultaneously. Focusing on the opportunity to teach and learn, the papers reveal how a professional development approach functions to support STEM teachers to develop CBL materials, and how specific scaffolding acts in teaching bring students to more complex reasoning. Regarding good teaching, insights are offered on how metacognitive prompts improve teaching. Centring on the social surround that supports teaching and learning, a comparison of two contexts for teaching the same content reveals which aspects of the contexts move student learning forward. From this mapping, paths toward future research are projected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current approaches to science-technology-society (STS) education focus primarily on the controversial socio-scientific issues that arise from the application of science in modern technology. This paper argues for an interdisciplinary approach to STS education that embraces science, technology, history, and social and cultural studies. By employing a case study of traditional papermaking technology, it investigates how the interactions between technology and science can be explored in an authentic societal and cultural context across a historical time span. The term technology-society-science (TSS) is used to represent an alternative approach to linking technology, society, and science that aims to redress the imbalance between science and technology, and to resolve the tension between two diverging goals of STS education. The educational implications of this alternative approach to STS education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand how students learn about science controversy, this study examines students' reasoning about tradeoffs in the context of a technology-enhanced curriculum about genetically modified food. The curriculum was designed and refined based on the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration Framework to help students sort and integrate their initial ideas and those presented in the curriculum. Pre-test and post-test scores from 190 students show that students made significant (p is less than 0.0001) gains in their understanding of the genetically modified food controversy. Analyses of students' final papers, in which they took and defended a position on what type of agricultural practice should be used in their geographical region, showed that students were able to provide evidence both for and against their positions, but were less explicit about how they weighed these tradeoffs. These results provide important insights into students' thinking and have implications for curricular design.

If students are to acquire deep learning in science, they need to know about the nature of science (NOS), particularly not only the cognitive-epistemic but also the social-institutional aspects of NOS. In this paper, we investigate the content of the Norwegian science curriculum in order to establish how NOS is represented, in particular to the social-institutional aspects of NOS, which have been reported to be underemphasised in science curricula from different parts of the world. We use the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to NOS as the theoretical and analytical framework to investigate the science curriculum from Norway where there is a history of emphasising the values human dignity, identity and cultural diversity as well as respect for nature and environmental awareness. The findings show that the dominating aspects of NOS in the science curriculum are scientific practices and social values. The observation about the prominence of social values of science is in sharp contrast to comparable analyses, suggesting a particular orientation to NOS that considers the human element in the Norwegian science curriculum. Implications for science curriculum reform and future studies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand how students learn about science controversy, this study examines students' reasoning about tradeoffs in the context of a technology-enhanced curriculum about genetically modified food. The curriculum was designed and refined based on the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration Framework to help students sort and integrate their initial ideas and those presented in the curriculum. Pre-test and post-test scores from 190 students show that students made significant ( p < 0.0001) gains in their understanding of the genetically modified food controversy. Analyses of students' final papers, in which they took and defended a position on what type of agricultural practice should be used in their geographical region, showed that students were able to provide evidence both for and against their positions, but were less explicit about how they weighed these tradeoffs. These results provide important insights into students' thinking and have implications for curricular design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against a backdrop of advocacy for interdisciplinary STEM curricula, this paper explores the design principles underpinning a three-year longitudinal research project that develops and evaluates interdisciplinary mathematics and science learning sequences involving multiple teachers and student cohorts across the primary school years. The research uses design-based methodology and deploys a pedagogical cycle based on representation construction and model-based reasoning, reflecting core disciplinary processes, and aimed at foundational concepts. The interdisciplinary structure of sequences in different topics, teacher pedagogy, and student reasoning and learning are illustrated through analysis of three learning sequence vignettes. In these topics both mathematical learning (measure, data modelling and spatial reasoning) and science learning (concepts and practices), were reinforced and enriched through the interdisciplinary framing. Drawing on notes of teacher planning and review meetings, coupled with classroom data, we identify (a) the conceptual and curricular design features through which mathematics and science can synergistically interweave, (b) the epistemological design challenges involved in working with teachers to achieve this interdisciplinary alignment, and (c) the key pedagogical design features that emerged to support this integration. The research contributes to conceptualising how interdisciplinary processes that enable synergistic interweaving of mathematics and science content and processes can be effectively framed and enacted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of socioscientific issues (SSIs) in the science curriculum is a well-established trend internationally. Apart from claims about its innate value, one of the rationales for this approach is its potential for helping to counter declining interest and participation. SSIs involve the use of science and are of interest to society, also raising ethical and moral dilemmas. Introducing such problems presents a significant and usually cross-disciplinary challenge to curriculum developers and teachers. The aim of this paper is to examine how this challenge has been met when judged against contemporary views of the issues concerned. It first explores how SSIs have been interpreted in an important and innovative science course for students aged 14–16 in England, entitled Twenty First Century Science. This paper analyses the Twenty First Century Science textbooks, focusing in detail on two SSIs, reproductive genetic technology and climate change. For each of these issues, the key ideas present in the social science literature surrounding the problems are outlined. This review is then used as an analytical framework to examine how the issues are presented in the textbooks. It is argued in this paper that the perspectives the textbooks take on these issues largely do not include perspectives from social science disciplines. It goes on to suggest that the development of future SSI-based curricula needs to take account of these wider, often interdisciplinary, perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Socio-scientific decision-making necessitates reasoning from multiple perspectives and the use of trade-offs. This study examines how students decide on socio-scientific issues when they engage in an instructional intervention to enhance their socio-scientific decision-making towards consensus building that, in this study, emphasises generating solutions to resolve issues. We developed a socio-scientific issue-based unit for non-science undergraduate students focusing on an intervention that enhances their socio-scientific decision-making around issues regarding a genetically modified organism. Our intervention focused on consensus building wherein students identified multiple conflicts among various stakeholders' opinions and proposed solutions to resolve them. In particular, students considered the trade-offs of science and technology. This paper presents the results from two intervention studies in which 12 and 49 non-science undergraduate students participated. To confirm that the participants of each study achieved the goal of the curriculum unit, we analysed the solutions students collaboratively constructed at the end of the unit (Analysis 1). We then used a pre- and post-intervention approach to assess students' independent decision-making (Analysis 2). During the curriculum unit, we assigned students an essay-writing task twice and investigated the quality of their decisions. A comparison of the pre- and post-tests revealed a general shift towards higher-level responses after the intervention. Students' arguments on socio-scientific issues changed from justificatory arguments to proposals for solutions. These findings demonstrated that the instruction promoted students' socio-scientific decision-making towards consensus building. Finally, we discuss the implications for socio-scientific issue instruction and the evaluation of students' decision-making as well as provide suggestions for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the use of simulation-based performance assessment (PA) methodology in a recent study of eighth-grade students’ understanding of physical science concepts. A set of four simulation-based PA tasks were iteratively developed to assess student understanding of an array of physical science concepts, including net force, acceleration, velocity, and inertia. Illustrative examples drawn from the administration of these simulation-based PA tasks to a sample of eighth-grade students (n = 74) highlight the potential of simulation-based tasks for revealing conceptual understanding of science concepts and for informing curriculum development within the context of design-based implementation research. The paper also describes a variety of challenges encountered over the course of the development, administration, and analysis of the PA data that may be informative for researchers and educators as they consider implementing simulation-based PAs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nanotechnology has been touted as the next ‘industrial revolution’ of our modern age. In order for successful research, development, and social discourses to take place in this field, education research is needed to inform the development of standards, course development, and workforce preparation. In addition, there is a growing need to educate citizens and students about risks, benefits, and social and ethical issues related to nanotechnology. This position paper describes the advancements that have been made in nanoscale science and nanotechnology, and the challenges that exist to educate students and the public about critical nanoscience concepts. This paper reviews the current research on nanotechnology education including curricula, educational programs, informal education, and teacher education. Furthermore, the unique risks, benefits and ethics of these unusual technological applications are described in relation to nanoeducation goals. Finally, we outline needed future research in the areas of nanoscience content, standards and curricula, nanoscience pedagogy, teacher education, and the risks, benefits, and social and ethical dimensions for education in this emerging field. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is about the process of developing integrated science curricula at junior secondary schools in the Peoples' Republic of China in the past 20 years. The history has witnessed two stages of developing integrated science curricula during this period in China: one was at the provincial level in the 1980s/1990s, while the other was at the national level in the new millennium. Using the concept of curriculum emphases, this paper purported to investigate the advocated forms of integration and the reasons and causes behind them in integrated science curriculum during the period under study. Data were collected from two sources: curriculum documents related to the integrated science curricula, and interviews with key informants who were involved in designing the official documents of this kind of science curriculum. Two models of integration have been identified from the two stages respectively: one is 'integration within science subjects', while the other 'integration beyond science subjects'. The social-political roots of the two models of integration have been traced. To meet the goal of scientific literacy, it is suggested in the final part of this paper that the model of 'integration within science subjects' should be abandoned while the model of 'integration beyond science subjects' should be advocated in the process of developing integrated science curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Australian schools have become increasingly multilingual, with students needing targeted support to develop academic English, yet also bringing rich linguistic and cultural resources to the classroom. Policymakers have recognised the critical role of identifying and describing the language and literacy demands in all disciplines, highlighting an essential role for pre-service teacher training. This article presents various components of teacher learning made available to 11 Australian science pre-service teachers (PSTs) enrolled in a Masters language and literacy course, which included a practicum component and explicit training in elements of translanguaging pedagogy. It analyses the ways in which the training contributed to PSTs' developing scientific pedagogical language knowledge. In doing so, it charts their emerging professional identities as teachers as they are trained to analyse core scientific content for opportunities to provide targeted language and literacy support, as well as their growing understanding of the diversity of language and literacy strengths and challenges faced by their multilingual learners. Furthermore, this paper outlines PSTs' evolving self-reflection as they come to assume responsibility for their students' language and literacy development as a key way of facilitating their access to scientific curriculum content knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'experiment' is used in different ways to mean different things in school science. This study examines the meanings of 'experiment' and how they have changed in the intended chemistry curriculum (ICC) in China since the early 1950s. A mixed methodology was adopted to analyse the 11 ICC documents from a socio-historical perspective. The qualitative analysis identifies four meanings of 'experiment' in these various documents: (1) subject content, (2) pedagogy, (3) scientific processes, and (4) inquiry. The quantitative analysis shows that the frequency of two meanings of 'experiment', subject content and pedagogy, has decreased while two other ones, scientific processes and inquiry, has experienced an upward trend during the period under study. While analysing five typical ICCs in different decades, it was found that the distribution of the four meanings of 'experiment' in these ICC documents has become more balanced from the past to the present. Moreover, explanations are provided for the changing tendencies and the distributions of the four meanings of 'experiment' in the social contexts of China. The implications for science curriculum development, science teacher development, and future research are discussed in the last part of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding secondary student attitudes towards science (SAS) is important if we are to increase the number and diversity of students who pursue STEM fields and address the gender imbalance in STEM careers. Existing studies that measured SAS tended to directly translate an ordinal scale (e.g., from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree') into a set of linear scores (e.g. 5 for strongly agree and 1 for strongly disagree). We suggest that SAS constructs need to be calibrated on an interval scale in order to be meaningfully quantified. We propose the use of Rasch measurement where SAS constructs can be ranked according to their prevalence as SAS measurements. This paper implemented Rasch measurement to examine how Chinese boys and girls perceived different aspects of physics. A total of 495 boys and 490 girls from five secondary schools in Hong Kong participated in this study. An invariance analysis of SAS constructs important to boys and girls were found to have shown a similar hierarchy and that there are gender differences with respect to some but not all construct items. Main findings on how Asian boys and girls perceived physics, its implications and recommendations focusing on possible strategies to encourage girls to study physics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present the development and implementation over the period of more than 15 years of learning materials focusing on industrial chemistry as the main theme. The work was conducted in the Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. The project’s general goal was to teach chemistry concepts in the context of industrial chemistry in order to present chemistry as a relevant topic both to the students personally as well as to the society in which they live. The learning materials that were developed during this period were in alignment with the changes and reforms that were conducted in the Israeli educational system. These developments were accompanied with intensive and comprehensive professional development courses and workshops. In addition, several research and evaluation projects were conducted with the goal to assess students’ achievements and to probe into the students’ perceptions regarding the classroom learning environment and the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the various instructional and learning materials techniques that were implemented in the programme throughout these years. This paper is structured attempting to describe the curricular cycle in alignment with Goodlad’s and Van den Akker’s curriculum representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports upon a study addressing teaching and learning about solubility to Turkish first-year secondary school students (age 14-15). The principal aim of the research was to investigate the impact on students' understanding of solubility, of introducing a simple particle model of matter. A teaching intervention to fit within the existing chemistry curriculum was designed, which explained macroscopic and quantitative aspects of solubility in terms of particles. To this extent, the teaching intervention met the requirements of the existing curriculum, and the teaching intervention was conducted under all the time and other restrictions imposed by the Turkish system. Students' performance on test questions about solubility was assessed before and after instruction, and after 6 months. In addition, students in a similar class, following typical teaching about solubility, completed identical test questions. Findings suggest that it is possible to design a teaching sequence that introduces a simple particle model of matter in such a way that students can successfully use it to explain various solubility phenomena. However, students who followed such instruction did not significantly out-perform others who did not follow it, in all aspects of the conceptual domain. There is some evidence of long-term retention of particulate ideas by students, suggesting the possibility that this might be drawn upon in future teaching and learning. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the kinds of claims that can be supported from a study such as this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the development of a framework - the Science in Schools (SiS) Components - that describes effective science teaching and learning and that has become a central focus for the Science in Schools Research project that is being implemented in 225 Australian schools. The description is in a form that provides a basis for monitoring change, and which can be validated against project outcomes. The SiS Components were partially based on interviews with a small number of primary and secondary teachers identified as effective practitioners, and have been subject to a variety of validation processes. The focus of this paper is on a particular form of validation involving interviews with an expanded set of effective primary teachers, from three Australian states. Case descriptions of core elements of these teachers' beliefs and practice were constructed, and a review and mapping process used to examine the extent to which the SiS Components, as a distinct 'window into practice', align with and capture these core elements, and differentiate the practice of these effective teachers from other primary teachers in the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore how students' engagement varies in different STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) learning environments. More specifically, we focus on the significance of a learning environment applying an integrated STEM (iSTEM) approach and the significance of STEM learning environments' student-centredness. Moreover, we explore the relative importance of different student-centred principles (lesson plan and implementation, communicative interactions, student-teacher relationships) for students' engagement in the STEM learning environment. Applying a mixed-method approach, we draw from observational data of 24 STEM lessons in combination with data from seven focus groups with 67 grade 9 students. The quantitative findings, based on the observational data, show that a learning environment applying an iSTEM approach seems to support students' engagement. Further investigation made it clear that the student-centredness in this learning environment is especially significant. Regarding the specific student-centred principles, all principles had a significant impact on students' engagement. The focus group data make clear that, besides student-centredness, the integrative aspect and the use of authentic real-world problems in iSTEM can also be engaging for students. These results indicate that iSTEM is a good practice to engage students in the STEM learning environment, as it facilitates teachers' implementation of a general student-centred approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematical reasoning and tools are intrinsic to science, yet the close and dependent relationship science has to mathematics is not reflected in either school education or science education research. This paper asks what the barriers are to a mutually beneficial relationship between the two disciplines. A two-phase qualitative interview study was used to explore the relationship between school science and mathematics education through the perspectives of science and mathematics education policy-makers and of teachers in departments which are unusual in collaborating. In total there were 36 participants. Interview data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings show that there is an asymmetry in the dependency between school science and mathematics: science is dependent on mathematics but the reverse is not true. We discuss three consequences of this asymmetric dependency: there is greater benefit for science from any collaboration; 'maths blame' can arise from science teacher frustration; and science educators may believe they should have some ownership of the mathematics curriculum. Asymmetry of dependency, and therefore of benefit, will make it very difficult for mathematics and science to work together in a way which is genuinely mutually beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Written in response to criticism of our work by Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, this position paper reaffirms and reinforces our position about the need to broaden and enrich the scope of nature of science (NOS) oriented curricula by exposing students to the voices of practising scientists. While Abd-El-Khalick's motivation for promoting the so-called consensus view of NOS is rooted in issues of assessment (or ‘benchmarking', as he calls it), we argue that the major reason for teaching about NOS is its contribution to what Shen calls civic and cultural scientific literacy. We are critical of the consensus view for its philosophical naivety, failure to reflect contemporary scientific practice and potential for confusing students, and we re-state our view that it is important to expose students to a diversity of practice among the sub-disciplines of science. We argue that richer NOS understanding and a more authentic view of scientific practice can be achieved through direct and indirect contact with scientists at the cutting edge of research and development, which we characterise as learning about scientists, learning from scientists and learning with scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on the attempts by some Caribbean science teachers to make links between their students' everyday lives and school science in their planning for teaching. It describes how these teachers drew on their exposure to a university graduate course on science education and culture in seeking to access the background cultural knowledge of their students and to incorporate this knowledge in their plans for teaching science. The paper critically examines the experiences of these teachers and highlights both the rewards and challenges that ensued as these teachers prepared for culturally relevant science teaching [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Senior pre-university education (SPE) students experience difficulties applying mathematics to physics. This paper reports the outcome of an online explorative quantitative study of teachers' belief systems about improving transfer of algebraic skills from mathematics into physics, conducted among 503 mathematics and physics teachers working in SPE. We used a questionnaire with 16 beliefs about improving transfer, and asked teachers to select a top 5 and distribute 50 points among them. We used agglomerative hierarchical clustering to cluster qualified SPE teachers with more than 10 years of teaching experience. We found 3 large clusters, each containing naïve and desirable beliefs about transfer. These clusters turned out to be rather coherent sets of beliefs. Hence, these clusters can be interpreted as belief systems, to a certain extent justifying Ernest's [(1991). The philosophy of mathematics education. London: Falmer.] idea to cluster teachers based on their belief systems. We found relations between our groups and those of Ernest. Since naïve beliefs turn out to be weak in each cluster, science teacher educators can help science teachers to change their harmful naïve beliefs, into desirable transfer enhancing beliefs. Furthermore, we discuss some implications of our results for science teacher educators, curricula, teachers and textbooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the challenges of context-based science education is to construct high quality teaching materials. This paper presents results from a study investigating the heuristic value of an activity-based instructional framework for transformation of authentic scientific practices for use in the science classroom, in line with cultural historic activity theory (CHAT). The activity-based instructional framework was used to transform the authentic practice of Modelling Human Exposure and Uptake of Chemicals in Consumer Products into a curriculum unit. The transformation was conducted by experienced chemistry teachers well informed about CHAT. The heuristic value was judged on criteria completeness, instructiveness and appreciation. Collected data are designed curriculum materials and a focus group interview. Analysis of the designed curriculum materials indicated that the framework was highly complete and instructive, except for evoking reflection in students. Most important, the framework proved successful in operationalising CHAT into concrete guidelines for educational design. Additionally, the results show that the instructional framework is highly appreciated by the users. Further development of such instructional frameworks is important, since it fosters the construction of high quality context-based curriculum materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study examines how material resistance (limitations posed by the physical world) and graph interpretation intersected during a high school biology investigation using digital sensors. We use an extended episode from a small group to illustrate how, in an inquiry-based unit, measuring near the resolution limit of a sensor caused scaling issues in graphs. Qualitative videotape analysis focuses on both the students' attempts to make sense of a perceived lack of variation in the collected data and the teacher's and classroom researchers' misinterpretation of the students' difficulties with graph interpretation. We suggest that these educators, though experienced, could have benefited from additional strategies to help them recognise and respond to graph interpretation issues introduced by digital representations of real-world data, and that the students could have benefited from explicit prompts to discuss the limitations of their equipment. We describe several implications for researchers, teachers, and curriculum developers interested in implementing inquiry-based biology investigations using sensor data. We argue that students should be supported to recognise that encountering unexpected results from their investigations and working to understand what these results have to say about the real world is an important and valid part of the practice of real science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A curriculum is generally regarded as an instructional plan that describes what, why and how students should learn. In this comparative study, we analysed the Czech and Slovak intended curricula of science subjects (physics, chemistry, biology, geography, and geology) and mathematics by comparing their national curriculum documents in terms of learning outcomes at the lower secondary level (ISCED level 2). Our analysis showed significant differences in the number of obligatory learning outcomes, which were much higher in the Slovak curriculum than in the Czech curriculum. The structure of these outcomes also differed across subjects and between countries. Nevertheless, the cognitive demands of the learning outcomes analysed using the revised Bloom's taxonomy were similar in the two countries, but metacognitive knowledge and higher-level cognitive processes were rarely represented in either. Additionally, by inductive content analysis of the Slovak curriculum document, we identified two significant groups of cross-curricular requirements, namely outcomes related to scientific inquiry and outcomes requiring working with information. Overall, these learning outcomes are underrepresented in both analysed documents (particularly in the Czech document) even though the skills that these outcomes develop are in high demand in the current context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how the notion of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has developed and changed over the past 20 years. It draws on the preceding papers in this special issue to reflect on the big picture issues and ideas that are important in shaping understandings of PCK and the nature of research on PCK. The paper is structured around four sections. The first section offers analysis of the characteristics of PCK as employed by the researchers in this volume, raising some issues related to the construct. The second section considers the implications for research design that result from these authors' views of PCK. The third section suggests an agenda for future research on science teacher knowledge. The concluding section examines the continuing value of the PCK construct for the science education community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the needs of a newly democratic South Africa, a new education policy required science teachers to integrate Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) with school science: Curriculum 2005 (C2005) was developed. The first phase of that curriculum was implemented in 1997 with the hope that by 2005 it would have been implemented in the entire school system (i.e., R-12 grades). Since then science educators have been making a concerted effort to develop science teacher education programmes compatible with the postulates of the new curriculum policy. As part of that effort, this study used a Practical Argumentation Course to equip a group of science teachers with knowledge and instructional skills needed to implement an integrated Science-IKS curriculum in their classrooms. The findings showed that, as a result of the course, the teachers' understanding of, and awareness about, the Nature of Science and IKS improved considerably. Similarly, the teachers made noticeable perceptual shifts from construing science and IKS as polar opposites to considering the two thought systems as compatible and complementary. The implications of the findings for instructional practices are highlighted in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on the personal experiences of three researchers: an “outsider” (or western‐oriented) science teacher, a science teacher educator who has lived in Melanesian countries for almost a decade, and a national researcher who was born and educated in Melanesia. During a recent interpretative research study of the problematic relationship between the traditional world‐views of Melanesian villagers and the official school science views of young Melanesian people, Bruce became increasingly aware of the importance of conducting culture‐sensitive interpretative research. Bruce and Joe describe three people with different experiences and approaches to education. Mindful of the important role of the outside teacher researchers in providing essential information for the local contextualisation of school science curricula, we propose a number of culture‐sensitive practices when working in Melanesian cross‐cultural contexts. Karsoon: I like Melanesian ways. I wanted to learn Western ways and so when mission came, I went to school [so that I could] learn their ways. I thought I would learn new ways. I use school ways no more.Karsoon: The white man didn't want us to learn about his ways but only about his religion. (Waldrip & Taylor, 1999a, p. 297)I've studied overseas where I came across Papua New Guineans suffering from the “dry coconut syndrome”—brown on the outside, but white on the inside. These are the people who suddenly forget their own ways because they are living in another country. (Pamba, 1999, p. 17) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes briefly the development and key features of one of the major context‐based courses for upper high school students, Salters Advanced Chemistry. It goes on to consider the research evidence on the impact of the course, focusing on teachers’ views, and, in particular, on students’ affective and cognitive responses. The research evidence indicates that students respond positively to the context‐based approach adopted in Salters Advanced Chemistry, and that they develop levels of understanding of chemical ideas comparable with those taking more conventional courses. Finally, issues to do with the development and evaluation of large‐scale curriculum projects are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the way in which a major literature review on curriculum, learning and effective pedagogy in science education was undertaken in New Zealand, and introduces the other papers in this issue. The review was funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Education to investigate how the literature in science education informs our understanding about effective pedagogy on student achievement in science education for a diversity of students in New Zealand. A large team undertook the literature review, and the literature from 1991 to 2002 was investigated. The process is discussed as well as ways in which the international literature and more localized/contextual studies can be synthesized to provide key strategies for national policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a phenomenological lens, we investigated how online curriculum resources can support secondary science teachers to explore contemporary science practices with their students. The research used a social constructivist theoretical and a hermeneutic phenomenology methodological framework to describe and interpret the teacher/participants' experience. Seven participants teaching science to Year 7–10 students (12–15 years old) engaged in the research project, trialling selected contemporary science resources in their class. Pre and post intervention interviews were conducted with each participant along with classroom observations of one lesson to view aspects of the effectiveness of the resource, the teachers' approach and their perceptions of student learning and engagement. Discussion focuses on how the online curriculum resources presented alternative views about science in practice to what students expect, providing an in-depth view of scientists and their research practices in varied settings. Affordances of this approach for bringing real science into the classroom and for improving student engagement and learning are considered. The findings point to the approach being potentially a productive, scalable way forward for introducing contemporary science practice into classrooms. We advocate further research investigating the potential of this type of online curriculum resource to connect students more powerfully with scientists and their practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While astronomy has recently re-emerged in many science curricula, there remain unresolved teaching and learning difficulties peculiar to astronomy education. This paper argues that mental model building, the core process in astronomy itself, should be reflected in astronomy education. Also, this crucial skill may promote a better understanding of the nature of science by pupils and it resonates with current understandings about pupils' learning in science. However, three practical questions to be considered are: the expressed reservations about the connection between mental model building and meaningful learning; the earliest age of pupils for whom mental model building is appropriate; and the lack of research into pupils' prior ideas about the role of models in science. The paper describes how a four-phase general pedagogical strategy was adopted to create an astronomy teaching and learning package to promote mental model building. The package consists of notes explaining the mental model building followed by an overview of the teaching-learning approach and suggested outlines of the 12 lessons. Research investigated whether that package can help Year 7-8 pupils interrogate and refine their mental models of the Sun-Earth-Moon system within the constraints of an ordinary class of 33 pupils. The results showed that all four phases of the general strategy were necessary and effective in that most pupils were able successively and successfully to critique their mental models of the Sun-Earth-Moon system while also achieving traditional astronomy knowledge goals. Implications are that pupils as young as Year 7-8 may be able to construct other appropriate mental models, such as those for biological populations, atomic structure and plate tectonics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on the experience of the Pan-Canadian science curriculum development process as an instance of the more general problem of integrating science and environmental education. It problematizes the issue of incorporation of social and environmental dimensions within the science curriculum in terms of both policy and practice. The agenda of environmental education, as eco-philosophical and eco-political, provides a radically different base from which to explore the impact of change on science teachers and schools. Thus, the very idea of environmental education as an educational policy goal must be examined in light of conflicting agendas of science and environmental education. This paper argues that transforming structures and processes of school science to enable different teacher and student roles involves closing the gap between curriculum (policy) development and professional development as well as reconceptualizing science education, but from more overtly open moral value and political perspectives than have been considered in the literature of science education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of developing prescribed curricula has been subject to little empirical investigation, and there have been few attempts to develop theoretical frameworks for understanding the shape and content of particular subjects. This paper presents an account of the author's experience of developing a new course for school physics in the State of Victoria, Australia, at the end of the 1980s. The course was to represent a significant departure from traditional physics courses, and was intended to broaden participation and improve the quality of student learning. In the event the new course turned out to be very similar to traditional courses in Physics. The paper explores the reasons for this outcome. Some powerful discursive mechanisms are identified and some implications of post-structuralism for the theoretical understanding of curriculum are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers' practices and interactions with curriculum materials are influenced by a host of factors, which include their values. The mechanisms of this influence may benefit from elucidation. Here, we describe a case of a teacher enacting an inquiry-based learning unit (LU) as part of a school science enrichment programme. The teacher's interactions with the LU appear to be influenced by her self-stated idea of giving students 'freedom'. We track these influences through the course of the teacher's planning, enactment, and reflection of the LU. Because of how 'freedom' guides her actions, we argue that it serves the function of a value. Furthermore, we contend that the teacher's commitment to 'freedom' represents an exercise of her deliberative agency. This commitment to 'freedom' is supported by her interactions with her context, which include labelling of her preliminary ideas with the term 'freedom', being asked to choose between curriculum materials, reflective conversations with the researcher, and reframing the site of enactment. We also describe challenges that the teacher faces with respect to student guidance, resulting from her commitment to 'freedom'. From this work, we suggest implications for the design of curriculum materials and teacher professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food, cooking, and eating are commonly used as contexts or legitimations to teach and communicate science. However, for teaching to have contextual credibility, the relationship between subject and context is a relevant area of study. The present contribution describes an analysis of curricula from three Nordic countries shedding light on conditions for interdisciplinarity and/or curricular integration between the subjects science/chemistry on the one side, and home economics on the other. A two-phase documentary analysis was conducted on curricula from Finland, Norway, and Sweden from 2006 to 2020, revealing substantial potential for interdisciplinary collaboration and/or curricular integration. This is seen both in common declarative knowledge content ('declarative knowledge overlap') and, more interestingly, meeting points between subject-dependent practices and ways of thinking ('transfer of practices and ways of thinking'). The second inductive phase produced 11 themes common to the subjects. Possibilities and challenges are discussed in relation to the subjects' epistemologies and ontologies, as well as practitioners' competencies, attitudes, and creativity for subject boundary-crossing. Consequently, we conceptualise teachers' roles as lying in the span between 'teacher as polymath' and 'teacher as collaborator'. The present work also provides a instrument for exploring curricular conditions for interdisciplinarity between subjects on a more general basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines learning of science in 15 grade nine classrooms by analyzing the type of talk that teachers engaged in. Using transcripts from audio recordings that are part of the Singapore Corpus of Research in Education database, annotations were carried out on the phrases of teacher talk using Mortimer and Scott's framework for meaning making in science classrooms. Interpreted from a sociocultural view of science learning and based on text coverage per 1,000 words spoken by teachers and students, we analyzed the content of instruction and found that (1) teachers in all three sub-disciplines of science used the least number of words to make statements of generalizations, with chemistry teachers privileging description more than physics and biology teachers, while physics teachers use more words for explanation when compared with biology and chemistry teachers and (2) teachers from all three sub-disciplines depended more on empirical justification than theoretical justifications. These findings suggest that most scientific stories in Singaporean grade nine classrooms are dependent on specific contexts and that the nature and organization of knowledge in each sub-discipline defines the features that teachers use in the classrooms to talk knowledge into being. We discuss our findings on whether science curriculum should be framed as ‘separate subjects’ or if they should be developed as ‘integrated science’ and draw implications to science teacher education and the conduct of high stakes public placement examinations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the findings of the qualitative component of a combined methods research study that explores a range of individual and school factors that influence the uptake of chemistry and physics in post-compulsory study in England. The first phase involves using the National Pupil Database to provide a sampling frame to identify four matched pairs of high-uptake and low-uptake schools by salient school factors. Case studies of these eight schools indicate that students employ selection strategies related to their career aspirations, their sense of identity and tactics, and their prior experience. The school factors influencing subject choice relate to school management, student support and guidance, and student empowerment. The most notable differences between students in high-uptake and low-uptake schools are that students in high-uptake schools appear to make a proactive choice in relation to career aspirations, rather than a reactive choice on the basis of past experience. Schools with a high uptake offer a diverse science curriculum in the final two years of compulsory study, set higher examination entry requirements for further study and, crucially, provide a range of opportunities for students to interact with the world of work and to gain knowledge and experience of science-related careers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the development of curriculum design expertise from the perspective of a teacher reflecting on a science lesson. His involvement in the research process resulted in a self-determined professional development strategy. The description comes from data collected through lesson observations and an in-depth stimulated recall discussion to probe and uncover the teacher's understanding of the importance of the curriculum design principles related to his lesson. These data are supplemented with lessons plans studied over several months. Views expressed indicate that the professional development of the teacher was grounded in trust and trust-building that took time. The views also, suggest, amongst other issues, how empowerment evaluation can be used in enabling development in curriculum design. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we expose the unique challenges confronting graduate field-ecology students and the coping strategies they adopt to overcome such challenges. To do so, we used a qualitative (in  vivo) research method that combines interviews, observations and open questionnaires with a group of five Israeli graduate students. The two major challenges that the students faced were the uncontrolled nature of field research (or complexity), and the nature of field setting, which isolated the students from authoritative guidance. In response to these challenges, the students developed a set of research skills which were expressed in this study by a series of three (metacognitive) strategies which we designated as ‘protocol-dominated’, ‘intermediate’ or ‘field-dominated’. In order to develop such research skills, our subjects rely upon declarative and procedural knowledge. In contrast to declarative knowledge, learned in coursework, procedural knowledge is learned and activated via the situated experience of implementing research in authentic field environments. We also found that fieldwork complexity imposes itself the minute the students step into the field; potentially, this can negatively impact students' motivation. However, as the students accumulate field experience and acquire the knowledge and skills needed to overcome the field's complexity, their motivation improves. Recognizing the unique learning components connected to field research will help novice students better cope with fieldwork challenges, as well as help their advisers in guiding them. This work also has implications for designing inquiry curricula in field sciences for university and high-school students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the expressed models that children aged 7, 11, and 14 years have about micro-organisms and microbial activity. These were elicited using a variety of data collection techniques that complemented each other, resulting in a rich dataset, and provided information about the level of knowledge and progression of ideas across the age range studied. Subsequent analysis of the data enabled generalised mental models of micro-organisms to be derived that indicate a hierarchy in the sophistication and accuracy of the concepts explored. The resulting mental models were categorised as extended, transitional, and emergent and characterise the ideas held by some children in each of the age groups studied. The implications for curriculum development and consequences for learning and teaching microbiology are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that chemical knowledge can be represented in three main ways: macro, submicro, and symbolic (chemistry triplet) has become paradigmatic in chemistry and science education. It has served both as the base of theoretical frameworks that guide research in chemical education and as a central idea in various curriculum projects. However, this triplet relationship has been the subject of different adaptations and reinterpretations that sometimes lead to confusion and misunderstanding, which complicates the analysis of the triplet's nature and scope. Thus, the central goal of this paper is to describe some of the existing views of the triplet relationship in chemistry and science education and critically analyse their underlying assumptions. We also propose a general structure of our chemistry knowledge intended to better situate the chemistry triplet in relationship with the different types, scales, dimensions, and approaches that seem to characterise such knowledge. Our proposed model may be useful in the analysis, evaluation, and reflection of educational research results and teaching practices centred on the triplet relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The case study presented in this paper examines the work of one high school chemistry teacher who has integrated guided inquiry into a yearlong, traditional curricular framework in ways that take into account the constraints and realities of her classroom. The study's findings suggest (1) the extent and frequency to which teachers can realistically integrate guided inquiry into existing science curricula, (2) the manner in which teachers can make effective transitions into and out of a guided inquiry, and (3) the way in which teachers can set an overarching goal to bring a driving purpose to all of the guided inquiries that the students experience. Based on the insights gained from the current case study, an argument is made that researchers should examine the practice of other teachers (especially in the common subjects of biology, chemistry, and physics) who have integrated guided inquiry into the fabric of their curricula. By doing so, a library of case studies can be built that will provide science teachers with new ideas on how inquiry can be holistically and productively integrated into yearlong traditional curricular frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design-based research, and particularly its theoretical status, is a subject of debate in the science education community. In the first part of this paper, a theoretical framework drawn up to develop design-based research will be presented. This framework is mainly based on epistemological analysis of physics modelling, learning and teaching hypotheses. It includes grand theories, a specific theory that following Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer, and Schauble is a “humble theory” in the sense that it does “real work”, and tools for design. In the second part, we will show how this specific theory and its tools led designers to develop teaching resources in the case of a teaching sequence on mechanics (Grade 10). We will explain how the components of the specific theory and tools guide the design at different levels; the conceptual structure of the teaching sequence, the chronology of the activities, the various choices of the type of activity and their wording. This presentation makes the bases of designing teaching resources explicit and therefore allows for scientific debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particle models of matter are widely recognised as being of fundamental importance in many branches of modern science, and particle ideas are commonly introduced and developed in the secondary school curriculum. However, research undertaken in a range of national contexts has identified significant learning difficulties in this topic, and suggests that notions of particles that match scientific models are generally only attained over periods of some years. The implementation of a National Curriculum in Science in England was followed by increasingly prescriptive guidance to teachers. This culminated in a framework for teaching lower secondary science, which identified 'particles' as one of five key ideas for organising teaching and learning of science to all 11-14-year-olds. In this curriculum context, a basic particle model is introduced at the start of secondary education, and consolidated by being revisited in various contexts over three years. However, National Tests suggest that only a minority of pupils attain levels of understanding matching target knowledge. The present paper reports an interview study that explored how a sample of English secondary students explained phenomena commonly met in school science. It was found that students generally used the notion of particles, although most of their particle-based explanations reflected alternative conceptions that have been reported in previous research. It is concluded that a curriculum strategy of early introduction and regular application during the early secondary years is not of itself sufficient to support the desired progression in thinking with particle models, and more sophisticated research-informed pedagogy is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose that the unpopularity of science in many industrialised countries is largely due to the gap between the subculture of science, on the one hand, and students' self-image, on the other. We conducted a study based on the self-to-prototype matching theory, testing whether the perceived mismatch between the typical representative of the science culture (the science prototype) and students' self-image is linked to not choosing science as a major. Fifty-four Dutch ninth-grade students currently choosing their subject majors (so-called profiles) completed a Dutch version of a questionnaire previously designed by Hannover and Kessels, which measures students' perceptions of typical peers favouring different school subjects (prototypes for physics, biology, economics, languages) and students' self-image. Students chose a profile to the extent that they conceived of themselves as similar to the typical peer who likes the key subject of that profile. Fifty per cent of variance was explained when using an aggregated science versus humanities distance score and predicting whether a student had chosen a science-related or a humanities-related profile. A comparison of Dutch students' description of the physics prototype with the German data from Hannover and Kessels revealed similar prototypes in both countries. The traits ascribed to the physics prototype were in line with science-related values and the culture of science as described by Merton and Traweek, for example. The relevance of the perceived fit of the culture of science to students' selves for academic choices is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine how students discuss and interpret data and whether these actions vary depending on the type of data they analyse. More specifically, we are interested in whether students perform differently when analysing first-hand data, which they collect themselves, compared with second-hand data provided to them. Our data analysis focused on two classrooms using two different curriculum units, chemistry in Grade 7 and biology in Grade 8, collected during the 2002/03 school year from a Mid-western urban middle school in the USA. We analysed classroom videotape associated with lessons in which students discussed first-hand and second-hand data both in small group settings and full class discussions. We found the two types of data offer different benefits and limitations, suggesting that both types of data are important for students to work with as they develop skills in scientific inquiry practices. We discuss the characteristics of classroom discussions around different data sources as well as implications for the design of curriculum materials, instructional environments, and student learning in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]