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This longitudinal study aims to provide greater insight into how students' understanding of matter and chemical reactions develops over time and how their knowledge structures are restructured. Four case-study students in a Norwegian primary school were followed for two years from age 10–11 to age 12–13. Researchers were responsible for implementation of science teaching promoting systematic development of students' understanding of the nature of matter and chemical reactions in many contexts across science disciplines. The four case-study students' expressed understanding was recorded and analyzed throughout the period. Results indicate that students develop fragmented and incomplete understanding, and drawing wrong conclusions may be necessary steps in the learning process. Moreover, students seem to develop a somewhat more integrated and cohesive understanding of the nature of matter and chemical reactions, indicating that the students restructure and reorganize their knowledge structures (i.e. differentiation, coalescence and promoting).

This article reports research in three Nottingham schools, concerned with (1) ‘The school as fertile ground: how the ethos of a school enables everyone in it to benefit from the presence of artists in class’; (2) ‘Children on the edge: how the arts reach those children who otherwise exclude themselves from class activities, for any reason’ and (3) ‘Children's voices and choices: how even very young children can learn to express their wishes, and then have them realised through arts projects’. The research methodology was rooted in two modes of inquiry, philosophical investigation and action research. The article draws on this research to argue that arts-based work in school has helped disadvantaged and/or disaffected children to engage in activities (both arts-based and others), and to be able to lay the groundwork for exercising voice and agency as they did so. If social justice is to flourish there is a need for particular kinds of public spaces and a need to create conditions such that child...

Øyehaug, A. B. and A. Holt (2013). Sammenhengen mellom naturvitenskapelig produkt og prosess - En studie av dialoger fra utforskende arbeid i naturfag relatert til stoffer og stoffers endringer. NorDiNa : Nordic Studies in Science Education 9(1): 33-49. This paper reports from a study where a teacher and researchers collaborated on designing science teaching promoting scientific inquiry (processes of science) and science content (product of science) for a group of students (age 11 – 13). A wide range of data from students’ performance in combining science product and processes were collected during a two year period. Results indicate that students combined product (matter and change of matter) and processes of science (making hypotheses, suggesting research design and evaluating evidence) and that these aspects support each other in science learning. The ability of linking product and process differed among students and varied from one scientific method to the other. To succeed in linking science content and processes of science it is important to scaffold student understanding, like providing templates and asking rich and relevant questions.

In this paper we suggest a method for analysing curriculums in science, and we use this to investigate how the present Norwegian science curriculum prepares students for scientific informed citizenry. Science is both a body of knowledge that represents current understanding of natural systems and the process where that body of knowledge has been established and is being continually extended, refined, and revised. Both elements are truly essential, a student cannot understand science without being competent in both. Thus, there are clear recommendations about how to teach science in school, described as four strands of learning. The method analyses competence descriptions both according to the four strands and taxonomic level (depth of knowledge). The analysis shows that the Norwegian curriculum only to a certain degree correlates to recommendations about how science should be taught. Moreover, it seems like the method has potential beyond science curriculum analysis.

Most parents want more schooling for their children, and want this schooling to satisfy any unique needs that their children may possess. Quite naturally, school systems are having difficulty coping with these demands. Also, many issues are emerging in contemporary schools which are unique and difficult to resolve. Parents, teachers and the general public are being encouraged to become involved in school affairs in an effort to satisfy these new demands and to resolve difficult problems with minimal conflict. The professional literature on effective schooling indicates that a greater involvement of lay people on school management usually produces improvements in the cognitive and affective development of children. Consequently, school effectiveness in the future will be influenced by how successful school councils and governing bodies function. If parents, teachers and members of the public who become involved in school affairs do not receive adequate and on‐going in‐service training, school mana...

Dette er en vitenskapelig, fagfellevurdert artikkel som er publisert Open Access. Artikkelen ble opprinnelig publisert i Acta Didactica Norge, og du kan lese den ved å følge denne lenken: http://adno.no/index.php/adno/article/view/343 This paper reports from a study where a teacher and researchers collaborated on designing science teaching promoting scientific inquiry for a group of students (age 11 – 13). Guided by the Norwegian science curriculum, students were during a two-year intervention period regularly engaged in inquiry-based science learning. The students formed and tested hypotheses, were to various degrees engaged in developing research design and took extensively part in the evaluation of evidence. In connection with each inquiry task, students were encouraged to express their ideas about professional or formal science issues emphasized in the Norwegian science curriculum (Why do scientists form and test hypothesis? What characterizes scientific inquiry? Why do scientists compare results?). Data (video recordings of classroom instructions and interviews in addition to written tests) from four students were collected during a two year period. Results indicate that the students’ epistemological beliefs remained fairly naïve through the intervention period, in spite of intensive participation in inquiry learning. The students’ lack of epistemological development may be understood in terms of the instructional emphasis on formal epistemology, in favor of practical epistemology.