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Les difficultes des questions posees dans le cadre des evaluations ne sont pas toujours faciles a anticiper par des enseignants ou des concepteurs de tests meme si cette expertise est pourtant cruciale. Cet article se concentre sur l’etablissement a priori des caracteristiques des questions qui expliqueraient les difficultes des eleves, difficultes dont certaines possiblement specifiques du milieu socio-economico-culturel et du niveau de performance des eleves. Notre etude a donc consiste a elaborer un modele predictif des difficultes de questions relevant de la culture scientifique. Pour cela, nous prenons l’exemple des tâches de culture scientifique de l’enquete internationale PISA 2015. Cela nous permet de discuter la construction de notre modele, les attentes de resultats qu’il peut induire et l’implication de ce type d’etudes pour l’enseignement et la conception d’evaluations en sciences.

This study focuses on the teachers’ predictions of the students’ performances – in particular the middle-low achievers – while solving tasks testing inquiry competencies. The tasks come from PISA s...

Cet article propose a la fois une methode d’analyse du contrat didactique prenant en compte differentes echelles de temps et le resultat obtenu dans le cas d’une sequence d’enseignement en classe de seconde en physique. Le point de vue d’une action conjointe professeur – eleves et les concepts qui y sont traditionnellement associes, notamment contrat et milieu, transaction et jeu didactiques sont mobilises dans l’article, le concept de jeu etant methodologiquement associe a l’echelle mesoscopique de 10 a 30 minutes. Un point de vue theorique adapte de travaux en sciences du langage est utilise a l’echelle microscopique de quelques secondes, base sur le concept d’acte. Une echelle intermediaire assure le lien entre niveaux microscopique et macroscopique. Des analyses developpees a chacun de ces niveaux font apparaitre des regularites dans l’action conjointe qui sont interpretees en fonction du contexte donne par les niveaux superieurs. Elles permettent de formuler un certain nombre de regles formalisant en particulier les attentes reciproques du professeur et des eleves, d’abord dans une des seances analysees, puis sur l’ensemble de la sequence, a chacune des echelles. Ces analyses conduisent aussi a degager deux echelles de temps supplementaires (1h a 1h 30 et 2 a 3h) dont la validite sur des corpus differents reste a montrer.

Cet article vise à rendre compte une façon de modéliser les pratiques de classe d’un point de vue didactique dans le cas de l’enseignement d’une discipline et à en tirer des propositions pour une analyse comparative des pratiques scolaires. Cette modélisation se situe dans une approche pragmatique. Dans une première étape, la théorie de l'action conjointe en didactique est succinctement introduite avec plusieurs autres choix théoriques concernant l'apprentissage, le savoir et la nécessité de plusieurs échelles temporelles. Dans un deuxième temps, les outils méthodologiques de modélisation sont introduits avec des exemples d'analyses qui illustrent les liens entre cadre théorique et outils méthodologiques. Ces outils sont associés à des questions de recherche portant sur les pratiques en classe. Deux types d'outils sont proposés, l'un au niveau mésoscopique pour structurer une série de séances d’une séquence d'enseignement, l'autre, lié au niveau microscopique, permet d’analyser les éléments de savoir en jeu dans le discours de la classe. La conclusion tire quelques propositions pour une analyse comparative à partir du cadre théorique et méthodologique présenté en particulier des échelles de temps et des unités d'analyse au niveau méso et microscopique. In this paper, we account for a way of modeling classroom practices from a didactic point of view in the case of the teaching of physics. Then we draw certain proposals for a comparative analysis of school practices. Our modeling is based on a pragmatic approach of classroom practices. In a first step, the Theory of joint action in didactics is succinctly introduced in connection with several other theoretical choices concerning learning, knowledge and the necessity of different temporal scales. In a second step, the methodological tools of modeling are introduced with some examples of analyzes that illustrate the links between theoretical framework and methodological tools. These tools are aligned with certain research questions related to classroom practices. Two types of tools are proposed: one, at the mesoscopic level, allows to structure a series of sessions of a teaching sequence; the other, at the microscopic level, allows to analyze the pieces of knowledge at stake in the classroom discourses. In the conclusion, we draw some proposals for a comparative analysis based on the theoretical and methodological framework presented, in particular the comparison of time scales and units of analysis at the meso and microscopic level.

International audience; The rapid development of video technology in the last decade has changed the ways in which people communicate, how they learn, and how research is done. Video technology offers rich potential in capturing complex social interactions over a prolonged period of time and in supporting teacher professional learning and development.This book explores the ontological, epistemological, methodological, and ethical challenges associated with the different uses of video in research, ranging from video as a tool for investigating social interactions and for stimulating participants? reflection, to the use of video for engaging varied communities and social groups in the process of teaching, learning and research. Each chapter presents the authors? critical reflection on the ways in which video was employed, the research decisions made, the methodological challenges faced, and the consequences for how educational practices were understood. As such, it illustrates a wide range of philosophical and theoretical standpoints with respect to video-based research approaches.This book will stimulate broad and rich discussion among education researchers who are interested in video research and contributes to: advancing knowledge of the field; developing approaches to dealing with emergent ethical, theoretical, and methodological issues; and generating new protocols and guidelines for conducting video-based research across a variety of disciplinary areas in education.

Introduction Neil Mercer focuses his paper on the relationship between individual and collective thinking processes. He starts from rather recent developments stating that the concept of the ‘social brain’ emphasizes that human intelligence is intrinsically social. Neil Mercer raises the important problem of “the functional connections between collective and individual thinking activities, and the role of language in those activities.” I...

International audience; Inquiry activities generate rich opportunities for STEM learning and for assessment. When teachers pay attention to assessment information collected during the course of learning, they are able to interpret and make decisions about such assessment data in a timely fashion that can drive future planning and support student learning, for example through feedback. This chapter focuses on how classroom talk can generate evidence of learning and how teachers can utilise this to enable assessment to guide inquiry learning. It looks at several vignettes from different countries of on-the-fly interactions in inquiry settings and unpacks how teachers organised, facilitated and assessed learning in inquiry classrooms. Finally, the chapter considers opportunities, dilemmas and constraints that occurred as teachers attempted to integrate on-the-fly assessment into their existing assessment classroom practices.

The resources presented in this chapter are based on video presenting a variety of practices. This design is based on classroom videos, collected as data in research studies on science classroom practices in relation to students’ learning. The first part of the chapter will present the analysis of a 10th grade physics classroom during a teaching sequence on mechanics. This analysis is focused on how the progression of knowledge, its continuity and scientific practices are developed in the classroom in relation to the evolution of the respective students’ and teachers’ ownership of knowledge. This students’ ownership, which leads to a degree of intellectual autonomy, is a particular condition of learning for IBSE. It is related to the way that taught knowledge is involved in the classroom. The second part of the chapter proposes some teaching conditions to develop students’ intellectual autonomy or in other words to develop a responsibility vis-a-vis knowledge: sharing some common knowledge and meaningful vocabulary, managing moments of “epistemic uncertainty”, institutionalizing the main elements of knowledge involved in the previous class activity and differentiating teaching and learning time. Then we associate these conditions to specific teacher’s actions. This set of conditions and actions can be a base for professional teacher development.

International audience; This chapter reports the results of three research studies on peer assessment carried out in different countries where it is an unusual practice (France, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic). The three research studies focus on different competences and different disciplines (sciences and mathematics), but they all involve inquiry-based approaches at primary and secondary school level. In the French study, the data reported in this chapter explore relationships between success in task processing and the ability to mark a peer’s written artefact on the same task. The Swiss research study examines the type of peer feedback students offer their peers while assessing their models, based on a fine-grained analysis of peer feedback comments. In the Czech Republic, the study focuses on students’ reflection on peer assessment in inquiry lessons. The three studies conclude the necessity of allowing the sharing of “knowledge authority” in the classroom to evolve and to be integrated into usual classroom practice. However, researchers have a divergent view on the sharing of responsibility for validation of knowledge between the student and the teacher. Moreover, we can conclude that peer assessment can be a way to trigger metacognitive work on knowledge and competences in science and on assessment criteria and teacher expectations, at a class level and individual student level.

International audience; Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the concept of competence has been introduced as a new paradigm in several educational systems. It reflects the need of educational systems to respond to societal and economic changes, i.e. the transition from industrial- to information-based societies. In contrast to earlier educational goals that focused more on basic skills and knowledge expectations, competences are more functionally oriented. They involve the ability to solve complex problems in a particular context, e.g. in vocational or everyday situations. In science, technology and mathematics education, the concept of competence is closely linked to the concept of literacy. Apart from these rather cognitive and affective perspectives influenced by the need to assess students’ achievement of desired learning goals in relation to their interest and motivation, the perspectives of the concept of Bildung as well as of the labour market influence today’s definition of educational goals. In order to address these perspectives, twenty-first-century skills were defined that encompass skills believed to be critically important to success in today’s world like, e.g. innovation and communication. This chapter addresses these developments by describing the concept of competence, by explaining its relevance for science, technology and mathematics education and by examining future directions. The chapter concludes with some remarks regarding commonalities and differences between the three domains: science, technology and mathematics.

The understanding of what makes a question difficult is a crucial concern in assessment. To study the difficulty of test questions, we focus on the case of PISA, which assesses to what degree 15-year-old students have acquired knowledge and skills essential for full participation in society. Our research question is to identify PISA science item characteristics that could influence the item’s proficiency level. It is based on an a-priori item analysis and a statistical analysis. Results show that only the cognitive complexity and the format out of the different characteristics of PISA science items determined in our a-priori analysis have an explanatory power on an item’s proficiency levels. The proficiency level cannot be explained by the dependence/independence of the information provided in the unit and/or item introduction and the competence. We conclude that in PISA, it appears possible to anticipate a high proficiency level, that is, students’ low scores for items displaying a high cognitive...

International audience; IntroductionDans cet article, l’auteur discute des limites d’une « pratique fondée sur des preuves » pour l’amélioration du système éducatif. Cette dernière pratique est mise en œuvre aux USA, sous l’égide du “Departement of Education” du gouvernement de ce pays.L’article propose le développement de la « théorie de l’amélioration », développée par la fondation Carnegie pour « the advancement for teaching » et qui est présentée dans le site web et dans un livre (Bryk et al., 2015).Cette théorie pose que les propositions d’amélioration sont initiées et menées par un collectif d’acteurs, praticiens de l’enseignement et chercheurs, qui mènent une investigation (inquiry) avec pour objectif commun une amélioration spécifique du système éducatif. Cette théorie s’articule autour de six principes clés (Core principles). Un de ces principes pose que les améliorations concernant les ...

This paper deals with the joint construction of knowledge by the teacher and the students in a physics classroom. It is focused on the status of epistemic certainty/uncertainty of knowledge. The same element of knowledge can be introduced as possible and thus uncertain and then evolve towards a status of epistemic certainty; the status of other elements can do the reverse. The evolution of a certainty/uncertainty status reflects the evolution of the shared knowledge in the classroom. The study of this evolution is based on a previous analysis of the evolution of knowledge in a classroom during a teaching sequence of mechanics at grade 10. From this analysis two notions were selected and the evolution of the elements of knowledge associated was analyzed in terms of epistemic certainty/uncertainty. The results show how the emergence of new epistemic questions depends on the nature and status of student's prior knowledge; in other terms, new epistemic uncertainty emerges from epistemic certainty. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 51:930–961, 2014. Resume Ce papier concerne la construction conjointe du savoir par le professeur et les eleves en classe de physique. Il est centre sur le statut de la certitude/incertitude epistemique c'est-a-dire relative savoir. Le meme element de savoir peut etre introduit comme possible et ainsi incertain et ensuite evoluer vers un statut de certitude epistemique ; le statut d'autres elements peut evoluer de facon inverse. L'evolution d'un statut de certitude vers celui d'incertitude ou l'inverse reflete celle du savoir partage dans la classe. L'etude de cette evolution est fondee sur une analyse anterieure de l'evolution du savoir dans la classe pendant une sequence d'enseignement de mecanique au grade 10. A partir de cette analyse deux notions ont ete selectionnees et l'evolution des elements du savoir associe a ete analysee en termes de certitude/incertitude epistemique. Les resultats montrent que l'emergence de nouvelles questions epistemiques depend de la nature et du statut des connaissances anterieures des eleves ; en d'autres termes l'incertitude epistemique emerge de la certitude epistemique.

Cet article présente une analyse d’une séance de classe de physique, la 8e de l’année scolaire, réalisée en classe entière après une séance faite en ½ classe comportant plusieurs activités expérimentales. À partir de la théorie de l’action conjointe, cette analyse vise à rendre compte de la mise en œuvre des savoirs dans la classe comme objets de transaction entre les acteurs professeur et élèves. Pour cela nous étudions les données, essentiellement vidéo, à deux échelles, une échelle mésoscopique et une échelle microscopique pour rendre compte de la dynamique des transactions dans la classe. Cette dynamique est modélisée en termes de jeux didactiques, leur enjeu, leur règle et leur bilan, c’est-à-dire si le professeur et les élèves ont gagné à ce jeu ; cette modélisation est enrichie par l’analyse microscopique en termes d’éléments de savoir en jeu dans les actions du professeur et des élèves (facettes). Cette analyse nous a conduit à interpréter la séance comme un moment « de recalage » entre ce qui a été réalisé expérimentalement la séance précédente et l’interprétation physique des expériences. Le professeur et les élèves s’emploient à partager les mêmes supports (spectres, schéma, etc.) et une signification commune des activités réalisées la séance précédente. This article presents an analysis of a physics classroom session, the 8th of the school year, with the whole class. This session takes place after a half class session devoted to laboratory activities. This analysis, based on the theory of joint action, accounts for the way the knowledge, considered as objects of transaction between teacher and student, is involved in the classroom. We study the data, mainly video, at two scales, mesoscopic and microscopic scales to account for the dynamics of transactions in the classroom. This dynamic is modeled in terms of didactic games, their stake, their rule, and their results, that is to say if the teacher and students have won this game; this model is enriched by microscopic analyses in terms of elements of knowledge involved in the teacher and students’ actions (facets). This analysis leads us to interpret the session as a time of «reduing the gap» between what has been achieved experimentally the previous session and the physics interpretation of these experiments. The teacher and students are working to share the same media (spectra, drawings, etc..), and a common meaning of the activities carried out at the previous session.

International audience; This chapter aims to present and discuss concepts that help researchers to characterise a class as a group. We selected the concepts of didactic contract and milieu in the framework of the Joint Action Theory in Didactics (JATD) that is related to theory of didactic situation. We present examples of how to use these concepts to analyse two classroom situations designed to introduce the dynamics section of a mechanics sequence at grade 10 level. These examples illustrate different contracts, e.g. in one class the teacher expects the students to give reasons for their proposal, whereas in the other class the teacher expects a right answer to develop knowledge; thus, there are different statuses of knowledge. Then we introduce the concepts of the models of identity and normative identity which also characterise the class in the framework of sociocultural theories. All these concepts share the perspective of characterising the class as a group and of taking into account the contingency of these concepts. The didactic contract and normative identity or model of identity are specific to classroom situations and evolve in the classroom with time. Among the differences, we note the historical evolution of the didactic contract that emerged in 1978, whereas the normative identity/model of identity is much more recent and related to a focus of the sociocultural theory on social structure and not mainly on personality and interactions. This analysis of concepts of different theoretical frameworks strives on the one hand to promote a better understanding between researchers in our international community and on the other hand to develop investigation into classroom practices which allow the design of resources for teacher education and science teaching.

In France, PISA science 2006 shows a high proportion of students who are not able to understand and solve PISA’s easiest tasks. In this context, the aim of our study is to investigate answering strategies that low achievers develop while solving PISA items. We chose a case study methodology, collecting videotaped data from 15-year-old students from grade 9 in middle secondary school and grade 10 in upper secondary school in order to analyze their mental and behavioral processes. Our results show that low achievers often develop few specific answering strategies, and this mostly without constructing relevant and stable representations of PISA unit and items goals when they build their answer. They often transform the question in order to be able to answer it. In terms of the didactic contract, low achievers do not expect to solve some kinds of PISA tasks requiring creative reasoning. Contrary to high achievers, they are not able to identify the gap between the initial state and the expected final aim of the task. They are not aware of what they are expected to supply – new knowledge, for instance – to solve the task. Nevertheless, they can employ the beginning of relevant strategies, but currently PISA assessment is not able to identify them and does not allow the evaluation of competencies employed by low achievers.

International audience; The understanding of measurement is related to the understanding of the nature of science-one of the main goals of current international science teaching at all levels of education. This case study explores how a first-year university physics course deals with measurement uncertainties in the light of an epistemological analysis of measurement. The data consist of the course documents, interviews with senior instructors , and laboratory instructors' responses to an online questionnaire. During laboratory work, uncertainties are expressed in the large majority of the measurements made by the students but only in less than half of their calculation results. The instructors' expectations are that students systematically estimate uncertainties so that they become aware that measurements and calculations are never exact. However, since uncertainties are not specified for the values given in the laboratory guides, uncertainties are often missing from the results of students' calculations. The potential side effects of students' measurement understanding are discussed and suggestions for improvements are proposed.

Cet article traite de l’appropriation de nouvelles ressources pour l’enseignement d’une sequence sur la mecanique par des professeurs de physique-chimie en seconde. Il s’agit de ressources concues par des groupes de chercheurs et d’enseignants, dans le cadre d’une demarche de recherche - developpement engagee depuis plusieurs annees. Nous proposons un cadre theorique issu de la theorie de l’activite instrumentee de Leontiev et d’approches en didactique des mathematiques pour analyser ce processus d’appropriation. La methodologie developpee s’appuie largement sur l’analyse d’enregistrements video de : 1) l’activite de trois enseignants qui se retrouvent regulierement entre les seances d’enseignement pour s’approprier ces ressources et discuter de leurs choix de mise en œuvre dans leur classe ; 2) l’activite de l’un de ces enseignants dans sa classe, avec ses eleves. Les resultats montrent que les enseignants reconnaissent la faisabilite dans la classe de ce que ces ressources proposent, cependant ils pointent une difficulte des enseignants a saisir les choix epistemologiques des concepteurs.

International audience; This commentary on Roth, Lee, and Hwang's paper aims at analysing their theoretical approach in terms of its object of study, and the aspects that are brought to the fore, like the cultural activity of conversation, and those that are overshadowed, like the role of the material world and its perception on learning. This analysis, developed on the basis of a pragmatic approach that combines theoretical frameworks, leads to a debate about the relevant components of teaching–learning situations according to the theoretical approaches, and the extent to which, due to the complexity of the studied phenomena, some theoretical frameworks are complementary or concurrent.

Cet article présente une étude sur les relations entre l’enseignement d’une séquence et l’évolution des performances des élèves. L’analyse est centrée sur les savoirs comme production conjointe du professeur et des élèves dans une classe. La méthodologie proposée se fonde sur une analyse des savoirs à des échelles de temps et de granularité différentes. Le savoir enseigné dans la classe est reconstruit à partir des enregistrements vidéographiques réalisés tout au long d’une séquence d’enseignement de la physique dans deux classes différentes de seconde. Cette reconstruction est faite essentiellement à deux échelles, l’une mésoscopique de l’ordre de la dizaine de minutes fondée sur une approche thématique, l’autre microscopique de l’ordre de la seconde fondée sur une décomposition du savoir en facettes (Minstrell, 1992) qui sont des énoncés de l’ordre d’une phrase. Deux notions, la continuité et la densité du savoir, définies à partir des facettes, contribuent à caractériser la dynamique du savoir enseigné. L’articulation entre les analyses aux deux échelles est remise en perspective grâce à un point de vue macroscopique. Elle permet de comparer les classes entre elles et de relier, au moins partiellement, l’enseignement aux performances des élèves. L’établissement de cette relation dépend du type d’éléments de connaissance, en particulier de leur plus ou moins grande difficulté à être appris, ce que nous appelons « leur apprenabilité ».

In France, PISA Science 2006 indicated overall a score about the average, and a particularly high proportion (compared to OECD average) of students at or below level 1, meaning that students are not able to use scientific knowledge to understand and do PISA’s easiest tasks. The aims of this project are to investigate links between students’ performances in PISA Science 2006 (i.e. their scores), students’ understanding of the context of the unit, proposed in the unit stimulus or items, and competencies involved when the students effectively construct the answer to PISA items. For this reason, we focus our research on the representations and strategies that students develop while solving PISA items. We collected audiotaped and/or videotaped data from 15-year-old students from grade 9 in middle secondary school and grade 10 in upper secondary school in order to analyze students’ oral and written productions when they answer PISA questions which we had previously selected. After a review of the different research studies developed about PISA secondary analysis, we present our results showing that the representations and strategies which students construct when answering questions differ between high and low achievers. For the same PISA question, our data also indicate that the competencies which students use when they construct their answer may differ from the competencies that PISA claims to evaluate. Our results show that different interpretations can be made about the actual meaning of the PISA measurement of scientific literacy. In particular, for low achievers, competencies should be refined.

International audience; This methodological study is focused on the development of a microscopic analysis from video recordings of physics classes in relation to an analysis at mesoscopic scale. The microscopic scale corresponds to a few seconds and the mesoscopic one to moments of a teaching session of the order of minutes or dozens of minutes. The choice of a pragmatic theoretical orientation of the theory of joint action in didactics was taken. With reference to works on speech acts, at the microscopic level, the act was chosen as the unit of analysis; it is characterized by three dimensions: pragmatic, interactional and representational. The episode is an intermediate unit between the microscopic and mesoscopic levels. The game is the mesoscopic unit; it is characterized by three types of evolution, those of knowledge, of the students and teacher responsibility vis-à-vis knowledge, and the environment. We have built a coherent set of analyses of classroom practices at microscopic and mesoscopic levels operating for different classroom situations, like the introduction of an inquiry session in whole class, or a small group work between students and with the teacher intervention.; Cette étude d’ordre méthodologique porte sur le développement d’une analyse à l’échelle microscopique à partir d’enregistrements vidéo de classes de physique en articulation avec une analyse à l’échelle mésoscopique. L’échelle microscopique correspond à quelques secondes et celle mésoscopique à des moments d’une séance de l’ordre de quelques minutes ou dizaines de minutes. Le choix d’une orientation théorique pragmatique de la théorie de l’action conjointe en didactique a été pris. En référence aux travaux sur les actes de langage, au niveau microscopique, l’acte a été choisi comme l’unité d’analyse ; il est caractérisé par trois dimensions : pragmatique, interactionnelle et représentationnelle. L’épisode est une unité intermédiaire entre les niveaux microscopique et mésoscopique. Le jeu est l’unité mésoscopique ; il est caractérisé par trois types d’évolutions, ceux du savoir, de la responsabilité vis-à-vis du savoir des élèves et du professeur, et du milieu. Nous avons ainsi construit un ensemble cohérent d’analyses des pratiques de classe aux niveaux microscopique et mésoscopique opératoires pour différentes situations de classe, celle d’introduction en classe entière d’une démarche d’investigation, ou celle d’un travail en petits groupes entre élèves et avec l’intervention du professeur.

Resumen basado en el de la publicación Resumen en inglés Se presenta una descripción del trabajo realizado en un laboratorio de investigación sobre la didáctica de la física en la Universidad de París. La descripción incluye orientaciones generales, campos de investigación, investigadores involucrados, materiales emitidos, ... Esto es así tanto en el campo de la innovación como en el de la investigación didáctica. ESP

This contribution presents a tool elaborated from a theoretical framework linking epistemological, learning and didactical hypotheses. This framework lead to design teaching sequences from a socio‐constructivist perspective, and is based on the role of models in physics or chemistry, and on the role of students' initial knowledge in learning processes. This tool, formatted as a ‘grid’, is applied to one example in physics (optics, grade 11), and to one example in chemistry (conductivity, grade 11). Both these examples are taken from the important activity our team has developed from several years, in collaboration with upper secondary school science teachers, in order to design teaching sequences and experiment them in real classrooms.

Causality in science learning. This paper presents how questions of causality are introduced in scientific education, in particular in physics at elementary levels (10-18 year old). In a first part, we start from Piagetian works to present the important role of causality in the children's interpretation of the material world. Then we discuss the studies in didactics of science done between 1980 and 1990 and we present a review of more recent publications in main journals in science education according three approaches : the students' causality, the design of teaching instruction taking into account the causality, and the evolution of the students' causality with scientific instruction. The results given in the different studies reinforce each other in regards to an essential point : the students' evolution from a simple causality to a more complex one, closer to the scientific causality, necessitates various acquisitions of different types : specific knowledge, reasoning, epistemology. The studies also show that instruction cannot ignore students' simple causality, which is not necessarily an obstacle but can constitute a learning factor., Cet article présente comment sont abordées les questions de la causalité dans l'enseignement scientifique, en particulier de la physique, à des niveaux élémentaires (10 -18 ans). Dans une première partie, nous partons des travaux piagétiens pour présenter l'importance de la causalité dans l'interprétation du monde matériel par les enfants. Nous abordons ensuite les travaux en didactique des sciences en nous appuyant sur des ceux des années 80 et 90 et sur la revue faite dans quelques journaux essentiels en didactiques des sciences pour les années plus récentes. Cette étude nous a conduit à regrouper les résultats selon trois approches : la causalité chez les élèves, la conception d'un enseignement qui prend en compte la causalité, et l'évolution de la causalité chez les élèves avec un enseignement scientifique. Les résultats obtenus dans ces travaux variés se renforcent mutuellement sur un point essentiel. L'évolution chez les élèves d'une causalité simple vers une causalité complexe plus scientifique nécessite des acquis nombreux et de nature diverse relatifs aux connaissances spécifiques, aux raisonnements, et aussi à l'épistémologie. Les travaux montrent aussi que l'enseignement ne peut ignorer la causalité simple avec laquelle les élèves fonctionnent et que celle-ci n'est pas nécessairement un obstacle mais peut constituer un facteur d'apprentissage., Tiberghien Andrée. Causalité dans l'apprentissage des sciences. In: Intellectica. Revue de l'Association pour la Recherche Cognitive, n°38, 2004/1. Raisonnement causal, sous la direction de Philippe Dague, Daniel Kayser, François Lévy et Adeline Nazarenko. pp. 69-102.

In this book, a number of experts from various disciplines take a look at three different strands in learning to model. They examine the activity of modeling from disparate theoretical standpoints, taking into account the individual situation of the individuals involved. The chapters seek to bridge the modeling of communication and the modeling of particular scientific domains. In so doing, they seek to throw light on the educational communication that goes on in conceptual learning. Taken together, the chapters brought together in this volume illustrate the diversity and vivacity of research on a relatively neglected, yet crucially important aspect of education across disciplines: learning to model. A common thread across the research presented is the view that communication and interaction, as fundamental to most educational practices and as a repository of conceptual understanding and a learning mechanism in itself, is intimately linked to elaborating meaningful, coherent, and valid representations of the world. The editors hope this volume will contribute to both the fundamental research in its field and ultimately provide results that can be of practical value in designing new situations for teaching and learning modeling, particularly those involving computers.

This book features 35 of the best papers from the 9th European Science Education Research Association Conference, ESERA 2011, held in Lyon, France, September 5th-9th 2011. The ESERA international conference featured some 1,200 participants from Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe as well as North and South America offering insight into the field at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. This book presents studies that represent the current orientations of research in science education and includes studies in different educational traditions from around the world. It is organized into six parts around the three poles of science education (content, students, teachers) and their interrelations: after a general presentation of the volume (first part), the second part concerns SSI (Socio- Scientific Issues) dealing with new types of content, the third the teachers, the fourth the students, the fifth the relationships between teaching and learning, and the sixth the teaching resources and the curricula.

International audience

International audience

This article describes the results of a study of the similarities and differences in laboratory tasks used in science education at upper secondary school and university level, in the three main science subjects, in seven European countries. The data source for the study was a collection of 75 laboratory instruction sheets for use at school level in five countries, and 90 for use at university level in six countries, selected as being “typical” of practice in these countries. The tool used for analysis was a “map” (or classification system) for labwork tasks. Whilst some differences are noted between the science subjects and between educational levels, the dominant impression from this analysis is of similarity across educational levels, science subjects and countries. Some coding categories arise only very infrequently, suggesting that some possible designs of labwork task are very seldom used. The findings indicate the potential usefulness of this classificatory “map” as a tool for monitoring practice and for raising questions about the use of labwork in science education. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed85:483–508, 2001.

Sound is a subject usually taught in physics. Study of sound raises the question of objectivity in science. The necessity of making sound visible and the technics used to make sound visible are not sufficient to get over the difficulties, especially due to the articulation between physics models and sound sense perception. This lead us to design a simulation software, simulaSON, in taking into account the analysis of everyday knowledge, knowledge to be taught and research results about the semiotic registers. The activity provided by the software aims to favour the understanding of concepts such as vibration, propagation, frequency or amplitude. A microscopic model is proposed to interpret the propagation of «simple » sound wave. The software and some tasks of the experimentation are described., Le «son » est un objet d’enseignement de la physique qui pose des problèmes à l’objectivité recherchée en science. La nécessité de «rendre le son visible » et les techniques utilisées pour ceci sont loin de résoudre toutes les difficultés d’apprentissage, en particulier du fait de l’articulation entre les modèles physiques et la perception sonore. Ceci nous a conduit à élaborer simulaSON, logiciel de simulation, à partir d’une analyse du savoir quotidien, du savoir à enseigner et des résultats de la littérature sur les registres sémiotiques. SimulaSON vise à favoriser l’activité de modélisation inhérente à l’apprentissage. Les activités proposées par le logiciel visent la compréhension de concepts tels que vibration, propagation sonore, fréquence ou amplitude. Un modèle microscopique est proposé pour interpréter la propagation d’une onde sonore «simple ». Le logiciel est décrit, ainsi que quelques tâches proposées dans la future expérimentation., Vince Jacques, Tiberghien Andrée. Simuler pour modéliser. Le cas du son. In: Sciences et techniques éducatives, volume 7 n°2, 2000. pp. 333-366.

Confronted with problems or situations that do not yield toknown theories and world views, scientists and students are alike. Theyare rarely able to directly build a model or a theory thereof. Rather,they must find ways to make sense of the circumstances using theircurrent knowledge and adjusting what is recognized in the process. Thisway of thinking, using past ways of perceiving the physical world tobuild new ones does not follow a logical path and cannot be described astheory revision. Likewise, in many situations it is awkward, indeedoften impossible, to resort to analogical reasoning to account for it.This paper presents a new mechanism, called `tunnel effect', that mayexplain, in part, how scientists and students reason while constructinga new conceptual domain. `Tunnel effect' is also contrasted withanalogical reasoning.

University physics education world-wide is in a process of development and change. Important deficiencies of university teaching are often a low level of motivation followed by decreasing enrolement numbers, and a lack of qualitative understanding of basic concepts in physics. Physics didactics can contribute to improvement with development of new teaching approaches and research about motivation of students and their understanding of basic concepts. The following article discusses relevant directions of research, related research questions and exemplary results. Lectures and labwork deserve careful thoughts to become more motivating for students and more effective for learning. Important principles are more interactive forms of teaching in lectures and more efforts to connect theory and practice during labwork, not only with «hands-on», but also with «minds-on»., Au plan international, l’enseignement de la physique à l’université est actuellement dans un processus de développement et de changement. D’importantes insuffisances de cet enseignement se manifestent souvent par un très bas niveau de motivation des étudiants ; il s’en suit une diminution du nombre de nouveaux étudiants, avec, de plus, après enseignement, un manque de compréhension qualitative des concepts de base de la physique. La didactique de la physique peut contribuer à des améliorations en développant de nouvelles approches d’enseignement et des recherches sur la motivation des étudiants et sur leur compréhension des concepts de base. Cet article discute des directions pertinentes de recherche et propose, plus particulièrement, des questions de recherche et des exemples de résultats. Les cours et les TP méritent d’être soigneusement pensés pour devenir à la fois plus motivants pour les élèves et plus efficaces pour l’apprentissage. Des formes plus interactives de cours et plus d’efforts pour relier théorie et pratique pendant les TP constituent des principes importants ; il s’agit non seulement de faire avec «les mains» mais aussi avec «la tête»., La enseñanza de la física en la universidad, en todo el mundo, está actualmente en un proceso de desarrollo y cambio. Importantes deficiencies de la enseñanza universitaria son, a menudo, un bajo nivel de motivación seguido por una disminución del número de nuevos estudiantes, y una falta de comprensión cualitativa de los conceptos básicos en física. La didáctica de la física puede contribuir a su mejoramiento con el desarrollo de nuevos enfoques de enseñanza y la investigación sobre la motivación de los estudiantes y su comprensión de los conceptos básicos. El presente artículo discute algunas direcciones relevantes de investigación, y más especfficamente propone algunas preguntas de investigación y ejemplos de los resultados. Los cursos y las prácticas de laboratorio ameritan de sercuidadosamente pensadas para devenir al mismo tiempo motivantes para los alumnos y más eficaz para el aprendizaje. Algunos principios importantes son formas más interactivas de cursos y más de esfuerzo para conectar teoría y práctica durante las prácticas de laboratorio, se trata no solamente de hacercon «las manos» sino también con «la cabeza»., Niedderer Hans, Méheut Martine, Tiberghien Andrée. Recherche et développement en didactique de la physique à l'université ; résultats et tendances / Research and development in Physics Didactics at University; issues and trends. In: Didaskalia, n°14, 1999. Enseigner les sciences et les techniques à l'université. pp. 95-113.