Working in Classrooms: Learning in Science Project. Working Paper 44.

This paper offers practical procedures and suggestions on initiating and carrying out naturalistic classroom observation of the type used in the Learning in Science Project in New Zealand (1980). The initiation of the research requires sensitivity and patience. Once in the classroom the overriding aim is to be unobtrusive and to achieve acceptance by pupils at an almost adult-to-adult level. To relate easily to other people at their level, whether they be principal or pupil, to be sensitive to people's actions and reactions, to be able to ask the question in a way which encourages a suitable response, to be able to make the right comment at the right time, and to know when to be jocular and when to be serious must inevitably depend to a large extent on the researcher's personality. The relevance and usefulness of the practical suggestions must therefore depend on the researcher. The authors maintain the view that if science education research is to develop, then researchers must be found in classrooms confronting the real world of the learner. (Author/PN)