Improving Science Education : The Contribution of Research

by Millar, Robin; Leach, John; Osborne, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9780335206452
• ISBN10: 033520645X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-02-01
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Summary

This book takes stock of where we are in science education research, and considers where we ought now to be going. It explores how and whether the research effort in science education has contributed to improvements in the practice of teaching science and the science curriculum. It contains contributions from an international group of science educators. Each chapter explores a specific area of research in science education, considering why this research is worth doing, and its potential for development. Together they look candidly at important general issues such as the impact of research on classroom practice and the development of science education as a progressive field of research.The book was produced in celebration of the work of the late Rosalind Driver. All the principal contributors to the book had professional links with her, and the three sections of the book focus on issues that were of central importance in her work: research on teaching and learning in science; the role of science within the school curriculum and the nature of the science education we ought to be providing for young people; and the achievements of, and future agenda for, research in science education.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Introduction	1	(6)
Robin Millar
John Leach
Jonathan Osborne
Section 1: Researching teaching and learning in science	7	(136)
Teaching situations
Why things fall: evidence and warrants for belief in a college astronomy course	11	(16)
Nancy W. Brickhouse
Zoubeida R. Dagher
Harry L. Shipman
William J. Letts, IV
Designing teaching situations in the secondary school	27	(21)
Andree Tiberghien
Assessing and evaluating
Formative assessment and science education: a model and theorizing	48	(14)
Beverley Bell
National evaluation for the improvement of science teaching	62	(17)
Bjorn Andersson
Developing science teachers
Learning to teach science in the primary school	79	(15)
Hilary Asoko
Managing science teachers' development	94	(16)
Justin Dillon
Theorizing learning
Status as the hallmark of conceptual learning	110	(16)
Peter Hewson
John Lemberger
Analysing discourse in the science classroom	126	(17)
Eduardo Mortimer
Phil Scott
Section 2: Reviewing the role and purpose of science in the school curriculum	143	(122)
Providing suitable content in the `science for all' curriculum	147	(18)
Peter Fensham
Interesting all children in `science for all'	165	(22)
Svein Sjoberg
Making the nature of science explicit	187	(20)
Richard Duschl
`Science for all': time for a paradigm shift?	207	(20)
Edgar Jenkins
Science, views about science, and pluralistic science education	227	(18)
Stephen P. Norris
Connie A. Korpan
Renegotiating the culture of school science	245	(20)
Glen Aikenhead
Section 3: Researching science education	265	(82)
Research programmes and the student science learning literature	271	(22)
Gaalen Erickson
Goals, methods and achievements of research in science education	293	(15)
Richard Gunstone
Richard White
Didactics of science: the forgotten dimension in science education research?	308	(19)
Piet Lijnse
Policy, practice and research: the case of testing and assessment	327	(20)
Paul Black
Notes on contributors	347	(13)
Index	360