Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The contemporary issue of students’ interest in science has caught the attention of both the current large-scale, international science assessment projects, Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Study Assessment (Reading, Mathematics and Science (PISA). The manner in which these student attributes have been measured in TIMSS has, however, suffered from a number of methodological inadequacies. As just one small part of very large data collections the instruments used do not measure up to those that are now expected for these affective attributes by main stream researchers. Furthermore, the project’s findings lack specificity in relation to both the target of the affect and in terms of the students’ experiences with science with which their affect can be associated. Accordingly, the findings hitherto provide little insight into what curriculum authorities could do to counteract the now alarming lack of interest in science among students in the more developed countries. The PISA Science project for 2006 is committed to correct some of these weaknesses and its approach, in which affect is now explicitly an expected outcome of learning science, is described. PISA Science has already confirmed the role of as an approach to teaching/learning that may have positive affective outcomes

This paper is organised around two issues, firstly locating interests in science within science education research and secondly providing examples of four types of research-based approaches to curriculum. The first issue, from the extant literature, is concerned with present trends in science enrolments and interest in science, primarily in developed nations. Three questions organise this Section: do current science curricula achieve the intended affective (interest) and cognitive (achievement) goals; how are interests in science best measured; and what is the contribution of research on conceptual change for science achieving affective and cognitive goals? The second issue provides examples of the evaluation of innovative ‘units’ – interpreted as topics within a curriculum – in science for enhancing affective and cognitive goals, both from other colleagues and from my own work. The relative incidence and viability of the four research types are discussed. The paper concludes with recommended research needed to move the field of interests in science forward, claiming that without research to determine whether or not innovative research-based curricula or topics within a curricula are perceived by students as being interesting, and that successful learning outcomes ensue, there is little likelihood of arresting this decline of enrolments in science

This paper reports on some of the findings from a review of research commissioned by the Institute of Physics into the participation of girls in physics. The review was commissioned in response to concern about the continuing decline in the numbers of girls studying physics post-16 in England. The review includes 177 sources of national and international research literature on the participation of girls in science and in physics and is a narrative review covering 161 pages. The review findings reveal a complex picture of the reasons for girls continuing decline in participation related to their lack of meaningful access to physics which is constrained by a complex web of interactions in girls’ curriculum and assessment experience. When this is combined with perceptions of the representation of physics it results in a reduction in girls’ self-efficacy and self-concept in the subject as they progress through schooling. The review recommends that purposes for studying physics need to be made explicit for girls in particular, and that this should happen within their curriculum experience rather than outside it. Relevance of the subject to girls’ lives outside the classroom is as important as prior knowledge so curriculum interventions and teachers should take this into account. Staff development is needed to help teachers develop strategies to increase the participation of girls and this is particularly important where single sex teaching is used. Long term evaluation of different approaches, further research into the difficulty of physics and access to achievement data is needed

The actual and potential impact of research on the practice of teaching science has been discussed within both academic and policy communities. Radically different conclusions have been advanced

This paper presents evidence from one study to demonstrate the potential positive impact of research on teaching and learning science on students’ understanding of science. Three short teaching sequences (around 6 hours) were designed by a group of researchers working with a group of teachers, drawing explicitly upon insights from research. Tests of the students’ conceptual understanding were applied both before and after teaching. Furthermore, identical test data were collected from classes of similar students in the same schools, who were following the school’s usual approach to teaching. In cases where students who followed the designed teaching sequences achieved measurably better results than their peers following the school’s usual approach to teaching, other teachers in different schools (who had not been involved in the design of the teaching sequences) implemented the teaching sequences with their students. Students following the designed teaching achieved significantly better scores on tests of conceptual understanding after teaching than their peers who followed their school’s usual approach, irrespective of whether their teacher was involved in the design of the teaching or not

The terms and practice are introduced (Millar et al., 2006), and used to discuss the implications of findings from research such as that reported in this paper for practice

This chapter presents an analysis of the teaching practices in the perspective of relating teaching and learning. This analysis involves three time scales: macro (months), meso (about ten minutes) and micro (seconds). Different concepts are involved in the meso and micro analyses. The theoretical approaches at the meso scale are mainly based on the notion of that is included in a larger theoretical framework. This notion recovers the phenomena of evolution in time of the production of knowledge of the class: the taught knowledge. This taught knowledge is considered as staged in the classroom by a joint action of the teacher and the students. Moreover, the taught knowledge has been decomposed into smaller elements of knowledge than the themes. Two physics classes (grade 10) have been analysed. The current results show that this theoretical framework leads to differentiate the two classes. Even if the institutionalized knowledge is similar, the order of presentation, the duration of similar themes, the relations between elements of knowledge, their rhythm of introduction, their “re-use” after a first introduction can be different. These differences can create a variety of learning possibilities in the classes. These several dimensions of the taught knowledge at meso and micro levels are candidates to be characteristics of a class relevant to relate teaching and learning

Video technology has played a substantial role in research on teaching and learning in actual practice and in teacher professional development since the 1970s. However, the more recent advances of digital video technology and video analysis facilitate much deeper insight into the interplay of teaching and learning processes than the analog video technology available so far. It turned out that the new technology not only allows much more fine-grained coding than has been possible until now, it also enables investigating patterns of instructional scripts in rather large samples of classes and numbers of lessons Three projects on investigating key patterns of lower secondary physics instruction in two countries (Germany and the German speaking part of Switzerland) closely cooperate. Major emphases are video-based analyses of dominating instructional patterns by employing common coding schemes and drawing consequences for improving actual instructional practices e.g. by teacher professional development. The following issues are the focus of the studies presented: (1) Standard basic coding of surface structures of instruction; (2) a coding scheme for investigating the practice of using experiments in science classes; (3) methods to investigate linkages of teaching and learning processes in instruction

This paper examines understandings of science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as conceptualized through CoRes (Content Representations) and PaP-eRs (Pedagogical and Professional-experience Repertoire). The consolidation of CoRes and PaP-eRs into Resource Folios that offer in depth, concrete examples of PCK in specific content areas (e.g., Particle Model, Chemical Reactions, etc.) was conceptualized as one way of articulating and portraying PCK that might be meaningful and accessible to science teachers. The study underpinning this paper is two-fold. First, it briefly considers the development of CoRes and PaP-eRs and the implications of these as both a methodology and a research product. Secondly, science teachers’ understandings of the usefulness of Resources Folios through a pre and post test study in which the influence of CoRes and PaP-eRs on science teachers’ thinking about science teaching and learning was explored. Results tentatively suggest that through a CoRe and PaP-eRs approach PCK becomes a more meaningful construct in terms of these participants’ articulation of understandings of professional practice

The present study deals with a school-based in-service course for science teachers, aiming at guiding teachers how to scaffold students’ open-inquiry learning for the topic of water quality. Seven experienced science teachers were involved in the study. Before teaching, the teachers developed several intentions for scaffolding, such as bringing students in a short initial stage of uncertainty regarding the issue how to design a realistic research question and plan, followed by a stage of classroom discussion and useful hints. They also wanted to make go/no-go decisions regularly, and to discuss their decisions with them for reflection purposes. In the classroom, in general, the teachers taught as intended, but some specific deviations were noted. After teaching, the teachers reported to have learnt a lot from their teaching practice, especially regarding scaffolding students by giving them a well-balanced combination of ‘space’ for own contributions at one moment and ‘direction’ at another moment. The implications for science teacher education are identified on the basis of the findings

The theoretical framework and preliminary results of various evaluation measures of a German program to improve the quality of physics instruction are presented. The major emphasis of the program is to develop teachers’ thinking about good instruction as an indispensable prerequisite for improved teaching behaviour. It turns out that students’ development of affective variables (such as their self-assessed competence) appears to be more pleasing for the “Physics in Context” group than for the control group. Instruction within the program seems to include a significantly higher amount of inquiry activities than for the control group. The teachers rate their participation in the project rather positively

This study’s goal was to examine the relationship between the personal capability beliefs of new elementary-level science teachers in Denmark and their teaching environments for their association with teaching success and science teacher retention. Results suggest that pre-service training can increase the self-efficacy of elementary teachers of science as they enter the profession. In addition, the higher the teacher’s assessments of their teaching environments were, the greater the positive changes in their self-efficacy were from pre-service until the end of their first year of teaching. Importantly, there is a positive relationship between these changes in self-efficacy during the first year of teaching and whether teachers continue to teach science. This knowledge may help identify new teachers who are more likely to drop teaching science from their teaching load and therefore enable schools to provide the support needed to ensure the viability and retention of new science teachers. The study encourages those who have found that higher teaching self-efficacies are associated with greater success