Research in Science Education最新文献

A growing body of empirical studies in the field of early childhood science education suggests play as a dynamic means to engage young children with the natural world and create the conditions for children’s learning and development in science. Although our understanding of play in science as an activity deepens, we still do not know much about the dynamics of scientific toys in science teaching and learning in early childhood settings. Scientific toys are defined here as improvised, three-dimensional constructions with specific teaching and learning goals that seek to achieve a balance between play and learning in science. The study focuses on teaching and learning about optics in preschool settings and particularly about the concept of light and the phenomenon of shadow formation. The study aims to capture and understand the processes through which preschoolers develop their ideas about the concept and the phenomenon through the use of scientific toys. Empirical data were collected in one early childhood center in Greece for three weeks. Thirteen children participated in the study. Digital visual methods were used for data collection and analysis. The findings illustrate and substantiate that children managed to develop their thinking about light and shadows while playing with scientific toys within imaginary situations. The study concludes with new insights into conceptually- oriented play-based learning in science through children’s artifacts. Implications that inform practice about dialectically interrelating play and learning are discussed.

The prevalence of diseases stemming from poor nutrition emphasizes the importance of educating people about healthy eating habits. One approach to achieving this is through educational escape games, which embody the features of a situated learning environment. Utilized the situated learning theory as a theoretical and methodological framework, the goal of our study was to examine the role of science-based educational escape games in facilitating knowledge construction and awareness about healthy nutrition. The study was conducted in the setting of a science teacher preparation program, where 165 preservice science teachers were engaged in an escape game named Zombie Attack about proteins in food and the human body. The study applied the pretest-posttest design, in which quantitative and qualitative data were collected concurrently before and after game participation. The findings showed that the escape game experience had a positive effect on the participants’ knowledge gain associated with topics such as energy of macronutrients, protein percent daily value, and proteins in the body. With regards to awareness about healthy nutrition, the study identified five types: Health, Composition, Environment, Source, and Ethics, with a significant gain in all categories following the escape game experience. Overall, the study advocates the use of escape games as a method for fostering interactive learning of scientific concepts, encouraging collaborative problem-solving, and facilitating self-reflection activities.

Literature has emphasised the need for SSI education to systematically address the risks produced by modern society. This study examines the quality of risk-focused, socio-scientific arguments generated by 22 elementary students in South Korea, concerning nuclear power. Participants read two articles with opposing views on the nuclear phase-out policy and constructed written arguments to justify their positions on this policy. To analyse the quality of arguments, a risk-benefit oriented model encompassing both positivist and constructivist perspectives on risk was developed and applied. The model comprises knowledge components and comparison components. The research results showed that participants generally tended to justify their claims without incorporating comparison components. Some included risk-benefit comparison components, justifying their claims by presenting specific knowledge components in more detail and with more diversity, or by emphasising safety values. Based on these results, educational strategies and implications for improving the quality of students’ risk-focused socio-scientific arguments were discussed.

Ongoing shortages of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers have prompted policy aimed at recruiting career change teachers as a solution. However, little is known about what deters career changers from becoming STEM teachers. This gap is explored through interviews with nine career changers who contemplated, but decided against a career change to STEM teaching. Inductive thematic analysis generated themes and subthemes which were then deductively categorised using Margaret Archer’s theories on emergent properties. Findings reveal that career changers are constrained from choosing STEM teaching when they perceive student behaviour as poor, the scope of teachers’ work as excessive, barriers to attaining a teaching qualification, or that the profession is not socially valued. Recommendations are presented to reduce barriers for potential STEM career change teachers.

Science education bears the broader objective of nurturing students today to be scientifically-literate citizens of tomorrow who are able to foresee challenges, invent solutions and make responsible decisions for global issues. As a prelude to the new focus of agency in the Anthropocene, this paper presents an intervention on climate change with upper secondary students in a museum of natural history in England. Instructional strategies such as infusing scenarios and arts into scientific discussions were adopted to induce imagination, future-oriented thinking and emotional responses. Statistical results showed that the intervention significantly enhanced participants’ futures literacy, environmental agency and positive emotions. However, it did not increase their interests in learning science in out-of-school context. Implications of this study will shed light on futurising science and climate education in research and practice.

In Lebanon, science is taught in an international language (French or English) based on a language-in-education policy rooted in Lebanon’s colonial history. Given the intersection among social/socioeconomic class, educational equity, and science performance, learning science in a language other than one’s own raises concerns around economically-marginalized students’ opportunities for quality science education and their development of science understandings and discourse. Bourdieu’s lens of cultural and linguistic capital was utilized to better understand the interplay among socioeconomic status and science performance. Specifically, we examined how different home context variables (including language) influence Lebanese learners’ science performance in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assessment. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), we looked at how students performed in science based on how often they spoke the language of the test at home and other home variables such as parents’ education level. The findings indicate that language and various economic and home variables were significantly associated with science performance. Language had a differing effect for English and French tracks, whereby parents’ education level and other home variables emerged more significantly for French track students. Our study underscores the importance of preparing and supporting science teachers for equitable, asset-oriented, and linguistically responsive teaching that enhances diverse learners’ equitable participation and opportunities in the science classroom.

Science teachers are increasingly using internet sources for lesson planning, science content, and designing classroom activities. With the prevalence of disinformation online, there is potential for school students to learn ineffective internet search strategies and integrate disinformation into their knowledge. Science education fit for the future requires teachers who can navigate online information effectively and develop these capabilities in their students. In this study, we address the ways in which Australian preservice science teachers engage their cognitions about knowledge and knowing when searching and evaluating online information. Using concurrent think-aloud protocols we studied preservice science teachers’ cognitions while completing internet search and evaluation tasks for science lesson content on socioscientific issues. Through subsequent interviews, we captured further dimensions of participants’ knowledge and understanding of search and evaluation processes. We contribute new knowledge by providing a novel conceptual framework used for data analysis and empirical evidence about the cognitions (aims, value, ideals, and relied upon processes) that preservice science teachers engage when searching and evaluating online information. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The declining interest in STEM careers in the United Kingdom has raised concerns, prompting this study to explore the intricate relationship between social, cultural, and scientific identities and their impact on students’ inclination towards science and technology career pathways. Additionally, the study examines the associations between gender, gender-related job preferences, and career choices. Data were collected from 1,618 primary and secondary students in the UK. Descriptive and inferential statistics, including regression analysis and multivariate analysis, were employed for analysis. The key findings revealed a significant interaction effect between gender and gender-related job preferences. Social factors were identified as significant mediators, amplifying the influence of gender on career decisions and shaping gender-related job preferences. Cultural factors, particularly related to ethnicity, were found to shape job preferences, while religious affiliation did not exhibit a significant effect. Students’ perceptions of science, stereotypes associated with science professionals, and engagement in science extracurricular activities were positively correlated with a greater likelihood of expressing interest in STEM careers, demonstrating the influential impact of science factors on forming students’ STEM career choices. Interestingly, the type of education (primary or secondary) did not significantly impact job preferences, suggesting that preferences may become more refined or influenced by external factors as students progress in their education.

This study analyses the coherent integration of creativity into science education modules for eighth-grade students to enhance competence development. The learning modules’ content covered a basic ecological unit about forests, applied as digital or analog lesson. By utilizing the creativity subscales ‘Act’ and ‘Flow’ its analysis resulted in a clear factorial structure. Notably, higher levels of creativity were associated with increased cognitive learning achievements among students, irrespective of the instructional delivery method—be it analog or digital. Particularly, the ‘Act’ and ‘Flow’ dimensions exhibited a promising potential for augmenting learning outcomes in learner-centric, gamified modules. The mentoring role of teachers is supposed to promote a flow state and simultaneously to highlight the significance of autonomy in learning processes. Unexpectedly, there were no discernible gender differences. This research significantly contributes to our understanding of the interplay among creativity, learning success, and instructional modalities within the realm of science education.

With the critical nature of socio-ecological challenges, the need to empower young people to generatively grapple with these science-related issues is crucial for developing their agentic citizenship. This paper reports on a primary science project that adopted a Socratic Seminar pedagogical strategy to enable student voice and collaborative solutions to a local/global socio-ecological challenge. Exploring microorganisms in a COVID-19-affected world, student agency and investigative practices were prioritised. We report a semiotic analysis of the student-led investigations and discussions informing decision-making and action. Students enacted scientifically grounded reasoning, posed evidence-focused questions and engaged in collaborative argumentation towards solutions. The culminating ‘Scientists for Solutions’ Socratic Seminar closely emulated the practices of the science community in supporting the generation of evidence-informed solutions. This paper unpacks this pedagogical approach. The findings inform the nature and creation of epistemic space within the primary science classroom that fosters student scientific questioning, inquiry decisions and collaborative decision-making through a Socratic Seminar process.