Journal of Research in Science Teaching最新文献

Energy is a central concept across the sciences and an important goal of science education is to support all students so that they develop a full understanding of the energy concept. However, given the abstract and complex nature of the energy concept, only a few students develop an understanding so that they can use energy ideas to make sense of phenomena. Research into energy learning progressions aims at developing models of learning about energy to guide instruction so that students can be best supported in developing competence and has provided a rich model of how students' understanding of energy develops over time. Being largely based on cross-section data, however, the extent to which this model can guide instruction is limited, especially concerning the continued learning of students about energy. To address this gap—the limited evidence regarding what supports students' continued learning about energy—it was investigated how holding non-normative ideas and the integratedness of students' energy knowledge affect students' continued learning about energy. Drawing on data from a 4-year longitudinal study covering Grades 6–9 on students' learning about energy, diagnostic classification models were used to characterize students' non-normative idea profiles and the integratedness of their knowledge and then related both to their continued learning. The results suggest no detrimental effects of holding non-normative ideas and strong positive effects of holding integrated knowledge for students' continued learning about energy. Implications for teaching and future research are discussed.

Socioscientific issues (SSI) have been found to improve scientific literacy skills among K—12 students. Existing literature shows, however, that elementary preservice teachers are reluctant to implement SSI due to a lack of confidence with subject matter knowledge and knowledge of instruction concerning SSI. Previous research has focused on helping elementary preservice teachers overcome these concerns through microteaching, adapting existing curricula, and experiencing SSI through methods courses. While it has been noted that formal preparation is required for preservice teachers to feel confident in their abilities to facilitate SSI, little has been done to prepare elementary preservice teachers to facilitate SSI during field experiences. In this study, we explored the factors that influenced elementary preservice teachers' instructional decision-making while planning and enacting SSI-based instruction in the classroom. Community of practice (CoP) meetings provided formal training to prepare these elementary preservice teachers to facilitate SSI. Recordings of the CoP meetings, reflective journals, observations, and interviews served as data sources. Our findings revealed knowledge of students, instructional knowledge, and context as most influential in these elementary preservice teachers' pedagogical reasoning concerning SSI-based instruction, while subject matter knowledge was the least considered. We discuss these findings and offer recommendations for how to use these considerations when planning future research to study elementary preservice teachers' SSI-based instructional practice.

It is widely recognized that we need to prepare students to think with data. This study investigates student interactions with digital data graphs and seeks to identify what might prompt them to shift toward using their graphs as thinking tools in the authentic activity of doing science. Drawing from video screencast data of three small groups engaged in sensor-based and computer simulation-based experiments in high school physics classes, exploratory qualitative methods are used to identify the student interactions with their graphs and what appeared to prompt shifts in those interactions. Analysis of the groups, one from a 9th grade class and two from 11th/12th grade combined classes, revealed that unexpected data patterns and graphical anomalies sometimes, but not always, preceded deeper engagement with the graphs. When shifts toward deeper engagement did occur, transcripts revealed that the students perceived the graphical patterns to be misaligned with the actions they had taken to produce those data. Misalignments between the physical, digital, and conceptual worlds of the investigations played an important role in these episodes, appearing to motivate students to revise either their experimental procedures or their conceptions of the phenomena being explored. If real-time graphs can help foster a sense in students that there should be alignments between their data production and data representations, it is suggested that pedagogy leverage this as a way to support deeper student engagement with graphs.

The teaching of science in K-12 schools has long been criticized as a process that propagates oppression for students who do not conform to entrenched norms of gender, sex, and sexuality. Academic standards, curriculum, and textbooks are rife with rhetoric that reinforces any deviation from cisheterosexuality as aberrant, unusual, or abnormal. However, these often-over-simplified conceptions discount the historic social and scientific intricacies of gender and sexual diversity as well as students' own lived experiences. While there have been advancements in LGBTQ+ and gender-inclusive science education reform, these movements have been stymied by a lack of cohesive guidelines for pedagogy and practice, particularly for trans, nonbinary, and gender-creative youth. Situated within trans-created conceptual frameworks for critical education, this study explored the pedagogical practices of 10 transgender science teachers with the purpose of learning from their experiences creating gender inclusive curriculum. From the data (in-depth interviews, instructional materials samples, and reflective teaching statements) emerged the TRANS (Trans and Research-informed Approaches for Nonbinary and gender-inclusive Science education) Framework for gender inclusive science education pedagogy. This framework is anchored in three domains for teaching science through a trans-informed lens:interrogating and accessing power, resisting essentialism, and embracing experiential knowledge and personal epistemologies. The findings of this study contribute to our growing understanding of gender-inclusive science learning environments. Importantly, this study amplified the experiential knowledge of teachers whose voices are critically absent from research surrounding gender and LGBTQ+-inclusive science education practice. Moreover, the framework derived from teachers' experiences can be used to guide educators in making their science classrooms safer and more gender inclusive.

Phenomena-based approaches have become popular for elementary school teachers to engage children's innate curiosity in the natural world. However, integrating such phenomena-based approaches in existing science courses within teacher education programs present potential challenges for both preservice elementary teachers (PSETs) and for laboratory instructors, both of whom may have had limited opportunities to learn or teach science within the student and instructor roles inherent within these approaches. This study uses a convergent parallel mixed-methods approach to investigate PSETs' perceptions of their laboratory instructor's role within a Physical Science phenomena-based laboratory curriculum and how it impacts their conceptual development (2 instructors/121 students). We also examine how the two laboratory instructors' discursive moves within the laboratory align with their's and PSETs' perceptions of the instructor role. Qualitative data includes triangulation between a student questionnaire, an instructor questionnaire, and video classroom observations, while quantitative data includes a nine-item open response pre-/post-semester conceptual test. Guided by Mortimer's and Scott's analytic framework, our findings show that students primarily perceive their instructors as a guide/facilitator or an authoritarian/evaluator. Using Linn's knowledge integration framework, analysis of pre-/post-tests indicates that student outcomes align with students' perceptions of their instructors, with students who perceive their instructor as a guide/facilitator having significantly better pre-/post-outcomes. Additional analysis of scientific discourse from the classroom observations illustrates how one instructor primarily supports PSETs' perspectives on authentic science learning through dialogic–interactive talk moves whereas the other instructor epistemologically stifles personally relevant investigations with authoritative–interactive or authoritative–noninteractive discourse moves. Overall, this study concludes by discussing challenges facing laboratory instructors that need careful consideration for phenomena-based approaches.

Transformational equity-centered science education requires the fields of science education and school leadership to critically consider the limited preparation elementary principals are offered to lead for science education. Thus far, little effort has been made to foster a transdisciplinary curricula beyond traditional organizational theories related to school culture and climate; learning sciences; and supervision. School leadership programs are currently inadequately preparing elementary leaders in rigorous pedagogies involving science education. Although the role of principals is often not discussed concerning science implementation in elementary education, principals play a critical role in science decision-making. In this study, the authors present a case study of one elementary principal who also served as an othermother. Othermothers have been described as those who share mothering responsibilities in Black communities. Through interview transcripts, field notes, and social network data, the authors examine how this othermother cared for her students and community by advocating for science instruction. By strategically navigating the socio-political and policy climate and drawing on her authentic relationships, this othermother was critical in implementing a science agenda for elementary science. Three themes that emerged from the data analysis are, (1) othermothers view science as a potential means to transform lives and fulfill the needs of the local community, (2) science policies (i.e., federal, state, and local) can limit the potential of the vision of science an othermother has for the community, (3) othermothers draw on their community to guide equitable science instruction. Overall, othermothers have visions for what science can do. However, they cannot counter the status quo individually. Collective action among educators in various roles is one means of moving an equity agenda concerning science education forward.

One of the core practices of science is constructing scientific explanations. However, numerous studies have shown that constructing scientific explanations poses significant challenges to students. Proper assessment of scientific explanations is costly and time-consuming, and teachers often do not have a clear definition of the educational goals for formulating scientific explanations. Consequently, teachers struggle to support their students in this process. It is hoped that recent advances in machine learning (ML) and its application to educational technologies can assist teachers and learners in analyzing student responses and providing automated formative feedback according to well-defined pedagogical criteria. In this study, we present a method to automate the entire assessment-feedback process. First, we developed a causal-mechanical (CM)-based grading rubric and applied it to student responses to two open-ended items. Second, we used unsupervised ML tools to identify patterns in student responses. Those patterns enable the definition of “meta-categories” of explanation types and the design of personalized feedback adapted to each category. Third, we designed an in-class intervention with personalized formative feedback that matches the response patterns. We used natural language processing and ML algorithms to assess students' explanations and provide feedback. Findings from a controlled experiment demonstrated that a CM-based grading scheme can be used to identify meaningful patterns and inform the design of formative feedback that promotes student ability to construct explanations in biology. We discuss possible implications for automated assessment and personalized teaching and learning of scientific writing in K-12 science education.

Both K-12 schools and STEM disciplines are embedded in White supremacy and exclusion, making it that much harder for Black women to maintain an interest and sense of belonging in STEM. Through a Critical Race Feminism methodology, we tell the counterstories of our two co-authors, two Black women, over the course of their lives. Through these counterstories (stories that run counter to normative stories of STEM as male and White), Kelli and Samantha show us how they negotiated and maintained a sense of belonging in STEM even through moments of self-doubt in their STEM trajectory. These negotiations allowed them to carve a space for themselves within STEM. A key finding from these counterstories was the resilience both women developed through their participation in counterspaces and support from family and teachers that helped them develop pride in their STEM identity trajectories. Our study adds to the research on Black women's journeys in STEM by describing resilience strategies that our authors were forced to develop in response to White supremacy and how they were able to maintain their STEM identity by creating a counterstory that allowed them to maintain their sense of belonging within STEM. And yet, we conclude by asking if resilience is enough since both women questioned their authentic and valued place in their respective STEM disciplines because of the dominant storyline of STEM as White and male. Their stories reveal the deeper truth that change is needed in STEM to empower students of color to see themselves as not just tolerated but valued members of the discipline.

This study used a cluster randomized controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness of two approaches to increasing middle school students' science learning when using an inquiry-based science curriculum. Eighty-nine schools, with 253 teachers and 20,591 students, were randomly assigned into one of three conditions: (a) a treatment condition in which the textbook curriculum was modified based on three principles of cognitive science coupled with teacher professional development (PD), (b) a second treatment condition in which teachers received PD designed to improve their knowledge of the science content, and (c) a business-as-usual control group. The cognitive science treatment had a small but statistically significant positive effect on content learning, with a stronger impact on students of higher prior achievement. Compared to business-as-usual, the intervention to increase teacher content knowledge had no impact.