{"title":"Viewing science teacher learning and curriculum enactment through the lens of theory of practice architectures","authors":"Xavier Fazio, Stephen Kemmis, Jessica Zugic","doi":"10.1002/sce.21901","DOIUrl":"10.1002/sce.21901","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Science teachers struggle to implement and sustain new curricular ideas from professional development (PD) experiences. These PD opportunities are crucial for enacting real-world changes to teaching practice and address pressing global challenges, such as the teaching and learning of socioscientific topics nested in school communities. Additionally, it is important to consider how school situative conditions are an important aspect in how science teachers learn, develop, and enact curricular practices in their classrooms. This paper is part of a special issue on <i>Teacher Learning and Practice within Organizational Contexts</i>. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to illustrate how researchers can frame research using the theory of practice architectures (TPA) as a lens to develop a dynamic socio-material understanding of teacher learning within teachers' working environments and their local school communities. An ongoing multi-year professional learning study with science teachers in an elementary school and secondary school was analyzed using TPA. Using a philosophical-empirical approach, observations from PD sessions and collaborative meetings illustrated teachers' practices in the form of sayings, doings, and relatings and their changes over the duration of the observations with associated modifications in schools' practice architectures. Although specific school conditions, such as timetable restrictions and curriculum accountability, constrained teachers' practices they were still enabled to learn and develop their practices. Overall, TPA was found to be an insightful framework for theorizing changes in science teaching practices of teachers' saying, doings, and relatings at their school sites. Future research focused on PD within schools would benefit from using a TPA approach to theorizing science teacher learning and curriculum enactment practices.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"109 1","pages":"305-334"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sce.21901","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contextual resources supporting the co-evolution of teachers' collective inquiry and classroom practice after the grant ended","authors":"Soo-Yean Shim, Jessica Thompson","doi":"10.1002/sce.21900","DOIUrl":"10.1002/sce.21900","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We explored how various contextual resources accumulated over multiple years operated together to facilitate a team of high school teachers' sustained and agentive learning after a 4-year research–practice partnership (RPP) grant concluded. Specifically, we examined constellations of resources that promoted the co-evolution of the teachers' collective inquiry in the professional learning community (PLC) and classroom instruction, focused on supporting students' scientific explanations. We qualitatively analyzed the video/audio recordings of the PLC members' interactions in eight 75-min PLC meetings (11 h) and a full-day professional development (8 h) and classroom teaching (34 lessons) over the period of 6 months. We found that the contextual resources accumulated from the historical 4-year RPP—including a culture of collaborative inquiry, collegial relationships, structures for teacher collaboration, and expertise embedded in individuals as well as co-developed tools and practices (<i>cultural, social, structural, and expertise resources</i>)—were important. These resources, in combination with emerging teacher leadership (<i>leadership resource</i>) and timely supports, such as school leadership and district-based funding for sustaining structures for collaboration (<i>leadership and structural resources</i>), enabled the teachers to launch and drive their own collaborative inquiry and shift instruction after the conclusion of the grant. The harmonized contexts led the teachers to learn across the PLC and classrooms by engaging in co-evolution mechanisms—setting goals based on classroom data, reasoning about instructional practices using various representations of teaching, and experimenting on a set of common practices across classrooms. This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Organizational Contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"109 1","pages":"266-304"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sce.21900","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Radu Bogdan Toma, Iraya Yánez-Pérez, Jesús Ángel Meneses-Villagrá
{"title":"Measuring Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Teaching Inquiry-Based Science and the Nature of Scientific Inquiry","authors":"Radu Bogdan Toma, Iraya Yánez-Pérez, Jesús Ángel Meneses-Villagrá","doi":"10.1007/s11191-024-00553-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-024-00553-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Inquiry-based science teaching (IBST) is a key goal of science education reforms worldwide. Recent research highlights the importance of infusing inquiry teaching with knowledge about the nature of scientific inquiry, and not just focusing on procedural skills to do inquiry. However, such an endeavour requires teachers to have high levels of self-efficacy. Given the lack of valid and reliable measurement instruments for Spanish-speaking teachers, the present study adapted and validated Aydeniz et al. <i>Science and Education</i>, <i>30</i>(1), 103–120, (2021) Inquiry-Based Science Teaching Efficacy Scale (IBSTES, <i>Science & Education</i>, <i>30</i>:103–120). Confirmatory factor analysis on data from 428 pre-service teachers in kindergarten and elementary school revealed a two-factor structure, which is consistent with the conceptual framework of IBST. The two factors measured self-efficacy beliefs regarding (1) helping students improve their understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry and (2) helping students develop procedural skills for conducting scientific inquiry. Both factors demonstrated very high reliability (> 0.90), as assessed by Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega. This latent structure was invariant across genders, suggesting that the instrument can be used with both male and female prospective teachers, allowing for gender comparisons. This study is the first of its kind to validate in Spanish a self-efficacy scale for IBST that specifically tackles the epistemological understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. The Spanish IBSTES provides a valuable tool for researchers and practitioners to assess and support teacher self-efficacy, which is essential for the success of educational reforms.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142211075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How science teachers deal with STEM education: An explorative study from the lens of curriculum ideology","authors":"Lihua Tan, Bing Wei","doi":"10.1002/sce.21904","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21904","url":null,"abstract":"<p>To gain a holistic understanding of how science teachers dealt with STEM education, this study explored two science teachers’ perceptions and practices at primary schools via the lens of curriculum ideology. By examining their perceptions and practices from six essential aspects (i.e., aim, content, student, teaching, learning, and assessment), we aim to provide deeper insights into <i>what</i> STEM education visions they have, <i>why</i> they promote it, and <i>how</i> they enact it in primary school settings. Combining deductive and inductive approaches, we analyzed data collected from multiple sources, including two rounds of semi-structured interviews, field notes of school visits, artifact like students’ works, and documents like lesson plans and classroom videotapes. Results showed that the two teachers dealt with STEM education differently: one focused on teaching how to think and work as scientists or engineers with a scholar-academic orientation, whereas the other was devoted to laying a foundation for students’ development and future lives with a learner-centered orientation. Based on different value stances and aims, two teachers conceptualize STEM education and translate it into school courses and instructional activities differently, leading to varying degrees of curriculum integration, distinct cognitions of worthwhile content, and different teaching orientations. These findings have implications for researchers and practitioners to comprehend and reflect on how teachers deal with the issues involved in STEM education in school settings. The identified tensions and harmonies between different orientations provide insights into coordinating different values and interests to promote STEM education.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"109 1","pages":"82-105"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sce.21904","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143117296","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Scott E. Grapin, Courtney Plumley, Eric Banilower, Alycia J. Sterenberg Mahon, Laura Craven, Kristen Malzahn, Joan Pasley, Abigail Schwenger, Alison Haas, Okhee Lee
{"title":"Development of a questionnaire on teachers' beliefs, preparedness, and instructional practices for teaching NGSS science with multilingual learners","authors":"Scott E. Grapin, Courtney Plumley, Eric Banilower, Alycia J. Sterenberg Mahon, Laura Craven, Kristen Malzahn, Joan Pasley, Abigail Schwenger, Alison Haas, Okhee Lee","doi":"10.1002/sce.21905","DOIUrl":"10.1002/sce.21905","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The limited availability of research instruments that reflect the vision of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) restricts the field's understanding of whether and how teachers are making instructional shifts called for by the standards. The need for such instruments is particularly urgent with teachers of multilingual learners (MLs), who are called on to make shifts in how they think about and enact instruction related to both science and language. The purpose of this study was to develop and gather validity evidence for a questionnaire that measures elementary teachers' beliefs, preparedness, and instructional practices for teaching NGSS science with MLs. We report on the development of the questionnaire over three phases that elicited multiple sources of validity evidence: (a) domain specification and expert review, (b) item writing and cognitive interviews, and (c) piloting and final item selection. Data included feedback from experts in science and language domains, cognitive interviews with 48 teachers, and a pilot with 310 teachers. Results indicated that the questionnaire differentiates among teachers with different levels of the underlying constructs and also that teachers' scores relate to their characteristics (e.g., familiarity with the NGSS). We highlight two implications for emerging research on NGSS-based instrumentation: (a) the difficulty of communicating with teachers about science and language instructional shifts while teachers are still developing their understanding of such shifts and (b) the potential of emerging NGSS-based instruments to inform professional development. We close with future directions for our research project specifically and the field of science education broadly.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"109 1","pages":"128-156"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sce.21905","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is the Effect of Educational Attainments on Trust in Scientists Underestimated?","authors":"Alena Auchynnikava, Nazim Habibov","doi":"10.1007/s11191-024-00551-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-024-00551-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This research aims to assess and quantify the impact of educational attainments on trust in scientists during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study utilizes instrumental variables (IV) and conventional ordinary least squares regression (OLS) approaches that are applied to micro-data from a multinational survey in 26 nations. The IV approach is used to address endogeneity that is caused by reverse causality, omitted variables, and measurement error. The results of IV models suggest that a unit increase in educational attainments leads to an increase in trust in scientists by a factor of 0.20 to 0.28. In comparison, the results of the conventional OLS suggest that a unit increase in educational attainments leads to an increase in trust in scientists by a factor of 0.09 to 0.16. The results suggest that ignoring endogeneity leads to a considerable underestimation of education’s effect on trust in scientists. At the same time, the results indicate that educational training is a key tool to promote science by increasing trust in scientists. Such a conclusion is especially important given that the results are based on the survey conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period characterized by unprecedented public health and economic crises, political backslash, and an “infodemic” of disinformation and misinformation.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141943457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tamar Fuhrmann, Leah Rosenbaum, Aditi Wagh, Adelmo Eloy, Jacob Wolf, Paulo Blikstein, Michelle Wilkerson
{"title":"Right but wrong: How students' mechanistic reasoning and conceptual understandings shift when designing agent-based models using data","authors":"Tamar Fuhrmann, Leah Rosenbaum, Aditi Wagh, Adelmo Eloy, Jacob Wolf, Paulo Blikstein, Michelle Wilkerson","doi":"10.1002/sce.21890","DOIUrl":"10.1002/sce.21890","url":null,"abstract":"<p>When learning about scientific phenomena, students are expected to <i>mechanistically</i> explain how underlying interactions produce the observable phenomenon and <i>conceptually</i> connect the observed phenomenon to canonical scientific knowledge. This paper investigates how the integration of the complementary processes of designing and refining computational models using real-world data can support students in developing mechanistic and canonically accurate explanations of diffusion. Specifically, we examine two types of shifts in how students explain diffusion as they create and refine computational models using real-world data: a shift towards mechanistic reasoning and a shift from noncanonical to canonical explanations. We present descriptive statistics for the whole class as well as three student work examples to illustrate these two shifts as 6th grade students engage in an 8-day unit on the diffusion of ink in hot and cold water. Our findings show that (1) students develop mechanistic explanations as they build agent-based models, (2) students' mechanistic reasoning can co-exist with noncanonical explanations, and (3) students shift their thinking toward canonical explanations after comparing their models against data. These findings could inform the design of modeling tools that support learners in both expressing a diverse range of mechanistic explanations of scientific phenomena and aligning those explanations with canonical science.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"109 1","pages":"3-26"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142220166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Practical measures of science teacher learning: Conceptualizing organizational functions and affordances","authors":"Eleanor R. Anderson, Jennifer Richards","doi":"10.1002/sce.21895","DOIUrl":"10.1002/sce.21895","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this paper, we build on a growing body of research on practical measurement for educational improvement, contributing a conceptualization of the organizational functions of measurement in processes of persistence and change. Our work is grounded in theoretical understandings of micro-institutional change that foreground processes of reproduction and disruption of organizational categories, priorities, assumptions, and practices. Drawing together measurement discourses from multiple fields of study, we identify four metaphors for organizational functions that measures can serve: carriers, windows, exercises, and drivers. We propose a conceptual framework illustrating relationships and pathways among these functions as they operate in context. We then apply the framework in the context of co-designing three practical measures of science teacher learning in a large urban district, illustrating varied pathways through which the practical measures seemed to function, and documenting their respective affordances and constraints in driving reproduction and/or disruption in the organization's work to support science teacher learning. This line of work extends prior research on practical measurement through its focus on measures of science teacher learning and its attention to how practical measures can function to shape broader processes of organizational transformation and stability. This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Practice within Organizational Contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"109 1","pages":"238-265"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sce.21895","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141936551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“On Mars, we will speak Arabic”: Negotiating identity in upper secondary physics in Denmark","authors":"Katherine Doerr, Jesper Bruun","doi":"10.1002/sce.21898","DOIUrl":"10.1002/sce.21898","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Seeking to make upper secondary school physics more relevant and engaging, an online collaborative learning curriculum was designed. Each of the curriculum's lessons was structured as a goal-based scenario about human scientists on Mars. Video and audio data from the curriculum's implementation in Denmark was collected. This study utilized the theoretical lenses intersectionality, repertoires of practice, and epistemic agency. The use of comics as an analytical tool provided a novel and accessible way to depict the complex dynamics within the physics classroom. It allowed for a multimodal representation of the data and enabled a nuanced examination of the students' interactions. Findings suggest that interactions were shaped by the students' identities and these dynamics shaped their repertoires of practice. Moreover, the interactions had a profound impact on students' epistemic agency in physics. Collaborative learning with a goal-based scenario can include and empower diverse gender, racial, and language identities. It can also, however, work to disempower and exclude when the hegemonically white and masculine culture of physics is left unproblematized. This leads to the conclusion that if reform-based science education is untethered from a critical stance on socioscientific issues, students and teachers may reproduce social problems as much as they also may challenge them.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"108 6","pages":"1698-1724"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sce.21898","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141863413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Critical climate awareness as a science education outcome","authors":"Heather F. Clark","doi":"10.1002/sce.21896","DOIUrl":"10.1002/sce.21896","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper presents the argument that climate change should be taught in schools as a sociopolitical and scientific process, and that students should be able to use their science knowledge to think critically about climate change as a social justice issue. A necessary and achievable outcome of science education is critical climate awareness—an understanding of the systems and structures that create and sustain climate change inequities. Through a participatory design research partnership, a high school chemistry course was designed and studied that focused on this outcome. Data from a single group, mixed method pre/postdesign show how a group of Black and Latinx urban youth appropriated critical climate awareness from the curriculum they experienced and how they used this awareness to explain climate change as a scientific and sociopolitical process. The findings show that students became concerned about climate change, if they were not already, and that they improved their knowledge of scientific concepts specific to climate change. In their explanations of climate change, students foregrounded sociopolitical processes that result in changes to physical systems, assigned agency for carbon emissions to diverse social actors in ways attentive to power dynamics, and articulated differences in consequences and solutions based on the racial and socioeconomic demographics of communities. This work has implications for transforming science classrooms into incubators for climate justice.</p>","PeriodicalId":771,"journal":{"name":"Science & Education","volume":"108 6","pages":"1670-1697"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sce.21896","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141881819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}