An Alternative Approach to Science Education Research: Drawing from Philosophical Analysis to Examine Practice

Typical research paradigms in science education are becoming increasingly tired and tiresome. Perhaps the same could be said about other curriculum subspecializations (e.g., English education, mathematics education, social studies education), though it is beyond the scope of the present paper to examine this possibility. The subspecialization approach to curriculum research and graduate instruction has a comparatively long history, nevertheless; and it could prove interesting to examine the extent to which typical research paradigms in each subspecialization have yielded illuminating and exciting results. So, while this paper is specifically about science education, it could also be of interest to those concerned with other curriculum subspecializations, as well as those concerned about the general state of affairs in curriculum studies. In the paper we describe an alternative approach to research in science education-one which seems to have considerable promise. To establish a context for its description, we characterize typical approaches to research in this area and examine some recent critical commentary about them. Then we briefly describe several studies which illustrate the alternative approach, and present a single study in detail as an example.