People who hold scientific explanations for natural phenomena also hold folk explanations, and the two types of explanations compete under some circumstances. Here, we explore the question of why folk explanations persist in the face of a well‐understood scientific alternative, a phenomenon known as
Common-sense intuitions can be useful guides in everyday life and problem solving. However, they can also impede formal science learning and provide the basis for robust scientific misconceptions. Addressing such misconceptions has generally been viewed as the province of secondary schooling. However, in this article, I argue that for a set of foundational but highly counterintuitive ideas (e.g., evolution by natural selection), coherent causal-explanatory instruction—instruction that emphasizes the multifaceted mechanisms underpinning natural phenomena—should be initiated much sooner, in early elementary school. This proposal is motivated by various findings from research in the cognitive, developmental, and learning sciences. For example, it has been shown that explanatory biases that render students susceptible to intuitively based scientific misconceptions emerge early in development. Furthermore, findings also reveal that once developed, such misconceptions are not revised and replaced by subsequently learned scientific theories but competitively coexist alongside them. Taken together, this research, along with studies revealing the viability of early coherent explanation-based instruction on counterintuitive theories, have significant implications for the timing, structure, and scope of early science education.
more » « less- PAR ID:
- 10118473
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Perspectives on Psychological Science
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1745-6916
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 510-522
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Research and reform efforts frequently identify evidence as an essential component of science classroom instruction to actively engage students in science practices. Despite this agreement on the primacy of evidence, there is a lack of consensus around what counts as “evidence” in k‐12 classrooms (e.g., ages 5–18): scholarship and standards in science education define evidence in a variety of ways including empirical data, analogy, personal experience, and scientific theories. We argue that this disagreement results in a wide range of classroom activities around evidence, including ones that recapitulate traditional science instruction focused on final form science and teachers as disseminators of information. In this paper, we develop design heuristics to inform the design of classroom learning environments that productively use scientific evidence for student sensemaking about the natural world by (i) selecting from the range of information a subset to use as scientific evidence; and (ii) designing classroom activities that support students collaboratively making sense of the natural world. In particular, we argue for three design heuristics that could potentially shift science classroom activities away from traditional “problems of practice” to align more closely with the vision of science as a set of practices including: phenomena‐based, transformable, and used dialogically. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54:672–689, 2017
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Abstract Global science education reform calls for developing student knowledge-in-use that applies the integrated knowledge of core ideas and scientific practices to make sense of phenomena or solve problems. Knowledge-in-use development requires a long-term, standards-aligned, coherent learning system, including curriculum and instruction, assessment, and professional learning. This paper addresses the challenge of transforming standards into classrooms for knowledge-in-use and presents an iterative design process for developing a coherent and standards-aligned learning system. Using a project-based learning approach, we present a theory-driven, empirically validated learning system aligned with the U.S. science standards, consisting of four consecutive curriculum and instruction materials, assessments, and professional learning to support students’ knowledge-in-use in high school chemistry. We also present the iterative development and testing process with empirical evidence to support the effectiveness of our learning system in a five-year NSF-funded research project. This paper discusses the theoretical perspectives of developing an NGSS-aligned, coherent, and effective learning system and recaps the development and testing process by unpacking all essential components in our learning system. We conclude that our theory-driven and empirically validated learning system would inform high school teachers and researchers across countries in transforming their local science standards into curriculum materials to support students’ knowledge-in-use development.
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Abstract Background Studying science identity has been useful for understanding students’ continuation in science-related education and career paths. Yet knowledge and theory related to science identity among students on the path to becoming a professional science researcher, such as students engaged in research at the undergraduate, postbaccalaureate, and graduate level, is still developing. It is not yet clear from existing science identity theory how particular science contexts, such as research training experiences, influence students’ science identities. Here we leverage existing science identity and professional identity theories to investigate how research training shapes science identity. We conducted a qualitative investigation of 30 early career researchers—undergraduates, postbaccalaureates, and doctoral students in a variety of natural science fields—to characterize how they recognized themselves as science researchers.
Results Early career researchers (ECRs) recognized themselves as either science students or science researchers, which they distinguished from being a career researcher. ECRs made judgments, which we refer to as “science identity assessments”, in the context of interconnected work-learning and identity-learning cycles. Work-learning cycles referred to ECRs’ conceptions of the work they did in their research training experience. ECRs weighed the extent to which they perceived the work they did in their research training to show authenticity, offer room for autonomy, and afford opportunities for epistemic involvement. Identity-learning cycles encompassed ECRs’ conceptions of science researchers. ECRs considered the roles they fill in their research training experiences and if these roles aligned with their perceptions of the tasks and traits of perceived researchers. ECRs’ identity-learning cycles were further shaped by recognition from others. ECRs spoke of how recognition from others embedded within their research training experiences and from others removed from their research training experiences influenced how they see themselves as science researchers.
Conclusions We synthesized our findings to form a revised conceptual model of science researcher identity, which offers enhanced theoretical precision to study science identity in the future. We hypothesize relationships among constructs related to science identity and professional identity development that can be tested in further research. Our results also offer practical implications to foster the science researcher identity of ECRs.
