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Position Statement

The Role of Research on Science Teaching and Learning

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Introduction

Research on science teaching and learning plays an important role in helping all students become proficient in science and making science education more equitable and inclusive, two goals called for in the   Framework for K–12 Science Education   (NRC 2012). NSTA promotes a research agenda that is focused on the goal of enhancing student learning through effective and equitable teaching practices that are based on current research. NSTA encourages ALL stakeholders in science education, including K–16 teachers of science and administrators, informal science educators, and school board members to recognize the importance of educational research, promote more research in schools, and participate in research when possible.

NSTA considers a broad range of activities to be within the scope of research, including research conducted by teachers that can lead to immediate classroom changes as well as research that contributes to a larger body of knowledge such as long-term or large-scale studies. Research on science teaching and learning involves identifying and asking appropriate questions, designing and conducting investigations, collecting evidence, drawing conclusions, and communicating and defending findings (NSTA 2004).

To produce research that has meaningful outcomes and the ability to improve the teaching and learning of science, NSTA advocates that research and practice be linked and support compatible goals. This synergistic relationship between research and practice includes teachers and researchers communicating goals, activities, and findings with the greater science education community in ways that make research accessible, understandable, meaningful, and relevant to teachers, administrators, and policy makers.

The process of research is the essence of the scientific enterprise and of scientific inquiry. Science education builds on the best of research in both worlds—science and education. By engaging in continual inquiry into teaching and learning, we can promote scientific literacy for students in the 21st century.

NSTA makes the following recommendations to promote effective research on science teaching and learning.

Declarations

Regarding the focus of research on science teaching and learning, NSTA recommends those conducting research

  • examine questions that are relevant to enhancing science teaching and learning for all learners;
  • focus on ways to make science education more equitable and inclusive;
  • address areas that have either been insufficiently investigated or not investigated at all and have the potential to improve what is known about science teaching and learning; and
  • extend theories of science teaching and learning in order to contribute to a coherent body of knowledge.

Regarding the practice of research on science teaching and learning, NSTA recommends those conducting research

  • draw and build upon previous research that may exist in the area of study;
  • focus on studies that build on promising areas of research and link to a larger body of work;
  • form collaborations and partnerships among those involved in science education (e.g., teachers, administrators, college faculty, informal science educators) as they examine science teaching and learning;
  • demonstrate, when possible, the degree to which student learning is affected;
  • engage in rigorous peer review that challenges the status quo and values varying perspectives on research pertaining to science teaching and learning;
  • view everyday experiences as opportunities to conduct research that yields findings to improve teaching practices and student learning;
  • support the participants in research with ample professional development to enhance their ability to design, conduct, interpret, and apply science education research; and
  • share research results with the wider science education community inside and outside the classroom.

Regarding the use of research on science teaching and learning, NSTA recommends

  • researchers communicate about research in ways that can be understood and embraced by science educators, administrators, policy makers, and others in the science education community;
  • researchers make research readily accessible by disseminating it to teachers and other decision makers using many forms of communication, including practitioner journals, professional conferences, websites, and social media;
  • researchers recognize and state the limitations of their research;
  • researchers and consumers of research discuss, critique, and apply findings;
  • school researchers have ample administrative support, time, and resources to conduct research in the classroom, share their findings with colleagues, and implement results to improve student learning; and
  • science educators embrace a culture of inquiry grounded in research that focuses on examining practice and improving student outcomes.

— Adopted by the NSTA Board of Directors, September 2010 Revised, October 2017

National Research Council (NRC). 2012.   A framework for K–12 science education: Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas . Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Research in Science Education

research in science education

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Springer Netherlands

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15731898, 0157244X

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research in science education

The set of journals have been ranked according to their SJR and divided into four equal groups, four quartiles. Q1 (green) comprises the quarter of the journals with the highest values, Q2 (yellow) the second highest values, Q3 (orange) the third highest values and Q4 (red) the lowest values.

The SJR is a size-independent prestige indicator that ranks journals by their 'average prestige per article'. It is based on the idea that 'all citations are not created equal'. SJR is a measure of scientific influence of journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the importance or prestige of the journals where such citations come from It measures the scientific influence of the average article in a journal, it expresses how central to the global scientific discussion an average article of the journal is.

Evolution of the number of published documents. All types of documents are considered, including citable and non citable documents.

This indicator counts the number of citations received by documents from a journal and divides them by the total number of documents published in that journal. The chart shows the evolution of the average number of times documents published in a journal in the past two, three and four years have been cited in the current year. The two years line is equivalent to journal impact factor ™ (Thomson Reuters) metric.

Evolution of the total number of citations and journal's self-citations received by a journal's published documents during the three previous years. Journal Self-citation is defined as the number of citation from a journal citing article to articles published by the same journal.

Evolution of the number of total citation per document and external citation per document (i.e. journal self-citations removed) received by a journal's published documents during the three previous years. External citations are calculated by subtracting the number of self-citations from the total number of citations received by the journal’s documents.

International Collaboration accounts for the articles that have been produced by researchers from several countries. The chart shows the ratio of a journal's documents signed by researchers from more than one country; that is including more than one country address.

Not every article in a journal is considered primary research and therefore "citable", this chart shows the ratio of a journal's articles including substantial research (research articles, conference papers and reviews) in three year windows vs. those documents other than research articles, reviews and conference papers.

Ratio of a journal's items, grouped in three years windows, that have been cited at least once vs. those not cited during the following year.

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Understanding Science

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Educational research.

The teaching resources recommended on our site are consistent with what is known about how students learn the nature and process of science. Educational research suggests that the most effective instruction in this area is explicit and reflective, and provides multiple opportunities for students to work with key concepts in different contexts. But just how do we know that this sort of instruction works? And how do we know which concepts are hardest for students to learn and which are the most difficult misconceptions to address? To find out, browse the links below. Each link summarizes a journal article from the education research literature and helps reveal how we know what we know about how students learn.

  • “That’s what scientists have to do”: Preservice elementary teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science during a moon investigation.  (Abell et al., 2001)
  • Influence of a reflective activity-based approach on elementary teachers’ conceptions of nature of science.  (Akerson et al., 2000)
  • Evaluating knowledge of the nature of (whole) science.  (Allchin, 2011)
  • Learners’ responses to the demands of conceptual change: Considerations for effective nature of science instruction.  (Clough, 2006)
  • Examining students’ views on the nature of science: Results from Korean 6th, 8th, and 10th graders.  (Kang et al., 2004)
  • Influence of explicit and reflective versus implicit inquiry-oriented instruction on sixth graders’ views of nature of science.  (Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick, 2002)
  • Teachers’ understanding of the nature of science and classroom practice: Factors that facilitate or impede the relationship.  (Lederman, 1999)
  • Revising instruction to teach nature of science.  (Lederman and Lederman, 2004)
  • Science teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science: Do they really influence teacher behavior?  (Lederman and Zeidler, 1987)
  • Examining student conceptions of the nature of science.  (Moss, 2001)
  • Student conceptualizations of the nature of science in response to a socioscientific issue.  (Sadler et al., 2004)
  • Explicit reflective nature of science instruction: Evolution, intelligent design, and umbrellaology.  (Scharmann et al., 2005)
  • Developing views of nature of science in an authentic context: An explicit approach to bridging the gap between nature of science and scientific inquiry.  (Schwartz et al., 2004)
  • Tangled up in views: Beliefs in the nature of science and responses to socioscientific dilemmas.  (Zeidler et al., 2002)

Abell, S., M. Martini, and M. George. 2001. “That’s what scientists have to do”: Preservice elementary teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science during a moon investigation.  International Journal of Science Education  23(11):1095-1109. Two sections of an undergraduate course in elementary science education were observed during an extended investigation, in which students made observations of the moon and tried to develop explanations for what they saw. Students worked in groups, were engaged in many aspects of the process of science, and were asked to reflect on their own learning regarding the moon. Eleven student journals of the experience, along with interview transcripts from these students, were analyzed for student learning regarding observation in science, the role of creativity and inference in science, and social aspects of science. Major findings include:

  • Students recognized that observations are key in science but didn’t recognize the role that observation plays in science.
  • Students recognized that their own work involved observing, predicting, and coming up with explanations, but they did not generally connect this to the process of science.
  • Students recognized that collaboration facilitated their own learning but did not generally connect this to the process of science.

This research highlights the pedagogical importance of making the nature and process of science explicit: even though students were actively engaged in scientific processes, they did not get many of the key messages that the instructors implicitly conveyed. The researchers also recommend asking students to reflect on how their own understandings of the nature and process of science are changing over time.

Akerson, V.L., F. Abd-El-Khalick, and N.G. Lederman. 2000. Influence of a reflective activity-based approach on elementary teachers’ conceptions of nature of science.  Journal of Research in Science Teaching  37(4):295-317. Fifty undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a science teaching methods course engaged in six hours of activities designed to target key nature-of-science concepts, consistent with those outlined in Lederman and Lederman (2004). After the initial set of activities and throughout the course, students were encouraged to reflect on those concepts as opportunities arose within the designated pedagogical content, and were assigned two writing tasks focusing on the nature of science. By the end of the course, students were so accustomed to these reflections that they frequently identified such opportunities for themselves. Students were pre- and post-tested with an open-ended questionnaire targeting the key concepts, and a subset of students was interviewed on these topics. Responses were analyzed for key concepts to determine whether students held adequate conceptions in these areas. Major findings include:

  • There were few differences between graduates and undergraduates: most students began the course with largely inadequate conceptions.
  • Students began the course understanding least about the empirical nature of science, the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between theories and laws, and the role of creativity in science.
  • Significant gains were achieved as a result of instruction. Student conceptions improved most in the areas of the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between theories and laws, and the difference between observation and inference.

The explicit, reflective instruction was effective, but despite the gains achieved, many students still held inadequate conceptions at the end of the course. This supports the idea that students hold tenacious misconceptions about the nature and process of science, and, the authors argue, suggests that instructors should additionally focus on helping students see the inadequacy of their current conceptions. The authors suggest that the role of subjectivity, as well as of social and cultural factors, in science are best learned through rich historical case studies, which are hard to fit into a methods course. Finally, the authors conclude that nature-of-science instruction is effective in a methods course, but would likely be more effective in a science content course.

Allchin, D. 2011. Evaluating knowledge of the nature of (whole) science.  Science Education  95:518-542. The author argues that commonly used instruments assessing knowledge of the nature of science are inadequate in several ways. They focus too much on declarative knowledge instead of conceptual understanding, are designed for research not classroom assessment, and are inauthentic in the sense that they do not examine student knowledge in contexts similar to those in which we want students to use this knowledge. Furthermore, lists of the tenets of the nature of science (which such assessments are based upon) are oversimplified and incomplete. The author argues that instead of assessing whether students can list the characteristics of scientific knowledge, we should be interested in whether students can effectively analyze information about scientific and socioscientific controversies and assess the reliability of scientific claims that affect their decision making. In order to do this, students need to understand how the process of science lends credibility to scientific ideas. The author proposes an alternative assessment form (based on the AP free responses essay) that requires well-informed analysis on the part of the student, involves authentic contexts, and can be adapted for many different assessment purposes and situations. In it, students are asked to analyze historic and modern case studies of scientific and socioscientific controversies. Prototypes for this type of assessment are provided.

Clough, M. 2006. Learners’ responses to the demands of conceptual change: Considerations for effective nature of science instruction.  Science Education  15:463-494. The author introduces the idea that many aspects of student learning about the nature and process of science can be explained, and that learning may be improved, by viewing this learning as a process of conceptual change. Just as in learning about Newtonian physics, students often enter an instructional setting with tenacious misconceptions about what science is and how it works — probably resulting from previous instruction (e.g., cookbook labs) and other experiences. Students may then distort new information to fit their existing incorrect knowledge frameworks. The author proposes that this is why explicit, reflective instruction (which provides students with opportunities to assess their previous conceptions) helps students learn about the nature and process of science, while implicit, non-reflective instruction does not. Furthermore, the author argues that explicit instruction on the nature and process of science can be placed along a continuum from decontextualized to highly contextualized. Examples of each are:

  • Decontextualized: black-box activities
  • Moderately contextualized: students reflecting on the process of science in their own labs
  • Highly contextualized: students reflecting on a modern or historic example of science in progress

Highly contextualized activities are useful because they make it difficult for a student to dismiss their learning as applying only to “school science” and because teachers are less likely to view such activities as add-ons. However, decontextualized activities also have advantages because they make it very easy to be explicit and emphasize key concepts. The author concludes that instruction that incorporates instruction from all along the continuum and that draws students’ attention to the connections between the different positions along the continuum is likely to be most effective.

Kang, S., L. Scharmann, and T. Noh. 2004. Examining students’ views on the nature of science: Results from Korean 6th, 8th, and 10th graders.  Science Education  89(2):314-334. A multiple-choice survey (supplemented by open-ended questions) on the nature and process of science was given to a large group of 6th, 8th, and 10th grade students in Korea. Most students thought that:

  • Science is mainly concerned with technological advancement
  • Theories are proven facts
  • Theories can change over time
  • Scientific knowledge is not constructed, but discovered (i.e., can be read off of nature)

Interestingly, Korean students don’t tend to hold the common Western misperception of theories as “just hunches.” The researchers found little improvement in understanding in older students. This suggests that special attention is needed to help students learn about the nature of science. The researchers argue that we should begin instruction in this area early in elementary school.

Khishfe, R., and F. Abd-El-Khalick. 2002. Influence of explicit and reflective versus implicit inquiry-oriented instruction on sixth graders’ views of nature of science.  Journal of Research in Science Teaching  39(7):551-578. Two sixth grade classes (62 students total) in Lebanon experienced two different versions of a curriculum spanning ten 50 minute segments. One class participated in an inquiry-oriented science curriculum, which included a discussion component that explicitly emphasized how the nature of science was demonstrated through student activities. The other participated in the same inquiry curriculum, but their discussion focused exclusively on science content or the skills students had used in the activity. Both groups completed open-ended questionnaires and participated in interviews regarding their views of the nature of science before and after the intervention. The two groups started off with similar, low levels of understanding, but the students in the class with explicit discussion of the nature of science substantially improved their understanding of key elements of the nature of science (the tentative, empirical, and creative nature of scientific knowledge, as well as the difference between observation and inference) over the course of the intervention. The other group did not. However, even with the enhanced, explicit curriculum, only 24% of the students achieved a consistently accurate understanding of the nature of science. These findings support the idea that inquiry alone is insufficient to improve student understanding of the nature of science; explicit, reflective instruction is necessary as well. The researchers further conclude that this instruction should be incorporated throughout teaching over an extended period of time in order to see gains among a larger fraction of students. The researchers emphasize that explicit, reflective teaching does not mean didactic teaching, but rather instruction that specifically targets nature of science concepts and that provides students with opportunities to relate their own activities to the activities of scientists and the scientific community more broadly.

Lederman, N.G. 1999. Teachers’ understanding of the nature of science and classroom practice: Factors that facilitate or impede the relationship.  Journal of Research in Science Teaching  36(8):916-929. Five high school biology teachers were observed weekly for one year to examine whether their conceptions of the nature of science were reflected in their teaching. The researcher also collected data from questionnaires, student and teacher interviews, and classroom materials. All five teachers had accurate understandings of the nature of science. The most experienced teachers used pedagogical techniques consistent with the nature of science, though they weren’t explicitly trying to do so and did not claim to be trying to improve students’ understanding of the nature of science. Less experienced teachers did not teach in a manner consistent with their views of the nature of science. This suggests that an adequate understanding of the nature and process of science and curricular flexibility alone are not sufficient to ensure that teachers will use pedagogical techniques that reflect that understanding. In addition, the researchers found that students in these classrooms gained little understanding of the nature of science, regardless of whether they were taught by a more or less experienced teacher. This lends further support to the idea that teachers need to be explicit about how lessons and activities relate to the nature and process of science in order for students to improve their understandings in this area. The researcher concludes that teacher education programs need to make a concerted effort to help teachers improve their ability to explicitly translate their understanding of the nature of science into their teaching practices. Furthermore, teachers should be encouraged to view an understanding of the nature of science as an important pedagogical objective in its own right.

Lederman, N.G., and J.S. Lederman. 2004. Revising instruction to teach nature of science.  The Science Teacher  71(9):36-39. The authors describe seven aspects of the nature of science that are important for K-12 students to understand:

  • the difference between observation and inference
  • the difference between laws and theories
  • that science is based on observations of the natural world
  • that science involves creativity
  • that scientific knowledge is partially subjective
  • that science is socially and culturally embedded
  • that scientific knowledge is subject to change.

They argue that most lessons can be modified to emphasize one or more of these ideas and provide an example from biology instruction. Many teachers use an activity in which students study a slide of growing tissue and count cells at different stages of mitosis in order to estimate the lengths of these stages. The authors recommend modifying this activity in several ways:

  • asking students to reason about how they know when one stage ends to emphasize the sort of subjectivity with which scientists must deal
  • asking students to grapple with ambiguity in their data
  • asking students to reason about why different groups came up with different estimates and how confident they are in their estimates in order to emphasize the tentativity of scientific knowledge
  • asking students to distinguish between what they directly observed on the slide and what they inferred from those observations.

The authors emphasize that incorporating the nature and process of science into this activity involves, not changing the activity itself, but carefully crafting reflective questions that make explicit relevant aspects of the nature and process of science.

Lederman, N.G., and D.L. Zeidler. 1987. Science teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science: Do they really influence teacher behavior?  Science Education  71(5):721-734. Eighteen high school biology classrooms led by experienced teachers were studied over the course of one semester. Teachers’ understandings of the nature and process of science were assessed at the beginning and end of the semester. In addition, the researchers made extensive observations of each classroom at three different points in the semester and categorized the teachers’ and students’ behaviors along many variables relating to teaching the nature and process of science. The researchers found  no  relationship between a teacher’s knowledge of the nature and process of science and the teacher’s general instructional approach, the nature-of-science content addressed in the classroom, the teacher’s attitude, the classroom atmosphere, or the students’ interactions with the teacher. This finding challenges the widely held assumption that student understanding of the nature and process of science can be improved simply by improving teacher understanding. Instead, the teachers’ level of understanding of this topic was unrelated to classroom performance. The authors emphasize that this doesn’t indicate that a teacher’s ideas don’t matter at all; teachers need at least a basic understanding of the topics they will teach, but this alone isn’t enough. The authors suggest that to improve their teaching in this area, instructors also need to be prepared with strategies designed specifically for teaching the nature and process of science.

Moss, D.M. 2001. Examining student conceptions of the nature of science.  International Journal of Science Education  23(8):771-790. Five 11th and 12th grade students, with a range of academic achievement, taking an environmental science class, were interviewed six times over the course of a year. The class was project-based and engaged students in data collection for real scientific research. Interviews focused on students’ views of selected aspects of the nature and process of science. The researcher coded and interpreted transcripts of the interviews. Major findings include:

  • In contrast to previous studies, most students understood that scientific knowledge builds on itself and is tentative. Students also seemed to understand science as a social activity.
  • Many students didn’t know what makes science science and had trouble distinguishing science from other ways of knowing.
  • Many students viewed science as merely procedural.
  • Most students didn’t understand that scientists regularly generate new research questions as they work.
  • Despite the authentic, project-based nature of the course, there were few shifts in student views of the nature and process of science.

This research supports the view that explicit instruction is necessary to improve student understanding of the nature/process of science. The researcher suggests that this can be done by having students develop their own descriptions of the fundamentals of the nature and process of science. The researcher also suggests that teachers need to focus on helping students understand the boundaries of science, perhaps by explicitly discussing how science compares to other human endeavors.

Sadler, T.D., F.W. Chambers, and D. Zeidler. 2004. Student conceptualizations of the nature of science in response to a socioscientific issue.  International Journal of Science Education  26(4):387-409. A group of average- to below average-achieving high school students was asked to read contradictory reports about the status of the global warming debate and answer a series of open-ended questions that related to the nature and process of science. Each report included data to support its conclusions. The researchers examined and coded students’ oral and written responses. On the positive side, the researchers found that:

  • Most students understood that science and social issues are intertwined.
  • Most students were comfortable with the idea that scientific data can be used to support different conclusions and that ideological positions may influence data interpretation.
  • Almost half of the students were unable to accurately identify and describe data, and some conflated expectations and opinions with data.
  • There was a tendency for students to view the interpretation consistent with their prior opinion as the most persuasive argument – even in cases where they judged the opposite interpretation to have the most scientific merit. This suggests that students may not incorporate scientific information into their decision-making process, dichotomizing their personal beliefs and scientific evidence.

The researchers suggest that instruction should focus on the above two issues and that teachers should encourage students to consider scientific findings when making decisions. In addition, students should be encouraged to deeply reflect on socioscientific issues and consider them from multiple perspectives.

Scharmann, L.C., M.U. Smith, M.C. James, and M. Jensen. 2005. Explicit reflective nature of science instruction: Evolution, intelligent design, and umbrellaology.  Journal of Science Teacher Education  16(1):27-41. Through multiple iterations of a preservice science teacher education course, the researchers designed a 10 hour instructional unit. In the unit, students:

  • attempt to arrange a set of statements along a continuum from more to less scientific
  • develop a set of criteria for making such judgments
  • participate in a set of inquiry activities designed to teach the nature of science (e.g., the black box activity)
  • read and reflect on articles about the nature of science
  • analyze intelligent design, evolutionary biology, and umbrellaology (a satirical description of the field of umbrella studies) in terms of the criteria they developed.

The final iteration of this set of activities was judged by the authors to be highly effective at changing students’ views of the nature of science and perhaps even helping them recognize that intelligent design is less scientific than evolutionary biology. Furthermore, the researchers suggest that using a continuum approach regarding the classification of endeavors as more or less scientific may be helpful for students who have strong religious commitments and that explicit, respectful discussion of religion in relation to science early in instruction is likewise important for these students.

Schwartz, R.S., N.G. Lederman, and B. Crawford. 2004. Developing views of nature of science in an authentic context: An explicit approach to bridging the gap between nature of science and scientific inquiry.  Science Education  88(4):610-645. A group of preservice science teachers participated in a program that included 10 weeks of work with a scientific research group, discussions of research and the nature of science, and writing prompts which asked the preservice teachers to make connections between their research and the process of science. Participants were interviewed and observed, and responded to a questionnaire about the nature of science. Eighty-five percent of the participants improved their understanding of the nature of science over the course of the program. The two participants who did not improve their understanding were the two that focused on the content of their research and did not reflect on how this related to the nature of science. Participants also seemed to gain a better understanding of how to teach the nature and process of science explicitly. The researchers conclude that the research experience alone did little to improve students understanding, but that this experience was important for providing the context in which active reflection about the nature and process of science could occur. They recommend that scientific inquiry in the K-12 classroom incorporate reflective activities and explicit discussions relating the inquiry activity to the nature and process of science.

Zeidler, D.L., K.A. Walker, W.A. Ackett, and M.L. Simmons. 2002. Tangled up in views: Beliefs in the nature of science and responses to socioscientific dilemmas.  Science Education  86(3):343-367. A sample of 248 high school and college students were given open-ended questions eliciting their views of the nature of science. In addition, researchers elicited students’ views on a socioscientific issue (the appropriateness of animal research) using both a Likert scale item and open-ended questions. From this large sample, 42 pairs of students with differing views of the appropriateness of animal research were selected. These pairs of students were allowed to discuss the issue with each other and were probed by an interviewer. Finally, they were presented with data anomalous to their own view and were probed again on their confidence in the data and their willingness to change their view. Researchers analyzed these 82 students’ responses to the open-ended questions using concept mapping and compared their responses to Likert items. They found that students  did  change their views on the issue as a result of discussion and exposure to anomalous data. They also found that younger students tended to be less skeptical of anomalous data presented to them from an official-sounding report. In only a few cases were students’ views of the nature of science obviously related to their analysis of the socioscientific issue. These were mainly situations in which a student expressed a belief that scientists interpret data to suit their personal opinion, and then, correspondingly, the student selectively accepted or rejected evidence according to whether it supported his or her opinion. In addition, many students seemed to believe that all opinions are equally valid and immune to change regardless of the scientific evidence. The authors conclude that instruction on the nature of science should be incorporated throughout science courses and should include discussion in which students are asked to contrast different viewpoints on socioscientific issues and evaluate how different types of data might support or refute those positions.

Thanks to Norm Lederman and Joanne Olson for consultation on relevant research articles.

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Hot Topics and Frontier Evolution of Science Education Research: a Bibliometric Mapping from 2001 to 2020

  • Published: 21 April 2022
  • Volume 32 , pages 845–869, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

  • Shutao Wang 1 ,
  • Yaoyao Chen 1 ,
  • Xinlei Lv 1 &
  • Jianmei Xu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9786-9145 2  

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Bibliometric mapping serves as a method to systematically evaluate and visually demonstrate the development of a research field. CiteSpace and VOSviewer, two research tools of bibliometric mapping, were used in the present study to analyze, synthesize, and visualize the hot topics as well as frontier evolution of science education. Co-authorship analysis, co-citation analysis, co-occurrence analysis, cluster analysis, and content analysis were conducted based on 6278 articles selected from seven SSCI journals. Researchers from countries/territories in North America, Europe, Oceania, and West and East Asia had maintained relatively tighter cooperation with each other. Highly influential literature mainly focused on the standards, methods, practice, and reflection of science education. In the past two decades, the literature on science education covered seven hot topics: conceptual issues in science education, gender, scientific argumentation, professional development, science learning, evolution, and peer review. The research on science education in the past 20 years can be divided into three phases: the first stage focused on knowledge learning, identity, and informal education; the second stage emphasized formal education, scientific literacy, and social-science issues; and the third stage highlighted scientific argumentation and STEM education.

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research in science education

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Wang, S., Chen, Y., Lv, X. et al. Hot Topics and Frontier Evolution of Science Education Research: a Bibliometric Mapping from 2001 to 2020. Sci & Educ 32 , 845–869 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-022-00337-z

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Scientific Research in Education

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Scientific Research in Education

Researchers, historians, and philosophers of science have debated the nature of scientific research in education for more than 100 years. Recent enthusiasm for "evidence-based" policy and practice in education—now codified in the federal law that authorizes the bulk of elementary and secondary education programs—have brought a new sense of urgency to understanding the ways in which the basic tenets of science manifest in the study of teaching, learning, and schooling.

Scientific Research in Education describes the similarities and differences between scientific inquiry in education and scientific inquiry in other fields and disciplines and provides a number of examples to illustrate these ideas. Its main argument is that all scientific endeavors share a common set of principles, and that each field—including education research—develops a specialization that accounts for the particulars of what is being studied. The book also provides suggestions for how the federal government can best support high-quality scientific research in education.

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  • Published: 14 February 2024

Is educational research science, superstition or confidence trick?

  • Keith S. Taber   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1798-331X 1  

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Chemistry education research is a well-established field that has the potential to inform chemistry teaching at all levels. But to the uninitiated, much of the work can seem descriptive while quantitative studies often suffer from a lack of reproducibility. Here I delve into these characteristics and explain why this should not deter chemistry teachers from engaging.

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research in science education

Gilbert, J. K. et al. (eds) Chemical Education: Research-based Practice (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002).

Kuhn, T. S. The essential tension: Tradition and innovation in scientific research. In The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change 225–239 (University of Chicago Press, 1977).

Taber, K. S. Experimental research into teaching innovations: responding to methodological and ethical challenges. Stud. Sci. Educ. 55 , 69–119 (2019).

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Taber, K. S. Ethical considerations of chemistry education research involving ‘human subjects’. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 15 , 109–113 (2014).

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Taber, K. S. Chemistry lessons for universities? A review of constructivist ideas. Univ. Chem. Educ. 4 , 26–35 (2000).

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Taber, K.S. Is educational research science, superstition or confidence trick?. Nat Rev Chem (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-024-00582-6

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research in science education

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Scientists Propose Upgrades to Research-Methods Education for Psychology Students 

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Many undergraduate psychology courses fail to ensure students fully understand research design and analysis. An international team of psychological scientists have recommended some systemic steps to remedy that shortcoming.  

Researchers from the United Kingdom and Canada outline these recommendations in an article published in Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science ( AMPPS ). Their recommendations are based on a survey of stakeholders, including instructors, undergraduate and graduate students, and nonacademic psychologists. The scientists, led by Robert Thibault of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University, embarked on the study to help the British Psychological Society update its standards for accrediting psychology programs. But other accrediting bodies, as well as program directors and instructors, can draw on the findings to set standards for teaching research methods, they wrote.  

“Such initiatives could foster cohorts of graduates with an established set of competencies tuned for the contemporary world,” they concluded.  

The effort to upgrade instruction standards for research methods emanates from the rising focus on rigor and the adoption of open science practices. These advances are poorly reflected in psychology curricula, which have seen few updates over the past 2–3 decades, research has shown. One study , for example, found that few courses focus on effect sizes, confidence intervals, and alternatives to null-hypothesis significance testing, which has shortcomings that many scientists blame for the replication problems in psychological science. 

“Taken together, the time is ripe to modernize the teaching of quantitative and qualitative research methods in psychology programs,” the authors said.  

For the project, Thibault and his collaborators used the Delphi technique—a structured method of eliciting and aggregating opinions. They collected anonymous responses from more than 100 stakeholders to determine the level of consensus around methods instruction. The participants, including individuals from more than 50 universities in the United Kingdom, were asked their opinions about specific content to teach as well as approaches to teaching it. The aim was to address the knowledge and skills gaps that lead to irreproducible research and to ensure graduates develop data skills that are useful in nonacademic careers. 

The recommendations for methods instruction are as follows: 

  • Require a strong understanding of data and quantitative data skills. 
  • Emphasize general skills in research design. 
  • Prioritize a foundation in descriptive statistics. 
  • Provide students with a framework for critically assessing research claims. 
  • Raise the prominence of qualitative methods in accreditation standards. 
  • Require that parameter-estimation techniques, such as confidence intervals and effect sizes, be taught alongside significance testing. 
  • Prioritize the teaching of foundational skills in research methods.  
  • Promote content that shows how research-methods skills can transfer beyond academia. 
  • Focus on fewer skills in greater depth and offer optional models for advanced methods skills.  

Thibault and his team cited limitations with their work, including sparse participation by students, nonacademic psychologists, and those who use qualitative methods. But they noted that their use of the Delphi technique allowed them to garner a robust understanding of participants’ opinions about instruction in research methods.  

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Reference  

Thibault, R. T., Bailey-Rodriguez, D., Bartlett, J. E., Blazey, P., Green, R. J., Pownall, M., & Munafo, M. R. (2024). A Delphi study to strengthen research-methods training in undergraduate psychology programs.  Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science , 7 (1). https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459231213808  

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research in science education

Multilab Replication Challenges Long-held Theories on Cognitive Dissonance

One of the foremost models that scientists use to measure the effects of cognitive dissonance may have some deficiencies, a new multilab registered replication indicates.

research in science education

When Things Don’t Go According to Plan

Methodologists have embraced preregistration as a way to prevent questionable research practices and add transparency to scientific studies. But many researchers end up deviating from those preregistered plans, and those deviations aren’t reported systematically, if at all.

research in science education

Seven Tips for Conducting Research With Low-Income Participants

Psychological researchers face a number of methodological and practical challenges when collecting data on low socio-economic communities. A team of scientists offer suggestions on overcoming those obstacles.

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  • February 13, 2024

Research and Innovation

By Tina Meketa , University Communications and Marketing

From advancements in health care to cybersecurity to K-12 education, the University of South Florida’s research enterprise continues to achieve tremendous growth.

USF’s research spending rose 14% in fiscal year 2023 to more than $461 million. Spending on awards funded by federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense, increased to nearly 53% of USF’s total, up from 46% five years ago. 

Two researchers in lab

Shiva Swamynathan and Yiquin Du, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine [Photo by Allison Long, USF Health]

“Our growing research enterprise allows the University of South Florida to make an even greater impact in solving challenges, improving lives and creating a healthier future for the Tampa Bay region, state of Florida and beyond,” USF President Rhea Law said. “This significant year-over-year increase in research activity is a testament to our world-class faculty who continue to be at the forefront of new discoveries and innovations.”

USF’s position as one of the nation’s most research-intensive institutions was a significant factor in its invitation to join the prestigious Association of American Universities in 2023.  

“The remarkable increase in our research expenditures is a powerful indicator of the University of South Florida’s rapidly expanding research enterprise,” said Sylvia Wilson Thomas, USF vice president for research & innovation. “Driven by national and international grand challenges, USF researchers pursue critical knowledge that translates into real-world solutions.”

Students in cybersecurity classroom

[Photo by Torie Doll, University Communications and Marketing]

The increase is reflected in USF’s response to the National Science Foundation’s annual Higher Education Research and Development Survey, which serves as the primary source of information about the amount of research conducted by U.S. colleges and universities. While the NSF does not release a list of how universities compare until later in the year, based on last year’s rankings, $461 million would have placed USF No. 2 in Florida and No. 41 nationally among public universities.

Compared to last year, USF’s expenditures nearly doubled in computer and information sciences from $9.5 million to $18.8 million, largely driven by burgeoning cybersecurity programs. In collaboration with Cyber Florida, James Welsh, director of the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, served as principal investigator of the Cyber/IT Pathways Project – a state-funded initiative to bolster the cybersecurity workforce through industry certifications, internships and educational materials. 

"Pathways projects had a direct and positive impact on more than 27,000 Floridians, but the real value of the investment is in the connections created between cybersecurity educators at institutions at all levels across the state, sharing best practices and innovative strategies directly with other educators," Welsh said.

Jeffrey Krischer

Jeffrey Krischer [Photo by Allison Long, USF Health]

Engineering research spending jumped 22% to $62 million with new initiatives in bioengineering, human mobility and defense research. Health sciences and social sciences also experienced double-digit percentage increases of 14% and 12%, respectively.

At $42 million, the USF Health Diabetes and Endocrinology Center generated the most research expenditures of any unit at USF. The center coordinates an international network of university medical centers and health care providers to study the causes of Type 1 diabetes and strategies for its prevention, resulting in the first-ever drug approved by the FDA for diabetes prevention. Even more exciting results are coming as the center supports leading-edge research in genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and the largest microbiome study ever conducted in humans. 

Jose Castillo

[Photo courtesy of Associate Professor Jose Castillo]

“The result of our work together with physicians and scientists from all over the world has made a profound difference in many people’s lives,” said center Director Jeffrey Krischer. 

The Institute for School-Community Partnerships in the College of Education, led by Associate Professor Jose Castillo, utilized $17 million in research expenditures to implement several impactful projects, such as comprehensive training and technical assistance on literacy instruction, mental health services and assistive technology for students with disabilities. These supports were designed to improve the academic, social and overall well-being of students across the state of Florida. 

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How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

research in science education

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

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New paths in climate change education: Drama as a key to change?

by Hendrik Schneider, Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF) e.V.

New paths in climate change education: Drama as a key to change?

Given the pressing challenges of climate change, education is increasingly seen as a key to transformative adaptation to a changing environment. A study, conducted in collaboration between the Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and the University of Victoria (Canada), takes a closer look at an innovative approach: the use of drama in climate change education.

The study, published in the Journal of Adult and Continuing Education , explores the possibilities of dramatic expression as a tool to promote creative problem solving and social change in the context of climate change. The team of researchers evaluated a methodological framework in a workshop where participants explored the challenges of floods and droughts through theatrical staging and developed adaptive scenarios.

"Our research highlights the importance of dramaturgy as an effective teaching method to communicate not only the scientific aspects of climate change, but also the social, emotional and psychological dimensions," explains Juliano Borba, lead author of the study and researcher at ZALF.

The results of the study not only provide insights into the effectiveness of the dramatic approach in climate adaptation education, but also provide a pedagogical framework and theoretical basis for teachers, educators and educational institutions wishing to improve their approaches to climate education.

The study underlines the urgency of new educational approaches in the face of the increasing risks of climate change and shows how dramaturgy as a methodology to raise awareness, promote positive attitudes towards the future and develop concrete strategies to adapt to climate change . It is part of a series of studies on art-based methods for transformative research, a collaboration between the Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and the University of Victoria (Canada).

Provided by Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF) e.V.

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Teacher training programs don't always use research-backed reading methods

Brianna Atkinson

Ann Doss Helms

new-staff-photo-kerry-2019

Kerry Sheridan

Beth Wallis

Students scale a mountain of books, as a teacher helps them up.

A dozen college students are saying the word "pat" and jotting down notes about the sounds being made.

"Puh - AH - tt"

Pay attention to the shapes your mouths make as you pronounce the word, instructs Robin Fuxa, their education professor at Oklahoma State University.

She asks her students if they can feel the way the words sound as they speak.

"Say it again and see if you feel it in your vocal cords," Fuxa prompts her reading instruction class, held last October.

Fuxa is trying to get her students to pay attention to phonics, the reading method that links a sound to a letter. Extensive research has shown phonics is an effective way to teach kids to read.

But teacher training programs like this one don't always prepare educators to use researched-backed reading methods, like phonics. In a 2023 study , the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) surveyed nearly 700 teacher training programs across the country. Their findings:

"Only about a quarter of the teachers who leave teacher preparation programs across our nation enter classrooms prepared to teach kids to read [in a way that's] aligned to the science and research on reading," says Heather Peske, president of NCTQ.

The rest, she says, are investing money and time into learning methods like "three- cueing" and "balanced literacy," which aren't backed by research.

Thomas Dee, an education professor and researcher at Stanford University, says this disconnect between research and practice has been a long standing issue in education.

"Things for which there's good evidence of efficacy don't always make it into [the] everyday classroom practice of teachers," Dee says.

This comes at a time when reading proficiency among some school-aged children has been declining.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, otherwise known as the Nation's Report Card , shows reading scores among 13-year-olds have dropped since 2012, with a sharper dip during and after the pandemic. While test scores for 9-year-olds have mostly held steady since 2012, they too suffered a decline during the pandemic.

What makes the "science of reading" different

Dee is a big proponent of the "science of reading," which incorporates phonics, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency, among other techniques. There is growing evidence that the science of reading is a more effective way to teach students how to read.

More effective than, say, "three-cueing," which is when students rely on context and sentence structure to identify words they don't know.

"Balanced literacy," formerly known as "whole language," is another commonly used method of reading instruction.

"The idea there was that kids sort of learn to read naturally and we just have to surround them with great literature," says Ellen McIntyre, dean of the teachers college at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

MyIntyre says balanced literacy had some great ideas about how to get students excited about reading, but she found the model was lacking.

"Really early on, the model didn't include systematic, explicit teaching of phonics or any of the other foundational skills."

Neither three-cueing nor balanced literacy are backed by research.

The 2023 study from NCTQ found 40% of surveyed schools are still teaching methods that "run counter to the research on effective reading instruction."

How teaching programs adopt "science of reading" methods

From 2019-2022, 46 states , including D.C., have passed reading legislation, according to The Albert Shanker Institute, a nonprofit connected to one of the country's largest teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers.

In North Carolina, for example, a 2021 law requires current teachers to undergo training in the science of reading. To adapt, some colleges and universities with teacher training programs are amending their courses so they're more in line with the latest research.

And they have some guidance: In 2022, the UNC System – the network of public universities in North Carolina – hired an outside company to audit teacher colleges and their use of the science of reading model. The institutions were given an evaluation of "strong," "good," "needs improvement" or "inadequate." Most teacher colleges were labeled as "needs improvement."

Gerrelyn Patterson, chair of educator preparation at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically Black college, says the school was already teaching science of reading concepts, and even though the audit delivered a "good" score, they made additional changes to their curriculum. This included changes to syllabi, course descriptions and a review of the materials used for assignments.

Patterson says she and faculty met for hours at a time to review the courses they were teaching. In the end, the committee revised some courses to be more in-depth when it comes to reading.

"The students would say [the courses were] time intensive... they already felt like the literacy classes are very rigorous," Patterson says. But students told her the revised literacy courses were aligning with other training they got, "so they could see that connection."

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, the state's only four-year American Indian and Alaska Native-serving institution , was not among the campuses that received a "strong" or "good" score from the audit.

In response to the lower evaluation, the university added two additional classes to the curriculum, increasing the required reading courses for students from three to five.

In 2023, school administrators said that they were planning on hiring an endowed professor of literacy, with a focus on leadership, research and teaching in the science of reading. The person hired in the position will also have funding to conduct literacy research.

However, not all educators have been on board with the changes at Pembroke.

"It's taken some time to kind of get the buy-in," says Gretchen Robinson, an education professor there.

According to Robinson, faculty met last spring for weekly feedback sessions. She said some were skeptical of the changes because they were being asked to teach in a way they weren't used to.

The university ended up losing two faculty members in 2023 as a result of the instruction shift.

Teachers pushback on legislating the classroom

Some educators have been uncomfortable with state legislators making decisions around how reading is taught.

"No collective group of legislators have the knowledge to do that," said Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, a professor of literacy studies at the University of South Florida.

She said USF is not changing their way of teaching reading because they've always incorporated principles like phonics and vocabulary into their lessons.

She acknowledges that there are a lot of K-12 students who are not learning to read, but she thinks there are bigger issues that state legislators should address before taking a critical stance on reading.

"We have internet access issues...We have kids that have food insecurity," Jasinski Schneider said.

"If they want to legislate something, legislate that every kid gets to eat three meals a day, instead of banning a teaching method, right? If they really want to help... make sure schools are over-resourced not under-resourced."

Elissa Nadworny contributed to this report. Edited by Nicole Cohen.

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    Research in Science Education is an international journal publishing and promoting scholarly science education research of interest to a wide group of people. The journal examines early childhood, primary, secondary, tertiary, workplace, and informal learning as they relate to science education.

  2. Handbook of Research on Science Education

    Volume III of this landmark synthesis of research offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art survey highlighting new and emerging research perspectives in science education. Building on the foundations set in Volumes I and II, Volume III provides a globally minded, up-to-the-minute survey of the science education research community and represents ...

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    All of life is an education, and I have been privileged to experience science from many different perspectives: in academia as a faculty member for 25 years overseeing a laboratory exploring the mysteries of the cell through protein biochemistry, as the full-time president of the National Academy of Sciences for 12 years, as the Editor-in-Chief of Science magazine for 5 years, and as a member ...

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    Top authors and change over time. The top authors publishing in Research in Science Education (based on the number of publications) are: David F. Treagust (34 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition the same number as at the previous edition,; Richard Gunstone (32 papers) absent at the last edition,; Peter J. Fensham (26 papers) absent at the last edition,

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    Abstract: This research aims to identify the trends in the field of science education, during the last decade. Generally, these trends are compatible with the developments in the field of science education, which mostly emphasize teaching practices and methods. Similar projects have been carried out during previous decades, focusing on research ...

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  20. USF research expenditures up 14%, surging to more than $461 million

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  24. Teacher training programs drop the ball on reading. : NPR

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