Canterbury Christ Church University

Graduate Student, Educational Research

Thesis Title: Strategies for conceptual change in school science

About

        I am in the third year of a full-time PhD in science education. I have taught science (specialising in physics) for the last fourteen years. I worked full-time in main stream schools for ten years. I now teach part-time in a school for children who have learning disabilities.

        This study explores how experienced science teachers promote conceptual change. It examines how instructional strategies, learning tactics [1] and conceptual change interrelate. Pupils must construct new concepts while still having old ones [2]. Their evolving learning tactics are sometimes distorted by naïve techniques [3].
        Three research methods (expert microteaching, verbal protocols and retrospective debriefing) were used. Data was video-recorded and managed using NVivo 9. Six 11 year-old pupils took part (three girls and three boys) in each expert microteaching interview, led by a science specialist (Advanced Skills Teacher). A ‘Concurrent Verbal Protocol and Retrospective Debriefing’ interview [4] happened with the teacher one month later. Six teachers participate altogether. All interviews were analysed using grounded theory methods [5]. The interpretivist theoretical perspective (symbolic interactionism) was underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology.
        Initial findings show teachers use nine ‘teaching instruments’, ten ‘skill stratagems’ and six ‘deception stratagems’. Pupils demonstrate three learning tactics. Failure (strategic friction) is also explored.
        What can be considered evidence is a function of the researcher’s methodological position [6]. So what constitutes reliable evidence can be contentious. Appropriate criteria for evaluating the grounded theory emerging from this study [7] were used. Interpretivist approaches for investigating conceptual change in school science are necessary to avoid unbalanced dominance by positivist literature. This approach, proved successful in other fields [4], is new to this context. The assumption that instructional strategy is straightforward [8] does not adequately explain the data collected here. However, abandoning attempts to unpick complicated interactions between pupils and teacher whilst learning takes place, leaves practitioners without guidance. Consensus exists among most conceptual change researchers that instructional strategies, learning tactics and conceptual change must be considered together where possible [9]. This present study proposes a grounded theory for how experienced science teachers promote conceptual change and questions how instructional strategy is understood in the literature.

[1] Darden, L. (1991) Theory Change in Science: Strategies from Mendelian Genetics. New York: Oxford University Press.
[2] diSessa, A. (2006) 'A history of conceptual change research: threads and fault lines', In: K. Sawyer, The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences. Cambridge MA: Cambridge Univ. Press, p.265
[3] Zimmerman, C. (2005) The development of scientific reasoning: What psychologists contribute to an understanding of elementary science learning. Paper commissioned by the National Academies of Science National Research Council’s Board of Science Education, Consensus Study on Learning Science, Kindergarten through Eighth Grade.
[4] Taylor, K. L. & Dionne, J. P. (2000) 'Accessing problem-solving strategy knowledge: The complementary use of concurrent verbal protocols and retrospective debriefing', Journal of Educational Psychology, 92 (3), pp.413-425
[5] Corbin, J. & Strauss, A. (2008) Basics of qualitative research. 3rd Ed. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, p.2 and p.146
[6] Pearson, A. (2004) 'Balancing the evidence: incorporating the synthesis of qualitative data into systematic reviews', JBI Reports, 2 (2), p.47
[7] Lincoln, Y. & Guba, E. (1985) Naturalistic Inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, p.294, 300
[8] Clement, J. (2008) 'The Role of Explanatory Models in Teaching for Conceptual Change', In: S. Vosniadou, International Handbook Of Research On Conceptual Change (educational Psychology Handbook). New York: Routledge, p.445.
[9] Klahr, D. (2000). Exploring science: The cognition and development of discovery processes. Cambridge: MA: MIT Press.

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