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Adey 160 years of science education

160 years of science


education: an uncertain link
between theory and practice
Philip Adey

Theories of learning and cognition have always been used to justify


curriculum development in science 100yrs

In this article I explore some of the impacts of theory loved to borrow friends’ children for trips to the zoo.
– philosophical, sociological, but mostly psychological He who discovered the induction of electric current
– on the development of science curricula and the also discovered the pleasure of inducing understanding
practice of science teaching. I have specifically omitted in young people. You have only to read his Christmas
reference to atheoretical approaches to science lectures, starting in 1827, to see how much mental
education. An eminent, retired, chemistry professor activity he expected of his audience. No passive
recently told me that his view of education was simple: recipients they, even if they did not handle the
‘I give them information, they write it down, they learn apparatus themselves.
it’. Such an approach may be uncommon amongst Perhaps what Armstrong did was to start to theorise
science teachers, and in any case allows of no theory Faraday’s intuitive approach to the development of
of learning and teaching and so does not earn itself a scientific understanding in young people and, by giving
place in this article. it a name, to formalise and justify an approach to teach-
ing science which established a deep vein of faith in
‘practical work’ in British science teaching. This vein
Discovery – a recurring theme continues to run strongly today as seen when occasion-
H. E. Armstrong is widely credited as being the father al heretical questioning of the value of practical work
of modern science education in this country, naming (Hodson, 1990; Osborne, 1993) is met by stern rejoind-
and introducing his ‘heuristic’ method. Heuristic was ers from the champions of heurism and discovery
a word coined in the nineteenth century, derived from learning (Van Praagh, 2000). But heurism is both a lot
the Greek heurisken, to discover, and the implied more, and sometimes less, than student practical work.
learning theory was that pupils would understand One of the things I would like to demonstrate in this
science deeply if they had to discover it for themselves. article is how the spirit of discovery learning has reared
But in this implicit theory Armstrong was fore- its pretty head over and over again, in various guises,
shadowed by Michael Faraday himself. Faraday and from the 1890s to the present day. But interwoven with
his wife Sarah had no children of their own and they this somewhat constant theme we will find many other
influences of theory on the practice of science
education.
ABSTRACT
This article explores some of the impacts of
theory – philosophical, sociological, but mostly Science better than Latin
psychological – on the development of science
curricula and the practice of science teaching. It ‘Faculty psychology’, popular towards the end of the
concludes that there is now a greater recognition nineteenth century, held that much of what was
of the need for theoretical justifications for included in the school curriculum need not be justified
change and for theory-led research into what on any plebeian grounds of utility, but served the higher
works and, above all, why it works.
purpose of developing certain general faculties, such

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160 years of science education Adey

as memory, perseverance and logical thinking. researchers and some data) rehearses the demolition
Traditionally, Latin held a pre-eminent place in public job on faculties, and provides an excellent review on
(i.e. private) school curricula as being especially good the evidence of transfer (Burt, 1939). If spending weeks
for developing all sorts of faculties appropriate for memorising poems has a significant effect on one’s
gentlemen. Questioning of this liberal tradition in ability to memorise new poems, then there has been
education started, perhaps, with Prince Albert who had transfer of a general ‘memory’ faculty to a new context.
a healthy Germanic respect for engineering and This simply does not happen. What can happen is the
practical things. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 it development of understanding of certain general
became clear that many of our economic competitors features or formalities of a subject. Learning the formal
were far ahead of Britain in the development of rules of chemical bonding – using for example the idea
technology. Even then the public schools found it hard of ‘valency’ – allows the student to work out possible
to admit science into the curriculum on grounds of its formulae of new compounds she has never actually
utility but were much happier arguing that science was encountered. But these rules must be explicitly taught.
particularly good for developing certain mental Burt writes:
faculties. the people who write the best English are usually
Unfortunately for them, early experimental people who have discovered for themselves the
psychology soon proved that faculty theory was tosh, underlying principles of good composition, not
although to this day some proponents of science the people who have been taught composition as
process skills seem not to have realised this. In an a school subject. On the other hand it is not
article in SSR in 1939, Cyril Burt (later infamous for absolutely essential that the pupils should make
gilding the lily of his excellent research by inventing the discovery alone and unaided. The teacher

Figure 1 One of the first heuristic lessons at Christ’s Hospital in 1899 (courtesy Christ’s Hospital School).

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Adey 160 years of science education

can stage-manage situations so that the need for important if it cannot be measured. We might, in
the principle is realised. passing, pray that the same pragmatism and common
(p. 659) sense defends us against the current urban myth that
Now there’s a bridge between Armstrong and Nuffield. teaching might somehow be undertaken by computers.
But before we get to Nuffield, we need to take a little
diversion. Guided discovery: the Nuffield
developments
American pigeons
Armstrong’s heuristic method had proved rather
Behaviourism was the big theoretical idea in the expensive in time and laboratory facilities. In its purest
psychology of learning in the 1950s. It derived from form it may have met one of the demands on science
Pavlov’s famous salivating dog and B. F. Skinner’s learning, the development of deep understanding of
experiments with pigeons, in which he showed that some topics, but it could not meet the other demand,
the poor bird-brains could be trained to do the most that school leavers should actually know quite a lot
remarkable tricks (hop on one leg and then peck a red about how their bodies worked, what materials were
triangle) to get a pellet of food. Behaviourists saw like, and the nature of energy. So the pure form was
learning as no more than change in behaviour – after reinvented as Nuffield Chemistry, Biology and
all, that was all that could be observed. Skinner was Physics, and there was a direct link through Christ’s
scornful of ‘mentalistic’ constructs such as motivation, Hospital, where Armstrong had taught and developed
intelligence or even thought itself. None of these could his ideas and where Gordon van Praagh was teaching
be directly observed or measured so there was no point in the ’50s and ’60s. I suspect that Gordon, Frank
in discussing them. Rather, he believed, we should Halliwell, Ernest Coulson, Eric Rogers and Bunny
concentrate on shaping observable behaviour and this Dowdeswell – some of the main players in the guided
could be achieved by reinforcing desired behaviours discovery movement of the 1960s funded by Nuffield
and ‘extinguishing’ undesired behaviours. Extinction – were less influenced by Cyril Burt’s theoretical
came about through absence of reinforcement, justifications than by the need to compromise between
although occasionally a little punishment (the odd the demands of discovery and of acquiring knowledge.
electric shock, for example) may be necessary. Well, They were certainly driven by a belief that learning
it worked for pigeons, so why not for humans? science should be like doing science – or at least like
Considering the number of unreconstructed doing some idealised version of real science where
physicists – those who believe that what they see is hypotheses are generated, predictions made,
what they get – still lurking in mahogany corners of experiments conducted to test the predictions, and then
British grammar school labs in the 1950s, it is a little the hypotheses supported or refuted.
surprising that behaviourism never really had much This belief seems to have arisen from the
influence on science education in Britain. As an experience of the fun and stimulation of teaching clever
approach to teaching and learning it has a wonderfully boys and girls, with whom one could do intellectual
simple and apparently very ‘scientific’ look to it, as battle. And of course it worked brilliantly with such
well as being rather egalitarian. No messing about with children, and gave a generation of grammar and public
nasty emotions or interpretations or alternative school teachers and students a wonderful experience.
constructions which require attention; just programme For about 15 years, from 1965 to 1980, advanced think-
the learning experiences appropriately and any ing in science education in England and Wales and in
behaviour can be produced in anyone. For a young many commonwealth countries was dominated by the
scientist it should have been a very appealing approach Nuffield approach. In Scotland the parallel movement
to learning, yet only on the fringes of British science was spawned by ‘Curriculum Paper No. 7’, perhaps
education was it ever taken seriously. (Here I have to the best-known product of which was Science for the
confess that I was one of those fringes. My first pub- ’70s , soon over-optimistically renamed Science 2000.
lished work (Adey, 1967) was strictly behaviourist.) Mary Waring (1979) captures the flavour of these days
Perhaps the inherent pragmatism of the British of dominance by the Nuffield single-subject origin-
protected us from embracing a view of learning which ators, generating exciting teaching and learning but,
leads inexorably to programmed learning, delivered ironically for would-be scientists, omitting any
by teaching machines, in which nothing is considered systematic evaluation of the effects of their teaching

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160 years of science education Adey

methods on achievement or attitudes of pupils. Waring was a more natural progression from Armstrong’s
describes how in 1963 they did seek the advice of heurism, especially in its guided, Nuffield, form. After
Kenneth Lovell, as a leading psychologist concerned all, Piaget’s notions that ‘thought is internalised action’
with education, but were told that psychologists were and that cognitive development proceeds at least in
not yet able to give specific recommendations on part in response to ‘cognitive conflict’ generated by
curriculum matters. surprising observations would have come as no sur-
The gradual sunset of the Nuffield single-subject prise to Faraday, master of the scientific demonstration.
guided-discovery approach was heralded by the Thus in Piaget, Nuffield might have found a
comprehensive school movement. As grammar school theoretical justification for much of its practice, and
teachers came face to face for the first time with the yet this did not happen. In 1970 Michael Shayer wrote
wide ability range that existed in the population, they a seminal paper in Education in Chemistry (Shayer,
discovered that methods which worked well with able 1970) in which he showed how science curricula could
children could not simply be watered down to meet be analysed for the level of intellectual demand they
the needs of all pupils. In spite of brave attempts to made, in terms of Piagetian stages (early and late
move into the age of integrated science (Nuffield concrete, early and late formal operations). This
Combined Science) the whole movement finally provided precisely the explanation for the difficulty
foundered. The fatal weakness of the original Nuffield experienced by so many teachers in trying to adapt
approach, it could be argued, was that it had no the activities for comprehensive school populations.
theoretical model to justify the faith in guided It was the first section of an explanatory theoretical
discovery. That, exacerbated by lack of experimental model which Shayer and his colleagues elaborated
evaluation of effects, made it difficult for guided- throughout the 1970s from their base in the Concepts
discovery proponents to muster rational arguments in Secondary Mathematics and Science (CSMS)
against simple transmission as a method of teaching. project, above a betting shop in Lillie Road in Fulham,
Such arguments were not needed while it worked with London. At the time, this set the Piagetian-based
some sectors of the pupil population but when, with a explainers at odds with the faith-based guided
different population of teachers and pupils, it was discoverers. That many of us worked together at the
perceived ‘not to work’, guided discovery found itself Chelsea College Centre for Science and Mathematics
up a creek without a theory. Education made the tensions even more interesting.
Before leaving this phase of science education in The Piagetian school certainly did not have every-
Britain one must recognise the very different set of thing its own way. Indeed, while the Americans and
materials produced by Hilda Misselbrook and others Australians developed science curricula explicitly
as Nuffield Secondary Science. This material was based on the idea of matching intellectual demand to
produced ab initio as a resource bank for teachers of supposed Piagetian stages (SCIS, ASEP), in the UK
the (then) secondary modern population. It drew on only ‘Science 5/13’ explicitly acknowledged cognitive
the same guided-discovery idea as the single-subject development as a factor to consider in designing
Nuffield materials, but otherwise was entirely original. activities. Excellent though this material was, it had
Its passing may have owed more to its being associated relatively little impact partly because it spanned the
too closely with secondary modern schools, just as they usual primary–secondary school divide, and partly
became defunct. because it depended on primary and middle school
teachers developing their own pupil material from
ideas in the teachers-only packs.
Genetic epistemology From a theoretical perspective, the idea of
The English-speaking world discovered Piaget in the explicitly arranging one’s science teaching activities
early 1960s, and it was the science educators (people so that they were appropriate to the intellectual
like Bob Karplus at the Lawrence Hall of Science in development levels of children fell foul of two
Berkeley California) who were his greatest champions. mutually supportive streams of feeling in education
But, while in the US the idea of children having to in the late 1970s and early ’80s. The first was the
construct knowledge for themselves offered a radical egalitarian perspective of Dick West, Director of the
alternative to behaviourism and much conflict in Secondary Science Curriculum Review and then
psychology departments, in the UK and in Australasia Senior Science Inspector of the immensely influential
the absorption of Piagetian ideas into science education Inner London Education Authority. The second was

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Adey 160 years of science education

the growth of the movement under Ros Driver in Leeds concept. You will see the behaviourist origins of this
that appropriated to itself the label ‘constructivism’. simple-minded idea which is philosophically vacuous
Both objected to what they saw as the ‘labelling’ of (since there is no logical end to finding prerequisite
children as being at a particular stage of cognitive knowledge) and empirically wrong. Gagné’s other bad
development, West from a sociological perspective and idea was that the content of science did not matter:
Driver on the basis of psychological evidence of what young scientists needed to learn were the
décalage – the apparent context-dependency of any processes of science – measurement, observation,
particular intellectual performance of a child. hypothesis generation, experimental design, and so on.
In spite of these respectably-founded concerns, I have already taken a swipe at the process skill
there is an influence of Piagetian thinking on science movement as neo-faculty psychology, but for a proper
education in the UK to this day. It is not explicit, but and elegant hatchet-job – well perhaps coupe de grâce
an analysis of the cognitive demands of the National would be a better term – see Robin Millar and Rosalind
Curriculum level descriptors shows a clear progression Driver’s (1987) paper in Studies in Science Education.
from early concrete operations through to mature In a nutshell, you cannot have processes without
formal. The National Curriculum developers probably content, and in any case this is not the way that real
did not have a copy of Shayer and Adey (1981) by science is conducted.
their sides as they developed the first ‘statements of
attainment’ in the late ’80s, but they did ask Michael
Shayer to check the progression of difficulty through
Alternative constructs
their levels 1 to 10. The levels proved to map on to The great idea that Rosalind Driver (1983) and her
Piagetian stages remarkably well. Consciously or colleagues brought to UK science education was that
unconsciously, the work of CSMS combined with their the way children interpret observations and
experience as teachers allowed the National information depends critically on the conceptions they
Curriculum developers to describe to themselves the already hold about phenomena. That children have to
characteristics of ‘easy’and ‘difficult’, and to use these construct their own meanings was already well
to fight off the demands of politicians and university established by the Piagetian school, but the working
admissions tutors for ever-more material and higher out of this ‘constructivism’ in terms of the resistance
conceptual levels. to change of already-existing alternative constructs in
The pro- and anti-Piagetian argument continues to the child’s mind was a major achievement of the
this day and this is not the place to rehearse the Children’s Learning in Science Project based in Leeds.
evidence and arguments of each side. It might be worth Driver drew inspiration from two creative New
recording, however, that all the main players in the Zealand science educators, Roger Osborne and Paul
exercise of these differences in person and in print Freyberg (1985) and from her mentor Jack Easley at
remained on friendly personal terms with one another. the University of Chicago, and she drew her theoretical
Before turning to constructivism (in the alternative foundation from a cognitive psychologist, David
constructs sense), we need to deal with an odd Ausubel, and a psychotherapist, George Kelly. The
aberration in the development of science education in Kelly connection is a little odd, since he was more
the UK – the process skill movement. interested in the personal construction of beliefs,
attitudes and other aspects of personality than in the
Processes development of cognitive concepts. But Ausubel’s
theory of meaningful learning spelled out how we
Sad to say, the process skill movement also originated make meaning of signals reaching working memory
in the US, being based on the ideas of the American by referring to existing concepts in long-term memory.
psychologist Robert Gagné. In the ’80s one could If the existing concepts are inadequate then the inter-
hardly pick up an academic paper on science education pretation of the new information may be inadequate
which did not refer to Gagné, but the two things for also. Ausubel himself acknowledged his debt to Piaget,
which he was famous were both fatally flawed. One and took a stronger line on the impossibility of young
was the idea that one could deconstruct any conceptual children developing formal concepts than many of
understanding into its logical subcomponents, and sub- those who used his theory.
subcomponents, and design one’s teaching starting An important mediator in the development of the
with these elements to build up to the over-arching alternative constructs movement was Joe Novak

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160 years of science education Adey

(Novak and Gowin, 1984) who argued that the guided is now a useful commonplace of science teaching and
discovery movement (Nuffield and all that) was learning in the UK.
confusing two separate parameters. One was that of
discovery-versus-reception learning, which describes
a practical choice of teaching methods. The other, more
Cognitive acceleration
important parameter, is the distinction between rote In January 2000 the Minister of State for Education
learning, in which children learn things parrot-fashion, and Employment publicly recognised the value of the
and meaningful learning in which they really under- Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education
stand the material. Novak accepted that practical work programme at King’s College London. Is this the
might well enhance meaningful learning, as pupils see beginning of the end for CASE? In any case, does
the colour changes, smell gases and feel forces. CASE really deserve a mention in an article devoted
However, practical work is often not meaningful to to science education? True, the cognitive acceleration
pupils if they simply go through the motions and hope idea was first worked out through science, but its
that they might hit the answer somehow. progenitors always argue that science is being used as
‘Constructivism’, in Driver’s sense, has entered no more than a vehicle for the development of general
deeply into the psyche of British science teachers. Even thinking skills, useful across the curriculum, and we
if the term has become a catch-all phrase used as now have CAME (maths), CATE (technology) and
shorthand for ‘good science teaching’, and even if it CAGE (geography). French and RE cannot be far
has sometimes been hi-jacked by loopy post-modern behind, if only because their acronyms will be so
radical constructivists who argue against any reality appropriate.
(all is personal, all is interpretation), the idea that we Well, it is worth a small mention at least because
cannot simply transmit information and that children it is impacting now on thousands of science teachers
cannot simply discover science for themselves unaided

Figure 2 Pupils engaged in a CASE intervention in the 1990s (© Julian Anderson).

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Adey 160 years of science education

in secondary schools throughout the UK. I would claim not account for the lack of girls studying physics and
that it is the most overtly theoretical influence that has chemistry (Hyde, 1981). It did become clear that boys
ever informed the science curriculum, and that each were more interested in a ‘technical fix’ while girls
of the elements of CASE teaching (concrete pre- were more interested in the application of science for
paration, cognitive conflict, social construction, human purposes (Head, 1985). Such findings provide
metacognition and bridging) can be traced directly to another perspective for selecting curriculum material.
their origins in the cognitive psychologies of Jean More recently work on gender differences and assess-
Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. The objective of teaching ment reveals that performance is not solely determined
for cognitive acceleration is the development in pupils by ability and knowledge but also by liking or not
of general ‘reasoning patterns’ (Piaget called them liking the assessment procedure (Gipps and Murphy,
schema) such as control of variables, proportionality, 1994).
equilibrium and probability. These very general ways
of thinking can be applied to many contexts in the
science curriculum. We (Adey and Shayer, 1994) see
Conclusion
them as general strategies which pupils have to Looking back, can we see the outline of any highway
construct for themselves, so we are still talking about along which the practice of science education has
constructivism. But while the alternative construct developed? Can we detect any increasing sense of
movement is concerned with the construction of direction and purpose as theoretical insights feed into
science concepts, in cognitive acceleration we believe practice? Even making allowance for my rose-tinted
we are constructing more general thinking strategies. spectacles, as one who believes deeply that teachers
I have tried, not very successfully so far, to coin the have both a right and desire to understand why they
term ‘meta-constructivism’ to described this process. are being asked to teach in a particular way, I think I
Looking at it another way, the problems that pupils would offer a qualified ‘Yes’ answer to both questions.
encounter in CASE lessons are designed to encourage What, it seems to me, differs in the current round of
them to discover more powerful ways of thinking. You speculation about science education from almost all
see, the discovery idea keeps popping up. that has gone before in the last century is a greater
recognition of the need for theoretical justifications
Affective aspects of for change and for theory-led research into what works
science learning and, above all, why it works. I think here not only of
our own cognitive acceleration work, but also of the
There is an important stream in the development of type of analysis of the purposes of science education
science teaching and learning in the UK which has in the new millennium conducted by scholars from
run parallel, and is complementary, to the movements York, King’s, Leeds and elsewhere (Millar and
informed by one view or another of cognitive Osborne, 1998). More than ever teachers are aware
conceptual development, and that is represented by that the nature of science and of scientific methods is
the work of John Head, Alison Kelly and others on the not simple. The species of which my chemistry
affective influences on learning. professor friend (‘I tell them, they write it down, they
There are two requirements for effective learning. learn it’) is an example is facing extinction. There is
The student has to be able to learn, that is, possess the far wider understanding of the problem of inter-
necessary processing capability and prior knowledge, pretation – that data are not simply given and read off,
and the student has to be willing to learn, that is possess but must be processed through existing understanding,
the necessary motivation to engage in the task and to using current processing capability, mediated by
persevere. Generally, more attention has been paid to motivational styles and affective mind sets.
the former than to the latter, to cognitive aspects rather Along with this greater awareness of the
than to affective. One line of work which did something complexity of teaching and learning science, there is
to rectify this imbalance came from the girls-and- an increased sense that we, as teachers, can have much
science movement (e.g. Kelly, 1981). During the 1970s more impact on children’s learning and motivation than
and ’80s there was concern about the limited uptake was previously believed. Not long ago, psychological
of physical science by girls. Literally hundreds of theory was used (or rather, misused) to suggest that
studies were made of possible gender differences in individual pupil progress was determined by more or
abilities, but a meta-analysis revealed that they could less fixed entities such as IQ or social class. Now the

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160 years of science education Adey

alternative frameworks movement and the cognitive intellectual abilities. Can we convince the curriculum
acceleration work have challenged ideas of psycho- managers in our schools to give us more time, because
logical determinism and the social environment is now of the wonderful service we are providing to the whole
considered only a correlate, not a determiner, of the school?
cognitive and motivational environment. The impact The final message is therefore an optimistic one.
on teaching science is that science may be seen as one Teachers and schools do matter.
particularly good vehicle for developing pupils’ general

Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my friend and colleague John Head for his many suggestions in planning this article and
for his contributions to it, as well as the many opportunities he has provided over the years for discussing the
impact of psychology on science education. I have frequently used his (1982) paper on a similar theme both as
a model and as a source of information. I would also like to thank Mick Nott for his comments on an earlier draft
and for finding the wonderful 1939 Burt article in SSR.
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Philip Adey is Professor of Cognition, Science, and Education at King’s College London and Director of the
Centre for the Advancement of Thinking.

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