Lederman Et Al. (2023) - Handbook of Research On Science Education. Volume III

HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH
ON SCIENCE EDUCATION
Volume III
Volume III of this landmark synthesis of research ofers 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 the diversity
of the feld. Each chapter has been updated with new research and new content, and Volume III has
been further developed to include new and expanded coverage on astronomy and space education,
epistemic practices related to socioscientifc issues, design-based research, interdisciplinary and STEM
education, inclusive science education, and the global impact of nature of science and scientifc
inquiry literacy.
As with the previous volumes, Volume III is organized around six themes: theory and methods of
science education research; science learning; diversity and equity; science teaching; curriculum and
assessment; and science teacher education. Each chapter presents an integrative review of the research
on the topic it addresses, pulling together the existing research, working to understand historical
trends and patterns in that body of scholarship, describing how the issue is conceptualized within
the literature, how methods and theories have shaped the outcomes of the research, and where the
strengths, weaknesses, and gaps are in the literature.
Providing guidance to science education faculty, scholars, and graduate students, and pointing
toward future directions of the feld, Handbook of Research on Science Education Research, Volume III
ofers an essential resource to all members of the science education community.
Norman G. Lederman (deceased) was the Distinguished Professor and Chair, Department of
Mathematics and Science Education, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA.
Dana L. Zeidler is the Distinguished University Professor and Program Coordinator for Science
Education in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Learning of the College of Education
at the University of South Florida, USA.
Judith S. Lederman is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics and Science

Education, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA.
HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH
ON SCIENCE EDUCATION
Volume III
Edited by Norman G. Lederman,

Dana L. Zeidler, and Judith S. Lederman
First published 2023
by Routledge
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© 2023 Taylor & Francis
The right of Norman G. Lederman, Dana L. Zeidler, Judith S. Lederman to
be identifed as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
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and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-0-367-42888-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-42889-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-85575-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Contributors xii
SECTION I
Theory and Methods of Science Education Research 1
Section Editor: William Boone
1 Paradigms in Science Education Research 3

David F. Treagust and Mihye Won
2 Quantitative Research Designs and Approaches 28

Hans E. Fischer, William J. Boone, and Knut Neumann
3 Qualitative Research as Culture and Practice 60

Gregory J. Kelly
SECTION II
Science Learning 87
Section Editor: Richard A. Duschl
4 Theories of Learning 89
Clark A. Chinn and Kalypso Iordanou
5 Student Conceptions, Conceptual Change, and Learning Progressions 121

Joseph Krajcik and Namsoo Shin
v
Contents
6 Student Attitudes, Identity, and Aspirations Toward Science 158

Russell Tytler and Joseph Paul Ferguson
7 Learning Environments 193

Barry J. Fraser
SECTION III
Diversity and Equity in Science Learning 219
Section Editors: Cory A. Buxton and Okhee Lee
8 Unpacking and Critically Synthesizing the Literature on Race and

Ethnicity in Science Education: How Far Have We Come? 221
Felicia Moore Mensah and Julie A. Bianchini
9 Gender Matters: Building on the Past, Recognizing the Present, and

Looking Toward the Future 263
Anna Danielsson, Lucy Avraamidou, and Allison Gonsalves
10 Multilingual Learners in Science Education 291

Cory A. Buxton and Okhee Lee
11 Special Needs and Talents in Science Learning 325

Sami Kahn
12 Science Education in Urban and Rural Contexts: Expanding on

Conceptual Tools for Urban-Centric Research 359
Gayle A. Buck, Pauline W. U. Chinn, and Bhaskar Upadhyay
13 Culturally Responsive Science Education for Indigenous and Ethnic

Minority Students 389
Meshach Mobolaji Ogunniyi
SECTION IV
Science Teaching 411
Section Editors: Jan van Driel and Charlene Czerniak
14 Discourse Practices in Science Learning 413

Gregory J. Kelly, Bryan Brown, and María Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre
15 Synergies Between Learning Technologies and Learning Sciences:

Promoting Equitable Secondary School Teaching 447
Marcia C. Linn, Dermot Donnelly-Hermosillo, and Libby Gerard
vi
Contents
16 Science Education During the Early Childhood Years: Research

Themes and Future Directions 499
Christina Siry, Kathy Cabe Trundle, and Mesut Saçkes
17 Elementary Science Teaching: Toward the Goal of Scientifc Literacy 528

Valarie L. Akerson and Selina L. Bartels
18 Interdisciplinary Approaches and Integrated STEM in Science Teaching 559

Carla C. Johnson and Charlene M. Czerniak
19 Teaching Biology: What Research Says 586

Hernán Cofré, Claudia Vergara, David Santibáñez, Paola Núñez,
and William McComas
20 Teaching Physics 619

Hans E. Fischer and Knut Neumann
21 Chemistry Education Research: Recent Trends and the Onset of the

Pandemic Era 657
Sibel Erduran and Aybuke Pabuçcu Akış
22 Earth Science Education 692

Nir Orion and Julie C. Libarkin
23 Environmental Education 717

Justin Dillon and Benjamin Herman
24 Scientifc Inquiry Literacy: The Missing Link on the Continuum

from Science Literacy to Scientifc Literacy 749
Renée S. Schwartz, Judith S. Lederman, and Patrick J. Enderle
SECTION V
Curriculum and Assessment in Science 783
Section Editors: Bronwen Cowen and Anders Jonsson
25 Science, Scientifc Literacy, and Science Education 785

Jonathan Osborne
26 The Use of Content Standards for Curriculum Reform in the United States:
A Historical Analysis 817
George E. DeBoer
27 Research on Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of Nature of Science 850

Fouad Abd-El-Khalick and Norman G. Lederman
vii
Contents
28 Exploring and Expanding the Frontiers of Socioscientifc Issues 899

Dana L. Zeidler and Troy D. Sadler
29 Project Evaluation: Its History, Importance, and Current Practice 930

Sarah Beth Woodruf and Qinghua Nian
30 Precollege Engineering Education 960

Christine M. Cunningham and Cary Sneider
31 Review of Research About Science Education Program Evaluation 993

Frances Lawrenz and Leslie Goodyear
32 An AI-Based Teacher Dashboard to Support Students’ Inquiry:

Design Principles, Features, and Technological Specifcations 1011
Janice D. Gobert, Michael A. Sao Pedro, and Cameron G. Betts
33 Large-Scale Assessment in Science Education 1045

Xiaoming Zhai and James W. Pellegrino
SECTION VI
Science Teacher Education 1099
Section Editor: Saouma Boujaoude
34 Science Teacher Attitudes and Beliefs: Reforming Practice 1101

M. Gail Jones and Soonhye Park
35 Research on Science Teacher Knowledge and Its Development 1123

Jan H. van Driel, Anne Hume, and Amanda Berry
36 Learning to Teach Science 1162

Tom Russell and Andrea K. Martin
37 Research on Teacher Professional Development Programs in Science 1197

Gillian Roehrig
Index 1221
viii
PREFACE
The third volume of this handbook builds on the seminal work of its predecessors. Volume I,
published in 2007, was edited by Sandra K. Abel and Norman G. Lederman. This original volume
provided the feld with the frst comprehensive synthesis of empirical and theoretical research repre-
sented by international scholars. The publication of Volume II, edited by Norman G. Lederman and
Sandra K. Abell in 2014, carried this scholarship forward with attention to the coherent synthesis of
newer research that informed theory, policy, and practice, as well as attention to emerging felds of
research. Now, in 2023, we fnd ourselves building on the shoulders of our colleagues. In Volume
III, edited by Norman G. Lederman, Dana L. Zeidler, and Judith S. Lederman, our aim is to build
on past research, getting seminal works down to a science, and infuse it with the most insightful cur-
rent research, raising it up to a state-of-the art collection of the most relevant themes and research
to science education. We have confdence that the work in this volume will enrich our current
understandings of theory, policy, and practice, as well as stimulate the growth of new directions of
fruitful research that will inform our feld and as it continues to evolve with the zeitgeist and tenor
of the times.
This venture has not been without its unforeseen challenges on so many levels. The loss of a lov-
ing husband, colleague, and close friend made the development and production of this volume, to
say the least, a difcult journey. We hereby dedicate this volume to Dr. Norman G. Lederman, who
would have been quite disappointed in us had we not brought this work to its natural fruition! In a
metaphorical, Aristotelian way, we can think of Norm as an unmoved mover – coalescing so many
scholars around the globe to contribute their time and energy to something he deemed critical to the
feld. To partake in this venture, with the collective goal of promoting human fourishing through
the exercise of virtues of character and the quest for scientifc literacy, is Norm’s legacy. Volume III
is dedicated to you, Norm!
Of course, much of the development of this book took place as all of us confronted the ravish-
ing global efects of COVID-19, and the many variants that followed. Many of the section editors
and authors were faced with life-altering decisions about family, friends, professional colleagues, and
rethinking how to efectively educate in the absence of the sociocultural contexts we had taken for
granted. There may be topics that the reader would wish were included but could not be because
of the personal hardships confronting all of us. However, it may count as a minor marvel that so
many international scholars persevered to contribute to this volume, highlighting contemporary
and emerging research perspectives. It may have taken a bit longer to bring this current project to
conclusion than originally anticipated. We are grateful for the understanding and dedicated eforts
ix
Preface
of all who contributed to this collective endeavor, and we are confdent that Volume III represents a
compendium of the best global research lines impacting science education research.
The research in this volume is presented in six sections representing major themes in current
research. They are as follows:
Section I. Theory and Methods of Science Education Research

Section Editor: William Boone, Miami University
Section II. Science Learning

Section Editor: Richard A. Duschl, Southern Methodist University
Section III. Diversity and Equity in Science Learning

Section Editors: Cory A. Buxton, Oregon State University, and Okhee Lee, New York
University
Section IV. Science Teaching

Section Editors: Jan van Driel, University of Melbourne, and Charlene Czerniak, University
of Toledo
Section V. Curriculum and Assessment in Science

Section Editors: Bronwen Cowen, The University of Waikato, Hamilton, and Anders Jonsson,
Kristianstad University
Section VI. Science Teacher Education

Section Editor: Saouma Boujaoude, American University of Beirut
x
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We want to acknowledge the work of our Managing Editors, who helped to right the ship if we
meandered of course, worked closely with our publisher to make sure all the fles were consistent
with publication requirements, and applied their technical expertise to formatting and indexing the
many manuscripts that comprise this volume. They are Dr. Dionysius Gnanakkan, Illinois Institute
of Technology, and Constantine Shuniak, University of South Florida. We could not have com-
pleted this task without their dedicated eforts.
xi
CONTRIBUTORS
Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Valarie Akerson, Indiana University, USA
Aybuke Pabuçcu Akış, Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey
Lucy Avraamidou, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Selina L. Bartels, Valparaiso University, USA
Julie A. Bianchini, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Amanda Berry, Monash University, Australia
Cameron G. Betts, Apprendis LLC., USA
William J. Boone, Miami University, USA
Saouma Boujaoude, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
Bryan Brown, Stanford University, USA
Gayle A. Buck, Indiana University, USA
Cory A. Buxton, Oregon State University, USA
Clark Chinn, Rutgers University, USA
Pauline W. U. Chinn, University of Hawaii, USA
Bronwen Cowen, The University of Waikato, New Zealand
Christine M. Cunningham, The Pennsylvania State University, USA
Charlene Czerniak, University of Toledo, USA
Anna Danielsson, Uppsala University, Sweden
George E. DeBoer, Colgate University, USA
Justin Dillon, University of Exeter, UK
Dermot Donnelly-Hermosillo, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Richard A. Duschl, Southern Methodist University, USA
Patrick J. Enderle, Georgia State University, USA
Sibel Erduran, University of Oxford, UK
Joseph Ferguson, Deakin University, Australia
Hans E. Fischer, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Barry J. Fraser, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Libby Gerard, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Janice Gobert, Rutgers University, USA
Allison Gonsalves, McGill University, Canada
Leslie Goodyear, Education Development Center, USA
Benjamin Herman, Texas A&M University, USA
Anne Hume, University of Waikato, New Zealand
Kalypso Iordanou, University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus
xii
Contributors
María Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Carla C. Johnson, North Carolina State University, USA
M. Gail Jones, North Carolina State University, USA
Anders Jonsson, Kristianstad University, Sweden
Sami Kahn, Princeton University, USA
Gregory J. Kelly, The Pennsylvania State University, USA
Joseph S. Krajcik, Michigan State University, USA
Frances Lawrenz, University of Minnesota, USA
Judith S. Lederman, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA
Norman G. Lederman, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA
Okhee Lee, New York University, USA
Julie C. Libarkin, Michigan State University, USA
Marcia C. Linn, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Hernán Cofré, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile
Andrea K. Martin, Queen’s University, Canada
Felicia Moore Mensah, Columbia University, USA
Knut Neumann, Leibniz-Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN), Kiel, Germany
Qinghua Nian, Johns Hopkins University, USA
Paola Núñez, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile
Meshach M. Ogunniyi, University of the Western Cape, South Africa
Nir Orion, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
Jonathan Osborne, Stanford University, USA
Soonhye Park, North Carolina State University, USA
James Pellegrino, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
Gillian Roehrig, University of Minnesota, USA
Tom Russell, Queen’s University, Canada
Mesut Saçkes, Balikesir University, Turkey
Troy Sadler, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
David Santibáñez, Universidad Finis Terrae, Chile
Michael A. Sao Pedro, Apprendis LLC., USA
Kathleen Scalise, University of Oregon, USA
Renée S. Schwartz, Georgia State University, USA
Namsoo Shin, Michigan State University, USA
Christina Siry, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Cary Sneider, Portland State University, USA
David F. Treagust, Curtin University, Australia
Kathy Cabe Trundle, Utah State University, USA
Russell Tytler, Deakin University, Australia
Bhaskar Upadhyay, University of Minnesota, USA
Jan H. van Driel, University of Melbourne, Australia
Claudia Vergara, Pontificia Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile
Mihye Won, Curtin University, Australia
Sarah Beth Woodruff, Miami University, USA
Dana L. Zeidler, University of South Florida, USA
xiii
SECTION I
Theory and Methods of Science

Education Research
Section Editor: William Boone
1
PARADIGMS IN SCIENCE
EDUCATION RESEARCH
Why Discuss Research Paradigms?

From the nature of science studies, science education researchers are familiar with Thomas Kuhn’s
(1962) theory of paradigm shifts. Kuhn’s main focus was on scientifc inquiry and the scientifc com-
munity, not on social or educational research, but his term “paradigm” provides a convenient refer-
ence point to talk about diferent sets of beliefs, values, and methodologies in educational research
(Schwandt, 2001). A paradigm in educational research is recognized as a worldview that sets the value
of research and asks such questions as: What is counted as social knowledge, action, and meaning?
What are the main goals of educational research? What are the roles of educational researchers? How
do we carry out our research projects? (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). Like G. Anderson (1998) notes,
“How you see the world is largely a function of where you view it from” (p. 3). Consequently, the
research paradigms guide the researchers throughout the empirical research process: from setting the
research purpose to selecting data-collection methods to analyzing the data to reporting the fndings.
As Kuhn noted, although the paradigm is frmly based on the philosophical stance and has a sig-
nifcant infuence over every aspect of the research procedures, researchers take for granted the para-
digm in which they work, if they consider the paradigm at all. Indeed, researchers often have little
or no knowledge of the historical grounding of the philosophical positions behind the paradigm, and
consequently, they do not recognize the implications for conducting research. Indeed, in our recent
informal review of research papers in science education when preparing for this chapter, the major-
ity of authors do not refer explicitly to the paradigm that frames their research. In a similar manner,
research methods books, particularly qualitative research methods books, discuss philosophical foun-
dations and diferences between quantitative and qualitative studies without necessary mentioning
paradigms. Generally, the focus is on “practical” aspects of data collection and analysis – that is, step-
by-step how-to procedures, such as how to phrase survey questions, how to use statistical packages,
or how to conduct efective interviews (e.g., Creswell & Guetterman, 2019; Fraenkel et al., 2019;
Wiersma & Jurs, 2009). In such discussions of the research process, educational researchers view their
studies mainly in terms of technicalities, without acknowledging worldviews that shape and validate
their knowledge claims (Kincheloe & Tobin, 2009). In more recent editions, some comprehensive
research methods texts do discuss research paradigms and philosophical backgrounds, but largely in
terms of the procedural diferences between quantitative and qualitative data collection (Cohen et al.,
2011; Punch & Oancea, 2014). Despite their importance, in most research papers and educational
research methods books, research paradigms are rather hidden from plain view.
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-2 3
The fact that many people conduct studies without seriously considering research paradigms
may be interpreted that the practical aspects of selecting a research paradigm are not as paramount as
some researchers believe should be the case (Bryman, 2008). Some researchers even regard discussion
of paradigms as a purely philosophical exercise, a remnant of the paradigm wars in the 1980s and
90s (Morgan, 2007). Refecting on this time period, the seminal article published by Gage (1989)
(written as though it was 2009), described the situation of the paradigm wars from a vantage point
of 20 years hence. As discussed in this article, positivist and post-positivist research fourished in the
1980s and was later challenged by alternative paradigms, namely, those taking an interpretivist and/
or critical stance. Much of what Gage wrote about has turned out to be what occurred in practice.
However, initial antagonism of proponents of one paradigm toward another appears to have been
somewhat moderated with the development and use of mixed-methods research (Bryman, 2008) and
the wider acknowledgment of the contributions that research from diferent paradigms brings to the
education community (Bredo, 2009).
In recent years, there have been some heated discussion on the diversity of research paradigms
and what it means in the practice of educational research (Moss et al., 2009). Many education phi-
losophers and researchers have found that the education research guidelines and policies published in
the United States by the National Research Council (NRC) (2002) and by other research-funding
organizations dogmatically promote a certain type of research studies under the banner of evidence-
based, scientifc research, implying quantitative experimental design studies. At the time, this position
by the NRC was not well considered by researchers in education who believed that it is dangerous
to have such a limited view on what “other” types of research could contribute to establishing better
education (see especially Feuer et al., 2002). (A detailed discussion of this issue is available in Educa-
tional Researcher in 2002 [volume 31, issue 8] and 2009 [volume 38, issues 6–7] and Qualitative Inquiry
in 2004 [volume 10, issue 1].)
Furthermore, in the education community, and in the science education community in particular,
there is still a tendency to ignore/dismiss research studies in other research paradigms (Kincheloe &
Tobin, 2009). Post-positivists may think that interpretivist studies are anecdotal and not method-
ologically rigorous enough, and critical theory studies are too politically oriented. Interpretivists
may regard that post-positivist studies are superfcial or limiting. Critical theorists may consider that
post-positivist studies are exacerbating educational inequality. Yet, there is great need to have an
open mind to learn from the diferences (Maxwell, 2004; Moss et al., 2009). The philosophical and
practical diversity in the education research community not only supports building more balanced
knowledge in education (St. Pierre, 2002), but also makes ways for more comprehensive research
eforts with common goals (Bredo, 2009). In practice, this more balanced knowledge base is evident
from an extensive review of 137,024 doctoral dissertations in education in US universities from 1980
to 2012, which showed an increased popularity of the interpretive research approaches during this
period (Munoz-Najar Galvez et al., 2020). Further, there has been a willingness to move away from
paradigm wars and examine the emergence of new approaches that address the complexities of edu-
cational research (Pivovarova et al., 2020).
We intentionally did not use the common category distinction of quantitative and qualitative
research in this chapter because the category could be misleading – as if paradigm is limited to the
choice of data-collection methods. As mentioned earlier, we believe a research paradigm is much
more encompassing than the choice of data types. It is not helpful when a US government report –
Common guidelines for educational research and development (Earle et al., 2013) – presents six types of
research without any mention of paradigms. In our view, without an analytical understanding of each
research paradigm, it is easy to misjudge the quality and the value of research to be investigated and
miss the opportunities to learn from them (Moss et al., 2009).
In this chapter, we discuss four research paradigms – positivist/post-positivist, interpretivist/
constructivist, critical theory, and mixed methods. While there are many diferent categorizations and
4
Paradigms in Science Education Research
boundary drawings of research paradigms (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2007; Lincoln & Guba, 2000; Moss
et al., 2009; Taylor et al., 2012), we chose those four to illustrate their own philosophical underpin-
nings or theoretical frameworks that guide research procedures and discuss how each paradigm is
realized in various research studies in science education. Positivist/post-positivist researchers, based
on realist worldviews, attempt to discover the truth by emulating “scientifc” research with solid lit-
erature backgrounds and “objective” and rigorous research methods. Interpretivist researchers, based
on relativist or constructivist worldviews, endeavor to make sense of the social phenomena through a
lens of participants, demanding researchers of fexibility, open-mindedness, and refexivity in design
and execution of the research. Critical theory researchers, based on feminist, post-modernist, and
other critical worldviews, challenge the status quo by questioning common assumptions and prac-
tices to create a more equitable, democratic society. In addition to research being conducted and
framed within these three paradigms (even when not overtly mentioned), over the past three decades,
a strong argument has emerged for what is referred to as the fourth pragmatic paradigm (Luken-
chuk & Kolich, 2013). In this paradigm, mixed-methods researchers in education are not constrained
by the underlying philosophies of the three paradigms referred to earlier and choose to not consider
the philosophical underpinning of research, focusing on answering specifc research questions.
By describing selected research articles that refect the diferent paradigms referenced in the sci-
ence education research feld, we refect on our own research practices and facilitate a dialogue across
paradigms among science education researchers.
Post-Positivist Research Paradigm
Philosophical Backgrounds and Theoretical Frameworks

of Post-Positivist Research Studies
Positivism is understood as “any approach that applies scientifc method to the study of human
action” (Schwandt, 2001, p. 199). Following the empirical science tradition, positivist researchers
assert that in order to make a meaningful knowledge claim, research studies should be frmly sup-
ported by logical reasoning and empirical data that are self-evident and verifable (Schwandt, 2001).
Many science education researchers may fnd this ideology of positivism familiar because it is well
integrated within Western academic culture – such as the objective, scientifc, logical, evidence-
based research as the most desirable form of research (Howe, 2009; Kincheloe & Tobin, 2009). In
contemporary discourse, however, positivism carries some negative implications due to its link to
naïve realism, but modifed forms of positivism are quite prevalent and infuential in the educa-
tion feld.
Diferent from positivists, post-positivists do admit that culture, personal value systems, and other
surroundings infuence an individual’s perception of the world in both positive and negative ways
(Phillips & Burbules, 2000) – positive because it guides what to look for and how to make a reason-
able, logical explanation, but negative because it may lead to tunnel vision, limiting our understand-
ing of the phenomenon in the truest form. Because of the negative infuence of our prejudices,
we cannot be sure whether our knowledge claims really refect the truth or not. Yet, this does not
mean that the truth does not exist or that the truth does not matter. For example, a group of teach-
ers may personally prefer a didactic teaching method based on their experience. Their reluctance
to recognize alternative teaching methods, however, does not mean that there could be certain
teaching methods that are more efective and yield better outcomes with students. Here, the role of
post-positivist researchers is, as objective investigators, to systematically approach the truth as best as
they can. Rather than simply relying on prior experiences, the researchers endeavor to collect com-
prehensive empirical data methodically and compare the diferent teaching methods objectively. By
conducting a systematic empirical inquiry, post-positivist researchers believe that they can approach
5
the truth (or warranted assertions to borrow from John Dewey [1938/1991]) and are able to inform
the people of interest (teachers, policymakers, parents, students, etc.) in order to help make data-
driven decisions, for example, on a new educational program or educational improvement plans (in
this case, informing teachers which teaching method is better for improving student achievement).
Examples of Post-Positivist Research Studies

Similar to research in the natural sciences or psychology, the post-positivist tradition focuses on
seeking a scientifcally rational or correlational explanation – for example, the efectiveness of a new
teaching method on students’ achievement, the relationship of students’ family background and their
attitudes toward schooling, or the infuence of students’ perceptions toward science on their aca-
demic performance. Naturally, post-positivist researchers regularly adopt comparative experimental
designs or survey designs to fnd a causal or correlational explanation. To help readers understand the
distinct characteristics of post-positivist research, we introduce fve research studies from the science
education literature with which we are familiar to illustrate the common features. These studies are
not the result of an exhaustive review of the literature.
Kihyun Ryoo and Marcia Linn (2012) followed this post-positivist research tradition and inves-
tigated the efectiveness of an educational program in terms of students’ conceptual achievement
through pre- and post-tests. This study resembles much of an experiment report in the natural
sciences. The authors conservatively designed their study in advance, strictly followed the research
protocols, and methodically elaborated the research procedures in the report to convince the readers
that they fulflled the quality standards of the post-positivist experimental design. At the beginning
of their report, they posed their research question, “How do dynamic visualizations, compared to
static illustrations, improve middle school students’ understanding of energy transformation in photo-
synthesis?” The researchers divided students into an experimental group with dynamic visualization
and one control group with static visualization. While the researchers did put the efort in making
the experimental education program attractive (in this case, dynamic visualization), they tried to
make the control and experimental conditions similar as much as possible, except for the instruction
materials (that is, independent variable of dynamic versus static visualization). To equalize those two
conditions, the researchers adopted a few measures: they selected two teachers with similar teaching
experience (fve years); within each teacher’s class, the students were randomly assigned into two
groups after a pre-test; the students went through identical lessons and assessments, except for the
visualization modes, and the number of students was large enough to make analytical claims based
on statistics (200 students in total). After the lesson and assessments, the researchers categorized the
students’ written answers based on an assessment rubric to decide on the improvements of students’
understanding of the concept. Once the data were in, the researchers used a set of statistical packages
to analyze the data and backed up their research fndings using various sources of data and triangula-
tion. In order to convince the reader that procedures have been followed faithfully, the researchers
provided an extensive explanation of the research procedures with statistical signifcance, internal
validity, and external validity of the study. After the data analysis, the researchers informed the read-
ers of the educational implications of the fndings and the limitations of the study, such as where
the results can and cannot be generalized to and possible ways to increase the educational efects for
further studies.
Another post-positivist study, Sunitadevi Velayutham et al. (2011) examined the afective domain.
The researchers developed a survey instrument to measure students’ motivation and self-regulation
in science learning. Based on a literature review, the researchers identifed a few key components
that reportedly infuence students’ motivation in science learning, such as learning goal orientation,
task value, self-efcacy, and self-regulation. Here, we notice the researchers’ frm belief that extensive
utilization of previous research studies is the efective way to make a reliable instrument to measure
6
students’ perception of themselves (Jaeger, 1997). They painstakingly identifed the possible factors
and wrote the questionnaire items because the wording of the questions is regarded as very important
to obtain the corresponding response. They conducted a pilot study and interviewed some teach-
ers and students. The interviews were not a substantial part of the study, but were used to check
whether students’ responses in the survey matched with what they said in their interview. After the
confrmation, the researchers distributed the survey to a large number of students (1,360 students in
78 classes). The students were the data source, and any personal connection with them was neither
necessary nor desirable to make an unbiased, scientifc claim. After the data collection, the research-
ers ran a series of statistical analyses to validate the instrument. With the numbers neatly organized
in a table format, the researchers methodically claimed that their survey instrument has internal
consistency reliability, concurrent validity, and predictive validity. They also claimed that they took
stringent measures to safeguard themselves against methodical biases during their study. The research-
ers concluded the report with possible uses of the instrument for future studies.
Another research domain that lends itself to a post-positivist research paradigm includes studies
that assess national standards or competencies of learning. These competencies include understanding
and application of science concepts, principles and views of the nature of science and evaluation, and
judgment about the role of science knowledge in understanding key problems of society and the life
world. Julia Holstenbach et al. (2011) developed a model of these competencies that is theoretically
based and empirically validated by a test composed of items allowing large-scale assessment. The
model included the following areas of competence: (1) science knowledge, (2) knowledge about
science, (3) communication, and (4) evaluation and judgment. The work draws on earlier work
on evaluation and judgment competence in the feld of biology education by Eggert and Bögeholz
(2006), who presented a theoretically based competence model for decision-making in the area of
sustainable development. This work discusses the difcult task to develop instructional settings and
materials to guide students in achieving the complex competencies addressed.
Secondary analyses where the research is presented as objective, logical, and evidence-based,
with the researchers having no contact with the participants or the research sites, also ft within the
post-positivist design. Hsin-Hui Wang et al. (2021) explored how specifc inquiry-related learning
activities were related to student enjoyment of learning science and intended choice of future STEM
careers. The data were from Taiwanese and Australian PISA 2015 results on three activities – debat-
ing and planning experiments, drawing conclusions and doing hands-on activities, and teachers and
students explaining ideas. Taiwan and Australia were identifed as sharing a consensus on developing
scientifc inquiry-related instruction to enhance the efectiveness of science education. The authors
state that Taiwanese and Australian 15-year-old students have similar performances on science com-
petency (4th and 14th out of 72 countries) but distinct cooperative behaviors – Taiwanese students
emphasizing the product of cooperation compared to the Australian emphasis on the process of
cooperation. Australian and Taiwanese high– and low–scientifc competency students were com-
pared across the three activities. Contrary to reports that inquiry activities are negatively associated
with student learning outcomes, “this study identifed specifc inquiry-related activities that are ben-
efcial to high and low scientifc competency students in Australia and Taiwan” (p. 173).
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is required as part of the primary and high school
curricula in Germany, and these aims can be achieved by introducing students to systems thinking.
However, systems thinking is not part of university teacher education in Germany. In this study, Dan-
iela Fanta et al. (2020) conducted a study with preservice biology and geography teachers to inves-
tigate the efect of three diferent interventions – a technical course, a mixed course, and a didactic
course – that difered on the proportion of systems science and content for teaching systems think-
ing. The goal was to measure the extent of fostering systems thinking in student teachers of biology
and geography in contrast to a control group. A heuristic structural competence model for systems
thinking comprising four dimensions of competence was developed and used as the basis for a test
7
produced by the authors that was given to the preservice teachers. A quasi-experimental interven-
tion study in a pre-, post-, and follow-up test control group design was employed and the instrument
reliability, difculty, and discrimination values provided. Upon completion of the courses, systems
thinking was evident in all three courses compared to the control group. The authors concluded that
“courses in fostering and teaching systems thinking should become part of the curricula in university
teacher education, especially in the ESD-related topics such as biology and geography” (p. 240).
Common Features of Post-Positivist Research

Common Research Topics: The primary concern of post-positivist research is to provide a rational
explanation for a variety of educational phenomena, but it is often linked with a scientifc test for
efectiveness or efciency of a teaching program or educational system – in other words, investigating
what works and why it works for evidence-based educational practice (Feuer et al., 2002). Studies that
typically are within a post-positivist paradigm include: (1) intervention studies, as seen in Ryoo and
Linn’s (2012) study and that of Fanta et al. (2020), and educational software studies such as the one by
van Borkulo et al. (2012); (2) large-scale assessment studies, such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in
the United States (Dee & Jacob, 2011), the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy
(NAPLAN) in Australia (Dulfer et al., 2012), and the national competency study by Holstenbach et al.
(2011); (3) international comparison studies, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and
Science Study (TIMSS) (Thomson et al., 2012; Mullis et al., 2020) and the Programme for Interna-
tional Student Assessment (PISA) (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2010;
Thomson et al., 2016); and (4) secondary analyses, like those by Wang et al. (2021).
Common Research Designs: Based on logical empiricism, post-positivists painstakingly focus on
establishing formal research designs and data that can self-evidently explain what is happening within
education programs/systems and why. In order to make their knowledge claim more scientifc and
generalizable to other educational systems, post-positivists frequently choose experimental designs
(Ryoo & Linn, 2012) or large-scale surveys (Velayutham et al., 2011) or interventions (Fanta et al.,
2020). For such research designs, researchers adopt comprehensive sampling strategies (e.g., stratifed,
systematic, or cluster sampling) to represent the target population, and they endeavor to control the
variables (e.g., dependent, independent, or confounding variables) in various ways to establish a clear
causal relationship (Porter, 1997). However, this level of control is constrained because educational
researchers are limited by ethical considerations and in this way use quasi-experimental designs. These
researchers also spend a signifcant amount of time methodically developing a quantitative instru-
ment or rubric to record the research participants’ understanding, perceptions, or behaviors (Jaeger,
1997). The general standards of quantitative study, such as reliability, internal and external validity,
and statistical precision, are faithfully addressed (Cohen et al., 2011). While qualitative data may be
collected for such research designs through interviews, observations, or students’ essays, the data are
typically converted into numbers to correspond to pre-set categories (Ryoo & Linn, 2012) or used
to support or elaborate on the quantitative data (Velayutham et al., 2011) as a form of triangulation.
Role of the Researcher in Relation to the Participants: Like natural scientists, post-positivist education
researchers aim to be unbiased, knowledgeable experts who contemplate an educational phenom-
enon at a distance (Schwandt, 2001). The researchers primarily rely on the previously established
body of knowledge, their intellectual reasoning power, and their impartiality to the study to make
knowledge claims (Moss et al., 2009). Their personal values/beliefs or their involvement with the
research participants may damage the objectivity of the study, and post-positivist researchers strive
not to become too involved with the participants to proceed with the study fairly. In Ryoo and Linn’s
(2012) study, the researchers were not directly involved in teaching the students themselves; rather,
they were outsiders who sat in class to check the intervention protocols and collect the necessary
data. They did not try to build any personal connection with the participating students. Similarly
8
for the studies of Velayutham et al. (2011) and Fanta et al. (2020), the same basic relationship was
established between the researchers and the participants with no personal attachment with the par-
ticipants. In the secondary analysis study by Hsin-Hui Wang et al. (2021), the researchers are far
removed from the participants and the research sites.
Because of the limited connections with the participants, the ethical obligations of the post-
positivist researchers to the researched are seemingly straightforward. They follow the ethical guide-
lines outlined by the Institutional Review Board or Ethics Committee (see, for example, the ethics
approval process of the American Educational Research Association [2011] and the Australian Asso-
ciation for Research in Education [n.d.] or similar institutional departments). These guidelines
involve voluntary participation, informing participants about the research procedures in advance,
being sure to avoid physical and psychological harm to the participants, safeguarding the anonymity
of the participants, and reporting the data honestly (Fraenkel et al., 2019).
Common Quality Standards: While many educational researchers characterize positivism/post-
positivism in terms of rigorous research methods and verifable data (Kincheloe & Tobin, 2009),
D.C. Phillips (2005) argued that researchers in this tradition value not just the methods, but also
how the overall case is made. He explains that a research study should be frmly based on objective,
comprehensive data, but the arguments of the study should also be meticulously structured to present
the main argument convincingly. Robert Floden (Moss et al., 2009) focuses on the connection of the
research study to the research community and to the established body of knowledge and lists three
important criteria to judge the quality of research in this tradition: (1) a clear defnition of concepts/
constructs that are employed in the study; (2) a strong, logical reasoning throughout the research
process – from literature review to interpretation of the empirical data to drawing of its conclusions;
and (3) signifcant contribution of the study fndings to educators or policymakers.
Common Report Styles: Most post-positivist educational researchers follow the traditional scien-
tifc research report format: starting from the literature review, research problem/questions, research
design, data analysis, and discussion of research fndings, and fnishing with limitations and educa-
tional implications. The fow of the report is logically organized to demonstrate how scientifcally the
study was conducted. The procedures are elaborately described to enable replications. The report is
frequently written in a passive voice or third-person narrative to give an impersonal, objective tone.
Interpretivist/Constructivist Research Paradigm
Philosophical Background and Theoretical Frameworks of

Interpretivist/Constructivist Research Paradigm Studies
Interpretivism emerged as the reaction against the prevalent “scientifc” positivism research. Difer-
ent from post-positivists and their search for the objective, generalizable truth of the world, interpre-
tivists focus on the localized meanings of human experience. Stemming from the relativist ontology and
constructivist epistemology, the researchers in this tradition focus on the fact that people construct
their understanding based on their experiences, culture, and context. Even one simple action of
shaking hands could be interpreted diferently – as pleasant, too formal, or repulsive – depending on
the social convention, location, time, and the company. Likewise, when an educational program is
introduced, a young, enthusiastic, personable Ms. Alison may interpret and implement it diferently
from an experienced, charismatic Mr. Buckley. Consequently, the “proven” efects of the educa-
tional program may have little relevance to the students in Ms. Alison’s class because of the local
educational context. Thus, interpretivist researchers are scornful of the post-positivists’ efort to gloss
over the specifcs of the teaching and learning context to generalize their research fndings. They
argue that measuring and generalizing human understanding and behaviors – as in post-positivist
studies – do not tell the more important part of human action – the situated meanings that people
9
make out of such social, educational interactions. Researchers in the interpretivist tradition thus do
not overly claim generalizability of their fndings into other situations because people’s meanings and
intentions are contextual, temporal, and particular. While academic researchers often feel the urge to
make generalizable knowledge claims – that could go beyond the immediate context of the study to
be widely applicable to address the situation at hand – interpretivists aim to describe in detail people’s
lived experiences (Dewey, 1925/1981, 1938/1988) regarding educational phenomenon. If the audi-
ence of the study fnds the researcher’s interpretation plausible, informative, or thought-provoking,
the research is regarded as worthwhile (Wolcott, 2009).
Researching people’s localized, subjective interpretation of social phenomena, however, involves
multiple layers of complication. For example, how do we know researchers identifed the true local
meanings? Understanding people’s lived experience is not the same as interviewing and transcribing
every word into a research paper. Researchers need to interpret what the research participants have
shared with them, and the participants would share only what they want to share with the research-
ers. Based on the researchers’ own personal, social, and cultural experiences, the information from
the participants could be interpreted quite diferently. In order for researchers to claim that they have
a good understanding of the educational phenomenon or of the participants’ lived experiences, they
usually spend an extended period of time with the participants, build rapport, empathize with the
participants to make better sense of the situation, and review and share their own interpretation with
the participants and against the literature. While the interpretivist researchers strive to examine their
own values and experiences to establish better understanding of the situation by conducting member
checks, audit trails, and other means (Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Merriam, 2009), the researchers do
not claim that their knowledge claim is complete or the right one, but a sensible interpretation of
the situation.
The subjectivity issue becomes more complicated when considering the audience of the research
report. When interpretivist researchers describe their understanding of the educational phenomenon
and of the research participants, the audience has to reinterpret the research fndings. Based on the
readers’ lived experience, the meaning drawn from the research report may be diferent. Aware of
the multiple levels of subjectivity – from the social interaction to the research participants, from the
research participants to the researcher, and from the researcher to the audience – the researchers in
this tradition often ofer “thick descriptions” of the situation to communicate the researchers’ inter-
pretation. Furthermore, as the researcher is often the instrument of interpretation, the researcher
usually provides the reader with self-refections on the research process and provides evidence of any
real or perceived biases that may have been part of the interpretation process.
Examples of Interpretivist/Constructivist Research Studies

Similar to researchers in anthropology, science education researchers in the interpretivist/construc-
tivist paradigm set out to examine in some detail the way that individuals – be they teachers, stu-
dents, administrators, or parents – develop an understanding of their experiences and activities.
Consequently, researchers spend much time with the participants, whom they study and from whom
they collect large amounts of (mostly) qualitative data from observations, interviews, and descrip-
tive narratives. Interpretivist studies vary widely in the amount of structure, the length of time, and
the level of engagement of the researchers with the participants. The following four examples are
interpretivist/constructivist studies with which we are familiar that provide evidence of the variety of
interpretivist studies. As with the selected post-positivist studies, these four studies are not the result
of an exhaustive review of the literature.
An example of a more methodical interpretivist research position is one by David Treagust et al.
(2001). The study explored how a middle school teacher used assessment embedded within her
teaching the topic of sound. In conducting this case study, the researchers regularly went to the
10
research site – a Grade 8 science class with 23 students – to explore how the teacher “incorporated
assessment tasks as an integral part of her teaching about the topic of sound” (p. 140). One of the
authors was the teacher of the class, and the rest of the researchers interacted with the students as
observer participants. After three weeks of intensive observations of science class and interviews with
the teacher and the students, the researchers combed through the data to identify how the assessment
strategies were used and contributed to or detracted from learning the sound concepts of the lessons.
Consistent with the qualitative research design espoused by Erickson (1986, 2012), analysis of the
data enabled the development of fve assertions that focused on the embedded assessment tasks. Each
of the assertions was supported by detailed data from the classroom observations, as well as inter-
views and analysis of materials produced by the students during the lessons. The research showed
“that nearly every activity had an assessment component integrated into it, that students had a wide
range of opportunities to express their knowledge and understanding through writing tasks and oral
questioning, and that individual students responded to and benefted from the diferent assessment
techniques in various ways” (p. 137).
Taking a more philosophical perspective, Beth Warren et al. (2001) at the Cheche Konnen Center
illustrated how Haitian immigrant elementary school children develop scientifc discourse in relation
to their everyday interactions. The science education researchers in the sociocultural tradition often
regard science as a discourse of a scientifc community, and science learning as crossing borders or
gaining control of multiple discourses (C. W. Anderson, 2007). Warren and her colleagues, however,
argued that children’s everyday discourse and scientifc discourse are not dichotomous but are in a
continuum. Using detailed descriptions of students’ and scientists’ interactions, the researchers in
this study support their points. One of the episodes in the study was about Jean-Charles. He was a
Haitian immigrant student, who spoke Haitian Creole (known not to contain technical, scientifc,
abstract terms) as his frst language. The researchers had known the student and the class for a con-
siderably long time, and they were able to describe the usual modes of Jean-Charles’s interactions
with his peers, how it took a long time for him to speak about his ideas, and how his drawings were
admired by others, etc. In analyzing a class dialogue on metamorphosis, the researchers dissected
the meaning of each student’s sentences – both literal and contextual meanings in which they were
understood by the members of the class – and how the casual language use and the class environment
contributed to the sense-making of the metamorphosis of insects in relation to the human growth.
In analyzing an interview with Jean-Charles, the researchers discovered how the use of his everyday
language helped the young boy to distinguish growth and transformation in a unique way. Ques-
tioning the value of dichotomy between everyday language and scientifc language, the researchers
concluded that educators need to observe more deeply and carefully how students’ negotiation of
meanings could help their scientifc sense-making.
What is taught in a genetics class depends on the teachers’ perspective on teaching genetics – some
content is required and other content is optional, so it is dependent on the teachers’ willingness to
teach it. In this qualitative case study, Tuomas Aivelo and Anna Uitto (2019) conducted open-ended
semi-structured interviews with ten upper-secondary high school biology teachers in Finland to
learn how these teachers justifed their choices for content and contexts when teaching genetics.
The teachers were specifcally asked how they teach and what examples they used on three diferent
human-related contexts: genetically modifed organisms (GMOs), human hereditary disorders, and
human complex traits, such as intelligence. These three contexts functioned as a gradient in terms
of how much freedom teachers had to choose what content and contexts they taught, with GMOs
being part of the national core curriculum. Interviews lasted for 40 to 92 minutes. The teachers’
responses were categorized using a theory-guided content analysis. Trustworthiness of the data was
based on teachers recording details of their teaching and the questions that students asked or for
answers that needed clarifcation. Teachers’ discussion of the content taught was divided into three
themes, and how they taught the use of GMOs and human genetics and dealt with controversial or
11
sensitive issues in genetics. The analysis showed that there were fundamental diferences in these biol-
ogy teachers’ perceptions of the most important themes in genetics and genetics teaching and hence
what was taught. While many of these Finnish teachers discussed human traits and other sensitive
issues, the researchers argue that the teachers would need more curriculum support to handle con-
troversial and sensitive issues in the classroom. GMO was the most taught topic by all teachers, being
specifcally mentioned in the curriculum.
Heidi Carlone (2004) conducted an ethnographic case study, entering the feld with a research
question: How do students, especially girls, make sense of science and being a good science partici-
pant in a reform-based physics class? The focus is on the female students’ experiences – the meanings
they build from the instruction, and the local culture within which they operate. Science learning is
understood not as a cognitive activity but as a sociocultural activity that integrates students’ identities,
discourses, and values. Diferent from post-positivist researchers, Carlone actively sought to get to
know the students and spent much time in their naturalistic setting – the physics classroom. Six weeks
may not be regarded a long enough time to call this study an ethnography, but she stayed at school as
a participant observer and collected an extensive data set utilizing ethnographic practices. She took
feld notes in class, talked with students informally and in interviews, collected students’ documents,
and interviewed the teacher and school administrators. Any verbal or behavioral data were entered
into the data set. She might have had an initial research design, but as she was accumulating data, she
redirected the research to follow up on the preliminary results of data analysis. Instead of summariz-
ing students’ responses to the interview questions, Carlone endeavored to portray the participants’
experiences, values, and ways of thinking through their own words and actions. She allocated an
extensive portion in the paper to demonstrate the subtle way the participants’ experiences are inte-
grated into their way of communication by directly quoting them. Because of the thick description
of the situation, readers feel as if they are sitting in the classroom or seeing through the participants’
minds. In conclusion, rather than giving a defnite answer to the research question, Carlone shows
the complexities in implementing an inclusive science curriculum for diverse students and calls for
more nuanced understanding of students’ participation in science learning.
Consistent with recent policy initiatives in the United States, the goal of this study was to explore
and further elucidate secondary teachers’ knowledge of students’ conceptions on the topic of evolu-
tion by natural selection. In this research, Margaret Lucero et al. (2020) conducted teacher inter-
views – using items from a known questionnaire as prompts, collected students’ artifacts and video
recorded classroom observations. The research design employed a qualitative grounded theory
approach to analyze data collected from four high school biology teachers. Recognizing that many
US students hold non-scientifc explanations about evolution and natural selection, the researchers
interviewed the teachers prior to and after formal instruction on evolution. Data from the videoed
classroom observations and the students’ artifacts triangulated with the teacher interviews generated
18 concepts through open coding of the data, reconciliation of tentative categories and axial coding
to establish the trustworthiness of the data. Five broad categories were identifed, two confrming
prior research – about students’ understanding of ecological and genetics concepts and students’
default ways of thinking – and three providing new ideas – related to students’ experience of the
topic, non-science issues such as lack of vocabulary that may afect understanding, and students’ test-
taking strategies. The authors argue that the fndings provide a better understanding of secondary
students’ understanding of evolution that can help address reform-oriented instruction.
Common Features of Interpretivist Research Studies

Common Research Topics: Interpretivist studies focus on the cultures (Carlone, 2004), language use
(Warren et al., 2001), teachers’ decisions about content and contexts (Aivelo & Uitto, 2019), teach-
ers’ knowledge of students’ conceptions (Lucero et al., 2020), classroom interactions (Gallas, 1995;
12
Treagust et al., 2001), and lived experiences of students, teachers, scientists, and community mem-
bers (Wong, 2002). Through the researcher’s empathic identifcation with the participants and
through refection on the beliefs and values of the researcher and the society, researchers aim to
understand the research participants’ meaning making around science teaching and learning. Even
when a new educational intervention program is implemented, the researchers in this tradition
highlight the dynamic interactions between the program and the local contexts, and consider how
the local participants interact with and understand the new program (Erickson & Gutierrez, 2002).
The interpretivists do not expect that their research results could be readily or directly translated into
general science education policies or strategies (Bryman, 2012).
Common Research Designs: As an interpretivist research study is perceived as a sensemaking pro-
cess for the researchers involved, the research design itself can evolve, as illustrated by studies using
grounded theory (Lucero et al., 2020). As the researchers immerse themselves in the situation, they
get to know the “prominent” research questions better, develop a clearer focus, and may change the
research design accordingly. The evolving research design is something that would be frowned upon
in post-positivist research, but is a natural process of interpretivist research. Interpretivist/constructiv-
ist researchers tend to adopt qualitative research designs, such as case study, ethnography, narrative,
and phenomenological research (Carlone, 2004). The qualitative data-collection methods tend to be
interviews, observations, and document analysis. To capture the everyday experiences of the research
participants, studies usually occur in naturalistic settings rather than experimental comparative set-
tings as in post-positivist studies.
Role of the Researcher in Relation to the Participants: Within the interpretivist paradigm, researchers
do not aim to claim objectivity attained by disinterested, unbiased researchers. Because interpretivists
believe that meanings are not pre-given but are co-created through hermeneutic dialogues (Schwandt,
2000), researchers often aim to study by engaging with the activities of the research participants
(Aivelo & Uitto, 2019; Clandinin & Rosiek, 2007; Guba & Lincoln, 2005; Lucero et al., 2020; Wol-
cott, 2009). As the sense-maker and narrator of the situation under study, the researcher may solicit the
views of the research participants and sometimes seeks to immerse in the situation to experience the
situation him/herself. Because of the close relationship with the participants, researchers are obligated
to consider many ethical issues beyond the Institutional Review Board guidelines, such as how to draw
a boundary between the stories that are intriguing to readers and the stories that are too personal to
pry into or too consequential to report, or how much to honor the participants’ willingness to share
their stories when they do not fully grasp the meaning of participating in a research project (Clark &
Sharf, 2007; Einarsdottir, 2007; Etherington, 2007; Jones & Stanley, 2008).
Common Quality Standards: Interpretivist researchers admit that the quality of research depends
on the skills, sensitivity, and integrity of the researcher because research itself is a sensemaking pro-
cess. Frederick Erickson (Moss et al., 2009) categorizes the criteria to judge quality interpretivist
research study into two: the technical aspects and the educational imagination. Technical aspects
involve: (1) prolonged, meaningful interaction in the feld; (2) careful, repeated sifting through the
data; (3) refective analysis of the data; and (4) clear, rich reporting. However, interpretivists focus
more on the substance than on the methodical rigor by itself, and that is what Erickson meant by
educational imagination. One of the criteria most interpretivist researchers uphold is crystallization
(Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). Like a clear crystal that casts multiple colors, the researchers endeavor to
create a strong image of the lived experiences of the participants through comprehensive delibera-
tion and persuasive presentation (p. 5). As a general guideline for interpretivist research studies, Tracy
(2010) ofers eight criteria: a worthy, relevant, signifcant topic; rich data and appropriate theoretical
construct; researcher’s refexivity and transparency in value and biases; credible data through thick
description and respondents’ validation; afects readers through resonance; signifcant contribution in
theory and practice; ethical; and meaningful coherence of study. Interestingly enough, a few of these
criteria sound very similar to the post-positivist quality standards we listed earlier.
13
Common Report Styles: The most distinctive feature of interpretivist studies is that the data are
qualitative, much of which is “thick description” of the situation (individuals, contexts, or events).
Lengthy transcripts or rich, verbal descriptions of a situation often characterize interpretivist research.
The report could take the form of a traditional empirical study with literature review, methods
description, and data analysis (Aivelo & Uitto, 2019; Carlone, 2004; Lucero et al., 2020). Or it could
take a story-like format of describing a daily procedure of a schoolteacher or children’s discussion in
class (Gallas, 1995, 1997). In such story-like reports, some researchers do not make a long validity
claim or methodological justifcation; they simply describe what they have done and explain why.
Other researchers use member checking, follow audit trails, and other measures as a way to ensure
that researchers are interpreting and communicating research participants’ perspectives fairly and
refectively. Yet, the writing is not an easy task for interpretivist researchers. It is “endlessly creative
and interpretive” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, p. 14). Researchers often ask questions such as: How
much contextual description is enough for the readers? How much analysis and how much descrip-
tion are adequate? Through whose voice is the story told? (Wolcott, 2009). The rich description of
research participants’ lived experience needs to be artfully weaved into researchers’ interpretations,
and the researchers’ writing ability (or storytelling ability) is counted critical. Interpretivist research-
ers do not regard their interpretation of the situation as the absolute truth, so they tend not to provide
the fnal words (or conclusions) of the study (Wolcott, 2009).
However, in science education research journals, the extent of this thick description is often lim-
ited by the page requirements of the journal, and only short episodes can be reported. Depending on
who reviews such work, these abbreviated thick descriptions or dialogues can be seen as not meeting
the necessary criteria. In addition, many research reports lack the detailed description on how the
researchers selected the participants, why they chose to focus on certain aspects or data-collection
methods, what they did to ensure the quality data analysis, and how they considered alternative inter-
pretations. However, the research by Munoz-Najar Galvez et al. (2020) that analyzed 137,024 dis-
sertation abstracts in the feld of education from 1980 to 2010 showed that “topics associated with the
interpretive approach rose in popularity while the outcomes-oriented paradigm declined” (p. 612).
This detailed analysis of educational research abstracts is consistent with science education research
articles where sociocultural, interpretivist research studies appear more frequently in major science
education journals. In addition, Cultural Studies in Science Education, established in 2006, publishes
articles with this particular focus and has greatly widened the scope of work that is designed to better
understand science as a cultural practice.
Critical Theory1 Research Paradigm
Philosophical Backgrounds and Theoretical Frameworks

of Critical Theory Research Paradigm Studies
Similar to interpretivist researchers, critical theory researchers acknowledge that people’s values,
ideas, and facts are shaped by social, political, cultural, economic, gender, and ethnic experiences.
Critical theory researchers, however, put more focus on the inequality and the power dynamics in human
interactions because they understand that all ideas and social interactions are “fundamentally medi-
ated by power relations” (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005, p. 304). This tradition could be traced back
to Marxism in terms of the exploration of unequal power relationships and power struggles. They
view that “social reality is not always what it should or could be”, but the social arrangements make
people feel comfortable with the status quo (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005). Academia contributes
to such social arrangements by making people develop false consciousness to believe the existing
body of knowledge as neutral and scientifc (rather than a tool to serve a certain group of people),
efectively preventing people from questioning the status quo (Kincheloe & Tobin, 2009). Clandinin
14
and Rosiek (2007) observe that the critical theory researchers believe that “large scale social arrange-
ments conspire not only to physically disempower individuals and groups but also to epistemically
disempower people” (p. 47).
Because the social narrative is conceptualized that way, researchers strive to examine the current
social values and roles in historical and cultural contexts and problematize many taken-for-granted
ideas for the beneft of socially marginalized people, such as: Is science learning or educational reform
really benefcial for everyone (Barton & Osborne, 2001; Eisenhart et al., 1996)? Twenty years ago
researchers were asking questions such as: Why don’t ethnic minority students or female students
participate in school science as much as their white male counterparts (Lee, 2002; Noddings, 1998)?
Isn’t there something that inherently discourages them to learn science at school (Aikenhead &
Jegede, 1999; Brickhouse et al., 2000; Harding, 1991)? Research has provided answers to many of
these questions, leading to further questions about how to maintain females’ interest and engagement
in science (see, for example, Prieto-Rodriguez et al., 2020; Stevenson et al., 2021).
By asking such philosophical questions, researchers in this tradition focus on uncovering the
unequal power relationship in societies and institutions. They aim not just to expand the knowl-
edge of the society, but to contribute to transform the society and emancipate the disempowered
people (Kincheloe, 2003). Critical researchers ask themselves how they should change, as teacher,
educational researcher, and concerned community member, for society to be more equal, open, and
democratic (Bouillion & Gomez, 2001; Elmesky & Tobin, 2005; Roth & Desautels, 2002; Tan &
Barton, 2008). In order to enact changes in the lives of the socially, economically, and historically
marginalized people, researchers often spend time in low-income, ethnic minority neighborhood
schools and become involved in some type of action research project.
Examples of Critical Theory Research Studies

Critical theory research studies may look quite diferent from more “traditional” research studies in
terms of their (1) critique of the social discourse/structure; (2) orientation toward social action and
change; (3) explicit analysis on the researchers’ identities, values, and intentions; and (4) experimental
way of writing research reports (Kincheloe, 2003). The following fve examples are critical theory
studies with which we are familiar that provide evidence of the variety of elements in such studies.
As with the selected studies in the post-positivist and interpretive research, these fve studies are not
the result of an exhaustive review of the literature. The frst two studies by Bouillion and Gomez
(2001) and by Elmesky and Tobin (2005) illustrate how science education researchers attempted to
change how schooling or social research is conducted. The researchers frst pointed out the limita-
tions of the status quo and then enacted alternative ways. Their primary goal was not only to observe
but to change the situation and empower the students and their community for the betterment of the
people involved. The third study by Tan and Barton (2008) was conducted in the same vein as the
frst two, but their study may look very similar to an interpretivist study in terms of their defense of
research methods, presentation of results, and interpretations. The fourth study, by Eisenhart (2000),
is a critical autoethnographic study where the author conveys her own experience and refections as
“data.” The author made clear that her critical interpretation of the social phenomena was socially
and politically motivated. The ffth study, by Hoeg and Bencze (2017), illustrates how government
policy statements for STEM education are based on embedded practices that beneft and privilege
certain people as efective citizens and the statements are not criticized. The fve studies briefy sum-
marized next follow diferent research methods and reporting styles. Despite the diference, we put
them in this critical research tradition because of their explicit focus on challenging the inequality of
the status quo and the commitment toward social change (Maulucci, 2012).
Lisa Bouillion and Louis Gomez (2001) conducted an action-oriented, transformative research
study at an elementary school in a low-income urban neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. Instead
15
of following the traditional school learning model, the researchers, along with the teachers at the
school, implemented a science project by which science was taught beyond the school walls and
promoted the school–community partnership. The project was called the Chicago River Project. As
students recognized illegally dumped garbage was a major community problem, they investigated the
environmental issues scientifcally in terms of river pollution and water safety. They shared the results
with other community members through writing. They organized a series of actions to change the
situation. The project was not just one of interesting school activities for the teachers and students. It
was their own community problem that they found intimately relevant and in need of action. As the
project evolved, the researchers not only collected data for the research report, they also helped the
students and teachers to make the action project successful. Here, the research report format is not
much diferent from interpretivist research studies but has the important element of political orienta-
tion challenging the status quo. However, the focus of the study was not simply reporting a successful
science activity. The researchers aimed to change the existing practice of science teaching at school
and to break down several existing power relations or boundaries through the study: between students
and science as they become users and producers of scientifc knowledge with the help from local com-
munity activist-scientists; between teachers and students as students’ ideas were actively incorporated
into the activity planning and execution; between education researchers and school teachers as they
became equal contributors in the collaborative project; between students and the city council as the
students’ persistent efort persuaded the city to act on behalf of the community. While the research
report may look similar to a qualitative study, a major goal of this study was to efect a change in the
community and the identity of students and teachers within their learning environments.
In conventional educational research, students are often the ones who supply data for the research
project by flling out questionnaires, answering competency tests, or responding to interview ques-
tions, while researchers design, execute, and analyze the study. Instead of following the conventional
model of objectifying students’ ideas, Rowhea Elmesky and Kenneth Tobin (2005) involved students
as the collaborative researchers rather than as subjects trying to change the power imbalance in the
research process. Elmesky and Tobin framed their research study as an alternative to the status quo
educational research in American inner-city (low-income, ethnic minority neighborhood) schools.
They started their study by questioning the efectiveness or the true intention of educational pro-
grams in improving the scientifc literacy of students in socially marginalized communities. Because
they saw that the cultural defcit view on the marginalized is oppressive and hegemonic, the research-
ers adopted a research method that would value the students’ cultural resources and empower them.
Following the model of Kincheloe and Steinberg (1998), the researchers recruited high school stu-
dents as collaborative researchers so as to equip them with critical research skills and to challenge
the conventional role of students as the researched. The students were not only provided with mul-
tiple research opportunities to refect on their own ideas and their school life, but also worked as a
resource to shed a new light on the ways to appreciate their culture and educate how to teach in
low-income neighborhood schools. When presenting their research project, the researchers used a
transcript format (as if they were research participants) for their interpretation of students and some-
times they used a research narrative format (as if they were the authoritative researchers). The mixed
formats of presenting their interpretations gave the impression that they were just telling their version
of the stories, not the authoritative interpretation.
Edna Tan and Angela Barton (2008) started their study in a similar tone to Elmesky and Tobin
by critiquing the implementation of the American national initiative for scientifc literacy. Tan and
Barton argued that the current education initiatives focus on the test scores and marginalize low-
income, ethnic minority students, by framing them as “problems” or “failures” and by depriving
learning opportunities to make meaningful personal connections to science. After a discussion of the
feminist stance on the global knowledge economy, the researchers carefully described how two sixth
grade ethnic minority girls from a low-income neighborhood community school negotiated their
16
identities through various school science activities and their interactions with the teacher and peers.
While the researchers adopted the format of an ethnographic case study in analyzing and presenting
the students’ interactions, they did so to problematize the status quo in school science and education
research.
Within the frame of a critical auto-ethnographic, refective research, Margaret Eisenhart (2000)
told her own story of publishing a book on women’s participation in various venues of science. At
the beginning of the paper, she explicitly mentioned that her story is not value neutral – rather, it is
positioned with certain values and purpose. She intended to critically refect on how she, as an estab-
lished academic, conceptualizes/practices science education research and how the larger sociocultural
discourse shapes or constrains her practice. Retelling her story in two parts, she straightforwardly
described why she wanted to investigate various science-related activities in which women were suc-
cessfully participating, and how she designed a multiple-case study, including a case of the pro-choice
and pro-life activist groups’ use of science. She portrayed that the participants in the pro-choice and
pro-life groups were highly educated, politically charged, and strongly committed to learn and use
science, but their use of science was “unsophisticated” and “divisive” (p. 48). In the second part of
her story, she described a series of encounters of the strong discouragement to include the story of
the pro-choice and pro-life groups in the book. Publishers and reviewers adamantly noted that those
groups’ stories did not add anything new or valuable to the book. Initially, she blamed her inability
to write persuasive, convincing arguments and tried to revise the writing. However, from the fear of
not being able to publish the book, she conformed to the expectation of the publisher and the soci-
ety. Eisenhart later refected on the reason why people isolated the pro-choice and pro-life groups’
stories, how the invisible boundary of what’s counted as scientifc activities played a role in their
omission, and what she could have done diferently. In the paper, Eisenhart continuously reminded
the reader what she was doing and why – for example, why she constructed her story in a more
academically conventional way and how placing the blame of what happened to the larger social dis-
course eased her guilty conscience to her co-author and showed of an academic’s intellectual power.
This refective, honest piece of writing leads us to reconsider the meaning of what we do and how
we do it in a new light.
The importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education – collectively
known as STEM education – for preparing citizens for the future is readily accepted by most nations.
In the United States policy guidelines have been developed in STEM education. In their article, Dar-
ren Hoeg and Larry Bencze (2017) raise issues with the manner in which these policy guidelines are
presented and critically discuss the “biopolitics in science education, notions of citizenship in con-
temporary school education and science education and citizenship and STEM Education” (p. 844).
The review identifed themes and categories that became the basis of critical discourse analysis based
on Foucault’s (2003) stages of biopolitical development associated with human action and practice.
The authors illuminated the ways in which powerful social practices are embedded in the construc-
tion of STEM policy and education. They argue that these policy statements are designed to create
positive attitudes toward solutions that prioritize and privilege citizen subjectivity such that responses
are positive to STEM initiatives and little criticism is engendered. The dominant way of speaking in
this discourse is that a scientifcally literate citizenship represents “progress”. The discourse connects
scientifc literacy with efective citizenship – namely, those who participate efectively, implying that
other citizenship roles and types of citizens are not as important to the problems that threaten a nation
and specifcally the economy.
Common Features of Critical Theory Research Studies

Common Research Topics: While a large portion of science education studies focuses on the technical
aspects of how to teach science better, critical theory researchers concentrate on the political and
17
historical aspects of education and educational inequality, seeking to challenge the status quo. The
obvious topic for the critical researchers is investigating the multiple, subtle ways that discourage or
marginalize the participation of socially disadvantaged people in schooling or science (Elmesky &
Tobin, 2005) or challenges to policies that prioritize and privilege some citizens over others (Hoeg &
Bencze, 2017). The study of power relationships is a common research topic. As an example, Teo
and Tan (2020) provided a critical analysis of power, knowledge, and power relationships between
a chemistry expert – the school-based School Scientist – and two apprentices – two students in
Grade 10 and another in Grade 9) – in a chemical synthesis project. “This study shows teaching and
learning in the form of an apprenticeship model involved dynamism in the negotiations of power
relationships during the apprenticeship process” (p. 672–673).
Common Research Designs: The designs of critical theory research are often very similar to
interpretivist studies, but with more explicit emphasis on larger social ideologies and power rela-
tionships. Critical theory researchers believe that empirical research and its data, no matter how
rigorous the research methods are, cannot escape the dominant narrative of the society (Kinche-
loe, 2003). Because of this limitation, researchers in this tradition try to be critical of researchers’
own assumptions and their relationship with the researched. Interpretivist researchers often display
refexivity in their relations with the research participants in terms of their values and experi-
ences in understanding the participants. Critical theory researchers, on the other hand, show their
refexivity in terms of power dynamics between the researchers and the researched, and even what
the research participants have shared as their experiences. In critical ethnography, “[researchers]
will be listening through the person’s story to hear the operation of broader social discourses
shaping that person’s story of their experience” (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2007, p. 55). Listening to
people’s stories is a way to uncover the larger social discourse and false consciousness to enlighten
the public.
Another common research design is participatory action research that actively addresses the
inequalities in school and community. Researchers go into a low-income neighborhood and involve
students and community members to recognize the issue of the community and take actions to
change situations and their identities. Studies by Bouillion and Gomez (2001) and by Elmesky and
Tobin (2005) are examples of such studies.
Role of the Researcher: The main goal of research is not about expanding the body of knowledge
but about challenging the given status quo with the aim of transforming the society and institution
for the betterment of the people involved (Hoeg & Bencze, 2017). Rather than writing as a distant,
unbiased scholar, critical theory researchers claim they are intellectuals and activists, working for
social justice and for the people who are socially and politically disempowered (Fine et al., 2000).
Common Quality Standards: Because critical theory researchers are skeptical of unbiased research
through rigorous methodical measures, they do not provide a set of guidelines on how to ascertain
quality research. Rather, they argue that by explicitly discussing the biases of researchers and soci-
eties, they are conducting more “objective” research studies because they are not operating under
any “hidden agenda” or exacerbating social inequality. However, they highly value the democratic
procedures in research (e.g., egalitarian relationships with research participants, democratic decision-
making, and shared contributions to the study), and the social impact of the study in transforming
society (e.g., greater/sophisticated understanding of the society, the empowerment of the partici-
pants, and prompting or enacting changes in social/personal practices) (G. Anderson et al., 1994;
Grifths, 1998).
Common Report Styles: Because they are consciously problematizing what is given or conven-
tional, the authors intentionally do not follow the traditional fabric of a research report. Instead, they
experiment with the reporting of the study, such as adopting a performance or writing the story as
fction (Flores-González et al., 2006). Some social action-oriented research studies could be regarded
18
as less methodically rigorous, thus not meeting the criteria of many academic journals. Consequently,
to address this potential concern, many critical theory researchers adopt less radical, more traditional
forms of ethnographic research reports, such as those by Tan and Barton (2008) and by Eisenhart
(2000).
Mixed-Methods Research Paradigm

Discussions about research paradigms often result in responses like, “Research paradigms do not
matter anymore” and “We can mix and match multiple paradigms to answer research questions”.
While it is true that research studies do need to address the research questions thoroughly, and
some researchers use both quantitative and qualitative data, can we really mix and match research
paradigms? How can realism (positivist), relativism (interpretivist), and feminism (critical theory) as
worldviews be integrated into a research study? How can a researcher be a distant scientist (positivist)
without direct connection to research participants and at the same a passionate interpreter (interpre-
tivist) and advocate (critical theory) of research participants with intimate knowledge of their lived
experiences?
To many contemporary education researchers, research paradigms are not considered com-
plex belief systems with philosophical underpinnings and practical implications. Rather, para-
digms are regarded the same as research methods or designs. According to Cohen et al. (2017),
researchers such as Creswell and Plano Clark (2011) appear to make the distinction linked to types
of data – post-positivism (quantitative research), constructivism (qualitative research), participa-
tory/transformative (qualitative research), and pragmatism (quantitative research and qualitative
research). Alise and Teddlie (2010) also identifed a strong tendency for post-positivist researchers
to use quantitative methods and for interpretivist and critical theory researchers to use qualita-
tive methods. Many researchers do not regard paradigms as complex belief systems, and they do
not see any problems mixing quantitative and qualitative data in a research study. Mixed-methods
researchers believe that dichotomizing quantitative and qualitative data is not only unproductive
but fallacious (Ercikan & Roth, 2006). As researchers tend to focus on practical aspects of research
design and methods rather than worldviews or paradigms when designing and executing research,
some researchers question the practical value of research paradigms anyway (Morgan, 2007). Oth-
ers (e.g., Greene, 2008) focus on the practical value of a problem-solving approach without the
restrictions of theory. Discussions about the relationship between paradigms and data types is an
ongoing issue.
As Bryman (2008) notes, combining diferent research methods is an area where researchers
still have diferent views. While many post-positivist researchers welcome such adjustment as a
way to increase the validity of research fndings, constructivist researchers are rather critical of such
approaches. Denzin and Lincoln (2011), for example, regard mixed methods as a remnant of positivist
legacies that relies on numbers as scientifc evidence, resisting to acknowledge the value of interpre-
tivist qualitative studies and the political issue of what counts as evidence.
Without an explicit philosophical framework and guiding principles within it and confating
research paradigms with methods, the mixed-methods approach is a diferent way of framing research
compared to the other three research traditions. Nevertheless, we decided to include mixed meth-
ods as the fourth paradigm, despite our initial reservation against it. In many ways, discussion of the
mixed-methods approach relates to our earlier comments about Kuhn’s discussion of the invisibility
of paradigms where researchers do not consider the history that frames their current practice. This
tendency to ignore historical and philosophical considerations such as paradigms when designing and
discussing our research is a limitation of the reported research. For a brief comparison of four difer-
ent research traditions, please see Table 1.1.
19
Table 1.1 Similarities and Diferences of Common Features Between the Four Paradigms
Common Features Post-Positivist Interpretivist/ Critical Theory Mixed Methods

Research Studies Constructivist Research Research Studies Research Studies
Studies
Research Topics Evaluation of Lived experiences of Political and historical Evaluation of

efectiveness/ teachers and students aspects of education efectiveness/
efciency of with focus on culture, Lived experiences efciency of
intervention language use, and of disadvantaged intervention
teaching programs daily classroom/school population to teaching programs
Large-scale interactions highlight educational
assessments or inequality
surveys Activist movement to
challenge the status
quo
Research Designs Explanatory designs Exploratory designs Similar to Explanatory or
(e.g., experiment (e.g., grounded interpretivist studies exploratory mixed-
or survey research) theory, ethnography, or participatory methods research
with representative phenomenology action research with designs
sampling, research) in naturalistic explicit emphasis on
quantitative settings with evolving social ideologies and
measurement, and research methods power relationships
multiple validation involving thick
processes of data description
Role of the Objective, unbiased Insightful and Strong advocates Objective data
Researcher in collector and passionate meaning of the socially collector and
Relation to the interpreter of data maker and storyteller marginalized to interpreter with
Participants without close of research participants’ challenge status quo some connection to
connection to lived experiences research participants
research participants
Quality Standards Clear defnition of Prolonged meaningful Democratic and Comprehensive
constructs/concepts interaction in the feld catalytic value of the answer to the
Rigorous and repeated re-analysis research research questions
research methods and refections on data
for objective, Depends on
comprehensive data researcher’s skills,
Reliability of sensitivity, and
measurement integrity
Internal and Member check, audit
external validity of trail, peer review,
knowledge claims triangulation
Report Styles Traditional Use of thick Consciously Similar styles as
scientifc research description problematizing in post-positivist
format, written in Can be as a traditional what is given or studies with
third person empirical study conventional. participants’
Some researchers interview quotes
Or as storytelling,
weaving participants’ write a fctional
lived experience story, others
with researchers’ more traditional
interpretations ethnographic reports
20
Examples of Mixed-Methods Studies

Next, we present fve studies that adopt mixed-methods approaches, providing readers with the
types of data collected and how these are analyzed in mixed-methods research studies. As noted in
Table 1.1, mixed-methods researchers’ reports have the main features of reports by researchers using
post-positivist and interpretivist paradigms but, as already stated, have essentially ignored the philo-
sophical and epistemological frameworks or backgrounds.
Using an overtly described two-phase, sequential mixed-methods study, Sedat Ucar et al. (2011)
examined the efects of an intervention with preservice teachers at various educational levels in terms
of their conceptual understanding. Following inquiry-based instruction using archived, online data
about tides, a total of 79 preservice teachers completed a questionnaire and subsequently a subset of
29 participants was interviewed. From the qualitative and quantitative data, the authors described
and measured the impact of the intervention. The manner in which the quantitative and qualitative
data were analyzed was described in detail, including reliability and trustworthiness measures. The
fndings were presented as a response to the research questions and discussed in relation to previous
literature with implications made for teacher education and future research.
As an example of another clearly described mixed-methods study, Liesl Hohenshell and Brian
Hand (2006) investigated whether diferences in student performance on science tests was a direct
result of the implementation of a science writing program when the students in Grades 9 and 10 were
learning cell biology. In this “mixed-method, quasi-experimental [study] . . . with a non-random
sample” (p. 267), the researchers investigated the students’ performance and explored students’ per-
ceptions of the writing activities using a survey and semi-structured interviews. The authors empha-
sized the complementary role of quantitative and qualitative methods by using the quantitative results
to document science achievement while using the qualitative data to enhance their interpretation of
any fndings arising from the quantitative data. The data interpretation was presented separately for
the quantitative and qualitative analyses, as were the initial results. In drawing fve assertions arising
from the study, the authors integrated the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data.
In a similar manner, Renee Clary and James Wandersee (2007) used a concurrent mixed-methods
research design to investigate whether or not an integrated study of petrifed wood could help stu-
dents gain an improved geobiological understanding of fossilization, geologic time, and evolution.
The researchers adopted Creswell’s QUAL and QUAN approaches “to cross validate, confrm or cor-
roborate the fndings” (p. 1016). A survey about petrifed wood was used pre- and post-instruction
in a quasi-experimental setting, with the treatment class receiving the integrated petrifed wood
instruction. In addition to the quantitative data from the survey, qualitative data were collected from
the content analysis of students’ free responses on the survey as well as from the discussion board
feedback and researchers’ feld notes. Some of the qualitative data were later quantifed. Although
there were quantitative and qualitative data from this investigation, the qualitative data were used to
support the fndings from the quantitative data. The students who experienced the integrated petri-
fed wood instruction showed greater knowledge about aspects of petrifed wood and geologic time;
fossilization of geochemistry remained problematic for both groups.
Vaughan Prain and Bruce Waldrip (2006) conducted research with a group of teachers and their
Year 4–6 students when they engaged with multiple representations of the same science concepts
in electrical circuits and collisions and vehicle safety. Using “a mixed-methods approach entailing
collection and analysis of both qualitative and qualitative data within the same study, including tri-
angulation of diferent data sources” (p. 1848), the authors identifed teachers’ and students’ practices
and beliefs in using multimodal representations of science concepts. Based on survey responses from
20 teachers and their students, 6 teachers and their classes were selected for a case study of their class-
room practice with a multi-modal focus. The data included classroom observations and interviews
with students when they were involved in classroom activities. Two science classes were reported.
21
While these two teachers used various modes to engage students, the researchers observed that the
teachers were not systematic in developing students’ knowledge integration and their efective use of
diferent modes. Students who demonstrated conceptual understanding were those who recognized
the relationships between modes.
In a similar manner, using a mixed-methods study described as a quasi-experimental control
group design with a pre- and post-test questionnaire involving both quantitative and qualitative
data collection and analysis procedures, Emine Adadan (2020) investigated the role of metacogni-
tive awareness in preservice chemistry teachers’ level of understanding of gas behavior in a multi-
representational instruction setting. The quantitative data were from a survey administered to a group
of 34 preservice teachers and qualitative data from an open-ended questionnaire. Reliability measures
for the quantitative data were reported, and the qualitative responses were coded using the constant
comparative method. The results were reported in response to three research questions, and the
numerical and interpretive data analyses provided consistent and integrated evidence (p. 271). Similar
to other related studies, “the participants with high metacognitive awareness appeared to outperform
the participants with low metacognitive awareness in terms of developing a more scientifc under-
standing of gas behaviour immediately after the multi-representational instruction” (p. 271).
Common Features of Mixed-Methods Research Studies

Common Research Topics: Mixed-methods studies involve a wider range of research topics, from an
evaluation of a teaching intervention with some research participants’ insights integrated into the
research report, to a case study of classroom interactions and dialogues with some complementary
quantitative measures.
Common Research Designs: Creswell’s (2012) common mixed-methods designs, both explanatory
and exploratory, are adopted so long as quantitative and qualitative data are used in a complementary
manner. These designs encompass post-positivist researchers adding qualitative data, such as short
interviews or feld notes, to a quantitative experimental research design, as seen in Ucar et al. (2011)
and Clary and Wandersee (2007). They also include interpretivist researchers borrowing quantita-
tive techniques, such as achievement test scores or survey results, to a case study design, as seen in
Hohenshell and Hand (2006) and Prain and Waldrip (2006).
Common Quality Standards: One of the justifcations of mixed-methods approaches is that the
mixed use of quantitative and qualitative data enables a thorough triangulation of the data to make
stronger knowledge claims (Creswell, 2012; Mathison, 1988; Reeves, 1997).
Role of the Researcher and Common Report Styles: As mixed-methods researchers use the methods
from the other three paradigms, the role of the researcher and the reporting styles are similar to those
described for the other three paradigms.
Conclusion
Science education researchers have strived to establish solid knowledge claims in their studies. Locat-
ing their studies within a particular research tradition or paradigm gives researchers philosophical,
methodological, and practical guidelines to design and conduct a persuasive and convincing research
project. In this chapter, we have described four distinctive research traditions, identifed relevant
studies, and highlighted commonly shared features within each tradition. Our aim has been to show
how a research paradigm frames the research efort by conditioning the research topics to be studied,
the research designs used, the role of the researcher in relation to the participants, the common qual-
ity standards, and the common report styles presented.
The landscape of conducting research within these paradigms has gradually changed over the
years, though all paradigms, in keeping with the ideas of Thomas Kuhn, are largely hidden from
22
view. In the years ahead, we can imagine that approaches to research will continuously evolve to
incorporate new issues and ideas. We hope this review will contribute to productive discussion by
science education researchers working within and across these four diferent research paradigms
in science education.
Acknowledgments
This chapter extends the published chapter in the Handbook of Research in Science Education (Vol-
ume 2) authored by Treagust et al. (2014). We would like to thank Reinders Duit (now retired from
the IPN – Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, University of Kiel, Germany)
for his contribution to that earlier chapter.
We would like to thank Xiufeng Liu and William Romine, who carefully and critically reviewed
this chapter. We hope that we have done justice to their critiques and constructive suggestions.
Note
1 Critical theory studies include several research traditions, such as feminism, postcolonialism, post-structur-
alism, emancipatory/participatory, postmodernism, etc.
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2
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
DESIGNS AND APPROACHES
Introduction
The main aim of science education research is to improve science learning. In order to do so, as
researchers, we need to understand the complex interplay of teaching and learning in science class-
rooms. In the reality of the classroom, there is a tremendous number of variables that afect the
teaching and learning of science. Some of these include variables on (1) the individual level, such as
students’ knowledge, cognitive abilities, and cognitive development; (2) the classroom level, such as
the teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge; and
(3) the system level, such as school funding and school governance (Fischer et al., 2005; Honingh
et al., 2020; Keller et al., 2017). However, research is about evidence. Therefore, many established
and necessarily oversimplifed models of teaching and learning science must be iteratively refned in
order to account for increasingly more specifc variables. Furthermore, the quality of evidence is of
particular importance.
On the one hand, qualitative research seeks to improve science education through developing an
understanding of the complexity of the teaching and learning of science, often starting with highly
selected and isolated cases. On the other hand, quantitative research often is characterized by inves-
tigating commonalities across all teaching and learning of science. Both qualitative and quantitative
communities have particular rules for estimating the quality of evidence in their feld.
As one approach to the question of evidence, researchers have to answer the decisive question:
“Cui bono?” What does the researcher want to investigate, to whom are the results addressed, and
what are the consequences when the results are applied and put into practice? Research results can be
used for diferent levels of decision-making. Again, we can identify three diferent levels of variables
describing and infuencing teaching and learning at schools:
1. The level of individual teaching and learning processes, including knowledge, competencies,
beliefs, motivation, and interest
2. The classroom level, including teacher and student activities and interactions, and the quality of
instruction as a measure of those activities and interactions related to learning outcomes
3. The system level, including system conditions of schools and larger social units
For research in science education, the quality of in-class instruction and, to a lesser extent, the
quality of out-of-class instruction, are the main foci. However, we want to inform frst and foremost
28 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-3
Quantitative Research Designs and Approaches
teachers and policymakers of how they can improve and/or control the quality of instruction and the
output of the educational system. Teachers want to know how to support students so that they can
increase their abilities individually or improve the quality of lessons to increase the average ability of
a class. However, principals also want to know how they can improve average student achievement
at their school. In addition, policymakers want to know how to allocate resources most efciently in
order to increase educational achievement across their district, state, or nation in order to support the
development of economic and social afairs.
To perform quantitative studies, one has to start with a research question, including the opera-
tional defnitions of variables and the purpose of the study. The results of investigating each of the
levels of the educational system and the research-based conclusions should be of a kind that other
researchers can rely upon; and such conclusions should be a base for extending their research. At this
point, it is particularly important to consider the empirical character of science education research.
Results of empirical research are always provisional. The provisional aspects of empirical research can
be clearly seen as COVID-19 research results are presented and revised. Therefore, the trustworthi-
ness of empirical research is a particularly important criterion when we conduct our own research
but also for practical applications of our results.
Evidence
Trustworthiness of Evidence
There are many issues that must be addressed as one seeks to ensure the trustworthiness of research
results. As researchers, we have to be aware of the diversity of variables and conditions that possibly
infuence research quality. For instance, it may appear easy to compare the average achievement of
two classes in one school. However, without taking into account issues such as the classes’ average
pre-knowledge, reading ability, socioeconomic background, and cognitive abilities, the potential for
mismeasurement is possibly too large for drawing conclusions of certainty. This is true for quantita-
tive as well as for theory-based qualitative studies, both of which are addressed in this chapter. For
a description of grounded theory and design-based research, see Chapter 3 in this handbook. For
example, the ability of a participant to express scientifc features in a certain language or the pre-
knowledge about a specifc scientifc concept might infuence the participant’s responses in a semi-
structured interview. Theory-based qualitative researchers should also consider these factors even in
case studies in order to produce reliable interpretations of the observed dialogues between teachers
and students, or between students, in classroom activities. Therefore, as a frst step, we have to think
very carefully about possible confounding variables and possible infuences of such variables upon
assessment, motivation, or other categories with regard to the focus of the investigation. Overall, the
question of trustworthiness and generalizability of research results must be answered to address the
diferent ways in which the aforementioned stakeholders consider the results of research for improv-
ing teacher education and research. Additionally, knowing about the confounding variables means
understanding the limitations of the study, as this aids a researcher in their interpretation of research
results. With regard to teacher education, it is abundantly clear how important it is to communicate
and to teach content in a way that utilizes state-of-the-art teaching based upon empirical research
results. Given the provisionality and evolution of empirical research, researchers should be able to
explain to future teachers how to increase the likelihood that their own lessons will be of high qual-
ity. Often, teacher education does not build on empirical fndings; this therefore reproduces intuitive
beliefs and myths that often do not correspond to scientifc fndings or have not been empirically
examined. For example, a great amount of time is spent on teaching future teachers about students’
everyday conceptions or misconceptions, although there is little evidence that such teacher knowl-
edge is necessary for students’ learning and thus for the improvement in science instruction. In
29
fact, a study comparing teaching and learning physics in Finland and Germany showed that Finnish
teachers knew fewer misconceptions held by students than German teachers; still, Finnish students
learned signifcantly more than German students (Olszewski, 2010). Despite these and other fnd-
ings, that knowledge of misconceptions is not as important for high-quality teaching as had been
assumed (Hammer, 1996); there are a multitude of studies on students’ misconceptions. Some uni-
versities have advocated that the knowledge about misconceptions in all sciences is important for a
science teacher (e.g., New York Science Teacher, 2013). However, Chen et al. (2020) found that
students’ physics content knowledge was correlated with their physics teachers content knowledge,
an observation that had already been made by Ball (1991), and Galili and Lehavi (2006) found that
the ability of teachers to apply physics concepts by themselves broadly and correctly is a critical con-
tributor to their content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. According to Etkina et al.
(2018), teachers’s content knowledge must contain fundamentally diferent components than the
content knowledge normally provided for physicists and physics teachers at universities. Teachers’
content knowledge should take into account insights from research on teaching and learning and
be operationalized accordingly for the diferent content areas of physics that are relevant in school.
In our view, this includes a comprehensive knowing of physics concepts that includes the ability
to construct students’ learning processes in these content areas. This begs the question of whether
misconceptions are as important as what science educators have considered and whether training on
knowing misconceptions might be a waste of limited learning time in science teacher education. As
authors, we believe that this leads to the natural conclusion that in science teacher education, teacher
educators should teach only, or at least mostly, those content areas that can be trusted from the
standpoint of the commonly agreed conclusions of the research community. In the aforementioned
cases, concentrating on student teachers’ content knowledge might have more impact upon student
learning than teaching student teachers about misconceptions.
A review of the relevant literature on misconceptions also reveals that many studies cannot be
generalized due to methodological issues. This also applies to other research in the feld of science
education. Furtak et al. (2012), for example, found in their meta-analysis study that of 1,625 stud-
ies on scientifc inquiry only 59 papers remained after excluding those that focused specifcally on
students with disabilities, special education, or interventions outside K–12 science classrooms – and,
in particular, studies that did not employ experimental or quasi-experimental designs. After further
applying features of quality research – such as pre-post-design, two-group, cognitive outcome mea-
sures, and efect size calculations were applied as a further selection criteria, only 10 papers from
the original 1,625 studies remained. After asking some authors of the excluded articles for data and
additional calculations, Furtak et al. (2012) found that four of the excluded studies could be included
in their meta-analysis. Repeating this procedure with slightly diferent search criteria yielded an
additional 4,239 papers, of which only 8 could eventually be included. In another meta-analysis, M.
A. Ruiz-Primo et al. (2008) analyzed the impact of innovations in physics education. They started
with more than 400 papers and found that only 51 papers that reported the studies could be used for
a quantitative synthesis of the efects. Meta-analysis such as those detailed earlier abide by the rules
of empirical research and serve as an excellent example of applied trustworthiness. The larger num-
ber of papers that had to be excluded due to statistical weaknesses suggests that it is necessary to pay
even more attention to the observance of the respective discussed standards of teaching and learning
research in the domain of science education research.
Obtaining Evidence
One of the main problems of research in science education in general is to classify diferent types of
cognition. The direct sensory experience of human beings is generally incomplete and not depend-
able because of the restricted sensitivity range of diferent types of human organs of perception.
30
Everyday communication and other social interaction rely on agreed common knowledge and intu-
ition. Therefore, everyday communication is fuzzy by nature and can even be wrong in certain situ-
ations. In a scientifc discourse, these inaccuracies are not tolerated, but in everyday communication
they contribute to enabling social interaction in the frst place, even if inaccuracies sometimes lead
to misunderstandings and disasters. The important point is that researchers are not able to guarantee
conclusions regarding communication and interaction, but they are able to describe their inaccura-
cies and doubts.
If we are not sure about research results, we can ask experts about their opinion. However,
experts’ opinions can be wrong and mistaken, and their reasoning, even if it is based on certain logi-
cal systems and rules, can be based on false premises. To avoid mistakes and to obtain trustworthy
conclusions, we have to use scientifc methods and procedures that are agreed upon by researchers
and experts and that allow more trustworthy statements to be made than those based upon a few
experts’ opinions. Studies must be linked to the whole range of relevant prior studies and con-
ducted using scientifc methods and utilizing quality criteria. Therefore, planning and performing a
study must include a theoretical model with regard to relevant past work, rigorous sampling, well-
elaborated instrument construction that involves piloting of the instruments, adequate experiment
design, up-to-date psychometrics, carefully captured data, and rigorous interpretation of results.
Within the research community, these criteria and the process planning and performing a study
must again be discussed and agreed upon. Doing so will then allow for estimating the quality of the
results of all investigations, and this will also provide research results that can guide further research
and practice. The necessary agreement in a community of researchers requires publicity and discus-
sion, such as that which has taken place with regard to the nature of science (e.g., Lederman, 2019)
or the professional knowledge of science teachers (e.g., Gess-Newsome et al., 2019). In addition,
it is important in science education that researchers be able to replicate studies. In natural sciences,
replication and public discussion are an indispensable part of evaluating the trustworthiness of sci-
entifc investigations. We strongly suggest that national and international associations for science
education should encourage publishing and reporting of replications of research in their journals
and at conferences.
Theories and models of empirical research have their limitations and may even be proven wrong.
There are many prominent examples in physics, such as Bohr’s atomic model, which despite its
limitations is still being utilized to interpret the results of spectroscopy (Garrett et al., 2018) or New-
tonian mechanics, which it is not suitable for describing the micro or macro world, but is still being
used to describe causal phenomena in the meso world (Casadio & Scardigli, 2020).
Empirical research can never prove anything to be correct (Popper, 1959). The interrelation
between theory development and empirical results leads to the fact that both felds are aligned with
each other, and therefore they have to change permanently. Therefore, there is no proof in empirical
research. It must always be assumed that the theory does not adequately describe the facts, which may
be because the theory contains logical or conceptual errors or because the empirical results contradict
the theoretical assumptions. Therefore, all results have to be discussed and interpreted. Conclusions
should be viewed as tentative and open to revision. Therefore, it is necessary that all published work
include a detailed description of the project data with a clear explanation of the process of construct-
ing the respective measures and the analysis of the measures. Therefore, raw data must be available,
at least by request.
Theory and Evidence

In the feld of science education, research attempts have been made to utilize theories or models to
evaluate and describe the quality of what is taking place in classroom teaching. Of great importance
is the use of theories or models to serve as a guide to research investigations and to allow for the
31
development and use of consistent methodologies (e.g., Carlson & Daehler, 2019; K. Neumann
et al., 2012; Opfermann et al., 2017). Attempts to identify and describe the quality of instruc-
tion and its components were already undertaken in the 1960s – mostly as observational studies
in which classroom instruction was observed and criteria identifed regarding what was thought
to be the teaching of a high-quality teacher. In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s exten-
sive research programs investigated teacher efectiveness. This type of research – oftentimes termed
process-product-research – investigated relations between characteristics of good teachers (or good
teaching) as components of the process outcomes, such as student achievement, which is viewed
as a product. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, researchers attempted to systematize the
results of teacher efectiveness research in an efort to establish more comprehensive models of
instructional quality; such research mainly comprised meta-analyses. One shortfall in these eforts
was not explaining instructional outcomes. This void was apparent as the TIMSS study attempted to
investigate instruction and to relate instructional characteristics to students’ achievements. One factor
fueling this shift was that video analysis of lessons had become technically possible. Video analyses
allowed researchers to record and analyze classroom instruction in an extensive and thorough man-
ner in multiple iterations. This led to a further refnement of models of instructional quality as more
methodologies that are complex became available for capturing and researching the complex reality
of the classroom (K. Neumann et al., 2012). This brief review of the history of research of qual-
ity of science instruction highlights the importance of building a study upon previous research in
order to advance a feld. Building a research study upon a sound theoretical framework is indispens-
able for obtaining clear and relevant results. There must be a linkage between theory and research
experiments – theory informs and provides a framework for experiments, and research fndings allow
acceptance, modifcation, or total rejection of the theoretical model used. The essence of research in
science education is to fnd regular patterns in social situations, which in our case, refers to teaching
and learning sciences. In the end, researchers should be able to conclude that a certain educational
activity, or setting, most likely results in the intended learning process, student behavior, or increase
of learning gains for a particular group of students. If a newly developed theoretical model is not
tested, it does not permit generalization to other cases.
As already described, building theoretical models of aspects of teaching and learning science at
school has to take into account multiple variables, the interdependencies of variables, and hierar-
chically ordered system structures. Perhaps it is not surprising that controlling as many infuencing
variables of classroom settings as possible is absolutely necessary when researchers wish to reach
conclusions with regard to the impact of changes in teaching and learning recommended by some
science educators. The efect of a newly developed unit, for example, for quantum mechanics, surely
depends on the design and strategy of presenting the subject matter adequately regarding its scientifc
content and structure.
However, scientifc content taught at schools is not identical with that taught at universities
because the learners at schools and universities are diferent in so many ways that teachers have to
think about the teaching and learning process specifcally suited for the recipients. For example,
the academic content structure of a unit is moderated by features of the teacher’s personality, his or
her pedagogical content knowledge, students’ socioeconomic background, the structure of student–
teacher interactions in the classroom; and in particular, by students’ cognitive abilities. This holds
true for every description of learning and teaching processes and for every intervention aiming to
change teaching practice. Consistent with the idea of science instruction as a complex system, it
should be obvious that an adequate model is needed to describe as many infuences as possible on the
teaching and learning processes. Clausen (2002) suggested three critical aspects for developing and
validating a theory (or model) for assessing instructional quality: selection of representative constructs
(variables of theoretical models), formulation of hypothetical correlations (structure models), and the
32
development of adequate indicators for operationalization (measuring models) (Fischer & Neumann,

2012, p. 118; K. Neumann et al., 2012).
Quantitative Research: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

As discussed in the preceding section, strong research has to be built upon strong theory; the stronger
the theoretical framework, the stronger the research. The theoretical framework should be based
upon a synthesis of previous research studies and new ideas regarding unknown and/or innovative
infuences and variables. In quantitative research, a theoretical framework is oftentimes presented as
a model, that is, a conglomerate of variables and relations between these variables. The model iden-
tifes the variables that are assessed or surveyed respectively through an empirical study. Depending
on the theoretical framework and the particular research questions, the empirical study may utilize
one of a number of diferent designs. In addition to selecting a research design, the sampling of
participants of the study is a major consideration of quantitative research. Sample size and sample
composition (e.g., what type of students are to be studied) are tightly connected to the theoretical
framework, the respective research design, and the proposed analysis procedures. For example, clas-
sical approaches, such as an analysis of variance (ANOVA), typically require smaller sample sizes than
more sophisticated approaches, such as structural equation models (SEM).
In principle and irrespective of whether researchers are performing theory-based qualitative
research or quantitative research, there are four criteria of trustworthiness of data and results that
have to be clarifed: objectivity, reliability, validity, and signifcance. Important features of research design
and the goal of research instrumentation can be derived from formulating the purpose of the study
as precisely as possible, identifying the levels of the analysis, considering all possible confounding
variables, and utilizing these four criteria of trustworthiness.
Objectivity
Objectivity refers to the reduction, or at best the elimination, of any external infuences on a mea-
surement or an observation. The idea of objectivity was already expressed by Bacon (2000). He
demanded researchers avoid becoming four so-called idols:
1. The Idols of the Tribe (Idola tribus) point out that a researcher must consider that all perception
is made by the human mind and not by the objective universe
2. The Idols of the Cave (Idola specus) are the specifc perspectives of an individual caused by his or
her education, socialization, and individual life experience
3. The Idols of the Market (Idola fori) can be translated as acting as socially desired
4. The Idols of the Theatre (Idola theatri) refer to dogmata and ideologically guided principles
We suggest that observations and results shall be verifable independently of subjective infuences
(intersubjectivity). It is often helpful if researchers can consider performing, evaluating, and interpret-
ing objectively. Objectivity in quantitative research is possible when well-established rigorous steps of
performance standardization (e.g., scripts for classroom videos, detailed manuals to administrate a test),
psychometrics (e.g., ensuring the marking of items along a variable is maintained over time), statistics
(e.g., routine computation of efect size, addressing the hierarchical nature of educational data), and
interpretation are utilized. Within the realm of qualitative studies, the issue of objectivity is more dif-
fcult to address, for it is not possible to distinguish easily between an observer and a participant as
between the procedure of testing and a participant. Therefore, regardless of the type of measurement,
reliability and validity are decisive criteria for the quality of a measurement if objectivity is asserted.
33
Reliability
Reliability refers to the error of a measurement.
Sociological theorists often use concepts that are formulated at a rather high level of abstrac-
tion. These are quite diferent from the variables that are in the stock-in trade of empirical
sociologists. . . . The problem of bridging the gap between theory and research is then seen
as one of measurement error.
(Blalock, 1968, pp. 6–12)
This is the basic idea of theory-guided measurement – the existence of a true value T is assumed
(e.g., of motivation or school achievement in chemistry or physics). A measurement should be able
to provide an assessment about the level of probability if the true value can be expressed as observed
value corrected by the error. To explain T, we have to consider diferent error types. First, each mea-
surement contains a random error Ei, for example, variations in the subject’s attention, ambiguous
answers, disturbances of classroom settings from the outside, mistakes during data entry, errors in data
coding, and so on. Ei = T-xi where xi is observed, T is the estimated true value, Ei is the random error
of a single measurement, and M is the mean value of all measurements xi.
Further procedures of empirical measures and calculations, such as criteria that confront non-
normal distributed data, are described in this chapter.
Since random error will have an infuence on the reliability and validity of a measurement, the
measurement has to be conducted and data have to be processed as carefully as possible. Careful
means that the criteria of objectivity of the implementation and the evaluation, the validity of the
measurement models and measurement instruments and the assurance of reliability are observed and
documented as well as possible. The second type of error is the systematic error S. If objectivity is
given as a precondition, they result from a bias in measurement as over- or underestimation of key
parameters or sample mistakes. If xi is an observed value, the true value T can be expressed as T=
xi+E+S, where E denotes the random error and S the systematic error (see Figure 2.1). Reliability is
defned theoretically as the ratio of the variance of the true values xT to the variance of the measured
values xi.
A careful planning and execution of design and measurement and probability-based sample selec-
tion are necessary, especially referring to sample selection and response bias, such as social desirability.
A comparison of random and occasional samples makes this clear. For example, let us consider two
Figure 2.1 Diferent scenarios of reliability and validity.
34
research projects on the motivation of ninth graders of a certain country to learn physics. One of
the projects is able to compile the sample randomly, and the respondents are selected from all ninth
graders in a country. Since this is mostly not possible, a second project has selected an opportunity
sample made up of school classes that are available at a given time with the consent of the headmasters
of the schools and the parents of the students. An occasional sample may, for example, contain more
girls than boys and thus generate a bias. It is important to note that a systematic error does not change
the reliability of a measurement and can therefore not be detected through poor values of reliability.
Systematic errors can only be avoided by a very careful approach to sample selection, design, and
measurement and through a critical evaluation of the whole investigation.
In case of qualitative analyses such as categorizations or interpretations of specifc classroom situa-
tions, typical measures of reliability include interrater reliability (Gwet, 2014) or intraclass correlation
(ICC) (Shrout & Fleiss, 1979). These procedures compare the assessments of diferent independent
raters for the same situation. The raters are trained for the specifc task and function as quasi-
independent measuring devices. The comparison tests the accuracy of the interpretation procedure
and the category system, which must be derived from physical, pedagogical, and/or psychological
models and already established results of empirical research.
Further procedures of empirical measures and calculations, such as criteria that confront non-
normal distributed data are described in this chapter. A detailed description of further procedures and
criteria of trustworthiness can be found in Gravetter et al. (2020).
A central aspect of quantitative research is to measure constructs such as students’ science achieve-
ment or students’ interest in science; and not surprisingly, the reliability of the measures obtained
through achievement tests or questionnaires is of particular importance. Typically, a Cronbach’s alpha
(or coefcient α) is computed using raw score data and used to provide information about the con-
sistency with which a given set of items measures the same construct. High to perfect reliability is
indicated by values of Cronbach’s alpha between 0.7 and 1.0. Cronbach’s alpha is typically lower than
that, when there is only a small correlation among the items or a small number of items of a test or
questionnaire, indicating that the items correctly measure the underlying theoretical construct (e.g.,
intelligence or competence) only to a small extent. As is the case with any measurement, Cronbach’s
alpha and thus the reliability of the overall score may be improved by adding more items to the test
or questionnaire by removing items of low quality and by selecting a large sample.
As for reliability of test scores, it often is observed that the reliability (i.e., Cronbach’s alpha as
internal constituency) is much lower for pretest scores than for posttest scores of intervention stud-
ies. This is not necessarily considered as bad because a test designed to assess student learning should
represent students’ pre-knowledge and – to a larger extent – what students should learn as a result of
the intervention and not what they already know before.
Validity
Validity is a very important commonly evaluated category for evaluating the trustworthiness of all kinds
of qualitative or quantitative observations. An instrument, which measures something, is called valid if it
measures what it is supposed to measure. To evaluate validity, frst of all, as researchers, we have to ask
if the design and the instruments of our observation or measurement correspond with our theoretical
construct or at least our theoretical assumptions. For example, our theory should predict a particular
item ordering from easy to difcult, the theory should match what is observed in the instrument’s use,
and our instruments and our design can detect specifc characters of the construct with high accuracy.
There are diferent types of validity, some of which are briefy outlined in the following sections.
Face validity is a superfcial type of validity. Mostly an expert in the feld, just through a document
review, evaluates face validity. There is no statistical procedure for evaluating; therefore, face validity
is the weakest form of validity (Nevo, 1985).
35
External validity, or generalizability, must be discussed and taken into account at the very begin-
ning of a study. The sample must be representative of the population tested, and the sampling must
be random and not accidental. Therefore, all types of schools, all regions of the country, and all social
diferences and cognitive diferences of students should be included in a representative sample. This
makes it possible to generalize the results of a test on scientifc literacy to all students at the end of
Grade 10 in the educational system of the respective country. In some cases, the spacing and order-
ing of items as a function of item difculty may difer as a function of subgroups, such as gender or
ethnicity. Such issues can be investigated and interpreted using diferential item functioning (DIF)
using a latent class (LC) analysis approach. It is important to note that the more often the results
of a study are replicated and confrmed with diferent subsamples, the higher is its external validity
(Tsaousis et al., 2020).
Content validity can only be discussed in the context of a theoretical framework as a matter of
semantic accordance of the measuring instrument and the theoretical assumptions or theoretical
construct (Haynes et al., 1995). All diferent aspects of the construct should be represented in the
instruments. If the professional knowledge of science teachers to be validated contains, for example,
three elements – content knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and pedagogical
knowledge (PK) – they have to be each theoretically described and given an operational defnition
that can serve as a starting point for the construction of the three corresponding test instruments.
If the theoretical model contains, for example, the assumption of CK, PCK, and PK being three
independent dimensions of the professional knowledge, the researcher needs to consider a three-
dimensional model.
Criterion validity is also known as concurrent validity and prognostic validity. Concurrent validity com-
pares the test results with a criterion assessed at the same time. For example, a student tells an inter-
viewer that he or she is not able to solve physics tasks about force. To validate the students’ statement,
the interviewer administers to the student a short, previously validated test on force, such as one on
parts of the force concept inventory (Hestenes et al., 1992; McLure et al., 2020). For prognostic
validity, the criterion is assessed at a later date, for example, high school examination results of indi-
viduals can be compared with their success at university.
Internal validity considers causal relationships between independent and dependent variables of
the construct to eliminate or control the infuence of control variables or confounding variables.
For example, in most studies on science teaching and learning the motivation of students and their
knowledge of physics correlate, but their knowledge also correlates with the pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK) of the teacher. In addition, the relation between students’ knowledge and their
motivation is not a causal efect. It is not clear whether students are motivated because of their good
performance or whether their motivation leads to good performance. As a result, the correlation
between motivation and student performance cannot be fully elucidated. Construct validity can be
viewed as a component of internal validity. If it can be confrmed that, as theoretically predicted, a
test and the items are able to discriminate between high- and low-achieving students, a test has con-
struct validity. For example, by correlating the results of a test on scientifc literacy with results of an
already existing test on scientifc literacy is a check of convergent validity (high correlation expected).
To decide if a test for scientifc literacy measures science and, e.g., not reading competence, the
results of the science literacy test has to be correlated in the same sample with a reading ability test
(discriminant validity, low correlation expected).
Construct validity considers, in essence, if and how a theoretical construct or model correlates
with the results measured by an instrument that purports to measure the construct. If, for example,
the construct of physics competency is operationalized to be measured by a test, the test must dem-
onstrate how its items measure the construct. Construct validity can be assessed by comparing the
predicted difculty ordering and spacing of items on a test to that which is observed in terms of
item difculty. To approach construct validity, researchers usually determine the correlation between
36
the results of their test instrument and those of other instruments that also purport to measure the
same construct. In order to achieve construct validity, content validity is a necessary precondition
(O’Leary-Kelly & J. Vokurka, 1998). To check if a test can validly measure the operationalized form
of a construct, for example, pedagogical content knowledge in chemistry (PCK-Ch) researchers can
compare the results measured by the instrument with those by another previously used test that also
claims to test PCK-Ch administered to the same sample at the same time. Convergent and discriminant
validity are seen as part of construct validity. Concurrent validity is a type of evidence that can be
gathered to defend the use of a test for predicting other outcomes. Concurrent validity indicates
whether a test result agrees with other observations from the environment. If the correlation is high,
both instruments are valid (convergent validity) and the probability that they both measure PCK-Ch
increases. On the contrary, researchers can compare the results of one instrument using chemistry
teachers and mathematics teachers and expect only a low correlation (discriminant validity) between
the results of the two samples. If this is the case, the probability that the test validly measures the PCK
of chemistry teachers increases.
Reliability and validity criteria are needed to assess the quality of a measurement if objectivity is
asserted.
Signifcance
Signifcance refers to the trustworthiness of results obtained through procedures of data reduction.
As quantitative research usually involves consideration of larger samples, procedures of data reduc-
tion are very important in analyzing data and obtaining results that can be used to answer research
questions. For example, as researchers, we examine the relation between two variables in terms of
correlation and want to claim that the two variables are correlated with each other at a medium
level. Then, we would have to obtain a measure that informs us – on the basis of the data we have
collected – as to how sure we can be that there is in fact a correlation between the two variables or
whether it may be that we were mistaken in concluding that there is a correlation.
In test theory, four possible cases with respect to testing a hypothesis through empirical data can
be diferentiated.
1. The hypothesis is in fact true, and the data confrm the hypothesis
2. The hypothesis is true, but the data suggest the hypothesis be rejected
3. The hypothesis is false, but the data confrm the hypothesis
4. The hypothesis is false, and the data suggest the hypothesis be rejected
Case 3, where a false hypothesis is falsely accepted, is called error of the frst kind (Type I error)
that researchers typically try to avoid. For example, if a new science curriculum is falsely found to
be more efective than the traditional curriculum, it may not be useful for student learning of sci-
ence. Thus, in quantitative research, a researcher wants to ensure that a hypothesis is only accepted
if the chance for it being false is small. The error of the frst kind is sometimes also referred to as
alpha error because alpha in test theory is used to denote the probability that a false hypothesis is
erroneously accepted as true based on the data. The researcher and the community determine what
is considered as an acceptable value for the alpha error. For example, as students are not expected
to know much about what they are supposed to learn, the students who may attempt to answer
items by guessing do not correctly answer many of the items in the pretest. Students may randomly
know the answers to some individual items of a test, but do not yet have a coherent understanding
of the domain (see, for example, Geller et al. (2014). As such, when piloting an instrument, the
sample should include students across diferent ability levels in the pretest prior to and the posttest
after instruction.
37
These criteria of the alpha error apply in principle to all kinds of measurement, and as quantitative
(and qualitative) research builds on the measurement of various constructs, they also apply to research
in general. However, these criteria must be individually adapted or expanded depending on the con-
crete designs, samples, and methods of analysis. Typically, in science education, only an alpha error
level of below 5% is considered acceptable. However, with an alpha level of 5%, we would expect
to wrongly reject the null hypothesis in one out of 20 tests – i.e., commit a Type I error. There are
many ways to correct Type I error infation. For example, the Bonferroni correction can be used to
limit alpha error accumulation in multiple comparisons (Sinclair et al., 2013), and the Type II error
can be decreased by increasing the sample size (VanVoorhis & Morgan, 2007).
Designs, Sample Size, Effect Size, and Methods of Analysis

One important decision following the establishment of a strong theoretical framework as well as the
identifcation of research questions and hypotheses based on that framework is the choice of an appro-
priate research design. There are a multitude of research designs and categorizations of research designs.
One principal categorization divides research designs into experimental and nonexperimental designs.
Design
Experimental designs are those setups in which at least one group is treated in a particular manner and
the expected outcomes are compared to data and measures collected from a control group, which
receives a diferent treatment. To identify the efect of a treatment is not an easy problem to solve.
Besides designing the treatment as carefully as possible, the control group is often taken as it appears
in the feld. For example, researchers want to measure the impact of teachers’ process-oriented
sequencing of a physics lesson on student learning in a study in which the research team trains the
teachers. The researchers have to design a lesson for the teachers in the experimental group including
classroom management and provide, or even construct, learning material for the students. The teach-
ers of the control group have to be supported in the same way on all aspects of the lesson planning,
except for sequencing the lesson. Otherwise, the researchers are not able to decide if the measured
efect is a result of the treatment.
Nonexperimental research designs typically include studies that seek to identify characteristics of a
population and relations between such characteristics. For example, this would include a study that
investigates college freshmen’s interest in science and how that interest is related to students’ choice
of their master’s degree specialization. Another design classifcation addresses the diferences between
descriptive, correlative, and experimental studies. Descriptive studies are thought to mainly aim to
describe particular characteristics within a population, correlative studies seek to identify correlations
among such characteristics, and experimental studies aim to establish causal relations between at least
one independent and one dependent variable. Other research design classifcations are diferentiated
based on sampling (e.g., cross-sectional and longitudinal studies). Note that there are statistical pro-
cedures, such as regression discontinuity analysis or fxed efects models, that allow for drawing causal
conclusions from observational data (Schneider et al., 2007).
Irrespective of design classifcation, a selected research design for a project should be one that
leads the researchers to addressing the research questions and hypotheses. Both research questions and
hypotheses emerge from previous research and science education theory. Design and methodologi-
cal choices should be made with theory, research questions, and hypotheses in mind. The interest
of social institutions to learn more about school or learning in general is of secondary importance.
However, recent methodological developments allow for better research designs, resulting in more
trustworthy fndings. Specifc considerations that arise from these developments are discussed in the
following section.
38
Sample Size and Effect Size

However, there are some general guidelines for planning a sample size appropriate to the research
method. In general, N<100 is seen as small, N between 100 and 200 as medium, and N>200 as
a large sample size. A sample size of 20 students per combination of grouping variables is com-
monly considered the minimum; group sizes of 40 students are commonly recommended (Memon
et al., 2020). If two diferent treatments are to be compared under control of the efect of gender,
one group of at least 20 female and 20 male students are required per treatment. However, in this
example the minimum sample size of 20 students per each of the four groups requires at least a large
efect for drawing conclusions. According to Salkind (2010) Cohen’s efect size is as follows: small
efect: r ≥ 0, 10; medium efect: r ≥ 0, 30; and large efect: r ≥ 0, 50. The recommended sample
size of 40 students per group would allow for identifying medium efects (f >.25), and for identify-
ing small efects (f >.1) a sample size of 400 per group would be required. Note that these sample
sizes are unique to the previous example, as the sample size depends on many factors related to the
design of a study. If, for example, random assignment of students to treatment or control groups is
not possible, then whole classes are sampled instead. That means that instead of a minimum of 20
students per group, 20 classes per group would be required for sound conclusions about the efect of
the teaching strategy under investigation. The estimation of the required sample size pending efect
sizes, statistical power, etc. is commonly referred to as power analysis and can be performed using
software such as g*power (Faul et al., 2009).
All considerations regarding the design, sampling, and procedures of analysis should be based
on a theoretical framework, that is, the research questions and the expected fndings (i.e., tested
hypotheses). If the conclusions are expected to only extend to selected ninth graders in Melbourne,
Australia, the sample will need to comprise exactly that – selected ninth graders from Melbourne. In
order to be able to extend the conclusions to the population of students across the whole of Australia,
a representative sample for Australian students (i.e., a sample of particularly large size) is required.
Specifc Methodological Considerations

In quantitative research, statistical procedures play a central role. If the theoretical framework is
fxed, and the research questions and hypotheses are formulated, a research design has to be chosen.
Depending on the area of research, diferent designs are employed to obtain evidence to answer the
specifc research questions. However, before answering the research questions, the data obtained –
usually data from a large sample of participants – need to be analyzed by means of statistical pro-
cedures. That is, the full set of information – as represented by every single answer of every single
participant to every single question in all the instruments utilized in the study – needs to be reduced
to the actual information in which the researchers are interested. This is how statistical proce-
dures help quantitative researchers. For example, if 50 treatment-group students receive teaching on
mechanics in everyday contexts and the same number of students in a control group receives regular
teaching, then both have to answer the same test, for example, the Force Concept Inventory (FCI),
a 30-item test instrument. The full data set contains a unique identifer for each student, the group
the student belonged to, and the student’s answer to each of the 30 items. In the frst step, ideally the
Rasch measure (e.g., Granger, 2008; Wright, 1995) is calculated for each student. Then, a t-test is
applied in order to determine whether students from the treatment group had a higher measure than
did students from the control group in order to fnd out how sure we, as researchers, can be about
our fndings. But, what if the t-test gave us a false positive? What if we were not allowed to actually
use the t-test? Certainly, the t-test for N=2 gives questionable results that cannot be generalized. In
fact, statistical procedures come with certain requirements, which need to be checked (Badagnani
et al., 2017).
39
Central requirements of statistical procedures: One of the central requirements of parametric statisti-
cal procedures such as the t-test is normal distribution of the measures, such as the students’ scores
on the FCI test in the previous example. Another requirement is the linearity of measures. That
is, that students not only can be ranked by their measures, indicating that those with a measure of
2 logits had a higher ability than a student with a measure of 1 logit. The increase in the measure
from 1 logit to 2 logits corresponds to the same increase in the knowledge about mechanics as the
increase of a measure from 0 logits to 1 logit. For a long time, researchers have been concerned
about the normal distribution of measures (which usually is a sound assumption) and have neglected
the consideration of the linearity of measures. Linearity can, in part, be considered an appraisal of
the accuracy of the measurements over the full range of the instruments (for an in-depth discussion
of this issue, see I. Neumann et al., 2011). Rasch analysis allows researchers to obtain linear mea-
sures from ordinal scores, such as test scores or sum scores from Likert scales (Rasch, 1980). A more
complete treatment of Rasch analysis follows later in this chapter. In a similar way, researchers in
science education have begun to use other methodologies developed in, for example, educational
psychology or educational research that can help to ensure that the results obtained through statisti-
cal procedures capture the complexity of the teaching and learning about science inside and outside
of the classroom.
Obtaining Linear Measures and Rasch Analysis

Up to this point in our chapter, we have described the necessary considerations and requirements for
conducting science education research. In this section, we present introductory details as an example
of how Rasch measurement theory can be utilized by science education researchers in the course of
investigations utilizing instrumentation such as tests and survey questionnaires. Many examples of
the application of statistical techniques (e.g., ANOVA, regression, correlation) have been presented
in the science education literature. However, here we concentrate upon detailing selected aspects of
applying the Rasch theory because this theory provides measures of the quality needed for statisti-
cal analysis. Core themes of earlier sections of our chapter are revisited in our discussion about the
Rasch method.
Rasch measurement techniques were developed by the Danish mathematician George William
Rasch (1901–1980) and greatly expanded by the University of Chicago’s Benjamin Wright in his
books Best Test Design (Wright & Stone, 1979) and Rating Scale Analysis (Wright & Masters, 1982).
Rasch and Wright both noticed that raw test data (e.g., scores for an answer, dichotomous and
partial credit) and raw rating scale data are ordinal. This means that, among many implications, the
use of parametric statistics to evaluate raw ordinal data violates assumptions of such statistical tests.
Additional problems involve the weakness of quality control with regard to data quality and instru-
ment functioning, an inability to express how an individual student performed on a test (or the atti-
tude expressed on a survey) with respect to instrument items, and the inability to track development
of students over time in detail with a single scale. In addition, in a classical analysis, the raw score
person measures are item dependent. The Rasch person measures are not item dependent, as long
as the items taken by a respondent involve the same trait as the items taken by another respondent.
Rasch analysis is now being utilized worldwide to
1. Guide and facilitate the development of rigorous measurement instruments

2. Express student performance with respect to item difculty
3. Compute linear student measures, which can be used for parametric tests
4. Develop alternative forms of tests and survey questionnaires (multi-matrix design), which can be
linked
(e.g., Kolen & Brennan, 2004; K. Neumann et al., 2013)
40
Rasch analysis is not simply the application of the Rasch model in a computer program, but it
is also about thinking of what it means to measure. When Rasch measurement is utilized, there is
frequent refection upon and the assessment of many pieces of evidence for reaching a conclusion,
for example, the overall functioning of an instrument.
To determine the quality of evidence in a feld, one requirement is to be able to evaluate the
quality of the measurement instruments utilized to collect data. Rasch measurement ofers a vari-
ety of techniques that can be used to estimate the functionality of an instrument. For those who
have utilized Rasch measurement, it is abundantly clear that the steps taken to evaluate instrument
functioning greatly parallel the steps taken by biologists, physicists, and other scientists as they create
laboratory instruments.
Measurement error and validity: Let us frst begin with the issue of reliability. It is common in the
feld of science education that a researcher computes reliability as a way of attempting to evaluate, to
some degree, the quality of results collected with an instrument.
There are a number of pitfalls in the computation of a Cronbach’s alpha or a Kuder–Richardson
formula (KR-8, -20, or -21), as is detailed in Smith et al. (2003, pp. 198–204):
Reliability was originally conceptualized as the ratio of the true variance to the observed
variance. Since there was no method in the true score model of estimating the SEM [stan-
dard error of the mean] a variety of methods (e.g., KR-20, Alpha) were developed to esti-
mate reliability without knowing the SEM. In the Rasch model it is possible to approach
reliability the way it was originally intended rather than using a less than ideal solution.
Thus, when Rasch analysis is used, improved reliability can be computed rather than utilizing
other methods to estimate the reliability without taking into account the standard error of mean (SEM).
An additional problem in the computation of Cronbach’s alpha involves raw data, which are non-
linear and causes a well-known ceiling efect for large samples. There are also additional weaknesses
in the traditional computation of Cronbach’s alpha in science education studies that involve the lack
of investigation of both the reliability of test items and the reliability of persons, for example, in the
use of internal consistency indices, such as Cronbach’s alpha (e.g. Clauser & Linacre, 1999; Linacre,
1997). When Rasch analysis is used, there are reliabilities computed for persons and items.
Rasch measurement provides a number of indices and techniques by which instrument quality
and trustworthiness can be assessed. Some examples involve item ft and person ft assessed through
mean square residual (MNSQ) criteria (e.g., Smith, 1986, 1991, 1996). Item ft can be seen as a
technique to identify items that may not lie on the same measurement scale as the majority of items
(items not part of a construct). Person ft can be used to identify idiosyncratic responses to the test (or
survey questionnaire) by the respondents, such as poorly performing students who unexpectedly give
correct answers to very difcult items on a test. Rasch analysis also includes indices such as person
separation/person strata and item separation/item strata, which can be used to evaluate additional
aspects of instrument functioning (Fisher, 1992).
We now consider the topic of measurement error, which impacts the trustworthiness of data
collected with instruments and the trustworthiness of statistical results. In any laboratory in which
data are collected, the scientist is acutely aware of the possible errors in each measurement. In addi-
tion, the scientist will know that the error is not necessarily the same for each measure taken. When
a Rasch analysis is conducted, measurement errors are computed for each respondent and each
item. When science education researchers review the errors of respondent measures, they will better
understand a number of possible errors. For example, a test taker who has earned a perfect raw score
on a test will have a much larger Rasch error of measurement than in the case of another test taker
who has only correctly answered half of the test items. This diference in error can be understood by
reasoning that a perfect score does not reveal how much more the test taker knows. The test taker
41
with the perfect score could have been presented with 10 more very difcult items and have cor-
rectly answered all, some, or none of these items. This is similar to a voltmeter that can measure a
maximum of 12 volts. When it is known that the voltage is higher than 12 volts it could be 12.5 volts
or 1,000 volts. Numerous articles in science education have presented details that further discuss the
computation of Rasch item/person error and the use of error in Rasch measurement for analysis of
data (e.g., Granger, 2008; Wright, 1995).
In earlier sections of this chapter, we discuss the important issue of considering what a researcher
wants to investigate and which method he or she has to use for the best answer. With regard to Rasch
measurement, the question becomes: Does an instrument measure what is needed to be measured,
and how well does the instrument measure? When Rasch measurement is used, great care is taken
to defne the variable of interest and to defne what qualitative diferences of the variable occur as
the researcher moves from one end of the variable’s range to the other. In Figure 2.2 we present a
common tool used by those applying Rasch analysis to the development of a measurement device.
Moreover, we provide the predicted location and order of eight biology test items.
When one understands what it means to measure and what is needed for a good measurement
tool, be it a ruler, a thermometer, or a knowledge test, it should make sense that the variable is
arranged on a scale that marks a qualitative diference in the measured characteristic. In the case of
a test on physics knowledge this may mean that the items should range from easy to difcult. In the
case of an attitudinal survey questionnaire with a rating scale of agreement, there should be items that
range from “easier to agree with” to items that are “more difcult to agree with”. In our example,
the gaps between the test items will mean that some respondents who difer in their traits (e.g., abil-
ity or attitude) cannot be distinguished or diferentiated. For example, a student John may have an
ability level just above that of item 6, while a student Paul may have an ability level just below the
portion of the trait measured by item 5. By utilizing the Rasch idea of how items measure a variable,
a researcher is able to avoid using an instrument inappropriately for the goal of the study or avoid uti-
lizing an existing instrument for which the researcher may not have clearly defned a range of values
of the variable being measured to distinguish and diferentiate respondents. Without consideration
of a single variable and the range of levels along one variable, a new instrument may fall short of
measurement precision, often to the extent that it makes no sense to attempt any statistical analysis.
As presented in Figure 2.2, the identifcation of items that measure a variable (which items fall on
the line) clearly involves content validity as a theoretical argument for the correctness of the assess-
ment; and the prediction of item ordering and spacing along a variable (where items fall on the line)
involves construct validity.
Diferential item functioning: In addition to considering construct validity by predicting the order
and spacing of items along the measurement scale of a variable using a guiding theory, Rasch analysis
provides many analytical techniques by which construct validity can be evaluated, the most com-
mon of which is perhaps the investigation of diferential item functioning (DIF). DIF can be used to
determine whether the items of the test represent the variable consistently in diferent subgroups of
the sample. If an item defnes the variable in a diferent manner, it may not measure the construct
(or the defned variable) in the same manner across the groups. Identifcation of such an item may
mean that the item needs to be removed from the instrument. Nevertheless, if the quality parameters
of the item are good enough, it can be interpreted qualitatively and can be of great interest for the
researcher. For example, if the content diferences of the DIF items are interpreted, the efect can be
Figure 2.2 Example for a latent variable defned by eight items.
42
related to the content of the intervention’s lessons. The work of Brown et al. (2009) provides a good
example of the use of these and other Rasch measures in the Rasch evaluation of construct validity
of a measurement instrument.
Scales of person measure and variable: In science education research, we have argued that science
educators should be able to provide meaningful and accurate guidance to teachers, policymakers, and
researchers to improve and/or control the quality of instruction or the output of the educational sys-
tem. Rasch analysis provides meaningful guidance to teachers, policymakers, and researchers. Since
Rasch analysis facilitates the computation on the same scale of a person measure and an item measure,
it is possible to express the relation between person measures and item measures. In Figure 2.3, we
provide a Wright map in which person measures are plotted on the left side and item measures on
the right side. Each item is identifed with the phrase Q Item Number (e.g., Q5). Items higher up
on the Wright map are items that are more difcult.
This enables the performance of each student (or group of students), to be expressed by which
item (or items) the student(s) would be predicted to have correctly answered or not answered. For
example, to make use of this map to study gender diferences, the mean of males and females on
the test have to be marked. To understand which items the typical male could do, we simply draw a
Figure 2.3 Wright map of person measures and item difculty ordered on one scale.
43
horizontal line from the average measure of the males across the Wright map. Those items below the
male line are those items a typical male would be predicted to have correctly answered but not those
items above the line. This technique allows explaining the meaning of a measure by interpreting the
related items as content dependent. Now, one is able to understand what the performance means
(what a test taker, or a group of test takers, can or cannot do).
An additional way in which this Wright map can be used can best be understood by drawing a
horizontal line from the average measure of female test takers, and then evaluating the items between
the line for the males and the line for the females. Those items that fall between the two lines are the
items that describe the diferences observed between the two groups. It may be that t-test results have
shown a statistically signifcant diference between the average male and female measures. However,
now it is possible to explain the meaning of the diference between the two groups by interpret-
ing and comparing items that are correctly answered and those predicted to be correctly answered
in relation to diferent individuals and diferent groups. The meaning of the statistical diference
between groups can be detailed in terms of what students are able to do and how they difer. Versions
of such Wright maps have been widely used in Australia for a number of decades, and such Wright
maps are now often used to write parent reports and to compare diferent groups in science educa-
tion research (e.g., Kauertz & Fischer, 2006; I. Neumann et al., 2011; K. Neumann et al., 2013).
Boone et al. (2014) described the use of Rasch analysis for science education research and Boone
and Staver (2020) has two chapters on detailed discussion of Wright maps in particular. Wright maps
have also been frequently used in medical felds to communicate instrument validity as well as patient
measures (Stelmack et al., 2004).
Hierarchical structure of data: As detailed in the frst part of this chapter, of immense importance
to science education researchers is the hierarchical structure of school systems. There are a number
of models that can be used to provide guidance for conducting studies on school systems. One
such example was the study conducted by the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR)
in which hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), Rasch analysis, and other statistical techniques were
utilized to facilitate an analysis of a large school system (see Kapadia et al., 2007). In addition,
every part of a school system contains many variables that are dependent upon each other. For
example, it is well known that student learning (i.e., the increase in the scores on a test of student
competence in a domain) depends on cognitive ability. For example, if a teacher uses the same
complex diagrams in two diferent classes, the students in one class – a larger number of whom
exhibit a lower average cognitive ability – will, on average, learn less compared to the students in
the other class. However, the pertinent issue is that although in both classes the students with lower
cognitive ability will learn less, since there are fewer students with a low cognitive ability in the
class with a higher average cognitive ability. This will not become apparent when the knowledge
of both classes is compared.
The bottom line is that in order to capture such complex relations between various factors on the
individual level and the aggregate level (i.e., the classroom or school system), more complex proce-
dures than t-tests or ANOVA are required. Although ANOVA allows for accounting for variables on
the classroom level, it does not allow for modeling the efect of a classroom variable that the variable
has on another variable on the individual level. For example, if a teacher alters his/her teaching style
by presenting specifc, less complex diagrams to students with lower cognitive abilities, the students
may learn better, and this learning may in turn afect the overall correlation between their cognitive
abilities and their learning outcomes. One method to account for such a complex situation is the
method of hierarchical linear modeling. In addition to utilizing HLM, two other related analysis
techniques structural equation models (SEM) or path analysis, are also of importance for the rigorous
analysis of data in science education research. There is one particularly important aim of quantitative
science education research for researchers to consider. That is to describe the complex situation in
classrooms and how variables are correlated with each other and to identify the nature of the relation
44
between such information. For example, to analyze if two variables, such as student achievement and
student interest, afects the other when they are correlated.
The question arises, does higher student interest lead to better achievement, or is it the other way
around and a higher achievement leads to more interest? Or is it that both achievement and inter-
est progress alongside each other as specifc features of the teacher–student interaction mediates or
moderates both, depending on a third variable (e.g., students’ self-efcacy)? In the discussion section
of papers, it is oftentimes pointed out how correlation may not be mistaken as indicating causal rela-
tions and that identifying causal relations requires experimental designs. In fact, with path analysis
or its more sophisticated variant, SEM, it becomes possible to specify the directions of relations in a
model and to test the validity of the model against a given data set.
There are a variety of methodologies (many new or further developed) addressing quantitative
science education research. Examples of such methodologies include Rasch analysis, video analysis,
HLM, and SEM. These methodologies and their potential for quantitative science education research
are discussed in the following section.
Quantitative Approaches in Science Education Research

As discussed earlier in this chapter, three major areas of research in science education may be
identifed:
1. Research on evaluating science teaching strategies, including any kind of research that evalu-
ates diferent approaches for enhancing student learning (e.g., students’ knowledge, interest,
or skills)
2. Research on classroom-based learning, including research on any kind of learning processes
with regards to science in larger groups, such as science feld trips
3. Research on how people learn about science, including research on constructs related to learn-
ing (e.g., interest in science or beliefs about science related to subjects/individuals)
Evaluating Strategies of Science Teaching

Research in science education very often concerns the investigation of changes in outcome variables,
such as students’ achievement, interest, or motivation. However, if the focus is on evaluating difer-
ent ways of teaching science and/or more precisely evaluating strategies to foster improvement in
science achievement, interest, or motivation of diferent groups (which require group comparisons),
diferent research designs other than the ones described previously are required. These designs are
commonly referred to as experimental or quasi-experimental designs. In such designs, instruments are
needed to assess changes in students’ achievement, interest, or motivation as a result of treatment
or intervention. The instruments need to be administered to students before and after students are
taught according to a particular strategy (an approach commonly referred to as a pre-post-design).
Using such a design, the efect of the particular teaching strategy on students’ achievement may be
investigated. However, the problem of using a simple pre-post-design is that it does not provide
conclusive evidence that the change in students’ achievement is related to the new teaching strategy.
It might be that the achievement change may be the result of other teaching strategies or that there is
a regression to the mean. In order to obtain evidence for the conclusion that the observed change in
student achievement is in fact due to teaching with a particular strategy, a second group of students
is required. This second group needs to be taught with a diferent strategy, or at the minimum have
received regular instruction. Another teaching strategy instead of regulated instruction is usually pre-
ferred, as it can rule out alternative explanations for students’ potential improvement, for example,
a novelty efect. Therefore, evaluation of teaching strategies – that is, any strategies that foster an
45
increase in any science learning–related variables, including soft skills such as interest or motivation –
requires more sophisticated experimental designs than a pre-post-design.
In experimental designs, students should ideally be randomly assigned to one of the groups that
are compared to each other (usually at least one treatment and one control group). Consequently,
these designs are referred to as randomized experimental designs. Such randomization should be a goal of
a study using experimental designs, as randomization is expected to rule out efects of diferences – in
cognitive abilities and any other variables – which may afect the results of the study. Randomization
obviously requires a large enough sample size, and in some cases it is either not possible or not fea-
sible to randomly assign students to treatment and control groups. In this case, the variables expected
to infuence the variables targeted for assessment need to be controlled. This means added variables
should be assessed as well and included in an analysis to determine their efects. We fnd that these
added variables are very often not addressed in science education studies when the limitations of a
study are discussed.
When randomization is not possible, we suggest a strategy is to sample a large enough group of
students to rule out particular unwanted infuences. We cannot provide exact numbers for sample
sizes, but the sample size would have to be large enough to allow for the assumption that the dis-
tribution of the variables – that may cause unwanted infuences confounding the results upon an
analysis – is similar in both groups. Experimental designs that do not use randomized samples are
also commonly referred to as quasi-experimental designs. In a quasi-experimental design researchers
should make sure that the two groups have similar profles, either by matching the samples (e.g., using
procedures such as propensity score matching) or by carefully comparing the groups with respect to
relevant variables.
Procedures of data analysis in experimental designs typically include a variety of analyses of vari-
ance (ANOVA), where the grouping variable serves as the independent variable. As discussed earlier,
in the case of just one dependent variable (e.g., change in student achievement) and just two difer-
ent values of the independent (grouping) variable (i.e., one treatment and one control group), an
ANOVA yields the same results as does a t-test. One strength of the ANOVA approach to analysis,
however, is that it allows for more than one independent variable, which may be considered as in
the case of experimental pre-post-designs and in longitudinal studies. ANOVA is also applicable as
repeated measures ANOVA. In addition to the grouping variable that distinguishes students from
treatment and control groups, there may be other grouping variables, such as gender. The so-called
analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), moreover, allows for adding continuous variables, such as stu-
dents’ cognitive abilities or interest that are not of primary interest, known as covariates. ANCOVA
is a general linear model to combine regression and ANOVA to control the efects of the covariates.
An ANCOVA adjusts the dependent variable (e.g., students’ competence) as if all comparison groups
are equal on the covariates (Best & Kahn, 2006).
Investigating Classroom Instruction

As science education research aims at improving instruction, even if a randomized experimental
design cannot be applied to obtain evidence of how teaching works in diferent classrooms with
diferent teachers, the starting point for determining the sample size is the number of characteristics
teachers are expected to difer in. If, for example, teachers only vary with respect to gender, a mini-
mum of 20 male and 20 female teachers are needed to detect a large efect (see section “Sample Size
and Efect Size” for a detailed discussion of the relationship between sample and efect sizes). For
every additional parameter 20 more individuals should be added.
Teacher efectiveness research has shown that despite a particular teaching strategy that may have
been found to work with one group of students, the strategy may not work with another group,
as there are a variety of characteristics of teachers, students, and instruction that afect the learning
46
outcomes. Because many strategies have been found to only work with a particular group of stu-
dents, such as high or low achievers, there are nuances in selecting a sample size and a research design,
which are impacted by a particular group of students (e.g., high achievers). One example of this
issue involves the infuence of students’ socioeconomic status (SES). SES has been found to infuence
students’ mathematics and science achievement (Cooper & Berry, 2020; Li et al., 2020). According
to Prenzel (2003, p. 251), on average 16.8% of variance in students’ mathematics achievement was
found to be explained by their SES across participating countries in the Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA). In Germany’s case, SES accounted for an above-average variance in
students’ mathematics achievement at 21.1% (Prenzel & Deutsches, 2004, p. 275). Consequently,
SES needs to be controlled in studies investigating instructional quality and be included as a modera-
tor or mediator when analyzing the efects of instructional characteristics on student achievement.
In addition, any other factors, such as political, organizational, or institutional conditions must be
controlled as well, as these may infuence instruction, student achievement, or the relation between
the two. That is, in order to improve instruction as a whole, it is of utmost importance to under-
stand the complex processes in regular classrooms and how such processes are afected by diferent
characteristics of students, teachers, and the classroom environment, as well as other factors, such as
funding of the schools.
At present, little is known about the complex processes of instruction and how such processes are
afected by framework characteristics such as those mentioned earlier. Consequently, it is not yet pos-
sible to detail and describe a theoretical framework of classroom teaching and learning from previous
research with respect to instructional quality. For example, the efect of certain aspects of professional
knowledge of teachers on the quality of lessons is not known, nor is the kind of content knowledge
teachers should learn at universities for best practice in schools (Cauet et al., 2015). Certainly, know-
ing more about the interdependencies between teaching and learning would lead to a more precise
formulation of goals for teacher education and would result in a more efective use of the limited
learning time of future teachers at universities. Some examples of quality criteria that should be
utilized to detail a theoretical framework are classroom management (Fricke et al., 2012), cognitive
activation (Baumert et al., 2010; Teig et al., 2019), and feedback (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Maria
Araceli Ruiz-Primo & Li, 2013).
Once the constituents of a model of professional knowledge have been established, a test instru-
ment can be selected if one exists for the model. If appropriate instruments do not exist, as research-
ers we need to validate our self-developed instruments, and even if appropriate instruments exist,
eforts should be undertaken to provide an argument for the validity of the instrument (Kane, 2006).
This is what is required whether the instruments are for tests, surveys, or video analysis. In case an
instrument exists, we must consider convergent validity and discriminant validity. Therefore, we
need either another instrument that was already used for the same purpose (convergent validity), or
we have to choose samples of participants with diferent characteristics to validate our instrument
by correlating the results of these samples and those of our target sample (discriminant validity). For
example, in the validation of an instrument for measuring the PCK of physics teachers, mathematics
or English teachers should perform signifcantly lower than physics teachers. As a result, the cor-
relation between the samples should be low too. Ultimately, we are able to describe the professional
knowledge of a certain sample of teachers in terms of the mean and variance, and we are able to
compare these measures between diferent samples, for example, a number of schools and those
schools’ teachers, or representative samples of two countries. The mere description of data does
not allow one to draw conclusions. Thus, the description of the quality of teacher education or the
quality of teaching does not allow one to make a conclusion. To draw conclusions or to investigate
directions of an efect, one needs criteria to classify instructional quality, and one must have a theory
of how professional knowledge contributes to a framework of instruction quality. An example of a
criterion might be measures of students’ learning outcomes, including knowledge, competences,
47
motivation, and interest (controlled for cognitive abilities and SES). To measure outcomes, we must
have appropriate tests and questionnaires. As we advance in our analysis using our selected instru-
ments, we should be able to discriminate between low- and high-achieving classes and their teach-
ers. In case the correlation between students’ and teachers’ test results is moderately signifcant or
higher, a connection between the two can be assumed. Otherwise, we have to think about possible
external infuences that were not taken into account but may have infuenced our data. Our point is
that external infuences have to be taken into consideration and have to be refected upon to improve
ongoing and future research.
To answer the research question of whether our construct of PCK matters for classroom perfor-
mance and students’ outcomes, an experimental study should be designed to determine the direction
of the efect before measuring correlation. Once the efect of PCK is known from such a study, we
can proceed to investigate how teachers’ PCK afects instructional quality in real classrooms. In the
best situation, such studies can target a representative sample of students in a particular setting.
To complete our discussion on the complexity of science education research, and how/why this
research must be improved, we wish to summarize some caveats and issues that must be considered by
science education research. In order to capture the complex processes of classroom teaching and learn-
ing, the use of statistical tools such as t-tests, ANOVA, or regression analyses has their limitations.
In order to consider a variety of diferent characteristics on diferent aggregation levels with respect
to classroom instruction (i.e., the individual level of the students, the classroom level, the level of
schools, or even whole countries) requires sophisticated procedures of analysis. This starts with the
fact that in the reality of the classroom, aptitude-treatment-interaction efects (Koran & Koran Jr.,
1984; Snow, 1991; Yeh, 2012) must be considered and taken into account. There are, for example,
individual characteristics of students that resonate with characteristics of the teacher, the school,
and/or the countries’ school system. Procedures typically applied to the analysis of more complex
instructional settings are path analysis, HLM, or SEM. Some of these procedures are discussed in the
following section.
Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Panel Studies

Understanding how students learn about science is a central requirement of research for improving
science education. Generally, this research is related to questions of how students proceed in making
sense of a particular domain, for example, learning the energy concept (e.g., Duit, 2014; Lee & Liu,
2010; K. Neumann et al., 2013; Opitz et al., 2019). This research is also related to the development
of concepts or learning progressions (for energy concept and learning progression see, for example,
Liu, 2013; Nordine et al., 2011; Romine et al., 2020). To analyze the development of concepts or
learning progressions, students must be tracked over a long period. Instructional components and
students’ outcomes must be assessed using assessment instruments (Opitz et al., 2017; Won et al.,
2017). As such, this research most likely utilizes longitudinal designs, which means sampling students
from diferent points in the learning process over time (panel design). When the same instruments
must be evaluated for use with students with diferent ages and diferent subsamples, the design is
called cross-sectional design. However, cross-sectional studies do not produce data about cause-and-
efect relationships because such studies only ofer a snapshot of a single moment; and such studies
do not allow tracking development over time. As a result, one weakness of cross-sectional studies is
that one cannot know with certainty if students develop certain energy concepts as a consequence of
the completed lessons or students’ cognitive development.
Both panel and cross-sectional (called trend studies) are observational ones. Researchers collect
data about their samples without changing the environment of the study, for example, through an
intervention or a selection of specifc individuals. Typical research questions for panel studies focus
on how students proceed in their understanding of a concept, skill, or domain based on a particular
48
curriculum, that is, the existing or a new curriculum (cf. K. Neumann et al., 2013). However,
panel studies come with a particular number of constraints. They require test instruments that can
compare students and questionnaires that are understood in the same way by students of difer-
ent ages and diferent cognitive development. In addition, longitudinal studies require assigning an
individual ID to each student’s performance at each measurement time point to allow collation of
data from the diferent measurements. However, this procedure is prone to errors, as students may
not know their mother’s birth date or other dates chosen as identifers. Therefore, so-called panel
mortality is increased. This particular term refers to the complete set of data measures obtained from
a panel study compared to the number of theoretically possible full data measures. Common causes
of missing data are students’ absence due to diferent reasons. This issue is exacerbated when a study
extends over a longer period (e.g., several years) because a crucial sample size is needed at the fnal
measurement time point (the sample must be large enough for statistical analysis). Typical procedures
of analyses on students’ understanding include t-tests, diferent kinds of ANOVA, linear regression
analyses, or combinations of these.
Given the great cost in time and money associated with longitudinal studies, it is often reasonable
to carry out a cross-sectional study frst, particularly when the period exceeds a reasonable amount
of time. The period is determined by students’ expected progression (e.g., Grades 6, 7, 8, and 9).
Based on students’ (linear) measures of ability obtained through Rasch analysis, students’ pro-
gression in mastering the particular concept, skill, or domain may be analyzed as a function of
schooling. In a longitudinal study, traditionally repeated measures of ANOVA are utilized. This
allows for analyzing whether there are statistically signifcant diferences in measures of students’
ability depending on the time of measurement. In cross-sectional studies, typically regular ANOVA
is utilized. Using ANOVA, measures of students’ ability are investigated as a function of schooling
(e.g., grades). With regard to independent variables, linear regression analysis should be used. For
example, the variable denotes the amount of schooling received or learning that has taken place
respectively or spanning across a larger number of values, when learning about science is investi-
gated across the life span and age is utilized as an indicator of the amount of learning that has taken
place. In cases where there are only two diferent groups for comparison with respect to measures
of students’ ability, the t-test may be used. Generally, an ANOVA with only two groups (students
at the beginning and end of Grade 8) will yield the same results as in a t-test. Comparison of more
than two groups requires the use of an ANOVA or regression analysis. In case additional variables
(e.g., students’ interest in science) are to be included in the analysis, two- or more-factor ANOVAs
or more complex regression models may be applied (for a detailed discussion of t-tests, diferent
ANOVAs, or regression analyses, see Field, 2005). It is important to note that whereas regression
analysis provides information about the (linear) relation between the independent and dependent
variable, ANOVA does not. ANOVA only informs the researcher about the diferences between
diferent values of the independent variable (e.g., diferent groups of students). The exact nature of
the relation needs to be investigated through further analyses, such as the use of predefned contrasts
(Field, 2009; Weinberg et al., 2020).
The intended statistical technique to analyze the data greatly afects the procedures and details of
sampling. A simple ANOVA requires a minimum of 10 persons per value of the grouping variable
(Breitsohl, 2018; Chi et al., 1994). However, usually a minimum of 20 persons is suggested (Clayson
et al., 2019; Döring & Bortz, 2016). In general, the sample size depends on the size of the expected
efects. To resolve a medium efect (d = 0.5) for a regression of college students’ semester achieve-
ment, a sample size of 34 students is required. More complex procedures naturally require a higher
sample size. If, for example, Rasch analysis is to be used to obtain linear measures of students’ ability,
a minimum of 80 students per task is suggested, and in the case of SEM a minimum of 50 students
per variable included in the model is suggested for obtaining stable parameter estimates. This provides
an estimate of the required initial sample size of a longitudinal study.
49
Analyzing Teaching and Learning Processes by Means of Video Analysis

Of course, the quality criteria also apply to qualitative investigations, the basics of which are only
briefy outlined here. Grounded theory, for example, assumes that a teaching–learning situation in
a biology lesson can be interpreted without a theoretical assumption at the beginning of the study;
instead, a parallel process of constructing an interpretation and a theoretical model of the situation is
utilized during data capturing (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). A similar idea called objective hermeneutics
was considered in German-speaking countries in the late 1970s and refers mainly to the work of
Oevermann et al. (1979). These researchers refer to scientifc criteria where reliability is the expres-
sion of the interpretation process of a group of experts interpreting a situation. The agreement of
the experts on one interpretation in the end is seen as an expression of person reliability as well as
item reliability (Breuer & Reichertz, 2002; Oevermann et al., 1987; Strauss & Corbin, 2008) and
therefore must be documented precisely. One particular method is the analysis of lessons by means
of analyzing video recordings of the lessons. Although at frst glance this method may not appear to
be a statistical procedure, it is tremendously useful in capturing teaching and learning about science
in real classrooms. For example, in analyzing student interviews, the transcription of video record-
ings and their analysis were utilized in science education research as early as the 1970s. However,
as advanced technological developments have made video equipment more afordable and easier to
use, it became possible to standardize the way recordings were made and analyzed such that video
analysis could be used in quantitative research (e.g., Janík & Seidel, 2009; Stigler & Hiebert, 1999).
This development was partly due to the development of the method of category-based analysis of
text, including video recordings or category-based analysis of videotapes (for details, see Niedderer
et al., 2002). However, as is often the case, the availability of a new methodology not only led to
better answers regarding long-standing research questions, but also resulted in the identifcation of
new theoretical and methodological defcits. One of these theoretical defcits that became apparent
from video analysis is how little is known about complex classroom processes.
Video analysis is a method that originally was developed in qualitative research. Certainly, video
analysis as such is a qualitative process because a social interaction has to be interpreted. However,
the development of the CBAV has made video analysis available as a tool for quantitative research.
CBAV provides a standardization of the process of interpretation and the introduction of measures of
reliability and validity of the category systems used. Needless to say, the category system is of central
importance when analyzing video data.
Video data may be considered as raw data from lessons, which once recorded, needs to be ana-
lyzed based on a particular theoretical framework; and thereafter, it is used for developing research
questions. However, before the lessons can be analyzed, they have to be recorded. That is, the teach-
ing and learning in the classroom need to be captured by a video camera. This procedure involves
decisions such as where to position the cameras and microphones in the classroom and how many
to use. Naturally, these decisions have to be made based on an underlying theoretical framework.
Even the location of the video cameras in the classroom is part of a research question. Investigation
of group work requires camera locations diferent from those for the investigation of teacher–student
interactions (for a description of diferent arrangements of how to video-record lessons, see Fischer
and Neumann, K. (2012). Once the actual arrangement of the recording equipment is decided upon,
recording guidelines have to be specifed to ensure that the video recordings of diferent classrooms
are comparable. In principle, these guidelines are supposed to ensure standardized and comparable
recordings independent of the actual person doing the video recording, that is, to ensure objectivity
of the fndings. When video recordings are made, even the cameraperson has to be familiar with the
guidelines.
Once video data have been properly recorded and processed (e.g., digitized for digital analysis uti-
lizing computer-based analysis software), the analysis can commence. The frst step when analyzing
50
video data is to decide on the detail level of the analysis. In the second step, a coding procedure
has to be developed and applied to the data. Finally, in the third step, quality measures have to be
determined.
Obtaining quantitative data from video analysis requires exact rules on how to observe, secure,
and categorize the observable features – based on the respective theoretical framework or model.
This set of rules must be applied to the observation material to obtain quantitative data in a process
called coding. The set of rules is termed the coding or the category system (Mayring, 2019) that
emphasizes the necessity of a sound category system. If the category system is not developed with
the greatest of care, the obtained quantitative data will be rendered meaningless. Mayring (2014)
diferentiated between two approaches to obtain a category system: an inductive and a deductive
approach. Whereas the inductive approach is of particular importance for qualitative content analysis,
a deductive, theory-guided process is more appropriate for quantitative video analysis of instruction.
This is because an inductive approach will allow for only a strictly qualitative analysis of video data.
A deductive approach, on the other hand, will allow for a qualitative or a quantitative analysis, as well
as a combination of the two. A deductive approach always starts from theory, whereas a qualitative
approach involves developing theoretical statements inductively during the process of data analysis.
Based on theoretical considerations, the decisions on the exact research questions and hypotheses
have to be made. This would include, for example, decisions about the segmentation of data or
further processing of data, such as transcripts of the video recordings. In the case of an analysis
of teacher–student dialoguess, the raw recorded data would be segmented into turns (e.g., teacher
speaking or student speaking). To analyze students’ time on tasks, segmenting the recording into
intervals (e.g., deciding every 30 seconds whether students are on or of task) would be reasonable. A
transcript can also be helpful, especially when a decision in favor of segmenting data into completed
sections of interaction (so-called turns) is made. In the case of the investigation of teacher–student
dialogues, it is better to identify individual turns than to analyze the interval-based situation.
When video analysis is conducted, transcription requires clear and precise rules to consider activi-
ties of interest. For example, gestures and facial expressions, as well as afective expressions or trans-
formed everyday language or dialect have to be carefully examined during transcription. Examples
of rules for transcription are given in (Mayring, 2007, p. 49). Once the material has been prepared
accordingly, the development of the category system itself can begin.
Development of the category system begins by identifying the theoretical constructs of relevance
and operationalizing the constructs into categories. A construct may be represented by one or more
categories. The categories smartphone, blackboard, overhead projector, or textbook, for example,
may represent the theoretical construct teacher use of media. Each of the categories comes with a
series of indicators that provide guidance as to whether the respective category should be coded. An
example of an indicator could be the teacher writes or draws on the blackboard or the teacher asks students to
open their textbooks. The key here is that the indicators have to characterize the related category as pre-
cisely and completely as possible using a potentially extensive collection of examples. Once catego-
ries and indicators are created, a coding manual should be written, thoroughly describing categories
and indicators. With the coding manual, this initial version of the category system can be applied to
coding real data in order to test its practicability and determine the quality measures. According to
Özcan and Gerçek (2019), and many others, appropriate software such as Videograph helps to track
all assumed indicators of the categories, to organize a time frame for turns or intervals, and gives the
basis for statistical analyses (see Figure 2.4).
In the next step, the data obtained from the coding are analyzed. In this step, investigation of
the reliability of the coding is of central importance. In addition to determining the validity of data
analysis, ensuring the validity of data interpretation is also needed.
In a fnal step, the fndings, and in particular the quality measures and estimates, need to be care-
fully examined with respect to the formulated research questions and hypotheses, and particularly to
51
Figure 2.4 Tracking of Indicators for the Category Method Competence (Özcan & Gerçek, 2019, p. 89).
the expectations regarding quality measures. If the quality measures do not meet established require-
ments, that is, reliability remains unsatisfactorily low and validity cannot be established, the coding
procedure needs to be refned in a new iteration of the previously described sequence of steps. A
detailed discussion of quality measures is discussed in the next section. It should be emphasized that
developing a coding procedure is an intense and demanding process, but for a sound video analysis,
it is a mandatory step.
Although reliability, in the context of video analysis, is often a primary concern of researchers,
validity is also important as a quality criterion. Reliability of the coding obtained through video
analysis depends on the coders. In many ways, the human coders can be considered as the measure-
ment instrument in video analysis. In the context of video analysis, reliability is usually determined
by means of intercoder reliability. To determine intercoder reliability, selected video material has to
be coded independently by diferent coders following the (same) coding procedure. The diferent
codings are compared on a per-unit-of-analysis basis. Diferent techniques can be used to determine
reliability. The simplest measure is the percentage of agreement p; whereas the percentage of agree-
ment p is easily calculated, it unfortunately cannot be used to consider random agreements. More
sophisticated measures that are corrected for random agreement are suitable for use, for example,
Cohen’s κ in the case of nominal data or Goodman–Kruskal’s γ in the case of ordinal data. How-
ever, there is no agreement upon the cut-of values that have to be met by these measures in order
to consider intercoder reliability to be sufcient. One issue is that the criterion for sufcient reli-
ability depends on how much interpretation is involved in the coding, that is, the level of inference
inherent in a particular category. Higher inference entails higher infuence of a coder’s knowledge,
expectations, and beliefs on the coding process. High inference is therefore tied to lower intercoder
reliability. For example, when coding the addressee(s) of a teacher’s communication, three mutually
exclusive categories of addressees may be diferentiated: individual, group, or class. These categories
involve high inference because asking one student in front of the class does not necessarily indicate
communication that is directed to only one individual. Diferent cut-of values are needed to deter-
mine whether the coding is sufciently reliable. Typically for high-inference codings, a reliability of
Cohen’s κ > .6 is considered sufcient.
Video analysis can be utilized in many areas of research to obtain empirical evidence: in case
studies to investigate learning processes, in experimental studies to check implementation of a
52
treatment, or in feld studies to describe characteristics of interest. As such, video analysis is a valu-
able tool for analyzing teaching and learning about science in very diferent scenarios in science
education research. However, linking video analysis with data and measures from tests and question-
naires is also necessary to obtain better results for estimating the quality of observed instruction.
One measure of the quality of a lesson is students’ outcomes, for example, competences and interest
they gained during a certain newly developed unit or other intervention. Another research aim can
be to fnd out if teachers’ professional knowledge has infuenced classroom interaction and students’
outcomes. In this case, to calculate correlations, linear regressions, or path analyses, a measure of
quality of the diferent categories of the video analysis must be developed (Fischer & Neumann,
K., 2012; Klieme et al., 2006; Ohle, 2010; Ohle et al., 2011; Seidel & Prenzel, 2006; Seidel et al.,
2005).
Accounting for the Complexity of Classrooms

As researchers, we always have to take into account that in studies on teaching and learning at
schools, at least three diferent levels of organization have to be considered. For example, when
analyzing the efect of teaching, we should be aware of the individual teachers and the individual
students being at diferent levels in a teaching–learning process. From a statistical point of view when
designing a study, we need at least 20 diferent teachers and their classes to obtain trustworthy results
with confdence and to calculate by means of multilevel analysis, for example, using HLMs (Hox &
Moerbeek, 2018).
Because of diferent contextual efects or socioeconomic backgrounds, observations within one
group are in some cases not independent from each other, that is, the similarities between individu-
als in one group regarding one variable can be larger than the similarities between the individuals of
diferent groups. To test the variables, we must partition the sum of squares. Because the variables are
correlated, there are sums of squares that could be attributed to more than one variable; therefore,
the variables are not as independent as they are expected to be. The overlaps between the variances
of the variables depend on the type of sum of squares that the researcher uses.
To estimate these variances of independent variables, standard methods, such as simple regressions,
cannot quantify the share of the variance between groups and the total variance of all groups, but an
intraclass correlation can (Hox & Moerbeek, 2018). In the case of students nested within classrooms,
the intraclass correlation tells the analyst how much of the variance in the error can be attributed
to diferences between classrooms (the level-2 unit) as opposed to diferences between students (the
level-1 unit).
Thus, multilevel analysis is needed to appropriately analyze hierarchically organized problems,
for example, HLMs. For HLM objects of diferent order – such as individuals on the lowest level
and collectives on higher levels – can be simultaneously assigned to each other, whereas the highest
level embeds all lower levels. Students are embedded within classes, and classes are in turn embed-
ded within schools. The idea of a related analysis is that the achievement of students in science is
dependent on parameters of the science lessons, and these parameters are infuenced by conditions
of the school and so on. Ignoring the multilevel character of classroom settings is likely to produce
mistakes since classroom assignment may produce diferential efects in the outcome that are not
directly related to the intervention (see Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002).
Figure 2.5 shows the student mean test scores in the assessment of a sample of two classes in one
school as a standard regression, with one mean and one slope coefcient, and also separately for the
two classes. The information difers substantially between the two ways of looking at the individual
students of two diferent classes.
Using a multilevel analysis turns out to dissipate the variance of a distribution of the classes as
a whole in diferent classes as diferent levels of the system. In this example (see Figure 2.5), the
starting level can be described as a school level, or a year level, of a school; and the embedded level
is the classes that can be resolved in more detail. The measure of knowledge in physics as the mean
test score is plotted against the social index of students in the two classes of one school. Now the
53
Figure 2.5 Standard regression of two classes on the relation between physics knowledge and social index. The
graph for Class 1 & 2 hides information about the sample, which is uncovered in the graphs for Class
1 and Class 2 when those data are plotted separately.
classes can be distinguished according to the connection between physics knowledge and social
index.
Conclusion for Modeling the Complex Teaching and Learning Processes

In line with research on science education in general, numerous attempts have been made to link
investigations to theories or models for describing the quality of classroom teaching and learning
in order to guide research and to allow for the development and use of consistent methodologies
(Ditton, 2000; K. Neumann et al., 2012). As we have discussed in this chapter, building theoretical
models of aspects of teaching and learning at school has to take into account multiple variables, their
interdependencies, and hierarchically ordered system structures. This helps researchers to control
as many infuencing variables of classroom settings as possible. The efect of a newly developed
instructional unit (e.g., quantum mechanics) surely depends on its adequate design and strategy in
presenting the subject matter to students regarding its scientifc content and structure. However,
the learning outcomes of an instructional unit may also be moderated by features of the teacher’s
personality, his or her pedagogical content knowledge, students’ socioeconomic backgrounds, the
structure of student–teacher interactions in the classroom, and in particular, by students’ cogni-
tive abilities and their respective pre-knowledge. This holds true for every description and every
intervention. Following the idea of science instruction as a complex system, it is now clear that an
adequate model is needed to describe most of the infuences on the teaching–learning process as
far as possible in order to understand the actual state of research on science education. To advance
our feld, investigations must carefully make use of the tools and techniques we have outlined
in this chapter – ranging from techniques (e.g., HLM) that consider the hierarchical structure of
educational systems to techniques that provide linear measures (Rasch) and to the appropriate use
of multilevel statistics. Doing so helps science education researchers confdently draw conclusions
from the efects of intended changes on teaching and learning in studies in science education and to
guide future teachers in how to improve the quality of their own teaching. Often enough there is
little evidence that such teachers’ knowledge is benefcial for students’ learning and teacher educa-
tion cannot refer to empirically based results; this therefore reproduces intuitive beliefs and myths.
With the careful use of these and other tools, advances can be made in science education research,
54
and in turn, teachers and policymakers can be informed of useful guidance for achieving high-
quality science teaching and learning.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers who carefully and critically reviewed this chapter.
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3
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS
CULTURE AND PRACTICE
Gregory J. Kelly
What is qualitative research? Why does understanding qualitative research matter for science edu-
cation? My approach to this chapter is grounded in a consideration of issues of importance for
the various genres that count as “qualitative research” in science education.1 This includes asking
questions about the nature and value of such research and how such work contributes to ongoing
conversations about sociocultural practices that come to defne learning, teaching, curricula, and
students in various educational contexts. There are already entire handbooks dedicated to qualita-
tive research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Delamont, 2012; Leavy, 2014). This chapter cannot delve
into all the range, types, and nuances of the many forms of qualitative research. Furthermore, there
are many books dedicated to procedures and detailed approaches for how to conduct various kinds
of qualitative research (e.g., Emerson et al., 2011; Glesne, 2016; Heath & Street, 2008; Kelly et al.,
2008; Weis & Fine, 2000). This chapter will neither ofer a “how to” guide to qualitative research
nor review the many ways that qualitative research enters into the feld of science education. Instead,
I will explore ways of thinking about approaches to research that take seriously the cognitive, socio-
cultural, political, and ideological manifestations of science and education in science education.
To do so, I begin by posing a series of epistemological questions about what constitutes qualitative
research, the nature of claims in the qualitative research, and the standards for excellence for work
that constitute the genres of qualitative research. To address these questions, I provide a short review
of some key studies in a few of the many genres of qualitative research in science education. These
studies provide illustrative examples that make visible salient topics for consideration. The chapter
does not provide a comprehensive review of qualitative research in science education. Rather, my
review of research is selective, focused on recent studies that examine a range of topics in science
education across settings. Through a consideration of some key studies in a few genres, I examine
questions about the purposes and meaning of qualitative research. Thus, the purpose of the chapter is
to identify some key areas for consideration and open up discussions about ways to advance thinking
about qualitative research in science education. In this way, I argue for a view of qualitative research
as culture and practice, constructed by epistemic cultures for the purposes of generating wisdom,
solidarity, and hope.
Framing Qualitative Research: Questions About Questions

One question that arises in writing such a chapter concerns the very naming of a genre (or set of
genres) of research as “qualitative”. What is qualitative research? And why is it named so? Qualitative
60 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-4
Qualitative Research as Culture and Practice
research as a term emerged in contrast to statistical studies that used quantitative measures of socio-
cultural phenomena. In some ways, the term “qualitative” is poorly chosen – careful study of culture,
social practices, and ways of being in the world may include quantities. Furthermore, coding and
counting are not prohibited by most qualitative research. Yet, the emergence of qualitative stud-
ies in education, and science education in particular, centered on understandings of salient topics
that were not easily captured by studies using statistical inference. For example, nuanced studies of
students’ understanding of science phenomena (e.g., light, electricity, relativity) required extended
clinical interviews without the beneft of knowing how students would respond. Similarly, studies of
classroom discourse focused on the ways that the semantics of teacher talk defned, framed, and por-
trayed science as a discipline (Kelly, 2014). These studies required entering the social setting without
a prescribed set of categories or understandings prior to the initial data collection. The emergent
nature of qualitative studies is further evidenced by an expanded sets of genres of research, including
case studies, ethnographies, and design-based research.
So why, then, is qualitative research needed? Could at least some of the salient sociocultural phenom-
ena be captured (perhaps after initial qualitative studies) by a more defned approach with specifc
statistical measures? Perhaps in some instances, but qualitative research is grounded in a set of assump-
tions about epistemological foundations of sociocultural phenomena that requires approaches open
to learning about the relevant phenomena as it is studied. An example is illustrative of the complex-
ity of such phenomena: By participating and afliating with a social group (e.g., sixth grade science
classroom, afterschool club, environmental activist group), participants come to develop an identity
associated with the group practices. Through concerted activity the participants come to understand
themselves, and get positioned and understood by others, diferently. In such instances, the emergent
identity construction is a progressive process grounded in the specifc discourse processes, social
practices, and cultural assumptions of the group. From the analysts’ perspective, understanding the
identity work requires investigating these phenomena in detail, over time, and without an initial set
of categories. Indeed, the changing nature of the social and cultural phenomena under study, and
the reactive efects of the research process, evince the need for research approaches that are adap-
tive and contextualized in the settings. In such instances, an open approach to the local culture that
attends to the emergent nature of the sociocultural phenomena is needed to understand issues salient
to the education of the participants. Although this is not the only reason to use qualitative research,
the example points to the nuanced, refexive approach needed to understand human experience. The
in-depth qualitative approach to research entails studying activity in naturalistic settings, recognizing
context(s), and attending to marginalized voices.
What is the science of qualitative research in science education? Teachers of science, teacher educators,
and science education researchers are advocates of science to some degree, even if this includes seri-
ous critiques of traditional views of science. Although the intended purposes of science education
may vary among practitioners, there remains a goal among educators of developing knowledge
among learners. In science education, the aims, purposes, procedures, and outcomes in each instance
rely on defnitions, explicit or assumed, of science. But what counts as science, for whom, and under
what conditions? Who decides what counts as science? These questions are further complicated by
stance of researchers of science education: Are the research processes investigating the science teach-
ing, learning, and policy themselves scientifc? Are the qualitative research methods scientifc, and
should they even aspire to be so? These questions rest on various defnitions of science and how sci-
ence operates within the discourses of academia, government, and society (e.g., National Research
Council, 2002; Eisenhart & Towne, 2003). While there are many ways to conceptualize science, I
will use a quotidian defnition of science as “the systematic studies of the natural and social world”
(Durbin, 1988, p, 270). Importantly, whether qualitative research counts as a systematic study of
the social world in any instance is always situationally defned among practitioners of research. In
this way, the legitimization of an approach to research is subject to the intersubjective scrutiny of an
61
Gregory J. Kelly
epistemic community. This occurs through the many institutional forms of demarcating, shaping,
and recognizing claims of knowledge about educational phenomena. Debates about defnitions are
part of this ongoing conversation, not a way to end the conversation through an imposed consensus.
Qualitative research, therefore, is the result of sociocultural practices, the coordinated and con-
certed activities of people (Smith, 1996), much like felds well recognized as science, such as
physics (Traweek, 1988) or biology (Longino, 2002). These sociocultural practices shape and are
shaped by the participants in the epistemic cultures of educational research. Qualitative research is
a culture with ways of doing, being, and speaking tied to a history of ideas. This culture emerged
from studies of human interaction and eventually constructed various anthropological and socio-
logical theories (Harris, 2001). As culture and practice, members of communities that engage in
qualitative research have norms and expectations for the stance toward the research subject, data
collection and analysis, standards of evidence, and genres of communication. In this way, qualita-
tive research is always emergent, situationally defned, and transforming according to the exigent
circumstances of the era.
Qualitative research in its many forms is the product of the various researchers working within
various epistemic cultures. By learning to be a member of a research community (or theory group,
see Murray, 1998), members of the epistemic culture construct repertoires of practices that become
the ways of doing, writing, and evaluating qualitative research. In this way, learning to be a mem-
ber of a group includes developing a set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and ways of being in the world
that shape, and are shaped by, the specialized discourse of a specifc epistemic community (Green &
Harker, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Kelly & Cunningham, 2019). The apprenticeship into such a
community means learning to make sense of the publicly recognized meanings of key terms, theo-
ries, and ways of conducting research. Furthermore, these ways of being are not fxed but evolve
and change as members build knowledge, redefne constructs, and refne methods of data collection
and analysis (Kelly & Green, 2019a). In this way, qualitative research is itself culture and practice. To
examine the nature of this culture and epistemic practices of qualitative research in science education,
I consider a limited range of the domains of research (ethnography, design-based research, and case
studies) to illustrate how qualitative research manifests in science education as culture and practice.
By considering some illustrative cases, I distill some methodological themes and consider standards
of success in qualitative research.
Applications of Qualitative Research: Illustrative Examples

From Science Education
To address some of the questions posed in the earlier sections of this chapter, I chose to review
selective studies in three genres of qualitative research: educational ethnography, case studies, and
design-based research. There are other qualitative research methods that merit discussion and con-
sideration (e.g., research interviewing, narrative inquiry, phenomenology); I chose these due to their
prominence in science education and the value the studies have for unearthing key ideas related to
the intersection of the cognitive, sociocultural, political, and ideological manifestations of science
and education in science education. I decided to answer the questions posed in the introductory
section of this chapter and to provide the bases for discussion of salient topics for qualitative research
in science education. These three approaches thus form contrastive cases that can be used to explore
issues in qualitative research.2
Qualitative research often involves extended feldwork, participant observation, artifact analysis,
and interviews with members of the community. Such participant observation typically entails situat-
ing and understanding the reactive role of the researcher embedded in a local culture. For the three
chosen qualitative research approaches considered in detail in this chapter, i.e., educational ethnog-
raphy, case studies, and design-based research, there is a commitment to extensive data sets, close
62
examination of interactions, and a refexive stance toward participants. In this way, the qualitative
approaches share common commitments developed in anthropology.
Across the qualitative traditions, the researchers themselves become part of the everyday prac-
tices of the local culture as participants. Thus, understanding and positioning oneself as researcher
entails refecting on how learning occurs within the group and for oneself. The theoretical prem-
ises of research form an orienting theory for understanding the construction of everyday life from
an emic point of view (Green & Bridges, 2018; Kelly & Green, 2019b). Orienting theories frame
the research approach to the educational phenomena. Examples of orienting theories would be
interactional ethnography (Green et al., 2012), critical discourse analysis (Rogers, 2004), position-
ality (Parsons, 2008), critical race theory (CRT) (Mensah, 2019), or cultural-historical activity
theory (CHAT) (Salloum & BouJaoude, 2020), among many others. An orienting theory guides
the nature of the research process by focusing interpretative activity in certain ways. In science
education and other felds, qualitative researchers study a variety of substantive issues, producing
knowledge that contributes to explanatory theories that make sense of sociocultural phenomena.
In this way, the substantive fndings of the qualitative inquiry inform the explanatory theories
defning the locus of attention. Thus, the orienting theory informing the research approach may
be applied to understand and make sense of local cultures, and in doing so, examine education
issues leading to fndings about educational phenomena (e.g., peer social groups, resistance to
school authority, epistemic practices). Accordingly, the analytic focus may vary, informing difer-
ent explanatory theories.
To make sense of the three contrastive cases highlighted in this chapter, I consider the primary
orienting and explanatory theories informing the work, the research design and methods, and the
topics and issues under consideration for each. Mapping the articles in this way allows the reader to
pose a series of related questions about the contributions: What does this research, as a qualitative
study, contribute to understandings of the psychological, social, cultural, or educational phenomena
relevant to science education? How does this advance thinking in science education as a qualitative
research approach? What does the study allow us to understand? In each case, the reader can also ask
the methodological question: What lessons are learned from the study for advancing methodology in
qualitative research in science education? Delving into to these questions allows for considerations of
how qualitative research contributes to the overall feld of science education.
Ethnographies of and in Science Education

To identify some salient issues for discussion and refection in science education, I drew from a
sample of recent ethnographic studies of science education local cultures. My choices were made to
examine and understand the methodological inferences and consequences for theoretical positions
regarding research, rather than a comprehensive or even representative sample. The ethnographies
described here are a purposeful sample of studies with salience to the goals of this chapter.
Ethnography is the study of culture. Ethnographers study what people make, do, and say. Such
studies attempt to take an emic point of view – that is, the perspective of the participants. This
orientation is acquired by the ethnographers through extended participation in the local setting,
negotiating access among the participants in the cultural group under study, and engaging in exten-
sive data collection and analysis. Developing understandings of a local culture is not straightforward.
Rather, the ethnographers position themselves refexively, recognizing that their role and emerging
understandings are only partial, situated, and limited. Although the ethnographers are not able to
understand everything about the local culture, they are able to understand something (Geertz, 1973).
The following examples from science education are illustrative of this approach to research. Table 3.1
provides a summary of the core theories, research design, methods of analyses, and topic of investiga-
tion for the selected, illustrative ethnographic studies.
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Gregory J. Kelly
Table 3.1 Illustrative Examples of Ethnographies of and in Science Education
Study Theories Research Design Methods for Analysis Topics and Issues
Carlone et al. Orienting theory: Ethnographies of Theoretically Epistemic,

(2011) Cultural anthropology two fourth grade informed review communicative, and
Explanatory theory: classrooms of feld notes of investigative practices
Sociocultural theories observations, video infuence on local
of identity recordings, student- defnitions of science
written assessments and smartness
and interviews
Rahmawati and Orienting theory: Critical auto/ Narrative telling, Complex nature of
Taylor (2018) Cultural self-knowing ethnography of refexive inquiry teacher identity
and critical refection teacher educator
Explanatory theory:
Postcolonial theory
Cultural hybridity
Calabrese Barton Orienting theory: Critical and Constant comparative Exposing, critiquing,
and Tan (2019) Community participatory of feld notes, video and addressing
ethnography, critical design with middle recordings, and unjust experiences in
justice school science artifacts interviews middle school science
Explanatory theory: students engaged in classrooms through
Rightful presence, engineering projects engineering design
consequential learning
Page-Reeves Orienting theory: Ethnographic Team-based Understanding the
et al. (2019) Participant-observation interviews with collaborative analysis experiences of the
and community Native American of the interviews Native Americans in
ethnography science professionals professional STEM
Explanatory theory: careers
Cultural negotiations
Sherman et al. Orienting theory: Refexive, dialogical Interpretive synthesis Challenges and
(2019) Cultural anthropology meta-ethnography of multiple qualitative strengths of
Explanatory theory: explorations of ethnographic research
Bakhtinian dialogic culture across disciplines in
theory education
An important and infuential ethnography in science education was conducted by Carlone et al.
(2011). This study focused on what it meant to be scientifc in a reform-based science curricula in
two diverse fourth grade classrooms in the southeast United States. Using thick description and an
extensive data set, the ethnography examined situationally and locally defned meanings of “scien-
tifc” and “smart science person”. Consistent with an ethnographic stance, the study asked about the
local meanings of key terms among the participants. Thus, rather than using taken-for-understood
meanings, the ethnographic analysis looked to the local participants’ meaning of “struggling” and
“promising” students in two fourth grade classrooms. Adopting a cultural analysis orientation to the
classrooms informed the ways the authors analyzed an extensive data set of observations, artifacts,
video recordings, and interviews. Together these data created robust descriptions of the classrooms
and the ways that science and students’ perceptions of themselves and others were defned in the
local settings. These situationally defned meanings were examined across two school settings. The
comparative contexts allowed for how local cultures came to defne ways of participating, the situ-
ated interpretation of terms, and ways students’ identity potentials were made available. To properly
consider the normative meanings for “being scientifc,” the analysis focused on epistemic, communi-
cative, and investigative practices as enacted in the two classrooms.
64
As a qualitative study, the contribution to science education centers on ways that the local culture
of the classrooms come to defne and place valance of meaning of key terms. Instead of assuming
common, taken-for-granted defnitions for “science”, “smart”, and “promising”, the ethnographers
examine how the situated meanings had real consequences for students in the settings. With this
approach, student identity is not a given characteristic intrinsic to the mind of an individual student,
but rather the discursive work of the participants that creates potentials for identity development.
One lesson learned from the study for advancing methodology in qualitative research in science
education concerns the nature of the construction of identity and equity over time. The moment-
to-moment interactions aggregate to form patterns of activity, identifed in the ethnographic analysis,
that construct the culture across scales (Bloome et al., 2005; Castanheira et al., 2001; Wortham &
Reyes, 2015).
The critical auto/ethnography of Rahmawati and Taylor (2018) explores the changing cultural
identity of Yuli Rahmawati as she comes to redefne herself and her understanding of her role as an
educator. This study builds on postcolonial theory and examines the complexity of hybridity in the
making and remaking of cultural identity. Through refexive narratives of her experiences in science
and education, Rahmawati examines her own assumptions as she comes to learn about the ways
that classroom discourse and practice proceed in Australian secondary schools. The contrast of the
Australian school approach with that of her own experience in Indonesia provide the backdrop for
examining the complex nature of teacher identity and its ties to emergent cultural experiences and
understandings. For example, as Rahmawati refects on her expectations for student behavior, she
draws in the cultural assumptions from her parents’ cultures, noting diferences in her Javanese father
and her Bimanese mother’s perspectives. Layers of complexity include her understanding of Islam
and the legacy of the Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia.
As a qualitative study in science education, the critical auto/ethnography makes visible the ways
that personal life experiences, upbringing, and afliations, such as religion or nation, contribute to
the making of a science teacher. The teacher/author recognized herself as living a multicultural life,
and she learned to negotiate the many cultures that comprise her everyday experience. Furthermore,
the intersectionality of the life as a science teacher is evident through the refections of the ways she
comes to participate in diferent settings. This study ofers many lessons for qualitative researchers,
including about importance of contexts, author positionality, and refexivity. One prominent lesson
is the way that the theoretical orientation is informed by the substantive, explanatory theories. The
authors use postcolonial theory to make sense of the refexivity of the teacher/author. This highlights
how the choices of theory lead to decisions about how to conduct research in education.
Calabrese Barton and Tan (2019) conducted a community ethnography with ethnically diverse
middle school science students engaged in engineering projects in a Midwestern city in the United
States. The theoretical orientation and methodological approach coalesced in this study around the
commitment to a justice-oriented science education. The authors draw from the notion of rightful
presence as they seek to create inviting experiences for participating students and address the often
exclusionary practices of STEM education. The authors drew from feld notes, selected video epi-
sodes, and interviews focused on the students’ engineering devices to identify ways that a student-led
educational experience could be used to promote afliation with science and engineering. Their
ethnography of the students led to considerations of ethnography by the students. The community
ethnography orientation provided the students opportunities to investigate problems identifed by
members of the greater school environment as they sought to address sustainability issues in their
engineered technologies. The middle school students conducted surveys and interviews of members
of their school to learn about sustainability concerns, analyzed data, and represented results in data
displays, such as graphs. In this way, the students’ community ethnographies informed their engineer-
ing designs as the students sought to fgure out causes of social problems in their classroom, such as
bullying. As they began building their design and testing, they checked in with community members
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Gregory J. Kelly
to gain insights into the design features. Thus, the ethnographic experience of the students help
identify (sometimes ignored) issues of concern, develop better technologies, and attend to solving
concerns within the community. In doing so, they shifted defnitions of “what counts” from exter-
nally defned criteria to youth-defned criteria – what students wanted to learn and what problems
they wanted to solve.
As a qualitative study of science education, the research contributes to documenting the value of
considering the students’ agency and local community. These are not variables to be measured, but
rather emergent from the patterned activities of the participants over time. A lesson learned about
qualitative research concerns how community ethnography speaks to the issue of theory/method
relationships. The authors sought to help create more equitable STEM education and identify ways
that this can be studied, documented, and legitimized. The focus on students’ rightful presence ori-
ented attention to the goals of consequential learning and brought attention to engagement in com-
munity and disciplinary knowledge. The community ethnography identifed ways of understanding
the classroom cultures and also modeled for the students ways of understanding community practices.
Participant-observation and community ethnography are important ways of understanding an
endogenous culture; in-depth ethnographic interviewing can similarly contribute to understanding
culture from the participant’s point of view. Page-Reeves et al. (2019) conducted 41 ethnographic
interviews with 21 Native American science professionals. The researchers used a collaboratively
organized process for the conduct and analysis of the interviews. Through this team approach that
drew from multiple theoretical traditions, the ethnographers provided perspective for the extensive
processes of interpreting the interview transcripts. The analysis identifed conceptual categories and
patterns from the interviews. These data became the basis for more refned analysis and synthesis
aimed at understanding the experiences of the Native Americans in professional STEM careers.
Emergent coding categories, such as “identity”, “wayfnding”, “perspective”, “giving back”, “resil-
ience”, and “Native organizations” were organized into conceptual themes. The themes of navigating
and wayfnding were illustrated through a set of critical cases. Using these methods the authors were
able to bring together theoretical perspectives derived from literature around cultural and Native
American experiences. The critical cases foregrounded the cultural experiences of the STEM profes-
sionals and provided contextualization to the intervening quotes from interviews. As ethnographers,
the authors demonstrated how the details of the extensive interviews can be interpreted, depicted,
and recontextualized into a cultural account of the Native American experience in STEM felds. In
doing so, the ethnographic interviews contribute to knowledge about the lived experiences of the
participants, but also adhere to the intended goals, satisfying the criteria of plausibility, credibility, and
relevance (following Hammersley, 2008).
As a qualitative study of science education, the in-depth ethnographic interviews provide insights
into the ways that cultural experiences contribute to and provide strategies for, participation in
STEM. The local cultural knowledge of the participants became the focus of the study, thus demon-
strating the ways that cultural knowledge can form a basis for understanding ways of being in science
(Aikenhead, 2006). There are many lessons to be learned from this study about qualitative research,
most notably how the detailed data from the interviews can be constructed to form themes informed
by the theoretical orientation of the researchers.
Insights into ways that ethnographic research informs science education can be enhanced through
contrastive analysis across studies. Sherman et al. (2019) examined issues of research methodology
through meta-ethnography across four studies showing contrast in topic and settings: standardized
tests, technology, and classroom instruction in middle school; English as a foreign language in post-
secondary college; gender and race in advanced placement biology; and early literacy in a commu-
nity learning space. The meta-ethnography was driven by dialogic analysis by the researchers who
designed and conducted the four ethnographies. The analysis centered on the methodological ten-
sions that arose in each of the specifc studies. The orientation was not focused on the fndings of the
66
studies, but rather on methodological issues of conducting ethnographic research and what can be
learned through this contrastive, dialogical approach. Through a three-phase analysis the researchers
identifed methodological tensions. These fndings are instructive for this chapter.
Tensions arising from the contrastive meta-ethnography of Sherman et al. (2019) speak to issues
of doing ethnographic and ethnographically informed research in science education. One tension
for this sort of research is the positioning of the researcher with respect to the cultural setting and
participants. Studies in science education face this tension, as many researchers are familiar with the
schooling or other educational contexts, and associated cultural practices, through previous experi-
ences as students, scientists, and teachers. Thus, while anthropological studies of culture often seek
to understand cultures signifcantly diferent from that of the ethnographer, educational studies often
face a familiarity with the settings and cultural practices. This both allows for the insider knowledge
to inform the researchers’ perspectives and can also limit their ability to make the familiar strange.
This tension is complicated by the assumptions of the participants in the ethnography about the
knowledge of the researcher and what needs to be explained and what is taken for granted. A sec-
ond tension arose around the nature and scope of ethnography. The authors drew from Green and
Bloome’s (1997) distinctions between doing ethnography, taking an ethnographic perspective, and
using ethnographic tools. In the four cases, and for all ethnographies in education, there are ques-
tions about the scope and validity of the study. What counts as an ethnography? As ethnographic?
As using ethnographic tools? How does an ethnographer, or qualitative researcher, know when they
are sufciently informed to be able to speak to the cultural practices of the participants? Although
this tension was not resolved in the meta-ethnography, the authors provided their refections and
ways of resolving the tensions in the individual studies. Through questions about positionality and
ethnographic analysis, the authors trouble the notion of doing ethnography.
A critical stance toward the research approach and research methods questions the assumptions of
the systematicity of common ways of making inferences from raw data sources to claims about the
cultures in the studies. The authors acknowledge that researchers are informed by theory long before
making choices about the foci of the data collection and analysis. This leads to a discussion of how
sociocultural phenomena come to be recognized and command attention for the researcher – build-
ing on MacLure’s (2013) notion of glowing data. The meta-ethnography ofers a contrastive analysis
to provide insights into ways that methodological tensions can inform conversations about the nature
and processes of conducting ethnographic research. For this reason, and others, the methodological
lessons center on the ways that researchers can learn from each other through dialogue about theories
of culture, positionality, and accountability in reporting research.
The fve ethnographic studies reviewed in this section place importance on participant-
observation, the sociocultural contexts of the setting, and understanding of the cultural dimensions of
the educational phenomena under study. Through this work, ethnographers recognized the difculty
in assuming and identifying shared meanings in the generally heterogeneous settings of many edu-
cational studies. Case study research, described in the next section, often draws from ethnographic
methods, but tends to place emphasis on specifc foci of the education phenomena.
Making the Case for Case Studies in Science Education

A case study, as a method of qualitative research, investigates contemporary phenomena in depth,
in a real-world context. Understandings developed through such research are mediated by multiple
contextual factors pertinent to the case and dependent on the ways boundaries are established defn-
ing the case (Stake, 2005; Thomas, 2015). Case studies can involve multiple sources of information
for collecting data, including but not limited to observations, interviews, audiovisual material, docu-
ments, and reports (Creswell, 2013). In this way, case studies have similarities to ethnographic stud-
ies, but rather than bringing the perspective of cultural anthropology as found in ethnography, case
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Gregory J. Kelly
study research has “its own logic of design, data collection techniques, and specifc approaches to data
analysis” (Yin, 2018, p. 16). The fve case studies presented here are illustrative of methodological
considerations. They were chosen to show the variety and value of case studies across topics, settings,
research techniques, and orientation. Table 3.2 provides a summary of the core theories, research
design, methods of analyses, and topic of investigation for the selected, illustrative case studies.
González-Howard and McNeill (2019) provide an example of how case study research can be
efectively applied to understanding nuances in classroom activity. This study was designed to exam-
ine ways that two seventh grade teachers in the United States sought to engage students in scientifc
practices leading to epistemic understandings, i.e., how to use evidence to construct, evaluate, and
revise knowledge (p. 822). The study is grounded in a view that argumentation practices are dialogic
as students learn to engage with evidence through reasoning. The authors used a multiple-case study
methodology “to explore the relationship between how teachers framed an argumentation task, and
their students’ engagement in this science practice” (p. 825). Two classrooms provided a basis for
comparisons across implementation and engagement. The analysis was organized as an exploratory
sequential design, frst with open coding to examine the framing of the argumentation practices
of the teachers, and second, with social network analysis (SNA) to examine student interactions.
The mixed-methods nature of the case study provided the basis for understanding the framing and
Table 3.2 Making the Case for Case Studies With Illustrative Examples From Science Education
Study Theories Research Design Methods Topics and Issues
González- Orienting theory: Multiple- Mixed methods, Framing and taking

Howard and Participation case study exploratory up of argumentation
McNeill (2019) frameworks methodology sequential design practices in science
Explanatory theory:
Scientifc practices,
argumentation
Haverly et al. Orienting theory: Qualitative Open coding Sensemaking
(2020) Classroom cultures (contrastive) case and constant moments of novice
Explanatory theory: study comparative science teachers
Teacher noticing and analysis facilitating classroom
learning discussions
McNew-Birren Orienting theory: Interpretive case Grounded Contrast of
et al. (2018) Critical sociocultural study theory, constant perspectives regarding
research comparative social justice across
Explanatory theory: approach two forms of teacher
Democratic equality, education
social mobility
Shea and Orienting theory: Ethnographic case Participant Design of after-school
Sandoval (2020) Ethnography study observation, science program for
Explanatory theory: coding, member equity by community
Equity-oriented checks educators
pedagogy
Avraamidou Orienting theory: Qualitative single Life history, Intersectionality
(2020) Cultural-historical case study semi-structured, and identity for
activity theory extended immigrant Muslim
Explanatory theory: interviews. Matrix woman studying
Intersectionality, gender and intersection
performativity, identity, analysis
and recognition
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take up of the desired practices. For example, the open coding of the teacher discourse drew from
the theoretical perspective of participation frameworks, focused on actions and goals of the events.
This provided a basis for understanding the framing of the scientifc practices. The SNA provided a
quantitative interpretation of the interactional patterns. Taken together, these analyses identifed the
diferent ways the two teachers interpreted the value of classroom discourse; one teacher saw interac-
tions as a means for improving individual understanding, while the other saw interactions as a means
for cultivating a communal understanding. These expectations were refected in the organization of
the subsequent student interactions. The contrastive analysis across the two cases demonstrated how
teacher framing of practices led to diferences in how students communicated with one another dur-
ing classroom discussions.
As a qualitative study, this research contributes to understandings of how students’ discourse pro-
cesses and practices are tied to the ongoing history of discourses of the classroom. The analysis of stu-
dent discourse, argumentation, or other forms of productive discourse should always be understood
as a consequence of the norms, expectations, and positions set by the over-time discourse practices
of the classroom. By grounding the study in the classroom discourse, and examining the framing
and take up of argumentation tasks across analytic methods, the study demonstrates how qualitative
research can be informed by a multimethodological approach.
The role of teacher discourse was also examined in the next case study. Haverly et al. (2020)
conducted a case study that examined the sensemaking moments of novice science teachers located
in the Midwestern United States facilitating elementary classroom discussions. Students’ engagement
with ideas and sensemaking of science play an important role in science learning. Such engagement
is potentially empowering to students when the sensemaking takes into consideration the “students’
ideas, experiences, and cultural resources while disrupting power structures” (p. 63). The cases in
this research provide contrasting examples of how participants made space for students’ sensemaking.
The cases are examined through a theoretical lens that considered how the sensemaking moments
were contextualized in time and social practice. The inputs (student and teacher resources, external
factors) and science storylines were considered relevant to the analysis of the sensemaking moments
(see the fgures presented in Haverly et al., 2020, pp. 65, 69, 71, 74). The cases are illustrated with
depictions of the ways that the teachers sought to organize the classroom discourse, in the form of a
model of teacher noticing and responding to sensemaking. The data sources included teacher portfo-
lios, video records, and research interviews. Through open coding and constant comparative analysis,
the research team interpreted the sensemaking events in the video records, how the teachers talked
about these events, the tensions with the intended science storylines, and the consequences of these
moments in the ongoing instructional conversations. The contrastive cases identifed how equitable
sensemaking in classroom discourse was fostered by distributing epistemic authority from the teacher
to the students in the instructional conversations.
Contributions of this case study to science education include understanding the nuanced ways
that equity needs to be considered in the everyday life of participants in science education. The
case study drew from multiple data sources but provided ways of understanding the contrastive cases
with data representation. These representations ofer a valuable lesson for qualitative research – the
nuanced, detailed, and highly contextual data is often difcult to summarize and communicate. In
this case study, the cases make visible important, albeit sometimes subtle, diferences in the teaching
approaches, leading to the recognition of the re-assignment of epistemic authority as a key variable
for achieving more equitable classroom dialogues.
Another contrastive study further advances the methodological value of case study research.
McNew-Birren et al. (2018) provide a case study contrasting views of social justice in a Teach for
America (TFA) teacher preparation program with the views promulgated in a traditional teacher
education program located in a US-based university. As explained by the authors, TFA uses an
accelerated program for high-achieving students interested in learning to teach through experience
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Gregory J. Kelly
and concurrent teacher education. The program seeks to “eliminate the achievement gap” (p. 439)
through the development of efective teaching strategies and leadership skills, and thus has a social
mobility orientation to social justice. This view of social justice contrasts that of university teacher
education programs, which tend to emphasize democratic equality. The collaborative, interpretative
case study sought to understand the contrasting ideologies of a cohort of TFA teachers (“corps mem-
bers”) in a secondary science teaching methods course. Course artifacts, including weekly journal
entries submitted by corps members, comprised the data set. The analyses followed the grounded
theory approach of Strauss and Corbin (1998). The case study identifed a key tension in the corps of
TFA teachers, noting the contrasts of the conficting narratives of defcit thinking and seemingly high
expectations for students. The tension in the narratives emerged as the core values of the democratic
equity perspective from the sociocultural view of the science education scholars (leveraging students’
lived experiences to support learning and engaging students for democratic citizenship), contrasted
with the achievement orientation from the previous TFA training.
This case study contributes to science education by showing how ideological diferences among
teachers can sometimes be masked by the use of common language. The two local cultures (TFA
teachers and university teacher education), with their corresponding histories and commitments,
both had (ostensibly) a social justice orientation. The contrastive case made visible how social justice
can be diferentially understood and applied to the classroom. From a qualitative research perspec-
tive, the theoretical orientation of the researchers, recognizing diferences in democratic equality
and equity, allowed for interpreting the narratives in a particular manner to make visible the tensions
across the educational goals.
Science education occurs in multiple settings and across a lifetime. While the previous cases
reviewed considered formal education and schooling, Shea and Sandoval (2020) sought to under-
stand how community educators designed out-of-school-time (OST) programs for equity. This case
study acknowledges the need to link the microinteractions of everyday educational experience with
the macro-level inequities in society toward the goal of redesigning science education for equity
and justice. The ethnographic case study was situated in a drop-in after-school science program in a
working-class, Latinx community, in California, USA. The unit of analysis for the case study was the
activity system of the after-school science studio. Consistent with the ethnographic orientation, the
authors drew from multiple data sources, including participant observation, video records of interac-
tions, archival records, and ethnographic and focus group interviews. The lead ethnographer, Shea,
spent fve years working with the OST educators and supported the validity of her claims by sharing
her interpretations and initial claims with the educators. Through extensive coding, data sharing, and
theorizing, the research team developed a stable set of codes around the “cultural repertoires of prac-
tice”, “implicit explicit links to political and historical discourse and practices”, “science practices”,
and “social practices and interaction” (see Table 3.2, in Shea & Sandoval, 2020, p. 35). The study
found that the OST educators saw their work as a political act. The inquiry-oriented science and
engineering after-school program ofered the Latinx students an intellectual home, addressed issues
of poverty, and provided an alternative to test-heavy school science. To understand how the educa-
tors were able to accomplish these goals, the research team sought to understand the micro moments
of interaction within the broader sociopolitical contexts. They were able to document the moment-
to-moment afrming interactions of educators with students, recognize ways the educators brought
cultural practices to science, and show how material abundance of the local sites provided opportuni-
ties for learning science and engineering. Importantly, the OST activities also extended into the local
community and in this way demonstrated the value of science and engineering for solving problems.
This case study makes a valuable contribution to science education by applying an orienting
theory (ethnography) and an explanatory theory (centered on equity-oriented pedagogy) to the
out-of-school-time (OST) settings. The extensive data collection as well as the connection to, and
inclusion of, the local community members provide a valuable model for understanding how the
70
research team sought to position themselves among the learners of the cultural context. In this study,
the students, community members, and educational researchers built on each other’s strengths to
create more equitable science and engineering education.
Avraamidou (2020) examined the trials of an immigrant Muslim woman working as a physics
instructor in a higher education institution in Western Europe. The author frames her approach to
understanding the salient issues of the intersectionality of ethnicity, gender, religion, and social class
as a life history, single case study. The case study provides insights into the underrepresentation of
women in STEM felds in Europe and beyond. It draws from theories of intersectionality and gender
performativity while making the case for the social construction of identity. This theoretical orienta-
tion is particularly important given the barriers to entry to the physics community that include an
assumed masculine nature of physics, assumptions about those holding a religious perspective, and
ways that social class and race limit recognition as a scientist. This case study is insightful from a meth-
odological point of view, as the orienting theory (in this instance CHAT) informed the case study
approach in unique ways. Framed within a life history research design, the case examines identity
from a CHAT point of view. This theoretical grounding provides an orientation to the phenomena
comprising the life history and identity and thus guides the nature of the data collection, analysis, and
interpretation. The qualitative single case study design focused on the experiences of one Muslim,
female, physics instructor, Amina. Extended interviews were used to build a thorough understanding
of Amina’s experiences in physics. These understandings were presented in a chronological narrative
of Amina’s life history. The trajectory through schooling and experiences in various educational set-
tings provides a fascinating story about the ways that gender, religion, and social class intersect with
her identity formation, and how these vary across contexts and time. The case shows how Amina’s
construction of self as a competent physicist intersected with, and often contrasted with, the ways
she was recognized by others, leading to diferential feelings of belonging. The methodological
approach, grounded in social theory, was able to make clear the ways that intersectionality played into
the politics of recognition for this physicist. As Avraamidou noted, the methodology illustrated that
“to become a physicist is a distinctly personal, emotional, and intimate involving in which multiple
identities are intersecting and at times contesting” (p. 337).
As a case study in science education, this research contributes to the understanding of the expe-
riences of immigrants participating in science. The analytic focus on intersectionality and drawing
from the life history of Amina makes visible the complex ways understandings of self and other, by
her and by the community, of her experience. It highlights that science learning, participation, and
belonging are more than knowing the disciplinary ideas and practices. An important lesson from a
methodological point of view is the care taken to understand the emic point of view and to build
empathy and understanding, which allowed the researcher to raise important sociocultural issues to
the foreground of the case study.
The case study examples presented in this section provide additional insights into the conduct
and value of qualitative research in science education. The examples document how attention to the
specifc features of the educational context led to understandings that inform broader educational
issues. Much like the ethnographic studies, these case studies make use of varied research methods
to build narratives informing understanding, empathy, and recognition of the ideologies pervasive in
science across settings.
Design-Based Research in Science Education

An emerging area of qualitative and mixed-methods research in science education is design-based
research. Design-based research is grounded in a number of commitments to theory, practice, and
research: The development of educational programs and research are co-developed through cycles of
design, the research and practice occur in authentic settings, and researchers and practitioners develop
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Gregory J. Kelly
and share theories relevant to improving practice (Design-Based Research Collective, 2003). To
identify how design-based research (DBR) contributes to the culture and practice of qualitative
research in science education, I consider recent studies spanning a range of topics and variations in
DBR. Much like the section regarding ethnography and case studies, my choices resulted from a
purposeful sample to examine and understand the methodological inferences and consequences for
theoretical positions regarding qualitative research in science education. Table 3.3 provides a sum-
mary of the core theories, research design, methods of analyses, and topic of investigation for the
selected, illustrative design-based studies.
Land and Zimmerman (2015) applied the DBR approach to assess the affordances of mobile
devices for outdoor science learning. In this study the distributed cognitive learning theory
Table 3.3 Illustrative Examples of Design-Based Research (DBR) in Science Education
Study Theories Research Design Methods Topics and Issues
Land and Orienting theory: Three iterative Analysis of the Use mobile devices
Zimmerman Design-based research cycles of design discourse of the to support families’
(2015) forming collective around four learning experiences scientific talk
case theoretical and measures of
Explanatory theory: conjectures knowledge
Socio-technical
systems, distributed
cognitive learning
theory
Boda and Brown Orienting theory: Mixed-methods Two-way Explanation of
(2020) Design-based research approach, including MANCOVA; science learning
Explanatory theory: attitudinal surveys qualitative analysis opportunities through
Relationality theory and research of observations and the use of VR360
interviews interviews videos
DeLiema et al. Orienting theory: Interactional Discourse analysis of Examination of
(2019) Design-based research analysis informing a activity in a mixed- affordances of a
Explanatory theory: larger design-based reality (MR) learning play-based mixed-
Roles, rules, and keys research program environment reality (MR) learning
of participation in environment
play activity
Wiblom et al. Orienting theory: Participatory, Discourse analysis of Development of an
(2019) Design-based research collaborative design classroom interaction evaluation tool to
Explanatory theory: approach improve students’
Scientific literacy, interpretation
social justice and application
of internet-based
resources for making
decisions about health
Anderson et al. Orienting theory: Iterative design Mixed-method School reform at scale
(2018) Design-based cycle, examination analysis of tests, for classroom learning
implementation of classroom surveys, videos, and communities
research, research- communities interviews; qualitative
practice partnerships analysis of case study
Explanatory theory: data
School change,
environmental science
literacy
72
supports our understandings of the ways that the mobile device built capacity for children and
families to engage in scientifc observation and explanation in out-of-school settings, which took
place in two arboreta and a nature center in the northeast United States. The DBR approach
informed the design, theory, and practice of the socio-technical system infuencing the interac-
tions in these settings. Consistent with DBR (Sandoval, 2014), the authors conducted three itera-
tive cycles of design around four theoretical conjectures. These conjectures centered around ways
to support student learning as they engaged with a guiding naturalist and the supportive technol-
ogy. To examine the conjectures, the primary data sources were observational in the form of video
recordings. Each of the three iterations was considered a case and informed the design, theory, and
practice moving forward into subsequent iterations of design. The frst iteration concerned ways of
supporting learners to observe and explain scientifcally relevant characteristics of trees and make
distinctions between evergreen and deciduous trees; the data analysis focused on the discourses of
learning events. In this iteration, the learners used primarily perceptual talk and were less focused
on goals directed at developing conceptual, connecting, and afective talk. Thus, iteration two was
designed to place a greater emphasis on the conceptual understanding of the scientifc phenomena.
For this cycle of analysis, the researchers continued with the discourse analysis of the interactions
of the learners, naturalists, and technologies, and added a pre- and post-test to assess knowledge
gains. The change in the approach led to a more balanced use of perceptual and conceptual talk.
Building on the results of the second iteration, the third cycle of design made tighter connections
between the observations and the photo capture tool provided for the learners and redesigned the
technology to help the learners distinguish between seedlings and saplings. These changes were
implemented at a summer camp at an environmental center. Through analysis of the discourse
of the learning experiences and measures of knowledge, the results identifed the mediating role
of the naturalist in developing productive perceptual and conceptual talk among learners. Taken
together the three iterative cycles of design and research identifed ways to use mobile devices to
support families’ scientifc talk.
The design-based nature of the research approach contributed to understanding about the sub-
stantive learning of science concepts and ways of knowing. The iterative cycles of design, imple-
mentation, and assessment allowed educational products to be refned. Methodologically, the study
advances qualitative research methodology in science education by showing how learning occurred
through cycles of design and how these were informed by multiple research methods.
Boda and Brown (2020) used a DBR approach to provide racially, ethnically, and socioeco-
nomically diverse groups of ffth grade elementary students unique science learning opportunities
using VR360 videos (interactive and immersive virtual reality). Students participated in a set of
activities, grounded in their locales and communities (northern California, USA) to engage with
three-dimensional learning advocated by the Next Generation Science Standards (National Research
Council, 2013). The VR videos allowed students to experience their local communities without
leaving the classroom. The study examined how technologically enhanced learning of science con-
tent may infuence students’ attitudes toward science. Interestingly, this study used a mixed-methods
approach, combining an attitudinal survey and post-intervention research interviews. Consistent
with the DBR approach, however, the study spanned three years and drew from three design cycles.
To diferentiate the value of the connection of VR to the local community, the study provided dif-
ferent interventions for a control and experimental group in the second year of the study. The con-
trol group ofered students a VR experience that did not look and sound like the students or their
communities. Under these conditions the students showed uneasiness toward science. In contrast,
the experimental group experienced contextualizing science content in students’ local communities
using VR360 videos. Under these conditions, there were measurable positive improvements in stu-
dents’ attitudes about the relevancy of science. Emerging from the lessons learned in the second cycle
of the study (with control and experimental groups), the third iteration of design ofered a diferent
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Gregory J. Kelly
type of learning experience. In this way, the DBR approach provided ways for the researchers to
refne the uses of the VR videos to foster positive attitudes among the students.
Although this was a mixed-methods approach to DBR that included statistical analysis, it pro-
vides an example of how researchers can draw from diferent research traditions around a sub-
stantive topic with coherence. The research sought to understand complex social phenomena in
varied settings, and through the learning processes of design cycles developed position outcomes
for students. The study highlights the importance of pragmatic uses of research methods to address
the central research question, rather than adopting an a priori commitment to certain research
approaches.
Boda and Brown (2020) draw from mixed methods and set conditions for the interventions with
practitioners. Using a diferent approach to DBR, DeLiema et al. (2019) demonstrated how close
analysis of interactions in settings can be part of a larger DBR program. This study examined how
students and teachers from the west coast of the United States introduce and enact roles, rules, and
keys in two diferent play spaces in mixed-reality simulations. The science involved understanding
change of state (liquid to solid) as the children “shrank” to enact water molecules. The tasks were set
to contrast two approaches – a modeling activity characterized by a more fexible and open-ended
approach, and a game activity, with a more rigid structure governing the activities around winning
the game. Through careful analysis of the students and teachers in these two conditions, the research-
ers developed a framework for tracking the collaborative instances of roles, rules, and keys. The roles,
rules, and keys were accomplished interactively among the participants; their interpretation by the
analysts was informed by discourse analysis and social theory. In this way, the situationally defned
terms were identifed and examined as aspects of the environment supporting learning. The roles and
rules of the activities were found to be partially infuenced by how participants key (alter in distinct
ways) an activity (Gofman, 1974) – the ways that participants signal to each other the nature of the
activity, such as distinguishing play, which comes with re-interpretable expectations for interaction
from other types of activity.
This qualitative study is embedded in ongoing cycles of DBR. In this case, the authors “zoom
in” for close, interactional analysis of the ways that the designed environment fosters learning of
the science concepts. Although the study itself does not (and does not intend to) document the
cycles of design and redesign, it illustrates a valuable dimension of DBR – fexibility in approach to
access the key learning issues in a local setting. The interactional analysis of the moment-to-moment
events provide evidence for the overall efcacy of the learning theory and its application of the
mixed-reality environment (fusing of physical and virtual worlds). From a methodological point of
view, the study demonstrated the value of embedding interactional analysis in the cycles of DBR.
Thus, the interactional analysis of an individual study contributes to an overall research program
aimed at the typical goals of DBR.
DBR provides a set of processes that foster collaboration among researchers and practitioners.
Wiblom et al. (2019) sought to develop an evaluation tool to improve upper secondary students’
interpretation and application of internet-based resources for making decisions about health. The
tool was designed to build students’ capability to critically reason about online health information.
The processes of learning to reason extend beyond just health information, thus developing scien-
tifc literacy skills that could be applied more generally. The approach was based in a set of moral
commitments to democratic values and social justice and consistent with the capabilities expected
in Swedish secondary schools. This study makes clear the ways that DBR “resembles how teach-
ers work in everyday practice” (p. 1765). The study was conducted with two science teachers in a
secondary school in Sweden. The frst author of the study, employed as a teacher at the school, was
familiar with the school practices and culture. The authors describe how the DBR approach was
similar to the iterative cycles of refective teaching “including stages of design, implementation, and
analysis” (p. 1765). Much like the study by DeLiema et al. (2019), close analysis of the interactions
74
in the setting informed the DBR framework. Video recordings of the classroom constituted the
primary data source. These video data were analyzed with a qualitative content analysis framework
developed by Graneheim and Lundman (2003). Through detailed discourse analysis and coding of
the transcripts, the authors identifed four themes, two prior to student use of the internet evaluation
tool and two related to the use of the tool to assess the health information. Throughout the processes
of fnding and evaluating health information, the students posed questions about the trustworthiness
of the vast information. The evaluation tool led the students to question all sources of information
(rather than looking for objective sources) and to discuss the scientifc origin and content of the
sources of information. Through these analyses, grounded in the practices of the discussions in the
classrooms, and consistent with the DBR approach, the study advances two principles for designing
learning activities using online searches regarding ways of supporting students’ evaluation and scru-
tiny of sources of information and strategies for encouraging students to examine the trustworthiness
of online resources.
As a qualitative study, this research makes visible the importance of two central commitments: to a
social justice orientation for democratic values, and to participatory and collaborative research. These
commitments contributed to the development of the evaluation tool for assessing health resources.
The joint problem formation was developed through the close collaboration among practitioners and
researchers, including the dual role of one researcher as teacher. The lesson for qualitative research
includes the importance of the ethical commitment to joint understanding of multiple educators and
to development of educational interventions.
Building on features of DBR, Anderson et al. (2018) advanced this paradigm by considering ways
to apply “design work and knowledge building about learning and teaching at scale” (p. 1027). Their
study incorporated key features of DBR, including an iterative design cycle, a focus on classroom
communities, and research-practice partnerships. This approach took the unit of analysis to be class-
rooms rather than individual teachers or students. The study is ambitious in scope, taking on three
challenges of implementation of educational reform: three-dimensional learning as articulated in the
Next Generation Science Standards, reform at scale, and adherence to the diversity of US schools.
The authors called this approach design-based implementation research (DBIR), as the goal was to
address issues of teaching and learning for enacting change by considering the schooling as a system.
Consistent with the design-based approach, the study examined ways to implement change through
an iterative design cycle. The scope of implementation entailed approximately 160 teachers over
two years, including 94 schools and over 900 diferent middle and high school classrooms. The data
collection was oriented to learn about the implementation of a curriculum to foster environmental
literacy (Carbon TIME). To address the teaching and learning dimensions of the implementation,
the research team collected extensive data of diferent types (tests, surveys, videos) and engaged in a
variety of analyses. The ways that three-dimensional learning was fostered through productive dis-
course was examined by using the classroom community as the key unit of analysis. The results from
the mixed approach point to a number of successes in the implementation in terms of teacher and
student gains in knowledge. Importantly, the outcomes for students included signifcant reduction in
achievement gaps between students with lower and higher pre-test scores. Nevertheless, despite the
active engagement with practitioners, the benefts of the Carbon TIME program were less efective
for classrooms from schools with higher percentages of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch
(a proxy for family socioeconomic status). The qualitative dimensions of the data analysis provided
insights into structures, norms, and organization of the professional learning communities.
This DBIR study included qualitative research procedures. This approach examined how to bring
about educational change at scale. This work assessed the value and contributions of partnerships.
As a qualitative study, the research identifed the range and types of data relevant to informing the
practitioner-researcher partnerships. For this reason, and the ambitious examination of research at
scale, the study makes a valuable contribution.
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Gregory J. Kelly
The DBR studies presented in this section draw from a repertoire of research methods to actively
pursue change in education. Each of the studies ofered unique insight into how empirical research
can inform theory and practice. Much like the ethnographies and case studies, the DBR research
provides understanding of the nuanced, local knowledge of participants. In the next section, I pull
out common themes across the three types of studies examined in this chapter.
Cross-Cutting Themes for Comparative Cases in

Qualitative Methods in Science Education
Common themes are evident in the three approaches (ethnography, case study, DBR) in the
selected, contrastive cases of qualitative science education research chosen for review in this chap-
ter; however, the themes are prevalent in other forms of qualitative research as well. There are fve
themes I explore in this section. First, qualitative inquiry recognizes that sociocultural phenomena of
education are situated in time and place and within social, cultural, and political contexts. Second,
qualitative research entails the use of extensive, situated data sets. Third, qualitative research makes
use of evidence to produce claims about psychological, social, cultural, and educational phenomena.
Fourth, positionality and refexivity are integral to understanding the reactive nature of qualitative
inquiry. And ffth, qualitative studies seek to recognize and understand intersectionality to support a
commitment to social justice.
The frst theme concerns the nature of education in research: Sociocultural phenomena of educa-
tion are constructed in the moment-to-moment interactions of everyday life. These interactions can
be among people, with texts or technologies, or experiential in nature (Green et al., 2020). These
moments of everyday life are constructed with cultural assumptions, tools, practices, norms, and
technologies and span time and place (Carlone et al., 2011; Gee & Green, 1998). Of the focal papers
reviewed in this chapter, examples of this sort of detailed analysis are found in studies by González-
Howard and McNeill (2019) and Wiblom et al. (2019). In these and other cases, even though
sociocultural phenomena of education are constructed through moment-to-moment interactions,
they are situated in time and place and within social, cultural, and political contexts (Kelly & Green,
2019a; Rogers, 2004). Importantly, studies of qualitative research seek to identify, understand, and
take into account these broader contexts that shape the nature of interactions.
A second theme emerging across studies of qualitative research concerns the nature and types of
data sets. The research approaches examined in this chapter (ethnography, case study, and DBR) used
extensive data sets. Data often included video records, interviews, and artifacts. The range and types
of these data, while tailored to the particular research interests of a given study, provide a basis for
the in-depth, contextually recognized analyses needed to understand the complexity of every life in
educational settings. The focal papers reviewed in this chapter each drew from varied data sets. In-
depth analysis can be drawn primarily from one type of data, such as the ethnographic interviews in
the study by Page-Reeves et al. (2019), or a variety of data sources, such as by the study of Haverly
et al. (2020). Through the processes of analyses, qualitative researchers interpret and produce mul-
tiple texts (spoken, written, symbolic, embodied). The texts generated by participants are situated
in ongoing sociocultural practices of the local cultural group, with associated histories, discourses,
intertextual references, social relationships, positions, and obligations of members (Kelly, 2014). Texts
make reference and make use of other texts, and such intertextuality provides resources for analysts
to understand the situated nature of discourse in sociocultural practices (Bazerman, 2004; Bloome
et al., 2005). Similarly, data-rich analyses have led qualitative researchers to examine how local social
contexts build on, and are infuenced by, other contexts. Examining such intercontextuality for and
by participants serves as a tool for making sense of these extended data sets (Bloome et al., 2009).
Third, qualitative research produces evidence. The three types of qualitative research highlighted
in this chapter make use of evidence to support assertions about the phenomena in question. In this
76
way, evidence is formulated, produced, and communicated about the psychological, social, cultural,
and educational phenomena. The ethnographic studies place a premium on the use of participant
observation. Being present matters for ethnographers. The study of the enacted cultural practices of
a group requires active participation (minimally as an observer) in these practices, as evidenced in
the artifacts, discourse, and actions of the participants. Ethnography seeks understanding and makes
eforts to understand educational issues from the emic (or insiders’) point of view. The case studies
share many similarities, again drawing on extensive data sets, but also identify how to delimit a case
for analysis. The evidence for case studies makes clear the understandings derived from the analyses.
Cases studies may be varied in substance and stance, but aim to develop knowledge of the phenom-
ena defned by the limits of the case. DBR, while often drawing from methods used in ethnography
and case study research, has a goal of changing practices. Of the three approaches, DBR studies are
most likely to consider theory and practice together and aim toward a defned educational goal.
These studies seek researcher-practitioner collaborative arrangements so that the research into the
practice in question produces knowledge for the betterment of the practice in subsequent cycles of
research. The uses of evidence from qualitative analysis to inform practice occurred in each of the
focal studies informing this chapter, and well-articulated in the DBR studies by Boda and Brown
(2020) and Land and Zimmerman (2015).
Fourth, qualitative researchers recognize that research is done from a particular perspective. The
researcher has an intellectual, cultural, educational, and methodological history. The researcher has
a position. It is important to recognize that this position has an infuence on the ways that research
is conducted – the point of view of the inquirer sets up and infuences the orientation and direction
of the study, the nature of the research questions, the observations of the phenomena (recognized
as theoretically salient), the analyses, and the type and form of reporting from a particular posi-
tion. Because of this recognition, the positionality of the researcher is acknowledged and taken into
account through the construction of the research itself, but also in the interpretation of the research
accounts (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999). This issue is well illustrated by the critical auto/ethnog-
raphy of Rahmawati and Taylor (2018). Just as the analyst seeks to understand the perspective of the
participants in a study, the analyst too must consider ways positionality infuences the nature of the
researcher. Thus, qualitative research places value on refexivity – understanding that the research
itself is a sociocultural phenomenon, infuenced by many factors, and in need of introspection to
examine underlying assumptions.
Finally, qualitative inquiry ranges from highly descriptive to explanatory to activist. Across these
varied purposes, qualitative researchers seek to understand sociocultural phenomena with the hope
of bringing about change. This is especially true for educational research. Few educational research-
ers seek merely to document education as it is. Often they are motivated by a desire to improve the
systems of education through understanding and advocating for change. The commitment to social
justice takes on diferent forms; as a thorough understanding through ethnography and/or an explicit
goal-orientated change agenda through participatory-action research, each provide approaches to
change. The focal studies by Calabrese Barton and Tan (2019) and Shea and Sandoval (2020) make
visible diferent ways the participants themselves, along with the researcher, view the common work as
bringing about social change. By bringing to the fore the stories and circumstances of participants that
might not otherwise be heard, qualitative inquiry can contribute to social justice in education. Such
analyses need to take into account how oppression often occurs diferentially across race, class, gender,
sexuality, language use, immigration status, and nationality, among other forms of discrimination.
Criteria for Success: Epistemological Considerations for Methods

Across the three types of qualitative research depicted in this chapter, and for all types of qualitative
research, there are epistemological considerations. Qualitative research seeks to develop knowledge
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Gregory J. Kelly
about psychological, social, cultural, and educational phenomena and share this knowledge through
accounts. The assumptions about the purposes of the research, the validity of the assertations pro-
duced in the accounts, and the nature of the narratives instantiate theories of knowing and knowl-
edge. Authors of qualitative inquiry construct relationships with the participants in their studies; the
data collected, analyzed, and produced; and the audiences of the narratives as they make the research
public. The types and range of these qualitative inquiries and their articulation vary widely and show
marked diferences from other types of research (c.f., Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Camilli et al., 2006).
Qualitative research in education generally has an orientation to produce accounts that have validity
concerning the nature of the phenomena under study and a goal to improve practice. This orienta-
tion manifests in a variety of accounts of qualitative research.
Narrative accounts of qualitative inquiry vary in purpose and form. Some accounts are largely
descriptive in nature. These studies ofer close-up, detailed views into the lives of the participants.
Descriptive accounts tell the story of people and the social, cultural, linguistic, and political situa-
tions of their experience. Such accounts make visible the local knowledge and how interpretations
of experience are constructed by participants (Geertz, 1983). Another type of narrative in qualita-
tive inquiry are normative accounts. These inquiries lead the researcher to make moral arguments
and often recommendations for practice. Normative accounts are often derived from contextualized
studies of everyday action and identify ways that life circumstances can be improved from a moral
point of view. Descriptive and normative accounts are not often easily distinguishable. Descrip-
tive accounts tell the reader what is, but often imply what should be. Normative accounts build on
description and make the case for what should be. Furthermore, the very nature of the descriptive
accounts, the vocabulary, metaphors, and point of view of the account is steeped in moral decisions.
The decisions about the design and methods of inquiry are similarly not neutral, but derived from
a theoretical point of view, grounded in an orientation to the world. In this way, even accounts that
aim for careful description are normative. Finally, there are qualitative research studies that are activist
in nature. These studies aim to bring about social change, often stating this intent at the outset. Such
research makes visible the moral point of view of the authors of the work and seek to bring about
change through the research. Although such studies identify as aiming to bring about social change,
this is really a matter of emphasis. Descriptive and normative accounts of research similarly often
represent a goal of improving the human condition through construction of knowledge.
Research accounts from qualitative inquiry, like all research reports, are produced with an audi-
ence in mind. The production of research results, particularly in felds like education with conse-
quences for practice, are judged based on quality. There are a number of considerations for such
judgments. Qualitative research, like all research, is judged by norms and expectations of the feld,
often appearing in the form of peer review, readership, citations, and application. These judgments
are undoubtedly variously interpreted and applied with the epistemic cultures of research commu-
nities. To clarify the judgments of quality, the feld from time to time considers the standards for
research. The heterogeneity of the nature and practice of qualitative research suggests that develop-
ing a consensus about a set of quality considerations for standards for research that applies uniformly
across all qualitative genres is unlikely; furthermore, such imposition may limit the value of qualitative
research by narrowing a robust debate (Freeman et al., 2007). Nevertheless, considerations of quality
in research are important and the feld of educational research, like all research, needs to hold itself
accountable to others in society. Nevertheless, discussions of standards should be part of a robust
critical discourse about the nature, practice, and value of research. Discussions of standards can be
part of this ongoing conversation, particularly if the discussion opens up consideration of alternative
viewpoints, rather than limit debate with a putative consensus.
Howe and Eisenhart (1990) were among the frst to lay out some considerations for standards
for qualitative research. I use these as an example of a way to advance thinking about the cultural
and practice of qualitative inquiry. They noted that such standards are abstract, and therefore open
78
to interpretation, before they ofered four suggestions. First, they advocated for a good match of
research questions to data collection and analysis. This suggests that the nature of the inquiry and
the purposes of the research should drive decisions about the choices of research methods to apply
to the study. Consideration should be given to the type of claims that can be made from the research
methods and the overall goal of the research project. Second, the procedures for data collection and
analysis need to be applied with efective use of the techniques of the research approach. Although
there can be stark diferences across approaches to social science research, each approach has a tradi-
tion of ways of going about the business of conducting a proper study. Adhering to these genre-
specifc norms provides potential insight into the phenomena in question and credibility among
the readers of the work. Third, Howe and Eisenhart place emphasis on the overall warrant for the
empirical claims. This is an important dimension to any empirical research. The warrant in qualita-
tive research is established through each of the steps of the research process, from negotiating access to
an educational setting, to defning (and modifying) the research questions, to refning procedures for
data collection, representation, and analysis to creating accounts of the research experience that are
persuasive. Evidence is thus created, but nonetheless grounded in the everyday life of participants of
the research. Fourth, educational research is value laden. Qualitative research is often conducted with
participants in settings with learners, and often vulnerable populations, and thus needs to recognize
the ethical implications of the work. Choices about the stance toward participants and the research
approach itself derive from the researcher(s)’s values.
The American Educational Research Association (2006) created “Standards for Reporting on
Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Publications”. Two overarching principles underlie the
standards: reports of empirical research should be warranted and transparent. As qualitative research
is empirical (that is, derived from investigations in the social world), these principles apply. Indeed,
qualitative research demonstrates particular attention to the nature of the evidence warranting empir-
ical claims and the means of developing transparency in the processes of knowledge construction and
communication through inquiry. Much like the standards proposed by Howe and Eisenhart (1990),
the AERA standards for empirical work, derived from the two overarching principles, contribute to
the feld by identifying points for discussion, critique, and emergent formulations of how to con-
duct the work of empirical social science, including qualitative inquiry. The standards are organized
into eights areas: problem formulation; design and logic of the study; sources of evidence; mea-
surement and classifcation; analysis and interpretation; generalization; ethics in reporting; and title,
abstract, and headings (p. 33). These standards provide a starting point for considerations of quality
in empirical social science and educational research. Discussion of the value and usefulness of stan-
dards is itself a critical discourse that can inform the feld of education. In the next section, I provide
a framework to propose three types of critical discourses for advancing educational research. The
goal of such work is to develop the collective wisdom of the feld regarding the practices constitut-
ing the work of qualitative research. Discussion of standards, to the extent that they open up critical
discourses about warrantability and transparency, is useful, particularly when tied to considerations
valued in the various epistemic cultures of qualitative research, such as learning from being there,
representation of everyday life, insights about participants, plausibility of results, actionable results,
and political implications for change.
Critical Dialogues for Education Research

My chapter in the Handbook for Complementary Methods in Education Research (Camilli et al., 2006)
proposed three sorts of epistemological conversations needed to inform debates about research meth-
odology (Kelly, 2006). The framing of debates about methods is relevant, particularly when the
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Gregory J. Kelly
criteria for successful research themselves are in question. These conversations place emphasis on
diferent dimensions of approaches to educational research and recognize diferent audiences for
the ongoing conversations. Based on a framework for moral discourse proposed by Strike (1995),
I proposed three types of critical discourse about research methods to explain, compare, assess, and
improve research methodologies in educational research: critical discourse within group, critical discourse
regarding public reason, and hermeneutical conversations across groups (Kelly, 2006). Taken together, the
critical discourses ofer a collective method for refning thinking about methodologies for research
and developing efective ways of communicating across paradigms. I describe here how these criti-
cal dialogues can be applied to qualitative research within the context of research methods within
science education.
The frst type of critical dialogue specifes commitments within a research tradition. Critical dis-
course within group are conversations concerning developmental and defnitional work regarding the
creation, specifcation, and extension of a research group’s central theories, assumptions, and key
constructs (Kelly, 2006). Within-group critical discourse provides a forum for development of a
research area’s core theories and commitments. For example, case study research can debate the
nature and purposes of case study research, the kinds and types of cases, and the various ways that
cases are defned and delimited. In this manner, the scholars working within the research tradition
of case study research refne, extend, and re-invent their collective work. In these critical dialogues
within group, new ideas, metaphors, and redescriptions may be developed to advance the thinking
within the feld (Rorty, 1989). For example, the contrastive case study by McNew-Birren et al.
(2018) (focal study, reviewed previously) identifed the ways that various interpretations of social
justice were construed among diferent stakeholders in the educational system. The purposes of con-
structive cases and descriptive language used in this and other case studies form the basis for refning
the methodological approaches in case study research. The developmental and defnitional work of
these critical dialogues defne the nature of the research tradition (e.g., case study) and contribute to
judgments of quality within the tradition. Similarly, the metaethnography of Sherman et al. (2019)
sought to examine tensions within ethnographic research and seeks new ways of doing research
through dialogue within the ethnographic tradition.
I refer to the second form of critical discourse as critical discourse regarding public reason. These dia-
logues focus on the development of epistemological commitments to assess the value of educational
research within and across diferent research traditions (Kelly, 2006). These conversations concern the
criteria used to judge research and provide the bases for evaluating diferent forms of research. Across
methodological approaches, candidates for quality criteria could be insightfulness, empirical warrant,
theoretical salience, consistency with other knowledge, transparency, and usefulness for practitioners.
These dialogues concern public reason as they strive for some overlapping consensus among scholars.
For example, the studies reviewed in this chapter based in the design-based tradition aim to improve
practice through iterations of design, research, refnement, and redesign (e.g., Anderson et al., 2018).
Their value may be compared to other sorts of research also aimed at improving practice, such as
random control trials. The diferent approaches may lead to diferent types of knowledge, which
may be complementary, or may provide conficting visions of applied educational research. Critical
discourses regarding public reason would seek to establish the basis for the quality criteria for making
decisions about the respective value and future investment in applied research. Such discourse would
examine the epistemological commitments of the feld of education regarding research methods.
What counts as valid and useful research for advancing knowledge and improving practice? To what
standards are researchers accountable?
The third form of critical discourse concerns hermeneutical conversations across groups. These critical
discourses are designed to foster learning from diferences across research traditions. Such conversa-
tions can occur within qualitative research in focused areas, for example, examining how studies
grounded in sociolinguistics can learn from conversational analysis. They may also learn and combine
80
ideas from across broader qualitative traditions. For example, DeLiema et al. (2019) (focal study,
reviewed previously) brought together interactional analysis within a larger set of studies grounded
in DBR. In this way, the study demonstrated what can be learned across research approaches. Such
critical dialogues can be extended further to consider ways that mixed-methods approaches to edu-
cational phenomena can be created to provide complementary insights into the relevant psycho-
logical, social, cultural, and educational dimensions under consideration. Bringing together diferent
traditions may also entail a consideration of the epistemological commitments of the various ways
of conducting research and a re-examination of the bases for research as found in the critical discourse
regarding public reason.
Viewing qualitative research as culture and practice suggests that progress for the feld entails
building a dialogic community of scholars open to discussion and debate. Fostering such an epistemic
culture depends on opening up the feld to new voices and shifting the epistemic subject from that of
the inquirer to that of the local, collective group of inquirers (Longino, 2002). The critical dialogues
about research methods will beneft from learning from alternative points of view and accounts of
social reality. Examination of the assumptions of everyday practices, whether they be those of science
instruction, or those constructing what counts as qualitative inquiry, will beneft from perspectives
derived from diferent theoretical and subject positions. Science education has begun to be informed
by an increasingly broader set of theoretical frameworks, such as feminist scholarships, critical race
theory, indigenous knowledge, decolonial theory, queer theory, among others (e.g., Emeagwali,
2020; Letts & Fifeld, 2019; Mensah, 2019; Scantlebury et al., 2019; Zidny et al., 2020). As these and
other frameworks challenge what counts as qualitative research in science education and education
more broadly, the feld will be strengthened through a construction of public reason from multiple
perspectives.
Ongoing Conversations: Collective Wisdom, Solidarity, and Hope

I have argued that the dialogic community of inquirers defnes and transforms qualitative inquiry as
culture and practice. As the scope of the chapter concerns science education, the question about sci-
ence and qualitative inquiry is an avenue for understanding the nature of claims in qualitative inquiry
and the purposes of qualitative research. The science question for qualitative research in science
education and beyond concerns whether causal relationships can be ascertained from the results of
qualitative inquiry (Lagemann, 2000; National Research Council, 2002). It would be convenient
for school leaders if educational research could deliver ready-made results, relatively context free,
that informed policy decisions, particularly as related to resource allocation. For example, general-
ized empirical statements such as “a w percent increase for x years in middle school science teacher
professional learning centered on y type of instructional strategies for biology will yield a z per-
cent increase in student learning as measured by standardized statewide tests.” It’s debatable about
whether any educational research produces causal claims as specifc in detail and wide-ranging in
implications this (invented) hypothetical statement. Qualitative research most certainly does not pro-
duce such causal statements, nor does it aspire to do so. Rather, claims emanating from qualitative
inquiry tend to be what Heap (1995) calls a priori, normative claims articulated in propositional form.
Contingent, empirical claims do not aggregate to generalization, but rather provide insights into the
cultural practices of educational phenomena. For example, consider the following statement from
the conclusion of Avraamidou (2020): “The fndings of this study have ofered insights into how
intrapersonal, interpersonal, sociocultural factors, relationships, and a myriad of experiences nurtured
Amina’s intersecting identities, and what this may mean for Muslim women’s participation in phys-
ics” (p. 337). The claim, while grounded in empirical work, does not form a generalization derived
from accumulation of facts. Rather, it makes a normative claim about the sociocultural condition of
the case study participant, and in doing so, provides insights into how this woman’s experiences in
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Gregory J. Kelly
physics can be understood and appreciated. This is not to say that the empirical work did not inform
the normative claim; it was the careful analysis and insights derived from the case study that made
clear ways that the intrapersonal, interpersonal, sociocultural factors, relationships, and experiences
nurtured Amina’s intersecting identities. Rather than aim for generalizations about all women’s or
Muslim women’s experiences in physics, the claim brings understandings of the experiences that are
likely to resonate with others who have had similar experiences, or with those who seek to under-
stand the lived experiences of others in the physics culture. The value of the empirical work is to
provide understanding and empathy to the cultural dissonance in this instance, recognizing that such
insights might inform thinking about similar experiences for learners entering a new culture.
To recognize the value of these sorts of claims, we need to understand qualitative inquiry as con-
tributing to the collective wisdom, solidarity, and hope (to borrow liberally from Rorty, 1982), rather
than producing generalizable, empirical claims. This is not to argue that qualitative inquiry does not
produce assertions about psychological, social, cultural, and educational phenomena. Qualitative
inquiry does this – for example, DBR provides and enacts specifc recommendations. The empirical
bases of understanding are derived from explorations in the worlds as they appear to us. Avraamidou’s
study ofers insight into a culture and contributes to the collective wisdom (learned from experience,
other ethnographies, inference from similar cultures) that can inform how education is understood as
sociocultural phenomena. In addition to collective wisdom, qualitative inquiry builds understanding
and empathy for others, in diferent life circumstances. This type of understanding has the potential
to build solidarity among people and to recognize each other as part of greater whole. For example,
Shea and Sandoval’s (2020) study identifed the importance of afrming practices of not only the
Latinx students’ interest and ideas but also their stories from Mexico. Accumulating understanding
and building solidarity among and across cultures has the potential to foster hope for improving educa-
tion through collective understanding and work. In this way, qualitative inquiry helps us understand
each other, the structures that limit the realization of human potential, and the ways that oppression
limits educational opportunity. Through the development of wisdom, solidarity, and hope we can
strive to improve educational systems for the betterment of societies – freer from oppression, more
equitable, and kinder.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have presented the case for considering qualitative research as culture and practice.
Rather than worrying about whether qualitative research is scientifc or rigorous, or even whether
instances of qualitative inquiry can be judged by a set of standards, I propose to shift the conversation
to recognize that qualitative research, like all research in education, is the product of specifc epistemic
cultures. These cultures defne membership through common ways of acting, speaking, and being;
construct norms and expectations for viewing and interpretating each other, our artifacts, and discourse;
socialize new members through ritualized ceremonies defning the folklore about how to be in the cul-
ture; and evolve through concerted activity and redefning of the vocabulary, metaphors, and ways of
taking action. In addition to being epistemological in the sense of generating, communicating, and cri-
tiquing empirical knowledge claims, I have argued that the goal for qualitative inquiry is also ethical in
the sense of producing collective wisdom, solidarity, and hope. Qualitative inquiry constructs collective
wisdom through understanding, empathy, and inquisitiveness. Such inquiry is empirical, learns from
investigations in the world, and as such seeks ways of understanding. By understanding and building a
web of beliefs, and breaking down the distinction of participant and researcher, this approach helps us
understand the other, whether they are a struggling student, overworked school leaders, or any person
sufering from oppression. Wisdom helps us come to recognize the others as part of us. This research
can help us understand the plight and challenges faced by others in the educational sector and beyond,
and in doing so has the potential to build solidarity (Rorty, 1991). Understanding and empathy have
82
the potential to construct ways of being together that improve educational practices. Finally, the work
of qualitative research provides social hope (Rorty, 1999). The recognition of oppression in science
classrooms from ethnographic research, refnement of science lessons through DBR, or developing a
better understanding of a reform in education practices in a classroom through a case study, provide
ways of making education better. Such improvement is measured from within the knowledge system of
the researchers, practitioners, and students – this is all we have, the reasoned judgment of participating
members of a social group. Furthermore, these social groups are constituted by members, each with
a positionality. As scholars we must recognize the contingency of our own vocabulary, of our own
perspective, point of view, and lived experience. We each interpret the world from a stance. Our ways
of knowing are contingent on our experiences, backgrounds, intellectual histories, and importantly, the
ever-evolving epistemic cultures of our research communities. My own intellectual history, life experi-
ence, and scholarly orientation deeply infuenced this text, claiming qualitative research as culture and
practice. Regardless, we can build hope for change by recognizing the contingencies of how any one
of us views a situation, but knowing that others can and do interpret experience diferently provides
bases for deeper understanding. Qualitative inquiry builds such solidarity, through which we have hope
for making education better.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my critical friends Kathryn Bateman, Christine Cunningham, Ashwin Mohan,
and Amy Ricketts for comments on an earlier version of this chapter, and the chapter reviewers,
Lucy Avraamidou and Heidi Carlone, for their suggestions for improving the chapter.
Notes
1 Taylor (2014) provides an excellent review of the philosophical, sociocultural, historical, and political infu-
ence shaping qualitative research in science education. Taylor’s chapter sets qualitative research in a historical
context and identifes the epistemological commitments of the feld over time. Rather than rehearse those
perspectives, this chapter builds on the work already done by Taylor to extend the perspective in qualitative
research in science education. This chapter builds on the epistemological foundation from Taylor and treats
contemporary issues for qualitative research in science education in this context.
2 Creswell (2013) provides a thorough comparison of fve qualitative traditions of inquiry from a method-
ological point of view. The book provides an analysis and commentary on the theoretical framing, data
collection, analysis and representation, writing qualitative inquiry, and standards for quality.
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SECTION II
Science Learning
Section Editor: Richard A. Duschl
4
THEORIES OF LEARNING
Overview
Efective science instruction requires an understanding of how students learn within various learning
environments. To this end, theorists develop and investigate theories of learning. In this chapter,
we review the most prominent theories of learning and their intersections with science education.
Because learning and instruction are closely intertwined, our discussion extends to address features of
instructional learning environments that successfully foster students’ learning. The scope of research
on learning and instruction is vast; to manage this scope, we must focus selectively on certain issues
and fndings.
Accordingly, this chapter explores applications of two foundational theories of learning to sci-
ence education. The two “theories” are really clusters of theories, which we refer to as cognitive
theories and participationist theories (cf. Sfard, 1998). After providing an overview of these theories,
we explain how each has been applied to address a series of important issues relevant to learning and
teaching in science education: transfer, the generality vs. situativity of learning, equity, scafolding
learning, collaborative learning, self-regulated learning, motivation, conceptual change, views of
inquiry, and learning through direct instruction versus inquiry.
In the second section of the chapter, we focus on one particularly important contemporary topic
in science education: how to promote epistemic growth. We focus especially on how to promote
better thinking in the so-called post-truth information society, in which misinformation is rife and
it is difcult to know what is accurate. We discuss approaches that seek to integrate some of the ele-
ments of cognitive and participationist approaches to learning and instruction.
The theories of learning we discuss have been applied to advance a variety of educational goals.
Throughout most of the history of science education, the core goal was for students to master sci-
ence content – the currently accepted theories, laws, models, explanations, and principles (Duschl &
Tahirsylaj, 2021; Duschl & Grandy, 2008). This need not entail mere memorization; educators have
advocated that students understand the content so that they can apply ideas to solve new problems
(Smith & Siegel, 2004). More recently, other goals have emerged. Prominent among them is the
goal of learning science as a process of inquiry (Duschl & Tahirsylaj, 2021; Duschl & Grandy, 2008).
This goal focuses on the development of competence in inquiry practices. Students learn to engage
in practices such as explaining, modeling, and arguing (National Research Council, 2012) or in
practices of thinking about scientifc issues as a layperson (Feinstein & Waddington, 2020). Some
conceptualizations of the goals of science education merge these two approaches. For instance, the
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-6 89
USA’s Next Generation Science Standards set out standards that meld practices of inquiry with the
development of content knowledge and understanding (NGSS Lead States, 2013).
In addition to these two core goals, educators have advocated other signifcant goals for science
education. These include the goal of developing an identity as someone who cares about and uses
science, or (for some) an identity as a scientist or future scientist (Hand & Gresalf, 2015; Robinson
et al., 2019). Other important goals are cultivation of interest in science (Renninger & Hidi, 2016)
and developing curiosity about the natural world (Muis et al., 2018). Recent scholarship has advo-
cated the promotion of scientifc virtues such as intellectual open-mindedness, intellectual courage,
and meticulousness (Baehr, 2021; Chinn et al., 2011). Further, educators have advocated the goal
that science students learn to engage with science efectively as a layperson or as a scientifcally lit-
erate citizen, given that most students will not become scientists (Feinstein & Waddington, 2020;
Norris & Phillips, 2003).
These various educational goals are pursued in research grounded in the two theoretical perspec-
tives. As we will discuss, these goals may be diferentially emphasized across theories, and the ways
that the goals are conceptualized may also vary.
Theories of Learning
In this section, we sketch two broadly used theories of learning – cognitive and participationist –
which we will subsequently apply to examine particular educational issues and challenges. First,
however, we briefy note two theories once dominant in education but no longer prevalent: behav-
iorism and Piagetian theory.
Behaviorism held sway over learning theory in psychology from the 1920s or 30s to the 1960s or
70s (Lagemann, 2000). Behavioral theories disallowed any constructs referring to mental entities –
memory, understanding, ideas, metacognition, mental models, and so on. Two forms of learning
were dominant. The frst was operant conditioning, in which rewards (e.g., food, grades) increased
the likelihood of organisms producing particular behaviors (e.g., pecking a lever, rehearsing informa-
tion for a test). The second was classical conditioning, in which a behavioral response associated with
one stimulus (e.g., salivating when provided with food) could be elicited by a diferent stimulus if
that stimulus was paired regularly with the frst stimulus (e.g., the salivation that occurs when food
is presented can arise strictly from hearing a bell when that bell is regularly rung whenever food is
provided).
The cognitive revolution of the 1960s and 1970s supplanted behaviorism in most areas of research.
Researchers produced a growing array of phenomena that could not be explained without positing
mental constructs such as metacognition and memories. For example, Chomsky (1959) showed that
behaviorism was incapable of explaining language phenomena, which required internal cognitive
structures to adequately explain how people attain competence in their native languages. Brewer
(1974) showed that even classical conditioning does not occur in humans unless humans become
mentally aware of the association. Even the core phenomenon of using rewards to increase behaviors
has run into challenges, as motivation researchers have argued that such rewards undermine intrin-
sic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2020). Behaviorism continues to be infuential, however, in special
education.
Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory has strongly infuenced science education work on learn-
ing and instruction. Piaget (1974) proposed that development occurred through a series of defned
stages of increasing cognitive and social capabilities. Piaget (1974) also proposed that cognitive devel-
opment takes place through the processes of accommodation and assimilation; these constructs served
as the basis of some of the early work on conceptual change. According to Posner et al. (1982), when
the learner’s existing conceptual schema are efcient in solving problems, no conceptual change
takes place. In the case that the current conceptual structure fails to solve some problems, moderate
90
changes take place in one’s conceptual schema (accommodation). However, when the learner faces
major anomalies and consistent failures in solving problems, one proceeds to radical revision of exist-
ing conceptions (assimilation).
Central to cognitive growth, according to Piaget, are interactions with others. Being exposed
to the thought of others, refecting on others’ ideas and reasoning, and communicating one’s
own thought through language are fundamental for developing awareness and control of one’s
thinking (Piaget, 1928/1959; Piaget, 1964/1968). Piaget’s ideas of constructivism and the role
of peer interaction to cognitive and metacognitive development have made an enduring contri-
bution to developmental psychology and science education (Beilin, 1992; Fox & Riconscente,
2008).
Piaget has also infuenced science educators’ ideas about the sequencing of certain learning goals.
For instance, because the conceptual structures needed to support the ability to control variables in
experiments was supposed to emerge in adolescence in the “formal operations” stage of develop-
ment, science educators held of on encouraging these forms of reasoning until adolescence (see
a critique of this in Metz, 1995). But science educators have subsequently provided evidence that
elementary-aged children, and even kindergartners and early elementary school students, can engage
in sophisticated scientifc reasoning involving controlling variables, measuring and representing phe-
nomena, and so on (Lehrer & Schauble, 2004; Metz, 1995). For reasons such as these, Piagetian
frameworks no longer dominate science education. Nonetheless, elements of Piaget’s theory lie at
the heart of current conceptualizations of learning in science education, such as the role of inter-
action with peers and objects for learning and for developing metacognitive control of one’s own
thinking (Fox & Riconscente, 2008).
Two Theoretical Approaches: Overview

Many specifc theories of learning have been advanced to explain how children and adults learn,
and it is of course impossible to review all of them in a single chapter. Instead, building on analyses
by Sfard (1998), Dohn (2016), and Danish and Gresalf (2018), we discuss two broad theoretical
approaches that have been especially infuential: cognitive and participationist theories. We begin
with an overview of these theories in this section.
Cognitive theories: Sfard (1998) and Dohn (2016) classifed cognitive theories as acquisitionist theories.
Acquisitionist theories have in common the underlying metaphor of getting or acquiring some-
thing (such as knowledge, understanding, concepts, or mental models). The predominant acquisi-
tion theories are cognitive learning theories (also called information processing theories). Cognitive
learning theories generally explain learning phenomena through positing that learners construct
mental representations to represent the world. According to some theories, these are abstract sym-
bolic representations like a general statement of the critical concepts and processes of evolutionary
theory. According to other theories, they are more concrete and specifc, such as representations of
specifc instances of natural selection rather than a general, abstracted representation. But common
to both is the idea that, following learning processes, students have gained or constructed new or
revised mental representations.
Cognitive theories frequently emphasize that learning occurs when learners store information in
a long-term memory store. Learners can then retrieve that information and use it to solve problems,
to reason, or to learn new information. The active processing of information occurs within another
memory store, called working memory. Working memory holds information and processes that are
currently active; it contains the information of which people are currently processing. The size of
working memory is extremely limited, and this has strong implications for learning. Because learning
is viewed as requiring connecting old and new information, this can occur only if there is space in
working memory’s current capacity for the old and new to be brought together and linked in some
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way. If learners’ working memory is overloaded with things to think about and consider, this can
therefore preclude learning (Anmarkrud et al., 2019; Sweller & Chandler, 1994).
Cognitive theories typically assume that learners’ strategic engagement is an important driver
of learning (Greene & Azevedo, 2007). For instance, Chi’s ICAP (interactive, constructive, active,
and passive) framework (e.g., Chi & Wylie, 2014) explains learning in terms of how diferent kinds
of information-processing strategies promote memory and understanding. Passive strategies of just
reading or listening to information without doing anything else are least likely to promote learning.
Active strategies involve making some kind of manipulation to information but without drawing any
new inferences (e.g., repeating it, copying it, taking verbatim notes); these promote greater learning
than passive strategies, but less than constructive or interactive strategies. Constructive engagement
involves forming new inferences that go beyond the stated information; this can involve, for example,
drawing concept maps, explaining ideas, comparing information across texts, or supporting ideas
with evidence-based arguments. Such constructivist strategies promote greater learning than active
or passive strategies. Finally, interactive strategies promote the greatest learning. Interactive engage-
ment involves learners in groups who are engaged in the give and take of sharing diferent ideas. This
may involve argumentation in which students have diferent perspectives to argue for or asking and
answering comprehensive questions with a partner (as long as this involves sharing of unique ideas
and uptake of some of these ideas from each other).
In the ICAP framework, as in many other cognitive theories, social dimensions of learning are
central. But at the same time, learning in this framework is individual – the focus is on individuals
acquiring new memories and understandings through social interaction. For example, individuals
might receive new ideas and information from partners and then use this to build their own new
internal representations.
Cognitive theories can vary in terms of the extent to which they assume that students are active
agents who construct, discover, or invent ideas. At one end of a continuum, teachers are providers
of knowledge, and students are predominantly the recipients, although they may need to engage
in cognitive strategies, such as elaborating or explaining information they receive, in order to learn
(Kirschner et al., 2006). In other, more constructivist approaches to learning within this framework,
teachers are the facilitators in environments that enable students to build knowledge largely on their
own (Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007). At the other endpoint, some approaches assume that learners must
actively develop or invent most ideas themselves based on their own experiences, which of course
can include social interactions with others (such as the radical constructivism of von Glasersfeld,
1995).
Participationist theories: In contrast to cognitive theories, participationist theories eschew metaphors
that rely on acquiring mental representations (Sfard, 1998). On participationist accounts, learning
involves changes in how people participate with others. The focus is not on the things learned, but
rather changes in the ways of interacting and acting with others. This can involve, for example,
changing the way one talks with others: One learns new ways of talking as one engages in joint
activity, such as designing experiments (e.g., developing discourse about fnding the best control
condition, how to establish reliability of measures, and so on). Although participationist theorists may
allow that learners develop cognitive representations (Greeno & van de Sande, 2007), participationist
theorists tend not to focus on the structure of people’s knowledge representations (e.g., their mental
representations of experimentation), but rather on how people engage and interact with each other
over time (e.g., how they talk about alternative explanations for fndings and about how experiments
can be redesigned to rule out these alternatives). In addition, participationist theorists tend to write
of “knowing” as an action instead of knowledge as an object that people possess.
A central goal of participationist learning is the building of communities (Sfard, 1998). Learning
involves becoming a participant in a community (e.g., becoming a participant in the community
of a microbiology lab, and at a larger level, in the community of microbiologists as a whole). In
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schools, students may be regarded as apprentices in a community, and their initial participation
may be peripheral – that is, they may be observing at frst more than acting within the community
(Lave & Wenger, 1991). More expert participants enculturate learners into shared engagement in
community activities. Knowing is not a matter of “having” knowledge, but a matter of belonging
to and participating in a community, and of developing new ways of communicating and behaving
within this community (see Sfard, 1998, Table 4.1). Because learning is a change in ways of partici-
pating, learning cannot be separated from the settings and communities that enable participation.
Learning activities therefore always occur in specifc contexts (Greeno, 1989).
Two concepts that are central to participationist theories are positioning and identity (Dohn,
2016). Consider a simple classroom scenario in which a physics teacher asks the class how to set up
an experiment. One student (Rachel) raises her hand but is ignored (a frequent occurrence with
her). Another student (Dan) is called on but ofers an answer that the teacher considers unacceptable,
so the teacher moves on without comment to another student, Charles, whose answer is considered
correct and is praised. In this scenario, the teacher has been positioned as the ultimate authority.
Rachel has been positioned as unworthy to express ideas in this community – perhaps, given what
is known about bias in classrooms, because of her gender. Dan has been positioned as a student with
a wrong answer not even worthy of comment, and Charles as a student who is good at physics.
Over time, Dan could conceivably develop a stable identity as “not a science person” and Charles as
a “science person”, maybe even a future scientist. Rachel and Dan may tire of being positioned as
non-contributors and could shift over time toward taking on identities as resistors or slackers. Thus,
a simple episode that might be seen as a straightforward matter of asking and answering questions in
reality positions students in ways that can infuence their identities as well as their ways of participat-
ing in the class.
There is a range of theories that can be considered participationist, including sociocultural the-
ories, situated cognition, cultural-historical activity theory, and social constructivism (Danish &
Gresalf, 2018). We cannot distinguish all of these within the scope of this chapter; like Sfard (1998)
and Danish and Gresalf (2018), we will treat them as sharing most or all of the elements discussed
earlier. However, we will briefy comment on the most prominent theory in this tradition, that of
Vygotsky.
According to Vygotsky (1978), the social environment plays a pivotal role in learning. All the
higher-order functions frst appear in the social plane (the level or space of human interactions)
between human individuals and then at the individual plane (the level or space of individual think-
ing). A process which originates in the social level, between people (interpsychological), is internalized
and then appears inside the individual (intrapsychological). For instance, students might fnd that other
people in their science class repeatedly ask them for evidence when they make statements. After
experiencing this in the social plane, they may come to demand evidence of themselves when they
are thinking on their own or in other social contexts.
A widely used construct in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of learning is the zone of proximal
development. Vygotsky proposed a distinction between two developmental levels for a child at any
given time. One (the actual developmental level) refers to what children can do on their own when
asked to solve problems. The other level is the level of potential development, which refers to what
children can achieve with adult guidance or in collaboration with a more capable peer. The zone
of proximal developmental refers to the distance between the actual developmental level and the
potential developmental level.
Vygotsky proposed that learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that can
operate only when there is interaction between the child and more capable individuals in the child’s
environment. Once those processes are internalized, they become part of what the child can achieve
when working independently. One implication of Vygotsky’s theory is to ask children to engage in
tasks that are beyond their actual developmental level – “the only ‘good learning’ is that which is in
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advance of development” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 100). Another implication is that assessments that probe
learning within the zone of proximal development are needed to properly appraise learning levels.
Two students may perform identically on a test of unaided learning, whereas one performs much
better with some limited assistance; these students are at diferent levels of competence that are not
picked up by traditional assessments (Vygotsky, 1978).
Appraising the two theories: The two sets of theories have diferent strengths and weaknesses for
explaining learning phenomena and grounding the design of efective instruction (Sfard, 1998). The
diferences between the theories also provide impetus to theorists in each “camp” to attend to issues
and phenomena uncovered by their counterparts. For example, cognitive theories (such as Chi’s
ICAP framework) have increasingly emphasized the importance of social interaction in supporting
learning. Going further, some theorists have sought a more comprehensive integration of elements
of the theories (Greeno & van de Sande, 2007; Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2021).
But even so, diferences persist. For example, the focus of cognitive theorists on internal cogni-
tive processes continues to drive research and design on learning by individual students, such as how
individuals learn through studying worked examples (e.g., Mara et al., 2021). In contrast, although
individuals learning alone is not ruled out by participationist theories (Greeno, 1989), participationist
theorists generally investigate learning in collaborative and community settings. We will discuss other
divergences in the following sections.
Sfard (1998) argued that, while partly mixed approaches are possible and desirable, the two theo-
ries take fundamentally diferent perspectives on learning. She argued that both are also essential to
a complete picture of how people learn. Analogously to the dual nature of light (particle and wave),
she argued that human learning can be viewed alternatively as participationist or acquisitionist but
not as both simultaneously. Any particular analysis could foreground elements from one, but at the
inevitable cost of backgrounding some elements that are prominent in the other.
Applying These Two Theoretical Frames to Topics

Related to Learning and Instruction
We further unpack these theories in the following sections by examining how they can be applied
to diverse topics relevant to science education.
Transfer: Transfer refers to extending what is learned from one situation to another, such as apply-
ing what one has learned about experimentation to determine if a study one reads about the inter-
net is properly controlled. The two theoretical perspectives take diferent approaches to transfer
(Danish & Gresalf, 2018). Cognitive approaches generally treat transfer as a matter of acquiring an
abstract representation and then retrieving that abstract representation to solve a relevant problem,
modifying the representation as needed to ft the specifcs of the problem. For example, while solv-
ing acceleration problems in diferent contexts, a student could abstract a general solution procedure
that can then be used across all such problems. Cognitive studies have shown that encouraging
students to form abstract representations (e.g., identifying what two examples have in common at
an abstract level) fosters transfer of a concept or principle (e.g., Gick & Holyoak, 1983). Further,
when there is greater overlap in the procedures used to solve problems, transfer is easier (Day &
Goldstone, 2012). It is easier to transfer skills of conducting experiments with bacteria to conduct-
ing experiments with viruses than to conducting feld experiments in ecology because there is
more overlap in the cognitive representations of the steps needed to conduct experiments within
the microbiology felds.
In contrast, participationist theories address transfer by focusing on how the practices in which
people participate in one setting overlap with practices in other settings in which they also partici-
pate. When there is such overlap in practices, there is potential for transfer (Danish & Gresalf, 2018).
There is thus a strong emphasis that the transfer must be explained not just in terms of the individual’s
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cognitions but in terms of the overlap in the practices, the settings, and the other people involved in
those settings.
Many scholars within both the cognitive and participationist perspectives have emphasized that
successful transfer of learning is often difcult to achieve (Detterman, 1993; Lobato, 2012). For
example, learners who can successfully ofer a natural selection explanation for the acquisition of
anatomical features of animals may be unable to explain the loss of features or any changes at all in
plants (Nehm & Schonfeld, 2008). However, instead of treating poor transfer as the main fnding,
participationist theorists emphasize instead what learners do use from prior experiences when tack-
ling new tasks. Even if they struggle to fnd the “right” knowledge to apply, learners do take bits and
pieces of prior learnings and experiences and piece them together to try to address the new problems
(Wagner, 2010). Both cognitive and participationist researchers have observed that both theoretical
approaches have uncovered important phenomena and yielded valuable insights into diferent variet-
ies of transfer (Day & Goldstone, 2012; Lobato, 2012).
Sfard (1998) argued that a crucial weakness of participationist theories is the challenge they face in
explaining transfer. Transfer seems to require carrying something over from one situation to another
as an individual human moves from one situation to another. It is hard to see what that something
could be except for something that is cognitive – some knowledge representation that endures across
situations and can therefore be retrieved and used in a new situation. Yet participationists can also
note that, when transfer occurs, it is not merely a matter of cognitive representations transferring.
The patterns of participation must also overlap in a way that afords use of new knowledge in the
new setting. For example, if people learn to participate in practices of grounding decisions in empiri-
cal evidence within one community, they are unlikely to engage in those practices in a new setting
with people who are unaccustomed or even hostile to speaking of evidence during decision-making.
Generality versus situativity of learning: A recurring tension in educational research is the extent to
which learning should be viewed as learning general content and skills that can be applied broadly
across diferent topics, versus learning content and skills that are specifc to disciplines and even felds
within disciplines (Fischer et al., 2018). Taking argumentation as an example, the generalist approach
treats argumentation as a general skill that is fundamentally similar across even diferent disciplines,
such as history and science, and certainly similar across diferent subfelds of science. In all of these
felds, argumentation involves using evidence to support claims with warrants that link the claims
to the evidence, as well as advancing counterarguments and rebuttals. According to the generalist
approach, it is thus valuable for students to learn this general structure of argumentation so that they
can apply it across many topics. Support for this view comes from studies that show that students who
learn general principles or skills can frequently apply them in other contexts (Hetmanek et al., 2018)
as well as from developmental studies demonstrating links between younger children’s performance
on general reasoning tasks and reasoning on scientifc tasks (Sodian, 2018).
In contrast, the situative view posits that both science itself and learning science are highly specifc
to situations – including both the particular topic of study and the setting (particular classrooms,
museums, etc.) in which learning occurs. Situative theorists note that constructs and skills that are
seemingly similar across disciplines and subdisciplines are actually quite distinct. For instance, argu-
mentation in history relies on testimonial evidence from sources that is very diferent from the
detailed experiments that provide evidence in microbiology. Further, the types of arguments that
appear in written reports difers; indeed, historians often write narratives, not arguments, in their
publications (see Chinn & Sandoval, 2018). Even within diferent subdomains of science, constructs
and skills that seem superfcially similar difer in many details. For instance, experiments in a particu-
lar arena of feld ecology difer strikingly from experiments in a particular arena of microbiology (dif-
ferent kinds of controls, diferent issues to worry about in terms of controls, and so on). Therefore,
much of what needs to be learned to engage in argumentation based on experiments in these two
felds is specifc to that setting. Although there is some evidence of transfer in argumentation (see
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Iordanou & Rapanta, 2021 for a review of studies), it is often difcult to achieve high levels of trans-
fer from one domain to another, especially when specifc knowledge is needed (Iordanou, 2010),
which can be viewed as evidence that the demands of argumentation across settings with diferent
topics and diferent participants may difer.
Because participationist theories view learning as occurring in particular settings and involving
the development of particular practices within those settings, participationist theories generally fall
on the situated side of this issue (Greeno, 1989). Many cognitive theorists have often adopted a more
general view, advocating teaching generalized knowledge that can be applied across diferent settings
(Hetmanek et al., 2018). Nevertheless, some cognitive approaches treat science learning as highly
situated, such as viewing students as having small “bits” of knowledge that can be fexibly assembled
in unique arrangements across diferent situations (diSessa, 1993).
Despite ongoing diferences between these two positions, there has been movement among theo-
rists in both camps to acknowledge points made by the other camp. On the generalist side, there has
been increasing acknowledgment that there are diferences between diferent domains of knowledge
(e.g., mathematics versus science versus history) and even between diferent topics (e.g., climate
change versus immunology) (e.g., Bråten & Strømsø, 2010). On the situative side, there have been
moves to acknowledge the need to explain how people can develop stable ways of thinking across
settings (Elby et al., 2016). For example, according to a situative perspective, people are expected to
use diferent ways of knowing in diferent settings: They might appeal to scientifc evidence in one
setting, to anecdotal experiences in another, and to authority in a third. Yet people may come to
use one or more of these ways of knowing in a broader range of settings, such as scientifc evidence
across a wider range of settings (Elby et al., 2016). In these ways, each theoretical approach has over
time sought to explain a more comprehensive set of phenomena.
Equity: Sfard (1998) argued that acquisitionist theories are beset with the problem that because
knowledge is seen as internal to individuals, it becomes easy – even inevitable – for acquisitionist
theories to treat knowledge as something that is the property of individuals. Further, because knowl-
edge is a good thing to have, it can become natural to view those who “have” more knowledge as
advantaged over those who “have” less. This might lead to harmful “defcit” views of learning, in
which one group of individuals (e.g., minoritized students) are viewed as unsuccessful because they
“lack” knowledge or motivation, or because their families or cultural groups lack certain values (e.g.,
valuing education) that more successful (frequently majority group members) “have” (Gay, 2018).
In contrast, participationist theories avoid positing that knowledge is the property of individuals;
rather, knowledge is manifested in the joint activity of groups (Hall & Jurow, 2015). The location
of knowledge is groups and communities, not individuals alone. For example, whereas acquisitionist
theories would posit that members of a microbiological research team each “possesses” knowledge
(such as knowledge of the experimental methods and theories being tested), participationist theories
would view that the knowledge lies in the patterns of interactions that members of the research
group have with each other and with the materials and tools that they work with. Further, much
of their “knowledge” is contained in the algorithms of the computer programs or in the workings
of their technical equipment. Knowledge claims appearing in written reports emerge not from the
heads of single individuals but from the interactions and dialogic argumentation of group members as
they negotiate what their data are and how the data should be interpreted. Thus, the knowledge lies
in the artifacts, the tools, and in the patterns of participation (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006).
Much research has pointed to the inaccuracy and harm of defcit models (e.g., Yosso, 2005). Such
models neglect the knowledge (or ways of participating) that students do bring with them to school.
The knowledge valued in school assessments is often fact-based bits of information and terminology
that say little about students’ understanding of key concepts or theories, or about their profciency
in thinking scientifcally about real problems. The focus of traditional science education may dis-
count minoritized students’ many competencies (Bang et al., 2012). Yosso (2005) identifed “funds
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of knowledge” or “capital” shared by members of minoritized communities that are frequently dis-
counted and ignored in schools. For instance, although research has established the cognitive and
social value of multilingualism, most schools in the United States fail to value the dual-language
abilities of emerging bilinguals (Yosso, 2005).
Participationist theories directly address issues of equity in learning environments through their
focus on how learners are positioned in learning settings. For example, as we have discussed, when
teachers ignore students or correct them, they may be positioning them as “not knowing science”
and “not able to contribute to the discussion” (Dohn, 2016). A repeated pattern of such events
could contribute toward the development of student identities as “good at science” and “bad at
science.” Battey and McMichael (2021) discussed how teachers can – even inadvertently – posi-
tion students of color as good or poor at mathematics through class discussions. These analyses
go beyond a prevalent kind of cognitive analysis of discourse that focuses on properties of ques-
tions and responses (such as whether teacher questions and student responses involve higher-order
thinking or elaborated ideas) but do not consider how patterns of questions and answers may posi-
tion students (Murphy et al., 2018). The two approaches provide essential, complementary lenses
on discourse.
Cognitive theorists can avoid defcit framing by emphasizing the value of the varieties of knowl-
edge and skills that students “have” and “bring with them” to science class. They will do best at this,
however, if they emphasize the cultural assets of knowledge that students share with their communi-
ties and fnd ways to incorporate these assets into classrooms (Moll et al., 2005). Cognitive theories
can also account for issues of equity through incorporating participationist lenses to examine issues
of positionality and power relationships that fgure in many participationist accounts.
Scafolding learning: Scafolds are aids provided to learners that enable them to accomplish tasks that
they would not be able to accomplish unaided (Belland et al., 2013; Quintana et al., 2004). Scafolds
can be “hard” or “soft” (Quintana et al., 2004). Hard scafolds are provided as a built-in part of a cur-
riculum, such as via handouts that direct students to evaluate evidence along specifed dimensions or
computer software that helps students construct arguments. Soft scafolds are more fexibly provided
in response to how students are working, such as when a teacher gives hints to a collaborative group
to help them advance more efectively (Hogan et al., 1999).
In a seminal article on scafolding, Wood et al. (1976) examined how parents worked with infants
to solve problems together. They found that, rather than telling the infants how to solve problems
or just modeling solutions directly, parents engaged in joint problem solving, using six strategies:
“recruitment, reduction in degrees of freedom, frustration control, direction maintenance, marking
critical features, and demonstration” (Wood et al., p. 98). Thus, when learners are engaged in solving
problems, scafolds provide supports that enable the learners to solve problems that they would not
be able to solve unsupported. This is closely connected to Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development,
which we discussed earlier. In the zone of proximal development, learners solve problems with the
help of others (e.g., through scafolds) that they cannot solve without such help. A core idea in scaf-
folding theory is that scafolds are intended to be gradually withdrawn or faded (Collins et al., 1989).
Once learners advance to the point that they do not need the support anymore, then the scafold can
be gradually withdrawn.
Subsequent research has examined the types of scafolds that can support science students’ reason-
ing and conceptual development. In a classic paper, Quintana et al. (2004) proposed guidelines for
developing diferent types of scafolds, including:
• Organize tools and artifacts around the semantics of the discipline. For example, students can
record in a diagram each piece of evidence they encounter and how each evidence relates to the
explanations they are considering (Rinehart et al., 2016); such diagrams help students learn to
emphasize explanation-evidence relations as core.
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• Use representations that learners can inspect in diferent ways to reveal important properties of
underlying data. For example, the BGuILE system (Sandoval & Millwood, 2005; Sandoval &
Reiser, 2004) provides students with computer-based tools to examine graphically the relations
among variables bearing on population changes among fnches during a drought on a Galapagos
island.
• Embed expert guidance about scientifc practices. For instance, a tutoring system can provide
expert hints when students run into difculties conducting experiments (Gobert et al., 2015).
• Facilitate ongoing articulation and refection during the investigation. Quintana et al. (2004)
recommended that systems provide guidance for the key metacognitive regulation processes:
planning, monitoring, articulation of ideas, and noting epistemic features of science.
The scafolds designed by cognitive theorists and participationist theorists frequently overlap.
Cognitive theorists conceive of scafolds as supporting the cognitive processes needed to construct
knowledge. Participationist theorists emphasize the role of scafolds in supporting participation in a
community’s thinking, and in enculturating students into productive ways of interacting around sci-
ence. In practice, these goals can overlap considerably.
Collaborative learning: There is a great deal of research on how to foster productive collaborative
learning in science classes. As with research on scafolds, there is overlap in recommendations for
collaborative learning by cognitive and participationist theorists, despite diferences in how collab-
orative learning is characterized. Reviewing a wide spectrum of research, Hmelo-Silver and Chinn
(2016) concluded that efective groups evince the following core processes: (1) There is positive
interdependence, which means that it is essential that students work together in order to succeed
(Johnson & Johnson, 1992). If one student can succeed on their own without help from others, then
positive interdependence does not exist. (2) The students have and display mutual respect for each
other (Rogat et al., 2013). (3) Students engage in high-quality thinking together, such as engaging
in argumentation using appropriate reasons and counter-reasons (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2016) or
co-constructing knowledge through sharing ideas and giving explanations (Webb, 2013). (4) There
is uptake of each others’ ideas (Barron, 2003; Webb & Farivar, 1994). (5) Students develop shared
norms that regulate their joint work together (Duncan et al., 2021; Saleh et al., 2021).
Cognitive approaches to collaborative learning frequently emphasize the goal of fostering high-
quality strategy use during collaborative interactions, such as giving explanations and reasons (Webb,
2013). To encourage these, theorists have developed means such as scripted cooperation in which
students take turns engaging in summaries and checks of each others’ summaries (Fischer et al.,
2013; O’Donnell, 2006) or question stems, which give students starter language for asking questions
of each other (King, 2002). Group investigation is an efective collaborative learning method that
structures students’ work in research groups as they plan and carry out investigations by gathering,
organizing, and analyzing information from multiple sources (Sharan et al., 2013).
Participationist approaches to collaborative learning emphasize the joint community goals and
practices of creating knowledge together. One example is communities of learners (e.g., Bielaczyc &
Collins, 1999; Brown & Campione, 1994; Fong & Slotta, 2018; Kali, 2021), in which students
work together as a collective group of learners to produce new knowledge. Students can revise
and improve this knowledge through ongoing inquiry. Teachers play an orchestration role rather
than providing explicit instruction. Another example is knowledge building (KB) (Chen & Hong,
2016; Kali, 2021; Lei & Chan, 2018). The primary focus in KB is on the collective achievements of
the group in producing jointly established knowledge. Students identify and work on problems of
authentic interest to them and work together to post and establish knowledge claims in an interactive
technological environment called a knowledge forum. As in real knowledge-producing communi-
ties, students’ work is distributed so that diferent students make diferent contributions to the class’s
community knowledge, which is embodied in the notes that are posted in the knowledge forum.
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Cohen and her colleagues (Cohen, 1994; Cohen et al., 2002) pointed out that collaborative
learning activities can aggravate status diferences that exist between students. If less knowledgeable
students interact with more knowledgeable students, the diferential displays of knowledge on that
topic may reify the students’ senses of diferences in profciency. Cohen’s instructional remedy for this
is twofold. First, teachers must prepare students who are less ready to contribute to a collaborative
project by helping them build their relevant background knowledge prior to launching the collab-
orative work. Second, teachers should emphasize to students that the problems they are working on
are complex and that achieving success will require the insights and skills of everyone in the group.
In addition, collaborative problems need to be complex enough to foster positive interdependence
because the problems are indeed too complex for individual students with their single and limited
perspectives to solve on their own.
All the scafolds discussed in the previous section have been used extensively with collaborative
groups, and in fact most were designed to support reasoning and knowledge construction in col-
laborative groups. Additional scafolds that have been designed specifcally for collaborative groups
include cognitive roles and self-evaluation. In a project in which sixth graders were conducting sci-
ence investigations, Herrenkohl and Guerra (1998) developed three cognitive roles that improved
students’ interactions when responding to group presentations made to the whole class after each
investigation. The three roles were: (1) making a prediction and building a theory, (2) summarizing
results of investigations, and (3) relating the results to the prediction and theory. White and Frederik-
sen (1998) found it was efective to have groups of seventh, eighth, and ninth graders evaluate their
own group work on dimensions such as being systematic and writing and communicating well.
Self-regulated learning: Many cognitive theorists have focused on self-regulated learning (SRL),
which refers to the efective orchestration of motivational and learning strategies to monitor and
control one’s learning. Self-regulated learners “are generally characterized as active, efciently man-
aging their own learning through monitoring and strategy use” (Greene & Azevedo, 2007, pp. 334–
335). Theories of SRL aim to model how a range of cognitive (e.g., prior knowledge and beliefs),
motivational, and contextual factors shape the learning process (Greene & Azevedo, 2007).
An infuential SRL model was developed by Winne and Hadwin (1998) and elaborated by
Greene and Azevedo (2007). In this model, learners are viewed as engaged in a task. The task
conditions (resources, instructional cues, time, and social context) and cognitive conditions (beliefs,
dispositions, and styles; motivational factors; domain knowledge, knowledge of task, and knowledge
of study tactics and strategies) infuence the standards used to evaluate products, as well as the opera-
tions used to develop products. The products include, at diferent phases of the project, outputs such
as a defnition of the task, goals and plans, studying tactics, and adaptations; these are performed
iteratively until a fnal product is produced. The products along the way are evaluated against the
learner’s standards (e.g., if the student is developing an explanation, the learner might use standards
such as a feeling of understanding (a standard) to determine if the developed explanation is accept-
able. Recent work from a cognitive perspective has continued to develop SRL theories, identifying
an increasingly large range of factors that infuence SRL processes and strategies used during them
(Schunk & Greene, 2018).
Participationist approaches to learning do not center on internal cognitions as SRL theories do,
but some analogous constructs appear in participationist accounts. For example, rather than focus on
individual standards for evaluating products, participationist approaches emphasize that standards are
socially developed and sustained (Cobb et al., 2003; Duncan et al., 2021). Similarly, participationists
emphasize that the knowledge produced by a group is negotiated socially within the group and is not
created strictly by individuals independent of the group; this would entail that regulatory processes
be at least partly social.
Research strongly supports an important role of metacognition in learning (Barzilai & Chinn,
2018; Barzilai & Zohar, 2014). Metacognition refers to regulation of and knowledge of one’s
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cognitive processes. Metacognitive skills involve the control of cognitions through forming plans,
monitoring and evaluating progress, and deploying productive strategies. Metacognitive knowledge
involves knowledge about cognition, such as knowledge of what scientifc knowledge is, what strat-
egies are reliable for achieving knowledge, and so on. The facilitative role of metacognition in
promoting learning has been extensively documented in education (e.g., Barzilai & Ka’adan, 2017;
Efklides, 2011; Frazier et al., 2021). For example, instruction to promote meta-strategic knowledge
has a positive efect not only on participants’ meta-strategic knowledge but also on their ability to
apply these strategies, such as the control of variables strategy (Zohar & Ben David, 2009). In par-
ticipationist accounts of learning, there is often a corresponding emphasis on discursive refection
by learners on their individual and collective learning and thinking processes. For instance, Ryu and
Sandoval (2012) found that an elementary school class that increasingly centered evidence in their
scientifc modeling practices across a year engaged regularly in discussions that refected on these
practices (e.g., articulating that they were using data they gathered to convince each other). From
an SRL perspective, these are metacognitive refections on practice. Chinn et al. (2020) provided
examples of such refective (and metacognitive) discourse.
Recent research – both from cognitive and participationist perspectives – has extended SRL
constructs to social situations (Järvelä et al., 2016; Lobczowski et al., 2020; Rogat & Linnenbrink-
Garcia, 2011; Schoor et al., 2015). This research seeks to understand how groups of learners regulate
their joint work through constructs such as socially shared regulation (developing joint goals, plans,
and practices) and co-regulation (e.g., one student helps another regulate their individual processing
[Panadero & Järvelä, 2015]). A high quality of socially shared regulated learning is also associated with
greater learning (Panadero & Järvelä, 2015).
Motivation: Research on motivation has proceeded in parallel and in combination with research on
learning for many decades. Current theories of motivation are too numerous to review in this brief
section; a recent comprehensive review can be found in Anderman and Anderman (2020). Here we
note just a few infuential theories and constructs.
Many motivational theories can be viewed as falling broadly within the cognitive tradition because
they emphasize orientations or motivations that learners typically “have.” For example, students may
be characterized as having learning or mastery goals to understand what they are learning and to gain
competence, versus having performance goals to perform better than other students or to secure grades
or other external markers of success (Hulleman et al., 2010). Most researchers agree that mastery
goals are advantageous for students’ learning and should be fostered in schools. There is more debate
over the value of performance goals, with some researchers emphasizing they have a positive role
to play alongside mastery goals, and others believing they should be strongly deemphasized (Senko
et al., 2011). It is worth noting that much schooling is organized around performance goals with
much less emphasis on mastery goals in many school environments.
Participationist approaches have also emerged within motivational theories (Nolen, 2020; Nolen
et al., 2015). Participationist approaches emphasize that motivation emerges as an interaction between
people and environments and is closely tied to identities within various situations. For instance, a
student who is positioned by teachers and other students as competent in inquiry may exhibit high
degrees of engagement in a discussion about how to develop evidence to test a model, whereas the
same student may disengage on another day when the context changes to a more lecture-oriented
format (Hand & Gresalf, 2015).
One infuential motivational theory is self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan &
Deci, 2000, 2020). Self-determination theory (SDT) makes the well-known distinction between
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation occurs with activities done for their own
sake, or for their inherent interest or enjoyment; most learning through the life span is driven by
intrinsic motivation. In contrast, extrinsic motivation occurs when people perform behaviors “for
reasons other than their inherent satisfactions” (Ryan & Deci, 2020), such as for external grades. SDT
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views humans as tending to strive toward psychological growth and integration. But for these to be
realized, the environment must support three fundamental human needs: autonomy, competence,
and relatedness. Autonomy involves initiative, choice, and ownership over what one does; it means
that people are able to engage in activities based on interests and values rather than external control.
People are more engaged when the goals they are pursuing have value to them (Wigfeld & Eccles,
2000). Competence involves the feeling of mastery, which is best supported in environments with
optimal levels of challenge, supportive feedback, and opportunities for growth. Relatedness involves
a sense of belonging to a community and connection to others, with respect and caring.
These three needs have loomed large in recent science education research. First, the notion of
autonomy has been enlarged in science education research advocating epistemic agency by students
(Duncan et al., 2021; González-Howard & McNeill, 2020; Stroupe et al., 2018). Students with
epistemic agency have the autonomy to make up their own minds about what ideas to develop
and adopt, and even which questions to address and which epistemic standards to use to evaluate
questions and ideas (Chinn et al., 2018; Duncan et al., 2021). Researchers have also recommended
increasing engagement in activities that connect with students’ interests and values, such as develop-
ing projects for minoritized students that enable them to pursue intimate concerns with equity and
social justice (e.g., Nasir & Vakil, 2017). Second, science education researchers have also conducted
research on students’ self-efcacy (Chen et al., 2016; Zeldin et al., 2008) – their belief that they have
the competence to succeed at tasks. Self-efcacy positively predicts students’ science learning (Chen
et al., 2016). And third, science educators have emphasized relatedness particularly in their emphasis
on enculturing students into communities of learners in which students are engaged collectively in
engagement in the disciplinary practices of science (Engle & Conant, 2002). Teachers can also pro-
mote relatedness through their own caring. Battey et al. (2016) defned fve dimensions of caring dis-
course in classrooms: addressing students’ behavior in positive ways, framing STEM ability positively,
acknowledging students’ contributions, attending supportively to students’ language and culture, and
setting a positive emotional tone. Classrooms in which teachers engage in these behaviors can better
support students’ need for relatedness.
Conceptual change: Chapter 5 in this volume addresses learning progressions and conceptual change,
and we will leave most of the discussion of these issues to that chapter. In this section we will focus
more narrowly on how cognitive and participationist theories characterize and foster conceptual
change.
Research on conceptual change emphasizes that some topics in science are especially difcult to
learn because they involve more fundamental changes in ideas, or how ideas are applied, than others.
It is harder to learn about the molecular nature of matter than it is to learn some facts about snakes
or foxes.
Within broadly cognitive traditions, two very diferent approaches to conceptual change have
been advanced. One of these posits that during conceptual change, children move from one coher-
ent conception to another (Vosniadou et al., 2001). For example, children who have a coherent
conception of the earth as fat may change to the view that the earth is round. Often, students may
invent intermediate theories in between the initial (naïve) and fnal (normatively scientifc) theory in
order to make sense of the information they are encountering. For example, some students develop
the view that there are two “earths” – the ground we live on and a second, separate earth up in
the sky that they see in photographs and other media (Samarapungavan et al., 1996; Vosniadou &
Brewer, 1992). Chi (2005) explained challenging changes as requiring students to shift from viewing
phenomena as direct processes (e.g., heat moving through materials) to viewing them as emergent
processes (e.g., heat as an emergent property of molecular motion).
An alternative approach views knowledge as much less coherent. Rather than having coherent
theories or frameworks for understanding phenomena, students deploy many diferent, highly con-
textual elements of knowledge that diSessa called p-prims (diSessa, 1993; diSessa et al., 2004). For
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example, when thinking about phenomena related to forces and motion, one situation may elicit the
p-prim that force is a mover – that a directed impetus causes something to move; another may elicit
the p-prim of dying away – that all motion dies away over time. These p-prims need not be assembled
coherently; rather, they may be assembled in quite diferent ways from situation to situation. From
this point of view, what some have called conceptual change is a gradual process of learners shifting
the range of use of existing p-prims rather than developing entirely new ideas.
Participationist accounts of conceptual change treat all these changes as shifts in group activ-
ity: “Conceptual growth by a community or group is change in the concepts and conceptions it
uses in communicating, understanding, reasoning, solving problems, and making decisions, or in
the distribution of participation in these activities across members of the community or group”
(Greeno & van de Sande, 2007, p. 12). This approach emphasizes that conceptual change should not
be sought merely in response to test or interview items, but in changing patterns of using principles
and concepts for purposes such as joint problem solving. Participationist accounts thus center group
and community action as settings both to promote change and to determine whether change has
occurred. These accounts also emphasize that patterns of discourse should change (such as patterns
of eliciting and sharing ideas with others), alongside change in how learners use concepts and prin-
ciples in their discourse. Further, even traditional individual measures of cognitive understanding are
discursive interactions in which the social setting of the test or interview can afect performance.
For instance, the specifcs of interactions between an interviewer and a student on the seasons can
strongly afect what students say and therefore infuence researchers’ interpretations of what their
conceptions are (Halldén et al., 2007; Sherin et al., 2012).
Much of the current instructional work on conceptual change – whether from a cognitive or socio-
cultural perspective – emphasizes the role of social communities of learners in promoting growth. One
exception to this is the more individualistic instructional approach using refutation texts to promote
change. Refutation texts are texts that address students’ common mistaken ideas by explicitly identifying
what the common mistaken ideas are (e.g., explaining to students that many people mistakenly believe
that heat and temperature are the same), and then presenting the normative scientifc explanation. How-
ever, Zengilowski et al. (2021) have argued that the efects of refutation texts tend to be short-lived; in
addition, refutation texts are less likely to be efective for deeply held conceptions such as conceptions
about climate change than for less consequential conceptions. As would be expected if fundamental
forms of conceptual change are very challenging to achieve, it can take an extended period of time and
many opportunities to interact and work with new ideas before conceptual change will take hold.
In contrast to refutation text–based instruction, most curricular eforts to promote conceptual
change have engaged students in extended units in which they work with hands-on evidence, simu-
lation environments, and secondhand reports of evidence to develop and evaluate scientifc models
or explanations (Chinn et al., 2013). Further, most research has sought to scafold students’ social
processes of inquiry to support conceptual change using approaches like those that we described
earlier (e.g., Amin & Levrini, 2018; Chinn et al., 2013; Smith & Wiser, 2015). Learning environ-
ments also encourage the formation of communities that adhere, and even develop, community
norms. For instance, the PRACCIS project provides students with opportunities to develop their
own criteria for what count as good models and evidence and then hold each other accountable
to their own publicly agreed-on criteria (Chinn et al., 2018). Designers of learning environments
also include many approaches to enhance active engagement, such as hands-on experimentation
and data collection, use of simulation environments, and addressing problems of immediate import
to students’ communities (Morales-Doyle et al., 2019). Many designs involve students learning to
coordinate multiple representations, such as representing evaporation at both the level of observable
phenomenon and the level of microscope particles, and seeing how these are related; technological
and other scafolds have been developed to help students coordinate these representational levels
(e.g., Wu et al., 2001).
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One point of agreement between cognitive and participationist theorists is that, to achieve
conceptual change, it is important for students to be able to understand the distinct, alternative
conceptions under consideration (such as their own conception of heat transfer and the alternative
conception proposed by a classmate in class or group discussions (Greeno & van de Sande, 2007;
Vosniadou, 2007). In other words, learners need to step back and refect metacognitively on the dif-
ferent and competing conceptions and how they relate to the available evidence in order to evaluate
them. Students need to be able to “bracket” these conceptions as objects of thought that can be eval-
uated (Kuhn, 2021). Recent empirical work has also revealed the role of metacognition in inhibiting
misconceptions from being activated (Mason et al., 2019; Ronfard et al., 2021).
Views of inquiry: As science education has increasingly incorporated goals of learning to engage
in inquiry, it has become important to articulate what inquiry involves so that instruction can be
developed to promote inquiry. Historically, cognitive and participationist approaches to fostering
students’ scientifc reasoning have tended to conceptualize scientifc inquiry and scientifc reasoning
in diferent ways. Cognitivists tended to have an “image” of “science-as-logical-reasoning” (Leh-
rer & Schauble, 2006, p. 156). Scientifc reasoning was viewed as a set of heuristics and skills (such
as the skill of controlling variables in experiments). These heuristics and skills were viewed as quite
generally applicable, as noted earlier (e.g., if students learn to control variables, they can apply this to
conduct and evaluate experiments across many diferent scientifc topics). In contrast, participation-
ist approaches have tended to advance an image of “science-as-practice” (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006,
p. 158). Building on historical, philosophical, anthropological, and psychological studies of how sci-
entists work, this image emphasizes the collaborative work of scientists as they grapple with the mate-
rial world (using a variety of instruments) to produce evidence and models that can account for this
evidence. This perspective emphasizes the various inscriptions or representations that scientists create
and share to make their work visible and shareable. “Science-as-practice emphasizes the complicated
and variable nature of science” (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006, p. 158). Science unfolds quite diferently in
every domain as scientists wrestle with the contingencies of producing, interpreting, and combining
evidence in each distinct domain (Latour, 1999).
There is ongoing debate over these diferent images of science (Fischer et al., 2018). Chinn and
Malhotra (2002) argued that much of science education has focused on oversimplifed rules of rea-
soning, such as an algorithmic view of controlling variables as a matter of checking of which of
several provided variables are kept constant and which are varied. In actual practice, it is formidably
difcult for scientists to work out what the best controls should be when conducting experiments;
actual practice requires extensive domain knowledge about a wide range of possible causal con-
founds that can afect experimental results. Further, authentic science does not provide a set menu of
methodological procedures that can be taught to students; rather, science involves constant tension
and argumentation over what the best methods are in a particular domain, as scientists grapple with
making the material world yield usable evidence (Duncan et al., 2018). In addition, collaboration
in scientifc work is thoroughgoing, as scientists engage in ongoing cycles of co-construction and
critique of ideas (Ford, 2008). For such reasons, a view of science as practice has become ascendent
in recent research and standards (e.g., NGSS Lead States, 2013). Cognitive approaches can certainly
embrace such views, but there is a need to acknowledge the thoroughly social and contextual nature
of scientifc inquiry, and that knowledge development and evaluation is not an individual process
but a community process, as demonstrated by research across many felds of science studies (Oreskes,
2019).
Direct instruction versus learning through inquiry: Science educators have for decades expressed an
interest in promoting learning through engaging in inquiry (Duschl & Tahirsylaj, 2021), and much
research in science education today explores approaches and processes of learning through inquiry
(Duncan et al., 2021; Duncan & Chinn, 2021). However, other scholars have argued that learn-
ing through inquiry is inefectual. Scholars who argue for direct instruction are almost invariably
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cognitivists, although many cognitivists do not advocate direct instruction. In contrast, participation-
ist theorists generally support the use of collaborative inquiry environments, given their view that
learning involves participating in collaborative activity as a means to change patterns of participation.
Kirschner et al. (2006) argued for the superiority of direct instruction over constructivist (includ-
ing inquiry-based) approaches on the grounds that constructivist instruction overburdens work-
ing memory, leaving too little space in working memory for learners to consolidate new concepts
and understandings. However, there is a broad body of research supporting the efcacy of various
inquiry-based methods of instruction, by which we include methods termed problem-based learn-
ing, project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, guided discovery, and others. Diferent authors
use these terms in diferent ways, but what they have in common is afording students the epistemic
agency to work out explanations, problem solutions, policy solutions, and so on. Empirical research
in support of this position has been reviewed by Hmelo-Silver et al. (2007), Schmidt et al. (2009),
Chinn et al. (2013), Kapur (2016), and Duncan et al. (2021).
Many arguments supporting direct instruction appeal to empirical evidence showing that direct
instruction is superior to pure, unguided discovery, in which students are given little or no guid-
ance at all (Kirschner et al., 2006; Klahr & Nigam, 2004). However, proponents of learning
through inquiry have acknowledged that pure discovery methods are inefective and that guided
(or scafolded) forms of discovery learning are needed. Nonetheless, arguments in favor of direct
instruction often continue to make the straw-person case against pure discovery (e.g., Zhang et al.,
2021).
Many studies that are cited as supporting direct instruction target the learning of only very simple
concepts or tasks that bear little resemblance to real science (the “science-as-logical-reasoning” view
discussed in the previous section) (e.g., Chen & Klahr, 1999; Klahr & Nigam, 2004). Many such
studies have targeted teaching elementary or middle school students how to control variables, using
extremely simple tasks. Such tasks can mislead students about the epistemology of science – leading
them to see science as simple, algorithmic, and cut and dried (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002). Then they
are not prepared to grasp real scientifc experiments, in which constructing proper controls is difcult
and often contentious. Ford (2005) demonstrated that direct instruction in how to control variables
on simple tasks produced higher performance than inquiry-oriented instruction on tests that treated
control of variables as algorithmic, but inquiry-oriented instruction was much more efective at pro-
moting high levels of performance on a complex task with the answers not so obvious.
Finally, newer lines of research argue that, even when it is desirable to eventually explain things
to students, the best instructional approach is to guide students in frst trying to discover or invent
what is to be learned (Kapur, 2016; Kapur & Bielaczyc, 2012; Schwartz & Bransford, 1998; Schwartz
et al., 2011). For instance, when learning about density, students learn more if they try to solve
presented density puzzles frst before hearing an explanation about density than if they receive the
explanation frst and then practice using it (Schwartz et al., 2011). Thus, even when telling students
is valuable, it does not follow that inquiry does not also have a vital place in the learning process.
Finally, real inquiry-oriented learning environments are in practice complex mixtures of multiple
forms of instruction (Duncan et al., 2021). The debate between inquiry learning and direct instruc-
tion is a false dichotomy; both forms of learning have their place in a comprehensive curriculum and
should be weighted according to the context (National Research Council, 2012). Over extended
periods of time, even in predominantly inquiry-based approaches, there will be many elements of
direct instruction incorporated. For example, teachers might directly explain the structural compo-
nents of arguments to support students’ inquiry (e.g., McNeill & Krajcik, 2008). What is needed is
research that contrasts instructional approaches that are actually considered viable alternative forms
of instruction spanning weeks or months. Smaller-scale studies, such as brief laboratory or classroom
studies that use a single form of instruction on isolated tasks, do not speak to how to organize these
larger-scale curricula.
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Epistemic Growth
To this point in the chapter, we have discussed cognitive and participationist theories and how
they view a spectrum of issues in science learning and instruction. We have observed some ways in
which elements of cognitive and participationist theories can be integrated to account for phenom-
ena uncovered by both approaches. In this second section of the chapter, we illustrate two specifc
eforts at integration. Specifcally, we discuss two contemporary approaches to promoting scientifc
reasoning and discuss how they can be viewed as integrating some elements of the two theoreti-
cal perspectives. The two approaches are: instruction in argumentation and instruction to promote
apt epistemic performance. Then we discuss how these two approaches can be used to address an
important contemporary problem – the problem of how to promote better thinking by citizens in
the modern, complex information society.
Argumentation
Argumentation is a central practice of science (NGSS Lead States, 2013). Among the many lines of
research on argumentation, those that adopt a view of argumentation as a social, norm-governed
practice have become more prevalent (Kuhn et al., 2013). This work has sought to promote changes
in students’ competence to participate in argumentation with others, while also considering the cog-
nitive structures that students develop (e.g., Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2021).
There is a growing line of research in science education examining how to support students’
argument skills (Osborne et al., 2019). For example, a line of research using the “Argue with Me”
method shows that engagement in goal-based dialogic practice with peers, using collaborative activi-
ties and scafolded prompts for refection, fosters argument skills and epistemic growth (see Iorda-
nou & Rapanta, 2021). Rooted in Vygotsky’s idea of the complementarity of social and internal
thinking, students engaging in dense dyadic argumentation with peers show a progressive develop-
ment of their argumentation skills, which is frst evident in their dialogic interaction and then in
their individual written arguments. Argumentation at the social plane is a facilitative condition for
developing and sharing the norms of argumentation (Kuhn et al., 2013), consistent with the partici-
pationist perspective.
Engagement in argumentation at the social level could also be a fruitful condition for promoting
scientifc learning (see Asterhan & Schwarz, 2016; Iordanou, 2022). For scientists, argumentation is
at the heart of the process they employ for producing new reliable knowledge (Duschl, 2008). Given
that argumentation is a means of advancing knowledge in science, can argumentation be deployed
as a means of learning science content knowledge through inquiry? Indeed it can: Many research-
ers view engagement in argumentation as a means for promoting learning and conceptual change
in science education (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2016; Murphy et al., 2018). During argumentation
students have to present their views verbally, ofer explanations and their reasons for holding those
views, and defend their views after being challenged by others. Students are also exposed to and
actively engaged in alternative views, comparing views, trying to identify strengths and weaknesses
of each view, address discrepancies and reconcile them or choose the stronger one. Engagement
in argument-writing tasks, especially from multiple sources, supports understanding of the subject
matter and promotes more inferences and greater integration of central ideas (Wiley & Voss, 1999).
All these processes are facilitative conditions for supporting students’ learning (Asterhan & Schwarz,
2016; Newton et al., 1999). Asterhan and Schwarz (2016) presented a comprehensive analysis of the
role of argumentation in learning content, including science topics, such as evolution, in which con-
ceptual change is involved. Thus, participation in the practice of argumentation can promote goals
of advancing ideas, measured in cognitive terms through cognitive assessments as well as through
changes in participation.
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Peer interaction during argumentation, as well as engagement in metacognitive refection, are

facilitative conditions for promoting argumentation skills. Iordanou (2022) compared students
who engaged in argumentation with additional refective activities (e.g., reviewing an electronic
transcript of their dialogue to address questions such as whether they had used evidence in their
counterarguments) with students who engaged in argumentation without the refective activi-
ties. The students who engaged in argumentation practice with additional refective activities
showed greater gains in developing argument skill – particularly in employing evidence to weaken
an opposing position – compared to a control group who only engaged in the argumentation
practice. Microgenetic analysis of dialogues during the interventions revealed that experimental
condition participants exhibited overall greater improvements at both strategic and meta-strategic
growth, as well as epistemic growth, compared to control condition participants. This study pro-
vides evidence that development in metacognition – and epistemic growth, as well – underlies the
development of argument skills.
Another instructional method integrating cognitive and participationist approaches has been pro-
posed by Reznitskaya et al. (2012), who viewed learning arguments as a matter of developing argu-
ment schemas, which include elements such as claims, reasons, warrants (the reasoning that connects
reasons with claims). These schemas can be applied generally in diferent situations, though of course
the particular reasons and claims will difer from topic to topic. In addition to this schema, people
have a schema for knowledge that treats knowledge as tentative, relative, and contextual; and yet it
is possible for some knowledge claims to be judged stronger than others because they are supported
by better arguments. Reznitskaya et al. (2012) then applied constructs from Vygotsky’s sociocultural
theory to explain the development of schemas. They argued that
argument schemas are developed, at least in part, through participation in a dialogic group
activity, where students can observe, try out and, eventually, internalize novel language and
thought practices. Although each dialogic discussion diferent, participants will engage with
common “cultural tools” . . . characteristic of argumentation, including taking a public posi-
tion, supporting it with reasons, challenging other discussion participants, and responding
to counterarguments with rebuttals. Over time, the rational processes externalized through
group argumentation become part of an individual argument schema.
(Reznitskaya et al., 2012, pp. 289–290)
Thus, Reznitskaya et al. (2012) took key constructs from Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory to explain
how a cognitive object (a schema) could develop. The core idea was that what is encountered in par-
ticipation with others becomes appropriated or internalized (cultural tools, participation in dialogic
discussions, appropriating dialogue at the interpersonal plane to internalized use).
Apt Epistemic Performance

Another approach to epistemic growth that integrates elements of participationist and cognitivist
views is the Apt-AIR framework developed by Barzilai and Chinn (2018). The Apt-AIR framework
builds on the philosophy of Sosa (2011, 2015), who focused on apt epistemic performance as the objec-
tive of human thinking and reasoning. An epistemic performance is an action related to developing
knowledge, such as forming a belief or making a knowledge claim. An epistemic performance is fully
apt if three conditions are met: (1) The performance is successful (e.g., the belief that the climate is
warming is accurate or extremely well grounded in the scientifc evidence). (2) The performance
is produced through the competence of the person or community (e.g., the belief that climate is
warming is grounded in a person’s ability to appraise scientifc evidence and the consensus of climate
scientists on this issue, and not in the individual’s political commitments). (3) The performance
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refects an individual’s or community’s meta-knowledge that there is good enough justifcation to

form a belief, rather than withholding belief for lack of evidence.
Barzilai and Chinn (2018) further unpacked apt epistemic performance in terms of three compo-
nents of epistemic thinking and fve aspects of engagement. We briefy explain each of these next.
This framework can be viewed as seeking to synthesize and integrate many of the conceptualizations
of epistemic growth that have been advanced in the feld (Barzilai & Chinn, 2018), including insights
from both cognitive and participationist approaches.
Components of epistemic thinking: Aims, ideals, and reliable processes: Chinn et al. (2014) proposed
that epistemic thinking can be conceptualized as having three components: Aims and value, Ideals,
and Reliable processes (summarized as the AIR model). Aims are the epistemic goals that people
set – goals involving developing some kind of representation of how the world is, such as develop-
ing accurate beliefs, understanding, knowledge, or explanations. Value refers to the worth assigned
to diferent goals; for instance, developing an understanding of cancer is valuable to many people
because of its worth in supporting better treatments for cancer. Epistemic ideals are the standards
or criteria used to evaluate whether epistemic aims have been achieved. For instance, ideals for
evaluating scientifc models, theories, and explanations traditionally include criteria such as ft with
evidence, explanatory power, parsimony, and fruitfulness (Longino, 1996). Reliable epistemic pro-
cesses are the social and individual processes that are likely to achieve epistemic aims. For instance,
validation of measures is a methodological process that makes it more likely that scientists will achieve
well-grounded theories and models. Critique of ideas by the scientifc community and serious con-
sideration of these critiques are reliable processes of the community of science (Longino, 1990).
Epistemic communities typically developed shared aims and ideals that they apply to their practice,
as well as a shared sense of which methods and other processes are reliable for the community to use.
Five aspects of engagement in aims, ideals, and reliable processes: The second dimension of the Apt-AIR
framework comprises fve aspects of engagement with epistemic performance – that is, engagement
with appropriate aims, ideals, and reliable processes. The fve aspects are:
1. Cognitive engagement in epistemic performance. This involves engagement in addressing problems

of science, such as understanding whether and why climate is changing. Cognitive engage-
ment involves selecting valuable epistemic products to aim for, selecting and using appropriate
epistemic ideals, and using processes (individual and social) that enable people to realize their
epistemic aims.
2. Regulating and understanding epistemic performance. Apt epistemic performance involves metacog-
nitive regulation of epistemic performance. For instance, people can select aims, ideals, and
processes based on which are most appropriate for a particular situation. They can plan how to
fnd out what they want to know. They can monitor and evaluate how well they are progressing
based on how well their product is meeting their ideals. All of this is facilitated by an under-
standing of the appropriate aims, ideals, and processes and the conditions under which their use
is appropriate (e.g., appreciating that ft with evidence is a good ideal for scientifc knowledge,
understanding what counts as strong scientifc evidence, and so on).
3. Participating in epistemic performance with others. This aspect involves social engagement in epis-
temic performance with other people. Scientists of course engage as teams and communities
of scientists to develop knowledge. Students can learn some of these social practices by form-
ing communities of inquirers within their classrooms. But beyond this, laypeople also need to
act together to develop knowledge as laypeople, interacting with each other and with their
communities.
4. Caring about and enjoying epistemic performance. This aspect involves developing motivations and
dispositions to pursue valuable epistemic aims, treating them as valued and worth pursuing
even if they are efortful. In addition, the aspect encompasses emotional aspects of epistemic
107
performance; the goal is for students to develop positive emotional responses to engaging in
epistemic performance, particularly enjoyment.
5. Adapting epistemic performance. Students need to learn to adjust their epistemic performance appro-
priately across diferent contexts and tasks. This involves adapting epistemic aims, ideals, and
processes depending on tasks afordances and constraints. It could involve, for example, deciding
when one has the knowledge to evaluate evidence oneself (such as recognizing that a study touted
as evidence for the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 is seriously fawed due to non-
random assignment to treatment) and when one needs to trust experts (e.g., when it comes to
evaluating the technical quality of studies supporting claims that global climate is changing).
The Apt-AIR framework thus incorporates elements from cognitive approaches, such as the
analyses of cognitive goals and processes, as well as metacognition. It also emphasizes the centrality of
the social aspect of knowing, so that changes in ways that people interact with each other are part of
what is involved in epistemic growth.
The metacognitive aspect of the Apt-AIR framework can encompass students’ understanding of
the nature of science, such as their understanding of the diference between theories and laws, that
science is social, that science is creative, and so on (Lederman et al., 2002; Summers et al., 2019). But
it especially emphasizes the importance of knowledge about reasoning that is close to the practice of
sciences (cf. Allchin, 2011; Höttecke & Allchin, 2020). The metacognitive understanding of aims,
ideals, and practices in the Apt-AIR framework are not primarily highly abstract understandings,
such as the idea that science is a social process. Rather, the understanding is of specifc social processes
(e.g., peer review, mutual critique of knowledge claims, subjecting hypotheses to specifc empirical
tests) that are reliable, as well as the conditions under which they are reliable (e.g., there needs to
be a diversity of perspectives among the community of scientists, and the community must advance
and uptake critiques) (Longino, 1990; Oreskes, 2019). According to the Apt-AIR framework, there
should also be a strong focus on appreciating and using the ideals that can guide the lay evaluation of
science claims (e.g., trustworthiness of scientists, and the grounds for considering them trustworthy,
as well as conditions that can undermine trustworthiness). A critical focus must be appreciating rea-
sons why all these processes are reliable – not just knowing that science involves social processes but
also appreciating why these particular social processes can be regarded as reliable ways of producing
knowledge (Chinn et al., 2021).
Education for a Post-Truth World

Taking the ideas we have discussed in the previous sections on argumentation and apt epistemic
performance, we now turn to a discussion of how science educators can prepare students to reason
well in the so-called post-truth world. These instructional applications also incorporate elements of
cognitive and participationist theories.
In the so-called post-truth world, misinformation abounds, and science is distrusted by many
as a way to know about topics such as climate change, vaccinations, and pandemics. An increas-
ing number of scholars have addressed ways of better preparing students to think about scientifc
issues in such a world (Barzilai & Chinn, 2020; Chinn et al., 2020, 2021; Feinstein & Waddington,
2020; Höttecke & Allchin, 2020; Kienhues et al., 2020; Leung, 2020a, 2021; Sinatra & Lombardi,
2020). Some key post-truth challenges include (Barzilai & Chinn, 2020; Kavanagh & Rich, 2018):
the growing prevalence and impact of misinformation and disinformation; the growing rejection of
well-established facts and claims; prioritizing personal beliefs, feelings, and experiences over facts and
evidence; declining trust in science and journalism as institutions providing scientifc information;
and increasing fragmentation and polarization of information consumption. All of these challenges
make it difcult to form reliable judgments about scientifc matters.
108
Chinn et al. (2021) applied the Apt-AIR framework to analyze post-truth challenges and to
generate fve recommendations for instruction that can prepare students for more apt epistemic
performance in a post-truth world. These recommendations are compatible with the contemporary
research on argumentation that we outlined earlier in this section. We summarize these recommen-
dations next.
The frst recommendation is to engage students regularly in more complex, “unfriendly” epis-
temic settings that approximate those of the post-truth world that prevails outside of school, with
all its disinformation, misinformation, and rampant conficting arguments. School typically presents
students with “friendly” epistemic environments – that is, environments that are carefully curated
and have vetted information, so that the students are not exposed to the informational confusion
that prevails out of school. Students will never learn to deal with the real-world challenges if they are
not exposed to them so that they can learn how to address them more efectively. This will require
reforming curricula so that students are exposed to sources and evidence of widely varying quality,
reliability, and trustworthiness (Barzilai et al., 2020; Chinn et al., 2021). Students’ engagement in
these environments should encompass all fve aspects of apt epistemic performance.
Several lines of research support the conclusion that for students to learn to reason in realistic
ways, they should experience inquiry in ways that problematize the aims, ideals, and processes they
are using (Ford, 2005). For instance, Lehrer and Schauble (2004) and Manz (2016; Manz & Renga,
2017) have engaged frst and second graders in trying to work out on their own how to measure
plant growth, as well as how to represent growth graphically. This leads them to work through many
complex issues of establishing valid and reliable measures – afording understandings that would have
never arisen if teachers had simply directed them to use a particular method to measure the plants.
Thus, a critical way to grasp real science is to engage in the complex negotiation and working out of
reliable methods needed to deal with the complexity of the actual world (Duncan et al., 2018; Manz,
2016; Manz & Renga, 2017).
Learning environments like this will need to be carefully sequenced and scafolded. In a review
of inquiry-based learning, Lazonder and Harmsen (2016) identifed a set of productive scafolds for
inquiry, including process constraints, status overviews, prompts, presentation of heuristics, taking
over part of the process for learners so that learners only do part of the process, and explanations
(sometimes in advance, usually after learners were working on problems). Such scafolds would need
to be adapted to support learners in more complex learning environments.
The second recommendation is to help students learn how to adapt their epistemic performance
across diferent situations. For laypeople, this includes developing a metacognitive awareness of
when they have sufcient expertise to evaluate evidence themselves and when they need to defer to
experts. Laypeople unavoidably lack the technical expertise to evaluate much of the evidence that
scientists develop to support and counter various claims (Allchin, 2011; Chinn & Duncan, 2018;
Duncan et al., 2018). Further, they do not have awareness of all or even most of the evidence bearing
on an issue; developing command over a large body of evidence requires years of reading, attending
conferences, and interchanges within a feld. In such cases, apt epistemic performance for laypeople
will inevitably involve deferring to experts, and it will become critical for people to learn processes
such as determining the extent to which scientists have consensus on a topic, whether sufcient sci-
entifc consensus exists to support decisions, and so on (Chinn et al., 2021). This means that curricula
should focus on the nature, afordances, and limitations of expertise as well as on enabling students
to evaluate evidence themselves. Thus, the ways in which competent outsiders interact with science
are not simpler or partial versions of how scientists interact with science; they are diferent. Further,
laypeople engage with social media and with other communities in knowing about scientifc matters,
and they need to learn efective ways of participating in such practices.
Learning how to evaluate evidence oneself can be benefcial in some circumstances, as well. For
instance, learning about common methodological problems in scientifc studies could enable learners
109
to understand the fatal methodological weaknesses of the retracted study by Wakefeld that alleged
a link between vaccinations and autism. It may also be sufcient to understand why early studies in
2020 that reported benefts of hydroxychloroquine were sufciently fawed methodologically to war-
rant caution in the use of this drug. Yet it is also important for people to gain metacognitive awareness
of bounds of their knowledge and how to respond in various circumstances in light of these bounds
(Bromme & Goldman, 2014). Inquiry and argumentation activities should be designed to promote
lay ways of knowing, as well as a grasp of when it is appropriate to defer to others.
This recommendation is in accord with the recommendations of Feinstein (2011; Feinstein &
Waddington, 2020) to develop citizens who are competent outsiders with respect to science. None-
theless, it may be valuable for students who will not become scientists to nonetheless come to
appreciate how scientists work (their practices) and what their core achievements are (the content
of science). Through understanding how science reliably produces useful knowledge, students can
come to appreciate why science is trustworthy (Chinn & Duncan, 2018; Duncan et al., 2018).
The third recommendation is to engage students in explorations into ways of knowing, which
are inquiries into the strengths and weaknesses of diferent aims, ideals, and reliable processes for
achieving knowledge. To begin with, one source of post-truth challenges is that people simply may
not care about the truth. For example, political partisans may be willing to set the truth aside if it
advances their political ends. Schools may provide few opportunities for students to deliberate on
why truth matters or to consider the problems that arise when epistemic aims are discarded in order
to achieve aims of power (Barzilai & Chinn, 2020). Thus, they should engage in explorations into
why epistemic aims are valuable.
Another cause of post-truth problems is that people have fundamental disagreements not only
about scientifc conclusions but how to come to know about scientifc matters. For example, they do
not merely disagree about whether vaccinations are safe and efective; they also disagree about how
about how to know about vaccine safety and efcacy. Vaccine skeptics believe that experimental tests
are deeply biased by the interests of the researchers and that personal experiences and interpreta-
tions should outweigh systematic scientifc evidence (Chinn et al., 2020). Similarly, people disagree
about which sources of information are most trustworthy. Chinn et al. (2020, 2021) argued that in
such cases, the needed next step is for people to engage in discussions and deliberations of how to
know (see Lynch, 2016). Indeed, students should regularly engage in argumentation about proper
aims and ideals of knowing, and about the reliability of processes for knowing. Learning to engage
in such argumentative practices as members of a society is vital for productive deliberations within a
democracy (Lynch, 2016).
Although schools have not prepared citizens to engage in such metacognitive deliberations, there
is evidence that students can readily learn to engage in such discourse. Chinn et al. (2020) argued that
the discourse involves describing aims, ideals, and processes; justifying them (that is, giving reasons
why they are valuable or reliable); and engaging in inquiry to investigate them through a dialogic give
and take of reasons for and against using diferent aims, ideals, and processes. For example, students
might engage in inquiry into cognitive biases and how they might be attenuated. This approach also
opens science curricula to welcome alternative epistemologies into classroom consideration; students
can discuss when diferent ways of knowing can be appropriately used (e.g., Bang, 2015; Medin &
Bang, 2014). Students may come to recognize that there can be a role for multiple ways of knowing
in diferent settings.
The fourth recommendation is to promote caring and positive emotions. There is less research on
how to accomplish these goals. Some have argued for promoting a commitment to intellectual virtues
such as intellectual courage, intellectual honesty, and indeed a love of truth (Battaly, 2015; Lapsley &
Chaloner, 2020). Current recommendations often focus on adopting direct instructional methods
advocated by character education (Lapsley & Chaloner, 2020), but these could be extended to allow
students to explore virtuous intellectual character through metacognitive refection and inquiry,
110
following the approaches outlined earlier. Researchers have also proposed ways to enhance posi-
tive epistemic emotions such as curiosity and to avoid negative emotions such as frustration when
answers are not immediately forthcoming. Muis et al. (2018) identifed instructional practices that
can promote productive epistemic emotions. Educators should develop learning environments that
encourage curiosity through engagement in complex but attainable tasks. Students should also have
many opportunities to refect on their thinking and the associated emotions, thus combining meta-
cognitive refection with meta-emotional refection. They can also learn to reappraise emotions such
as frustration as a response to conficting, difcult information and to use more efective strategies for
addressing conficting information. Emphasizing to students that confusion is normal and appropriate
during inquiry can also be valuable.
Another element of instruction to promote caring about epistemic aims, ideals, and processes is
centering epistemic agency. Students with epistemic agency have the authority within the learning set-
tings to make up their own minds about what explanations to develop or support, how to evaluate
and interpret evidence, and so on. Epistemic agency can also extend even to authority over deter-
mining what the epistemic aims of the classroom should be (e.g., what topics to investigate) (Bang,
2015; Miller et al., 2018), what ideals should be used to evaluate scientifc explanations and evidence
(such as deciding on their own that models should ft the evidence and “show all the steps”) (Chinn
et al., 2018), and which processes are considered reliable and which to use (Chinn et al., 2021). Epis-
temic agency may be crucial to promoting caring about epistemic practices. If students are simply
told how to think, they will have little reason to use the instructed reasoning practices outside of
settings where they are told to use them. But if they co-develop them themselves, they may instead
develop a commitment to use them, not only in the classroom but beyond (Chinn et al., 2020, 2021).
If students freely develop and commit to the epistemic ideals and processes that they are using, they
may be more likely to care about using them.
Developing community norms can be central to both cognitive goals of developing new concep-
tions of how to know and participationist goals of learning to interact in new ways when developing
knowledge. As students engage in argumentation and other knowledge-producing interactions, they
can hold themselves and each other accountable to the aims, ideals, and processes they identify, such
as ensuring that their ideas ft all the available evidence, determining whether they are in a position to
evaluate the evidence themselves, and evaluating whether there is scientifc consensus on a topic. The
goal is for these ways of knowing and interacting to be extended to lay practices out of school as well.
The ffth and fnal recommendation is to enable students to develop a working knowledge of how
social institutions of knowledge production produce knowledge (and when and why they fail to do
so). This should include an understanding of a range of institutional practices (Höttecke & Allchin,
2020; Howell & Brossard, 2021): (1) An understanding of the real processes by which science oper-
ates – in all its uncertainty, negotiation, and messiness. Students should learn not only that science is
social, but what its specifc social practices are and how they make science reliable (and how science
can often be regarded as reliable despite some optimal processes. (2) An understanding of how science
media processes work – how these can change the way information is presented and the conditions
under which they are more or less reliable (Maier et al., 2014). (3) An understanding of how social
media produce and disseminate information and misinformation, from social media to Wikipedia
(Höttecke & Allchin, 2020).
The instructional methods for achieving these goals could include explorations into knowing
(discussed as part of the third recommendation) directed at social systems of knowledge production.
For instance, students could examine existing evidence and even develop their own evidence on
the reliability of Wikipedia as a social source of scientifc knowledge. Or they could examine and
develop evidence from science communications relating to how diferent processes of science jour-
nalism enhance or detract from reliability of science media. Another approach engages students in
case studies of when these various systems work (cf. Clough, 2011) and when they do not (e.g., cases
111
of racial and gender bias in science (Longino, 1990). Finally, students can engage in social systems
themselves in their school communities and analyze them to understand how social production of
knowledge works. These activities could include games and simulations in which they experience
knowledge production systems. In all these activities, the goal should be to help students understand
how these social systems really work, in all their “messiness” as well as conditions that undermine
knowledge (e.g., incentives for sharing misinformation in some social media). These eforts should
certainly encompass enabling students to understand how and why the processes of science – as it is
actually practiced, not the sanitized version that is presented in school – are generally reliable, as well
as conditions under which they are more or less reliable (Kienhues et al., 2020).
Conclusions
This chapter has provided a broad overview of learning theories and issues raised by learning theories
for science education. The chapter has pointed to several tensions that continue to exist across learn-
ing theories that have been prevalent in science education over the last several decades. Most issues in
education can be – and have been – approached from either of two opposing yet indispensable per-
spectives: the cognitive and participationist perspectives. As we discussed these theoretical perspec-
tives, we also discussed a range of issues that are important to understanding learning and instruction.
These included the challenge of transfer, the situativity or generality of learning, promoting equity,
views of inquiry, the roles of inquiry learning and direct instruction, and more. In the last section,
we have discussed instructional methods to promote growth in reasoning that do indeed incorporate
elements of both theories. We have also argued that developing lay reasoning in the contemporary,
“post-truth” information world is a critical goal for science education.
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5
STUDENT CONCEPTIONS,
CONCEPTUAL CHANGE, AND
LEARNING PROGRESSIONS
Introduction
Attention to improving science education has grown nationally and globally, as science and policy
communities fnd themselves challenged by complex real-world problems that have neither straight-
forward nor ultimate solutions (Anderson & Li, 2020). Science, technology, engineering, and math-
ematics (STEM) permeate nearly every facet of modern life; indeed, STEM holds the key to meeting
many of the problems facing humans today and in the future (OECD, 2019). Moreover, understand-
ing science can fundamentally improve people’s lives (National Research Council, 2012b; OECD,
2019). Yet, unfortunately, many people in our society lack the fundamental knowledge of science
needed to live fruitful lives and contribute productively to a global community. Providing healthy
food that is sustainable serves as a powerful example.
While nations like the United States have sufcient food supplies, many third-world countries
throughout the globe do not. But even in the United States, poor communities, which are often
composed of people of color, don’t have access to healthy, afordable, and sustainable food sources.
Many children of color sufer from type 2 diabetes. As a global community, we need to learn how to
provide food that is healthy, afordable, and sustainable to all individuals throughout the globe. People
worldwide are now experiencing the efects of climate change as more extreme weather occurs,
exacerbating food shortages. The potential to use alternative fuels (e.g., solar and wind) to mitigate
climate change exists; however, these problems require a scientifcally knowledgeable citizenry to
support policy changes and understand future consequences due to lack of action. The global food
problem and climate change have demonstrated that most individuals have little understanding of
how scientifc knowledge develops, how scientifc models can change as new evidence unfolds, the
importance of evidence in supporting scientifc claims, and the role of peer review in establishing the
validity of scientifc knowledge.
Moreover, our students are not fully prepared to solve problems and make informed decisions
about their lives because school curricula, instruction, and assessment lack coherence and depth
to provide the necessary learning opportunities for students to develop and apply such knowledge
(OECD, 2019). The last ten years have also seen unprecedented technological changes that have
reshaped how people communicate, fnd information, and even purchase household items. The fol-
lowing ten years will continue to bring about unforeseen changes in how we live and interact with
each other and the environment. To prepare students for this world, a new approach to K–12 science
education for a wide range of students is needed (National Research Council, 2012b).
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-7 121

All Students Need to Develop Knowledge-in-Use in Science

The goals of science education stress that all students need to explain scientifc phenomena, make
informed decisions about science and technology related to their life, and have the motivation (or
interest) to consider science-related occupations. As such, science education is not only for those
pursuing a career in science but for all students. To develop citizens who understand science, educa-
tors must consider what students should ultimately know (big ideas) and be able to do (scientifc and
engineering practices) and what paths they can take to reach that goal (National Research Council,
1999). It is critical for students to understand science as a specifc way of knowing and to develop the
capability to understand and appropriately apply the strategies of scientifc inquiry, called “knowl-
edge-in-use” (National Research Council, 2012a).
Science education worldwide has moved to performance-based learning goals in which learn-
ers need to use their knowledge.1 Knowledge-in-use refers to students demonstrating and applying
their knowledge rather than recalling what they know (National Research Council, 2012b; Next
Generation Science Standard [NGSS] Lead States, 2013). Knowledge-in-use learning goals allow
students to explain what causes phenomena to occur, solve complicated real-world problems,2 and
make challenging decisions using evidence, scientifc ideas, and reasoning. It also involves incorpo-
rating ideas from many areas of science (e.g., the structure of matter, energy, and natural selection) to
learn more when needed. Knowledge-in-use requires that learners selectively incorporate ideas from
various knowledge domains and apply them to new contexts.
To reach excellence in science education, students need to develop usable knowledge of the big
ideas and practices of science (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989; National
Research Council, 1999); however, to do so, they require opportunities to learn. Although students
develop understanding of science in diferent ways and at diferent rates, opportunities to learn entail
that all students have the chance to create deep and usable knowledge so they can apply ideas to
explain compelling phenomena, solve challenging problems, and learn more when needed. These
opportunities should occur throughout an individual’s life span because learning challenging big
ideas (e.g., evolution, energy, or conservation of mass) is not developmentarily inevitable; moreover,
it takes time and is dependent on experiences and education (National Research Council, 2007).
Furthermore, deep understanding only develops when individuals make sense of challenging situa-
tions or complex problems (National Research Council, 2012b). For instance, think of climbing a
very challenging mountain. There are many paths to the top: some may be easier and require less
energy to climb, while some may be harder but ofer more beautiful views. Since students’ learning
depends on appropriate instructional materials and practices, learning environments require explicit
instruction to provide rich opportunities for a wide range of students to learn big ideas and scientifc
and engineering practices. Such teaching and learning might be more challenging, but the results are
also more benefcial. Therefore, teachers need to develop their instructional strategies to support stu-
dents in developing knowledge-in-use. In addition, teachers need to recognize individual diferences
among students: they will develop an understanding of scientifc ideas in diferent ways, at diferent
depths, and at varying rates of progress.
Learning Progressions Provide a Guide for Developing Knowledge-in-Use

A learning progression (LP) describes how big ideas can develop over time and become more sophis-
ticated so that learners can use their knowledge in new and challenging situations. As such, LP
research provides a promising venue to support various learners to develop and monitor usable
knowledge (Corcoran et al., 2009; NRC, 2012b). Learning environments should facilitate students’
learning of big ideas of science in and across disciplines and developing capabilities to apply those
ideas in real situations. These big ideas are essential because they can explain a range of phenomena
in our world. The science education community has adopted learning progressions to organize
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Student Conceptions, Conceptual Change, Learning Progressions
and align science content, assessment, instruction, and learning experiences to provide learners the
opportunities to develop deep knowledge of big scientifc ideas and practices (National Research
Council, 2007; Smith et al., 2006). To serve as valuable guides for such learning, LPs should pro-
vide a progression of integrated sets of ideas and capabilities across disciplines, from early elementary
grades through secondary education and into college. In addition, LPs focus on how learners need to
connect and relate relevant ideas and experiences to use them appropriately, as opposed to knowing
individual, discreet facts.
A vital aspect of a LP is showing how to support learners in developing knowledge of big ideas
and practices over time. Most adults have not developed the depth of expertise to use big ideas and
scientifc practices to understand everyday phenomena. For example, most adults do not know that a
force must be applied to change the speed or direction of a moving object; instead, most individuals
think a force needs to be consistently applied to keep an object moving (Osborn & Freyberg, 1985).
This lack of understanding of disciplinary ideas is unsurprising. Although topics like energy, natural
selection, growth and development of organisms, plate tectonics, and nature of matter are typically
part of the K–12 science education curriculum and taught across diferent grade levels, they often are
dealt with superfcially. These ideas do not systematically develop across grade levels, in contexts that
require learners to apply the ideas more deeply and in more sophisticated situations. While there is
no single trajectory or pathway that all learners will follow, learners need to develop certain scientifc
ideas before they can learn other, more sophisticated ideas, as some ideas are dependent on others.
For instance, before learners understand that substances can interact to form new substances, they
need to learn that (1) matter can be identifed by its properties and (2) that material composed of
the same matter will have the same properties. Now imagine a learner attempting to develop prof-
ciency in a high school standard without the profciencies of the prior learning developed in earlier
years. Without prior knowledge and experiences, attempting to develop high school–level prof-
ciency would be exceptionally challenging. Figure 5.1 presents an example that focuses on learners
Progression for Big Idea: Structure of Ma˜er
Highest level
Atomic Structure Model – provides a
By the end of 12th grade mechanis˜c model for chemical reacõn
Atomic/Molecular Model – explains

By the end of 8th grade
proper˜es and diversity of materials
Ideas build across the school

years to become successively
more sophis˜cated.
Par˜cle Model – explains phase changes

By the end of 5th/6th grade
and phases
Macroscopic Model – describes ma°er

By the end of 2nd grade
Lowest level
Figure 5.1 Progression of a big idea for the structure of matter.
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developing ideas over time; in this example, the developmental sequence is related to an idea for the
structure of matter. Learners develop very descriptive knowledge of matter at the early grades (i.e.,
metals are shiny and can bend). As they progress in their thinking, learners move from a macroscopic
description of matter to an atomic structure model that can provide a mechanistic model for under-
standing the nature of a chemical reaction (i.e., atoms that make molecules rearrange to form new
molecules with diferent confgurations).
Chapter Overview
This chapter is about learning and how learners from the earliest grades can develop more sophis-
ticated understandings of scientifc ideas and practices that are necessary to understand the world in
which they live. More specifcally, we are interested in learners developing understanding of scientifc
ideas and practices across time so that their knowledge becomes more sophisticated and usable. How
this development occurs can be thought of as a LP by providing a comparatively small set of scientifc
ideas and practices throughout a grade level and revisiting those ideas in later grades in new situations.
However, we are not talking about just repeating the idea but supporting learners in developing deeper
and more sophisticated understandings of these ideas across grade levels. Students can learn some sci-
entifc ideas and practices in the elementary grades, and then these ideas can become progressively
refned, elaborated, and extended throughout an individual’s educational experience. The Frame-
work for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012b) and (NGSS Lead States, 2013)
embrace this developmental view of learning. They provide a coherent vision for developing and
testing assessment, instruction, and curriculum materials throughout K–12 education.
But LPs are not inevitable; they depend upon learners experiencing situations where they need to
build and use an appropriate sequencing of ideas. The development of LPs should therefore be based
on research and on what we know about student development (Lehrer & Schauble, 2015). Further-
more, since learning is a complicated process that is nonlinear and has multiple pathways depending
on an individual learner’s background, ongoing research eforts are needed to explore how students
learn in science to develop research-based LPs.
We examine some learning theories related to LPs. We delve deeper into what is meant by
knowledge-in-use and explore the meaning of conceptual change and how it can occur. We then
examine the LP literature, focusing on two aspects: historical views of LPs and LP research by disci-
pline (e.g., physics, life, earth, and space sciences), curriculum materials and instruction, and assess-
ment and measurement. Building on LP research and related learning theories, we put forth a view
of LPs and features and components of LPs. We conclude by discussing challenges and suggesting
future directions for LP research.
Theoretical Framework
Next, we discuss the learning theories and principles related to LPs, including concepts, cognition,
conceptual changes, deep learning, and building ideas across time.
Concepts and Cognition

Central to learning is the development of concepts. Concepts can be thought of as mental repre-
sentations of ideas that serve as fundamental knowledge structures of understanding and emotions.
Individuals have their own concepts based on their prior experiences and emotions (Bransford et al.,
2000; Chi & Ceci, 1987; National Academies of Sciences, E. & Medicine, 2018). For example,
when we think of an object in the world, such as a dog, various ideas come to mind. This is an
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individual’s concept of a dog. Some of us have more ideas linked to dogs than others, and the more
ideas connected to dogs, the richer one’s understanding of “dog.” Emotions are also connected to
our concepts. Some individuals, when they think of a dog, have positive concepts, such as their dog
cuddled in their laps. Others might have negative associations and emotions, like a big dog chas-
ing them. The more connections a learner makes between these concepts, the more easily they can
access that knowledge (information) and use it in a new situation (Bransford et al., 2000; Chi &
Ceci, 1987).
Concepts play a critical role in learning and cognition. Cognition refers to a mental process in
which an individual develops understanding and builds knowledge through thinking, experiencing,
and sensing. Cognition heavily overlaps with “learning”, with the two terms often used interchange-
ably. Learning is the process of forming new ideas and connections among those ideas to obtain new
understanding, knowledge, behaviors, values, and beliefs (National Academies of Sciences, E. &
Medicine, 2018). Through a series of learning experiences, we acquire new knowledge that we can
use in other situations. Individuals learn concepts by interacting and interpreting their world, includ-
ing essential interactions with others. When a child is born, she (supported through interactions
with others) constructs knowledge of her environment. Knowledge is not memorized; individuals
continuously build and refne their knowledge as they use the ideas and experiences in the world.
Not all learning, however, is the same. Although we often say an individual has learned an idea
if they can recall what it means, just because an individual can recall an idea does not mean she can
use that idea in a new situation – or even use it to learn something else (Roseman et al., 2008). This
condition is referred to as “inert knowledge” (Whitehead, 1967). For instance, a middle school stu-
dent might be able to recite that a chemical reaction occurs when two substances interact to form
a new substance with diferent chemical composition and new properties. But this does not mean
she can apply these ideas in new situations, like explaining why a bicycle will rust if left in the rain
or the diference between a chemical and a phase change. Individuals with inert knowledge cannot
retrieve or use knowledge in appropriate situations or solve problems, as they lack connections and
relationships between the ideas (Perkins, 1992). Learners often do not systematically assemble ideas
derived from prior schooling and life experiences (diSessa, 1988). Learners, therefore, are likely to
end up with disconnected and fragmented structures that do not form well-organized knowledge
structures that allow them to use their ideas. Fragmented knowledge structures make it difcult for
learners to apply their knowledge to new situations (Sirhan, 2007). These fragmented knowledge
pieces are often referred to as “knowledge-in-pieces.” When students learn bits of factual information
and memorize how to solve problems using formulas, they develop knowledge-in-pieces or inert
knowledge, but not knowledge-in-use.
Despite the importance of knowledge-in-use, in school systems across the globe, the learning
of scientifc facts and algorithmic problem solving dominate the science curriculum. Most students
memorize scientifc ideas and procedures to solve problems rather than developing the underlying
conceptual understanding of fundamental ideas of science and how to integrate and use those ideas
(OECD, 2019). LPs focus on learners using their knowledge to understand natural phenomena
or solve complex problems. A LP is not a listing of all concepts in a domain that students need to
memorize (e.g., defnition of ideas); instead, a LP includes a small set of big ideas important across
disciplines to explain phenomena that learners experience. A LP describes how a set of concepts
integrates so learners can apply them when needed (knowledge-in-use, deep understanding).
Knowledge-in-Use Requires Deep Learning

Deep learning is a process of making connections among ideas. The more connections a learner
makes, the deeper and more usable their knowledge becomes (Bransford et al., 2000). When students
develop ideas that richly connect to each other, they form usable knowledge (National Research
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Council, 2012a). When new ideas are richly connect to ideas and experiences, learners can access
those ideas and apply them in new situations (Chi & Ceci, 1987). Research shows that experts orga-
nize their knowledge around fundamental ideas of the discipline that guide their thinking about solv-
ing problems and explaining phenomena, rather than a simple list of facts and formulas (Bransford
et al., 2000). To develop knowledge-in-use, learners must do more than just accumulate knowledge;
they must also integrate those ideas with various experiences (Esposito & Bauer, 2017). Deep learn-
ing occurs when learners actively construct knowledge as they explore, observe, and interact with
phenomena, take in new information, and discuss and interact with others. Well-organized and
well-integrated knowledge structures enable learners to easily access ideas (Bransford et al., 2000;
Chi et al., 1981). When learners can use their knowledge to generalize, categorize, apply, synthesize,
and solve problems, they develop the capacity to generate novel and creative solutions to persistent
problems when needed, and in so doing, they make new connections among ideas.
Learners who develop more connections among ideas have greater integrated understanding
and can more readily apply their knowledge in novel situations (Bransford et al., 2000; National
Academies of Sciences, E. & Medicine, 2018). They will also learn new, related material more
efectively. Curriculum developers, including teachers, therefore need to design learning activities
to support students in making connections among new and old ideas and experiences. Building
on students’ prior knowledge, self-refection, and frsthand experiences that are meaningful to the
learner promotes deep learning. The more these learning activities are grounded in real-world
experiences that the learner fnds essential, the more connections learners can make. LPs can guide
this efort by illustrating how ideas can develop over time. A LP includes teaching and learning
materials to support learners in having rich learning experiences to connect ideas appropriately
and meaningfully.
Learners Build Ideas Across Time

Learning concepts and building knowledge structures evolve as learners experience more situations
and problems (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine, 2018). As learners have
more experiences, their conceptions become richer – this, in turn, infuences the way they make
sense of the world. Building a rich network of concepts is a knowledge-integration process through
which learners put together diferent sorts of information from various experiences: identifying
and establishing relationships and expanding knowledge-building structures for connecting them
(Linn & Eylon, 2006). Chi (1976) argues that signifcant diferences among children of diferent
ages lie in the complexity of their knowledge base (i.e., integrated knowledge structure). As learners
grow and have more relevant experiences, the number of ideas and connections in their knowledge
structure increases.
Because knowledge increases over time with relevant experience, this raises the question of how
science instruction can support a wide range of learners to develop more tightly connected ideas over
time that can guide their thinking, observing, and searching for new information. Research on how
experts develop knowledge sheds light on this efort. The learning of experts unfolds over time in a
continuous process as they engage in new experiences and make connections between old and new
ideas. Learning complex ideas takes time and often happens as learners work on challenging tasks that
require them to synthesize and make connections. Throughout their lifetime, learners continue to
refne their abilities to use information at various levels of abstraction. Once a learner begins to form
a network of ideas, it is much easier for them to continually make connections to this network to
build deeper and more connections over time. As the knowledge structures become more connected
and deeper, learners become even more sophisticated at understanding the nature of good explana-
tions, methods of inquiry, and the role of evidence. A LP is not for obtaining simple facts in a short
period of instruction but is for developing usable knowledge of big ideas over time.
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Conceptual Change
Conceptual change is a learning process in which individuals develop their knowledge structures by
adding more concepts and relationships throughout their lifetime (National Academies of Sciences,
E. & Medicine, 2018). Changes in individuals’ knowledge structure often occur when they have
new experiences or new information is made available to them (Bransford et al., 2000). The process
allows learners to make connections with a new concept, or new connections to prior concepts
in new ways; this, then, enables them to solve more challenging and complex problems that were
too difcult in the past and explain compelling phenomena in new ways (Chi & Ceci, 1987). For
instance, in early elementary school, a student might learn about energy, but her understanding of
energy will change over her lifetime, hopefully becoming more refned and usable. She might frst
think of energy as an object having more energy the faster it moves, but as she has more experiences
(including those in school), that knowledge becomes deeper and more sophisticated. She realizes
that energy can transfer among objects. This process, in which an idea becomes deeper and more
sophisticated, is termed “conceptual change”.
As learners work to make sense of new ideas, they incorporate and connect new information to
existing knowledge, which should enable them to develop complex, integrated knowledge structures
for using and organizing what they learned (e.g., Ausubel et al., 1968; Linn & Eylon, 2006; Novak,
2002). Picture a network of ideas connected by appropriate relationships: a richly elaborated concept
map can serve as a good analogy for integrated knowledge structures. Appendix 1 presents graphi-
cal images of little to no understanding (i.e., inert knowledge), thin understanding, and integrated
understanding of scientifc ideas related to chemical reactions.
Conceptual change can occur in many diferent ways. Some conceptual change is much harder to
achieve than others. Some kinds of conceptual change occur naturally as a consequence of a learner’s
everyday experiences. For example, young children learn to avoid touching hot surfaces when their
fngertips burn slightly when a hot surface is touched. This beginning idea might lead to further
refnement – i.e., that fre can cause injury to living organisms. Interestingly, instruction can use such
experiences to develop ideas related to energy transfer. Other, more challenging ideas may require
intentional efort, often through formal school experiences. For instance, the understanding that
substances in the world can rearrange to make new substances would be hard – if not impossible – for
most learners to develop without formal instruction. Yet, there is no simple, concrete path in an indi-
vidual’s development; often, what an individual learns seems to regress. In other words, changes in a
learner’s knowledge do not necessarily develop linearly across time, and an individual’s understanding
can vary across contexts. Nevertheless, science education researchers should explore and learn how
best to promote the development of fundamental ideas of science across time.
The best scenario for growth occurs when an individual needs to add to their existing knowl-
edge structures to make sense of new phenomena or solve a complex problem. For instance, a
learner may understand that a substance can be identifed by its properties and may learn some
new, more advanced properties. More challenging, however, would be learning that new substances
result from the recombination of atoms from previous substances into new substances. However,
this understanding is attainable with appropriate experiences and a need to know. If a learner begins
by understanding, through relevant experiences, that substances are made up of smaller parts that
can break apart and recombine to form new materials, they can build on this knowledge to develop
new ideas if they experience appropriate new and challenging learning experiences. However,
if a learner begins with a knowledge structure that does not have this idea of rearrangement but
instead holds the idea that materials can go in and out of existence, helping this learner develop
a more appropriate understanding will be more challenging. This form of conceptual change is
often referred to as “radical restructuring” or “radical conceptual change” (Keil, 1981; Carey, 1988;
Chi, 1992). Radical restructuring occurs when a learner not only needs to add new concepts to
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her current knowledge structure but when existing concepts change their meaning in fundamental
ways. Hence, a critical issue in supporting learning across the life span is what constitutes radical
restructuring – and how to bring about such changes. LPs describe conceptual change as a devel-
opmental process. The LP level is not adding one more idea but seeing the phenomena from a new
perspective (e.g., frst level: volume or mass [external properties], next level: density or melting/
boiling points [unique characteristics]). However, supporting learners from the beginning to have
appropriate understandings in which to attach new ideas is an easier path than knowledge restruc-
turing when ideas do not conform to scientifc thinking. Developing appropriate understanding at
earlier ages provides a solid rationale for why learners need to experience science at the elementary
level. Elementary teachers need to support students in building appropriate building blocks of sci-
ence ideas so that ideas build on solid knowledge structures so that learners do not need to restruc-
ture their ideas in later grades.
Mechanisms of Conceptual Change

Indeed, radical restructuring is a more challenging mechanism. If we can help learners build more
appropriate knowledge structures early on in their life spans, through meaningful experiences and
educational opportunities, much more sophisticated understandings can occur across numerous indi-
viduals. Suppose the science education community can develop LPs from the early years forward for
challenging concepts like energy, the structure and properties of matter, and evolution. In that case,
more individuals from various ethnic and socioeconomic groups across the globe will have deeper
and more usable knowledge of science that will promote equity in education. Of course, individuals
will still take diferent pathways, but we can make progress if a wide range of learners is developing
more usable knowledge at an early age. By providing a wide range of children opportunities to
learn challenging scientifc ideas, more children will develop appropriate ideas that will allow them
to develop sophisticated understanding because their knowledge does not need to be restructured
but instead just added to using relevant experiences. This is the vision promoted by the Framework
for K–12 Science Education and the NGSS to improve science learning (National Research Council,
2012b; National Science Teaching Association, 2019; NGSS Lead States, 2013).
Supporting young learners in building an initial foundation of big ideas related to the fundamen-
tal concepts of science is an essential part of the process of conceptual development (Carey, 1988;
Chi, 1992). If learners can develop a foundation on which big ideas can develop, it is much easier
to support learners to add to and elaborate on their existing knowledge structure than to restruc-
ture and build new knowledge structures. Learners can more readily learn new ideas that ft into
existing knowledge structures if they have structures developed from rich and appropriate experi-
ences. Developing learning environments that provide learners with opportunities to revisit critical
ideas (diSessa & Minstrell, 1998; Minstrell, 1984; Minstrell & Kraus, 2005), elaborate on these ideas
(Clark & Linn, 2003), and use them across years (Arzi, 1988) promotes the development of strong
knowledge structures that learners can use in new situations.
At times, learners need to restructure their knowledge to make a more thorough and sophis-
ticated sense of phenomena or problems. When learners need to restructure rather than add new
information to existing structures, the situation is more challenging. To reorganize their knowledge
structure, the learner needs to have critical experiences on which to anchor ideas, and they need to
make connections to other related ideas. Appropriate learning experiences that build coherently over
time are crucial to support this change (Fortus & Krajcik, 2012). But even learners with appropriate
knowledge structures often need to undergo some form of restructuring when new problems, new
information, or new evidence arise. As such, conceptual change usually requires learners to imagine
new and alternative ways of structuring problems (Strike & Posner, 1985; Inagaki & Hatano, 2002;
Carey, 1999). For instance, when a learner is trying to understand why they feel sick when they
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overeat, deeper levels of understanding occur when he comes to realize that the human body consists
of systems that communicate with each other and that these systems are made up of even smaller,
microscopic entities that work together.
Factors Infuencing Conceptual Change

Several key factors are essential to promoting conceptual change. These include prior knowl-
edge, curriculum coherence, meaningful and engaging contexts, development over time, and self-
refection. Next, each of these factors is briefy discussed.
Prior knowledge is key to building integrated understanding (i.e., appropriate knowledge struc-
tures). Learning occurs when an individual links new ideas to prior knowledge and experiences.
This process occurs regardless of the “appropriateness” of the original ideas. This is why it is so
critical to ensure that children have appropriate learning experiences from a young age and build
a foundation on which to link new ideas. Failure to use initial ideas leads to knowledge that
is fragmented and disconnected. Research has shown that a learner cannot use such superfcial,
fragmented knowledge (i.e., knowledge-in-pieces) for problem solving, explaining their world, or
future learning (Bransford et al., 2000). Children entering school already have substantial knowl-
edge of the natural world. But the resources that learners bring must be built further to develop
their understanding of the fundamental ideas and practices of science. Some areas of knowledge may
provide more robust foundations to build on than others because they appear very early and have
some universal characteristics across cultures and worldwide. This is why constructive play is so vital
in the early years of a child’s development. For example, having a child experience that seeds grow
with sufcient and appropriate sunlight and water is critical to supporting their learning about fac-
tors that infuence the growth of plants.
Coherent curriculum materials are a critical factor for successful student learning. To be coherent,
curriculum materials must develop a set of ideas, topics, and skills within a discipline, that progress
from relatively simple to more complex and that explicitly support the learner to make connec-
tions (Fortus & Krajcik, 2012; Schmidt et al., 2005; Roseman et al., 2008). In their seminal work,
Kesidou and Roseman (2002) demonstrate that most textbooks in the United States deal with very
broad topics, do not focus on age-appropriate learning goals, and do not systematically build ideas
across time. Although curriculum designers and researchers since the release of the NGSS in 2013
have made progress on developing more appropriate materials, more work needs to occur. Schmidt
et al. (2005) found that curriculum coherence was the most dominant predictor of student achieve-
ment. Moreover, Fortus and Krajcik (2012) argue that mere coverage of material (i.e., scientifc
ideas) does not lead to learners building conceptual, integrated knowledge structures; instead, learn-
ers need to experience science in meaningful contexts in which they have opportunities to link
ideas to experiences.
Meaningful contexts support learners in developing deeper understanding by placing them in situa-
tions that will cognitively involve them in (1) the exploration of phenomena and (2) solving everyday
problems that spark a need to know (Bransford et al., 2000). Research shows that the most efective
learning occurs when learners actively use their understanding by working with and using ideas in
real-world contexts that they fnd meaningful (Blumenfeld et al., 1991; National Academies of Sci-
ences, E. & Medicine, 2018; National Research Council, 2007). Although some individuals can
learn about water quality by reading about it, most learners need to observe the impact of water qual-
ity on organisms, collect water quality data to determine the water quality, and examine how humans
have impacted water quality. These frsthand experiences provide learners with contexts in which
they can link new ideas, helping to build their conceptual network. Many school districts that reside
in older and poor urban areas provide environments to study water quality because the infrastructure
to deliver clean water is outdated.
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Learning over time is a key to developing deep understanding, particularly of challenging ideas,
because these take time to build and require diferent experiences; moreover, the understanding must
gradually develop as learners solve challenging problems and make sense of compelling phenomena.
If we want learners to develop sophisticated ideas (e.g., biological evolution), then we need to intro-
duce these ideas at an early age and continue to build understanding across grade levels. For example,
learners at an early age need to experience that organisms have particular needs and that if not met,
the species will either die or adapt to the new conditions.
Self-refection, the ability to refect on one’s learning, is a critical factor in conceptual change.
Scholars organize self-refection into three components (Weissberg et al., 2015; Patti et al., 2015).
First, self-refection involves students’ ability to consider personal and academic experiences to make
sense of situations. Second, self-refection might help a person decide whether there is sufcient
evidence to support a claim; it may also aid students in articulating their goals and aspirations. This
might include expressing a plan for developing an investigation to show how one variable impacts
another. Lastly, self-refection involves careful contemplation of one’s emotions; here, a learner might
know that they do not learn well under pressure. Learning environments can help support self-
refection by including tasks that ask learners to make decisions about whether they have sufcient,
appropriate evidence to support a claim. Overall, self-refection helps learners decide what they must
do to build a model, use evidence to support an argument, or design an investigation. These tasks are
critical to support knowledge building.
A History of Learning Progressions

In this section, we discuss the history of LPs to understand how and why LPs were initiated and how
they evolved and examine the research fndings associated with LPs.
LPs were initiated and guided by the vision of No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002) and Systems
for State Science Assessment (National Research Council, 2006) to improve student learning across
gender, race, ethnicity, and income level. The underlying principles of LPs focus on the importance
of long-term changes in students’ integrated knowledge and thinking about and with the big ideas
of science. Taking Science to School (National Research Council, 2007) focused on LP development
with a science-as-practice framework by emphasizing applying big ideas alongside scientifc prac-
tices. A Framework for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012b) further stresses the
importance of students developing knowledge they can use to make sense of phenomena and solve
problems.
No Child Left Behind Act

The inequities in science education worldwide have received critical attention over the last several
decades, with recent global challenges only exacerbating the situation. For instance, science and
engineering have been driving the economy and well-being of nations; however, the inequities
mentioned earlier are even more evident in 2023, when less-developed nations struggle to provide
vaccinations to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the United States, the NCLB Act of 2001 mandated improving science education by providing
learning opportunities for all students, regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability,
and English-language profciency. The main idea underlying NCLB is that, while “individual difer-
ences” exist and learners develop understanding in diferent ways (e.g., visual, verbal, and psychomo-
tor) and at diferent rates, every student needs equal opportunities and resources to develop deep,
usable knowledge of science; moreover, this must happen through meaningful experiences in a range
of learning contexts (National Research Council, 1999). Exploring how learners develop ideas across
time is critical to realizing this vision.
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Atlas for Science Literacy

In response to NCLB, Project 2061 (American Association of the Advancement of Science, 2001),
took a giant step forward in providing a structure for developing science ideas across time. Based on
the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993), the
Atlas for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2007) presents con-
ceptual maps of the domains of science knowledge and how this knowledge should develop across
time. The conceptual maps show how the key ideas developed across time and the connections
among these ideas within and across domains. The maps provide a thoughtful examination of how
ideas develop based primarily on the structure of the discipline. However, while these conceptual
maps pushed the feld forward in thinking about how fundamental ideas can develop over time, they
did not consider the literature on student learning. Moreover, the maps are based primarily on the
structure of expert knowledge rather than evidence-based research fndings on how K–12 students
develop ideas using well-developed, principled, and research-based curriculum materials, as these
materials were not developed at this time. Even so, the work of Project 2061 and the Atlas for Science
Literacy provide important work in helping the feld think of how students’ ideas develop over time
to become more sophisticated.
Systems for State Science Assessment

The NCLB Act required science standards that could measure students’ knowledge, considering indi-
vidual diferences across a wide range of students. Furthermore, NCLB mandated that states express
standards in a coherent manner and specify how students’ knowledge and skills should develop
throughout instruction. Systems for State Science Assessments (SSSA) (National Research Council,
2006) provided guidance to state departments of education on what should be measured and how to
measure it at the state level. One critical piece of advice they ofered was that assessment tasks needed
to move beyond using the verbs “to know” and “to understand” – instead, tasks needed to use verbs
that would require learners to demonstrate their knowledge in terms of performance. In addition to this
guidance, SSSA introduced the idea of LPs as “descriptions of successively more sophisticated ways of
thinking (or moving towards more expert understanding) about an idea”. To further explore the use
of LPs, the SSSA committee commissioned Smith and her colleagues to develop a LP of the atomic-
molecular theory across K–8 (Smith et al., 2006) and Lehrer’s research team to create a LP for evolution
(Catley et al., 2005). These two groups also included example assessment tasks. SSSA and the seminal
work of these two research groups led to the initial design principles for LPs in K–12 science education.
Taking Science to School

To respond to the vision of NCLB and the seminal ideas of SSSA, Taking Science to School (National
Research Council, 2007) proposed the science-as-practice framework, which contains three key learn-
ing processes: (1) obtaining ideas, (2) building meaningful knowledge structures by incorporating
these ideas, and (3) applying these knowledge structures using scientifc practices (e.g., explaining,
interpreting, constructing, investigating, arguing, or modeling). The science-as-practice framework
theorized that learners would develop deep, usable understanding of science by using scientifc ideas
in a similar manner as that of scientists and practices (Gotwals & Songer, 2006; Songer et al., 2009b).
This framework, supported by research from the learning science community, highlights the value
of teaching and learning scientifc content integrated with scientifc practices (Fortus et al., 2015;
Krajcik et al., 2008). NCLB did not argue to assess content and practices together; however, it did
state that, to learn science, students must use ideas and practices in concert when involved in scien-
tifc tasks (Gotwals & Songer, 2006).
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Based on the science-as-practice framework, LPs serve as “descriptions of the successively more
sophisticated ways of thinking about a topic that can follow one another as children learn about and
investigate a topic over a broad span of time (e.g., 6 to 8 years)”. The authors of Taking Science to School
emphasized that LPs depend on instruction and learning opportunities. Since appropriate instruc-
tion, curricula, and assessments are essential, science education needs a reasonable set of learning
goals that integrate scientifc ideas with practices to support student learning in science. Such LPs are
a promising direction for organizing science instruction, curricula, and assessment. To illustrate this
promise, Songer and colleagues (Songer et al., 2009a) developed a LP by integrating scientifc ideas
in the biological sciences (biodiversity) and scientifc practices (constructing science explanations)
(Gotwals et al., 2012; Songer et al., 2009a).
Framework for K–12 Science Education and NGSS

The Framework for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012b) articulates the
three dimensions of scientifc knowledge needed for learners to explain compelling phenomena
and solve complex problems. Building on the work of Project 2061 (American Association for
the Advancement of Science, 2001), SSSA (National Research Council, 2006), and Taking Science
to School (National Research Council, 2007), the Framework proposed three-dimensional learn-
ing, which integrates the use of disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), crosscutting concepts (CCCs),
and scientifc and engineering practices (SEPs) across grades to make sense of phenomena and
solve problems. The Framework specifes big ideas by identifying DCIs and CCCs as separate
dimensions. DCIs are the fundamental ideas within a discipline that have broad importance
within or across disciplines for explaining and investigating a wide range of phenomena and solv-
ing complex real-world problems (Duncan et al., 2017). For example, energy is a DCI, as it is
needed to explain various phenomena, from plant growth to the damage caused by the collision
of two vehicles. Gene-environment interactions is a DCI in life science. This idea is necessary
for understanding many phenomena related to the traits organisms develop from interacting with
their environments.
CCCs are important ideas (National Research Council, 2012b; NGSS Lead States, 2013; Nor-
dine & Lee, 2021) that have application across all science disciplines (e.g., physical and life sciences)
but are not specifc to any one discipline. CCCs include cause and efect, patterns, structure, func-
tion, and stability and change. However, while CCCs are not discipline-specifc, they are big ideas
of science and are essential to making sense of phenomena and solving problems. This means asking
questions like: What could be causing that phenomenon? What patterns do I notice in the data?
What is it about the structure of the animal that causes it to run so swiftly? How does the structure
of a molecule give it its properties? The CCCs thus serve as tools for connecting diferent disciplines,
as well as a unique lens through which to explore phenomena.
When scientists take part in inquiry, they use a series of practices to explore the question they
have about the natural world. These scientifc practices are how scientists and engineers make sense
of phenomena or solve problems. SEPs include using evidence to support claims, asking questions,
constructing models, and designing and carrying out investigations (Schwarz et al., 2017).
Though each dimension matters, a central argument of the Framework is that profciency is dem-
onstrated through performances that require learners to make sense of phenomena or solve com-
plex problems using the integration of all three dimensions of scientifc knowledge. The Framework
elaborates on what students should know about each DCI at the end of each grade band: K–2,
3–5, 6–8, and 9–12. The Framework also described how to put together these ideas to form a set of
performance-based standards that integrates all three dimensions across the grade levels. The Frame-
work, in its use of a LP approach, thus supports a coherent guide for organizing and aligning scientifc
content, instruction, and assessment.
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Based on the Framework, NGSS developed a set of standards integrating the three dimensions that
build across the K–2, 3–5, 6–8, and 9–12 grade levels. At the K–2 and 3–5 levels, the standards were
written to be grade specifc (i.e., grade level), while at the 6–8 and 9–12 levels, the standards were
written for applicability across the grade band. The NGSS specifed what students should know
and be able to do for each grade level, K–5, and for each grade band, 6–8 and 9–12. By combining
the three dimensions, these standards are expressed as performance expectations, i.e., learning goals
expressed as performances by integrating a SEP, DCI, and CCC. The NGSS developed LPs for each
DCI, SEP, and CCC. Each LP, in turn, describes how understanding within a single DCI, SEP, and
CCC can develop over time; moreover, they each specify how students should be able to use their
knowledge at various grade levels.3 The NGSS performance expectations provide opportunities for
students to develop conceptual understanding of a relatively small set of DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs
across grades, in which ideas increase in sophistication.
Performance expectations for K–12 students move beyond developing standards in vague terms,
such as “to know” and “to understand”, to more specifc expressions that include performances like
“build a model”, “develop an explanation”, or “ask a question”, integrated with aspects of DCIs and
CCCs. Since the release of the NGSS in 2013, 48 states and the District of Columbia have adopted
or adapted the standards. A substantial proportion of the US student population needs to develop
profciency in these performance standards.4
The Framework and NGSS describe LPs as roadmaps to guide the development of coherent cur-
riculum materials, assessments, and instructional approaches to develop usable knowledge (National
Research Council, 2012b). To understand the status of LP research and help direct future LP research,
we review the LP literature in science education.
Research Studies About Learning Progressions

Research in science education and the learning sciences provides promising evidence for using LPs
to promote teaching and learning in science education. We review LP research in four categories:
the big ideas of science, scientifc practices, curriculum materials and instruction, and assessment
and measurement. The main goal of our review is twofold: frst, to explore the gaps between learn-
ing theories and LP research in K–12 science education and, second, to propose future directions
for a comprehensive LP research agenda to reduce those gaps. Here, the aim is to support learning
deep, usable knowledge for all students. In this section, we discuss the literature that has guided the
development of LPs. As a complete review of the literature on LP research is beyond the scope of
this chapter, we summarize some of the research that has impacted the feld. Table 5.1 contains a
summary of the studies.
Big Ideas
Physical Science Research

Several research groups have focused on developing LPs about the particle nature of matter for K–12
(Johnson, 1998; Smith et al., 2006; Stevens et al., 2010). Cooper and colleagues (2012) designed
and studied LPs for introductory college chemistry, and Morell and colleagues (2017) and Talanquer
(2009) developed a LP for atomic-molecular structures. Stevens and colleagues (2010) developed a
LP for the nature of matter that explores the growth of grade 7–14 (sophomores in college) learn-
ers’ understanding of the structure, behavior, and properties of matter in the context of nanoscale
science and engineering. Stevens and colleagues also emphasized that a LP describes how learners
incorporate and connect ideas within and across domains (e.g., atomic structure and the electrical
forces at the nano, molecular, and atomic scales) to explain a broad range of phenomena. Cooper
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Table 5.1 Summary of the Studies in Learning Progression Research
Content Authors
One Dimension: DCIs, SEPs, or CCCs

Physical sciences
Energy Lee & Liu, 2010 (M); Neumann et al., 2013 (6th, 8th, and 10th); Fortus
et al., 2015 (M)
Forces and motion Alonzo & Steedle, 2009 (K–12)
Matter, atomic-molecular Corcoran et al., 2009 (K–12);Cooper et al., 2012 (C); Johnson, 1998
theory (ages 11–14, M); Margel et al., 2008 (H); Merritt, 2010 (M); Merritt &
Krajcik, 2013 (M); Smith et al., 2006 (K–12); Stevens et al., 2010 (K–16);
Morell et al., 2017 (M); Talanquer, 2009 (K–16)
Life sciences
Evolution Catley et al, 2005 (K–12)
Environmental literacy Mohan et al., 2009 (4th–12th)
Carbon cycling Jin et al., 2012 (K–12): Mohan et al., 2009 (E)
Genetics Duncan et al., 2009 (5th–10th)
Earth and space sciences
Celestial motion, seasons Plummer et al., 2010 (10–11-year-olds: E); Plummer et al., 2014 (8th)
Water Gunckel et al., 2012 (K–12)
Science practices
Argumentation Berland & McNeill, 2010 (K–12); Osborne et al., 2016 (6th–8th)
Scientifc explanations Gotwals et al., 2013 (4th–6th)
Modeling Schwarz et al., 2009 (5th and 6th)
Multi-Dimensions
Physical sciences Kaldaras et al, 2021a & 2021b (H): DCI – Electrical Interaction, SEP –
Modeling, explanation, CCCs – Cause and efect, structure, and function
He et al., 2020 & 2021 (M): DCI-Energy, SEP – Varies (mainly
modeling), CCCs – Varies (mainly energy and matter, and system and
system models)
Life sciences Gotwals et al, 2006 (6th): DCI – Biodiversity SEP – Science explanation
Songer et al., 2009 (6th): DCI – Biodiversity SEP – Reasoning
Interdisciplines Anderson et al., 2020, (M, H): DCIs – Transformations in Matter and
Energy, SEP-Varies, CCCs – Varies
Curriculum and Instruction
Physical sciences Cooper et al., 2012 (C); Fortus et al., 2012 (M), 2015 (6th–8th); Krajcik
et al., 2009, 2012 (6th–8th); Margel et al., 2008 (H); Merritt et al., 2008,
2010, 2013 (6th–8th); Schwarz et al., 2009 (5th and 6th); Wiser et al.,
2012 (E)
Life sciences Jin et al., 2012 (K–12)
Earth sciences Plummer et al., 2010 (10–11-year-olds: E); Plummer et al., 2014 (8th)
Assessment
Physical sciences Cooper et al., 2012 (C); Lee & Liu, 2010 (M); Smith et al., 2006 (K-12);
Shin et al., 2019 (6th–8th); Neumann et al., 2013 (6th, 8th, and 10th)
Life sciences Jin et al., 2012 (K–12); Gotwals et al., 2012 (6th)
Measurement
Physical sciences Alonzo et al., 2009 (K–12); Briggs et al., 2006; Morell et al., 2017 (M);
Steedle et al., 2009; Wilson, 2009
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and colleagues (2012) extended the learning progress in this area into higher education; their LP on
molecular structure and properties included assessments and was validated using a control/treatment
group comparisons study.
Other research teams developed LPs in the area of energy (Lee & Liu, 2010; Fortus et al., 2015).
Neumann and colleagues (2013) developed and tested a LP for basic energy ideas for grades 6, 8,
and 10. They provide evidence that sixth grade learners can build an understanding of energy forms
and energy sources; by the eighth grade, learners show understanding of energy transfer and trans-
formation, and by the tenth grade, some learners demonstrate understanding of energy conservation.
Alonzo and Steedle (2009) used an iterative process to develop a LP for forces and motion with cor-
responding assessment tasks.
Life Sciences Research

Duncan and colleagues (2009) developed a LP for modern genetics for grades 5–10. Their approach
follows the view that LPs are grounded in research on student learning in the domain and organized
around big ideas (National Research Council, 2007). Duncan and colleagues (2009) identifed eight
big ideas in genetics. They described how these develop across grade bands based on research on stu-
dent thinking and learning in genetics, a content analysis of modern genetics, and the National Sci-
ence Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996). They unpacked this information to
develop performance-based learning goals5 and assessments aligned with their LP. Performance-based
learning goals, developed by combining scientifc practices with big ideas, guide the development
of assessment items by specifying the type of performances or products students should produce to
demonstrate profciency at each level in the LP (Harris et al., 2019b; Krajcik et al., 2008).
Mohan and colleagues (Mohan et al., 2009) developed and empirically tested a LP for carbon
cycling in socio-ecological systems for upper elementary through high school. They used design-
based research by revising their LP using cross-sectional data from students at diferent grade levels
in three diferent locations. Their approach was iterative and included developing a hypothetical LP
and associated assessments, revising the initial LP based on the results of the assessments, and revis-
ing or developing new assessments. For the latter, they constructed three criteria to guide them: (1)
conceptual coherence – depicting a comprehensive progression from naive to mastery understanding
in a domain; (2) compatibility with current research – focusing on using research fndings and theo-
ries about student learning to develop the LP; and (3) empirical criteria – validating the LP using
data gathered from students in classrooms. Jin and colleagues and Mohan and her research team also
developed LPs for carbon cycling and the fow of energy in socio-ecological systems (Jin & Ander-
son, 2012; Mohan et al., 2009). Finally, Catley et al. (2005) developed a LP on evolution in K–12,
as described in the section on SSSA.
Earth and Space Science Research

Plummer and her colleagues developed a LP on core ideas in earth and space science – e.g., for
celestial motion (Plummer & Krajcik, 2010) and the seasons (Plummer & Maynard, 2014) – based
on student interviews across grades. The authors analyzed the content of the domain and applied
prior research to identify the endpoint of the LP. They specify low and intermediate concepts of the
LP based on the results of the student interviews. The LP was used to develop assessments and track
students’ understanding of celestial motion before and after an intervention. Gunckel and colleagues
(2012) investigated elementary, middle, and high school students’ accounts of water in environ-
mental systems to develop a LP for water in environmental systems. They explored students’ ideas
of water and substances in water moving through the atmospheric, surface, and soil/groundwater
systems, including human-engineered components of these systems. Through an iterative process of
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analyzing assessments, the results of students’ interpretations, and a model of student development,
they identifed four levels of student reasoning about water in environmental systems.
Scientifc Practices
Other research groups focused on the design of LPs for scientifc practices. Schwarz and col-
leagues (Schwarz et al., 2009) developed a LP that took into consideration two aspects of scien-
tifc modeling: modeling as a scientifc practice (e.g., models as generative tools for predicting
and explaining) and metamodeling knowledge (e.g., models change as understanding improves
with the use of new evidence). The authors illustrate possible paths and characterize students’
models within their LP by providing examples collected from ffth and sixth grade students in
six-week science units.
Berland and McNeill (2010) developed a LP that focused on argumentation in science. The
authors used the LP to design assessments to gather student understanding of the ideas and conduct
interviews to test and refne the LP. They also used the LP to characterize students’ arguments col-
lected from four classroom settings across grade levels. Osborne and colleagues (2016) developed a
LP of argumentation in science at the middle school level. Their LP has three components: claim,
evidence, and warrants. They argue that, given the centrality of argumentation in the NGSS (NGSS
Lead States, 2013), there is an urgent need for an empirically validated LP of this practice and the
development of high-quality assessment items. As such, the authors provide validity evidence for
their LP based on large-scale testing and analysis using item response theory.
Multi-Dimensions
The examples of LPs described earlier focused on developing single dimensions (either big ideas
or practices) rather than incorporating the three dimensions of scientifc knowledge as an inte-
grated whole. Songer and colleagues were the frst research group to develop and explore a multi-
dimensional LP. They developed a LP for biodiversity with the practice of scientifc explanation
targeting sixth graders (Gotwals et al., 2012; Songer et al., 2009a) prior to the publication of the
NGSS. Some recent work by Kaldaras and colleagues (2021a) explores the development of three-
dimensional LP. Kaldaras and colleagues developed and validated a LP with the following three
dimensions of scientifc knowledge: (1) DCIs – electric interactions and energy; (2) SEPs – modeling
and explanation; and (3) CCCs – patterns and systems and system models. They argue that a three-
dimensional LP can be used as a “ruler” to measure how much knowledge a given student or group
of students know and can do with the knowledge and what supports are required to help them attain
higher levels of understanding. Anderson, working with the Carbon: Transformations in Matter
and Energy (Carbon: TIME) team,6 used design-based implementation research to develop a three-
dimensional LP for middle and high school classrooms (2020). This LP focuses on carbon cycling
at various scales. Although researchers are conducting important work in this area, more research is
needed in developing, testing, and using three-dimensional LPs.
Curriculum Materials and Instruction

There is promising evidence on using LP research to promote teaching and learning in science
education (Duncan et al., 2009; Krajcik et al., 2009; Margel et al., 2008; Merritt, 2010; Merritt &
Krajcik, 2013). Prior to LPs as an important area of research in science education, Johnson (1998)
applied the idea to support learners’ understanding of a “basic” particle theory of matter using a
three-year longitudinal study of students aged 11–14. His results show that students move from
one level to the next but at times fall between two levels (however, not in a linear manner). Since
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then, curriculum developers have used a LP approach and research to develop materials that provide
opportunities for learners to progress to deeper, more usable levels of understanding over an instruc-
tional period – e.g., the Inquiry Project (Wiser et al., 2012) and Investigating and Questioning our
World through Science and Technology (IQWST, Krajcik et al., 2009).
Wiser and her colleagues (2012) designed curriculum materials (the Inquiry Project) for the
elementary grades based on a LP for matter developed by Smith and colleagues (Smith et al., 2006);
Wiser and her team implemented the curriculum materials and monitored students’ understanding in
two schools over a three-year span. Krajcik and colleagues (2012) designed and tested middle school
curricula (IQWST) that focus on big ideas and scientifc practices developing through the middle
grades to support learning interconnected knowledge structures of big ideas and scientifc practices
over time using prior experiences. The approach focuses on comprehensively developing LP levels
by unpacking a big idea into key subconcepts and relevant scientifc practices. Their LP – associated
assessments, guided by learning goals expressed as performances, specifed what students need to
do to demonstrate their understanding (i.e., evidence for students meeting a performance learning
goal) (Harris et al., 2019a; Krajcik et al., 2008). Design-based research was employed to iteratively
develop instructional materials by tracking 3,000 students’ performances through middle school in
four states. Their fndings suggest that curriculum coherence around LPs helps students develop deep
understanding of core ideas.
Fortus and Krajcik (2012) developed principles and guidelines based on LP research for develop-
ing coherent curriculum materials. They emphasized four coherences: (1) content standards coher-
ence to support deep, interconnected understanding of concepts in a domain; (2) learning goal
coherence to support deep understanding over time; (3) intra-unit coherence for alignment among
learning goals, scientifc practices, and learning and assessment tasks; and 4) inter-unit coherence
for coordinating larger sets of the intra-unit coherence (multiple domains and practices) within and
across years. Fortus and colleagues (2015) examined the contribution of inter-unit coherence of
energy in the IQWST materials to promote learning of this idea over time. The designers interwove
the concept of energy in six diferent IQWST units. Their results provide evidence that inter-unit
coherence of the units enables students to develop deeper understanding of energy. They argue that
the deeper usage of the energy concept that resulted from repeated exposures across years rather than
weeks allowed learners to build prior knowledge necessary for additional learning. This inter-unit
coherence allowed revisiting ideas and experiencing new phenomena that required the use of more
sophisticated ideas of energy in new contexts. Authors also suggest that professional learning for
teachers needs to align with the coherent features of the curriculum materials; in this way, teachers
can learn how to teach in a developmental manner.
Cooper and colleagues (2012) developed and monitored a LP for the molecular structures of
matter and their properties (Lewis structures and the connections among structure and properties)
for college students, over one year of instruction. They developed curriculum materials to promote
robust learning of Lewis structures based on the LP perspective and explored the efect on student
learning using control and treatment groups over two semesters.
Although the previous studies show promise, the LPs discussed focus on only one or two dimen-
sions, instead of integrating the three dimensions of scientifc knowledge.
Assessment and Measurement

Learning progressions require validated and reliable assessment tasks to place students on the
learning progression. Such information is valuable because it provides teachers and students
with what students know and what teachers need to do to move students to the next level on
the learning progression. Some scholars have used LP research to develop assessments to trace
developmental growth in a domain, such as carbon-transforming processes in socio-ecological
137
systems (Jin & Anderson, 2012) and constructing scientifc explanations (Gotwals et al., 2012).
Shin and her research team (2019) developed assessment items using a LP framework to track how
students move toward deep understanding of chemistry core ideas over time. They followed 1,225
middle school students from sixth through eighth grade in four states to explore the efects of coher-
ent curriculum materials. They found that students who used coherent curriculum materials that
aligned learning goals of the curriculum, instruction, and assessment developed from LP research
outperformed students who used traditional curriculum materials.
Other researchers have proposed measurement models to empirically test and validate LPs: for
example, a Bayesian network approach (West et al., 2012) and the Psychometric Modeling of
Ordered Multiple-Choice (OMC) items (Briggs et al., 2006; Alonzo & Steedle, 2009). The latter
approach uses progressive levels of understanding concepts rather than one correct response among
four choices in a test item (Briggs et al., 2006). Briggs and colleagues developed OMC items asso-
ciated with their LP for Earth in the Solar System. Alonzo and Steedle (2009) developed OMC
items along with their forces and motion LP; they found that OMC items appear to provide more
accurate assessments of students’ level of performance based on the LP – and elicit more valid stu-
dents’ ideas.
Steedle and Shavelson (2009) used LPs as a framework to guide the development of assessments
to characterize students’ level and nature of understanding in a domain. The foundation of this study
was to explore a systematic approach for empirically testing a LP using students’ observable products.
They argued that allocating students’ understanding in a certain level along a LP requires that stu-
dents consistently express the ideas associated with one specifc LP level. In their approach, the LP
levels serve as a rubric for tracing students’ progress toward more sophisticated understanding. They
employed OMC items and latent class analysis to investigate whether patterns of students’ responses
to the items provide valid evidence for assigning them to LP levels. Their results suggest that it is
not feasible to develop valid LPs that describe the paths and levels of how students develop within a
domain. However, these ideas require further research to validate LPs empirically.
Wilson (2009) describes a measurement approach (the BEAR Assessment System) to assign and
monitor student understanding along a LP throughout instruction. His methods follow four prin-
ciples: (1) a developmental perspective – assessing student understanding over time; (2) a match
between instruction and assessment – developing curriculum materials and assessment in a coherent
manner; (3) the generating of quality evidence – providing reliable, valid, fair, consistent, and unbi-
ased assessments; and (4) management by teachers – providing useful information to judge students’
level of understanding and to prepare appropriate, timely feedback. While Wilson and his colleagues
have published numerous manuscripts on LP research and have made many contributions to the
design and validation of LPs, Wilson’s most signifcant contribution is the idea of a ConstructMap.
A ConstructMap is a graphical, menu-driven software package that uses a multidimensional item
response theory engine to estimate item and person variables; it also includes tools to manage cross-
sectional and longitudinal student response data and interpret fndings. Morell and colleagues (2017)
illustrate Wilson’s methodology using the ConstructMap approach and multidimensional Rasch
model for investigating the progression of how middle grade students understand the structure of
matter.
Our Views on Learning Progressions

Based on our review of selected LP-related learning theories and research in K–12 education, we
elaborate next on our conceptual background of learning, views on LP, and outline how to develop
and validate a LP. Specifcally, we describe how our approach to designing and studying LPs incor-
porates the learning theories to support students in creating deep, usable knowledge.
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Conceptual Background of Learning
The Three Dimensions of Scientifc Knowledge

To support learners in developing deep, usable knowledge, we need to know what students need
to learn and how to support them in learning those ideas. Science is more than just a compilation
of facts. Scientifc knowledge is organized around three dimensions: disciplinary core ideas (DCIs),
scientifc and engineering practices (SEPs), and crosscutting concepts (CCCs). To learn science, stu-
dents of all ages need sustained efort and focus. They also need appropriate instruction to help them
develop deep, usable knowledge centered on DCIs, CCCs, and SEPs across time. Learning science
is a complex, challenging, and multifaceted efort because developing sophisticated knowledge in
one area of science requires an in-depth understanding of other areas. For instance, photosynthesis
and respiration are typically considered DCIs of the biological sciences, but to understand these
two reciprocal processes, one needs to understand the structure and function of matter and energy
transfer.
Developing a usable understanding of scientifc ideas is inextricably linked to the context in
which the learner develops that understanding (National Research Council, 2007, 2012b). As such,
to support learners in developing usable knowledge, it is essential to link SEPs with the DCIs and
CCCs for instructional and assessment purposes. Just as science is a body of knowledge and the
process whereby that body of knowledge develops, the learning of science is similar. One cannot
learn scientifc ideas without using scientifc practices, and the reverse also holds: one cannot learn
scientifc practices separate from scientifc ideas. To support learners in developing deep, usable
knowledge, they need to engage with scientifc ideas and scientifc practices; if we want students to
learn scientifc practices, they must use them alongside scientifc ideas to make sense of phenomena.
In other words, individuals need to use all three dimensions to make sense of phenomena or solve
problems. In the Framework for K–12 Science Education, the integration of the three dimensions (DCIs,
CCCs, and SEPs) is referred to as three-dimensional learning. Just as a rope becomes stronger when
individual strands are braided together, when SEPs, DCIs, and CCCs are integrated, learners can use
that knowledge to solve problems, make decisions, think innovatively, make sense of phenomena,
and learn more when needed.
Introducing Big Ideas Over Time

Learning big ideas requires introducing them to students over time, from early grades through col-
lege. Because of their importance to various domains of science, DCIs need to be taught across
grade levels and subjects (e.g., biology, physics, chemistry, and earth science) with increased depth
and sophistication (National Research Council, 2013). Learning challenging big ideas takes time,
as learners grapple with making sense of complex phenomena or problems. As students progress
in their learning, how they explain phenomena changes and advances (e.g., how plants use energy
from the sun for growth, the transfer of energy when two objects collide, and how the body makes
use of energy to sustain life and repair). The study of energy might begin by exploring how moving
objects, which children can see, can transfer energy in a collision; it might then advance to more
microscopic-based and mechanistic explanations as a learner advances to explain phenomena like
energy transfer in chemical reactions.
For example, science ideas like balanced and unbalanced forces are quite challenging for students
and for teachers trying to support all their students in learning these ideas. The NGSS has balanced
and unbalanced forces as a performance expectation at the third grade level. Students at the third
grade level are, therefore, expected to develop competency in the following learning performance:
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“Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence of the efects of balanced and unbalanced
forces on the motion of an object.” In elementary school, this is not the frst time children experience
ideas related to force and motion. In the K–2 range, children engage in learning the idea of force as a
push and a pull. The performance expectation reads: “Analyze data to determine if a design solution
works as intended to change the speed or direction of an object with a push or a pull.” A beginning
idea is thus introduced and is further developed in the third to ffth grade range. Balanced and unbal-
anced forces causing an object to start, stop, slow down, or change direction is a challenging idea for
many third graders – and even for adults.
At the middle school level, students delve deeper into understanding forces to develop profcien-
cies in the following middle school performance expectations: “Plan an investigation to provide
evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and
the mass of the object” and “Apply Newton’s third law to design a solution to a problem involving
the motion of two colliding objects”. Notice how the ideas are becoming progressively more sophis-
ticated and challenging from K–2 through middle school. Without their previous experiences and
deep knowledge from the K–5 grades, students in middle school would fnd this idea exceptionally
challenging to learn. However, even in K–2 students can use the ideas of forces and motion to make
sense of phenomena.
At the high school level, the ideas of forces and motion become even more sophisticated as stu-
dents grapple with developing a more quantitative understanding: “Analyze data to support the claim
that Newton’s second law of motion describes the mathematical relationship among the net force on
a macroscopic object, its mass, and its acceleration”. Notice how the ideas develop across the grade
levels, becoming more sophisticated and challenging but allowing learners to build richer explana-
tions of phenomena – such as why a moving object starts and stops.
Features of Three-Dimensional Learning Progressions

Based on the literature, LPs contain four essential features: (1) research-based development; (2) DCIs in
science and three-dimensional integration of DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs; (3) multiple paths; and (4) monitor-
ing developmentally appropriate growth over time. Table 5.2 summarizes how each LP feature relates to
the learning theories we discussed in the theoretical background. We describe each of these features next.
Research-Based Development
LPs should be research (evidence) based. The LP approach is diferent from a conventional approach – the
traditional approach focuses on a series of process skill development by identifying and breaking
into simpler elements of a learning task and providing specifc, associated exercises for students
to practice these skills. For example, in a conventional approach, learners practice making mea-
surements without understanding why they are measuring and how their measurements link to
prior and subsequent tasks. Such instruction results in students carrying out meaningless procedures
(Baroody et al., 2004; Mintzes et al., 1997), in which they ignore fndings on how individuals build
knowledge structures based on meaningful experiences. In contrast, LPs develop by using the results
from extensive research on student learning. The development of LPs should use research fndings
about how learners develop knowledge in science. Researchers can use the experience of teachers
and other classroom experiences to develop LPs when research in science learning is incomplete.
However, further research and development are needed to identify and elaborate the progressions
of learning and instruction that can support students’ understanding of the three dimensions of sci-
entifc knowledge across the various disciplines. As mentioned earlier, LPs can change: as we learn
how to support students in understanding complex ideas and gathering more evidence. Because LPs
coincide with research on supporting learners to build knowledge structures of interrelated scientifc
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Table 5.2 LPs Features With Learning Theories
Learning Theories 3D Learning Progression in Science
3-Dimensional integration
Concepts
Mental representation of abstract ideas LP characterizes learning in terms of sets of related
big ideas, including DCIs and CCCs to develop
more sophisticated understandings to explain
phenomena and solve problems
Cognition
Mental process of connecting new and old ideas LP integrates sets of DCIs and CCCs with SEPs so
through a series of learning experiences by that learners can apply them when they are needed
interacting with and interpreting the world
Multiple paths
Knowledge-in-use, deep learning
The more connections among ideas based on LP delineates progress levels to guide curriculum
prior experience and instruction result in greater and instruction development to support an
integrated understanding and deeper and more individual constructing deeper understanding
usable knowledge to apply in novel situation following various paths – as opposed to progress
along a single path
Monitor developmentally appropriate growth over time
Knowledge build across time
Concepts and knowledge structures evolve over LP introduces DCIs and CCCs to learners from
time as learners experience more situations and early grades through college for developing
problems knowledge-in-use of science ideas over time with
various experiences
Radical conceptual change
Radical conceptual change occurs when learners LP describes critical conceptual change as a
not only need to add new concepts to their current developmental process. The LP level is not adding
knowledge structure, but when existing concepts one more idea but seeing the phenomena in a new
change their meaning in fundamental ways perspective. Each level describes a qualitatively
diferent level of understanding
concepts and practices (Mohan et al., 2009), LPs represent a promising direction for organizing sci-
ence instruction, curriculum materials, and professional learning across grade levels for deeper, more
usable understanding.
Multiple Paths
Students can follow more than one path to develop sophisticated understandings. Like the earlier moun-
tain analogy, learners can take diferent paths to learn ideas, and along the way, just like there are
beautiful views, reaching new levels allow learners to explain more phenomena. LPs are not context-
free, rote descriptions of learning but depend upon experiences and instruction. Because they depend
upon instruction, learners can take diferent paths in developing disciplinary knowledge. In this way,
LPs are diferent from the conventional approach. Many schools have sequencing charts for various
subjects, but these do not focus on the development of big ideas and scientifc practices – nor do they
take a developmental perspective in which ideas and experiences build upon one another across time.
Moreover, LPs can change and develop as we learn more about how to support learners in devel-
oping more sophisticated understandings. This is why professional learning and supporting teachers
in understanding important instructional strategies and fundamental ideas of how learning occurs is
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so critical. Teachers may need to adapt their instruction to align with students’ experiences, interests,
and knowledge in their classroom.
Many factors lead to diferent pathways that individual students might follow as they move from
novice to more sophisticated understanding: these include prior knowledge and experience, cur-
riculum materials, instruction, interests, and daily life (Smith et al., 2006). However, there are some
key ideas that all students need to understand so that deeper understanding can develop from them.
For instance, students need to understand that properties can identify substances before understand-
ing that substances can interact to form new substances with diferent properties. Some learners will
follow some typical paths more often than others. These key ideas and typical paths can provide a
foundation for developing LPs, associated learning materials, and assessment tasks that support stu-
dents’ understanding at each level along the progression. Moreover, developing sophisticated under-
standing is dependent on learners having opportunities to learn. While learners can take many paths,
an instructional-aligned, three-dimensional LP can guide the development of meaningful learning
over time. LPs must also incorporate corresponding assessment items and instructional ideas to move
students to the next level (Davis & Krajcik, 2005). As a feld, however, we know little about how to
develop complex ideas like forces, evolutions, and plate tectonics across grade levels. Some progress
is being made, particularly with the adoption and adaptation of the NGSS in the United States, but
more work across grade levels is needed – especially on how to tailor LPs to learners’ backgrounds,
experiences, and resources.
Monitor Developmentally Appropriate Growth Over Time

LPs depict how students’ knowledge of DCIs, CCCs, and SEPs grows (Lehrer & Schauble, 2015)
over a long period of time (K–16) or across a semester or several weeks. Because LPs focus on com-
plex DCIs essential for understanding the world, they take time to develop. Deep understanding
of complex core ideas – such as evolution, geological time, and the transfer of energy – takes time
and often happens as individuals work on challenging tasks that require them to synthesize and
make connections to ideas related to the tasks. Given the complexity and difculty of understand-
ing DCIs integrated with SEPs and CCCs, such learning occurs over a long period and in multiple
contexts. LPs are developmentally appropriate, as they build over time based on learners’ prior
knowledge and experiences (Lehrer & Schauble, 2015; National Research Council, 2007; Smith
et al., 2006). LPs build from students’ prior knowledge and experiences to move them further in
their understanding.
In sum, LPs should describe how students develop more sophisticated understanding of three-
dimensional knowledge with the integration of DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs over a defned time period.
LPs need to clearly defne what it means to move toward a more advanced understanding of a DCI
using SEPs and CCCs. LPs represent not only how deep knowledge develops but also predict how
students’ knowledge builds over time and how to support that development. Thus, the focus is on
how new ideas build on intermediate understanding of ideas to reach an understanding of the target
DCIs, CCCs, and SEPs (Duncan & Rivet, 2013; National Research Council, 2007). As learn-
ers build knowledge, they may begin with a few simple ideas, but as their understanding becomes
more complex – as new ideas are introduced and integrated with prior knowledge – earlier ideas are
refned (National Academies of Sciences, E. & Medicine, 2018).
Components of Learning Progressions

LPs include four components: (1) upper and lower anchors of LPs; (2) developmental and com-
prehensible levels; (3) description of progress across levels; and (4) aligned curriculum, instruction,
assessment, and professional learning.
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Upper and Lower Anchors of LPs

A LP addresses a clearly defned range of content within a discipline (National Research Council,
2007; Smith et al., 2006; Stevens et al., 2010) from what students should know and be able to do at
the beginning of a LP to what they should know and be able to do at the end. The lower anchor of a
LP describes the prior understanding of the dimensions of scientifc knowledge required for students
to begin to achieve the learning goals set out in the LP. The scope of the LP – which infuences the
prior knowledge and experiences a learner will determine the lower anchor.
The knowledge and skills students are expected to develop by the end of the LP defne the upper
anchor, which relates to three key elements: (1) what learning research has found to be develop-
mentally feasible, (2) established learning goals of science education, and (3) the needs and expecta-
tions of society (Mohan et al., 2009). The upper anchor consists of the predictions of what level of
understanding a student can reach with appropriate instructional opportunities. The physical science
performance expectations (PEs) associated with matter and its interactions from the NGSS at the
middle school level, for instance, can represent the upper anchor of ideas that students should develop
profciency by the end of middle school. The lower anchors stem from the physical science PEs asso-
ciated with matter and its interactions from the elementary grades. The challenging aspect is flling
in the levels in between the lower and upper anchors.
Developmental and Comprehensible Levels

LPs defne developmental and comprehensible steps or levels needed to move toward a more sophis-
ticated understanding of DCIs in the context of SEPs and CCCs. Each level describes a qualitatively
diferent understanding, but that understanding always links to previous levels, creating a path by
which students can progress as they move toward the upper anchor (see Figure 5.1). Learning
research should guide the descriptions of the levels and not necessarily the logic of the discipline.
Learning research should also guide when and how it might be appropriate for students to learn
scientifc ideas and practices (National Research Council, 2007). While some researchers may use
non-canonical ideas in their descriptions of student progress, and students may use less sophisticated
or non-normative ideas as they struggle to understand new ideas, we suggest not including non-
canonical ideas in the LP – unless research reveals that the non-canonical ideas can serve as produc-
tive stepping stones in building more appropriate understandings toward reaching the upper anchor.
Description of Progress Across Levels

LPs represent a potential path that is coherent, developmentally appropriate, and empirically verif-
able by which learners may develop knowledge and scientifc practices and may include multiple
instructional pathways (Shin et al., 2019; Stevens et al., 2010). However, a LP includes not only an
ordered description of how big ideas can develop over time, but also evidence-based accounts of
how students should use and apply that knowledge and instructional components to support students
in their growth and assessment tasks to provide indications of student understanding. LPs thus give a
sequence of successively more complex and refned ways of thinking about a DCI, along with SEPs
and CCCs that might reasonably follow one another as learners develop more sophisticated under-
standing. In other words, LPs describe the pathways and the instruction to guide learners by which
they can bridge their starting point and the desired endpoint. As such, LPs provide descriptions
of student learning as well as providing appropriate experiences and phenomena that can support
students in building toward the next level of sophistication. He and colleagues developed a three-
dimensional LP by integrating DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs to make sense of energy-related phenomena
over time (He et al., 2020; Shin et al., 2021). Appendix 2 illustrates their three-dimensional LP and
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examples of associated phenomena, assessment tasks, and students’ responses to delineate students’
progress in three-dimensional learning over time (see Appendix 2 for details).
Alignment of LPs With Curriculum Materials, Instruction,

Assessment, and Professional Learning
Mastering a level requires students to develop understanding of ideas in multiple disciplines (e.g.,
energy, chemical reaction, photosynthesis) and provide them with opportunities to connect and
relate those ideas to develop integrated knowledge structures. Such learning should result in usable
knowledge and skills to allow learners to select and connect ideas and apply them to explain phe-
nomena and solve problems. Although multiple pathways are possible, LPs provide a framework
to guide curriculum materials, instruction and assessment development, and teacher professional
learning. What is critical is that researchers and educators agree on the big ideas and practices stu-
dents should learn. In the United States, the Framework for K–12 Science Education provides this step
forward. Next, researchers need to design curriculum materials and associated assessments to test
whether students can reach the various levels with appropriate instruction and learning materials.
Supporting students to build understanding of DCIs along with SEPs and CCCs to make sense of
phenomena and solve problems can be daunting. Teacher professional learning, along with curricu-
lum materials and assessment, is critical to promoting student learning. Professional learning to sup-
port teachers in understanding LPs and development over time is critical in helping students develop
more sophisticated understanding. Professional learning is important to support teachers in building
a developmental perspective of learning and to support teachers to learn (1) new instructional strate-
gies, (2) how to help students develop the connections and relationships needed to build integrated
knowledge structures, and (3) use assessments to evaluate student performance and move them fur-
ther. Curriculum sequences aligned with a LP should focus on developing understanding over time
about what might be truly foundational and most important to teach to explain a wide variety of
compelling phenomena and challenging problems.
Future Direction for Learning Progression Research

Although the Framework and NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013) outline possible theoretical LPs, fully
designed, researched, and validated LPs are outside the scope of both documents. This is due in part
to the substantial amount of time, expertise, and resources needed to (1) develop high-quality cur-
riculum materials that support development across time, (2) construct assessments capable of probing
LP levels, and (3) generate evidence to validate the LP (Kaldaras et al., 2021a, 2021b). To respond to
the importance of knowledge-in-use learning in science, LP research needs to be conducted actively
across disciplines and grade levels, using integrated three-dimensional LPs to identify what students
should know and be able to do in each grade band.
Research on Developing and Monitoring Students’

Deep Learning of Three-Dimensional LPs
What science education researchers must fgure out are the mechanisms of conceptual change
for developing understandings of DCIs, CCCs, and SEPs, not individually but how they work
together to build knowledge-in-use. LP research includes developing, validating, and monitoring
three-dimensional LPs on student learning to capitalize on the impact of LP to promote deep,
usable knowledge in science education. Research is needed on tracking student understanding of
an idea or cluster of ideas integrated with practices and based on curriculum materials purpose-
fully designed, developed, and tested using the principle of coherence and other ideas known
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to support student learning (i.e., situated in meaningful contexts, frsthand experiences with
phenomena, collaborations) (Krajcik & Shin, 2022). Linking to prior knowledge and building
stronger connections to new ideas and experiences should result in meaningful learning; this will
increase students’ ability to select and combine ideas to apply to new situations, providing richer,
multifaceted explanations of phenomena. Because LPs make connections among ideas explicit,
they provide a framework to guide curriculum development, assessment, instruction, and pro-
fessional learning – all of which support students in building integrated knowledge structures,
which students can use to solve novel problems, explain more complex phenomena, and learn
more when needed.
In the research on developing and monitoring LPs, multiple research groups have developed,
tested, and used various LPs (Duschl et al., 2011). As we discussed earlier, the most common
approach is to build and test a LP solely in terms of content ideas or practices (i.e., one-dimensional).
Researchers have developed LP-aligned curriculum materials to characterize and follow the growth
of students’ understanding as they experience specifc instruction (Alonzo & Steedle, 2009; Duncan
et al., 2009; Krajcik et al., 2012). For example, researchers create a sequence of instructions and
learning materials aligned with a LP’s levels to track students’ learning across a period of time (e.g.,
4–8 weeks of instruction). Merritt and Krajcik (Merritt & Krajcik, 2013) tracked the development
of student understanding of the particle nature of matter over an 8–10 week period. The curriculum
materials for IQWST (Krajcik et al., 2009) were designed based on research in science education
and learning science.
It is important to specify how students should apply knowledge, as it provides insight into learn-
ers’ reasoning (Smith et al., 2006; Jin & Anderson, 2012). Merritt and colleagues (Merritt & Kra-
jcik, 2013) developed a LP on the particle nature of matter consistent with the Framework (National
Research Council, 2012b) and NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013) that details how learners can
develop an understanding of core ideas across the primary and secondary grades. Cooper and col-
leagues (2012) tracked the development of student understanding of the molecular structures and
properties at the introductory college level using control and treatment group comparisons. Their
curriculum development was also based on the research fndings in science education. However,
their curriculum-focused LPs are two-dimensional, combining DCIs and SEPs but not CCCs (Mer-
ritt & Krajcik, 2013; Cooper et al., 2012; Gotwals & Songer, 2006). More research is needed on how
to develop and test three-dimensional LPs to foster deep, usable student learning. The research by
Kaldaras and colleagues (Kaldaras et al., 2021a, 2021b) provides insights into developing and testing
three-dimensional LPs (see next section for further information).
As discussed earlier, the work by Fortus and colleagues (Fortus et al., 2015) tracked students’
developing understanding of the big ideas with the integration of CCCs and SEPs, but additional
work monitoring the integration of the three dimensions over time is still needed. As such, a critical
area for research in science education and the learning sciences includes tracking students’ learning
across time, based on curriculum materials designed to foster students’ learning in a particular area
that integrate the three dimensions of scientifc knowledge.
Research on Testing and Validating Three-Dimensional LPs

Current debates in the feld center on whether one can measure the three dimensions of scien-
tifc knowledge as a unifed construct or if the measurement of the three dimensions must occur
separately. Research is needed to test and validate three-dimensional LPs. Although the Framework
describes the theoretical basis of three-dimensional learning, and the NGSS proposes LPs for the
three dimensions across grades, there is limited empirical evidence to show that a LP for three-
dimensional learning can be validated in classrooms. Kaldaras and colleagues (2021a) demonstrate the
feasibility of developing a three-dimensional LP supported by qualitative and quantitative evidence
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for the areas of intermolecular forces and energy. They present multiple sources of evidence for the
three-dimensional LP to provide evidence for the validity of their LP. Finally, they demonstrate
the feasibility of using assessment tasks to probe levels and assign learners to levels based on student
responses.
In a second paper, Kaldaras and colleagues (2021b) suggest that the most plausible latent struc-
ture to account for students’ responses to three-dimensional assessment tasks is that the instrument
is three-dimensional instead of separating them into a single dimension. As such, the LP measures a
unidimensional construct (i.e., the integrations of DCI, SEPs – in their case modeling and explana-
tions – and CCCs). While this work is promising, more three-dimensional LPs need to be developed
and tested in various domains using various practices. In particular, advanced or innovative measure-
ment models are necessary to validate three-dimensional LPs.
Developing a Three-Dimensional Design-Based Research Agenda

To pursue an empirically tested three-dimensional LP requires a principled research agenda that
will (1) ensure coherent alignment among the three dimensions of the LP, (2) monitor the three-
dimensional LP regarding promoting students’ deep learning, and (3) validate the three-dimensional
LP. We propose that a design-based research approach with a design-test-revise cycle is an appropri-
ate methodology for developing, testing, and studying three-dimensional LPs and associated cur-
riculum materials and assessments.
Much of the LP research has been conducted by developing LPs that align with traditional forms
of instruction. Lehrer and Schauble (2015) describe how such LP work could perpetuate the cur-
rent education system. Here, the LPs would align more with traditional forms of instruction rather
than using evidence-based curricula and a design-based approach to push students to more sophisti-
cated levels of understanding. Merely describing how students learn, based on current instructional
approaches and curricula used in schools, prevents the feld from reexamining how to help all stu-
dents develop deep, usable knowledge and how teaching and learning occur in science classrooms is
necessary to provide all students opportunities to learn.
As argued by Lehrer and Schauble (2015), LPs are a way to rethink, restructure, and push forward
“the content and sequencing of the subject matter taught in schools”. They argue that LPs serve as
proposals or models to shift teachers’ and students’ views of what it means to understand a big idea
of science (like evolution) or to engage in a practice (like scientifc modeling). They also argue that
using LPs involves shifting our view of what it means to learn big ideas along with scientifc practices
so that learners can make sense of complex phenomena. For this reason, we promote their position
that LPs need to be developed in design-based research settings where the research team – along with
practitioners – play a critical role in generating the context, developing learning tasks, and supporting
instruction that will encourage deep learning (Cobb et al., 2003).
In a design-based research approach to developing LPs, researchers collaborate with teachers
to design and support instructional tasks, tools, frsthand experience, simulations, and assessment
tasks. The research is driven by researchers making conjectures or hypotheses about how to support
students in obtaining deeper knowledge of DCIs integrated with SEPs and CCCs to make sense of
phenomena or solve complex problems, given the instruction intervention specifed in the design of
the LP. First, researchers investigate the conjectures in classroom settings. They use their fndings to
inform revisions to the design of the instructional materials and suggested teacher practices and to
modify the conjectures about the levels of students’ development. Next, the design is retested in an
iterative fashion and in new and more classrooms. The goal is to obtain evidence of students reaching
particular levels of performance described in the LP. The various levels capture a range of student
learning, from using the ideas in a relatively intuitive or everyday way to make sense of phenomena
to using the ideas in increasingly sophisticated and complex ways (similar to more knowledgeable
146
and experienced individuals). Each level of student learning is demonstrated by student performance
(Harris et al., 2019a; Krajcik et al., 2008) – building a model, designing an investigation to fgure
out phenomena, providing an evidence-based explanation, and asking new questions. These per-
formances ofer insights into students’ depth of knowledge and how the LP functions to promote
student learning. Researchers iteratively apply the design-test-revise cycle so that the educational
design of the LP and the fndings provide feedback to refne the LP further.
A good demonstration of this design-based research model to develop and test LPs and associ-
ated three-dimensional assessment tasks comes from the work of Kaldaras et al. (2021b). They used
a design-based research approach to develop and test a high school LP on intermolecular forces and
energy, using the scientifc practices of modeling and explanation with the CCCs of cause and efect,
and structure and function that aligned with a curriculum unit.7 Kaldaras and colleagues also demon-
strate the feasibility of developing a three-dimensional LP through design-based research by obtain-
ing qualitative and quantitative validity evidence for the structure of the LP and the corresponding
assessments. Their research illustrates the evolving design: they show how fndings regarding students’
reasoning with science ideas and evidence evolve together to improve the LP, the assessments, and
the curriculum materials. Their work also demonstrates the usefulness of design-based research to
validate a three-dimensional LP for organizing the learning that can occur based on the Framework
and NGSS performance expectations, and it also shows how a LP can serve as a diagnostic tool, think
of a ruler, to measure student learning.
Anderson and colleagues (Gunckel et al., 2012; Jin & Anderson, 2012) also used a design-based
research model for middle and high school classrooms to describe the development of a LP for the
transformations in matter and energy. Moreover, they are currently using a design-based research
approach to modify their LP on carbon recycling to incorporate SEPs and CCCs (Scott et al.,
2022).
Conclusions
Learning progressions hold promise in supporting all learners to develop deep, usable scientifc
knowledge that learners can use to make sense of phenomena, solve problems, and learn more when
needed. All learners need to have a deep, usable knowledge of science, as the world they live in is
scientifc and technology based. Moreover, science and technology are critical for understanding
and solving the problems that exist in our world. But as Lehrer and Schauble (2015) argue, LPs can-
not be designed with traditional curricula or business-as-usual approaches. Instead, researchers need
to design LPs through iterative development and testing, using what we know works to promote
student learning. As discussed earlier, design-based research will allow researchers to refne LPs, cur-
riculum materials, assessment tasks, instruction, and professional learning.
Given the perspective described, we recommend using LPs to rethink and restructure how stu-
dents learn scientifc ideas and practices in schools. However, the feld still has much to learn regard-
ing how to appropriately sequence the development of DCIs, SEPs, and CCCs in LPs. Next, we
present a summary of the chapter’s highlights:
1. LPs build on students’ prior knowledge: Because curriculum materials designed on LP research
build on learners’ prior knowledge, more students should develop deeper and more sophisti-
cated understandings of a complex idea. As such, more students worldwide will be prepared for
STEM-related careers but also to make informed decisions in today’s scientifcally and engineer-
ing-driven environment.
2. LPs need to focus on three-dimensional learning: When researchers build and test LPs around
three-dimensional learning, students develop deep, usable knowledge that they can apply to
novel situations, which students have not yet experienced.
147
3. LPs promote equal learning opportunities: Developing sophisticated understandings depends on

learners’ having opportunities to learn. While learners can take many paths in their learning,
LP-based instruction can guide the development of meaningful learning over time.
4. LPs promote growth over time: Developing deep understanding of complex core disciplinary
ideas (e.g., evolution, geological time, and energy) takes time and often happens as students
work on challenging tasks that require them to synthesize and make connections among ideas
related to those tasks. Given the complexity of DCIs, particularly when integrated with SEPs
and CCCs, such learning must occur over a long period of time and in multiple contexts. LPs
are thus developmentally appropriate, as they build over time based on learners’ prior knowledge
and experiences.
5. Three-dimensional LP research across disciplines and grade levels: To respond to the importance
of three-dimensional learning in science, researchers need to investigate LP across disciplines
(biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, and engineering) and grade levels. Further research
on developing and validating LPs that integrate the three dimensions of scientifc knowledge
across the disciplines of science needs to occur. Such research will point to promising directions
for organizing science instruction, curriculum materials, and assessment across K–16.
6. Three-dimensional LP design-based research: There is a need for more design-based research
that tracks students’ learning across time. This research needs to occur using curriculum materi-
als, assessment, and professional learning purposely and principally designed to foster student
learning in a particular area or across areas. Designed-based research demonstrates the usefulness
of validating three-dimensional LPs for organizing the learning process in classrooms.
7. Validated LPs represent diagnostic tools or a “ruler” to indicate what a student knows and can
do – i.e., a measure of three-dimensional understanding. LPs can also suggest next steps on how
to push students to a higher and deeper level of understanding.
Providing instruction across each grade on a comparatively small set of powerful, foundational big
ideas along with scientifc practices would provide coherence for developing assessments, instruction,
curriculum materials, and professional learning. However, as noted earlier, we are not talking about
just repeating the big ideas. Instead, we want to support students in developing more sophisticated
understandings of these ideas throughout their schooling. To accomplish this, researchers need to
build LPs based on what we know about student learning, test these LPs with context-based cur-
riculum and assessments, and support teachers through corresponding professional learning. It is then
that we can provide all learners across the globe opportunities to develop deep, usable knowledge to
help solve today’s problems.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Shawn Y. Stevens, James Pellegrino, and the late Aaron Rogat, who provided
insight and expertise that greatly assisted the book chapter.
148
Appendices
Appendix 1
A graphical illustraõn of li°le, if any, Thin understanding: Some connecõns

understanding: Learners cannot use ideas between ideas with potenãl to make new
for further learning or problem solving. connecõns
Bond Physical Physical

breaking change Bond change
breaking
Compounds Chemical Chemical

change change
Electrons
Electrons Atoms Atoms
Integrated understanding: Ideas linked together new and exisñg knowledge is structured around a
big idea. Knowledge is useful for problem solving.
Chemical
change can be
involves can be
Atoms
rearrange Covalent
Ionic
does not
involve Share electrons
Physical Lose Gain

change electrons electrons
Electron
transfer Metals Non-metal
Figure 5.1 Graphical illustration of little, if any, understanding; thin understanding; and integrated
understanding.
149
Appendix 2
An Example of Three-Dimensional Learning Progressions and Associated Phenomena, Assessment Tasks, and Student Responses
Science and Crosscutting

Engineering Concepts
Practices Micro system and
energy transfer
** DUM + ** CoE + * DUM +
Micro-
Level IV EnM EnM SSM
level
Planning and
Carrying out System of Energy and
Investigations interacting particles Matter
(PCI) (EnM)
* CoE + * AID +

Level IIIb EnM CaE
Engaging in Level IIIa System of System and
Argument moving particles System
from Evidence Models
(EAE) ** DUM + ** PCI + (SPQ)
CaE CaE
150
Scale,
Constructing Proportion,
Explanations Macro system and
energy transfer and Quantity
(CoE) (SPQ)
* DUM + ** EAE + * AID +
Level II CaE EnM Pat
Developing
and Using System of two Patterns
Models interacting objects (Pat)
(DUM)
** DUM + * CoE +
Level Ib SSM EnM
Analyzing and Level Ia System of a Cause and

Interpreting moving object Effect (CaE) Macro-
Data (AID) level
* DUM + ** AID + * CoE +
CaE Pat CaE
Disciplinary Manifestations of Energy Energy Transfer

Core Ideas
Figure 5.2A Three-dimensional learning progression of middle school students’ knowledge-in-use of energy.
Level Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) in each level Learning Performance

Level 1 Force and motion Students construct models to
• When objects collide, the forces exert with each other, *the show that when a moving object
strength of the forces are equal, but the direction is opposite. collides with another object, it
(MS-PS2-1) exerts a force on that object.
Level 2 Force and motion Students construct models
• When objects collide, the forces exert with each other, the to explain that the contact
strength of the forces are equal, but the direction is opposite. force exerted on one object
(MS-PS2-1) to another object will change
Kinetic Energy the motion of the object upon
• Motion energy is properly called kinetic energy. (MS-PS3-1) collision, and that the kinetic
Energy Transfer (not include the DCI) energy of the moving object
• When the motion of an object changes, the kinetic energy of was transferred to another
the object is transferred to some other changes in energy (such as object involved in the collision.
potential energy, temperature, or kinetic energy) (MS-PS3-5).
• When objects collide, the forces exert with each other, *the explain that the contact and
strength of the forces are equal, but the direction is opposite. non-contact forces changed the
(MS-PS2-1) motion of the object, and the
• When two objects interact at a distance, each one can exert a kinetic energy of the object was
force on the other. The strength of the forces is equal, but the transferred to another object as
direction of the forces is opposite. (MS-PS2-1) result of collision.
• Gravitational forces are always attractive. (MS-PS2-4)
Kinetic Energy
• Motion energy is properly called kinetic energy. (MS-PS3-1)
Energy Transfer (not include the DCI)
• When the motion of an object changes, the kinetic energy of
the object is transferred to some other changes in energy (such as
potential energy, temperature, or kinetic energy) (MS-PS3-5).
• When objects collide, the forces exert with each other, the explain that the contact and
strength of the forces are equal, but the direction is opposite. non-contact forces changed
(MS-PS2-1) the motion of the object, the
• When two objects interact at a distance, each one can exert a potential energy of the object
force on the other. The strength of the forces is equal, but the and the earth was transferred to
direction of the forces is opposite. (MS-PS2-1) the kinetic energy of the object
• Gravitational forces are always attractive. (MS-PS2-4) and was transferred to another
• A system of objects exists in a feld that causes the objects object as result of collision.
to exert forces at a distance (electrical, magnetic, and
gravitational). (MS-PS2-5)
Kinetic Energy
• Motion energy is properly called kinetic energy. (MS-PS3-1)
Potential Energy
• PE1: A system of objects may contain stored energy (potential
energy), depending on their relative positions. (MS-PS3-2)
Energy Transfer (not include the DCI)
• When the motion of an object changes, the kinetic energy
of the object is transferred to some other changes in energy
(such as potential energy, temperature, or kinetic energy)
(MS-PS3-5).
• When objects interact at a distance, each one exerts a force on
the other that transfers potential energy to change the kinetic
energy of objects. (MS-PS3-2)
Figure 5.2B Description of three-dimensional learning progression level on energy with the associated ideas.
Note: The gray color aspects of ideas were omitted in the ILP.
151
Figure 5.2C Phenomenon and assessment item.
Stage 1: Before basketball rolling down Stage 2: During basketball rolling down
Speed = 0 Basketball
Speed
Has energy on the Speed = 0 Speed = 0

top of slide KE
Stage 3: Before basketball hitting Yoga ball Stage 4: During collision

Yoga Ball
Contact
Contact
Force
Force Decrease
Speed Speed Increase

Has speed Speed = 0
and KE
KE KE
Directions
of Forces
Stage 5: After collision Stage 6: Final Stage
KE
(Kinetic Energy)
Friction Friction
Speed = 0 Speed = 0
Speed Speed
KE KE
Figure 5.2D An exemplar model and explanation for level 2.
152
Notes
1 Throughout this manuscript, we use the phrases “knowledge-in-use” and “usable knowledge”
interchangeably.
2 When we use the phrase “solve problems” in this chapter, we are referring to problems that learners encoun-
ter in their lives. These problems are meaningful to the learner, have real consequences, and are complex,
often having more than one solution. A real-world problem can range from “Where is the best location to
place my bluebird boxes?” to “What can I do to help clean up the pond in my local park?” In other words,
the phrase “solve problems” does not mean “answer questions at the back of a chapter”.
3 See the Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS, 2013) Appendix E: Disciplinary Core Idea Progres-
sions, Appendix F: Science and Engineering Practices, and Appendix G: Crosscutting Concepts.
4 See https://ngss.nsta.org/
5 Researchers refer to these performance-based learning goals as learning performance. But to prevent confu-
sion with learning progressions, throughout this document we refer to them as performance-based learning
goals.
6 http://carbontime.bscs.org/
7 https://concord.org/our-work/research-projects/interactions/
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6
STUDENT ATTITUDES,
IDENTITY, AND ASPIRATIONS
TOWARD SCIENCE
Introduction
Research on attitudes in science has been an increasing focus over the last decades, driven in large
part by concerns with student responses to science as a subject (Gardner, 1975; Osborne & Collins,
2001) and more recently with concern internationally with the take up of science and the STEM
(science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines more generally in post-compulsory
years. This latter concern is related to increasing acknowledgment of the crucial importance of the
STEM disciplines to national wealth creation (Marginson et al., 2013). Alongside this neoliberal
agenda that emphasizes the utilitarian value of science for economic purposes, there has been an
increasing policy focus on equity considerations concerning access to productive futures in science-
related work, and a recognition that citizens’ responses to science and science research are bound up
with national well-being. Within the science education research community, this concern for equity
has spawned research drawing on critical and post-critical research traditions focusing on afect in
relation to the response of minority communities to participation in science. With both these agen-
das, a key driver of research into afect is the concern for students’ engagement with science studies
and their aspirations concerning science-related futures.
In the previous edition of this handbook and chapter (Tytler, 2014), it was pointed out that the
particular interest in attitudes to science stems from the tension in the science curriculum between
two major roles: to prepare future citizens to engage with science in their lives, and to prepare the
next generation of scientists. Most subjects in the school curriculum do not have this dual mandate
(Millar & Osborne, 1998). A further and recently emphasized corollary of these mandates is the con-
cern to engage with minority groups with a history of non-participation in those science pathways
that can lead to productive work futures (Archer et al., 2015; Hilts et al., 2018).
Increasingly, the focus on attitudinal research has shifted over the last decade from a consideration
of attitudes, motivation, and interest as governing engagement with the conceptual aspects of science
learning, to a recognition of afect as an important end of a science education in itself. Nevertheless,
Fortus (2014) pointed out that of the research articles published in the period 2001–2011, less than
10% were focused on attitudes, indicating that attitudinal research still plays a relatively minor role in
the feld, compared with research that focuses on conceptual learning. Since 2011 there have been an
escalating number of studies on afect and identity, reviewed in this chapter. The point, however, still
holds. Within the research focused on afect, researchers have grappled with a number of problems
that we will canvas in this chapter.
158 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-8

Student Attitudes, Identity, and Aspirations Toward Science
In the previous edition (Tytler, 2014) we referred to the important distinction between “attitudes
toward science”, such as enjoyment or interest, and “scientifc attitudes”, such as objectivity. In the
research since then, we see evidence that this distinction is one of a number in the feld in need of
clarifcation, concerning the object of the attitude. This can variously refer to the broad subject of
science, topics in school science, aspects of the pedagogies used to teach science, or the classroom
learning environments and interactions with the teacher and other students. Attitudes/afective con-
structs can also relate to commitments to particular ways of participating or acting, afective commit-
ments to science ideas and practices, or identifcation with scientifc ways of thinking and working.
Allied to these distinctions are diferences in the nature of the relationship between the person and
the object to which the afective response refers. In much of the attitudinal research, the person sits
outside the object in the role of evaluator: how do I feel about school science? What is my preferred
topic? For the “scientifc attitudes” construct, however, the response is conceived of as part of the
person’s values and disposition to the world that shapes ways of operating, such that afect (such as
curiosity or objectivity) is a developed habit (Dewey, 1922).
These diferences have developed into a more complex set of afective constructs and concep-
tualization of their interrelations since these earlier studies. In this chapter, we will briefy reprise
what was reported in the last edition in 2014 before exploring where research on afect in sci-
ence has gone since then and highlighting the key points of advancement. The feld is complex,
with many constructs developed and refned in ways that do not encourage a defnitive taxonomy.
Terms include attitude (like/dislike); motivation and interest (situational, dispositional); emotions
(fear, anger, enjoyment, disgust, confusion, frustration, pleasure – feelings parsed by Lemke [2015]
as fundamental or evaluative); afect or feeling; and longer-term, more person-oriented positional
constructs, such as identity, self-efcacy, and disposition; and aesthetic terms, such as taste.
There are three major distinctions we will make in reviewing the literature around this variety of
afective constructs that allow us to make some sense of how these diferent constructs arose, are used
in research, and how they can and do inform practice.
The frst is one of purpose – what question or agenda underpins interest in the particular construct.
We trace the major questions in the science education feld that have driven attitudinal research,
ranging from concern about student motivation and engagement with science as a subject – refned
in the last 20 years with concerns about students’ participation in the science and STEM “pipeline” –
to concerns about equity issues in relation to socioeconomic groups, Indigenous populations, ethnic-
ity, and gender. With these concerns, the identity construct continues to bear fruit as a descriptive
and explanatory lens. Thus, we argue that the shifting focus of research to afect must be seen in
relation to broader movements in the way science is conceived and justifed in the curriculum.
Second, we draw on Wickman’s (2017) distinction between analytic and synthetic categories. Analytic
traditions strive to defne afective constructs tightly, in reliably measurable ways, such that relations
between them and causal factors can be explored and theorized. Synthetic traditions, on the other
hand, acknowledge the inherent messiness and ambiguity of language and contextual complexities
involved in afective responses, and tend to focus on the sociocultural settings and determinants of
participation and practice, drawing for instance on the theoretical work of Bourdieu (1986, 1990,
1992) and Dewey (1997). The distinction is an issue of language; whether terms we use, such as
“confusion” or “interest”, can be understood as distinct and tightly defned entities, or whether there
is an inevitable bleeding of meaning between such constructs.
There are recent examples of research that coordinate these traditions, with the construction and
validation of instruments using factor analysis or structural equation modeling (SEM) to provide
measures of complex constructs developed in the synthetic tradition, such as identity or science
capital. Sfard and Prusak (2005, p. 15) saw identity as the perfect candidate for the missing link in the
complex dialectic between learning and its sociocultural context. Identity thus becomes an interest-
ing “middle ground” that has done work in a variety of contexts, refecting and reprising analytic
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categories such as self-efcacy, interest, or attitude, as well as the more complex afective categories
related to personal stance and context.
Third is the object or circumstance of the afect. As indicated earlier, much traditional attitudinal research is
of student response to science as a subject, topics in science, or features of the science classroom experi-
ence. Research on emotions tends to focus on the response of students to aspects of tasks or interactions
with the teaching and learning environment. There is renewed current interest in pragmatist framings
of afect, drawing on Peirce (1907/1998) and Dewey (1938/1997), that conceive of a fundamental link
between “feeling and meaning” (Lemke, 2013, 2015), and which frame afective outcomes in terms of
the development of longer-term habits. Here, there is a tight binding of afect to the object of the feel-
ing. Anderhag et al. (2016) argue, for instance, that the drop in interest toward school science over the
elementary to secondary school transition measured in many studies may be explained by the fact that
the “science” in primary schools is perceived as a diferent entity to that in secondary schools. What
is being measured is students’ response to very diferent “objects”: activity in elementary schools with
limited conceptual overlay on the one hand, and in secondary schools abstracted conceptual structures
incompletely connected to students’ worlds on the other. This focus on the object of afect is represented
by an “aesthetics turn” in the literature, with researchers focusing on students’ values, preferences, or
“taste” (Anderhag, 2017) in relation to the objects or practices of science and the science classroom.
Aesthetics positions afect as inextricably bound to the conceptual theories and practices of science, and
hence engages with that aspect of “attitudes” fagged by Gardner (1975) as scientifc attitudes.
This review will focus on the various afective constructs used to make sense of the engagement
of students with various aspects of science learning, their aspirations toward science-related careers,
and the factors that infuence these. The review will attempt to describe what we have learned from
attitudinal research since 2014 and the theoretical and methodological advances that have occurred.
In reviewing research involving the various afective constructs, it will explore the determinants of,
or factors afecting these, and the implications of the studies for: student engagement with learning
science, the framing of teaching and learning, the links to aspirations toward science-related futures,
and equity issues around participation.
A number of key themes will structure the chapter.
1. The nature of particular attitudinal constructs (attitude, interest, motivation) and how these are
defned, measured, and used to explore diferent research agendas, including the response of diferent
sociocultural groups, change in attitudes over time, and the nature of teaching and learning approaches
that engage students. This theme will also encompass theories, such as those of self-efcacy, reasoned
action, and expectancy value theory (EVT), that have provided insights into the links between atti-
tudes, behavior, and aspirations. Within this theme we will canvas the issue of the lack of clarity in the
nature of and relations between these multiple constructs used in the feld, the diferent methodologi-
cal traditions represented, and the extent to which these speak productively to each other.
2. The “turn to afect” and emotions research in relation to students’ responses to the particularities
of classroom activity.
3. The construct of identity, which engages with the complexity of responses to a range of features
of experience in science classrooms, over time. Sociocultural framings of identity underpin
qualitative studies that attempt to capture the complexity of classrooms and open examination
of the history of the person intersecting with the discursive practices of science and the science
classroom. This theme will examine identity in relation to minority groups, gender, and socio-
cultural factors framing student participation and learning. We will also examine recent research
in the analytic, quantitative tradition, which has developed instruments for the measurement,
comparison, and tracking of identity.
4. Research into attitudes in relation to aspirations. These have revealed a range of factors that afect
student participation and learning in science, with diferences between social groups in the patterns
160
of infuence on career intentions. We review how Bourdieusian theory is used in the construct of
“science capital” to tease out the dimensions that relate to student aspirations, including self-efcacy
and self-concept, as well as family science capital. Analytic research has developed measures of sci-
ence capital with the aim to explore the predictive power of this construct in relation to aspirations.
5. Recently there has been interest in the pragmatic semiotic perspectives of Peirce and Dewey,
where afect or “feeling” is fundamentally tied to meaning, or the conceptual. This notion of
aesthetics is closely tied to the constructs of taste and interest, as well as students’ and teachers’
identities in relation to science.
Defning, Coordinating, and Measuring Attitudinal Constructs

A variety of attitudinal constructs exist in the science education literature, and psychology literature
more generally. While there are defnitions that exist for the various constructs – attitudes, motiva-
tion, emotion, etc. – these are not generally agreed upon. Much of the literature in the psychological
tradition focuses on clarifying these constructs and their interrelations, but these vary from study to
study. Each construct has its own history of research, theoretical formulations of interrelations, and
types of issues that they are commonly associated with. In science education research, the distinctions
between constructs are often underacknowledged.
As we pointed out in the previous version of this chapter (Tytler, 2014), major attitudinal con-
structs often run together in instruments and can be quite diferent in time scale, focus (on school
science, or science), their relation to cognition, and whether they refer to attitudes toward science or
scientifc attitudes. Since then, Blalock’s (2008) critique of the feld in terms of clarity of constructs
continues to hold sway, and researchers have defned attitudinal constructs and their interrelations
inconsistently. Much of this is a function of the particular focus of studies and does not necessarily
invalidate the fndings of any particular study, but the lack of clarity continues to slow the growth of
the feld in terms of the development of agreed positions and instruments. Fortus (2014) similarly
questions the value of the wide array of instruments used, making it difcult to link across studies.
We will continue this critique next, for recent research.
In a later synthetic and systematic description of 228 research articles published between 2000 and
2012, Potvin and Hasni (2014) covered the key constructs of interest, motivation, and attitude. They
used a composite construct (I/M/A) through which they were able to survey some major trends and
fndings in the feld, despite the loss of diferentiation between constructs this involved. These three
constructs were again determined by Wickman (2017) to be the most prevalent in the feld based on
the number of peer-reviewed articles from the ERIC database with emotional or aesthetic constructs
in their titles (Table 6.1).
Table 6.1 Count of Articles With Emotional or Aesthetic Constructs in Their Title (Adapted from Wickman,
2017)
Construct in Title Total Number Percentage
Attitude(s) 6,911 62
Motivation 2,079 19
Interest(s) 1,647 15
Emotion(-s, -al) 204 2
Aesthetic(s) 171 1.5
Afect 84 0.8
Taste 5 0.04
Total 11,101 100
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Savelsbergh et al. (2016), in undertaking a meta-analysis of the efects of innovative science and
mathematics teaching on student attitudes and achievement, distinguished between the constructs of
attitudes, motivation, and interest as such (p. 160):
• An attitude is a “psychological tendency expressed by evaluating a particular entity” or a “sum-

mary evaluation of a psychological object” that has some favor/disfavor degree or “attribute
dimension”, such as good-bad, likable-dislikeable, pleasant-unpleasant.
• Motivational theories “attempt to answer the question about what gets an individual moving
(energization) and toward what activities or tasks” and tend to focus on external factors that
infuence energization for the particular task, such as engagement with science learning.
• Interest theories also focus on person-object behaviors. Hidi and Renninger (2006, p. 112) refer
to interest as “the psychological state of engaging or the predisposition to reengage with par-
ticular classes of objects, events, or ideas over time”. This applies to either short-term situational
interest (a state) or long-term personal interest (a disposition).
We see that there are distinct diferences between these constructs in their relation to the object of
afect and their relation to action, whether it be continued engagement (interest) or moving toward
a task or end goal (motivation). Therefore, one would expect that which construct is foregrounded
would depend on the focus of the study, but the danger exists that in combining these constructs in
surveys or interviews, clarity is lost. Nevertheless, in bringing together these constructs, Potvin and
Hasni (2014) were able to construct a picture of the types of topic focus of their 228 studies that were
not purely associated with development and validation of instruments. Table 6.2 shows the profle of
topics that were subject to interest/motivation/attitude studies.
From this analysis, a number of fndings of interest emerged (p. 110):
• More than half the articles did not propose an explicit defnition of the focus constructs.
• Boy/girl diferences were slight, giving a sense of “overkill” of study. I/M/A studies for sci-
ence and technology overall, or comparing disciplines, were not as insightful or productive as
studying for fner-grained themes, such as the efect of particular day-to-day interventions, on a
smaller-than-disciplinary scale.
• Teacher variables were important, with enthusiastic, encouraging, and close-to-their-students
teachers linked to positive afect.
• Classroom features associated with positive afect included “inquiry-based” and “problem-based”
interventions, collaborative work, linking science and technology to reality, and practical work.
• Intentions to pursue science/technology studies were better predicted by self-esteem/self-
efcacy than by I/M/A.
Table 6.2 Number of Topics That Were Subject to Interest/Motivation/Attitude Studies (Adapted from Potvin
and Hasni’s [2014] analysis of articles between 2000 and 2012)
Topic Number of Articles
Boy/girl diferences 50
School-related variables 31
Decline of I/M/A with age or school year 24
Performance and self-efcacy 23
S&T careers 13
International diferences 12
Sociological variables 8
Correlations with other variables 8
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Potvin and Hasni noted that most studies yielded positive results and questioned whether researchers
tended to design interventions that could be confdently expected to succeed, often with multiple
dimensions. We argue from this a need for more sharply defned interventions that generate more
precision in our knowledge of specifc determinants of afect.
Measuring Attitudinal Constructs

It has been previously argued (Osborne et al., 2003; Tytler & Osborne, 2012; Tytler, 2014) that
a key issue in constructing attitudinal instruments is that of construct validity, concerning whether
the associated constructs (attitude, motivation, interest, emotion, etc.) are grounded in a clear and
sound theoretical basis. Without this, it is likely that the items sitting within the construct will not
yield a consistent representation and that disparate items put together in a single scale will be theo-
retically indefensible (Gardner, 1975). This critique comes from meta-analyses (Blalock et al., 2008;
Potvin & Hasni, 2014) that found a tendency to design ft-for-purpose instruments and a lack of
attention to psychometric rigor. Similarly, Aydeniz and Kotowski (2014) critiqued a small number
of well-regarded instruments, fnding fault, for instance, with the confation of distinct constructs
and lack of use of confrmatory factor analysis (CFA) to ensure conceptually diferent components.
Aydeniz and Kotowski used CFA to develop an instrument consisting of seven measures within the
attitude construct: subjects’ attitudes toward science, motivation toward learning science, utility of
science, self-efcacy in science learning, normative beliefs about science involvement, and intention
to pursue science-related activities.
More recently, a comprehensive review of the psychometric properties of 18 attitudes toward sci-
ence instruments, published between 2005 and 2019, was undertaken by Toma (2022), who reviewed
the measures for “attitudes toward science” against currently accepted assessment standards involving
six key validity and reliability measures:
1. Content validity – whether items adequately refect the construct of interest

2. Construct validity – whether items capture the dimensionality of the target trait
3. Predictive validity – whether scores predict outcomes convincingly
4. Discriminant validity – whether scores can diferentiate between groups (e.g., gender diferences)
5. Internal consistency reliability – intercorrelation of items
6. Temporal stability – whether scores are stable over time when the trait has not changed
Toma (2022) found that only 2 of the 18 instruments they surveyed were consistent with currently
accepted standards, raising questions about validity consistent with previous reviews across many
decades, described earlier. Only fve instruments clearly described procedures for establishing content
validity, seven used the recommended practice of sequentially applying exploratory factor analysis
(EFA) and CFA to establish construct validity, and only three attended to predictive validity. In short,
they paint a disappointing picture that raises questions about the meaningfulness of fndings in the
science education literature regarding attitudinal shifts and comparisons. They call for the develop-
ment of trustworthy instruments that can be meaningfully used in intervention and longitudinal
studies or used across disciplinary and age-level contexts and countries.
Recent Types of Research Focusing on Affect

Since 2014, studies have explored diferent approaches to validating instruments, including using
item response theory (IRT) methods or SEM, or grounding their development in established theo-
ries, sometimes translating existing instruments to be used for diferent language groups. Here we
summarize a few signifcant studies to illustrate the diferent methodologies used, the types of con-
structs that are incorporated, and the varying contexts for which these instruments are developed.
163
Attitude correlate studies: The relationship between attitudes and observable and measurable out-
comes such as classroom behavior, learning behaviors and outcomes, and intentions to continue with
science continue to energize researchers. These relationships are explored through correlational stud-
ies and modeling, in some cases with self-efcacy or self-concept as mediating factors.
Wan and Lee (2017) used SEM to develop a three-factor structure with cognitive, afective, and
behavioral domains, showing that cognition and afect were linked. Höft and colleagues (2019)
undertook a refned investigation of the relationship between interest and conceptual understanding
across Grades 5–11 to fnd that interest in activities likely to promote cognitive activation (e.g., prob-
lem solving) or involving communication of knowledge were more strongly connected to conceptual
understanding, especially in the upper secondary grades, while interest in guided hands-on activities
show only small correlations with conceptual understanding, compared to interest in investigative,
“minds-on” aspects of practical work. The study thus charts the refning of particular interests associ-
ated with conceptual learning over the secondary school years.
In terms of behavioral correlates, Sha et al. (2015) developed and validated an instrument using
IRT that measured science choice preferences, fnding correlations with science interest, self-efcacy,
and learning achievement. Toma (2020) explored the cost domain from the expectancy-value theory
(EVT) of achievement motivations (Eccles, 2009) to show how the attitudinal dimensions of per-
ceived difculty of science infuences the perceived cost and efort needed to continue in a science
pathway. Wan (2021) also used EVT to explore the extent to which the interaction between motives
for learning science and self-efcacy in science learning can predict students’ behavioral tendency
to learn science in the classroom. The study found signifcant links between utilitarian motives and
self-efcacy in predicting science learning, whereas intrinsic motives were not linked.
These studies thus continue to explore and reinforce the links between diferent attitudinal con-
structs, cognition, and behaviors relating to subject learning and to aspirations.
Group comparison and temporal trends: Other studies focus on diferences between groups (gender,
cross-country comparisons, sociocultural factors), or changes over time, drawing on a suite of atti-
tudinal instruments.
Navarro and colleagues (2016) adapted the TOSRA (Test of Science-Related Attitudes) instru-
ment for Spanish-speaking students, analyzing its psychometric properties to fnd adequate con-
struct validity and good reliability indexes. In applying it, they found minimal gender diferences. A
number of studies have developed attitudinal scales and instruments for diferent language groups.
Abd-El-Khalick and colleagues (2015) drew on Ajzen and Fishbein’s (2005) theories of reasoned
action and planned behavior (TRAPB) to construct and validate a fve-factor model and instrument
for assessing Arabic-speaking students’ attitudes to science: attitudes toward science and school sci-
ence, unfavorable outlook on science, control beliefs about ability in science, behavioral beliefs about
the consequences of engaging with science, and intentions to pursue science. In research using this
instrument, Said et al. (2016) found a decreasing attitude with age, marginal gender diferences, and
signifcant diferences in student nationality and type of school. Summers and Abd-El-Khalik (2018)
refned this work to develop and validate a BRAINS (Behaviors, Related Attitudes, and Intentions
toward Science) survey using CFA, mindful of the criticisms of existing instruments. This survey
consists of fve constructs: attitudes toward science, behavioral beliefs about science, intentions to
engage in science, normative beliefs, and control beliefs.
There is a growing number of studies using international assessments to examine diferences
across countries. Some studies use IRT to improve the psychometric properties of attitude measures.
Oon and Fan (2017) applied Rasch analysis to the TIMSS 2011 data set to argue that this can yield
insights into test design and interpretation. SEM is also used to develop factor structures for students’
attitudes, allowing two-level attitudinal structures. Oon and Subramaniam (2018) used TIMSS data
to compare attitudes of students from Singapore and the UK, using Rasch analysis to verify the reli-
ability of the TIMSS instrument and showing signifcant diferences in UK and Singapore students’
164
confdence in science, liking to learn science, and perceptions of the utility of science. Oon et al.
(2020) used Rasch modeling to examine gender diferences in attitudes toward and intentions to pur-
sue physics in Asian learners. They found that intrinsic factors, mainly interest, had the largest gender
diferences on students’ intentions to pursue physics, rather than utilitarian or recognition factors.
Similarly, Lau and Ho (2020) analyzed PISA 2015 data of high-performing countries and iden-
tifed enjoyment of science learning as the strongest attitudinal predictor of performance for all
regions. Self-efcacy of students in Hong Kong and China was found to be lower than in Canada and
Finland, and less positively associated with performance, raising questions about the efect of cultural
infuences on attitude scales.
The issue of cultural infuences on cross-country comparisons of attitude and achievement has
been raised by fndings that on international comparisons, there is an inverse correlation between
attitudes toward science and achievement and also between attitudes and countries’ economic indi-
ces (Tytler & Osborne, 2012). One feature of this “contradiction” is that students in Asian-Chinese
countries have relatively low interest and self-efcacy levels yet perform at a high achievement level,
in a culture where classroom learning environments are assumed not to conform to Western research-
based views of good classroom environments leading to quality learning, for instance, featuring large
classes, expository teaching, and passive learners, compared to student collaborative activity and an
open classroom climate advocated by the Western research community. Cheng and Wan (2016)
undertook a comprehensive meta-analysis of research into attitude-achievement relations for stu-
dents from diferent Asian-Chinese countries, exploring this seeming contradiction. Their analysis
revealed diferent patterns of relations across these Asian countries between self-efcacy, interest,
motives, learning strategies, and epistemological views, yet a broadly similar relation to achievement
as found in the West. Cheng and Wan argue that low interest can be balanced by diferent patterns of
motivational constructs and that there are signifcant cultural infuences in the way these attitudinal
constructs are exhibited. They further argue that observed teacher practices and teacher–student
interactions in Asian-Chinese classrooms have quite diferent afective entailments when seen from
within the culture, than interpreted through a Western lens. Cross-cultural analyses such as these
raise important questions about cultural infuences on these analytic attitudinal constructs, signalling
that we need to approach cultural comparisons of attitudes and their relation to conceptual learning
with care.
Afect as an outcome: Other studies have treated afect as an outcome, examining features of class-
rooms linked to positive afect, examining the efect of an intervention, or treating afect as a media-
tor in modeling outcomes. As an example, Hassan (2018) also drew on the theory of reasoned action
to develop a fve-factor model using CFA to study teaching characteristics in Malaysian schools,
fnding signifcant efects from inquiry teaching, group work, and spiritual focus on the promotion
of interest and engagement.
Further instruments have been developed more recently, using a wider framing around identity,
science capital, and aspirations, but drawing on a similar suite of constructs to those described earlier.
These will be discussed in later sections of the chapter, including qualitative, synthetic approaches to
afect that combine interview data or ethnographic analysis of classroom interactions, sometimes lon-
gitudinally in case studies, to inform the complex sociocultural and cognitive meanings underlying
the statistical correlates. Next, however, we continue our review of research in the analytic tradition,
reviewing studies focused on the particular afective constructs of interest and self-efcacy.
Studies Focused on the Interest Construct

Interest has been an important construct with signifcant theoretical development underpinning its
use and measure. It was a major construct in the PISA 2006 and 2015 non-cognitive assessments.
Infuential in this development were Hidi and Renninger (2006), who argue that interest is a critical
165
cognitive and afective variable that guides attention. Their four-phase model describes four stages of
interest development that moves from a situational interest triggered by an event or object, through
to a well-developed individual interest that is similar to a disposition, or trait. Their model situates
interest as having components of knowledge, afect, and value, thus foreshadowing current interest
in aesthetics as a construct that links feeling and meaning (Lemke, 2015), described further in this
chapter.
Associated with this bridging aspect of interest, Krapp and Prenzel (2011) argue that “the decisive
criterion of the interest construct which enables it to be clearly distinguished from several neighbour-
ing motivational concepts is its content specifcity. An interest is always directed towards an object,
activity, feld of knowledge or goal” (p. 33). Thus, the interest construct, distinct from other afective
constructs, is multidimensional. Researchers have difered in whether interest is considered a subcon-
struct of attitude or separate to it. The fact that one can be interested in something even though one
fnds it reprehensible can be taken as indicating it should be treated as a separate construct.
Swarat et al. (2012) reviewed the diferent theoretical perspectives used to defne the interest con-
struct, revealing a complex typography, for instance, in relation to motivation or engagement. They
argue that “interest researchers tend to view interest as the precondition for intrinsic motivation and
mastery goal orientation, whereas the motivation researchers . . . often see interest as the outcome of
mastery goal adoption” (p. 518). Their study found that student interest in science was more afected
by the form of activity rather than the content topic or learning goal and suggested that manipulating
learning environments could best improve student interest.
Jack and Lin (2017) reviewed 18 articles studying students’ views about what instructional strate-
gies made learning interesting. They developed a TEDI instructional framework representing four
interdependent but distinct strategies for making learning interesting: Transdisciplinary Connec-
tions, Mediated Engagement, Meaningful Discovery, and Self-directed Inquiry. They argue that
“the dynamic character of interest refers to the instinctive, spontaneous, self-determined attention
or impulse to action necessary to self-preservation, personal well-being or satisfaction” (p. 140) and
that “motivates the child to seek experiences which provide continuing or repeated interaction with
objects or activities associated with feelings of personal satisfaction” (p. 141).
Reviewing studies of determinants of students’ interest, Krapp and Prenzel (2011) found com-
plexity in student responses to topics, pedagogies, and aspects of science classes, and distinctions
between interest in the domain of science and in science classes. This casts doubt on the generaliza-
tion that interest in science sinks dramatically at the secondary level. A more nuanced and complex
view of afect that attends to diferent features of students’ science experiences, and the relation
between afect and cognitive aspects of these experiences, would allow us to go beyond generaliza-
tions about diminishing student attitudes to science with age and begin to look at afect in relation
to particularities of the elementary and secondary science experiences of students. This echoes the
fndings of Höft et al. (2019) described earlier.
This examination of the interaction of students’ afective response to school science over time
and the nature of the subject is taken up in detail by Anderhag and colleagues (2016) to argue that
“studies relying on interviews and questionnaires make it difcult to ascertain what the actual object
of interest is when students act in the science classroom” (p. 791). They argue that in relation to
the interest and enjoyment that we fnd with primary school students, “we cannot with certainty
conclude that it is this same interest that is lost in secondary school” (p. 809). Rather, the examina-
tion of students’ experiences across the primary–secondary divide through the lens of an interaction
between cognition and aesthetics allows a more nuanced interpretation of how students’ existing
interests interact with the changing nature of the science that is presented in school, and the increas-
ing move toward more abstracted science that is not presented to encourage a continuity with their
interest in everyday objects. This aesthetic interpretation of afective responses that foreground the
continuity with cognition will be taken up later in the chapter. Anderhag and colleagues argued that
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a key to efective engagement with learning in the science classroom was to support the transition
from students’ natural interests to interest in scientifc objects and practices. This is consistent with
Jack and Lin’s (2017) framework.
A number of studies have focused on enhancing student interest in science. Hagay and Baram-
Tsabari (2015) explored ways of incorporating students’ interest-based questions into the science
classroom, identifying a variety of pedagogies triggered by this, leading to improvements in stu-
dents’ responses across the themes of autonomy, relatedness, and competence specifed within self-
determination theory (SDT). Cheung (2018) in a mixed-methods study utilizing interviews followed
by instrument design and validation using SEM, found the signifcant factors afecting individual inter-
est in science lessons to be science self-concept, individual interest in science, and situational infu-
ences in the lessons themselves. Hong and colleagues (2019) traced the pathway from situational to
individual interest in a STEAM competition, arguing that well-designed competitions can stimulate
sustained individual interest. Drymiotou and colleagues (2021) found that active engagement in scien-
tifc practices and interactions with experts enhanced situational interest in STEM careers.
From these studies over at least a decade we see that student interest can relate to multiple aspects
of teaching and learning science, that the object of interest changes across the schooling years in rela-
tion to changing aspects of disciplinary knowledge, and that there are a variety of strategies focused
on interest that can lead to improved outcomes in both interest and learning.
Motivation
Motivation, involving a “movement” toward some goal or activity, is often associated with
autonomy. SDT (Deci & Ryan, 2012) is a theory that diferentiates motivation in terms of being
autonomous and controlled. SDT elaborates on the distinction between intrinsically and extrin-
sically motivated behavior. Studies of motivation to learn in science classrooms have tended to
focus on the ways teachers explicitly support student autonomy. Hoferber and colleagues (2016)
showed that autonomy-supportive teaching increased Grade 6 students’ intrinsic motivation and
fow-experience in a biology class. Großmann and Wilde (2020) showed advantages for students’
interest in biological topics of such teaching approaches, especially for those students with initially
low individual interest.
Adler et al. (2018) used SDT to examine the teacher’s role in providing motivational support in an
online open inquiry setting, fnding a positive correlation between this (which they labeled “guided
autonomy”) and students’ unfolding expressions of motivation. Fortus and Vedder-Weiss (2014)
developed an instrument to measure “continuing motivation” to examine the diferential efect on
motivation for science for students from democratic compared to traditional schools in Israel. Demo-
cratic schools explicitly focus on supporting students’ autonomy, and the study found that compared
to traditional schools, the continuing motivation of students in these schools was maintained from
ffth to eighth grade, whereas it decreased signifcantly in traditional schools. They hypothesize that
the diference may relate to encouragement of autonomy in the teaching approaches of democratic
schools but may be related also to family factors.
The Science Motivation Questionnaire developed by Glynn and colleagues (2009) and modifed
in 2011 (Glynn et al., 2011) consists of fve components: intrinsic motivation, self-determination,
self-efcacy, career motivation, and grade motivation. They found a link between college students’
motivation scores and science achievements, and gender diferences in self-efcacy in favor of men,
and in self-determination in favor of women. This fnding was repeated in Salta and Koulougliotis’s
(2015) study of Greek secondary school students, and Schumm and Bogner’s (2016) study of German
secondary school students. The instrument has been recently translated, trialed, and validated across
diferent age groups and science disciplines in a range of countries, including Indonesia (Aini et al.,
2020; Dong et al., 2020).
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Engagement
Claims around student engagement can be potentially misleading because of the diferent ways
the construct is used. Engagement has, like other afect-related constructs, been conceptualized as
having multiple dimensions. Fredericks et al. (2004) distinguished three forms of engagement: (1)
afective-emotional engagement, including attitude, interest, and a sense of belonging; (2) cogni-
tive engagement, including persistence and motivation; and (3) behavioral engagement, including
participation in activity. Thus, the engagement construct draws on a number of afective constructs.
Within these, it fags overlap with not only the literature on attitudes, interest, and motivation,
but also the growing literature on identity, and the link between afect, intention, and behavior.
Fredricks and colleagues (2018) used a mixed-methods sequential exploratory design, starting with
interviews to identify perceptions of motivational and contextual factors infuencing level of engage-
ment in mathematics and science. They found both boys and girls expressed higher engagement in
classrooms with more student-centered instruction and in classes with highly engaged peers, with
girls more likely to emphasize teacher support and personally relevant instruction. From this analysis,
they designed, applied, and validated an instrument designed to test associations between motiva-
tional beliefs (drawing on EVT), social support, and student-centered and relevant instructional prac-
tice with engagement in mathematics and science. Phillips and colleagues (2019), in documenting
engagement in citizen science, developed a Dimensions of Engagement framework based on cognitive,
afective, social, behavioural, and motivational dimensions.
Self-Effcacy and Self-Concept

Many attitudinal instruments include self-efcacy (Bandura, 2006) and/or self-concept as companion
factors, exploring links between attitudes, self-efcacy, and aspirations. Fortus (2014) describes self-
efcacy as “an expectancy about one’s capabilities to learn or perform a given task” and self-concept
as the “beliefs, hypotheses, and assumptions that an individual has about himself”. Further, “self-
efcacy is specifc to a task; self-concept is not” (p. 824).
Studies incorporating self-efcacy show a complex interplay between this construct, sociocultural
infuences, and attitudinal constructs. There is debate concerning whether there is a causal relation-
ship between self-efcacy or self-concept, interest, and aspirations. Kang et al. (2019) found no
reciprocal relationship between interest and self-concept in predicting students’ science aspirations.
On the other hand, in a study examining the relationship between under- and over-confdence (i.e.,
confdence bias) in science and attitudes and intentions, Sheldrake (2016) applied the EVT of moti-
vated behavioral choice (Eccles, 2009), fnding that degree of confdence afects the way students
consider their intentions toward studying science. They found that parental infuences predicted sci-
ence intentions for over-confdent students but not for under-confdent students.
In a longitudinal sample of students’ intentions to study non-compulsory physics in Years 8 and
10, Sheldrake et al. (2019) used predictive modeling to fnd that perceived advice, perceived utility
of physics, interest in physics, self-concept beliefs (students’ subjective beliefs of their current abili-
ties and performance), and home support specifcally orientated to physics were key predictors of
students’ intentions. Their fndings showed considerable stability in students’ attitudinal and belief
profles.
These relationships can depend on the particular cohort of students. Hilts et al. (2018) studied
predictors of achievement and retention in a science major using a multi-group path analysis. They
highlighted the importance of social supports that contribute to perceived competence (self-efcacy)
and relatedness (the extent to which students identifed as related with others in STEM), especially
for female, ethnically underrepresented, or frst-generation student cohorts. They identifed classmate
contact and peer mentoring as important for encouraging feelings of competence and relatedness.
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Teaching Practices, Attitudes, and Achievement

As we described earlier, studies have shown positive attitudinal outcomes related to classroom prac-
tices that emphasize inquiry or problem-based activities, practical work, links with meaningful con-
text, and opportunity for refection. In this section we review studies that have explicitly examined
the interaction between particular teaching practices and attitudes, which draw on a similar range of
attitudinal constructs described earlier. Many of these studies also examine achievement outcomes
associated with these teaching practices and attitudinal fndings.
Studies focused on attitudinal outcomes resulting from particular interventions tend to produce
positive results, with some indication that pedagogical novelty in itself improves attitudes (Potvin
et al., 2020). Aguilera and Perales-Palacios (2020) undertook a meta-analysis of studies reporting the
efect of didactic interventions on attitudes to fnd most had a positive and substantial efect size, with
the greatest efects being for cooperative learning, project-based instruction, context-based instruc-
tion, and technology-multimedia materials. Inquiry and dramatization had moderate efect sizes (see
also Villanueva Baselga et al., 2022), consistent with Vossen et al.’s (2018) fndings with respect to
research and design activities.
Studies have confrmed the generally positive efects of particular features of outreach activities on
afect. Vennix et al. (2018) investigated 12 disparate outreach activities and found positive efects on
autonomous motivation, particularly associated with perceptions of personal relevance focused on
understanding science, out-of-school activities with classmates that were related to a school subject,
and workshops compared to projects or lectures.
Savelsbergh and colleagues (2016) conducted a meta-analysis of the efect of interventions involv-
ing innovative teaching designed to improve student attitudes. They “distinguished fve types of
commonly advocated educational approaches: context-based, inquiry-based, ICT-enriched, collab-
orative, and extra-curricular” (p. 167). They considered attitude “a multidimensional construct com-
prising: perceived relevance (personal and societal), interest (school, leisure, career), self-efcacy, and
normality of scientists” (p. 167). From this, they found signifcant positive efects of the interventions
on overall attitude, general interest, and career interest. They found the efects of these innovations
on achievement considerably larger than the efects for attitude. They argue that there is no evidence
that a focus on attitude-oriented teaching compromises the possibility of improved achievement
outcomes.
They pointed out the signifcant challenge for attitudinal research of the problematic link between
attitudes and behavior, where measured attitudes are often poor predictors of what students actually
do in relation to science. From this they argue that behaviors are infuenced by many contextual fac-
tors as well as other psychological factors, such as perceptions of degree of control.
In response to this concern, one can argue a need when studying attitudes to be very specifc
about the object to which the attitude refers, a point we made earlier regarding the interest construct.
For instance, for attitudes to science in school, this might encompass attitudes to the science teach-
ing approach, doing practical work, doing science as a leisure activity, support for scientifc work
in society, and choosing a science study pathway. Even if students think science is an important and
interesting endeavor, they may or may not enjoy their school science, and this may be independent of
whether they feel positively about a future in science for themselves. This raises a signifcant question
concerning whether attitudinal constructs can be usefully combined into a single “attitude towards
science”.
Analysis of International Assessments to Explore Teaching-Affect Associations

A number of studies over the last decade analyzed international assessments to examine the efects
of diferent types of instruction on attitudes and achievement. Generally, the evidence points to
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inquiry approaches being associated with enhanced afect, with conceptual achievement best sup-
ported by guided, rather than open, inquiry. Jiang and McComas (2015) used the PISA 2006 results
to investigate the efect of inquiry teaching on achievement and attitudes. They found the highest
achievement levels associated with level-2 inquiry characterized by students conducting activities
and drawing conclusions from data, but not with level 3 involving designing or asking their own
questions. Higher attitude scores were, however, associated with these higher levels of inquiry. Kang
and Keinonen (2017) analyzed PISA 2015 data to fnd that inquiry learning experiences were a posi-
tive predictor of students’ career aspirations, mediated by outcome expectations.
In an analysis of PISA 2015 data for Taiwanese students, Liou (2021) found that teacher-directed
instructional practices, compared to inquiry practices, had a signifcant positive efect on students’
achievement but an inverse relation on attitudes toward science. Questions have been raised, how-
ever, about the validity of the instrument in distinguishing teaching practices as distinctly “inquiry”
or “direct instruction”. Kang and Keinonen (2018) also used PISA 2006 Finnish data and SEM to
explore the links between interest, achievement, and teaching approaches. The data indicated that
guided inquiry and using topics that were seen as relevant by students positively predicted students’
achievement, but this was not the case with open inquiry and discussion-based approaches.
Jack et al. (2014) performed an SEM analysis of the 2006 PISA data to explore the interac-
tion between afective and self-related factors (science-related interest, enjoyment, self-efcacy,
self-concept, leisure time engagement, and future intended interest) and environmental awareness
and responsibility among Taiwanese and Canadian students. They found that science self-concept
was weakly associated with future intended interest and engagement in science learning for both
groups. Their results suggest that students do not view science learning, environmental awareness and
responsibility as connected to their personal core sense of self and argue a need for an emphasis on
environmental education in the next-generation science education frameworks and standards and to
increase the priority and explicit consideration of afective factors, identity and self-in-science, and
environmental education instruction.
Sociocultural Infuences on Affect and Aspirations

There are some crucial sociocultural factors afecting students’ attitudes and aspirations toward
science that have been studied extensively, including gender, family infuences, and cultural infu-
ences pertaining to minority groups. Such studies have been driven by increasing concerns over
equity. Many studies have used analytic approaches, using the types of instruments and theoreti-
cal framings described earlier, but over the last decades, signifcant insights have been garnered
through synthetic approaches, using ethnographic or interview data, case study, and sometimes
mixed methods with smaller-scale qualitative research operating together with instrument devel-
opment and application.
Gendered responses to science have been recognized, in particular, as a signifcant equity issue for
decades, yet only limited inroads have been made into addressing these inequities. Women’s engage-
ment difers considerably depending on within-science diferences (biology vs. physics), context, and
profession (medicine vs. engineering). While there have been numerous recent studies undertaken in
the analytic tradition on gendered attitudinal efects, as with Potvin and Hasni’s (2014) review, these
tend not to have broken new ground in understanding the deeper mechanisms at play, with gender
diferences being more apparent when one looks at particular disciplines, topics within disciplines, or
particular features of pedagogy and interactions, compared to looking at attitudes to science overall.
Gender diferences in afect tend to wash out when looking at larger-scale phenomena. For instance,
Reilly et al. (2019) drew on TIMSS 2011 data to show small to medium gender efects on attitudes
and self-efcacy beliefs for individual countries but a complex picture and no overall gender difer-
ences. Further, in this chapter, we will report a more extensive review of gender diferences in afect
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and aspirations through the lens of identity and science capital, involving synthetic methodological
approaches that in many cases combine with analytic survey research.
Family and Cultural Infuences on Attitudes and Aspirations

Studies of sociocultural infuences on attitudes and aspirations toward science have utilized a variety
of methodologies and afective constructs and instruments. These consistently show substantial infu-
ence of family and family culture.
Studies have used data from the PISA international assessment to explore the efect of fam-
ily factors on students’ attitudes, achievement, and aspirations toward science. Shin and colleagues
(2015) used Korean PISA 2006 data to show positive efects for parents’ higher valuing of science
and socioeconomic status on motivation, science-career pursuit intentions, and motivations for this
career pursuit for both girls and boys. Perera (2014) used data from 15 countries to show that parents’
attitudes toward science have a positive and statistically signifcant efect on science achievement
across diferent socioeconomic groups. Summers and Abd-El-Khalick (2019), used multivariate,
multilevel modeling using constructs based on theories of reasoned action and planned behavior to
explore Grades 5–10 students’ attitudes. They found that students’ perceived science ability and the
frequency of talk within families about school were more infuential on attitudes than teacher- and
school-related variables.
In terms of the mechanisms by which family attitudes operate to shape young children’s learn-
ing, engagement, and interest development in science (science-learning dispositions), Kewalramani
and Phillipson (2020), through interviews with immigrant parents, showed how children internalize
parents’ cultural values and ideas, which refect their home culture and aspirations for their children.
They argued that parents with cultural values and aspirations for their children regarding science
engaged their children in science activities and discussions that are signifcant in shaping their chil-
dren’s scientifc aptitudes and aspirations. This is consistent with Liu et al. (2015) fndings that ffth
grade Chinese children’s career aspirations were infuenced by their parents responding positively to
children’s interests, emphasizing education, and conveying career values.
Sheldrake (2020) found students who consistently expressed science-related aspirations at 14
tended to have more advantaged family backgrounds, higher proportions of parents working within
science-related felds, higher self-confdence (in science, mathematics, and English), higher school
motivation, and higher self-esteem.
Sáinz and Müller (2018) drew on EVT to examine predictors of aspirations toward STEM among
Spanish 16-year-old students. Their results suggest the important role of the mother’s educational
level in shaping their children’s aspirations and the value they attach to these. They found that stu-
dents with non-Spanish-born parents had higher extrinsic motivation related to STEM than those
with Spanish-born parents, consistent with an Australian study showing also the greater participation
of frst-generation and foreign-background students in post-16 science (Cooper et al., 2020).
Nguyen and colleagues (2021) identifed, through interviews, the forces that shape the achieve-
ment and choices of Black women undergraduate STEM students, including: parental engagement
shaping interests and aspirations, teachers modeling excitement and providing learning pathways,
and extracurricular pipeline programs. Also important was the afrming nature and support from the
institution and peer interaction and support, highlighting the importance of structures that acknowl-
edge students and welcome them into STEM pathways.
Emotions
The research on emotions, distinct from research that examines students’ feelings about science
classes or science as a discipline, focuses on afective dynamics in the science class (Jaber & Hammer,
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2016). This research difers from that described earlier on attitudinal constructs in terms of the focus
on particulars of a classroom experience, and the short-term temporal nature of this focus. Emerg-
ing research highlights the salience of afect, such as annoyance, excitement, wonder, frustration,
pride, and triumph (Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2015; Siry & Brendel, 2016; Bellocchi et al., 2017), in
shaping scientifc activity and learning outcomes or coupling with personal epistemologies (Gupta
et al., 2018). Control-value theory (Pekrun, 1992; Pekrun et al., 2007, 2011) was developed as an
integrated framework for explaining the interactions between afect, behavior, and achievement in
academic settings. The basis of this interest is that learning is an emotional experience, and emo-
tions therefore infuence learning and development. The extent to which emotions are infuential
depends on a person’s perceived value and control of their learning. In Pekrun’s theory, there are
positive activating achievement emotions (enjoyment, hope, pride), negative activating emotions
(anger, anxiety, shame), positive deactivating emotions (relief), and negative deactivating emotions
(hopelessness, boredom). Research in this tradition continues. For instance, Raker and colleagues
(2019) developed and validated an instrument using SEM for measuring achievement emotions in
post-secondary chemistry courses and related these to subscales of academic motivation and regula-
tion of learning.
Recent research has used sociological approaches to focus on emotions in naturalistic settings.
Bellocchi (2015) describes emotions as biological and cultural processes involving physiological states
of arousal. He distinguishes between emotions experienced in the moment by individuals and emo-
tional climate (EC) arising from bidirectional interactions (Tobin et al., 2013; Bellocchi et al., 2014).
There are a number of approaches that have been recently developed for micro-level analyses of
emotions in response to classroom activity, including facial expression analysis, gestural analysis, and
vocalizations, all of which can be coded against emotion constructs, such as irritation, assertiveness-
anger, satisfaction-happiness, or disgust. A range of self-report techniques are used (Pekrun & Büh-
ner, 2014), including emoticon selection or clicker buttons, which can be used for studies of EC
(Ritchie et al., 2016; Tomas et al., 2016).
Zembylas and Schutz (2016) provide an overview of conceptual and theoretical frameworks
and research methods used by emotions researchers, discussing the implications of methodological
choices for understanding emotions. Recent theorization around emotions (Patulny et al., 2019)
points to increasing complexity in the way we view emotions, challenging binaries such as emo-
tional/rational and positive/negative emotional valence, and recognizing tensions between indi-
vidualized and collectivized emotions. Zembylas (2021) describes the “afective turn” in the social
sciences marking “a shift in thought in critical theory through an exploration of the complex
interrelations of discursive practices, the human body, social and cultural forces, and individually
experienced but historically situated afects and emotions” (p. 1). Some of these critical perspec-
tives are represented in the science education literature around identity, aspirations, and aesthetics,
discussed in the following section.
As an indicative example of recent research directions, Davis and Bellocchi (2018) analyzed
classroom micro-social practices to show how objectivity came to exist in a school science inquiry
task with subjectivity as crucially important through social encounters, shaped by the taken-for-
granted emotion of respect, which intensifed as emotional energy during the inquiry. Bellocchi
and Ritchie (2015) analyzed links between the emotions of pride and triumph within classroom
interactions and instructional tasks, drawing on Turner’s (2007) classifcation of emotions. Their
results indicate that emotions such as pride are not only relevant for students’ responses to success
in tasks, but also play a role in strengthening bonds between students after successful collaboration.
Sanctioning by the teacher or peers was a key element associated with these emotions and con-
tributed signifcantly to creating a positive emotional climate, student engagement, and stimulating
motivation.
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In this emotions research we see the possibility of identifcation of the moment-by-moment

interactions and experiences through which longer-term afective orientations, such as interest or
motivation, are crafted. Sociocultural studies of identity, and aesthetics, are also pursued at this level.
The Identity Construct in Science Education

To understand complexities in engagement with learning and longer-term participation patterns in
science pathways, there has been for the last two decades increasing interest in exploring students’
identity in relation to science and science learning. A range of studies have shown that science iden-
tity plays a signifcant role in students’ persistence in learning science subjects and their selection of
science careers (Aschbacher et al., 2014; Hazari et al., 2010). The identity construct goes beyond
considerations of short-term attitudes and afective responses to classroom events, to frame engage-
ment with science and longer-term aspirations in terms of self-processes that are bounded by social
structures and interactions with others that shape the organization and content of self. The move
toward an identity framing of afective responses constitutes a sociocultural turn in studies of afect
and aspirations, to sit alongside the psychological, analytic framing that has tended to dominate the
area. As Hazari and colleagues (2010) assert: “We believe that this [identity] focus provides a basis
for understanding students’ long-term personal connection to physics and is a more meaningful
measure than a general assessment of students’ attitudes” (p. 979). However, recent research shows
an increasing number of studies where sociocultural, synthetic framings have been combined with
analytic psychological categories in mixed-methods designs. This poses challenges for how the iden-
tity construct is interpreted, with sociocultural framings viewing identity as discursively and socially
produced, malleable, and multiple, compared to more positivist renderings of identity as fxed and
measurable. Avraamidou (2020b), in reviewing the conceptual history of the identity construct,
points out how it ofers an ontological approach to learning as an identity experience and its socially
framed nature in communities of practice.
A number of seminal studies have laid the groundwork for research on identity in science educa-
tion (Avraamidou, 2014; Calabrese-Barton et al., 2013; Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Varelas, 2012).
Carlone and Johnson (2007) built on the work of Gee (2000) to develop an identity construct built
on three dimensions: competence, performance, and recognition. Avraamidou (2014) probed the
construct of science teacher identity. Calabrese Barton and colleagues (2013) focus on analyses of
the processes of identity “work” as individuals interact over time with the complexity of their “fg-
ured” social worlds, rather than treating identity as fxed and defnable at any point in time. Despite
the distinction between research into attitudes in science and identity research, there are many ways
in which these traditions overlap, for instance, in the clear role of afect in students’ identity work,
including the overlap with analytic constructs of self-concept, self-efcacy, and interest. We will
describe next the incorporation of analytic attitude categories in recent quantitative research around
identity. In the sociocultural tradition, Avraamidou (2020a, 2020b) echoes Rivera Maulucci’s (2013)
perspectives on the central role of emotions in identity and identity development, particularly with
regard to misrecognition and response to oppression.
The identity construct has been particularly fruitful in determining equity considerations regard-
ing participation in science, with growing recognition of how the cultural framing of science interacts
with and can disturb the culturally framed identities of the diverse young people we aim to induct
into scientifc ways of thinking and doing. Thus, identity has been a focus for understanding: how
female students’ everyday identities respond to the “cultural arbitrary” of science subjects (DeWitt
et al., 2019), how Indigenous students’ engagement with science learning involves “border crossing”
(Aikenhead, 2001) or “wayfnding” (Howard & Kern, 2019) into Western science as a cultural prac-
tice, how minority students’ productive participation in science involves sustained “identity work”
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(Calabrese Barton et al., 2013), or how family background signifcantly frames students’ response
to school science (Dou et al., 2019; Dou & Cian, 2021). A key plank in this identity scholarship is
the realization that science and school science are not culturally neutral enterprises but at their core
represent values, perspectives, and assumptions that can be at odds with those of young people and
challenge their sense of self. As a corollary of this insight, the implications of this work speak not only
to approaches that are invitational for students, for instance, through pedagogical practices or choice
of contextual activities, but also raise questions about the presumptions of the disciplines themselves
and customary ways of teaching them. Archer et al. (2015) argue that science education is an impor-
tant form of symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 2010), which can facilitate agency and the shaping of forms
of privilege. Identity/agency studies represent a strong social justice agenda, in terms of fnding ways
of moving toward more equitable patterns of participation.
Science Classrooms and Identity

Over the last few years, a number of signifcant studies have explored the way science classroom
practices shape or constrain students’ science identity work. Kim (2018) used positioning theory
(Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999) to interpret through an identity lens the way a teacher positioned
students in inquiry-based classroom activities “to develop students’ science identity imbued with the
qualities of curiosity, wonder, perseverance, scepticism, and open-mindedness” (Kim, 2018, p. 40).
As part of this positioning, the teacher modeled the identity of a scientist and explicitly included
students in a storyline as scientists. Hazari et al. (2015) examined diferences in physics students’
behavioral, afective, and cognitive engagement as infuenced by teachers’ pedagogical moves. They
found that teachers’ social cues (those aimed at narrowing the social distance between student and
teacher) seemed to be the most important for afective and cognitive engagement, and subsequently
physics identity development (using an identity proxy that combined the subconstructs of physics
recognition, interest, and performance/competence, echoing Gee’s [2000] identity dimensions of
recognition, interest, competence, and performance). Studying an intervention designed to bridge
identity challenges, Birmingham et al. (2017) constructed case studies of females from nondominant
communities taking the “science that matters” and bridging to the community. They argue that
repurposing the science to their communities empowered the girls and gave hope, and that learn-
ing science for them was about connecting its purposes to “who they are and who/where they care
about” (p. 839).
Outreach experiences have been studied for their potential role in supporting students’ science
identity development (Carlone et al., 2015). Millar et al. (2019) studied the role that communities
of practice play in an astronomy outreach program for low-SES schools in developing students’ sci-
ence identity. They base their framing on the recognition that identity development and enactment
requires the participation of others in recognizing a particular kind of identity (Archer et al., 2010)
and that practice is identity work. They found “the communities that emerged in schools around
the TiS (Telescopes in Schools) program allowed for shared afective experiences of astronomical
phenomena” (p. 2596). As a counter-example, Shaby and Vedder-Weiss (2020) analyzed identity
development in three students in visits to a science museum, fnding that the museum reproduced
positioning and roles found in the classroom, thus questioning the capacity of feld trips to shift
identity trajectories.
Studies have also drawn on Butler’s (1993) idea of identity performance, exploring, for instance,
the afordances and limitations of a science museum learning space for girls (Dawson et al., 2020).
Dawson et al. identifed four types of performance (e.g., good behavior, being cool) enacted by the
girls (aged 12–13), arguing that a science museum space puts girls in a difcult position for learning
and for enacting the identities they are invested in. They argue a need for science learning spaces
“that disrupt rather than reproduce social inequalities” (p. 664). A further study (Godec et al., 2020)
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extends this performativity focus to physical and digital materiality, arguing for a greater focus on
multimodality in STEM identity research and the importance of space, including material technolo-
gies for enacting/limiting identity performance.
Recent Identity/Equity-Focused Studies

Carlone et al. (2014) followed three students through from fourth to sixth grade in science, using
classroom observations and interviews to examine the cultural and structural elements of the class-
rooms, using the lens of celebrated subject positions that enabled or constrained identity work, the
nature of students’ identity work, and the ways larger social structures (race, class, gender) infuenced
this identity work and positioning. They relate their fndings to the problem of diminishing inter-
est in science over the middle school years, ofering insight into the enabling/constraining efects
of the ways in which “celebrated subject positions”, or the construction of “ideal student”, serve to
enable or constrain students’ identity work in science, when these constructions are raced, classed,
and gendered (Archer, 2012).
Further studies have drawn on this notion of “celebrated” classroom identities. Archer, Dawson
et al. (2017) characterize school classrooms as spaces that are constituted by complex power struggles
involving contestation between the institution, teachers, and students, which has profound conse-
quences for students’ science identity and participation. They analyzed data from nine months of
London classroom observations and discussion group data to identity three dominant “celebrated
identity performances” (“tick box” learning, behavioral compliance, and muscular intellect), with
signifcant equity implications for the way these afect the participation of students from diverse
backgrounds. The study drew on the feminist poststructuralist work of Judith Butler (1993), who
proposed that gender identity is not the natural corollary of a person’s sex but should be understood
as socially constructed through discursive and bodily acts. Archer et al. thus treat identity as “perfor-
mative, nonessentialized, fuid, contested, and produced through discourse” (p. 744).
The identity construct has proven powerful for developing insights into the cultural hurdles expe-
rienced by minority groups in navigating school science, as part of an increasing concern with
equity of access to STEM futures. Studies of minority group identity experience of science have
variously focused on the way structures are intertwined with students’ self-authoring of identity and
the importance of social and emotional participation (Kane, 2016), and the diverse ways in which
minority ethnic students participate in science (Wong, 2016), including the conscripting of dance
identities of Black youth for science identity narration (Chappell & Varelas, 2020). Such studies have
helped us recognize the strong cultural framing of school science classrooms and subjects, suggesting
a need for change that has thus far eluded us at a system level.
Identity and Gender

Exploring the dialectic between social structures and individual agency (Varelas et al., 2015) in shap-
ing identity, Carlone et al. (2015) explored the constraints on girls’ agency by examining the efects
of social structures such as race, class, and gender, and classroom structures that narrowly defne
participation practices. The focus on structures enabled recognition of “the narrowly constructed
classroom subject positions that left virtually no room to be simultaneously ‘girly’ and ‘scientifc’ and
the prominence of heteronormative versions of femininity” (p. 474). The focus on agency “made
evident that girls were less engaged with how to become scientifc and more concerned with fgur-
ing out what kind of girl to be, given what was acceptable in the setting” (p. 474).
Avraamidou (2020a) explored the experience of a young immigrant Muslim woman in her trajec-
tory in physics. Cultural expectations, sociopolitical barriers, and negative stereotypes were obstacles
to Amina’s sense of belonging in physics, and her social class, religion, gender performance, and
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ethnic status positioned her as Other throughout her trajectory in physics. Avraamidou argued a
need to understand how to transform physics to be more invitational of diverse authentic identity
performances (see also Godwin & Potvin, 2017).
Waide-James and Schwartz (2019) examined how macro-level discourses (“ways of saying, doing,
and being that are recognized as certain types of people”, p. 679) available in the fgured world of
school science acted to limit the engagement of African American girls to acceding to identities as
good science students who are quiet, polite, passive, and fast workers. They noted an absence of dis-
courses that would support learning and development in science for these students
Indigenous Students
Participation of Indigenous students in science pathways is identifed as a signifcant equity issue in
many countries and has been the focus of identity research for some decades (e.g., Aikenhead, 2001;
McKinley, 2005). Aikenhead (2001) coined the term “border crossing” to highlight the identity
challenges experienced by First Nations students in engaging with school science as a cultural entity.
McKinley (2016) makes the point that PISA data shows that Indigenous students have interest in
science equal to their non-Indigenous peers and asks, “Why have STEM educators and schools not
been able to capitalise on this interest?” (p. 64). The identity perspective would indicate a need to
develop classroom practices that acknowledge “the nature of knowledge and the importance of cul-
tural identity to Indigenous communities” and to “identify ways to support teachers and students to
better leverage on the funds of knowledge that each bring to the STEM classroom” (p. 64). In this
spirit, a range of recent studies have explored ways of honoring Indigenous knowledges and prac-
tices. Rioux and Smith (2019) described an initiative that “engaged Indigenous preservice teachers
in border-crossing pedagogical practices as a way to recognise the legitimate use of the Indigenous
concepts of place” (p. 90). Fakoyede and Otulaja (2020) explored the use of cultural artifacts to teach
and learn science for Indigenous learners in South Africa. The study “showed that learners’ capitals,
namely cultural, social and symbolic capitals, enhance the development of cognitive capital leading
to the emergence of more knowledgeable other(s) within Indigenous science classrooms” (p. 193).
Defning and Measuring Identity

Qualitative identity-focused research has yielded rich insights into students’ experience of and par-
ticipation in science and science futures, and the way these experiences are framed within broader
social structures and the structures of science disciplines and classrooms. In the case of minority
groups, gender, and ethnicity/class, we have come to understand better the sociocultural settings that
can constrain students’ productive participation in science. This research has drawn strength from
and had profound efects on issues of equity in science education. Following this work, researchers
in the analytic tradition have more recently been engaged in constructing instruments to measure the
identity construct to explore patterns and infuences in relation to diferent groups, diferent experi-
ences, and diferent sociocultural variables. In moving from synthetic to analytic framings of identity,
there are, however, challenges. In constructing measures of identity, aspects of the rich complexity
of the sociocultural underpinnings are necessarily essentialized and frozen in time and interrelations.
Nevertheless, the research is yielding interesting results, and researchers such as Archer previously
steeped in qualitative approaches are exploring mixed-mode studies that capture both large-scale
patterns and narrative complexity (Archer et al., 2020).
Many of the instruments developed include constructs from the attitudes literature, such as inter-
est, curiosity, and self-efcacy. It is easy to see why constructs such as “self-concept” are related to
identity, but one of the issues on which researchers disagree is whether the identity construct should
refer only to notions of recognition in relation to self and others or whether a composite defnition
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is more useful. Next we describe some of the recent research that involves development of measures
of identity.
Dou and colleagues (2019, 2020) developed an instrument with the identity construct consisting
of three primary factors: interest, recognition, and performance/competence, building on the earlier
work of Gee (2000), Carlone and Johnson (2007), and Hazari et al. (2010). Carlone and Johnson had
used a three-dimensional identity construct: competence, performance, and recognition, to which
Hazari et al. added interest as a fourth dimension (see also Chen & Wei, 2022). Of these factors, both
sets of researchers had concluded that “recognition” (by others) was most correlated with identity.
Vincent-Ruz and Schunn (2018) make the point that the identity construct often includes a range
of attitudinal constructs, and their study sought to test its distinctiveness and coherence. They used
EFA to explore whether self-recognition (“I am a science person”) and recognition by others (“my
family/friends/teachers think of me as a science person”) can be considered part of one coherent
identity construct. Their survey included three attitudinal constructs: fascination (interest and posi-
tive afect, curiosity, and goals of acquiring scientifc skills and ideas), values (importance placed on
knowing and being able to do science), and competency beliefs. They found that (1) science identity
overall was a strong predictor of students’ science-related choices, and (2) science identity behaves
separately from the other attitudinal factors and has a unique contribution to our understanding of
students’ choices. Distinct from previous qualitative research fndings (e.g., Calabrese Barton et al.,
2013), they found that perceived personal and perceived recognized science identity components
loaded into a single factor and were not distinct.
A large body of qualitative research has connected early informal experiences to science identity
development (Maltese et al., 2014; Rahm & Moore, 2016), ofering a powerful lens for understand-
ing students’ career choices (Godwin et al., 2016). Dou and colleagues (2019) studied the predictive
power for STEM identity outcomes for fve categories of childhood experiences: engaging in disci-
plinary-based performances such as stargazing, participating in science programs such as camps, par-
ticipating in STEM competitions, consuming STEM media, and talking about science with friends
or family. They found that only these last two factors – consuming STEM media and talking about
science – were predictive of a STEM identity in college, with talking about science with family and
friends having a much more signifcant efect. In a follow-up study (Dou & Cian, 2021), they further
explored these science talk experiences of STEM majors in a Hispanic-serving institution and found
that “talking about science with friends and family was the only informal learning experience associ-
ated with students’ STEM identity” (p. 1093). Vedder-Weiss (2018), in a micro-ethnographic study
of a family rich in science habitus (Bourdieu, 2010), explored the complexity of how individuals
respond to the opportunities ofered and the crucial but subtle nature of family interactions for shap-
ing recognition and roles that intertwine with everyday science engagement to shape the forming
of identities.
In recent years a number of quantitative studies have developed multi-factor models to explore a
range of determinants of students’ science identity development. Kang et al. (2019) surveyed middle
school girls across a number of low-income communities, using multigroup SEM. They found self-
perception in relation to science to be the strongest predictor of identifcation with STEM-related
careers, and this varied by race/ethnicity. They found girls’ identifcation with STEM and STEM
careers was infuenced by home, school, and outside activities and that “attention ought to be paid
to the kinds of family and support that leverage the assets of the girls, their families, and their com-
munities” (Hazari et al., 2020, p. 434), arguing that unlike qualitative research into identity, quantita-
tive work had so far failed to incorporate the efect of context on identity development. Using the
constructs of performance/competence, recognition, interest, and a sense of belonging, they used
structural equation modeling to show how the relationship of these constructs to physics identity of
college students varied with gender and seniority. They argue for the importance of examining con-
text and variations in student experience when studying disciplinary identity development. Again,
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we see how one must be careful with analytic constructs to not overgeneralize, given the important
roles of context and culture.
Aspirations and Science Capital

Archer (2014) unpacked the construct of aspiration in some detail in terms of its predictive accuracy,
its discursively constructed nature, and the variety of infuences that shape it. In particular, she draws
on the work of Bourdieu (1986, 1992) to examine the infuence of family through the construct of
family habitus, defned as “a framework of dispositions, developed through a family’s sense of its col-
lective identity, that guides action, shapes perceptions of choice and provides family members with
a practical feel for the world” (p. 27), which interacts with various forms of capital to shape young
people’s desirable and possible futures. In this way, aspirations are closely linked to identity construc-
tion and discursively shaped by socioeconomic status and gender.
The work of the UK ASPIRES project (DeWitt et al., 2014; DeWitt & Archer, 2015; Archer
et al., 2020) is signifcant in combining the identity construct in relation to experience of school
science with sociological notions of family habitus and capital, focusing attention on the notion of
“feld” in relation to science and the cultural work that needs to be done by students in negotiating
the complexities of the intersections between these (Godec et al., 2018). Along with critical identity
perspectives, it raises questions about the cultural arbitrariness of school science as a barrier to equi-
table participation.
The ASPIRES project involved large-scale surveys of students across the elementary–secondary
school transition, supplemented by interview data. While the majority of students were found to
enjoy school science (very often linked to practical work) and hold positive views of scientists, this
did not translate into interest in “being” a scientist. This again raises questions about the distinctions
between interest, enjoyment, and aspirations. DeWitt et al. (2014) argued that “a narrow view of
the ‘kinds of people’ who pursue science operates against individuals coming to consider science as
something that is ‘for me’” (p. 1612). They suggest that the problem of aspirations is not so much
linked to “attitudes” as to a mismatch of self-perceptions and identities, conceptualized as non-
essentialized, fuid, contested, and discursively produced (Archer & deWitt, 2015).
In a related study, Wong (2015) explored reasons why careers from science are much more highly
sought after than careers in science for 11–14-year-old students. He argued that scientists’ science
is constructed by students as a highly gendered and racialized profession, compared to careers from
science, particularly medicine. Thus, identity can be a key factor through which to understand
aspirations.
The ASPIRES project has suggested “science capital” as a construct that identifes the mul-
tiple factors impacting students’ aspirations toward science futures, alongside educational factors
and practices and dominant representations of science (Archer, Dawson et al., 2015; Archer et al.,
2020). This extends Bourdieusian notions of cultural and social capital to recognize scientifc forms
that command high symbolic and exchange value. Analysis of survey fndings showed that students’
diferent levels of science capital predicted diferent future science intentions, diferent levels of
self-efcacy in science, and diferences in the extent to which they felt others saw them as a “sci-
ence person” (Dewitt et al., 2016). Their fndings point to the complex array of factors infuencing
aspirations, including attitudes to school science and parental attitudes, mediated by possession of
science capital.
ASPIRES pursued a range of studies focusing on gender and ethnicity efects on science engage-
ment and aspirations (Archer, DeWitt et al., 2014; Archer & DeWitt, 2015; Archer, Moote et al.,
2017; Moote et al., 2019, 2020), in particular the engagement and aspirations of minority groups,
gendered participation, and the nexus between science capital, family habitus, and science as a feld
(Archer, Moote et al., 2020; Wong, 2015). Archer et al. (2015), comparing survey results on science
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aspirations for diferent ethnic groups and conducting a longitudinal study of a subset of Black
African/Caribbean students from ages 10–14, argued that these students are situated at the nexus of
intersecting inequalities that render science “unthinkable” because of incompatibility with dominant
representations of scientists, Othering through association of science with “braininess”, economic
and social disadvantage, and associations of science careers with White masculinity.
Science capital was conceptualized in ASPIRES using principal component analysis (Archer,
Dawson et al., 2015) based on large-scale survey data, as consisting of nine components, which have
been gathered together under eight dimensions as part of a science capital teaching approach (Godec
et al., 2017) that attends explicitly to equity issues in framing teaching and learning. A number of
recent studies have involved the development of quantitative instruments designed to measure science
capital. For instance, Du and Wong (2019) used PISA 2015 survey items as a proxy to investigate
Chinese and UK students’ patterns of infuence of science capital on career aspirations, fnding a
strong infuence.
The research pathways followed with the identity, and science capital constructs, provide interest-
ing insights into the relation between synthetic and analytic framings. This point will be discussed
further in the concluding section.
Aesthetics and Science Education

The early part of the 21st century involved a growing appreciation for the importance of exploring
and valuing the role of aesthetics in students’ and teachers’ encounters and relationships with science.
Aesthetics here is understood in the Kantian sense of “judgments of taste about qualities of objects
in the world” (Wickman, 2017, p. 10), which has been almost exclusively explored through socio-
cultural, synthetic approaches. This notion of aesthetics is strongly present in science education in
Dewey’s pragmatist ideas, grounded in his notion that aesthetic experience signifes “experience as
appreciative, perceiving and enjoying” (1934/1980, p. 4). This challenges the traditional separation
of afect from cognition, instead considering these as two sides of the same coin (Wickman, 2006).
Conceptual learning and students’ appreciation of science – how they feel about what science can do
for them – are intimately intertwined and underpin student engagement with science (Jakobson &
Wickman, 2008). As students are inducted into the practices of science, they need teacher support to
appreciate and value those objects and processes of science that aford the solving of scientifc prob-
lems and engaging with the world in a scientifc way (Pugh & Girod, 2007). Learning to know and
learning to value are inseparable. The focus on developing aesthetic understandings can be linked to
the notion of scientifc attitude. Students’ appreciation of scientifc phenomena and processes impact
their interest in science and identifcation with the discipline.
Pragmatist Approaches to Feeling and Meaning

This promising pragmatist approach to aesthetics, which can uncover fresh insights into some tren-
chant issues of attitudes toward science, is playing out in a research context that is still dominated by
approaches that seek to separate emotion/afect/feeling from cognition/conceptual learning. Wick-
man (2017) pointed out in a systematic literature review that “the most common constructs used to
study aesthetic experience in science education are (1) attitude, (2) motivation, and (3) interest . . .
less common are the constructs (4) emotion, (5) aesthetic, (6) afect, and (7) taste” (p. 15). These
constructs refect the analytic research tradition in science education, which as Wickman (2017)
argues, “relies on a conception of learning as change of mental states and as chains of causal law-
bound processes” with a focus on determining the “structural factors causing emotions within indi-
viduals” (p. 12). Emotions are considered as “afective inner mental structures” (p. 12), with learning
framed as a reward/arousal system.
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The situation seems to have changed little since 2017. Wickman et al. (2022) report that the
synthetic approaches to aesthetics in science education, in particular pragmatist approaches, have still
not made their mark on the research landscape to the same extent as those studies that are grounded
in neuroscientifc, cognitive, and psychological accounts. Such pragmatist perspectives approach aes-
thetics as a matter of studying emotions/afect/feeling “in action, as social transactions, in historically
constituted settings” (Wickman, 2017, p. 2). They focus on “how the various feelings, as in a science
education class, are transacted in furthering action and so giving them certain meanings” (p. 2). Fol-
lowing the pragmatism of Peirce (1905/1998), this approach unifes feeling with meaning so that
“feeling and meaning are coeval, coevolved, functionally complementary, co-determined, and co-
determinative” (Lemke, 2015, p. 602). As Prain (2020) points out, “feelings are constitutive of, and
inseparable from, meaning-making”, with feelings considered as “semiotic signs with interpretable
meanings” (p. 22). Wickman et al. (2022) argue, “viewing aesthetics, afect and disciplinary learning
as intertwined implies new challenges for the what, how and why of classroom research on this topic”
(p. 14). There is a need for in situ, empirical research that makes use of methods and methodologies
that aford the study of the moment-to-moment constitution of feeling and meaning in the science
classroom, for example, the use of classroom video (Prain, 2020; Wickman, 2017). This necessitates
a focus on feeling/meaning in teaching and learning science (Lemke, 2015), that is aesthetic experi-
ences as the development of habits in the Rortian sense of “a matter of acquiring habits of action for
coping with reality” (Rorty, 1991, p. 1). Students’ dispositions to science in the form of habits are the
ways in which they are likely to relate to and encounter science as particular feelings and meanings
(Wickman et al., 2022). More research is required to determine what tasks, sign-making, and teacher
support are conducive to students developing this appreciation for the processes and practices of sci-
ence (Prain, 2020). Research is starting to emerge that focuses on teachers supporting students to
develop a taste for science, as built on a growing appreciation for the alignment of afect and interest
and the semiotic nature of aesthetic experiences.
A Taste for Science

Anderhag et al. (2015a) show that most accounts of students losing interest in science are framed
by analytic research that primarily makes use of interviews and questionnaires. These are limited in
providing insights into the moment-to-moment interactions between students and teachers, and
between students and the objects of interest that are pivotal to constituting their aesthetic experi-
ences of science. The “object of interest” (physical, conceptual, human) is key to this Deweyan
(1934/1980) perspective; it is what the aesthetic experience “centres on through the anticipation and
expectations of its outcomes or in savouring the actual outcome of being involved” (Wickman et al.,
2022, p. 727) as students seek to solve the problem at hand and consummate their experiences. As
such, “interest in science class . . . is understood as the fruitful prosecution of some course of action
in which elements . . . are discerned and appreciated as objects of interest on the basis of what they
do along the way in carrying this process to fulflment” (Anderhag et al., 2016, p. 796).
Anderhag et al. (2016) propose that interest is constituted in the science classroom through what
students and teachers say and do, which is linked to what they feel and think (Anderhag et al., 2015).
They employ practical epistemology analysis (PEA) (Wickman & Östman, 2002a, 2002b), based
on Dewey’s pragmatism (1938/1997) and Wittgenstein’s (1953/1967) notion of language games,
to unpack the meaning-making potential of encounters that occur in the Year 7 and Year 9 science
classrooms. They show that it is not a case of students losing interest in science as they transition
from primary to secondary school, but rather that the object of interest – science – alters in character
across the primary–secondary school divide. In primary school, students tend to relate to and value
everyday objects of interest and are not aware of the diferent objects of interest of science. While
secondary students are often aware of the presence of both everyday and scientifc objects of interest,
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they also struggle to appreciate scientifc objects of interest (Anderhag et al., 2016). Students need
support to establish continuity between these diferent types of objects of interest as manifested in the
primary and secondary school settings (Anderhag et al., 2015; Anderhag et al., 2016). As Anderhag
et al. (2015) argue, this is particularly important for making science welcoming for students from
disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.
Anderhag (2017), drawing on his previous PEA studies (Anderhag et al., 2015; Anderhag et al.,
2015), proposes that teachers need to work with students to develop “a taste for science”. To align
their personal interests and the associated everyday objects of interest with those of science in a
disciplinary-specifc and disciplined way. Anderhag uses the “construct of taste for science as a social
and communicative operationalization, or proxy, to the more psychologically oriented construct of
interest” (Anderhag et al., 2015a, p. 339). Taste is action-oriented interest, that is, interest that is con-
stituted in what students say and do. It is of the nature of a habit in that it is a set of normative value
judgments and associated feelings and meanings as to what objects of interest should be excluded and
included from the scientifc process of resolving the problem at hand and consummating experience
(Anderhag, 2017). This notion of taste is grounded in both Dewey’s (1938/1997) account of habit
as well as Bourdieu’s notion of habitus (1986). Bourdieu here represents a turn to the sociological,
such that taste relates to students’ dispositions to the world around them, in particular appreciating
and valuing what particular objects can do for them in making sense of the world (Anderhag, 2017).
Taste provides a complementary view to the development of science capital, also strongly inspired by
Bourdieu, such that a focus on interest as taste means a focus on equity and inclusion. The science
classroom becomes a place in which all students, including those traditionally marginalized, need
to be supported to develop a taste for science through aligning their personal/everyday tastes with
those of science (Anderhag et al., 2015). Anderhag et al. (2015b) make clear that the teacher needs to
establish continuity between this taste of science in the classroom and the associated personal tastes of
students, and the way in which taste is constituted in the world of science beyond the school. Hobbs
and Kelly (2017) show that if teachers do not have a taste for science and model this for their students,
then it is unlikely that their students will appreciate the value of science. Lima Junior and colleagues
(2022) trace the development of a prize-winning teacher’s taste for science teaching, showing the
strong sociocultural framing of his commitments.
This pragmatist approach to science education that focuses on taste is closely aligned with research
that explores students’ curiosity and wonder in science. Luce and Hsi (2015) qualitatively analyzed
Year 6 students’ photo journals and interviewed students about their expressions of curiosity regard-
ing objects of science. They discovered that students expressed this curiosity in various ways, includ-
ing wonderment for science. Lindholm (2018) proposed a conceptual framework for curiosity-based
science education, working with the notion of wonder as applicable to preschool, primary school,
and secondary school contexts. He argued that in preschool, “curiosity and wonder are triggered by
perceptive beauty rather than by facts”, while in primary school “curiosity is encouraged by explor-
ing the diversity of the world”, and in high school “curiosity is ignited by means of a better balance
between models and phenomenology” (p. 987). Gilbert and Byers (2017), working with preservice
teachers, showed that fostering teachers’ wonder in science, particularly among those teachers who
have negatively experienced science and lack interest in science, is a powerful way to support them
to develop positive relationships with science and associated pedagogies that foster wonder in their
students as part of a positive disposition toward science.
The pragmatist approach to aesthetics in science education is building evidence that what students
know about science and feel about science are intimately intertwined. Science education is about
“learning to feel like a scientist” (Jaber & Hammer, 2016, p. 216). Jaber’s and Hammer’s notion
of “epistemic-afect” (2016, p. 190) is similar in meaning to “aesthetics” as used in the pragmatist
research. Both approaches highlight what Alsop (2015) refers to as “the fact that afect and cogni-
tion are inseparable and mutually constitutive” (p. 22). This aligns with synthetic approaches to
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understanding the role of feeling and meaning in science that builds on the afective turn in science
education to closely align what students feel about science with their conceptual learning (Alsop,
2016). Alsop’s (2016, 2017, 2018) research on afect highlights the way in which students’ inter-
est in science is closely aligned with students’ encounters with science – the objects and processes
of science – and more specifcally the way in which students’ minds/bodies are afected by and afect
science. Alsop and Dillon (2018), refecting on their encounters with a (preserved) Narwhal at the
Royal Ontario Museum, contend that “education is a way of attending with, a way of feeling and
relating to” (p. 65) science.
Semiotic and Interdisciplinary Nature of Aesthetics

This pragmatist aesthetic account is ofering new and potentially productive means to explore the
variety of ways (conceptual, afective/aesthetic) in which teachers and students relate to science in
interdisciplinary contexts, which is an increasingly important issue as STEM and, even more-so,
STEAM become favored ways for engaging students in authentic science in school (Mejias et al.,
2021). The increasing recognition of the semiotic nature of aesthetics, and thus the semiotic nature
of feeling and meaning as understood through Peirce’s semiotics (1894/1998), Wittgenstein’s ideas
on language (1953/1958), as well as Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (1978), is making it
possible to appreciate more of the complexity and richness of students’ and teachers’ aesthetic experi-
ences of science. Due to art’s historical links to aesthetics, it has become a favored context in which
to explore the aesthetics of science and more specifcally how each discipline can aesthetically inform
students’ experiences of learning (Wickman et al., 2022).
Jakobson and Wickman (2015), in a PEA analysis of video data of Year 1 students’ explorations
of leaves through a science activity and an art activity, demonstrated that art and science mediated
diferent aesthetic experiences for the students. The nature of these aesthetic experiences depended
on the “mediating artefacts” (Jakobson & Wickman, 2015, p. 325) that the students encountered as
they explored the leaves in diferent ways. Caiman and Jakobson (2019) showed, through another
PEA analysis of video data, that Year 1 students’ understanding of and interest in animal ecology
was enhanced when their art practices and science practices were combined through drawing to
provide a rich aesthetic experience. Students’ drawings as artistic artifacts were valued as creatively
and imaginatively meaningful for learning the science of animal ecology. Recent studies (Ferguson
et al., 2021; Hannigan et al., 2021; Tytler et al., 2022) have started to draw more explicitly on the
semiotics of Peirce (1894/1998) to show ways in which practices of art and science can be produc-
tively intertwined in the secondary science classroom. Students create and work with multimodal
representations in order to make value judgments that align with the aesthetics of art and science.
Through microgenetic analyses of video data, these studies point to an “emotionally-infused semi-
otic” or “semiotically-infused aesthetic” (Ferguson et al., 2021, p. 18) at play when students feel and
think in the moment. They are supported by their teachers to develop a habitual appreciation for
what the practices of science and art can do for them in the science classroom, their daily lives, and
the world of science beyond.
Concluding Thoughts
The last two decades have involved a proliferation of interest in research on afect in science edu-
cation, driven initially by a realization that learning is crucially shaped by afective factors, then by
concern at falling participation in science in the post-compulsory years and evidence of diminishing
interest across the middle years, and more recently by a sharper focus on equity and social justice
considerations around these trends. This shift in context has widened the focus of research on afect
from framing in psychological terms to an increasing recognition of its sociological drivers and of the
182
culturally framed structures of school science that serve to limit equity of participation. Methodolog-
ically, some of this shift has been accompanied by a greater visibility for synthetic alongside analytic
research approaches. This chapter has been broadly structured to follow these evolving themes, and
here we attempt a reprise of the key insights into the productive framings of afect, the factors that
determine it, and its entailments for learning and participation.
There are a range of constructs, particularly “attitude”, “interest”, and “motivation”, that domi-
nate analytic research in science education. However, measures of these constructs tend to be incon-
sistent across the feld, and questions continue to be raised concerning the psychometric processes
used by researchers, leading to advocacy for greater attention to a variety of aspects of validity.
However, one of the challenges with constructs developed in the analytic tradition is the assumption
of fxity of the underlying language, an assumption that is needed if we are to investigate diferences
between groups, yet it is also clear that responses to such language are culturally framed. We need
to develop sharper agreements about the operationalization of attitudinal constructs, but also a more
sophisticated way of attending to cultural diferences in how these are expressed.
Generally, improvements in attitudes are associated with a variety of student-centered pedagogies,
but with guided rather than open inquiry associated with improved learning outcomes. More positive
afect is associated with increased learning outcomes. However, the causal pathway between attitudes
and engagement, learning and future learning intentions, is not straightforward; a number of theories
that model these continue to be used by analytic researchers. Attitudes and aspirations in science are
strongly mediated by a range of sociocultural factors, including gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeco-
nomic status. Gender diferences tend to be specifc to topics, pedagogies, and classroom interactions.
Family talk about science and family values are consistently found to be highly infuential.
Increasingly, our views on afect are being refned to be more specifc as we develop theoretically
informed languages to talk about afect. Including a greater sensitivity to the objects of afect, to the
sociocultural settings of learning related to the classroom environment, and to the embedded cultural
presumptions of school science and its symbolic entailments and the disjunctions this creates for a
range of groups of students.
For each construct, there is a history of both analytic and synthetic research traditions that can
relate bidirectionally, and in some cases are combined in mixed-methods studies. Constructs change,
however, with changing methodological framings. Emotions research has a history in the psychologi-
cal literature, but recently there has been interest in a sociological perspective, for instance, around
classroom emotional climate. In constructs such as interest, identity or “science capital”, we see this
movement between analytical and synthetic traditions. For the generation of afective constructs
related to particular aspects of student engagement or learning, and identifcation of the complexities
underpinning afect–context–conceptual learning relations, synthetic approaches have progressed our
thinking. For system-level explorations or comparison between groups or diferent approaches and
contexts, an analytic framing is needed.
The construct of identity has been useful for unpacking the distinction between attitudes toward
science and intentions to take up scientifc futures and has been particularly powerful in developing
insights into sociocultural factors afecting learning and short- and longer-term engagement with
science. In particular, framings of identity as multiple, shifting, and culturally/discursively/bodily
produced has alerted researchers to the large-scale and classroom structural features that interact to
frame student agency. Synthetic research into identity, and the more recent science capital framing,
has been used to construct a range of analytic instruments to measure these constructs for comparison
across groups and time. These inevitably involve a theoretical shift in the way these constructs are
understood, and more research is needed to better align these instruments and constructs with the
sociocultural complexities identifed in the synthetic research.
Research into aesthetic responses to science have powerfully drawn on pragmatist semiotic per-
spectives that link afect and conceptual meaning as mutually constituted. Afect is central rather than
183
antecedent to learning. The construct of “taste” introduces a sociological dimension to the aesthetic
experience of science, aligning this work with that of identity and science capital. The aesthetic
construct holds promise of a sharper analysis of student afective responses to a variety of aspects of a
science education, with more research needed based on this.
Currently, the analytic instruments developed for measuring identity and science capital have simi-
lar challenges outlined for attitudinal instruments in the earlier part of this chapter, on which they are
based. Nevertheless, the emergence of these constructs in their synthetic form and their subsequent
representation in analytic categories have been and continue to be generative tools for (1) widening
the construct of “attitudes” from the psychological to include the sociocultural context of learning in
science classrooms, (2) alerting us to the particular challenges for a range of learners in learning sci-
ence, to support a more informed focus on equity in science education, and (3) providing a theoretical
framing for analysis of the broader sociocultural factors impacting on learning science for diferent
groups. There is a need for ongoing research to translate these fndings into efective system policy and
teacher practice to create a tradition of efective and equitable classroom science teaching.
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7
LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
Barry J. Fraser
Introduction
There has been growing recognition worldwide that the learning environment is centrally important
in education (OECD, 2013, 2017; Zandvliet & Fraser, 2019). As identifed in the executive sum-
mary of the OECD’s (2013) Innovative Learning Environments, a learning environment is “an organic,
holistic concept – an ecosystem that includes the activity and the outcomes of the learning. Some of
the innovations examined are in places called schools and others are not”.
Undoubtedly, science education researchers have contributed enormously to the establishment,
evolution, growth, and international spread of the feld of learning environments. These many
contributions – those particularly providing convincing evidence that the learning environment
infuences a broad range of students’ outcomes and therefore that a positive learning environment is
both a worthwhile end itself and a means to a valuable end – have been extensively reviewed (Fraser,
1994, 2012a, 2012b, 2014; Zandvliet & Fraser, 2019).
It is important to delineate clearly what the central focus of this chapter is and is not. The cen-
tral purpose is to review publications in the English language that report research from the feld of
learning environments. Therefore, the chapter excludes descriptions of novel learning environments,
however interesting, unless they are the foci of published learning environment studies. The chapter
deliberately builds upon Fraser’s (2014) corresponding chapter in the previous version of this hand-
book to provide a consolidated, updated, holistic, integrated, and complete, not an add-on, portrayal
of learning environments research.
In structuring this chapter’s review of past learning environment research, the following two
major sections are used:
• Assessment of learning environments

• Established, emerging, and future lines of research on learning environments
The long-term success of any new feld requires not only strong research traditions but also strong
support structures. Therefore, in 1984, the American Educational Research Association (AERA)
Special Interest Group (SIG) on Learning Environments was established. This highly successful and
widely international SIG has its own program each year at the AERA’s annual meeting and, cur-
rently, each AERA annual meeting program has over 100 entries in its index under the heading
“learning environments”. The next landmark in the evolution of the feld was the establishment
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-9 193

Barry J. Fraser
in 1998 of Learning Environments Research: An International Journal published by Springer Nature

(previously Kluwer). In its 25th volume in 2022, this journal is rated in Scimago Quadrant 1 in
several felds, including education, and is included in Web of Science. A decade after the birth of
this journal, the next landmark was the establishment in 2008 of the book series Advances in Learning
Environments Research, published by Brill Sense (e.g., Aldridge & Fraser, 2008; Wubbels et al., 2012;
Zandvliet & Fraser, 2019).
Assessment of Learning Environments

A wide range of research methods can be used for assessing and investigating learning environments,
including direct observations, surveys of students’ and teachers’ perceptions, ethnographic and phe-
nomenological approaches, natural inquiry, case studies, narratives, and behavior settings (Fraser,
2012b). A comprehensive and insightful discussion of numerous qualitative research methods is
provided by Erickson (2012). These methods can be diferentiated into “low-inference” measures
that tap into specifc explicit phenomena and “high-inference” measures that involve respondents
making judgments about the meaning of events within a learning environment (Rosenshine, 1970).
Tobin and Fraser (1988) advocate combining qualitative and quantitative approaches in mixed-
methods approaches to learning environment research. Using multiple methods not only allows the
unique strengths of each diferent method to emerge, but also reduces or overcomes each method’s
weaknesses. As well, triangulating fndings emerging from the use of diferent methods strengthens
confdence in those fndings. “We cannot envision why learning environment researchers would opt
for either qualitative or quantitative data, and we advocate the use of both in an efort to obtain cred-
ible and authentic outcomes” (Tobin & Fraser, 1998, p. 639).
Although the take-up of this recommendation to use mixed methods in learning environment
research was somewhat slow in the ensuing years, there were notable exceptions. As part of a cross-
national investigation of learning environments in Taiwan and Australia, Aldridge et al. (1999)
combined the use of a popular questionnaire (quantitative data) with observations, interviews, and
narrative stories (qualitative data). It is noteworthy that Aldridge et al.’s article is reproduced in Cre-
swell and Plano Clark’s (2007) seminal book Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research as an
exemplary application of mixed methods.
Guided by Deci and Ryan’s (2002) self-determination theory, Cho et al. (2021) used a sequen-
tial explanatory mixed-methods approach in exploring how autonomy-supportive learning envi-
ronments promoted 356 Asian international students’ academic adjustment. The quantitative phase
focused on relationships between autonomy-supportive environments and afective, behavioral, and
cognitive learning components. When results from the quantitative component were explored fur-
ther through follow-up interviews, autonomy-supportive environments were found to satisfy inter-
national students’ basic psychological needs by decreasing their language anxiety and increasing their
classroom participation and adaptive perspectives about classroom assessment. Also drawing on the
self-determination theory of Ryan and Deci (2000), Glassner (2022) designed a self-determined
learning environment for an innovative teacher education program in Israel. When data were gath-
ered via semi-structured interviews and presented as students’ stories, together with students’ pre-
sentations that were subjected to deductive thematic analysis, Glassner concluded that this program
helped students to advance their self-capacity, autonomy, connections with others, and responsibility
for learning.
A later subsection of this chapter entitled “Improving Learning Environments” identifes as an
important more-recent trend teachers’ action research aimed at improving their learning environ-
ments. This involves mixed methods in that questionnaires are used to assess students’ perceptions of
actual and preferred learning environment, after which this is supplemented by classroom observa-
tions, case studies, vignettes, and narratives.
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Learning Environments
Another advantage of using mixed methods in learning environment research is that direct obser-
vations by external observers are widely recognized in psychological literature as being somewhat
diferent and distinct from milieu inhabitants’ apprehension of an environment (Jessor & Jessor, 1973).
For this reason, Murray (1938) introduced the terms “alpha press” and “beta press” to distinguish
between externally observed and internally perceived environments. Because of these diferences
between observed and perceived environments, there are merits in using both in mixed-methods
designs and triangulating the data obtained.
Despite the desirability of using mixed methods in learning environment research, reviews show
that the most frequently used method of assessment in past studies has been the use of questionnaires
that tap students’ and teachers’ perceptions (Fraser, 2012b, 2014, 2019). In addition to considerations
of economy with large samples, assessing learning environments in terms of the shared perceptions
of students and teachers characterizes settings through the eyes of the participants and captures data
that observers possibly could miss or consider unimportant (Fraser, 2014). “Few felds of educational
research have such a rich diversity of valid, economical and widely-applicable assessment instruments
as the feld of learning environments” (Fraser, 1998, p. 7).
Because of the central role that questionnaires have played in past learning environment research,
both as the sole method of assessment and in mixed-methods studies, this section provides readers
with ready access to some of these economical and validated surveys by providing a historical review
of their development and use. The Appendix lists eight historically signifcant or currently used class-
room learning environment questionnaires and provides the name of each scale in each instrument,
the level (primary, secondary, higher education) for which each instrument is suited, the number of
items in each scale, and the classifcation of each scale according to the Moos (1974) highly regarded
scheme for classifying human environments into three basic types of dimension: relationship dimen-
sions (which identify the nature and intensity of personal relationships within the environment and
assess the extent to which people are involved in the environment and support and help each other),
personal development dimensions (which assess basic directions along which personal growth and
self-enhancement tend to occur), and system maintenance and system change dimensions (which
involve the extent to which the environment is orderly, clear in expectation, maintains control, and
is responsive to change). The historical and chronological development of these surveys is highlighted
in the following subsections.
Learning Environment Inventory (LEI) and Classroom

Environment Scale (CES) in the United States
The historical beginnings of contemporary learning environments research usually are attributed
to independent research in the United States conducted by Rudolf Moos, who pioneered the use
of participant perceptions of various human environments, and Herbert Walberg. Research and
evaluation related to Harvard Project Physics led to the development of the Learning Environment
Inventory (LEI, Anderson & Walberg, 1968; Walberg, 1979), whereas Moos developed the Class-
room Environment Scale (CES, Moos, 1979; Moos & Trickett, 1974), which applied his work in
other human environments to school settings. One of Moos’s (1974) enduring contributions is that
the same three fundamental dimensions characterize diverse human environments, including hospital
wards, work settings, families, and schools.
Although historically signifcant, the LEI is seldom used in contemporary learning environment
research. However, the My Class Inventory (MCI), a simplifed version of the LEI for children aged
8–12 years, is still used today because of its low reading level. The MCI, which has only fve scales
(cohesiveness, friction, satisfaction, difculty, and competitiveness) and simplifed wording, has been
modifed and cross-validated in Australia (D. L. Fisher & Fraser, 1981), in Texas (Scott Houston
et al., 2008), in Brunei with large samples of 1,565 lower-secondary students (Majeed et al., 2002),
195
Barry J. Fraser
in Washington state with 2,835 grade 4–6 students (Sink & Spencer, 2005), and in Singapore with
1,512 grade 5 students (S. C. Goh & Fraser, 1998).
Early Australian research with the CES, involving 116 grade 8 and 9 science classes, made several
signifcant contributions. First, the CES was cross-validated for use in Australia (D. L. Fisher & Fraser,
1983a). Second, interesting patterns of diferences were identifed between teachers’ and students’
perceptions of actual and preferred learning environments (D. L. Fisher & Fraser, 1983b): both stu-
dents and teachers preferred a more favorable learning environment than the one perceived as being
actually present; and teachers perceived the same learning environment more favorably than did their
students (the “rose-colored glasses” phenomenon). Third, associations were established between stu-
dent attitudes and inquiry skills and the learning environment, especially order/organization, teacher
support, and innovation (Fraser & D. L. Fisher, 1982). Fourth, Fraser and D. L. Fisher (1983) uti-
lized a person–environment ft perspective to establish that students achieve cognitive and afective
outcomes better when in their preferred learning environment. This research not only supported
the importance of the actual learning environment, but also suggested that changing actual learning
environments to better align with students’ preferences also could lead to additional improvements
in student outcomes.
Individualized Classroom Environment Questionnaire (ICEQ) and

College and University Environment Inventory (CUCEI) in Australia
Before long, the ideas of Walberg and Moos spread to Australia. The frst major new question-
naire development undertaken in the feld of learning environments in Australia focused on the
Individualised Classroom Environment Questionnaire (ICEQ), which grew out of awareness that
the LEI and CES assess the environments of teacher-centered settings and therefore are not ideal for
student-centered, individualized and inquiry-based settings. The ICEQ’s fve scales of personalisa-
tion, participation, independence, investigation, and diferentiation assess dimensions that distinguish
individualized settings from conventional ones (Fraser, 1990).
In a literature review entitled “What about tertiary climate”, Alansari and Rubie-Davies (2020)
laments the underrepresentation of a higher-education studies in learning environment research
compared with the volume of research at the primary- and secondary-school levels. Therefore, the
development of the College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI) is signif-
cant (Fraser & Treagust, 1986; Fraser et al., 1986). The CUCEI was validated originally with 372
Australian university students in 34 classes (Fraser & Treagust, 1986) and later cross-validated and
used in the United States to evaluate inverted/fipped instruction (Strayer, 2012) and in the United
Arab Emirates to evaluate teaching strategies for adults who experienced childhood difculties in
learning mathematics (Hasan & Fraser, 2015).
Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) in the Netherlands

Simultaneously with the research in Australia, programmatic learning environment research
emerged in the Netherlands with a focus specifcally on the interaction between teachers and stu-
dents in the classroom (i.e., only the relationship dimension of Moos’s classifcation) and involving
use of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI; Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2012; Wubbels
et al., 2012; Wubbels & Levy, 1993). This questionnaire is based on a model of teacher interpersonal
behavior with the two dimensions of infuence (dominance–submission) and proximity (opposi-
tion–cooperation) and its eight scales assess leadership (e.g., “This teacher explains things clearly”),
helping/friendly (e.g., “This teacher is friendly”), understanding (e.g., “If we have something to
say, this teacher will listen”), student responsibility/freedom (e.g., “This teacher gives us much free
time in class”), uncertain (e.g., “This teacher seems uncertain”), dissatisfed (e.g., “This teacher is
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suspicious”), admonishing (“This teacher is impatient”), and strict (“This teacher is strict”) behavior.
It is noteworthy that some QTI scales have been renamed recently (leadership to directing, student
responsibility/freedom to compliant, admonishing to confrontational, and strict to imposing) by
Wubbels et al. (2016).
An extensive study identifed changes in teacher interpersonal behavior during the professional
career, with teachers with 6–10 years of experience having the best relationships with their students
(in terms of exhibiting leadership, friendly, and strict behaviors) and promoting achievement and
positive attitudes (Brekelmans et al., 2005). Research on teacher–student interaction involving use of
the QTI spread to many countries, including Australia (Henderson et al., 2000), Korea (Kim et al.,
2000), and Singapore (S C. Goh & Fraser, 1998; Quek et al., 2005).
In Brunei Darussalam, a Malay version of the QTI was validated with 3,104 primary-school
science students in 136 classrooms. When associations between students’ perceptions of their teach-
ers’ interpersonal behaviors and their end-of-year science achievement were investigated, students’
perceptions of cooperative behaviors were positively correlated with achievement, while submissive
behaviors were negatively correlated (den Brok et al., 2005; Scott & D. L. Fisher, 2004). When Koul
and D. L. Fisher (2005) cross-validated English versions of the QTI and WIHIC in Jammu, India,
among 1,021 students from 31 classes, they found that Kashmiri students perceived their learning
environments more positively than did students from other cultural groups.
Recently, Sivan and Cohen (2021) used smallest space analysis to examine the structure of a
Chinese version of the QTI among 612 secondary-school students in Hong Kong. Results gener-
ally replicated the QTI’s circumplex structure, but six sectors rather than the original eight sectors
emerged. Use of a nonlinear dynamical systems (NDS) approach was pioneered to investigate how
teacher–student relationships develop in real time at the micro level (Pennings et al., 2014). These
researchers concluded that the NDS approach has potential for further future research into the con-
nection between teacher–student relationships and real-time teacher interpersonal behavior.
Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI) and

Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES)
Because of the importance of laboratory settings in science education, the Science Laboratory Envi-
ronment Inventory (SLEI) was developed specifcally for laboratory settings at the senior high school
or higher-education levels (Fraser et al., 1995). The SLEI has fve seven-item scales (student cohe-
siveness, open-endedness, integration, rule clarity, and material environment). The initial feld test-
ing and validation of the SLEI was unusual in that it simultaneously involved 5,477 students in 269
classes in six diferent countries (the United States, Canada, England, Israel, Australia, and Nigeria)
(Fraser et al., 1995). Later, it was cross-validated with Australian students (Fisher et al., 1997; Fra-
ser & McRobbie, 1995), 761 American high-school biology students (Lightburn & Fraser, 2007) and
1,592 grade 10 Singaporean chemistry students (Wong & Fraser, 1996).
A translated and validated Korean-language version of the SLEI (Fraser & Lee, 2009) was used
with a sample of 440 grade 10 and 11 students in 13 classes. As well as replicating past fndings of
outcome–environment associations, diferences were identifed between the learning environment
perceptions of science students in three diferent streams (science-independent, science-oriented, and
humanities). Teacher–student interactions in Korean senior high-school science refected the general
image of the youth–elder relationship in society, as well as the senior high school’s unique nature of
“teachers directing and students obeying”.
In response to the popularity of constructivism in science education in the 1990s, Taylor et al.
(1997) developed the CLES to assist researchers and teachers to assess the degree to which a class-
room’s environment is consistent with a constructivist epistemology. For the CLES’s 35 items, Taylor
and colleagues (1997) reported sound validity with both Australian and American students. Later,
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the CLES was cross-validated in science classes with 1,079 students in 59 classes in Texas (Nix et al.,
2005), 739 grade K–3 students in Miami (Peiro & Fraser, 2009), 1,081 students in 50 classes in Aus-
tralia and 1,879 students in 50 classes in Taiwan (Aldridge et al., 2000), and 1,864 South African
students in 43 classes (Aldridge et al., 2004).
Collaboration between Korean and Australian science education researchers involved the transla-
tion, validation, and use of the CLES (Kim et al., 1999) with 1,083 science students in 12 schools,
as well as the use of the What Is Happening In this Class? questionnaire and QTI (Kim et al., 2000)
with a sample of 543 Grade 8 science students in the same 12 schools. This study paved the way
for later learning environment research in Korea by cross-validating a Korean-language version of
three well-established questionnaires, as well as replicating past studies of associations between stu-
dent outcomes and the nature of Korean science learning environments. Kwan (2020) developed a
shorter 25-item version of the CLES in the Chinese language (C-CLES) and validated it using both
exploratory and confrmatory factor analyses with a convenience sample of 967 grade 9 students in
Hong Kong.
Wan and Cheng (2018) developed a modifed Chinese-language version of the CLES to assess
the seven scales of personal relevance, uncertainty, skeptical voice, shared control, student negotia-
tion, challenging task, and multiple perspectives. When Wan (2022) used this classroom environment
instrument together with a parallel family environment instrument with 2,189 secondary students in
Hong Kong, the classroom learning environment was more strongly related to student critical think-
ing than was the family learning environment.
What Is Happening In This Class? (WIHIC)

The WIHIC is the most widely used learning environment questionnaire in the world today. Analy-
sis of data from 1,081 Australian students in 50 classes and 1,879 Taiwanese students in 50 classes
(Aldridge & Fraser, 2000; Aldridge et al., 1999) led to a fnal form of the WIHIC containing the
following seven eight-item scales: student cohesiveness (e.g., “I make friendships among students in
this class”), teacher support (e.g., “The teacher talks with me”), involvement (e.g., “I give my opin-
ions during class discussions”), investigation (e.g., “I explain the meaning of statements, diagrams
and graphs”), task orientation (e.g., “I know the goals of this class”), cooperation (e.g., “I work with
other students on projects in this class”) and equity (e.g., “I get the same opportunity to answer
questions as other students”).
For a sample of 3,980 high school students from Australia, Britain, and Canada, confrmatory
factor analysis supported the seven-scale a priori structure of the WIHIC (Dorman, 2003). All items
loaded strongly on their own scale, although model ft indices revealed a degree of scale overlap. The
factor structure was invariant for country, grade level and gender. Overall, this study strongly sup-
ported the international applicability of the WIHIC as a valid measure of psychosocial learning envi-
ronment. Subsequently, in another study using multitrait–multimethod modeling, Dorman (2008)
reported further evidence supporting the validity of actual and preferred forms of the WIHIC.
Fraser (2019) listed 22 studies involving the cross-validation and use of the WIHIC in 13 coun-
tries and 12 languages. Two studies are examples of cross-national research involving Taiwan and
Australia (Aldridge & Fraser, 2000; Aldridge et al., 1999) and Indonesia and Australia (Fraser et al.,
2010). Four studies involved the use of WIHIC in English in Singapore (Chionh & Fraser, 2009;
S. F. Goh & Fraser, 2016; Lim & Fraser, 2018) and India (Koul & D. L. Fisher, 2005). Nine stud-
ies involved the use of translations of the WIHIC into other languages, namely, Arabic (Afari et al.,
2013; Alzubaida et al., 2016), Chinese (Bi, 2015; Liu & Fraser, 2013), Korean (Baek & Choi, 2002;
Kim et al., 2000), the IsiZulu language of South Africa (Aldridge et al., 2009), Myanmar (Khine
et al., 2018), and Greek (Charalampous & Kokkinos, 2017). The last six entries in Fraser (2019) are
studies that involved the use of the WIHIC in the United States, including two studies in New York
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(Cohn & Fraser, 2016; Wolf & Fraser, 2008), two studies in California (Martin-Dunlop & Fraser,
2008; Skordi & Fraser, 2019), and two studies in Florida (Helding & Fraser, 2013; Zaragoza & Fraser,
2017). Although the six studies in the United States all involved the use of an English-language ver-
sion of the WIHIC, Helding and Fraser (2013) ofered students the option of responding in either
Spanish or English. For each study involving the WIHIC in Fraser (2019), details are provided not
only of the country and language involved, but also the size of and nature of the sample, the obser-
vation that every study reported evidence to support the WIHIC’s factorial validity and internal
consistency reliability, and identifcation of the unique contributions of each study.
For the frst time in any study, parents’ perceptions were utilized in conjunction with students’
perceptions in investigating science learning environments among grade 4 and 5 science students
in south Florida (Allen & Fraser, 2007). The WIHIC was modifed for young students and their
parents and administered to 520 students and 120 parents. Both students and parents preferred a
more positive learning environment than the one perceived to be actually present, but efect sizes for
actual–preferred diferences were appreciably larger for parents than for students. With a sample of
78 parents and their 172 kindergarten science students in Miami, Robinson and Fraser (2013) used a
simplifed Spanish version of the WIHIC to reveal that, relative to students, parents perceived a more
favorable learning environment but preferred a less favorable environment. Aldridge and McChesney
(2021) developed a questionnaire that can be used to assess and investigate parents’ and caregivers’
perceptions of school environment and validated it with a sample of 1,276 respondents.
In the Greek language, the How Chemistry Class is Working (HCCW) questionnaire includes
selected WIHIC scales and was used to identify diferences between Greek and Cypriot students
(Giallousi et al., 2010). More recently in Greece, Charalampous and Kokkinos (2017) reported a
particularly thorough attempt to develop and validate the new elementary-school G-EWIHIC in
the Greek language.
The WIHIC has been modifed to form the NWIHIC (New What Is Happening In this Class?)
and validated among 2,556 grade 5–9 students from nine schools in six districts of mainland China
(Cai et al., 2021). The NWIHIC consists of six scales from the original WIHIC (student cohesiveness,
teacher support, involvement, task orientation, cooperation, and equity) plus the two new scales of
diferentiated instruction and ongoing assessment. The validity of the NWIHIC was established using
principal component analysis (PCA), confrmatory factor analysis (CFA), and reliability analysis.
The seven scales of the WIHIC have been included along with three new scales (namely, dif-
ferentiation, computer usage, and young adult ethos) in the Technology-Rich Outcomes-Focused
Learning Environment Inventory (TROFLEI) (Aldridge et al., 2004; Aldridge & Fraser, 2008).
Based on an Australian sample of 2,317 students in 166 classes, Aldridge and Fraser (2008) reported
strong factorial validity and internal consistency reliability for the TROFLEI. Aldridge et al. (2004)
used multitrait–multimethod modeling with TROFLEI responses from a sample of 1,249 students
(772 from Western Australia and 477 from Tasmania). When the ten TROFLEI scales were used as
traits and the actual and preferred forms of the instrument as methods, results supported the TRO-
FLEI’s construct validity and sound psychometric properties, as well as indicating that the actual and
preferred forms share a common structure. The TROFLEI recently was translated, validated, and
used in Turkey with a sample of 980 grade 9–12 students. The English-language version was used
with 130 grade 9–12 students in the United States (A. G. Welch et al., 2012). For both actual and
preferred forms and for both Turkey and the United States, the TROFLEI exhibited sound reliability
and factorial validity when CFA was used.
Constructivist-Oriented Learning Environment Survey (COLES)

The Constructivist-Oriented Learning Environment Survey (COLES) incorporates numerous
WIHIC scales into an instrument designed to provide feedback as a basis for refection in teacher
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action research. In constructing the COLES, Aldridge et al. (2012) were especially conscious of
the omission in all existing learning environment questionnaires of important aspects related to
the assessment of student learning. The COLES incorporates six WIHIC scales (student cohesive-
ness, teacher support, involvement, task orientation, cooperation, equity). Like the TROFLEI, the
COLES also includes diferentiation and young adult ethos. In addition, the COLES includes the
personal relevance scale from the CLES. The two new COLES scales related to assessment are for-
mative assessment (extent to which students feel that their assessment tasks make a positive contribu-
tion to their learning) and assessment criteria (extent to which assessment criteria are explicit so that
the basis for judgments is clear and public).
For a sample of 2,043 grade 11 and 12 students from 147 classes in 9 schools in Western Australia,
data analysis supported the sound factorial validity and internal consistency reliability of both actual
and preferred versions of the COLES. A noteworthy methodological feature of this study is that the
Rasch model was used to convert data collected using a frequency response scale into interval data
suitable for parametric analyses. Interestingly, when analyses were performed separately for raw scores
and Rasch scores, Aldridge et al. (2012) reported that diferences between the validity results (e.g.,
reliability, discriminant validity and ability to diferentiate between classrooms) were negligible.
Aldridge et al. (2012) also used the COLES successfully with teachers in action research aimed at
improving their classroom environments. When the COLES was used in a three-year collaborative
action research study involving 2,673 students in 171 classes at a school in South Australia (Aldridge
et al., 2021), statistically signifcant improvements in the learning environment occurred over the
three years. Henderson and Loh (2019) used the COLES in conjunction with classroom observations
and teacher collaboration in a whole-school professional learning initiative.
Established, Emerging, and Future Lines of Research on Learning Environments

The following subsections identify numerous established, emerging, and future lines of learning
environment research: (1) evaluation of educational innovations, (2) associations with student out-
comes, (3) secondary analysis, (4) links between multiple environments, (5) cross-national studies, (6)
typologies of learning environments, (7) classroom emotional climate, (8) developments in analyzing
learning environment data, (9) physical environments, and (10) improving learning environments.
Evaluation of Educational Innovations

Walberg’s historic evaluation of Harvard Project Physics (HPP) revealed that HPP and traditional
physics curricula could be distinguished in terms of students’ learning environment perceptions
(using the LEI) when a range of student outcome measures showed little diferentiation (W. W.
Welch & Walberg, 1972). When learning environment dimensions were used as process criteria
in an evaluation of ASEP (Australian Science Education Project), ASEP students perceived their
learning environments as being more satisfying and individualized and having a better material envi-
ronment relative to a comparison group (Fraser, 1979). In evaluating computer-assisted learning
in Singapore (Fraser & Teh, 1994), a group of students using micro-PROLOG-based computer-
assisted learning had much higher scores for achievement (3.5 standard deviations), attitudes (1.4
standard deviations), and the learning environment (1.0–1.9 standard deviations) than a comparison
group. Other examples of this application of learning environment assessments include outcomes-
focused education (Aldridge & Fraser, 2008) and feld-study settings (Zaragoza & Fraser, 2017).
Many studies in the United States provide good examples of the use of learning environment
scales as criteria of efectiveness in the evaluation of educational programs and teaching methods,
including the use of anthropometric activities (Lightburn & Fraser, 2007), an innovative science
course for prospective primary teachers (Martin-Dunlop & Fraser, 2008), an innovative science
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teacher development program (Nix et al., 2005), an instructional intervention for early-childhood
children based on constructivist principles (Peiro & Fraser, 2009), and inquiry-based activities for
middle school science students (Wolf & Fraser, 2008).
Although the evaluation of teacher professional development programs often involves surveying
participant teachers’ opinions and satisfaction related to various aspects of a program, Pickett and
Fraser (2009) argue that the litmus test of the success of any professional development program is
the extent of changes in teaching behaviors and ultimately student outcomes in the participating
teachers’ school classrooms. This study of a two-year mentoring program in science for beginning
elementary school teachers drew on the feld of learning environments in evaluating this program in
terms of participants’ teaching behavior as assessed by their school students’ perceptions of their learn-
ing environments. Changes over a school year were monitored for a sample of seven beginning grade
3–5 teachers in the southeast United States and their 573 elementary school students. Data analyses
supported the efcacy of the mentoring program in terms of some improvements over time in the
learning environment, as well as in students’ attitudes and achievement (Pickett & Fraser, 2009).
In South Africa, a national curriculum reform involving outcomes-based education (OBE) stimu-
lated the development and use of new learning environment instruments for monitoring outcomes-
based learning environments. At the classroom level, Aldridge et al. (2006) developed the OBLEQ
(Outcomes-Based Learning Environment Questionnaire) in the North Soto language and validated
it with a sample of 2,638 grade 8 science students from 50 schools in the Limpopo Province. At the
school level, Aldridge et al. (2006) developed a South African version of the School-Level Environ-
ment Questionnaire and validated it with a sample of 403 teachers. Generally, teachers perceived the
actual and preferred school environment diferently and also teachers who had been involved in OBE
perceived their school environments diferently (in terms of signifcantly more familiarity with OBE
and work pressure) compared with teachers who had not been involved.
Learning environment research has been sparse in the Arabic-speaking world, perhaps partly
because of the limited availability of validated questionnaires in that language. MacLeod and Fraser
(2010) pioneered the painstaking translation and comprehensive validation of an Arabic version of
the WIHIC with a sample of 763 college students in 82 classes in the United Arab Emirates. In an
evaluation study involving a translation of the WIHIC into Arabic, the use of mathematics games
promoted a positive learning environment among a sample of 352 college students in 33 classes (Afari
et al., 2013).
Polat and Karabatak (2022) reviewed past studies of the efectiveness of fipped instruction, as
well as reporting their own evaluation of fipped instruction among 94 university students in Turkey.
Relative to other models, fipped instruction was associated with higher student satisfaction, achieve-
ment, and general belongingness. By using the CUCEI together with feld notes, interviews, and
focus groups, Strayer (2012) found that inverted instruction involved greater cooperation and innova-
tion, but less task orientation, among statistics students at a university in the United States.
As the COVID-19 pandemic heralded unprecedented changes to online learning worldwide,
learning environment researchers began to study these changes. Rahayu et al. (2022) developed
and validated the Online Classroom Learning Environment (OCLEI) to assess access, interaction,
lecturer support, equity, and investigation among 669 Indonesian university students. Long et al.
(2022) traced changes in numerous WIHIC learning environment dimensions (student cohesiveness,
teacher support, involvement, task orientation, and equity) during the change to remote learning
during the pandemic among 230 preservice teacher education students in Texas. Students perceived
a statistically signifcant decline during the change to online learning in student cohesiveness, teacher
support, involvement, task orientation, and equity, with the largest decline of 0.56 standard devia-
tions occurring for student cohesiveness. At a West Australian university, 194 students in diferent
disciplines provided their perceptions of classroom emotional climate during and after COVID-19
lockdown. Although diferences were relatively small (ranging from 0.17 to 0.40 standard deviations),
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students perceived signifcantly more control, clarity, challenge, motivation, consolidation, and col-
laboration after lockdown than before (McLure et al., in press).
Mogas et al. (2022) describe the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) in industry and its poten-
tial future impact on education. IR 4.0 includes the Internet of Things (IoT), artifcial intelligence
(AI), cloud computing, etc. and has potential for incorporation into “smart schools” (Huang et al.,
2013). After interviewing 37 school principals in Catalonia, Mogas and colleagues (2022) concluded
that schools are not yet prepared to cope with IR 4.0, made recommendations for embedding IR 4.0
into smart schools, and especially stressed the need for teacher professional development.
Although the aforementioned authors identify considerable potential for applying IR 4.0 tech-
nologies in education, its implementation in education and the evaluation of this implementation
have scarcely begun. Therefore, learning environment researchers will have a crucial role in applying
learning environment constructs and methods in evaluating the efectiveness of IR 4.0 in education.
In a scoping review of teacher education and technology integration in the context of IR 4.0, Teo
et al. (2021) identifed profound potential impacts on teacher education, as well as suggesting future
actions for teacher training and research.
Associations With Student Outcomes

A strong tradition in past learning environment research has been investigation of associations
between a variety of students’ cognitive and afective learning outcomes and their perceptions of
psychosocial characteristics of their learning environments. An early meta-analysis involving 17,805
students revealed more-favorable student outcomes in learning environments with more cohesive-
ness, satisfaction, and goal direction and less disorganization and friction (Haertel et al., 1981). When
McRobbie and Fraser (1993) used the SLEI in an investigation of associations between student
outcomes and the learning environment among 1,594 senior high school chemistry students in 92
classes, simple, multiple, and canonical correlation analyses were conducted separately for two units
of analysis (student scores and class means) and separately with and without control for general abil-
ity. Past research was replicated in that the nature of the science laboratory environment (especially
integration between theory and laboratory work) accounted for appreciable proportions of the vari-
ance in both cognitive and afective outcomes beyond that attributable to general ability. Science
educators wishing to enhance student outcomes in science laboratory settings are likely to fnd useful
the result that both cognitive and attitude outcomes were enhanced when laboratory activities were
integrated with work in non-laboratory settings.
For a large sample of 6,120 secondary students in South and Western Australia, Aldridge et al.
(2018) used bullying and delinquent behaviors as student outcomes (dependent variables) in study-
ing the infuence of school climate. School connectedness and rule clarity were negatively associated
with both bully victimization and delinquency, teacher support was negatively associated with bully
victimization, afrming diversity and reporting/seeking help were positively linked with bully vic-
timization, and bully victimization was a mediator of the infuence of school climate on delinquent
behaviors.
For a sample of 1,592 fnal-year chemistry students in 28 classes in Singapore, Wong and Fraser
(1996) reported the frst major study in Singapore into associations between students’ attitudes to
science and the perceived learning environment. When the original SLEI was modifed to form
the Chemistry Laboratory Environment Inventory (CLEI), strong and statistically signifcant atti-
tude–environment associations (especially for integration and rule clarity) were confrmed through
multilevel analysis (Wong et al., 1997). In a later study involving 497 chemistry students responding
to both the CLEI and the QTI, Quek et al. (2005) not only replicated the existence of attitude–envi-
ronment associations, but also identifed signifcant diferences in learning environment perceptions
according to the student’s sex and stream (i.e., gifted vs. non-gifted). In other research in Singapore,
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relationships between psychosocial climate and student achievement and attitudes were established
for 1,512 primary-school students using both multiple regression analysis (S. C. Goh & Fraser, 1998)
and multilevel analysis (S. C. Goh et al., 1995). When Chionh and Fraser (2009) used the WIHIC
among 2,310 grade 10 students in 75 classes, better examination scores were found in classrooms
with more student cohesiveness, whereas self-esteem and attitudes were more favorable in classrooms
with more teacher support, task orientation, and equity.
A study of associations between children’s ICT self-efcacy and various aspects of the home
digital learning environment (stimulation, instructions, interactions, modeling) involved 651 grade 5
and 6 students in Germany (Bonanati & Buhl, 2021). Digital home learning environment variables
accounted for 14% of the variance in ICT self-efcacy, with the number of books, positive attitudes,
and shared internet activities having positive relationships with self-efcacy and parental instructions
having negative relationships.
Secondary Analysis
Researchers in neither the felds of science education nor learning environments have yet realized
the potential of secondary analysis, which involves analyzing for new purposes existing data that
previously were gathered for diferent purposes. According to Smith (2008), advantages of second-
ary analysis include access to data sets that are larger and of higher technical quality than normally
is possible in individual studies, as well as a reduction in the cost of data collection and the response
burden on students and teachers. However, a key disadvantage is that a given data base might contain
limited or no measures of key variables of interest.
For example, secondary analysis of science data from the National Association of Educational
Progress involved 1,995 17-year-olds, 2,025 13-year-olds, and 1,960 9-year-olds (Fraser et al., 1986;
Walberg et al., 1986). Classroom and school environment was a strong independent predictor of
both achievement and attitudes when a comprehensive set of other factors was mutually controlled.
Khine et al. (2020) illustrate how they conducted secondary analysis of PISA (Programme for
International Student Assessment) data from 14,167 students in the United Arab Emirates. Because
these researchers were interested in exploring associations between students’ perceptions of the
learning environment and their noncognitive outcomes, they examined the wording of PISA ques-
tionnaires to identify 22 items assessing learning environment and 16 items assessing noncognitive
outcomes. Data for these 22 learning environment items were used to form three scales assessing
cooperation (8 items), teacher support (5 items), and investigation (9 items). Similarly, data for the
16 items assessing noncognitive outcomes were used to form three scales assessing epistemological
beliefs (6 items), self-efcacy (5 items), and science attitudes (5 items). Structural equation modeling
(SEM) revealed a statistically signifcant association between each learning environment scale and
each noncognitive outcome scale.
Links Between Multiple Environments

Although most individual studies of educational environments focus on a single environment, there
is potential in simultaneously considering the links between, and the joint infuence of, two or more
environments. Several researchers have investigated whether the nature of the school-level environ-
ment infuences or transmits to what goes on in classrooms (i.e., the classroom-level environment).
In South Africa, Aldridge et al. (2006) used a school environment instrument with 50 secondary-
school science teachers from 50 diferent schools, together with a classroom environment question-
naire based on the WIHIC with the 2,638 grade 8 students in the 50 classes of these 50 teachers.
Although there emerged a small number of specifc relationships (e.g., schools encouraging teach-
ers to be innovative was related to the extent to which students perceived more outcomes-based
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pedagogy in their classrooms), overall, the school environment had limited infuence on what hap-
pens in classrooms. When Dorman et al. (1995) administered a classroom environment instrument
to 2,211 Australian students in 104 classes and a school environment instrument to the 208 teachers
of these classes, only weak associations between classroom environment and school environment
emerged. For example, classroom individualization was greater in school environments with more
afliation and less work pressure. Although school rhetoric often suggests that the school ethos
would be transmitted to the classroom level, it appears that classrooms are somewhat insulated from
the school as a whole.
For a sample of 2,189 secondary-school students in Hong Kong, Wan (2022) investigated the joint
infuence of classroom and family learning environments on students’ critical thinking disposition.
Classroom environment was assessed with seven Chinese-language scales based on the Constructiv-
ist Learning Environment Survey (personal relevance, uncertainty, skeptical voice, shared control,
student negotiation, challenging task, and multiple perspectives), whereas family environment was
assessed with fve Chinese-language scales based on the classroom environment instrument (uncer-
tainty, skeptical voice, shared control, challenging task, and multiple perspectives). Overall, the class-
room environment more strongly predicted critical thinking than did the family environment.
Using secondary analysis (see discussion in the previous subsection) of a large database from a
Statewide Systemic Initiative (SSI) in the United States, Fraser and Kahle (2007) examined the efects
of several types of environments on student outcomes. Over three years, nearly 7,000 students in
392 middle school science and mathematics classes in 200 diferent schools responded to a question-
naire that assessed class, home, and peer environments, as well as student attitudes and achievement.
Rasch analyses allowed comparison across student cohorts and across schools. This study confrmed
the importance of extending research on classroom learning environments to include the learning
environments of the home and peer group. Although all three environments accounted for statisti-
cally signifcant amounts of unique variance in student attitudes, only the class environment (defned
in terms of the frequency of use of standards-based teaching practices) accounted for statistically
signifcant amounts of unique variance in student achievement (Fraser & Kahle, 2007).
Cross-National Studies
Science education research that crosses national boundaries ofers promise for generating new insights.
Aldridge et al. (1999) involved six Australian and seven Taiwanese science education researchers in
administering the WIHIC to 50 junior high school science classes in each of Taiwan (1,879 students)
and Australia (1,081 students). An English version of the questionnaire was translated into Chinese,
followed by an independent back translation of the Chinese version into English by team members
not involved in the original translation. Qualitative data, involving interviews with teachers and stu-
dents and classroom observations, complemented the quantitative information and clarifed reasons
for patterns and diferences in the means in each country. The largest diferences between the two
countries were for involvement and equity, with Australian students perceiving these environment
scales more positively than students from Taiwan.
Data from the questionnaires in the Taiwan–Australia study were used to guide the collection of
qualitative data, with student responses to individual items being used to form an interview schedule
to clarify whether items had been interpreted consistently by students and to help to explain difer-
ences in questionnaire scale means between countries. Classrooms were selected for observations based
on the questionnaire data, and specifc scales formed the focus for observations in these classrooms.
Qualitative data helped in interpreting diferences between the questionnaire results from two coun-
tries with cultural diferences (Aldridge & Fraser, 2000). Similar cross-national research involving the
use of the CLES in Taiwan and Australia was reported by Aldridge et al. (2000), whereas cross-national
research with the WIHIC in Indonesia and Australia was reported by Fraser et al. (2010).
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Typologies of Learning Environments

Using the CES in the United States among 200 junior high and high school classrooms, Moos (1978,
1979) identifed fve clusters that describe fve learning environment orientations: control, innova-
tion, afliation, task completion, and competition. Use of the QTI with students in both the Nether-
lands and the United States led to the identifcation of eight distinct interpersonal profles: directive,
authoritative, tolerant–authoritative, tolerant, uncertain–tolerant, uncertain–aggressive, repressive,
and drudging (Brekelmans et al., 1993; Wubbels et al., 2006). Based on a large-scale administration
of the QTI to 6,148 grade 8–10 science students from four Australian states and their 283 teachers,
Rickards et al. (2005) reported that the eight types found for Dutch and American teachers only partly
applied to the Australian context. Two new types (namely, fexible and cooperative–supportive)
were unique to the Australian sample.
Working in Turkey with a Turkish translation of the WIHIC, den Brok et al. (2010) created learn-
ing environment profles for a sample of 1,474 high school biology students in 52 classes. Six distinct
classroom profles emerged: self-directed learning, task-orientated cooperative learning, mainstream,
task-orientated individualized, low-efective learning, and high-efective learning. The most com-
mon profle was the mainstream classroom for which all WIHIC scales had medium-high scores.
Based on a sample of 4,146 Australian students from 286 grade 8–13 classes, Dorman et al. (2006)
used the ten-scale TROFLEI to develop a classroom typology with fve relatively homogeneous
groups of classes: exemplary, safe and conservative, non-technological teacher-centered, contested
technological, and contested non-technological. For a sample of 1,394 grade 10 chemistry students
in 49 classes in Greece, Giallousi et al. (2013) identifed four groups of classes.
Classroom Emotional Climate

In a recent instrument-development initiative, Fraser et al. (2021) developed a 41-item 6-scale ques-
tionnaire to assess six dimensions (collaboration, control, motivation, care, challenge, and clarity)
of the novel construct of classroom emotional climate. With a sample of 698 grade 7–10 students
in 57 STEM classes in 20 Australian schools, the Classroom Emotional Climate (CEC) ques-
tionnaire was validated using exploratory and confrmatory factor analyses, as well as in terms of
internal-consistency reliability, concurrent validity, discriminant validity, and predictive validity. As
well, Rasch analysis for each dimension revealed good model ft and unidimensionality for the items
describing each latent construct. Table 7.1 clarifes the meaning of each of the six CEC scales by
providing a scale description and sample item.
There is both contemporary and long-standing interest in gender diferences in science education
and STEM education (Koch et al., 2014; Parker et al., 1996; Scantlebury, 2012). Although achieve-
ment has been the most common dependent variable in gender studies, learning environment criteria
also have been used (e.g., A. G. Welch et al., 2014), with females generally reporting more-favorable
perceptions than males. Recently, when classroom emotional climate was used in investigating gen-
der diferences among 256 grade 7–9 students in 24 integrated STEM classes in 8 coeducational
government schools (Koul et al., 2021), there emerged statistically signifcant diferences of modest
magnitude (0.25–0.50 standard deviations) favoring males for Rasch-scaled scores for clarity, motiva-
tion, and consolidation. However, in more-nuanced analyses also involving 157 grade 7–10 students
in 12 integrated STEM classes in 6 coeducational nongovernment schools, the gender diferences in
emotional climate perceptions in government schools disappeared in nongovernment schools even
after controlling for socioeconomic status (Koul et al., 2021). Students of both genders in govern-
ment schools were signifcantly more positive about all aspects of classroom emotional climate than
students of both genders in nongovernment schools (after controlling for socioeconomic status). Also,
females in government schools were slightly more positive about classroom emotional climate in
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Barry J. Fraser
Table 7.1 Scale Description and Sample Item From Classroom Emotional Climate (CEC) Questionnaire
Scale Scale Description Sample Item

Extent to which students perceive that . . .
Consultation . . . their teacher encourages them to share I speak up and share my ideas about
their thoughts or opinions the class work.
Consolidation . . . their teacher consolidates understanding My teacher takes time to summarize
and indicates how to improve what I learn each day.
Collaboration . . . they collaborate efectively with peers to I learn from other students in my
complete tasks STEM group.
Control . . . they behave well in class and remain My teacher makes sure that I stay
focused on tasks busy and don’t waste time.
Motivation . . . their STEM project and the classroom The questions in this class make me
environment motivate them to be engaged in want to fnd out the answers.
learning and seeking answers to problems
Care . . . their teacher cares about their learning My teacher makes me feel that s/he
needs and treats them with respect really cares about me.
Challenge . . . their teacher encourages them to think My teacher asks questions that make
deeply and persist in the face of difculties me think hard.
and provides challenging STEM projects
Clarity . . . their teacher gives clear directions and My teacher breaks up the work into
explanations easy steps.
multidisciplinary STEM classes (S, T, E, and M) than in unidisciplinary STEM classes (S, T, E, or M)
(McLure et al., 2022).
Developments in Analyzing Learning Environment Data

Den Brok et al.’s (2019) review of developments in methods for the statistical analysis of learning
environment data revealed that “methods used in learning environments research have undergone
impressive changes from more descriptive and evaluative approaches to more explanatory, predic-
tive and model-testing ones, and that researchers have employed a variety of methods to investigate
issues related to learning environments” (p. 42). These authors contrast the earlier years of learning
environments research (1965–2000), involving description and correlation, with the second period
(from 2000 onwards), involving methodological diversifcation.
Some important types of analyses identifed by den Brok and colleagues include multilevel analysis;
structural equation modeling (SEM), including confrmatory factor analysis; and Rasch modeling. (It is
noteworthy that, at the time of the development and validation of Walberg’s historic Learning Envi-
ronment Inventory and Moos’s historic Classroom Environment Scale, not even exploratory factor
analysis was readily available and used.)
Multilevel analysis takes cognizance of the hierarchical nature of classroom settings (e.g., students
within intact classes are more homogeneous than a random sample of students). When Wong et al.
(1997) used a sample of 1,592 grade 10 students in 56 chemistry classes in Singapore to investigate
associations between three student attitude measures and a modifed version of the SLEI, most of the
statistically signifcant results from multiple regression analyses were replicated in the HLM analyses,
as well as being consistent in direction. A similar study employing multilevel analysis in investigat-
ing outcome–environment associations in Singapore was reported by S.C. Goh et al. (1995). For an
206
Indonesian sample, Maulana et al. (2012) used multilevel analysis to investigate student and teacher
perceptions of interpersonal relationships.
Structural equation modeling (SEM) allows linking questionnaire items to their latent constructs/
dimensions and investigating associations between latent constructs, as well as testing direct and
indirect efects. For a sample of 14,167 science students from the United Arab Emirates, Khine et al.
(2020) used SEM to confrm the structure of a learning environment questionnaire (i.e., confrma-
tory factor analysis) and to investigate associations between learning environment constructs and
students’ noncognitive outcomes. Sun et al. (2017) used SEM in confrmatory factor analysis to test
whether items in a Chinese version of the QTI conformed to the intended circumplex structure.
Whereas the parametric IRT (item response theory) model of Rasch scaling is reasonably well
known in science education (Boone & Staver, 2020; Khine, 2020; Noben et al., 2021), little use has
been made of the nonparametric IRT model, namely, Mokken scaling (Telli et al., 2021). IRT mod-
els allow testing of whether items or scales can be ordered under higher-order dimensions, as well as
the conversion of ordinal questionnaire data to interval scales suitable for parametric statistical tests.
Rasch analyses were used by Maulana and Helms-Lorenz (2016) in the Netherlands in investigating
the quality of preservice teachers’ teaching behaviors, as well as by Koul et al. (2021) in Australia in
investigating gender diferences in classroom emotional climate and student attitudes in integrated
STEM classes.
Physical Learning Environments

Recently, attention to psychosocial characteristics of learning environments has been supple-
mented by interest in the physical environment of educational buildings and learning spaces.
This trend is refected in several books in Brill Sense Publishers’ Advances in Learning Environments
Research series (Alterator & Deed, 2018; K. Fisher, 2016, 2019; Imms et al., 2016). Martin-Dunlop
et al.’s (2019) transdisciplinary team evaluated the impact of an enriched and active learning space
for university architecture students using questionnaire surveys, lesson videotapes, interviews, and
achievement data.
Although new designs or redesigns for learning–teaching spaces often aim to transform psycho-
social learning environments in specifc ways, it is rare for researchers to evaluate their efectiveness
in terms of changes in psychosocial characteristics. For example, Prain (2018) reported that 2,500
students’ perceptions of personalized learning did not improve over three years in new schools that
aimed to promote personalized learning. Therefore, Skordi and Fraser (2019) attempted to show how
methods, conceptual frameworks, and research traditions from the feld of learning environment can
potentially be applied in evaluating the success of changes in physical educational spaces in promot-
ing positive changes in psychosocial and pedagogical characteristics of learning environments. Baars
et al. (2021) used a thematic literature review to develop a conceptual framework to structure the
psychosocial learning environment into the dimensions of personal development, relationships and
system maintenance/change, and structure the physical learning environment into the dimensions of
naturalness, individualization, and stimulation.
In Attai et al.’s (2021) study in the southwestern United States involving biweekly observations
of ten elementary classrooms with fexible furniture and ten classrooms with traditional furniture,
students experiencing fexible furniture reported greater satisfaction and more opportunities for
autonomy. In a primary school in Finland, Reinius et al. (2021) studied the learning environment
of a “deskless” school that had been architecturally designed with fexible learning spaces without
traditional classrooms or desks to encourage pedagogical renewal. In a study of interior lighting at
a pre-K child development laboratory in the United States, early-childhood students with develop-
mental disabilities displayed more engagement in classrooms with LED lighting than in classrooms
with fuorescent lighting (Pulay & Williamson, 2019).
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Unique research in Canada focused simultaneously on the psychosocial and physical environments
of networked classrooms (Zandvliet & Fraser, 2004, 2005). Whereas the psychosocial environment
was assessed with the WIHIC, ergonomic evaluations were made of the physical environment (e.g.,
workspace and visual environments). For a sample of 1,404 Australian and Canadian students, class-
room psychosocial environment was signifcantly and directly associated with students’ satisfaction
with their learning, but no direct associations were found between student satisfaction and mea-
sures of the physical classroom environment. However, statistically signifcant associations emerged
between physical and psychosocial learning environment variables in classrooms using new informa-
tion technologies. These associations suggested a model of educational productivity for learning
environments in technology-rich classrooms.
Improving Learning Environments

Teachers have used feedback information based on assessment of students’ actual and preferred learn-
ing environments as a basis for guiding practical improvements in their classroom environments
using a simple but pioneering fve-step procedure of (1) assessment, (2) feedback, (3) refection and
discussion, (4) intervention, and (5) reassessment (Fraser, 1999). Fraser and Aldridge (2017) reviewed
the intermittent take-up of this approach during the ensuring decades and described its evolution
into more-sophisticated methods for computer-scoring questionnaires and graphically displaying
feedback more elegantly. These techniques have been applied successfully in case studies in Australia
(Fraser & D. L. Fisher, 1986) and the United States (Sinclair & Fraser, 2002), with the book Student
Voice, Teacher Action Research and Classroom Improvement (Bell & Aldridge, 2014) describing and illus-
trating these methods.
In South Africa, Aldridge et al. (2004) adapted the English version of the CLES for use among
teachers and their 1,864 students in 43 classes who were attempting to change learning environments
to a more-constructivist orientation. Not only did their study yield a validated and widely applicable
questionnaire for future use, but it also involved case studies of teachers’ successful and not-so-
successful attempts to change their learning environments during a 12-week intervention period.
Also in South Africa, Aldridge et al. (2009) investigated 31 in-service teachers who were undertak-
ing a distance-education program and who administered a primary-school version of the WIHIC in
the IsiZulu language to 1,077 grade 4–7 learners in the KwaZulu-Natal province. Diferent teachers
were able to use feedback from the WIHIC, with varying degrees of success, in their attempts to
improve their learning environments.
In Australia, Aldridge et al. (2012) reported teachers’ use of the COLES in successful attempts to
improve learning environments. Aldridge and Fraser (2008) reported some studies of how teachers at a
new senior high school used the TROFLEI in attempts to improve their learning environments, while
Fraser and Aldridge (2017) reported a detailed case study of one teacher’s attempt to improve her
learning environment using the COLES. Using a case-study approach, Aldridge and Bianchet (2021)
demonstrated how student feedback based on a learning environment survey (namely, the COLES)
provided a valuable starting point for including students in co-construction (Rincon-Gallardo &
Elmore, 2012) and educational improvement. Vignettes were used to portray one teacher’s journey in
co-constructing the learning environment of her classes, based mainly on interviews.
Henderson and Loh (2019) reported the use of students’ learning environment perceptions on
the COLES to guide teachers’ professional learning at one school. This mixed-methods study, which
involved about 25 teachers and 500 students each year, revealed how highly teachers valued this kind
of feedback in supporting their professional learning. Recently, whole-school principal-led collab-
orative action research aimed at improving a school’s learning environments involved 2,673 grade
8–12 students and 171 teachers and revealed statistically signifcant improvements in both the learn-
ing environment and students’ self-efcacy (Aldridge et al., 2021).
208
Based on insights accumulated through teachers’ action research on improving learning envi-
ronments, Fraser and Aldridge (2017) expanded and enhanced Fraser’s (1999) original fve steps to
identify the following enhanced fve-step process:
1. Assessment and feedback: Assessing actual and preferred learning environment using a question-
naire and providing feedback to teachers based on students’ responses.
2. Refection and focusing: Refection on the feedback and discussion with colleagues to identify
which aspects of the learning environment might become the focus for change.
3. Planning: Planning an intervention aimed at improving the area of focus and involving:
• Developing a working hypothesis that might help to explain the current issue or challenge
related to the focus area.
• Considering what is needed (in terms of knowledge about the focus area) to develop a
working plan (such as new learning).
• Deciding on a strategy to improve the area of focus and planning its implementation in the
classroom.
4. Implementing and refning: Implementing the intervention and, during the intervention period,
both in (during) action and on (after) action, constantly refecting as a basis for refning the
intervention.
5. Re-assessment: Re-administering the questionnaire to students at the end of the intervention period
to determine whether students perceive their learning environment diferently from before.
(p. 103)
Conclusion
Science education researchers have contributed much to the feld of learning environments’ growth
and international expansion and have generated numerous insights. First, because learning outcomes
cannot provide a complete picture of the educational process, researchers, evaluators, and practitio-
ners should pay more attention to learning environments. Second, science educators have developed,
validated, and cross-validated a range of robust and economical instruments that are used widely
around the world for assessing learning environments. Third, these researchers have contributed to
our knowledge base about how to improve student outcomes through creating positive learning
environments. Fourth, evaluation studies have frequently demonstrated the value of including learn-
ing environment dimensions as process criteria of efectiveness in evaluating a host of educational
programs, innovations, and teaching methods.
In the period since Volume II of this handbook, much has been achieved, but there still is consid-
erable scope for future expansion of research in this feld. It is hoped that this chapter will stimulate
and guide future research agendas through its discussion of the assessment of learning environments,
together with its portrayal of ten fruitful lines of established, emerging, and future learning environ-
ment research.
Mixed-methods research has been advocated in this chapter for research on learning environ-
ments. To facilitate mixed-methods studies, this chapter has familiarized readers with a range of
economical, convenient, and valid surveys that tap students’ and teachers’ perceptions of learning
environments. The questionnaires considered are all “high inference” and encompass the historically
signifcant Learning Environment Inventory (LEI) and Classroom Environment Scale (CES), as well
as contemporary instruments used widely around the world today (e.g., Science Laboratory Envi-
ronment Inventory, SLEI; Constructivist Learning Environment Survey, CLES; Questionnaire on
Teacher Interactions, QTI; What Is Happening In this Class, WIHIC; and Constructivist-Oriented
Learning Environment Survey, COLES).
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Barry J. Fraser
The areas of past research reviewed in this chapter include well-established applications, such
as evaluating educational innovations and investigating associations between the learning environ-
ment and student outcomes. Also, some of the recent and emerging lines of research identifed and
discussed focus on physical environments and classroom emotional climate. As well, this chapter
identifed and reviewed several lines of past research that have received only limited attention from
researchers but have considerable future potential: secondary analysis of existing data bases; cross-
national studies; links between diferent environments; and typologies of learning environments.
Also, promising developments in analyzing learning environment data were identifed. Although a
noteworthy recent trend involves practitioners in using learning environment assessments in action
research aimed at improving their teaching environments (Aldridge et al., 2012), overall, there is
considerable scope for greater teacher uptake of learning environment ideas worldwide.
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Appendix
Overview of scales contained in eight classroom environment instruments (LEI, CES, ICEQ,
CUCEI, SLEI, CLES, WIHIC, and COLES)
Table 7.2 Overview of Scales Contained in Eight Classroom Environment Instruments (LEI, CES, ICEQ,
CUCEI, SLEI, CLES, WIHIC, and COLES)
Instrument Level Items per Scales Classifed According to Moos’s Scheme

Scale
Relationship Personal System Maintenance and
Dimensions Development Change Dimensions
Dimensions
Learning Secondary 7 Cohesiveness Speed Diversity

Environment Friction Difculty Formality
Inventory Favoritism Competitiveness Material
(LEI) Cliqueness environment
Satisfaction Goal direction
Apathy Disorganization
Democracy
Classroom Secondary 10 Involvement Task orientation Order and
Environment Scale Afliation Competition organization
(CES) Teacher Rule clarity
support Teacher control
Innovation
Individualized Secondary 10 Personalization Independence Diferentiation
Classroom Participation Investigation
Environment
Questionnaire
(ICEQ)
College and Higher 7 Personalization Task orientation Innovation
University education Involvement Individualization
Classroom Student
Environment cohesiveness
Inventory (CUCEI) Satisfaction
Science Laboratory Upper 7 Student Open-endedness Rule clarity
Environment secondary/ cohesiveness Integration Material
Inventory higher environment
(SLEI) education
Constructivist Secondary 7 Personal relevance Critical voice Student
Learning Uncertainty Shared control negotiation
Environment
Survey
(CLES)
What Is Happening Secondary 8 Student Investigation Equity
In cohesiveness Task orientation
this Class? (WIHIC) Teacher support Cooperation
Involvement
Constructivist- Secondary 11 Student Task orientation Equity
Oriented Learning cohesiveness Cooperation Diferentiation
Environment Survey Teacher support Formative assessment
(COLES) Involvement Assessment criteria
Young adult ethos
Personal relevance
217
SECTION III
Diversity and Equity in

Science Learning
Section Editors: Cory A. Buxton and Okhee Lee
8
UNPACKING AND CRITICALLY
SYNTHESIZING THE LITERATURE
ON RACE AND ETHNICITY IN
SCIENCE EDUCATION
How Far Have We Come?
Historically and contemporarily, in the previous version of this chapter, Parsons (2014) gave an
informed account of the evolution of race and ethnicity in the United States, from the Naturalization
Act of 1790 to the shift in the language of using “ethnic-signifying labels” for self-identifcation and
identifcation from others (p. 169). “Race is understood as real not because it is an essential category
but as a historically specifc means of efecting certain forms of social organization, of mediating
human relations” (Warmington, 2009, p. 289); it is indeed real and demands our attention for dis-
cussion and research. Race and ethnicity are related, yet theoretically they are distinct. For example,
in his summary of race, ethnicity, and culture, Fenton (2010) distinguished the construct of race as
founded on markers of diference based upon visible, physical characteristics; ethnicity as based upon
cultural markers that serve as the reference point for diference; and culture as broadly defned to
encompass diverse elements, such as customs, language, religion, and traditions as well as distinctions
based upon self-identifcation and self-afliation (Nagel, 1994) or group identity and historical expe-
riences (Omi & Winant, 1994). Thus, race tends to reference biological or physiological diferences,
whereas ethnicity tends to reference cultural diferences. However, to bring a bit more context and
reason for the complexity in distinguishing race and ethnicity, Kivisto and Croll (2012) proposed
three responses for explaining race and ethnicity:
The frst suggests that racial groups and ethnic groups are two diferent types of groups. The
second position claims that while racial and ethnic groups are usually distinct, in some cir-
cumstances they are overlapping. The third views racial groups as a subset of ethnic groups.
(p. 4)
Even with research acknowledging that race is not a biological phenomenon (Smedley & Smedley,
2005), the hierarchical nature of diference is maintained (Omi & Winant, 1994) because race more
than ethnicity is defned in terms of power relations, group hierarchies, assessments of superiority and
inferiority, and a “natural category” or “permanent” designation, with ethnicity subject to historical
modifcation (Cornell & Hartman, 2007, pp. 26–32). Arguments against race as a social construction
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-11 221

over the genetic or biological basis of race have been accepted by many theorists who are ready to
move onward in the conceptualization of a white racial framing (Feagin, 2020) and the “new racism”
explained by colorblindness and race neutrality, which do much harm when these are seen as goals
and ends of a post-racial world (Bonilla-Silva, 2017). These notions do not represent racial progress
but racial concealment in that a “structural-foundation metaphor” captures well the realities of the
United States’ racism, past and present (Feagin, 2020, p. 3).
On a global scale, and historically, the use of racial and ethnic terms is based on categoriza-
tion and hierarchy, including a rationalization for European colonization, slavery, and subjugation
of Indigenous Peoples by settlers from Australia, Canada, and the United States (Kivisto & Croll,
2012). Countries make distinctions across race and/or across ethnicity. For example, in Belgium, the
Flemish and Wallon ethnic communities are divided along ethnicity rather than race; similarly, in
Canada, for British Canadians and French Canadians; and in contrast, in South Africa, four groups
comprise their racial system. In these examples and many others, the use of terms and the language
of race and ethnicity are contextualized; thus, attention to how people are named and how they
name themselves, whether along racial or ethnic lines, requires awareness and understanding of the
historical context, place, and how categorizations change. As additional examples, one can look at
the US census categories over time, from 1790 to 2020, or the Ofce for National Statistics in the
United Kingdom. How people are categorized and what constitutes a racial or ethnic category will
continue to shift and change, which helps us to realize that these categories are socially constructed.
In her review of unpacking and critically synthesizing the literature on race and ethnicity in sci-
ence education published in an earlier handbook, Parsons (2014) noted the limited scope and depth
of the body of work in science education on race and ethnicity from a critical perspective and pro-
posed recommendations for future research and scholarship for science education. Parsons borrowed
from anthropology, history, and sociology to defne race and ethnicity as “context-based sociohistori-
cal constructs that exist across space and time” (Parsons & Bayne, 2012, as cited in Parsons, 2014,
p. 167), that are situated in the United States and that have evolved over time. She gave secondary
attention to the methods and fndings of the studies identifed. We have taken up these areas as well
as highlighted studies across global contexts in this current review.
Parsons (2014) ofered four critiques, or limitations, of race and ethnicity in the science education
literature: presentism, lack of conceptual clarity, individualism, and methodological myopia. First,
presentism is “a view that exclusively situates and circumscribes current conditions to the here and
now” (p. 168). Second, a lack of conceptual clarity is “the neglect of the purposeful construction of
race and ethnicity over time in the United States, the connection between their historical meanings
and contemporary adaptations, and the resemblances of past and present outcomes” (p. 168). Third,
the research on race and ethnicity did not explicitly defne these constructs, or proxies were used,
and frameworks considered the individual while ignoring the structural and systemic views of race
and ethnicity. Finally, the fourth is methodological myopia, which is a focus on a narrow selection
of research methods that “severely limited the potential” impact to address equality and equity in
science education (p. 168).
Finally, Parsons (2014) provided several recommendations and suggestions for research and schol-
arship on race and ethnicity for the feld of science education to address. These suggestions include
using tenets of critical race theory as underpinnings to lessen presentism and provide conceptual
clarity to balance race and ethnicity at the individual, group, structural, and systemic levels. In terms
of methodological myopia, she recommended taking on a “transformative paradigm” (p. 168) as an
alternative to either quantitative or qualitative methods and post-positivistic and constructivist para-
digms that reduce and restrict science education research to inform practice and policy.
The purpose in conducting this current review is to determine our progress in identifying the
ways the structured and systemic construction of race and ethnicity – or the individual, group-
level, and systemic construction of race and ethnicity (taken from Parsons, 2014) – have shaped
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Literature on Race and Ethnicity in Science Education
the teaching and learning of science and how this has been taken up in science education research.
Like Parsons (2014), we unpack and synthesize the recent literature and ofer recommendations to
transform methodological and conceptual work in science education research, policy, and practice.
We also examine how and in what ways the feld has realized the recommendations proposed by Par-
sons in the years since her review, in particular, using critical theories alone or in conjunction with
other theories in race- and ethnicity-focused research; abandoning the paradigm wars of research
approaches to focus on breadth and depth of research; and not only generating knowledge but also
transforming science education to become more equitable and socially just.
Method
We conducted a systematic review of the literature on race and ethnicity in science education pub-
lished during the last decade – from 2010 to 2020. (A few of the articles included here have 2021 or
2022 publication dates but were initially published online in 2019 or 2020.) Although the previous
handbook was published in 2014, we decided to begin our review in 2010 for two reasons. First,
the previous version of this chapter did not review articles, particularly articles outside the United
States, in a systematic way; the review missed some articles that we found to be relevant to this cur-
rent review. Second, because the previous version of this chapter found the literature on race and
ethnicity to be limited in scope and depth from a critical perspective, we wished to provide readers
a sense of how the literature has changed over the most recent decade, including part of the time
from the previous chapter. We focused our review on relevant science education articles published
in the following ten well-respected, peer-reviewed journals: the American Educational Research Journal,
Cultural Studies of Science Education, Educational Researcher, the International Journal of Science Education,
the Journal of Science Teacher Education, the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Research in Science
Education, School Science and Mathematics, Science Education, and Teachers College Record. We used the
advanced search tool for each journal and entered the following search terms: science, race, and eth-
nicity. Our searches resulted in a total of 833 possible science education articles, which we uploaded
into Zotero, a reference management software program.
We narrowed this initial pool of articles through two rounds of review. For each round, we used
the following additional criteria: Studies needed to be empirical; to focus on some aspect of K–12
education (e.g., K–12 students, informal K–12 science education, preservice or practicing K–12
teachers, and/or K–12 science teacher educators); and to explicitly attend to race and ethnicity in
the study’s problem statement, literature review, and/or conceptual framework, not simply in the
description of the research context or as a factor in the analysis (for more on this last criterion, see
Parsons, 2014, p. 173). In our frst round, we read the abstract of each article to determine its ft
with our second set of criteria. In doing so, we reduced our initial pool to 231 articles. In our sec-
ond round of review, we conducted a more thorough examination of each article, again using the
aforementioned criteria in reading not only each article’s abstract but the theoretical framework and/
or literature review, methods, and discussion sections as well. After this second round of review, we
determined 169 articles met both sets of criteria – 143 from the United States and 26 from other
countries, including Brazil, China, Israel, Nigeria, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
To facilitate the presentation of our fndings, we organized these resulting 169 articles into eight
categories: Three are structured by theory (Categories A, B, and C) and fve, by empirical topic
(Categories D, E, F, G, and H). We acknowledge from the outset that several articles could have been
placed in more than one of our eight categories and that several do not neatly ft into any category.
We then used Parsons’s (2014) three recommendations for future research on race and ethnicity in
science education to unpack and synthesize the articles in each category. As previously stated, Par-
sons recommended (1) that critical theories be used alone or with other theories to frame studies of
race and ethnicity, (2) that mixed methods be used more regularly to investigate the complex nature
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Table 8.1 Summary of Science Education Research on Race and Ethnicity
Category Total Number of Number of Studies With

Studies Mixed Methods
Category A: Critical Race Theory 11 1

Category B: Critical Race Theory and 11 0
Intersectionality
Category C: Sociocultural Perspectives on 43 8
Theory and Identity
Category D: Science Curriculum and 53 11
Pedagogy
Category E: Language in Intersection 16 4
with Race and Ethnicity
Category F: Aspiration and Motivation to 16 1
Learn and Teach Science
Category G: Teacher Perceptions and 14 0
Experiences
Category H: Assessments 5 0
of race and ethnicity constructs, and (3) that studies seek to transform science education to become
more equitable and socially just. For example, within a given category, we identifed studies as quali-
tative, quantitative, or mixed method (Creswell & Creswell, 2017).
Table 8.1 lists our eight categories, the number of articles included in each, and the number of
articles that employed mixed methods (see again the second recommendation from Parsons, 2014).
The number of studies that employed mixed methods was strikingly small, comprising only 15%
(n=25) of the 169 studies we reviewed here. Indeed, only three of our eight categories had more
than one study that included mixed methods. In contrast, approximately 60% of the studies reviewed
(n=101) used qualitative methods, and a quarter (n=43) used quantitative methods.
Critical Race Theory: The Structured and Systemic

Construction of Race and Ethnicity
We begin our review of K–12 science education literature by focusing on research that employed
a critical race theory lens. As stated earlier, this was the frst of Parsons’s (2014) three recommenda-
tions for future research on race and ethnicity. From our pool of 169 articles, we identifed a total
of 22 articles that drew from constructs tied to critical race theory to shape their investigation. We
divided these articles into two categories: (1) those that employed critical race theory and (2) those
that used intersectionality, a construct that connects to critical race theory, Black feminist thought,
and critical race feminism (Collins, 2016; Crenshaw, 2016; Wing, 1997). We elaborate on each of
these two categories next.
Category A: Critical Race Theory

We identifed 11 articles – all situated in the United States – that were categorized as critical race
theory. Critical race theory arose from critical legal studies (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017) and has been
applied across various felds, including education (Dixson et al., 2016). Nine of these articles were
qualitative studies (Kang & Zinger, 2019; Nazar et al., 2019; Ridgeway & Yerrick, 2018; Settlage,
224
2011; Sparks & Pole, 2019; Visintainer, 2020; Wallace & Brand, 2012; Yerrick & Johnson, 2011;
Zirkel & Pollack, 2016), one was mixed methods (Mutegi et al., 2019), and one was quantitative
(Walls, 2016). Six of these studies used critical race theory within the context of K–12 schools with
African American students in high school science classes (Visintainer, 2020; Yerrick & Johnson,
2011), with two middle school science teachers who taught their African American students using
culturally responsive teaching (Wallace & Brand, 2012), and with three out-of-school programs
that engaged African American students and their teachers (Mutegi et al., 2019; Nazar et al., 2019;
Ridgeway & Yerrick, 2018). Three studies grouped in this category used critical race theory in
teacher education contexts: one is an education course with education majors (Settlage, 2011), one
is a master’s-level course on diversity for teachers (Sparks & Pole, 2019), and one is a series of science
methods courses for novice teachers (Kang & Zinger, 2019). The remaining two studies used critical
race theory to analyze school district data (Zirkel & Pollack, 2016) or empirical studies on nature of
science (NOS; Walls, 2016).
Counternarratives
In 8 of the 11 studies in this category, scholars gave attention to one of critical race theory’s domi-
nant tenets – counternarratives or counterstorytelling or counterstories. Counterstorytelling, defned
by Solórzano and Yosso (2002b), is a method of telling the stories of people whose experiences
are on the margins of society and is used as “a tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the
majoritarian stories of racial privilege” (p. 32). They are shared to dispel the dominant narratives that
pervade society and education. Thus, as a tool, counterstorytelling draws explicitly on experiential
knowledge and the unique voice of people of color (Matsuda et al., 1993). While counternarratives
are used to question what is accepted through stories and narratives from people of color (Zamudio
et al., 2010), they may be used as a methodological approach in the collection and analysis of coun-
terstories (Parker & Lynn, 2002; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002b).
Settlage (2011) used counternarratives to extinguish defcit thinking about white education
majors. In collaboration with his preservice teachers, he revealed a more complex and less “cari-
catured representation” of the shifting identities of mainstream future teachers who did not ft the
“damaged goods” image of working with students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Visintainer
(2020) also collected counternarratives with her study participants to examine youths’ accounts of
their racialized science experiences. She investigated how these high school students of color made
sense of racialized narratives about who can and does science.
In their longitudinal research study, Nazar et al. (2019) used the construct of critical epistemologies
of place to engage with one 12-year-old African American boy in engineering design with experts
and knowledgeable others in his community space. These researchers used counternarratives more in
the sense of challenging dominant narratives of place, where “epistemologies of place as ‘embodied
knowledge’ arising from one’s relationship with their environment, always oriented towards their
future and that of their survival” (p. 642). Nazar and colleagues suggested that engaging in engineering
design through a critical epistemology of place involves an iterative and generative process of layering
community wisdom and knowledge onto STEM toward (1) acknowledging how epistemologies of
place – and their layers – challenge dominant master narratives and (2) reimagining practices in place as
well as (3) transforming the dangerous territory of STEM. In brief, these researchers expanded upon
current understandings of supporting youth in engaging in engineering through highlighting the vital
role of sociohistorically constructed understandings of STEM and community in determining when,
how, and why engineering takes place. These latter two studies used counternarratives as a primary
method of gathering stories from participants and themselves, like Settlage (2011).
Walls (2016) used critical race theory to examine 112 peer-reviewed studies, from 1967 to
2013, that investigated NOS. This was the only quantitative study in this category that used
225
critical race theory. Walls reported that Black, Latino/a, Native American, and other people of
color were found to be disproportionally excluded as participants in NOS research, thus bring-
ing to attention the silencing of these individuals and making suggestions for NOS research to
make it more equitable. In his fndings, Walls identifed four types of inequity based on race
operating within NOS research analyzed. In addition to missing or muted counternarratives,
he highlighted the existence of a colorblind ideology, white privilege, and structural racism in
NOS research.
Furthermore, within this subcategory of studies, critical race theory was used in conjunction with
other theoretical perspectives. As one example, Sparks and Pole (2019) used critical race theory with
social cognitive career theory in their study of 14 science and mathematics teachers. The participants
engaged in a series of virtual chats using open-ended questioning that was also facilitated by two
university instructors. The topics of ethnic and racial diversity, gender, and stereotypes were discussed
with the participants and their students. Sparks and Pole presented three primary themes: under-
standing of issues related to stereotypes, encouragement of females and minorities to pursue careers
in STEM, and the place for diversity discussions in science and mathematics classrooms. The teachers
felt burdened by administrative and curricular constraints that inhibited their ability to participate in
thought-provoking critical conversations.
As a second example of using critical race theory with other theoretical constructs, in this case,
LatCrit theory and the social construction of merit and worth, Zirkel and Pollack (2016) presented a
case analysis of the controversy and public debate generated from a school district’s eforts to address
racial inequities in educational outcomes. The narratives presented to the school district and com-
municated from the debate and in documents revealed how students were viewed and how funding
was allocated. They showed that diverting special funds from the highest-performing students seek-
ing elite college admission to the lowest-performing students who were struggling to graduate from
high school was met with great opposition. Zirkel and Pollack identifed a narrative cycle of debate:
(1) colorblind rhetoric, (2) academic performance is presumed to emerge solely from talent and efort
so that (3) academic performance then becomes a measure of worth, and fnally, (4) eforts to address
racial disparities are “unfair”. The narratives presented in documents and debated among stakehold-
ers identifed some students as worthy and others as unworthy, which greatly infuenced funding,
educational outcomes, and policies.
Microaggressions
One study used critical race theory, but through the process of analysis, ofered extended constructs
related to it (Mutegi et al., 2019). In the only mixed-methods study in this category, Mutegi et al.
(2019) addressed African American students’ experiences in science with microaggressions, which are
subtle, everyday forms of racism (Solórzano & Huber, 2020). Racial microaggressions are brief and
commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unin-
tentional. They communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people
of color (Sue et al., 2007).
Mutegi et al. (2019) investigated both secondary students and teachers who participated in a
two-week nanotechnology camp. From the pre- and post-survey data, the camp was found to suc-
cessfully foster increased interest in STEM; however, the ethnographic data revealed diferences in
how the participants experienced the camp. More specifcally, the qualitative data revealed that Afri-
can American students had radically diferent experiences than their non–African American peers
and identifed specifc incidents of microaggressions. The microaggressions were pervasive – they
came from students, instructors, and the environment – and in response, African American students
adopted detachment-coping strategies. All of these factors collectively worked against the African
American students’ success, camp experience, and learning.
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Category B: Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality

Intersectionality is also a tenet of critical race theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). The concept
of intersectionality refers to particular suppressive forms that are manifested by the overlapping or
intersection of multiple oppressions. For example, race and gender are intersecting oppressions for
Black women in a society where full membership is based upon whiteness for feminist thought,
maleness for Black social and political thought, and a combination of both for maximum participa-
tion in mainstream society (Collins, 2016). Therefore, intersectionality is a way of understanding and
analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experience. Six core ideas provide
a guidepost for thinking through intersectionality as an analytic tool: (1) inequality, (2) relationality,
(3) power, (4) social context, (5) complexity, and (6) social justice. All of these ideas do not have
to be present in a particular study nor do they have to appear in studies in the same ways (Collins,
2016). For this reason, an analysis of studies of critical race theory and intersectionality for this cat-
egory is divided into subcategories related to some of these analytical tools and within diferent areas
of science education.
We identifed 11 articles that were categorized as intersectionality. Ten of these articles used dif-
ferent approaches to qualitative research. Four were long-term or longitudinal studies (Calabrese
Barton & Tan, 2018; Mark, 2018; Mensah, 2019; Pringle et al., 2012). Three others were conducted
in science methods courses (Mensah & Jackson, 2018; Rivera Maulucci, 2013; Sparks, 2018); one
was conducted in an advanced placement secondary biology class (Ryu, 2015); one, in a community-
based informal STEM program (King & Pringle, 2019); and one, in and outside science classrooms
(Teo, 2015). The one quantitative study in this category used a national cohort of eighth-grade
students to consider how diferent gender and racial/ethnic subgroups compared to white males in
their aspirations for careers in science or mathematics (Riegle-Crumb et al., 2011). Only one of
these studies (Teo, 2015) was situated in a country (Singapore) other than the United States. The ten
qualitative studies in this group are further divided into the two following subcategories.
Part 1: Intersectionality in Science Teacher Education

Four studies in science teacher education used critical race theory as both a theoretical and method-
ological lens (Mensah, 2019; Mensah & Jackson, 2018; Rivera Maulucci, 2013; Sparks, 2018). First,
Mensah’s (2019) longitudinal case study utilized critical race theory methodology to chronicle the
journey of an African American female in elementary science teacher education. The study looked
at her educational history frst as a young Black child and then how she navigated a contested, racial-
ized, predominantly white teacher education program; grew and developed in science education;
and secured her frst full-time teaching appointment as an elementary teacher. Mensah noted that
intersectionality foregrounds and adds to the complexity of understanding race, racism, and science
in teacher education in telling several critical race narratives of Michele, the teacher in the study.
Sparks (2018), in his science methods course, worked with a group of three African American
female preservice STEM teachers. These preservice teachers participated in semi-structured, face-
to-face interviews, where they shared their experiences in STEM, reasons for their choice of major,
obstacles and challenges, instances of racism or sexism, and identity development. The results showed
that the females were not discouraged by their underrepresentation; were confdent in their abilities;
and expressed wide variation in their identity development related to race, gender, and feld of study.
Like Mensah (2019) and Sparks (2019), Rivera Maulucci (2013) focused on the development of
teacher identity within a science methods course. As a case study of the historical development of an
African American, Caribbean preservice teacher’s social justice stance, Rivera Maulucci used emo-
tional genealogy, critical emotional praxis, and positional identity as frameworks. The narratives she
shared of Nicole focused on what emotions she expressed and how those emotions helped Nicole
227
position herself concerning social justice issues as she navigated becoming a social justice chemistry
teacher.
Finally, the setting for the last article in this subcategory was a graduate-level preservice elemen-
tary science methods course (Mensah & Jackson, 2018). The purpose of this study was to analyze
the experiences of preservice Teachers of Color (PTOC) enrolled in the science methods course and
how they gained access to science as white property. Mensah and Jackson used themes from critical
race theory (CRT), such as the unique voice of people of color, and positionalities to interpret the
data from a CRT perspective. Taken together, the four studies in this subcategory used several of the
analytical tools of intersectionality, such as a focus on inequality, power, and social justice, to trans-
form science teacher education to make it more equitable and socially just for teacher candidates.
Attention to the race and ethnicity of the participants also revealed how their identities assisted or
challenged their navigation in science teacher education.
Part 2: Intersectionality in School or Community-Based Settings

Six studies employed intersectionality to investigate science teaching and learning in school and/
or community-based settings. The study by Teo (2015) was the only one that focused on teachers;
the rest focused on students and are discussed further here. Calabrese Barton and Tan (2018), as
one example, conducted a multiyear study focused on 41 team projects involving 48 youth mak-
ers within the rich culture of their communities. The interviews with the youth teams covered
questions about understanding the artifact they created, engaging in the process of making, sharing
STEM knowledge and practices, and expressing their meaning and value of engaging in the proj-
ect. A central aspect of the youth’s participation in the community maker project was to “reclaim
their experiences, lives, and communities in more complex and agentic ways than what dominant
narratives imply” (p. 779). A major lesson from the study was supporting youth in co-making in
their community and situating knowledge production within their local contexts. By doing so,
for the youth and their projects, participation, learning, and sharing were pivotal in decolonizing
and disrupting normative power dynamics among the youth, adults, and context. The youth drew
from their local knowledge as “oppressed and empowered insiders and forced attention on typically
silenced narratives around low-income communities” (p. 798).
King and Pringle (2019) also utilized intersectionality, and specifcally critical race feminism,
in their work with K–12 Black girls to expose racial and gender essentialism as the girls navigated
between formal and informal STEM learning spaces. Critical race feminism, like intersectionality,
focuses on the lives of people who face multiple forms of discrimination based on race, gender,
and class, for example, and reveals how these factors interact with a system of white male patri-
archy and racist oppression (Wing, 1997). Like Calabrese Barton and Tan’s (2018) study of youth
community science learning, King and Pringle (2019) used counterspaces, or “sites where defcit
notions of people of color can be challenged and where a positive climate can be established and
maintained” (Solórzano et al., 2000, p. 70). The researchers provided shelter from the “daily tor-
rent of microaggressions” (Howard-Hamilton, 2003, p. 23) that people of color experience. This
community-based program operated in partnership with local organizations and businesses as well
as university students and faculty. The program exposed participants to colleges, careers, and other
informal science institutions. A total of 73 students participated, 39 of whom were girls and 34 of
whom were boys; all 73 participants identifed as Black or biracial, and approximately 74% of the
participants qualifed for free or reduced lunch. Using CRT methodology (Solórzano & Yosso,
2002a), the authors shared counterstories of the girls’ experiences in the I AM STEM program and
presented their multidimensional identities across contexts. Illuminating the voices of Black girls
informs research methods and ofers some best practices for more inclusive informal STEM learning
programs for children of color.
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Though Pringle et al. (2012) did not use intersectionality as the theoretical framework for their
study, their work was rooted in the feminist ideology of positionality (Holland et al., 1998), which
provides a framework to examine the complex and relational roles of ethnicity, gender, socioeco-
nomics, and other identifers that can infuence their experiences. Pringle and colleagues argued that
the persistent underachievement of African American girls from low-income communities remains
a challenge and that this phenomenon has not been addressed thoroughly in the literature. In their
three-year longitudinal study, they examined how African American girls positioned themselves
concerning science and mathematics learning from ffth to seventh grade. Their reporting of fnd-
ings from this study looked at the positioning of teachers, counselors, and parents in this process, and
the science and mathematics teachers’ actions, perceptions, and positioning of the African American
girls. In their fndings, they indicated that the science and mathematics teachers lacked awareness of
their roles as advocates for Black girls and that they were also unaware of the deleterious efects of
low expectations, which could ultimately afect the girls’ positionalities as science and mathematics
learners as they transitioned into secondary school. Further, standardized tests utilized as a measure-
ment tool of accountability also afected teachers’ beliefs and behaviors in positioning the girls in
science and mathematics.
Similar to the work by Pringle et al. (2012), Ryu (2015) did not apply an intersectionality lens, yet
she examined six Korean transnational girls enrolled in two advanced placement (AP) biology classes
to understand their experiences in science classrooms at the intersection of race, language, and gender.
She confronted the model minority stereotype for Asian students, which is particularly salient in sci-
ence-, technology-, engineering-, and mathematics-related disciplines. The premise of the study was
to inquire why the six girls chose to take advanced science and mathematics courses. Ryu noted that
the girls’ decision to take such courses was their way of negotiating their positions as members of a
racial minority, as English learners, and as Koreans with stereotyped characteristics. Though they were
challenged due to modes of language, unfamiliarity with science terminology, complex texts, and
various knowledge beyond the texts, as well as social linguistic skills and discursive practices, they did
not feel empowered to pursue academic support in the gendered settings of their advanced courses.
Most of the studies we identifed on intersectionality focused on girls or women. However, Mark
(2018), in her long-term qualitative case study, focused on one African American male, Randy, who
expressed high-achieving STEM career goals in computer science and engineering. Randy devel-
oped a STEM identity during an informal STEM-for-social-justice community of practice program
where he also used an “economics” lens and integrated STEM, economics, and community engage-
ment. This study communicated the importance of recognizing and supporting the development
of holistic and nontraditional STEM identities, especially for diverse populations in STEM, such as
Black boys, and exploring long-term STEM career options.
Additional Constructs Used to Shape Investigations of Race and Ethnicity

We grouped the remaining 147 articles into six additional constructs or categories that facilitated our
unpacking and critically synthesizing the literature on race and ethnicity in science education. We begin
this section with our third conceptual category – sociocultural perspectives on theory and identity – and
then present the remaining topical categories by size – from the category with the largest number of
articles identifed to the smallest. Similar to the previous sections, we found common themes to divide
and discuss the articles by paying attention to the recommendations from Parsons (2014).
Category C: Sociocultural Perspectives on Theory and Identity

We categorized 43 articles as sociocultural perspectives on theory and identity. The articles we
reviewed in this category drew from sociocultural perspectives in their investigations of science
229
education tied to race and ethnicity. We divided the articles into two major parts: sociocultural
theoretical frameworks and sociocultural identity. The latter category was further divided into mixed
methods and quantitative designs, school contexts, and teacher education for ease of presenting the
studies.
Part 1: Sociocultural Theoretical Frameworks

There are 13 articles in this subcategory on sociocultural perspectives as they relate to theoretical frame-
works used by researchers to guide their work. All of these studies took a qualitative approach, although
they were situated in diferent contexts, such as science teacher education (Alexakos et al., 2016; McNew-
Birren et al., 2018); K–12 science classrooms with a focus on students (Carlone et al., 2015; Kang et al.,
2018; Parker, 2014; Varelas et al., 2015; Zhang & Barnett, 2015); K–12 science classrooms with a focus
on interactions between teachers and students (Pitts, 2011; Richardson Bruna, 2010); students’ lived
experiences across academic, professional, psychosocial, and emotional spaces (Gallard Martínez et al.,
2019); American [Native] Indian students’ performance on standardized tests (Dupuis & Abrams, 2017);
cross-cultural exploration of children’s everyday ideas across the United States, Singapore, and China
(Wee, 2012); and families’ experiences in science museums in London (Archer et al., 2016).
Within this collection of studies, researchers emphasized the importance of student voice or
research with participants from diverse positionalities and experiences in science, mathematics, and
teacher education. Findings from the studies revealed how the educational system was vulnerable to
society’s cultural values and norms and thus infuenced Latina students’ STEM trajectories and inter-
ests in science (Gallard Martínez et al., 2019; Parker, 2014), African American students’ behaviors
and attitudes in their science classes (Kang et al., 2018), and Native American students’ performance
on standardized tests (Dupuis & Abrams, 2017). What these studies have in common in their use
of sociocultural frameworks is the visible interplay of race, class, and gender primarily in students’
and teachers’ interactions within larger societal structures and the ways they interrogate and navigate
meanings of science. Individual case studies make evident these experiences and challenges for par-
ticipants (Pitts, 2011; Richardson Bruna, 2010; Varelas et al., 2015).
The theoretical perspectives used by the researchers juxtapose sociocultural perspectives that allow
race and ethnicity to be mediating factors in understanding science teaching, learning, and experi-
ences. We would not say these perspectives are inherent to the participants’ social identities or the
theoretical frameworks used, yet the positionalities of the participants make explicit reference to their
experiences due to racial and ethnic identity as well as gender and class. For example, two studies
specifcally, one that introduced a sociocultural analytical framework (Gallard Martínez et al., 2019)
and another that used multiple sociocultural lenses (Richardson Bruna, 2010), revealed the complex
interaction of race and ethnicity with class.
First, Gallard Martínez and colleagues (2019) introduced the concept of contextual mitigat-
ing factors (CMFs) as a theoretical construct and found it helpful in understanding how Latinas
who demonstrated success in the STEM pipeline navigated in shifting socio-historical-political
contexts. Using CMFs as both theoretical and methodological analyses, the authors discussed that
fuid social felds are essential to understanding the factors Latinas experience and create in their
social interactions. The development of CMFs is discussed within the constructs of social place
(Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), social feld (Swartz, 1997), and dynamic space (Tobin, 2009).
The researchers presented two case studies focusing on Latinas’ successes in STEM felds using an
intrinsic case study method. They emphasized the benefts associated with CMF analysis, namely,
the provision of an additive framework in understanding the lived experiences of minoritized
groups. By attending to the role macro-, meso-, and microgenic CMFs play in ethnic minority
students’ educational experiences, educators at all levels may play a substantively larger role in
helping sustain their agency as learners.
230
Second, building upon previous work, Richardson Bruna (2010) continued her investigation of
the experiences of a Mexican immigrant transnational student, Augusto, and employed a class-frst
perspective to examine Augusto’s science education experience coming from a subsistence farm-
ing community in rural Mexico to an industrialized meatpacking community in semirural Iowa.
Augusto underwent a class transformation, or a change in his class identity, that was a product of his
science class. Augusto worked to resist the processes of disciplinary production as he reshaped his
teacher’s instruction through specifc transnational social capital using peer mediation. The atten-
tion to a sociohistorical, situated perspective to science teaching and learning contributed to how
not only race and ethnicity but also “class-cognizant” analysis in science education was informed by
Augusto’s transnational social capital.
Finally, there has been little research from both an international perspective and a critical foun-
dation of science learning perspective of children’s everyday ideas. Using social constructivism as a
theoretical framework, Wee (2012) conducted a study with 210 children, mainly Asians and Asian
Americans, from urban settings. The participants ranged in age from elementary to middle school.
This paper explored children’s everyday ideas and drawings about the environment across the United
States, Singapore, and China to understand what they reveal about children’s relationship to the
environment. The fndings implied the need for (1) a change in the role of science teachers from
knowledge providers to social developers, (2) a science curriculum that is specifc to learners’ experi-
ences in diferent sociocultural settings, and (3) a shift away from inter-country comparisons using
international science test scores. Though several categories supported existing literature on children’s
ideas about the environment, Wee acknowledged that there were novel categories that also emerged,
giving new insight into the role that language, sociocultural norms, and ethnicity play in shaping
children’s everyday ideas.
Part 2: Sociocultural Identity

For this second subcategory on sociocultural perspectives related to identity, we identifed 30 articles
and further divided them into three subcategories. In most of these studies, the researchers identifed
the race, ethnicity, and gender of the participants, and in a few cases, additional identity markers,
such as socioeconomic status or immigration status. However, these studies varied along several
other dimensions, including methods employed. Of these studies, one (Chapman & Feldman, 2017)
explicitly discussed their rationale for using the terms “race” and “ethnicity”.
To elaborate, Chapman and Feldman (2017) used the construct “race/ethnicity” to denote their
understanding of race as “the physical characteristics of an individual that arise genetically, while
ethnicity is the norms, customs, and rituals of a particular group in a specifc region” (p. 470). They
continued, “It is not always possible to diferentiate between the students’ perceptions concerning
race or ethnicity. For this reason, we use the phrase race/ethnicity throughout the study” (p. 470).
Later in the study, in their description of the Identify-A-Scientist instrument they used to examine
students’ perceptions of scientists, Chapman and Feldman explained why they asked students to state
the ethnicity, rather than the race, of the individuals they selected as most likely to be scientists:
However, our decision to use the term ethnicity rather than race was based in part on the
considerable diversity in the community in which the study took place. For example, some
participants and their families might identify as African American, Spanish speaking Afri-
can Caribbean, English speaking African Caribbean, Kreyol speaking African Caribbean,
or from any of many African countries. Those not identifying with one of these ethnici-
ties might see these individuals as belonging to a single racial group. Similar consideration
emerges from the use of Hispanic or Latino. Outsiders might see the Latino participants
as a single ethnic group, while the participants and their families might identify as being
231
from any of many Latin American countries, including Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican
Republic, Honduras, and Mexico.
(p. 478)
Thus, this quote demonstrates explicit attention to naming, identifying, and not essentializing the
racial and ethnic identity of individuals and groups (Rivera Maulucci & Mensah, 2015). We note this
exception in that most of the studies in this review did not diferentiate and make this distinction for
the participants, or an individual, in their study.
Part 2a: Sociocultural Identity and Mixed-Methods or Quantitative Designs

Ten studies used either mixed-methods or quantitative approaches to investigating sociocultural
identity. Three mixed-methods studies were conducted in London (Archer et al., 2010, 2014, 2015),
four were situated in the United States (Chapman & Feldman, 2017; Habig et al., 2020; Hughes
et al., 2013, 2021), and one used data drawn from multiple countries (Ferguson & Lezotte, 2020).
Two studies also conducted in the United States employed quantitative approaches (Kang et al.,
2019; Vincent-Ruz & Schunn, 2021).
In one study, Habig et al. (2020) used triangulation methods in collecting and synthesizing quali-
tative and quantitative data to examine how participation in a longitudinal ISE out-of-school time
(OST) program facilitated by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) impacted the
STEM trajectories of 66 alumni. The majority of the participants were females and/or members
of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. Of 62 respondents (data from four par-
ticipants were missing), 64.5% were females and 35.5% were male. Further, 32.3% self-identifed as
African American; 29.0% as Asian; 22.6% as Latino/a; 12.9% as white/Non-Hispanic; and 3.2% as
Other. A purposeful sample of 21 of these participating alumni was selected for interviews. Of the
21 participants in this purposeful sample, 71.4% were female and 28.6% were male. Further, 33.3%
self-identifed as African American; 23.8% as Asian; 19.0% as Latino/a; and 23.8% as white/Non-
Hispanic. The authors used a community of practice and social capital framework to discuss the
alumni’s STEM career trajectories or persistence in STEM.
Using latent class analysis, Vincent-Ruz and Schunn (2021) collected survey responses from over
1,200 urban public school students in the sixth, seventh, and ninth grades from two diferent regions
in the United States. The surveys asked about students’ topical identities, choice preferences, and
optional science experiences. Data were collected from students attending schools that varied widely
by race/ethnicity (i.e., underrepresented groups in science, 23–99%) and socioeconomic status (i.e.,
students from low-income families eligible for free/reduced lunch at school, 26–84%). In total, data
were collected from 20 sixth-grade, 45 seventh-grade, and 37 ninth-grade classes drawn from 23
public schools. Participants were from both genders, and the racial and ethnic groups consisted of
white, Black, Asian, and Latinx.
For three studies in this subgroup, the race and/or ethnicity in intersection with the gender of the
participants were acknowledged. First, Hughes et al. (2013) added to the policy debate about single-
sex schooling for girls in science, with data collected from African American, Asian American, and
white girls as well as African American and white boys. They used pre- and post-surveys (with Lik-
ert scale and open-ended questions), post-interviews with teachers, and select post-interviews with
students to derive their fndings. The researchers found that the single-sex learning environment was
not as important as the pedagogy used in the two programs for the experiences and science identity
development for girls in an all-girls STEM camp and a coeducational STEM camp.
Second, Hughes et al. (2021) looked further into the coding identity development of three girls
they studied as cases – one Latina, one African American, and one white. The study was driven by
understanding how the girls performed their coding identity work (competence performance and
232
identity performance), and how their work was recognized by peers and educators with the ultimate
purpose of creating a coding identity framework for future researchers. The authors wondered, how-
ever, what role gender and racial stereotypes have on leadership and competence, especially in how
Black girls and women are viewed. They suggested more research is needed in looking at gender and
race, and the impact of stereotypes on how girls shape their coding identities.
In the third study, Kang et al. (2019) looked at STEM identity development for girls of color.
They used social practice theory, identity, and sense of self as theoretical constructs. The research-
ers analyzed a large data set of survey responses (n=1,821) collected at fve middle schools in low-
income communities across four states in the United States. Analyses focused on key constructs
that inform girls’ development of sense of self; relations among those indicators of STEM identities
varied by their race/ethnicity. In the fnal version of the modifed Is Science Me? (ISME) survey,
the race/ethnicity item included six categories (e.g., African American/Black African; white/
Caucasian/European/European American) as well as an “Other” category. The survey prompted
students to “check all that apply”. A total of seven racial/ethnic groups emerged from students’
responses, including three groups with small sample sizes: white (n= 357), African American
(n= 306), Latinx (n= 378), Asian American (n= 322), Multiracial (n= 366), Hawaiian (n= 34),
American Indian (n= 9), and Other (n= 56). Due to their small numbers, the researchers dropped
adolescents who only identifed as Hawaiian, American Indian, and Other for their analysis using
structural equation modeling (SEM). The fnal fve race/ethnicity groupings allowed the research-
ers to conduct robust statistical analyses, in particular focusing on group diferences by gender and
by race/ethnicity.
For specifc examples of identity work and mixed-methods design, there was a series of three
studies conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) from a fve-year longitudinal survey that inves-
tigated minority ethnic students’ science and career aspirations (Archer et al., 2010, 2014, 2015).
The ASPIRES project was funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council as part of
its Targeted Initiative on Science and Mathematics Education. This fve-year, longitudinal study was
conducted among 10–14-year-olds, and data were collected from a quantitative online survey of
more than 9,000 10–11-year-old pupils from a range of backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, and
ethnic diversities, and qualitative interviews with a subset of students and parents. The studies have
some overlap with the next category, identity and school contexts; still, the children’s responses were
analyzed through the lens of identity as an embodied and performed construction.
Specifcally, Archer et al. (2015) utilized survey data from nationally representative student cohorts
and longitudinal interview data collected over four years. Ten Black African/Caribbean students,
who were tracked from ages 10 to 14 (Years 6–9), and their parents were participants in this study.
The researchers used an intersectional analysis of the qualitative data to examine why science careers
are less “thinkable” for Black students. They also conducted a case study of two young Black women
who “bucked the trend” and aspired to science careers. Their theoretical approach draws on several
constructs: frst, feminist, postcolonial, and “intersectional” poststructuralist theorizations of identity
as a tool for understanding students’ identifcation with science and, second, a Bourdieusian-inspired
conceptualization of “science capital”.
Finally, Ferguson and Lezotte’s (2020) systematic review and meta-analysis of articles that used the
1995 Draw-A-Scientist Checklist (DAST-C) ofered recommendations for revisions to the DAST-C
that could assist in capturing more modern scientist stereotypes and culturally bound perceptions
of scientists. The researchers recommended that culturally defned concepts, such as Caucasian and
facial hair, should be given fexibility for diferent uses, either expanding the category (e.g., facial
hair could become mustache, beard, etc., and be adjusted based on cultural norms) or redefning the
category to be a comparison against the dominant culture (e.g., Caucasian could become dominant
race/ethnicity vs. minority). Along with more specifc instructions, these changes would strengthen
this drawing assessment.
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Part 2b: Sociocultural Identity and School Contexts

The remaining articles that investigated sociocultural identity employed a range of diferent qualita-
tive approaches. The three primary qualitative approaches used were: (1) six ethnographies, including
a general ethnography in an urban high school (Brotman & Mensah, 2013; Gamez & Parker, 2018),
a longitudinal ethnographic case study (Calabrese Barton et al., 2013), a comparative ethnography
(Carlone et al., 2011), a critical ethnographic case study of 16 middle school girls (Tan et al., 2013),
and a three-year ethnographic study of an urban high school Latina teacher (Denerof, 2016); (2)
two case studies, including a collective case study with three elementary preservice teachers (Chen &
Mensah, 2018) and a case study of the historical development of an African American, Caribbean
preservice teacher’s social justice stance (Rivera Maulucci, 2013); and (3) three narratives, including
personal stories and refections from a Caribbean teacher (Grimes, 2013), three African American
teachers in a science methods course (Seiler, 2011), and an arts-based ethnodance as embodied nar-
rative methodology (Chappell & Varelas, 2020). We also categorized nine studies as using general
qualitative methods with the collection and analysis of multiple data sources from African American
children in elementary classrooms (Kane, 2012; Varelas et al., 2011), of interviews collected from
minority ethnic 10–14-year-old students and their parents in London schools (Archer et al., 2012b,
2017, 2019; Wong, 2012, 2015), and of drawings from preservice teachers (Sharma & Honan, 2020;
Mensah, 2011). Those studies that focused on school contexts are discussed in this section; those
studies that focused on teacher education are examined in the next section.
Several studies used sociocultural frameworks of identity that did not necessarily foreground race
and ethnicity; instead, these researchers used race and ethnicity to describe the setting and par-
ticipants of their studies. As an example, Calabrese Barton et al. (2013) conducted a longitudinal
ethnographic case study with 36 girls from two small Midwestern cities, one large East Coast city,
and one Pacifc Ocean city. Each of the girls attended schools that served a large nondominant
population (i.e., students from underrepresented racial, ethnic, or linguistic backgrounds and lower-
income homes). They identifed the girls by socioeconomic status (low, middle), ethnicity (African
American, Latina, Asian, Native Hawaiian, white), and science interest (high, low). The authors built
a conceptual argument for identity trajectories and discussed the ongoing, cumulative, and conten-
tious nature of identity work and the mechanisms that foster critical shifts in trajectories for possible
future selves in science.
In their comparative ethnography, Carlone et al. (2011) conducted a study in two fourth-grade
elementary school classrooms. Though both classrooms of students developed similar levels of sci-
entifc understanding and expressed positive attitudes about learning science, a group of African
American and Latina girls in one classroom expressed disafliation with the identity of a “smart sci-
ence person” even though most of them knew the science equally well or, in one case, better than
their classmates.
Through a yearlong ethnographic investigation of a health-focused New York City public high
school’s HIV/AIDS and sex education program, Brotman and Mensah (2013) illustrated a case in
which 20 12th-grade African American students responded positively to their education on these
topics and largely asserted that school signifcantly infuenced their perspectives and actions related to
sexual health decision-making. The 20 students who consented to participate in the study included
18 females and 2 males, and the participants identifed their ethnicities in the following way: seven
Latino(a), seven African American, three African, and three West Indian. Eight students were born
outside the United States and had lived in the United States between 4 and 17 years. All but one
female had attended the school since the ninth grade. All participants were 17 or 18 years of age,
except one female who was 16.
Two additional studies of identity situated in classrooms employed ethnographic methods as well.
Tan et al. (2013) used a critical ethnographic approach to examine the narrated and embodied
234
identities-in-practice of 16 non-white, middle school girls who articulated future career goals in
STEM-related felds. For these girls who desired a STEM-related career, researchers examined the
relationships between their narrated and embodied identities in practice. The four schools across
four research sites located in urban areas had large populations of “students from underrepresented
racial, ethnic or linguistic backgrounds, and lower-income households” (p. 1149). Second, Gamez
and Parker (2018) conducted an ethnographic case study of two newcomer students learning a
reform-based science curriculum taught in English. While the school used the word “newcomer” to
categorize students who had attended an English-speaking school for less than a year, the researchers
conducted interviews in each student’s preferred language choice, which sometimes meant inter-
views were conducted entirely in Spanish or English or a mix of the two. The authors discussed
the relevancy of peer networks and how they can inform both theory and practice around how
newcomers, and emergent bilinguals more broadly, engage in science. The researchers also noted the
importance of being able to combat defcit views of emergent bilingual students as “good science
students” and “good English language learners” within the classroom.
Using arts-based practices, and specifcally ethnodance, Chappell and Varelas (2020) presented a
theoretical argument for ethnodance as a medium for Black students to narrate their evolving science
identities, communicating meanings, interactions, and emotions as well as to construct identities
and artifacts of participating in science classroom communities. The authors focused on Black stu-
dents in an urban high school choreographing a dance performance to capture their science identity
construction. Using ballet, lyrical, and contemporary dances to represent their challenging position
within science, students were ofered a sense of cultural solidarity and joy of rising above the struggle.
Varelas et al. (2011) focused on 25 young, low-income, African American children in frst- to
third-grade classrooms where they experienced varied forms of an interactive, participatory, and
dialogic pedagogy in the context of a yearlong, integrated science-literacy program. The idea of
ideological becoming centered on the ways the children talked about doing school and doing science
(see also Kane, 2012).
Five studies in the UK by Archer, Wong, and colleagues (Archer et al., 2012b, 2017, 2019;
Wong, 2012, 2015) that were connected to the larger ASPIRES project used identity construc-
tions and work with teachers, students, and parents. In Archer et al. (2017), for example, research-
ers investigated identity performance and intelligibility in a nine-month research and development
program conducted with nine teachers from six inner London schools. Except for students in one
of the schools, students came predominantly from working-class backgrounds and a range of ethnic
backgrounds. For example, Urdu/Bengali, Turkish, Polish, and Portuguese were the most frequently
spoken languages among the students. In the Archer et al. (2019) study, researchers drew on Judith
Butler’s concepts of intelligibility and identity as performance to make sense of enactments of subal-
tern (that is, subordinated) urban students within secondary school science.
Wong (2015), a member of the larger research team, conducted an exploratory study using 46
semi-structured interviews with British young people (aged 11–14) from Black Caribbean, Pakistani,
Bangladeshi, Indian, and Chinese ethnic backgrounds. The study explored why careers in science
are not popular aspirations among ethnic minority students, while careers from science are highly
sought after. Wong found that being a scientist was constructed by students as a highly gendered
and racialized profession, which may refect popular discourse of being a scientist as typically for
“white men.” Careers from science, particularly in medicine, appeared popular among some, but not
all, ethnic minority groups, as being a member of the medical staf was considered intrinsically and
extrinsically rewarding.
What these studies ofered is a conceptualization of identity across varied racial, ethnic, and
socioeconomic statuses and across children in diferent grade levels. The ASPIRES project and
other studies mentioned in this category communicated the importance of looking at the unique
experiences of children in science. For instance, the students and parents who were interviewed
235
in the Archer et al. (2012b) study were recruited from 11 elementary schools in England. Stu-
dents came from a broad range of socioeconomic classes and ethnic backgrounds, although the
majority were white British (19 boys and 30 girls) followed by South Asian (6 boys and 7 girls),
and Black African/Caribbean (3 boys and 6 girls). The researchers were deliberate in describing
not only the ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic status of the participants but also members of the
research team. They stated that the “interviews were conducted by four of the paper authors,
with the majority of the interviews being conducted by the second author. Of the interview-
ers, three (LA, JdW, BW) are white middle-class women (with English, American, and French
national backgrounds) and one (BWg) is a British-Chinese male Ph.D. student” (Archer et al.,
2012b, p. 972).
Part 2c: Sociocultural Identity, Teacher Education, and Teacher Development

For the seven qualitative, teacher-focused studies in this subcategory, fve highlighted the infu-
ence of both race and ethnicity and other social markers of the participants and discussed the
implications of race and ethnicity within sociocultural frameworks of identity (Chen & Mensah,
2018; Denerof, 2016; Grimes, 2013; Rivera Maulucci, 2011; Seiler, 2011). Two studies uti-
lized the collection and analysis of drawings from preservice teachers (Sharma & Honan, 2020;
Mensah, 2011).
For example, in their collective case study, Chen and Mensah (2018) examined how the teacher
and science teacher identities of three elementary preservice teachers striving to become social jus-
tice educators developed during their frst semester of student teaching after taking a one-semester
science methods course. The three participants self-identifed as Jamaican/Black, Indian American,
and white/Hispanic. The preservice teachers’ identities and histories, university coursework, posi-
tioning in their student teaching classrooms, and opportunities to authentically teach were identifed
as mediating infuences on the development of their teacher and science teacher identities as well as
their perceived ability to teach science for social justice. Their positioning in the classroom dictated
the kinds of actions they took toward becoming social justice teachers. For Gabriela, positioned as
an observer, she identifed how the dominant racial narrative of good and bad children and defcit
views of students of color were reinforced and perpetuated through teacher and student actions
and class activities. She questioned her cooperating teacher’s lack of action to address racist acts and
refected on what steps she would take as a teacher when confronted with these situations in her
future classroom.
Seiler (2011) explored identity hybridization among nondominant science teachers, or two Afri-
can American females and one African American male, as they merged identity narratives around
science and science teaching with who they were out of school. The teachers’ experiences of dis-
identifcation with science in terms of diaspora, or the sense of being taken away from what one
knows and values, generated a “creolized” approach to science teaching in that the teachers created
possibilities for greater student identifcation with science in school, which in turn has the poten-
tial for changing the face of who does science and science itself. A creolized science provides new
opportunities for communication and participation for those who contribute to and employ science
(Elmesky & Seiler, 2007).
Grimes (2013) noted the importance of an educator’s gender, nationality, language, and inter-
ests among other social markers as all permeating the classroom feld and coexisting alongside the
professional role identity. Using several sociocultural theoretical perspectives and identity con-
structs, Grimes explored her Black female Caribbean identity, which she also identifed as a frst-
generation Trinidadian immigrant, and how her identity transformed the science classroom and
created positive resonance for some of her privileged white students who had Caribbean caretakers
at home. As a refexive dialogue with science students situated both within and outside the science
236
classroom, the conversations with students who were raised through the hired help of Caribbean
nannies revealed a strong resemblance to the way they perceived their caretakers and Grimes as
their instructor.
Both Sharma and Honan (2020) and Mensah (2011) used drawing tasks with preservice teach-
ers. Sharma and Honan (2020) administered the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) and collected
written descriptions of scientists from 88 Fijian preservice teachers about their perceptions of
science and scientists. While the fndings of the study resonated with similar DAST studies, not
much about race and ethnicity was mentioned in the analysis of the drawings; still, the authors
noted a particular signifcance in a Pacifc context where little research on Fijian education and
curriculum is done. In contrast, Mensah (2011) used several social identity markers to analyze
99 drawings created by elementary preservice teacher candidates. The self-reported gender and
racial/ethnic backgrounds of 48 of the 54 preservice teachers were females: 29 white/Cauca-
sian/European American, 8 Asian/Southeast Asian/Korean/Chinese American, 2 Middle Eastern
American, 2 African American, 1 French American, 1 Native American, 1 Latina American, 1
African American Latina, 1 Indian-South Asian, 1 Italian Lithuanian American Indian, and 1
Caucasian Croatian. There were also six males: four white/Caucasian/European American and
two Asian American. Two preservice teachers were registered with the Ofce of Disabilities, and
all students were fuent and communicated in Standard American English. Findings from this
study of preservice teacher candidates’ drawings indicated that, while many elements of the ste-
reotypical scientist image were prevalent, such an activity can make more explicit teachers’ views
and prior experiences to promote discussions about teacher identity, science teaching, and the
construction of new images and practices for teaching elementary science. The preservice teach-
ers drew images showing their racial and ethnic identities.
Category D: Science Curriculum and Pedagogy

We identified 53 studies that examined science curriculum and pedagogy in intersection with
race and ethnicity. We divided these studies into three subcategories: culturally and linguis-
tically relevant instruction, STEM-focused programs, and curriculum materials for ease of
presentation.
Part 1: Culturally and Linguistically Relevant Instruction

Culturally and linguistically relevant instruction was our largest subcategory, with 24 articles.
These studies described science pedagogy as culturally relevant and/or responsive (Brown & Crip-
pen, 2016; Brown et al., 2021; Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2017; Grimberg & Gummer, 2013;
Hernandez & Shroyer, 2017; Madkins & McKinney de Royston, 2019; McCollough & Ramirez,
2012; Mensah et al., 2018; Ramirez et al., 2016; Underwood & Mensah, 2018; Upadhyay et al.,
2017; Xu et al., 2012; Yoon & Martin, 2019), multicultural (Atwater et al., 2013; Charity Hud-
ley & Mallinson, 2017; Mensah et al., 2018), place-based (Brkich, 2014; Harper, 2017; Schin-
del Dimick, 2016; Sedawi et al., 2020), justice-centered (Atwater et al., 2013; Dimick, 2012;
Morales-Doyle, 2017), culturally adaptive (Shady, 2014), culturally sustaining (Weiland, 2015),
critical constructivist (Wild, 2015), or equity in instruction (Ramnarain, 2011). Although we
recognize these constructs are not synonymous, for the sake of brevity, we refer to them here
as culturally and linguistically relevant instruction. We use this term to encompass asset-based
approaches to instruction that place students’ individual, racial, ethnic, linguistic, and community
resources at their center.
All but two studies in this subcategory (Ramnarain, 2011, in South Africa; Sedawi et al., 2020,
in Israel) were situated in the United States. Still, researchers focused their investigations on a wide
237
range of participants. One study investigated Hispanic mothers and their elementary school children
(Weiland, 2015). Six studies foregrounded students (Brkich, 2014; Brown et al., 2021; Harper, 2017;
Sedawi et al., 2020; Upadhyay et al., 2017; Wild, 2015); six focused on students and their teachers
(Dimick, 2012; Grimberg & Gummer, 2013; Morales-Doyle, 2017; Ramnarain, 2011; Schindel
Dimick, 2016; Shady, 2014); and one addressed students, their teachers, administrators, and families
(Madkins & McKinney de Royston, 2019). Eight investigated teachers, either preservice teachers
(Hernandez & Shroyer, 2017; McCollough & Ramirez, 2012; Yoon & Martin, 2019), preservice
teachers and the families they served (Ramirez et al., 2016), practicing teachers (Brown & Crip-
pen, 2016; Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2017; Xu et al., 2012), or both preservice and practicing
teachers (Mensah et al., 2018). And two explored science teacher educators (Atwater et al., 2013;
Underwood & Mensah, 2018).
Eighteen of these 24 studies were qualitative (Atwater et al., 2013; Brkich, 2014; Brown &
Crippen, 2016; Brown et al., 2021; Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2017; Dimick, 2012; Harper,
2017; Hernandez & Shroyer, 2017; Madkins & McKinney de Royston, 2019; Mensah et al., 2018;
Morales-Doyle, 2017; Ramnarain, 2011; Schindel Dimick, 2016; Shady, 2014; Underwood & Men-
sah, 2018; Upadhyay et al., 2017; Weiland, 2015; Xu et al., 2012); three were quantitative (Grim-
berg & Gummer, 2013; Wild, 2015; Yoon & Martin, 2019), and three employed mixed methods
(McCollough & Ramirez, 2012; Ramirez et al., 2016; Sedawi et al., 2020). All included the race
and ethnicity of their participants. Eighteen also provided information about participants’ gender,
language, and/or socioeconomic status (Atwater et al., 2013; Brkich, 2014; Brown et al., 2021;
Dimick, 2012; Grimberg & Gummer, 2013; Hernandez & Shroyer, 2017; Madkins & McKinney
de Royston, 2019; Morales-Doyle, 2017; Ramirez et al., 2016; Ramnarain, 2011; Schindel Dimick,
2016; Sedawi et al., 2020; Shady, 2014; Underwood & Mensah, 2018; Weiland, 2015; Wild, 2015;
Xu et al., 2012; Yoon & Martin, 2019).
As introduced, all 24 studies included a theoretical framework tied at least peripherally to cultur-
ally and linguistically relevant instruction. Atwater et al. (2013), as one example, used the theory of
social constructivism to investigate 20 Black science teacher educators’ experiences, especially those
about their Blackness and their eforts to include multicultural education, equity, and social justice
in their teaching. As a second example, Weiland (2015) employed the theory of culturally sustaining
pedagogy – a pedagogy that sustains learners’ linguistic, literate, and cultural diversity while extend-
ing their repertoires to include dominant language, literacies, and other cultural practices – to inves-
tigate the experiences of Hispanic mothers and their children in an informal science center. Weiland
focused on the ways science centers provide inclusive and afrming contexts to support parents’
eforts to engage their children in STEM learning. As a third example, Madkins and McKinney de
Royston (2019) used culturally relevant pedagogy to examine one African American science teacher
at a middle school that served primarily African American students. They focused their investigation
on the third tenet of culturally relevant pedagogy – developing students’ sociopolitical conscious-
ness – which is often overlooked and can present the greatest challenges for teachers. In particular,
they examined their teacher participants’ political clarity, that is, the clarity that represents a teacher’s
deep understanding of how school, society, and science itself operate to reproduce inequalities and
diferentially privilege the knowledge and experiences of white, middle-class students over those of
racially and economically minoritized students. Madkins and McKinney de Royston chose to study
political clarity not as an in-the-head phenomenon, but as enacted through instruction (see also
Morales-Doyle, 2017).
Many of these studies’ implications addressed teachers and teacher educators. Researchers found
that their preservice and/or practicing teacher participants were able to implement instruction that
was culturally and linguistically relevant (Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2017; Grimberg & Gummer,
2013; Madkins & McKinney de Royston, 2019; McCollough & Ramirez, 2012; Morales-Doyle,
2017; Ramirez et al., 2016; Shady, 2014; Xu et al., 2012; Yoon & Martin, 2019). Indeed, as teachers
238
developed robust cultural and linguistic competence, they learned to view diverse students and their
families’ rich and varied identities not as defcits but as resources (Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2017;
Hernandez & Shroyer, 2017; McCollough & Ramirez, 2012; Ramirez et al., 2016; Shady, 2014; Xu
et al., 2012). Still, in four studies, researchers found that teachers struggled to implement all three
tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy, particularly the tenet of sociopolitical or critical consciousness
(Brown & Crippen, 2016; Dimick, 2012; Hernandez & Shroyer, 2017; Mensah et al., 2018). In a
ffth study, researchers found that teacher educators struggled to understand culturally relevant peda-
gogy and how it can be implemented in science classrooms (Underwood & Mensah, 2018).
Also related to teachers and teaching, the authors of 15 studies called for preservice and/or
practicing teachers to be provided additional opportunities to learn about multicultural education,
equity, and social justice so that they could better address the needs of historically underserved and
marginalized students in science classrooms (Atwater et al., 2013; Brkich, 2014; Brown & Crippen,
2016; Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2017; Hernandez & Shroyer, 2017; Madkins & McKinney de
Royston, 2019; McCollough & Ramirez, 2012; Mensah et al., 2018; Morales-Doyle, 2017; Ramirez
et al., 2016; Schindel Dimick, 2016; Shady, 2014; Underwood & Mensah, 2018; Upadhyay et al.,
2017; Yoon & Martin, 2019). Hernandez and Shroyer (2017) highlighted the need for greater racial
and ethnic diversity among science teachers. Likewise, Atwater et al. (2013) emphasized the need for
greater racial and ethnic diversity among science teacher educators.
Further, several implications focused on culturally and linguistically diverse students and their fam-
ilies. Instruction that was culturally and linguistically relevant was argued to position learners, their
families, and/or the larger community as science people – as people who know, do, and produce sci-
ence (Brown et al., 2021; Harper, 2017; Madkins & McKinney de Royston, 2019; Morales-Doyle,
2017; Schindel Dimick, 2016; Upadhyay et al., 2017; Weiland, 2015). Several researchers called for
students to have more experiences learning science grounded in their place, community, and lived
experiences (Brkich, 2014; Brown et al., 2021; Grimberg & Gummer, 2013; Harper, 2017; Schin-
del Dimick, 2016; Xu et al., 2012). Dimick (2012), Madkins and McKinney de Royston (2019),
Morales-Doyle (2017), Upadhyay et al. (2017), and Wild (2015), in particular, emphasized that such
opportunities would enable students to use science more easily as a catalyst for social transformation.
Finally, Morales-Doyle (2017) provided a compelling example of the strengths of culturally and
linguistically relevant instruction. He situated his qualitative study in an advanced chemistry class
of African American and Latinx students in an urban high school, where he served as both teacher
and researcher. He used a justice-centered science pedagogy as his conceptual frame, a framework
built on the traditions of critical pedagogy and culturally relevant pedagogy, to address longstanding
oppressions and inequities in science education across race and class lines. The teacher and students
investigated an environmental social justice issue identifed by their community – the lasting impact
of two recently closed coal power plants on the community’s physical environment – by measuring
the concentrations of lead and mercury in neighborhood soil samples. Morales-Doyle found that
the project both supported students’ academic success and helped to position them as transformative
intellectuals who were knowledgeable about complex science and social justice issues that impacted
their community. In his implications, he elaborated on the theory of justice-centered science educa-
tion as a catalyst for social change. He also emphasized the importance of teachers engaging deeply
and demonstrating solidarity with the students and communities where they teach.
Part 2: STEM-Focused Programs

We found 17 articles to examine STEM-focused programs, broadly defned to include STEM-
focused schools, school-based STEM programs, and informal or afterschool programs centered on
STEM. Fifteen of these studies were situated in the United States (Burgin et al., 2015; Carrier et al.,
2014; Cone, 2012; Dickerson et al., 2014; Jackson & Ash, 2012; Means et al., 2017; Parker et al.,
239
2020; Pruitt & Wallace, 2012; Scogin et al., 2018; Sondergeld et al., 2020; Sprague Martinez et al.,
2016; Terzian & Rury, 2014; Tong et al., 2014; Wallace, 2013; Weis et al., 2015); one, in South
Africa (Ramnarain & de Beer, 2013); and one, in the United Kingdom (Archer et al., 2021). Eleven
of these studies investigated students’ views and experiences engaging in such programs (Archer
et al., 2021; Burgin et al., 2015; Dickerson et al., 2014; Means et al., 2017; Parker et al., 2020;
Pruitt & Wallace, 2012; Ramnarain & de Beer, 2013; Sondergeld et al., 2020; Sprague Martinez
et al., 2016; Terzian & Rury, 2014; Tong et al., 2014); three, students and their teachers (Carrier
et al., 2014; Jackson & Ash, 2012; Weis et al., 2015); two, preservice elementary teachers (Cone,
2012; Wallace, 2013); and one, high school science program themselves (Scogin et al., 2018).
The 17, relatively speaking, were evenly distributed across methodologies: Six employed qualita-
tive methods (Archer et al., 2021; Burgin et al., 2015; Cone, 2012; Ramnarain & de Beer, 2013;
Wallace, 2013; Weis et al., 2015); six, quantitative methods (Means et al., 2017; Pruitt & Wallace,
2012; Sondergeld et al., 2020; Sprague Martinez et al., 2016; Terzian & Rury, 2014; Tong et al.,
2014); and fve, mixed methods (Carrier et al., 2014; Dickerson et al., 2014; Jackson & Ash, 2012;
Parker et al., 2020; Scogin et al., 2018). Also in their methods, all but one study (Scogin et al.,
2018) included the race and ethnicity of their student and/or teacher participants in addition to at
least one other demographic marker (i.e., gender, socioeconomic status, language, and/or disability
status).
The theoretical frameworks of studies in this subcategory, as a collective, were not as clearly tied
to race and ethnicity as the other two subcategories under curriculum and instruction. Although not
necessarily foregrounded, all but two studies (Jackson & Ash, 2012; Wallace, 2013) included atten-
tion to race and ethnicity in their framing. As one example, Cone (2012) used the lens of efective
science instruction for students from diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, language, and cultural
backgrounds to investigate diferences in perceptions between preservice elementary teachers who
completed a community-based service learning feld experience and those who did not. As a second
example, Carrier et al. (2014) investigated two elementary schools’ science programs that included
outdoor instruction. Their mixed-methods study was framed by three constructs: teachers’ beliefs
about science teaching and environmental education; school culture; and diferences in environmen-
tal concern, connection, and power tied to gender and ethnicity.
In their discussions and implications, the majority of studies emphasized the importance of
inquiry, authentic, and/or outdoor experiences in facilitating learning for diverse students (Archer
et al., 2021; Burgin et al., 2015; Carrier et al., 2014; Cone, 2012; Dickerson et al., 2014; Jackson &
Ash, 2012; Means et al., 2017; Pruitt & Wallace, 2012; Ramnarain & de Beer, 2013; Scogin et al.,
2018; Sondergeld et al., 2020; Sprague Martinez et al., 2016). Five studies pointed to the need to
attend to racial and ethnic minority students’ science attitudes, identities, and/or sense of belonging
(Archer et al., 2021; Burgin et al., 2015; Carrier et al., 2014; Sondergeld et al., 2020; Sprague Mar-
tinez et al., 2016) and four, to their families and communities (Cone, 2012; Ramnarain & de Beer,
2013; Sondergeld et al., 2020; Sprague Martinez et al., 2016). Six emphasized that teacher education
programs and professional development eforts must better help teachers acquire the knowledge,
dispositions, and/or skills needed to teach science in equitable ways (Carrier et al., 2014; Cone,
2012; Jackson & Ash, 2012; Pruitt & Wallace, 2012; Scogin et al., 2018; Wallace, 2013). Five studies
acknowledged that the teaching and learning of science are shaped by structural and systemic ineq-
uities, including programs ofered, standardized testing required, and/or educational policies put in
place (Carrier et al., 2014; Cone, 2012; Means et al., 2017; Terzian & Rury, 2014; Weis et al., 2015).
As one example of a study on STEM-focused programs, Weis et al. (2015) used the construct
of opportunity structures to frame their three-year study of students, teachers, and counselors at
inclusive STEM-focused high schools in two cities. They defned these structures as the institutional
arrangements – including mathematics and science tracks, course oferings, and course require-
ments – that organize the trajectories of (un)successful educational futures in STEM for low-income,
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underrepresented ethnic minority students. From their qualitative analysis of interviews, classroom
observations, and school and district documents, researchers found that the enhanced opportunities
to learn STEM (e.g., advanced STEM courses, STEM academies) put in place when the STEM-
focused schools frst opened were gradually eroded. Over time, then, because low-income, ethnic
minority students lost access to high-level STEM courses and initiatives relative to those with privi-
lege, they also lost access to opportunities to pursue STEM majors and STEM careers. Weis and
colleagues called for future work to more carefully investigate when and under what circumstances
STEM-focused schools can ofer sustained and authentic high-level opportunities for low-income
and minority students.
Part 3: Curriculum Materials

We identifed 12 studies that focused on the design and/or implementation of curriculum materials.
All 12 were conducted in the United States. The majority of these studies, seven, used quantitative
methods (Chesnutt et al., 2018; Donovan, 2017; Donovan et al., 2019, 2021; Kanter & Konstan-
topoulos, 2010; Rawson & McCool, 2014; Taylor et al., 2015). Three employed mixed methods
(Brown & Livstrom, 2020; Donovan, 2014, 2016), and two used qualitative methods (Matuk et al.,
2021; Suriel & Atwater, 2012). Eleven were situated at the secondary level: fve examined students
(Chesnutt et al., 2018; Donovan, 2014, 2016, 2017; Donovan et al., 2021); three, practicing teachers
(Brown & Livstrom, 2020; Matuk et al., 2021; Suriel & Atwater, 2012); two, students and teachers
in science classrooms (Kanter & Konstantopoulos, 2010; Taylor et al., 2015); and one, students and
adults (Donovan et al., 2019). These 11 identifed their student and/or teacher participants by their
race and ethnicity, and included their gender, socioeconomic status, language, and/or disability status
as well. The fnal study in this subcategory examined images of scientists in children’s nonfction
trade books (Rawson & McCool, 2014).
As with methods employed, a range of theoretical frameworks informed these investigations of
the curriculum. Eleven of these 12 studies explicitly included a focus on race and ethnicity in their
framing (Brown & Livstrom, 2020; Chesnutt et al., 2018; Donovan, 2014, 2016, 2017; Donovan
et al., 2019, 2021; Kanter & Konstantopoulos, 2010; Matuk et al., 2021; Rawson & McCool, 2014;
Suriel & Atwater, 2012). As examples, Brown and Livstrom (2020) used Banks’s (2016) four levels
of multicultural curriculum, which included exploring content from the perspectives of ethnically
and racially diverse groups and making decisions on social justice issues at its upper levels to inform
their study. They connected Banks’s multicultural curriculum typology to the construct of peda-
gogical design capacity to investigate preservice science teachers’ eforts to develop curriculum to
meet the needs of ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students. Matuk et al. (2021) also
foregrounded pedagogical design capacity – in connection to comic books as a tool for equity,
diversity, and engagement – in framing their study. Suriel and Atwater (2012) used the theory of
social constructivism, with attention to cultural experiences, to ground their investigation of fve
white teachers’ eforts to develop a multicultural science curriculum. Similar to Brown and Livstrom
(2020), in their analysis, they employed an earlier edition of Banks’s levels of multicultural curriculum
in addition to his dominant and desirable characteristics of multicultural studies (Banks, 1995, 2001).
In their discussions and implications, almost all researchers ofered suggestions to improve the
structure and/or substance of curriculum materials to better meet the needs of racially, ethnically,
culturally, and linguistically diverse students (Brown & Livstrom, 2020; Donovan, 2014, 2016, 2017;
Donovan et al., 2019, 2021; Kanter & Konstantopoulos, 2010; Matuk et al., 2021; Rawson &
McCool, 2014). Five emphasized how science curriculum materials impact students’ views and
actions regarding perceived diferences across racial groups because of genetic variation (Donovan,
2014, 2016, 2017; Donovan et al., 2019, 2021). Five discussed the importance of teachers’ knowl-
edge, beliefs, and/or experiences in shaping multicultural curricular choices (Brown & Livstrom,
241
2020; Kanter & Konstantopoulos, 2010; Matuk et al., 2021; Suriel & Atwater, 2012; Taylor et al.,
2015). Four ofered recommendations for ways to improve classroom instruction to better support
racially and ethnically diverse students’ learning of science (Chesnutt et al., 2018; Kanter & Konstan-
topoulos, 2010; Matuk et al., 2021; Taylor et al., 2015).
As a concrete example of a curriculum study tied to race and ethnicity, Donovan (2017) exam-
ined how the use of racial terminology in a secondary biology curriculum impacted students’ beliefs
about racial diferences and their development of racial prejudice. The research was situated in the
framework of bio-behavioral essentialism (i.e., the beliefs that people of the same race are biologi-
cally uniform; that races are biologically discrete categories; and that the cause of uniformity within
groups and discreteness across groups has to do with the underlying genetic essence of each group)
and its role in racial prejudice. Students from two secondary schools were randomly assigned within
their classroom to learn about the diferences in human skeletal structure and the prevalence of
genetic diseases from four text-based lessons that either discussed race or lacked racial terminol-
ogy. Through quantitative analysis of student surveys, Donovan found that students from the racial
terminology curricular group developed beliefs about racial diferences based on genetic thinking.
These students also became less interested in socializing across racial lines and less supportive of poli-
cies that reduce racial inequality in education. Donovan argued that the biology curriculum should
be redesigned to teach students both that racial inequality is not the inevitable product of genes and
that racial inequality is perpetuated when people mistakenly believe that races difer cognitively and
behaviorally for genetic reasons.
Category E: Language in Intersection With Race and Ethnicity

We identifed 16 studies that investigated race and ethnicity through the conceptual lens of language.
We understood these articles to span three areas of research related to language in science educa-
tion. Ten investigated multilingual learners or students who speak one or more home languages in
addition to or instead of English (Bravo et al., 2014; Mavuru & Ramnarain, 2020; Okebukola et al.,
2013; Ryu, 2013, 2019; Ryu & Sikorski, 2019; Shaw et al., 2014; Stevenson et al., 2019; Swanson
et al., 2014; Tolbert & Knox, 2016). Related constructs include English language learners, a term
that has been recently criticized as defcit-oriented (Gonzalez-Howard & Suarez, 2021); emergent
bilingual students; and bilingual students. Three explored the connections between science learning
and English language and literacy learning (Clark et al., 2020; Greenleaf et al., 2011; Huerta et al.,
2014). And three examined the use of diferent types of discourse (e.g., everyday, inclusionary/
exclusionary, disciplinary) in the teaching and learning of science (Brown, 2011; Brown et al., 2010;
Gomes et al., 2011).
In terms of research contexts, 13 studies were situated in the United States (Bravo et al., 2014;
Brown, 2011; Brown et al., 2010; Clark et al., 2020; Greenleaf et al., 2011; Huerta et al., 2014; Ryu,
2013, 2019; Ryu & Sikorski, 2019; Shaw et al., 2014; Stevenson et al., 2019; Swanson et al., 2014;
Tolbert & Knox, 2016); one in Brazil (Gomes et al., 2011); one in Nigeria (Okebukola et al., 2013);
and one in South Africa (Mavuru & Ramnarain, 2020). Seven of the 16 studies focused on students
in K–12 schools (Brown, 2011; Brown et al., 2010; Clark et al., 2020; Gomes et al., 2011; Huerta
et al., 2014; Shaw et al., 2014; Stevenson et al., 2019). Six others also included a focus on students –
either students in interaction with their teacher in K–12 classrooms (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Okebu-
kola et al., 2013; Swanson et al., 2014) or students in informal education contexts (Ryu, 2013, 2019;
Ryu & Sikorski, 2019). The fnal three studies examined preservice (Bravo et al., 2014; Tolbert &
Knox, 2016) or practicing (Mavuru & Ramnarain, 2020) teachers. The studies were almost evenly
distributed across research methods: Seven employed qualitative methods (Gomes et al., 2011; Mav-
uru & Ramnarain, 2020; Ryu, 2013, 2019; Stevenson et al., 2019; Swanson et al., 2014; Tolbert &
Knox, 2016); fve, quantitative methods (Bravo et al., 2014; Clark et al., 2020; Greenleaf et al., 2011;
242
Huerta et al., 2014; Shaw et al., 2014); and four, mixed methods (Brown, 2011; Brown et al., 2010;
Okebukola et al., 2013; Ryu & Sikorski, 2019). In all but one study (Brown, 2011), researchers
identifed their participants by their race and ethnicity and included their gender, home language(s),
and/or socioeconomic status as well.
The 16 studies used diverse theoretical frameworks to shape their investigations. Given their
placement in this category, a common thread across the frameworks was attention to language.
Twelve explicitly included attention to race and ethnicity in their conceptual framing (Bravo et al.,
2014; Brown, 2011; Brown et al., 2010; Gomes et al., 2011; Greenleaf et al., 2011; Mavuru &
Ramnarain, 2020; Okebukola et al., 2013; Ryu, 2013, 2019; Ryu & Sikorski, 2019; Stevenson
et al., 2019; Tolbert & Knox, 2016). As one example, Brown et al. (2010) used the constructs of
cultural confict, cultural continuity, and discursive identity to argue for the implementation of
disaggregate instruction with ethnically and linguistically diverse students in science classrooms.
Disaggregate instruction was defned as separating science teaching and learning into conceptual
and linguistic components – beginning by teaching content using everyday language and then fol-
lowing with intensive science language instruction. As a second example, Stevenson et al. (2019)
conceptualized resiliency as a strategy developed by their Latina participants using contextual miti-
gating factors to achieve success in STEM education. Contextual mitigating factors include endur-
ing positive or negative macro issues related to equity and diversity, such as gender, socioeconomic
status, and race, that contribute to or inhibit learning opportunities, access to school resources,
and engagement in meaningful educational experiences (see again Gallard Martínez et al., 2019).
Positive contextual mitigating factors are associated with resiliency and can be used as tools of lib-
eration. As a fnal example, Okebukola et al. (2013) drew from constructs of science language and
mother tongue (i.e., frst, or home, language) to investigate the mis/alignment between Nigerian
policy and practice in teachers’ use of the mother tongue to teach science in primary classrooms.
In their discussions and implications, researchers again underscored the importance of lan-
guage, explaining how language helps to shape science learning, an emphasis to be expected
given the studies’ common focus on language. Twelve studies suggested ways science instruction
can be revised both to increase diverse students’ access to opportunities to produce language and
to increase the likelihood that students’ ideas, once articulated, will be valued by themselves,
their peers, and their teachers (Bravo et al., 2014; Brown, 2011; Brown et al., 2010; Clark et al.,
2020; Gomes et al., 2011; Ryu, 2013, 2019; Ryu & Sikorski, 2019; Shaw et al., 2014; Steven-
son et al., 2019; Swanson et al., 2014; Tolbert & Knox, 2016). Seven emphasized how race and
ethnicity in interaction with language and sometimes gender shape students’ understanding of
who counts as competent science people (Brown, 2011; Clark et al., 2020; Greenleaf et al.,
2011; Ryu, 2013, 2019; Ryu & Sikorski, 2019; Stevenson et al., 2019). Two studies called for
additional research on the successes and challenges of encouraging teacher and student use of
home languages in science classrooms (Mavuru & Ramnarain, 2020; Okebukola et al., 2013).
As one example of a study in this category, Ryu and Sikorski (2019) provided insight into
the ways language intersects with race – and gender – to shape the teaching and learning of sci-
ence. Researchers focused their investigation on an informal science program that was designed
for Korean immigrant students and that encouraged them to participate in sensemaking activi-
ties using their funds of knowledge, including the full range of their linguistic resources and
preferences. Ryu and Skiorski used the construct of a talk repertoire to provide a fexible way
of characterizing how students talk and act in diferent contexts, across time and space, and
within and across diferent racial and ethnic groups. They employed mixed methods to study
one student’s verbal participation across program activities. Through a quantitative analysis of
video records, researchers found that Selena talked more often and for longer periods over time.
However, through a qualitative analysis of these data, they also found that Selena’s use of hedging
devices and preference for mixing Korean with English limited her opportunities to engage in
243
collaborative sense-making. Because institutional labels (i.e., girl and English learner), social hier-
archies, and power relationships went unchallenged by both the instructors and the larger pro-
gram, Selena’s ideas were not taken up by her peers. This was the case even though the learning
context was for a single ethnic group and the ideas expressed by Selena carried scientifc merit.
Ryu and Skiorski underscored the need for teachers and researchers to attend to students’ race
more closely in interaction with gender and language profciency in teaching toward equity – to
attempt to address rather than perpetuate the marginalization of females and language minority
students in talking and doing science.
Category F: Aspiration and Motivation to Learn and Teach Science

We placed 16 articles in our category of aspiration, motivation, and related constructs. Ten of these
articles were situated in the United States (Andersen & Ward, 2014; Bolshakova et al., 2011; Bon-
nette et al., 2019; Chapman et al., 2019; Dorph et al., 2018; Ganchorre & Tomanek, 2012; Lofgran
et al., 2015; Maltese & Tai, 2011; Moseley & Taylor, 2011; Snodgrass Rangel et al., 2020); the
other articles were part of a longitudinal study conducted in the United Kingdom (Archer et al.,
2012a; Dewitt & Archer, 2015; DeWitt et al., 2016; Dewitt, Archer et al., 2013; DeWitt et al.,
2014; Dewitt, Osborne et al., 2013). The majority of articles, 13, focused on students: fve exam-
ined secondary school students (Andersen & Ward, 2014; Bonnette et al., 2019; Dorph et al., 2018;
Maltese & Tai, 2011; Snodgrass Rangel et al., 2020); three, primary, or elementary, students (Archer
et al., 2012a; Dewitt, Archer et al., 2013; Dewitt, Osborne et al., 2013); and fve, both primary
and secondary students (Chapman et al., 2019; Dewitt & Archer, 2015; DeWitt et al., 2014, 2016;
Lofgran et al., 2015). A smaller number included teachers as participants: Bolshakova et al. (2011)
investigated middle school teachers and their students; Moseley and Taylor (2011), secondary school
teachers; and Ganchorre and Tomanek (2012), prospective secondary school teachers. The majority
of these studies, 11, were quantitative (Andersen & Ward, 2014; Bonnette et al., 2019; Dewitt &
Archer, 2015; DeWitt et al., 2014, 2016; Dewitt, Osborne et al., 2013; Dorph et al., 2018; Lofgran
et al., 2015; Maltese & Tai, 2011; Moseley & Taylor, 2011; Snodgrass Rangel et al., 2020). Of the
other fve, four were qualitative (Archer et al., 2012a; Bolshakova et al., 2011; Dewitt, Archer et al.,
2013; Ganchorre & Tomanek, 2012), and one employed mixed methods (Chapman et al., 2019). All
explicitly attended to participants’ race and ethnicity – in addition to gender and sometimes language
status and/or socioeconomic status – in their methods.
In examining their theoretical frames on aspiration or motivation broadly conceived, all 16 stud-
ies were found to include race and ethnicity in some aspect of their conceptual framing and/or
literature review. As one example, Archer, Dewitt, and colleagues used the construct of aspirations
in science – as connected to science attitudes, identities, family habitus, and/or science capital – to
investigate student science and career aspirations and to identify factors that contribute to or hinder
the development of aspirations in science (Archer et al., 2012a; Dewitt & Archer, 2015; DeWitt
et al., 2014, 2016; Dewitt, Archer et al., 2013; Dewitt, Osborne et al., 2013). As a second example,
four sets of researchers included students’ and/or teachers’ sense of self-efcacy to inform their studies
(Bolshakova et al., 2011; Chapman et al., 2019; Lofgran et al., 2015; Moseley & Taylor, 2011). As
a third example, two sets of researchers used expectancy-value theory to ground their investigations
of students: Andersen and Ward (2014) studied Black, Hispanic, and white students, and Snodgrass
Rangel et al. (2020) examined underrepresented students in STEM, including students from racially
minoritized populations. As a fnal example, Dorph et al. (2018) drew from both self-efcacy and
expectancy-value theory, in addition to the construct of fascination, to organize their study. They
examined middle school student science learning activation as consisting of competency beliefs,
valuing science, and fascination with science in addition to scientifc sense-making and as predicting
STEM career preferences.
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On a related note, Snodgrass Rangel et al. (2020) cautioned readers that motivational theories,
like expectancy-value theory (EVT), may be better suited to explaining the choices and achieve-
ment of white and Asian students than racially minoritized students. They elaborated, “Expecting
that EVT as a theory should perform similarly across racial and ethnic groups is colorblind because it
assumes that students have similar experiences with and beliefs about science and math when research
suggests this is not the case” (p. 1061). This was one of the few instances where researchers in this
category explicitly stated their theoretical framework might be limited in its attention to and ability
to make sense of race and ethnicity in their investigation.
The implications of these studies can be divided between recommendations to enhance student
aspiration and motivation and recommendations to strengthen teacher motivation and self-efcacy.
Concerning students, Bolshakova et al. (2011) emphasized the positive impact efective science teach-
ers can have on Hispanic students’ self-efcacy and achievement. Andersen and Ward (2014) encour-
aged teachers to work to strengthen Black and Hispanic students’ sense of congruence between their
identities and STEM identities, their awareness of how science and mathematics courses connect to
their future goals for career and college, and their interests in STEM subjects more generally. Eight
studies called for educators, policymakers, and researchers to better highlight the diversity and range
of individuals who are scientists and the diversity and range of science-related careers to ofer more
opportunities for students from poor backgrounds to fnd a place for themselves within science and
a place for science within their own developing identities (Archer et al., 2012a; Dewitt & Archer,
2015; DeWitt et al., 2014, 2016; Dewitt, Archer et al., 2013; Dewitt, Osborne et al., 2013; Dorph
et al., 2018; Maltese & Tai, 2011). Two other studies emphasized the importance of providing more
opportunities for students from underrepresented groups to participate in informal science experi-
ences to increase their motivation to engage in STEM learning (Bonnette et al., 2019; Chapman
et al., 2019). Further, two studies called for additional research on ethnically and racially diverse
students to identify unexplored diferences and nuances in their STEM beliefs, afnities, and aspira-
tions (Dorph et al., 2018; Snodgrass Rangel et al., 2020). Finally, Chapman et al. (2019) emphasized
the importance of considering the holistic and cumulative efects of social, cultural, historical, and
political factors that have led to the marginalization of students from underrepresented groups, such
as Hispanic females.
Concerning teachers, two studies recommended practicing teachers in urban schools or with high
minority class ethnicity distribution (CED) be better supported to prevent feelings of low science
teaching efcacy, helplessness, and demoralization (Bolshakova et al., 2011; Moseley & Taylor, 2011).
Ganchorre and Tomanek (2012) encouraged teacher educators to begin by cultivating preservice
teachers’ dispositions of care and compassion as starting points to promote their success in working
with diverse students, regardless of the preservice teachers’ ethnic background and experiences.
A substantive example of an article in this category is the mixed-methods study by Chapman et al.
(2019). In their study, Chapman et al. investigated the efects of a STEM summer camp on the learn-
ing outcomes of 434 K–12 students, approximately 90% of whom identifed as Hispanic, Mexican
American, or Latinx. Researchers drew together several constructs to frame their investigation of
why there are so few Hispanic females in STEM. These constructs included the achievement gap; the
efects of stereotypes and gender bias; the leaky STEM pipeline; and student self-efcacy, motivation,
and self-determination toward STEM. Data analyzed included pre-and post-test scores of all students
and interviews of randomly selected Hispanic female students. Researchers found that Hispanic
middle school girls had signifcantly higher achievement scores than Hispanic middle school boys,
even though a gap in camp participation by gender had begun to emerge. By high school, however,
females were less likely than their male counterparts to participate in the STEM summer camp.
They also had signifcantly lower pretest scores than males. Researchers concluded that informal
STEM opportunities, such as this STEM summer camp, could help to mitigate decreases in Hispanic
females’ interest, participation, and academic achievement from elementary to high school.
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Category G: Teacher Perceptions and Experiences

We identifed 14 studies that attended to race and ethnicity in their examination of teacher percep-
tions and experiences teaching science. All of these studies focused on preservice and/or practicing
teachers in the United States: Six investigated practicing secondary teachers (Bianchini et al., 2015;
Brenner et al., 2016; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2021; Nehmeh & Kelly, 2018; Rivera Maulucci, 2010;
Titu et al., 2018); one, practicing elementary teachers (Lee et al., 2016); two, preservice secondary
teachers (Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020; Mark et al., 2020); one, preservice elementary teachers (Subra-
maniam, 2013); and four, both practicing and preservice teachers (Liou et al., 2010; Liou & Lawrenz,
2011; Southerland et al., 2011; Zapata, 2013). All but three of these studies employed qualitative
methods (Bianchini et al., 2015; Brenner et al., 2016; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020, 2021; Mark et al.,
2020; Nehmeh & Kelly, 2018; Rivera Maulucci, 2010; Southerland et al., 2011; Subramaniam,
2013; Titu et al., 2018; Zapata, 2013); the remaining studies were quantitative (Lee et al., 2016; Liou
et al., 2010; Liou & Lawrenz, 2011). All but one study (Titu et al., 2018) identifed participants by
their race and ethnicity. Twelve included at least one other demographic characteristic, such as gen-
der, socioeconomic status, or language status (Bianchini et al., 2015; Brenner et al., 2016; Lee et al.,
2016; Liou et al., 2010; Liou & Lawrenz, 2011; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020, 2021; Mark et al., 2020;
Nehmeh & Kelly, 2018; Rivera Maulucci, 2010; Subramaniam, 2013; Zapata, 2013).
With the type of teachers investigated, theoretical lenses employed to frame teachers’ perceptions
and experiences varied. Although all but one (Nehmeh & Kelly, 2018) integrated race and ethnic-
ity into their conceptual frame, few studies centered their framework on race and ethnicity. As one
example of these latter studies, Mark et al. (2020) used critical discourse analysis, focusing on the
use of language to create and sustain power hierarchies, to investigate preservice secondary science
teachers’ experiences in a culturally diverse, urban high school. In particular, these researchers inves-
tigated how preservice secondary science teachers positioned themselves in relation to their clinical
experiences in a culturally diverse context and research-based defcit beliefs about culturally diverse
students and their families. Rivera Maulucci (2010), as a second example, used the dialectical rela-
tionship between authentic caring – focused on the individual and collective needs, interests, linguistic
resources, and cultures of youth and teachers – and aesthetic caring – focused on institutional pro-
gramming, rules, policies, procedures, and accountability mechanisms – within a larger social justice
framework to guide her study. She employed these constructs in tracing the developmental trajectory
of a beginning science teacher across her frst two years at an urban middle school.
In their discussions and implications, several researchers emphasized that teacher participants
grew in their understanding of racially and ethnically diverse students and/or culturally and linguis-
tically relevant instruction as a result of their teacher education or professional development expe-
riences (Bianchini et al., 2015; Brenner et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2016; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020;
Rivera Maulucci, 2010; Titu et al., 2018). Two studies found teacher participants grew to view the
parents of their culturally and linguistically diverse students in a more positive light (Lee et al., 2016;
Mark et al., 2020), while one noted that teachers experienced more growth in their understanding
of themselves and their students than of their students’ families and communities (Brenner et al.,
2016). Three studies recommended closer examination of non-white or ethnic minority preservice
and practicing teachers to better understand their needs, perspectives, and strengths (Liou et al.,
2010; Liou & Lawrenz, 2011; Subramaniam, 2013). Several studies called for teachers to work
to adopt a more critical stance: Mark et al. (2020) recommended that teachers critically examine
the beliefs they have about science teaching and learning; Marco-Bujosa et al. (2020, 2021) sug-
gested that teachers align their professional identity with teaching science for social justice, with
an emphasis on identifying structural injustices in schools; Rivera Maulucci (2010) recommended
that teachers broaden their scope of caring to include a critical awareness of and commitment to
transform structural and institutional sources of inequality in schools; and Zapata (2013) advised
246
that teachers help their students interrogate implicit and problematic sociocultural and gendered
perspectives about science in classrooms. Bianchini et al. (2015) and Southerland et al. (2011)
encouraged teacher educators, professional developers, and researchers to move away from blaming
teacher participants for their reluctance to engage in explorations of equity and diversity, and toward
more careful consideration of the opportunities and constraints aforded teachers by the professional
learning contexts themselves.
As a substantive example of research in this category, Subramaniam (2013) merged conceptions of
teaching science with role constructs used to describe and distinguish minority preservice teachers
from their white counterparts (i.e., role model, social transformer, and cultural mediator) to frame
the investigation of fve ethnic minority preservice elementary teachers’ conceptions and enact-
ments of teaching science. The researcher qualitatively analyzed diferent types of data, including
participants’ drawings of a teacher teaching science, narratives, and semi-structured interviews as
well as observations of microteaching sessions and their self-reviews of these sessions. Participants’
conceptions of teaching were found to be similar – tied to similar past educational experiences situ-
ated within similar educational contexts. Participants in this study were also found to conceptual-
ize teaching content to their students in constructivist ways, with science content linked to home
experiences, students’ ideas, hands-on activities, and group work. Subramaniam called for teacher
educators to better support ethnic minority preservice teachers in sharing their K–12 experiences.
They also recommend better support for both ethnic minority and white preservice teachers on how
these experiences can productively inform conceptions of teaching science.
Category H: Assessments
We identifed fve articles that ft the category of assessments; this was our smallest category of
articles. All of the studies were conducted in the United States. Four of the fve focused on students:
elementary school students (Maerten-Rivera et al., 2010; Noble et al., 2012), elementary and middle
school students (Quinn & Cooc, 2015), or high school students (You et al., 2021). The ffth exam-
ined the construct validity of an assessment itself (You et al., 2022). Four of the fve also employed
quantitative analyses (Maerten-Rivera et al., 2010; Quinn & Cooc, 2015; You et al., 2021, 2022).
The ffth used qualitative methods to investigate a small number of students’ understanding of test
items (Noble et al., 2012). Further, four of the fve examined students’ race and ethnicity in addi-
tion to at least one other factor, such as gender, language status, socioeconomic status, or disability
status (Maerten-Rivera et al., 2010; Quinn & Cooc, 2015; You et al., 2021, 2022). The ffth study
examined students from historically nondominant communities, without specifying students’ race
and ethnicity (Noble et al., 2012).
In their conceptual framing, authors presented possible explanations for diferences in assess-
ment scores by racial and ethnic groups. Maerten-Rivera et al. (2010), for example, employed three
constructs as their frame: student background factors (e.g., race or ethnicity, gender) that infuence
science achievement; school characteristics that infuence science achievement; and the relationship
across reading, mathematics, and science achievement. Noble et al. (2012) investigated assessments
using a sociocultural lens, viewing science tests as grounded in the language and cultural norms of
students who are European American, native English-speaking, and from the middle class. They
explained how the linguistic mismatch between the features of language included in standardized
tests and the features of language that students from historically nondominant communities use inter-
feres with the performance of these students. As a third example, Quinn and Cooc (2015) framed
their study using the construct of a science achievement gap between racial/ethnic groups and by
gender. They identifed diferences in socioeconomic status, school quality, and mathematics and
reading achievement as contributing to gaps by race/ethnicity, and cultural norms and mathematics
achievement as contributing to gaps by gender.
247
Although small in number, these studies drew a wide range of implications. Maerten-Rivera
et al. (2010) emphasized that the efects of ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status on science
achievement were smaller than disability status and language status; language status had the largest
efect on science achievement. Quinn and Cooc (2015) noted that science achievement gaps by race/
ethnicity, as well as by gender, remained stable or narrowed as students moved through elementary
and middle school. However, when prior mathematics and reading achievement, socioeconomic
status, and classroom fxed efects were taken into account, racial/ethnic gaps in science achievement
at the middle school level were not statistically signifcant. Noble et al. (2012) and You et al. (2022)
suggested that test items are biased against students from historically nondominant communities. An
important goal for the research community, Noble et al. (2012) underscored, should be to develop
alternative measures of science knowledge that are responsive to students’ backgrounds and experi-
ences and that allow them multiple ways to demonstrate what they know. Quinn and Cooc (2015)
reminded readers that eliminating science achievement gaps to improve the rates of STEM entry
and persistence for ethnic minorities and girls cannot be the sole goal; eforts to correct inequities
experienced by ethnic minorities and women in the STEM workforce must be implemented as well.
Discussion and Implications: Moving Ahead

As stated in the Introduction, this review is an extension of the work done by Parsons (2014) in an
earlier handbook. The purpose of conducting this current review was to determine our progress in
identifying the ways the structured and systemic construction of race and ethnicity has been taken
up in science education research. We systematically unpacked and synthesized the literature, using
Parsons’s recommendations for future research on race and ethnicity in science education as the
organizing structure for this review. Parsons recommended that (1) critical theories be used alone or
with other theories to frame studies of race and ethnicity, (2) mixed methods be used more regularly
to investigate the complex nature of race and ethnicity constructs, and (3) studies seek to transform
science education to become more equitable and socially just. We take those recommendations now
as discussion points for the fndings of this current review and address implications and suggestions
for future research.
Recommendations for Mixed Methods

Referring again to Table 8.1, there were markedly few studies that employed mixed methods, the
second of Parsons’s (2014) three recommendations for future research in the feld. With so few
mixed-methods studies, except for the team of researchers from the UK (see Archer, Osborne,
DeWitt, and colleagues), it is difcult to identify the strengths or the added benefts such studies
yield to understand the structured and systemic construction of race and ethnicity more thoroughly
in the United States and other countries. This is important to know, as explained in the Introduc-
tion, because countries conceptualize race and ethnicity diferently and it is a moving construct. As
a collective, these studies more often focused their investigations on student participants than on
teachers and/or their families. For the quantitative component, almost all used surveys and/or tests;
only a handful analyzed data from observations, video records, or written work. For the qualita-
tive component, researchers most often analyzed interviews; some examined written work, video
records, and/or observations.
Therefore, one recommendation to move the feld forward is to conduct more mixed-methods
studies in science education that focus on race and ethnicity. This could better determine what
kinds of questions about race and ethnicity mixed-methods research may ofer for deeper analysis
and better determine the benefts of using mixed methods to understand race and ethnicity in sci-
ence education. A second, related recommendation is to broaden both the participants invited to
248
participate in studies (more on this next) and the kinds of data analyzed in mixed-methods research
toward the goal of more deeply understanding race and ethnicity in science education. At the same
time, we understand the challenges of conducting quality mixed-methods studies, particularly for
large-scale studies. There are challenges to data collection and data analysis alone as well as the need
to have researchers with expertise in both qualitative and quantitative design and integrating the two
(Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). Conducting mixed-methods studies may also require extra time,
resources, and funding. Thus, as a third recommendation, we encourage science educators to col-
laborate and work with other researchers across diverse areas of expertise and apply for funding to
conduct mixed-methods studies of race and ethnicity in science education. Opportunities for data
sharing may support research teams coming together to understand race and ethnicity across and
within varying contexts, settings, countries, individuals, and groups. We think it would be trans-
formative for scholars across countries, contexts, and expertise to develop research projects that will
contribute to research designs that will transform science education.
Recommendations for Theory and Transformation

We next turn to Parsons’s (2014) two other recommendations: What does it mean to theorize about
race and ethnicity, and what does it mean to transform science? Phinney (1990) discussed that eth-
nicity is often used to describe group members who share a common set of cultural traditions, atti-
tudes, and values, whereas race often refers to biological and physical traits that unite a group (such as
skin color or hair type; Quintana, 1998). Furthermore, certain groups are more likely to be described
in terms of their ethnic group (e.g., Latinx, Asian Americans), whereas others are more commonly
referred to as a racial group (e.g., African Americans). It is these distinctions that are not made to a
large degree in the studies we reviewed. This indicates that more theorization about race and ethnic-
ity in science education research is needed. In some cases, the race and ethnicity of participants were
not mentioned, thus reinforcing the assumption that race and ethnicity are colorblind (Bonilla-Silva,
2017; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017), or invisible and irrelevant, to the study.
Critical race theory and intersectionality ft the recommendations for critical theories and out-
comes to transform science education to become more equitable and socially just. We note the use
of critical race theory as a critical theory was used alone and with other theories to frame race and
ethnicity in the 22 studies we reviewed in two categories. Many of the studies employed tenets of
critical race theory, focusing on counternarratives that challenge master narratives and highlight
the experiences of people of color (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002a; Zamudio et al., 2010). In particu-
lar, some of the studies in this group used counternarratives in telling the experiences of African
American youth and adults. The studies also promoted the importance of centering race and racism
when creating learning experiences across K–12 and teacher education contexts and for people of
color. In critical race theory and intersectionality studies, researchers expanded critical race theory
to focus on intersectionality, and some who did not explicitly use intersectionality still discussed
how the race and ethnicity of their participants intersected with other identifers to infuence their
experiences.
The implications for this collection of studies in critical race theory as well as critical race theory
and intersectionality emphasize the importance of engaging in research that addresses larger systemic
issues in science education and being critically conscious and responsive to how race and racism
impact science education. The studies in these two categories used a variety of research methods and
approaches, with critical race theory as a theoretical framework, and sometimes in collaboration with
other theoretical frameworks. However, as introduced earlier, the explicit theorization of race and
ethnicity was not as well developed or theorized as expected. Though critical race theory emphasizes
the social construction of race, both analyses of race and ethnicity were included tangentially in the
discussion and implications of the fndings of most of these studies.
249
In the subcategories connected to sociocultural identity, studies reviewed identifed how the race
and ethnicity of the participants also infuenced their teaching or learning of science, their develop-
ment as science teachers or learners, and thus their identity development. With a few exceptions
(e.g., Chapman & Feldman, 2017), the sociocultural frameworks the researchers used were not spe-
cifcally focused on race and ethnicity. Unlike the previous categories, race and ethnicity were not
central to the theoretical and methodological bases of these studies.
We note that language and terms such as “nondominant”, “nondominant backgrounds”, “non-
white”, and “minority” were used in several studies – both in the sociocultural identity subcategories
and other categories – to describe the racial and ethnic backgrounds of the participants (e.g., Bonnette
et al., 2019; Calabrese Barton et al., 2013; Seiler, 2011; Tan et al., 2013). These descriptors were used
in the abstract and/or throughout the other sections of the studies; however, in the methods, specifc
racial and ethnic identity markers were included. Employing the language of “nondominant” or “non-
white” calls attention to the implicit bias of inferiority of racial and ethnic groups as compared to a
white dominant racial frame of white supremacy (see Rivera Maulucci & Mensah, 2015). Furthermore,
in Omi and Winant’s (1994) diferential-racialization hypothesis, they asserted that each group of color
is racialized in diferent ways from others. Thus, to be racially and ethnically specifc to the racial and
ethnic identity of the participants or groups in research elevates them and, not in comparison to another
group, distinguishes them based upon their ethnic and racial identity. These distinctions are important
as language, naming, and representation have difering meanings in specifc contexts (Kivisto & Croll,
2012). Even within community-based research, the broader community’s understanding of how race
and ethnicity impact relationships within and among members also has to consider power dynamics in
developing relationships while also understanding science and its role in the community.
On a related note, for those studies that employed frameworks often used where race and ethnicity
are not mentioned, such as attitudes and beliefs, language as central to learning, or gaps in science
achievement, few recognized the potential limitations of their frames. In other words, few researchers
acknowledged the theories or concepts they employed might limit what they were able to see and
understand about race and ethnicity given the constructs’ origins and purposes. As a rare example,
Snodgrass Rangel et al. (2020) noted that motivational theories, like the theory of expectancy-value
they employed, might better explain the views, experiences, and actions of some racial and ethnic
groups than others.
From these indications, there is still much work to do in theorizing race and ethnicity in science
education. We acknowledge that there has been advancement regarding race more than ethnicity,
and this is due mainly to authors’ use of critical race theory and intersectionality; there were two
categories dedicated to critical race theory in this review. Still, even with critical race theory and
intersectionality used as theoretical frameworks, more attention to intersectional analysis beyond the
naming of racial and ethnic groups and the inclusion of gender, socioeconomic status, frst language,
or nationality in identifying the participants is suggested. Many of the studies reported racial and eth-
nic backgrounds of participants, as we stated, but did not go further in acknowledging how racial and
ethnic markers intersect to reveal deeper power and systemic issues in science education, even in how
groups are excluded from science. In particular, research studies are needed to see how intersectional
identities reveal themselves in transforming science teacher or science learner identities for both men
and women, or boys and girls (see again Mark, 2018), or people who identify as queer, nonbinary,
or nonconforming. Research studies on intersectionality or identity could also beneft from mixed-
methods and quantitative designs, which were largely absent from both categories of study. Science
educators may learn from scholars in higher education who use QuantCrit methods (Covarrubias,
2011; López et al., 2018). QuantCrit quantitative methodologies anchored in the understandings
of critical race theory (Solórzano et al., 2005). Without essentializing groups, we can learn more
about racial and ethnic group identities, along with multiple and intersecting identities that overlap
in complex ways (Crenshaw, 2016).
250
We also recommend that researchers acknowledge that issues related to race and ethnicity, as well
as language and other social markers, are highly contentious in our society. Thus, we must also con-
textualize research by including the perspectives of who is doing the research, in addition to who the
participants are, with the description of the context in which the work is conducted. This allows the
reader to become cognizant of the culturally situated meanings that we bring to our research endeav-
ors and to appreciate the complexity in the lives of those who participate in our studies, including
the researchers. In this way, these acknowledgments raise our level of sociopolitical consciousness that
must be understood as we transform the feld.
Further, to move toward transforming science education research, we adopt the defnition of
transformative learning theory explicated by Mezirow (2000) in adult education to apply to science
education:
Transformative learning is the process by which we transform our taken-for-granted frames

of reference (meaning perspectives, habits of mind, mind-sets) to make them more inclusive,
discriminating, open, emotionally capable of change, and refective so that they may gener-
ate beliefs and opinions that will prove more true or justifed to guide action.
(pp. 7–8)
Though Mezirow’s work has been critiqued for missing the social aspect of transformative learn-
ing, this dimension must be part of science education research without exception. Therefore, to
move ahead and transform science education so that it is more equitable and socially just, the idea
of transformative learning for the collective mindset of the feld is for science educators to uncover
those taken-for-granted frames of reference, theoretical notions, and ideologies, and question them.
It involves being more open about why we conduct research and what the fndings of our research
reveal, or do not reveal, for the participants, communities, and contexts in which we do our work,
particularly for and within communities of color, multilingual communities, and communities where
issues of race and ethnicity and other intersecting variables are most salient. It also requires difer-
ent approaches and questions to our research – how we present the fndings, what the implications
of these fndings are, and what they mean for all involved in the research process. In other words,
through our research, what additional truths are made evident and for whom? How does our research
allow us to engage in discourse and action more intently, purposefully, and justly? How do our
research and fndings impact others? How is our work the catalyst for transformation?
Limitations and Conclusion

We acknowledge the tremendous work of scholars and researchers to investigate race and ethnicity
in science education. The feld has grown and continues to grow in its attention to the wide range of
questions that impact teaching, learning, and policy in science education. We close our tracking of this
growth in research by noting two limitations to our review. One limitation in writing this chapter was
its scope: We considered work from ten journals published from 2010 to 2020, with focused attention
on the terms “race” and “ethnicity”. Thus, we looked at only a subset of articles published in science
education on race and ethnicity over time, and only from the ten journals we selected for analysis.
We recognize that there are relevant studies in other journals as well as relevant studies that employed
other terms besides race and ethnicity that could have been included in this review. In particular, we
recognize that our selection of these ten journals limited our examination of studies conducted in
countries other than the United States. We also recognize that our selection of these journals resulted
in the omission of alternative and transformational studies that were published in other venues.1
A second limitation that also sets a basis for future work is that we did not distinguish between those
studies that included a theoretical or conceptual framework and those that only ofered a literature
251
review. Distinguishing between these two types of studies – providing a more detailed examination
of the presence or absence of clearly articulated frameworks – could enhance the conceptualization
of studies and provide greater insight into the strengths such frameworks add to research on race and
ethnicity. We were able to capture some of the theoretical frameworks, such as critical race theory,
feminist theory, and sociocultural theory, in categorizing studies; still, by more accurately indicating
the range of theoretical perspectives used across our categories, we would have provided yet another
vantage point to determine how far and in what additional ways we may move the feld forward to
introduce theories that resonate well with race and ethnicity, in addition to language.
Despite these limitations, we intend this review to be a source of information and inspiration to
current researchers committed to furthering eforts to transform science, science teaching, science
learning, and science policy. We have ofered several suggestions on ways to foreground more clearly
the construction of race and ethnicity in science education research. These recommendations include
conducting more mixed-methods studies across contexts; acknowledging the intersectionality of
researchers, participants, and contexts for looking at race and ethnicity; and working more intention-
ally to transform science education as currently envisioned and enacted. These recommendations
build on those ofered by Parsons (2014) in her unpacking and critically synthesizing the literature on
race and ethnicity in science education. Although we have made strides since her review, her closing
call to action remains salient today:
Now is the time to engage and generate science education research and scholarship on race
and ethnicity that informs and impacts future research, policy, and practice. The science
education community has the capacity to engage race and ethnicity. Does the community
have the will and the courage to engage in such a high-risk endeavor?
(p. 183)
As a feld, we have made progress since the last handbook was published in attending to race and
ethnicity as a feld. Now, what more can we do as a community to further this work? What will the
next chapter on unpacking race and ethnicity in science education say about the feld’s movement
and transformation in this regard?
Note
1 A list of other journals to consider for future review include the following: Science Education International
(SEI) by the International Council of Association for Science Education (ICASE); the Canadian Journal of
Science, Mathematics and Technology Education; and the African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and
Technology Education (AJRMSTE). We also suggest journals such as Urban Education, Race and Ethnicity, and
The Urban Review.
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9
GENDER MATTERS
Building on the Past, Recognizing the Present,
and Looking Toward the Future
Introduction: Building on the Past

In this chapter, as per the title, we build on the past, we recognize the present, and we look toward
the future as we explore gender matters in science education research. Similarly to other chapters in
this handbook, a departure point for this chapter is Kathryn Scantlebury’s chapter with the same title,
which was published in 2014 in the Handbook of Research on Science Education. We use Scantlebury’s
chapter as a departure point because until today it remains the most recent published work on gender
and science education ofering a rich and comprehensive historical overview on how research on
gender and science education has evolved over the years.
In summarizing the fndings of key review studies in school education as well as women scientists,
Scantlebury argues that the fndings of these review studies “suggest little has changed in the daily
teaching of science in school education, and for many women, the sociocultural climate in science
and science education remains chilly” (p. 189). Following on this, Scantlebury goes on to summa-
rize the fndings of two international studies (TIMSS and PISA) carried out in 2008 and 2009 and
examined gender diferences in students’ science achievement and attitudes toward science. For most
countries there were no gender diferences on science achievement; however, more than three times
the number of boys indicated interested in computing, engineering, or mathematics than girls, while
more girls indicated a preference for a biology, agricultural, or health career. These diferences have
been examined through research studies that followed these two international studies and focused on
students’ attitudes toward science. The outcomes of these studies, as Scantlebury summarized, point
to structural issues and gender essentialism as impacting students’ participation within the sciences.
Next, Scantlebury critically synthesizes the fndings of several gender studies, ranging on purpose
from an examination of learning science in diferent spaces and teachers’ gendered perspectives. In
discussing the fndings of these studies, Scantlebury highlights the important role that teachers play in
supporting girls to engage with science as well as the possible impact that spaces outside of a formal
classroom might have on positively impacting attitudes toward science. Following on this section,
Scantlebury summarizes studies focused on individuals’ engagement with learning science and/or as a
career pathway. In doing so, she draws upon feminist theory and reviews studies in the area of science
identity and physics masculinity to argue that the culture of physics needs to change its practices and
image if we want more students to identify with the subject.
The chapter ends with a set of recommendations for future directions based on identifed gaps
in existing knowledge base and questions that remained unanswered. Some of these include the
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-12 263

following: (1) at a structural level, gender has been approached through a binary approach; (2) data
on gender are rarely reported through an intersectional lens to include race, socioeconomic status,
frst language acquisition, and immigration status; (3) how gender or other social categories infu-
ence research, the context, or the theoretical framework remains unexplored; and (4) the knowledge
base on the intersection of gender and subjects besides physics remains scarce. In responding to
these questions, as Scantlebury argues, calls for the adoption of intersectionality, material feminism,
and queer theory as theoretical frames for the purpose of expanding gender research and including
other social categories as well. In this chapter, we critically synthesize studies on gender matters in
science education from 2014 onwards. We have included studies where the authors use “gender” as
a descriptor of their work. This means that the conceptualizations of gender in the included work
vary considerably; from gender as a way to denote studies of women and men to studies utilizing,
for example, poststructuralist or posthumanist theories of gender. As such, not all included stud-
ies have an explicitly stated theoretical approach to gender, but all studies make gender a relevant
category of analysis. In addition, we have included studies concerning LGBT+/queer, even when
such studies do not explicitly deal with gender. The included studies are published in international,
peer-reviewed journals. It should be noted that we have only reviewed English-language articles, and
while we have strived to include research from diferent national contexts, the limitation in terms of
language skews the selection.
The chapter is organized in three main sections, where the frst includes research focused on
understanding gender gaps, the second includes research that utilizes identity-based approaches to
gender, and the third brings emerging perspectives to the fore. Each main section is followed by a
short summary and synthesis. The chapter is concluded by a discussion and recommendations for
future research directions.
Part I: Understanding Gender Gaps

Gender gaps in science participation and performance have received considerable attention from
researchers since at least the 1980s and continue to do so (Jacobs, 2005; Kanny et al., 2014). Research
about “gender gaps” typically assumes a taken-for-granted view of gender as representing either
social and/or biological sex, by, for example, dividing research participants into men and women,
without further problematizing this. Consequently, studies within this line of research do not nec-
essarily defne or theorize gender. Instead, theoretical constructs such as self-efcacy or sense of
belonging are used to explain gender diferences in performance and participation.
Performances and Participation

Although female students overall outperform male students in school (Voyer & Voyer, 2014), gender
gaps in performance favoring male students have been found in a variety of physics learning contexts
(Day et al., 2016; Gok, 2014; Henderson et al., 2017). However, researchers have also stressed that
fndings concerning gender gaps in performance need to be treated with caution and examined
in relation to contextual factors. For example, Day et al. (2016) found gender diferences in per-
formance among physics students on the Concise Data Processing Assessment (CDPA), but also
observed compelling gender diferences in how students divide their time in the lab. On a similar
note, Traxler et al. (2018) found that when items on the Force Concept Inventory that appear to be
substantially unfair to either women (six items) or men (two items) were removed, the gender gap in
performance was halved. They analyzed three samples (N [pre-test] = 5391, N [post-test] = 5,769)
and looked for gender asymmetries using classical test theory, item response theory, and diferential
item functioning. Andersson and Johansson (2016) analyzed a gender gap in course grades favoring
male students during a six-year period for a university course in electromagnetism (N=1,139) and
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Gender Matters
found that the grade diference between female and male students on the same program was in most
cases not statistically signifcant. The gender gap for the student group as a whole was predominantly
related to diferent achievements on diferent programs.
Women continue to be underrepresented in mathematics-intensive science felds (Schwab et al.,
2017; Skibba, 2019). However, a numerical parity in a science feld is not the same in that there are
no gender disparities in participation. In a study of 23 large introductory university biology classes,
Eddy et al. (2014) examined two measures of gender disparity in biology: academic achievement and
participation in whole-class discussions. They found that even though women on average made up
60% of the students in the studied courses they only made up 40% of responses to instructor-posed
questions in the classes. Females also consistently underperformed on exams, compared to males
with similar college grade point averages. An interaction analysis of video data recorded in Swedish
high schools demonstrates that boys still occupy more space in science classrooms, taking up more
teacher–student interaction time in classroom discussions (Eliasson et al., 2016), although girls do
seem to have extended the time they take up in science discussions. The researchers cautiously sug-
gest that this may in part explain why Swedish girls today perform better than boys; however, boys
still occupy the majority of interaction space in the classroom. The researchers suggest that an impli-
cation could be that teachers more often address their interactions to boys, which may negatively
impact girls’ attitudes in science. A follow-up study to this one (Eliasson et al., 2017) investigates the
nature of those interactions and found that closed (lower cognitive demand) questioning tends to
predominate classroom discussion, which limits interactions between students and teachers. Taken in
light of the limited classroom interactions that girls already have with teachers, the researchers sug-
gest that this may further disadvantage girls, who already have limited time to engage in productive
science talk.
International and National Tests

One recurring theme in the research on gender gaps is gender diferences in international and
national tests. In a study of gender diferences in science achievements on the 2011 Trends in Math-
ematics and Science Survey among 45 participating nations (N=261,738) Reilly et al. (2019) found
small to medium diferences, with varied directions, and no global gender diferences overall. In a
meta-analysis of data from the US National Assessment of Educational Progress, Reilly et al. (2015)
found small, but stable mean gender diferences in mathematics and science achievement and that at
the higher levels of achievement boys outnumber girls by a ratio of 2:1. In order to extend studies of
achievement gaps to the early school years, several researchers have utilized the US Early Childhood
Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 (ECLS-K), a nationally representative cohort
of children who entered kindergarten in 1998. Quinn and Cooc (2015) examined gender (and race)
achievement gaps in science in third grade in ECLS-K and found that boys score approximately one
quarter of a standard deviation higher than the girls. Quinn and Cooc (2015) also extended their
study to eighth grade and found that controlling for prior mathematics achievement explained the
entire eighth-grade science gender gap. Curran and Kellogg (2016) analyzed the ECLS-K 2010–
2011 and did not fnd a gender gap in science achievement in kindergarten and only a small gap by
the end of frst grade, indicating that the gender gap found by Quinn and Cooc (2015) develops
during the frst years of schooling.
Cognitive Abilities
In a review of studies of observed gender diferences in cognitive and motivational factors that afect
women’s decisions to opt out of mathematics-intensive STEM felds, Wang and Degol (2017) dis-
tinguish between biological and sociocultural explanations for observed gender diferences. Studies
265
investigating cognitive ability as linked to women’s and men’s diferential participation in science
suggest that such gender diferences are not a result of diferences in absolute cognitive ability, but
rather linked to diferences in the breadth of cognitive ability (Valla & Ceci, 2014). Individuals with
similar cognitive abilities in mathematics and verbal skills are more likely to pursue non-STEM
careers and since ability patterns are divided by gender, with women typically having more evenly
distributed cognitive abilities across diferent felds, Wang et al. (2013) argue that this could be an
important explanatory factor for the lack of women in mathematics-intensive STEM felds. How-
ever, the fndings of studies examining the link between biological factors (such as brain lateralization)
and the diferent cognitive profles of men and women are inconclusive (Miller & Halpern, 2014).
Research on cognitive abilities have also focused on ability beliefs, bringing this forward as poten-
tially contributing to the underrepresentation of women in mathematics-intensive STEM-felds.
Studies show that individuals are more likely to rate male-dominated felds than female-dominated
felds as requiring raw intellectual talent or brilliance (Leslie et al., 2015; Meyer et al., 2015). Meyer
et al. (2015) suggest that adults’ feld-specifc ability beliefs, together with the stereotype that females
are less likely than males to be brilliant, could lead to diferences in how adults encourage girls’ and
boys’ interests and provide them with opportunities to develop skills in diferent felds.
Stereotypes and Bias

The impact of stereotypes and bias is another area of research seeking to understand gender gaps. In
the Global North, children as young as six years old subscribe to the stereotype of mathematics and
science as male domains (Miller et al., 2015). Carli et al. (2016) examined the stereotypes about men,
women, and scientists and found greater similarity between stereotypes about men and stereotypes
about scientists than between stereotypes about women and scientists. They also found that in felds
with a higher proportion of women, the stereotypes about scientists in that feld was closer to the ste-
reotype about women. Similarly, Ramsey (2017) found that agentic traits, which are typically associ-
ated with men, are considered more important for success in science than communal traits, which
are typically associated with women. There is substantial evidence suggesting that stereotype threat
can impact both the retention and performance of women in science (Smith et al., 2015) as well as
women’s career choices (Deemer et al., 2014). This has been conceptualized in the phenomenon
stereotype threat. In this phenomenon, stereotypes held about a particular group (women; women of
color) create psychologically threatening scenarios wherein individuals fear that they may be judged
based on their membership in that group. This, in turn, inhibits their learning and can impact their
performance (most often assessed on tests or exams). Smith et al. (2015) found that female students
perceived less stereotype threat in female-dominated biology courses. Similarly, Taasoobshirazi et al.
(2019) found that stereotype threat did not impact students’ performances in biology and concluded
that the negative efects of stereotype threat are found predominantly in physics, engineering, and
mathematics felds. There is also evidence that agreeing with a gender stereotype correlates nega-
tively with the performance of female students in physics (Maries et al., 2018). In addition, Makarova
et al. (2019) found that women who held a strongly masculine image of mathematics and science
were less likely to choose a science major at university. The extent to which the stereotype that
science is a masculine profession is endorsed also varies between diferent national contexts, and in
nations with a higher proportion of women employed in science such stereotypes are less likely to
be explicitly endorsed (Miller et al., 2015).
There is also research indicating that stereotypes and biases lead to discriminatory practices. For
example, Reuben et al. (2014) found that when female and male applicants who performed equally
on a mathematical task applied for a hypothetical job, male candidates were twice as likely to be rec-
ommended for the position as females. Research has demonstrated that gender bias exists in hiring
practices (Eaton et al., 2020), granting (Fox & Paine, 2019; Witteman et al., 2019), grading (Hofer,
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Gender Matters
2015), and in students’ evaluations of teachers and professors (Graves et al., 2017). Regarding the
latter, research has shown that male students underrate female high school teachers in biology and
chemistry, while all students underrate female teachers of physics (Potvin et al., 2009). Following
up on this work, Potvin and Hazari (2016) found that students who report a strong physics identity
show a larger bias in favor of male teachers than those who report less strong physics identities. These
results suggest a mechanism by which the physics community upholds the gender status quo, as
younger members of the community move through inbound trajectories into physics membership.
This is not a phenomenon that is isolated to physics. A recent social network analysis demonstrated
that students in university biology classrooms over-nominate their male peers as knowledgeable
about course content (Grunspan et al., 2016). This was predominantly due to male students over-
nominating their male peers where female students nominated knowledgeable others based on stu-
dent performance rather than gender. The researchers suggest that the favoring of male students by
their peers can result in over-confdence, thus contributing to their persistence in biology.
Imposter Syndrome
The imposter phenomenon was frst described in the late 1970s (Clance & Imes, 1978) to understand
why highly successful women had difculty recognizing their own achievements, and described feel-
ing as imposters in their career felds. Since then, science education researchers have investigated the
impact of the imposter phenomenon on gendered participation in the sciences. Generally, imposter
syndrome is defned by attributing one’s success in a feld to luck or being in the right place at the
right time. Imposter syndrome can also attribute success to hard work rather than natural ability. Ivie
et al. (2016) suggest that women in astrophysics are more likely to have imposter syndrome than
men, and that women who felt like imposters were more likely to take a path that led out of the feld.
Self-effcacy, Self-determination, Interest, and Sense of Belonging

A set of studies have shown that male and female students have diferent interests toward science
studies and careers and that those diferences are attributed to various factors ranging from cognitive
to sociocognitive ones, such as self-efcacy, self-determination, and sense of belonging in science.
In a study with Finnish students, Kang et al. (2019) examined to what extent relationships between
factors of students’ science interest and career perspectives difer between male and female. With
the use of a sample of 13-year-old students (N=401), the researchers found that there were strong
gender diferences regarding interest and preferences of science subjects as well as their relationship
toward future careers. With regard to future careers, female students’ science interest was positively
correlated with time- and motivation-oriented career perspectives, while male students’ science
interest was positively correlated with outcome-oriented career expectations. Biology was preferred
by females and physics and chemistry were preferred by males. Similar results have also been found
in the South African context, where Grade 7 boys preferred chemistry and physics and Grade 7 girls
biology and astronomy (Reddy, 2017).
Gender diferences have also been found in relation to self-efcacy, where studies have found that
female students have lower self-efcacy than male students in physics, while fndings concerning
other STEM disciplines are mixed (Cheryan et al., 2017; Kalender et al., 2020; Nissen, 2019; Nis-
sen & Shemwell, 2016; Verdín et al., 2020). This is important since self-efcacy is highly correlated
with performance, student persistence, and career aspirations, especially in physics (Henderson et al.,
2020). In a longitudinal study carried out in the United States, Kalender et al. (2020) surveyed about
1,400 students in an introductory physics course to examine female and male students’ self-efcacy
scores and the extent to which self-efcacy is related to learning outcomes and gender diferences
in conceptual post-test scores. The fndings showed that initial self-efcacy diferences showed a
267
direct efect on outcomes and that self-efcacy had the strongest total gender efect on conceptual
learning. Marshman et al. (2018) examined the self-efcacy of male and female students with similar
performance in introductory physics courses. They found that female students had signifcantly lower
self-efcacy compared to their male students in all grade groups. In fact, female students receiving A’s
had similar self-efcacy to male students receiving C’s.
Besides cognitive factors, sociocognitive factors were found to explain women’s underrepresenta-
tion in science (Kelly, 2016). For example, a recent study applied the sociocognitive construct of self-
determination to analyze six undergraduate female students’ experiences leading to their choice of
physics study, along with factors afecting their persistence in the context of an undergraduate physics
program in the United States (Nehmeh & Kelly, 2020). The fndings of the study revealed that the
support of faculty, research opportunities, and peer socialization contributed to the development
of self-determination. Hindrances to the participants’ undergraduate experiences included nega-
tive gender stereotypes, persistent self-doubt, minority status, and unwelcoming classroom cultures.
Similar fndings were produced in a study carried out by Tellhed et al. (2017), who tested self-efcacy
and social belongingness expectations as mediators of gender diferences in interest in STEM in a
representative sample of 1,327 Swedish high school students. The fndings of this study showed that
gender diferences in interest in STEM majors strongly related to women’s lower self-efcacy for
STEM careers and, to a lesser degree, to women’s lower social belongingness. These results imply
that more attention is needed toward counteracting gender stereotypical competence beliefs while
interventions need to focus on the social belongingness of students.
Social and cultural factors have been examined in chemistry as well. For example, Rüschenpöhler
and Markic (2020) examined gender relations, the impact of secondary school students’ cultural
backgrounds and the impact of chemistry self-concept on learning processes in Germany. The fnd-
ings of this mixed-methods study with 48 students showed that chemistry self-concept is strongly
related to learning-goal orientations. Contrary to existing research evidence, the results of this study
showed that the gender gap in relation to self-concept traditionally described in the literature was
not found. Instead, the study provided evidence of how the interaction of gender and cultural back-
ground might infuence chemistry self-concepts. Culture was central in a study situated in Kazakh-
stan, in Central Asia, exploring the experiences of female university students enrolled in STEM
majors (Almukhambetova & Kuzhabekova, 2021). In carrying out this study the researchers were
interested in how diferent cultures existing within the university and outside the university infuence
the girls pursuing education in STEM majors and how they deal with the conficting ideological dis-
courses in this unique context. With data collected through interviews with 14 purposefully selected
women, the researchers provided evidence of the infuence that three conficting discourses had on
the participants’ experiences: the Western discourse emphasizing progressive norms and equal oppor-
tunities; the Soviet discourse that expects women to be educated and combine professional duties
with family responsibilities; and the traditional discourse, which expects women to be attractive and
prioritize family life and sees working in STEM as socially awkward.
Gendered/Sexual Harassment and Microaggressions

Several studies have identifed sources of gendered discrimination in science, particularly in physics,
astrophysics, and planetary science felds. Aycock et al. (2019) surveyed undergraduate women at a
physics conference in the United States and found that three quarters of them had experienced at
least one form of sexual harassment. They determined that experiences of sexual harassment can pre-
dict negative sense of belonging and imposter syndrome among women physicists. Similarly, Clancy
et al. (2017) found that women of color frequently reported feeling unsafe in their workplaces in
astronomy and planetary science felds, and this sometimes led to women skipping professional
events and reporting a loss of career opportunities.
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Gender Matters
Repeated acts of sexual or gendered harassment in the form of “subtle and unintentional expres-
sions” of sexism (Sue, 2010) are known as gender microaggressions. Barthelemy et al. (2016) detail
the various types of microaggressions women experience in physics, reported from interviews with
women in physics and astronomy. They found several microaggressive themes in women’s narratives.
For instance, women reported sexual objectifcation and detailed how this impacts possibilities for
being viewed as professionals in the feld. Women reported the use of sexist language and sexist jokes.
Assumptions of inferiority were reported frequently along with restrictive gender roles where women
were assumed to not have the physics strength or the spatial cognition skills to conduct physics. Simi-
larly, women reported invisibility wherein participants reported not being heard or listened to by their
peers. Finally, a form of microaggression women in this study reported is the denial of sexism, wherein
peers refute the need for support for women in physics, denying that gender is an issue for them.
Part I: Summary and Synthesis

Research on gender gaps in science participation and achievement has long been an important part
of research on gender and science education – and will probably continue to be so as long as such
gaps exist. One strand of research has been predominantly focused on documenting diferences in
performance and participation, without dwelling deeper into the underlying causes to such difer-
ences. The preferred research methodology is large-scale quantitative studies. This research has been
essential for revealing inequalities, and a strength is that this research can be generalized and generates
easily communicable results. However, if the problem is represented as limited to numbers, the solu-
tion is likely to focus on, in Londa Schiebinger’s words, “to fx the numbers” (Schiebinger, 2014).
The research we have reviewed suggests that numerical parity is no guarantee that there will not
be gender diferences in participation. Hence, it is crucial for studies to take a wider perspective on
participation (or achievement, for that matter). We suggest that studies that examine classroom inter-
actions and the role that gender plays in structuring these continues to be an area that is understudied
and useful to advancing the feld. Even as science classrooms reach gender parity both in secondary
schools and in post-secondary contexts, these studies can illuminate the gender inequities that are still
produced in science learning contexts, showing that the problem is not one of numbers that can be
easily fxed. Studies that seek to understand gender gaps have also uncovered a range of discrimina-
tory practices ranging from unconscious bias to gender-based harassment. While this research frmly
confrms that sociocultural factors (such as societal expectations on female/male diferences in ability)
are far more likely to explain gender gaps in science than biological diferences (see also discussion in
Wang and Degol [2017)], the quest for cognitive diferences between men and women continues.
We do not fnd evidence that such research contributes considerably to the understanding of gender
inequities in science teaching and learning.
We wish to highlight that the studies reviewed in Part I largely rely on a taken-for-granted under-
standing of gender as another way to say “women and men”, or even “women”. The theorization
of gender is limited and there is the risk that notions of gender as something binary and static are
reinforced. To some extent, gender is problematized in terms of characteristics typically associated
with men and women, but gender is mostly treated as categories. Consequently, research participants
who do not ft neatly into the categories are at the risk of being made invisible. Further, such work
has been criticized for reinforcing diferences and not being able to count beyond two, with little
room for investigating nuances in how gender is performed. The lack of clear defnitions of gender
and/or an explicit theoretical foundation is also problematic in that it potentially contributes to a lack
of precision in fndings. Partly as a response to perceived limitations with the scholarship focused on
understanding gender gaps, science education researchers have sought theoretical inspiration from
gender studies and cultural anthropology, conceptualizing gender and identity as performative. This
is the scholarship we turn to next.
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Part II: Identity-Based Approaches

In the past two decades there has been a growing interest in identity-based approaches to exploring
how gender matters in science education and examining girls’ and women’s engagement with science.
Quite a few researchers have used an identity lens to explore girls and women’s self-identifcation
with science as well as recognition by others (Brickhouse & Potter, 2001; Gonsalves & Danielsson,
2020; Scantlebury & Baker, 2007). For our discussion on identity, we take as a departure point the
section in Kathryn Scantlebury’s (2014) chapter “Gender and individuals”. Whereas Scantlebury
suggests that identity studies focus on individuals’ engagement with learning science and career
pathways, we suggest that science identity (Carlone & Johnson, 2007) as a broad concept now frames
a range of research focused on gender and its intersections with other social identities. As such, we
argue that the construct of science identity is of great importance when studying engagement with
science because identity ofers itself as a tool for examining the ways in which various cognitive and
afective experiences infuence the ways in which individuals might see themselves as science persons
and also recognized by others (Avraamidou, 2020). Next, we review key studies in identity-based
research that examined how gender identity might shape science participation across contexts and
age levels. We begin with studies focused on performances of femininities and masculinities and
then move on to studies that seek to scale up identity-based approaches, either by doing large-scale
quantitative studies or by the development of teaching and learning interventions.
Femininity and Science

Femininity as a unit of analysis and investigations that seek to understand how cultural understand-
ings of femininity in relation to science have consequences for students’ identity work has been
a consistent focus of study in science education research. In recent years, studies have begun to
examine the cultural image of certain sciences, like physics, that appear to be particularly hostile to
women (Archer et al., 2017; Archer et al., 2020a; Francis et al., 2017; Gonsalves, 2014). The cultural
image of physics as “hard” (Whitten et al., 2003) or a “culture of no culture” (Traweek, 1988) has
contributed to its persistent exclusion of femininity, which is deemed incompatible with physics
(e.g., Francis et al., 2017).
Research that explores this supposed incompatibility draws predominantly from Butler (1999),
who understands gender as performative, and performativity as salient to understanding the produc-
tion of social identities (e.g., Archer et al., 2012b). The focus on performativity, and particularly the
regulatory practices that govern intelligible notions of identity, permit an investigation into the vari-
ous strategies or positions that girls especially must perform to be recognized as “intelligible” in sci-
ence (Archer et al., 2017; Carlone, Johnson et al., 2015). An exception to this is the work of Simon
et al. (2017), who investigated STEM majors’ scores on masculine or feminine personality scales and
the correlations with odds of majoring in a STEM feld, and perceptions of a chilly climate in that
feld. The results of this study show that women who scored highly on the femininity scale were less
likely to go into STEM careers, but this was not true for men who had a positive correlation between
scoring highly on the femininity scale and going into STEM. The authors argue that this points
to the diferent meanings of femininity and masculinity when embodied in women and men – it
appears that men and women are rewarded diferently for their feminine and masculine personality
dimensions. For example, men who had more abundant feminine personality characteristics were
associated with more positive perceptions of academic climate. They also reported that they received
fairer treatment from their professors, more attention in class, and had more friends. Women who
scored highly on the femininity index, on the other hand, had fewer friends in STEM than those
who scored lower. The authors point to a “femininity penalty” for female STEM majors, that is not
present in male counterparts.
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Gender Matters
This fnding echoes qualitative work that has identifed the various ways that femininity has
been constructed as incompatible with science in its female embodied form. Francis et al. (2017)
identifed constructions of femininity as “superfcial” and associated with an overall denigration of
girly/super-feminine girls. Girly girls were deemed to be focused on their friends, lacking “strength
of character”, and would be dissuaded from science because of its association with “manual and/
or dirty work” (p. 1104). The contradiction between girly girls and science has been documented
elsewhere (Gonsalves, 2014), where girliness is regarded in contradiction with science. Gonsalves
(2014) found that women doctoral students in physics were positioned as “Other” because of gen-
der norms, while some women were found to be compromising their femininities and performing
gender neutrality or “androgynous” performance in order to ft into the dominant culture of their
department. In a recent study, Godec (2020) described hyper-femininity as involving an investment
in personal appearance, firtatiousness, and popularity. Godec notes that hyper-femininity is not
always (hetero)sexual and takes care to note that it is distinct from emphasized femininity (Con-
nell, 2013). Emphasized femininity (discussed next) can include more restrained performances of
“good girls” or “nice girls” and relates more concretely to a middle-class femininity. Godec (2020)
argues that hyper-femininity is reprimanded and positioned at odds with science. Thus, in contexts
where hyper-femininity is rewarded with popularity and friendship, “cool girls” will reject science
to embrace hyper-femininity.
Balancing Performances of Femininity

Researchers have identifed multiple constructions of femininity in relation to science, some that are
not entirely regarded as incompatible with science identities.
In a UK study of with working-class girls between 11 and 13 from diverse ethnic backgrounds,
Godec (2018) found that fve science-identifying girls negotiated their identifcation and engage-
ment with science through several diferent discursive strategies: (1) rendering gender invisible, (2)
drawing attention to the presence of women in science, (3) reframing “science people” as caring
and nurturing, and (4) cultural discourses of desirability of science. Reframing “science people” as
nurturing and caring makes identifying with science more “intelligible” but simultaneously reifes
the desirable femininity as contradictory to “dirty” felds, like engineering. A similar formulation of
science identity in relation to femininity can be seen in the “pleasers” identifed by Carlone et al.
(2015). In a fourth-grade class, girls performed diferent versions of femininity and identifed a
proper femininity (e.g., the proper way of being a girl in a school science class) as pleasing. Pleasers
performed well scientifcally and were recognized for their scientifc performances. However, as girls
moved along in their schooling trajectories, they continued to perform as pleasers but did not make
further bids to be recognized scientifcally. Pleasing was a dominant theme in research investigating
emphasized femininity (Connell, 2013) in science. For example, Dawson et al. (2019) identifed the
“good girl student” identity performance among secondary students, which focuses on politeness and
completion of tasks. However, these girls were largely concerned with maintaining a good student
identity rather than connecting to science in any meaningful way. These middle school girls engag-
ing with learning at a science museum seemed to resist meanings of science or scientists that were
threatening to their “good girl student” performances. In the museum, there appeared to be limited
available discourses of appropriate feminine behavior; as a result, girls risked compromising their
good girl behavior to carry out learning tasks in the exhibits.
These kinds of performances of femininity have also been noted in workplace contexts. Matts-
son (2015) describes a similar balancing of pleasing forms of femininity with engagement in science
practices in the health sciences. Mattson notes that women researchers used the expression “good
girls” to describe how hardworking they are. Hard work was celebrated (e.g., when publications or
awards were received), but women also noted that they needed to balance achievements in order to
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not be seen as problematic by male colleagues. Thus, women took on roles as “responsible caregiver”
in the department to dampen their efects of being bold intellectuals:
According to this logic, the women in the Unit – successful and highly productive research-
ers – risked becoming problematic in the eyes of their male peers, but by being caring and
responsible they established a form of middle-class femininity that made their subordinate
feminine position clear.
(p. 692)
It is worth noting that constructions of femininity should be regarded as local, as well as culturally
and context specifc. For example, research in British contexts suggests that working-class feminini-
ties are constructed in confict with science (Dawson et al., 2019; Godec, 2020), while some cultural
constructions of femininity (e.g., among frst-generation youth from South Asian contexts) are seen
as compatible with science identities (Godec, 2018). Moshfeghyeganeh and Hazari (2021) suggest
that expressions of femininity in Muslim majority countries can have constructive intersections with
physics identities and may in fact promote participation and persistence in physics. All local con-
structions of femininities, however, require strategies to navigate science, and build science identities,
which we elaborate on next.
Strategies Used to Navigate Femininity and Science (Especially Physics)

Predominant in the literature investigating femininity and science were various strategies women
and girls took to navigate discourses that denigrate femininity and position it outside of science. In
an early study, Archer et al. (2012a) describe students positioning themselves as “feminine scientists”
in attempt to balance identifcation with science with “appropriate” heteronormative femininity.
The success of these performances depended on whether the girls were able to draw on aesthetic
resources, such as being fashionable, sporty, or good-looking. Often, girls accomplished this by fnd-
ing ways to render their science performances as “cool”, so their identities as science people could
be balanced out with positioning themselves as “normal girls”. For girls invested in hyper-femininity
in ways that position them outside of science, Godec (2020) found that their brief engagements with
science can be supported by “popularity capital”. Resources related to popular culture (and usually
not available in school contexts) were mobilized to support engagement in science in ways that
aligned with hyper-femininity. In these brief engagements, girls could hybridize science with their
non-science interests and create possibilities shifts toward insiderness.
On the contrary, Archer and colleagues also identifed strategies of “bluestocking scientists” – girls
who were unable to draw on aesthetic embodied resources, and as such positioned themselves as
“non-girly” and focused instead on academic success. These girls positioned themselves as diferent
to other girls, thus aligning with common strategies to position femininity as “other” to science.
Similarly, in a 2017 study, Archer and colleagues identifed girls doing “geek chic” as a strategy to rec-
oncile their “non-girly” gender performances with socially acceptable ways of being good at science.
In this way, girls described being comfortable working in male-dominated environments and did not
anticipate being put of by this in further education. Gender performances in relation to science that
lean toward the masculine or position girls as “non-girly” do so while subjugating other gender per-
formances; in particular, they denigrate hyper-femininity. However, Dawson and colleagues (2019)
suggest that some masculine performances in science can also be transgressive rather than hegemonic.
Their analysis of girls doing gender and science in a museum suggests that assertive performances
interpreted as masculine can be strategies to challenge the limited identity positions available to them.
Finally, among faculty, Mattsson (2015) found that “sameness” operates as a protective strategy
to cement women’s presence in faculty. In this study, women faculty members in medicine were
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Gender Matters
thought to adopt strategies of aesthetic sameness in which “They were united in a femininity that
rendered them alike as white, middle-class, heterosexual women, that made them well adapted to
the faculty of medicine, and that secured their position as women researchers” (p. 695). Mattson sug-
gests that women in this unit “cloned” a collective femininity that strengthened their presence in the
context of academia and as researchers in medicine.
Theorizing and Investigating Masculinities in Science Education

In some senses, investigating connections between masculinity and science/science education is
not a novel research area. Feminist philosophers of science have long theorized and explored the
masculine connotations of science (Harding, 1986; Schiebinger, 1991). Likewise, it is well-known
that young people tend to see science as “for boys” (Archer et al., 2012b; Calabrese Barton & Tan,
2009), and it has been argued that physics education embodies an understanding of physics as a mas-
culine activity (Hasse, 2002). Recent research studies have also confrmed how pupils view physics
as a subject is strongly associated with masculinity (Archer et al., 2020a; Francis et al., 2017). The
association between physics and masculinity is also entangled with notions of nerdiness (Johansson,
2018), connected to an interest in particular forms of science fction (Hasse, 2015) and ways of using
humor in physics teaching (Johansson & Berge, 2020). Research has also shown that the association
of masculinity with science requires female science teachers to navigate students’ and colleagues’
stereotypical perceptions of women’s incompatibility with science (Mim, 2020). Yet, studies of how
men and boys relate to the teaching and learning of science is surprisingly sparse and the application
of theories from masculinity studies unusual within science education. However, science education
scholars are increasingly starting to utilize empirical studies to scrutinize constructions of masculin-
ity within science, but in order to analyze how students from nondominant backgrounds may be
marginalized, but also how to analyze the norms of particular science teaching and learning contexts.
Masculinity and Outsideness

In this section we focus on studies that in various ways highlight how masculinity performances
are not always unproblematic in relation to science. Archer et al. (2014) has explored the role of
masculinity within boys’ negotiations of science aspirations, from a theoretical perspective of gender
as performative (Butler, 1999) and masculinities as a “doing” (Connell, 2005). They identifed fve
discursive performances of masculinity related to the boys’ aspirations, two of which directly concern
their relationship to science (termed “young professors” and “cool/footballer scientists”). Similarly,
Archer et al. (2016) analyzed performances of masculinity, in this case in the context of school trips
to science museums. Mark (2018) does not explicitly theorize masculinity, but the examination of
how one African American male youth engaged in an informal STEM program intervention from
a perspective of identity development shares an interest with Archer et al. (2014) and Archer et al.
(2016), highlighting how male students from nondominant student populations relate to science.
This line of scholarship thereby challenges the taken-for-granted association between masculinity
and science by highlighting a range of masculinity performances, which to diferent extents are
possible to combine with science participation. Further, the studies foreground the importance of
considering the intersections of masculinity with class and race/ethnicity. For example, Archer et al.
(2014) stress the importance of disrupting the association between science and middle-class “brainy”
masculinity in order to make science more accessible to students from working-class backgrounds. In
a forum paper written in response to Mark (2018), Rosa (2018) further stresses the complex dynam-
ics of potentially utilizing the masculine connotations of science to attract men from non-hegemonic
backgrounds to the discipline “while simultaneously working to deconstruct patriarchal views that
seem to reinforce this very STEM image”. A commonality across these studies is that they focus on
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increasing and widening participation in science by illuminating the identity work of students from
nondominant backgrounds.
Masculinity and Insideness

One strand of research focuses on individuals from dominant backgrounds within science commu-
nities, who often are positioned as the invisible norm (Archer et al., 2020b; Carlone, Webb et al.,
2015; Gonsalves et al., 2016), with the aim of scrutinizing norms and investigating how insideness
is produced. Carlone et al. (2015) examined the school science trajectories of four scientifcally tal-
ented and interested boys from fourth to sixth grades, asking the question “What kind of boy does
science?” Theoretically, the article utilizes feminist and critical men’s studies literature (Connell,
2005; Letts, 2001), conceptualizing masculinity performances as varying across time and context.
They are also interested in how diferent masculinity performances are valued over others, and what
constitutes a hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2005) is a particular context. As such, the study seeks
to trouble taken-for-granted notions of the link between science and masculinity. The analysis of
the four boys’ identity work shows that “being smart” is necessary but not sufcient in order to be
positioned as scientifc. The analysis also shows how science subject positions are related to class and
ethnic positionings. Gonsalves et al. (2016) also have a similar research agenda, in that they focus
on how diferent masculinities are produced and valued in particular contexts, in their case various
experimental practices in physics higher education and research. They argue that:
Men and cultures dominated by men within academic disciplines and research communities
should also be analyzed as political categories and political subjects. In order to understand
why physics in particular is still dominated by men, the cultures and actions that are associ-
ated with masculinity are analyzed.
(p. 2)
Empirically, the article draws on case studies of three diferent physics contexts, and an important
fnding across all three case studies is a strong emphasis on physical skill, including the capability
to engage with instruments designed for larger (male) bodies. By conceptualizing masculinity as
performative, across both men and women, they are able to consider how masculine ideals are also
negotiated and taken up by female physicists. Another study seeking to unpack the relationship
between science and masculinity is Ottemo et al. (2021), who drawing on poststructural gender
theory, explore how notions of corporeality, style, and aesthetics are articulated within two difer-
ent computer engineering and physics higher-education settings. The authors investigate the co-
production of disciplines and gendered forms of subjectivity, and while most informants understand
their respective disciplines as gender neutral, they also acknowledge that being a student in the dis-
cipline is highly gendered. The analysis brings to the fore how notions of corporeality and style are
central to such gendering. Archer et al. (2020b) take a diferent theoretical perspective by utilizing a
Bourdieusian lens to explore how physics identity is shaped by habitus, capital, and feld. The chapter
investigates how and why White, middle-class boys are more likely than many other students to end
up in physics, through a longitudinal case study of Victor, from age 10 to 18. The authors show how
Victor’s trajectory is strongly shaped by the cultivation of a particular kind of embodied masculine
habitus, which also structures what is possible and desirable for boys like him.
Large-Scale Studies of Identity and Gender

As a means to extending the use of identity-based approaches beyond small-scale qualitative studies,
researchers have begun to operationalize the concept of identity in ways that make up-scaling possible.
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Gender Matters
Drawing on social identity theory, Seyranian et al. (2018) examined the longitudinal efects of
STEM identity and gender on fourishing and achievement in college physics in the United States.
Data were collected from 160 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory physics course
who completed a baseline survey with self-report measures on course belonging, physics identifca-
tion, and fourishing as the beginning of the course and a post-survey at the end of the academic
term. Additional data were collected through force concept inventories and the use of physics course
grades. The fndings of this study showed that women reported less course belonging and less physics
identifcation than men even though no gender disparities emerged for course grades. In addition,
students with higher physics identifcation were more likely to earn higher grades, and students with
higher grades reported more physics identifcation at the end of the term. For women, higher physics
identifcation was associated with more positive changes in fourishing over the course of the term.
These fndings point to gender disparities in physics, especially in terms of belonging, and suggest
that strong STEM identity may be associated with academic performance. Similar fndings were
produced in Kalender et al.’s (2019) study, which examined physics identity alongside other moti-
vational constructs of male and female students (N=559) by administering a survey in introductory
calculus-based physics courses at a large research university in the United States. The fndings of this
study showed that female students reported signifcantly lower identity scores than male students.
The analysis revealed a statistically signifcant gender diference (lower for female students) for both
physics identity items in the survey related to students’ perceptions of both being a physics person and
being recognized by others as a physics person.
Another large-scale study in the context of university physics in the United States is the one
by Hazari et al. (2017), who examined when girls (N > 900) became interested in physics careers
through a survey. The fndings showed that the highest percentage of participants became inter-
ested in physics careers during high school and sources of recognition included the following: self-
recognition, a perceived recognition from others, and a perceived recognition for other students
around them. Interestingly, the most important source of recognition appeared to be the students’
high school teacher. These fndings point to the crucial role of high school teachers in supporting
students, and especially girls, to develop strong physics identities. These fndings conquer with the
fndings of a systematic review of empirical research, mostly large case studies (N=47) in the United
States, published in the period of 2006–2017, that focused on the experiences of female students in
STEM during middle school and high school, drawing on social identity theory (Kim et al., 2018).
In these studies, identity and/or identifcation with science is theorized in ways that are concomi-
tant with the studies previously reviewed in Part II of the chapter, but gender is nonetheless treated
in a categorical way, with a focus on (statistically signifcant) diferences between male and female
students.
Interventions Aimed at Supporting Science Identity and Belonging

In addition to up-scaling through large-scale quantitative studies, there is also a line of research seek-
ing to extend small-scale explorative studies by the development of interventions that aim to support
girls’ science identity and belonging. The motivation for such studies is typically to come to terms
with the underrepresentation of women in science felds and has targeted interventions toward girls
and women in both informal and formal learning contexts.
Levine et al. (2015) studied the impact that a camp aimed at providing hands-on chemistry learn-
ing opportunities and featuring female chemistry role models and feld trips had on middle school
girls’ excitement and appreciation for science. They found that short-term efects were positive, but
they were unable to ascertain any longer-term impacts or shifts in identity work and career interest.
Todd and Zvoch (2019) sought to measure the impact of an informal science intervention on middle
school girls’ science afnities. This study suggests that role messages, peer learning, and hands-on
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science experiments, which were featured in the program, are critical for girls’ science identity and
self-efcacy development. The emphasis on these features, rather than content knowledge, is thus
understood to be critical to the program’s success in improving girls’ self-efcacy and science atti-
tudes. While these interventions suggest short-term gains in terms of interest and attitudes, we do
not know what the long-term impact is on how girls view science in their lives and whether science
becomes a part of their career paths. In addition, we cannot know from these kinds of studies what
the impact might be on girls’ identity work in science.
Adopting sociocultural frameworks highlighting the importance of attending to identity, some
recent research in physics education has aimed to construct formal learning environments for girls
that focuses on strategies to develop a sense of self as a physicist. Following a 2013 study by Hazari
et al., suggesting that talking about underrepresentation can be critical to supporting girls’ identity
development in physics, Lock and Hazari (2016) have investigated the impact that classroom con-
versations about women’s minoritization in physics can have on girls’ physics identities. This study
reports that opportunities to gather and talk about underrepresentation can be an efective strategy to
“bufer” against the ill efects of minoritization that women feel in male-dominated felds like phys-
ics. They found that explicit opportunities to discuss underrepresentation can shift young women’s
fgured worlds about the norms in physics and open up possibilities for identity shifts to insider-
ness in physics. Similarly, Wulf et al. (2018) demonstrate that constructing deliberate environments
for young women to engage in physics learning in small, single-sex groups at a Physics Olympiad
appeared to create possibilities for them to access increased opportunities for recognition and thus to
develop their physics identities. Despite the emphasis on identity work in formal and informal learn-
ing contexts, these studies do not interrogate binary constructions of gender, or what Traxler et al.
(2016) call the “gender-binary defcit model”, and the constructions of masculinities and femininities
in science learning contexts.
Part II: Summary and Synthesis

Unlike the studies reviewed in the previous part that have treated gender as a category, the stud-
ies reviewed in Part II have treated gender as “performance” and hence researchers engaged with
the constructs of “femininity” and “masculinity” to examine science participation through the lens
of science identity. Over the past 20 years, science education research has seen a large increase in
studies adopting identity-based approaches (Danielsson et al., in review). Theoretically, many stud-
ies are inspired by cultural anthropology (Gee, 2000; Holland et al., 2001; Lave, 1996), and in the
studies reviewed in Part II such a theoretical vantage point is often combined with a poststructuralist
perspective of gender (Butler, 1999). This allows for detailed and nuanced investigations of how
gender is performed in particular contexts. Embarking from the fact that science has historically
been constructed as masculine, researchers have examined how women navigate their presence in
science environments or how they author their science identities. The fndings of this set of studies,
largely qualitative, point to the fact that femininity has been constructed as incompatible with science
identity, and hence those performing more feminine identities have been constructed as “other” in
science. However, as another set of studies showed, femininity is not a binary construct. Instead,
femininity, being culture-dependent, is enacted through diferent kinds of performances with unique
characteristics, and each of those shape how those performing such identities are recognized (or not)
in science contexts. These studies have been very successful in showcasing the great variety in how
students engage with science in various contexts.
Theoretically situated in similar underpinnings, another set of studies have adopted a large-scale,
quantitative approach to examining women’s science identity. Despite their usefulness in producing
more generalizable claims, these studies have treated gender as a category instead of performance, and
hence fail to provide insights about the nuance, complexity, and specifcity of gender performances
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Gender Matters
and how those might cause misrecognition and make certain bodies vulnerable. Moreover, when
utilizing a performative view of gender, there is scope for decentering gender performances from
sexed bodies, but among the reviewed studies, those that center femininity tend to focus on girls
and studies that center masculinity tend to focus on boys. As such, there is a risk that gender binaries
are reproduced by the very studies that seek to critique them, in that girls’ doings are equated with
femininities and boys’ with masculinities. This risk might be even greater in studies that operational-
ize gender and identity in ways that make the concepts possible to adapt to large-scale quantitative
studies – at the same time that such studies are pivotal for extending fndings beyond the scope of
small-scale qualitative case studies.
Part III: Emerging Perspectives

In studies of gender and science education we can discern two main approaches; the treatment of
gender as something categorical (basically equated to “men and women”) and the conceptualization
of gender as performative and, as such, interrelated with identity performances in a broader sense.
Both these approaches have been present in science education research for at least 20 years and can
be considered consolidated felds of research. Getting sight of emerging perspectives is more chal-
lenging, but in this third part of the review we would like to highlight three contemporary trends:
intersectional perspectives, queer perspectives, and posthumanism. Identity-based approaches to
studies of gender in science education have since the beginning to some extent attended to intersec-
tions between gender and race/ethnicity (see, for example, Brickhouse & Potter, 2001), but we have
chosen to include intersectionality among the emerging perspectives, as intersectionality recently
has been more theoretically pronounced in science education and also empirically extended beyond
studies of gender and race/ethnicity.
Intersectional Approaches
In the past couple of years, we witness more and more studies adopting intersectional approaches
to examining gender in science participation. As a term, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to
counter the disembodiment of Black women from law, intersectionality captured the inadequacy
of legal frameworks to address inequality and discrimination resulting from the ways race and gen-
der intersected to shape the employment experiences of Black women (Crenshaw, 1989). Since
then, intersectionality theory has transcended the boundaries of legal research and the US context
and found application in various other geographical contexts and disciplines. Ringrose and Renold
(2010) argued that feminist researchers invested in understanding women’s experiences must con-
tinue to develop intersectional approaches that challenge “regulative gender and (hetero)sexual dis-
courses, as these are cross-cut by race, class, cultural and other specifcities” (p. 591).
Charleston et al.’s (2014) study examined the role of race and gender in the academic pursuits of
15 African American women in STEM. The fndings of the study showed that the participants faced
a series of racial and gender challenges related to their educational trajectories, felt marginalized as
persons of color, and shared a sense of cultural isolation in departments heavily populated by White
males, which essentially points to the double bind: the simultaneously experienced sexism and rac-
ism in STEM careers. Similar fndings were produced in Rosa and Mensah’s (2016) study, which
explored the life histories of six African American women in physics. The analysis of the interview
data revealed specifc commonalities in their experiences. The frst one is that all participants felt
isolated in the academy, especially as members of study groups in which they felt excluded. The
second one is that they all participated in after-school or summer school programs where they were
exposed to a science environment at an early age. Lastly, all participants had opportunities to engage
in summer research programs along with their academic training and to be members of a community
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of practice. Collectively, what these three studies show, is the sexism and racism that women of color
face throughout their STEM career trajectories, and at the same time they highlight the importance
of examining gender in conjunction with race, especially for women of color, when examining
STEM career trajectories.
In order to examine the role of safe social places or counterspaces that women seek during their
STEM trajectories, Ong et al. (2018) analyzed interview data collected from 39 women of color
in the United States. These women were purposefully selected to comprise a group of varying
racial/ethnic groups, career stages, and STEM disciplines. In dealing with negative experiences in
STEM, the participants looked for counterspaces that provided critical support for their persistence
in STEM, however. These counterspaces occurred in a variety of settings and served diferent func-
tions: (1) counterspaces in peer-to-peer relationships, (2) counterspaces in mentoring relationships,
(3) counterspaces in national STEM diversity conferences, (4) counterspaces in STEM and non-
STEM campus student groups, and (5) STEM departments as counterspaces. These fndings ofer
useful insights, especially for STEM university departments seeking to be counterspaces for women
of color.
Similar fndings are found in other levels of education, such as teacher education, STEM univer-
sity education, as well as school science. A key study in teacher preparation is the one carried out
by Moore-Mensah (2019), who examined the journey of an African American female (Michelle) in
science teacher education by looking at her educational history from childhood to teacher education
and professional life as an elementary teacher with a focus on how she viewed herself as a science
learner and as a science teacher. The fndings of this study exemplifed issues related to underrepre-
sentation of both Black preservice teachers as well as instructors and the emotional impact that this
underrepresentation had on Black preservice teachers. The fndings also showcased how specifc
courses on teacher preparation might serve as transformative experiences. One such example is pro-
vided in this work, which is a course taught by the author, who is an African American woman, and
which provided opportunities for discussions about the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and
class in their role on the development of science teachers.
In contrast with Moore-Mensah’s study, Wade-Jaimes and Schwartz’s (2019) ethnographic study
with a group of seventh-grade African American girls illustrated how dominant discourses of educa-
tion, science, race, and gender led to the exclusion of these girls. The fndings of the study showed
that although the girls tried to engage in scientifc practices, they did not receive positive recognition
from their teacher. In fact, the students were recognized for copying from sources and memorizing
facts, which encouraged a passive and noncreative participation in science, which favored specifc
types of students. Most of the girls, however, did not ft within that type of student, and hence did
not receive positive recognition from their teacher. This fnding illustrates how narrow, limiting, and
exclusionary the dominant discourse of school science is.
As evidenced in this brief review of key studies that adopted intersectional approaches to examin-
ing girls’ and women’s participation in science, these have predominantly focused on the experiences
of Black women and women of color. This points to a gap in knowledge when it comes to other
types of identity intersections, for example, ethnic identity, religious identity, social class, disability,
and motherhood. A couple of studies aiming to address these types of identity intersections provide
evidence of a diferent set of barriers that women in science face.
Using science identity as a unit of analysis, Avraamidou (2020) explored the barriers, difcul-
ties, and conficts that Amina, a young Muslim immigrant woman in Western Europe, confronted
throughout her trajectory in physics and the ways in which her multiple identities intersected. The
main sources of data consisted of three long biographical interviews, which were analyzed through a
constant comparative method. The fndings of the study illustrated that Amina was confronted with
various barriers across her journey in physics, with the intersection of religion and gender being the
major barrier to her perceived recognition due to cultural expectations, sociopolitical factors, and
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Gender Matters
negative stereotypes. Moreover, Amina’s social class, religion, gender performance, and ethnic status
positioned her as Other in various places throughout her trajectory in physics, and consequently
hindered her sense of belonging. Two more recent publications also consider the impact that religion
has on women’s experiences, especially in physics. Avraamidou (2021) continues the exploration of
women’s experiences in physics, using explicitly intersectional frameworks to consider the “politics
of recognition” and the local and contextual ways that bodies, identities, and associated cultural
objects can contribute to misrecognition in physics. For example, Amina’s story suggests that her
Muslim identity (and associated cultural artifacts, like the hijab) contributed to her misrecognition
in Western physics contexts. In contrast, in a study conducted with women in physics in Muslim
majority countries, Moshfeghyeganeh and Hazari (2021) revealed a relative absence of such gender
identity conficts and negotiations. Taken together, these fndings complicate notions that femininity
is incongruent with physics and suggest that, rather, femininity needs to be understood in relation to
science within the cultural contexts in which it is done.
In another understudied population, Castro and Collins (2021) investigated the experiences of
Asian American women in STEM. In this study, the researchers interviewed 23 women who self-
identifed as Asian Americans and were either in a doctoral program or within fve years of earning
their degrees in STEM felds at the time of the study. The study is one of the very few studies that
examine Asian Americans experiences with science in the US contexts where Asian Americans are
commonly portrayed as a monolithic group and as incapable of assimilating into American society.
Similarly with the fndings of the studies reviewed earlier, the fndings of the study provided evidence
of how Asian American women are not validated in STEM, are perceived as outsiders, and experi-
ence microaggressions and harassment because of not ftting the “White male logic systems”.
Queer Theory and LGBTQ+ Issues in Science Education

The teaching and learning of science intersect with issues of sexuality in several diferent ways, most
directly as related to in the representation and experience of LGBTQ+ individuals in science disci-
plines (e.g., Barthelemy, 2020) and sex and sexuality as a teaching content in biology (e.g., Reiss,
1998). In addition, queer theory is used to explore the entanglement of sex, gender, and sexuality
with science education. Queer theory seeks to deconstruct sexuality and gender, and to destabilize
binary constructs, such as gay/straight. In studies of science education queer theory frst appeared in
the early 2000s. Early work includes Letts’s (2001) analysis of heteronormativity as part of the hidden
curriculum in primary school science. Later, Bazzul and Sykes (2011) used queer theories to analyze
how gender and sexuality were addressed in biology textbooks.
LGBTQ+ Students and Teachers in Science Education

Sansone and Carpenter (2020) use survey data to analyze the representation of LGB individuals in
STEM felds. They found that men in same-sex couples were less likely to have completed a bach-
elor’s degree in a STEM feld compared to men in diferent-sex couples, but found no diference for
women in same-sex and diferent-sex couples. They also found that the representation of gay men
in STEM felds were positively associated with female representation in those STEM felds. Sansone
and Carpenter conclude that:
Taken together, these patterns are highly suggestive that the mechanisms underlying the very
large gender gap in STEM felds such as heteropatriarchy, implicit and explicit bias, sexual
harassment, unequal access to funding, and fewer speaking invitations are related to the
factors driving the associated gap in STEM felds between gay men and heterosexual men.
(p. 12)
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There are also studies of the experiences of LBTQ+ individuals in STEM. In a national survey of
LGBTQA individuals in STEM careers in the United States, Yoder and Mattheis (2016) found that
participants who described their workplace as welcoming and safe reported greater openness to col-
leagues and students. They also found that participants who worked in STEM felds with a higher
proportion of women were more likely to be out to colleagues. Consequently, in line with Sansone
and Carpenter (2020), they also make a connection between the gender gap and the experiences of
LGBTQA individuals, hypothesizing that a better gender parity in a workplace also fosters a more
inclusive climate for LGBTQA individuals. In a qualitative survey study of the feld of physics specif-
cally 71 out of 324 respondents reported some form of exclusionary behavior or harassment, most
often based on their gender expression or being a woman (Barthelemy, 2020). A survey of biology
college instructors in the United States found that over half of the biology instructors surveyed were
out to their work colleagues, but less than 20% were out to their students (Cooper et al., 2019). In
interviews following the survey, instructors reported that reasons for being out in class included pro-
viding students with LGBQ role models in science, but some were also worried about students devel-
oping negative views of the instructor if they were out in class. Studies of students are more unusual,
but a study of student retention among students who identify as a sexual minority (for example, les-
bian, gay, bisexual, or queer) using US national longitudinal survey data showed that sexual minority
students were less likely to be retained in STEM compared to their heterosexual peers.
To summarize, the studies of LGBTQ+ teachers and professionals, and to a lesser extent students,
in STEM felds are mostly quantitative, sometimes with qualitative components. The purpose of the
studies is typically to uncover inequalities, within an agenda of inclusion. Sexuality is problematized
in the sense that the use and defnition of acronyms (e.g., LGBQ, LGBTQA) are discussed, but
mostly sexuality is operationalized as a variable that can be neatly captured by multiple-choice ques-
tions. It can also be noted that all studies reviewed have been carried out in the US context.
Queering Science Teaching and Learning

In the handbook chapter from 2014, Scantlebury called for an increase in the use of queer theory
within science education research. The development of this area has been slow, but a major contri-
bution was made recently by an anthology collecting work that queers STEM education (Letts &
Fifeld, 2019). The chapters concern a variety of disciplinary areas, such as environmental education
and higher-education physics, and both informal and formal education, from elementary to higher
education. An important objective of the volume is also to move the discussion beyond a project
of equal rights for LGBTQ people, to use queer theory and allied perspectives as a way to question
what is perceived as normal and release new possibilities for reimagining the world. Gunckel (2019b)
argues that “queering the constructions that legitimize the discrimination in the frst place, and thus
insists that we (re)imagine and (re)construct our world to eliminate the normal/queer binary alto-
gether” (p. 150). Further, Knaier (2019) stresses that problems caused by restricting two-category
systems of boys/girls or masculine/feminine cannot be solved by adding more categories, but that
the categorizing in itself is problematic. Instead, she proposes that we move beyond gender, not by
ignoring or erasing gender identities, but by using queer theory to challenge the idea of normative
gender and sex identities. Götschel (2019) brings queer theory into the higher-education physics
classroom, leveraging its potential to scrutinize what is supposed to be normal and what is invisible
or silenced and thereby making the familiar strange. In particular, she is interested in its potential for
refecting on the discursive production of physical knowledge and questioning hegemonic narratives
of physics and physicists. In the context of biology teaching, Reiss (2019) and Gunckel (2019a) both
argue that a consideration of queer theory can provide both a richer understanding of the content
at hand and a more inclusive teaching. Reiss (2019) argues that conventional teaching about sex
and sexuality in biology tend to represent poor science, and queering the way sex and sexuality is
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Gender Matters
taught in school science will allow for a richer understanding of (human) sexuality and what it is to
be a sexual person. Such a teaching could have implications both for students’ views of science and
of themselves and their sexuality. In summary, Reiss concludes that queer approaches to teaching
about sex and sexuality within the science curriculum can “aid human fourishing, enable students
to gain more powerful knowledge, and address social injustices’ (p. 265). Gunckel (2019a) analyzes
an elementary school science lesson about crayfsh and shows how a focus on dichotomies and cat-
egorization hides the diversity of sexual morphologies and reproductive processes, something that
not only is poor science but, she argues, can also be harmful to students who have non-normative
bodies and identities.
A related strand of research unpacks how gender is discursively produced in classrooms, and stud-
ies have highlighted the ways that classroom talk and interactions discursively produce masculinity
and femininity in science contexts. Orlander (2016) investigates how the ways teachers communicate
invoke masculinity and femininity in examples from biology and how this constructs notions of
“natural” sexual behavior in humans. Orlander (2020) examines how masculinities and femininities
are mobilized in argumentation in science classrooms, in the context of debates around sustain-
able development. These studies suggest that disciplinary content is imbued with masculinities and
femininities, in which masculinity and heteronormativity is privileged, and send normative messages
about gender roles through science.
Posthumanism
Scantlebury’s (2014) chapter identifed material feminism as a new direction for gender and sci-
ence education research. Scantlebury provides an overview of the manner in which language and
discourse have been granted “too much power”, according to Barad (2003), and highlights calls
for research to engage with matter/material. In the years since the publication of Scantlebury’s
chapter, “new materialist” approaches to studying gendered participation in science education
have begun to emerge. Other approaches relying on video ethnographic data and participant
observation instead focus on embodied performances of gender and identity. Barad (2007), whose
theoretical work has infuenced new materialist orientations to research in science education,
argues that we must also investigate the entanglement of discourse, language, embodiment, and
matter. New materialist approaches to research in science education thus give possibilities to
understand the identity performances of participants who do not possess language resources to
narrate identity work. In very recent years, we have begun to see research taking new materialist
perspectives to understand the gendered identity work of youth and very young children in rela-
tion to science and technology.
Godec et al. (2020) have investigated the role that physical and digital materiality play in the
identity performances of young people engaged in STEM learning in informal settings. While this
research does not seek to understand gendered interactions with materials, the research draws on
aspects of gender theory to understand how materials shape tech identity performances. Particu-
larly, this group mobilizes the concepts of identity performativity (Butler, 1993; Butler, 1999) and
intra-activity (Barad, 2007) to understand the ubiquitous presence and importance of materiality in
the contexts of young people’s STEM identifcations. The fndings suggest that reading material-
discursive entanglements as identity performances can yield insights into the importance of intra-
actions with matter in contexts where these might yield new forms of recognition that contribute
to identity performances. These researchers additionally described intra-actions with the digital,
thereby raising the possibility for nondiscursive and nonmaterial intra-actions to contribute to iden-
tity recognition. This work also raised equity issues when it came to gendered intra-actions with
technological matter and the digital. The researchers noticed that even though youth were ofered
access to technology (e.g., via coding events), young women participating in the club tended toward
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verbal, pen-and-paper, and photographic modes of intra-actions, suggesting that these young people
tended to engage with technology in ways that reproduce dominant gender relations.
Importantly, recognition emerges as a salient concept for investigating gendered intra-actions with
materiality. Günther-Hanssen and colleagues (Günther-Hanssen, 2020; Günther-Hanssen et al.,
2020) describes the intra-action between a preschool girl and a swing in ways that produce embodied
understandings of physical phenomena, but also provide opportunities for the girl to be recognized
as an insider to science phenomena (at least to the researcher and to the teacher observing her move-
ments). These intra-actions, however, also create outsiderness when the girl’s movements and intra-
actions with the swing are usurped by a boy who uses the swing to gain attention from his peers.
Gonsalves (2020) describes similar possibilities that intra-actions with materials in physics laboratories
provide for recognition as an insider or expert in new ways. Investigating diferent forms of tinkering
both in and outside of the lab, Gonsalves suggests that viewing tinkering through the lens of material-
discursive intra-actions can yield new and unexpected possibilities to learn how students may become
recognized as competent in physics on instruments “built with gender in mind” (Berg & Lie, 1995).
Scantlebury et al. (2019) use the concept of “material moments” (Taylor, 2013) to investigate how
intra-actions produce space and time in classroom through moments of intra-action. By asking ques-
tions about space (how students are included and excluded in classroom spaces) and time (how stu-
dents’ movements through school are marked by time) in the intra-actions with matter (blackboards
and textbooks) they explore how iterative difractive readings of text can yield understandings about
why students “get bored” with science. These readings highlight material-discursive practices in the
classroom that send messages to students about the (gendered) forms of engagement in science that
are welcomed (e.g., note taking) at the expense of their interest.
Part III: Summary and Synthesis

The studies reviewed in this section urge researchers to expand our understanding of issues related
to gender and science learning beyond experiences that foreground binary formulations of gender
and even performances of gender as central organizing concepts. This work challenges the primacy
placed on gender in research and invites us to consider more broadly how the intersections of race,
class, sexuality, identity, and gender interact to create environments where recognition is aforded
or constrained in various ways. Additionally, this work challenges some of the primary constructs
researchers use to investigate experiences of recognition. For example, Avraamidou (2021) suggests
that current conceptualizations of recognition are themselves limited by a binary formulation where
research focuses on opportunities where one is recognized or not. This approach masks complex
interactions that can result in diferent forms of recognition, notably, misrecognition. These fndings
demand approaches to identity research that investigate these complexities and move beyond binary
formulations both in how we treat gender and in how we seek to understand experience. Thus, we
suggest that recent trends in research invite us to move beyond gender as a primary organizing concept,
and rather to advance frameworks that seek to unpick the complexities of experiences, events, and
interactions that shape individuals’ modes of becoming in science learning environments.
In this section, we have reviewed three emerging perspectives that contribute richness and com-
plexity to our understanding of minoritized learners’ experiences in science. While the integrated
treatment of gender and race/ethnicity is not new to science education research, a more explicit
consideration of intersectionality provides depth to our understanding of the kinds of identities,
bodies, and cultural objects are considered “in place” or “out of place” (e.g., Avraamidou, 2021) in
science. There is also an emerging scholarship around gender and queer/LGBTQ+ perspectives that
concerns both the identities of students/teachers and the science content as such. Still, studies of how
gender intersects with other markers of identity, such as social class, age, and dis/ability, are largely
missing. The material turn has slowly started to make its way into science education research, but
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Gender Matters
considering how materiality and (human and animal) bodies are at the heart of science as a discipline,
there is plenty of room for additional explorations of the entanglement of science learning, gender,
identities, and bodies. In particular, questions around what it means for a body to be sexed/gendered
in relation to materials in science learning spaces calls for increased attention, and posthumanism here
provides a powerful theoretical vantage point.
Discussion and Future Directions

In the years since Scantlebury’s (2014) chapter, there has been a sustained interest in gender issues
within science education research. Studies that map and seek to understand gender disparities con-
tinue to form a substantial part of this research, but we have also witnessed a consolidation of
identity-based approaches. Still, the conversation between studies in Part I and Part II of this chapter
have been limited. This is perhaps not surprising given that the division between the two frst parts
of the review largely follows the divide between cognitive and sociocultural perspectives on (science)
learning. But given the complexity of the issue of understanding (gendered) students’ relationship
to science as not only a (potentially gendered) body of knowledge but also a (gendered) cultural
enterprise, the creation of silos of research that do not communicate with one another is unfortunate.
While studies within the diferent traditions may be theoretically incompatible – for example, the
implicit assumption about gender as binary and static that underlie some studies in Part I does not
sit comfortably with a performative perspective of gender – work on stereotype threat, unconscious
bias, and sense of belonging can be informative to studies using identity-based approaches. In syn-
thesizing empirical evidence on gender and science education, one thing becomes clear: women’s
underrepresentation in science cannot be explained by cognitive diferences or simply a lack of inter-
est, but it is an issue of women being constructed as outsiders in science. This is illustrated through
both international study results (e.g., PISA), which show that girls are less confdent than boys in
their science abilities even though they score higher in science tests, as well as small-scale studies
that show that women are not recognized as competent science persons and that they face a series of
barriers and constraints throughout their studies/careers in science.
In terms of disciplinary contexts, the majority of studies reviewed are found in the context of phys-
ics. This is perhaps not surprising given the fact that physics remains the most male-dominated scientifc
feld. But this focus of research carries the assumption that gender perspectives are only useful in areas
where there are inequalities in gender ratio. In terms of geographical contexts, the majority of the stud-
ies are situated in the Global North, specifcally the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. As
noted earlier, while intersectional studies are gaining increased traction, such studies still predominantly
concern the intersection between gender and race/ethnicity. Further, studies almost exclusively deal
with gender and science in terms of gender as something relevant to individuals and their relationship to
science. Apart from a few notable exceptions, gender in the disciplinary content is not problematized.
Empirical research gaps identifed concerning gender and science education thus include:
• Studies of science disciplines other than physics, including boys’ and men’s gender performances
in the female-dominated discipline of biology as well as studies of interdisciplinary areas
• Studies situated in a broader variety of national contexts
• Studies concerning the intersection of gender and social class, age, dis/ability, and religious afli-
ation that operationalize intersectionality to move beyond additive conceptions
• Studies of gender in the disciplinary content in biology, both in terms of assumptions carried
by this content (such as companion meanings concerning heterosexuality) and in terms of the
meeting between the content and students’ sexed and gendered bodies (with a particular rel-
evance for transgender and nonbinary students)
• Studies in the context of science teacher education and professional development
283
Methodologically, the feld reviewed in this chapter is strikingly heterogeneous. Very broadly speak-
ing we can discern large-scale quantitative studies (often operationalizing gender in terms of men/
women), small-scale qualitative studies (often drawing on identity-based approaches), and interven-
tion studies. However, few studies cross these methodological divides, and large-scale quantitative
studies drawing on identity-based approaches are just starting to emerge. We also note that study
designs often fall back on binary defnitions of gender, even when made explicit that this is some-
thing the researchers are seeking to avoid. As intervention studies based in identity-based approaches
to gender become more common it will be important to involve teachers in collaborative studies, to
ensure that models for practice are based in systematic and refected development that bridge across
theory and practice (for example, by utilizing the idea of didactic modeling, see Sjöström, 2019).
Thus, for a methodological point of view, we identify the need for:
• Mixed-methods studies that combine qualitative and quantitative elements

• Large-scale studies informed by identity-based approaches
• Study designs (both in quantitative and qualitative studies) that allow for the inclusion of trans-
gender and nonbinary participants
• Collaborative studies involving researchers and teachers, including such studies set in the context
of science teacher education and professional development
• An increased attention to how fndings can be made transferable, both in terms of how large-
scale quantitative studies can be made relevant for teachers and in terms of how small-scale
qualitative studies can be made relevant for policy and for practitioners in other contexts
So far, we have discussed empirical and methodological gaps identifed, with recommendations for
future research. But how far will this take us? Filling the gaps outlined earlie will create a more solid
and complete research basis for gender and science education as the feld is currently understood and
practiced. It is, however, notable that our synthesis of emerging perspectives remains similar to those
outlined by Kathryn Scantlebury in her 2014 chapter in this handbook. For instance, we have found
that emerging trends in gender research have focused on eforts to ensure that the “gender-binary
defcit model” is not reproduced, and researchers have focused on identity negotiations in gender
performances. However, science itself (and its practices) has been left untroubled and unchallenged
by this identity turn in gender research. Furthermore, in our synthesis we notice an increasing dis-
tance from the critical feminist theories that laid the groundwork for research into gender issues
in science. For example, in the late 1990s and early 2000s it was common to fnd gender research
grounded in the work of Evelyn Fox-Keller (Keller, 1982, 1987), who challenged the masculine
underpinnings of science, or Sandra Harding’s work (e.g. Harding, 1991), which went further to
critique science as an enterprise. Harding’s criticism of science-as-usual challenges the ethics, goals, and
functions of science and sees adding more women (by promoting equitable pedagogical and employ-
ment practices) as complicit with our culture’s failure to confront the status quo in science. From a
theoretical point of view, our recommendation is therefore to turn the critical gaze back at science.
Feminist philosophers of science here provide a theoretical grounding for doing so; it is worth both
returning to and building on the past (Harding, 1991; Keller, 1982) and looking into more contem-
porary developments in this feld (Archer & Kohler, 2020; Barad, 2007).
In this context, it is worth repeating that “what the problem is represented to be” (Bacchi, 2012)
is a key question to consider, both when research problems are justifed and when implications for
practice are presented. For example, if researchers – ourselves included – keep justifying gender
studies in science education by existence of various forms of gender gaps, the problem is assumed
to concern the number of men and women in a discipline. Much research today is still grounded in
this goal of gender mainstreaming, asking questions about how to get more women into science or
how to retain them once there. Maybe it is the narratives about the “need” to bring more students
284
Gender Matters
into science – which in efect contributes to solidifying the position of science as a superior – that
ought to be disrupted? While critical of social practices that continue to discourage women in sci-
ence or pedagogical practices that make them feel like science is “not for me”, this kind of gender
research has lost sight of the critique of science’s history as an enterprise that is rooted in racism and
the oppression of women and gender-diverse people (e.g., Carter et al., 2019), and settler colonialism
(Bang & Marin, 2015). While the efect of bringing gender studies in science education research into
the mainstream is overall very positive, we caution that losing sight of these critical perspectives may
lead to practices aiming to promote gender equality (e.g., interventions that reproduce stereotypical
ideas about gender roles) without changing the culture of science that women and other minoritized
groups are entering. If we were to conclude this chapter with just one recommendation for studies
of gender in science education, it would be: Bring feminism back!
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10
MULTILINGUAL LEARNERS
IN SCIENCE EDUCATION
Since the publication of our chapter on English learners in science education in the last edition of
the handbook (Buxton & Lee, 2014), major developments have occurred in science education and
language education, leading both felds to embrace new perspectives. The subfeld of science and
language with multilingual learners has responded to both shifts, transitioning from what we call
traditional perspectives to what we call contemporary perspectives on both science learning and
language learning. Moreover, the profound social infuences of the COVID-19 pandemic and of
growing attention to systemic racism are accelerating educational changes that have implications for
the role of science education with multilingual learners moving forward. This chapter is written in
the context of these educational and societal changes that have occurred since the publication of the
last volume of this handbook.
This chapter addresses publications from 2014 through 2020. In science education, we character-
ize this period as covering the shift from traditional perspectives to contemporary perspectives of
science based on A Framework for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council [NRC], 2012;
shortened to the Framework hereafter) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS; NGSS
Lead States, 2013a). Bringing these new science standards in line with the new content standards
in English language arts and mathematics from the early 2010s necessitated collaborations across
content area education and language education (Lee, 2019). Further, rapidly shifting demographics
in our school-aged population, including substantial increases in students for whom English is not
their mother tongue, began to receive increased attention during this period through national and
international eforts, including the Understanding Language Initiative (https://ell.stanford.edu) and
the consensus report on English learners in STEM subjects (National Academies of Sciences, Engi-
neering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2018). The two authors of this chapter were both involved in
the aforementioned eforts that helped frame contemporary perspectives on language in the STEM
content areas. For the NASEM consensus report, the two authors were the only panel members
from science education whose research focused on multilingual learners. Table 10.1 highlights key
components of our working defnitions of traditional and contemporary perspectives on both science
and language learning.
To refect the shifts in both science education and language education with multilingual learners,
this chapter provides an interpretive review of the literature surrounding these shifts (2014–2020)
and focuses on publications that helped move both felds toward contemporary perspectives on sci-
ence and language with multilingual learners. The chapter also acknowledges the contributions of
publications that continued to apply more traditional perspectives on science and/or language. As
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-13 291

Table 10.1 Shifts From Traditional to Contemporary Views of Science and Language Learning
Traditional Perspectives Contemporary Perspectives
Science • Central focus is on canonical science • Central focus is on making sense of

knowledge defned by scientists and science phenomena and problems in similar ways to
educators how scientists and engineers engage in their
• Science is represented through authoritative professional work (focus on what knowledge
texts; students are expected to absorb science does, or knowledge-in-use)
primarily through reading and listening • Science is represented as three-dimensional
• Science inquiry, “habits of mind”, and learning, blending disciplinary core ideas,
“process skills” are separate from and science and engineering practices, and
secondary to canonical science knowledge crosscutting concepts
• Students’ prior knowledge is explored to • Students develop coherent understandings or
identify “alternative conceptions” of science storylines over time
concepts • All students are encouraged to leverage their
cultural and linguistic resources, interests, and
identities toward learning science
Language • Content area language is learned through • Content area language is learned through
focus on discrete elements of vocabulary participation in social contexts (focus on
(lexicon) and grammar (syntax) – focus on what language does, or language-in-use)
“what language is” • Language profciency standards are aligned
• Level of profciency in English determines with academic content standards
level of access to grade-level content standards • Language registers are seen as fexible choices
• Languages and language registers are seen from a continuum between everyday and
as dichotomous: “academic” vs. “everyday” disciplinary language
language, “general academic” vs. “discipline • Multimodality (e.g., gestures, visual
specifc”, “home language” vs. “second representations) extends beyond linguistic
language” modalities
• Focus is on linguistic modalities (listening, • Translanguaging is ofered to support
speaking, reading, and writing) multilingual language development through
• Sheltered instruction is ofered to support content learning
English language development through • Language profciency (including specialized
content learning disciplinary language) is not a prerequisite for
• Pre-teaching of vocabulary and language content learning but an outcome of efective
supports (e.g., sentence frames) are done to content learning
“build the feld” (background knowledge)
needed to engage with disciplinary texts
we will see, most studies that maintained traditional perspectives from one feld (science or language)
applied a contemporary perspective to the other feld, which indicates how both felds continue
to progress. By highlighting the current shifts, we intend to lay a foundation that others can use to
continue conceptualizing the integration of science and language in ways that can better support and
challenge not only multilingual learners but all learners.
We use the term “multilingual learners” to designate students who are educated in predominantly
English-language instructional settings but whose home languages are other than or in addition to
English (González-Howard & Suárez, 2021; Grapin, 2021; Lee, 2021). Changes in the terms used
over the years to describe this population refect conceptual shifts from defcit to asset orientations as
well as policy shifts, as described next.
The federal legislation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 used the terms “lim-
ited English profcient students” and “LEP students”, which have been criticized for the defcit
view explicit in centering limited profciency in English language without recognition of other lan-
guage profciencies. Alternative terms emerged from the feld but were also criticized. For example,
“non-English language backgrounds” was found to be faulty because it centered English profciency,
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Multilingual Learners in Science Education
and “culturally and linguistically diverse students” was criticized for being too broad and for using
“diverse students” as code for racially and ethnically minoritized student groups. To replace the term
“limited English profcient” in the NCLB, “English language learners” (or ELLs) and then “English
learners” (or ELs) were subsequently adopted as less objectionable terms and have been widely used
in the feld.
The federally legislated Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 adopted the term “English
learners”, indicating a conscious shift away from a defcit orientation at the federal policy level. The
academic feld continued to point out that the term English learners, while less defcit oriented,
maintains the exclusive focus on English language and fails to recognize and value other languages
spoken by students. The alternative term “emerging (or emergent) bilinguals” gained popularity but
was also viewed as problematic, as “emerging” indicates lower levels of English language profciency
(ELP); “bilinguals” fails to recognize students who are multilingual; and “bilinguals” is associated
with bilingual education, which has its own controversial history.
Most recently, the term “multilingual learners” has gained favor as being descriptive and indicative
of an asset view of students. We anticipate this term will be the most widely adopted in the coming
years. For example, WIDA English-language development standards in US K–12 education uses the
term “multilingual learners” (see https://wida.wisc.edu/sites/default/fles/resource/WIDA-ELD-
Standards-Framework-2020.pdf; note that WIDA is not an acronym but rather the organization
name). In this chapter, we use the term “multilingual learners” to highlight that all students use the
full range of meaning-making resources available to them for engaging in and communicating about
science, both in and out of academic settings. We use the full term, multilingual learners, rather
than the acronym of MLs, as we believe that the education feld’s consistent overuse of acronyms to
describe students is potentially dehumanizing to individuals and groups who can come to be seen as
little more than such labels.
The chapter is organized into the following sections. We begin with a discussion of the shifting
policies, theoretical grounding, and instructional approaches that have led the science education
feld to begin moving from traditional to contemporary perspectives on both science learning and
language learning. Second, we describe the rationale and methods used in our review and organiza-
tion of the literature in this chapter. Third, the fndings section is organized thematically based on
prominent topic areas in the research literature for the period under review. The four major topic
areas include science learning, science instruction, science assessment, and science teacher education.
For each topic area, shifts from traditional to contemporary perspectives on science and language are
addressed. Finally, after a summary of key fndings, the chapter concludes with implications for the
feld of science education, with attention to the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the call
for racial and linguistic justice in science education.
Policy, Theory, and Practice

This section describes new developments since the early 2010s in science education and language
education with multilingual learners in terms of policy legislation, theoretical perspectives, and
instructional approaches.
Policy Legislation
Science education policy has been shaped by ongoing shifts in our understanding of what counts as
science and how children learn science. Reform eforts in the 1990s, infuenced by the documents
Science for All Americans (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1989),
Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993), and National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996),
promoted the central role of science inquiry and a focus on science content that advocated for depth
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of ideas over breadth of coverage. In the current reform since the early 2010s, the Framework (NRC,
2012) and the NGSS have led to three instructional shifts as students (1) make sense of phenomena
and problems in similar ways to how scientists and engineers engage in their professional work; (2)
engage in three-dimensional learning by blending disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering
practices, and crosscutting concepts; and (3) develop coherent understandings or storylines over time.
The Framework and the NGSS have also been used to position issues of equity more centrally in
the current reform movement (NGSS Lead States, 2013b; see also Lee et al., 2015). Prior to the
Framework, the central focus was on canonical science knowledge defned by scientists and science
teachers and often represented through authoritative texts that students were expected to absorb
through reading and writing. In the previous reform eforts in the 1990s, while substantial atten-
tion was also given to science inquiry and scientifc “habits of mind”, these “science process skills”
were both separate from and secondary to canonical science knowledge. Some students succeeded in
learning science in this way, but for many others, science neither made sense nor seemed meaning-
ful or relevant. In the contemporary approach developed from the Framework, all students are asked
to make sense of phenomena and design solutions to problems as they engage in the practices that
scientists and engineers use in their professional work. In addition, all students are encouraged to
leverage their cultural and linguistic resources, interests, and identities toward learning science, which
is further promoted through the inclusion of phenomena and problems situated in students’ homes
and communities.
At the state level, since the release of the Framework in 2012 and the NGSS in 2013, 20 states and
the District of Columbia have adopted the NGSS, and 24 additional states have developed their own
standards adapted from the Framework. This broad adoption, adaptation, and implementation of the
NGSS highlight that most multilingual learners in the nation are now expected to engage in science
according to contemporary perspectives on science learning.
Turning to the shifts in language education, the ESSA of 2015 mandates that “[each] State has
adopted English language profciency standards that . . . are aligned with the challenging State aca-
demic standards” (Every Student Succeeds Act, 20 U.S.C. § 6301, 2015, p. 24). This mandate has
several implications. First, ESSA does not say that ELP standards are expected to be met prior to
academic standards. This is a break from traditional instructional assumptions that often highlighted
the need for students to have developed a certain level of literacy in the language of instruction as
a prerequisite to engaging in content learning in the disciplines. This traditional view often led to
pull-out programs for multilingual learners to teach English with a focus on basic communication
skills, vocabulary, and grammar instead of push-in models with disciplinary language supports. In
contrast, the contemporary view is supported by federal legislation that clarifes “language prof-
ciency is not a prerequisite for content instruction, but an outcome of efective content instruction”
(NASEM, 2018, p. 10). Second, the nature of this relationship between language and content calls
for “language profciency standards [to] align to content standards and not the other way around”
(NASEM, 2018, p. 10). This means that, for science, “the language to be learned needs to focus
on the important STEM content and what is known about how children learn STEM content”
(NASEM, 2018, p. 10). Thus, multilingual learners are expected to engage in science regardless of
their English language profciency and are expected to learn content and language in parallel, not
in series.
At the state level, the WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework, 2020 Edition
(WIDA Consortium, 2020) provides a clear picture of the shift from traditional to contemporary
perspectives on how ELP standards can be aligned with content standards in English language arts,
mathematics, science, and social studies (Lee et al., 2013; Lee & Stephens, 2020). Compared to the
2012 edition of WIDA based on traditional perspectives on the relationship between content and
language with multilingual learners (Lee, 2018), the 2020 edition represents more contemporary
perspectives (Grapin & Lee, 2022; Lee, 2019). For example, the focus on multimodality goes beyond
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the traditional linguistic modalities (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in English language
arts to include a range of visual, multimedia, and kinesthetic modalities that are central to the science
and engineering practices. In addition, the more expansive conception of meaning-making extends
to multiple languages, including translanguaging practices, expanding the vision of language learning
beyond English language development. Further, the adoption of the term “multilingual learner” in
these standards is notable considering that ESSA continues to use “English learner”. In the coming
years, the WIDA 2020 edition will be implemented across 35 US states, the District of Columbia,
and 4 territories and agencies that, collectively, make up the WIDA Consortium (https://wida.wisc.
edu/memberships/consortium).
The science education community now has a broad consensus across policy, research, and practice
on what counts as science and how children learn science. Despite the promise of the latest WIDA
standards, the multilingual learner education community has not yet developed a consensus on what
language is and does and how language is learned (Lee, 2019). Currently, there are multiple sets of
ELP standards, multiple theoretical perspectives, and multiple instructional approaches advocated in
multilingual learner education (Lee, 2019). This lack of consensus presents challenges for collabora-
tion with science education and other content area education. Despite these challenges, the science
education research community, frmly grounded in its own consensus, is in a good position to forge
meaningful collaborations with other felds, including language education.
Theoretical Perspectives
Much like the shifts in instructional approaches driven by contemporary perspectives on science
learning and language learning, there have been parallel shifts in the theoretical perspectives that
underlie the teaching of science with multilingual learners. In science learning, traditional perspec-
tives have focused on how learners gain mastery of discrete science concepts, whereas contemporary
perspectives emphasize students making sense of phenomena and problems much as scientists and
engineers do in their professional work (NRC, 2012). Because contemporary perspectives involve
using and applying knowledge for a particular purpose, they have been referred to as knowledge-in-use
(Harris et al., 2016).
In language learning, traditional perspectives on supporting disciplinary knowledge building have
focused on discrete elements of vocabulary (lexicon) and grammar (syntax) to be internalized by
learners, whereas contemporary perspectives emphasize that language is a set of meaning-making
practices learned through participation in social contexts (Larsen-Freeman, 2007; Valdés, 2015).
Because contemporary perspectives involve using language for a particular purpose, they have been
referred to as language-in-use (Lee et al., 2013). Thus, the contemporary perspectives of language
learning promote multilingual learners’ engaging in rigorous science experiences and rich language
use through the mutually supportive nature of science and language (Lee et al., 2019; NASEM,
2018).
As multilingual learners engage in science and engineering practices (e.g., developing models,
arguing from evidence, constructing explanations), they use language for the purpose of making
sense of phenomena and problems through interactions with peers and their teachers. In this way,
multilingual learners use language and other meaning-making resources purposefully while engag-
ing in science and communicating science ideas (Lee et al., 2013). The focus is on “what language
does” (i.e., the functional use of language for a purpose), in addition to “what language is” (i.e.,
structural elements of language, including vocabulary and grammar; Grapin et al., 2019). This shift
in theoretical orientation supports the call for multilingual learners to use the widest possible range
of meaning-making resources to communicate their increasingly sophisticated science ideas with
growing precision over the course of instruction (for an example, see NASEM, 2018, Box 3–1 on
pp. 64–65).
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Instructional Approaches
The instructional shifts called for in the NGSS are expectations for all learners, and not just for
high-achieving or English-profcient students, resulting in a goal of “all standards, all students” (Lee
et al., 2015; NGSS Lead States, 2013b). Considering both the needs and the assets of multilingual
learners specifcally, a consortium of language and content area communities came together under
the auspices of the Understanding Language Initiative to provide an initial framework for integrat-
ing science and language with multilingual learners (Lee et al., 2013). Policy frameworks, such as
the NGSS and the Understanding Language Initiative, provide guidance for shaping instructional
approaches.
More recently, the NASEM convened a panel of experts across language and STEM subjects and
released the English Learners in STEM Subjects consensus report (NASEM, 2018). The report helps
clarify what we have defned in Table 10.1 as contemporary perspectives on science education, with
teachers expected to
• Identify compelling phenomena and problems for their students to fgure out
• Engage students in disciplinary practices in STEM subjects
• Engage students in productive discourse and interactions with peers as well as the teacher
• Encourage students to use multiple modalities, including both linguistic and nonlinguistic
modalities, and multiple registers as they move toward the use of specialized registers
• Leverage multiple meaning-making resources for communication, including physical objects,
gestures, everyday language, home language, and translanguaging
• Provide some explicit focus on how language functions in the discipline (i.e., metalanguage or
language about language)
These contemporary instructional approaches highlight several key features for how science learn-
ing and language learning can be mutually supportive (Lee & Stephens, 2020). First, these instruc-
tional approaches begin with attention to science learning and then integrate language learning as
needed for learning science. Using language for the functional goal of doing and learning science in
contemporary instructional approaches difers from building (pre-teaching) vocabulary and gram-
mar as a prerequisite to learning about STEM subjects, as is common in traditional instructional
approaches. This instructional approach is mandated by the ESSA as described earlier. Second, stu-
dent engagement in varied forms of classroom discourse, interactions, multimodalities, and registers
while doing and learning science points to the sweet spot where science and language intersect in
mutually supportive ways. Finally, as multilingual learners engage in science and use language for sci-
ence learning, they develop disciplinary language over time, as an outcome of doing science. This
view of language for science further paves the way for deeper engagement in scientifc thinking,
doing, and communicating. Over time, as multilingual learners develop more sophisticated under-
standing of science, they develop more disciplinary language to communicate science ideas with
precision.
Methodology
The framing of this chapter around the shifts from traditional to contemporary perspectives on both
science learning and language learning (see Table 10.1) has led us to certain methodological choices
for how to search the literature and how to represent it. Unlike a conventional systematic review
based on keywords, we consider the methodology for this chapter to be an interpretive synthesis
review of the literature. By this, we mean that the review and analysis are based on a conceptual
framework, a strategically selected set of journals, and a set time period.
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Our intention is to highlight the shifts from traditional to contemporary perspectives on science
learning and language learning that have occurred since the 2014 publication of the previous volume
of this handbook. Our categorization is an initial attempt to operationalize this distinction both for
science and for language. Integrating these perspectives is challenging in part because, while the sci-
ence education community has reached a consensus about traditional and contemporary perspectives
on science and science learning, the second language learning education community does not have a
similar consensus for language and language learning. As science educators, we are not in a position
to fully resolve the question of traditional and contemporary perspectives on language education;
thus, we wish to err on the side of simplicity in our conceptualization of language perspectives. We
ofer our characterization of contemporary perspectives on language education in hopes of extending
a conversation between language educators and science educators. As the two science educators who
were panelists on the NASEM consensus report, we feel the responsibility to push the feld toward
agreed-upon contemporary perspectives on science and language education.
Selection of High-Visibility Journals

Rather than conducting a comprehensive database search of the literature around science educa-
tion and multilingual learners, we purposefully selected key journals and then conducted a manual
search of all issues of those journals for the period 2014–2020. In identifying the journals to include,
we selected journals that met at least one of the following two criteria. First, we focused on jour-
nals that represent the major professional associations that infuence our feld (e.g., the Journal of
Science Teacher Education is the ofcial journal of the Association of Science Teacher Education).
Second, we considered journals with a high impact on the feld of science education, operational-
ized as journals with an average impact factor above 3.0 during the time frame of our review. We
reviewed a total of 11 journals, organized into 3 groups. We describe them here in terms of fve
elements: journal name, criteria met for inclusion, number of issues per year, purpose or focus of
the journal, and types of articles the journal publishes. We note as a limitation of this approach that
these journals obviously do not fully capture what has been published on this topic during the time
frame in question. They do, however, capture the most visible and impactful work on the topic
that continues to shape the feld.
The frst group of journals are specifc to the feld of science education. In this group we included
four journals. The International Journal of Science Education (IJSE) is the journal of the European Sci-
ence Education Research Association. IJSE publishes 18 issues per year, focuses on international
contexts and issues in science education, and publishes a mix of empirical studies and conceptual/
theoretical articles. The Journal of Research on Science Teaching (JRST) is the journal of the NARST
organization. JRST publishes ten issues per year, mostly addresses US issues in science education, and
almost exclusively publishes empirical studies. The Journal of Science Teacher Education (JSTE) is the
journal of the Association of Science Teacher Education. JSTE publishes eight issues per year; focuses
on the initial preparation and ongoing professional development of science teachers, primarily in the
US context; and publishes primarily empirical studies. Science Education (SE) is not associated with
a specifc professional organization but has a high impact factor both currently and historically. SE
publishes six issues per year; addresses a broad range of issues in science education, mostly within
the US context; and includes a range of empirical and conceptual studies, essays, reviews, and com-
mentaries. We currently regard these four journals to currently be the most infuential in science
education.
Second, we considered a group of journals we conceptualized as high-visibility journals in topical
areas in which the connection to science and multilingual learners should be evident. We included
four journals in this group. The Journal of the Learning Sciences (JLS) is the journal of the International
Society of the Learning Sciences. JLS publishes four issues per year; focuses on topics and issues
297
related to learning from across the disciplines, including science; and publishes mostly empirical
studies, with occasional conceptual/theoretical articles. The Journal of Teacher Education (JTE) is the
journal of the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education. JTE publishes fve issues per
year; focuses on the initial preparation and ongoing professional development of teachers broadly,
primarily in the US context; and publishes a mix of empirical studies, theoretical papers, and edito-
rials. The TESOL Quarterly (TQ) is the journal of the TESOL international association. TQ pub-
lishes four issues per year; addresses issues central to teaching English to speakers of other languages,
from across international contexts; and includes a range of empirical and conceptual studies, essays,
reviews, and commentaries. The Journal of Science Education and Technology (JOST) is not associated
with a specifc professional organization but has a high impact factor and addresses the critical and
fast-growing topic of technology in science education. JOST publishes six issues per year, addresses
applications of technology in the teaching and learning of science, is international in scope, and pub-
lishes predominantly empirical studies.
Third, we considered the three major journals of the American Educational Research Association
(AERA) as high-visibility journals that address the full range of topics in educational research and
have an infuence on all education felds, including science education and language education. This
group of journals included the American Educational Research Journal (AERJ), Educational Researcher
(ER), and Review of Educational Research (RER). AERJ publishes six issues per year, addresses topics of
broad interest to the education research community, and publishes predominantly empirical studies.
ER publishes nine issues per year; addresses timely topics of broad educational relevance, primarily in
the US context; and publishes a mix of conceptual studies, essays, reviews, and commentaries. RER
publishes six issues per year, addresses topics of broad interest to the education research community,
and publishes only literature reviews.
When taken together, these 11 journals provide a robust look at how the topic of science educa-
tion with multilingual learners has been represented in the research literature, what subtopics and
themes have been most prominent, and how the shift from traditional to contemporary perspectives
on science learning and language learning has appeared in the literature.
Review of Journal Articles

For the 11 journals we identifed, both authors conducted a manual search of every volume and issue
from 2014 through 2020. We chose this time frame both because the last volume of the handbook
ended with literature in 2013 and because 2013 was when the NGSS was newly published, repre-
senting a turning point in the feld of science education. We completed our search with the end of
2020 to include the last full year possible for this chapter, given that only a fraction of 2021 publica-
tions are available at the time of this writing. Manual searching allowed us to see the full landscape of
research over this period and the major ideas in these felds as represented in high-visibility journals.
In this way, we got a clear perspective on how the topic of science education with multilingual
learners ft within science education research in this time frame, as well as how the new generation
of policies and framing documents has infuenced the relevant research literature.
A total of 104 articles were identifed as relevant to our topic, including editorials, conceptual
pieces, and empirical studies in contexts that spanned the globe. Table 10.2 shows a summary of these
articles by journal and across years. For each journal and year, we report the number of included
articles in the format T/C, where T indicates the number of articles that take a traditional perspec-
tive on either science learning or language learning or both, and C indicates the number of articles
that take a contemporary perspective on both science and language learning. As described earlier,
and operationalized in Table 10.1, we defne the contemporary and traditional perspectives based
on the NASEM (2018) consensus report and subsequent elaboration in Lee et al. (2019). We classify
publications that adopted a mixed approach (e.g., contemporary science with traditional language)
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Table 10.2 Included Publications by Journal, Year, and Perspective
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Total
Traditional (T)/ Contemporary (C) 16/4 6/3 6/4 6/3 5/5 7/10 13/16 59/45
(Yearly total) (20) (9) (10) (9) (10) (17) (29) (104)
Science education journals 43/34 (77)
Journal of Research in Science Teaching 2/1 2/2 2/1 0/0 2/0 0/1 2/2 10/7 (17)
Science Education 1/0 1/1 0/0 1/0 0/4 1/3 1/3 5/11 (16)
International Journal of Science Education 5/1 0/0 1/1 1/2 1/0 4/2 7/5 19/11 (30)
Journal of Science Teacher Education 4/1 0/0 1/1 3/0 0/0 1/2 0/1 9/5 (14)
Related topical area journals 7/4 (11)
Journal of the Learning Sciences 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 (0)
Journal of Teacher Education 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 1/0 2/1 3/1 (4)
TESOL Quarterly 1/1 0/0 0/0 0/0 1/0 0/1 0/1 2/3 (5)
Journal of Science Education & Technology 0/0 1/0 0/0 0/0 1/0 0/0 0/0 2/0 (2)
AERA Journals 9/7 (16)
Educational Researcher 0/0 1/0 0/0 0/1 0/1 0/1 0/1 1/4 (5)
Review of Educational Research 2/0 0/0 1/0 1/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 4/0 (4)
American Educational Research Journal 1/0 1/0 1/1 0/0 0/0 0/0 1/2 4/3 (7)
as traditional due to our understanding that contemporary perspectives on science and language are
mutually supportive, with both necessary to push the feld toward the integrated vision of science
and language learning advocated in this chapter. In the fndings sections, we disaggregate and discuss
the diferences between studies that take a traditional perspective on language but a contemporary
perspective on science from those that take a contemporary perspective on language but a traditional
perspective on science. In Table 10.2, however, we have collapsed these for simplicity such that a
traditional perspective on science, on language, or on both are grouped together in the traditional
perspective.
The two authors reviewed all studies, categorizing each study as taking a contemporary or tra-
ditional perspective for science and language separately. Initial disagreements in classifcation were
reconciled through discussion.
Themes and Organization of Findings

In examining Table 10.2, four themes are evident. First, when considering the total number of
articles by year across all journals, a peak in 2014 is followed by a decline in 2015, a low plateau from
2016 to 2018, and then a substantial upswing in the fnal two years of 2019 and 2020. We see the
peak in 2014 as representing interest in this topic of linguistic diversity in science learning that had
been on the rise due to policy shifts and reports on changing demographics in the early 2010s. Many
studies from this period were reviewed in the chapter from the prior edition of the handbook. After
a decreased focus from 2015 to 2018, attention to multilingual learners, and equity issues in science
education more broadly, began increasing again in 2019 and surged to new highs in 2020.
Second, when looking across the three groups of journals (science education, related topical areas,
and broad AERA journals), the vast majority of the research on science education and multilingual
learners has consistently been published in the science education journals. Little of this work has
spilled over into either the related topical area journals or the broad interest AERA journals.
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Third, an overall pattern can be seen in the separation of articles into traditional and contem-
porary perspectives on science and language. While both contemporary and traditional perspec-
tives can be found across the years, there has been an overall shift from predominantly traditional
perspectives in the earlier part of this time frame to predominantly contemporary perspectives in
the past few years.
Finally, a pattern that cannot be seen in the table based on frequency counts is the variation in
topics that are the focus of the publications on science education with multilingual learners. We
initially sorted the publications into the following topics: science learning, science instruction, sci-
ence assessment, science curriculum, science teacher initial preparation, science teacher professional
development, science standards, family engagement through science, and access to science learning.
After taking the quantity of studies into account for each topic, we focused on the four most fre-
quent topics: science learning, science instruction, science assessment, and science teacher education
(combining initial preparation and continued professional learning). In the fndings section, for each
of these four topics, we highlight what the shift from traditional to contemporary perspectives looks
like. We briefy describe the less frequently addressed topics at the beginning of the fndings section,
with all relevant references included. We begin with these less frequent topics because we see them
as emerging themes that require increased research attention moving forward.
As we noted in the earlier discussion of the evolving terms used to describe multilingual learn-
ers, the word choices used in this area of scholarship continue to evolve in ways that refect changes
in the feld. In the fndings section, we have applied two conventions in our use of terms. First,
when we describe studies, we generally use the terms that are used by the authors of those studies.
When we interpret studies, however, we use the terms that represent contemporary perspectives. For
example, the term “academic language” is highlighted in multiple studies and continues to be used
in documents that guide policy and practice, such as ESSA and edTPA (a common teacher perfor-
mance assessment). However, we see the rigid dichotomy that often defnes academic language in
opposition to everyday language as a traditional perspective. Similarly for science, the term “science
inquiry” continues to be a central construct in some current studies. While a focus on science inquiry
was a valuable improvement for science learning in the prior wave of reforms, we now see inquiry
as a traditional perspective that is being replaced by a focus on science and engineering practices.
Thus, we avoid the terms academic language and science inquiry in our interpretations of the studies,
preferring the terms “disciplinary registers” and “science and engineering practices”. Second, when
key terms in the literature on multilingual learners (e.g., translanguaging, multimodality, register) are
frst used in descriptions of studies, we explain these terms in the context of science education. Our
intent is to establish common language and shared understanding of contemporary perspectives on
multilingual learners in science education.
For each of the four major topics of fndings we began by characterizing themes in the studies
that were identifed as using a traditional perspective. If either science or language was conceptual-
ized from a traditional perspective, we believe that this limited the efectiveness of the other feld
to build contemporary understanding, and thus we categorized the study as traditional. For tradi-
tional perspectives, we highlighted one study within each theme and then provided references for
the other studies, as these perspectives are well established in the feld and do not require as much
elaboration.
In contrast, when studies took a contemporary perspective on both science and language, these
perspectives were mutually reinforcing. We provided a more detailed discussion of the studies that
worked from contemporary perspectives on both science and language. As these perspectives are still
emerging, a broader range of examples can highlight the research directions that the feld is currently
taking. In describing each study, we highlighted those aspects that resonated with contemporary
perspectives on science and language rather than describing the research methods or results, as might
have been done in a comprehensive literature review.
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Findings About Less Frequent Topics

Several topics in our corpus of literature did not include enough publications to categorize themati-
cally. For each of these topics we provide a summary of the research in that topic area. In some cases,
these are emerging topics that we expect will gain greater prominence moving forward. In other
cases, these topics may remain peripheral. We note that, as for all the topics covered in this review,
there are additional relevant publications in journals that are outside the bounds of our search for this
chapter. Readers wishing to explore these topics further will fnd relevant literature beyond what is
referenced here. Because of the limited number of studies and the limited treatment they are given
in this chapter, we do not separate these publications by contemporary and traditional perspectives.
We briefy describe these less frequent topics before moving on to the four major topics with greater
representation in the literature.
The frst theme involves science curriculum with multilingual learners. These publications
included conceptual papers framing characteristics of curriculum materials to support multilingual
learners in science as well as empirical studies that tested specifc curriculum materials. Publications
that focused on the role of curriculum with multilingual learners included Lee et al. (2019), Smith
et al. (2017), and Kibler et al. (2014). Publications that focused on the use of particular curricu-
lum materials with multilingual learners included Meyerhöfer and Dreesmann (2019a), Terrazas-
Arellanes et al. (2018), Llosa et al. (2016), and Lee et al. (2016). We note that the research by Lee and
colleagues illustrates the transition from traditional perspectives (Lee et al., 2016; Llosa et al., 2016)
to contemporary perspectives (Lee et al., 2019) in work by the same research team.
A second theme involves science standards with multilingual learners. This body of work was
represented by a series of essays published by Lee in Educational Researcher. Taken together, these
publications argue for the need to clarify and align contemporary perspectives on both science and
language through standards that can guide policy, research, and practice. The series of essays included
Lee (2017, 2018, 2019) and Lee and Stephens (2020).
A third theme involves family engagement in science with multilingual learners. While there
is ample research in the broader literature on family engagement to support science learning with
students from marginalized groups, the topic is poorly represented in the high-visibility journals that
are the focus of this chapter. The two studies we identifed both address the role of informal science
learning spaces for supporting multilingual families in engaging with science, in one case through an
informal science center (Weiland, 2015) and in the other case in a science museum (Dawson, 2014).
A fnal theme involves access to science learning for multilingual learners. Studies in this theme
fell largely within the area of policy analysis and typically used large data sets to look at broad ques-
tions of access resulting from policies and practices, such as tracking, types of supports provided, and
assessments of readiness for grade-level content. Studies of the efects of tracking on access for multi-
lingual learners included Kangas and Cook (2020), Umansky (2016), and Kanno and Kangas (2014).
Studies that looked at other aspects of access to science learning for multilingual students included
Johnson (2020), which considered the role of summer credit recovery programs, and Adamuti-
Trache and Sweet (2014), which considered assessments of readiness for grade-level content.
We now turn to the four topics that accounted for most of the studies we identifed in this review,
starting with the topic of science learning.
Findings About Science Learning

The most common topic of the articles reviewed was a focus on science learning, with 30 of the
104 total publications attending primarily to student learning. We start from traditional perspectives,
organized into studies that were traditional for science but contemporary for language, those that
were traditional for language but contemporary for science, and those that were traditional for both.
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We discuss one sample study from each group and then identify the other studies within that group.
Following that, we organize the studies that evidenced contemporary perspectives on both science
and language into themes, discussing each study specifcally in terms of how it represents contem-
porary perspectives.
Traditional Perspectives
Of the 30 publications focused on science learning, 15 refected traditional perspectives on science
or language or both. Seven studies presented contemporary perspectives on language learning but
indicate traditional perspectives on science learning. As one example, Charamba (2020) examined
eighth-grade students’ use of their multiple languages in a South African science classroom. The
author used a contemporary translanguaging perspective on multilingualism to show how middle
school students studying natural sciences used both their home language resources and English lan-
guage resources fuidly and purposefully as they engaged in peer group discussions and teacher-led
discussions to support multilingual language development during science learning. The concept of
translanguaging was proposed by García and Wei (2014) as a theoretical and pedagogical lens for
seeing the ways in which multilingual learners draw from all their available semiotic resources to
make meaning. Otheguy et al. (2015) defned translanguaging as “the deployment of a speaker’s full
linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defned
boundaries of named languages” (p. 281). In his study, Charamba adopted this contemporary per-
spective on language-in-use, but science was still presented as a body of extant canonical knowledge
that should be discussed to build understanding rather than experienced. As a result, the learning
opportunities fostered by the contemporary approach to language were limited by the traditional
approach to science. Other studies that likewise utilized a contemporary perspective on language
but a traditional perspective on science included Meyerhöfer and Dreesmann (2019b), Ünsal et al.
(2018), Dafouz et al. (2018), Zhang (2016), Seah et al. (2014), and Lo and Lo (2014).
Four of the studies on science learning conceptualized students’ language learning in traditional
ways while considering science learning in contemporary ways. These studies tended to make a
distinction between everyday language and academic language in science, conceptualizing these as
being two distinct language registers. Register refers to the various ways people use language while
engaging in diferent kinds of activities for diferent purposes. While a traditional perspective on reg-
isters views academic language and everyday language as both distinct and hierarchical, a contempo-
rary perspective on language registers sees everyday language and academic language as a continuum
and recognizes all language as being useful for doing science in diferent contexts and at diferent
points in the process of science learning. For example, Tretter et al. (2019) created extended science
supports, such as planetarium-based visualization activities, and extended literacy supports, such as
learning from science-focused graphic novels and trade books. The planetarium-based visualization
activities focused students on making sense of phenomena in the night sky, like how astronomers
engage in their work. However, the linguistic focus was on building academic language as a privi-
leged register for expressing science learning that was distinct from everyday language. Because the
literacy supports were conceptualized and utilized separately from science supports, with a focus
on explicit structured vocabulary and reading instruction to build academic language, learners may
come to see these two sets of resources as supporting separate learning goals, and teachers may come
to see pre-teaching of vocabulary and language supports as necessary for students to engage in sci-
ence. Other publications that highlighted contemporary perspectives on science learning but failed
to connect this with contemporary views of language included Lan and de Oliveira (2019), Jackson
et al. (2019), and Van Laere et al. (2014).
The fnal theme included four studies that conceptualized both science and language from tradi-
tional perspectives. For example, Ryoo (2015) conducted a quasi-experiment in which ffth-grade
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multilingual learners were assigned to either an everyday English approach or a textbook approach as
they engaged in technology-enhanced instruction about photosynthesis and respiration. The students
who were taught the concepts frst in everyday, conversational English before learning content-
specifc scientifc terms developed a more coherent understanding of abstract concepts related to
photosynthesis and respiration than the students who were taught the same concepts and vocabulary
simultaneously using a textbook approach. This study highlights that there can still be valuable lessons
learned from research that has taken traditional perspectives while also pointing to the limitations of
traditional perspectives on science and language. Other studies that ft into this theme included Ryoo
et al. (2018) and Ryu (2015a, 2015b) that focused on how multilingual learners were positioned
based on their content knowledge and discursive practices. These studies maintained rigid distinc-
tions between everyday language and disciplinary language for science learning, refecting traditional
perspectives on language and science.
Contemporary Perspectives
We turn to studies that demonstrated contemporary perspectives on both science and language
learning, accounting for the other 15 of the 30 publications in this topic, which are categorized
into three themes: centering science and engineering practices to guide language use by engaging in
those practices, linguistic and nonlinguistic forms of multimodal communication for doing science
together, and translanguaging approaches to support multilingual language development through
content learning.
Centering Science and Engineering Practices to Guide

Language Use by Engaging in Those Practices
Several studies centered on one or more of the science and engineering practices to guide how
language develops by engaging in those practices. In one example, a study by Harper (2017)
focused on the practice of constructing explanations and designing solutions to promote bilin-
gual language development toward both cultural sustenance and mastery of this practice. Karen
(a minority ethnic population from Burma) elementary students in an afterschool club co-taught
with a Karen community member engaged in science and engineering practices and cultural
explorations grounded in their community. Photovoice methodology was used to engage stu-
dents in science and engineering in their lives and communities, as they used the photos to
construct scientifc explanations based on evidence. The Karen co-teacher led students in weekly
Karen language lessons that were tied both to cultural knowledge and scientifc explanations.
The study revealed a pattern of emerging agency by Karen students regarding both constructing
explanations and maintaining and strengthening their profciency in the Karen language. The
author suggested that place-based science embedded within a cross-cultural learning community
can empower refugee students to construct their own hybrid knowledge that can support both
language learning and science learning.
Three studies used the practice of engaging in argument from evidence to support students’ lan-
guage use. In one example, González-Howard and McNeill (2016) maintained that despite expecta-
tions that NGSS will result in all students engaging in language-rich opportunities that science and
engineering practices can support, most science educators are not prepared and do not have the
needed resources to create such opportunities with multilingual learners. The authors presented
a case study of multilingual students’ argumentation practices in sheltered English immersion in a
middle school science classroom. They found that intentional student grouping played a critical role
for multilingual students to have robust opportunities to engage in science argumentation. When stu-
dents worked in pairs with partners who shared their home language and were supported in utilizing
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both their home language and second language (i.e., English) as linguistic resources for engaging in
science discourse, their engagement in science argumentation was enhanced in ways that supported
both conceptual development and language development.
In another study with a focus on argumentation, Wilson-Lopez et al. (2018) provided examples
of how engineering can serve to validate multilingual students’ experiences as valuable assets for
doing science. By focusing on the role of engineering in solving social problems, the researchers
found that participants’ multilingualism became an important asset for accomplishing the real-world
goals of engineering. For example, participants’ ability to communicate in Spanish with commu-
nity stakeholders was a valued form of intellectual and social capital because this communication
enabled the students to create designs that met actual community needs rather than focus on designs
solely based on scientifc thinking. Using engineering as an example of a discipline that requires
responsiveness to clients, multilingual students came to see the ability to communicate orally and
in writing with linguistically diverse clients as an asset that empowered them to consider science-
and engineering-related aspirations more seriously. The researchers concluded that as a vehicle
for learning science and language, engaging in engineering practices provided opportunities for
multilingual youths’ science- and language-related resources to be recognized, legitimized, and put
to good use.
Hand et al. (2018) also centered the practice of arguing from evidence in a study of the impact of
an argument-based approach to teaching science on elementary students’ science learning and critical
thinking. In a large-scale, cluster-randomized study involving 48 schools and approximately 10,000
students, annual standardized tests assessing science content knowledge plus a supplemental assess-
ment of critical thinking were used to assess the argument-based intervention. While not focused
explicitly on multilingual learners, they were one of two student subgroups who benefted from
the intervention. While the researchers found no statistically signifcant gains for science content
knowledge, they did fnd statistically signifcant evidence that the intervention was associated with
improved critical thinking, with the strongest gains found for multilingual learners and students with
special needs.
Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Forms of Multimodal

Communication for Doing Science Together
A second theme within the contemporary perspective involves students leveraging linguistic and
nonlinguistic modes of communication as they engage in science learning, with particular attention
to the underappreciated importance of nonlinguistic modalities. Multimodality indicates that in addi-
tion to linguistic modalities, we use nonlinguistic resources for communication, including gestures,
visual displays (e.g., diagrams, graphs, symbols), and other representations (e.g., artifacts, formulas)
that ofer afordances for meaning making (Bezemer & Kress, 2015).
The most progressive studies within this theme considered nonlinguistic modalities that stood
in for or existed beyond language as they supported disciplinary practices. In a case study of one
multilingual newcomer student, Siry and Gorges (2020) intentionally looked beyond written and
spoken language to describe the diverse range of communicative resources that this student used to
express her understandings during an investigation of sound. The authors highlighted the multiple
modalities this student used to make her understandings visible to her peers and teacher, including
gestures, facial expressions, and drawings, both in whole-class discussions and small-group interac-
tions. This study built on an earlier publication (Wilmes & Siry, 2018) that used a conceptual framing
of interaction rituals to describe another newcomer student’s interactions with peers during small
group science investigations. The authors found that this student’s persistent use of nonverbal par-
ticipation strategies resulted in higher levels of group inclusion and participation with his classmates.
Together, these two studies highlight the often-overlooked value of silent, embodied participation in
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inquiry-oriented instruction that is possible for multilingual students who are new to the language
of instruction.
Similarly, Grapin (2019) argued that despite seemingly widespread agreement in science educa-
tion on the value and importance of multimodal engagement for supporting science learning, there
is considerable variability in how multimodality is conceptualized. Specifcally, Grapin pointed to
distinctions between understandings of multimodality in multilingual education and in disciplinary
areas, such as science. He proposed to clarify these distinctions through a framing of weak and strong
versions of multimodality. Weak multimodality is conceptualized as privileging language while rel-
egating nonlinguistic modalities to the role of scafolds for language development with multilingual
learners. This is similar to the role of home language in transitional models of bilingual education,
where the goal is to transition students from the home language to English as quickly and efciently
as possible. In contrast, Grapin’s strong version of multimodality positions multiple modes of com-
munication as essential for engaging in disciplinary practices, with nonlinguistic modalities having
inherent value beyond serving as a transitional scafold toward language. Providing an example of
strong multimodality, the author analyzed fourth-grade science work samples to illustrate how stu-
dents utilized multimodality during scientifc modeling. Grapin concluded that science educators
must embrace the strong version of multimodality as part of a contemporary perspective on disciplin-
ary learning, as all students are now expected to leverage their full meaning-making repertoires while
engaging in disciplinary practices.
Other studies in this theme looked at linguistic and nonlinguistic modalities working together in
support of science learning. Wu et al. (2019) described students communicating through hybrid lan-
guage, by which they mean communication through multiple modalities, including natural language,
visual representations, mathematical expressions, and manual operations. The purpose of this study
was to investigate how eighth-grade multilingual students used hybrid language both to demonstrate
their knowledge of science concepts related to soil erosion and to engage in the science practice of
argumentation. The researchers found that multilingual students who more fully integrated mul-
tiple modalities into their hybrid language, such as by clearly connecting written claims with visual
representations, tended to construct stronger arguments than those students who did not regularly
integrate multiple modalities in their science meaning making.
Similarly, Britsch (2020) examined how linguistic and nonlinguistic communication were mutu-
ally supportive as semiotic resources for both science and language learning when intentionally scaf-
folded for eighth-grade multilingual learners during a unit on surface tension. However, this study
also pointed to challenges that arise when the teacher and students have diferent ideas about the role
of nonlinguistic communication. Britsch found that the teacher saw nonlinguistic communication
primarily as a transitional tool for keeping students engaged and on task (Grapin’s weak multimodal-
ity), while the students were engaging in nonlinguistic communication in attempts to build concep-
tual understanding (Grapin’s strong multimodality). The researcher concluded that whether focusing
on linguistic or nonlinguistic modalities, students need communicative scafolding that explicitly
helps them link what they are doing with science to the conceptual understanding they are meant
to gain.
Finally, Williams and Tang (2020) conducted a review of 40 empirical studies published between
1995 and 2019 that seemed to rely at least partly on the afordances of nonlinguistic modalities to
support multilingual students’ science learning but that did not prominently feature this role of non-
linguistic modalities in the reported results. The review sought to reframe these research fndings,
frst by calling into question the traditional language assumptions that guided the interpretations of
nonlinguistic modalities in these studies and then by providing an updated interpretation through a
contemporary perspective on language. The authors ofer educators new ways to think about the role
of nonlinguistic modalities in their teaching while presenting multilingual learners with alternative
avenues for sense-making.
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Translanguaging Approaches to Support Multilingual

Language Development Through Content Learning
Translanguaging pedagogies, as described earlier, are generally associated with contemporary per-
spectives on language learning but do not necessarily imply contemporary perspectives on science
learning. Several recent publications combine contemporary perspectives on science with a contem-
porary translanguaging perspective on language development. Suárez (2020) used translanguaging
both theoretically and pedagogically to frame how multilingual elementary students in an after-
school program used a broad range of semiotic moves that leveraged ideas expressed in both English
and Spanish to engage with science practices as they investigated phenomena involving electricity.
By attending to these multilingual students’ disciplinary engagement, the author challenged assump-
tions about what educators should expect from multilingual elementary students in terms of their
science sense-making and communication. Studies of this kind show how to move beyond binary
views of named languages that too often result in pedagogical models that promote rigid linguistic
boundaries and toward a fuid and holistic conception of linguistic resources.
A similar study by Karlsson et al. (2019) considered how a translanguaging science classroom for
elementary students in Sweden supported their use of frst and second languages as they built seman-
tic relationships among science understandings over time and across science topics. Using what the
authors referred to as linguistic loops between multiple languages and discourses, the study found
that consistent support over time for translanguaging in the science classroom created resources and
opportunities for students to engage in joint negotiations about varied scientifc content. Trans-
languaging allowed students to relate and contextualize these science concepts to their prior lived
experiences. Karlsson and colleagues argued that translanguaging science classrooms can provide
opportunities for students’ diverse cultural and linguistic resources and experiences to interweave
with school science when multilingual students are encouraged and guided to use all available lan-
guage resources.
Msimanga and Lelliott (2014) described how tenth-grade chemistry students in South Africa
engaged with science content during small-group work in which they were encouraged to use their
home languages as well as English. Students had robust discussions as they experienced discrepant
events in chemistry and were found to increasingly rely on their home language in these peer dis-
cussions as the science content became more complex. The researchers also examined the common
concern expressed by teachers who do not speak the home language of their students, that if students
are allowed to speak in their home language, they will not remain focused on the topic of study or
will not engage meaningfully with the academic content. In fact, the researchers found the opposite
to be true, with over 90% of student talk in their home language being on task and science focused.
Two other publications that we grouped in this theme referred to supporting students in mixing
their linguistic resources without explicitly adopting or mentioning a translanguaging framework.
For example, Ryu (2019) described how Korean–English bilingual students mixed languages as they
negotiated their participant positions and their understanding of science during a community-based
after-school science program. Similarly, Gamez and Parker (2018) discussed the role that student
language brokering (bilingual youth translating for less bilingual adults) and code-switching (speakers
alternating between diferent languages or registers) played in a reform-oriented science classroom as
mediators of the science identities and practices that newcomer students were able to enact.
Findings About Science Instruction

The second most prevalent topic was science instruction with multilingual learners, with 23 of the
104 total publications attending to this topic. We begin by briefy characterizing themes in the pub-
lications that were identifed as using a traditional framing of either science, language, or both. These
306
accounted for 17 of the 23 publications for this topic. We then provide a more detailed discussion
of themes from the six publications from contemporary perspectives on both science and language.
Four studies demonstrated contemporary perspectives about science while maintaining a traditional
perspective on language. As one example, Enderle et al. (2020) considered how teachers of deaf and
hard-of-hearing students who used American Sign Language (ASL) for communication were sup-
ported in developing strategies for engaging in the science and engineering practices of the NGSS.
While the researchers pointed to the importance of all students, including those with special needs,
engaging in the science and engineering practices as an expectation of science learning, the study
focused on the lack of current disciplinary vocabulary in ASL as the biggest limitation and most
important resource for supporting signing students in using the practices. While consideration of
ASL and other sign languages as examples of multimodal language provides a generative context for
thinking in new ways about language for science and multimodal communication, this study also
shows that vocabulary continues to exert an oversized infuence on eforts to support multilingual
students’ science sense-making. Other studies of science instruction that similarly presented a con-
temporary perspective on science but a traditional perspective on language included Block (2020),
Meyer and Crawford (2015), and Weinburgh et al. (2014).
Seven studies on the topic of science instruction highlighted a contemporary perspective on
language but a traditional perspective on science. For example, Mavuru and Ramnarain (2020)
examined science teachers’ experiences as they attempted to use students’ multiple home languages
during instruction with ninth-grade students in natural sciences classes in three South African high
schools. Using classroom observations and teacher interviews, the authors pointed to both afor-
dances and challenges of integrating learners’ home languages with the language of instruction (in
this case, English). Teachers successfully made use of learners’ home languages to facilitate concep-
tual understanding, while also encouraging their students to engage in translanguaging practices to
increase confdence needed to express personal views about science concepts and to challenge the
ideas of their peers. Teachers experienced pedagogical difculties, however, as they struggled with
their own limited scientifc language in students’ home languages. These nuanced refections on
instructional interactions around language were, however, paired with a traditional representation of
science, with instruction centering teacher-led discussions of concepts rather than engagement with
natural science phenomena through science practices. Other studies that similarly presented a tradi-
tional perspective on science blended with a contemporary perspective on language included Amin
and Badreddine (2020), Salloum and BouJaoude (2020), Bonello (2020), Seah and Silver (2020),
Ryoo and Bedell (2019), and Seah and Yore (2017).
Finally, we identifed six studies focused on science instruction that refect traditional perspectives
both on science and on language. We note that while some of these publications were empirical
studies, most were thematic reviews that, while published in the time frame of 2014–2020, predomi-
nantly reviewed studies from before this time frame and thus prior to the clarifcation of contempo-
rary perspectives. Such review studies included Pyle et al. (2017), Barrett and Liu (2016), Frantz et al.
(2015), and DiCerbo et al. (2014). The empirical studies in this category were similarly published at
the beginning of the NGSS era, when contemporary perspectives were still emerging. For example,
a study by Varelas et al. (2014) examined how a third-grade teacher used read-alouds of informational
science books combined with related hands-on explorations to provide Latinx students with multiple
opportunities to learn about earthworms over a weeklong exploration. The researchers analyzed stu-
dent writing, drawing, and classroom discourse about earthworms and their features and behaviors
after the read-aloud sessions, observations, and experiments with earthworms. The study highlights
the instructional value of integrating informational texts and hands-on explorations to ofer students
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multiple points of access to science. While this study contributes useful insights into the integration
of textual and experiential instructional resources, the uses of language and of science in this study
both align with the traditional perspective. Similarly, Glass and Oliveira (2014) focused on teachers’
use of science read-alouds to support oral discussion of science concepts.
We turn now to publications that combined contemporary perspectives on science and language to
support science instruction with multilingual learners. Our reading of the six studies in this category
highlighted two themes: studies focusing on pedagogical tools that support contemporary instruc-
tion and studies focusing on teachers’ fexible decision-making to guide contemporary instruction.
Pedagogical Tools That Support Contemporary Instruction

The studies focusing on pedagogical tools embedded contemporary perspectives on science and
language into instructional tools that were used to support the work of both teachers and students.
For example, Wilmes and Siry (2020) described the use of an open-ended science notebook format
as a pedagogical tool for supporting multimodal interactions as fourth-grade multilingual students
constructed explanations of evaporation and condensation while attempting to solve a science mys-
tery. The researchers highlighted multiple ways in which the science notebook format served as a
semiotic social space in which students worked together to elaborate both their language and their
conceptual understanding of how condensation formed inside a camping tent. Most relevant to our
discussion of instructional supports is how diferent student groups used the semiotic social space of
the notebooks to plot their own unique pathways of understanding (what the researchers called paths
of resemiotization) as students employed multiple communicative resources to build an explanatory
storyline. The study pointed to the benefts of using open-ended science notebooks with plurilingual
students as they investigate science phenomena.
Similarly, González-Howard et al. (2017) examined one middle school science teacher’s instruc-
tional strategies as she engaged her class of predominantly multilingual learners in argumentation-
focused instruction through investigations of microbiomes and metabolism. This focal teacher
adopted multiple tools to provide students with language supports for both the structural and dialogic
components of argumentation as students considered how changes in the microbiomes inside their
bodies could afect their health in positive and negative ways. More specifcally, this teacher included
language supports, such as peer-produced exemplars, argumentation templates, and rubrics, that
explicitly focused on building students’ use of argument structures as they applied those tools in their
dialogic interactions. The researchers suggested the need for new instructional tools with embed-
ded language supports that make the rationale for argumentation and other science practices more
explicit. Although the use of language and literacy supports is typically associated with a traditional
perspective on language, in this study, these supports were used to specifcally engage in the science
and engineering practice of arguing from evidence.
Pedagogical tools that support contemporary science instruction for multilingual learners include
the use of physical artifacts as tools for science sense-making. A common traditional English for
speakers of other languages (ESOL) instructional strategy involves teachers demonstrating concepts
or ideas using realia, or real-world artifacts. Extending this strategy in a contemporary way involves
having students use physical artifacts to explain science phenomena, using manipulation of the objects
in combination with limited oral language to explain their observations. Ünsal et al. (2020) demon-
strated the utility of such an approach in a study of third-grade multilingual students in Sweden study-
ing phenomena involving electricity (such as static electricity causing black pepper to jump). They
concluded that when students’ profciency in the language of instruction limited their possibilities for
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making and expressing meaning, manipulating physical artifacts enabled them to engage in practices
that both built science understanding and facilitated explanation of that understanding.
Teachers’ Flexible Decision-Making That Guides

Contemporary Instruction
The second theme within contemporary perspectives on science instruction focused on the need
for teachers to take ownership of instructional strategies and adapt them in ways that recognize their
expertise in knowing their own students and school communities as well as the resulting resources
needed for constructing scientifc sense-making. A study by Buxton and Caswell (2020) used data
from teacher implementation logs and interviews to examine how middle and high school science
teachers took resources from an ongoing professional learning project and used them to make
nuanced and strategic adaptations to their district model for meeting the needs of multilingual
learners in science. The study found that teachers moved away from implementing existing instruc-
tional practices based on generalized principles or formal student classifcations, such as matching
the reading levels of classroom resources with students’ English-language profciency levels. Instead,
teachers in the project began taking a more nuanced approach to adopting, adapting, and rejecting
practices, such as by using strategic and fexible groupings of students based on actual needs, assets,
and personal knowledge about individual students in the specifc disciplinary context of their sci-
ence teaching.
In an earlier study from the same project, Buxton et al. (2015) outlined a conceptual framework
of teacher engagement and enactment grounded in teacher agency and multiplicities of enactment
as an alternative to framing implementation research in terms of program adherence and fdelity of
implementation. Using longitudinal data from their professional learning project for science and
ESOL teachers, this study highlighted how individual teachers negotiated power structures in their
schools and exerted personal and collective agency in ways that pushed for integrating contempo-
rary perspectives on both science and language. Teachers worked with members of the research
team to adapt science investigations they already taught, to better integrate an emphasis on science
practices and new linguistic and multimodal supports that built on their students’ existing linguistic
and cultural assets. Pushing this idea further in a subsequent paper, Buxton et al. (2017) examined
the limitations of improvement science for supporting teachers’ science instruction with multilingual
students. Taking a postmodern turn, this study followed Latour’s (2005) thinking about the role of
fexible actor-networks in shaping social constructs, such as professional learning communities. Bux-
ton et al. proposed a new framing they called the mediation of associations to describe how teachers’ and
researchers’ eforts to guide students’ exploration of science phenomena often resulted in unantici-
pated restructurings, with linguistic and material resources being repurposed and realigned through
student-driven agency as well as through the material agency of nonhuman actors.
In a diferent enactment of the theme of teacher agency to support science instruction with mul-
tilingual students, Swanson et al. (2014) examined how one high school science teacher engaged her
multilingual students in the science and engineering practices of arguing from evidence and obtain-
ing, evaluating, and communicating information during an integrated science course for frst-year
high school students. The researchers found that through multiple years of teaching this course to
multilingual students, this teacher had shifted away from viewing the teaching of language in sci-
ence as a discrete curricular target (academic language). Instead, using the agency she felt as school
department chair, she developed three distinct types of instructional supports to help her multilingual
students develop and apply language through engagement in the practices: primary language support
in Spanish, deliberate scafolds, and small-group instruction. The authors provided the example of
these supports being used during investigations of sound waves as students reasoned about the claim
that vibrations cause sound.
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Findings About Science Assessment

While less prevalent than studies focused on science learning or science instruction, the topic of sci-
ence assessment for multilingual learners represents a critical issue given the role that assessments play
in driving the nature of teaching and learning in today’s schools. A total of ten publications attended
primarily to assessment issues, with half adopting a contemporary perspective on both science and
language. As with the prior sections, we begin with a brief characterization of the publications that
were identifed as using a traditional framing, followed by a more detailed discussion of themes from
the publications that took a contemporary perspective on both science and language.
Studies that took a traditional perspective on language and/or science when considering the role of
science assessments with multilingual students tended to focus on binary conceptualizations of aca-
demic language (as distinct from everyday language) and their role as a barrier to assessment perfor-
mance for multilingual learners, needing to be addressed either by modifcations to the assessments or
by pre-teaching of the language perceived as needed for success on the assessments. As one example,
a study by Huerta et al. (2014) examined the use of a structured science notebook format and rubric
as an assessment to measure academic language and conceptual understanding of ffth-grade multilin-
gual students. Grounded in older concepts from second-language acquisition theory, such as the dis-
tinction between basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language
profciency (CALP; Cummins, 2008), the science notebook rubric in this study was based on two
constructs that we categorized as traditional: a static view of academic language and a science focus
on learning to restate disciplinary knowledge. Other studies that applied aspects of these traditional
conceptions either of science or of language to the use of science assessments with multilingual learn-
ers included Noble et al. (2020), Aftska and Heaton (2019), Lyon (2017), and Siegel et al. (2014).
We identifed fve publications that combined contemporary perspectives on science and language
to support science assessment with multilingual learners. Our reading of the studies in this category
highlighted two themes around use of assessments: studies that focused on using the Framework and
NGSS to guide assessment design and studies that applied critical language ideologies to argue for
more equitable multilingual and multimodal science assessments.
Using the Framework and NGSS to Guide Assessment Design

As discussed earlier, the Framework laid the foundation for our contemporary thinking about science,
including the need to rethink science assessments to align with three-dimensional learning rather
than just focusing on conceptual understanding. As Fine and Furtak (2020) pointed out, science
teachers currently have few assessment resources for evaluating student learning that are aligned with
contemporary perspectives on science. This challenge is even greater when contemporary perspec-
tives on language are integrated as well. The researchers argued that new tools are needed to shape
the design of assessments to account for contemporary perspectives rather than creating accommo-
dations for multilingual learners as an afterthought. They proposed a literature-based framework for
science assessment design for multilingual students that included a set of design principles to highlight
the imperative of a new generation of science assessments aligned with the NGSS. Key components
of their framework included attention to culture and language, alignment and rigor, tasks that focus
on phenomena, clear objectives, and the integration of supportive scafolds.
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In a publication soon after the release of the NGSS, Mislevy and Durán (2014) provided one
of the earliest analyses of how science assessments must evolve based on the goals of the NGSS for
all students, including multilingual learners. They argued for closer attention to the design of tasks
for both learning and assessment that are consistent with the vision of the NGSS for engaging all
students in three-dimensional learning through use of phenomena while also attending to the dif-
fering communicative capabilities of multilingual learners. They argued that all assessment designers,
whether teachers designing formative assessments for their own students or developers of large-scale
standardized tests, need to consider how the novel features of the NGSS require increased attention
to supportive structures, such as contextualization of assessment items and ways that technology can
support new assessment tasks.
Language Ideologies and Science Assessments

A second theme within studies using contemporary perspectives on science and language for sci-
ence assessments involved critiques of assessment practices that attend to how language ideologies
guide assumptions about multilingual learners. Lemmi et al. (2019) explained language ideologies as
“assumptions, conceptions, beliefs, and rationalizations about language that we use to make meaning
of the world” (p. 857). They went on to describe and apply two notions of language ideology with
implications for the formative assessment practices that secondary school science teachers enacted
with their multilingual students. Specifcally, the authors distinguished between language-exclusive
ideologies that presumed only certain forms of language are expected and appropriate for use in sci-
ence classrooms while other forms are not seen as appropriate and language-inclusive ideologies that
presumed multiple forms of language use are useful and acceptable in science classrooms. They found
that teachers who held language-exclusive ideologies focused their concerns about student language
use on appropriateness, use of terminology, and formality of language. As applied to their formative
assessments, these teachers expressed concerns with what they considered to be students’ lack of clear
and appropriate communication. In contrast, teachers who held more language-inclusive ideologies
expressed greater attention to the students’ ideas and to their use of audience-specifc communica-
tion and creative use of colloquialisms.
Cardozo-Gaibisso et al. (2020) made a similar argument for the need to look beyond assessment
scores as the primary way of communicating information to teachers about their students’ learning.
The authors argued that the assessment feld has become trapped in a defcit view of multilingual
students’ performance in part because our assessment reporting systems strip away evidence of stu-
dents’ emergent science understandings and emergent language use by reducing the information to
scores. The study used a multimodal and bilingual (Spanish–English) constructed response assessment
of science and language for middle and high school students to show how a multilayered analysis of
student responses can provide a more asset-based view of students’ emergent learning. The authors
concluded that science educators would beneft from multidimensional ways of interpreting student
performance on assessments.
Taking a diferent approach to language ideologies in developing science assessments, Curran and
Kitchin (2019) examined standardized test scores of science performance in the early elementary
grades and corresponding science test score gaps by race and ethnicity. In many cases, they found
the racial and ethnic test score gaps in science to be signifcantly larger than the corresponding gaps
in reading and mathematics. The researchers tested a number of factors (such as reading activities,
home activities, time spent in nature) that could possibly explain the diferences in the magnitudes
of racial and ethnic disparities in performance on science standardized tests as compared to those in
reading and mathematics (referred to as “gaps-in-gaps”). They found that students’ home language
and immigration status explained the largest portions of the gap-in-gaps for Hispanic and Asian
students. The researchers concluded that these fndings should push educators, policymakers, and
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assessment developers to consider both stronger early intervention eforts to enrich all children’s sci-
ence experiences and more innovative science assessments that align with asset-oriented, rather than
defcit-based, language ideologies.
Findings About Teacher Preparation and Professional Learning

The fourth and fnal major topic in our review is science teacher education through both initial
teacher preparation and ongoing teacher professional learning. While studies with preservice teach-
ers and in-service teachers are often treated separately in the literature, we found much overlap
in terms of the topics and approaches addressed, and thus we combined studies involving teacher
education into one topic. Twenty of the 104 studies fell within this topic, with 13 studies aligned
with traditional perspectives on science, language, or both, and 7 studies represented contemporary
perspectives on science and language.
Two studies of teacher learning took a contemporary perspective of language but a traditional per-
spective on science. A study by Ollerhead (2020) used cases of two preservice science teachers in
Australia to examine the ways in which both the coursework and feld experiences in their teacher
preparation program contributed to their developing thinking about the role of language in their
science teaching. The approach highlighted an asset orientation to multilingual students’ science
learning. A feld experience in a newcomer center for migrant students played a central role in the
focal teachers’ evolving identities “as ‘embedders of literacy’ in their content teaching” (p. 2510).
While the perspective on science in this study had some features of the contemporary approach,
such as having students work toward an evidence-based explanation of a real-world event (a volcano
erupting), much of the science learning was text based and focused on supporting students in gaining
background knowledge from scientifc texts and then expressing those same ideas back in writing.
That is, the focus was on how scientifc content could provide opportunities for targeted language
and literacy support to facilitate multilingual students’ access to scientifc content knowledge. The
study by Bacon (2020) likewise combined a contemporary perspective on language with a traditional
perspective on science.
Two studies of teacher education took a contemporary perspective on science but a traditional
perspective on language. These studies positioned some form of academic language, defned struc-
turally in opposition to everyday language, as a prerequisite for engaging in science learning. Jung
and Brown (2016) highlighted the need for teachers to make academic language a key part of their
lesson planning, arguing that students’ development of a strong command of academic language was
a prerequisite to engage in the practices of science. To support preservice elementary science teachers
in this goal, the researchers created the Academic Language Planning Organizer to support teach-
ers in identifying academic language features, demands, and supports in alignment with the view of
academic language as presented in the edTPA teacher performance assessment. At the same time,
the study represented science in a contemporary way, aligned with the vision of the NGSS, as the
preservice teachers planned lessons that engaged their students in using the science and engineer-
ing practices to explain phenomena, such as diferences in behaviors of worms and nightcrawlers or
goldfsh and guppies. Another study that refected a traditional perspective on language combined
with a contemporary perspective on science was Meier et al. (2020).
Nine other studies within the topic of teacher preparation and professional learning were classifed
as traditional for both science and language. For example, Leckie and Wall (2017) focused on sup-
porting preservice teachers in learning to integrate a model of academic language into middle grades
science units. The researchers operationalized academic language as having three domains (i.e.,
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vocabulary, syntax, and discourse), and they highlighted strategies for how teacher educators could
support preservice teachers in integrating these three aspects of academic language into their lesson
planning. Specifcally, the researchers studied how preservice teachers incorporated each aspect into
science units they planned around topics of thermal energy, Newton’s laws, and the classifcation of
living organisms. Building on the requirements of edTPA, the focus was on how preservice teachers
selected language functions, demands, and supports to develop students’ understanding of scientifc
concepts. There was no focus on students learning to make strategic language choices; instead, teach-
ers were asked to guide students toward the appropriate academic language based on the science
topic.
To clarify, our point is not that leveraging the construct of academic language automatically makes
a study traditional for language or that explicitly planning to support language related to disciplin-
ary learning objectives is unnecessary. Rather, the contemporary perspective considers language
registers to be fuid continua instead of dichotomous points, highlighting how students need to learn
to make language choices that support their communicative needs rather than being told by others
what the “appropriate” language is that they need to use to make meaning in science. In the realm of
teacher education, academic language is often operationalized through rigid framings of vocabulary,
syntax, and discourse in what we take to be a structural defnition of what language is rather than a
functional defnition of what language does. This pushes teachers, and by extension their students,
toward dichotomous views of language that privilege academic language as the desired register for
expressing meaning in science rather than emphasizing the moment-to-moment linguistic choices
that we all learn to make to communicate efectively with changing topics, purposes, and audiences.
Put another way, a pedagogical focus on academic language can either support multilingual learners
or alienate and marginalize them, depending on how it is operationalized and applied. Other studies
of teacher learning that took traditional perspectives on both science and language included Heineke
and Giatsou (2020); Lavery et al. (2019); Hernandez and Shroyer (2017); Rivard and Gueye (2016);
Hopkins et al. (2015); Bravo et al. (2014); Shaw et al. (2014); and Siegel (2014).
We identifed seven publications that combined contemporary perspectives on both science and
language to support science teacher education with multilingual learners. Our reading of the studies
in this category highlighted two themes around teacher education: preparing teachers with mod-
els for integrating science and language and contextualizing science for linguistically and culturally
responsive teaching.
Preparing Teachers With Models for Integrating Science and Language

Rutt and Mumba (2020) examined how secondary science preservice teachers who engaged in a
model of language- and literacy-integrated science instruction grounded in science and engineering
practices changed their instructional planning over time. Applying the Teaching English Learn-
ers Language- and Literacy-Integrated Science instructional framework, preservice teachers in a
sequence of two science methods courses practiced planning lessons to engage all students, includ-
ing multilingual learners, in rigorous and age-appropriate applications of science and engineering
practices. The language-integrated model included components of contextualized learning, multi-
lingualism as an instructional support, opportunities and goals for literacy development embedded
in each lesson, tools for supporting students’ science discourse, and language use for engaging in the
practices. The researchers concluded that engagement with this framework over time led preservice
science teachers to seek additional opportunities to integrate language and literacy supports into sci-
ence and engineering practices in their lesson plans.
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Valdés-Sánchez and Espinet (2020) described a model for science teacher education that high-
lighted development of teacher professional identity as teachers of language as well as science. Using
a model of collaborative co-teaching in the context of primary grades Content and Language Inte-
grated Learning classrooms in Catalonia, Spain, the study examined how one elementary teacher’s
professional identity evolved through engaging in co-teaching experiences with science teachers.
The authors described three teaching identities that emerged as this focal teacher adopted collabora-
tive teaching practices for integrating science and language teaching: a new science teaching identity
that allowed her to confdently interact with science teachers, a new multilingual language teaching
identity that replaced her belief in target language–only instruction during second-language (English)
instruction, and an integrated content and language teacher identity that allowed her to prioritize
a balanced view of teaching language through content as she supported both English and Spanish
language. The researchers found that the third identity especially allowed the focal teacher to adopt
contemporary perspectives on language use in the discipline as she worked to integrate semantic pat-
terns, participation patterns, and language patterns in students’ science learning.
Heineke et al. (2019) argued for the need to prepare teachers with an integrated view of science
and language learning despite the separation that typically exists between these topics in teacher prep-
aration programs. In traditional teacher preparation, frameworks for teaching science are addressed in
science methods courses, while frameworks for content area language support tend to be addressed
in content area literacy courses and general ESOL methods courses, placing the onus on new teach-
ers to do the challenging work of integrating these frameworks. This single case study provided
a nuanced analysis of one preservice high school science teacher’s eforts to support multilingual
learners’ language development through their engagement in rigorous, authentic, science experi-
ences. Changes in this teacher’s practices over two years were attributed to an intentionally designed
combination of site visits, courses, feld experiences, and assignments. Of particular importance in
learning to integrate contemporary perspectives on science and language were feld experiences in
classrooms with mentor teachers who embraced these perspectives, feld supervisors with expertise
in bilingual education, and feld-based assignments that required teacher candidates to articulate their
evolving understanding of the integration of science and language.
In another single case study, Capitelli et al. (2016) examined how one second-/third-grade ele-
mentary teacher came to integrate her professional development experiences in an NGSS-aligned
teacher learning project with her classroom experience. Over time, this teacher created a hybrid
model of instruction for integrating science and language. The study highlighted the importance of
ongoing professional learning experiences grounded in contemporary perspectives about language
development that immersed teachers in practices-based approaches to instruction. The focal teacher
came to see language acquisition as emergent from discussions based on phenomena and facilitated
by scafolds that enabled multilingual learners to work together on constructing evidence-based
explanations.
Finally, Solano-Campos et al. (2020) provided a review of literature on preparing preservice
teachers of multilingual students to use the linguistically responsive teaching (LRT) framework pro-
posed by Lucas and Villegas (2011). The LRT framework highlights three teaching orientations (i.e.,
sociolinguistic consciousness, valuing of language diversity, and advocacy for multilingual learners)
and a corresponding set of pedagogical knowledge and skills (e.g., a repertoire of strategies for learn-
ing about the linguistic and academic backgrounds of multilingual students). The authors used this
framework to analyze 64 studies of preservice teacher education that specifcally attended to prepar-
ing teachers for working with multilingual learners. We note that the reviewed studies were not lim-
ited to science education. The authors concluded that most teacher preparation programs described
in these studies (n = 36) attended to the teaching orientations of the LRT, while only 12 focused on
the pedagogical knowledge and skills of the LRT, and 16 studies described programs that included
both the teaching orientations and the pedagogical knowledge and skills. Like other studies in this
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topic area, the authors concluded that teacher preparation programs often seem to lack program-
wide coherence for supporting teachers in applying linguistically responsive pedagogies to content
area instruction. While teacher preparation programs may include aspects of models for integrating
language and science, such approaches are often partial or only addressed in certain courses within
these programs.
Contextualizing Science for Linguistically and

Culturally Responsive Teaching
Two studies highlighted the importance of contextualizing science learning experiences by connect-
ing science content to contexts outside of the classroom, with the aim of making science learning
more authentic and meaningful for students. Contextualization improves science learning generally
(Giamellaro, 2014) and is particularly helpful for multilingual learners. Tolbert and Knox (2016)
examined the ideas that preservice teachers developed for contextualizing science instruction in ways
that would support multilingual students’ science learning. The researchers found that these teach-
ers primarily used two categories of contexts: local ecological contexts and multicultural contexts.
These preservice teachers often held an implicit or explicit defcit framing of the science-related
experiences that multilingual students had outside of school. In contrast, preservice teachers who
were simultaneously participating in a dual-language certifcation program produced more asset-
oriented and less stereotypical ideas for contextualization than those teachers who were not pursuing
dual-language certifcation. Contextualization helped to surface contemporary perspectives on both
language and science in these preservice teachers’ science lessons.
A second study within the theme of contextualization involved a multi-institutional project to
redesign science methods courses (Lyon et al., 2018). This was done through creating contextualized
spaces for language and literacy development while supporting preservice teachers in gaining the
vision of science learning advocated by the Framework. The methods courses contextualized science
by framing lessons with a driving question and a problem or scenario that was connected to multi-
lingual learners’ lived experiences (e.g., local ecologies, home activities, community events, global
contexts, socioscientifc issues). Contextualized science was aligned with a contemporary perspective
on science sense-making in which students asked questions and shared fndings, and a contemporary
perspective on language that highlighted linguistic and nonlinguistic supports for making student
thinking visible. The authors concluded that science methods courses can prepare future science
teachers to attend to language as a tool for thinking and learning within disciplinary contexts, and
that contextualized instruction can support this goal.
Summarizing and Moving Forward

As described in the opening sections of this chapter, an emerging consensus on the need to better
integrate science and language education for multilingual learners and all students has grown in recent
years. First, research, policy, and practice are being aligned with a common vision across the felds
of content and language education. Second, this common vision is based on contemporary perspec-
tives on multilingual learners’ engagement in academically rigorous content and rich language use.
Finally, an asset-oriented framing of multilingual learners is replacing traditional defcit-based views.
The need to clarify a common vision across research, policy, and practice was the motiva-
tion to undertake an interpretive review of the literature published since the prior edition of this
handbook. In this discussion, we provide a summary of key fndings about major science topics,
including science learning, science instruction, science assessment, and science teacher education.
Then, we discuss implications of our interpretive literature review for future research, as it seems
premature to draw implications from this nascent literature for policy and practice. We close the
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chapter with our thoughts on advancing the feld for multilingual learners in science education
in the context of national policies based on current federal priorities that highlight science and
equity at the core.
Summary of Findings About Major Science Topics

This chapter focused on the research directions that the feld of science education took during the
2014–2020 period regarding evolving perspectives on science and language with multilingual learn-
ers. We summarize key fndings of studies grounded in contemporary perspectives on both science
and language for each of four major science topics. We highlight studies conducted by early career
scholars who are likely to carry out research and expand the literature for years to come.
With regard to science learning, contemporary perspectives highlight the mutually supportive
nature of science learning and language learning. Making sense of phenomena and problems with
connections to multilingual learners’ experiences in home and community serves as resources for
science learning and language learning simultaneously. As science and engineering practices are
language intensive, they provide opportunities to communicate science ideas, while also valuing
multilingualism in authentic problem solving (e.g., Wilson-Lopez et al., 2018). Rather than viewing
vocabulary and disciplinary language as prerequisites for engaging in the practices, contemporary
perspectives highlight that these practices provide contexts for rich language use (e.g., Harper, 2017).
Likewise, the intentional deployment of a wide range of meaning-making resources, including mul-
timodality (e.g., Grapin, 2019) and translanguaging (e.g., Suárez, 2020), promotes communication
of science ideas. Thus, taking contemporary perspectives on science and language learning require a
focus on “doing science, using language”.
Regarding science instruction, contemporary perspectives point to the critical role of teachers
adopting instructional strategies that make explicit and intentionally build on multilingual learners’
assets and resources for learning science and language. Several studies developed and tested peda-
gogical tools that embed explicit goals for supporting contemporary perspectives. Instructional tools
(e.g., science notebooks, peer-generated exemplars) on their own do not ensure a contemporary
instructional approach. However, when teachers understand the functional purpose of such tools
to scafold communication while doing science, these tools do support contemporary perspectives
(González-Howard et al., 2017). Further, if instructional innovations are needed to bring about shifts
to contemporary perspectives, teachers must take ownership of instructional strategies and adapt the
strategies based on their knowledge of their students’ homes and communities. Findings (e.g., Swan-
son et al., 2014) highlight the importance of teachers’ agency in making decisions that shift instruc-
tion from traditional to contemporary perspectives.
With regard to science assessment, contemporary perspectives emphasize three-dimensional
assessment of science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas
simultaneously. While three-dimensional science assessment is new and challenging for everyone,
these challenges are greater for multilingual learners. Most signifcantly, the feld has few examples
of what three-dimensional science assessment designed to leverage the assets of multilingual learners
looks like. While Fine and Furtak (2020) highlighted design principles, such as the use of culturally
relevant phenomena, and Cardozo-Gaibisso et al. (2020) argued for multidimensional interpretations
of students’ performance beyond a numeric score, models of assessments that showcase contemporary
perspectives on both science and language are lacking.
Regarding science teacher education, contemporary perspectives focus on developing and testing
models and tools for teacher learning while also changing teachers’ existing beliefs and conceptions
of multilingual learners as science learners. One strategy for guiding teachers toward contemporary
perspectives involves developing teachers’ identity as a language teacher and a science teacher simul-
taneously (e.g., Valdés-Sánchez & Espinet, 2020). Another strategy involves contextualizing science
316
topics in real-world problems and challenges facing today’s youth, compelling them to do the hard
work of communicating science ideas in a second language (Giamellaro, 2017).
We note that one recurring feature in this fnal topic of science teacher education that was absent
from the other major topics in our review was the connection to the edTPA teacher performance
assessment. The infuence of edTPA on science teacher education is one example of why it is impor-
tant to refect on contemporary and traditional perspectives for both science and language and to
consider how they interact. Because edTPA highlights a structural (rather than functional) view of
language, as discussed earlier, teacher candidates completing the edTPA need additional instruction
and support around functional views of language for science learning. As with our earlier discussions
of academic language and science inquiry, our point is not that these constructs have nothing left to
teach us about the work of science teaching and learning, but rather that they need to be more fully
contextualized within discussions of the functional roles that content and language play in science
learning.
Implications for Science Education Research

The shifts from traditional to contemporary approaches for integrating science and language with
multilingual learners refect a broader shift from a defcit-oriented view to an asset-oriented view of
multilingual learners (Lee, 2021; Lee & Stephens, 2020; NASEM, 2018). Traditional perspectives
focused on what multilingual learners were lacking (i.e., English-language profciency, experiences
with science) and how to fx this problem, for example, by pre-teaching and frontloading vocabu-
lary as a precursor or prerequisite to multilingual learners’ participation in content area learning.
Contemporary perspectives have shifted to focus on leveraging the meaning-making resources that
multilingual learners bring to the classroom, for example, by engaging them in disciplinary practices
and providing them with opportunities to use language and communicate disciplinary meaning
regardless of their English-language profciency. From an equity perspective, traditional approaches
based on defcit-oriented views are forms of linguistically marginalizing pedagogy, whereas contem-
porary approaches based on asset-oriented views are linguistically sustaining pedagogies (Harman
et al., 2020; Lee, 2021; Paris, 2012).
This interpretative literature review of 11 high-visibility journals during the period of 2014–2020
ofers implications for the role of science education researchers specifcally and science educators
more generally in the coming years. First, we are aware of trade-ofs in our decision about the search
process, especially conducting the literature review with a limited number of selected journals in
science education, topical areas, and AERA journals. As noted earlier, we focused on journals repre-
senting the major professional associations and/or having a high impact factor. While acknowledging
that these selection criteria omitted studies that are relevant to the feld of science education with
multilingual learners, we argue that when taken together, these journals ofer a robust look at how
this feld has been represented in the research literature while helping us understand the emerging
contemporary perspectives. As this feld develops in the coming years, a more comprehensive litera-
ture review will be needed, which could be expected for the next volume of the handbook.
Second, the vast majority of the research on science education with multilingual learners has
consistently been published in science education journals, whereas little of this work has spilled over
into either the related topical area journals or the broad interest AERA journals (see Table 10.1).
Thus, a clear implication of this review is that researchers publishing in the feld of science education
with multilingual learners should diversify publication venues. Seeking to publish in the prominent
topical area journals, such as the JLS and JTE, would invite researchers who have related interests and
insights more fully into this conversation. Perhaps more importantly, publishing in high-visibility lan-
guage journals, such as TESOL Quarterly, would engage language education researchers more fully
as well. Given that there is currently less agreement among language educators about contemporary
317
perspectives on language than there is among science educators about contemporary perspectives
on science (Lee, 2018, 2019), increased dialog in language journals seems especially fruitful (e.g.,
Grapin, 2019; Grapin & Lee, 2022). Overall, the upswing in publications on this topic in 2019 and
2020 speaks to an increased interest in the role of language among science educators. The framing of
this chapter is meant to help push related felds to expand and refne our understandings of contem-
porary perspectives on science and language with multilingual learners.
Finally, research on integration of science and language with multilingual learners has often
involved collaborations among science and language researchers. In any such academic collaboration,
there is typically one person who takes the intellectual lead for framing the approach that is used. In
this review we found that studies we categorized as traditional for language but contemporary for
science were often led by science educators. Similarly, studies we categorized as traditional for science
but contemporary for language were often led by language educators. While perhaps not surpris-
ing, the relative strengths and limitations of each knowledge base underscore the critical impor-
tance for science educators and language educators to seek opportunities to share their most current
thinking on contemporary perspectives. Working together to create a contemporary framework (see
Table 10.1) will require each of the felds to learn about the shifts occurring in the other feld and to
engage in honest discourse about these shifts.
Advancing the Field for Multilingual Learners in Science Education

Since the release of the last edition of the handbook in 2014, the shifts from traditional to contempo-
rary approaches in science learning and language learning along with the shift from defcit-oriented
views to asset-oriented views on multilingual learners have prepared the feld of science education
with multilingual learners for the educational landscape that is likely to emerge in the aftermath of
the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased attention to systemic racism. At the time of this writing
in mid-2021, the federal government in the United States has identifed seven immediate priorities
(www.whitehouse.gov/priorities/). Three priorities – COVID-19, climate, and health care – are
rooted in science. Two priorities – racial equity and immigration – focus on justice. These fve prior-
ities collectively infuence the remaining two priorities – economic recovery and restoring America’s
global standing. With the exception of the fnal priority, each of these can be seen as global rather
than national priorities, and aligned with the need to integrate science and language learning for all
students, as refected in the global reach of the studies reviewed in this chapter.
A national or global call to action to address these priorities in unison will require dramatic
changes in society and involve science disciplines, science education, and various movements for
racial and linguistic equity to be at the forefront of this vision of economic and social progress for all.
In concert with science disciplines, science education is an essential partner, as the necessary changes
will not be possible unless all students, including multilingual learners, receive the kind of science
education needed to make sense of phenomena and problems, make informed decisions, and take
responsible actions. By addressing these complex and pressing societal issues, students can recognize
the roles that both science and justice play in broader policies as we seek to educate informed and
responsible individuals who can harness new knowledge and practices to promote a more equitable
global society.
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11
SPECIAL NEEDS AND TALENTS
IN SCIENCE LEARNING
Sami Kahn
Special.
Exceptional.
Twice
Exceptional.
Gifted.
Disabled.
Diferently-abled.
Talented.
Hyper-performing.
High Ability.
Impaired.
Struggling.
Neurodiverse.
In our quest to understand and advance human learning, education researchers apply a panoply of
terms to describe the wide range of abilities and ways of accessing the world that is inherent in human
existence. As is often the case in social sciences, the various constructs amount to little more than
a shorthanded means of describing the complexity and, arguably, the beauty of individual learners.
Perhaps most interesting is that each of the constructs imply diference from “the norm,” for there
is always a bell curve beckoning education researchers’ attention not only to the populous mean but
to the tails of human achievement. But one must ask, as did Davis (2016), what exactly is normal?
Arguably, normality is context dependent. One can easily envision the high school valedictorian
who attends a highly competitive university shifting on the academic bell curve from right-tailed
exceptional to average overnight. Of course, when one drills down further, individuals who are con-
sidered average learners may well prove exceptional in certain domains, such as creativity, analytical
and quantitative abilities, and so on, while learners who are identifed by their high or low perfor-
mance on certain criteria may well be quite average in most others (Van Tassel-Baska, 1995). How,
then, do we reconcile the desire to support all learners to reach their potential in science without
oversimplifying the human experience?
A reasonable starting place is to assume that human diversity is normal, an assumption made
by researchers ascribing to disability studies in education (Connor et al., 2008). This is not to say
that students do not have diferent learning needs, but rather that all students have areas of rela-
tive strength and weakness. Furthermore, this paradigm assumes that students’ inability to access
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-14 325

Sami Kahn
and engage with science curriculum is not a defect within the student, but rather a defect in the
learner’s educational environment. This social rather than medical model of diference emphasizes the
limitations of environments – educational, physical, and societal – rather than individuals (Connor,
2012). Relating back to the idea of context dependency: A student with a visual impairment who is
provided with accessible learning materials and is taught in an accessible way still has a visual impair-
ment, but they are no longer “adversely afected” (IDEA, 2004) by this diference in the classroom,
this latter phrase forming the defnition of “disability” for purposes of educational services in the
United States. When diference is assumed to be a natural part of the human condition, the lan-
guage that is used becomes less about who is normal and who is diferent, but rather what supports
and interventions can be implemented to improve the learning environment and outcomes for all
learners (Koomen et al., 2018).
With this backdrop in mind, this chapter seeks to provide science education researchers with a
contemporary snapshot of the state of scholarly discourse around special needs and talents in sci-
ence learning; that is, addressing the needs of students whose physical, sensory, cognitive, or social-
emotional needs are not met in traditional science classrooms. For those interested in a historical
perspective on the topic, the parallel chapters in the prior editions of this handbook (McGinnis &
Kahn, 2014; McGinnis & Stefanich, 2007) serve as formidable resources. The earlier chapters also
delve more deeply into the philosophical and epistemological diferences between science educa-
tion and special education that have historically contributed to disagreement as to where and how
students should be educated. In contrast, the present chapter is situated within a 21st-century
context that defnes inclusive science education not by where a student is educated (e.g., special
education classroom vs. general education classroom) but by how the student is educated in order
to ensure that every student is provided with the tools, opportunities, and experiences to thrive
in science learning. Such an approach is critical, as most students with disabilities spend at least
80% of their day in general education (IDEA Part B Child Count and Educational Environments
Collection, 2019), while students identifed as gifted spend most of their day in general educa-
tion (NAGC, 2020). Just in the last two decades, the movement toward inclusive education has
prompted the realization that collaboration and communication across teaching disciplines is not
only recommended but necessary, particularly if contemporary visions of scientifc literacy and
educational equity are to be met.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for equitable and excellent science opportu-
nities in “All Standards, All Students” (NGSS Lead States, 2013, Appendix D). Meanwhile, the Indi-
viduals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) guarantees a free appropriate public education
that is commensurate with students’ abilities across subjects (including science) in the least restrictive
environment. Taken together, these documents present a contemporary vision of scientifc literacy
that supports the vision of all people to be able to apply science in their everyday lives, in their
work, and in society to their fullest extent. Yet this vision remains elusive, as students with special
needs and talents are underserved as evidenced by underrepresentation of people with disabilities in
STEM (National Science Foundation, 2019), lack of programmatic opportunities for gifted students
in STEM (Taber & Sumida, 2016), and practical and attitudinal barriers to equitable and excellent
science teaching (Kahn & Lewis, 2014). To explore these and other issues further, this chapter is
organized around the following questions:
1. Who are learners with special needs and talents in science? How are (or aren’t) they served?
2. What key themes and pedagogical approaches characterize contemporary inclusive science
education?
3. What constitutes “assessment for all” in science?
4. What is the state of science teacher education with respect to students with special needs and
talents?
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Special Needs and Talents in Science Learning
Throughout the chapter, contemporary research will be discussed for students who are considered to
have physical or sensory learning needs, intellectual or emotional learning needs, and gifted learn-
ing needs. It is worth noting that this schema diverges from the prior handbook chapters, which
addressed “special needs” and “giftedness” in separate sections. The present chapter intentionally
considers these terms to be contextually fuid and assumes that students can have both special needs
and gifts in science. This assumption is supported by the concept of neurodiversity (Armstrong,
2012) and the twice exceptional (2e) educational framework (Reis et al., 2014), both of which posit
that students who are considered to have developmental diferences, such as those with learning dis-
abilities, ADHD, and autism, can also have particular gifts. Perhaps surprisingly, this chapter also sub-
divides some sections based on legislative (US) categories of disability and giftedness, a decision made
in order to create a heuristic to support researchers’ efciency. However, this pragmatic approach
undermines the philosophical as well as the practical educational implications of the complexity and
depth of learners’ identities. Contemporary science education research recognizes the importance
of intersectionality (Warner, 2008), which is the manner in which learners’ cultural, racial, gender,
and disability identities interact and form new, more complex manifestations of identity. This richer
understanding of the layers and intersections of identity must be attended to in science education,
and therefore, science education research, in order to understand how to meet the needs of stu-
dents for whom disability and/or giftedness contributes to their whole selves. To balance the need
for research expediency while challenging the impetus of oversimplifcation, empirical studies that
address learner identities in an intersectional manner are woven into the sections on disability or
giftedness most closely aligned with the study population.
What Research Is Included/Excluded in This Chapter?

The research studies in this chapter represent recent (within ten years) scholarship in the feld of
inclusive science education, with the exception of some foundational works that are included in
order to provide context. They represent a mix of methodologies and perspectives, and those that
were deemed particularly robust or unique are given slightly greater coverage. The studies were
identifed by keyword searches in databases such as Proquest, Education Resources Information
Center (ERIC), and PsychINFO using terms such as those listed in the introduction. Ancestral
searches then followed, with emphasis placed on PK–12 education, although particularly signifcant
higher-education works are also included. Research represented comes from international science
education, special education, gifted education, as well as sources with more general and teacher edu-
cation foci, all peer-reviewed and written in English. Almost all of the included articles are framed in
literature on special education and giftedness in science, although a few articles that did not focus on
this topic but nonetheless had signifcant fndings for these areas were included. For readers wishing
to delve more deeply into inclusive education trends beyond the feld of science, many excellent
resources are available (see, for example, Dovigo’s [2017] review on the state of inclusive education
across six countries).
Who Are Learners With Special Needs and Talents

and How Are (or Aren’t) They Served?
Learners With Special Educational Needs

Approximately, 7.2 million students ages 3–21, or 15% of all public school students, received spe-
cial education services in 2020–2021 under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA,
2004), which guarantees a free appropriate education in the least restrictive environment for all
eligible 3–21-year-old students in the United States (Note: the IDEA also covers birth to two
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Sami Kahn
years old under a separate section not discussed here). To be eligible, students must demonstrate
an impairment within at least one of the following categories that adversely afects academic per-
formance: autism, deaf-blindness, developmental delay, emotional disturbance, hearing impairment
(including deafness), intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairment, other health
impairment (including ADD/ADHD), specifc learning disability, speech or language impairment,
traumatic brain injury, visual impairment (including blindness). Figure 11.1 presents the percent-
age distribution of children served under the IDEA by disability (National Center for Educational
Statistics; NCES, 2022).
While the percentage of students served under the IDEA spending most of their day (> 80%) in gen-
eral education classes in regular (i.e., non-special education) schools has increased markedly over the last
two decades, the most current being 66% in fall 2020, the percentage varies widely across disabilities.
For example, students with speech language impairments spend 88% of their day in general education
classes, compared to only 19% of students with intellectual disabilities (NCES, 2022). This disparity
illuminates the necessity of researchers to look beyond aggregate statistics and examine precisely who is
included in what classes, and what kind of services and opportunities are available to them.
Similar vigilance is warranted when reviewing the percentage of students served under the IDEA
by race/ethnicity, which is displayed in Table 11.1 (NCES, 2022).
These statistics appear to suggest that there are disproportionately high American Indian/Alaskan
Native and Black children in special education. The overrepresentation of Black children in special
education has historically been attributed to teacher bias and other discriminatory identifcation
practices, leading to the “Equity in IDEA” rule, which requires federal monitoring of minority
overrepresentation in special education (IDEA regulations, 2016). However, the story of overrepre-
sentation in special education is a bit more complicated. Farkas et al. (2020) suggests that children
of color are actually underrepresented in special education, since the percent of population statistic
does not control for factors that are associated with higher risks for disability, including poverty,
Percentage Distribution of Students Ages 3–21 Served

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA), by selected disability type: School year 2020–21
Specific Learning Disability 33

Speech or Language Impairment 19
Other Health Impairment 15
Autism 12
Developmental Delay 7
Intellectual Disability 6
Emotional Disturbance 5
Multiple Disabilities 2
Hearing Impairment 1
Deaf-Blindness 0a
Orthopedic Impairment 0a
Traumatic Brain Injury 0a
Visual Impairment 0a
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Figure 11.1 Percentage Distribution of Students Aged 3–21 Served Under the Individuals With Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA), by Disability: School Year 2020–2021
a
Deaf-Blindness, Orthopedic Impairment, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Visual Impairment each account for less
than 0.5% of students served under the IDEA.
328
Table 11.1 Percentage of Students Ages 3–21 Served Under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act
(IDEA), by Race/Ethnicity: School Year 2020–2021
Percentage of Students Served Under the IDEA

by Race/Ethnicity: 2020–2021
Total 15
Black 17
White 15
Hispanic 14
Asian 8
Pacifc Islander 12
American Indian/Alaskan Native 19
Two or more races 15
food insecurity, elevated lead levels in their blood, and low birth weight, to which racial and ethnic
minorities are more likely to be exposed. The authors argue that, when children with similar family
incomes, past academic performance on tests, and other school and SES factors, such as access to
health care, are compared, students of color are actually less likely to receive special education ser-
vices than White children. Relatedly, researchers note that doctors are less likely to inquire about a
child’s development when working with parents of children of color, a situation that likely leads to
under-identifcation of developmental disabilities at an early age and potentially precipitating long-
term developmental consequences (Guerrero et al., 2011). Language can also impact the likelihood
of identifcation for special education services as failure to provide assessments in students’ native lan-
guages likely leads to overdiagnosis of learning disabilities in second language learners even when SES
is accounted for (Shifrer et al., 2014). The vexing question of under/overrepresentation in special
education is one that is currently being debated in the literature, not only due to the challenges of
objectively parsing out variables, but also due to varying subjective perceptions of special education
as a whole; in other words, upon whether one views diagnosis and provision of special education
services as an asset (i.e., proving needed services) or a liability (i.e., increasing stigma and reducing
access to general education). Other researchers note that attempts to answer questions about under-
or overrepresentation in special education based solely on statistical analyses of labels and placements
undermines necessary consideration of the myriad societal and historical manifestations of race and
disability bias that historically, and currently, plague educational systems in the United States (Boda,
2019). More research that integrates multifarious historical and sociological facets and amplifes the
voices of those impacted by the provision or withholding of special educational services is certainly
warranted. One fnal note regarding inequitable representation: It is clear from the data that Native
Americans’ experiences are sorely understudied in research, as they have the highest probability of
receiving special education services among American students (National Center for Educational Sta-
tistics, 2022) yet little research on their experiences exists, particularly when compared to the strong
emphasis on Indigenous groups in other countries (Cooc & Kiro, 2018).
A persistent frustration among advocates for inclusive education is that, despite reform move-
ments to ensure quality educational opportunities for all students, students with disabilities continue
to underperform on standardized assessments. In the most recent administration of the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (eighth grade), only 8% of students with disabilities
achieved a profcient level or higher, while 37% of their typically achieving peers did so (NAEP,
2018). While some might be tempted to attribute this disparity to presence of a disability, which,
by IDEA defnition adversely afects a student’s academic performance, it should be noted that the
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vast majority of students who receive special education services do not do so due to lower cognitive
functioning or IQ. Even students who are considered to have a “specifc learning disability” (reading,
writing, or math) do not have markedly diferent cognitive abilities or IQs from students without this
label (Kamhi & Catts, 2014). And it should go without saying (yet often still needs to be said) that
physical and sensory impairments do not diminish intelligence or cognition. For good reason, the
assumption undergirding the IDEA and, indeed, the philosophy of inclusion is that most students
labeled as having disabilities should perform comparably to their peers if accommodated efectively.
The challenge for science educators, and arguably, all educators, is that we are currently not reducing
barriers to learning or providing students with special educational needs with the tools or strategies
to reach their potential.
The lack of quality science education for students with disabilities has staggering consequences for
the STEM felds and society as a whole. Persons with disabilities remain underrepresented in STEM
felds. Although 14% of K–12 students and 19.5% of undergraduates report to have disabilities, only
approximately 10% of employed scientists and engineers have one or more disabilities (National Sci-
ence Foundation, 2019). Students with disabilities are lost as they traverse the STEM pipeline, due to
myriad reasons, including tracking of students into nonacademic pathways, exclusion from advanced
courses and laboratory experiences, expectancy efect (i.e., low expectations of others leading to low
expectations of self), and bias and stereotyping (Thurston et al., 2017). Sadly, this fltering out of tal-
ent represents a loss to a feld that benefts from diverse perspectives (Kingsbury et al., 2020), a loss
to individuals insofar as informed personal decision-making and career options, and a practical and
moral loss to society that must reckon with the knowledge that we have failed. We can and must do
better through science education research and human understanding.
Learners With Gifts and Talents

The language related to students with gifts and talents is perhaps even more variable than that of
disability since there is currently no federal mandate for or defnition of giftedness in the United
States. (For an international comparison of gifted and talented education policies and practices in
38 countries, see Frantz & McClarty, 2016.) However, most states in the United States do have
requirements for identifying and serving gifted students, leading to approximately 3 million students
receiving gifted education services (Rinn et al., 2020). The leading organization in the United
States, the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), defnes students with gifts and tal-
ents as those that “have the capability to perform – at higher levels compared to others of the same
age, experience, and environment in one or more domains. They require modifcation(s) to their
educational experience(s) to learn and realize their potential” (NAGC, 2019). That said, defnitions
vary widely at state, district, and even school levels. Researchers have noted that most defnitions ft
into one of four categories: psychometric defnitions (scoring well on tests for intelligence or cre-
ativity), performance defnitions (demonstrating high achievements in school), labeling defnitions
(socially accorded by an expert), and specifc giftedness/talent defnitions (strength in a particular
domain, such as music or sports) (Stoeger et al., 2018). Some general characteristics of gifted stu-
dents include strong curiosity about how things work, preference for independence and autonomy,
ability to link seemingly disparate ideas and information, creativity in thinking, and nonconformity
(Tzuriel et al., 2011).
While earlier conceptions viewed gifts and talents as inherent personality traits, the most prevalent
of which was “intelligence,” more recent notions have recognized the complex interaction of learner
contexts and processes that promote high achievement, as well as the range of resources that learners
can apply to be successful at various learning tasks (Sternberg, 1985; Stoeger et al., 2018). Part of this
broader interpretation comes from the underrepresentation of students of color and students of low
SES in gifted education (de Brey et al., 2021). Regrettably, high potential students from lower-SES
330
groups who do not receive early education or gifted education are more likely to underperform or
drop out of school than their high-SES peers (Olszewski-Kubilius & Corwith, 2018). Calls for uni-
versal screening, that is, using tests that are administered to entire populations, such as an entire grade
or age group, rather than to a select group of students based on earlier screenings or nomination
procedures, attempt to overcome disproportionality in gifted education (Plucker & Peters, 2016).
Not unlike the situation with disability education, misconceptions permeate gifted education.
Gifted education is often seen as elitist, expensive, and unnecessary due to the belief that students
with exceptional abilities will achieve regardless of their education or experiences (Subotnik et al.,
2011). To the contrary, gifted students may sufer if their potential is not nurtured and their social-
emotional needs not met. Gifted students often experience uneven development between their
domain of giftedness and their social-emotional development, leading to perfectionism; sensitivity to
criticism; feeling diferent from others; and experiencing anxiety, boredom, and ostracism in school
(Dixson et al., 2016; Jarrell & Lajoie, 2017). For these and other reasons, it is critical to recognize
that comprehensive, holistic programs are needed to address the multifaceted needs of gifted students,
much in the way that they are needed by students with disabilities. Failure to identify and nurture
the giftedness in students, particularly in science, misses untold opportunities for the feld of STEM
and for society, and perhaps most importantly, for the students themselves whose capabilities and
possibilities are never realized.
Infuential Standards, Policies, and Practices for

Students With Special Needs and Talents
In order to provide all students with education that is commensurate to their abilities, several poli-
cies, practices, and standards are applied. When students are identifed as needing special education
services under the IDEA, diferent accommodations and modifcations, as well as supplemental ser-
vices such as speech or occupational therapy, are incorporated into the child’s Individualized Educa-
tion Program, or IEP (IDEA, 2004). Accommodations are adjustments in the learning environment,
curricular format, or presentation of instruction that attempt to level the playing feld for all students
without altering the learning expectations. Some examples include providing large print or braille
handouts for students with visual impairments, allowing extended time on activities on assessments
for students with learning disabilities, or providing speech-to-text software for students with ortho-
pedic impairments that makes writing or keyboarding difcult (McGinnis & Kahn, 2014). Modifca-
tions, on the other hand, are changes to curriculum that alter the learning expectations and are used
when accommodations alone do not allow a student to progress in the standard curriculum. For
example, a student with a specifc learning disability in decoding text might be given a lower-level
book to read while a student with an intellectual disability might be given fewer test questions to
complete. Gifted students are not covered under the IDEA, and there is currently no federal require-
ment for a gifted IEP in the United States. However, some states do require gifted IEPs that lay out
adjustments and supplements to the child’s program (Rinn et al., 2020).
Unlike accommodations and modifcations that address learners’ needs individually, Universal
Design for Learning (UDL; Rose & Meyer, 2002) is a framework grounded in research from cogni-
tive and learning sciences that seeks to reduce the barriers for all students in a classroom, rather than
just those who are identifed as having disabilities. While accommodations and modifcations are
more closely aligned with diferentiated instruction (i.e., teaching learners specially according to their
needs) (Maeng & Bell, 2015), UDL attempts to minimize the needs for specifc accommodations in
favor of generalized practices that increase accessibility for all students by providing multiple means
of presenting information to students, allowing for a range of modalities through which students can
share what they have learned, and providing students with a variety of ways to interact and engage
with the curriculum (CAST, 2018; Izzo & Bauer, 2015).
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Relatedly, an emphasis on improving teacher education for students with special needs has led to
the development of high-leverage practices (HLPs; McLeskey et al., 2017) which are 22 efective,
research-based instructional practices that are commonly used in classrooms and have been shown
to improve outcomes for students. An example of an HLP in assessment is: Use multiple sources of
information to develop a comprehensive understanding of a student’s strengths and needs. In gifted
education, the 2019 NAGC Pre-K to Grade 12 Gifted Programming Standards (NAGC, 2019)
defne benchmarks for student outcomes and for using evidence-based practices that are the most
efective for students with gifts and talents. Teacher preparation standards in gifted education also
exist (NAGC, 2013), and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) requires states applying
for teacher professional development funds to include plans for helping teachers and administrators
identify and teach gifted learners.
To meet the needs of gifted students in the classroom, several research-based strategies have been
identifed, including talent development (Olszewski-Kubilius & Thomson, 2015), enrichment (Ren-
zulli, 2021), acceleration and curriculum compacting (Worrell et al., 2019), diferentiated instruction
(Tomlinson, 2014), and diferentiated curriculum and assessment (Van Tassel-Baska et al., 2021).
Each of these approaches seeks to meet the unique needs of learners with gifts and talents by ensuring
appropriate challenge, depth, and complexity of learning while allowing for fexibility and open-
endedness in assignments and assessments to foster creativity and problem solving.
Twice Exceptional (2e) Learners

It is not uncommon for learners to be gifted in one or more domains while also having one or more dis-
abilities. Researchers estimate that 9.1% of children who have disabilities may be gifted, yet only a small
percent of them participate in gifted programs (Barnard-Brak et al., 2015). These twice exceptional, or
2e, learners (Reis et al., 2014) may face special educational challenges, as it is not uncommon for educa-
tors to focus on accommodating the student’s disability at the expense of promoting the student’s gifts.
This situation can lead to depression, low motivation, and low self-esteem (Wang & Neihart, 2015).
While few empirically validated interventions have been identifed for 2e students (Foley-Nicpon et al.,
2018), strengths-based approaches (Armstrong, 2012), talent-focused assessments and interventions, and
other strategies gleaned from special and gifted education literature are promising practices.
With some general context for learners with special needs and gifts in place, we will now turn our
attention to science-specifc approaches for teaching and learning.
What Key Themes and Pedagogical Approaches Characterize

Contemporary Inclusive Science Education?
Supporting Inquiry-Based Science

Inquiry-based science has emerged as the gold standard of pedagogical approaches in contemporary
science. At its core, inquiry-based instruction aims to position students as the generators rather than
passive receivers of knowledge, thereby emulating the work of scientists in an authentic way. While
there is no clear consensus on the precise defnition of inquiry-based science (Cairns & Areepat-
tamannil, 2019), most scholars view inquiry as a spectrum that moves from teacher to student-
directed decision-making about the question being investigated, the procedure to be followed, and
the materials to be used. The goal is to develop students who ask questions about the natural world
and seek to derive explanations for phenomena based on empirical evidence (NGSS, 2013). In
doing so, nature of science tenets, such as the tentativeness of scientifc knowledge and the empirical
nature of evidence, are imbued (Lederman & Lederman, 2014). Much research supports the notion
that inquiry-based learning is more efective than text-based learning for students with disabilities
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in science (Aydeniz et al., 2012; McCarthy, 2005). However, there appears to be some divergence
in the literature regarding the recommended level of inquiry when implemented with students
with learning disabilities. In their literature review of 12 studies related to inquiry-based science
instruction, Rizzo and Taylor (2016) concluded that students with disabilities require scafolds to
experience beneft and that explicit instruction is required. Experts defne explicit instruction as
a systematic instructional approach that utilizes empirically validated principles of instruction to
overtly teach fundamental concepts and skills that students might not otherwise acquire on their
own (Archer & Hughes, 2010). Such principles include (1) overt demonstrations and explanations of
science concepts, procedures, and vocabulary; (2) frequent practice opportunities that allow students
to convey their scientifc thinking; and (3) timely, academic feedback to address potential miscon-
ceptions and gaps in understanding. In this study, the authors identify strategies such as pre-teaching
essential vocabulary, using explicit scafolds during inquiry instruction, and providing formative
feedback as being particularly efective for students with a range of disabilities. The authors speculate
that the success of structured inquiry stems from delivering explicit instruction from the outset and
fading that support over time, while other inquiry models, they suggest, begin with student explora-
tion and then have teachers support and clarify based on conceptual change theories.
Cairns and Areepattamannil (2019) similarly concluded, via hierarchical linear modeling of data
from more than 170,000 15-year-old students from 4,780 schools in 54 countries, that inquiry is not
necessarily better for students’ science achievement, as measured on the Program for International Stu-
dent Assessment (PISA), but is better for student interest and enjoyment in science, which may support
long-term retention. The predictor measure, science inquiry, used six student-answered questions from
the PISA related to inquiry-based teaching/learning. The fndings in this study are limited by lack of
knowledge on the quality of inquiry teaching, the classroom environments, and issues with student self-
reporting. Most recently, Doabler et al. (2021) examined the impacts of a second-grade NGSS-aligned
curriculum on Earth’s systems that utilized explicit instruction, which the authors equate with “guided
inquiry” in the context of science, on student learning. Specifcally, the authors point to providing
empirically validated instructional methods being explicitly taught or modeled, including demonstra-
tions or explanations of science concepts and vocabulary, frequent verbal or written responses to share
scientifc thinking, and timely feedback to address misconceptions and formatively assess student learn-
ing. In the study, 18 second-grade classrooms were randomly assigned to treatment (the “Sci2”program)
or control conditions. The researchers implemented a randomized controlled trial with 294 students
(43 of whom were eligible for special education) nested within classrooms and classrooms nested within
condition. Pre/post-tests were administered to all students using four researcher-developed measures
and found that students in the treatment condition signifcantly outperformed their control-group
peers on three of the four measures. While the fndings are preliminary, the authors argue that the
guided inquiry is preferable to less scafolded levels of inquiry (e.g., open inquiry). Appropriate scaf-
folding of inquiry in inclusive science classrooms has been cited as an area of concern by other scholars
(Mumba et al., 2015). Given that teachers lack training and confdence in inclusive science teaching
(Kahn & Lewis, 2014), teacher training may be needed to ensure that teachers can provide appropriate
supports within structured inquiry (McGrath & Hughes, 2018). In sum, when looking across these
studies, it appears that there is consensus around support for inquiry-based science for all students yet
disagreement regarding the level and types of support that may be needed for implementation, and
perhaps some confation between levels of inquiry (e.g., whether teacher or student drives question,
method, materials, etc.) and the choice of instructional models.
Supporting Disciplinary Literacy

Science instruction frequently relies heavily on expository (informational) text, which can pres-
ent challenges for learners with and without disabilities. Expository text typically contains new
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information, vocabulary, and data (i.e., is “conceptually dense”), requires students to make infer-
ences based on prior knowledge, and is unpredictable in comparison to narrative text, which tells a
story (Mason & Hedin, 2011). Reading ability is key to learning science concepts and demonstrat-
ing learning of science knowledge on tests (Reed et al., 2017a). Disciplinary literacy (DL) refers to
learning how to read, think about, write, communicate, and use information as a discipline’s expert
does (Koomen, 2018b; Zygouris-Coe, 2015). The discipline-specifc skills science educators wish
to foster include developing and interpreting scientifc arguments, making evidence-based claims,
describing scientifc phenomena, integrating text and visual representations, and using scientifc lan-
guage, among others (Reed et al., 2017b). DL can prove particularly challenging for students with
learning disabilities (Kaldenberg et al., 2015), autism (Carnahan et al., 2016), emotional and behav-
ioral disorders (EBD) (Taylor, 2016; Therrien et al., 2014), and speech language impairments (Boyle
et al., 2020). Many researchers suggest that literacy strategies should be embedded within content
instruction due to the high literacy demands in science for all learners (Kaldenberg et al., 2015;
Zygouris-Coe, 2015).
Although the type and extent of language challenges may vary across learners, certain interven-
tions have proven successful for a range of learners, many of which are considered mainstays in UDL
due to their success across learning environments. Graphic organizers, for example, support vocabu-
lary and comprehension for learners with autism spectrum disorders and have the added beneft
of supporting individualized learning (Knight et al., 2013). Therrien and colleagues’ (2011) meta-
analysis pointed to the validity of mnemonics, structured inquiry, and supplemental interventions,
including peer learning and explicit instruction, as having medium to large efect sizes on supporting
DL-related aspects of science for students with learning disabilities. In a similar meta-analysis for stu-
dents with emotional behavioral disorders, Therrien et al. (2014) found many of the same interven-
tions to have medium to large efect sizes, with mnemonics again showing the greatest impact and
science response/review cards being added as a noteworthy scafold for supplemental intervention.
Kaldenberg et al. (2015) found that explicitly teaching vocabulary defnitions, semantic mapping, and
mnemonics to be highly efective with students with learning disabilities as well. Koomen (2018b)
found that read-alouds, shared reading, text structures (e.g., breaking up large amounts of text with
charts, maps, headings, etc.), graphic organizers, question the author (QTA), self-monitoring strate-
gies, and summarizing pre-teaching vocabulary to be most helpful.
Robust literacy instruction may be challenging to integrate into science, as teachers tend to
use simplistic strategies such as providing students with vocabulary words and defnitions rather
than teaching comprehension strategies (e.g., interventions that focus on main idea instruction, self-
questioning, the use of graphic organizers, etc.) (Wexler et al., 2017). Barriers to quality literacy
instruction included time, lack of training, as well as misperceptions teachers held about the level of
evidence-based practices that they implement in their classes. To summarize, several research-based
strategies can support DL in science, including use of mnemonics, graphic organizers, semantic
mapping, and explicit instruction of vocabulary, yet helping students to develop the metacognitive
strategies to independently select and apply appropriate strategies is an area of challenge.
Students With Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities (LD) comprise the most common form of learning diference in science class-
rooms, both because they are the most prevalent and because students with LD are most likely to
be included in general education classrooms (NCES, 2020). LDs impact one or more of the basic
psychological processes underpinning a students’ ability to understand or use language, written or
verbal, and may specifcally manifest as challenges with reading, writing, speaking, listening, reason-
ing, or doing math calculations (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], 2004). In sci-
ence, this means that students with LD may have challenges with reading or comprehending text,
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lectures, class discussions, working with data, writing or orally presenting assignments, and so on.
Consequently, science teachers may severely underestimate students with LDs’ abilities (Marino
et al., 2013). Some common terms utilized in relation to LD are: (1) dyslexia – difculty with read-
ing; (2) dysgraphia – difculty with writing; (3) dysphagia – difculty speaking; and (4) dyscalculia –
difculty with math (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2021). As students with
LD are increasingly included in general education science classes, the importance of supporting their
educational needs cannot be overstated.
Therrien and colleagues’ (2011) meta-analysis of 12 studies published between 1985 and 2006
suggested that an emphasis on “big ideas,” hands-on concrete experiences, formative feedback,
behavioral supports, and review of core concepts were most helpful for encouraging science learning
for students with LD. To address the challenges that LD students might encounter in inquiry-based
science settings, McGrath and Hughes (2018) conducted a cross-case analysis of six middle school
students with LD taught in an inclusive general education setting using inquiry-based instruction.
Analysis of student portfolios, observations, and interviews yielded results suggesting that students
with LD had difculty with inquiry, specifcally due to challenges with abstract concepts and phe-
nomena that are difcult to teach concretely, challenging vocabulary and other literacy skills, and
group work. The authors surmise that, while inquiry reduces reading compared to text-based les-
sons, authentic inquiry still requires reading, diagrams, tables, etc., which necessitates signifcant
support of students with LD.
King-Sears and Johnson (2020) explored the efcacy of a UDL intervention for students with LD
in high school chemistry classrooms. In this two-part study, the authors examined whether students
with and without LD in co-taught general education chemistry classes, and students with LD in a
self-contained classroom, calculated molar conversions more accurately after receiving instruction
through a UDL approach (consisting of demonstration via videos, guided practice, and scafolded
independent practice) versus a traditionally taught comparison group. The authors found that, while
the UDL treatment was efective at increasing all students’ ability to accurately calculate the molar
conversions, further research is needed to parse out which components of the UDL package contrib-
uted most signifcantly to student success.
An increasing body of literature suggests that video games are a promising instructional tool for
students with LD in science. Israel et al. (2016) applied multilevel modeling to explore the impacts
of three video game–enhanced life science units on the science performance and attitudes of 366
US middle school students, representing 18 life science classrooms, over a six-week period. The
researchers examined the impacts and interactions of students’ reading levels (based on National
Assessment of Educational Progress reading scores), presence of a learning disability, gender, and stu-
dent perceptions of science and video games in order to better understand the interplay of disability
challenges (e.g., lack of accessible materials) and gender challenges (e.g., women’s lack of confdence
and lower sense of connectedness to science). All students, with and without LD, showed signifcant
learning gains. While reading ability and self-perceptions of their skills in science were predictive of
comparatively lower performance, LD status and gender were not. These results suggest that video
games may serve to mediate the challenges faced by students with LD and/or gender. The need to
better support students whose identities reside at the intersection of disability and gender is critical in
addressing inequitable representation in STEM felds (Grifths et al., 2020).
In order to better understand the science learning experiences of a 13-year-old African American
male in seventh grade with both learning and behavioral disabilities, Koomen (2016) undertook a
13-week case study during which time the class was learning about ecology. Data included interviews
with the student, whose pseudonym was Wizard, as well as his science and special education teachers,
videotaped classroom observations, and feld notes. Findings suggested that Wizard’s experiences were
(1) characterized by both autonomy and dependence and (2) shaped by fragmented learning experi-
ences due to challenges with disciplinary literacy. An additional fnding was that students can appear to
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be “included” but can in fact be academically excluded and underserved. The author provides several
strategies for attending to students’ emergent disciplinary literacy while also supporting their agency
and voice. The overrepresentation in special education and underrepresentation in science of bilingual
children prompted Martínez-Álvarez (2017) to explore the impact of language on bilingual students
with LDs’ science achievement during implementation of a place-based and text-based geoscience
unit. Six bilingual fourth-grade students with LD, whose parental language was Spanish, participated
in the study in which the researcher analyzed audiotapes, feld notes, pre- and post-assessments, and
interviews with the participants using a cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) perspective. Find-
ings suggest that the students’ understanding was undervalued when interpreted within traditional
Western scientifc perspectives, but this could be mediated by using instructional tools such as ques-
tions, visuals, and texts that allowed for linguistic and conceptual advancement.
Audiobooks and podcasts may play a key role in supporting students with LD. Gomes and Men-
sah (2016) found that audiobooks supported students with language-based learning disabilities when
the content was unfamiliar to students. Relatedly, podcasts may be a viable alternative to teacher-
read test accommodations for students with learning disabilities. Examining 47 sixth-grade students
with reading difculties in an urban middle school, McMahon et al. (2015) found that there was no
signifcant diference in scores between the teacher read-aloud and podcast conditions, but medium
positive efect of both over standard (no read-aloud) condition. The podcast allows students to take
tests at their own pace and enables teachers to have more time for planning and instructing rather
than reading tests. To summarize, students with LD may encounter challenges in science due to lan-
guage and organizational demands, as well as an emphasis on abstract concepts. Many research-based
practices can support students with LDs, with new technologies, including audiobooks and podcasts,
showing great promise.
Students With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Students with intellectual (cognitive) disabilities (ID) demonstrate difculties in cognitive function-
ing as well as social, communication, or adaptive skills. IDs can range from mild (i.e., “high inci-
dence”) to moderate, severe, and profound (i.e., “low incidence”). One common challenge in
science teaching for students with ID is that teachers often adapt science content by aiming it toward
much younger students and below grade level according to science standards (Taylor et al., 2020).
In addition, much of the research on students with ID in science focuses on life skills (e.g., cooking,
watering plants) or behavioral indicators (e.g., following directions) rather than science learning goals
(Andersen & Nash, 2016).
The term “developmental disabilities” (DD) is a blanket term that refers to impairments in physi-
cal, learning, language, or behavior areas that begin during a child’s developmental period, often
impacting the reaching of developmental milestones (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
2022). DD includes diagnoses such as autism, ID, cerebral palsy, and a range of other conditions
that may require learning accommodations. DD is not a category under the IDEA, but autism, or
autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is generally considered a developmental disability that may or may
not impact intellectual abilities. Under the IDEA, autism is distinct from ID and is recognized as a
spectrum that includes many individuals of very high intellect. In fact, students with autism are more
likely than other students with or without disabilities to gravitate toward STEM felds (Wei et al.,
2017). Although autism and ID may be completely distinct, many studies combine participants,
particularly when students demonstrate cognitive impairment. Some studies also refer to “develop-
mental disabilities” to mean intellectual disabilities, which may or may not include participants with
autism, primarily because the interventions overlap. For these reasons, this section will include stud-
ies on teaching science to students with ID and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) and/or autism
with full recognition that this is a woefully imperfect approach.
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A series of recent reviews attempt to evaluate and encapsulate the research on students with
ID and/or ASD in science learning. In a meta-analysis, Taylor, Hwang et al. (2020) analyzed
18 studies published between 2000 and 2018, fnding low efect sizes for elementary classroom
interventions, perhaps due to elementary teachers’ reluctance to teach science. Students taught in
general education classrooms or self-contained special education had higher efect sizes than when
students were taught in resource room (i.e., “pullout”) classes. Self-management strategies had the
highest efect size of all strategies, with task analysis (breaking down a complex task into smaller
steps) also proving to be efective, while explicit instruction indicated low efects, the latter being
surprising given prior research touting explicit instruction. The authors surmise that this might
be due to students with IDD language challenges, which would be particular barriers to explicit/
scripted instruction.
In their meta-analysis on science for students with ASD, Taylor, Rizzo et al. (2020) included 11
single case studies from 2000 to 2018, concluding that most interventions utilized an array of strate-
gies, with explicit/scripted instruction being most prevalent. Most of the studies occurred in special
education resource rooms, with very few occurring in inclusive general education science classes.
Graphic organizers, self-management strategies, and text-based strategies emerged as having some of
the largest efect sizes, yet almost all of the strategies would likely contribute to enhanced learning,
suggesting that students with ASD beneft from combinations of approaches to maximize learning.
Knight and colleagues’ (2020) review on teaching science practices (e.g., asking questions, devel-
oping and using models, constructing explanations) as opposed to the more commonly studied area
of teaching science content, to students with ID or ID/ASD covered studies from 2009 to 2018.
With 12 single case studies included, the authors identifed the following three strategies as evidence-
based practices (EBPs; having positive efects in at least fve studies): multiple exemplar training (i.e.,
giving students a variety of opportunities in a variety of contexts to apply the science practice); task
analytic instruction (i.e., teaching practices via a series of step-by-step tasks); and time delay (i.e.,
using increasing amounts of time between instruction from the teacher and a prompt to elicit practice
response). Particularly noteworthy is that the authors concluded that these three strategies were also
efective at teaching content.
Ehsan et al. (2018) conducted a systematic review of STEM instruction with students with ASD,
ages 5–25. While the authors examined all STEM disciplines, specifcally in science, they found
that most interventions were multicomponent, with successful strategies including explicit instruc-
tion, self-directed instruction, educational technology, and graphic organizers. The authors opine
that most of the studies refect behaviorist approaches and that more “student-centered” approaches
would be benefcial in research.
In perhaps one of the most comprehensive reviews, Apanasionok et al. (2019) systematically
reviewed interventions for teaching science to students with DD, defned as having ID and/or ASD.
Of the 30 included studies between 2003 and 2017, 29 were from the United States and one from
the United Kingdom, and together they represented 118 students. Not surprisingly, 23 studies uti-
lized systematic instruction, including task analysis, embedded instruction (providing instruction
for target skills during ongoing activities), constant time delay (procedure involving delivery of the
prompt after a specifc amount of time after the instruction), simultaneous prompting (the prompt is
delivered straight after the instruction and then gradually faded out), system of least to most prompts
(hierarchy of prompts used to help the students, starting from the least intrusive), and scripted les-
sons (provides teachers with scripts with exact information on how to teach each target and deliver
the instruction). Of 90 participants taught by systematic instruction, only three students did not
make progress in their target skills as a result of the intervention, and participants mostly felt that the
approaches were valuable and efective. The authors conclude that, while systematic instruction may
be an efective (and preferred) strategy by special education researchers, there is limited evidence sup-
porting practices that support learners’ scientifc reasoning abilities, including generating predictions
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and evaluating evidence, again raising the specter of the behaviorist/constructivist schism in science
education research.
While conclusions about best practices for students with IDD can be drawn from these reviews,
attention to some specifc studies merits our attention. Heinrich and colleagues (2016) found embed-
ded simultaneous prompting (SP) to be an efective intervention for teaching STEM content about
heredity to three secondary students with moderate ID in an inclusive general education classroom.
SP involves giving students an instruction and immediately providing a response during the teaching
phase, and then removing the instructor’s response during the probe or test phase. Using a multiple-
probe-across-participants design, the researchers found that all participants were able to reach their
target goals in two to eight sessions, maintain their skills for one month following the intervention,
and generalize their learning to novel situations. Collins et al. (2017) also applied a multiple-probe-
across-participants design to examine the efects of SP through the steps of a task analysis to teach
four secondary students with mild intellectual disabilities to care for plants, a potential employment
skill, while also learning science content on photosynthesis. The intervention consisted of asking a
question (e.g., “What’s the frst step to take care of the plant?”) followed immediately by a verbal
prompt (e.g., “Rotate the plant so it gets sunlight evenly”), after which the student would rotate the
plant and be praised. The teacher then included information on photosynthesis (e.g., “You rotate the
plant because . . .”). The results indicated that all four participants were able to meet their employ-
ment goals for plant care, increase their science content knowledge, and retain skills for up to eight
weeks following intervention.
Supporting students with ID’s autonomy is a key concern, particularly when trying to support
inquiry. Miller and Taber-Doughty (2014) explored the use of self-monitoring checklists with three
middle school students with intellectual disabilities in order to increase independence in science
inquiry. The curriculum included instruction and hands-on activities on topics such as testing sun-
screens using UV-sensitive beads and creating anemometers using a variety of materials. Relatedly,
Miller et al. (2015) experienced similar results when investigating self-monitoring checklists with
high school students with ID as well.
The use of peers as interventionists is a well-supported strategy for students with ID. Jimenez
and colleagues (2012) investigated the use of peer-mediated instruction (PMI) to teach inquiry sci-
ence and use of a K-W-H-L chart to students with moderate ID in an inclusive setting. Six general
education peers were trained in embedded constant time-delay procedure and then implemented
it during three science units with fve students with moderate ID. The fndings suggested that all
of the students with moderate ID increased correct responses, while all six peers implemented the
intervention with high fdelity, maintained their grades, and wanted to continue in the role, as they
felt that the experience was enjoyable. Similarly, Wu et al. (2020) examined the impact of PMI
when used with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) (speech-generating devices)
on science learning. Three Taiwanese students with signifcant cognitive disabilities participated in
the study. Nine students without disabilities were trained on the intervention-taught scripted les-
sons on buoyancy and electricity. Using a multiple-baseline-across-participants design, the research-
ers found that PMI, along with the AAC intervention, was efective in improving participants’
science knowledge as well as their communication interactions with peers when compared to the
general teaching strategy.
The use of technology may be particularly helpful for students with IDD, including electronic
science notebooks (Miller et al., 2013) and computer-assisted instruction (CAI) to teach vocabulary
(Smith et al., 2013), including in rural settings (McKissick et al., 2018); multicomponent multime-
dia shared story (MSS) intervention via an iPad to teach science vocabulary (Rivera et al., 2017);
electronic text (eText) (Knight et al., 2018); augmented reality (AR) for teaching science vocabulary
(McMahon et al., 2016); and robotics and coding as emerging content areas for students with ASD
(Knight et al., 2019).
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In a marked departure from the majority of studies, Madden et al. (2018) represents a collab-
orative research efort between a science education faculty member, a program administrator, and
three young women with ID who share their personal science learning experiences. Their stories
helped to identify trends, including overreliance on text in science classrooms, a strong preference
for hands-on authentic learning, and a desire to have teachers who wanted to teach students similar
to themselves. Similarly, work by Kingsbury et al. (2020) presents three autistic geoscience authors’
framework for students with autism in geosciences, which may well be applicable across all science
felds. The three points of their framework are: (1) develop efective communication pathways with
autistic students; (2) presume competence, recognizing that autistic individuals are experts in their
autistic existence; and (3) employ strategies for expectation management.
In sum, a signifcant body of empirical evidence supports the use of systematic instruction,
graphic organizers, approaches that support self-monitoring (e.g., checklists), embedded instruc-
tion, and emerging technologies as efective supports for students with ID and/or autism. That said,
the research overwhelmingly refects studies with similar approaches and methodologies that rarely
include or lift the voice(s) of the participants. Perhaps greater use of qualitative and mixed methods
within this area of research would illuminate a wider range of interventions.
Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities

Students with emotional behavioral disabilities (EBD) often have difculty achieving in science due
to several barriers, including student behavior, teacher training and confdence, and instructional
format (Taylor, 2016). Students with EBD may struggle in their interpersonal relationships with
peers and teachers, which in turn may manifest as inattention, noncompliance, aggression, anxiety,
and depression, leading to academic challenges (Sanders et al., 2018). Instruction through lectures
and textbooks is particularly inefective for students with EBD, as these methods rely on high lit-
eracy skills and prior knowledge (Therrien et al., 2014). Theoretically, science should be a key area
for students with EBD, as it presents an opportunity for students to connect to topics of personal or
societal relevance, daily living, and independence (Taylor, 2016).
Therrien et al. (2014) conducted a meta-analysis representing 11 studies including 72 students
with EBD over a 30-year time period. The interventions as a whole had small to medium impacts
on students with EBD’s science achievement; most of the assessments measured factual recall rather
than understanding, and only two studies looked at whether students were able to demonstrate their
learning on generalized achievement measures (e.g., standardized tests). Mnemonics again proved
to be a successful strategy for promoting factual recall and retention; inquiry may be promising, but
more research is needed to explore scafolds for student learning and behavior as other researchers
have noted that of-task behavior can be particularly problematic in hands-on, inquiry-based lessons,
which are typically less structured from the outset (Watt et al., 2014).
One emerging strategy that may increase reading comprehension while attending to students
with EBD’s emotional needs is self-regulated strategy development (SRSD), the focus of a study by
Sanders et al. (2018). The purpose of this study was to examine the efectiveness of the TWA (Think
before reading, think While reading, and think After reading) (Mason & Hedin, 2011). TWA is a
form of SRSD where the student is taught to self-monitor and self-evaluate while reading. This study
specifcally focused on increasing reading comprehension of science texts in 25 middle and high
school students with EBD. Results of a piecewise hierarchical linear model suggest signifcant gains in
reading comprehension. SRSD was further studied by Garwood and colleagues (2019), who applied
a multi-probe, multiple-baseline-across-groups-of-students study involved a science teacher in a resi-
dential treatment facility who implemented SRSD to teach persuasive writing with 11 secondary
students experiencing complex trauma. The researchers found large efects for persuasive parts, word
count, and holistic quality, and all students felt that this intervention improved their writing.
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Taylor and Hwang (2021) present a novel framework for teaching inquiry-based science to stu-
dents with LD and/or EBD in an online environment. Based on fndings from prior research, the
authors’ proposed framework involves inquiry-based instruction, which uses many of the already-
noted scafolds (e.g., structured inquiry, use of big ideas, multimodal representations, including mov-
ing from concrete to abstract) as well as arts integration (e.g., visual, performance, writing, digital),
teaching technology, and integrating engineering design. The authors contend that such a frame-
work would provide necessary supports for students’ organizational and executive functioning while
presenting a real-world context or authentic problem that students can address through arts, math,
and engineering design. In sum, the research on students with EBD in science is rather limited;
the research that exists reiterates many of the same scafolds for literacy, inquiry, and autonomy that
were previously mentioned. However, the question of whether the use of inquiry and/or real-world
problem solving through integration with arts and engineering remains open, as there appears to be
tension between researchers as to how much autonomy is best for students with EBD.
Students With Physical Disabilities/Mobility

and Orthopedic Impairments
Mobility and orthopedic impairments refer to a broad range of functional abilities ranging from the
inability to stand or walk far or at all without support to balance challenges and dexterity limitations,
among others (Moon et al., 2012). Students’ mobility or orthopedic impairments may be related to
medical conditions such as muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, or spina bifda, or temporary circum-
stances such as broken bones or chemotherapy. Some students with lower-body impairments may
use wheelchairs, walkers, or canes/crutches, while those with upper-body impairments may have
limited use of their hands or arms (DO-IT, n.d.). A wide range of assistive technologies are available
to support students’ full participation in science, such as beakers with handles, lever-controlled rather
than knob-controlled laboratory fxtures (Moon et al., 2012), push-button adjustable height tables in
labs and maker spaces (Love et al., 2020), and specialized devices for computer and internet use that
allow input from eye movement or speech (Lang et al., 2014). While little current research exists on
the experiences of students with physical disabilities in the K–12 classroom, Jeannis et al. (2018) set
out to understand the barriers and facilitators to full participation of students with physical disabilities
in postsecondary STEM through a literature review of publications from 1991 to 2015. From the
22 articles analyzed, the authors found that little empirical evidence exists on this subject, as most of
the studies were anecdotal. The authors were able to group the study fndings into three categories:
(1) learning environment of the physical science and engineering laboratory, (2) physical built envi-
ronment of the laboratory, and (3) the tasks needed to be executed in the laboratory space. Carabajal
et al. (2017) similarly point to the range of barriers that impede full participation for people with
physical disabilities in science, including physical barriers (e.g., inaccessible classroom or laboratory
equipment and spaces, feld site terrains that are difcult to navigate) and nonphysical barriers (e.g.,
attitudinal and institutional including bias and stereotyping). The authors describe UDL approaches
that support inclusive instructional design for geoscience feld work, such as tactile feld maps, audio-
recorded feld guides, and alternative feld access, that allow all students, including those with hear-
ing, visual, and mobility disabilities, to participate. Virtual learning environments (VLE)s, particularly
virtual feld trips (VFT)s, may provide access for students for whom feld trips would be inaccessible
otherwise but if used as replacements for traditional feld work may be seen as inferior. In a related
study, Atchison et al. (2019) utilized a multiple case study applying a lens of inclusive learning com-
munities to analyze three inclusive geoscience feld trip projects. The authors determined that pro-
viding physical and social access to learning were the most pressing. Additionally, strong feelings of
social inclusion and belonging, along with individual ownership in the learning activities were also
found to be essential. Similarly, Stokes and colleagues (2019) suggest that multisensory engagement,
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consideration for pace and timing, fexibility of access and delivery, and a focus on shared tasks are
key factors in inclusive feldwork design.
Koomen (2018a) use a framework of narrative inquiry to share the retrospective experiences in
K–12 science learning from Alejandro, a college graduate born with cerebral palsy. Some of the
themes that arose from this study were that science teachers need to pay more attention to physical
accessibility, read IEPs, and create a positive and supportive classroom environment in which it is
acceptable to make mistakes. Refecting on this section, it appears that there is little recent research
on supporting students with physical disabilities in K–12 science classrooms. While much of the
research done at the postsecondary level likely applies to K–12, more can be done to understand and
address barriers to accessibility, both physical and attitudinal.
Students With Visual Impairments

Making materials accessible for students with sensory impairments is a critical focus within current
science education research, particularly for students with visual impairments (VI). Science concepts
are often taught using two-dimensional models, graphs, and images, which makes it difcult for
students with visual impairments to form mental models for scientifc representations. Wild and
Koehler (2017) stress the importance of providing adaptive materials and addressing misconceptions
that may emerge from interpretations of models/graphics. Moreover, science educators must be
mindful of the fact that students with VI may require targeted support for concepts and skills that are
learned incidentally with vision, such as orientation/mobility and social interaction. Chiu and Wild
(2021)’s analysis of fve popular science curriculum books shows that many of these skills, which
form the basis of the Expanded Core Curriculum for students with VI, can be taught through qual-
ity science lessons.
Kizilaslan et al. (2020) applied exploratory and evaluative case study methodologies to exam-
ine the efect of using adaptive materials and pedagogical accommodations on Turkish sixth-grade
students with VI’s conceptual understanding of matter and energy. Results of pre/post-academic
achievement tests and semi-structured interviews revealed that practices such as developing braille
diagrams, using multisensory materials, applying color contrast for handouts, and simplifying com-
plex concepts increased students’ conceptual understanding. Relatedly, Koehler et al. (2018) found
3D printed models superior to tactile graphics for communicating scientifc concepts to students
with VI. However, the authors note that the novelty of the 3D models may have impacted their
fndings.
Data on the prevalence of adaptive equipment and pedagogical accommodations for students with
VI are somewhat mixed. In their survey of 92 teachers of elementary students with VI, Rosenblum
et al. (2019) found that teachers reported accommodating students with tactile or large-print graph-
ics, 3D models, auditory instruction, talking science equipment, and experiential and kinesthetic
learning. Pre-teaching diagrams and models, prior to instruction, were also widely used. In the same
year, however, Bell and Silverman (2019) found, in their survey of 49 blind and visually impaired
(BVI) students, that 85% of the students reported lacking access to information that was presented on
blackboards, and many noted receiving accessible materials later than their peers without VI. These
studies may suggest the importance of examining both teacher and student perceptions of accom-
modations within the same study in gaining deeper understanding of the barriers and facilitators
to teaching and learning of science for students with VI. (For a review of technology and adaptive
equipment for students with visual impairments in science, see Reynaga-Peña & del Carmen López-
Suero, 2020.)
Field-based, informal learning experiences have also been shown to be efective in promoting
conceptual understanding in science for students with VI. Wild et al. (2013) investigated the experi-
ences of 18 middle and high school students with VI who participated in a weeklong feld-based
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geology summer camp. The researchers found that after a week of intensive experiences, students
gained more accurate conceptions of scientifc phenomena but not all misconceptions were elimi-
nated. Perhaps most interesting was that students communicated some misconceptions that were
previously unreported in the literature, including people contributing to Earth’s processes, water
pressure causing tectonic plates to move, and using tree rings to date planetary history. The research-
ers suggest that additional informal experiences paired with formal classroom instruction will be
necessary to clarify concepts. In another feld study, Tsinajinie et al. (2021) examined the impacts
of an outdoor project-based learning (PBL) program for middle and high school students with VI.
The authors qualitatively analyzed photographs, camp associate intern notes, and researcher memos,
fnding that the combination of PBL, multisensory experiences, and assistive technology to support
students with VI proved to be successful at promoting inclusion. To summarize, the research on sci-
ence for students with VI suggests that full inclusion is feasible with appropriate adaptive equipment
and instructional materials. Special attention to physical models and experiential learning provides
students with BVI multisensory opportunities and can aid in forming mental models.
Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students

Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) learners have been sorely understudied in science education. Given
that teachers report lack of preparation (Raven & Whitman, 2019), it is perhaps not surprising that
DHH students underperform their peers in science, are less likely to be enrolled in secondary science
courses, and are underrepresented in STEM careers (Nagle et al., 2016; National Science Founda-
tion, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2019). Although auditory deprivation is
commonly thought to negatively impact DHH students’ executive functioning, it is likely language
deprivation that is the key threat (Hall et al., 2017), prompting many researchers to emphasize lit-
eracy and language acquisition in science learning for DHH students (Im & Kim, 2014). Ensuring
that DHH students have rich educational experiences that tap students’ creative, problem-solving,
and collaborative skills, as well as linguistic and literacy skills, is critical to ensuring equitable STEM
opportunities in schooling and beyond (Enderle et al., 2020).
In order to gain an understanding of how DHH students are educated in the science classroom,
Raven and Whitman (2019) used an exploratory mixed-methods design with data including class-
room observations, standardized test scores, an online survey, and interviews with 16 teachers of
DHH students. The authors found that most of the teachers lacked science content background and
used simplistic instructional strategies, such as drawing pictures, rather than engaging students in sci-
entifc investigation. The authors suggest that reducing vocabulary-heavy teaching may be preferable
to trying to make instruction visual and that more science content profciency, as well as accommo-
dations for DHH students, is warranted.
The technical nature of scientifc language can prove particularly challenging for DHH students.
Many vocabulary words need to be specially interpreted/translated, as there may not be an equivalent
in American Sign Language (ASL) (Enderle et al., 2020) or British Sign Language (BSL) (Cameron
et al., 2016). To counteract this latter challenge, Cameron et al. (2016) describe the manner in which
the BSL online glossary of science technical terms, based at the Scottish Sensory Centre at the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh and designed with input from deaf scientists and experts in BSL, supports both
students and teachers. Enderle and colleagues (2020) further illuminated the limitations of science-
specifc ASL vocabulary, particularly insofar as conveying key aspects of the NGSS, including nature
of science (NOS) and science and engineering practices (SEP). The authors examined eight publicly
available resources for ASL for key words pertaining to NOS and SEP to understand how these words
communicate scientifc meanings. Out of the 74 terms searched, the researchers determined that only
21 terms that had a consensus sign available across at least three of the eight resources. Moreover, even
those signs conveyed misconceptions. For example, it was noted that the sign for “science” involves
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rotating both hands in a shape to appear as though they were holding fasks; the authors noted that
this image of science privileges chemistry but fails to convey the breadth of scientifc investigatory
endeavors. Hufing et al. (2018) also recognized the limitations of ASL for conveying scientifc ter-
minology when implementing a weeklong residential herpetological research experience for high
school students. Barriers for inclusion of two DHH students included the auditory nature of some
of the aspects of the project (“frog calls”) and the lack of ASL signs for the various species, among
other terms. Applying a DSE and UDL framework and case study methodology, the authors utilized
assistive apps to convert the frog calls to visual sonograms and developed new signs for animals (e.g.,
“salamander” was signed as “wet lizard”). The fndings suggest that these types of curricular adapta-
tions had positive impacts on both DHH and hearing students involved in the project.
Reinforcing the critical nature of scientifc language acquisition for DHH learners, Im and Kim
(2014) examined the efects of combining inquiry-based science lessons, which encouraged interac-
tive communication, with guided manual and report writing, on the language fuency and inquiry
skills of 13 DHH students in South Korea. The authors found that the emphasis on structured lan-
guage use, particularly written language, signifcantly increased students’ fuency and inquiry skills,
suggesting that science can serve as a critical context for DHH students’ language acquisition, while
conversely, language acquisition can support science learning.
Renken et al. (2021) examined the relationship between the intersectionality of DHH racial/
ethnic minority high school students’ identities and their connection to STEM during a summer
program and throughout the following school year. The authors examined data including surveys
assessing scientifc sense-making, afnity toward STEM, and reading ability, as well as focus groups,
interviews, and photographs taken during camp, and applying cross-case analysis, identifed a num-
ber of incidences where inclusion and exclusion occurred. The authors recommend approaches to
overcome some of the language barriers that confront ASL users, while also recommending STEM
mentorship and connections to real-world and career applications of STEM.
In another study aimed at supporting the persistence of DHH students in STEM felds, Kahn
et al. (2013) examined the role of teacher facilitation of inquiry on DHH students’ autonomy and
ability to negotiate scientifc problem solving. Applying a general inductive approach, the authors
utilized an instrumental cross-case study to analyze videos of instructional periods in three earth sci-
ence classrooms located in three high schools for DHH students. Findings suggest that teachers who
utilize highly directed instruction (e.g., pointing and describing phenomena, answering questions
posed) may impede the development of independence and autonomy in DHH students, whereas
teachers who allow DHH students to explore and “fail” may foster greater autonomy, a key factor
in DHH students’ success in higher education. To summarize, it may surprise some to learn that
language, not auditory deprivation, may lead many DHH learners to lag in academics. Teachers
of DHH students who lack science content knowledge and/or underestimate students’ abilities, in
combination with the limits of ASL or BSL in conveying scientifc concepts accurately, all contribute
to DHH students’ underrepresentation in science. Greater emphasis on conveying NOS tenets, par-
ticularly insofar as science is a human endeavor, may expand DHH students’ persistence in STEM.
Gifted Learners in Science

As noted earlier, there are many instructional practices that have been found to be efective with gifted
learners across disciplines. Specifcally in science, three recent books (Sumida & Taber, 2017; Taber &
Sumida, 2016; Taber et al., 2017) can be referenced for international perspectives on policy and
practice. These books broaden the discussion of gifted science education to include promotion of cre-
ativity, incorporation of the arts into STEM, and research apprenticeships, among other approaches.
To better understand gifted students’ learning, Gubbels and colleagues (2014) investigated the
cognitive, socioemotional, and attitudinal efects of a triarchic (i.e., analytical, creative, and practical)
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enrichment program on 66 upper-elementary school students in the Netherlands. Pre- and post-test
control group design revealed that the program had positive impact on practical intelligence, motiva-
tion, self-concept, and enjoyment of science, supporting earlier research suggesting that challeng-
ing educational experiences and opportunities to socialize within similar ability groupings through
enrichment opportunities are important to gifted students’ motivation in STEM.
Gifted students’ retention in STEM was the focus of Mullet and colleagues’ (2018) qualita-
tive study to examine gifted college students’ conceptions of their high school STEM educations.
Seven frst-year students enrolled in an honors program were interviewed, and data were analyzed
inductively using a phenomenographic analysis framework. The authors found that intellectually
challenging environments, teachers who took a personal interest in students and held them to a high
standard, active learning, and ability grouping all contributed to gifted students’ positive concep-
tions and achievement in STEM. Gifted students in rural areas face particular challenges, as enrich-
ment programs and other resources may be lacking. To overcome this challenge, Morris et al. (2021)
examined the impact of a STEM program focused on local knowledge on 26 rural lower-secondary
Australian students’ engagement and experience in STEM. Mixed methods were used, analyzing
students’ general science class experiences and their experiences with program in which students
worked with an ecologist to rehabilitate plots of damaged land near the school. The fndings sug-
gested that the local rural knowledge program increased students’ engagement in STEM, enhanced
retention, and translated STEM understanding more broadly in the community. The implications
of the study support the use of real-world problems that activate social justice orientations within
gifted students, while also encouraging the development of positive bonds between teachers and
students.
Addressing the underrepresentation of ethnic minority students in gifted and talented programs,
Yoon et al. (2020) examined the impact of an enrichment program on gifted and talented students’
(GTS) leadership, attitude, and motivation. Ten gifted Korean American students in grades 9–12
who attended the Youth Science and Technology Leadership Camp experienced signifcant growth
in self-awareness, self-confdence, and learning. The results suggest that similar enrichment programs
that draw upon student voice, the Science Technology and Society (STS) learning model, and cul-
turally inclusive instruction can foster ethnic minority GTSs’ success in STEM. The importance of
enrichment programs for gifted minority students in STEM was underscored by Fraleigh-Lohrfnk
and colleagues’ (2013) comparison of 29 minority (Hispanic or Latino, African American, and other
minorities) gifted high school students who attended the Centers Scholars Program and a compari-
son group of 37 gifted minority students who did not attend. Results suggested that Center Scholars
showed higher and better-defned career and academic aspirations and scientifc interests. This study
supports early intervention for gifted minority students and contradicts the perception that gifted
students will pursue science careers regardless of enrichment.
Māori boys, part of the Indigenous population of New Zealand, are often overrepresented in
special education programs and underrepresented in gifted programs. To investigate gifted Māori
boys’ engagement and potential in science, Riley et al. (2017) undertook a case study of the REAPS
model, which integrates real-world problem solving, active learning, and cultural relevance, with 90
secondary school students ages 12 or 13 in a rural, low-socioeconomic school in New Zealand. The
program challenged students to brainstorm ways to address a local waterway issue as they learned
about ecology and engaged with local stakeholders. Interviews, observations, documents, and surveys
revealed that students displayed greater engagement, academic achievement, and collaboration, and
demonstrated talents that had previously been overlooked. The fndings lend credence to the impor-
tance of diferentiating curriculum to ensure that it is meaningful, collaborative, and appropriately
challenging for gifted underrepresented students.
In sum, there is a tremendous body of research on frameworks for educating gifted students, yet
there is little recent research specifcally supporting science learning. Many of the studies in science
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contexts focus on student attitudes, which is certainly critical for persistence in STEM but does
not address the question of how to ensure that gifted students are challenged and nurtured to their
potential in science. Perhaps sociocultural frameworks like socioscientifc sssues (SSI; Zeidler, 2014)
that position STEM in meaningful real-world contexts would extend the fndings of the Morris et al.
(2021) and Riley et al. (2017) studies.
What Constitutes “Assessment for All” in Science?

Assessment is a necessary component of teaching and learning that allows educators to plan instruc-
tion, evaluate the efects of the instruction, and attend to those areas that require additional attention.
Taylor (2018) proposed conceptualizing assessment by type (what is being assessed?), time (when is
assessment occurring?), and tools (how is assessment occurring?). The tools of assessment are perhaps
the most controversial when considering the assessment of learners with special needs and talents in
science, as many authors warn that, too often, traditional assessments may refect students’ aptitude
in reading and writing rather than their understanding of science (Seifert & Espin, 2012). Moreover,
large-scale standardized assessments carry particular limitations in understanding achievement gaps
among underserved groups in science, including overgeneralizing achievement of highly diverse
groups (i.e., combining students with diferent disabilities into one demographic group); reinforc-
ing stereotypes (i.e., low expectations for students with disabilities, high expectations for gifted
students); and ignoring intersectionality (NGSS, 2013, Appendix D). While laws such as the Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), which mandates the inclusion of most students with disabilities
in large-scale, standardized assessments, have been aimed at creating an equitable playing feld and
illuminating gaps in marginalized students’ educations, the overemphasis on such assessments has cre-
ated challenges for teachers attempting to balance accountability measures against the individualized
educational approach promised by the IDEA (McGinnis & Kahn, 2014). It is, therefore, particularly
critical for science educators to consider a range of tools to assess all students, including those with
special needs and talents.
Espin and colleagues’ (2013) study analyzed the efcacy of vocabulary-matching probes to predict
secondary students’ progress in science. Over a period of 14 weeks, fve-minute vocabulary-matching
probes were administered on a weekly basis to 198 seventh-grade students, 17 of which had LD. The
researchers found signifcant correlation between performance on the probes and criterion measures,
suggesting that the vocabulary-matching probes show promise as progress-monitoring assessments,
that is, as long as teachers do not simply focus on pre-teaching the vocabulary words.
Lederman and Bartels (2018) considered the ways in which nature of science (NOS) and scientifc
inquiry (SI) could be assessed in students who have difculty with traditional written assessments due
to physical and/or learning disabilities. The authors discuss the use and development of an orally
administered protocol, the Young Children’s Views of Science (YCVS) (Lederman et al., 2014) to
assess students’ understanding of science, NOS, and SI. When implemented in 6 elementary schools
with 340 students, 41 of whom were identifed as having special needs, the students were found to
have comparable scores. However, students with disabilities were found to be better informed on two
aspects of NOS (subjectivity and use of multiple methods) than their peers. The authors surmise that
students with disabilities’ experience with medical professionals may infuence their understanding
of scientifc endeavors.
Brendel et al. (2019) examined the role of narrative assessments in understanding elementary
students’ science learning. Through action research, the authors collaborated with a teacher who
implemented the use of portfolios along with discourse around students’ products to support meta-
cognition and assess learning. The authors suggest that narrative assessments are a powerful tool in
understanding students’ conceptual understandings of science, scafolding students’ metacognitive
processes, and positioning all children as capable learners.
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An emerging feld is the assessment of twice exceptional (2e) students in science. Sumida (2016)
developed a gifted checklist for adults in science, building upon an earlier study by the author, which
resulted in a checklist for identifying gifted characteristics of science learning in elementary students.
The adult checklist is premised upon the notion that understanding the nature of giftedness in the
general society can inform screening and assessment of children, including those with disabilities, at
early ages. Emphasizing assessment of all students’ strengths in science has been advocated by a num-
ber of authors (Armstrong, 2012; Hwang & Taylor, 2016; Kahn, 2018).
Ensuring that students with signifcant cognitive impairments, who comprise approximately 1%
of the total student population, can participate in valid and equitable alternate standardized assess-
ments was the focus of two related studies (Andersen & Nash, 2016; Andersen et al., 2018). The frst
study describes the development of a set of 43 alternate science content standards, called Essential
Elements (EE), along with an alternate assessment at each of three grade spans. Results from a pilot
test consisting of 251 items and implemented with 1,606 students presented evidence of validity
and accessibility of the assessment for participants. The second study extended the frst by imple-
menting and evaluating the validity of the alternate assessment across an eight-state consortium and
administered to over 21,000 students in 2015–2016. Findings suggest that the alternate assessment
is a valid measure of students with signifcant cognitive impairments’ science knowledge while also
achieving the precarious goal of balancing the need for standardization with the need for fexibility
when developing alternate assessments. In sum, while accountability measures remain a focal point
of discussion and research in science education, ensuring a range of assessments that value students’
strengths, accommodate diference, and represent the full breadth of students’ learning is warranted.
What Is the State of Science Teacher Education With Respect

to Students With Special Needs and Talents?
Given the many years of emphasis on equity in science education, one would think that teachers
would be well prepared to teach the increasingly diverse students in their classrooms. This is simply
not the case. According to a national (US) survey of 1,088 K–12 science teachers, nearly one third
of participants received no training in teaching students with disabilities, and of those who did, the
most commonly cited source of training was on the job (Kahn & Lewis, 2014). Some scholars point
to practical obstacles to teachers’ implementation of inclusive science practices, including lack of
co-planning time, challenges with establishing roles and responsibilities, and simply lack of familiar-
ity with discipline-specifc accommodations (Moin et al., 2009), while others paint a more critical
portrait, concluding that “ontological erasure” allows educators and teacher educators to deny the
very existence of people with disabilities (Nusbaum & Steinborn, 2019). This latter perspective
shares some alignment with other researchers who position the preparation of science teachers who
are prepared and positively inclined to teach students with disabilities as a moral imperative (Kahn,
2015; McGinnis, 2003). Koomen and colleagues’ (2022) review of scholarship in science teacher
education from approximately 2010 to 2020 yielded fndings suggesting that very few empirical
studies actually focus on the professional learning of educators; most studies emphasize student learn-
ing. In addition, the authors found that preservice teachers have tremendous difculties translating
their classroom learning into practice in inclusive classrooms. While this latter point is not unique to
inclusive science education, it is arguably the most critical context. Finally, the authors amplify the
earlier-mentioned situation of disability being minimized even within courses on equity in science
teacher education, a fnding that resonates deeply with the conclusions of Bancroft and Nyirenda
(2020), whose literature review of equity-focused science teacher professional development found
that only ten included studies (27.8%) embedded practices specifcally designed to prepare science
teachers to support special education students. Even when disability is embedded within equity-
focused “science for all” courses, defcit conceptualizations can persist (Boda, 2021).
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Spektor-Levy and Yifrach (2019) ask a poignant question: If science teachers are positively
inclined toward inclusive education, why is it so difcult? The authors applied the theory of planned
behavior, which links behavioral intentions to attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control,
to a mixed-methods investigation of 215 Israeli junior high school science teachers. Question-
naires and interviews were analyzed and led the authors to conclude teachers’ positive intentions
to employ inclusive instruction was linked to their perception of control, but lack of support and
guidance, which was linked to subjective norms, creates a fairly intractable barrier. The authors
conclude that ongoing professional development, instructional materials, and support for collabora-
tion between science and special education teachers are critical to successful inclusive science edu-
cation. Adu-Boateng and Goodnough’s (2021) qualitative study of a Canadian high school science
teacher with a special education background’s instructional practice in an inclusive classroom also
illuminated signifcant practical challenges, even though many facets of the UDL framework were
present. The phenomenon of science teachers being philosophically inclined toward inclusion yet
simultaneously experiencing attitudinal, institutional, and practical barriers to its implementation
reiterate the fndings of Kahn and Lewis (2014), who similarly pointed to administrative support,
ongoing training, and opportunities for planning and collaboration between science and special
educators as key.
This latter point, however, also appears to be fraught with challenges. While joint professional
development between science and special education (SPED) teachers is strongly supported by
research (Brusca-Vega et al., 2014), co-planning can be a particularly complex endeavor. Swan-
son and Bianchini (2015) examined co-planning among two school teams of science and SPED
teachers participating in a two-week professional development summer institute. The authors
found that, although all teachers were able to contribute ideas to the co-planning process, science
was privileged within their discussions. These fndings suggest that further studies and eforts are
needed to ensure parity within professional development and school contexts. Mulvey and col-
leagues (2016) also noted that SPED teachers may need additional support to ensure that their
voices are heard during the planning of science lessons. In their study, the researchers applied a
cross-case analysis of four elementary special education teachers’ semester-long professional devel-
opment experiences focused on NOS and inquiry. While fndings suggest that this type of profes-
sional development can enhance special educators’ understanding and implementation of NOS
and inquiry, the authors noted little discussion of students’ IEPs during the co-planning process,
emphasizing the importance of building upon SPEDs’ expertise to support their confdence as they
negotiate the co-planning process. Three additional promising professional development inter-
ventions include: (1) collaborative lesson study (Mutch-Jones et al., 2012), which involves the
systematic examination of practice and student learning; (2) development of heuristics for imple-
menting diferentiated instruction (de Graaf et al., 2019); and (3) increasing teachers’ knowledge
of evidence-based morphological awareness practices in order to improve students’ science vocabu-
lary and literacy needs (Lauterbach et al., 2020).
On the preservice side, Librea-Carden et al. (2021) examined 18 preservice SPED teachers’
plans, refections, interviews, and microteaching episodes in relation to NOS. The authors found
that preservice SPED teachers planned and implemented NOS and also viewed it as potentially
relevant to the unique ways of thinking associated with students with special needs. These results
suggest that NOS may be a critical tool in shaping future educators’ views of disability as an asset
rather than defcit. The fndings in this study complement those found by Kahn et al. (2017) when
examining the teaching plans of preservice elementary teachers as they progressed through their sci-
ence and SPED methods courses. The authors found that preservice elementary teachers increased
their use of UDL in science lessons and attempted to scafold their students’ implementation of
inquiry. However, the preservice teachers also expressed more “behavior-oriented” concerns in
their planning as their methods courses progressed, suggesting that science teacher educators should
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identify key junctures for intervening to ensure that assets rather than defcit perspectives of students
with special needs develop.
The benefts of co-taught preservice science courses were illuminated by Zimmer et al. (2018),
who found that students taught in a co-taught course had signifcantly increased scores on a modifed
Attitudes Toward Inclusion Survey. Providing preservice teachers the opportunity to teach and co-
plan through informal science experiences also shows promise in bolstering future teachers’ inclusive
science preparation. Kang and Martin (2018) explored preservice science teachers’ experiences with
developing and implementing a science fair for students in a school for DHH students in Korea. The
authors found that the preservice teachers became more open to the idea of teaching in an inclusive
manner and also became more aware of students with special needs as being capable individuals.
Similarly, Kahn et al. (2018) found that having science and SPED preservice teachers co-plan and
co-teach an inclusive science day for the community led to positive views of collaboration as a pow-
erful learning experience and recognition of a shared desire to make positive diferences in the lives
of students while also recognizing diferences in their philosophical perspectives.
Regarding the professional development of science teachers of gifted students, Benny and Blonder
(2016) examined the factors that promote and hinder chemistry teachers in teaching gifted students.
The authors collected 84 photonarratives from 14 Israeli chemistry teachers that participated in a
professional development focused on teaching gifted students in regular classrooms. Findings suggest
that an inquiry-based chemistry laboratory and teachers’ interactions with gifted students were the
strongest facilitators of learning for gifted students, while time and the mixed ability of their classes
were seen as the greatest inhibitors. The fndings suggest that supporting teachers’ eforts to garner
support for gifted education with school administrators could strongly enhance teachers’ professional
development.
In reviewing the literature on science teacher education, while there appear to be a substantial
number of studies related to preparing teachers for inclusive science teaching, those studies do not
necessarily indicate that teachers are particularly well prepared to teach all students or well supported
through the process of navigating co-teaching or co-planning. Just as troubling is the fact that there is
a dearth of empirical research on science teacher preparation or professional development for teach-
ers of gifted students. Since most gifted students are educated within general education classrooms,
all teachers should receive ample training in research-based practices that ensure adequate challenges,
socio-emotional support, and autonomy for gifted learners in science.
Future Research
Those interested in pursuing research in science for students with special needs and talents can rest
assured that there is a great deal of work to be done. Some questions that emerge from the present
review are: Can high-leverage practices (HLPs) support scientifc inquiry, and if so, might this be
a vehicle for closing the behaviorist/constructivist gap? What supports are needed to ensure that
persons with disabilities’ voices are included in preservice and in-service science teacher education
and research? How can science educators use virtual and remote technologies for inclusive labs and
feld trips while concurrently attending to students’ social needs and sense of belonging? Which of
the strategies embedded within multicomponent interventions are primarily responsible for positive
outcomes? What evidence is there for the validity of strength-based, critical thinking, and other con-
tributory assessments? What constitutes a UDL science classroom? Does UDL require modifcations
to meet the needs of gifted learners? What are the best practices in gifted science teacher education?
How can emerging learning spaces, such as maker spaces and fab labs, support science learning for
students with special needs and talents? What novel research approaches can be gleaned from work
in intersectionality? How can science education advance from understanding the unique ways of
knowing of neurodiverse individuals?
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Concluding Thoughts
To clarify the concept of “teaching,” educational philosopher Thomas Green (1964) used the context
of teaching a dog tricks to parse out fne distinctions between the terms, “teaching,” “training,” and
“instructing.” By simply considering the everyday uses of the words (e.g., we might teach a dog to do
a trick but train a dog to heel, etc.), Green identifed the nuances between the closely related terms
and ultimately derived an analytic topography of teaching.
It is, perhaps, this type of subconscious linguistic callisthenic that perpetuates schisms between the
science and special education research communities. To science education researchers’ ears, imple-
menting “explicit” or “systematic” instruction may sound like the antithesis of inquiry, while special
education researchers may interpret “inquiry” and “discovery” as unstructured and chaotic. Of course,
diferences in the disciplines’ historical and philosophical lenses are partially to blame for what appears to
be minimal communication between researchers, but one must wonder, in an age of instant translation
and as comrades in a united quest for scientifc literacy for all, shouldn’t we be speaking to each other?
The “truth” of inclusive science lies somewhere between the extremes of paradigmatic percep-
tions. Nothing in the present review suggests that pre-teaching vocabulary words, providing graphic
organizers, or using mnemonic strategies and the like inhibits inquiry for students with disabilities, yet
little research written by science educators mentions these practices, which are widely supported in
special education literature. Similarly, special education literature afrms that most students are capable
of and intrigued by inquiry, yet the vast majority of the studies from special education research groups
focus on vocabulary acquisition and factual and procedural memorization, rather than higher-order
inquiry skills, even when “hands-on” activities are integrated. Methodological approaches are almost
completely distinctive, with special education research focused strictly quantitatively, in some cases to
the exclusion of any descriptors of students, and with science education research running the gamut.
In their bibliometric and descriptive analysis of inclusive science, Comarú et al. (2021) mapped the
scholarly contributions and communications between science and special education, noting that, not
only is there little crossover between the felds but that a relatively small number of labs, mostly located
in the United States, contribute quite heavily to the literature. This fnding was quite evident in the
present review of research, pointing to the need for greater participation of researchers globally and
cross-disciplinarily in this feld. Meanwhile, as the felds of science and special education research bat-
tle for the soul of how to best educate students with disabilities, gifted education in science emerges as
perhaps the most precarious guest at the equity table as it struggles not only for a defnition, legislation,
and funding, but remains suspended in an existential battle to convince the educational community
and the public at large that those who are highly capable do require support.
If science education is fundamentally about ensuring that every student can access, engage with,
and apply science in their everyday lives, in their careers, and in society to the fullest extent of their
abilities, then it is clear that science education, special education, and gifted education are three sides
of the same coin. Researchers in each of these disciplines separately and similarly contend with the
daunting yet critical task of transcending labels in favor of attending to individuals – beautifully com-
plex individuals – who defy simplistic silos. Some may suggest seeking refuge in science teacher edu-
cation; co-taught courses, dual (or tri-) certifcations, and the like are arguably valid starting points.
But the impetus for those and other innovations must be quality evidence-based research, preferably
conducted collaboratively with novel intersectional approaches that, like any good teacher, maintain
fdelity to historical, philosophical, and epistemological perspectives, continuously learn from theirs
and others’ experiences, and are frst and foremost, faithful to the learner.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my undergraduate assistants Tifany Agyarko, Grace Lanouette, Sean Lee, and
Courteney Wiredu for their help with the initial literature search.
349
Sami Kahn
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12
SCIENCE EDUCATION IN URBAN
AND RURAL CONTEXTS
Expanding on Conceptual Tools for
Urban-Centric Research
Gayle A. Buck, Pauline W. U. Chinn, and Bhaskar Upadhyay
Education researchers are increasingly exploring urban-centric science education. “Urban-centric”

is being used to describe schools’ geographical locations. There are multiple urban-centric classifca-
tion systems, with most including degrees of urban and rural (e.g., National Center for Educational
Statistics, US Census Bureau). Science education research eforts are supplying new understandings
and positive changes for students in underserved locations. However, problems unique to certain
urban-centric contexts continue to exist worldwide, new problems are emerging, and there is still
much more to discover about science education situated in these complex environments. The pur-
pose of this chapter is to explore contemporary science education research on urban and rural science
education in a manner that expands on the conceptual tools being used to consider the impact of
geographical location and context on science education.
Science education researchers are focusing their eforts in rural and urban settings for a variety
of reasons. Among the reasons noted by researchers are: high teacher attrition/teacher shortages
(e.g., Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020), lower test scores (e.g., Quansah et al., 2019), limited access to
new curricula and professional development opportunities (e.g., Ramnarain, 2016), diminishing
status and priority of science teaching in middle schools (Rivera Maulucci, 2010), underprepared
or uncertifed science teachers (Nixon et al., 2017), and students that have been marginalized in sci-
ence classrooms (e.g., Chapman & Feldman, 2017). Although the characteristics of urban and rural
locales, and the associated educational problems, difer across the globe, most countries report edu-
cational discrepancies specifc to at least one of these locales. In the United States, urban students
are performing signifcantly lower on standardized tests than students from other locales (NAEP,
2019; OECD, 2015). In China, the economic gap between urban and rural is expanding, leaving
rural schools increasingly under-resourced (Wang et al., 2012). In India, rural families are moving
to urban locations in search of better educational opportunities for upward mobility (Sundararaman,
2020), which impacts both the rural and urban schools. In Bulgaria, Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-
Guangdong, Hungary, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, and Turkey, urban students outperform rural
students. However, in Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States, students in rural
schools outperform those in city schools. Worldwide, of the countries represented in the OECD
data, approximately 50% of urban students expect to attain a college degree, compared to only 30%
of rural students (OECD, 2015), and the COVID-19 pandemic spotlighted the fact that many stu-
dents that live in rural communities do not have access to the internet. Clearly, this is a worldwide
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-15 359

Gayle A. Buck, Pauline W. U. Chinn and Bhaskar Upadhyay
discussion, and more work needs to be done if we are to understand science education considering
geographical location and context.
Urban and rural educational inequities are a signifcant problem. Out of 100,000 public schools
in the United States, 32,000 were located in rural areas, 27,000 in suburban areas, and approximately
40,000 in cities and towns (OECD, 2015). Among the US students represented in the PISA 2015
data, approximately half were from rural or urban locations (OECD, 2015). Thailand had a larger
number than the United States of rural students represented, and a smaller percentage were from
urban schools. In comparison, Poland and Indonesia had more representation from rural than from
urban schools, while Chile and Singapore had no/few students in rural schools (OECD, 2015).
Overall, although the demographic makeup of countries widely difers, the number of students in
schools in urban or rural schools worldwide is signifcant, and the contextualized factors that impact
their learning experiences must be understood and addressed.
Local context matters in science education. Social constructivist theory explains how social and
cultural interactions infuence individuals’ creation of understanding. A sociocultural approach to
learning is not solely focused on the individual learner, but rather on the learner and learning
process as participation in experiences in a socially constructed world. Learning occurs within a
social context, an interpsychological plane, and then within the learner on an intrapsychological
plane (Vygotsky, 1978a). Learners negotiate understandings with their peers and community through
cogenerative situations (Lave & Wenger, 1991). This learning process is grounded in the notion that
understandings are mediated within, and cannot be separate from, the milieu in which they are car-
ried out (Wertsch, 1991). The milieu includes school, home, community, and science. Sociocultural
theorists argue that social context signifcantly afects the learning process for youth. Many education
gaps associated with urban or rural students stem not from a lack of ability but from factors associated
with local contexts that difer from the mainstream.
In his analysis, Williams (1995) noted three components of culture: (1) the ideal component is a
state or process of perfection in terms of absolutes or values, (2) the documentary component is the
body of intellectual and imaginative work in which human thoughts and experiences are recorded,
and (3) the social component of culture is a description of a particular way of life that expresses certain
meanings and values not only in art and learning but in institutions and behaviors (page 48). The local
community, in this discussion whether it is urban or rural, has an impact on all of these components.
Several scholars have written about aspects of urban or rural cultures and schooling (e.g., Stance,
2012; Stovall, 2006; Reed, 2010). Defning an urban or rural culture, however, is contingent upon
an understanding of history, power, meaning, and acknowledgement (Brooks, 1997). The culture
includes a complex relationship between memory and history, and culture and power. The cultures of
cities and towns are rooted in particular spaces and include spatial characteristics of the specifc con-
text (Boizonella, 2016). Although these cultures are not totally decontextualized or exempt from the
infuences of more general shaping cultural forces, they do include tendencies. Some of these include
power, contentions between meaning, and control of institutionalization. Thus, there are multiple
urban and rural cultures. An increasing number of science education scholars are calling attention to
ways in which science identity formation and learning are infuenced by these local cultures.
In sum, there are specifc aspects of urban and rural locations that continue to impact the majority
of students worldwide. The contexts, as well as the classifcation systems for these contexts, are com-
plex. It is imperative that science education continues to advance our understandings of the impacts
of and necessary strategies within urban-centric education.
Past Chapters and the Path Forward

This chapter continues the discussions initiated in previous chapters in The Handbook of Research
on Science Education (Abell & Lederman, 2007; Lederman & Abell, 2014). The handbook chapter
360
Science Education in Urban and Rural Contexts
“Science Learning in Urban Settings” (Calabrese Barton, 2007) looks across the research literature to
explore (1) who is learning science in urban schools, (2) what are the conditions that mediate student
achievement and learning, (3) what are the primary tools that urban science education researchers
employ to understand teaching and learning in science, and (4) what else are students learning in
science? The conceptual tools explored in the chapter include appropriate frameworks, congruence,
and legitimate participation. Calabrese Barton et al. (2014) follow up on this chapter by taking an
anti-defcit stance on urban education and further exploring conceptual tools for critically unpacking
how urban contexts shape science education in the second volume of the handbook. They noted,
“Urban centers are characterized by a complex ecology of population density, economic and cultural
resources, politics, and geography” (p. 247). Literature that explicitly looked at the ways in which
the urban context matters in education was explored, and understandings of certain conceptual tool
sets established to go beyond fxing the problems and identifying educational approaches to practices
that work were ofered. The conceptual tool sets included place, funds of knowledge, and identity-
in-practice. The authors of this chapter pointed out that these tool sets provide the professional
community with certain afordances, such as an understanding of the movement across boundaries
between school, home, community, and peer groups.
The chapter “Rural Science Education” (Oliver, 2007) in the frst volume of the handbook
provided the history of rural science education research and noted concerns. Suggestions for future
research were made, with a fnal question posed about the potential of “technology and its potential
to bring universal access to knowledge to all persons regardless of location” (p. 366). Oliver and
Hodges (2014) followed up on this fnal question in the second volume of the handbook. Overall,
their review addressed the (1) nature of the defnition of rural schools, (2) how the scholarship has
move forward to evoke an emphasis on social justice and diversity, (3) technology and its impact as
a force of change, (4) recruitment of science teachers, and (5) implications for research on rural and
small schools. They note the study of rural science education has been hampered by the difculty in
establishing a valid defnition of what rural is and is not. They further note the problem with using
numbers to categorize a place and suggest a possible resolution being a multidimensional approach
to defning rural. In their review, they address funds of knowledge, cultural relevance, school–
community linkage, and strong consideration of technology and how advances in technology shape
the discussion of isolation and remoteness as an educational variable. Final questions on high-stakes
testing and standardization and how this is impacted by resources and subsequently impacts teachers’
abilities to relate science learning to the rural context and environment, as well as the future of rural
schooling given the transformative power of technology to transform rural schooling, are raised.
There were many common discussion points in these two previous handbook chapters given they
both addressed urban-centric considerations in science teaching and learning. Three of these are
discussed here. First, they both point out naive, inaccurate, or diverse conceptions of these contexts
and address the need to go beyond population density and include the local context. Overall, the
approach of separating urban and rural schools into one of two distinct categories allows researchers
the beneft of focusing on a more narrowly defned context. There are, however, costs associated
with this approach, as it leads to an understanding of rural schools or all urban schools as being func-
tionally one context. The simplistic distinction ignores the complexity of place given a wide range
of population density, economic and cultural resources, politics, and geography of urban and rural
centers (Isserman, 2005; Wang et al., 2012). Second, both previous chapters addressed common
conceptual tools. They addressed place, community, economics, identity, and funds of knowledge.
These conceptual tools open up our inquiries into these local contexts in a manner that addresses the
complexity and provides the necessary foundation for discussions on teaching and learning. Much of
the science education research in urban and rural contexts is grounded in sociocultural perspectives
of the learning environment. A third point made in both chapters is that the students in the urban-
centric locales are often underserved and/or misunderstood by current educational scholarship and
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practice, although the ways in which they are underserved or misunderstood difers across the various
contexts, such as country and demographics.
These previous chapters, as well as the information noted earlier in this chapter, establish the
continued and urgent need to further consider urban and rural contexts in science education. This
current chapter combines what was previously two chapters – urban and rural science education.
The goal is to continue the discussions highlighted in earlier chapters of this handbook (e.g., place,
funds of knowledge, identity) by extending them across sociocultural research where the focus
includes both urban and rural locales. The purpose of the following discussion is to explore the
strengths and weaknesses of the existing research base on urban-centric science education and suggest
future research directions. The binary classifcation of urban and rural is both embraced and chal-
lenged. The following section is a broad exploration of contemporary empirical studies on urban and
rural teaching, learning, and teacher education. This section is concluded with a comparison of the
research occurring in these two locales; however, the review mostly refects the traditional approach
of categorizing urban-centric science education research as either urban or rural. This traditional
approach is transcended in section two as conceptual tools that show promise across various locales
are highlighted and explored. Overall, this chapter: (1) considers the ways in which the contempo-
rary research in urban and rural communities is looking at the community’s relationship to science
teaching, learning, and teacher education; (2) picks up on the stories of possibilities and explores
them across urban and rural contexts; and (3) explores potential future directions for science educa-
tion research involving place and context.
Contemporary Science Education Research in Urban and Rural Contexts

One of the goals of this chapter is to explore contemporary science education research occurring in
urban and rural contexts. Such an exploration could involve many aspects of the research process,
and reviewing all of them would require much more space than is available or necessary for this
chapter. Given all aspects of studies fow from the purpose (Creswell, 2003), this exploration and
subsequent discussion focuses on the purposes researchers are providing for studying science teach-
ing, learning, and teacher education in/for these contexts. For this section, a substantial sampling of
contemporary empirical studies (185) were read, categorized, and cumulatively summarized in the
following narrative. The quality of research providing the foundation for this discussion was con-
trolled by focusing on top peer-reviewed education journals in science education. These included:
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Science Education, International Journal of Science Education, Cultural
Studies in Science Education and Journal of Science Teacher Education. The parameters for the search of
research literature for this section included: (1) an empirical study; (2) research done fully within
either an urban or local locale, as defned by the researcher given the lack of an agreed-upon defni-
tion of such in the feld; (3) a focus on science education; and (4) published between 2015 and 2021.
The starting date, 2015, was selected as the last handbook was printed in late 2014. The readings
and subsequent discussions were used to develop and guide a narrative on how science education
researchers are currently approaching inquiries in these locales. Examples from the research base are
used to further illustrate statements made throughout the narrative.
Science education researchers are actively seeking to enhance our understanding of teaching
and learning in urban and rural locales. There is signifcantly more research focused on urban than
there is on rural science education. The degree to which these studies focused on context difered
greatly. For some, the urban-centric context was the primary focus. These researchers were specif-
cally focused on science education for the specifc locale. For others, the locale was the context in
which the professional preparation or development was occurring. The degree to which this context
infuenced the main goal (e.g., teaching by inquiry) difered. Some researchers prioritized the locale
(e.g., there are urban or rural contextual factors that infuence how to teach by inquiry), while others
362
merely noted it as a context in which a study occurred. A discussion of what was learned from the
set of studies follows.
Urban Science Education

Teacher preparation and development for urban schools: There is a cultural gap between teachers and stu-
dents in high-needs urban schools. The student population in many urban schools is increasingly
diverse, while those preparing to be teachers remain, for the most part, homogeneous. Research has
shown that this gap negatively impacts students of color (Ahmed & Boser, 2014), and it serves as
the underlying rationale for much of the contemporary research on urban preservice and in-service
teacher education. This research focuses on both the need to prepare a homogeneous population of
teachers to teach a heterogeneous population of students and attracting and preparing a more diverse
teacher workforce. Within this set of research, the urban locale often includes representation from
multiple racial and ethnic populations, as well as low-socioeconomic situations.
In terms of initial teacher preparation, researchers are investigating eforts to prepare future teach-
ers in a manner that addresses this cultural gap. For example, Rosebery et al. (2016) and Mark et al.
(2020) explored diferent approaches to preparing preservice teachers from predominantly White
populations to teach a diverse student population. Rosebery et al. (2016) investigated a professional
development seminar for students in an urban residency program for teacher preparation and induc-
tion. The focus of the program was on developing early career teachers’ attunement to the sense-
making of students from historically nondominant communities; specifcally, student populations
represented in the Boston Public School system. Mark et al. (2020) investigated the experiences of
preservice teachers completing an internship program focused on learning to teach in a large urban,
culturally diverse public high school. Their focus was on exploring positionality while teaching in
this context. Wendell et al. (2018) explored this gap through a focus on student-centered engineer-
ing design experiences for their future classrooms. The learning experiences followed a community-
based engineering approach with a focus on solving problems in the local community. This approach
was established in a manner that it provides an avenue for the teachers to learn to see the cultural and
linguistic diversity as a resource rather than a challenge. In comparison to these examples, researchers
such as Varelas et al. (2017) further our understanding of addressing this cultural gap by achieving
a more diverse population of teachers that are prepared to partner with community organizations
that focus on issues connecting science to larger social issues in marginalized communities. The par-
ticipants in their study, preservice teachers in a Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program, were
preparing to teach in high-needs schools in Chicago. As part of this program, they were prepared to
address environmental racism and connected science in an economically dispossessed Mexican com-
munity in Chicago. Taken together, research on professional preparation for urban schools is often
pragmatic in nature with a focus on addressing cultural diversity in large urban school systems.
Like the purpose of the research on urban preservice professional preparation for urban, cultur-
ally diverse communities, the primary purpose of most research on urban in-service teacher profes-
sional development in these contexts is cultural diversity. For example, Marco-Bujosa et al. (2020)
studied a science teacher working alongside a special education teacher in an urban, dual-language
classroom. The school was a small urban school that serves a culturally diverse, mostly low-income,
group of students. A signifcant portion of the students were classifed as English language learn-
ers. The researchers sought to understand how physical, social, and knowledge structures constrain
teacher agency in such a high-needs school. Similarly, Mangiante (2018) studied two classroom
teachers from a high-poverty urban school in order to understand how their reform-based beliefs,
reform-based knowledge base, and sense of agency shaped their planning and subsequent success at
transforming their science teaching. In addition to high levels of students living below the poverty
level, both teachers taught a student body that was diverse in terms of culture, language, and learning
363
ability. Olitsky (2021) investigated the processes by which two recipients of Robert Noyce Teaching
Scholarships developed a sense of professional identity, agency, and group membership in the context
of educational reform as they completed their teaching experiences in high-need urban schools. The
study supported the use of self-talk to help urban teachers generate internal solidarity that fosters
the maintenance of a positive identity even in the face of obstacles. This process, however, was not
independent of contextual factors such as supportive colleagues and administrators.
Although the majority of teacher education research being completed in urban districts is focused
on cultural diversity, there is a signifcant number that does not have this purpose. Within this set of
research, the urban locale is central to the inquiry and may include cultural diversity; but such diver-
sity is not the primary focus. For example, Paprzycki et al. (2017) studied a professional development
program focused, in part, on partnering with the community and parents to provide urban youth in
a science/reading- and science/math-integrated curriculum. The locale was a vital component of
the study, and racial diversity within the community was noted, but the primary purpose regarding
the community was on preparing teachers to use it to support the curriculum, such as sending family
packets home. In comparison, Yang et al. (2019) focused on the urban context in terms of the school
alone. Noting the urban school context and how teacher- and student-level factors impact teacher
development, these authors sought to enhance urban teachers’ eforts regarding teachers’ pedagogi-
cal content knowledge and inquiry instruction. Also within this category of studies, a number focus
on teachers fully within urban schools, but the study nor the intervention address the locale to any
degree. These are not a substantial part of this discussion, except to note the existence of many stud-
ies focused on teacher preparation or development in urban schools that do not explore the impact
of the context on teaching in urban settings.
Teaching and learning in urban classrooms: The classroom-level contexts in most of the urban science
education research literature includes large metropolitan areas, low-socioeconomic conditions, and
diversity in terms of race, culture, and language. Often, districts in these locales are seen as unre-
sponsive bureaucracies that do not meet the education needs of most of their students (Katz, 1995).
Traditionally, science education curricula do not foreground such contexts within students’ experi-
ences in science. The term “curriculum” is being broadly used to include the ofcial, operational,
hidden, null, and extra curricula (Posner, 2004). This gap, and the inherent impacts on teaching and
learning, often serves as the foundation for research on urban teaching and learning. This research
has foci such as student identity, voice, funds of knowledge, and critical pedagogy. The ways in which
this research addresses urban locales is explored next.
Emdin (2010) notes that urban science educators provide students of all racial, ethnic, and socio-
economic backgrounds equal access to science in a manner that addresses the historical inequities
in science education and the complexities of the existence of urban youth. Many science education
researchers that view urban science education with this lens are exploring how urban students nego-
tiate a science identity as they take part in science courses or programs (e.g., Mark, 2018; Gamez &
Parker, 2018; Chapman & Feldman, 2017). Identity is the composition of self-views that involve
being recognized as a certain kind of person in a given context (Gee, 2000). Science identity is a
topical identity related to seeing oneself as someone that participates in science or science learning.
A science identity is important regarding learning science; however, many urban students do not
recognize themselves as someone that does science. Contemporary studies in urban science educa-
tion explore, in part, the science identities of urban youth from underrepresented populations in
science, how science identities are negotiated or fostered in nontraditional pedagogical approaches,
such as ethnodance (Chappel & Varelas, 2018), or through science-focused communities of practice
specifcally for youth that may not see themselves as part of a traditional science community (e.g.,
Chapman & Feldman, 2017; Mark, 2018; Kang et al., 2018; Rahm & Moore, 2016).
Other sociocultural researchers exploring the gap between urban students’ experiences and the
science curriculum in urban science education do so with a social justice lens (e.g., Morales-Doyle,
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2016; Ridgeway & Yerrick, 2018). Educational inequities are inextricably entangled with border
issues of social justice (Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008), and science educators are challenging
these inequities and prioritizing social transformation. For example, Morales-Doyle (2016) explored
the impact of a justice-centered AP chemistry course at an urban high school. Their justice-centered
inquiry positioned urban students as curriculum critics who ask what, how, and why in regard to sci-
ence and science education. Similarly, Ridgeway and Yerrick (2018) critically explored the nuances
of after-school citizen science programming. They explored the role of race and ethnicity and the
ways in which marginalization can manifest with Black urban youth and teachers. Their fndings
challenge the science education community to actively expand its understanding of working with
community partners, particularly regarding defcit perspectives of urban youth.
A sizable portion of the urban science education research base focuses on the impact of this
complex context in terms of the inherent complications to meeting standard educational goals in
an initiative and/or learning across a diverse set of learners. For example, Harris et al. (2015) stud-
ied a large inquiry-based curriculum for urban middle school students. The researchers studied a
well-developed curriculum that prior studies had indicated showed promise for improving student
learning. The urban context was central to their study given their desire to produce understandings
about employing this curriculum as an instrument for reform in large, diverse urban districts. Simi-
larly, Boda and Brown (2019) studied the use of virtual reality to foster student understanding of
the relevancy of science to their local community and subsequently improve their attitudes toward
science. The urban setting was selected because urban elementary teachers are often ill prepared to
make such connections in science due, in part, to an inability to develop science understanding as
having relevant application to students’ locales, the people, and communities. Other researchers in
this category situated their inquiry in an urban setting due to the ability to sample student learn-
ing across diverse student populations from underperforming schools, thus enhancing their study
on student learning. For example, Lucero et al. (2017) explored the relationship between science
teachers’ subject matter knowledge and their knowledge of students’ conceptions while teaching
evolution by natural selection. Their study took place in a large urban high school with a sizable
percentage of students from a Latino community. Most of the students were classifed as at-risk and
economically disadvantaged. The school district failed to meet the federal government’s adequate
yearly progress. The author selected this site for their study, as they felt it represented many schools
across the United States.
The working defnition of “urban” in international research is much broader than that in the
United States, but the purposes are like those studying US schools. This research may explore teach-
ing and learning in urban schools characterized, in part, as large and diverse (e.g., Gandolf, 2020),
poorly resourced (e.g., Akuma & Callaghan, 2019), or homogeneous and highly resourced (e.g.,
Huang et al., 2017). Like the US-based research described earlier, this research base includes studies
focused on student identity, the complex structure of a large urban district, or was simply based in
an urban setting due to the opportunity to have a large diverse sample population for a study. For
example, Sundararaman (2020) explored the role of textbooks, pedagogy, families, and socioeco-
nomic context in shaping girls’ science experiences. The urban school was a private English school
in Bangalore, India, that caters to families’ socioeconomic backgrounds. In comparison, the urban
schools that provided the context for the study completed by Al-Balushi and Martin-Hansen (2019)
had a student population from middle-class backgrounds. The students had access to resources, such
as the internet, and were above average in terms of achievement. These researchers studied these high
school students’ ideas regarding two theoretical scientifc models in the context of active learning in
small groups. This urban context was quite diferent from the resource-constrained South African
urban school where Akuma and Callaghan (2019) explored inquiry-based practical work strategies or
the ethnically diverse schools of London, England (Wong, 2015; Archer et al., 2017), which served
as the context for these studies on student identity.
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Rural Science Education

Teacher preparation and development for rural schools: There is a notable lack of research focused on pre-
paring new teachers for rural schools. Science teacher education researchers are, however, inquiring
into in-service teacher development for rural schools, although to a much lesser extent than for
urban schools. In contrast to research on teacher development for urban schools, the primary focus
of rural teacher development is on challenges to the traditional approaches to professional develop-
ment. Specifcally, geographical distance and limited resources are unique challenges for the devel-
opment of rural teachers (Johnson et al., 2014). For example, Lee et al. (2018) and Nugent et al.
(2018) both explored distance-delivered instructional coaching. Noting the evidence for a need to
go beyond short-term, disconnected teacher development and provide follow-up support and the
realities of geographical distance of rural schools, these researchers studied the benefts of providing
distance-delivered coaching following a summer professional development experience. Sandhotz
and Ringstaf (2016) moved beyond the factors associated with distance from the teacher educators
and studied contextual factors within the rural schools and communities. They found that rural sci-
ence teachers from diferent schools within the same district and geographical region were afected
by diferent contextual factors. These factors included, but were not limited to, administrative sup-
port and grade level. Their fndings further complicate the notion of rural teacher development.
The lack of opportunities to keep up with reform eforts and new pedagogies is another moti-
vating force to study professional development for rural teachers. These studies use evidence-based
approaches to teacher development to bring rural teachers’ skills and knowledge up to date. For
example, several teacher education researchers studied National Science Foundation–funded math-
ematics and science partnership programs. Pringle et al. (2020) studied a model that was designed
to change the practices of middle school teachers from traditional to that which is recommended in
reform documents. The knowledge and subsequent instructional practices of 18 middle school sci-
ence teachers from small rural and low-performing school districts were improved because of taking
part in the frst two years of a fve-year teacher institute. Similarly, Shemwell et al.’s (2015) model was
organized around rural communities with a focus on a continuous and gradual process of long-term
growth in students’ capacity to think and act scientifcally. Although cultural and language diversity
was not a focus of a sizable number of studies in rural teacher education, there are some studies in
this area. For example, Rivard and Gueye (2016) examine the impact of a professional development
program for secondary science teachers in minority-language rural schools in Canada. The study
focused on language-enhanced instruction and the impact on learners.
Teaching and learning in rural classrooms: The K–12 school contexts in the rural science education
research vary greatly. Rural science education is often seen as defcit in terms of modern resources,
but rich in terms of environmental context and Indigenous science knowledge. Like urban education
researchers, many rural science education researchers view educational curricula as lacking in terms
of a connection to the students’ experiences in science. This gap, and the inherent impacts on teach-
ing and learning, often serves as the foundation for research on rural teaching and learning. Diversity
within the rural education research base is more homogeneous or focused on one underserved popu-
lation. A portion of this research base focuses on educating Indigenous populations. These studies tend
to approach their inquiry from a place of possibility (Calabrese Barton et al., 2014). Indigenous science
knowledge is viewed as homogeneous populations often overlooked by traditional science education
curricula but rich in science knowledge. For example, Kassam et al. (2017) describe the eforts of
Lakota and Dakota communities in rural New York to revitalize the ecological knowledge at the core
of their food systems. These authors explore this knowledge as a possibility to transform perspectives
on educational practices and policies in these communities, as well as worldwide. Wilson-Lopez et al.
(2018) explored the social capital Latinx youth from families that immigrated to the rural Western
366
United States utilized as they completed self-selected engineering projects. Social capital is defned,
in brief, as a form of capital that is applied, exchanged, or converted as people pursue science-related
felds. The engineering projects focused on solving problems in their local community. Similarly,
other researchers look to rural communities that serve non-Indigenous students as places that hold a
unique knowledge often overlooked by traditional science education curricula. For example, Kohut
(2019) and Borgerding (2017) sought understandings that advance eforts to teach evolution in rural
classrooms. Borgerding (2017) noted that teaching evolution in rural contexts is noted to be particu-
larly complicated because rural students tend to be more religious and less accepting of evolution. For
this reason, she completed a case study to examine how a teacher may serve as a cultural border guide
and tap into students’ evolution funds of knowledge at a rural high school. Kohut extended this work
by challenging the defcit view of rural students’ views of science, particularly about evolution. By
completing a cultural consensus analysis, this researcher concluded that rural students draw on cynical
and celebratory ideas about science irrespective of their position on evolution.
There is a sizable portion of research completed in rural schools that focus on the impact of this
context in terms of the inherent resource complications to meeting standard educational goals in an
initiative and/or learning across this set of learners. For example, Zimmerman and Weible (2017)
worked with 14- and 15-year-old students in a rural poverty-impacted school. They explored water-
sheds and place-based learning. They had the students explore the health and importance of water-
sheds in their local community. The students’ everyday experiences were valued in the educational
process. Scogin and Stuessy (2015) noted the logistical and geographical barriers limiting science
educators’ ability to unite students with scientists in research apprenticeships. They sought to address
these barriers by investigating online scientists’ motivational support of seventh-grade rural students,
most of whom were from low-socioeconomic households, and evaluate the potential impact of this
support on inquiry engagement. The rural students they worked with were noted to rarely venture
outside of their rural community or interact with a scientist face to face. Saleh et al. (2020) also
sought to enhance sixth-grade rural students’ science experiences in a way that accommodates dis-
tance and isolation by coordinating hard and soft scafolds for collaborative inquiry in game-based
science learning.
Taken together, the working defnition of “rural” in international research mirrors that of the US-
based research. Rural science education is seen as defcit in terms of qualifed teachers and monetary
resources, but also as rich in terms of environmental context and a source of Indigenous science
knowledge. Upadhyay et al. (2020) note that Indigenous students are often less engaged in critically
examining science knowledge, practices, curriculum, and activities. In light of this, they explored
ninth-grade rural students in a mostly Indigenous school. Focusing on sociopolitical discourses and
action, these researchers studied Tharus, an Indigenous group of Western Nepal, as they took actions
for social change and personal transformation as part of a sociopolitical consciousness-oriented sci-
ence classroom. In Israel, Sedawi et al. (2020) also studied rural Indigenous students, Bodouin, in
terms of their connectedness to nature. The authors noted that it is often children from disadvan-
taged socioeconomic backgrounds that are afected by environmental toxins; these include rural
Indigenous communities. Considering this, they sought to understand how the cultural, social, and
environmental factors that shape the children in the Bodouin villages impact their connectedness to
nature. Murphy (2020) notes that rural students in Australia, like those in schools across the globe,
underperform in science education due, in part, to small school size, isolation, difculties retaining
quality staf, and low-socioeconomic levels found within the community. There are, however, excep-
tions such as the rural school they studied. The school at the center of their case study attracted high
enrollment and attained high scores on national assessments. Their fndings reveal how this one rural
school capitalizes on the local resources, small size, and community relationships to enhance science
learning.
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Summary
The underlying purposes of the research being conducted in urban and rural science teacher educa-
tion difered. Urban teacher preparation and development is, for the most part, well studied and
often focused on cultural diversity either directly or indirectly. This research often focuses on closing
the cultural gap between teachers and students, although there are many studies that focus on teach-
ing in a complex setting that includes cultural diversity, among other factors. In comparison, the
research on rural teacher education was much more limited, particularly preservice teacher prepara-
tion, and most often focused on adjusting professional development models to address a physical
distance between teachers and teacher educators. Specifcally, geographical distance, lack of profes-
sional development opportunities, and limited resources are unique challenges for the development
of rural teachers.
The research base on teaching and learning in urban classrooms has foci such as student identity,
voice, funds of knowledge, and critical pedagogy. A sizable portion of this research focuses on the
impact of this complex context in terms of the inherent complications to meeting standard educa-
tional goals in an initiative and/or learning across a diverse set of learners. Like the research being
conducted in urban settings, a sizable portion of the research completed in rural schools focuses on
the impact of this context in terms of the inherent resource/physical complications to meeting stan-
dard educational goals in an initiative and/or learning across this particular set of learners.
Common across both urban and rural US classroom-centered research is a limited working defni-
tion of locale. Despite many degrees of urban and rural in the classifcation systems, as well as difer-
ences found within these categories, the working defnition of “urban” across the research is large,
poor, and culturally diverse communities, while the defnition of “rural” is small population and
geographically isolated. Whereas diversity within urban settings is often heterogeneous in terms of
race, culture, and language, diversity within the rural education research base is more homogeneous
or focused on one underserved population. Rural science education is often seen as lacking in terms
of modern resources and rich in terms of environmental context and Indigenous science knowledge.
Common across both sets of research is an understanding of a science education lacking in terms of
a connection to the students’ lives.
At the international level, the working defnition of urban is much broader, but the purposes
are similar to those studying US schools. This research may explore teaching and learning in urban
schools characterized, in part, as large and diverse, homogeneous, poorly resourced, or highly
resourced. Like the US-based research described earlier, this research base includes studies focused
on student identity, the complex structure of a large urban district, or simply based in an urban set-
ting due to the opportunity to have a large diverse sample population for a study. Taken together,
the working defnition of “rural” in international research mirrors that of domestic research. Rural
science education is seen as defcit in terms of qualifed teachers and monetary resources but also as
rich in terms of environmental context and a source of Indigenous knowledge science knowledge.
Exploring Conceptual Tools That Prioritize the Locale

The purpose of this section is to expand on the discussion of several conceptual tools for urban or
rural science education and further explore their use across both contexts. Calabrese Barton et al.
(2014) argued that science education needs such tools “for critically unpacking the ways in which
urban contexts shape science education and repositioning our collective view of urban science edu-
cation as spaces of possibility” (p. 247). This approach allows for transcending the binary classifca-
tion of urban and rural in a way that fosters a deeper discussion of the urban-centric infuences and
afordances in the teaching and learning process. The list of conceptual tools explored here is not
exhausted. It includes socioeconomic status, science identities, funds of knowledge, and place-based
368
education. These tools were selected as broad concepts that encompass various aspects of physical
locale, student learning, and teaching. They are defned, and their current and potential uses in
urban-centric research are explored.
In this section, the literature reviewed followed a conceptual framework stance that guided both
the selection and deselection of published works, empirical and theoretical, to allow for the building
of anticipated relationships among various concepts and evidence that supported them (Lester, 2005).
There was a greater emphasis on empirical studies than on theoretical/conceptual papers. Yet, the
value of conceptual works was not ignored since it provided the basis for deeper and more nuanced
understandings and potentially new directions to science education research. In this section we pres-
ent critique, analysis, and scholarly engagement, with the majority of scholarly works published in
high-quality science education and broad education peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of
Research in Science Teaching, Science Education, Journal of Science Teacher Education, Cultural Studies of Sci-
ence Education, International Journal of Science Education, The Urban Review, Equity & Excellence in Educa-
tion, and American Educational Research Journal. Some books and book chapters were also included as
they became valuable sources for works carried out in rural and non-Western communities. For this
section, mostly research published between 2010 and 2020 were read. However, some earlier publi-
cations were included for their foundational work and value. The publications were chosen based on
their focus on K–12 teaching and learning and the specifc conceptual tool.
Conceptual Tool: Socioeconomic Status/Resources

Although the criteria for identifying a locale as either rural or urban difers across the contemporary
research, one common characteristic is socioeconomic status (SES). In addition, SES is one of the
primary factors associated with the diference in the urban condition on an international level given
that urban is associated with high SES in some countries and low SES in others. The impact of SES
as a conceptual tool for rural and urban science education is explored by analyzing the nature of the
infuence of SES in science education, why SES is a social justice issue, and why SES needs more
layered attention. SES is not viewed as an isolated feature of science education. It is complex and
intertwined with social, cultural, historical, racial, gender, wellness, and many other social issues.
Therefore, understanding the challenges and opportunities of SES on science teaching, learning,
and succeeding needs us to think more critically about the intersectional factors (Collins, 2010;
Crenshaw, 1991). Science and science education has historically sufered from the urban–rural and
afuent–poor divide, BIPOC–White, male–female, and English (dominant)–non-English (nondom-
inant language), among many others. In many countries, such as the United States, Canada, Europe,
Australia, New Zealand, African nations, Central and South American nations, race and racism have
played a vital role in who participates in science and who does not. In other countries, ethnic groups
and castes have played a signifcant role in discriminating against those who have access to excellent
science education and greater socioeconomic mobility (Upadhyay et al., 2021).
In science education research and policy works, SES is largely understood as the level of earnings.
This simplistic defnition ignores the social aspects of socioeconomic status. SES needs to be more
thoroughly conceptualized in order to better understand the impact of SES on science education.
SES includes family income, level of parental education, and type of occupation parents held in
much of the literature (e.g., Betancur et al., 2018; Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; Breen & Jonsson, 2005;
Duncan et al., 2011; Harwell & LeBeau, 2010; Morgan et al., 2016; NCES, 2017; Van Ewijk &
Sleegers, 2010). In public health and well-being studies, SES is understood as comprising a subjec-
tive dimension of well-being (afective, psychological experiences, culture, human capital, etc.) and
objective dimensions (wealth, income, parental education, etc.) (e.g., Diener, 2000, 2002; Fuentes &
Rojas, 2001). Furthermore, as SES is intricately linked to social capital, Coleman (1988) and Bour-
dieu and Passeron (1990) consider social capital and its connection to human capital development as
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part of SES. Villalba (2014) cautions researchers and policymakers to take great care when defning
SES because it could infuence both measurement and classifcation of households in appropriate cat-
egories afecting policy measures designed to improve quality of life. Sociocultural and sociopolitical
factors infuence how SES is measured in diferent geographies, creating challenges in interpreting
the outcomes more contextually and less universal. For example, SES is hard to measure reliably in
the Global South countries; thus, alternative measures such as material consumption of goods and
services and in-kind income (free schooling, food stamps, free/low-cost bus passes, etc.) could be a
better and more reliable measure of SES (Vyas & Kumaranayake, 2006). This brief review of what
SES means in research shows the complexities of measuring it in a meaningful way. The following
defnition of SES from the National Forum on Education Statistics (NFES) (2015) is more inclusive
in that it recognizes the broad factors that make up a composite defnition of SES:
SES can be defned broadly as one’s access to fnancial, social, cultural, and human capital
resources. Traditionally, a student’s SES has included, as components, parental educational
attainment, parental occupational status, and household or family income, with appropriate
adjustment for household or family composition. An expanded SES measure could include
measures of additional household, neighborhood, and school resources.
(p. 4)
Similarly, the defnition of “socioeconomic status” by Mueller and Parcel (1981) recognizes the
hierarchical nature of SES and tends to encompass greater variety in social stratifcation (Sirin, 2005,
p. 418): “Socio-economic status is the relative position of a family or individual in a social system in
which individuals are ranked according to their access to or control over wealth, power and status”
(Muller & Parcel, 1981, p. 14; Sirin, 2005, p. 418). Science education researchers, educators, and
policymakers are encouraged to consider SES not just from the lens of household income but much
broader geographical, cultural, social, human, and other factors.
American society has an intractable wealth gap because of racial disparities. In the United States,
race is the most consequential and visible factor determining an individual’s economic trajectory
(Chetty et al., 2018). Schleicher (2018) reported that the 2015 Programme for International Stu-
dent Assessment (PISA) showed SES infuences the education level of rural and urban students in
science. Educators, researchers, and policymakers concerned about the racial income-gap can fnd
several potential reasons for the persistence of the disparities. The myth that BIPOC people, specif-
cally Black people, have lower cognitive abilities (Nisbet, 2005) does not help when this same racial
stereotype threat is enhanced during test-taking infuencing Black students’ performance (Beasley &
Fischer, 2012; Jencks & Phillips, 1998; Maerten-Rivera et al., 2010; Steele & Aronson, 1995). The
stereotype threat is even more heightened when racial minorities take tests in science and mathemat-
ics (Cheryan et al., 2009; Steele & Aronson, 1995). Exposure to poor environments and signifcant
racial discrimination (Orr, 2003; Walton & Cohen, 2011) during childhood shows a more substantial
efect on the future income of racial minorities, particularly Black males (Berkowitz et al., 2017).
Science education that provides authentic science teaching and learning experiences to all students
is a highly resource-demanding enterprise. Authentic science learning experiences, the way most sci-
entists practice science in their research, demands so much material and pedagogical resources that a
school’s economy heavily dictates that experience (Aikens & Barbarin, 2008; Lee & Burkam, 2002).
Research in science education continuously shows that poor schools are always at a disadvantage
when it comes to high-quality science teaching and learning (Krueger & Sutton, 2001; Schleicher,
2018). Students from high-poverty families are continuously disadvantaged because they attend poor
schools, have poorly prepared science teachers, fewer science resources, and more signifcant stu-
dents from underrepresented groups (Rutkowskia et al., 2018). Unfortunately, lower school funding
(Schaft & Jackson, 2010), 20% of rural children living in poverty (United States Department of
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Agriculture [USDA], 2019), and low education level (less than high school) have exasperated rural
schools to provide high-quality science education. The Trends in International Mathematics and
Scientifc Studies (TIMMS) and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data on US
students’ performance in science show that students who attend resource-deprived schools tend to
score low in science (TIMMS, 2019). A study of an Australian rural high school showed that students
thrive in a science learning environment built on local resources, strong student–teacher and staf
relationships, and high academic expectations despite being geographically distant from many other
informal science resources (Murphy, 2020).
One of the signifcant casualties of SES is the kind of science instruction and curriculum students
receive. Many scholars of science education who have focused on urban schools in high-poverty
schools persistently show that these students come from underrepresented groups and receive the
least engaging and highly rote learning instructions (Calabrese Barton & Upadhyay, 2010; Upadhyay
et al., 2017). In a study by McNeill et al. (2017), researchers showed that high- and mid-SES students
believed argumentation helped students engage with complex discourses such as questioning. Teach-
ers for low-SES students felt that the purpose of argumentation was to encourage participation rather
than building higher-order thinking skills. In a study of rural–urban comparison in middle school stu-
dent participation in informal science activities, fndings revealed that students from rural and urban
schools benefted and desired informal and after-school science-related activities and engagements
(Hill et al., 2018). The study showed a correlation between SES and rural students’ engagement in
after-school activities and museum visits. Geographical proximity to informal science settings and
racial minority status decreased rural students’ engagements with science museums. Recognition of
activities and resources such as agriculture, animal husbandry, 4-H, and other engagements could
improve rural students’ science learning and engagement. These resources are no cost and low cost
for rural communities. In another study (Tan et al., 2020), researchers looked at the relationship
between schools’ SES and students’ science achievement in PISA 2015 and their enjoyment in sci-
ence learning. Their fndings suggested that inquiry-based pedagogy and teachers’ teaching quality
positively infuence student learning and achievement for low-SES schools (Tan et al., 2020).
In summary, SES has a tremendous impact on urban and rural science education worldwide. SES
is rooted in historical, social, educational, cultural, and political capitals that a family or an individual
has accumulated. Issues of race and gender further complicate these factors in hindering or sup-
porting mobility into higher SES, thus uncovering further complexity by expanding on diferences
within the urban-centric categorization system. Thus, science education researchers and educators
are encouraged to broaden their conceptualization of SES to include cultural and social capitals
as they explore urban and rural students’ science experiences and identities. The latter is further
explored in the next section.
Conceptual Tool: Science Identities

Science education curricula is often thought of as lacking in terms of a connection to the urban and
rural students’ identities and experiences. In addition, teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the rela-
tionship between their urban-centric identities and science have a strong impact on the teaching and
learning process. This section outlines the historical development of Western science and focuses on
the sociocultural contexts that welcomed certain categories of people while excluding others. The
work of sociologists, sociolinguists, and philosophers of science and technology, including Thomas
Kuhn (1962), Sandra Harding (1991), Bruno Latour and Steven Woolgar (1979), and James Gee
(2000), shows that science and those who practice science and consider themselves scientists cannot
be isolated from their sociocultural, historical, and interpersonal contexts.
In 2012, the Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas was
released (NRC, 2013). The Framework served as a foundation for developing the science standards
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of 24 states and developing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), adopted by 20 states
(https://ngss.nsta.org/about.aspx). By explicitly stating that the science “community and its culture
exist in the larger social and economic context of their place and time and are infuenced by events,
needs, and norms from outside science” (p. 27), the Framework frmly situates and contextualizes
science in historical and sociocultural contexts. This contrasts with the legacy efects of content-
specifc approaches in science textbooks, majors, and science teacher preparation narrowly focused
on universally applicable (therefore placeless) content and confrmatory vs. exploratory laboratory-
based experiments. The trope of “scientist”, a word conveying meaning beyond its literal defni-
tion, evokes the stereotype of an older White male in a lab coat, the 20th-century stereotype of the
scientist-discoverer.
The historical development of STEM in Europe and the United States as White and male con-
tributes to an identity of privilege, power, and exclusion refected in the underrepresentation of
women, 48% of the workforce but 27% of STEM workers (Martinez & Christnacht, 2021), and
ethnic minorities, 30% of the US population but 22% of bachelor’s and 12% of PhD degrees in 2016
(Stockard et al., 2021) in STEM felds. Narrative research by Chinn (2007) found that undergraduate
Asian and Pacifc Islander women in physics and engineering were often actively discouraged from
entering felds perceived as masculine by parents or stereotyped by peers and teachers as being from
groups thought incapable of succeeding in math and science. Female physics and engineering stu-
dents presented themselves as physically ft to be seen by peers and instructors as strong enough to use
tools and heavy equipment. A woman who is now a prominent engineer mentioned her technician
father playing math games with her while they stood in line and her boyfriend’s gift of a see-through
engine, making up for inexperience working on car engines, as leading up to her institutional iden-
tity, a degree in engineering.
Sociolinguist James P. Gee (2000) considers identity as a multifaceted construct developing over
time into “being recognized as a certain ‘kind of person’ in a given context” (p. 99). Gee considers
identity to be socially constructed on four dimensions: a Nature N-identity, e.g., gender and ethnic-
ity; Institutional I-identity e.g., a special education or English language learner; Discourse D-identity,
e.g., personal trait such as clever, talkative, or determined; and Afnity A-identity, e.g., surfer, biker.
In the United States, a female, ethnic minority student begins her journey toward a STEM I-identity
with two mismatched N-identities and potentially a mismatched I-identity if she selects non-college
preparatory courses to maintain her A-identity with non–college bound peers. Chinn (2007) inter-
viewed a Polynesian female who had a draftsman uncle and nurse mother. She entered and remained
in engineering despite being placed with unruly peers as a role model by her elementary teacher.
Later she heard her male physics classmate refer to their classmate as a “dumb H_____” knowing
that she was also of that ethnicity. She commented that academic grouping by teachers in early
grades supported formation of ethnic stereotypes and cliques, afnity groups held together by com-
mon views. She maintained her friendship with her “unruly” peers who tended to enroll together in
non–college bound courses. Though she was still friendly with both college-bound and non–college
bound peers, she could not bring them together to socialize. Her wistful comment about how being
in both groups still left her feeling as an outsider suggests the power of everyday school and outside-
of-school relationships to support or undermine fragile STEM identities. This vignette suggests
how an act of separation and categorization to address a classroom management problem can lead to
enduring I-, D-, and A-identities that impact educational outcomes of students whose appearance
and behaviors do not match those expected by the United States’ predominantly White, middle-class
female teachers. This underscores the importance of preparing all teachers, especially those of young
children, with strategies for inclusionary, welcoming instruction of culturally, linguistically, ethnically,
and socioeconomically diverse learners.
The Framework for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) recognizes the
social contexts of practices and discourses that afect identity development. Alignment with Gee’s
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(2000) and Lave and Wenger’s (1991) views of learning as socially situated is revealed in the state-
ment “Learning science depends not only on the accumulation of facts and concepts but also on
the development of an identity as a competent learner of science with the motivation and interest
to learn more” (National Research Council, 2012, p. 286). In this context, both rural and urban
learners of science would be more likely to develop identities as competent learners of science if
their experiences are engaging, personally meaningful, and connected to the knowledge and home
identities they bring to the science classroom. However, rural young people may fnd their teachers
and administrators who are not from their communities and cultures bring to the shared learning
space other lenses and stereotypical identities that may infuence the way they view, interact, and
hold expectations of students. The Online Slang Dictionary lists 22 words for rural dwellers, includ-
ing hayseed, hillbilly, and whiskey tango, a discreet way of saying white trash. In the category of words
related to urban dwellers are ghetto, hood, and turf. Sorhagen (2013) reports that teachers’ inaccurate
expectations predicted frst graders’ math, reading comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, and verbal
reasoning standardized test scores at age 15. Family income and teachers’ over- and underestimation
of students’ abilities had a stronger impact on students from lower income than higher income.
Chapman and Feldman (2017) examined how the science identities of marginalized urban high
school students were afected by participation in a contextually based authentic science experience.
Their empirical data on urban students’ perceptions provide insights into the efectiveness of using
authentic science experiences to foster the science identities of urban students. Chappel and Varelas
(2017) narrowed their study to focus on Black urban students and the possibilities of artistic repre-
sentations of a broader social life, specifcally ethnodance, for science education. These researchers
used empirical data to support a theoretical argument regarding the possibilities of enthodance for
strengthening the science identities of Black urban youth. Kang et al. (2018) narrowed their explora-
tion of science identities by focusing on urban middle school girls. The schools these girls attended
were public, located in urban communities, served a diverse population of students, and provided
youth with informal science learning opportunities. Their data revealed that multiple contexts (i.e.,
home, school, extracurricular activities) play a signifcant role in shaping middle school girls’ STEM
identities. The nuances of forging a science identity were further explored by Kane (2015). As part
of a grant-funded initiative that integrated science and literacy, the ways contested spaces provide
opportunities that shape urban third-grade students’ agentic selves and how their agentic expressions
shape classroom spaces were explored.
In summary, STEM identity begins to be shaped in a child’s earliest years. Teachers, parents,
peers, community, and cultural expectations all play important roles in shaping the social contexts
of STEM identity from the frst days of school through postsecondary education. This identity is
dynamic and intertwined with gender, geography, class, ethnicity, and language. In both urban and
rural classrooms, teachers as evaluators act as gatekeepers or onramps into STEM networks and play
critical roles in addressing equity in educational environments.
Conceptual Tool: Funds of Knowledge

Funds are viewed as an accumulation of wisdom (ideas or thoughts), artifacts, skills, and relationships
that an individual can access to better understand and engage with the sociopolitical and sociocultural
environments. Thus, funds of knowledge (FoK) are viewed as storage of highly valuable skills, ideas,
practices, cultures, languages, tools that are built through everyday personally lived experiences,
history, politics, and place (González, 1995; González et al., 2005; Moll, 2005; Moll et al., 1992).
Knowledge includes deeply rooted values, beliefs, skills, and ways of knowing ingrained in the local
sociohistorical and sociocultural environment. A goal of FoK is to aid members of a community in
critically examining issues of discrimination and social justice for personal transformation and social
change. This kind of dynamic utilization of these FoK allows for a robust and culturally relevant
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science learning in our conception. In this section, we frst explore the theory of FoK, how it is used
in science education, and how this idea could enhance teaching and learning science in urban and
rural communities.
The theory of FoK was frst explored by literacy scholars in Arizona who were eager to sup-
port the learning of mostly children from Hispanic families who lived in the borderlands between
Mexico and the United States (Vélez-Ibáñez & Greenberg, 1992). Since many Hispanic families and
their children struggled to succeed and participate in the mainstream schools (Riojas-Cortez et al.,
2008), this connection to home students’ home experiences and language seemed appropriate tools
to leverage. However, fnding ways to infuse home experiences into classroom teaching and learning
required deep cultural location information. Therefore, FoK relies on ethnographic (González, 1995)
approaches to learning about students and their homes, giving teachers a better understanding of
students’ true skills, knowledge, history, and sociocultural practices and values. There are fve goals of
FoK. The frst goal of the FoK framework is securing academic success for students from underrep-
resented groups (frst-generation, immigrant, poor, racial and ethnic minorities, Indigenous, English
language learners) (Rios-Aguilar et al., 2011), specifcally for racially and economically marginalized
groups (Upadhyay et al., 2017). The second goal is to infuse students’ FoK in everyday school cur-
riculum and pedagogies (McIntyre et al., 2001; Upadhyay, 2006) and critical engagement in content
learning (Upadhyay et al., 2017). The third goal is to create opportunities and environments that seek
to build relationships between families (caretakers of children) and teachers (school) where families
are valuable assets (Albrecht & Upadhyay, 2018). The fourth is to provide cultural relevancy and
sociocultural spaces to learning for social and personal transformation (Albrecht & Upadhyay, 2018;
Basu & Calabrese Barton, 2007). The ffth is to consider FoK originating from poor households and
racial minorities as assets (Moll & González, 1994) for learning, rather than “defcit thinking” (Valen-
cia, 2010, p. xvi). To attain these goals in classrooms across rural and urban schools, science teachers,
specifcally mainstream White teachers, need to fnd ways to recognize, learn, and imbed diverse
students’ experiences gained at home as legitimate sources of knowledge for efective teaching.
The idea of FoK is based on recognizing and celebrating diverse cultures and cultural practices
in classroom instructions. Cultures are viewed as dynamic and varied (Gutiérrez & Rogof, 2003)
within and across people’s homes. Culture, in general, represents language, music, artifacts, traditions,
beliefs, and values that are mediated by geography, history, politics, and ontology of a community
(e.g., Collins, 2004; DiMaggio, 1997; Klett, 2014; Schilke & Rossman, 2018; Shepherd, 2011).
Therefore, as home experiences evolve for the students, they bring diferent knowledge, skills, and
practices into science classrooms. This rich and dynamic experience creates opportunities for better
and relevant science learning and challenges to provide supportive learning spaces and materials in
rural and urban science classrooms. Unfortunately, science education has struggled to situate science
as a relevant knowledge for all students irrespective of their educational and professional trajectories.
Scholars, educators, policymakers, teachers, and other individuals and institutions have looked at
various frameworks and ideas to give science more relevance to people’s lives. Many diferent theories
and frameworks, such as culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), culturally respon-
sive teaching (Gay, 2000), multicultural education (Banks, 1995), sociocultural and sociohistorical
nature of learning (Rogof, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978a), culturally sustaining pedagogy (Paris & Alim,
2014), critical (race) theories (hooks, 1984; Delgado & Stefancic, 2012), and many others, have
been explored to both understand and enhance underrepresented rural and urban students’ science
engagement and learning. In science education, FoK has been a useful framework to understand and
support science teaching and learning in urban and rural schools. Since the focus of FoK has been
making learning relevant and connected to students’ home experiences, there are key areas where
FoK has been utilized in the context of science teaching and learning research and development.
Research in education and science education has looked at FoK to help answer the challenges
and opportunities that have plagued broader participation in science from underrepresented groups
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in urban and rural schools. Equity and social justice studies in science education that have invoked
FoK as their framework and analysis have shown that teachers and students both beneft from more
engaged and meaningful science learning (Calabrese Barton, 2003; Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2009;
Carlone & Johnson, 2012; Upadhyay, 2010; Upadhyay et al., 2017). In one study (Upadhyay, 2010),
immigrant students from Hmong communities drew from their cultural experiences to question the
process of observing and documenting their science activities and learning. With the support from
the teacher, the students established the value of Hmong FoK for better learning and culturally just
science space. Calabrese Barton and Tan (2009) study showed FoK as a suitable framework that could
bring a critical lens to articulate and challenge the status quo and power that sidelines diverse experi-
ences that students bring into class. In this case, students got encouraged to pursue what they wanted
rather than what the school science curriculum imposed on them.
FoK has a tremendous power to transform student and teacher experiences, whereby science
teaching and learning is more about social and personal change (Albrecht & Upadhyay, 2018; Upad-
hyay et al., 2017). In a study of urban elementary students, Upadhyay et al. (2017) saw benefts
of FoK when infused with the recent experiences of economic turmoil in a family that students
experienced. For immigrant families, recognition and infusion of FoK, both positive and negative,
in science teaching and learning plays a signifcant role in their children’s success. Somali families,
especially mothers, viewed the value of their FoK in their children’s success because Somali families
have a remarkably close kinship with other members (Albrecht & Upadhyay, 2018). Similar kinship
is observed among Hmong immigrants and their children (Upadhyay, 2010). In the studies of Somali
families and in a study of after-school programs, girls drew upon their FoK to engage in science that
mattered to them and their community (Gonsalves, 2014). The digital engagement related to local
issues created emotional interactions with a more positive view of the self and the science. Therefore,
FoK can provide valuable space for families, students, and teachers to connect with science that is
more personal, equitable, socially and culturally just, and transformative.
Most research in FoK has been focused on enhancing teacher consciousness on cultural difer-
ences that students bring form their home and how to manage them in short-term science interven-
tions (Bouillion & Gomez, 2001; Brown et al., 2018; Hammond, 2001) rather than “sustain” them
over time (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2009, p. 4). In a Māori science classroom study, the research-
ers found that teachers utilized Māori stories of mountains to teach science ideas about landforms
(Cowie et al., 2011). The inclusion of Māori knowledge provided teachers the opportunity to
encourage students to draw from other funds of knowledge they had gained at home. Similarly, in
another instance, an upper-elementary science class, the teacher encouraged a Hispanic immigrant
student to show and tell the hand-pollination process that he had learned back home to grow straw-
berries in the class during winter (Upadhyay et al., 2017). In a rural US study, teachers designed
lessons around the agriculture theme, utilizing students’ lives and what they knew about animal life,
food, fertilizers, animal husbandry and health, and many other rural farm-related activities (McIntyre
et al., 2001). Teachers successfully connected school science, math, literacy, and writing with what
students already knew a lot about. Teachers improved and were able to adjust their science pedagogy
because they found value in FoK as an essential link to make science more connected and useful to
students (Johnson & Fargo, 2010) and mostly benefted those from underrepresented groups or who
struggled academically (Sikoyo & Jacklin, 2009).
FoK is based on the knowledge a community has and how that knowledge could be brought into
science pedagogy and learning. Thus, there is a strong bond between the FoK idea and the com-
munity to which students belong. The notion of community and the relationship that it forges in
people’s minds is much more robust in Indigenous groups, rural places, and many underrepresented
groups. Therefore, FoK as “community cultural wealth” (Yosso, 2005) can support a robust connec-
tion between what happens in science and what the community has in store as cultural capital. In one
study, students and the local community came together to fnd a solution for river pollution, which
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tackled community interest. They provided students a lived context to learn science (Bouillion &
Gomez, 2001). In another study, Hammond (2001) leveraged Hmong community knowledge to
build a community garden that provided space for science engagement. In another study of a rural
sixth-grade STEAM classroom, students drew from peers’ FoK as immigrants, local rural context of
a windmill-driven partial energy source, and a historical fction book about Chinese immigrant life
in San Francisco in the early part of the 20th century to critically examine science, engineering, and
social implications of science and engineering learning (Upadhyay et al., 2021, in press).
FoK is not only about accepting cultural diferences among student experiences from diferent
households. It is also about critical sociocultural, sociohistorical, and sociopolitical awareness. There-
fore, it is about utilizing science to challenge dominant narratives in science practices, pedagogy, cur-
riculum, and learning. FoK allows students and teachers to draw from local and personal lived issues
to foster a critical lens into connecting science to social change and personal transformation. For
example, in a study, urban students discussed the science behind vaccines. They brought that knowl-
edge home to infuence adults who are steeped into cultural beliefs about the disease and the process
of curing it or preventing it (Upadhyay & Giford, 2011). Science learned in an FoK-supported
environment allowed students to be activists in their own homes without jeopardizing cultural values,
respect, and community coherency.
Similarly, in rural and Indigenous communities, FoK could be leveraged to explore local social
and historical issues to engage students in critical social change and personal transformation activities
through science. Many Indigenous communities are in rural locations across the United States, and
globally they have rich FoK that can support highly dynamic and socially conscious interactions in
science classrooms. The FoK inherent in these communities could be used to question science’s epis-
temology and promote Indigenous pedagogies that are more engaging and meaningful to Indigenous
students (Archibald, 2008; Cajete, 1994; Chinn, 2007; Iseke, 2013; Iseke & Brennus, 2011).
In summary, FoK in science teaching and learning can provide personally transformative expe-
riences in teaching and learning. The value of FoK in teaching and learning is that it places great
emphasis on the importance of the history, language, culture, and race experiences (Zipin, 2009) of a
community to which students belong. Since FoK is a collective experience of individuals and com-
munities in social, cultural, historical, and linguistic experiences in those spaces, science teaching and
learning could be more meaningful and equitable when FoK is integrated. A rural school science
class could beneft from integrating rusting phenomenon in farm tools while teaching oxidation in
chemistry. Therefore, FoKs like these are intimately and meaningfully connected to a local place, thus
providing an enriching learning experience to students. Thus, place-based science education would
provide a relevant theoretical and conceptual framework.
Conceptual Tool: Place-Based Education

Place-based education is a pedagogical approach that is only a few decades old in the education lit-
erature but has an exceptionally long history grounded in subsistence lifestyles and systems-oriented
Indigenous knowledge. A short literature review of place-based science education leading up to
evidence from urban and rural settings in the continental United States, Hawai‘i, and American
Samoa suggests it may be an instructional approach that disrupts the binary of rural and urban science
education.
Place-based education provides a way of thinking about pedagogy and curriculum grounded in
sociocultural theories of learning. As awareness grew in the 1970s of the impacts of human activities
on supposedly inexhaustible natural systems of water, air, and wild resources, educators began to turn
their attention to resources for science curriculum oriented to sustainable, resilient social ecosystems
in their places. It has been theorized and enacted in several ways in science educational settings. These
include service learning, environmental education (Ardoin et al., 2018), citizen science (Dickinson
376
et al., 2012), and critical pedagogy of place (Gruenewald, 2003 a, 2003b). Place-based education has
ancestral roots in the systems-oriented knowledge and practices of cultural groups across the world
who live subsistence lifestyles, relying upon historical, community, and personal knowledge of com-
plex linkages among humans, seasons, climate, and biological and abiotic resources. For example, the
place- and time-based knowledge of when and where to harvest seasonal fsh, birds, and mammals
and access abiotic resources such as clean water and minerals are place-based knowledge. They allow
for developed systems of place-based practices and values that moderate human behavior in order
to conserve and possibly augment resources for future generations through Indigenous engineer-
ing projects, such as fshponds, terracing, and water management. Until the innovation of writing
and recent development of institutions devoted to studying natural phenomena and applying that
knowledge toward economic and political ends, knowledge about nature was transmitted across the
generations through sayings, stories, and myths. Martha Beckwith, the frst person to hold a chair in
Folklore in the United States, co-authored Hawaiian Mythology (1940) with Hawaiian scholar Mary
Kawena Pukui, a native speaker of Hawaiian. With Pukui’s access to ancestral stories, they noted
that stories that contained genealogies could be traced to historical events and places in Hawai‘i and
other Pacifc islands. Unfortunately, in categorizing this book as myth, libraries following the Dewey
Decimal System placed it outside of the STEM categories, meaning that these stories would not be
recognized as a resource for STEM education.
As Western scientists and science educators have historically been drawn from the upper and
middle classes of dominant cultures not typically represented in underserved urban and rural schools,
relatively little place-based knowledge enters either mainstream science or science education. The
divisions of biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science that are found in US teacher certifcation
programs and K–12 science programs refect the historical partitioning of knowledge into increas-
ingly specialized science felds that build knowledge in laboratories divorced from the lived expe-
riences of people in today’s rural and urban settings. Rural and Indigenous peoples’ place-based,
sustainability, and systems-oriented ways of living in and understanding the world, developed over
many generations, became increasingly divorced and marginalized from the knowledge-building
processes of Western science: one that portrayed science as the masculine struggle to uncover the
secrets of mother nature. John Dewey (1920) considers Francis Bacon (1561–1626) to be the “great
forerunner of modern life” (p. 28), based on his conceptualization of scientifc methods and link-
ing of knowledge with power. Though often considered a proponent of progressive child-centered
schooling, Dewey also conveyed Western science’s metaphor of power and domination when he
wrote, “Scientifc principles and laws do not lie on the surface of nature. They are hidden and must
be wrested from nature by an active and elaborate technique of inquiry” (p. 32). Linda Tuhiwai
Smith (1999) notes that the association of Eurocentric science research with “the worst excesses of
colonialism remain a powerful remembered history for many of the world’s colonized peoples” (p. 1).
In Hawai‘i, where rural communities rely upon gardening and wild marine and terrestrial resources
for much of their food, culture still shapes how children learn, how people relate to their place, and
how they relate to each other and their community. Nearly 3,000 Hawaiian sayings, ‘ōlelo no‘eau, col-
lected by Mary Kawena Pukui (1983) in the early 20th century, convey ecological relationships as well
as the cultural values and practices that guide people’s behavior and shape their identity. The saying
“Pua ka wiliwili, nanahu ka manō” translates to “when the wiliwili tree blooms, the shark bites”. This
has been confrmed by research showing an estimated 25% of female tiger sharks in the Northwest-
ern Hawaiian Islands migrate to the main Hawaiian islands to give birth in the fall when the wiliwili
(Erythrina sandwicensis) blooms (Maui News, 2017). Hawaiian children still learn to observe closely
and silently in order to build their observational, listening, and analytical skills as conveyed in the say-
ing “Nana ka maka, ho‘olohe ka pepeiao, pa’a ka waha”. This translates to “observe with the eyes; listen
with the ears; shut the mouth”. Such sayings guide behaviors of observing and monitoring closely,
kilo, a practice that underlies stewardship as a collective act. Taken together, ongoing monitoring of
377
both environmental phenomena and human activities in the place that sustains a people constantly
updates a working model of a complex world that people must respect and care for as individuals
and as a community. In Hawai‘i, coalitions of resource scientists, resource managers, cultural prac-
titioners, and educators are intersecting deep place-based knowledge, Western science, and Native
Hawaiian understanding of ritual as relationship to create a shared biocultural space where identi-
ties, practices, and values coalesce around the shared vision of sustainable, resilient social ecosystems
(Kealiikanakaoleohaililani et al., 2018).
Current technologies can bring the makahiki, a precontact knowledge-gathering system into the
present in both urban and rural settings. At the island level, the annual makahiki, a 2–3-months-
long circuit of each major island during the winter months by the mo‘i, reigning chief, served as an
information-gathering system for resource management (Abbott, 1992). At the moku district level
and ahupua‘a largely sustainable geopolitical level, the annual site visit assessed resources and collected
tribute based on prior visits. A konohiki, a knowledgeable lower chief, was empowered to order
people in the ahupua‘a to collective action, e.g., repairing waterways or fshponds, or halting actions,
e.g., a kapu forbidding fshing when fsh were spawning and populations most vulnerable. In Hawai‘i
and other ecologically vulnerable Pacifc islands, being aware of surroundings, monitoring changes,
fnding patterns, building new knowledge of the interlinked social ecosystem, valorizing hard work
and cooperation, and controlling people’s behavior supported sustainable, resilient societies. Since
frst contact with the West in 1788, environmental degradation from introduced hoofed animals,
sugar and pineapple plantations, urbanization, and invasive species have altered even the mountain-
ous forested zones. Now community groups, informed by a culturally grounded, place-based vision
of stewardship, collaborative work, and reciprocity, are active in many ahupua‘a. The proverb I ka wa
mamua, ka wa mahope, the future is in the past, reinforces a cultural vision to look to the lessons of a
more sustainable and resilient past to guide the path forward. The boundaries of ahupua‘a are marked
with signage, restoring a Hawaiian sense of place, and school and urban and rural community groups
are sharing the responsibility, kuleana, of cleaning up streams, roadsides, and coastlines, restoring
native species and planting staple crops brought by Polynesians, disrupting the urban–rural binary.
Chinn (2012, 2014, 2015) applied a place-based, FoK lens in the service of critical professional
development of teacher leaders who utilize strategies of community mapping, curricular mapping,
and place-based pedagogies to develop interdisciplinary STEM curricula for their specifc communi-
ties. Knowledge of how a place has changed from frst human contact to the present develops through
archival research and interviews of elders, enabling urban teachers to write place-based curricula that
help students reenvision and engage with their familiar places. Teachers’ personally engaged research
in the communities in which their students live supports school–community partnerships that enable
community-engaged, problem-fnding, and problem-solving curricula. Semken et al. (2017) view
place-based education as a “situated, context-rich, transdisciplinary teaching and learning modality
distinguished by its unequivocal relationship to place, which is any locality that people have imbued
with meanings and personal attachments through actual or vicarious experiences” (p. 542). Establish-
ing personal connections to place through the critical lens of community-engaged problem fnding
and problem solving is a present-day version of adaptive resource management that may be applied
in both urban and rural settings.
In the United States, urban and rural K–12 schools both have issues of insufcient economic
resources and underperformance by marginalized, minoritized youth. Every place, however, has both
physical and human resources that can be understood through a critical historical lens. Strategies of
community mapping can reveal Indigenous place names for springs, waterways, and woodlands that
are renamed or no longer exist, allowing insights into past ecosystems and a critical perspective on
the changes leading up to the present. As teachers develop their historical place and culture-based
expertise and pedagogy through community partnerships, they engage their students in learning
communities that develop experiential, personally meaningful, systems-oriented knowledge of their
378
places and an appreciation of the way values, beliefs, and culture interact with STEM knowledge and
practices to shape urban and rural landscapes.
Place-based education is a critical pedagogy employed by Freire (1970), who wrote: “A deepened
consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality suscep-
tible of transformation” (p. 21). As an inquiring and empowering pedagogy, place-based education
has become a science education approach to address issues of academic disparities (Promise of Place,
n.d.). Reviews of the literature on rural STEM education by Harris and Hodges (2018) and research
with 200 K–12 urban students by Flanagan et al. (2019) have led them to independently conclude
that K–12 students show increased engagement and academic achievement when learning is place
based. Harris and Hodges’s (2018) review of articles on rural STEM education found that when
teachers understood local culture, taught place-based STEM lessons drawn from their students’ com-
munity, and engaged local STEM professionals as partners, they gained parental support and students
were more academically engaged and likely to become interested in STEM and higher education.
Flanagan et al. (2019) analyzed the refections of 205 urban, mostly ethnic/racial minority, 4th–12th
graders on what they learned from participating in place-based stewardship education involving
hands-on collective learning/action by teams of students, teachers, and community partners in the
communities where students attended school. They found the great majority of students recognized
that humans played both positive and negative roles in ecosystems. A third of the students felt collec-
tive action was necessary to solve environmental problems, half experienced collective efcacy, and
more than a third felt more attachment and identifcation with their community. Similar to what
researchers have reported in relation to inner-city, high-density neighborhoods in general (Permen-
tier et al., 2011), Bronx students’ place attachments were weak, perhaps due to stigmatization of this
area as ecologically degraded, akin to other types of stigmatizations of inner-city places (Wacquant,
2007). This result may be explained by research that suggests that place attachment develops over
long or frequent experiences of places (Tuan, 1977; Hay, 1998). The environmental education pro-
grams in this study were only 5–6 weeks long, which may be too brief to increase attachment to a
place where most participants already reside.
In summary, conventional STEM schooling may be critiqued as accumulation of decontextual-
ized, place-less content knowledge leading to pseudo expertise, inequitable academic outcomes,
and inability to solve real-world problems (Sternberg, 2003). In contrast, culturally and histori-
cally informed place-based approaches that include Indigenous perspectives, community voices, and
partnerships disrupt the rural–urban binary and provide critical narratives that connect teachers and
students, whether urban or rural, to familiar real-world places with authentic histories that students
are able to enter as agentic actors to problem fnd, problem solve, and create their own futures.
Implications and Future Approaches to Disrupting

the Urban/Rural Binary
Social contexts infuence learners’ creation of understanding; thus, local contexts are important to
consider as the science education community seeks to enhance its understandings and practices asso-
ciated with science teacher education, teaching, and learning. Such contexts, however, are complex
and include tendencies associated with many aspects of society, such as history, culture, and power
of people and institutions. Education research continues to demonstrate that within this complexity
are specifc factors, or a combination of factors, that are contributing to education gaps identifed in
both urban and rural locations. The purposes driving current urban-centric science education are, for
the most part, based on cultural diferences both within these schools and with their communities.
Rural and urban residents may be similar in valuing their community, feeling vested in its growth
and prosperity, and perceiving that others look down on them, but depending on their cultural his-
tory, they difer in their thinking about community values and politics (Bialik, 2018).
379
The complexity inherent in urban and rural school contexts, and its impact on the science teach-
ing and learning process, cannot be captured by an approach based solely on population density.
Possessing a limited understanding of the complexity and the factors impacting educational goals
is concerning for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the majority of the world’s
students are in these geographical locations. Although learning gaps in areas of certain population
densities suggest a focus on these areas is warranted, there are other factors beyond the density of the
population that are impacting education. Education researchers need to consider how social, eco-
nomic, and other contextual factors within these locales interact with educational processes and out-
comes within the schools (Burdick-Will & Logan, 2017). Some of this complexity is inherent in the
existing research base, albeit often implicitly. However, this exploration revealed that many studies
provide very limited information on the contexts and complexities of STEM teaching and learning
despite emphasizing their importance. For example, most of the urban research focuses on schools in
megacities that have large student bodies that include many diferent ethnic and racial populations.
However, research is also needed on urban schools outside the megacity and/or schools with students
mostly from one underserved population. Likewise, most rural science education research in the
United States focuses on students who are part of the dominant population attending small and geo-
graphically isolated schools. Again, understanding these contexts through qualitative and quantitative
research is critical; however, research is also needed on rural schools that enroll non-majority refugee
or Indigenous students. These rural schools often draw from populations that possess rich culture
and practices (Avery, 2013), i.e., funds of knowledge that difer from the mainstream, but lack a voice
in political and economic decision-making, participate in limited ways in mainstream economies,
and receive limited social services. These characteristics afect science teaching and learning in quite
diverse ways not typically identifed or explored in urban and rural science education.
Emdin (2010) notes the problem with assuming that practices used in non-urban settings are suit-
able for urban settings. Educators are also being cautioned not to lump all rural or urban communi-
ties together (e.g., Abrams & Middleton, 2017). A growing number of researchers are providing new
conceptions of urban or rural education (e.g., Welsh & Swain, 2020; Echazarra & Radinger, 2019).
In their 2020 article, Welsh and Swain ofer a diferent conceptualization and operationalization of
urban education. This (re)defnition (1) considers whether the community is dynamic and complex,
often being shaped by the vestiges of discrimination and oppression, rather than static and mono-
lithic; (2) is based on the degree of conditions based on characteristics, challenges, and context; (3)
includes the presence of educational inequality; and (4) is not rooted in a defcit perspective. Echaz-
arra and Radinger (2019) provide a list of traits that characterize an area as rural. These traits include
(1) geographical distance, (2) small and sparse population, (3) dwindling share of the population, (4)
low socioeconomic status, and (5) ethnically homogeneous and socially cohesive.
Science educational research can no longer be categorized in a binary manner of urban and rural
or considered as a continuum, as urban and rural are not opposite ends of a line. Researchers are
encouraged to explore the educational gaps in urban and rural schools by considering the inter-
sectionality of identities associated with the geographical and historical contexts. Intersectionality
considers the realities of multiple inequalities and the interactions of them (Collins, 2016; Crenshaw,
1991). Science students in urban and rural underperforming schools have multiple identities that
are infuenced not only by community characteristics but also racial and cultural diversity, socio-
economic status, academic resources, status/quality of science teaching, social dynamics, and insti-
tutional identities that difer from those traditionally assumed in science and science education. By
approaching research in a manner that embraces the sociocultural and historical complexities of rural
and urban students, the feld can achieve more complete understandings.
This chapter explored four broad conceptual tools that encompass various aspects of urban or
rural students’ identities. SES involves not only family income, as is commonly used, but also parental
educational levels, parental occupations, and the way these impact a students’ cultural capital in the
380
institution and science. Identity formation and learning are infuenced by the interaction of domi-
nant, Indigenous, and local cultures. The disconnects between students’ urban-centric identities and
science identities have an impact on teaching and learning. Understanding the students’ FoK not
only provides meaning to what students engage in science, but it also connects local places, cultures,
values, and ideas to science. FoK generated in communities would look diferent because of the his-
torical, social, and cultural nature of these places and their inhabitants. Place-based education ofers
a way to foster such a connection. These are examples of important conceptual approaches, but the
list is certainly not exhaustive. The ability to address inequities within urban or rural locations with
conceptual tools that better capture the sociocultural aspects of a student within an institutional set-
ting location, as well as the impacts on a student’s development of a STEM identity, allows for a more
holistic understanding of science teaching and learning in urban and rural locales as a complex and
dynamic process.
In conclusion, across the globe, many rural and urban community schools are requiring urgent
attention as science educators work to improve opportunities for greater human capital growth
among all students. Human capital is directly tied to future economic success of the students (Maar-
seveen, 2020). Science education has been touted as the path to good-paying jobs, community
and national technological growth, and a democratic society. It is imperative that science educators
and researchers move beyond simplistic binaries of rural and urban education and pay attention to
historical and geographic contexts, as well as the sociocultural complexities. The science education
professional community needs to ask questions, challenge understandings, and take action to support
teachers as critical curriculum developers able to incorporate students’ FoK, deep historical knowl-
edge of place and resources, including community, into a science education ecosystem that engages
the identities students bring with them to forge science identities that empower them to be agentic
actors.
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13
CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE
SCIENCE EDUCATION FOR
INDIGENOUS AND ETHNIC
MINORITY STUDENTS
Introduction
An important goal of science education in the developing world (i.e., countries with a less developed
industrial base and human development index compared to the more scientifcally and technologi-
cally advanced countries), has been to rid the curriculum materials of its colonial legacies. Although
the situation of Indigenous/ethnic minorities in the Western world is slightly diferent from what
occurs among the predominantly Indigenous students in the developing countries, their needs and
aspirations for socioeconomic emancipation are similar. According to Rodney (2005), Indigenous
communities in both societies still sufer directly or indirectly from the efects of slave trade, coloni-
zation, economic exploitation, and other sociopolitical ills. I am in agreement with this view because
as little children, we used to listen with rapt attention to my grandfather telling us stories about how
he and a few others survived several raids by the slave dealers. According to him, the white scars
on his legs and other parts of his body were bullet wounds while hiding among the fronds of a tall
palm tree.
After the slave trade came colonization and further subjugation, exploitation, and mass disloca-
tion of the Indigenous communities for economic and administrative purposes. An example of this
is that my ethnic group, the Yoruba in southwestern Nigeria, are now located in three West African
countries either speaking English or French, while those carried away as slaves can be found in Brazil,
West Africa, the West Indies, and the United States. The aftermath of these human tragedies coupled
with racialist policies justifed by scientifc knowledge at the time have resulted in creating genera-
tions of traumatized communities that even today still struggle with the problem of sociocultural
identity. In light of all this it should not be surprising why anything from the colonialists (including
Western science) has been held suspect by Indigenous students. Besides, these students often fnd a
mismatch between school science and their tenaciously held Indigenous beliefs.
As several studies (e.g., Aikenhead & Elliot, 2010; Iwuanyanwu, 2020; McKinley & Gan, 2014)
have indicated, many science classrooms as a result of historical and current globalization factors are
now occupied by ethnically diverse classrooms. Therefore, science teachers attempting to implement
new science curricula tend to encounter a number of challenges. Some of the challenges mentioned
in the extant literature include (1) the disparity between school science and Indigenous knowledge,
(2) large classes, (3) the use of foreign language of instruction, (4) inadequate instructional materials,
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-16 389

(5) frequent curriculum reforms, and (6) the stranglehold efects of assessments on the whole educa-
tion system. However, since a lot has been written about this subject, the focus of the chapter is to
show how innovative instructional strategies have been used to mitigate the negative impact of these
challenges. For example, it is hard to fnd any studies in the science education literature exploring any
connection between the slave trade, the Industrial Revolution, colonization, racism, or other remote
socioeconomic factors on Indigenous students’ underperformance in school science. But as I have
pointed out elsewhere (see Yacoubian & Hansson, 2020), these historical factors cannot be ignored
without being intellectually dishonest. Although not all the ethnic communities have experienced
the direct efects of the slave trade or colonialism, it is rare to fnd any that has not sufered some
form of exploitation or the other.
Research studies on science and Indigenous or local knowledge are relatively new and still few
relative to other areas of science education. The emergence of the former incidentally coincides
with the waning infuence studies underpinned on behaviorist and positivist research paradigms in
the mid-eighties. I need to state upfront though that the focus of this chapter is not to review such
studies but to examine some substantive issues that have emanated in the study of Indigenous stud-
ies, especially the underperformance of Indigenous/ethnic students in school science. For the same
reason, only a passing remark will be made. Despite the new interest in sociocultural issues in science
education research, I am not aware of any comprehensive reviews or evaluations of studies expressly
concerned with eforts to integrate Indigenous knowledge with school science in the classroom.
Though the study by Sotero et al. (2020) is not a review, it has created awareness among science
educators about the eforts that have been made so far to include science in the science curricu-
lum. In this regard, they have identifed some formerly colonized countries, namely, the United
States, South Africa, Brazil, Canada, and Australia, as being at the forefront of such attempts. They
indicated that the frst authors in these fve countries have collaborators in diferent regions of the
world. They further claim that a considerable number of these authors focus mainly on the inclu-
sion of Indigenous knowledge in school science as a way to: (1) to make the Indigenous students
value their Indigenous heritage; (2) help students to see the relevance of school science in their daily
lives; (3) help the teachers to produce innovative and contextually relevant instruction for a multi-
cultural classroom; (4) expose all students regardless of their ethnic backgrounds to perceive science,
technology, society, and the environment in a more robust manner that would have otherwise been
the case; (5) encourage Indigenous students to participate more actively in classroom discourses; (6)
expose students to argumentation instruction; (7) expose both Indigenous and mainstream students
to other cultural ways of thinking and interpreting phenomena; (8) explore local issues alongside
socioscientifc issues with the aim to learn multiple forms of interpretation and problem solving; (9)
increase students’ awareness of the need to conserve their environment; (10) encourage students to
see their environment as a formal learning tool; (11) increase teachers’ awareness about how Indig-
enous knowledge can become a pedagogical and communicative instrument in their classrooms; (12)
encourage teachers to teach science in a contextually and culturally sensitive way; and (13) reinforce
teachers’ and researchers’ sensitivity to the specifc sociocultural contexts of their students.
Though a commendable efort, it is worth noting that the study by Sotero et al. (2020) is limited
only to journal articles that were revealed through the use of search engines. However, my view is
that there are much more published articles in other less popular journals, conference proceedings,
and doctoral dissertations than those cited by these authors. The most probable reason for this is that:
(1) research studies on science and Indigenous knowledge are still relatively new; (2) the gate-keeping
phenomenon that limits what articles are published in high-impact science education journals seems
to persist; (3) the foremost journals in science education are still dominated largely by reviewers and
editors that have been groomed in the positivist and structuralist traditions and forms of research;
(4) it takes a minimum of 18 months to 2 years to get an article published in the high-impact
(a concept based on the quantity of citations) science education journals, e.g., the Journal of Research
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Culturally Responsive Science Education
in Science Teaching, Science Education, and the International Journal of Science Education; (5) science and
Indigenous knowledge systems of thought are based on complex and distinctly diferent paradigms;
(6) very few hypotheses or theories have been posited in the area; (7) most of the researchers publish-
ing in the area do not have Indigenous backgrounds; (8) Indigenous researchers lack articulation, i.e.,
they lack language skills to communicate their experiences or fndings in the “standard account” way;
(9) science and Indigenous knowledge are incommensurable systems of thought based on distinctly
diferent assumptions and as such are difcult to compare; and (10) science educators undertaking
studies on science and Indigenous knowledge systems are concerned mainly with sociocultural issues,
such as teaching in a multicultural classroom, racism, social justice, equity, and so on.
Over the years, I have noticed that a large percentage of science educators show little or a lack of
interest on issues relating to Indigenous knowledge systems probably because they do not construe it
as an authentic way of knowing or describing human experience with nature simply because it does
not appeal to their intellectual interests. For the same reason, I have had the experience of having my
articles rejected in recent years by reputed journals who have hardly published in the area. Sometimes
some editors have had the courtesy to suggest that my articles did not coincide with the journal’s
current interest. Recently, I had an article stemmed in a complex historical/political debate rejected
on account that it did not conform to a certain standard positivist way of reporting. A reviewer com-
plained that the paper lacked a clear-cut hypothesis, research design, sufciently large sample, strong
statistical analysis, and so on. I wonder if that reviewer has ever published a single article in the murky
and complex terrain of scientifc and Indigenous cosmological inquiries.
Certainly the study carried out by Sotero et al. (2020) is a good start, but much still needs to
be done. Another remark deserving close attention is that the networks existing among researchers
on science and Indigenous knowledge systems are much more than these authors have noted. For
instance, as a lead author in South Africa mentioned by Sotero et al. (2020), my collaborators reside
in many areas of the world rather than a few countries in Africa. I have worked with collaborators
in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, United Arab Republic, Egypt, Italy, Brazil, Norway,
the Philippines, Canada, West Indies, India, and several Southern, Western, Central, Northern, and
Eastern African countries, just to mention a few. My collaborators have similar multiple links.
After the fourth conference associated with the Science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems Proj-
ect (SIKSP), which I have coordinated for over a decade, I notifed the participants of that conference
that I was fnally retiring from active academic life. After much discussion, the participants decided
to launch the African Association for the Study of Indigenous Knowledge Systems. Members of that
association are now located in over 30 countries. If not for COVID-19, the membership should
have increased considerably. The inaugural conference of the association was launched in Namibia in
2015 and since its inception it has produced several conference proceedings with hundreds of articles
already published.
The Impact of the Slave Trade, Industrial Revolution, and Colonialism

on Indigenous Students’ Disposition Toward School Science
During the colonial era, most of the so-called developing countries have merely replicated the edu-
cation systems of the colonial countries. However, it is noteworthy that since independence many of
these countries have been making concerted eforts to improve their socioeconomic development.
Indeed, since the independent era many of these countries have embarked on curriculum reforms
to eradicate the ills of colonial education. For example, since South Africa gained political indepen-
dence in 1994, the frst democratic government led by the African National Congress saw curricu-
lum reform as its priority. The new government formulated education policies underpinned by an
inclusivist principle of Ubuntu. The term Ubuntu is a central African philosophy that stands for unity
of purpose, interdependence, communality, collaborative consensus, and collective responsibility. In
391
this regard, education (including science education), unlike the erstwhile apartheid education, was
construed as a liberatory and collective force to authenticate true freedom for all.
But curriculum reforms per se are no panacea to all the ills of the past education systems unless
all the stakeholders are well aware of the potential benefts of such a reform for them. That implies
they are well informed about their role in the curriculum development process. Instead of being
compelled to implement a fnished product, the teachers should be part and parcel of any curricu-
lum reform. In the same vein, curriculum reform in science education, or any feld, should follow as
much as possible the current wisdom of educational innovation and change strategy. It should have
a clear goal in view. It must be based on a sound educational paradigm. It should pay close attention
to the stakeholders’ needs, contexts, aspirations, sociocultural beliefs, and values, as well as current
discourses in the area. Besides, the planners must be well aware that curriculum reform is a complex
endeavor that goes far beyond the mere political or technical rationalities. As such, they must be
aware of the need to plan carefully. In addition, they must allow for sufcient time to conceptualize,
plan, and monitor the reform documents and its implementation process. Finally, they must evaluate
to see that what is being achieved is compatible with the intended goal.
As several studies have shown (e.g., Aikenhead & Elliot, 2010; Iwuanyanwu & Ogunniyi, 2018)
curriculum reforms have been anything but systematically done. Instead, teachers have been exposed
to a number of crash professional development programs with the hope that somehow positive out-
comes would emerge. As a result, teachers have often found themselves opposing the curriculum
they were expected to implement. For instance, before long there was a public outcry against the
new curriculum and the government was forced to review the new curriculum. Before the new cur-
riculum was implemented in South Africa, the classrooms were built for the diferent monocultures
with little or no interactions with children of other cultural groups. Besides, the new curricular
demand for the integration of Indigenous knowledge with school science proved very challenging
for most science teachers considering that most of them had been schooled to teach their subjects
largely for the Western education system. The poignant question of course is: What sort of science
education has prevailed in the formerly colonized countries?
What many developing countries did not seem to realize perhaps was the hidden agenda of
Western education policies, which were aimed at extending Western culture and way of life to the
subjugated Indigenous communities (e.g., Bishop, 1990; Gill & Levidow, 1989). But as it has now
been realized by most of these countries, the education system they had adopted enthusiastically
has turned out to be a sort of poison ivy for them in the long run. Many Indigenous communities
have now realized that as much as Western education has some merit in terms of improved socio-
economic development, it has also created among them a sense of inferiority complexity and loss
of their sense of identity. Talking of wholesale education systems without any Indigenous content
was tantamount to voluntary self-abnegation. The consequence of this, according to Khuzwayo and
Ogunniyi (2016), Rodney (2005), and McKinley and Gan (2014), is the enslavement of their minds,
beliefs, and cultural practices. Rodney (2005) claims further that colonial policies have succeeded in
blocking the emergence of an intellectual tradition even in societies with such a tradition before they
were colonized. It is as if those societies never had any education system with which to transmit their
knowledge, skills, or cultural values to the younger generation. Hardly a generation has passed since
many developing countries gained their independence, but the efects of colonialism still persist even
today. Rodney (2005) and Ogunniyi (2020) also claim that the goal of colonial education is cultural
assimilation of the Indigenous communities through the schooling system which was forced on the
Indigenous communities.
Talking about the British colonial education, for instance, Gill and Levidow (1989) assert that sci-
ence teaching in Britain: (1) embodies a subtle form of racist propaganda difcult to detect because
of the misguided belief that science is politically neutral; (2) masks the real political and economic
agenda of science education; (3) hides its appropriation of non-Western Indigenous sciences; (4) is
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based on a racist ideology; and (5) is based on an exploitative economic system. They contend further
that historically the Western powers have always enslaved the Indigenous communities and reduced
them to subservient roles. As a result, millions of Indigenous peoples around the world have migrated
to Western countries where they now provide the needed cheap labor to be dispensed with when
no longer needed. Aikenhead and Elliot (2010), Bishop (1990), and others have made similar claims
about Western education. With few exceptions (e.g., the United States, Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand) colonial education was used to under-develop the Indigenous communities. Dei et al.
(2000) puts this quite succinctly by asserting that:
Knowledge forms are usually privileged to construct dominance, and can be “fetished” so
as to produce and sustain power inequalities. Fetished knowledges are assigned or come to
acquire an objectifed, normal status, the status of truth. Thus they become embedded in
social practices and identities, as well as in institutional structures, policies, and relationships.
(p. 4)
It should also be remembered that globalization has its root in the centuries of the slave trade,
Industrial Revolution (1760–1840), colonization, and the mass exploitation of human and material
resources, especially by European invaders searching for freedom or better quality of life. The mala-
dies of despotic European imperial governments and the atrocities they committed in the countries
they occupied have left in its wake a vicious cycle of unmitigated poverty and “crisis of knowledge”
among the Indigenous peoples. These evil practices that have contributed to the wealth of the West-
ern world have led to the underdevelopment of the colonized countries. Rodney (2005) claims that
the European slave trade coupled with colonization were basic factors in African underdevelopment.
He adds that:
the process by which captives were obtained on African soil was not trade at all. It was
through warfare, trickery, banditry and kidnaping. . . . When one tries to measure the efect
of European slave trading on the African continent, it is very essential to realise that one is
measuring the efect of social violence rather than trade in any normal sense of the word.
(pp. 108–109)
It is also apposite to say that while many developing countries have gained their political indepen-
dence, they have not gained economic independence. The destruction of the ecosystems, environ-
mental pollution, global warming, the greenhouse efect, and other environmental disasters caused
currently by multinational oil companies and others in many countries since the Industrial Revolu-
tion era have by no means abated. Today, many of these once-vibrant countries can no longer feed
their populations, and joblessness among their youth has reached an alarming rate.
Curriculum Reforms Targeting Indigenous/Ethnic Minority Students

Curriculum reforms targeting Indigenous/ethnic minority students have been carried out for about
three decades. While some progress has been made, the impact has been minimal. The frst chal-
lenge that a newly independent country is likely to face is how curriculum reform could help bring
about rapid change. Although most formerly colonized countries in Africa have implanted several
curriculum reforms, such eforts have failed to fulfll the postulates of their hard-won indepen-
dence and the aspirations of their peoples. For instance, South Africa attained independence in 1994
and embarked immediately on curriculum reform as early as 1997. Although the new curriculum,
known as the Curriculum 2005, and subsequent ones aimed at indigenizing school science and the
eradication of inequality created during the colonial/apartheid era, this goal has proved to be rather
393
elusive (Ogunniyi, 2004, 2007a). Similar experiences have been reported in other countries where
reforms have targeted Indigenous/ethnic students (e.g., Aikenhead & Elliot, 2010; Govender, 2011;
Kim, 2017; Reddy et al., 2016).
Some of the reasons cited in the literature include poor conceptualization of the curricula, con-
ficting or lack of clear-cut curriculum policies, mismatch between the adopted curricula and the
needs and the contextual realities of the students, poor preparation or non-involvement of teachers
in curricular reforms, lack of instructional materials, the use of inefective instructional strategies,
strangle efect of national examinations on the education system, teachers’ inadequate understand-
ing of the nature of science and Indigenous knowledge systems, residual efects of inherited colonial
education, and so on (Ogunniyi, 2004, 2007a, 2011). Many of the new curricula are learner centered
and inclusive to refect the realities associated with multicultural classrooms in many countries today.
These are in sharp contrast to the older colonial, teacher-centered, exclusivist, and examination-
driven curricula that have been merely tinkered with over and over again, all in the name of curricu-
lum reform. However, considering the yawning gap between the goals of the new curricula and the
old curricula, it should be no surprise why not much success has been attained even after substantial
investments have been directed toward the improvement of Indigenous students’ performance in
school science (Reddy et al., 2016).
Decolonizing the Science Curriculum for Indigenous Students

The term “decolonization” is a loaded term that has come to mean diferent things for the people who
have used it. But despite the diferent defnitions given to the term, there is a general consensus among
the advocates that it is signifes attempts to eradicate unhealthy colonial legacies that are still prevalent
in every facet of life, be it in the arts and sciences, humanistic and social sciences (including education),
cultural practices, beliefs, value systems, or other areas. In short, it is an attempt to replace the domi-
nant colonial intellectual tradition with what is considered to be authentically Indigenous in theory
and practice. Decolonizing the science curriculum, therefore, might entail modifying or rewriting the
science curriculum in a way that appeals to the intellectual interests of students without resulting in
the loss of their sociocultural identity. It might also involve integrating science with the Indigenous
sciences, translating certain key terms into the local languages, saturating diferent scientifc concepts
with local examples, teaching science using innovative instructional strategies well nuanced in tra-
ditional ways of solving problems, and so on. As I have indicated elsewhere (Ogunniyi, 2017), the
critical role of language in communication and facilitating understanding in any subject matter, not
least science, is unequivocal. Because when a person’s language is suppressed or marginalized, he/she
is deprived of his/her means to think and to communicate his/her view efectively to others.
In an attempt to make science more relevant to the life worlds of Indigenous students, some
attempts have been made to decolonize the science curriculum. The new curriculum statement
published by the Department of Education (DOE) in South Africa recognizes the fact that:
Diferent world-views are usually present in the science classroom. . . . People tend to
use diferent ways of thinking for diferent situations, and even scientists in their private
lives may have religious frameworks or other ways of giving values to life and making
choices. . . . One can assume that learners in the Natural Sciences Learning Area think of
more than one world-view. Several times a week they cross from the culture at home, over
the border into school science, and then back again.
(DOE, 2002, pp. 12–13)
Similarly, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in its Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement
(CAPS), explicitly states students should be encouraged to value their Indigenous heritage. It states
394
further that that school science should be decolonized to make it more culturally sensitive to all
students (DBE, 2011) regardless of their sociocultural diferences. Similar views have been expressed
worldwide where multicultural classrooms have emerged (e.g., Aikenhead, 2006; Aikenhead & Elliot,
2010; Botha, 2007; Cajete, 1999; Cronje et al., 2015; Hewson, 2015; Thomson, 2010; Wane, 2009).
However, despite the efort made to indigenize school science, the old form of traditional instruc-
tion and assessment practices seem to prevail in many education systems. Consequently, science is
still perceived as an imposed foreign culture to the majority of Indigenous students whose beliefs are
completely diferent from the scientifc belief promoted at school (e.g., Cajete, 1999; Chinn, 2007;
Garroutte, 1999; Nichol & Robinson, 2000).
Although there is general consensus among the proponents of decolonization, there is no clear-
cut agreement on the procedure to be used to achieve this goal. A poignant issue in this regard is
whether decolonization can actually be accomplished when the language of instruction is still the
colonial language. It is a well-known fact that every language carries with it certain meanings and
nuances that are not easily perceived by a non-native speaker. In situations where English, French,
Portuguese, or Spanish is a second or third language, it is not difcult to see why most Indigenous
students feel alienated from science. I shall elaborate on this in the section on the language of
instruction.
Unfortunately, decolonization is gradually slipping from its original elegance as a rallying symbol
for accomplishing equity, justice, unity, and socioeconomic development to becoming a mere cliché
that is bandied about in the literature but absolutely meaningless to most people advocating for it.
Yet without a clear idea of what decolonization really means, it won’t be long before it is forgotten,
like many other bright ideas about what sort of culturally responsive science education is all about.
But before elaborating on this any further, it is necessary to talk briefy about a currently emerging
issue, namely, the teaching of science in a multicultural classroom context.
Teaching Science in Multicultural Science Classrooms

In response to the current multicultural classrooms as a result of globalization and human movement
around the world, the need for teacher preparation institutions to develop compatible programs
to address this issue has become an urgent necessity. Despite the fact that the Western world has
increasingly rejected racial injustice in principle, a considerable number of stakeholders (including
teachers) in these parts of the world are still reluctant to take necessary steps to eliminate this human
tragedy from every aspect of their education system. For instance, the teachers being prepared in
higher education are likely to be confronted with a congeries of complex social, political, and eco-
nomic factors beyond their capacity to handle. As noted by Chisholm (1994) two decades ago, pro-
spective teachers are faced with the task of teaching culturally diverse students, many of them coming
from impoverished communities. Even today the situation is not likely to change considering the
current pandemic, environmental disasters, and economic crisis.
The current multicultural science classroom in many countries is characterized by all kinds of
disparities in terms of cultures, languages, socioeconomic statuses, beliefs, expectations, age, gender,
interests, values systems, worldviews, and so on. Certainly, all these diferences pose great chal-
lenges for science teachers, especially those who have been prepared in higher education to teach in
monocultural classrooms. Indeed, the contextual realities of multicultural science classrooms today
demand innovative instructional strategies that are capable of enabling all students to engage mean-
ingfully with what is being taught. As has been pointed out in the literature on multiculturalism (e.g.,
Atwater et al., 2010; Cronje et al., 2015; Hewson & Ogunniyi, 2011; McKinley & Stewart, 2012),
instructional strategies must of necessity be dynamic, participatory, communal, and inclusive. Ironi-
cally, many of our higher teacher education institutions today are still preparing teachers for the past
despite the realities existing in a pluralistic society!
395
Despite all the curriculum reforms that have taken place since the independence era, many Afri-
can countries today are still very much in the throes of colonial curricula. Likewise, traditional
instructional approaches are still the most prevalent method of teaching science. The focus is still
largely on teacher-centered and examination-driven instructional practice. Our schools urgently
need teachers who serve as facilitators rather than transmitters of knowledge. We need more of cul-
tural bridge-builders and not the deprecators of minority cultures. We need teachers who appreciate
the potentials of diverse cultures, not those who look down on their students with a disdainful gaze.
Such teachers are more likely to create a learning environment where students are able to learn,
thrive, and adapt more easily to a multicultural classroom context. Unfortunately, most preservice
teachers worldwide lack the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes, and habits of mind to work efec-
tively in a multicultural classroom setting.
Further, teachers confronted with a multicultural classroom must possess such vital ingredients
such as valid understanding of nature of science Indigenous knowledge, valid pedagogic content
knowledge, possessing knowledge of the school and classroom context and the society in which the
school is located. Unless teachers possess these attributes and others they will be unable to prepare
their students adequately for the current pluralistic society we live in. The list is simply endless, but
it sufces to say that in view of the emergence of the current multicultural classrooms worldwide, it
would be negligent on our part if we failed to prepare science teachers adequately for their chosen
profession. In addition, science teacher educators must be well aware of the need to prepare teachers
who are able to facilitate increased cultural self-awareness among their students, cultivate an aware-
ness of and appreciation for diversity, increase cultural competencies, motivate all their students
regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds to want to succeed in science, and so on. More spe-
cifcally, teachers who will be teaching in a multicultural classroom must hold valid understanding of
the nature of science and Indigenous knowledge systems.
Nature of Science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems
Nature of Science
A frequently mentioned objective in science education since the last half of the 20th century has
been the need for science teachers and their learners to conceptualize the nature of science (e.g.,
Abd-El-Khalick, 2005; Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Lederman, 1992). Even today, virtually
all science curricula around the world explicitly state the need for science teachers and their stu-
dents to understand the nature of science (NOS). The underlying assumption to this belief without
understanding this human enterprise implies that one is familiar with the substantive (product), the
syntactical (procedural), and the ethical or regulative mechanisms in scientifc practice; otherwise,
what is taught or learned would be a corruption of what is intended.
Some of the rationales for understanding the nature of science have been well articulated by McCo-
mas (1998) and are not worth repeating here. No doubt, a lot of commendable eforts have been directed
at understanding NOS, but a full treatment of this subject is beyond the scope of this chapter. As Ziman
(2000) has rightly pointed out, “academic science” is a complex multifaceted enterprise pursued in
a variety of ways. It is a sociocultural activity that has evolved among a group of practitioners with
shared traditions that are articulated, transmitted, and reinforced by members of the group across political
boundaries. Although academic science has no written code of conduct, all its members are constrained
by their training to behave in a certain predictable and morally responsible manner. Nevertheless, while
scientists are free to pursue their intellectual interests in an open manner, they are well aware that any
claim they make would not go unchallenged by members of the scientifc community of practice.
The NOS has been described in a variety of ways in the extant literature. In this regard, there are
arguments and counterarguments about what aspects of it should be emphasized in the school science
396
curriculum. For instance, in the 1950s–1960s the emphasis was on the process or methods of scien-
tifc inquiry, while in the mid-1960s–1970s the focus was on the product of science, such as facts,
concepts, laws, and theories. But despite the controversy surrounding NOS in the past seven decades,
there is consensus in the literature that it deals with the ontology, epistemology, and the axiology
of science (including the historical, psychological, and sociocultural aspects of scientifc practice) as
a way of knowing and interpreting human experiences with nature (e.g., Abd-El-Khalick, 2005;
Driver et al., 1996; Habermas, 1999; Lederman, 1992; Popper, 2001; Ziman, 2000).
A common misconception about the NOS is that its epistemic authority rests in its exactness,
reliable methodology, and unbiased objectivity. However, anyone a bit familiar with scientifc prac-
tice will be hesitant to accede to such a generalization. Newspapers and court cases are replete with
examples in which frontline scientists marshal scientifc facts to support or rebut opposing view-
points. Although science is generally counter-intuitive, anti-authoritarian, and driven largely by the
tenets of empiricism, quantifcation, dualism, reductionism, and anthropocentricism, it also entails a
multiplicity of approaches, such as the use of common sense, practical reasoning, intuition, creativity,
and some elements of fortuitous serendipity. According to Medawar (1982, p. 108), “an imaginative
or inspirational process enters into all scientifc reasoning at every level: it is not confned to ‘great’
discoveries, as the more simple-minded inductivists have supposed”. But despite the arguments sur-
rounding the NOS, there is consensus amongst scholars that the construct generally refers to the
unique professional way and habits of mind exemplifed by scientists as they probe into nature and
interpret their observations (e.g., Popper, 2001; Driver et al., 1996; Ziman, 2000).
The general belief among most postmodern scholars, however, is that as much as some knowledge
of science and technology is vital for living a normal life, some knowledge of Indigenous knowledge
held by their students is critical to fulflling the ethics of science or flling up the ethical, aesthetical,
and knowledge gaps in Western science, especially in the attainment of a stable and sustainable envi-
ronment (Snively & Corsiglia, 2001). Besides, educators and students face the challenge of cognitive
border crossing between school science and the Indigenous worldviews prevalent in the communities
where Indigenous/ethnic students live in on a daily basis (see Aikenhead & Jegede, 1999; Aiken-
head & Ogawa, 2007; Ogunniyi, 2011).
Nature of Indigenous Knowledge Systems

Like the NOS, the nature of Indigenous knowledge systems has been described in various ways in
the extant literature. But despite this, there is general agreement that this human enterprise relates
to the ways that the Indigenous peoples tend to interpret their experiences with nature. The term
“Indigenous” is used here to refer to a conglomeration of knowledge systems encompassing the sci-
ences, technologies, religions, languages, philosophies, and socioeconomic systems peculiar to cer-
tain Indigenous communities. Within this framework, Indigenous knowledge is not just about the
artifacts per se but also the epistemologies, ontologies, and metaphysical systems underpinning such
artifacts and the way they are used to create a sense of wholeness, relatedness, or complementarity
amidst a collocation of human dilemmas.
Another way to describe Indigenous knowledge systems is to consider them as a body of knowl-
edge systems consisting of ideas and practices peculiar to the so-called natives of a particular geo-
graphical location or sociocultural environment. This implies that the knowledges embedded in
Indigenous knowledge systems have not been borrowed from other localities or cultures, or if bor-
rowed at all, they have become so assimilated into the new culture that it is difcult if not impos-
sible to identify their sources of origin. Judging from human mobility and migratory characteristics,
however, it might be difcult to talk about Indigenous knowledge in an absolute sense. Nevertheless,
there is a wealth of knowledge in every people group that is not easily accessible to other groups for
reason of diferences in language and other cultural diferences.
397
To Hoppers (2002, p. 8):
Indigenous knowledge systems refer to the combination of knowledge systems encompass-

ing technology, social, economic, and philosophical learning, or educational, legal and gov-
ernance systems. It is knowledge relating to the institutional, scientific and developmental,
including those used in the liberation struggles.
In other words, IKSs are redemptive, holistic, and transcendental views about human experiences
with the cosmos. Unlike science, whose ethos is reductionism, IKSs celebrate pluralism, diversity,
and holism of human experiences (e.g., Hoppers, 2002; Ogunniyi, 1988, 2004).
From the foregoing, it is obvious that IKSs as a composite of knowledge systems is broader than
science, hence the challenges normally encountered by teachers when they are required by certain
science curricula to integrate Indigenous knowledge systems with school science (e.g., DOE, 2002;
DBE, 2011). For the same reason, and in view of space limitation, however, only issues where the
two systems of thought have the potential for conceptual integration will be considered in the chap-
ter. Another epistemological obstacle to the issue of integration is that by and large Western science
has not only usurped, marginalized, and preempted any meaningful coexistence with other ways of
knowing, it has propagated the myth of being the only valid way of interpreting human experience
with nature (Habermas, 1971; Hoppers, 2002).
As stated earlier, policies solely based on modern scientifc practice at the expense of resident
Indigenous sciences and practices have resulted in certain disastrous consequences of shattered dreams
in many developing countries today. The use of chemical pesticides such as DDT and others (instead
of sustainable plant-based pesticides) have caused the deaths of millions of people around the world.
Similar disastrous efects have been reported in relation to medicine, agriculture, the destruction of
biodiversity, ecological balance, and the abuse of intellectual property, to mention but a few. These
adverse efects on the environment suggest the need to reevaluate the potential of IKS for mitigating
such unwarranted consequences.
According to Ogunniyi (2007a), IKSs as a construct are a conglomeration of knowledge systems.
They are redemptive knowledge systems that describe human experience with the cosmos. Ogawa
(1995) has identifed two types of Indigenous knowledge: (1) a body of stratifed and amalgamated
knowledge and cosmology with several diferent kinds of precedent cultures or civilizations, such as
the hunting and fruit gathering of the Jomon era (12,000 BC–300 BC) and the agricultural-nomadic
lifestyle of the Yayoi era (300 BC–300 AD), and (2) the Indigenous science prevalent in contem-
porary Japanese ways of life. He has also explored how Indigenous science has been and is taught
in educational settings, not just in school science (RIKA) programmes in Japan but also in a form
Michael Apple would have called the “silent curriculum”.
To Aikenhead and Ogawa (2007), the term “knowledge” within Indigenous and neo-Indigenous
cultures is distinctly diferent from the way it is construed within Western science. In the former,
knowledge and the knower are inextricably connected. For example, among the Nehiyawak people
group in Canada, knowledge connotes a “coming to know” or a quest to becoming wiser in living
harmoniously with one’s community and nature. Knowledge, a noun within Western science, is
to the Indigenous peoples an action verb that can be translated as “ways of living” and sometimes
“ways of being”. It can also be translated as a journey toward wisdom rather than reaching a des-
tination. In short, knowledge is a way of living and behaving properly, the pursuit of wisdom, or
simply, “wisdom in action”. Using the Japanese people’s experience with nature over the millen-
nia, Aikenhead and Ogawa (2007) have gone further to substitute the term “Indigenous Ways of
Living in Nature” (IWLN) with the “Japanese Way of Knowing Nature” (JWKN) to denote how
one of the mainstream neo-Indigenous Asian cultures has evolved its own unique knowledge about
nature (Shizen) and seigyo (roughly translated as subsistence) in the context of the Japanese culture
398
(bunka). However, in contemporary Japanese society, the meanings of seigyo range from hobbies to
real occupations.
As stated earlier, a common experience in many countries with respect to curriculum reform is
that the policymakers and curriculum planners are motivated mostly more by political exigencies
than the readiness of the stakeholders, especially the teachers. For instance, policymakers are con-
stantly on the watch to see how their students perform in international achievement assessments, e.g.,
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS), Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA), and others (e.g., Department of Basic Education, 2011; Reddy et al.,
2016), as indicated in the extant literature (e.g., Fuhai, 2017; Hewson & Ogunniyi, 2011; McKinley,
2005; Webb P. Xhosa, 2013). For the same reason, the demand on teachers to integrate science with
Indigenous knowledge in many parts of the world has not been favorably received by teachers or
the public at large. Another important factor not often considered in many reforms is that curricular
reforms have taken place in an atmosphere of largely dysfunctional school settings, inadequate learn-
ing resources, large classes, shortage of qualifed science teachers, and so on.
The Integration of Science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems

The issue of whether Indigenous knowledge should feature in school science is no longer consid-
ered a serious academic debate. The current environmental crisis, caused largely by scientifc and
industrial activities, would make any such debate unwarranted. Likewise, the impact of globalization
and concomitant human movement, and consequently the emergence of multicultural classrooms
in many regions of the world, are further reasons why Indigenous knowledge that has sustained
human life for centuries must be part of the science curriculum. Gilday, talking about the infuence
of Western education on First Nations in Canada, to which she belongs, puts this so succinctly by
asserting that:
Our people have reconciled the relationship between the respect for wild animals and usage.
There is a lot to learn from this, and that’s Caring-for-the-Earth ethics. For thousands of
years, our people survived in this fragile environment. Their traditional knowledge is based
on how they’ve interacted with the animals, their environment, and each other: what they
have observed and tested through time and patience and relationship with the environment.
(Gilday, 1995, p. 10)
The previous statement suggests further that inclusivity, as opposed to exclusivity, should be the
goal of any culturally sensitive science curriculum.
Table 13.1 is not to compare the scientifc and Indigenous worldviews but to show that both are
based on certain fundamental assumptions about the universe. It seems to me that what we need to
do is to tap the potential of both worldviews as having certain areas of commonalities as well as dif-
ferences. Also, it is to show students that the two reveal diferent ways of knowing and perceiving or
interpreting experience with nature. In addition, we must be aware that much as the integration of
the two knowledge corpuses is reasonable, the two are not easy to come by in a classroom context.
But as many science educators working with Indigenous students (e.g., Aikenhead & Elliot, 2010;
Kim, 2017) have warned, unless science is made more socially and culturally responsive to Indig-
enous students’ needs, many of them are likely to drop out of school. UN bodies, such the World
Bank and United Nations Children’s Fund, working among Indigenous communities in about 200
countries have expressed similar concerns. To these UN bodies, education, including Indigenous
education, is seen as the most potent tool for improving the quality of life and the reduction of
poverty among the Indigenous communities around the world. In pursuance of this goal, the World
Bank organized an international conference in Washington, DC in 1993 on Indigenous knowledge
399
Table 13.1 Fundamental Scientifc and Indigenous Assumptions About Nature
Assumptions Underpinning the Scientifc Worldview Assumptions Underpinning the IKS Worldview
It is not known whether the universe is fnite or The universe is infnite and is constantly undergoing
infnite dynamic changes
The universe most probably occurred by chance The universe was created by a Supreme Being or
through an explosive force known as the “Big Bang” supernatural forces
or other natural forces
The universe functions like a mechanical system The universe functions like a living system
Matter is real and exists within time and space Matter is real and exists within time, space, and in
the ethereal realm
Space is real and has defnite dimensions Space is real and has both defnite and indefnite
dimensions
Time is real and has a continuous, irreversible series Time is real, continuous, and cyclical in nature
of duration
The universe is orderly and predictable The universe is orderly, predictable, and partly
unpredictable
All events have natural causes Events have both natural and supernatural causes
Humans are able to understand the natural universe Humans have a limited understanding of the natural
universe
and thereafter declared the frst decade in the 21st century as the Decade of Indigenous Knowledge
(Davis & Ebbe, 1995). But making Indigenous knowledge part of formal education implies that there
are instructional strategies to do so. It was in light of this that the Science and Indigenous Knowl-
edge Systems Project (SIKSP), supported by the National Research Foundation in South Africa,
was launched. In view of the efectiveness of argumentation instruction for discussing controversial
subjects, e.g., the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge in the science curriculum, SIKSP developed a
dialogical argumentation instructional model (DAIM) as a possible tool for integrating science and
Indigenous knowledge in the classroom context.
The Potential of the Dialogical Argumentation Instructional Model

(DAIM) for Indigenous/Ethnic Students’ Science Education
In the last two decades, a number of studies have adopted diferent instructional strategies to inte-
grate science and Indigenous knowledge in the classroom. For example, Cajete (1999) explored
the spiritual, environmental, mythical, visionary, artistic, afective, and communal foundations of
Indigenous education to present science to Native American students through an ethno-scientifc
paradigm. By designing an inclusive and transformative science curriculum, he was able to inculcate
certain aspects of Native American students’ cultural heritage in the students while at the same time
grounding them in canonical school science. The positive ripple efects of this instructional strategy
of course were not only benefcial to these students but also their White American counterparts as
well. The latter became more aware about the life worlds of the former than was previously the case.
Both groups were exposed to a form of ecological and multicultural thinking and aspirations critical
to maintaining a sustainable environment. Based on his fndings from using this holistic approach, he
advocated for the development of similar exemplary science curricula and appropriate instructional
strategies to explore the values, interests, and potential of the spiritual, environmental, mythical,
artistic, afective, and visionary domains of Indigenous education to enrich the present canonical
400
science curricula. Similar approaches have been implemented in other countries (e.g., Aikenhead,
2017; Aikenhead & Elliot, 2010; Kim, 2017).
In our own experience in South Africa in the SIKSP, we found it difcult at the initial stages to
convince teachers and teacher educators that implementing science using the dialogical argumenta-
tion instructional model (DAIM) could facilitate their attempts at a science–Indigenous curriculum
in their classrooms. After a number of seminars on the nature of science and Indigenous knowledge,
however, many of the participants became interested in the project.
The SIKSP team adopted DAIM because (1) it has been found to facilitate classroom discourse
and promote the integration of knowledge systems, e.g., science and Indigenous knowledge; (2) it
is amenable to arguments involving both logical and nonlogical but culturally valid arguments; (3) it
provides ample opportunities for people to express their views freely without intimidation; and (4)
it has been found to be efective for reducing possible occurrence of symbolic violence that tend to
occur in the process of power sharing in classroom dialogues (e.g., Diwu & Ogunniyi, 2012; Gbe-
bru & Ogunniyi, 2017; Iwuanyanwu, 2022; Ogunniyi, 2007a, 2007b). Figure 13.1 summarizes how
DAIM works.
As Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) and Skoumios (2009) have contended, equity and freedom of
expression are critical elements of a fair argument. Essentially, DAIM entails diferent levels of argu-
ment, starting with individual argument or self-conversation (i.e., intra-locutory arguments) that
tend to occur during brainstorming exercises that occur when students attempt to perform individual
tasks. After this he/she goes into the small group to contribute to the next task, again saturated with
dialogues and arguments and decision-making concerning the tasks (i.e., inter-locutory arguments).
Finally, the decisions reached at the individual and group level are again mobilized at the large-group
session, usually articulated by the group representatives (i.e., trans-locutory arguments) where the
teacher plays a facilitative role with the express purpose of reaching collaborative consensus. Besides
this, at every stage the teacher plays the role of the devil’s advocate by asking thought-provoking
questions to facilitate learning.
As indicated earlier, DAIM shares some semblance of how a scientifc or Indigenous community
of practice solves a given problem. Argumentation and dialogues are frequently used in the scientifc
and Indigenous communities of practice. Although it is often not refected in the science education
1. Individual task
4. Whole-class 5. Evolving
mediaõn 2. Small group
(Facilitator co-
cogni˜ve task
construcõn) harmonizaõn
3. Whole-class
discussions
(Group leader
presentaõns)
Figure 13.1 Stages of the dialogical argumentation instructional model.
401
literature, arguments and dialogues take various forms within the Indigenous communities. They
may be expressed in various forms, e.g., proverbs, idioms, drama, songs, storytelling, and so on.
These approaches are used to initiate the youth into the conversations of the adult community.
DAIM assumes that thinking, at whatever stage, usually entails some form of argumentation (see
Figure 13.1). It starts from the individual to the group, and fnally to the community efort in which
arguments and dialogues play a critical role. DAIM, like other argumentation instruction, provides
the students with ample opportunities to become deeply involved in the teaching–learning process.
It encourages students to externalize their thoughts freely (including views that may not be compat-
ible to the scientifc belief), clear their doubts, deepen their understanding, and even change their
views, if necessary, especially after listening to others. The teacher’s role in a DAIM-based classroom
is basically facilitative, and as such he/she should avoid dominating classroom discourse. In other
words, he/she sees him/herself as a co-learner ready to learn new things beyond what can be found
in a science textbook. But at the same time, he/she must strive to direct classroom discussion toward
a valid understanding of the nature of science and Indigenous ways of interpreting experience with
natural phenomena.
The demand of the South African curriculum to integrate science concepts with Indigenous
knowledge is premised perhaps in the general belief that all languages share to a certain extent some
commonalities that must have arisen from the mere fact that only humans are known to have evolved
this communication facility. According to the renowned linguist Noam Chomsky:
We could not have acquired any language unless its fundamental properties were already
in place, in advance of experience, as argued in the epistemic naturalism of early rationalist
psychology. . . . By now, enough is known to indicate that the diferences among the lan-
guages may not be very impressive compared with the overwhelming commonality, at least
from the standpoint we adopt towards organisms other than ourselves.
(Chomsky, 2000, p. 48)
The Implications of the Language of Instruction for

Indigenous Students’ Science Education
When Indigenous students are forced to use the colonial language of instruction, which is their
second or third language, to learn science or any subject for that matter, they tend to lose their con-
fdence in participating in classroom discourses. If this problem is not attended to promptly by the
teacher, these students may lose their interest in the subject altogether. It is obvious that one cannot
talk about indigenizing the science curriculum in the absence of paying close attention to the lan-
guage of instruction. Apart from the unique language of science in terms of the profusion of technical
terms, the language in which science is taught or presented in textbooks or electronic media is largely
foreign to the majority of learners of color.
As Gill and Levidow (1989) have contended, “An uncritical teaching and learning of science as
currently practiced inevitably engages the teacher and learner in maintaining structural racism” (p. 3).
Indigenous/ethnic minority students in developed countries or the majority in most developing
countries learn science in foreign languages. As a result, they tend to lack sufcient profciency to
intellectually engage with the learning material, and the consequence is mass underachievement in
science as commonly shown in international assessments, such as TIMMS and PISA. But it would
be a mistake on our part if we assume that such a poor performance necessarily refects their true
cognitive ability. More often than not, such achievement refects their profciency in the language of
instruction and assessment than their conceptual or even linguistic ability.
Often, what one reads in the research literature about the language of instruction carries with it a
racial undertone and a condescending stance coated with a half-hearted empathy on the part of the
402
researchers. The general complaint often heard about Indigenous languages being too undeveloped,
descriptive, and lacking necessary vocabulary to accommodate science is indefensible. The poignant
questions are: What languages (including the colonial languages) have ever evolved out of the blue
without some efort to develop them? If that is the case, what prevents the government or concerned
organizations from doing the same to some of the widely spoken Indigenous languages spoken by
the majority of students? How culturally inclusive are the new science curricula and the pedagogical
practices for implementing them? Should the goal of science education be to expect the Indigenous
students to perform equally with their frst-language counterparts? What attempts have been made
to truly indigenize the curriculum materials and instructional methods? Are the human and material
resources available in all schools regardless of the socioeconomic backgrounds of the students? What
specifc efort has been made to mitigate the efects of the existing disparities created by colonial/
apartheid governments? What these and similar questions suggest is that we cannot continue to blame
the Indigenous/ethnic students for their poor performance in science assessments or poor attitudes
toward science without attending to the injustices evident in the past education policies and practices.
A thorny issue in most developing countries, and perhaps elsewhere, that warrants urgent atten-
tion is the continued use of foreign languages such as Afrikaans, English, French, Portuguese, and
Spanish or a modifcation thereof without considering the present contextual realities of multicultural
classrooms (e.g., Desai et al., 2010; Msimanga et al., 2017; Ogunniyi, 2004; Ogunniyi & Rollnick,
2015; Rogan & Grayson, 2003). It is in this regard that some sort of meta-language or translanguag-
ing might facilitate the iIdigenous/ethnic students’ understanding of science concepts and principles
by including the students’ Indigenous home languages alongside the language of instruction (Brock-
Utne et al., 2006; Cronje et al., 2015; Khuzwayo & Ogunniyi, 2016; Ogunniyi, 2007a). The same
situation should be refected in the textbooks, other teaching materials, and even the languages used
in the classroom. To indigenize science implies the inclusion of Indigenous languages in the materi-
als to be taught or learned. However, this is not an easy task, as many Indigenous languages are still
largely descriptive. Besides, the same word may be used for diferent concepts. Of course, the issue
of inclusivity goes far beyond instructional materials; it also entails the deployment of appropri-
ate culturally nuanced instructional strategies. In addition, class excursions to real-life situations of
the students to learn from the adult community as practiced in Japan and other countries may prove
enriching and instructive, and the involvement of Indigenous language experts is inevitable.
The fact is that no language drops from the sky; people develop languages as an instrument for
thought, communication, and productivity. To accomplish this goal, issues such as identifying suit-
able existing or coined Indigenous terms before resorting to loanwords. This of course implies that
Indigenous vocabularies should be preferred over one that is borrowed ones. Where Indigenous
words are nonexistent, e.g., atom, electron, molecule gene, chromosome, and so on, familiar coined
or indigenized loanwords from the colonial language could be adopted, but as much as possible this
should be explicit, clear, and precise in meaning. In terms of the frst principle, loanwords must be
minimal compared to those from an Indigenous language, e.g., isiZulu, Setswana, Hausa, Amharic,
Arabic, Tuareg, Swahili, and so on.
Regarding the second principle, if a local language gives a misleading meaning to a given concept
it would be preposterous to abandon a more valid or familiar colonial language. Also, for ease of
reference, operational defnitions of the terms must be made and revised from time to time. With
respect to the third principle, the symbols used in the text for each subject must be consistent to avoid
confusion (Bamgbose, 1984). Also, where the same word is used for diferent terms, e.g., amandla for
energy, power, and force in isiZulu, or simba in Shona, some consensus must be reached by creating
some distinctions between the two, e.g., by adding some qualifers. In cases where certain concepts
are completely missing in an Indigenous language, e.g., the limited number of colors, then descrip-
tive terms are needed. For instance, red, orange, and yellow are all called “pupa” in Yoruba, but to
distinguish between them descriptive words or phrases are usually added, such as “green as like a
403
leaf ”, “yellow as gold, ripe as an orange or banana fruit” “orange like dye”, “red like blood” and so
on. Likewise, an indigenized English term is spelled and intoned in the Indigenous way, e.g., “atom”
becomes “atomu”, “molecule” becomes “molikulu”, “chromosome” as “kuromosomu”, and so on.
Placing equivalent terms in the Indigenous students’ languages side by side with English words
aford them with additional language facility to think and process information. It also helps them to
clear their doubts and to gain a deeper insight into what is intended and even to change their minds
on a subject matter. This is further reinforced when the instructional strategies used by the teacher
encourage classroom discourses where they are free to converse, argue, and participate in dialogues
using the diverse languages in their repertoires. Of course, the benefts derivable from the blending of
English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish terms with equivalent Indigenous terms go beyond language
per se. It also has import for conceptual development in that the more meaningful a concept is the
more likely the students’ understanding of that concept is likely to be.
Using DAIM to Implement a Science–Indigenous

Curriculum in a Multicultural Science Classroom
In an attempt to create a learning environment that was conducive for classroom discourse, and to
facilitate the process of border crossing, the SIKSP team normally exposed the participants to a series
of DAIM-based lectures and seminars on the NOS and reading materials on the NOS and Indig-
enous knowledge systems. The lectures, seminars, and workshops involved the use of argumentative
discourses alongside problem-solving activities in the performance of a set of cognitive tasks and
the completion of worksheets on such tasks as foatation of objects in water, solutes and solution,
genetics, metals and nonmetals, force, static electricity, water pollution, mechanical force, and so on.
As stated earlier, DAIM draws inspiration from two theoretical constructs, namely, the Toulmin’s
argument pattern (TAP), which in turn draws on the Aristotelian syllogistic form of reasoning, and
the contiguity argumentation theory, which draws on Ubuntu, the central African belief that con-
strues ideas as interrelated or interdependent (see Ogunniyi, 2007a).
Table 13.2 is an example of an analysis of data derived from a cognitive task given to a cohort of 25
participants (11 science educators and 14 science teachers) to choose one out of three gari-processing
methods it considered best for obtaining a high-quality gari and to support their choice based on
valid arguments using TAP. The table is derived from the claims, counterclaims, and/or rebuttals
made in three randomly selected groups designated as Groups 1, 2, and 3. Group 1 chose method
A, which is based largely on the Indigenous method of gari processing, while Groups 2 and 3 chose
Table 13.2 Levels of TAP Used to Analyze the Discussions About Gari Processing in Three Groups
Levels of TAP Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
Level 1: Non-oppositional arguments or arguments with simple claims 1 1 2

versus counterclaims
Level 2: Arguments with claims supported with grounds (data, warrants, 2 2 2
and backings) but with no rebuttals
Level 3: Arguments with claims supported with grounds and only 9 4 6
occasional weak rebuttals
Level 4: Arguments with claims supported with grounds and at least one - - 2
strong rebuttal.
Level 5: Arguments with claims supported with grounds and more than - - -
one strong rebuttal
404
Table 13.3 CAT Categories Derived From the Participants’ Accounts of Their Experiences on the Project
CAT Cognitive Categories Science Teachers Science Educators
Science IK Science IK
Dominant – a dominant worldview 9 3 5 -
Suppressed – a worldview dominated by a dominant worldview - 16 - 4
Assimilated – a worldview that capitulates to a dominant worldview 3 3 2
Emergent – a worldview arising from a new experience 6 20 10 7
Equipollent – a worldview shaped by two coexisting worldviews 7 7 10 6
method B, which is based on a combination of both Indigenous and modern scientifc methods.
Method C is based solely on the scientifc method. An examination of Table 13.2 shows the levels of
TAP used among the three groups. Adopting a modifed TAP espoused by Erduran et al. (2004), the
levels ranged from Level 1, that is, non-oppositional arguments, to Level 5, arguments with claims
supported with grounds and at least one strong rebuttal.
The same group of participants was asked to indicate what it gained from SIKSP in terms
of understanding the NOS and Indigenous knowledge systems. Table 13.3 is a summary of the
groups’ responses to the science–Indigenous systems questionnaire using the contiguity argumen-
tation theory (CAT) as the unit of analysis. In terms of CAT, the scientifc arguments were the
most dominant, while sometimes individuals used culturally embedded Indigenous arguments to
support their scientifc arguments and vice versa, thus maintaining an equipollent, i.e., the use of
science and Indigenous arguments. In line with CAT, their arguments seemed to be largely context
dependent.
Table 13.3 is based on the subjects’ responses to what we call the Refective Diaries Question-
naire. Analysis of their responses using CAT as the unit of analysis shows some disparities between
the teachers’ and the science educators’ valuing of the diferent methods of gari processing. The table
further exemplifes the nature of their perceptual shifts as a result of their encounter with DAIM. For
instance, with few exceptions, the science educators used more scientifc arguments more frequently
to support their arguments than the science teachers. Conversely, the science teachers supported
their arguments with Indigenous sciences to support their views than the science educators. On
the whole, both groups appear to subscribe to an equipollent worldview in valuing the scientifc/
Indigenous methods of science. In my view, there is nothing drastically wrong in their stance since
no one permanently lives in a scientifc world (e.g., Aikenhead & Elliot, 2010; DOE, 2002; DBE,
2011; Gunstone & White, 2000; Ogunniyi, 2011). In their criticism of the conceptual learning
theory, Gunstone and White (2000) contend that what is important for students is replacing their
Indigenous beliefs with the scientifc belief but to know what worldview is appropriate for a given
learning context.
As can be seen in Tables 13.2 and 13.3, the purpose of Toulmin’s argument pattern (TAP) and the
contiguity argumentation theory are quite diferent. While the former is concerned with the com-
plexity of classroom arguments, the latter deals with the nature of cognitive shifts (occurring in the
classroom) or the thinking processes involved in classroom argumentative discourse and the role of
the arousal of contextual changes (Hewson & Ogunniyi, 2011). Some of the following excerpts are
derived from the subjects’ responses to the Refective Diaries Questionnaire. The names used are the
pseudo-names of randomly selected participants in the project. For ease of reference, SIKSP stands
for the Science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems Project, while IK and IKS stand for Indigenous
knowledge and Indigenous knowledge systems, respectively.
405
Doe, a 49-year-old male high school physical science teacher with 20 years’ experience in the
chemical industry and 12 years teaching experience stated that:
When I started, I felt that IKS and science where two different knowledges and that it was
almost impossible to combine the two. . . . After attending the workshops and seminars, I
came to understand that . . . many people are still using it [IKS] nowadays and hence is just
knowledge which is authentic to a particular people’s experiences and by no means inferior
to present day technologies.
Berinda, A 34-year-old female chemistry science high school teacher with 13 years of teaching
experience, said:
My experiences in the SIKSP activities have reformed my way of thinking, doing things
completely. When I started I did not appreciate indigenous knowledge nor did I realize its
richness until I matured in these workshops. I have now reached a level where I am confi-
dent of integrating these two worldviews harmoniously.
Lucinda, a 49-year-old female grade 3 teacher with 30 years of teaching experience, had this to say:
Before the workshops I thought that Western Science is dominant over IKS. . . . In my view
IKS was all about witchcraft. . . . After attending the workshops I realized that IKS is not
something new to me, perhaps the terminology. . . . These workshops are so valuable to me
because it made me realize once again how precious IKS is.
Emily, a 45-year-old female science educator with 25 years of teaching experience, said, “Being
involved with SIKSP has been an inspirational journey. The fact that the group is heterogeneous
(students and lectures with diferent perspectives and knowledge about teaching IKS) has provided a
very rich environment for sharing knowledge and feelings about IKS”.
Damon, a 47-year-old male science/math educator with 22 years of university teaching experi-
ence, said:
Before being part of the IKS group I was a bit skeptical about the role which IKS can play
in our everyday life. . . . Having attended the workshops and seminars I have grown to
understand that knowledge from both IKS and modern science are all the same. Further
reflections have led me to conclude that two knowledge systems can actually co-exist.
Similar views to the ones provided were expressed during the interviews as well, e.g., Dan, a
50-year-old physics teacher with over 20 years of teaching experience, stated that: “My exposure
to . . . DAIM caused my previous ideas to begin to change. . . . I really felt ashamed that as a science
teacher, I had never tolerated such a thing”.
Saratu, a 47-year-old science educator with 18 years of higher education teaching experience, said:
Initially, I did not appreciate the inclusion of IK into school science curriculum. . . . Over
time, I developed new understanding and insight into the NOS and IK and what science-IK
curriculum entails. This resulted in progressive shift in my mind-set . . . about the integra-
tion of science and IK.
From the foregoing, it is obvious that despite the diferences in their views and initial dispositions
toward the new science–IK curriculum, both groups agreed that DAIM, which stressed dialogue and
406
arguments in a classroom discourse, (1) enhanced their awareness of the feasibility of implementing
an inclusive science–Indigenous knowledge curriculum in a classroom situation; (2) facilitated their
awareness about the educational and cultural values of argumentation instruction; (3) facilitated the
process of confict resolution and consensual decision-making; and (4) showed them that despite the
diferences between the scientifc and Indigenous ways of knowing and doing things the two thought
systems do share some areas of commonalities (e.g., Diwu & Ogunniyi, 2012; Ghebru & Ogunniyi,
2017; Iwuanyanwu & Ogunniyi, 2020; Moyo & Kizito, 2014).
Conclusion
Throughout this chapter my contention has been that the current performance and attitudes of
Indigenous/ethnic students toward science may not be unrelated to the impact of remote historical
factors, such as the slave trade and colonialism, as well as current factors, e.g., the environmental cri-
sis largely caused by scientifc and industrial activities and the poor planning and implementation of
many science curricula. According to Akena (2012), the general consensus among science educators
is that the science–Indigenous curricula and the instructional strategies used have not succeeded in
enhancing Indigenous/ethnic minority students’ performance in science. In light of this, the dialogi-
cal argumentation instructional model (DAIM) has been proposed in the chapter as an instructional
model worthy of consideration by science educators working in the area.
With regard to the issue of making science culturally responsive to Indigenous/ethnic students,
e.g., by indigenizing school science, my view is that the continual use of a foreign colonial language
as the language of instruction contradiction in terms and with little prospect of succeeding. The
use of English or any colonial language as the language of instruction has often been pointed out in
the extant literature as creating cognitive barrier dissonance among Indigenous students rather than
enhancing their ability to study science (Brock-Utne et al., 2006; Desai et al., 2010). To mitigate this
contradiction, I have proposed the need to mount up a meta-language project in science education
that would facilitate Indigenous/ethnic students’ understanding of science (Ogunniyi, 2017).
Further, my view is that unless the Indigenous languages are developed to the point that they can
be deployed to explain scientifc concepts and generalizations not much can be achieved in the indi-
genization process. However, to achieve true indigenization of the science curriculum and instructional
practices implies massive investment in Indigenous languages, which currently remain underdeveloped.
Likewise, science curricula, textbooks, and science education programs in our higher institutions would
require drastic reforms of their courses to make them more culturally responsive than has been the case
so far. Also, there is an urgent need to mount innovate instructional strategies that combine Indigenous
and modern instructional strategies to achieve the desired goal of true indigenization.
In conclusion, it is imperative for educators who want to get into the heart of Indigenous/ethnic
students to pay very close attention to the Indigenous knowledge systems shaping the beliefs, value
systems, and worldviews of Indigenous students. According to Beets and le Grange (2005), such
knowledge and cultural values provide the necessary milieu for the students to connect school sci-
ence with the knowledge they bring into the classroom. Similarly, the level of commitment by sci-
ence teachers must go beyond the transmission of a collocation of scientifc facts. They must become
more sensitive to their Indigenous students’ contextual realities. Last but not the least, teachers must
be well equipped with necessary knowledge and skills that will enable them to gain the necessary
confdence to teach in the current multicultural science classrooms.
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SECTION IV
Science Teaching
Section Editors: Jan van Driel and Charlene Czerniak
14
DISCOURSE PRACTICES IN
SCIENCE LEARNING
Gregory J. Kelly, Bryan Brown, and
María Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre
Education events are constructed through discourse processes and social practices. The multimodal
and interactive nature of science learning positions discourse studies as relevant for understanding
ways that science is constructed, communicated, and taken up across a variety of education settings.
This chapter provides a rationale for the study of discourse in science education research with con-
sideration for the theoretical perspectives for researching discourse in science education. Discourse
studies include consideration of social languages, speech genres, contextualization, para-linguistic
communication, interactional contexts, the role of language in social practice, and the ideological
ways that knowledge is framed through discourse. We review recent studies of discourse in science
education across a number of domains of interest. After this review, we provide some methodologi-
cal considerations for the study of discourse in science education before proposing a set of emerging
areas for research.
Studies of discourse in science education reviewed in this chapter were organized into four broad
categories. These categories are not mutually exclusive and overlap across a number of dimensions.
The frst group examines discourse practices across multiple learning contexts. These studies inves-
tigate diferent forms of science instruction and student engagement and include considerations of
the recent afective turn in discourse studies; a focus on epistemic practices such as argumentation
and critical thinking; and a recognition of the multiplicity of discourses and modalities employed in
science contexts (e.g., Grimes et al., 2019; Hufnagel, 2015; Kelly & Cunningham, 2019; Monteira &
Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2016). A second set of studies considers how access to science and school are
constructed through interaction. These studies focus on ways that discourse practices, with associated
ideological positions and values, serve to include or exclude potential learners. A third set of stud-
ies examine how discourse in science education contexts instantiates values and projects ideology.
Research in this area is concerned with how certain voices and perspectives are chosen, privileged,
and legitimized. The fourth category draws from the frst three categories to explore methodological
considerations for the study of discourse in science learning contexts. Given the nature of discourse
processes in educational events, any given study can be characterized in multiple ways. For example,
a study of student groupwork in an out-of-school setting could include analysis of discourse processes
that project an ideological stance, include privileged points of view, and involve a student investiga-
tion, all framed by a set of discourse practices established over time by the local participants. In this
way, such a study could be characterized in multiple ways and cut across the categories we imposed
on the literature for the purposes of this chapter. After reviewing the current knowledge of discourse
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-18 413

Kelly et al.
practices in science education, the chapter concludes by proposing topics, issues, and audiences for
future research directions.
Rationale for Discourse Studies

Discourse is central to the ways communities collectively construct norms and expectations, defne
common knowledge for the group, build afliation, frame disciplinary knowledge, and invite or
limit participation. In short, educational events are constructed through discourse. Learning oppor-
tunities are supported or constrained by how participants make choices about how to communicate,
interact, attend, and contribute to group processes. In science classrooms, the ways that teachers talk
science, frame communicative norms, and engage students in the range of semiotics of the relevant
discipline, construct the nature of the scientifc knowledge and practices available to be learned
(Kelly, 2014). As communication and interpretation of this range of semiotic meanings are integral
to teaching and learning, the study of discourse becomes most relevant to researchers interested in
understanding how access to science is interactionally accomplished in educational settings.
A critical stance toward the ways that science is constructed through discourses evinces the ways
that choices of genre, register, and positioning of perspectives delimit participation and engagement
among students. Across diferences in culture, language background, and communication styles, the
potential for mutual misunderstanding increases. Furthermore, science has unique linguistic features
that difer from the ways of being, speaking, and interaction common among students’ other dis-
course communities (Brown et al., 2005). These features of science discourse pose communication
demands. Such demands pose diferential challenges. For example, to engage with issues such as
scientifc and engineering practices for students who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH), Enderle
et al. (2020) conducted a study of existing American Sign Language (ASL) scientifc vocabulary
to consider ways of communicating about these practices and the associated interpretations of the
nature of science, given currently available resources. To address the communicative challenges of
science and engineering discourse, asset-based approaches to science learning consider how features
of students’ everyday discourse practices can serve to promote learning (Harman et al., 2020; Warren
et al., 2020).
Interactional contexts are constructed through discourse in various settings. Research on discourse
processes in science education has examined how knowledge and practice are communicated in dif-
ferent settings and how research processes themselves entail uses of discourse. Studies of discourse
include examination of everyday talk and action in ongoing teaching and learning events, interviews
with participants, and written texts in their various forms; as such, each research method lends
itself to particular research questions. The study of social processes of science teaching and learning
examines the work of participants as they construct everyday life in science classrooms. Social and
discourse processes in naturalistic settings make available to analysts the construction of educational
events in real time. As a result, the study of naturally occurring discourse in education provides ways
of understanding the communication and uptake of conceptual knowledge, distribution of power,
defnitions of roles, and ways that afliation and identity are constructed among participants.
Discourse analysis can also be applied to the study of interviews. Often, educational researchers
are interested in talking with participants in a given study about relevant research topics (Sezen-
Barrie et al., 2020). However, such interviews are also discourse events, with norms and expecta-
tions, rules for interchanges, and contextualization through para-linguistic communication (Lemke
et al., 2006; Mishler, 1986; Russ et al., 2012). Treating interviews as discourse events, where meaning
is constructed among individuals, and relevant artifacts and contextualization are taken into account,
can lead to diferences in what knowledge is made available by participants and interviewers alike
(Schoultz et al., 2001). This suggests careful consideration of how meaning is constructed through
the moment-to-moment turns of the interview conversation, rather than taking the interviewee’s
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comments at face value and representative of extant knowledge. Thus, the discourse practices of the
interview itself can be the subject of study.
Written texts can also be analyzed from a discourse point of view. Science textbooks, written
products of students, and representations of scientifc knowledge in its many forms can be analyzed
with a variety of textual analyses (Bazerman, 2006; Halliday & Martin, 1993). Textbooks, student
writing, displayed student work, and images posted on the wall can serve as active texts to be carefully
and systematically analyzed for meaning. Thus, discourse analytic research methods provide a set of
tools to research the ways that teaching and learning, identity development, and patterns of power
and control are constructed in educational settings.
Theoretical Considerations for Studying Discourse in Science Education

Discourse is typically defned as language in use, or a stretch of language larger than a sentence or
clause (Cameron, 2001; Jaworski & Coupland, 1999). This defnition can be limiting – from a socio-
linguistic view of interaction, discourse is interpreted as situated in ongoing sociocultural practices
with histories, intertextual references, social relationships, positions, and obligations of members of
the relevant social group (Kelly, 2021). As discourse entails more than the ideational communication,
these broader contexts of social groups, cultural practices, and interpersonal goals need to be taken
into consideration when deciphering meaning in interactional contexts. Social norms, expectations,
and practices are constructed through discourse processes over time, and in turn shape ways that
discourse is evoked in each instance, thus instantiating the symbiotic relationship of discourse and
sociocultural practices. Hence, discourse is embedded in social knowledge, practice, power, and
identity (Fairclough, 1995; Gee, 2014; Rogers, 2004). In each instance of use, discourse is con-
structed among people in some context, with some history, projections of future actions, and ideo-
logical commitments. Such histories, assumptions, and commitments, although similarly constructed
through cultural practices, play a role in the meaning derived from the social accomplishment of
the discourse event. Therefore, discourse analysis generally focuses on more than the moment-to-
moment use of language to consider broader patterns over time and the ways that such use is embed-
ded in cultural practices and ideological commitments. Fairclough (1992) identifed three dimensions
of discourse analysis: analysis of text, analysis of text production, and social analysis of the discursive
events, conditions, and consequences for participants. Therefore, the study of discourse processes in
science education should properly include a defnition of discourse as using language in social con-
texts. As Gee (2001) argued, discourse is connected to social practices, “ways of being in the world
. . . forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities as well as
gestures, glances, body positions, and clothes” (p. 526). For the purposes of this review, we adopt a
broad defnition of discourse and consider a range of studies that encompass the many epistemologi-
cal, ideological, and social dimensions of language use (Kelly, 2014).
Scientifc discourse includes unique features, derived from the highly specialized nature of the
epistemic communities constructing these discourse processes and practices. In professional and edu-
cational settings, scientifc discourse is characterized by multiple modes of semiotic communication,
including spoken, written, representational, inscriptional, and symbolic. Studies of scientifc practice
in situ have identifed the importance of discourse practices in constructing scientifc knowledge
(Knorr-Cetina, 2009). From the sensemaking banter of investigations, to inscriptions of events, to
the formalization of text in publications in specialized genres, scientifc communities dedicate con-
siderable time to the production of spoken, written, and symbolic discourse (Bazerman, 1988; Kelly
et al., 1993; Latour & Woolgar, 1986). This range of varied semiotic forms is often alien to science
students’ ways of communicating in other aspects of their lives. This may pose challenges to learners
of science, as the unique linguistic forms of science include passive voice and conditionals, techni-
cal vocabulary, interlocking taxonomies, abstraction and nominalization, and complex symbols and
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Kelly et al.
notational systems (Halliday & Martin, 1993). Studies of classroom discourse have documented that
science is constructed through talk and action in ways that often alienate students, leaving the impres-
sion that science is difcult, reserved for cognitive elites, and regimented (Lemke, 1990). Although
such features pose pedagogical challenges, educators are seeking ways to draw from students’ knowl-
edge and use their communicative competencies as assets for learning. Understanding the role of
these discursive exchanges ofers powerful insights into student learning, teacher communicative
norms, and the social role of discourse in education.
Discourse analysis refers to the study of language in use. To examine the range and types of com-
municative situations of discourse in science education, analysts have sought to understand how uses
of discourse are situated both in social practice and over time. Social practices, norms for interact-
ing, and expectations about communicative demands are tied to the ways that language is used.
Discourse analysis considers how talk and action are shaped by the norms and expectations of the
communicative events. This suggests the need for ethnographic and other research approaches that
seek to understand broader cultural patterns of activity governing the uses of discourse (Gee &
Green, 1998; Green et al., 2020; Gumperz, 2001). Such studies consider the micro-moments of
interaction, the meso-level construction of practices through multiple interactions, and the macro-
level analysis of cultural practices, thus acknowledging the importance of ways specifc interactions
are shaped by cultural norms and expectations. Spoken communication occurs through both verbal
and nonverbal channels. To understand meaning in interactional contexts, discourse analysis needs to
consider pitch, stress, intonation, pause structures, physical orientation, proxemic distance, and eye
gaze, among other paralinguistic features of talk.
This chapter is an update from previous handbook chapters (Kelly, 2007, 2014), and thus focuses
primarily on recent publications in science education discourse. The review is limited to studies that
specifcally examine how the form, function, and/or interactional aspects of language are used in an
explicit manner. Generally, this means that studies that self-identify as explicitly related to language,
literacy, and discourse are more likely to be included in the review. We sought to expand the domain
of topics, rather than update the literature along the trajectory of the previous handbook chapters.
Across both the range of research topics and span of educational settings, a number of communi-
cative issues have been observed. Historically, much of the discussion in science classrooms is directed
by teacher talk, which often closely follows science textbooks. Such talk in the interactional context
of whole-class discussion falls into a pattern of teacher initiation, student response, and teacher evalu-
ation (IRE) (Mehan, 1979; Lemke, 1990). This pattern of talk has implications for what is made
available to learn, how the particular science discipline is positioned, and how students develop their
identity with science. Educational reformers have argued for a more expansive range of interac-
tional contexts that include opportunities for an active role of students in classroom conversations.
Programs include situating learning in scientifc practices, project-based activities, reasoning and
decision-making through socioscientifc issues, and inquiry investigations. Such varied contexts ofer
expanded opportunities to learn science and diferent aspects of science, but also impose new com-
municative demands on students. To address the range of communicative situations, Mortimer and
Scott (2003) proposed a model to examine fve important dimensions of classroom discourse: teach-
ing purpose, science content, communicative approach, patterns of discourse, and teacher interven-
tions. This model helps understand the nature of discourse events and provides a basis for designing
teacher education with a focus on the centrality of discourse for science learning. Recent research on
discourse processes have largely focused on students interacting in science learning.
Discourse Processes and Practices in Science Education

Discourse studies are gaining in prominence and infuence in science education. The ready avail-
ability of video and audio equipment and facility of recording techniques have led to a large number
416
of studies that examine interactions in educational settings. Many such studies record discourse pro-
cesses, but only a subset examine the interactions from the point of view of interactionally accom-
plished discourse, meaning a close analysis of the social practices and examination of language in use
that includes the proxemics, gestures, prosody, eye gaze, and other contextualization of communica-
tion. Rather than review all discourse studies, we focus on those studies that advance beyond the
issues previously discussed in the Handbook of Research on Science Education (Kelly, 2007, 2014). We
consider a group of topics that examine discourse practices across multiple learning contexts; studies
of access and identity constructed through discourse processes; and discourse, values, and ideology in
science education. From this body of research, we distill some methodological considerations for the
study of discourse in science learning contexts before turning to some emerging research directions
for studies of discourse practices in science education.
Discourse Practices Across Multiple Learning Contexts

The study of discourse in the last decade has been opening new avenues. We explore: (1) the
shift from domain-general research methods to study discourse toward domain-specifc methods in
science (and engineering) education; (2) the afective, emotional, and aesthetic turn; (3) students’
engagement in epistemic practices; (4) the uses of evidence and argumentation; (5) critical think-
ing as discourse practice, for instance, in decision-making contexts; and (6) representations and
multimodal discourses in science classrooms. Although the second, third, and fourth of these trends
may address general teaching and learning (they are not necessarily centered on science content), all
of them recognize that discourse practices are situated in educational and cultural contexts. In this
section, we discuss these avenues with a focus on science education. It may be noted that in learn-
ing situations, as well as in research, two or more of these contexts may overlap, even though for
systematic purposes we address them consecutively.
Domain-Specifc Methods in Science and Engineering Education

There has been a gap in discourse studies about science and engineering education; and more specif-
cally, there is a limited research base about engineering education. The study of discourse has tended
to have a stronger focus either on theoretical approaches – sometimes grounded in philosophy, sci-
ence studies, or linguistics – or on empirical fndings, with less attention to methodological issues specifc
to the feld. In their introduction to a domain-specifc edited volume, Kelly and Green (2019a) aim to
make visible how science and engineering concepts, processes, and practices are socially constructed,
through rigorous qualitative research. Their work is framed in a sociocultural approach, which pos-
its that discourses and social practices are constructed over time by members of a sustaining social
group. Thus, the volume contributors “make visible ways of conducting ethnographically informed,
discourse studies of science and engineering education as socially constructed in everyday life in
classrooms” (Kelly & Green, 2019a, p. 2), through the connectedness of knowledge production and
research methodology. It should be noted that engineering education, a context often neglected, is
encompassed in this work. This edited volume (Kelly & Green, 2019b) is among a recent trend to
consider the domain-specifc characteristics of research approaches to the study of discourse in sci-
ence and engineering education (Tang et al., 2021).
Affect, Emotion, and Aesthetics

Discourse studies have experienced what we can call an afective turn. Scholars acknowledge the
interactions between cognitive, social, and afective dimensions of learning, both generically and in
science education (Baker et al., 2013). This means paying attention to the relevance of emotional
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sense-making of science issues, which Hufnagel (2015, 2019) has studied for climate change, and
Polo et al. (2017) in the context of argumentation about water resources. Hufnagel (2015) conceives
of emotions as evaluative mechanisms that indicate personal relevance and deep relationships to
ideas or objects. She called aboutness, the specifcity of an emotion’s object, a category of usefulness
for the study of emotions. In argumentation settings, Polo et al. (2017) consider that emotions are
mobilized as argumentative resources within the participants’ discourses. In the context of scientifc
argumentation, Asterhan (2013) explored two types of argumentative discourse, consensus-seeking
and adversarial. She studied the risk that afective concerns may cause if students attend to the
interpersonal dimension rather than to the epistemic dimension of the confict, in other words to
the confict between ideas. If participants seek a quick consensus, argumentative discourse may be
lacking the critical dimension, but if the climate is adversarial, the discourse may be void of collab-
orative knowledge construction. Isohätälä et al. (2018) studied how student teachers, in the context
of a course on environmental science, struck a balance between engaging in argumentation and
sustaining socio-emotional processes. Even though the groups sustained favorable socio-emotional
processes, they mostly failed to engage in argumentation. The authors suggest that the challenging
nature of argumentation may cause participants to attend to socio-emotional processes at the expense
of cognitive ones.
The acknowledgment of the afective dimension means also taking into account the aesthetic
experience in science learning, as Wickman’s (2013, 2017) pioneer studies have revealed. Scientifc
creativity and creative reasoning have also been suggested as dimensions to be attended to in class-
room discourse (Ferguson, 2018; Ferguson & Prain, 2020), which may require adopting the Peircean
logic of discovery in science classrooms and a reappraisal of abduction as a creative element of rea-
soning that drives discovery. The afective turn may pose new questions and challenges about the
interactions between epistemic and emotional dimensions: In their study on how emotional tension
frames an argumentative debate about diets, Jiménez-Aleixandre and Brocos (2021) suggest the need
for fne-grained analyses of the relationships between emotional tension and participants’ perception
of their own agency in socioscientifc argumentation.
Student Engagement in Epistemic Practices

There has been a shift toward the study of students’ engagement in epistemic practices through dis-
course, both in theory and in policy, in connection with scientifc practices, as the Next Generation
Science Standards (NGSS, 2013) attest. Epistemic practices include contexts related to argumenta-
tion, modeling, explanation, and inquiry. The study of epistemic cognition in science education
has been reviewed by Elby et al. (2016) from developmental perspectives, through examination of
students’ conceptions of the nature of science, to students’ engagement in science practices. Fram-
ing epistemic cognition and epistemic practices in social practices, Wickman and Östman foreran
a third approach, which they termed practical epistemology analysis (e.g., Östman & Wickman,
2014), that is concerned with ways disciplinary science practices are enacted in situated learning
contexts, rather than with students’ propositional knowledge. In this view, participation in epistemic
practices refects membership in a disciplinary community, revealing students’ underlying practical
epistemologies. For instance, unraveling complex causality in gene expression provides epistemic
resources to address determinist and racist discourses and makes specifc epistemic practices part of
genetics (Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2014). Students’ engagement in these practices is relevant in a context
of science reductionism, where public discourses attribute all causes to genes.
Epistemic practices have been defned as “the socially organized and interactionally accomplished
ways that members of a group propose, communicate, evaluate, and legitimize knowledge claims”
(Kelly & Licona, 2018, p. 140). Thus, they provide a broad frame for studying argumentation,
modeling, explanation, and inquiry. Epistemic goals in science education, according to Kelly and
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Licona, are the understanding of the reasons and evidentiary bases for conceptual knowledge and
models. Chinn and colleagues have developed the AIR model of components of epistemic cognition,
comprising Aims, epistemic goals; Ideals, criteria and standards used to evaluate the goals achieve-
ment; and Reliable epistemic processes, procedures and strategies to achieve the aims (Chinn et al.,
2014). Applying the AIR model to the design of science learning environments, Pluta et al. (2011)
reported the elaboration of criteria to evaluate scientifc models by seventh graders after completing
model-evaluation tasks. In order to develop meta-epistemic abilities, Chinn et al. (2020) proposed
educational practices of explorations into knowing, involving a shift from discourse focused on disagree-
ments about content or facts, as for instance, whether vaccines are harmful or safe, to meta-epistemic
discourse focused on deep epistemic disagreements about appropriate ways of knowing, for instance,
whether systematic studies are more reliable and why. The issue of shared epistemology, or the loss
of it, and the disagreements about how to know, are serious challenges, both for civic education and
for research in the current context of emerging post-truth narratives.
Project-based science and engineering are appropriate contexts to promote the acculturation
into scientifc discourses and to understand how learning to engage in epistemic practices occurs
over time. Students’ participation in discourse processes across contexts are better supported through
extended engagement in inquiry. Long-term projects provide such afordances. For example, a fve-
month project about snails favored the appropriation by kindergarten children of the discourse of
science and of science representations, and their engagement in using evidence to revise their pre-
vious ideas (Monteira & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2016). Kelly and Cunningham (2019) reported that
engineering projects that built epistemic tools into the design process supported elementary students’
learning of disciplinary concepts and practices, and acculturation in the specialized discourse of the
relevant epistemic community. On the other hand, in their review about project-based science and
technology teaching and learning studies, Hasni et al. (2016) suggested that methodological improve-
ment is needed in order to ascertain the benefts of project-based teaching.
Use of Evidence and Argumentation

Within studies about students’ engagement in epistemic practices in science education, a strand
focuses on the practice of argumentation, that is, an examination of students engaging in the evalu-
ation of knowledge claims in the light of evidence. In the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD, 2016) framework for the Programme for International Student Assess-
ment (PISA), argumentation is framed as a competency, which as the characterization of scientifc
practices, draws on three types of knowledge: content, procedural, and epistemic (Osborne et al.,
2016). The evaluation of merits of claims, explanations supporting conclusions, and decisions regard-
ing science in social issues is relevant for science education. Osborne (2014) proposed that science
teaching should address epistemic goals, emphasizing how we know what we know, and why we
believe what we do. This discussion focuses on recent shifts in argumentation studies since the 2014
handbook (Kelly, 2014); argumentation was conceived as a type of discourse, whereas currently it
is rather viewed as a (scientifc and epistemic) practice, a practice that would require changes in the
most prevalent classroom discourse, shifting toward students’ participation in discussions about how
to formulate and assess evidence. Previous studies tended to focus on constructing and supporting
arguments. However, Ford (2015) has suggested the centrality of critique in argumentation as an
important dimension of understanding uses of evidence in scientifc practices. Rapanta and Felton
(2019) identifed the emphasis on the analysis, critique, and evaluation of evidence as a feature of
inquiry-based argumentation. Critique, according to Osborne et al. (2016), is cognitively more
demanding, and thus is placed higher in their learning progression about argumentation.
Both argumentation and explanation require interpreting evidence to identify patterns, which
involves epistemic judgments and poses challenges for students; in other words, students need to
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appropriate some of the tools for discourse analysis to acknowledge that data may be interpreted in
diferent ways. These challenges have been addressed in recent works. McNeill and Berland (2017)
found that students view data as factual, rather than understanding evidence as constructed and need-
ing to be interpreted. These authors required students to manipulate information in order to fnd
patterns. Bravo-Torija and Jiménez-Aleixandre (2018), in their learning progression, also reported
that students experienced difculties recognizing patterns in data and explaining them with a relevant
theory, combining empirical and theoretical discourses. Discourse studies in engineering education
by Kelly and Cunningham (2019), focused on elementary school children’s ability to interpret data.
They reported that the students could identify trends in tables of trial runs through the collective
sharing and analysis of pooled data. Grounded in the AIR model, Duncan et al. (2018) proposed
a framework called grasp of evidence, that aims to help citizens determine the credibility of scientifc
claims in everyday communication, a type of discourse to which they are exposed daily, by tackling
challenges related to evidence-based practices. To develop meta-epistemic understanding of methods
to establish support for claims, they propose explicit discussions about the community norms for evi-
dence quality and evidence strength. As Feinstein and Waddington (2020) argued, science education
should respond to post-truth by focusing on how to help people work together to make appropriate
use of science in social contexts, and for this purpose, aimed at citizenship, argumentation and a lay
grasp of evidence may be useful.
Studies of argumentation address a range of discursive contexts; on the one hand on arguments
evaluating models and explanations, and on the other hand on arguments focusing on decision-
making about issues of social relevance. Jiménez-Aleixandre and Brocos (2018) suggested the need
for examining argumentative operations and specifc pedagogical discursive practices that are likely
to difer in both contexts. They discuss instances with a focus on plausibility in the evaluation of
models and explanations, and on acceptability in decision making. Thus, in decision making about
socioscientifc issues, options are weighted in light of the evidence, but also in accordance with per-
sonal or social values, as is the case with the issue in their study about promoting a vegetarian diet.
They suggested that in decision making, the focus is on the social context and the social interaction,
whereas in the evaluation of explanations the focus tends to be on the individual learner. The role of
values, emotions, and afective issues in argumentation is being acknowledged, as refected in studies
such as Isohätälä et al.’s (2018), mentioned earlier.
Henderson et al. (2018) discussed challenges and identifed the following potential directions for
argumentation research: (1) recognizing challenges in establishing a classroom culture that values
argumentation, which requires shifts in the classroom mindset; (2) the efect of diferent theoretical
frameworks in how researchers communicate fndings; (3) the challenge of assessing various aspects
of argumentation in a valid and reliable fashion; (4) pedagogical challenges in supporting student
discourse and social collaboration; and (5) challenges concerning the professional development of
teachers. Changes in classroom discourse that are needed for students to engage in the practice of
argumentation, have been examined by González-Howard and McNeill (2019), focusing on the ways
teachers framed goals for students. Two teachers’ instructional strategies were compared, emphasizing
either individual or communal understanding. Even though both were successful, the second strategy
was aligned with students’ building more frequently on each other’s ideas.
Critical Thinking as Discourse

The focus on critical thinking as skills, rather of a domain-general character, has recently evolved
toward a focus on critical thinking as discourse and practice. Thus, for Kuhn, “critical thinking is a dia-
logic practice people commit to and thereby become disposed to exercise, more than an individual
ability or skill . . . engaged initially interactively and then with practice in interiorized form with
the other only implicit” (Kuhn, 2019, pp. 148–149). She also pointed out that critical thinking,
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rather than being an individual ability or a fxed attribute, is a dynamic activity developed through
engagement in the practice. A second change in the conceptualization of critical thinking, which
draws from critical discourse analysis, is the inclusion of action. Criticality, encompasses critical
thinking, critical refection, and critical action. The approach to critical thinking as discourse and
practice may be a fruitful frame to integrate with science education (Jiménez-Aleixandre & Puig,
2021), particularly in times when addressing post-truth, discarding fake news, and distinguishing
reliable from unreliable information in public discourses are social challenges that science educa-
tion should meet. Feinstein and Waddington (2020) call for integrating science and civic discourse
to make appropriate use of science in social contexts. Place-based science has also been proposed
as an appropriate context to empower students to participate in democratic processes (Brocos &
Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2020).
Representations and Multimodal Discourses

A multiplicity of discourses exists in science classrooms, beyond spoken and written discourse. Discourse
is mediated through various semiotic modes and artifacts, as emphasized in the pioneer work of Kress
et al. (2001) about multimodality. They saw learning as a dynamic process of sign making, in which
pupils reshaped meanings or “signs” to create new ones. Thus, scientifc texts and discourses are seen
as semiotic hybrids (Lemke, 1998). Multimodality and multivocality are the focus of Solli et al.’s
(2019) study based on dialogical theories of language – their analysis incorporated several perspectives
and voices. The research analyzed how individual students are “in dialogue” with present as well as
remote interlocutors and internet contexts in discussions about the socioscientifc issue of hydraulic
fracturing, and the discursive means that students used to handle the many relevant perspectives. A
recent special issue of Research in Science Education (2021, vol. 51[1]), focuses on the methodology of
classroom discourse analysis in science education, bringing new insights into discourse studies (Kelly,
2021) and making visible multimodality, as in the studies by Wieselmann et al. (2021) and Knain
et al. (2021).
Representations are thus semiotic resources, cultural tools, and practices, and learning science
includes learning to interpret and use representations. The varied representations of science are
relevant for all ages, but in early childhood, when children are beginning to read and write, learn-
ing to understand and build representations is of the utmost importance. Monteira et al. (2022)
reported a longitudinal study carried out along three years in an early childhood education (ECE)
classroom, examining the development of children’s (aged 3–6) science representations, as well as
the afordances of the teacher’s scafolding of the production of these representations. The fndings
indicated that children’s representations of science phenomena, such as evaporation, became more
complex along dimensions such as accuracy and appropriation of visual codes from ECE Year 1 to
ECE Year 3. They also showed increasing autonomy in the use of symbolic and iconic modes of
representation in drawings, thus for instance, they used models to represent the three states of water
(see Figure 14.1). The teacher, who was the same during these three ECE years, as is frequently
the case in Spanish public schools, modulated her scafolding, fading its intensity, and provided
afective support, acknowledging and legitimating children’s contributions. Olander et al. (2018)
studied lower secondary school students’ meaning-making processes as they drew from multiple
representations of the human body. Their analysis focused on the ways representations aforded
the students’ ways of making sense of the content and on how continuity between the purposes of
diferent inquiry activities could be sustained. The results indicated that continuity was established
in multiple ways, for instance, through the use of metaphors, which gradually transformed from an
everyday register through an interlanguage expression, toward a more scientifc register. Prain and
Tytler (2012) presented a framework to study student-generated representations, integrating three
perspectives, semiotic, epistemic – related to the picture of knowledge-building practices – and
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Kelly et al.
Figure 14.1 Child’s representation of the three states of matter for water.
epistemological, or how and what students can know through engaging in the challenge of repre-
senting causal accounts through these semiotic tools.
Constructing Access and Identity Through Discourse Processes

Drawing from theoretical traditions of systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1993; Halliday &
Martin, 1993), sociolinguists (Green & Bloome, 1997), and scholars of the culture of language
(Agar, 1994; Erickson, 1982), science educators have called attention to ways that discourse rep-
resents and frames students’ science identity (Brown, 2004; Gilbert & Yerrick, 2001; Parkinson &
Crouch, 2011; Visintainer, 2019). The increasing globalization of education systems throughout the
world, and the incorporation of immigrant children to school systems, have posed new challenges
and opportunities for educators. Issues of frst language, ethnic afliation, and home cultures inter-
sect with experiences in education and emerging understandings of students’ views of themselves as
learners, and science learners in particular. Often, teachers are not well prepared for the variation in
student experience. For example, in U.S. schools, multilingual and multicultural students are often
taught by monolingual teachers. Science teaching and learning creates classroom contexts that are
rich in symbolic meaning and opportunities for students to take on and reject the identities associated
with using the multifaceted aspects of science discourse practices (Brown, 2006; Maulucci, 2008;
Reveles et al., 2004). Over the years, several paradigms of research have emerged to challenge and
extend the feld’s thinking about the role of language and identity in science.
We have organized the body of scholarship associated with discourse and identity into fve themes.
Issues of identity and access to cultural knowledge cut across diferent dimensions of education; thus,
there is overlap of domains of knowledge in these themes. First, studies of discourse examine the
relationship among students’ home language, (school) science language, and the development of
identities in and for science teaching and learning. Second, building on the frst theme, discourse
studies consider ways that language and identity serve to foster or limit common ways of being and
understanding. Third, studies in science education have identifed ways that conficting interactions
prevent students from participating in science discourse. Recognizing of the importance of identity
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and discourse, another research direction focuses on emergent pedagogies that emphasize the rela-
tionships of identity development and cognitive understanding. Finally, a set of studies examine how
educators might expand who has the opportunity to participate in science in meaningful ways by
recrafting what counts as science discourse in formal and informal learning environments.
Making the Case for Identity and Discourse

Science has authority in society due to demonstrable successes in producing verifable knowledge.
Yet, this epistemic authority can also be questioned due to the restricted ways of knowing within the
disciplinary communities. Epistemic practices of science are reproduced by those participating in the
communities, and as these practices become concretized they can become taken-for-granted ways
of being that may limit participation of alternative views. For example, one of the most thoroughly
explored aspects of the role of science discourse examines how teacher discourse sends messages
about the association of students’ identity and gender roles in science (Gilbert & Yerrick, 2001;
Reveles et al., 2004; Schnittka & Schnittka, 2016). The implications of this work suggest that the
discourse of science frames how students understand gender identity. Gullberg et al. (2018) noted
that the science discourse of pre- and in-service teachers consists of presumptions of children’s attri-
butes as being “biologically predestined” (p. 709). They argued that the discourse of the classroom
sends messages of what counts as gender and sends explicit messages about biological predestination.
These messages, which are communicated through the features of classroom discourse, can be full
of implicit bias, as educators associate students’ discourse practices with academic ability. Gender
understandings and presumptions embedded in the science discourse of teachers is one example of
how the framing of science intersects with students’ identity. This is not contained to gender – it
also pertains to other groups often excluded from science, particularly students from less valued
racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic classes. Godec (2018) examined how working-class girls from
diverse ethnic backgrounds negotiated their identifcation with science, through a gender lens and
an intersectional approach. The science-identifying girls’ discursive strategies ranged from rendering
gender invisible to reframing “science people” as caring and nurturing to cultural discourses of the
desirability of science. She suggested the need for legitimating more heterogeneous performances
and experiences.
Students’ sense of self and belonging can be tied to the ways that discourse practices manifest in
various science education contexts. Varelas et al. (2012) examined how relationships between text,
identity, and language shape opportunities for access to science. Similarly, Brown et al. (2005) identi-
fed how science language served as a cue for cultural membership for students. Collectively, these
studies share a common assumption that the symbolic meaning systems of science, including science
words, symbols, argumentation strategies, and artifacts, all send messages of cultural belonging and
distance for students. As teachers teach, they employ the complex mix of science discourse. This
can include symbol systems, mathematical language, and charts and diagrams that are intended to
promote clarity but can simultaneously serve to intimidate students who are new to these discourse
practices. Visintainer (2019) suggested that identity is a representation of cultural membership and
maintains implications for access to science. This work challenged scholars to move implicit assump-
tions about identity and language from the passive subtext of the classroom toward an explicit com-
ponent of science teaching and learning. Collectively, studies of language and identity focus on the
role of discourse in the broadest sense. Varelas et al. (2012) explored how students developed “textual
relationships” with the language practices of science. Their idea of intertextuality demonstrated that
the dynamics of the language practices of science communicate messages to students about who
can be considered a scientist (Langman, 2014; Olitsky, 2007; Varelas et al., 2012; Varelas & Pappas,
2006). They argue that scientifc text, whether read or written, sends messages of belonging. This has
potentially diferential and adverse infuences on students. For some, these messages are afrmations
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of belonging, while for others they are cues that the culture of science represents a culture in confict
with their very being.
Scholars have not only defned the problems associated with science language and identity but also
ofered explorations of how to address these challenges. Langman (2014) suggested science teachers
reframe the borders of what counts as language in science teaching for multilingual students. This
perspective requires that educators reconsider the norms of scientifc language practices and how
they might be modifed in educational contexts. In this study, the failure of teachers’ practices to link
language and identity in science presented a challenge for students, English learners (ELs) in this case,
learning science in their non–home language. Langman explained how presumptions made by sci-
ence teachers about science discourse as reliant “on symbol systems and hands-on experiences” lead
them to believe that these discourses would be “sufcient input of a non-linguistic nature to allow
ELs to participate in English medium contexts” (p. 189). Langman’s insightful analysis implicated a
failure of science educators to take seriously the depth and intensity of the role of language learning
in science classrooms. To address ways of building access to science, Poza (2016) proposed the use
of translanguaging practices, as he argued for the incorporation of multiple discourse practices that
enabled students to think and communicate about science in both Spanish and English. Translan-
guaging allows students to draw from multiple linguistic resources and focus on meaning making.
For example, Licona and Kelly (2020) identifed that teachers and EL students were able to engage in
epistemic practices of science across languages by engaging freely in translanguaging.
Language choice, cultural practices, and ideological assumptions about language frame the com-
plexity of student identity development and afliation. Importantly, teachers’ choices of discourse
practices for curriculum, instruction, and assessment position students as potential members or
outsiders to science. Recognizing the potentially alienating role of discourse, Lemmi et al. (2019)
explored the role of teachers’ ideologies and their approaches to assessing students’ science knowl-
edge. In this study, teachers were provided with writing samples that varied in language use. The
analysis explored how teachers’ existing ideologies impacted their assessment of student knowledge.
In his text on urban education teaching, Emdin (2010) challenged teachers to explore the benefts
of using the cultural and linguistic practices of hip-hop to mediate the challenges associated with
science language and culture. Globally, scholars like Parkinson and Crouch (2011) continued to push
this paradigm of expanding the language identity norms of science as they explored how science lan-
guage can be exclusionary for African students. In a qualitative study of classroom learning, Parkin-
son and Crouch (2011) reported that students who were able to use their native Zulu language were
aforded greater opportunities to learn science and develop supportive identities. The fndings of this
study are similar to those of translanguaging studies. The ways that students are positioned to use
language have educational and ideological implications for student success and identity development.
Collectively, the emergent body of research on language and identity relationships in science
challenges scholars to reconsider how existing instructional norms can serve as resources to limit or
promote access to science learning. Across the body of research, there are some shared assumptions.
First, all language refects cultural membership. Science is a culture with its own discursive norms
and practices. This recognition evinces the ways that the rhetoric of science and choices made
in educational contexts about its use infuence students’ understandings of themselves as science
learners and potential members of the science community. Second, the depth of the relationships
between science language and classroom norms is often framed as a nonessential aspect of contem-
porary teaching and learning. This has the unfortunate consequence of focusing science learning on
conceptual knowledge (concepts, theories, laws), without a more careful consideration of the ways
such knowledge is communicated through discourse practices. Third, the emerging and continual
rediscovery of the subtle relationships between the positioning of science and students through
discourse has led to explorations of how efective science learning environments can be designed in
which all students thrive.
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Conficts and Access Through Discourse

Studies of identity and discourse in science settings point to the need to consider ways that engaging
in specifed ways of speaking, acting, and being can be alienating to students, particularly those under-
represented in science. In a qualitative study of student groups’ discourse practices, Moje et al. (2001)
discovered that conficts in students’ understanding of the meaning of vernacular terms undermined
their capacity to participate in classrooms in meaningful ways. Although the teacher was focused on
ensuring students understood the new science terms in the lesson, the vernacular word being used to
introduce the ideas caused greater confusion than the science labeling words. Olitsky (2007) ofered a
potential solution for cultural conficts by pushing educators to restructure the boundaries of classroom
discourse. Olitsky suggested that the shift from formal classroom structures to out-of-school structures
provided more opportunities for identity development. Avraamidou (2020a, p. 338) pointed out the
need for exploring the emotionality of identity to examine how power shapes discourses about emo-
tions, “given that emotions are not just dialectically related, but are inextricably bound with recogni-
tion and various systems of oppression”. For her, science identity is not only personal, but political.
While the relationship between language and identity in science is being redefned by scholars
(Parkinson & Crouch, 2011; Poza, 2016), much of their research is based on an assumption that
science discourse can produce conficts for students (Brown, 2006; Lee, 2001, 2005). A bulk of
the studies associated with confict explore how underrepresented students experience feelings of
intimidation and isolation related to science discourse (Brown, 2004; Buxton et al., 2013; Buxton &
Lee, 2014). In a discourse analysis study of high school students in an urban school, Brown (2004)
found that students actively avoided using science discourse because of cultural norms. This pattern
was found across other settings and studies. Recognizing the potential conficts that students bring
to classrooms, Buxton and Lee (2014) explored the need to integrate language practices that afrm
identity and science language practices. Brown et al. (2019) used psychological stress tests to docu-
ment how students who were taught with complex science discourse experienced reduced working
memory in the science classrooms. Others, like Hsu et al. (2018), explored ways to address potentially
limiting gender dynamics and discovered that altering gender interactions in groups created improved
opportunities for women to develop science identities. In this case, the researchers designed group
interaction that allowed girls to talk more freely, reducing the negative impacts of male bias in group
interactions. Similarly, Schnittka and Schnittka (2016) explored how designed-based activities should
be viewed through a gender lens to maximize learning experiences and reduce the ways students
experience conficts between their identities. Maulucci’s (2008) study of teachers’ practices suggested
that the language of the teacher can shape access or denial of students’ identities in science classrooms.
Where these perspectives fnd common ground is in their shared discovery of the nature of science
conficts. Although the mechanism of the conficts ranged from symbol systems to science words to
everyday words, each of the studies identifed how and when students’ participation was limited due
to the discourse practices of the classroom. When left to master the highly specialized, and potentially
alienating, language practices of science without structured pedagogy from the teacher, students not
only did not participate but also developed negative associations with science learning. Said difer-
ently, students struggled with what was not taught simply because teachers assumed the language of
science would be learned passively. Thus, to address issues of equity, active recruitment and participa-
tion of diverse students, and building educational culture of belonging, research needs to examine the
science discourses of schooling and consider alternatives that are more inviting to students.
Emergent Practices for Integration and Learning

As the feld provided a landscape of language identity implications, it concurrently developed studies
of practices that modeled ways to improve the relationship between science discourse and students’
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identities (Chen et al., 2019; van Eijck & Roth, 2011; Varelas & Pappas, 2006). Chen et al. (2019)
found that underperforming boys benefted from the use of the modifed argument-driven inquiry
(MADI) approach in their group discourse practices. Their work shifted toward a focus on how
the provision of heuristics could help students master discourse practices and shift the norms of
classroom communication. Oliveira et al. (2007) found that embedding dialogic discourse structures
in university classrooms provided greater access for students to develop science identities. By shift-
ing from having students sit passively to providing explicit structures for discourse, they found that
students developed a greater appreciation for science. Rincke (2011) explored how helping students
approach science as a new language or using an interlanguage approach improved learning for college
students. Olander (2010) examined how students’ use of science language that used a combination
of vernacular and scientifc practices enhanced their science learning. Brown and Ryoo (2008) con-
ducted a quasi-experimental study of teaching science with simple language and documented how
students demonstrated improved learning on a conceptual text of photosynthesis when taught with
simpler language. Park et al. (2019) suggested that those who are hard of hearing and using multiple
hybridized discourse (ASL) had difculty adapting to argumentation language practices. Chappell
and Varelas (2020) proposed exploring alternative modes of discourse for promoting access to sci-
ence. They ofer an example of Black students who used dance as arts-based practices to make con-
nections to science identities. Clegg and Kolodner (2014) suggested that students who participate in
kitchen science are provided an opportunity to fnd identities that are commensurate with science.
The tie that binds these studies is a shared assumption that intentionally promoting students’
academic talk improved their learning and connection to science. The range of success documented
across the context of these studies was striking. Studies from Brown and Ryoo (2008) focused on
elementary school students, while Olander (2010) and Rincke (2011) researched high school and
college students. Across the studies, students demonstrated improved learning outcomes. Addition-
ally, the studies document how engagement with discourses practices that intentionally teach students
the language of science seemed to promote a deeper connection to science as a discipline.
The growing body of research investigating the relationship between science discourse and
identity frames science teaching and learning as an environment rich in sociolinguistic interactions
(Brown, 2006; Varelas & Pappas, 2006; Yerrick & Gilbert, 2011). These interactions range from
discursive interactions that afrm students’ identity (Buxton et al., 2013; Emdin, 2010; Parkinson &
Crouch, 2011) to providing students with opportunities to merge multiple linguistic resources into
their teaching and learning experiences (Langman, 2014; Poza, 2016). The research on discourse and
identity in science suggests that science discursive practices impact students’ cognitive understand-
ing and cultural membership in and out of science, thus leading to changes in how they are viewed
and view themselves as science learners (Brown et al., 2019; Olander, 2010; Rincke, 2011). There
is a shared assumption that these interactions are potentially problematic if undefned and allowed to
operate as a subtext of science classrooms (Chen et al., 2019; Lee, 2005; Lemmi et al., 2019). Scholars
are making progress in recognizing potential ways to promote healthy identity through innovative
approaches to science discourse (Chen et al., 2019; Oliveira et al., 2007; Poza, 2016). Adopting per-
spectives from sociolinguists has ofered a broader vision on the role of formal and informal interac-
tions and its implications for student and teacher identity.
Discourse, Values, and Ideology

Science is supported by a set of practices, epistemic frameworks, and ideologies (Bazerman, 1982;
Roth & Lucas, 1997; Watson, 1995). Science communicates (often implicitly) these values through
education, schooling, and other forms of communication. Research in science education and in the
public communication of science has examined how the values of science have been communicated
through the dynamic discourse practices embedded in the enterprise of science (Fang, 2005; Hakuta
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et al., 2013; Kelly, 2014). As discourse practices evolve (e.g., new genres of communication, social
media, data visualizations), the need to understand the association between science discourse prac-
tices, their associated ideologies, and science teaching has increased in importance (Cheuk, 2016;
Linder, 2013; Rosebery et al., 1992).
As we have argued previously, scientifc knowledge is constructed through social interactions and
further reifed and instantiated through theoretical and physical models, inscription devices, data
representations, and genre-specifc written texts (Henze et al., 2008; Gilbert et al., 2000; Knain,
2001; Latour & Woolgar, 1986; Lenoir, 1998). This complex relationship between discourse tools
and meaning making produces a complex matrix of communication with associated ideologies
(Aronowitz, 1988; Stoddart, 2007). Knain (2001) made clear how such choices present themselves
in education:
Science education necessarily contains values, because nature does not automatically pro-
vide what is to be taught, and for what purposes. Science proper has to be recontextualized
in order to be meaningful in school science discourse. It must be adapted to students’ age
and prior knowledge, it must be divisible within the time units allocated and adapted to
the physical resources of the school, and it must be ftted into a form that can be assessed.
(p. 320)
While Knain (2001) wisely highlighted how the translation from science to science education requires
a re-presenting of the nature of science and its discourse, the subtext illuminates the challenge of
translating discourse practices used by scientists to construct phenomena into discourse practices that
can efectively scafold students into an epistemic community. Moreover, the science values and dis-
cursive tools that are used in meaning making in professional science endeavors must be reasonably
translated to a K–12 context where students are experiencing approximations of authentic scientifc
experiences. Thus, educators need to examine how science discourses, ostensibly used as teaching
tools to help students make sense of phenomenon, also impose ideologies that are often opaque to
teachers and students alike.
Sensemaking Values and Learning

Science discourse refects a systematic approach to sensemaking that privileges certain values and
goals, refective of the epistemic cultures of its production. This orientation serves the purposes of the
respective disciplinary communities. The discourse practices used for sensemaking in science (e.g.,
charts, diagrams, words, symbols, and other epistemic tools) refect a set of values and ideologies
(Rosebery et al., 1992; Watson, 1995). Consequently, learning science requires integrating sense-
making practices that are communicated through classroom discourse (Grimes et al., 2019; McDon-
ald & Kelly, 2012; Warren et al., 2001). Although science discourse helps to accomplish the epistemic
(Kelly, 2011, 2014) and cognitive functions of scientifc communication (Fang, 2005; Halliday &
Martin, 1993), these discursive forms privilege certain ways of knowing (Barton & Tan, 2010; Cór-
dova & Balcerzak, 2016). Thus, as science students learn to adopt the discourse practices of science,
they simultaneously acquire access to the privileged subtexts associated with science discourse.
As scholars consider how to make science accessible to all, they must also consider how provid-
ing access to the discursive tools of science equates to providing access to the values and ideologies
embedded in scientifc epistemology (Culbertson & Adger, 2014; Haraway, 2003; McDonald &
McIntyre, 2001; Oliveira et al., 2007; Warren et al., 2001). Thus, questions of access to science
discourse are rooted in considerations of who has the right to talk, act, and engage in discourse prac-
tice and what is possible for diferent people to say and do (Cheuk, 2016; Gilbert & Yerrick, 2001;
Halliday, 1993). Science teaching and learning includes assumptions about who has an opportunity
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Kelly et al.
to engage in science talk and what genres of science discourse are valued in science (Brown, 2004;
Varelas, 2017).
Power and Ideology in Discourse

Although language systems are used to communicate meaning, they are also associated with systems
of thinking (Fourez, 1988; Friedrich, 1989). Diferent languages, registers, and genres are not inter-
preted equally in contexts of use. A language ideology lens allows us to view the ways in which
language is viewed as a tool for meaning making and positioning (Lippi-Green, 2012; Seargeant,
2008). Woolard (1992) defned language ideology by suggesting that
linguistic ideologies are shared bodies of common sense notions about the nature of lan-
guage in the world. We mean to include cultural conceptions not only of language and
language variation, but of the nature and purpose of communication, and of communicative
behaviors as an enactment of collective order.
(Woolard, 1992, p. 235)
From this lens, ideas about what language matters, how language matters, and whose language has
value are deeply connected to the ideologies held about the given language.
Perceptions of language ideology can be conceived of three sorts. Several scholars adopt a social
framework on language ideologies by suggesting that language practices are associated with com-
munities, identities, and power relations (Friedrich, 1989; Lippi-Green, 2012; Seargeant, 2008).
Bakhtin (1981) identifed the ways in which language practices are associated with ways of view-
ing people. Those using a particular language come to be interpreted as a particular type of person
(Agar, 1991; Alim & Smitherman, 2012; Kroskrity, 2009). This social view suggests that language
systems are connected with historical and social meaning, as people use language practices associated
with a particular way of being. Another framework centers cognitive processes (Lemmi et al., 2019).
Poza (2016) and Lippi-Green (2012) explored how the cognitive resources embedded in a language
are valued or devalued by social norms (Lemmi et al., 2019; Stoddart et al., 2002; Van Dijk, 2009).
As such, language ideologies frame which cognitive resources are valued as each language practice
provides the speaker with access to cognitive tools that transcend language boundaries (Langman,
2014; Lemmi et al., 2019). Finally, a third framework on language ideology is rooted in political
identity frameworks (Echevarria et al., 2016; Friedrich, 1989). Echevarria et al. (2016) examined
how language norms are intentionally shaped and used to frame political identities (Friedrich, 1989;
Woolard, 1992). The ranking and marginalizing of native language practices served to elevate some
languages as more suitable for academic, political, and social engagement than others (Flores & Rosa,
2015; Rosa, 2010; Woolard, 1992). This framework, like others, is rooted on the premise that
while understanding language is a foundational framework for how languages are used, adapting and
understanding of the ways of being associated with those languages is rooted in larger ideological
standpoints. A language ideology provides a framework to understand not only how languages are
used, but how languages are viewed in societal terms.
Foucault (1980) and Fairclough and Wodak (1997) challenged scholars across multiple disciplines
to carefully examine the relationship between discourse, power, and ideology. Foucault explored how
the relationship between discourse and power is shaped by who has access to discursive tools and how
those tools accomplish political and social ends. Scholars of discourse ideology examined how science
serves as a site for discursive power as people adopt the rhetorical structures and use the discourse
tools of science (Duschl & Osborne, 2002; Hodson, 2003; Lemke, 1990). Although the power of
science discourse and ideology have emerged over hundreds of years (Bazerman, 1982), these discur-
sive practices allowed scientists to heighten perceptions of objectivity via discursive strategies such as
428
through the use of passive voice or nominalization (Bazerman, 1982; Halliday & Martin, 1993) to reify
knowledge claims through data representation (Latour & Woolgar, 1986) and to improve epistemic
claims through the use of the rhetorical structures of science (Roth, 2014; Roth & Lucas, 1997). As
scientists expanded their approach to communicating scientifc phenomena, they developed repre-
sentational tools to enhance and refect their sensemaking practices (Bazerman, 1982). With these
developing and ever-changing discourse practices and inscription devices comes the need for stu-
dents to master these same discursive strategies. In explaining how physics students learn to master
the discursive tools of physics, Linder (2013) explained:
A person who has achieved fuency in the disciplinary discourse of physics is able to see the
afordance attributes that are presented in the constitution of a collective disciplinary afor-
dances. However, what is critical for the teaching and learning of physics is that a physics
teacher is able to make this visible to learners.
(p. 49)
The idea that efective science teaching requires the teacher to help students develop an awareness
of the rhetorical structures of science is a position shared by several science scholars of science
education (Bazerman, 1988; Kelly, 2014; Lemke, 1990). The veiled relationship between science
and science education presents some challenges as students are asked to learn science concepts
while being introduced to an approximation of science discourse practices. These lessons are rich,
complicated, and can present a number of challenges (Arons, 1977; Olander & Ingerman, 2011;
Rincke, 2011).
Although there is a wealth of scholarship on discourse, cultural practices, and ideology in the phi-
losophy of science (e.g., Foucault, 1980; Harding, 2011; Rouse, 2002), this perspective has not been
thoroughly integrated into science education, with a few exceptions. Lemke’s (1990) landmark work
on talking science highlighted how the semantics patterns in science language refected meaning-
making patterns that were often overlooked by teachers. Warren and Rosebery (1992) called for
the use of sensemaking as a framework to help science teachers understand how students’ discourse
practices were rich with patterns that teachers needed to recognize. Rudolph and Horibe (2016)
called for scholars to recognize the value of praxis and civic engagement to introduce students to the
myriad of discourse and epistemic foundations of science.
Across these studies there is a clear recognition that the failure to explicitly address and teach
the relationships between science language and the implied values allows unexamined ideological
assumptions to serve as a subtext of instruction. As science education shifts toward valuing argumen-
tation, classrooms are reliant on teaching discourse practices that helps students engage in reasoning
that is rooted in discourse. Thus, the language ideology relationships in discourse can emerge as a
hidden curriculum in contemporary classrooms.
Invisible Ideological Curriculum

The ideological positioning of science in education occurs through discourse practices of socially
and culturally dominant groups. Ways of knowing, speaking, and being within science (and all)
communities are constructed over time as members afliate and come to learn what it means to
be a member of the group. The emergent discourse practices result from participation and poten-
tially serve to exclude prospective members from the community. This occurs in educational
contexts as well. Furthermore, many rules of the dominating discourses are typically not overt
(Gee, 2014), in everyday life or in education, and occur with taken-for-granted assumptions
about what it means to be a member. Breeches of the rules make visible the underlying assump-
tions, but also serve to identify membership and nonmembership. For newcomers, learning these
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aspects of discourse also means learning to value and judge yourself and others in terms of the
dominating discourse.
Learning to take part in discourse is thus not merely a question of learning what is true and
certain. It also means learning to enact systematic ways of distinguishing who is to be included or
excluded and what is relevant or irrelevant. Some privileging when learning and taking part in dis-
course is inevitable – it is precisely the exacting language and rigorous protocols for use that lead to
scientifc success. However, research can make visible the implicit rules of discourse and how they
are shaped by and for participants. Such research ofers the possibility of changing the discourse of
apprenticeship and recognizing alternative ways to being, seeing, and acting. Where the borders of
science discourse meet their limits, individuals learn to adopt and extend science discourse to engage
in critical refections and analysis of how science serves as a tool for critical social participation
(Hakuta et al., 2013; Kang et al., 2018; Miller et al., 2014; Moore et al., 2015).
Shift in Ideology Requires Shift in Discourse

Although the relationship between science discourse and epistemic forms of scientifc knowledge
coexists in classrooms, a major shift in the ideological positionings of science calls for a reex-
amination of the accompanying discourse (Aikenhead, 2001; Sadler, 2006; Stoddart, 2007). For
example, the epistemic cultures of science value evidence. Evidence is often formulated through
specifc argumentation strategies. The adoption of argumentation as a primary component of
science instruction surfaced the need for a careful reconsideration of accompanying discourse
practices (Ballenger, 1997; Berland & McNeill, 2012; McNeill & Pimentel, 2010; Sadler, 2006).
This has occurred through the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
(2013). As these standards are being adopted throughout the United States, research has pushed
teachers and researchers to consider ways educators can introduce students to science argumenta-
tion through purposefully structured discourse practices (Bell & Linn, 2000; Berland & McNeill,
2012; Enderle et al., 2013; Erduran et al., 2004). Thus, the inextricable link between science
argumentation as ideology and science discourse has emerged as a vital component of modern
science instruction.
Although the notion of scientifc argumentation presented here is broad, it refects a dynamic set
of discursive tools. Whether these tools include evaluating data, constructing written arguments, or
engaging in public conversations of science, a shift to a paradigm that values argumentation requires
being attuned to the discursive practices that make scientifc epistemologies possible. Argumentation
promotes an individual’s or group’s abilities to reason and justify claims. This highlights how insepa-
rable discourse and ideology practices are in modern science teaching. As such, the growing adoption
of argumentation in science classrooms requires a careful parsing of the discourse practices needed to
achieve this type of reasoning.
Multilingual and Multi-Cognitive Ideologies

A fnal consideration of ideology and science is how multilingual students access science ideology
through multilingual practices (Cheuk, 2016; Erduran et al., 2004; Poza, 2016; Probyn, 2015).
Although discourse and argumentation are linked, the research on the particular impact on mul-
tilingual students requires scholars to further explore how multilingual students can connect their
cognitive resources to multiple linguistic forms (Bell & Linn, 2000; Campbell & Filimon, 2018;
González-Howard & McNeill, 2016). Multilingualism is a norm for the majority of people and can
be an asset for learning and communication, yet many students learn science in a non-native lan-
guage. Research on multilingual practices point to multilingual reasoning, which requires scholars
to refect on the ways that science ideologies are expressed across language boundaries (Cheuk,
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2016; Lemmi et al., 2019; Poza, 2016, Wu et al., 2019). Classroom studies suggest that hybrid
discourse practices produce better argumentation strategies for students. However, scholars have
noted that learning the argumentative discourses of science, particularly for non-native speakers and
recent immigrants, pose challenges for students. Careful attention needs to be placed on ways that
argumentation, and other specialized discourses of science, are used with students of varied ability
in the language of instruction. Cheuk (2016) called for educators to be cautious not to “disem-
power those who are learning the content and English language simultaneously” (p. 99). Cheuck
suggested that educators find ways to use active discourse practices for classroom learning. To build
on the heightened awareness of language English learners (ELs) possess, Cheuck noted that teachers
need to include ideological discourse practices of argumentation as a central component of ELs’
education. O’Hallaron (2014) made a similar recommendation. She highlighted how teachers’
use of explicit scaffolds can support students’ use of their own discourse practices in argumenta-
tion. González Howard et al. (2017) offered a similar claim. They suggested that helping students
understand why they use particular discourse is vital to their use of science discourse and adoption
of argumentation practices. Argumentation in science education offers certain opportunities to
learn about ways of using and aligning evidence. Argumentation emerges from epistemic cultures
that privilege certain ways of using discourse. Properly scaffolded, argumentation can be one way
to engage students in science discourses that draw on dynamic linguistic communities as assets for
student learning.
Bilingual classrooms provide a rich context for examining the potential of thinking beyond mono-
linguistic approaches to study discourse. Ünsal, Jakobson et al. (2018b) examined, through practi-
cal epistemology analysis, how emergent bilingual students used gestures to talk about the science
content, when their language proficiency limited their possibilities to express themselves. Although
the meaning of the gestures needed to be negotiated in some situations, they resulted in the continu-
ation of the science activities. In another study, based on translanguaging and making part of the
same project, Ünsal, Jakobson et al. (2018a) explored, in a multilingual elementary classroom, how
bilingual students used both of their languages as resources during hands-on activities. And how, in
other situations where they had to argue in one language, their Swedish language repertoire limited
their possibilities of making meaning of the activities. In a bilingual English/Spanish middle school
science classroom, Licona and Kelly (2020) studied teacher translanguaging and how this practice
afforded opportunities for supporting scientific argumentation. The paper investigated how fram-
ing epistemic practices proved to be of paramount importance in supporting practices comprising
scientific argumentation.
Discourse and Ideology in Science Education

The body of research on discourse and ideology in science education offers a vision of nuanced
relationships between the epistemic ideology of science and its associated discourse tools. Scholars
have been vigilant in their calls to identify how privileged ideologies are embedded and inextricably
linked to discursive tools (Berland & McNeill, 2012; Cheuk, 2016; González-Howard & McNeill,
2016). To this end, research exploring how to teach these practices to students highlights the need
for detailed scaffolding (O’Hallaron, 2014; Wu et al., 2019). Classrooms throughout the world are
increasingly multilingual; scholarship on argumentation and discourse has suggested that multilingual
ideological positions add value to students’ experiences and provide them greater access to argu-
mentation ideology (Cheuk, 2016; González-Howard & McNeill, 2016; Lemmi et al., 2019a; Poza,
2016). Though the fields still remain nascent, the focus on understanding student discourse resources
and the need to scaffold them into the discourse practices of science as a means to engage in argu-
mentation is a common refrain throughout the scholarship.
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Kelly et al.
Methodological Considerations for the Study of

Discourse in Science Learning Contexts
The substantive issues tied to the study of discourse and science education have both brought about
new ways of investigating discourse processes and practices and have left open the need for imagi-
native solutions to emerging methodological challenges. The topics reviewed in previous sections
of this chapter, from examination of discourse practices across multiple learning contexts to studies
of identity construction to discourse, values, and ideology, each present the complexity of studying
human interaction. In this section we consider four interrelated aspects of research methodology
related to the study of discourse in science education contexts: the situated nature of discourse, the
scope and nature of discourse features, data representations of discourse, and refexive questions
about positioning the discourse of the researcher in discourse analysis.
Situated Nature of Discourse in Cultural Practices

Discourse processes occur in specifc settings, within particular cultural contexts. From a research
perspective, discourse is situated in time, place, culture, and the ongoing practices of a given com-
munity. Understanding the nuances of discourse and interaction requires analyses to understand such
contexts and develop methodological approaches that take the broader implications of specifc uses
of language into account. These cultural practices include, minimally, those of science, schooling (or
other educational settings), and that of the participants. Cultural practices of science have developed
over time to serve the purposes of the respective epistemic communities comprising the various
disciplines. These practices may be epistemic in nature, such as the genre conventions of the scien-
tifc research article, or interpersonal, such as the ways that a laboratory is organized. In educational
settings, such as schools, the cultural practices may entail ways of being that include conventions for
participating, speaking, and interacting. The science and schooling practices are mediated by relevant
factors such as the teacher, technologies, and texts. An example illustrates this point. Ideological
images of science, such as the distillation of the scientifc method as a means for testing hypotheses
has become a trope in science classrooms. In this way, a distorted view of epistemic practices of
science (a constellation of ways of adjudicating evidence) coalesces with teaching practices (ways
to acculturate students into reasoning patterns) to produce not only a situationally defned view of
science but also putative ways of generating knowledge in science. Studies of science discourse thus
need to examine the history of ideas and the taken-for-granted ways of teaching to consider how
science is framed in the schooling process and potentially taken up by students. Instances of science
talk should be situated in ongoing cultural practices. Furthermore, students may have alternative
ways of being and knowing that clash with the linearity of “the” scientifc method. Various cultural
practices may intersect at instances of talk and action. Discourse analysts need to take these ideologies
and ways of being into account.
Sociolinguistic analyses often work across scales and examine discourse as contextualized in
activity and time (Skukauskaitė & Girdzijauskienė, 2021). A recent study by Franco and Munford
(2021) addressed the issue of understanding intercontextual relationships across discourse events and
illustrated ways to situate discourse in cultural practices. They proposed an hourglass model – frst
thinking broadly about the history of the group, then focusing on the specifcs in science classroom
discourse events before expanding to think about how classroom events relate to other events and
contexts. The hourglass model provides a useful metaphor for organizing methods of analysis for
discourse studies. Franco and Munford’s detailed analysis examined the details of the local event and
sought to consider the ideologies framing the construction of the event. They then drew implica-
tions for the science learning opportunities created through the events of the classroom. Patterson
(2019) also provides an illustrative example of the situated nature of discourse. She considers issues of
432
equity in science education by focusing on student voice, visibility, and agency/authority in interac-
tions, rather than just on the outcomes of instruction in terms of equal participation or assessments
of knowledge. To understand how students use voice in small group interactions, she created a set
of event maps (Brown & Spang, 2008; Green et al., 2020) informed by the verbal exchanges and
nonverbal cues. By looking across diferent units of analysis (Green & Kelly, 2019), Patterson was able
to consider student voice based on the amount and quality of the participation. Due to the embed-
ded nature of the discourse units of analysis, each instance of participation was understood within
the ongoing activity of the classroom. This was demonstrated through the use of event maps that
provided a sequential analysis of the ongoing activity, allowing the analysts to interpret the patterned
ways of being in the two settings under study.
Scope and Nature of Discourse Features in Interaction

Research in discourse studies requires detailed, meticulous analysis of human interaction. This
includes the ways communication occurs through contextualization (such as proxemics, gestures,
prosody, eye gaze, among other paralinguistic features of talk) and over time, as cultural practices
evolve across scales (meso, ontogenetic, sociohistorical) (Kelly, 2008). Analysts need to balance the
insights from close, fne-grained analysis with the nature of educational research questions that con-
cern participation, learning, teaching, and assessment that occur across instances of uses of discourse.
Discourses in science are often multimodal, involving spoken, written, graphic, and gestural modes
(Monteira & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2016; Wilmes & Siry, 2021). Thus, some of the best studies can
“zoom in” to examine the nature of specifc interactions, and “zoom out” to set the interaction in
a broader context and recognize the instance of the interaction in a larger pattern of activity. The
studies by Franco and Munford (2021) and Patterson (2019) provide insights into how to interpret
discourse within the ongoing activities in a cultural setting. Detailed analysis of discourse at the micro
level can inform how meaning is constructed among participants. In this section we examine some of
the methodological considerations needed to understand the multimodal communication in science
education by providing examples of discourse contextualized in paralinguistic features of interaction.
An emerging feld of science education attentive to the contextualization of talk and action is the
study of emotions in science education. Studies of students’ emotional responses to science (Davis &
Bellocchi, 2018; Hufnagel, 2015; King et al., 2015) and teachers’ emotional management (Bellocchi,
2019) rely on understanding not only what gets said, but how it is said and in what activity for what
purpose, to understand what gets meant and heard. For example, Bellocchi (2019) presented a meth-
odology, grounded in phenomenology of practice, microsociology, and ethnomethodology, to study
emotional management and social bonds in a secondary science classroom. The primary data sources
were video recordings of the lessons, diaries, and refective writing – each source is a form of dis-
course, and each provided valuable information for the purposes of the study. The uses of the video
recordings are of particular importance for our purposes of understanding the nature of communi-
cation and emotion. The detailed frame-by-frame analysis of the talk and action included gestures,
facial confgurations, and nonverbal actions such as intonations, speech rate, pitch, and loudness.
These features worked together for the participants as they constructed the educational events (with
associated emotions). Recordings were made available for the analysts to examine the interplay of
emotion management with social bonds. From the detailed transcripts, tables were produced to visu-
alize the forms of emotional management during the interactions. Importantly, fully understanding
emotions in this case required such careful analysis. The detailed transcripts of interaction support the
larger issues related to understanding emotion in science teaching and learning.
Another important issue for science education where multimodal discourse transcripts evince ana-
lytic insight is that of bilingualism, multilingualism, and translanguaging. An example of this line
of work that examined meaning-making discourse features in interaction was conducted by Ünsal,
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Kelly et al.
Jakobson, Wickman et al. (2018). This study focused on how emergent bilingual students used ges-
ture as part of their language repertoire to communicate in science. Across two science education
settings, the authors focused on the ways that language, gestures, and physical artifacts mediate mean-
ing in science learning. The empirical study attended to how gesture contributed to meaning making
in science learning for bilingual students of diferent national origin. The discourse was analyzed
using practical epistemological analysis (Wickman & Östman, 2002), and much like Bellocchi’s study,
included detailed transcripts of talk and action. Types and uses of gestures for communications were
characterized and tabulated. The analysis showed how students used gestures to express meaning when
their other modes of communication were limited. Examples from the classroom demonstrated how
the gestural aspects of discourse assisted in the meaning-making for the students and teachers.
Data Representations of Discourse Practices

Discourse analysis often begins at the level of the transcript – a social and discursive process in the
making itself. Diferent kinds of transcripts re-present the associated events, bringing focus and rec-
ognition to only some of the key features (Green et al., 2020). Furthermore, as noted, discourse is
situated in time, space, and cultural practices, and thus new and emerging forms of data display call
attention to features of discourse practices. These research practices assist with analysis and com-
munication of results to readers. Over the past couple of decades there has been a growing interest
in helping students produce, assess, and critique knowledge claims. This work is often connected to
various forms of argumentation analysis. For the purposes of discussing the methodological implica-
tions of data displays of discourse practices in science education research, we draw from a selection
of studies of argumentation analysis.
González-Howard and McNeill (2019) sought to understand how engaging students in scientifc
practices could lead to improved epistemic understandings. In their study of two seventh-grade
classrooms, the authors examined engagement in scientifc practices by considering the framing of
the argumentation practices by the teachers and then the subsequent uses of argument by students.
Social network analysis (SNA) of student dialogic interactions led the authors to create sociograms
displaying the patterns of three types of dialogic interactions – questioning, critiquing, and building
on others’ ideas. The sociograms provide a visual map of the interactions making visible the partici-
pants (nodes), their social relations (types of focal dialogic interactions), directionality of the utter-
ances (arrows), and the quantity of the contributions of speakers (size of the respective nodes). The
sociograms provided a visual means, grounded in the discourse analysis, to compare the nature of the
dialogic interactions across the student groups. By doing so, González-Howard and McNeill advance
research on argumentation and epistemic practices by making visible how students communicated in
dialogical interactions.
Two other studies created data displays to facilitate interpretation of the discourse practices asso-
ciated with argumentation analysis. Lin and Hung (2016) constructed graphical representations,
associated with the transcripts of students’ dialogic conversations. The two-dimensional graphical
representations map assertations, warrants, and rebuttals, both for afrmation and negation, on the
vertical axis and time across the horizontal axis. The students’ discursive actions, such as opinions,
questions, and rebuttals, and cohesive ties to previous utterances were mapped onto this grid. The
display was particularly useful for examining the reconciling strategies used by the teachers when
conficts arose. The authors used this graphical representation to identify how teachers difused
conficts by redirecting talk, modeling uses of qualifers, and extending students’ arguments to other
science activities. A fnal example of efective use of data display is presented by Yun and Kim (2015)
in a study of student argumentation in small group settings. Consistent with emerging interpretations
of uses of argumentation in science education (McDonald & Kelly, 2012), this study considered how
students’ participation was related to building group norms in the context of eighth-grade classrooms
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in Korea. The social and argumentation norms were dependent on each other. Importantly, class-
room culture and norms were taken into account in the analysis. This included identifying a range of
students’ utterances beyond just those typically associated with formalized arguments. To make visible
the relationship of the interwoven nature of the interactions, Yun and Kim constructed a map of the
ways the task and teacher infuenced the epistemic practices associated with student interactions lead-
ing to argumentation and social norms. These examples of data representations provide a means for
developing analytic tools to address the previously mentioned dimensions of discourse analysis related
to the situated nature of discourse and the scope and nature of discourse features in interaction.
Positioning the Discourse of the Researcher in Discourse Analysis

The analysts in discourse studies take a point of view, provide a perspective on an interaction (ex
post facto), and embody a history of ideas, cultural assumptions, and personal biases in understanding.
Thus, although discourse events in science education can be viewed as promulgating an ideology,
the same can be said of the analysts. Refexivity in discourse studies requires careful attention to
the positionality of the analyst(s) and how the discourse of the analyses and presentation themselves
embody ideological assumptions. This sort of refexivity can be viewed in the stance the researchers
take in observing, interpreting, and communicating about the interactions constituting the discourse
subject to the analysis. This stance can be made visible to the reader in the form of discussion about
the analyst’s perspective, or more often, embedded in the overall orientation to the participants and
issues subject to the analysis. In each instance of discourse analysis, the communication about the dis-
course events is itself a form of discourse with choices made about point of view, diction, reference,
and assumed audience (Kelly, 2021). Thus, researchers instantiate a discourse of analysis and presen-
tation that embody ideologies, identities, and values, as much as the discourses of the participants.
An example of analysts’ point of view with respect to the participants’ discourse is found in a
recent study by Monteira et al. (2022). In this case, the authors sought to understand young children’s
(ages 3–6) engagement with science representations. The focus on children’s drawings took seriously
the sensemaking among the early learners, as drawings are often the frst eforts at abstraction. The
longitudinal study, over three years, included analysis of 482 drawings across two science domains,
snails and clouds. The content and discourse analysis, taken from the point of view of children as
knowledge producers, was able to identify the teachers’ strategies and scafolds, and evolving devel-
opment of children’s representations. The study identifed how the children developed increased
autonomy, accuracy, and attention to detail, and appropriated visual codes for communication, such
as the use of colors to signify meaning. Another example comes from an ethnographic study based
on interviews of Native American science professionals (Page-Reeves et al. (2019). Ethnographic
interviews are discourse events. In this case, the researchers adopted a cultural analytic perspective
to examine the “nature and meanings of the participant narratives” (p. 181). By taking this stance,
the research team was able to learn from the participating scientists by listening to how their narra-
tives were constructed and how they were presented. The interviewers dedicated a portion of the
interview to explaining the history and purpose of the project. By situating the study in this way,
the research team sought to foster mutual understanding. This positionality of the interviewers thus
became recognized as relevant to the substance of the narratives of the participants.
Emerging Research Directions for Studies of

Discourse Practices in Science Education
In this fnal section of the chapter, we consider some emerging research directions for studies of
discourse practices in science education. The feld has developed and grown from a focus primarily
on teacher discourse to multiple foci across diferent social settings for science learning. We propose
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fve ways that discourse studies in science education can expand to contribute to the knowledge
base informing science education. The increasing relevance of science and technology in modern
society and attacks on the rationality of science suggest that future directions examine discourses of
science and socioscientifc issues as they expand to new venues for learning and uses of science in
society. The fve directions we propose are: (1) uses of discourse studies to examine the increased
communicative demands of the goals of science education reform; (2) application of discourse studies
to disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity in science, engineering, and technology
education; (3) recognition of multilingualism and the importance of drawing on students’ cultural
and identities assets for science learning; (4) reconsideration of scientifc literacy and citizenship in
the new social media universe; and (5) understanding science discourse as (mis)educative in multiple
(unsanctioned) settings.
The history of ideas in science education documents a continual push away from the goal of learn-
ing current factual knowledge to an integration of knowledge with discovery, investigative processes,
inquiry, and science set in social issues (DeBoer, 1991). Current reforms continue this trend with
calls for ways to engage students in the epistemic practices of science and to understand the aims and
values of science (Park et al., 2020). These reforms acknowledge the important ways that learning
conceptual understanding and the bases for such understanding are connected through ways that
disciplines construct and legitimize theoretical knowledge (Grob et al., 2017; NRC, 2013; OECD,
2016). While these ways of knowing may be framed as disciplinary practices or competencies, a
common feature is the increased communicative demands on students. Engaging in the formulation,
communication, assessment, and critique of knowledge claims requires that students draw from and
employ a range of semantic and syntactic features unique to science. This engagement requires that
students’ current communicative competence be used as a resource to develop new repertoires for
sensemaking, speaking, and writing science. The study of the discourse processes of learning these
sociolinguistic features of disciplinary practices and competencies may shed light on ways of creating
learning environments supporting students. There are four ways that discourse studies are crucial for
understanding the communicative demands of engagement. First, engagement in disciplinary practices
relevant to knowledge claims entails a shift of the epistemic subject from that of the lone observer to
a collective with common vocabulary (ontology) and ways of being, doing, and speaking. Under-
standing the ways that epistemic cultures construct, communicate, assess, and legitimate knowledge
requires careful consideration of the discourse practices of the relevant community (Kelly, 2016).
Second, disciplinary practices and competencies are framed, taken up, and transformed through dis-
course. The feld needs to examine ways that such practices are manifest in the everyday workings
of science education across settings. Third, sense-making occurs through language use. Developing
deep understanding of science requires that students understand and employ discourse practices and
features of science in socially appropriate ways. Meaning making in science and engineering set-
tings occurs through multimodal communication and requires careful sociolinguistic analysis (Martin
et al., 2020; Wilmes & Siry, 2021). Fourth, student identities are constructed through discourse pro-
cesses. As science reforms move to a greater use of inquiry and a focus on practices and competencies,
there is a need for research to examine how students’ identity work is constructed through discourse
processes and how the discourses of school and science intersect with other dimensions of students’
lives (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religion) (Avraamidou, 2020b; Brown et al., 2017).
A recent trend in science education has been a move to STEM – science, technology, engineer-
ing, and mathematics (Erduran, 2020). Although there are various interpretations of STEM, some
including arts (STEAM), common understandings for what this means for teaching, learning, cur-
riculum, and assessment are vague. Disciplinary distinctions have been identifed across sciences
(e.g., Ault, 1998; Erduran, 2001; Rudolph & Stewart, 1998), and the importance of such distinc-
tions for learning have been documented (Reynante et al., 2020). However, choices about how to
divide up bodies of knowledge related to the natural and social world can be dubious. Furthermore,
436
the emergence of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science and technology have made some
distinctions appear anachronistic. Discourse studies have value for research in STEM education as
the unique features of inquiry in any given area develop common ways of conducting work with
common languages for communication. Discourse analysis can provide insight into ways that disci-
plinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary knowledge is articulated, used, and transformed through
use in epistemic cultures. As views of science broaden to include engineering and technology, as
well as citizen science, discourse studies need to probe how communities define what counts as sci-
ence and how such local definitions of science may connect to alternative interpretations of natural
phenomena. Such studies in educational contexts may examine ways that local interpretations of
disciplinary knowledge(s) are constructed – for example, ways that positioning and power play out
in engineering design challenges (Wieselmann et al., 2021). As the language of science, or STEM,
or STEAM, expands, questions about the ideology and politics of science in society pose challenges
for researchers. Currently, frameworks for understanding the epistemological assumptions of STEM
for education are developing (Ortiz-Revilla et al., 2020). Discourse studies can contribute through
textual and interactional analysis of how science, engineering, technology, and mathematics, and
STEM are evoked, employed, interpreted, and legitimized in educational contexts.
Discourse studies in science education are increasingly aligning with the worldwide norm of
multilingualism. Students come to school with home languages and linguistic resources, which are
beginning to be recognized as new opportunities for advancing pedagogy in science education con-
texts (Salloum & BouJaoude, 2020; Ünsal, Jakobson et al., 2018b). These linguistic resources have
not typically been employed to serve learning goals, particularly when the language of instruction is
different than that of the students’ home culture. Linguistic features of scientific discourse pose chal-
lenges for all learners and often alienate students whose experience and language use vary from the
dominant discourses of instruction. Studies of discourse in science settings identify ways that teachers
and students draw on linguistic assets of multilingualism to learn science. For example, a number of
studies of translanguaging show how, through a focus on sensemaking and communication across dif-
ferent languages, students can access science and develop understandings of the knowledge and prac-
tices sought (Charamba, 2020; Licona, 2019; Salloum & BouJaoude, 2020). Mavuru and Ramnarain
(2020) found that South African teachers were able to draw on learners’ home languages to facilitate
conceptual understanding. The study considered both affordances and constraints of codes witching
to support science learning and noted the value of teachers understanding and drawing from the
cultural experiences of the students. Discourse studies can contribute to understanding of the value
of translanguaging through analysis of the ways that meaning and engagement occur through verbal
and nonverbal communication and across modalities of communication (Siry & Gorges, 2020). Fur-
thermore, the practical work with materials in science, technology, and engineering provide avenues
for students to express and understand meaning across modes of communication. This opens up new
potential pedagogies that require careful analysis.
The expansion of venues for information, whether accurate or not, poses new challenges for
research in science education. Social media sources, including non-refereed platforms, such as Face-
book, have become sources for knowledge claims (Höttecke & Allchin, 2020). Although this growth
in information and the potential democratization of knowledge has the benefit of opening up for
new voices for views about science in society, not all such information is accurate, and the potential
for disinformation poses real risks (Treen et al., 2020; Xu et al., 2020). The world faces new and
complex socioscientific and sociotechnical issues – pandemics, climate change, editing of genomes –
with an increasing array of forums for information and opinion about science and technology in
society. These challenges question not only science but also what counts as evidence and rational
argument. For example, science bloggers make choices about how they choose, frame, and highlight
features of science for their rhetorical purposes (Luzón, 2013). Discourse studies in science education
need to examine both ways of preparing citizens through schooling as well as ways of developing
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Kelly et al.
critical thinking among adults across venues for (mis)information. Discourse is central to scientifc lit-
eracy. Because such literacy entails an expansion to multiple, complex, and ever-changing sources of
information, the study of discourse in society around science and technology is increasingly impor-
tant. Science education needs to address how students and citizens come to understand discourses of
science, in the various genres and venues, and ways that science communication can be informed by
evidence, credibility, expertise, and trust (Höttecke & Allchin, 2020). The rationality of science has
a role to play in the post-truth era, and much of the work of reasoning occurs through the discourse
processes entailed in dialogue, debate, and inquiry (Duschl, 2020).
Related to the expansion of venues for (mis)information are the varied contexts in which science
learning can occur. Discourse studies have generally occurred in educational settings, even as they
have expanded into out-of-school and other less formal schooling contexts. The feld of discourse
studies has had a school focus with more recent works emerging from studies in museums, science
centers, and other organized educational locations and events. Yet, science learning occurs in the
wild – in unsupervised, unintended, and naturally occurring events. Vedder-Weiss (2017) refers to this
as serendipitous science engagement (SSE), occurring most readily in an undesigned environment and
driven by the learner’s initiative. While the self-ethnography of Vedder-Weiss identifed multiple ways
that three children and a mother made sense of the insects in their backyard and came to engage with
science, this may not always be the case. Beyond the forums of social media, the actual learning of
science or, increasingly, anti-science occurs in social confgurations outside the purview of educators.
Access to information and such potential learning has increased and co-occurred with an increase in
the potential to study science in the wild. New recording devices, cloud computing and storage, and
ubiquitous wireless connections ofer the potential to engage in discourse studies as learning occurs
outside of organized learning events (Land et al., 2020). Such research has numerous challenges,
including identifying how and where science manifests in every life and how reliable records can be
collected to analyze ways that science is evoked in the wild. To address global citizenship discourse,
analytic research needs to address the sources and uses of science at locations where it occurs.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank our critical friends, Christine Cunningham and Ashwin Mohan, for com-
ments on an earlier version of this chapter, and the chapter reviewers, Danusa Munford and Kok-
Sing Tang, for their suggestions for improving the chapter. We gratefully acknowledge the mother
of the young child for providing the sketch shown in Figure 14.1 and authorizing its use.
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15
SYNERGIES BETWEEN
LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES
AND LEARNING SCIENCES
Promoting Equitable Secondary School Teaching
The research reported in this chapter was partially funded by National Science Foundation grants
(Projects & No: Using Natural Language Processing to Inform Science Instruction, 2101669;
Supporting Teachers in Responsive Instruction for Developing Expertise in Science, 1813713;
Graphing Research on Inquiry with Data in Science, 1418423; Project Learning with Automated,
Networked Supports, 1451604; Continuous Learning and Automated Scoring in Science, 1119670).
This research was partially funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (Anti-Racism
Interactive Science Education #2020–2269; Personalizing Open Web-based Educational Resources,
2018–8067). Any opinions, fndings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material
are those of the authors and do not necessarily refect the views of the National Science Foundation
or of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Introduction
Advances in technology tools and learning sciences research are increasing equitable science out-
comes by enabling students to take control of their own investigations and study issues aligned
with their personal and cultural interests. Design teams are using advances in technology to design
automated guidance that amplifes the ability of teachers to provide personalized guidance. Further,
advances in learning analytics and natural-language processing (NLP) are beginning to scafold
learners and support teachers to guide their students in real time. We report on a confuence of
technological advances, including powerful visualizations, collaborative tools, and automated guid-
ance, that, when combined in learning environments, support students to become self-directed
learners.
Emerging authorable and customizable environments (ACEs) have the potential to enable teach-
ers to design and customize their instruction using evidence from their students’ work. ACEs can
support dashboards that use learning analytics to synthesize student progress in ways that teachers
can use both immediately and when planning future instruction. Further, as students beneft from
opportunities to direct their own learning, they gain insights that reinforce their identity as science
learners.
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-19 447

Equitable Instruction That Welcomes Each Student

This chapter documents how technological advances have helped broaden the goals for science
education beyond preparing students for careers in science or promoting science appreciation
(Dewey, 1904; Girod et al., 2003). Instead, these technologies support reconceptualizing science
courses to welcome each student, independent of race, culture, sexual orientation, or economic
status. The pipeline metaphor that focused primarily on whether students persisted in science
has been eclipsed by a focus on empowering students to investigate science dilemmas they face
throughout their lives (Cannady et al., 2014; Wu & Uttal, 2020). These dilemmas often reveal
scientifc insights as well as social injustices that result from science advances (Jasanof, 2014; Lee,
White et al., 2021). They motivate students to take action to reverse policies that cause harm
(e.g., Morales-Doyle et al., 2019; Vakil, 2018). For example, students might identify social jus-
tice issues around COVID-19 exposure and treatment or analyze tradeofs between selecting an
electric or a gasoline-powered car. Further, exploring science topics relevant to their lives may
change students’ beliefs about the value of studying science while also building student identity
as a science learner (Morales-Doyle, 2017; Nasir et al., 2014; Penuel et al., 2022; Pinkard et al.,
2020; Vakil, 2018).
Increased access to technological innovations that personalize learning for each student and
amplify teachers’ ability to guide each student are a key factor in making science instruction more
equitable. Since the last handbook, the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred schools to distribute com-
puters and increase internet access, yet access disparities continue to exist, especially for low-income
families (Pew, 2021). During the pandemic, 93% of US families reported that their children received
some remote schooling, and 62% said it had gone somewhat or very well. Growing numbers believe
that schools should provide computers to K–12 students. By 2021, to remedy disparities, 87% of US
adults reported that schools should provide computers, especially to families who cannot aford them
(Pew, 2021).
Combining Technology and Pedagogy

Recent research has shown the value of combining pedagogical frameworks with learning tech-
nologies to promote integrated understanding for each student. Spurred by evidence that students
come to learning situations with many ideas developed from their own experience, resulting in what
has been called “knowledge in pieces” (diSessa, 2018; NRC, 2007), pedagogical frameworks have
evolved to build on the ideas that students craft. Studies of the ICAP framework have shown that
interactive engagement, demonstrated by co-generative collaborative behaviors, is superior to con-
structive engagement, characterized by generative behaviors such as self-explanation, as well as active
or passive learning (Chi et al., 2018). The knowledge, learning, and instruction (KLI) framework
that underlies many cognitive tutors highlights the value of designing responses for each student idea
(Koedinger et al., 2012). The storylines instructional framework emphasized the collaboration of
materials developers, educational researchers, classroom educators, and educational leaders to align
materials with disciplinary standards (Edelson et al., 2021; Penuel et al., 2022).
Knowledge Integration (KI) Pedagogy

The knowledge integration (KI) pedagogical framework, featured in the last handbook, conceptual-
izes science instruction as building on the variety of ideas that students bring to science class, capital-
izing on the strategies that the students used to formulate those ideas, and scafolding them to gather
evidence to distinguish among the ideas (Krajcik & Mun, 2014; Linn, 1998; Linn & Eylon, 2011;
Linn et al., 2016). The KI framework specifes processes for achieving equitable and self-directed
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Synergies Between Learning Technologies and Learning Sciences
learning by tracking the specifc ideas that students develop and guiding them to grapple with these
and other ideas suggested by their peers, teachers, personal investigations, or classroom experiences.
Unsurprisingly, students often reject ideas presented in lectures (like metals are good conductors),
reverting to ideas that resonate with their own experience, such as arguing that metals at room
temperature feel cold so they could cool things down (Linn & Eylon, 2011). By leveraging learn-
ing technologies to detect specifc student ideas and using customizable learning environments to
scafold learning, researchers have investigated ways to engage each student in taking responsibil-
ity for integrating their ideas (e.g., Wiley et al., in press). A set of KI principles have emerged to
guide designers of collaborative tools (Matuk & Linn, 2018), models (Vitale et al., 2016; Williams
et al., 2012), computational thinking (Bradford et al., 2022; McBride et al., 2018), and professional
development (Bichler et al., 2021; Wiley et al., in press). Specifcally, four learning processes focus
designers on ways to combine activities to promote KI, scafold students to integrate their ideas, and
help teachers give guidance that leads to KI:
Elicit Ideas
By ensuring that students are grappling with all their insights rather than mainly considering the
ideas they encounter in class, instruction guards against students reverting to their existing ideas after
science class ends.
Discover New Ideas

By engaging students in discovering new ideas using models, simulations, experiments, or other
investigations, instruction encourages self-directed learning.
Distinguish Among Ideas

When students distinguish between the ideas in their repertoire, they develop arguments to support
one idea over another, leading to more coherent understanding.
Refect on Learning
When students refect on their progress in understanding a complex scientifc phenomenon, they
monitor their own learning strategies, and recognize their progress in becoming a science learner.
Chapter Overview
In this chapter we review trends for secondary school science, reported in peer-reviewed articles,
over the last ten years, building on the previous review (Krajcik & Mun, 2014). Drawing on the
KI pedagogy, we discuss how advances in technology support students to become self-directed learn-
ers who refne their ideas, seek new evidence to resolve discrepancies, and build integrated, generative
understanding. Each student comes to science classes with a plethora of ideas from everyday experi-
ence, interactions with peers and families, previous science classes, and natural curiosity. Efective
instruction builds on these ideas.
We describe synergies between advances in learning science research and learning technologies
that lead to equitable instruction and promote self-directed learning from two perspectives. In the
frst section of the chapter, we discuss how advances in learning technologies are strengthening cur-
riculum materials. We discuss how advances are: (1) making scientifc phenomena visible by promoting
discovery of new evidence and insights using models, simulations, and computation; (2) supporting
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learning from others with repositories and collaborative tools; and (3) guiding students to distinguish
among their ideas and refect using natural-language processing (NLP) of written work and automated
assessments of student work on concept maps, models, graphs, and other activities. In the second
section of the chapter, we discuss how advances are empowering teachers to personalize instruction using
web-based supports by (1) supporting teachers to customize instruction for each student and (2)
designing dashboards that provide teachers with information they can use both in the moment and
when preparing to teach the unit again. We integrate these two perspectives in the conclusions and
implications section. These trends reveal how a combination of technology and pedagogy empowers
each student to develop integrated understanding, thereby increasing equitable outcomes. We close
with open questions and opportunities.
Strengthening Science Teaching

We capture progress in strengthening science instruction over the past ten years by discussing the
emergence of ACEs and by synthesizing advances in instructional designs that enhance science
teaching. Informed by the KI pedagogy, we discuss advances that help students discover ideas, learn
from others, and beneft from automated guidance. We illustrate how these advances make science
instruction more equitable by supporting students to direct their own learning and enabling them to
build identity as a science learner.
Developing Authoring and Customizing Environments (ACEs)

Learning technologies for science have broadened from stand-alone tools to authoring and customiz-
ing environments (ACEs), powerful instructional delivery systems that empower designers (including
research practice partnerships and classroom teachers) to create and customize instruction. Typically
aligned with a pedagogical framework such as KI, ACEs include the functions of a learning man-
agement system (LMS) to register students, record student work, assign scores, and compile grades
alongside pedagogically inspired scafolding. Blended and online science platforms such as edCrum-
́
ble (Albó & Hernandez-Leo, 2018), Go-Lab Software, Inq-IT (de Jong et al., 2021), nQuire-it
(Aristeidou & Herodotou, 2020), and Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE: Donnelly-
Hermosillo et al., 2020; Linn & Eylon, 2011), have features of ACEs.
ACEs make it easy to create inquiry activities that combine open educational resources (OERs)
and align them with pedagogical frameworks (Dimitriadis et al., 2021; Moore et al., 2014). OERs
developed by many groups, including ChemCollective, Concord Consortium, Physics Exploration
Technologies (PHeT), Physlets, Olabs, and others (de Jong et al., 2021; Donnelly et al., 2014),
include simulations, models, virtual labs, extended reality, and videos. For example, Concord Con-
sortium provides a searchable list of resources organized by content area and suggested grade levels
that take advantage of probeware/sensors, visualizations, and guidance (Bondaryk et al., 2021; Zhu
et al., 2020).
The learning sciences have informed designs of ACEs with insights on the evolving interactions
between interdisciplinary communities, technology artifacts, the conceptualization of technology
use in the classroom, and pedagogical frameworks (Pea & Linn, 2020). For example, the WISE
ACE is aligned with the KI pedagogy and managed by a design team composed of computer scien-
tists, human–computer interaction experts, learning scientists, classroom teachers, and educational
technologists. The team hosts a community, including other designers who add new functionality,
teachers who access and customize the materials, and researchers who test and refne the innova-
tions. Many ACEs are available on GitHub (https://github.com/) or a similar platform. Some states
and districts have recognized the use of ACEs and OER as science curriculum options (DeBarger &
Casserly, 2021).
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Discovering Relevant Scientifc Insights

Discovering scientific ideas is central to the KI instructional framework and essential for self-
directed learning. When students discover relevant scientific insights by choosing the vari-
ables they want to investigate, gathering the evidence they think is important, and resolving
conundrums when their results contradict their predictions, they develop self-directed learning
capacities (Chiu & Linn, 2012; Lee, Gweon et al., 2021). Technology advances have increased
support for discovery of ideas by (1) making scientific phenomena visible with models and
embedding the scientific models in ACEs (McElhaney et al., 2015) and (2) making relevant
scientific phenomena accessible to students by enabling investigations of connections between
environmental and social issues and engaging students in design of digital and physical artifacts
both in and out of school (Kafai et al., 2014; Morales-Doyle & Gutstein, 2019; Pinkard et al.,
2020). For example, students can design tests for their own novel ideas by using computational
thinking to adapt scientific models and investigate personally relevant variables (Biswas et al.,
2016; Emara et al., 2021). Iteratively refining these opportunities using learning science meth-
ods, such as design research (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016; Design-Based Research Collective,
2003) and social design experiments (Gutiérrez & Jurow, 2016), helps each student become a
self-directed learner.
Making Scientifc Phenomena Visible

Many scientifc phenomena are challenging for learners to visualize due to aspects of size, scale,
rate of change, etc. (McElhaney et al., 2015). Starting in the 1980s learning technologies supported
students to discover new ideas by making phenomena visible with interactive activities involving
models, simulations, and probeware (McElhaney et al., 2015). For example, probeware has helped
by displaying changes in real time for topics such as kinematics (motion of a runner), thermody-
namics (heat transfers in kitchen examples), and acid-base chemistry (food and drink products), as
documented in a sustained research program (Mokros & Tinker, 1987; Shen et al., 2014; Zucker
et al., 2008). With more computing power, visualization tools have been combined with graph rep-
resentations to support variable manipulation for topics such as states of matter (ice melting), genet-
ics (gene mutations), electricity (electric circuits for light bulbs), and mitosis (Donnelly-Hermosillo
et al., 2020; Matuk et al., 2019a; Rutten et al., 2012).
Researchers have increased the impact of models by embedding them in ACEs that scafold learn-
ing (e.g., Matuk et al., 2019b; Quintana et al., 2004). Recent technological advances show how
scafolds can help students recognize salient features of a visualization and provide individualized
guidance that increases equitable outcomes (Fischer et al., 2020; Gerard, Ryoo et al., 2015; Linn &
Eylon, 2011). Creative design of data visualizations can support the construction of explanations by
representing large amounts of data in unique ways, revealing hidden information in simulation pro-
cesses, and in some cases, only displaying the information necessary for the purpose of an explanation
(Jebeile, 2018). For example, representing buoyancy using a mass-by-volume grid helped students
understand density (Vitale et al., 2019; see Figure 15.1).
Taking Advantage of Embedded Assessments to Increase Equity

Embedded assessments in ACEs can broaden the image of what counts as success and promote
identity as a science learner (de Royston et al., 2020). For example, indicators such as the number of
experiments conducted, the breadth of ideas considered, and the comparison of alternatives capture
aspects of self-directed learning. Broadening the indicators of progress also increases opportuni-
ties for scafolding student interactions (De Jong, 2019; Gerard & Linn, 2016; Gerard et al., 2019;
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Sink or Float?
100
80
60
Mass (g)
40
20
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Volume (ml)
Sink Float Divider
Figure 15.1 Technological representation of buoyancy that captures results of experiments students conduct.
McBride et al., 2018; Ryoo & Linn, 2014; Vitale et al., 2019; Vitale et al., 2016). For example,
studies clarify how best to design hints to increase the number of consequential experiments that
students perform (Vitale et al., 2019) and how to promote agency by supporting students to choose
and study topics of interest to them (Chen & Yang, 2019; Chen, Bradford et al., 2020). Studies
illustrate ways to support students in self-directed investigations, such as learning by teaching (e.g.,
Zacharia et al., 2015; Kolodner et al., 2003). For example, one study explored the impact of meta-
cognitive guidance on socioscientifc decision-making. Using an ACE called Reservoirs in Taiwan,
the investigators studied the impact of embedded metacognitive guidance on 11th-grade Taiwanese
students’ decision-making (Hsu & Lin, 2017). All students learned about the functions of water
reservoirs and their potential impacts on the environment using a simulation of reservoir placement.
Students received either general or metacognitive prompts. The metacognitive prompts included
eliciting criteria, distinguishing alternatives, using decision-making strategies, and evaluating evi-
dence. The metacognitive prompts signifcantly increased the sophistication of decision-making
about socioscientifc issues.
Comparing Pedagogies
By embedding alternative designs in ACEs, researchers can compare pedagogies (e.g., Chi et al.,
2018). To investigate pedagogies for self-directed learning, one study compared KI to specifc scaf-
folds. KI scafolds encouraged students to distinguish ideas by analyzing features of their responses
and seeking more information from the visualization. Specifc scafolds directly communicated ideas
that were missing or misrepresented in student responses (Vitale et al., 2016). While specifc scafolds
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produced greater accuracy during instruction, KI scafolds produced stronger outcomes on a novel
essay at post-test. Closer analysis revealed an association between the time spent revisiting the visu-
alization and post-test scores on the summary essay for those students in the KI condition. These
fndings suggest that the KI guidance introduced a desirable difculty that motivated students to use
the visualization to sort out their alternative ideas (Bjork & Linn, 2006). This capability is valuable
for self-directed learning.
Emerging Visualization Technologies

Researchers are investigating emerging technologies, including embodied, virtual, and extended
reality tools, to make science phenomena visible in three dimensions (Lindgren et al., 2016; Luo
et al., 2021). Examples of topics supported by these technologies include nutrition (food chains),
adaptations (biodiversity), the water cycle (water quality; Boda & Brown, 2020), and motion (Zohar
et al., 2018). Rapid advances including low-cost virtual reality (VR) videos available on cell phones,
are opening new opportunities for students’ science learning.
For example, VR research is benefting from insights gained by studying modeling and simula-
tion technologies. These insights include building on prior student knowledge, allowing students
to test their own ideas, presenting and integrating information pictorially and verbally, focusing
attention on relevant information, and controlling the rate of information display (McElhaney
et al., 2015). For example, VR research suggests that stereoscopic visuals and wider felds of
visual displays are more valuable for student learning than improved visual quality or enhanced
auditory content (Cummings & Bailenson, 2016). Preliminary meta-analyses suggest promise and
reveal the need for additional design research. A preliminary meta-analysis identifed 115 efect
sizes from 83 studies and found medium efect sizes for the presence of technological immersion
(Cummings & Bailenson, 2016). A second review and meta-analysis explored the impact of VR
on student learning across K–12 and university settings from 2000 to 2019 (Luo et al., 2021). Of
the 149 articles identifed, only 22 provided necessary information for efect-size calculation (36
efect sizes across the 22 articles with 17 efect sizes from K–12 and 19 from university settings).
This meta-analysis shows a medium efect of VR instruction on student learning outcomes (g
= 0.723, SE = 0.181, CI = [0.367, 1.079], p < 0.001) with signifcant moderators for discipline
favoring science and engineering over language and health sciences; level of immersion favoring
less immersive VR; and level of scafolding favoring the teacher and the computer, rather than
either individually. Caution is recommended in interpreting the results since there are only 22
studies; issues such as physical discomfort, safety, and technical glitches marred several studies;
details such as duration and sample size were not consistently reported; and less immersive VR
was more impactful.
Making Scientifc Phenomena Accessible

Few science texts acknowledge the political nature of science and the power structures that shape
the experiences of science learners (Agarwal & Sengupta-Irving, 2019; Niaz & Maza, 2011; Philip &
Gupta, 2020). Research capturing how science applies to the lives of students often celebrates the
benefts, such as cures for disease or energy-saving inventions. Recently, science educators have
also called attention to the injustices resulting from scientifc advance and the perspectives that
are silenced (Emejulu & McGregor, 2019; Morales-Doyle, 2017; Philips & Azevedo, 2017). For
example, science texts often tout chemical companies as friendly to society even when they are the
biggest polluters (Morales-Doyle et al., 2019). Units on endangered species and climate have the
potential to showcase the infuence of powerful stakeholders yet rarely do (Plutzer et al., 2016; Vitale
et al., 2016). Factors such as redlining are crucial to understanding the distribution of pollution from
453
freeways or the locations of heat islands yet are rarely depicted in mainstream science curricula or
addressed in science standards (Owens & Sadler, 2020).
Empowering Students to Test New Ideas Using

Computational Thinking
Spurred by national attention to the importance of computational thinking (Grover & Pea, 2018;
NGSS Lead States, 2013; Wing, 2006) and the development of accessible programming languages
such as Scratch and Snap! researchers have designed instruction that empowers students to design
their own models and test novel ideas (e.g., Biswas et al., 2016; Emara et al., 2021; Weintrop &
Wilensky, 2019). To promote self-directed learning, researchers have designed activities that
enable students to investigate topics of personal interest. For example, students can investigate the
increased risk of asthma for those living close to freeways or dangers from chemical waste due to
industrial practices (e.g., Bradford et al., 2022; Gerard, Bradford et al., 2022; Morales-Doyle &
Gutstein, 2019).
Research programs have used Netlogo, a text-based OER programming language, to connect
systems and graphs for topics such as predator/prey cycles, acid–base relationships, or percolation
in soil. Results show that students gain understanding of the interactions between components in a
system, ability to critique aspects of a computational model, and ability to recognize the range of a
computational model’s application (Weintrop & Wilensky, 2019).
One study using Snap!, an OER block-based programming language designed to be accessible
for novice students, enabled high school students to display greater learning gains in a block-based
environment than when they used a text-based alternative (Irgens et al., 2020). However, these dif-
ferences were not maintained in a subsequent course when switching both treatments to using only
text-based Java. Additional investigations of conceptual learning, attitudinal shifts, and programming
practices are needed (Xu et al., 2019).
Incorporating computational thinking enables students to investigate socioscientific issues that
impact their communities, such as urban heat islands (Borunda, 2021; Gardner, 2021). Using Snap!
programming integrated into the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE), students were
empowered to investigate a crucial issue, especially with increasing temperature fluctuations (see
Figure 15.2). Students select variables and study their impact by using Snap! to control an urban
heat islands simulation. For example, they can add and adjust the percentage of reflective roofs in the
Figure 15.2 Computational thinking example: a Snap! activity where students program a model to test the
impact of reflective roofs on the temperature for a community.
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community. Average temperature for each day is shown in real time on a connected graph as they
compare their methods for mitigating the urban heat island (Bradford et al., 2022).
Designing Physical and Virtual Artifacts

Giving students agency to create digital and physical artifacts can make science accessible by expand-
ing the nature of scientifc discovery (Kafai et al., 2019) and allowing for student choice (Israel-
Fishelson & Hershkovitz, 2022; NGSS Lead States, 2013). Students are highly motivated to design
artifacts in maker spaces using robotics, e-textiles, multimedia, and crafting both in school and out
of school (Kafai et al., 2014; Pinkard et al., 2020). These programs empower students to become
self-directed learners while building computational literacy.
Out-of-school programs have been especially important for enriching the science instruction
ofered in under-resourced schools (Pinkard et al., 2020). For example, a design program for middle
school girls from nondominant communities, Digital Youth Divas, introduces computational think-
ing in schools lacking courses in computer science. Results show both pre/post increases in science
learning and increases in positive perceptions of computer science (Pinkard et al., 2020). The pro-
gram takes advantage of an OER, the Virtual Environment Interactions (VENVI) introductory pro-
gramming environment, which enables students to build on their interests, facilitates student sharing,
and emphasizes deepening science practice.
E-textiles engage high school students in using Lilypad Arduinos, LEDs, sensors, and switches
to create artifacts (Litts et al., 2017). In an elective class, students implemented four distinct light
patterns on a letter as part of a cloth sign showing the name of the school. Assessments of students’
knowledge of circuits showed gains consistent with other studies of e-textiles and also showed that
many students gained ability to read the code to control a circuit. Students developed a more robust
understanding of electrical circuits than a typical unit using batteries and bulbs, albeit as the result of
extended instruction time.
To design solar ovens and learn about thermodynamics, middle school student groups used
engineering design practices, such as meeting specifcations, budgeting, and iterative refnement
(McBride et al., 2018). This study showed that when students were guided to plan their designs prior
to constructing their ovens they considered multiple options. If, instead, they were guided to evaluate
their designs after construction, students primarily conducted confrmatory investigations rather than
testing alternatives. These fndings align with design principles in the KI framework calling for elicit-
ing student ideas prior to conducting investigations (Linn & Eylon, 2011). Students using this unit
gained insight into thermodynamics and engineering design beyond that gained in typical courses,
without adding instructional time.
These studies illustrate the power of engineering design to motivate students and increase the
accessibility of science. For example, when using e-textiles, students leveraged their science knowl-
edge to make informed design decisions, thus deepening their understanding of the science. Further,
for both e-textiles and solar oven design students worked in pairs to complete complex projects,
thereby appreciating the social nature of scientifc work. Finally, both e-textiles and solar ovens reveal
the importance of carefully planning instruction to ensure that students have the resources and guid-
ance to complete their projects.
A systematic review of empirical research on technology-rich maker activities reported that 15%
of 60 studies from 2007 to 2020 provided psychometric evidence for the reliability and validity of
assessments, and that few studies include analytic rubrics to assess student improvement (Lin et al.,
2020). These 60 studies predominantly investigate tools such as Arduino, Makey Makey, and Scratch.
They measure a range of outcomes across cognition, afect, and motivation. For the cognition cat-
egory, assessments include STEM content knowledge (28/60 studies), computational thinking and
programming knowledge (20/60 studies), and skills and competencies (15/60 studies).
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Incorporating engineering and artifact design into science can make science accessible to a wide
range of students. These activities expand options for students by integrating data science and multi-
disciplinary learning into K–12 science classrooms (Lee & Campbell, 2020).
Simulated Versus Physical Laboratories

For many schools, virtual laboratories can make science investigations accessible to a wider range of
students. The success of ACEs that empower students to discover scientifc ideas has motivated inves-
tigators to analyze the relative afordances of virtual versus physical laboratories (De Jong et al., 2013;
Klahr et al., 2006; Zacharia et al., 2015). For example, researchers have incorporated PhET interac-
tive simulations into ACEs to support students in making predictions, understanding relationships
between variables, and interpreting science phenomena. The PhET simulations span multiple sci-
ence content areas and are primarily implemented in HTML5 so that they work across laptops,
tablets, and cell phone devices.
Although physical laboratories provide needed opportunities to manipulate apparatus, students
often beneft from virtual laboratories with visualizations that capture unseen interactions among
the materials (Hegarty et al., 2016; Puntambekar et al., 2021). Virtual laboratories fast track students
to data interpretation and analysis by reducing the tedium of experimentation (Puntambekar et al.,
2021). When implemented using guidance in an ACE, virtual laboratories support students to make
connections between macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic aspects of a phenomenon, potentially
reducing the cognitive load associated with manipulating equipment. Further, aligning virtual labo-
ratories with constructivist pedagogies can strengthen impacts of laboratory instruction. Implement-
ing virtual laboratories with individualized scafolds in open-source ACEs can provide free, tested
science curriculum materials that enable each student to get started with self-directed learning (e.g.,
Gerard, Bradford et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2022).
Summary of Efforts to Promote Discovery

Research programs have identifed ways to capitalize on technology to enable students to test their
own ideas by embedding powerful models in ACEs, incorporating programming languages to sup-
port students to build their own models, and empowering students to design physical or virtual
artifacts, such as multimedia, e-textiles, and robots. Studies are taking advantage of OERs, including
Concord Consortium, edCrumble, GoLab, PhET, and WISE, to support visualization of scientifc
ideas (Zacharia et al., 2015). During the COVID-19 pandemic, with physical spaces unavailable,
ACEs featuring visualizations supported students to engage in many scientifc practices, including
developing and using models, using mathematics and computational thinking, and analyzing and
interpreting data (Gerard, Wiley et al., 2022; Wu et al., 2021).
Emerging technologies such as virtual and extended reality and embodied design are under inves-
tigation. One next step is to develop valid and reliable indicators of student progress to establish the
impacts of these technologies for student learning. A key research question concerns how to design
automated scafolds that empower students to become self-directed learners who guide their own
knowledge integration. In the next section, we address the ways that collaborative tools are con-
tributing to equitable and efective science education. After that we discuss progress in designing
personalized, automated guidance that helps each student succeed.
Learning From Others

Collaboration is a mainstay of scientifc advance and a mechanism for learning from others empha-
sized in the KI pedagogy. Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) researchers have
456
explored ways to use collaborative activities to help students learn science, develop an identity as a
science learner, and support teams to jointly solve compelling scientifc dilemmas. Advances in col-
laborative technologies, including automated dialogue tools (e.g., Coomey & Stephenson, 2018) and
NLP analysis of conversations, have increased our understanding of peer-to-peer interactions and
facilitated the opportunities for students to learn from each other.
Like other eforts to appropriate scientifc practices for education, the design of CSCL oppor-
tunities impacts outcomes (Zheng et al., 2020). Technologies designed for collaboration include
shared knowledge repositories – digital spaces where students may contribute information for others
to access and refne (Matuk et al., 2019a; Norris & Soloway, 2017; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014);
peer critique activities, including consultancies on experiments and virtual “pinups” for engineer-
ing designs (Chi et al., 2018; Misiejuk & Wasson, 2021; Raviv et al., 2019); and collaborative project
environments where students jointly investigate scientifc dilemmas as citizen scientists (National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018), makers of artifacts (Kafai et al., 2014),
engineering designers (McBride et al., 2018; Pinkard et al., 2020), and players of certain games
(Bufum et al., 2016). Logging online collaborative activities afords complex analysis of pat-
terns of interaction, quality of contributions, and roles of specifc scafolds. Recent research has
begun to characterize the mechanisms and designs that make collaborative learning efective and
equitable.
A major issue in making both scientifc and classroom collaboration equitable concerns power
structures, where stereotyped beliefs about expertise can silence some participants (Philip & Gupta,
2020). Collaborative opportunities can feature science contexts that draw on students’ lived experi-
ences and honor their cultural epistemologies (Calabrese-Barton & Tan, 2019; Linn & Hsi, 2000;
Visintainer, 2020; Warren et al., 2020). When students collaborate in citizen science projects or
maker spaces by contributing their own valued ideas or by exploring solutions to problems that
impact their lives, they may develop identity as a science learner.
Pedagogical frameworks ofer conficting insights concerning the mechanisms governing CSCL.
The KLI framework argues there is insufcient evidence to support the value of collaboration for
learning (Koedinger et al., 2012). However, ICAP research suggests that students can deepen their
understanding by watching how other students collaborate to address a disciplinary dilemma (Chi
et al., 2018). Research on KI shows how collaborative scafolds can support students to discover new
ideas, distinguish among their own ideas and those of others, and develop collaboration skills (Linn &
Hsi, 2000; Matuk et al., 2019a). The limitations and strengths of collaborative learning are refected
in a meta-analysis of studies of CSCL between 2000 and 2016 (Chen et al., 2018). Analysis of 425
empirical studies revealed positive efect sizes for knowledge gains (0.45), skill acquisition (0.53),
student perceptions (0.51), group task performance (0.89), and social interactions (0.57). Yet studies
were often fawed by lack of: (1) control for prior knowledge between treatment and control group,
(2) tasks that require students to work together rather than complete work independently, (3) sample
sizes beyond 30 students, (4) study durations beyond two hours, and (5) outcomes beyond counting
of messages posted in forums. As these perspectives illustrate, along with promise, there are many
unanswered questions about collaborative learning.
Knowledge Repositories
Recently researchers have advanced understanding of designs for repositories where learners refne
their own ideas while building a common understanding (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014) and distin-
guish among the ideas they encounter (Matuk et al., 2019a). Research on the design of repositories
has increased understanding of how to guide learning from others, including ways to help students
become more intentional about their interactions with others. Students can become better at appre-
ciating the value of collaboration by using and contributing to a repository.
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Even young students are capable of selecting promising, high-quality ideas from among those
of their peers when supported to make good choices and to use those choices to strengthen their
own ideas (Chen, Bradford et al., 2020). Encouraging participants to contribute to a repository
rather than lurk in the background is impacted by factors such as the quality of peer contributions,
trust in known peers, social pressures to reciprocate, and the desire to present oneself in a positive
light (e.g., Guan et al., 2018). Building awareness of how ideas of others’ impact their own ideas,
a key component of metacognition, strengthens the value of interacting with a repository (Järvelä
et al., 2021).
Repository designers have investigated ways to reward students for adding valuable ideas and to
direct users to promising ideas. Some knowledge repositories use rating systems, often determined
by experts, to accord status to entries and individual contributions (Kelly et al., 2002). Others have
explored crowdsourcing for fltering out high- from low-quality ideas (Riedl et al., 2013). Some
studies imply that nonexperts rank new product and service ideas comparably to experts, ofering an
afordable alternative to experts (Magnusson et al., 2016). Others assess student ideas based on their
impact on users, fnding that the accuracy of an idea is often only part of its value for knowledge
building or knowledge integration (Chi et al., 2018; Matuk & Linn, 2018).
Evaluating the impact of repositories includes measuring shared understanding or knowledge con-
vergence between users of collaborative learning environments (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014; Wein-
berger et al., 2007). Convergence is controversial, as illustrated by public opinion polls that difer
from expert fndings and by examples of groupthink (Janis, 1992). When convergence occurs early
on in a group’s progress it may predict group performance but does not necessarily foretell individual
success (Kapur, 2016). Encountering convergent ideas may help individuals inspect their ideas more
fully, motivating them to confrm, refne, and reinforce their existing views (Paulus et al., 2019).
Alternatively, divergence is essential for exchange of views and for supporting students to negotiate
among alternative ideas (Halatchliyski et al., 2011). Ultimately, both exploring alternative convergent
ideas and distinguishing among divergent ideas has potential to engage students in deepening their
exploration of their thinking.
A series of studies have explored ways to scafold interactions with repositories to promote equi-
table opportunities and develop self-directed learners (Donnelly et al., 2016; Matuk & Linn, 2018;
Matuk et al., 2019a, 2019b; Matuk et al., 2016; Tate et al., 2020). Using the Idea Manager within
the WISE platform (wise.berkeley.edu; Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license),
these studies are exploring ways to scafold collaborative knowledge integration while valuing each
student’s ideas. The Idea Manager is a repository to support students to gradually develop more
extended scientifc explanations (see Figure 15.3). Students analyze powerful visualizations and add
ideas of 1–3 sentences to their Idea Basket throughout a two-week science unit. Secondary school
students are challenged to add sophisticated explanations of their scientifc ideas and concepts often
because they have limited experience with such writing activities.
The Idea Manager guides students to express their ideas and compare them to the ideas of others.
Experiments have explored various ways to structure these interactions. For example, studies show
the beneft of using prompts alongside teacher guidance to help students distinguish among ideas
were more valuable than those designed to promote adding ideas (Donnelly et al., 2016). Students
develop insights or refne their explanations as they review the ideas their classmates share. Another
series of studies have investigated the role of the actual and perceived impact of selecting and using
divergent and convergent ideas from a repository (Matuk & Linn, 2015, 2018). Although the power
of the study limited the ability to detect the actual impact of selecting convergent or divergent ideas,
there was a signifcant diference in the perceived value of the ideas. Students reported a larger impact
of divergent than convergent ideas on their thinking. This is compatible with students using diver-
gent ideas to distinguish among alternative ideas.
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Figure 15.3 Idea Manager within WISE Mitosis.

Note: The fgure illustrates the introduction to a biologist researching cancer treatments, and her friend who has
contracted cancer. Students explore mitosis in a normal cell, and one treated by a cancer medicine. They test
three cancer medicines. Students add evidence to an Idea Manager, sort their evidence to distinguish benefts
among the medicines, and link ideas in an explanation recommending one of the plants as a cancer treatment.
Peer Critique
Scientifc advance depends, in part, on peer critique. CSCL researchers have explored the value of
peer critique for classroom learning, arguing that when students review peers’ ideas they have the
opportunity to distinguish their own ideas from those of others, often reconsidering their ideas in the
process (Raviv et al., 2019; Sato & Linn, 2014). This has proven efective when students observe a
video of a peer critique dialogue (Chi et al., 2018). A meta-analysis of 58 studies showed a moderate
efect (g = 0.29) for students who participate in peer critique, compared to those who do not; it also
found that computer-mediated peer review is associated with greater learner benefts than paper-based
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approaches (Li et al., 2020). Another meta-analysis of 54 studies found a moderate efect of peer cri-
tique (g = 0.31, p = 0.004), although it was not signifcantly diferent from self-assessment (g = 0.23,
p = 0.209) (Double et al., 2020). A series of studies found that peer review can beneft both the
reviewer and the person receiving the reviews (Chi et al., 2018; Sato & Linn, 2014). The meta-
analysis and individual studies make clear that equitable reviews depend on reviewers having criteria
for evaluating their peers (Cohen, 1994; Sato & Linn, 2014). When developing their own criteria, peer
reviewers often primarily give positive feedback, focus on details such as grammar or spelling rather
than reasoning, and when they are critical, tell the learner the right answer rather than explaining the
steps necessary to solve the problem. In addition, ofering constructive guidance requires understand-
ing of the discipline, critical reasoning skills, as well as insights into how people learn (Bransford et al.,
1999; Harrison et al., 2018). Even experienced teachers report that fnding ways to give guidance that
advances the learning of each student is challenging and time consuming (Gerard, Ryoo et al., 2015).
Studies also show that students can detect inaccurate peer critiques and that power relationships in class-
rooms can inhibit the success of peer critique (Ogan et al., 2015; Bang & Vossoughi, 2016).
Collaborative Projects
Many of the problems in science require the collaboration of multiple individuals from varied disci-
plines. Introducing this capability starting in kindergarten has benefts and is particularly well illus-
trated in Japanese elementary schools (Lewis & Perry, 2017; Linn et al., 2000). Recently citizen
science projects, robotics activities, and some gaming environments have expanded the opportunities
for collaboration and learning (Kajamaa et al., 2020). Research programs are grappling with ways to
optimize collaboration, how best to use technology, and how to evaluate impacts.
Citizen science projects, such as recording bird migration, documenting light pollution, tracking
diesel pollution, or helping identify protein structures (FoldIt), engage volunteers in collaborative
science investigations about climate, health, and other topics (Kullenberg & Kasperowski, 2016;
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018). The SciStarter website (https://
scistarter.org/), as an example, has 1,600 searchable citizen science projects, a community of 50,000+
citizen scientists, and a participant dashboard that documents their contributions while also sup-
porting them to fnd people and projects of interest (Hofman et al., 2017). The data collected can
be incorporated into science instruction and localized to the community of learners. Ensuring that
students learn from these activities, rather than only contribute to the database, remains a challenge
(Trouille et al., 2019).
The West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project uses locally gathered data to respond to
West Oakland residents who identifed diesel trafc as an issue of concern in their neighborhoods.
In this community-based participatory research project, local residents collaborated with academic
partners from the Pacifc Institute in order to evaluate the air quality in their homes, yards, parks,
and schools. This collaborative project produced data for a collaborative science investigation that
engages students in comparing the incidence of asthma and the distribution of pollutants in local
communities. See the asthma case study reported in the section on equitable science instruction for
details (González et al., 2011).
The nQuire project investigates ways to make personally meaningful citizen science available to
the public (Sharples et al., 2019). The website supports missions, including Spot-it, where people
contribute observations of phenomena, such as images of severe weather. Win-it missions are ques-
tions or challenges for participants to answer, for example, to propose ways to attract bumblebees to
gardens. Registered users can comment on a mission or on a contribution, creating conversations
around contributed content.
A study of citizen science projects suggests potential impacts on student learning depending on
the project and the role of the students (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,
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2018). However, a systematic review of ten empirical studies of online citizen science projects found
that most featured fexible participation and relied on self-reports for assessment (Aristeidou &
Herodotou, 2020). Progress on linking citizen science to localized personally relevant topics is illus-
trated in the asthma project that can connect crowd-sourced data to incidence of disease (Bradford
et al., 2021).
Engaging students in science activities where they use science practices such as designing solu-
tions builds identity as a scientist (Kafai et al., 2014). Building identity is often the goal of robotics
and other maker activities, yet these are often accessible primarily to afuent families (Archer et al.,
2012). In one summer science program, minoritized students reported enhanced identity as a scien-
tist when they used a grid methodology to identify random plots, count the incidence of weeds, and
record the data (Visintainer, 2020). Similarly, when families participated in science exhibits where
they constructed artifacts to solve practical problems, such as building a system to amplify sound, they
reported feeling like scientists or engineers (Wang et al., 2013).
Design research is needed to clarify how best to support citizen science investigations in school
and out-of-school settings. At the same time, existing research on maker activities indicates the
potential of an engineering curriculum for welcoming students in science, building identity, and
providing opportunities to collaborate in STEM (Lin et al., 2020; Schad & Jones, 2020).
Gaming
Games designed for collaborative science learning feature role playing, simulations, competitions,
and drill. In one study of gaming, collaborative activities initially advantaged those with expertise.
However, carefully designed, extended collaborative activities bridged experience gaps and enabled
all students to beneft from game-based learning (Bufum et al., 2016). While gaming activities are
motivating in science, status and power relationships may advantage some students and not others
(Clark et al., 2016). In addition, competitive games can increase motivation but also increase anxiety
(Chen, Shih et al., 2020).
A meta-analysis of 32 studies of gamifcation of instruction showed that students preferred game-
inspired instruction (d = 0.50). Students reported that gamifcation was motivating, provided feed-
back on performance, fulflled their needs for recognition, and encouraged goal setting. They also
noted that gamifcation caused anxiety and jealousy (Bai et al., 2020). For example, a comparison of
Supercharged! versus an inquiry activity to support students’ learning about electromagnetic concepts
found signifcant learning gains in favor of the game (Anderson & Barnett, 2013). Supercharged! is a
3D racing game where players must maneuver a spaceship through a set of charged obstacles across
fve levels of increasing difculty. Players can adjust the type and magnitude of electric charge of the
ship to maneuver it past obstacles. The study found that students in the game treatment provided
more nuanced descriptions of electric felds and the infuence of distance on charges. This study calls
for the intentional use of meta-cognitive activities within games rather than assuming that sufcient
learning occurs organically through gameplay. Overall, research on gaming is still preliminary (De
Freitas, 2018; Honey & Hilton, 2011).
Summary of Advances in Learning From Others

In summary, there is potential for CSCL where each student is supported to contribute rather than
where contributors are those who volunteer or are stereotyped to succeed. Design of collaborative
spaces can empower the social presence of each student in online environments (Calabrese-Barton &
Tan, 2019; Richardson et al., 2017). Adding collaborative features can enhance knowledge integra-
tion by expanding the breadth of ideas that students consider, support them to distinguish among
alternatives, and encourage them to refect on the process. Teachers can augment the efectiveness of
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CSCL by monitoring student contributions and following up in the classroom. As a result of moving
to entirely online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, 60% of parents of K–12 students
expressed concerns about maintaining their childrens’ social connections and friendships (n = 2561;
Pew, 2020). These trends reinforce the need for additional design research to establish efective ways
to leverage collaboration with technology.
Guiding Students to Integrate Their Understanding

Advances in technology make it possible for computers to amplify teacher guidance with automated
guidance, an important component of KI pedagogy. Automated guidance, based on logs of student
work, increase support for students to integrate their ideas (e.g., Wilson & Czik, 2016; Zacharia
et al., 2015). NLP tools can assess students’ written explanations and enable designers to create per-
sonalized guidance (Gerard & Linn, 2022; Lee, Gweon et al., 2021). NLP tools empower teachers
to take advantage of written explanations (Gerard, Ryoo et al., 2015). Learning analytics that analyze
student use of concept maps (Ryoo & Linn, 2016), collaborative learning (Matuk et al., 2017; Sato &
Linn, 2014), models (Gobert et al., 2013), graphing (Vitale et al., 2019), and interactions between
models and computational thinking (Weintrop & Wilensky, 2019) can be used to generate auto-
mated guidance. In studies using ACEs that combine written explanations, concept maps, visualiza-
tions, and collaborative activities, the RPP explored the impact of promoting self-directed learning
by detecting foundering and ofering hints as well as alerting the teacher (Gerard & Linn, 2016).
Further, researchers can use ACEs to explore interactions between learner trajectories and guidance
strategies by randomly branching students to alternative conditions. Designers of guidance face a
dilemma between efciently telling students the answer and giving hints to encourage self-directed
learning (Koedinger & Aleven, 2007). Reviews of studies of guidance report conficting results for
design of online adaptive guidance, depending on whether the goal is self-directed inquiry or rapid
acquisition of detailed procedures (Koedinger et al., 2012; Gerard, Matuk et al., 2015). Supporting
self-directed learning involves enabling students to monitor their own progress, look for opportuni-
ties to distinguish ideas, and refect on their learning.
Advances in automated scoring of student work have spurred research on design of efective guid-
ance using the automated scores. These scores can help support self-directed learning and achieve
equity goals, although bias can limit impact (Philip & Azevedo, 2017). Automated scores can also
be used to amplify teacher guidance. In the section on empowering teachers, we discuss questions
such as which information about students’ progress is most valuable for teachers (e.g., accuracy of
class responses, distribution of ideas, unique ideas) and when is it most useful (e.g., while students are
learning, when planning instruction for the next day, when customizing for the next year).
Design of Effective Guidance

Inspired by analysis of efective teacher guidance in lesson study (Lewis & Perry, 2017), inquiry
learning (Furtak et al., 2012), ICAP (Chi et al., 2018), and KI (Gerard et al., 2010), automated
guidance has explored the value of giving hints and asking questions rather than telling students the
right answers. Studies show that instruction emphasizing gathering evidence to distinguish among
alternatives is more efective than instruction focused on giving accurate responses (Booth et al.,
2013; Chi et al., 2018; Vitale et al., 2016). Empirical studies examining desirable difculties (Rich-
land et al., 2007; Ryoo & Linn, 2014) and productive failure (Kapur, 2016) support these fndings
by illustrating that when students struggle to fnd solutions they often develop durable understand-
ing. In addition, meta-analytic investigations show that students learn more when encouraged to
generate their own responses rather than selecting the right answer among multiple choices (e.g.,
Bertsch et al., 2007).
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Several review articles document the potential of giving hints rather than supplying the right
answer. One meta-analysis of 24 independent comparisons found that automated adaptive guidance
was signifcantly more efective than guidance provided in typical instruction, particularly for stu-
dents with low prior knowledge (Gerard, Matuk et al., 2015). This study also showed that hints led
to greater learning gains than feedback providing the correct answer. Another meta-analysis found
that automated KI guidance was more efective than no guidance, typical teacher guidance, and right
answer guidance while being as efective as guidance designed by teachers who participated in a KI
workshop and knew their students well.
Comparison studies are distinguishing among alternative forms of guidance to encourage
self-directed learning. For example, a design study of c-rater-ML automated guidance within
a Concord Consortium water curriculum module for groundwater systems compares forms of
automated guidance to support students’ revision of scientifc arguments (Lee, Gweon et al.,
2021). Students in this study were provided with argument-only guidance or argument and
simulation guidance across three argumentation tasks. Overall, this study found that most students
failed to “use simulations thoroughly enough to collect evidence” (p. 189). However, both treat-
ments showed signifcantly improved scores for students who revised their arguments. Further,
students receiving argument and simulation guidance were signifcantly more likely to rerun
simulations (36% across the three tasks) than argument-only students (3%; p <.001). Thus, stu-
dents benefted from a combination of a model of the process of argumentation and a strategy for
improving the argument (use the simulation). In summary, automated guidance shows promise
to sustain student eforts to solve complex problems, promote self-directed learning, and build
identity as a science learner.
Case Study: Diagnosing Progress and Delivering KI Guidance

To illustrate the complexities and challenges of designing guidance to promote self-directed learning
for each student, we summarize a 20-year-long case study of KI guidance. This research was led by
the WISE Research Practice Partnership (RPP) and supported by the National Science Foundation.
The RPP included classroom teachers, researchers, software developers, and experts in learning ana-
lytics located at ETS in Princeton, New Jersey.
In a series of investigations, the RPP used the WISE ACE to test and refne automated guidance
that promotes self-directed learning. Initial studies with ACEs established the value of generation
questions, compared to multiple-choice questions (Richland et al., 2007) and showed that even
without automated guidance, students benefted from generating explanations rather than answering
multiple-choice questions or reading accurate information (Lee et al., 2010; Ryoo & Linn, 2014).
Teachers who were able to use the grading tool to comment on student work, reported that it helped
them to assign individualized guidance and design openers for the next day. Use of the grading tool
resulted in improved student performance (Gerard et al., 2010). These fndings motivated the WISE
partnership to increase teacher access to student work.
Developing Construct Validity and Generating

Automated KI Scores
To develop automated guidance for KI, the RPP frst established the construct validity of KI items
and then used c-rater, an NLP tool designed at ETS, to build scoring models. We developed a rubric
for human scoring of the KI items (see Table 15.1). Then we used IRT modeling to establish the
KI construct (Liu et al., 2008). This work and subsequent studies showed that KI items have excel-
lent psychometric properties, making them good targets for NLP (e.g., Boda et al., 2021; Lee et al.,
2012; Liu et al., 2015).
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Table 15.1 Knowledge Integration Rubric and Guidance for the Lava Lamp Explanation in Plate Tectonics
Key Ideas:
Ideas about heat and density, heat and molecular movement, heat and movement, density and movement
KI Score Level Example Student Response Automated Guidance
1. Of Task Student writes but IDK

does not answer the
question being asked
2. No links Only alternative or When you make a lava lamp it has <Student names>, how does
vague idea(s) oil, and the oil doesn’t mix to the the temperature of the blob
chemicals inside the lamp, so the afect its movement? Check
blob just moves around. out <here> for a hint. Then,
redo your explanation.
3. Partial link Normative idea, Lava lamps heat up the blobs <Student names>, when
partially linked to of fuids and when that heat does the density of the blob
other idea cools, it sinks and then another decrease? Check out <here>
wave of heat will come sending for a hint. Then, revise your
another blob of fuid up. It is a explanation.
continuous cycle.
4. Full link Links two normative When the blob heats up, it <Student names>, when
ideas in at least three becomes less dense and foats to does the density of the blob
key idea categories the top, then when it cools down it increase? Check <here> to
for one direction thickens, causing it to sink. get more information. Then,
expand your explanation.
5. Complex Links more than The blobs change density and move <Student names>, use
Links two ideas in at least from top to bottom because it your ideas about heat and
three categories for becomes more dense than less dense. density to elaborate why
one direction, with When the blob is at the bottom the blob goes all the way
ideas in at least two it heats up and becomes less up and all the way down.
categories for the dense, so it rises to the top Check <here> to get more
other direction of the lamp where it is not as information. Then, expand
warm and becomes more dense your explanation.
and falls back to the bottom.
When this process repeats it makes
the blobs fall and rise frequently.
Creating the illusion of a lava lamp.
The RPP used a series of increasingly more sophisticated NLP algorithms developed at ETS
to build scoring models for KI items (Liu et al., 2016; Riordan et al., 2020). The RPP refned the
models for over 40 items to achieve kappas (greater than 0.75). At the same time, the RPP developed
KI algorithms to score concept maps (Ryoo & Linn, 2016) and graphs (Lai et al., 2016; Vitale et al.,
2019; Zhang & Linn, 2011). Developing valid and reliable scoring models for at least 5 items in over
20 WISE units, raised the question of how best to use the scores to provide guidance.
Guidance to Move to the Next Score Level

The RPP frst designed guidance to advance students one KI score level. These guidance solutions
were inspired by practices of expert teachers in the RPP, learning sciences research (e.g., Quintana
et al., 2004), and the KI framework (Linn & Eylon, 2011). This guidance targeted the KI process
aligned with the students’ KI score level: generate ideas, discover ideas, distinguish ideas, and refect.
Students scoring 1 or 2 needed more ideas about the phenomena to get to level 3 (partial links).
464
To help students discover ideas KI guidance encourages students to revisit scientifc, interactive
models and identify new ideas. To help students scoring at level 3, KI guidance encouraged them
to gather evidence to distinguish among their ideas. Students could test their conjectures using the
interactive model and revise their response by incorporating evidence. They could also collaborate
with peers to critique each other’s ideas (Sato & Linn, 2014). Students who followed the guidance to
revisit learned more than those who did not revisit (Ryoo & Linn, 2016). To help students scoring
at level 4, KI guidance encouraged them to add a second link to elaborate their ideas. They could
collaborate with peers to compare ideas (Matuk et al., 2016) and test additional conjectures using the
interactive model (Tansomboon et al., 2017).
These studies revealed issues of human–computer interaction. Students were reluctant to navigate
away from the guidance to the model because they sometimes had difculty returning to the right
step in the unit. As a result, some students envisioned the models and conducted thought experi-
ments instead of revisiting and others did not revisit. Those who did not revisit made smaller gains
than those who did revisit (e.g., Ryoo & Linn, 2016). The designers improved the units by ensuring
that students could easily navigate to the right model and navigate back to the current activity. In
addition, some students rejected the automated guidance because they thought it was generic rather
than tailored to their response. To clarify, the designers added an activity showing how the computer
selected personalized guidance for each student. Students receiving this information were more likely
to revise their explanations after receiving guidance (Tansomboon et al., 2017).
The RPP built learning analytics and automated scoring for over 15 units and demonstrated the
value of guidance designed to increase student performance by one KI score level. These studies
showed beneft across multiple topics, including middle school chemical reactions (Raferty et al.,
2013), student-constructed motion graphs (Boda et al., 2021; Vitale et al., 2015), factors impact-
ing climate change (Vitale et al., 2016), genetic inheritance (Harrison et al., 2018), photosynthesis
(Ryoo & Linn, 2016), mitosis (Matuk et al., 2017), density (Vitale et al., 2019), and thermodynamic
concepts (Donnelly et al., 2015).
These studies revealed the benefts of automated guidance designed to increase student perfor-
mance by one KI score level. Across multiple disciplinary topics, automated KI guidance was as
efective as guidance designed by experienced teachers with limited time (Gerard, Ryoo et al., 2015).
For photosynthesis and global climate change, automated guidance was more efective than direct
instruction (Vitale et al., 2016; Ryoo & Linn, 2016). As discussed in the section on discovering ideas,
studies demonstrated that KI guidance is more durable than specifc guidance, especially for students
who were encouraged to distinguish among their ideas (Ryoo & Linn, 2014; Vitale et al., 2016).
Even when students did not achieve a whole score level gain, studies showed that eforts to make
consequential revisions boded well for future success (Tansomboon et al., 2017). Students who elab-
orated without increasing their KI score by adding evidence, clarifying an idea, or deepening their
explanation were more likely to have future success than those who did not revise. These students
were using strategies that have the potential to lead to integrated understanding. Finally, these studies
revealed that many students struggled to revise their explanations, even with personalized guidance.
Supporting Students to Revise Their Ideas

Consistent with studies in English and history showing that students often approach revision as copy
editing, fxing spelling, punctuation, or word choices rather than integrating ideas. Students often
ignore guidance, make only superfcial revisions, or tack on a disconnected idea (Bridwell, 1980;
Crawford et al., 2008; Flower & Hayes, 1981). Revision of explanations, essays, and arguments is a
vital and ubiquitous practice in learning and scientifc writing (Berland et al., 2017; Freedman et al.,
2016; Osborne et al., 2016; Perin & Lauterbach, 2018). Flower and Hayes (1980) introduced the
idea of revision as part of a recursive model of writing and learning in language arts. They showed
465
that when students succeeded in analyzing the structure, argument, or audience for their work they
were capable of making valuable revisions to their reasoning (Flower & Hayes, 1980; Flower et al.,
1986). Researchers in science education have characterized students’ meaningful engagement in
revision as using evidence to distinguish among alternative viewpoints and to clarify the mechanistic
explanation for an audience (Berland et al., 2017; Berland & Reiser, 2011). These views converge
on revision as a process that involves reformulating the connections among ideas to generate a more
coherent response.
The WISE RPP analyzed the frequency of revision across two studies conducted with 617, sev-
enth graders writing and revising essays in a photosynthesis inquiry unit. They found that 24% of
students on average ignored the guidance and made no revision, while 40% revised by tacking on
a disconnected idea to the end of their initial response. The remaining 35% of the students made
productive revisions that integrated or linked relevant pieces of evidence together, raising their scores
at least one KI level. Students with low prior knowledge were the least likely to revise and had dif-
fculty connecting ideas when they did revise (Gerard et al., 2016). This evidence suggested that
students needed more insight into the process of meaningful revision to do this on their own. The
RPP designed the annotator to model the process of revision so students could become more adept
at guiding their own learning.
Across studies, the RPP found that ACEs can facilitate KI by identifying students who come
to class with low prior knowledge, directing them to new activities aligned with their scores, and
encouraging them to revise their original explanations with new evidence. When adaptive guidance
is developed by studying representative samples of the students using the ACE, it can ensure that each
student receives relevant guidance. In addition, studies show that students who revise are likely to
improve their scores, students with higher initial scores are more responsive to automated guidance
than those who initially have lower scores, and that contextualized guidance supports better improve-
ments than generic guidance. These studies demonstrate the potential of guidance to develop the
capability for self-directed inquiry (Gerard, Matuk et al., 2015; Vitale et al., 2016; Zhu et al., 2020).
Modeling the Process of Revision: The Annotator

Teachers often model revision, explaining how to critique and distinguish ideas to the whole class
(Linn, 2006). The RPP designed an annotator to model integrated revision for each student while
they are learning. The annotator models the process of elaborating and modifying an initial written
response to fll gaps, resolve inconsistencies using evidence, elaborate ideas, and clarify connections
(Flower & Hayes, 1981; Linn & Eylon, 2011). The annotator was designed to shift students away
from using guidance to add disconnected ideas or make only superfcial edits and instead to focus
students on revising to integrate ideas. The annotator does this by guiding students to apply pre-
authored labels featuring key disciplinary ideas to a fctional peer’s explanation, engaging students in
distinguishing which scientifc idea will fll a gap in the given explanation. The annotator suggests
how to modify the initial ideas in the explanation to integrate a new idea (Figure 15.4).
In a study that compared the annotator plus one round of automated KI guidance to two rounds
of automated KI guidance, the RPP found that students who initially expressed unintegrated scien-
tifc ideas learned signifcantly more from the annotator condition (Gerard & Linn, 2022). Analysis of
trends suggested that students in the annotator condition continued to improve across both cycles of
guidance while those in the automated condition gained little from a second cycle of guidance. The
logged data and interviews show that students felt they gained ideas for revision along with insights
into integrated revision (how to distinguish ideas, how to link ideas) from the Annotator.
The value of the annotator in modeling the integrated revision process resonates with studies
showing that embedding models of productive inquiry strategies in science instruction can improve
learning (Chin et al., 2019). In one study, modeling the concept of difusion using a tutor–tutee
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Figure 15.4 Example of the annotator sequence for a GreenRoof prompt in photosynthesis. Student pair writes
an explanation; uses annotator to help Mary revise her explanation by placing pre-authored hints
where Mary should add or modify ideas; then revisits their own initial explanation, submits for
automated, adaptive KI guidance, and revises. Reprinted from Gerard and Linn (2022, p. 3).
467
dialogue was more efective than watching a monologue on difusion (Chi et al., 2018). The research-
ers posited that the dialogue modeled how to ask constructive questions. Students often followed
the model by mimicking the tutee’s behavior in the video when asking questions. These fndings
suggest that some students fail to revise their explanations because they do not have a good model
of the revision process.
Targeting Guidance to Students’ Ideas Rather Than Their KI Level

Both KI guidance and the annotator address the overall structure of student explanations. These
studies suggest that students may hang on to somewhat relevant ideas rather than deconstructing
them. The RPP wondered whether advances in NLP could go beyond scoring whole explanations
to identifying specifc ideas that, if distinguished from other ideas, would help students revise their
ideas. The RPP sought ways to identify specifc ideas held by students that might be opportunities
for KI. If these ideas could be detected, students might be engaged in distinguishing them from
other ideas using a dialogue. This approach takes advantage of fndings from collaboration and from
giving hints.
Researchers are exploring how to capture student ideas that are valuable resources for construct-
ing understanding. These ideas reveal the heterogeneity and cultural complexity of student thinking.
By responding to them, teachers and automated guidance can afrm the efort their students make
to explain complex phenomena. Analytics are typically built to address broad categories of student
ideas. Preliminary fndings suggest the value of tools that identify a wide range of specifc ideas. For
example, in a diagnostic inventory, students were asked: “On a cold winter day Akbar is walking to
his car that is parked in the sun. The sun has been shining on the car for the whole day. How will
the temperature inside the car feel? Select among (a) colder than outside, (b) warmer than outside,
(c) the same as outside. Explain your choice”. Students’ written responses were automatically scored
using c-raterML. With typical idea detection the high frequency albeit incomplete student idea
about “direct sun warming the car”, would be detected. Using new machine-learning techniques, it
was possible to accurately detect a wider range of specifc and generative, yet low-frequency, student
ideas about energy transfer and transformation, as shown in Table 15.1 (Gerard, Bichler et al., 2022).
Each student expressed two ideas on average in their explanation, giving evidence for students’ rep-
ertoire of ideas about the science topic. After submitting their initial explanation for guidance, the
computer asked each student a question based on the idea detected in their response. The questions
were designed to help them refect on their evidence and further their reasoning. As shown in the
bolded cases in Table 15.2, students added more compelling ideas when responding to the prompt,
including: “conduction causes heat inside”, “hot air is trapped”, or “sun rays pass through the car
windows”. These intriguing ideas detected could be used by the teacher to enrich class discussion
and to afrm students’ insights generated from prior experiences.
Identifying and responding to productive, yet low-frequency ideas expressed in the classroom is
an emerging research direction. Explorations can refne the knowledge integration framework by
using learning analytics to identify specifc ideas and then studying ways to respond to these ideas.
Supporting students to engage in evidence-based distinguishing among their ideas can contribute to
both KI and ability to make productive revisions.
Synergies Between Automated and Teacher Guidance

Adaptive guidance can empower teachers to engage large classes of students in inquiry projects,
promoting self-directed learning and identity as a science learner (Lee, Gweon et al., 2021b; Tan-
somboon et al., 2017). Advances in learning analytics algorithms and learning sciences research
are coming together to illustrate ways to help teachers make rapid, evidence-based refnements to
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Table 15.2 Frequency of Automatically Detected Ideas in Students Initial Written Explanations and Responses
to an Adaptive Prompt for an Item on a Diagnostic Inventory “Car on a Cold Day” [n=98 students]
Specifc Idea Detected Initial Explanation Response to Adaptive Prompt

[n = 248 total ideas; [n = 85 total ideas; 0.87 ideas/
2.5 ideas/student] student]
Direct sun warms the car 44.76% 28.24%

Car is warmer than outside 20.56% 14.12%
Heat comes from the sun 8.06% 10.59%
Metal attracts/absorbs cold/heat 5.65% 7.06%
Car is colder than outside 4.84% 1.18%
Car is same temperature as outside 2.42% 0.00%
Heat is trapped 4.03% 4.71%
I don’t know/IDK 2.42% 15.29%
Personal experience as evidence 1.61% 0.00%
Greenhouse efect analogy 1.61% 1.18%
Sun rays pass through the car windows 1.61% 11.76%
Sun rays hit car, some absorbed, some refected 0.81% 1.18%
Warmth, hot air is trapped 0.81% 2.35%
Conduction causing heat inside 0.00% 2.35%
Same temp: thermal equilibrium 0.81% 0.00%
instruction in response to their students’ diverse ways of reasoning (Schneider & Pea, 2014; Zhai
et al., 2020). Advances in learning analytics and NLP in conjunction with ACEs have motivated
developers to explore synergies between teacher and automated guidance (Wiley et al., in press).
Dashboards added to ACEs that log student work can score student responses during instruction and
either generate summaries during instruction or provide the information during workshops when
materials are revised. However, dashboards could overload the teacher with too much information.
The RPP worked together to design efective representations and identify when information is most
useful. Preliminary fndings ofer promise for dashboards. A study of teachers using a KI-inspired
dashboard during instruction showed that when they used the information to design KI-aligned les-
sons, their students benefted. Each of the ten teachers used the information to design lessons that
incorporated some of the KI processes. The teachers who incorporated the process of distinguish-
ing ideas were especially efective. A study of how teachers used the dashboards during a workshop
to revise their instruction showed the beneft of engaging teachers in integrating their ideas using
evidence from student work (Bichler et al., 2021). The dashboard evidence especially encouraged
teachers to refect on their practice and design activities that enhanced students’ ability to distinguish
among alternative ideas.
Another synergy between automated and teacher guidance involves alerts for teachers that
identify students who are stuck. Students who get the same level of KI guidance on multiple
tries, for example, might be stuck. Preliminary studies showed that alerting teachers about student
progress was benefcial for some teachers and not others (Gerard & Linn, 2016). Alerts especially
helped teachers to set priorities when many students requested help at the same time. We elabo-
rate on the ways that technologies can amplify the role of teachers in the section on empowering
teachers.
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Summary of Advances in Automated Guidance

In summary, the value of guidance to help students deepen their understanding is well established.
Recent work showcases ways to design scafolds that help students to direct their own learning
rather than telling them the right answer. Advances in NLP and learning analytics make it possible to
automate analysis of student work and test alternative designs for scafolds (Linn et al., 2014). These
advances open up opportunities to design synergies between teacher and computer guidance.
We reported on a 25-year-long case study combining the WISE ACE with increasingly power-
ful learning analytics and NLP tools to illustrate how automated guidance strengthens KI. The case
compares ways to personalize guidance based on the students’ learning trajectory. It showed how per-
sonalized, automated guidance improved student KI (e.g., Ryoo & Linn, 2015; Vitale et al., 2019).
These studies led to refnements in the guidance that broadened the impact by diagnosing progress
and optimizing the interactions of each student with the resources in the ACE (e.g., McBride et al.,
2018). The case suggested the value of NLP tools that could identify specifc student ideas, especially
those that are low frequency (Riordan et al., 2020). The studies clarifed how the KI mechanisms
benefted students. For example, studies illustrated the importance of asking students to discover their
own ideas as a way to promote agency (Ryoo & Linn, 2015). They demonstrated the value of asking
students to distinguish ideas and revealed some of the logistical challenges students face when navi-
gating activities in an ACE (Tansomboon et al., 2017). These studies also reinforced the importance
of supporting students to refect on their ideas (Ryoo & Linn, 2015). These activities illustrate self-
directed learning strategies that prepare students to investigate future challenges. Evidence from the
case show that these activities build student identity as a science learner (Matuk et al., 2016). Using
an ACE to combine activities into a unit can explore guidance strategies that help students combine
discovery and collaboration to advance their understanding. Studies of alerts and dashboards illustrate
ways to synergize the impact of automated scoring and teacher guidance.
Sustained reasoning about a science topic is a component of self-directed learning. Automated
guidance can sustain reasoning and deepen understanding of a scientifc phenomenon by giving per-
sonalized hints, supporting synergies between teacher and automated guidance, increasing collabora-
tion to broaden the ideas student consider, and extending exploration of the topic across disciplinary
boundaries (Shute & Rahimi, 2017). This resonates with fndings from research on the design of
visualizations that show that longer instructional sequences using visualizations support greater stu-
dent learning gains (McElhaney et al., 2015). Yet in this review, 20% of the studies had a duration of
less than 60 minutes.
Diligence to ensure that advances in automated guidance have equitable impacts is essential
(Philip & Gupta, 2020). For example, algorithms for automated guidance need to be developed
in investigations that include the full range of students. Often, for example, NLP tools use samples
composed of native speakers of the language, thereby lacking alignment with English learners. In
addition, special eforts to identify low-frequency responses that might refect experiences of specifc
student groups are essential to promote KI. If these low-frequency yet crucial ideas are missed, stu-
dents will not have the opportunity to distinguish between them and the other ideas they encounter.
Conclusions: Strengthening Science Teaching

Inspired by tools used by scientists and those emerging in learning science research, teams have
combined stand-alone tools into pedagogically powerful ACEs that incorporate OERs and are free
and widely used (De Jong et al., 2021; Donnelly et al., 2014; Hernández-Leo et al., 2019; Nor-
ris & Soloway, 2017; Rodríguez-Triana et al., 2020). The interplay of pedagogical theories, design
research, and technological advance tells an exciting and ongoing story. To ensure that these innova-
tions achieve the equity and self-directed learning goals articulated at the beginning of this chapter,
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additional research is needed. In particular, design of automated, adaptive guidance ofers promise
when aligned with pedagogies such as KI (Gerard, Ryoo et al., 2015).
ACEs have the potential to localize and personalize instruction by including activities that con-
nect to students’ lives (Bichler et al., 2021). The scope of design in science education is growing as
games, maker spaces, e-crafting, and robotics are investigated and refned. Research on established
technologies is generating design principles such as those associated with knowledge integration that
can speed up the design process for emerging technologies, including immersion, engineering, and
computational thinking (e.g., Kafai et al., 2019; McBride et al., 2018).
Substantial progress has occurred in design of technologies for discovering ideas, supporting col-
laboration, and scafolding learning to promote self-directed investigation. These advances are spurred
by pedagogies, including KI, ICAP, and others, that inform investigators. Combining these advances in
ACEs has revealed strategies for guiding rather than providing answers while still making science instruc-
tion efcient and amplifying insights from teachers. Questions remain about the sequencing, merging,
and integration of these components for optimal student learning. Pedagogical frameworks ofer alterna-
tives that require more investigation. The next steps into how best to integrate visualizations, collabora-
tion activities, adaptive guidance, and advances in learning tools are complex, with development in each
continually ofering new research opportunities and insights. These advances ofer promise as designers
take on more societal challenges, such as climate change, pandemics, and anti-racism. ACEs make it easy
for teachers to ground curriculum in local, place-based investigations; to recognize and engage their
students’ funds of knowledge; and to address issues of social justice with their students.
Reviews of automated guidance combined with reviews of visualization technology and col-
laboration identify synergies that deserve further investigation. Reviews call for more longitudinal
investigations; studies of personalizing instruction based on personality, experience, and prior knowl-
edge; syntheses of results by identifying and sharing exemplars of high-quality teaching practices;
increasing interdisciplinary assessment; and conducting comparison studies to enhance educational
decision-making (Zhai et al., 2020). Ongoing research is refning the design of automated scafolds
that empower students to take advantage of discovery opportunities, collaborative tools, and teacher
support to become self-directed learners who guide their own knowledge integration.
Empowering Teachers
Advances in learning technologies, including ACEs and teacher dashboards, present new oppor-
tunities for empowering teachers to customize instruction for their students’ ideas, interests, and
local context. RPPs are developing professional learning structures that support teachers and cross-
disciplinary researchers to use ACEs to create more equitable and efective instruction, and to pro-
mote student and teacher knowledge integration through the customization process. While ACEs
are most often used to support teachers in customizing the curriculum between lessons, dashboards
are intended to support teacher customization of instruction during teaching. We discuss emerging
research on efective features of dashboards for helping teachers customize instruction to student
ideas during teaching – and the challenges.
Curriculum Customization for Student and Teacher Learning

Learning sciences research has identifed the benefts of empowering teachers to customize science
curriculum. Researchers have documented for decades that teachers continually adapt a given cur-
riculum to meet the varied learning needs of their students as well as district timelines and goals
(Remillard, 2005). Prior curriculum reform eforts aimed to promote fdelity of implementation to
the research model (or “teacher proofng”). Learning sciences research identifes the faws of this
approach. Studies document the benefts for student science learning, when teachers are supported to
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make principle-based adaptations to given curriculum materials (Debarger et al., 2017). Teachers’ use
of ACEs to customize science curriculum materials has resulted in greater student learning outcomes
when teachers teach the customized versus original materials. Engagement in the customization pro-
cess has shown to promote teacher learning when the process is guided by data on student thinking,
a pedagogical framework and a professional learning community (Gerard et al., 2011; Gerard et al.,
2010; Littenberg-Tobias et al., 2016; Ye et al., 2015). These fndings extend research demonstrating
the benefts of supporting teachers to customize paper-based science curriculum materials (Lewis &
Perry, 2017; Miller et al., 2021; Penuel et al., 2011).
Learning sciences research reveals how guided curriculum customization can serve as a mecha-
nism for building science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (Bichler et al., 2021; Laurillard
et al., 2018; Leary et al., 2016; Ye et al., 2015). From a knowledge integration perspective, teacher
learning through curriculum customization is a process of refecting on customization designs relative
to the research-based pedagogical framework guiding the materials design, students’ thinking with
the materials, and disciplinary goals. Teachers discover new ideas to inform customization through
examining student work, comparing curriculum experiences with colleagues, and analyzing afor-
dances of technology tools with designers. Teachers distinguish strengths and weaknesses of pedagogi-
cal choices as they test their customization ideas in a classroom and examine resulting student work or
compare the alternative pedagogical implications of a customization design with colleagues. Teachers
connect their ideas as they formulate and refne an instructional customization design that is responsive
to student ideas while also being considerate of research-based pedagogy, technology afordances, and
disciplinary learning goals. ACEs that are guided by a research-based instructional framework may
augment the link between teacher curriculum customization and knowledge integration.
ACEs to Empower Teacher Curriculum Customization

Recent ACEs developed in the learning sciences provide teachers with a representation of a research-
based pedagogical approach to science instruction. This gives teachers a model from which to gather
new pedagogical ideas, as well as a point of comparison against which they can distinguish their
own pedagogical views. OpenSciEd, for example, uses a storylines instructional framework (Edelson
et al., 2021), and WISE is guided by KI (Linn & Eylon, 2011).
Recent studies analyzed the types of customizations teachers made using ACEs. Teacher-designed
customizations to middle and high school Concord Consortium science units were associated with
greater student learning gains than when students used the original non-teacher-customized materials
(Littenberg-Tobias et al., 2016). Customizations included modifying units to include opportunities
for students to revisit their predictions; to engage in diferent learning modalities, such as writing and
drawing; and to make deeper connections between scientifc concepts in a unit. Two recent studies
of teacher-designed customizations to WISE units illustrated how teams of teachers and researchers
designed customizations that increased connections to students’ lives, personalized academic language
supports, incorporated additional science content, and increased links between the web-based unit
and their other instruction on the topic (Bichler et al., 2021; Gerard, Bradford et al., 2022).
The US Department of Education recognizes the value of ACEs, articulating support for school
districts to use adaptable, open-education materials to ensure students have access to curriculum that
is current and relevant to students’ lives (US Department of Education #GoOpen Initiative; https://
tech.ed.gov/open/). However, while the evidence for the benefts of teacher refection on curriculum
design and student thinking dating back to the beginning of the profession (Dewey, 2003) is strong,
the system-wide resources to support teacher customization are minimal. A lack of perceived authority
to test instructional changes, district pressure to strictly adhere to a single adopted curriculum, limited
school support for professional learning communities, and the time required to organize student work
for analysis are a few of the obstacles. RPPs in the learning sciences are needed to change this landscape.
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RPP Structures for Supporting Customization With ACEs

Because customizing curriculum requires time and often benefts from collaboration, teachers are
more likely to efectively customize the curriculum after teaching a lesson and prior to the next
time teaching it. In the learning sciences, this process is increasingly facilitated by an RPP, with a
goal of mutually benefcial professional learning for each stakeholder. The RPP approach builds on
a history of advocacy for viewing the teacher as an expert in developing knowledge about learning
and instruction, starting with John Dewey (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990; Dewey, 1904/2003). It
empowers teachers to advance and contribute their expertise in aligning the curriculum designs and
research to meet the needs of their students, school, and community. This is a shift from previous
models that emphasized a one-way professional development model of bringing knowledge from
researchers/designers to teachers.
RPPs are built by bringing together stakeholders with diverse forms of expertise who share an
interest in addressing a curriculum design issue, such as increasing student opportunities for self-
directed learning or incorporating social justice in science teaching (Farrell et al., 2022). Science
education partnerships might include classroom science teachers, school resource specialists, learning
sciences researchers, disciplinary experts, software developers, and community partners. Drawing on
a KI perspective, the partnership approach prioritizes the diverse array of ideas that each stakeholder
brings to the process. As refected in funding requirements for RPPs (e.g., Spencer, 2021, RFP for
RPPs), partnerships are expected to be long term, with features that indicate mutual trust, such as
data sharing agreements or evidence of progress accomplished in prior work together.
Prior research on RPPs in science curriculum design have demonstrated positive outcomes in terms
of improving student learning and teaching practices (Debarger et al., 2017; Geier et al., 2008; Penuel
et al., 2011). However, a recent review of research on RPPs found that there is little empirical evi-
dence connecting mechanisms used in an RPP with the impacts on desired and unanticipated student
outcomes (Coburn & Penuel, 2016). Further, learning scientists have documented faws in who is
included in RPP co-design partnerships and whose voices are privileged. STEM education research-
ers document how race and power mediate RPPs (Vakil et al., 2016). A lack of attention given to this
dynamic has resulted in co-design processes that prioritize a singular view. This includes a dominance
of Eurocentric epistemologies and neglect of other cultural approaches to doing science (Bang, 2020),
prioritization of the researcher’s assessment of student needs rather than a focus on the practical prob-
lems experienced by the school partners, and a disproportionate representation from White and afuent
backgrounds. This can result in curricula that prioritize the culture and values of White and afuent
students and neglect the expertise and experiences of other cultural groups (Nzinga et al., 2018).
Leaders in the learning sciences are improving methodologies for partnership research that aims
to promote racial and social justice, led by social design research methodologies (e.g., Gutiérrez &
Jurow, 2016). Such partnerships are anchored in the belief that each stakeholder’s contributions are
valuable and that partners support each other’s professional development. Democratizing forms of
inquiry are used to undergird the learning of each stakeholder (Farrell et al., 2022). Learning scien-
tists have developed and studied technology-enabled mechanisms that support curriculum design and
customization in a way that promotes the learning of each partner (Laurillard et al., 2018). This has
led to curriculum designs that enable students to grapple with intriguing evidence, including local-
ized data, and to connect evidence with issues rooted in their community (e.g., Bang & Vossoughi,
2016; Bradford et al., 2022). RPP mechanisms include:
Starting With Research-Based Materials

One line of research suggests the value of starting the customization process in an RPP with research-
based curriculum materials and supporting partners to adapt these materials – rather than guiding
473
teachers to create new materials from scratch (Forbes & Davis, 2010; Penuel et al., 2011; Tekkumru-
Kisa et al., 2020). This approach focuses the scope of the customization work on analysis of trade-ofs
of diferent pedagogical moves rather than on formulating a full curriculum sequence that has proven
frustrating to teachers with limited time available (Severance et al., 2016). Using research-based
materials creates opportunity for teacher learning from the pedagogy underlying the instructional
design of the starting curriculum, a key feature of educative science curricula (Davis et al., 2017;
Davis & Krajcik, 2005). Challenges remain, including the amount of time school-based educators
have available to engage in RPPs, as well as classroom access to sufcient quality networks and com-
puters for using simulations within the research-based materials (Leary et al., 2016).
Using Student Data to Inform Iterative Refnement

ACEs can provide RPPs with student data from each teacher’s classroom, at specifc points in the
curriculum, so customization decisions address specifc and practitioner-relevant problems. A prior
review of research on teacher professional development in technology-enhanced science demon-
strated the benefts of engaging teachers in refection on student work and instructional design
(Gerard et al., 2011). Recent studies extend this fnding. For example, in a recent study, a profes-
sional development program guided teachers to analyze a research-based curriculum unit (BSCS),
teach it, and then refect on their instructional design decisions relative to student learning. The
program led to gains in teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge as well as student achievement over
two years (Gess-Newsome et al., 2019). Authors found that teachers’ ability to explain instructional
decisions with regard to how they infuenced their students’ thinking was the strongest indicator
of inquiry teaching practices. Relatively, Roblin et al. (2018) reviewed 51 research-based science
curriculum materials and associated classroom studies. Analyses revealed that the curriculum materi-
als that provided teachers with information linking students’ ideas and recommended instructional
strategies had the greatest positive impact on both teacher and student outcomes.
Learning analytics displayed in teacher dashboards to strengthen links between student data and
teacher curriculum customization decisions are emerging. This is evidenced by the many presenta-
tions at ICLS 2021 focused on this topic (e.g., Billings et al., 2021; Gomoll et al., 2021; Raza et al.,
2021). In a recent study, Bichler et al. (2021) identifed that after viewing learning analytics for
selected embedded assessment items, 21 out of 23 teachers changed their customization goals and
plans in response. Customizations included adding local data for students to explore their conjectures,
for example, or modifying scafolds for students who are learning English. This is a promising direc-
tion for learning analytics and teacher dashboards.
Making the Pedagogical Framework Underlying the Curriculum Visible

Recently developed ACEs make the pedagogical framework underlying the curriculum visible for
interrogation and application in customization decisions (Laurillard et al., 2018; Wiley et al., in press;
Edelson et al., 2021). This approach has shown to promote teacher learning about the science ideas
aligned to the NGSS performance expectations (Leary et al., 2016). Further, engaging partners in
analyzing the research-based pedagogical framework underlying activities within the focal curricu-
lum has shown to support partners in developing future lesson plans that incorporate the research-
based pedagogical strategies for facilitating student inquiry (Roseman et al., 2017; Tekkumru-Kisa
et al., 2020).
The Curriculum Visualizer (as shown in Figure 15.6) was designed to put the research-based
pedagogy underlying the WISE ACE at the forefront of the RPP curriculum customization discus-
sions (Bradford et al., 2022). It was designed in particular to promote interaction between research
and practice as partners jointly design unit customizations. The Visualizer shown in Figure 15.5 was
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Figure 15.5 Curriculum Visualizer. In the Visualizer, each activity in the lesson is assigned a separate slide,
making it easy for teams to rearrange the sequence or to add new activities. As shown in the fgure,
a black slide is used to indicate a new lesson. Each step in the lesson is then represented with a slide
color-coded for the KI process it represents.
Figure 15.6 Example teacher customization. Question 1 was a part of the original version of the unit. The
teacher added questions 2 and 3.
475
used within an RPP of secondary science teachers, learning scientists, and computer programmers
to guide customizations to a unit on chemical reactions and asthma (Gerard, Bradford et al., 2022;
Tate, 2009). In the Visualizer, each activity in the lesson is assigned a separate slide, making it easy
to rearrange the sequence and to add new activities. As shown in the figure, a black slide is used to
indicate a new lesson. Each step in the lesson is then represented with a slide color-coded for the KI
process it represents. This enables participants to appreciate the overall structure of the unit as well
as the role of each activity in promoting KI. Teachers can easily add new activities from color-coded
template slides, prompting them to consider the KI process engaged by the activity they intended to
add. Further, a slide at the end of each lesson provides sample student responses to an embedded
assessment to support teachers in personalizing the unit to their students’ ways of thinking (Bradford
et al., 2021).
Case: RPP Uses Curriculum Visualizer and Student

Data to Customize for Social Justice
We report on a case study of an RPP that used the Curriculum Visualizer and student data to cus-
tomize, implement, and refine an NGSS-aligned middle school science unit. Specifically, the unit
addresses the relationship between particulate pollution and asthma, emphasizing how placement of
freeways and refineries, along with redlining policies led to Black Americans experiencing unjust
exposure to pollutants. The RPP, led by local teachers, sought to customize a research-based WISE
unit where students investigated human contributions to global climate change to bring a social jus-
tice lens to their science teaching (Bradford et al., 2022).
Form a Representative RPP

The RPP was initiated by two teachers and included the WISE team, consisting of learning sci-
ences researchers with varied expertise (assessment, design), disciplinary experts, software develop-
ers, and community partners. The RPP followed a co-design process that elicited and respected the
contributions from each partner (Penuel, 2017; Vakil et al., 2016). The unit design was informed
by knowledge integration (Linn & Eylon, 2011) and justice-centered science pedagogy (Morales-
Doyle, 2017). The Curriculum Visualizer (Figure 15.6) was used to give each partner a voice in the
design of the unit and encouraged dialogue about implications of design decisions for KI to refine
the design of activities.
First Iteration
In the first iteration of the asthma and air quality unit, the RPP participants combined their expertise
to identify OERs that build on the strengths of the students in partner schools, incorporate prior
research, use powerful technologies, and feature current and accurate scientific knowledge. Partners
spent the most time finding and integrating existing data visualizations that featured data about the
local community. They designed support activities like sorting evidence and open-ended probing
questions to support students to make sense of the data and integrate data from various representa-
tions to make conjectures. It also involved bringing in interactive maps that displayed the rate of
pollution and incidence of asthma in the communities served by the schools. These maps enabled
students to represent relationships between pollution from freeways and refineries and the incidence
of asthma in their local communities.
Reflecting on classroom observations, teacher reflections, student interviews, and logged student
data from the classroom trial of the first iteration, the RPP noted gaps in the connections between
476
social justice and the science of combustion. They also realized that students were struggling to make
sense of the social justice issues.
Second Iteration: Social Design Research Incorporating

Knowledge Integration
To inform the second iteration, the RPP expanded the expertise, adding partners to increase the
expertise and experiences of additional cultural groups, including those with expertise in anti-racism.
The RPP added three experts in justice-centered pedagogy and asked them to review the unit. The
new members of the RPP suggested ways to build on the students’ ideas about social justice. The
experts recommended giving voice to local scientists and activists taking varied positions about how
to improve the health of nearby residents. These testimonials could model the process of distinguish-
ing among scientifc and social justice issues around asthma and air quality. They encouraged the
RPP to design the unit so that students could choose how to advocate for racially just conditions in
their communities.
The RPP aligned the revision with the KI and social justice pedagogy. These pedagogies call for
engaging students in gathering evidence and using it to sort out their heterogeneous ideas. The revi-
sion focused on the four KI processes integral to developing robust science understanding: generating
ideas, discovering new ideas, using evidence to distinguish among existing ideas and new ideas, and
refecting to form an explanation or argument. The RPP used the Curriculum Visualizer to imple-
ment the design.
First, the RPP asked students to generate ideas in response to stories from the scientists and
activists. Students predicted the impact of living near the refnery and freeways on residents’ health.
Then the RPP supported students to discover new ideas by using a newly located visualization and
a concept map to connect the products of incomplete combustion, like diesel particles contained
in particulate matter (PM), to the lungs and other body systems when inhaled. The RPP used the
grade-level NGSS standards to guide the scope and focus of the science topics. Next, the RPP added
a revised data visualization activity featuring a map depicting cities, freeways, and the quantity of PM
pollution in the local area to help students distinguish among their ideas. Using data-analysis tools,
students could explore racial health disparities in their local area and connect those back to historical
redlining. Finally, the RPP engaged students in refecting on their investigations in reports and action
plans designed to address the social justice issues raised by the unit. The RPP designed activities that
support teachers to introduce issues of environmental racism while making each student feel that
their questions, concerns, and experiences were welcomed and valued in the science lesson (Nasir
et al., 2014).
By using the Visualizer to analyze the customized unit, the RPP made sure the unit aligned with
the pedagogy and incorporated the voices of each stakeholder. For example, the RPP added visu-
alizations featuring locally relevant data to illuminate distribution of pollution from freeways and
refneries. Using the Visualizer, the RPP identifed the need to design the unit so students could
explore relationships between pollution and the incidence of asthma in the local community com-
pared to other cities. For example, one teacher customized the discussion of a video from a com-
munity member who lives near a refnery by adding questions that elicit more specifc information
from the students to help them appreciate the value of insights from the community (Figure 15.6).
The Visualizer also helped the RPP fgure out how to integrate the mapping activity to promote
knowledge integration. The design overlaid historical information about redlining on the distribu-
tion of PM. The activity guided students to identify the disproportionate negative impact on people
of color. The redesigned unit localizes the problem in the community and connects it to the histori-
cal redlining policies. The unit encourages students to jointly form and debate conjectures about
477
what is happening and why. Data visualizations ofer powerful opportunities for students to discuss
connections among core science ideas and students’ personal and cultural lives (Polman & Hope,
2014; Rubel et al., 2016).
Summary: Supporting Partnered Curriculum Customization with ACEs

There is substantial research demonstrating how empowering teachers to customize science cur-
riculum can augment student and teacher learning. ACEs are creating new avenues for teachers’
evidence-based inquiry into practice and supporting teachers to become lifelong learners. While
supporting customization can strengthen science instruction, this may also increase the joy and ful-
fllment of science teachers and bolster their commitment to the profession at a time when teachers
are leaving the profession rapidly (Miller et al., 2021). Technology-enhanced tools, such as the Cur-
riculum Visualizer, are supporting RPPs to create new opportunities for joint inquiry into the peda-
gogical decisions that inform curriculum customizations. As shown in the case study, ACEs enable
rapid refnement of materials to local contexts while being grounded in a pedagogical framework.
Promising research questions relate to how distinct customization activities in an RPP infuence
teacher knowledge and what information from classroom testing is best suited to the needs of each
stakeholder for informing customizations. Leaders in the learning sciences are pursuing research in
teacher customization with OERs (e.g., McElhaney et al., 2021). Learning analytics displayed in
teacher dashboards have been explored as a way to increase teacher access to students’ thinking as
students are actively constructing knowledge for informing curriculum customizations.
Dashboards That Support Teachers as Customizers in Real Time

While RPPs are supporting teachers to use data about student thinking to customize the curriculum
between lessons, teacher dashboards are being developed to provide teachers with detailed, real-time
insights into student thinking to inform customization – while teaching. Learning sciences research
has developed robust evidence for the benefts of eliciting and using student thinking to adapt teach-
ing practices, during instruction (Black & Wiliam, 1998). Research has also documented the chal-
lenges of this guidance approach, as it calls for teachers to diagnose each student’s emerging scientifc
reasoning and personalize a response while teaching 30+ students. Teacher dashboards that sum-
marize learning analytics have been framed in the learning sciences as a tool to empower and enable
teachers to customize their teaching practices during instruction. A recent ijCSCL special issue, for
example, focused on teacher dashboards (Matuk et al., 2019b).
Dashboards are intended to provide teachers efcient insight into their students’ knowledge and
progress by displaying a summary of learning analytics coupled with recommended teaching moves
to act on the information. There is progress in developing analytics for dashboards that can inform
guidance for student inquiry rather than promote recall, as described in the previous section on
guidance. A recent review of the literature indicates, however, that here is limited classroom research
on the use of teacher dashboards featuring such advanced learning analytics in pre-college science
(Zhai et al., 2020). The emerging fndings suggest that dashboards can help teachers identify which
students need help in the moment, and what evidence may best help them. Dashboards focused on
displaying class-level data have shown to give teachers new insight into student learning, but have had
limited impact on teacher practice.
Advances in Learning Analytics

Learning analytics developed in the 1970s, with the emergence of computers, were designed to
help teachers make instructional customizations that connect to students’ thinking. Until recently,
478
learning analytics were used primarily for discrete items, such as multiple-choice questions and
focusing teachers on the frequency of students’ selection of the correct response (Bennett et al.,
2017). Teachers typically used the information to lecture on material that students did not under-
stand rather than engaging students in exploring the topic. With the development of increasingly
sophisticated algorithms for analyzing student performance with models or for analyzing student
written work, learning analytics can now provide more nuanced interpretations of student work and
even suggest hands-on activities that might help students succeed (Applebaum et al., 2017; Vitale
et al., 2019). This creates new opportunities for teacher dashboards to support inquiry-oriented
instruction. Researchers are developing NLP models for student written work in ACEs (Rios et al.,
2018; Riordan et al., 2020). They are using students’ click-stream data in ACEs to model student
engagement and detect of-task behavior (Dickler et al., 2021). Initially the learning analytics were
built using public databases that might be from populations dissimilar from those to be served by the
analytics. Recent analytics have been refned using data collected with student populations similar to
the planned users of the materials.
Dashboards Help Teachers Provide Individualized,

Just-in-Time Guidance
Dashboards have been shown to help the teacher identify which students are struggling to inte-
grate science ideas, when the student needs help. This is important because teachers report that
students are reluctant to ask for help with science ideas. Likewise, studies of teacher guidance
reveal the predominance of eliciting or evaluative teacher feedback for student science explana-
tions, with minimal guidance for helping students connect or critique their ideas with evidence
(Furtak et al., 2018; Ruiz Primo & Furtak, 2007). Ofering students assistance on their science
ideas, at the moment when they are grappling with the ideas, may hence be a key advantage of
the teacher dashboard.
Studies indicate that students who received just-in-time, personalized assistance from the teacher
based on teacher use of the dashboard made signifcantly greater improvements to their explanations
than matched students who did not receive teacher assistance based on a dashboard (Dickler et al.,
2021; Gerard & Linn, 2016; Tissenbaum & Slotta, 2019). When using the alerts, the teacher was
able to engage in quick and meaningful conversations with students. Guidance most often probed
the student’s science reasoning as opposed to only evaluating the correctness of their answer (Dickler
et al., 2021; Gerard & Linn, 2016; Gerard et al., 2019; Tissenbaum & Slotta, 2019).
For example, learning scientists partnered with teachers to design “alerts” based on the NLP of
student written explanations about how growing plants on a roof may reduce the home’s energy
usage, embedded in a unit on photosynthesis (Gerard & Linn, 2016). The alerts were designed to
notify the teacher in real time to students who continued to express overly vague ideas or ideas
lacking evidence, after the student received one round of adaptive, automated guidance. Each
teacher determined a diferent threshold to trigger the alerts in their classroom, based on their pre-
diction of the distribution of student understanding (alerting to who needs help, without alerting
too many students in one period). Once alerted during class, the teacher engaged in a conversation
with the identifed students to help them advance their thinking, using the hint provided by the
automated guidance to jumpstart their conversation. Alerted students improved their explanations
more so than those who scored low but were not able to receive an alert. The teachers reported
surprise at which students in their class needed their assistance. Teachers also reported professional
fulfllment from the opportunity to talk with their students about their science ideas. The alerts
unexpectedly turned conversation about science between teacher and students into a necessity,
rather than what teachers reported were their typical interactions centered on student behavior or
procedures.
479
Interpreting and Using Dashboard Information While Teaching

The previous examples demonstrate the benefts of a dashboard for helping teachers provide just-in-
time guidance to targeted students. Designing dashboards to help the teacher customize instruction
to respond to patterns in student understanding at the class level calls for further development and
research. With little time to interpret the data, teachers are less likely to act on the information during
teaching or to use it to help students distinguish among their ideas and another idea evident among
peers. Van Leeuwen et al. (2019), for example, developed an “advising dashboard”, which pro-
vided learning analytics and recommended pedagogical actions to respond to the analytics. Teachers
engaged in refection on the information for a longer duration and provided more nuanced analyses
of the situations than when given only the analytics information without the suggested pedagogical
actions. The teachers considered additional social or afective reasons that may have contributed to
the outcomes. The teacher dashboard did not impact their teaching moves during instruction, how-
ever. This fnding resonates with studies of the Teacher Action Planner.
Example Dashboard
The Teacher Action Planner (TAP) is an example of a teacher dashboard that summarizes class-level
learning analytics to support teachers in assessing and guiding student knowledge integration in pre-
college science (Wiley et al., in press). As shown in Figure 15.7, the TAP is generated based on the
Figure 15.7 Teacher Action Planner (TAP). The TAP is informed by automated scoring of student written
explanations embedded in web-based inquiry science units. The TAP is generated in real time as
students submit their explanations. Teachers use a drop-down menu to select which class period to
view, or to view all students aggregated.
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automated assessment, using NLP, of student written explanations. In this example, the explanations
are in response to a prompt embedded in a ten-day web-based inquiry science unit on photosynthesis
and cellular respiration. In the unit, students experiment with interactive visualizations to discover
how matter and energy fow and transform inside of a plant. Students encounter this question, how
does the sun help animals to survive, midway through the unit to help them use evidence from the
visualizations to form an explanation. For this embedded assessment, students received one round of
automated, adaptive guidance and had the opportunity to revise. The adaptive computer guidance
included a personalized hint targeting a missing or incorrect idea, with a link to relevant evidence.
The students’ initial and revised explanations are automatically assessed using NLP, based on the
NGSS dimensions (DCI, CCC) associated with the target performance expectation (PE) and the
linking of those ideas (knowledge integration scoring) (Riordan et al., 2020).
The histograms illustrate the class’s average initial score on their explanation, and their revised
score after using the automated guidance to revise. This TAP highlights student needs both in terms
of developing the three-dimensional understanding called for by NGSS and in the scientifc practice
of revision. Capturing and displaying student revision in the TAP was a design iteration developed in
response to teacher interviews. Teachers wanted to take advantage of computer-based, individualized
guidance and the TAP rather than use the TAP alone. They wanted to use the TAP to target their
assistance to those students who still needed help after receiving one round of computer guidance.
They also wanted to see how their students were modifying their explanations with guidance – rather
than only seeing their fnal response.
Recommendations, another feature of the TAP dashboard, are adaptive suggested instructional
actions to correspond to the pattern in the class scores. For example, in this case the pattern illustrates
that students are understanding the CCC that energy is transferred from sun to plant to animal but
are missing or expressing partial ideas about the DCI, the movement of energy and matter in the
photosynthesis reaction. The recommended action hence suggests guiding student exploration of
evidence for the photosynthesis reaction within a dynamic visualization in the unit. The knowledge
integration pedagogy is forefronted as the framework for the design of the recommended action.
A recent investigation examined the interventions that ten middle school science teachers imple-
mented when using the TAP in their classrooms. The ten teachers refected on the TAP analytics and
recommended actions after teaching a lesson. They used the information to redesign their lesson for
the next day. Each of the teachers provided a targeted small or whole group intervention. While most
of the participating teachers’ interventions supported discovering new ideas to fll identifed gaps,
few of the teachers also supported students to distinguish between their initial ideas in their explana-
tion and the new evidence presented or to link new ideas (Gerard et al., 2020). Most interventions,
for example, focused on reviewing evidence from a computer model in the unit in a mini lecture.
Guiding students to distinguish among their ideas and those presented by instruction is crucial to
equitable instruction, as it positions the student as an arbiter of knowledge and encourages them to
use evidence to sort out and link ideas.
Hybrid Approach of Using Dashboard in a Workshop and During Teaching

A promising direction for future research is using a dashboard in professional learning communities
or RRP workshops to inform customizations to specifc curriculum activities and teaching strategies.
Evidence from video analysis in professional development supports this approach. Joint annotation
of the same video-based evidence of student thinking has strengthened science teacher learning
opportunities in professional development programs (Luna & Sherin, 2017; Roth et al., 2018).
Dashboards, similar to classroom video technologies, aim to make the link between student thinking
and specifc instructional decisions more accessible for refection. As described in the RPP section,
some RPP workshops are using visualizations of data from each participating teacher’s students to
481
inform pedagogical decisions about how to refne the curriculum or teaching strategies (Bichler
et al., 2021). The RPPs are jointly strengthening the dashboard design. This involves co-exploration
of the scoring rubrics developed to generate the learning analytics and co-customization of the data
representations (Dimitriadis et al., 2021; Matuk et al., 2016). This may lead to more actionable learn-
ing analytics that teachers consider valid evidence to guide their customization, during both teaching
and professional development.
RPPs are identifying important next questions for research on analytics and dashboards, such as
how to capture and appreciate the heterogeneity of student ideas in a classroom with analytics that
are traditionally built based on high frequency student ideas (Gerard, Bichler et al., 2022), how can
analytics in a dashboard support teachers to identify and address classroom inequities (Raza et al.,
2021), and what are the benefts and drawbacks of diferent grain sizes of data for teacher refection
(Gomoll et al., 2021)?
Summary: Using Dashboards to Promote Customization

Logged data from ACEs reveal that students are often considering multiple alternatives and seeking
ways to choose among them. This information is making its way into teacher dashboards. Alert-
ing the teacher to individual students or small groups of students who are foundering or who have
progressed without forming coherent understanding has proven an efective use of dashboards. It
can help the teacher know who to help and when to intervene, and which resource may help that
student. These insights can enable educators to attend to students they may not have attended to
otherwise, showing respect for diferent students’ ideas and building on actual insights generated.
The use of dashboards for displaying patterns across the class and suggesting pedagogical actions
has proven less efective for customization in real time. This may be because highlighting a common
gap in student understanding, without time for teachers to determine the specifc part of instruc-
tion or the students’ lines of reasoning that led to this gap or idea, may be disconnected from how
teachers shape their practice. A hybrid approach of using a dashboard in an RPP workshop with
time and colleagues to interpret the data and contribute to refnement of pedagogy, coupled with
use of the dashboard during instruction to identify which students to assist and how, may be more
advantageous. Another promising approach is to design the dashboard to feature the diferent ideas
students hold about the topic, rather than the patterns in students’ level of knowledge of the target
concept. This may support teachers to guide students in distinguishing between their own idea and
the evidence presented by instruction or to compare or critique diferent explanations.
Conclusions on Empowering Teachers

In summary, eforts to promote equitable science education have benefted from the formation
of RPPs featuring stakeholders representing the full spectrum of student cultural and experiential
backgrounds. Learning technologies have facilitated the efectiveness of RPPs by making student
thinking accessible and making justice and knowledge integration pedagogies visible. ACEs have
facilitated collaboration among stakeholders by providing an authoring system to implement design
ideas, logs of student work to help monitor progress, and support for customization of the design
based on interpretation of student work. Social design research methods have enabled RPPs to refne
instruction to make each student welcome. And learning sciences research has facilitated the com-
munity to identify design principles and pedagogies that can sustain these advances in future designs.
Social justice instruction highlights the importance of science for ensuring equitable access to
healthy lives and for revealing factors that impact nondominant communities more than others. As
illustrated in the case study, learning environments can support teachers to customize and localize
instruction to address issues of social justice that welcome more students to science. When supported
482
by a learning environment, teachers can use OERs to localize the unit. Rather than feeling they
have to be the expert, RPPs can create curriculum materials that position the teacher as a guide and
motivator.
With OERs that refect the research-based inquiry pedagogy teachers desire and learning analytics
built on robust formative assessments, the static top-down model of what is to be taught in a science
classroom is being disrupted. This sets the stage for teachers and RPPs to use ACEs to customize
web-based curriculum materials to strengthen the link between the targeted science topic, students’
cultural experiences and linguistic backgrounds, as well as to students’ lines of entry into the topic.
Learning sciences research has demonstrated how empowering teachers in this role can lead to more
efective science instruction and promote growth in teacher knowledge integration.
Conclusions
Learning science researchers often as part of RPPs are advancing technology to improve science
teaching and create self-directed learners. Researchers are remedying biases in existing instructional
materials by reimagining the disciplines, practices, and materials to make instruction more equitable.
They are forming RPPs that leverage ACEs and learning analytics to expand what it means to teach
and learn science. These approaches connect to the lived experiences of students and empower
them to build identity as a science learner. New forms of technology-enhanced science instruction
are emerging that resonate with learners’ experiences. Social design experiment methodologies are
strengthening these solutions (Gutiérrez & Jurow, 2016).
Developing Pedagogical Principles

Researchers are synthesizing these advances in pedagogical principles to help future designers support
science teaching. As illustrated in this chapter, curriculum designs are merging KI and social justice
frameworks into principles based on the KI processes that call for:
1. Eliciting and afrming the ideas, cultural experiences, and views that each student has about
science and social justice
2. Enabling students to expand their repertoire of ideas by building on each student’s insights,
using computational thinking to test their own rich scientifc ideas while also discovering
related ideas
3. Encouraging students to distinguish among all their rich ideas by collecting evidence
4. Introducing self-directed learning strategies that encourage students to sort out their ideas, try
out their conjectures with their peers, and form a coherent account of the science they encoun-
ter. This approach has the potential to sustain self-directed learning for novel problems. Further,
these designs make student ideas visible and empower teachers to engage with their students’
reasoning.
Welcoming Each Student

As discussed in the introduction, research on increasing participation in science often identifes who
“leaks” out of the pipeline (Cannady et al., 2014; Wu & Uttal, 2020) and encourages students to
persist in unsatisfying courses (Harris & Linder, 2018). As this chapter illustrates, science instruction
can instead entice students by communicating how science impacts society (Philip & Gupta, 2020).
Courses can capture the value of understanding societal issues that impact students’ lives (Bang, 2020;
Calabrese-Barton & Tan, 2019; Linn & Hsi, 2000; Nasir et al., 2014). Celebrating the accomplish-
ments of science requires also acknowledging the potential injustices that have resulted in terms of
483
pollution, environmental destruction, or health hazards (Morales-Doyle, 2019). Courses can alert
students to opportunities to make their voices heard.
Equitable instructional designs not only appropriate the tools of scientists for students but also
create student-oriented designs that engage learners in complex and compelling science discovery.
For example, the integration of computational thinking into ACEs allows students to add their own
variables to models and test the impact of their ideas (Bradford et al., 2022; Emara et al., 2021). Thus,
the urban heat islands unit empowers students to envision solutions to a local challenge (Figure 15.6).
Further, this form of instruction connects students to strategies for making their ideas heard at the
local, city, and state levels. As new technologies, such as AR, emerge, designers are building on the
insights gained from refning more mature technologies, such as visualization and collaboration to
advance equity and self-directed learning.
Advances in technologies for automated guidance increase the possibility of personalizing guid-
ance for each student. Written assessments can capture how students link ideas about social factors,
such as race, with ideas about science to explain environmental and health topics. Assessments scored
for KI have proven reliable and valid for guiding students, amplifying the impact of teacher guidance,
and providing RPPs with evidence to guide customization of instruction. These advances enable
science educators to reimagine science students as making personally informed decisions about sci-
entifc issues. They give each student the capacity to explore science-related issues that impact their
lives. And they empower each teacher to appreciate the ideas of each student while also orchestrating
the progress of the whole class. More research is needed to realize the potential of these technologies
in schools everywhere.
Future Directions
Advances in learning technologies and learning sciences create opportunities to improve science
education, especially by making science education more equitable and increasing opportunities for
self-directed learning. They ofer an on ramp for testing personally relevant ideas along with valid
and useful indicators of student progress in connecting science and social justice. They enable schools
and teachers to go beyond standardized measures that primarily capture recall to measure nuanced
impacts of classroom experiences and the accomplishments of students using varied indicators
embedded in ACEs. These advances ofer several lines of inquiry that have implications for future
investigations, including streamlining transitions between remote and in-person schooling, provid-
ing ubiquitous support for customization of instruction, promoting teacher learning, and advancing
pedagogical frameworks.
Streamlining Transitions Between Remote and In-Person Schooling

Whether it is COVID-19, snow, air pollution, or fooding, schools often have to transition to remote
learning. When students learned from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, inequalities of access
to the internet and computers refected the socioeconomic status of the school. Major companies
stepped forward to provide temporary free internet and computers to communities lacking sufcient
resources. While this was a step forward it was often insufcient. Families needed greater internet
bandwidth and stronger devices to support multiple users in a single household. Virtual experiments
that promote science learning, peer-to-peer interactions, and self-directed investigations while also
supporting teachers with powerful dashboards to guide individual students worked in some cases
(Gerard, Wiley et al., 2022).
The pandemic pointed to the centrality of the teacher–student relationship in science learning.
Students lamented not having access to teacher guidance when needed, to help them make sense
of complex science concepts, encourage persistence in solving problems, and afrm their value as
484
a part of the learning community. At the same time, some teachers were able to take advantage of
platforms or ACEs by customizing their lessons to impart their pedagogy from afar and by using
learning analytics to provide personalized guidance even for students in large classes. Displaying pat-
terns in student thinking in a teacher dashboard can bring teacher attention to the ideas that students
hold, including the non-normative views that may serve as a starting point for building understand-
ing. This supports teachers to afrm and incorporate each student’s thinking into instruction. These
tools are especially efective when students are learning at home and teachers cannot walk around the
classroom and check in on individual learners.
The growing number of free open education resources (OERs) strengthen the learning opportuni-
ties for students and the ability of teachers to support inquiry science both in and beyond the class-
room. OERs found on the internet or included in the curriculum are empowering students to express
themselves by supporting drawing, concept mapping, and artifact design. Tools such as text-to-speech
and speech-to-text support English learners to contribute their ideas in online tools. Tools such as
Mentimeter learning analytics, which provide a starting place for teachers to see all student ideas; Pad-
lets and Jamboard that promoted anonymous student sharing, sorting, and critique; and stand-alone
OERs, such as computer visualizations, facilitate learning. These tools become even more powerful
when combined into coherent curriculum units using ACEs such as WISE and Concord Consortium.
By overcoming the inequality of home access, new technologies could enable each student to beneft
from a combination of virtual science instruction and teacher-led personalized guidance.
Advances in synergies between teacher and automated guidance along with resources that support
self-directed learning foretell the advantage of a future where hybrid schooling ensures that students
can easily transition from in-class to remote learning. In this future vision, teachers maintain their
leadership role, using both in-class observations and logs of student remote work to continuously
guide each student. We need thoughtful, bold research initiatives to realize this vision.
Providing Ubiquitous Support for Customization

We have extensive evidence that there is no one-size-fts-all curriculum. Teachers customize the
materials available to them. They need materials that support them to not only customize but to test
their ideas and refne them year after year.
Evidence from RPPs reveal benefts of customizing science instruction to align with advances
in pedagogy and incorporate critical analysis of the role of race, income, and gender in shaping sci-
ence discoveries, and in the disparate impacts of science on students’ lives (Vakil et al., 2016). ACEs
give teachers agency to combine OERs and customize curriculum so that it is pedagogically sound,
localized to students’ interests, and personalized to students’ strengths, including those of multilingual
learners. ACEs provide continuous assessment so teachers can monitor the impact of their customiza-
tion decisions on student progress and ideas. This approach can foster science instruction that wel-
comes each student in science, incorporates their cultural and personal experiences, and recognizes
each student’s ideas as valued contributions to KI. Research is needed to determine ways to scale up
supports for customization, taking advantage of ACEs and dashboards.
Analyzing evidence from customizations enables teachers to learn from each others’ eforts and
build their pedagogical insights. Communities of practice that share expertise in equity, social jus-
tice, science disciplines, technology, professional development, student learning, science policy, and
school leadership can build understanding of the customizations that succeed in their community. The
diversity of perspectives in an RPP leads to a robust curriculum that fosters learning about science as
a part of one’s identity in a community. Technology afords the RPP fexible OERs that can be local-
ized with data and humanized featuring activists and exemplary professionals from local cultures and
communities. It ofers teachers increased access to student ideas and empowers teachers to customize
the curriculum to better connect to students’ lived experiences. Research is needed to strengthen
485
professional development to support teachers to refne their insights into social justice and KI peda-
gogy. It enables teachers to explore questions about the scope of a science topic, develop strategies to
support students to recognize their emotions about injustice and move to a place of empowerment, or
connect with families to build on their ways of discussing race in society (Vakil et al., 2016).
Dashboards informed by learning analytics have the potential to synthesize embedded assessments
for teachers. They give teachers access to students’ ideas as they evolve. Teachers can see a record,
for example, of how a student refned their ideas in response to guidance, of what ideas are most
common across the class, or of which gaps persist. Teachers can use the dashboard to modify the cur-
riculum to support students as challenges arise, or new local relevant data is available. Giving teachers
greater access to student ideas, means that students are more likely to get personalized teacher guid-
ance. This improves the student experience in doing science and teacher fulfllment as they interact
with their students’ science ideas. A promising direction for future research with dashboards is devel-
oping machine learning techniques to detect low-frequency yet generative student ideas, to select
and display student ideas that are well thought out but may be ignored for their lack of normativity,
and to feature the ideas of students who may otherwise be marginalized.
Promoting Teacher Learning

Engaging teachers in RPPs to customize instruction is an efective mechanism for scafolding teacher
KI in instruction. Teachers develop pedagogical insights with support from the RPP. By fostering
professional learning through interactions with multiple stakeholders, including students, educators,
and community members, teachers are scafolded to access and use powerful evidence and strategies
to co-design and customize science curriculum. Future work is needed to refne and expand tools
such as the Curriculum Visualizer and teacher dashboards to support professional learning. These
tools connect evidence of learning to research-based pedagogy. Additional progress is needed to
strengthen RPPs so they can regularly customize, scafold, and sequence OERs, create classroom
comparison studies in ACEs, and promote coherent understanding. This approach stands in contrast
to incorporating transmission-oriented OERs to augment or replicate the textbook and reinforce the
emphasis on science as an accumulation of memorized, disparate facts.
Future investigations are needed to ensure that RPPs foster dialogue and collaboration among
learning scientists with diferent areas of expertise, as well as with educators who represent the per-
spective of diferent student groups. RPPs are taking advantage of tools such as the Visualizer that
democratize the co-design process by allowing each stakeholder to add evidence related to specifc
design decisions. In addition, ACEs with learning analytics are supporting rapid iterative refnement
of instruction by providing immediate information about student responses and by enabling partners
to compare alternative conditions. Broadening RPPs to include paraprofessionals that work across
science classrooms with students who are multilingual or have an IEP for a special need. Researchers
with a sociocultural lens combined with those with a cognitive lens, can help distinguish how these
perspectives ft together. We need more work on ways to constitute RPPs in science that welcome
each student and leverage the ideas of the whole to promote KI. Further work is needed on ways to
uplift the voices of scholars and educators of color whose expertise has been historically marginal-
ized. At the same time, tensions related to who holds power in an RPP need negotiation. The design
of the research agenda, the pedagogical knowledge prioritized, and the indicators used to measure
efectiveness require careful selection.
Advancing Pedagogical Frameworks

Advances in learning science and technology have enriched science education pedagogy and bode
well for future refnements. Social design research methods have broadened respect for the ideas held
486
by each student and for the importance of exploring ideas in varied contexts (such as local or abstract
examples). As a result, investigators are using data analytics to capture the impacts on contextualizing
science disciplinary knowledge around local concerns. Others are illustrating the impacts on individ-
ual learners with compelling case studies. This work has emphasized the need for valid measures that
capture each student’s ideas. The work has also revealed trade-ofs between large studies often using
standardized tests and in-depth studies capturing the experiences of individuals or distinct groups.
These research insights have reinforced the value of studies that use mixed methods.
Pedagogies, including KI, that emphasize building on student ideas have motivated comparison
studies, often embedded in ACEs, that vary factors such as eliciting ideas (across one or multiple
contexts), collaboration designs (choosing ideas similar to your own or distinct from yours), types
of guidance (encouraging exploration versus providing correct responses), or supporting refec-
tion (devoting class time to revising ideas versus moving on to the next topic). Increased emphasis
on welcoming each student in science has led to integrating issues of social justice with scientifc
advances.
As learning scientists refne science materials to increase their responsiveness to each student’s
ideas, they increase equitable outcomes. As they incorporate links between social justice and science,
they build identity as a science learner. As instructional materials take advantage of the KI processes
to scafold learning, they motivate students to become self-directed learners.
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16
SCIENCE EDUCATION DURING
THE EARLY CHILDHOOD YEARS
Research Themes and Future Directions
Introduction
The early childhood years include a special time of growth and discovery, and science education
provides a wealth of opportunities for building on young children’s experiences, ideas, and won-
derings. In this chapter, we examine research literature from the most recent decade (2010–2020)
that focuses on science education during the early childhood years, with a goal of elucidating recent
developments and new directions in the feld. We look across a wide range of studies to fnd patterns
and themes in the literature, guided by the goal of drawing implications with relevance for future
research, teacher education, and teaching practice.
Why Science Education in Early Childhood?

The area of science education research at the early childhood levels has rapidly expanded in a rela-
tively short time frame, and the literature in science education indicates a burgeoning interest regard-
ing the learning and teaching of science with young children. The frst eight years of a child’s life
are a period of remarkable growth, and educators and researchers recognize quality early childhood
education as critical for children’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development and well-
being (UNESCO, 2019). While early childhood education represents a long-established feld of
study, a focus specifcally on science education during the early childhood years emerged relatively
recently, with the development of science education as a feld of interest within early childhood
occurring particularly during the last 25 years (Ravanis, 2017; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012). This feld of
study includes a range of themes, research orientations, and implications focused on understanding
the ways young children comprehend and engage with science phenomena and related concepts.
Science education organizations and policymakers internationally have placed an increased focus on
early childhood education in the time period being considered for this review. For example, the
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) in the United States published Early Childhood Sci-
ence Education: A position statement of the National Science Teachers Association. This position statement
afrms “that learning science and engineering practices in the early years can foster children’s curios-
ity and enjoyment in exploring the world around them and lay the foundation for a progression of
science learning in K–12 settings and throughout their entire lives” (NSTA, 2014). Such a focus on
the value of lifelong learning in science is also evident in the European Commission (2015) report
Science Education for Responsible Citizenship, which suggests that “science education should be an
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-20 499

essential component of a learning continuum for all, from pre-school to active engaged citizenship”
(2015, p. 19). Similarly, the early childhood curriculum in New Zealand stresses that children learn
through active exploration of their environments, with learning areas that emphasize that explor-
ing the natural and physical world supports children for later participating “as critical, informed and
responsible citizens in a society in which science plays a signifcant role” (p. 54). These and numer-
ous similar reports in a range of national contexts underscore the need for high-quality and holistic
approaches to science education beginning from a young age. To examine the ways in which the
research feld elaborates early childhood science education, this chapter examines research publica-
tions over the most recent past decade to analyze themes across the literature, with a goal of identify-
ing emergent developments as well as new directions for early childhood science education.
The exploration of the natural world is the essence of childhood and engaging in science is a
powerful way for children to discover the world. There is an increasing global recognition of the
value of fostering young children’s enjoyment in such exploration, and the ways in which early sci-
ence education experiences can widen children’s perceptions about the world around them. Young
children are naturally curious (Gopnik, 2012) and motivated to explore their environments to better
understand the world around them (Trundle, 2015), and researchers have suggested that nurturing
curiosity is an ethical endeavor for early childhood practitioners (Menning, 2019). Opportunities for
science education at the early childhood levels can support children’s cognitive, social, and emotional
development (Fleer, 2013; Inan & Inan, 2015; Inan et al., 2010), building from children’s curiosities
to provide foundations for later science learning (Spektor-Levy et al., 2013). Early science experi-
ences can provide holistic opportunities for collaboration and problem solving and can help young
children develop positive attitudes toward science while developing science understandings and prac-
tices. Science learning opportunities are important for all children, as the opportunities involved
in investigation, pedagogy and planning, play, and child-centered explorations can lead to positive
long-term outcomes for ECE science (Tao et al., 2012). Early years science education can lead to
important outcomes, which go beyond discreet skills and content knowledge, including providing
a basis for scientifc thinking and scientifc literacy, developing positive attitudes toward science, and
fostering continued learning in science.
Chapter Overview
The goal of this chapter is to work toward understanding what recent research literature reveals
about how young children engage with science concepts, processes, and phenomena, and the ways
in which pedagogical approaches can create conditions that are conducive to young children’s sci-
ence participation, engagement, and learning. We seek to refect upon the current state of research
in the feld of early childhood science education, to emerge with recent patterns in the literature. To
do so, we draw upon themes generated from a review of the research literature from the years 2010–
2020 and elaborate the fndings with a goal of highlighting implications for teaching and research.
The understandings gathered through the process of drawing emergent themes provide a basis from
which we look toward new directions in the feld. The following keywords were used in database
searches to locate relevant articles published during the time period of 2010–2020: early childhood sci-
ence, early years science, elementary science, kindergarten science, and preschool science. Elementary was initially
included as a keyword to check for articles with an early childhood focus within elementary school
contexts. As the purpose of the search was to elucidate the nuances of science education specifcally
targeting young learners, articles were excluded that focused on research outside of the birth to age eight
spectrum (for example, papers addressing K–12 or focusing exclusively on upper elementary grades).
We conducted manual searches of top science education and early childhood research journals to
complement the database search, and relevant chapters from the book Research in Early Childhood
Science Education (Trundle & Saçkes, 2015) were also included in our review. The articles were
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Science Education During the Early Childhood Years
grouped into emergent categories based on an iterative and recursive process drawing on analysis of
article content in interaction with the article keywords. These evolved through an iterative process,
with the following final categories: science inquiry, play, emotion and motivation, curricula and
resources, inclusion, science and language, outdoor and environmental education, family participa-
tion, infants and toddlers, and materiality. Articles within the categories were divided by the three
authors and analyzed focusing on three central questions:
1. What does the research tell us about this topic for early childhood science education?
2. What are the implications for research?
3. What are the implications for teaching?
Themes that emerged from looking across the findings from these questions are elaborated in the sec-
tions that follow, an elaboration that serves as the foundation for looking forward to new directions
in the field of early childhood science education.
Themes Identified Through Literature Analysis

The research literature from 2010 to 2020 revealed a variety of contexts, methodologies, and research
foci, and taken as a whole, the literature analysis has underscored the complex relationships between
children’s social, cultural, and historical contexts and science classroom learning experiences. The
three guiding questions served as analytic tools from which themes emerged regarding the role of
science education with young children. These themes in turn serve as organizing categories for the
sections that follow, which elaborate nuances as gleaned from the literature for the possibilities for
science education at the early childhood levels.
Opportunities to Engage in Scientific Inquiry Are

Valuable for Young Children
Educational reform documents indicate that scientific inquiry continues to be a gold standard for
science teaching and learning across age and grade levels, including in early childhood. In an inquiry-
based classroom environment, children are provided with space and encouragement to engage in
observing phenomena, asking questions, making predictions, and offering explanations. Numerous
international policies and curricula emphasize inquiry-based pedagogies, and relatedly, the research
literature engages with potential roles, outcomes, benefits, and challenges of inquiry with young
children. For example, the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (Department of Education,
Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR], 2019) elaborates that participating in meaning-
ful inquiry-based experiences can support children in developing dispositions for learning that can
be foundational, suggesting that “Active involvement in learning builds children’s understandings
of concepts and the creative thinking and inquiry processes that are necessary for lifelong learning”
(p. 36). In the United States, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013) emphasize that
science uses practices to develop and refine a body of knowledge, and thus the focus in US contexts
is often on components of investigation practices during the early childhood years, often involve
observing, describing, and comparing as ways to make sense of phenomena.
The value of observation for young learners is an established understanding in the field. Obser-
vation can prompt children’s wonderings (Siry & Max, 2013), and observation can support the
development of more sophisticated, challenging, science-related skills (Apanasionok et al., 2019;
Saçkes et al., 2016; Saçkes et al., 2010b). Opportunities for prolonged and purposeful observation
bring affordances to early childhood science (Monteira & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2016), including
providing structures for children to use evidence to support their claims and to evaluate and revise
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understandings. Children’s engagement in using observations as evidence for developing scientifc

representations can provide support for developing more complex experiences in later years (Dan-
ish & Phelps, 2011). As children consider which elements of observed phenomena to represent for
communicating their understandings, this process can support the development of sophisticated rep-
resentation practices later (Plummer & Small, 2018).
Early childhood research in science education has continued to focus on components of practices
that are developed independently from the content, called process skills, such as asking questions,
observing, recording observations, comparing, identifying patterns, and communicating. Important
to note, however, is that “science inquiry not only includes science-process skills but also refers to
combining these skills with scientifc knowledge, scientifc reasoning, problem solving, and criti-
cal thinking in social environments” (Vartiainen & Kristiina Kumpulainen, 2020, p. 491). As such,
research in early childhood science includes studies on young children’s development of process skills
as well as studies that examine diferent classroom interaction structures, and research on children’s
modeling, critical thinking, and problem solving. Opportunities to be engaged in a range of types
of activity structures, including observing, investigating, and manipulating models can help children
explain phenomena and represent their understandings, especially when combined with whole-
class dialogue (Kallery, 2011). Researchers have determined that sophisticated skills such as model-
ing are appropriate for young learners, including preschool children (Bagiati & Evangelou, 2015;
Ravanis et al., 2013a, 2013b; Saçkes, 2015a; Samarapungavan et al., 2015), and early modeling has
been shown to be a potential entrée to complex ideas in science (Ero-Tolliver et al., 2013). One
recent study examined opportunities provided by content-rich, model-based instruction focused on
the states of matter and phase changes (Samarapungavan et al., 2017), demonstrating that children
accounted for the properties of matter and learned to construct and use simple particle models that
explained phase changes such as freezing and melting.
Additional studies of other practices, such as science investigations, indicates that they can help
young learners, including preschool and kindergarten children, to develop understandings of sci-
ence concepts and science reasoning (Akerson et al., 2011, 2015; Dejonckheere et al., 2016; Saçkes,
2015b; Saçkes et al., 2016; Saçkes et al., 2010b; Sapsaglam & Bozdogan, 2017; Trundle & Saçkes,
2012). While researchers have found that young children might not master all intended learning
outcomes for targeted concepts, they can develop and apply critical thinking, reasoning, and prob-
lem-solving skills while engaged in science investigations and experiences (Jirout & Zimmerman,
2015; Meindertsma et al., 2014; Ravanis et al., 2013b). Young children engage in complex scientifc
reasoning, and studies have highlighted that they are able to learn how to control variables in the
design of experiments (van der Graaf, 2015) and how to make, communicate, and test hypotheses
(Hong & Diamond, 2012).
Inquiry-based, student-centered instruction can promote the development of young children’s
higher-order thinking skills (Chen et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2012; Mantzicopoulos et al., 2013; Saçkes,
2015a; Samarapungavan et al., 2017; Tao, 2016; Tuttle et al., 2017). Further, literacy-rich, inquiry-
based instructional environments can provide opportunities for children to build content knowledge
and conceptual understanding while facilitating their understandings of inquiry (Mantzicopoulos,
2013). A familiarity with the inquiry process can help children to question, explore, and investigate
in other subject areas (Kermani & Aldemir, 2015). Researchers have examined how children engage
with complex science phenomena, revealing that young children can develop fundamental, often
abstract, concepts, such as those related to astronomy (e.g., Hobson et al., 2010, Kallery, 2011, Plum-
mer & Small, 2018, Saçkes et al., 2016, Trundle & Hobson, 2011), when they are provided access
to resources and strategies that support gathering observations in ways that allow for constructing
models and explanations based on observations. For example, one study examined 4–6-year-old chil-
dren’s explorations with the concept of the sphericity of the earth and the causes of the phenomenon
of day and night, concepts that are considered difcult for very young children (Kallery, 2011). This
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research found that such concepts and phenomena can become more accessible if resources, strate-
gies, and teaching approaches are utilized that motivate children, arouse their interest, and reduce
their learning difculties. Research indicates that inquiry-based approaches to science education can
reveal young children’s explanations, imaginations, and representations (Siry & Max, 2013). School
cultures shape what can be accomplished in science education (Sundberg et al., 2016), and classroom
cultures that orient toward science inquiry provide opportunity for young children to learn science
through open-ended, authentic opportunities to engage with phenomena.
Since the release of the NGSS in the United States, a growing number of researchers focus
on “three-dimensional learning” in science at the early childhood levels, a central emphasis of the
NGSS. Three-dimensional learning implies integrating science practices, core disciplinary ideas, and
cross-cutting concepts in science instruction. Notions of three-dimensional learning use science
practices to engage students in exploring phenomena and solving problems, and researchers have
begun to investigate opportunities that provide space for young children to engage in such learn-
ing opportunities. For example, in a study that focused on the role of feld trips to informal science
institutions, Plummer (2019) found that frst-grade students (6–7 years old) demonstrated signifcant
improvement in three-dimensional learning focused on the motion of the moon and lunar phases.
Relatedly, the intersection of lunar phenomena concepts, lunar phenomena patterns, and representa-
tional practices were shown to support children’s development of three-dimensional learning (Plum-
mer & Small, 2018), emphasizing that young children are capable of developing complex science
understandings when provided with resources to support their sense-making, including representa-
tions and opportunities for dialogue.
The role of the teacher is central for providing opportunities for children to engage in inquiry,
and as teachers plan science instruction and experiences for young children, the research suggests
fexibility in planning while allowing lessons to develop around children’s interests and explorations
(Inan et al., 2010). Teachers’ scafolding can be key to young children’s engagement in the practices
of science (Monteira et al., 2020), including model construction and revision (Samarapungavan et al.,
2017). Professional development opportunities that target teacher scafolding are efective for increas-
ing metamodeling discourse (Samarapungavan et al., 2017). There is a clear consensus across the
literature that teachers should model and scafold scientifc inquiry for all students, including young
children, yet the research has indicated that opportunities for young children to question, evaluate,
revise, challenge, and engage in argumentation remain limited during the early years (Frejd, 2019a;
Gropen et al., 2011; Gustavsson & Pramling, 2013; Kaderavek et al., 2015; Merritt et al., 2017).
The value of inquiry in early childhood science education is not to be underestimated, and as
such, preservice and in-service teacher education must go beyond science content knowledge to
integrate efective science education pedagogy, including how to engage young children in scientifc
inquiry and practices. Inquiry-based teaching and learning experiences within teacher education can
provide opportunities for preservice teachers to gain understandings of inquiry as well as increase
teaching efcacy beliefs, emphasizing the value of direct experience with inquiry-based teaching
as a part of preservice teacher education (Eckhof, 2017). Learning more about scientifc inquiry
and practices facilitates development of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and supports self-
efcacy for engaging in inquiry (Gustavsson et al., 2016; Mantzicopoulos & Patrick, 2011; Milner
et al., 2012; Pendergast et al., 2017; Saçkes et al., 2013; Sandholtz & Ringstaf, 2011; Sandholtz &
Ringstaf, 2014). Learning to teach through inquiry-based approaches takes time, and it can be chal-
lenging to shift in-service teachers’ practices. As such, prolonged professional development and other
supports are needed for transforming teaching practices. Mentoring, coaching, and modeling are key
to facilitating teachers’ commitment to inquiry. One recent study (Isik-Ercan, 2020) presents a case
study of a second-grade teacher as she began to teach integrated literacy/science instruction through
inquiry-based approaches. The analysis demonstrates how she deepened her strategies over time and
further illustrates how the children’s engagement with science content changed her perspective on
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her students, supporting evolving views on students as capable problem solvers. Supported oppor-
tunities for in-service teachers to refexively consider their role as teachers of science with young
children can lead toward transformations in practices (Isik-Ercan, 2020). Relatedly, incorporating
authentic opportunities to engage with young children as a part of preservice teacher education
can help to illustrate the benefts of open-ended exploration for children’s science learning (Kemple
et al., 2015) and underscore the valuable connections between inquiry and play (Hamlin & Wisneski,
2012), as elaborated next.
Play Is an Important Context for Learning Science

The ways in which science understandings and scientifc thinking unfold in the context of play at
the early childhood level have been explored by numerous scholars, and researchers have suggested
that learning science should be rooted in phenomena and play-based daily activity where students
are focused on their real-life experiences (Akman & Ozgul, 2015). The importance of including
play into young children’s science experiences is emphasized by a range of scholars, suggesting that
children’s playful interactions can serve as resources for science learning (Siry, 2011; Teo et al.,
2017; Trundle & Smith, 2017) and that teaching science through play can promote the develop-
ment of young children’s science concepts (Bulunuz, 2013; Saçkes et al., 2019). Play intersects with
social, cultural, historical, and cognitive factors of science learning, and play is both a universal
concept as well as a situated construct given the fuidity and diversity of contexts for early child-
hood (Teo, 2017).
Play is central to young children’s learning and interaction, and scientifc concepts can emerge
through play and exploration (Günther-Hanssen, 2020). Several types of play have been featured in
the literature, each with slightly diferent foci. For example, structured play-based experiences, such
as activity stations, were framed within a science education context and shown to address the physi-
cal, cognitive, and emotional needs of children (Inan & Inan, 2015; Inan et al., 2010; Saçkes et al.,
2019), and outdoor play supports connections to nature, which can help mediate social inequalities
in daycare (Jørgensen & Martiny-Bruun, 2019). Researchers have suggested that exploratory play can
support children’s inquisitive learning and scientifc reasoning (Dejonckheere et al., 2016), and the
research literature ofers a diversity of approaches for guided exploratory play. Despite the recognized
and inherent value in young children’s play, open-ended play alone may not always lead to children
developing an understanding of targeted science concepts (Cutter-Mackenzie & Edwards, 2013).
In one study, a toddler’s meaning-making during outdoor play was found to be practical and physi-
cal, rather than conceptual and verbal (Klaar & Öhman, 2012). The authors elaborate that verbal
conceptualizations were not part of the toddler’s meaning-making processes, as they emphasize the
value of examining young children’s actions and underscore the value in recognizing the embodied
ways in which young children engage in and with science. As such, teacher observations can help
to document and discuss learning processes and content-related understandings, especially with very
young children.
Researchers have suggested that there is an “underutilized link” between imagination in science
education and imagination in play (Fleer et al., 2019), as children’s imagination of scientifc concepts
during role-play can serve as resources for learning (Fleer, 2020). Playful dramatization may be an
efective way of exposing children to science experiences that build from prior experience to culti-
vate deeper levels of scientifc understanding (Akerblom et al., 2019; Akman & Ozgul, 2015; Var-
tianien & Kumpulainen, 2020). For example, in a study focusing on slow-motion fairy-tales, children
and teachers were able to engage with scientifc-centered dialogue through play (Fleer, 2013), which
became the basis of their science learning, as fairy-tales created the bridge to the real-world envi-
ronment. Relatedly, and drawing on Gunilla Lindqvist’s original work around notions of play and
playworlds, Fleer has examined the role of play-based pedagogies situated in imaginary worlds created
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by drama and storytelling. Such scientifc playworlds (Fleer, 2018) provide an approach for practitioners
and children to build scientifc imaginary situations together, which can support collective wonder-
ing, thereby promoting scientifc learning. In a study investigating how scientifc thinking can be
supported within the context of imaginative play, the implementation of a play-based science teach-
ing approach highlighted how scientifc dimensions of the everyday worlds of children are brought
to consciousness through well-designed, imaginative play (Fleer, 2019). Play-based pedagogies can
lead to creating scientifc narratives together as well as shared wonderings, as guided imaginative play
can be integrated in early childhood pedagogy to intentionally engage young children in scientifc
thought (Fleer, 2019; Fleer et al., 2019).
As also mentioned in the previous section on the role of inquiry for early childhood science
learning, there are competencies beyond content knowledge and understandings that are important
to cultivate in early childhood science education programs. Play can serve as a launching point for
children to become scientifc thinkers by helping them make connections, and dramatizing appears
to be a productive approach to foster scientifc awareness and engagement in young children (Åkerb-
lom et al., 2019). One recent study (Adbo & Carulla, 2020) explored the role of play-based learning
activities that were developed to convey understanding scientifc understanding about chemistry to
preschool-aged children, in particular with a focus on the notion of “small” as used in chemistry.
This research found that sustained and shared conversations within play-based learning activities were
important for children’s developing meaningful understandings around the concept of “small” and
provides evidence for how children’s imaginations can be used for developing new insights around
theoretical chemistry-related ideas.
Teacher education for both preservice and in-service teachers needs to address the relationship
between teachers’ beliefs about teaching science and their abilities to design and implement efective
science experiences in play-based settings. Teachers can learn about diferent possible ways for chil-
dren to become scientifc thinkers by making connections from the way children play and explore
(Günther-Hanssen, 2020). Combining open-ended play, modeled play, and teacher/child engage-
ment play is one approach that has been suggested to allow science experiences and content to
be scafolded and iterative (Cutter-Mackenzie & Edwards, 2013). There is a relationship between
teachers’ attitudes toward teaching science and their abilities to design and implement efective sci-
ence experiences in play-based settings (Pendergast et al., 2017). To increase engagement of both
teachers and students in science-related discourse, play environments, such as playscapes, should
include opportunities for children to interact with science-relevant content, with nature-based con-
texts showing promise in stimulating children’s and teachers’ interest, exploration, and interaction
(Kloos et al., 2018). Teachers can play an active role in guiding students in their explorations and
building on students’ prior knowledge, creative ideas, and interests to plan and structure future lessons
and learning opportunities (Inan & Inan, 2015). Incorporating play-based experiences framed within
a science education context can address the physical, cognitive, and emotional needs of children.
Children’s Emotions and Motivation Toward Science

Are Important Resources for Learning
Science teaching and learning are complex processes, and the research literature refects this com-
plexity in many ways, including through research exploring the role of emotions, afect, motivation,
attitudes, and interest for science learning. Although these terms are related and often used inter-
changeably, they have slightly diferent meanings. Thus, recent research highlights subtle nuances of
children’s participation in science, all oriented toward elaborating mediating factors to engagement
and understanding. Children and teachers’ positive attitudes about science can impact children’s
engagement in science, and a positive classroom environment can support children’s participation
(Andersson & Gullberg, 2014; Byrne et al., 2016; Dejonckheere et al., 2016; Klemm & Neuhaus,
505
2017; Lin et al., 2020; Patrick & Mantzicopoulos, 2015; Samarapungavan et al., 2011; Spektor-Levy
et al., 2013). A trend across the literature is the value of increasing opportunities for children to
engage in science from an early age in order to bolster and build from science curiosity, interest, and
attitudes (Baruch et al., 2016). While children exhibit a natural interest in science early on (Trundle,
2015), those in a position of interaction with young children should respond to and engage with
children’s curiosity, play, and inquisitiveness to provide rich opportunities for discussion and com-
munication that aid in sustaining interest over time (Alexander et al., 2012). Early science interest is
a predictor of later engagement in science learning (Saçkes et al., 2011; Sundberg et al., 2018), and
interest in science has been identifed as beginning at young ages (Alexander et al., 2012; Patrick &
Mantzicopoulos, 2015; Saçkes et al., 2011; Spektor-Levy et al., 2013). In one longitudinal study,
researchers found that, during the period from preschool to middle childhood, earlier interests in
science were the best predictors of later interests in science, and early informal science-learning
opportunities predicted later opportunities to engage in science-related activities for both boys and
girls (Alexander et al., 2012).
Researchers have suggested that science understandings can evolve in the relationship between
science and emotions, as children engage with positive emotions in science (Siry & Brendel, 2016).
Positive emotions toward science can be encouraged in various ways, including through play (Sik-
der & Fleer, 2015; Inan & Inan, 2015; Inan et al., 2010) and through inquiry-based science learning
opportunities (Baruch et al., 2016; Byrne et al., 2016; Günther-Hanssen, 2020; Hu et al., 2020;
Isik-Ercan, 2020; Klemm & Neuhaus, 2017; Lin et al., 2020; Saçkes et al., 2019; Spektor-Levy et al.,
2013; Vartiainen & Kumpulainen, 2020). These considerations are important for early childhood
science learning, as positive feelings toward science can help reinforce children’s and teachers’ self-
confdence (Andersson & Gullberg, 2014). Further, emotions and cognition are related, and research
with young children has examined the role of children’s afective scientifc imagination for learning
science (Fleer, 2013), underscoring the emotional nature of children’s engagement in science. One
recent study (Garner et al., 2018) explored the development of a curriculum for an after-school and
summer-based science education experience for young children, focusing on the inclusion of the
arts and social-emotional learning content. The resulting approach intended to encourage the devel-
opment of empathy and other emotion-related skills, and the research highlighted ways in which
infusing the arts with social emotional learning content into science education created a holistic
curriculum with potential for enhancing children’s interest in and appreciation for science. Research
studies have consistently demonstrated that young children are naturally motivated to explore their
environments and equipped with the capacity to observe and understand the scientifc phenomena
around them (Trundle, 2015). Motivation to learn science is tied to the classroom environment
(Mantzicopoulos et al., 2013), and inquiry-based science programs have been shown to increase
student learning and motivation (Samarapungavan et al., 2011). These documented inclinations of
young children to learn about the natural world ofer foundations for later science learning (Spektor-
Levy et al., 2013). Consistent approaches to science education can help all children develop positive
attitudes toward science while also creating authentic opportunities for developing literacy and math-
ematics skills (Trundle & Saçkes, 2012).
Opportunities for social interaction are essential for stimulating student interest, enthusiasm,
and engagement and meeting the needs of diverse learners (Isik-Ercan, 2020), and student interest
and engagement can be sustained by extending learning experiences to include family involvement
(Cowie & Otrel Cass, 2011). Researchers suggested that children are more likely to learn science
when the learning objectives are made visible through active teacher guidance that includes explicit
references to science processes and builds from children’s interests and ideas (Siry & Max, 2013;
Sundberg et al., 2018). Verbal and behavioral manifestations of preschool students may be considered
as indicators of curiosity and interest in science. Recent research examining children’s use of fgura-
tive expressions in science, being words that may convey indirect symbolic or metaphoric meanings,
506
found that the emotional valence of fgurative expressions, the number of fgurative expressions used,
and sensorimotor interactions were found to be signifcantly positively correlated (Baruch et al.,
2016). Children with greater inclination to engage in sensorimotor interactions were more likely to
use fgurative expressions that denoted positive emotional valence.
Playful and creative approaches to science education curricula and programs can help to strengthen
positive attitudes and emotions (Akman & Ozgul, 2015; Andersson & Gullberg, 2014; Günther-
Hanssen, 2020; Larimore, 2020; Nayfeld et al., 2011). Environments and activities that support
free choice, independence, and collaboration aid in addressing the varied needs, capabilities, and
interests of young children (Fridberg et al., 2019) while generating excitement for science learning
(Siry, 2012) and thus may promote sustained engagement in science over time (Inan & Inan, 2015).
The learning culture is important to the success of children’s early science experiences and has the
potential of facilitating or hindering future interest and achievement in science. Consequently, it is
important for all stakeholders within schools to challenge norms and stereotypes as they cultivate a
community of shared beliefs to support the inclusion of science beginning in preschool (Sundberg
et al., 2018). Teachers need to have access to professional development opportunities that teach efec-
tive strategies for providing contextualized, relevant learning opportunities that build of the curiosity
and interests of children while building from a series of “small ideas” in science toward the overarch-
ing “big ideas” of science (Cowie & Otrel Cass, 2011). Learning activities should be developed and
facilitated in a way that they support children’s emotional and material explorations (de Freitas &
Palmer, 2016) through authentic, open-ended interactions.
Scholars call for more research to understand how prior knowledge and science interest are
infuenced from early on in a child’s development (Mantzicoupoulos & Patrick, 2010). Additional
research is as well needed to understand whether early indicators of science curiosity, interest, and
engagement are predictive of later science-related attitudes and behaviors (Baruch et al., 2016). Fur-
ther, need exists for research to investigate the emotional states of preschool children when engaging
in science education activities and how they connect with scientifc curiosity, interest, and inquiry.
This line of research could help inform pedagogical practices aimed at nurturing and supporting sci-
ence engagement.
A Range of Early Childhood Curricula and Resources

Have Been Shown to Support Science Learning
The literature reveals a range of curricula and resources that have been developed, implemented,
and researched, regarding pedagogical supports for young children’s learning of science. Studies that
evaluated daily structured science programs for ECE revealed that time allocated for science educa-
tion is limited compared to literacy and mathematics (Byrne et al., 2016; Curran & Kitchin, 2019;
Pantoya et al., 2015; Saçkes, 2013; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012; Wright & Gotwals, 2017). One of the
factors contributing to the scarcity of science learning experiences during the early years might be
because access to science teaching resources are limited for early childhood teachers (Trundle &
Saçkes, 2012). When science is included in early years, the topics are often related to life science, as
with few exceptions, contemporary curricula have tendency to focus mostly on life science concepts,
with limited attention devoted to other content areas (e.g., physical science, earth and space science)
(Kinzie et al., 2014; Saçkes et al., 2020). Most teachers of young children focus on life science activi-
ties due to their own familiarity with the content or the availability of more children’s literature that
focuses on life science concepts (Hong, 2012; Saçkes, 2012; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012; Zhang et al.,
2015). A study that examined the most frequently taught science concepts identifed life science as
the prevalent content area in early childhood classrooms, and these concepts were taught, on aver-
age, one to two times per month, while physical science was taught once per month (Saçkes, 2012).
Researchers have emphasized that science curricula for young children should include multiple
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content domains and should include more non-biological themes relevant to children’s everyday
experiences (Gross et al., 2018; Larimore, 2020; Mantzicopoulos & Patrick, 2010; Mantzicopoulos
et al., 2013; Pantoya et al., 2015; Saçkes et al., 2020; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012; Wan et al., 2020;
Wilson & Bradbury, 2016). In addition to broader content area inclusion, some argue that early
childhood science curricula should also include the nature of science (NOS) (Akerson et al., 2011;
Hansson et al., 2020; Pantoya et al., 2015) Studies emphasize the importance of NOS discussions in
early childhood classrooms, with adequate teacher support supplemented with NOS explicit texts
(Hansson et al., 2020). Other researchers have suggested that building science curriculum around
problem solving and hypothesis testing may contribute to children’s science learning (Hong & Dia-
mond, 2012).
The role of everyday science has been examined in the research literature, and it is clear that efec-
tive science learning experiences link to children’s everyday experiences in their natural environments
(Dejonckheere et al., 2016; Günther-Hanssen, 2020; Hu et al., 2020; Jørgensen & Martiny-Bruun,
2019; Kermani & Aldemir, 2015; Klaar & Öhman, 2012; Samarapungavan et al., 2011; Sikder &
Fleer, 2018; Sims, 2017; Siry et al., 2012; Smith et al., 2012; Sounoglou & Michalopoulou, 2016;
Trundle & Saçkes, 2012; Wight et al., 2015). Researchers have explored ways in which science cur-
ricula can be built from children’s experiences, examining how investigations emerge from children’s
wonderings (Inan et al., 2010; Siry & Max, 2013) and through collective praxis between children
and teachers (Goulart & Roth, 2010). It has been suggested that meaning-making occurs in, and
emerges from, everyday interactions (Fleer et al., 2019), as everyday concepts and science concepts
can develop together. Dialogue between teachers and children has been shown to serve as a space for
participative thinking (Goulart & Roth, 2010), and researchers have emphasized the value of creat-
ing classroom spaces for children to discuss their own ideas (Kallery, 2011). Flexible, open-ended
classroom structures have been shown to facilitate children’s agency in shaping the object of learning
(Goulart & Roth, 2010). Young children are able to engage in sophisticated science talk (Wright &
Gotwals, 2017), and although their responses might not always be what the teacher intends, dialogue
creates a space for revealing children’s ideas, which can demonstrate purposeful and rich under-
standings (Martinez-Álvarez, 2019) and provide opportunity for further learning. Dialogue between
teachers and children can build knowledge through sustained shared thinking (Adbo & Carulla,
2020), which emerges from children’s experiences.
Research has explored how diferent teaching approaches lead to diferent opportunities for learn-
ing, including how children’s drawing and representations can serve as approaches for uncovering
and encouraging children’s meaning-making. Drawing has been suggested to be a meaning-making
exercise in science, as children use visual resources to share information (Hu et al., 2020), and draw-
ing has been suggested as a scafolding tool, one that can lead toward playful and motivating interac-
tions between children and teachers (Chang, 2012). Researchers have explored how drawing can go
beyond representing understanding to become a strategy for learning science, suggesting that provid-
ing children with a range of representational tools can support children’s meaning-making (Monteira
et al., 2020). When children are provided with the opportunity to explain their drawings, they can
reveal their conceptual understandings, questions, and wonderings in dialogue (Siry & Max, 2013),
a process which in turn can motivate children, as it can indicate that the adults are interested in what
the children have to say about their own ideas and learning (Chang, 2012).
The research identifed a need for quality early childhood science curricula; however, the suc-
cess of the curricula depends on how they are implemented in classrooms. Increasing the topics and
breadth of the science content covered in curricula and time spent on science alone might not be
sufcient to support children’s learning of science in early childhood classrooms (Curran & Kitchin,
2019). There appears to be a mismatch between what research has identifed as quality science
instruction and what may transpire as science in early childhood classrooms (Spektor-Levy et al.,
2013; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012). To ensure the efective implementation of curricula, preservice and
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in-service teachers need to have adequate access to high-quality, research-based professional devel-
opment and mentoring that includes development of content knowledge and efective pedagogi-
cal methods. More specifcally, in-service and preservice professional development should support
teachers’ development of science content knowledge and their pedagogical knowledge in design-
ing and implementing inquiry- and play-based, learning opportunities. Further, the literature has
suggested that teacher education should provide space for learning about how to facilitate science
discussions in ways that engage with children’s science-related questions and to encourage ways to
efectively integrate science and other content domains, including how to embed aspects of NOS
into the curriculum and content already in place (Akerson et al., 2011; Baruch et al., 2016; Gerde
et al., 2018; Hammer et al., 2016; Henrichs & Leseman, 2014; Hong & Diamond, 2012; Kambouri,
2016; Kloos et al., 2018; Pendergast et al., 2017).
To efectively teach science during the early childhood years, teachers need to have access to time
and material resources, and the person needs to believe that they are capable of teaching science
concepts (Milner et al., 2012). Teachers with higher levels of science self-efcacy often have a greater
variety of science materials in their classroom, whereas the material resources of teachers with lower
science self-efcacy rely primarily on basic science materials and tools (Gerde et al., 2018). More-
over, most teachers, even teachers with high perceptions of self-competence to teach science, report
low self-competence to develop science-related instructional materials (Doğan & Simsar, 2018).
Educational policymakers and leaders need to fnd ways of allocating a wide range of physical and
virtual resources to support teachers and science learning in the classrooms (Zacharia et al., 2012).
Even when provided science teaching materials and tools, there is evidence that teachers do not fully
utilize them to efectively engage children in rich science learning opportunities (Saçkes et al., 2011).
Therefore, such eforts should be accompanied with in-service and preservice teacher education to
enhance educators’ skills in utilizing such resources in designing and implementing high-quality sci-
ence activities for young learners.
Classroom quality measures that are specifc to learning science can support establishing criteria
for equipping classrooms and teachers with materials that encourage the growth and development of
young science learners (Brenneman, 2011). These measures have potential to inform the design and
the implementation of inquiry-based science learning environments for young learners. Informed
with such measures, early learning environments need to be equipped with physical and virtual
science materials to allow children to explore and engage in scientifc inquiry (Saçkes, 2015a; Var-
tiainen & Kumpulainen, 2020).
The emphasis on literacy and mathematics during the early childhood years may push science
out of early childhood instruction, and the limited instructional time devoted to science is often
not developmentally or pedagogically appropriate, including direct instruction, a focus only on sci-
ence vocabulary, or an omission of play-based learning. However, research clearly indicates that the
inclusion of science in early childhood classrooms does not interfere with the attainment of literacy
goals or implementation of standards in other content areas. On the contrary, science instruction can
support children’s learning in other domains, including mathematics and literacy. There is a need
for more research-based curricula that are holistically designed to include a full spectrum of science
concepts integrated with other domains. Although curricular documents for early education, to
some extent, do include science, several barriers prevent teachers from including science content or
skills in their instructional time (Sandholtz & Ringstaf, 2014; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012). Professional
development can provide support for teaching science at the early childhood level. One study of in-
service teachers showed that after one year in professional development, teachers taught more science
lessons, and these lessons were of a longer duration (Sandholtz & Ringstaf, 2011). Further, profes-
sional development appeared to support shifts in teachers’ strategies, to include more experimen-
tal and investigative strategies. Without consistent science learning opportunities, children are not
able to make signifcant growth in science understanding (Mantzicopoulos et al., 2013). Therefore,
509
policymakers and curriculum developers need to achieve greater balance between disciplinary areas
to aford teachers the latitude to devote time to teaching science in early childhood classrooms
(Byrne et al., 2016; Henrichs & Leseman, 2014; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012).
Early Childhood Science Education Should Be Accessible to All Children

When we hear “science for all students”, we might think of special education students exclusively.
However, inclusive education is not limited to students with disabilities or special needs. In fact,
United Nations Educational, Scientifc, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) established that
inclusive education responds to educational underachievement and diminished social

opportunities of vulnerable student identities – Indigenous and First Nations children; the
girl child; children displaced by confict or natural disasters; children from minority ethnic,
religious or tribal groups; children living in poverty; traveller children; and children with
disabilities.
(UNESCO, Slee, 2018)
All children, including those at risk and with disabilities, can beneft from STEM (science, technol-
ogy, engineering, and mathematics) education during the early childhood years (Clements et al.,
2020), and researchers found that the inclusion of science in preschool instruction helps better pre-
pare at-risk children for kindergarten (Zucker et al., 2016). Identifed learning diferences in pre-
school (ages 2–5 years) and kindergarten (ages 5–6 years) persist, especially for children living in
poverty, and early science education experiences can help address these inequities (Bustamante et al.,
2017; Bustamante, White et al., 2018; Kermani & Aldemir, 2015; Morgan et al., 2016; Saçkes et al.,
2010a; Saçkes et al., 2013; Tao et al., 2012; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012).
Researchers found several instructional strategies to be efective in helping special populations of
young children learn science concepts and develop scientifc process skills. These strategies include
inquiry-based instruction, the use of storybooks and expository text, and questioning strategies.
Researchers reported that inquiry-based science education, which helps increase access for all stu-
dents, can help young children who live in poverty (i.e., low SES) and students with disabilities
master science concepts (Alber-Morgan et al., 2015; Apanasionok et al., 2019; Clements et al., 2020;
Gross et al., 2018; Terrazas-Arellanes et al., 2018; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012). In fact, inquiry-based
approaches, with direct intervention for literacy and concept mastery, can allow students with dis-
abilities to master science concepts equivalent to their peers (Alber-Morgan et al., 2015). When
including expository texts with young children with disabilities, researchers suggested that teachers
explicitly teach the students text structure, sequencing, and provide visual supports by pointing to
pictures. Inquiry-based approaches were also found to have a positive efect on the achievement of
children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (Kim et al., 2012). In addition to inquiry-based
instruction, scientifc knowledge and language can be facilitated at the early childhood levels using
storybooks and teacher follow-up questioning (Breit-Smith et al., 2017; Emmons et al., 2016; Frejd,
2019b; Lee & Kinzie, 2011; Lee et al., 2012; Smolkin & Donovan, 2015), and the use of tools such
as graphic organizers have been suggested to help engage young students (Breit-Smith et al., 2017).
Educators need to move beyond expectations of what young children can or cannot do in order
to work toward inclusive science education practices. One study examined science education with
young bilingual learners with disabilities (Martinez-Álverez, 2019), focusing on a series of mediating
artifacts throughout the curriculum, such as photographs and dialogue, to explore how teaching and
learning were collectively negotiated. This process allowed for reframing and rethinking what counts
as knowledge in science, demonstrating that young children’s understandings of words and concepts
can serve as rich information upon which to build new science-related understandings. Culturally
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and contextually responsive pedagogies at the early childhood level respond to children’s everyday
interests, experiences, and wonderings in ways that can lead to rich opportunities for all learners.
One recent study considered a child with a visual impairment’s engagement in science (Fleer &
March, 2015), emphasizing that an inclusive science education can adopt a view of science as a col-
lective enterprise. The authors found that three pedagogical features were important in working
toward inclusion, including facilitating imagination in science, creating space for ongoing scientifc
narratives to evolve, and encouraging scientifc mirroring, being a practice in which the inquiry
being done at school is also brought back to the home. In contexts of cultural diversity, it is critical
to consider how children experience learning at home (Fleer et al., 2019), and as such, transforma-
tive approaches to pedagogy have been suggested to build from relational and responsive approaches.
As already elaborated earlier in this chapter, inquiry is valuable for young children. The research
base has examined inquiry-based practices with culturally and linguistically diverse students, fnding
a beneft from the social interaction encouraged through inquiry in that this provides children with
an opportunity to practice their speaking skills while engaging in an authentic practice. Further, it
has been shown that young children can employ their nonverbal skills in inquiry in ways that use
prior knowledge, while multimodally communicating and furthering this knowledge (Isik Ercan,
2020). When working with at-risk students, researchers emphasized the importance of open-ended
questions to allow children the opportunity to develop language and cognitive skills. Refective,
open-ended questions helped students place vocabulary into the correct context and elicited greater
vocabulary and syntax, which correlated with higher cognition (Breit-Smith et al., 2017; Lee &
Kinzie, 2011). Language and science can develop together through extended opportunities to engage
in dialogue around science ideas and wonderings (Wilmes et al., 2018), as elaborated next.
Science and Language Are Integrally Related

The role of talk, gestures, movements, and drawings for science learning should not be underes-
timated, and researchers continue to investigate the complexity of ways in which young children
express their science understandings. “There is still much to be learned about how young children
talk and interact around a science phenomenon” (Fridberg et al., 2017). Recent research has exam-
ined how verbal communication between children during science investigation supports scientifc
language development as well as enhances children’s opportunities for meaning-making. A central
fnding from across the literature indicates that small group discussions provide signifcant opportuni-
ties for children to develop science practices (Frejd, 2019a; Fridberg et al., 2017; Kim & Roth, 2018;
Kirch & Siry, 2012; Saçkes et al., 2010b; Siry & Lang, 2010; Zhang et al., 2010; Zwiep & Straits,
2013). Young children can engage with and develop profciency with sophisticated science ideas
when teachers provide a variety of learning opportunities that build and expand on their existing
and developing ideas and experiences (Cowie & Otrel Cass, 2011; Siry & Kremer, 2011; Wright &
Gotwals, 2017; Monteira et al., 2020). Strategies that have been shown to facilitate children’s science
understandings dialogically include interactive read-alouds (Frejd, 2019b). Participating in classroom
talk can lead to reasoning and dialogical argumentation (Kim & Roth, 2018), and being able to speak
about one’s own understandings on a “meta-level” has been shown to be very productive in chil-
dren’s learning (Åkerblom et al., 2019). There is value in structuring school science around horizon-
tal learning, which aims to provide learners with a variety of opportunities and spaces to participate,
thereby expanding the entry points for them into school science (Cowie & Otrel-Cass, 2011).
The notion of dialogue extends beyond the words that are spoken, and young children com-
municate in diverse, often nonverbal, ways. Nonverbal participation and communication can reveal,
as well as extend, young children’s science understandings as speech, gestures, and body move-
ment come together in dialogue. Focusing teaching as well as research on diverse multimodal forms
of engagement can provide insights into children’s science understandings (Areljung et al., 2017;
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Cowie & Otrel-Cass, 2011; Siry & Gorges, 2019). Nonverbal communications can provide oppor-
tunities to uncover and engage with children’s reasoning (Cowie & Otrel-Cass, 2011; Saçkes, 2015a;
van der Graaf et al., 2015; Wilson & Bradbury, 2016), as children often engage with science in com-
plex multimodal and embodied ways (Areljung et al., 2017; Siry & Gorges, 2019). There is value in
creating classroom structures that support communication with peers around science (Anderson &
Gullberg, 2014; Fridberg et al., 2017; Goulart & Roth, 2010; Hammer et al., 2016; Kim & Roth,
2018; Kloos et al., 2018; Lee & Kinzie, 2011; Lee et al., 2012; Parsons & Bryant, 2016; Saçkes et al.,
2010b; Siry & Gorges, 2019; Siry & Max, 2013; Tank et al., 2018; Tao, 2016; Tippett & Milford,
2017). Pedagogical approaches that encourage open-ended questions can open new opportunities
for young children’s inquiry in ways that can support the development of language (Impedovo et al.,
2017). Child–child interaction supports and enriches science ideas, especially when acts of doing
science are carried out (Frejd, 2019b, Siry et al., 2012). Fairy-tales can support dramatizing scientifc
language and learning processes, and through dramatization of stories with scientifc dialogue, chil-
dren can integrate science language through imagination (Fleer, 2013).
In particular, science instruction promotes sense-making while providing authentic communi-
cation opportunities, and early introduction of science vocabulary can provide a foundation for
scafolding future understanding and academic language (Parsons & Bryant, 2016) as well as domain-
specifc vocabulary (Guo et al., 2016). Science teaching in early childhood has been shown to increase
vocabulary (Henrichs & Leseman, 2014; Hong & Diamond, 2012; Mantzicopoulos & Patrick, 2011;
Parsons & Bryant, 2016; Tippett & Milford, 2017; Wilson & Bradbury, 2016; Wright & Gotwals,
2017), and reading aloud and engaging children in questioning can lead to increased science under-
standing (Frejd, 2019b; Lee et al., 2012; Mantzicopoulos & Patrick, 2010, 2011; Pantoya et al., 2015;
Zhang et al., 2010). Children’s literature has been shown to be a useful approach for engaging chil-
dren in science conversations, and research shows that using stories in science teaching can improve
children’s understanding of scientifc concepts as well as nurturing their positive attitudes toward
science. In one recent intervention study targeting kindergartners’ science vocabulary, three instruc-
tional techniques were shown as useful, as teachers: (1) interactively read aloud information books,
(2) engaged students in conversation, and (3) provided hands-on science activity centers. Results
demonstrated that children deepened their understanding of the targeted vocabulary words (Par-
sons & Bryant, 2016). The development of science vocabulary can be supported in a variety of ways,
including through shared book reading (Gonzalez et al., 2010), read-alouds of books (Parsons &
Bryant, 2016), or book talks between teachers and children (Hansson et al., 2020). It is critical to pay
attention to the ways in which children express and develop their understandings in science and to
create space to build from children’s multimodal engagement and representations. Children’s nonver-
bal communication can ofer insights into their reasoning, which teachers can build from (Areljung
et al., 2017; Cowie & Otrel-Cass, 2011; Saçkes, 2015a; Siry & Gorges, 2019; van der Graaf et al.,
2015; Wilson & Bradbury, 2016); thus it is important that space is provided for children to engage
with science education in a diversity of embodied ways. Students’ verbal and written communication
in science, as well as their engagement in science, can be fostered through the integration of science
with other areas of the curricula (Gross et al., 2018), as elaborated next.
Integration of Science With Other Subject Areas Can

Work Toward Holistic Understandings
The literature reports on numerous studies exploring strategies for integrating science with other
disciplines, including with art, mathematics, and literacy. In particular, studies examine how students
exhibited increase in profciency in science/math/literacy integration (Czerniak et al., 2019; Cle-
ments et al., 2020; Greenfeld et al., 2009; Kermani & Aldemir, 2015; Morgan et al., 2016; Paprzycki
et al., 2017; Smolkin & Donovan, 2015; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012; Weinburgh et al., 2014; Wright &
512
Gotwals, 2017; Zwiep & Straits, 2013). The development of science and mathematical skills during
the early years is highly related to cognitive processes. Integrating early childhood mathematics and
science through representation, measurement, and data analysis may help children understand how
scientifc and mathematical skills are associated and useful in solving problems in their immediate
environments (Saçkes, 2013). Studies that examined the efectiveness of science, mathematics, and
literacy integration demonstrated that integrated curricula can be efective in supporting children’s
learning across the three domains (Breit-Smith et al., 2017; Czerniak et al., 2019; Hu et al., 2020;
Gropen et al., 2017; Guo et al., 2016; Mantzicopoulos & Patrick, 2010; Mantzicopoulos et al., 2013;
Pantoya et al., 2015; Paprzycki et al., 2017; Parsons & Bryant, 2016; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012; Wein-
burgh et al., 2014). Therefore, educators are encouraged to integrate science into other domains,
specifcally mathematics and literacy (Gross et al., 2018). Eforts to minimize achievement gaps in
reading and mathematics should consider the beneft of inclusion of framework-aligned science
instruction and practices in early childhood education classrooms (Czerniak et al., 2019).
Integration approaches such as STEM and STEAM are well represented in the literature. STEM
integration, such as with engineering design-based foci, has been shown to “promote the practices
of language skills as it encouraged frequent instances of student talk and student response alongside
student action” (Tank et al., 2018), and such a reciprocal relationship between science and other
disciplines has been highlighted across the studies. Introducing engineering-related topics during
reading or literacy activities might promote children’s understanding of engineering and its prac-
tices (Pantoya et al., 2015), and there is value in providing opportunities for young children to learn
about technology while also learning with technology. Technology integration has been shown
to increase the development of science process skills, such as critical thinking analysis, stimulated
recall, and increased content profciency (Clements et al., 2020; Fridberg et al., 2017; Kermani &
Aldemir, 2015; Ucar, 2015; Wan et al., 2020). Digital tools such as tablets with Slowmation have
been used with children of young ages (e.g., 3 years old, Fleer, 2013). Tablets have been shown to
facilitate preschool children’s enhanced reasoning and support their communication about science
phenomena as well as problem solving during investigations and Slowmation creation (Fridberg
et al., 2017). Computer simulations and software included in the science curriculum have potential
to promote conceptual understanding of science concepts and the development of science process
skills (Fridberg et al., 2017; Ucar, 2015). Tablets and software can engage children for long periods
of time, and children at very young ages are capable of manipulating computer applications or tablet
apps and learning science information (Ucar, 2015). Moreover, kindergartners are able to use com-
puter software as well as the potential to master basic programming skills (Sullivan & Bers, 2016).
Research examining STEM at the early childhood level has revealed that robotics has been shown to
be a “playful and tangible way” for children to engage with both technology and engineering during
early childhood (“T” and “E” of STEM) (Sullivan & Bers, 2016). Activities based on robotics and
system design allow children the opportunity to develop problem-solving skills through play, which
researchers found to increase literacy, motivation, numeracy, and interpersonal skills (Ucar, 2015).
Early childhood science education and engineering integration develops a range of learning skills
(Dalvi et al., 2016; Lin et al., 2020; Pantoya et al., 2015; Sullivan & Bers, 2016), and integrated engi-
neering design supports both student-directed and teacher-directed learning by providing a space
and context for teachers and students to make cross-disciplinary connections (Tank et al., 2018). In a
study that examined STEM integration, researchers provided purposeful engineering instruction to
children (3–7 years old) through using engineering-centered literacy practices, including the reading
of a book and a drawing activity (Pantoya et al., 2015), demonstrating how these positively impacted
children’s engineering identities.
In addition to the integration of STEM and STEAM foci, literacy integration is a focus of the
early childhood science education research literature, with multiple studies exploring how science
knowledge and literacy both increase through storybooks/science texts (Breit-Smith et al., 2017;
513
Emmons et al., 2016; Frejd, 2019b; Gerde et al., 2018; Guo et al., 2016; Lee & Kinzie, 2011; Man-
tzicopoulos & Patrick, 2010, 2011, Mantzicopoulos et al., 2013; Pantoya et al., 2015; Paprzycki
et al., 2017; Parsons & Bryant, 2016; Smolkin & Donovan, 2015). Science-related picture books
can facilitate children’s engagement with both literacy and science and can support the develop-
ment of science vocabulary as well as academic language (Mantzicopoulos & Patrick, 2010, 2011).
Two studies in diferent national contexts examined the use of a storybook in an intervention
that focused on young children’s understandings of natural selection (Emmons et al., 2016; Frejd,
2019b). The book tells the story of a fctitious mammal species, and the fndings confrm that young
children can learn complex biological ideas such as natural selection. Storybook interventions are
simple but powerful teaching tools, and storybooks can provide a mechanism for discussion of
other topics that children might fnd interesting or important (Emmons et al., 2016, Frejd, 2019b).
Teachers may augment young children’s science learning and discourse through integrated curricu-
lar materials (Wright & Gotwals, 2017), yet few curricula integrate science with other domains.
Strategies for integrating science across the curriculum ought to be included as an essential topic in
teacher preparation and professional development programs (Paprzycki et al., 2017; Gropen et al.,
2017; Trundle & Saçkes, 2012). A need exists to develop curricular programs for children that are
highly engaging but appropriately challenging in the areas of technology and engineering (Sulli-
van & Bers, 2016), and it has been suggested that teacher preparation and professional development
programs ought to focus on STEM and engineering in classroom practice (Bustamante, Greenfeld
et al., 2018; Tank et al., 2018).
Outdoor and Environmental Education Are Important in Early Childhood

Researchers and educators encourage the inclusion of outdoor and environmentally based educa-
tional experiences for young children. In a literature review of 79 studies that focused on education
for sustainable development (ESD) with young children, researchers described ESD as education
about the environment, learning that takes place in the environment, and educational experiences
that lead to or involve environmental advocacy. Researchers also defned ESD to include economic,
social, and environmental approaches to education. All variations of ESD recognized the limitations
and value of our natural resources (Hedefalk et al., 2014). Some of these studies focused on young
children’s development of agency (i.e., feeling empowered to bring about change) when they par-
ticipated in environmental inquiry-based education and/or engaged in environmental sustainability
(Caiman & Lundegård, 2018; Green, 2015; Hedefalk et al., 2014; Tippins et al., 2015; Wight et al.,
2015). When combined with teacher-talk, outdoor exploration increased children’s engagement
with inquiry and science language use (Kloos et al., 2018; Wight et al., 2015). Exploration of the
natural world helped children develop ethics of care and respect while they also developed inquiry-
based science process skills (Tippins et al., 2015).
Researchers identifed and described diferent ways teachers efectively engaged students in learn-
ing about nature and the environment. These approaches included school gardens, citizen science
projects, and scientifc inquiry that used playscapes or play in nature (Tippins et al., 2015; Trundle &
Hagevik, in review; Wight et al., 2015). The use of school gardens during the early childhood years
provides a way for teachers to help connect young children to nature and the environment (Tip-
pins et al., 2015). The research on garden-based learning in early childhood contexts has increased
over the past ten years, and researchers identifed benefts, including academic outcomes (e.g., con-
tent area learning and/or skill development), environmental outcomes (e.g., understanding of the
environment, changes in environmental values and/or behaviors, active engagement with nature),
personal skills development (e.g., motivation, community building, inter/intrapersonal skills, posi-
tive student-to-student behaviors), and wellness outcomes (e.g., knowledge of fruits and vegetables,
physical activity, motor skills development) (Trundle & Hagevik, in review).
514
Citizen science projects ofer a valuable approach for gathering data and encouraging the pub-
lic (i.e., non-scientists, including teachers, children, and families) to become involved in scientifc
research projects through participation in data collection and discovery (Tippins et al., 2015). For
scientists, citizen science expands the geographic range of projects, number of observations, and
can create data sets for long-term monitoring. From the perspective of the public, citizen science
projects can provide enjoyable past times that engage communities through experiential learning and
increase awareness and understanding of scientifc processes and conservation initiatives. Although
the observation phase of citizen science projects is not inclusive of all science process skills, participa-
tion benefts children by connecting them to nature and laying a foundation for future investigations
In addition to garden-based learning and citizen science projects, researchers also studied play-
scapes or play in nature that involved scientifc inquiry. Researchers defne playscapes as landscaped
play areas that includes natural materials and few, if any, manmade components. Playscapes, which
are designed to connect children with nature, usually include native plants, grassy spaces, and trees. A
study that focused on young children’s development of science inquiry using a playscape found that
this type of outdoor space generated at least three types of inquiry compared to the playground with
only one inquiry-related area, which involved an adult-led activity. The playscape generated more
opportunities for children to explore, engage with inquiry investigations, and make connections with
nature (Wight et al., 2015). In addition to inquiry experiences, researchers examined the nature of
spontaneous teacher-talk and teacher–child interactions while children engaged with a playscape. As
children engaged in science-related explorations, teachers conversed using reliable science-relevant
teacher-talk, and management techniques were infuenced by the time teachers spent in science-
relevant conversations with children (Kloos et al., 2018). Given the promise of outdoor and envi-
ronmentally focused experiences for young children, researchers call for future research to investigate
additional opportunities for informal and formal science learning in outdoor and natural settings
(Wight et al., 2015).
Family Participation Supports Children’s Science Learning

Studies have demonstrated that parents play an important role in young children’s development
of science concept understanding and skills prior to formal schooling (Harris & Koenig, 2006);
Rigney & Callanan, 2011; Tenenbaum & Callanan, 2008). Parent–child interactions can support
children’s science-related interests (Pattison & Dierking, 2019) as well as their emergent scientifc
thinking (Lloyd et al., 2017). By responding to children’s natural phenomena–related questions and
providing learning opportunities with relevant objects and materials, parents promote young chil-
dren’s interest in science and understanding of scientifc phenomena (Alexander et al., 2012; Saçkes,
2014; Sikder & Fleer, 2018). Family involvement has been demonstrated to be a factor in children’s
learning (Kallery, 2011), and research has explored ways to extend opportunities to engage with
science to the home. Family workshops and playgroups can facilitate caregivers’ abilities to support
children’s learning and create a space for children to communicate and develop new science under-
standings (Fleer et al., 2019).
Science experiences and engagement with nature-related questions at home appear to be among
the major sources of young children’s science interests. Including science materials, texts, and experi-
ences in the home environment and engaging young children in conversations that encourage them
to interact with the environment promote children’s learning of science concepts (Sikder & Fleer,
2018; Tuttle et al., 2017). Children’s interest and engagement in science appeared to be sustained
by extending learning experiences to include family involvement (Cowie & Otrel-Cass, 2011; Pat-
tison & Dierking, 2019). By facilitating opportunities for family engagement, continued learning
was found to be supported across in-school and out-of-school contexts, and parents were found to
be more actively involved in their children’s learning (Czerniak et al., 2019; Mantzicopoulos et al.,
515
2013; Tao et al., 2012). Studies have indicated that there might be variations in the level of children’s
opportunities to experience science at home and school, and it has been suggested that children
who live in high-SES environments tend to have greater access to home-based science resources and
experiences than those who live in middle-SES or poverty environments (Tao et al., 2012). Parental
beliefs about their children’s interest and competencies may determine the type of learning experi-
ences they provide to their children both in and out of home. When parents are asked for their pri-
orities for curricular content areas, few parents listed science in the top three preferences, and over
half of the parents ranked science among their last three priorities, indicating that few parents pri-
oritize science learning during the early years (Saçkes, 2014; Saçkes et al., 2019). Providing materials
and guides regarding science activities to parents may enhance their confdence in supporting home
science activities and abilities to engage their children in science-related interactions and discourse
(Tuttle et al., 2017).
Adults who are in positions to interact with young children should be encouraged to respond
to and build on children’s natural curiosity, science-related play, and inquisitiveness. These eforts
can allow caregivers and teachers to provide rich opportunities for discussion and communication
that can sustain children’s interest over time and promote understanding of scientifc phenomena
(Alexander et al., 2012; Paprzycki et al., 2017). Supported opportunities for parents to engage with
their children in science has been shown to generate children’s engagement and interest, while also
increasing parents’ and practitioners’ confdence in their abilities to promote children’s curiosity, both
at home and in childcare (Lloyd et al., 2017). Additionally, providing support to caregivers for learn-
ing about how to engage with children in inquiry, including strategies for scafolding, can lead to
science-oriented family interactions and discourse (Tuttle et al., 2017). More research is needed on
the role that parents play (Wan et al., 2020) and to explore how parental beliefs, attitudes, and prac-
tices regarding science education in early years infuence children’s learning at home and in school,
as well as to explore efective ways to promote family involvement in young children’s early science
learning (Alexander et al., 2012; Saçkes, 2014; Sikder & Fleer, 2018).
Materiality Connects With Young Children’s Science Learning

Materiality as a focus in the recent research literature has two directions in the feld; frst, it refers to
engagement with materials themselves, and second, it refers to research lenses that can highlight such
engagement between materials and children. The materials used during science inquiry activities
can promote children’s engagement and learning (Frejd, 2019a; Vartiainen & Kumpulainen, 2020),
and all children should be provided opportunities to engage with scientifc material exploration
(Günther-Hanssen, 2020). By interacting with the science materials in the investigation, children
assign new meaning to the objects and playfully engage them in diferent contexts. Children observe
their peers interacting with the materials and then attempt similar actions of their own (Vartiainen &
Kumpulainen, 2020). The interaction between the material world and children’s action upon that
world help them construct scientifc understanding of phenomena and allow children to make con-
nections between the natural and designed world (Günther-Hanssen, 2020). Material-rich science
learning centers or corners within the classrooms increase time spent within these areas and support
children’s physical, cognitive, and emotional needs and promote creative usage of science process
skills (Inan & Inan, 2015; Inan et al., 2010; Nayfeld et al., 2011; Saçkes et al., 2010a). Availability of a
nature or science area can facilitate teaching science in the classroom and increase children’s engage-
ment in self-initiated science activities (Saçkes et al., 2010a, Saçkes et al., 2011). Interactions with
simple tools have been suggested to enhance both young children’s engagement in science learning
and their understanding of science phenomena (Impedovo et al., 2017)
Materiality as relevant for science learning is an increasing recent focus in science education
research, providing new directions in the feld for considering the intra-actions that occur in science
516
learning contexts. de Freitas and Palmer (2016) investigated how new materialist philosophies of
matter can help understand the emergence of scientifc thought in young children’s investigation,
between concepts, matter, and meaning. They argue that concepts need to be reconceived in educa-
tion, so that rather than being treated as transcendent, concepts emerge and partake in children’s play
and learning. Relatedly, Haus (2018) drew on such new materialist perspectives to reveal how intra-
actions between a fve-year-old boy, a piece of paper, and the concepts of force and fight lead to an
intersection of play, learning science, and becoming. Impedovo et al. (2017) drew upon sociomate-
riality perspectives to examine preschool children’s interactions as they investigate the formation of
shadows, fnding a complexity of material, human, and social dimensions that come together to con-
tribute to children’s understandings. Young children’s understandings of science concepts emerge and
evolve through the interaction of children with materials together with opportunities for embodied
engagement (Impedovo et al., 2017), and the research in this area underscores the value of creating
spaces for children to participate in material-rich open-ended explorations of science phenomena.
Such engagement with materials and with science begins long before children enter formal school-
ing, as explored next.
Science Education With Infants and Toddlers Is a Growing Area of Research

A small but rapidly growing area of the feld explores science education with infants and toddlers,
as researchers examine the ways in which very young children communicate and engage in sci-
ence with their teachers (Areljung et al., 2017), their parents (Sikder & Fleer, 2015, 2018), and
with peers (Adams & Parlakian, 2016). Areljung et al. (2017) present sequences of teachers and
children interacting around science phenomena, and as teachers and children engage in science
together, demonstrating that two-year-old children can communicate their understandings around
science content in ways other than through verbal language. Researchers have investigated the
bodily ways in which very young children experience natural encounters, such as experiencing icy
surfaces (Klaar & Öhman, 2012). Infant-toddlers’ learning of small science concept formation can be
enhanced by everyday family practices, where the intentional and purposeful actions of parents create
contexts to support infant-toddlers’ development of science concepts (Sikder, 2015). For example,
as toddlers help a parent water gardens or lawns, young children can begin to learn the basic needs
of plants – plants need water to live and grow (Sikder & Fleer, 2015, 2018). Relatedly, research has
explored toddlers’ inquiry processes, revealing relations between children’s previous experiences
with natural phenomena and their meaning-making and potential for future actions; as young chil-
dren learn about science and nature, they use their new knowledge to respond to their environments
in diferent ways during future encounters (Klaar & Öhman, 2012).
Implications and Closing Thoughts: The Future of

Teaching and Learning Science in ECE
This chapter sought to explore and understand the current state-of-the-art research regarding early
childhood science education. In this section, we draw implications with relevance for future research,
teacher education, and teaching practice, as we look ahead to new potential directions in the feld.
Much research in early childhood has focused on how to categorize children’s knowledge and on
teaching practices that facilitate such knowledge, and it has been consistently demonstrated that
teachers have a critical role in children’s science learning. The recent literature underscores the ways
in which pedagogical approaches that engage children in inquiry-based open-ended investigations
facilitate the development of children’s science understandings and practices, encouraging positive
emotions and increased interest in science. To briefy summarize, the literature reviewed for this
chapter indicates that opportunities to engage in scientifc inquiry are valuable for young children
517
and that play is an important context for learning science. Further, it is clear that early childhood
science opportunities should be accessible to all children, and toward that end, a range of early child-
hood curricula and resources can support science learning. The literature explores ways in which
integration of science with other subject areas can work toward children developing holistic science-
related understandings and highlights that the development of science and language are integrally
related. Family participation can be an important factor in young children’s science learning, and
children’s emotions and motivation toward science are valuable resources for learning. Contexts for
outdoor and environmental education are also important in early childhood, and an increasing focus
in the recent literature is on the ways in which opportunities to engage with materials are critical for
learning science, and further, science education for very young children (i.e., infants and toddlers) is
a growing area of the feld.
Three questions were asked at the beginning of this review process, and the frst one has been
addressed in the previous sections, being what does the literature reveal about science education at
the early childhood levels? We concur with perspectives from the literature that highlight the many
ways in which children engage with science phenomena as more than content alone, and the litera-
ture has emphasized some of the complexities and perspectives around such engagement and interest
in science. Recent literature explores holistic approaches to science education at the early childhood
level, which move beyond content- and practice-related aspects of science education toward explor-
ing children’s embodied engagement and diverse ways of representing and communicating. There
is a growing and diverse research focus on the complexities of science education at the early child-
hood level, and in refexively considering the themes and trends elaborated thus far, several salient
implications emerge that support looking toward productive directions for early childhood science
education research and practice.
Two related questions served to guide the analysis, namely, what are the implications for research
and what are the implications for teaching? A frst implication for research regards the role of meth-
odologies for investigating children’s participation in science. Several data-collection methods have
been employed in studying young children’s learning of science, which have advantages and limita-
tions regarding their implementations and the type of data they generate. Interviews, whether struc-
tured or not, are a commonly used data collection method with young children. Although interviews
can provide rich data regarding children’s understandings of the natural phenomena, conducting
interviews with young children requires extensive training and practice. The data obtained through
interviews might be constrained by the limitation in language skills of young children, and the physi-
cal space and material arrangement of sessions by teachers and researchers shapes the ways in which
children perform (Impedovo et al., 2017). Children’s drawings and the production and manipulation
of physical models when combined with interviews, may generate data refecting a more detailed
description of children’s understandings of natural phenomena (Trundle & Saçkes, 2012). Method-
ologies that provide space for children to show their understandings through using photos, videos,
and a range of other resources can also provide a context to further develop understandings as well
as support positive emotions and motivation (Chang, 2012). Researchers in early childhood science
education have refected upon ways to gain understandings of children’s perspectives on science,
elaborating approaches to collaborate with children in research (Bird et al., 2013), and highlighting
the value of situating research as a shared dialogue between teachers and researchers (Fleer et al.,
2019). Data-collection approaches that utilize multiple data-collection techniques, such as verbal
responses, audio and visual recordings of children’s naturally occurring interactions, drawings, con-
struction materials (e.g., play dough, modeling clay) and manipulation of three-dimensional models
and physical tools (e.g., globes, maps) are needed to efectively examine young children’s learning
and engagement. More research is needed to paint rich descriptions of what is going on during sci-
ence learning experiences in early childhood classrooms. Such research should be designed to collect
a variety of data, including observations of science teaching practices in and out of school, artifacts
518
produced by children during science learning experiences, and perceptions of teachers’ as well as
parents’ needs, intentions, and practices regarding providing early science learning experiences to
young children (Trundle & Saçkes, 2012). The fndings of these studies may inform the practices of
researchers, educators, parents, and policymakers in designing and implementing quality early sci-
ence learning experiences for young children.
A second implication regards perspectives on children’s capabilities in science. Recent research
has highlighted children’s capacities for complex scientifc thinking, and it has been demonstrated
that young children can develop and express understandings of a wide range of scientifc theories
and concepts. Young children can develop sophisticated understandings when provided with oppor-
tunities to investigate phenomena and represent understandings. Research has demonstrated that
concepts and phenomena that might be considered difcult for young children, such as astronomi-
cal concepts (Hobson et al., 2010; Kallery, 2011; Saçkes et al., 2016), can become accessible when
introduced with strategies and resources that are motivating and that allow space for children’s ways
of engagement. Young children’s imagination can serve as a resource for learning science, and peda-
gogical approaches that allow for open-ended exploration and dialogue can create space for science
understandings and practices to develop while also serving as structures for children’s agentic engage-
ment. This implication extends to research as well as to teaching practices, as assessment also needs
to take into consideration the diversity of ways in which young children express and make meanings
in science.
A critical implication for practice as well as for research has emerged, regarding diversity and
equity as researchers highlight eforts to making science more meaningful for children with cultural
and social backgrounds that might difer from the school culture. All children should have opportuni-
ties to engage in science, to develop practices and positive attitudes toward science, and to build deep
understandings. Asset-oriented (Iannacci, 2016), resource-rich (Siry, 2014) approaches can position
children in ways that are respectful of children’s ways of knowing and that facilitate young children’s
agentic engagement in science. Pedagogy that builds from children’s curiosity can serve as a catalyst
for conversations, and for relationship building between teachers and children (Menning, 2019).
When science learning is situated as occurring within a community, all members of the community
work together toward building and refning knowledge and understanding together (Zangori & Pin-
now, 2020).
A question that has been raised by numerous authors is the question of what the goals of science
education at the early childhood level should be. A quality science education can bridge strengths
from early childhood education together with those from the feld of science education (Larimore,
2020). Visions of early childhood science learning and teaching suggest approaches that embrace
children’s ways of knowing, building from spaces for interaction and dialogue. It has been sug-
gested that “the trend toward more structured and academic early childhood programs is misguided”
(Gopnik, 2012, p. 1623); rather, early childhood is a time for a science education that builds from
students’ experiences, perspectives, and wonderings. Such an approach moves beyond knowing con-
tent or having skills, as the focus shifts to working toward helping children to make sense of the
world in ways that emerge from direct engagement with phenomena. This process can be facilitated
though open-ended opportunities for interaction and through relational approaches that engage
children, teachers, and their families in discovering science phenomena and building understandings
(Fleer et al., 2019). Researchers have argued that there is more to learning science than appropriat-
ing facts (Åkerblom et al., 2019) or acquiring core concepts (Andersson & Gullberg, 2014), and the
literature has elaborated how relational approaches to pedagogy can be transformative. Refecting on
the body of work that has been examined for this chapter leads us to look forward in hopes for an
early childhood science education built on a recognition of the inherent complexities in working
with young children, and an integral base built on diversity and heterogeneity, committed to equity
and inclusion.
519
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17
ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
TEACHING
Toward the Goal of Scientifc Literacy
The ultimate goal of science education is for teachers to shape scientifcally literate students by the
time they graduate from high school. This work begins with elementary school teachers. Scientifc
literacy is composed of three parts: content knowledge (e.g., astronomy, biology, chemistry, geol-
ogy, physics), nature of science (e.g., science as a way of knowing), and scientifc inquiry (processes
of how scientifc knowledge is developed) (Roberts, 2008). It is key for elementary teachers to
begin shaping understandings of each of these components of scientifc literacy early in a student’s
education. In this chapter, we share research on elementary science teaching, beginning with science
standards that have been developed worldwide, followed by elementary teachers’ self-efcacy for
teaching science, their conceptions and practices of teaching nature of scientifc knowledge, scien-
tifc inquiry, science content knowledge, and more recently, inclusion of engineering and STEM
in the elementary science classroom. Despite a focus on scientifc literacy, it is now the case that
engineering and STEM are included in the elementary science curriculum in many countries, which
could afect development of scientifc literacy. The following subsections elaborate on the research
conducted in the past 15 years in each area for both in-service and preservice teachers. Frequently
there was more research on preservice teachers; however, we included both when research was
found. As selection criteria, both authors conducted separate searches in the databases of their respec-
tive university libraries for peer-reviewed articles of research conducted in content area knowledge,
science teaching, and feld work, with associated subsections. We draw conclusions about the status
of elementary science teaching and make recommendations for future research to improve elemen-
tary science teaching.
Science Standards Around the World

Although it is commonly thought across the world that scientifc literacy is the goal of elementary
science education, the standards each region develops to work toward that goal vary. These vari-
ances in standards highlight the difculty in defning scientifc literacy, as well as agreement on
components that indicate someone is scientifcally literate. The following paragraphs briefy distill
the science standards for each geographic region divided by continent. These are only samples of
K–12 science standards from around the world. These countries were selected because they met at
least one requirement: either research has been conducted in these countries in scientifc literacy, or
the country/region includes scientifc literacy within their standards. Of the 19 countries selected, 4
are not part of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) sampling for the
528 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-21

Elementary Science Teaching
2019 TIMSS assessment (Kelly et al., 2020). This selection of standards is by no means representative
of all science standards around the world, but it does give a cross sampling. It should also be noted
that there were science standards for each of the countries/regions even in the earliest grade levels.
All science standards focus on science content. We also noted in the following paragraphs whether
the standards include nature of science and scientifc inquiry.
Africa
In Nigeria, there has been a review of the Universal Basic Education Curriculum (Federal Ministry
of Education, 1999) by the Nigerian Education Research and Development Council. For grades
1–3, a focus in science is on climate change and natural disasters related to climate change. In grades
4–6, students will learn about the world around them. There is a vague mention of scientifc lit-
eracy where it is stated, “students will acquire basic knowledge and skills in science and technology
and apply scientifc and technological knowledge and skills to meet contemporary societal needs”.
Despite the fact that there is a curriculum in place, it is not readily accessible for teachers across the
country (Igbokwe, 2015).
In South Africa, the National Science Curriculum (Department of Basic Education [DBE], 2011)
prompts teachers to use inquiry-based approaches to teach science. Furthermore, the curriculum
implicitly promotes knowledge about inquiry by providing a list of science process skills, including a
detailed description of each skill. This emphasis is represented in all grades from early childhood to
secondary school. However, actual teaching about and through scientifc inquiry may vary amongst
schools and teachers.
Asia
In China, learning science through inquiry is advocated in the national science curriculum standards
for elementary school in Mainland China (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China,
2003). Based on the standards, scientifc inquiry is one of the three dimensions around which the
national science curriculum for primary education is built. In this dimension, process skills are the
main focus.
Currently, Taiwan’s national education curriculum guideline is under reform so that scientifc
inquiry (SI) has become the major theme of science curricula in grades 1–12. In addition, guidelines
for Grade 1–9 science curricula have included the components of doing SI in the competence indi-
cators of students’ learning (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2003).
Europe
In England, science teaching in elementary schools is governed by the National Curriculum (Depart-
ment for Education, 2013), and by the end of elementary school, students are expected to be able
to make their own decisions about setting up and conducting scientifc inquiries, but there is no
specifc mention of understanding the nature of scientifc inquiry. On the other hand, science itself
is taught through a wide variety of methods, with the majority of schools teaching some form of sci-
ence weekly and around two-thirds combining this with other types of activities, such as dedicated
science weeks, science days, and visits.
The Finnish primary science curriculum (FNBE, 2015) emphasizes some competencies related to
“doing” inquiry, such as evaluating and designing scientifc inquiry or interpreting data and evidence
scientifcally. However, there are no specifc aims for “understanding” inquiry. In the classroom, the
curriculum guides teachers to use an inquiry orientation in teaching and learning of science, but
there currently are no research outcomes on teaching and learning of elementary science.
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The French national curriculum for elementary school (BOEN, 2015) guides the acquisition of
knowledge, skills, and culture that each French student must reach at the end of compulsory edu-
cation. Understanding of inquiry is not explicitly included among the competencies, but students
must be familiar with “the practice of scientifc and technological approaches”, “the appropriation
of tools and methods”, “the practice of languages”, and “the use of numerical tools”. Moreover,
science is taught mostly by using the inquiry approach where students demonstrate ability to do
inquiry.
For Germany, in early elementary school national science education standards are not avail-
able, but only curricula for each federal state. However, after fourth grade, science education shall
contribute to scientifc literacy as defned by the National Science Education Standards (KMK,
2017).
Israel has a centralized science curriculum, consisting of objectives, content and pedagogical
issues, and practical activities, but there are no current science standards for elementary school. In
addition, knowledge about scientifc inquiry is one of the objectives of the science curriculum in the
elementary school as well as in secondary and high school; however, the focus is mostly on “doing”
inquiry (Ministry of Education, 2018).
In Spain, the Andalusian curriculum and the Organic Law of Education have adopted the frame-
work agreed by the Council and the European Parliament (in which scientifc competence is empha-
sized as one of the eight key competencies for the scientifc literacy of citizens and science) has been
one of the compulsory subjects in the resulting curricula (Sánchez Cumplido and Viejo Montesinos,
2012).
In Sweden, science is a compulsory subject in the Sweden educational system beginning at
frst grade, and understanding of inquiry is included, though vaguely. Additionally, the curriculum
emphasizes three learning goals in terms of “methods and ways of working” in science. From fourth
grade, the curriculum is divided into physics, chemistry, and biology, and each subject includes four
goals under the topic “methods and ways of working”, and these are subject-specifc ways of studying
nature. The curriculum also shows general statements about understanding the nature of scientifc
inquiry in the subjects; however, the emphasis in the curriculum is on doing science rather than
understanding inquiry (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011).
Turkey has a national curriculum for every subject area, which is compulsory in all primary
schools. The curriculum for science classes for primary schools (MBE) from third through eighth
grades was updated in 2017. The standards are mainly focused on the content areas, with references
to aspects of NOS and SI, such as (1) obtaining data by making experiments and (2) making infer-
ences, interpretations, and generalizations by using these data.
Oceania
The Australian curriculum: Science F-10 (ACARA, 2022) is structured around three interrelated
strands: science understanding, science as human endeavor, and science inquiry skills. However, there is no
expectation that scientifc inquiry is to be explicitly addressed in elementary classrooms. Elementary
teachers are responsible for teaching across the entire curriculum and typically do not hold tertiary
qualifcations, often resulting in low confdence in teaching science (Jarrett, 1999).
New Zealand has a national curriculum that includes science as one of the eight learning areas
(Ministry of Education, 2007). These areas are very broadly defned, and it is up to each school
to develop a set of learning experiences considered appropriate for their students and community.
The curriculum, therefore, is very non-prescriptive. In addition, elementary teachers are gener-
ally responsible for teaching all eight learning areas, and the majority of these teachers do not have
science-specifc training beyond their own school experiences and a short science education course
included in their preservice teacher education.
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North America
Canada does not have national standards, but each province has its own set of standards. For example,
in Ontario the curriculum explicitly outlines specifc expectations for scientifc investigation, such
as initiating planning, performing recordings, analyzing and interpreting data, and communication.
In the elementary standards specifcally there are direct references to understandings of nature of sci-
ence and the process skills of science (Ontario, 2007). Although each province develops their own
standards, there is a national framework. This framework focuses on science in the early grades as
well as understandings of science beyond content (Milford et al., 2010).
Mexico has an enormous diversity of national subsystems and curricular programs, underpinned
by a variety of teaching and learning frameworks. Recent reforms in Mexico’s education system
have provided a Common Curricular Framework (MCC) for the upper secondary level (SEMS,
2017), which dictates the national standards in terms of what knowledge, attitudes, skills, and values
are the ones every student must possess after graduating high school no matter what subsystem they
are graduating from. This MCC is structured through the defnition of generic competences and
its principle attributes, basic and extended disciplinary competences, and professional competences
(López-Bonilla, 2015).
The United States has a general set of science standards called the Next Generation Science Stan-
dards (NGSS). These standards were adopted in 2012 and are used from kindergarten and through
12th grade. These standards encompass three main aspects of science education: content, cross-
cutting themes, and practices of science. Although there is a national set of standards, each state can
choose to adopt these or their own standards.
South America
The Brazilian National Curricular Parameters and the National Education Plan comprise Brazil’s
standards (Brazil, 2018). None of the documents promote and prioritize scientifc inquiry in sci-
ence classrooms through activities. In most Brazilian elementary classrooms, science is taught using
a teacher-centered approach with few or no practical activities. The Chilean national science cur-
riculum for elementary school (MINEDUC, 2012) establishes learning objectives related to science
content, scientifc skills, and attitudes. Moreover, the idea of scientifc inquiry appears associated as
a research skill that refers to the actions of doing science and not to the refection on the meaning
of inquiry itself. This emphasis is strengthened in all the ofcial documents suggested for preparing
lessons.
Summary
Although each region across the world has its own science standards, the common theme running
throughout is the expectation of not teaching science content in isolation. Each set of standards not
only acknowledges the knowledge about specifc content areas but also the knowledge about science
and how scientists do their work. Although this idea is attended to in standards across the world,
most elementary science teachers do not teach science beyond the content knowledge (Duschl,
1990; Lederman, 1992).
Elementary Science Teachers’ Self-Effcacy to Teach Science

Despite a global understanding that science instruction should begin at a very young age, research
shows science is not always taught in the elementary classroom as much as other core subjects (e.g.,
Blank, 2013). A recent research study found that in kindergarten classrooms roughly 3% of the day
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students were engaged in science lessons (about nine minutes) (Engel et al., 2021). One potential
reason for science not being taught in elementary schools is elementary teachers’ low self-efcacy
toward science teaching and learning.
Self-efcacy is the perceived level of capability or confdence that an individual has for perform-
ing a particular behavior that may contain difcult and stressful elements (Bandura, 1997). This idea
applies to teachers in two ways: personally and in the delivery of science lessons. In the context of
personal attitude, one example could involve individuals’ beliefs about science, which in 2021 has
been given great discussion. Recent events surrounding COVID-19 and other scientifc choices lend
reference to elementary students and their capacities to understand science-related media and the
confdence to make personal science-related decisions (Atwater et al., 1991). Self-efcacy also has an
impact on teachers’ confdence to deliver high-quality science lessons (van Aaleren-Smeets & Walma
van der Molen, 2015). Studies have looked at the impact contextual factors have on science teaching
and found that three key areas come into play: collegial support, lack of resources, and lack of time
to teach and prepare science lessons (Lumpe et al., 2000).
van Aalderen-Smeets et al. (2012) bring together all of the prior research on teachers’ self-efcacy
in their research on elementary preservice teachers’ attitudes toward science. They make a conscious
efort to construct a theoretical framework that takes into account all of the components of science
teachers’ self-efcacy, personal and professional. This framework suggests that elementary science
teachers are impacted by attitude, which is composed of three subsections: cognitive beliefs, afective
state, and perceived control. These three components of attitude then impact teachers’ intention to
teach science and then translate into the actual delivery of science lessons. This same research group
validated an instrument as part of this study to measure preservice and in-service teachers attitudes
toward teaching science. This is a Likert scale instrument that measures all components of attitude
addressed by their revised theoretical framework.
Research on elementary teachers’ efcacy toward science teaching can be broken down into three
major areas of research: content area knowledge, delivery of science lessons, and feldwork. These
three areas of research all seek to increase science teachers’ efcacy toward science teaching and there-
fore working toward the ultimate goal of high-quality elementary science teaching.
Elementary Teachers’ Specifc University Science Content Courses

As elementary teachers seek licensure through their preservice programs, they typically take a canon
of coursework in the major content areas (math, science, history, and literacy). This coursework
fulflls requirements of the university degree as well as solidifes the background knowledge for
the content the elementary teachers will deliver in the feld. Preservice teachers enter licensure
programs with preconceived notions of science. One study categorized preservice teachers’ science
learner types as fearful, disinterested, successful, and enthusiastic toward science. This study found
that preservice teachers who were in the last two groups were harder to move toward being more
confdent about science teaching (Norris et al., 2018). There are several research studies looking at
creating elementary preservice teachers’ specifc coursework for science content. All of these stud-
ies found that when a specifc science course with only preservice teachers enrolled in the course
students’ efcacy increased from their enrollment. These university science courses that were in the
United States were typically NGSS aligned and taught through discovery, inquiry, and collaborative
learning. The learning objectives for these science content courses were not only content but also to
build confdence in preservice teachers’ cognitive science skills. These studies all suggest that typi-
cal university science coursework does not serve the needs nor lay the full content foundation for
preservice teachers and that specialized science courses serve the needs of preservice teachers both to
build knowledge and efcacy (Bergman & Morphew, 2015; Menon & Sadler, 2016, 2018; McCall,
2017). However, one study (Avery & Meyer, 2012) found that there was a split in the efcacy of
532
the preservice teachers when engaged in an inquiry-focused science content course. Self-efcacy
increased signifcantly for one group, while the other group stayed the same. The preservice teachers
cited that this course did not feel like the previous science courses and they could not get beyond the
years of “training” they had in their traditional K–12 science coursework.
Another study explored preservice teachers enrolled in science content coursework that was
inquiry driven to see if it impacted the preservice teachers’ attitudes toward science (Riegle-
Crumb et al., 2015). This study involved over 200 preservice teachers who were enrolled in four
semesters of science content courses. The course sequence focused on physics in semester one,
chemistry and geology in semester two, biological systems in semester three, and astronomy and
earth science in semester four. A typical science content class led with a question and then the
preservice teachers designed procedures to investigate potential answers. This group was com-
pared with a control group who took traditional science lecture coursework. Data analyses from
this study reveal that the preservice teachers who engaged in investigation-based courses signif-
cantly changed their views toward science from the pre- to the post-survey. After participating
in inquiry-based content courses, the preservice teachers reported more confdence in their skills
as science learners, more enjoyment and less anxiety toward science, and perceived it as more
relevant. The students in the lecture-based comparison group revealed a decline in favorable atti-
tudes toward science. It should be noted that the researchers controlled for diferences between
groups, such as gender and SAT scores. This study also has potential ramifcations for the type
of instruction and classrooms experienced by future elementary students. Inquiry-based science
content courses can serve as a positive model for increasing preservice teachers’ attitudes toward
teaching science.
Methods Coursework and Professional Development to Impact Effcacy

Preservice teachers and in-service teachers learn strategies for teaching science to elementary students
through their methods coursework and through professional development programs. Some research-
ers have looked at how professional development and methods coursework experiences can impact
teachers’ efcacy for teaching science.
One research study looked at all of the preservice teachers’ coursework, including science meth-
ods coursework, and found that a careful combination of content courses and a methods course
can infuence improvement in efcacy. It is important to note that the type of content course is
important. Preservice teachers who have inquiry-based and standards-aligned content coursework
feel more empowered to teach science than those who take lecture-based science courses. This study
fnds that it is just as important to have high-quality content coursework as well as the amount of
content coursework. More courses does not always mean more confdence in teaching (Hechter,
2011).
Another research group looked at increasing in-service teachers’ professional and personal ef-
cacy through professional development. The professional development program took place across
six meetings of three hours each. The research group created inquiry-based lessons that focused on
engaging and supporting the in-service teachers. Through this professional development that focused
on efcacy, teachers increased their positive attitudes to not only teaching but also their personal
outlook on science (van Aalderen-Smeets & Walma van der Molen, 2015).
Research has shown that collaboration and support are important for teachers in the feld. Studies
have found that for preservice teachers to teach in culturally relevant ways, they need support in the
form of collaboration with diverse others so that they have success in planning and teaching science
in culturally relevant ways. Providing preservice teachers with a supportive methods classroom that
is diverse and teaches through culturally responsive teaching is helpful. Specifc elementary sci-
ence methods courses and the elementary school feld placements are ideal for building preservice
533
teachers’ efcacy to learn and teach in culturally relevant ways (Mensah, 2011). Another way to build
preservice teachers’ self-efcacy is through microteaching. The microteaching ofers a group context
to learn and enact the principles of culturally relevant teaching in an authentic classroom setting with
students of diverse backgrounds, learning styles, and levels of interest (Gunning & Mensah, 2011).
Field-Based Science Methods Coursework Impact on Effcacy

Most preservice teachers’ programs have a requirement for preservice teachers to undertake a num-
ber of hours of feldwork before teaching licensure is granted. The nature of the feldwork is not
specifcally described and can vary from program to program. One study (McDonnough & Matkins,
2010) looked at the diferences in preservice teachers’ science efcacy between an embedded feld-
work component (where the feldwork is directly connected to the methods course) compared to
feldwork that was not attached to a methods course. This study collected data over four years and
found that embedded connected feldwork increased self-efcacy of preservice teachers. Addition-
ally, not only did preservice teachers’ science teaching efcacy increase but so did their delivery of
research-based science teaching practices. In another study, Flores (2015) looked at embedded feld
experiences over a fve-week period at the end of a course. This study found that preservice teachers’
personal science teaching efcacy increased signifcantly in comparison to science teaching outcome
expectancy, which decreased signifcantly. It should also be noted that preservice teachers’ conf-
dence in student understanding could decrease or remain unchanged. It is interesting to note that
while preservice teachers may believe they can efectively teach science, their beliefs in their abilities
to infuence student learning is less certain. Another study looked at an alternative feld experience
during the summer using a summer STEM camp as a place for feldwork. The participants in this
study ranked the feld-based program as the most infuential on their self-efcacy, followed by par-
ticipating in inquiry-based labs (Franks et al., 2016).
Summary
Increasing elementary teachers’ science self-efcacy can be accomplished by two key elements in a
preservice program: inquiry-driven content coursework and embedded feld experience within the
science methods coursework. Preservice teachers’ confdence in their science content understand-
ing was improved signifcantly when they took coursework that was aligned with NGSS standards
and in line with best-practice teaching strategies. This is a diferent method of science coursework
than is generally delivered at the university level. Additionally, the ability to practice delivering sci-
ence lessons in an embedded feldwork course increased preservice teachers’ self-efcacy to deliver
science lessons compared to stand-alone feld experience. In-service elementary science teachers’
self-efcacy for teaching science can also be improved by targeted professional development that is
extended (over several sessions across an academic year) that models inquiry-centered science lessons.
Nature of Scientifc Knowledge

One reason that elementary teachers may continue to have low efcacy for teaching science is that
they may not have a full understanding of science and science as a way of knowing. They may have
been in science classes where they were asked to memorize terms, or to complete verifcation labs
(Tobias, 1990), and do not believe that science is creative or for them. They therefore, are more
likely to avoid teaching science to their own students. However, if they developed an understanding
that science is creative, based on inferences that are contextualized in culture and society, and is in
fact not solely objective but includes some subjectivity, they may be more willing to teach science,
and even to teach those ideas about science to their own elementary students. In this section, we
534
review research that has focused on improving elementary teachers’ conceptions of nature of sci-
ence (NOS), their teaching practice, and the infuence on students’ understandings of NOS. Indeed,
students themselves come to the elementary classroom with already held conceptions of NOS (e.g.,
Buck et al., 2014; Walls, 2012), and these ideas can be improved upon though appropriate instruc-
tion (e.g., Akerson et al., 2019; Elcan Kaynak et al., 2020; Hacıeminoğ lu et al., 2015). Early research
in NOS teaching has shown that preservice teachers can improve their conceptions of NOS through
explicit refective instruction conducted in methods courses (Abell et al., 2001; Akerson et al., 2000).
This instruction can be efective if teachers are prepared, despite that textbooks generally do not
include NOS accurately or explicitly (e.g., Phillips et al., 2015).
Improving Elementary Teachers’ Conceptions of Nature of Science

With the idea that teachers cannot teach what they do not understand, much research has focused on
improving preservice and in-service teachers’ conceptions of NOS. There has been much research
indicating that preservice and in-service elementary teachers do not generally have informed ideas
about NOS but can improve their understandings of NOS through various explicit refective means.
In the absence of instruction, preservice elementary teachers of various levels of education retain
misconceptions about NOS (Yalcin & Yalcin, 2011). Next, we review several studies set in teacher
preparation programs that endeavor to improve preservice teachers’ conceptions of NOS.
Research on Preservice Teachers’ Conceptions of NOS and Teaching Practices

There have been several studies that show that explicit refective instruction where NOS is treated as
a learning outcome is most efective in improving teachers’ conceptions of NOS.
For example, Kinskey (2020) connected NOS to the Next Generation Science Standards and
English Language Arts in her preservice elementary science methods course. She engaged her preser-
vice teachers in explicit refective thinking about NOS. She used Young Childrens’ Views of Science
protocol to have her preservice teachers assess their feld placement students’ understandings of NOS.
Preservice teachers improved their understandings of NOS, as well as their abilities to assess NOS
understandings of their own students.
In another study emphasizing explicit refective approaches, Akerson et al. (2017) used a modifed
lesson study format to determine whether and how preservice teachers were able to include NOS
in their science lessons. Through analyses of lesson plans, lesson study sessions, and observations of
lessons, they found that preservice teachers were able to point out and provide feedback to others
regarding where they could include NOS, though none naturally included NOS in their own lessons.
Understanding that elementary teachers perceive strengths in literacy, Akerson et al. (2019) con-
ducted a study where preservice teachers designed their own children’s literature books to teach
NOS to their future students in a semester-long methods course. The researchers determined pre-
and post-NOS conceptions to track growth in ideas as a result of explicit refective instruction in the
methods course. The children’s book was assigned for the end of the semester to determine whether
the preservice teachers could present NOS ideas accurately and in ways that were accessible to their
future students. The researchers found that they were able to portray NOS ideas accurately in their
stories, and these were shared in ways that would be accessible to students. Children’s literature, and
creating their own book, seemed a powerful tool for teaching NOS to preservice teachers and for
helping them think about how to introduce these ideas to their students.
In a study that was conducted in a science course, Avsar Erumit et al. (2019) sought to deter-
mine whether learner-directed investigations infuenced students’ questioning and their concep-
tions of NOS. Twenty-eight students who intended to apply for the elementary education program
participated in the study. The researchers found that the students improved in their abilities to ask
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investigable questions after they had participated in investigations, as well as improved in their NOS
conceptions as a result of refecting explicitly on NOS aspects following those investigations.
In a study that also connected to science content courses, Kaya (2012) explored the NOS con-
ceptions of 166 preservice elementary and early childhood preservice teachers using questionnaires
and interviews. The elementary majors had taken more science courses, which had more explicit
NOS instruction than early childhood majors. Despite the diferences in instruction, most preservice
teachers in both groups continued to hold naive or mixed NOS views, leading the researcher to
conclude that taking extra content courses does not necessarily translate to better NOS conceptions.
Another framework on NOS is the family resemblance approach (FRA), which presents NOS as
a cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional system with a set of categories: aims and values, scien-
tifc methods, scientifc practices, scientifc knowledge, and social- institutional aspects of science.
Ebru et al. (2019) designed a study to explore this framework with preservice teachers. Eleven of
the participants were preservice elementary teachers, with the other four being high school chem-
istry teachers. They used a reconceptualized family resemblance nature of science questionnaire
(RFN) along with interviews to determine the infuence of the family resemblance intervention
that took place in the science methods course. The researchers stated that the intervention of teach-
ing benzene rings contributed to the growth of understanding of NOS by the preservice teachers.
The benzene ring heuristic may not be appropriate for preservice elementary teachers, though
it was likely fne for the four secondary chemistry teacher participants. The questionnaire was a
closed-ended Likert scale, which is questionable in terms of fnding out true conceptions of NOS,
as forced-choice instruments do not enable researchers to determine true NOS conceptions because
participants are forced to choose statements that may or may not align with their true conceptions
(Abd-El-Khalick, 2014).
Some personal characteristics have been found to be related to whether preservice teachers develop
improved understandings of NOS, despite whether or not they receive explicit refective instruction.
For instance, Akerson et al. (2012) conducted a study where they explored cultural values and per-
ceptions of cultural values of scientists related to NOS conceptions held by early childhood teach-
ers. The researchers found that the more that early childhood teachers perceived that scientists were
similar to themselves in terms of values held, they held better NOS conceptions. This connection of
similar cultural values improved over time, with early childhood teachers perceiving scientists more
similar to them as the semester progressed, but did not change their own cultural values. As they per-
ceived of scientists as having similar cultural values as themselves, their NOS conceptions improved.
Research on In-Service Teachers’ Conceptions and NOS Teaching Practices

There have also been research studies conducted to improve practicing teachers’ conceptions of
NOS as well as their abilities to include NOS in their own instruction. For example, Valente et al.
(2018) used explicit refective NOS instruction within an authentic science context with in-service
elementary teachers. Four teachers and two scientists participated in the study. They used a grounded
theory approach to explore the infuence of geology and biology apprenticeships on teachers’ NOS
understandings and found that their ideas improved substantially. For example, their understandings
of the distinction between observation and inferences improved as a result of making observations
and inferences of actual data.
In an overview of research on teaching practices, Akerson et al. (2019) provided research-based
strategies to improve NOS understandings of elementary students that have been used by in-service
teachers. The researchers recommend preparing teachers to embed NOS instruction into existing
curricula, using classroom interactions to explicitly discuss and refect on NOS aspects that are part
of classroom investigations, and modeling thinking about NOS so students can see how the teacher
suggests thinking about NOS. Use of visual representations such as a classroom NOS poster and
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children’s literature to emphasize NOS can also be efective. Having students record in writing
their ideas about NOS using various strategies such as science notebooks, observation and inference
charts, as well as graphing, etc. are also efective. Students must be engaged in inquiry-based activities
to enable appropriate discussions, writing, and refections to take place.
Brunner (2019) recognized missing pieces about NOS in elementary curricula, and the length
of time professional development might take to improve elementary NOS teaching practice. She
explored the development of educative materials in the form of teachers’ guides to support elemen-
tary teachers in not only learning NOS, but in being able to teach NOS to students. This would
provide an additional means for teaching elementary students ideas about NOS and could improve
teachers’ practices with a short intervention. Eight fourth- and ffth-grade teachers agreed to partici-
pate in the study where they used the tradebooks to teach NOS to their students. They used three
levels: I, no NOS was included in the tradebooks; II, NOS was embedded in the tradebooks; and III,
NOS was embedded and teachers had educative materials, meaning guidance for how to make NOS
explicit through the tradebooks. Teachers focused on the educative features that directly impacted
their instructional decisions in terms of teaching NOS, and those who had the educative materials
were able to teach NOS more efectively.
In a related study, Brunner and Abd-El-Khalick (2020) focused on creative, empirical, and infer-
ential NOS. Using the same levels as the previous study, the researchers explored the infuence on
teacher and student NOS conceptions. Teachers and students developed better understandings of the
targeted NOS aspects after reading or hearing the stories in the tradebooks included with the edu-
cative materials. They found some teachers did not use all NOS terms accurately, such as evidence
and inference with lower-level books. With the level I stories, few teachers discussed NOS. How-
ever, Level II had NOS embedded and more NOS was included in instruction. In Level III, which
included the educative materials, even more NOS was included, as the materials showed teachers
how to use it. One teacher just read the books straight with none of the added prompts, such as the
“think about it” questions, but because the book text included NOS accurately and was explicitly
represented, students were presented with accurate information about NOS. Teachers liked the guide
and educative materials. While it is quicker for teachers to just follow the structure the educative
materials layout, not many books have been modifed to include NOS in this explicit and refective
way, including prompting questions.
There have been questions about whether NOS can be explicitly taught through contextualizing
it in content or if it is better taught on its own. Leden et al. (2020) conducted a study that explored
how Swedish teachers navigated teaching NOS using diferent lessons, such as contextualized in
content or decontextualized activities that taught NOS concepts solely. The researchers defned it a
“mangle” because there are “messy mangled and complex ways” for teachers when they are trying
new strategies. They used analysis of focus group discussions to determine how teachers progressed
in teaching decontextualized and contextualized NOS lessons. They looked for alignments, resis-
tance, and accommodations that teachers made. They found that NOS teaching was “mangled”
with tradition of teaching facts – teachers are accustomed to teaching facts, and embedding NOS
seemed diferent. They found that contextualized NOS instruction was generally connected with
classroom discussion. They found that accommodation occured when goals matched instructional
recommendations. Based on their research, they believe more NOS instruction will take place with
decontextualized activities, as teachers can focus on NOS rather than seeking to embed it in content.
What kinds of factors are related to improving teachers’ NOS teaching practice? Deniz and Adi-
belli (2015) explored the infuence of a graduate-level NOS course on four second-grade teachers’
NOS instruction. They explored factors that helped or hindered these second-grade teachers’ abili-
ties to teach NOS. The factors that helped improve NOS instruction were found to be teachers’
perspectives of developmental appropriateness of various NOS aspects, teachers’ selection of NOS
aspects, and relative importance placed by teachers on various NOS aspects. From their study, Deniz
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and Adibelli (2015) suggest emphasizing the importance of NOS aspects in early grades so teachers
continue to reinforce these conceptions with their own students.
The conducting of scientifc inquiry is often used as a vehicle to teach NOS. It has been found
that while trying to execute scientifc inquiry, teachers frequently focus on “doing” inquiry, and the
understanding of NOS gets lost (Capps & Crawford, 2013). Capps and Crawford found that upper
elementary teachers who participated in a weeklong residential professional development imple-
mented scientifc inquiry lessons that explicitly taught knowledge about scientifc inquiry and NOS
during these hands-on, student-focused lessons.
Summary
Elementary teachers can improve their conceptions of NOS, and this could relate to an improve-
ment in their efcacy for teaching science if they have a better understanding of the very nature of
scientifc knowledge. To improve NOS conceptions requires explicit refective instruction that can
take place in methods courses, or professional development programs. Additionally, it can be embed-
ded in socioscientifc issues, science content, children’s literature, or various other methods, but it
must be explicitly taught and time be provided for refective discussion.
Elementary Teachers’ Understandings and Implementation

of Scientifc Inquiry Instruction
A teacher’s self-efcacy for teaching science can also be related to their understandings of scientifc
inquiry (SI). Science teaching in the elementary school is often left out due to test preparation stress
or lack of time (Banilower et al., 2013). Additionally, elementary teachers often do not feel comfort-
able teaching science and feel unprepared to teach science (Davis et al., 2006).
Dating all the way back to John Dewey (Tomlinson, 1997), SI has deep roots in the classroom.
It has taken on many diferent forms and is typically viewed as a two-pronged implementation in
elementary classrooms. Students can engage in the conducting of investigations (the “doing” of
inquiry), and teachers can also be explicit about how scientists do their work (understandings of sci-
entifc inquiry). It is often thought that these two aspects are interrelated, but students can conduct
investigations without truly understanding SI. This is not to say that these two cannot be taught
together – they should – but often teachers have their students engage in investigations without div-
ing deeper into how scientists do their work. Preservice teachers’ struggles with implementing SI les-
sons have been found to include developing ideas, designing an investigation, data analysis, guided vs.
open inquiry, misunderstanding of a hypothesis, and lack of confdence (Forbes & Zint, 2010). These
problems with delivering lessons trickled into the in-service teachers’ classrooms (Yoon et al., 2012).
In the United States, this is currently being referred to as scientifc practices due to adoption of the
NGSS. More often, it is globally referred to as scientifc inquiry. This section is devoted to exploring
the research on conducting SI in elementary classrooms and understandings about SI.
The Doing of Scientifc Inquiry

The Pedaste et al. (2015) research group looked at how SI lessons were defned in the research. They
analyzed over 40 research articles to fnd that there were several key components to teachers deliver-
ing inquiry-based science instruction, which included orientation, conceptualization, investigation,
and conclusion. Although researchers have diferent ways of explaining hands-on inquiry overall,
their cycle or process relates to these four core areas. These areas are the basis for investigations across
elementary schools and serve as a jumping-of point for professional development on implementing
SI. One research group looked at teachers’ self-report of conducting SI versus the actual delivery of
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SI within their classroom. It was found that teachers frequently report that they are teaching SI but
do not fully have understandings of what the delivery of SI looks like or how to implement it into
their classroom (Capps et al., 2016). The sample for this study was from a national science teacher’s
conference, so the attendance at this event alone led researchers to believe that the sample has a bet-
ter understanding or leaning toward teaching science than their counterparts.
Elementary in-service teachers’ attitudes about teaching scientifc inquiry can improve through
professional development (Gillies & Nichols, 2015). Teachers want their elementary students to be
engaged in the action of doing science but after coming from high school and university settings
where they have not had experiences doing scientifc investigations. Building teachers’ confdence
and supplying them with hands-on science lessons increases teachers’ enactment of SI in their class-
rooms. As Gillies and Nichols (2015) explained, when provided with specifc and sustained profes-
sional development on how to engage students in student-driven SI teachers are more likely to enact
lessons. This professional development should be sustained and be somewhere between four and six
sessions (Gillies & Nichols, 2015).
Another research group in the Netherlands found that teachers increased their teaching of hands-
on SI in their classrooms and also increased their value of teaching science through a six-session
professional development program. This program helped teachers move away from recipe-like lessons
to full hands-on inquiry lessons (van Aalderen-Smeets & Walma, 2015). In a meta-analysis across the
sample of 17 studies, it was found that the most common efective features in professional develop-
ment of inquiry-driven elementary PD were providing authentic experiences, teacher support, and
focusing on science content (Capps et al., 2012). One research group found that a teacher’s ability
to ask specifc prompting questions allowed students to engage in student-centered, hands-on SI.
Through the teacher’s ability to ask questions, students were able to formulate their own research
questions and conduct their own scientifc investigations (Van Uum et al., 2016). These fndings
about delivering professional development to teachers was reiterated in the research done by Luft
and Hewson (2014), who looked at the qualities of impactful professional development that included
support for teachers, collaboration, a coherent program, and focus on content knowledge.
The enactment of SI requires a shift in classroom management for elementary teachers. Students
need the ability to move around the classroom to participate in investigations. Harris and Rooks
(2010) shared how teachers need to fnd a fne balance between four elements: students, materials,
tasks, and ideas. These tasks can be further broken down to structural tasks (tasks, time, and materials)
and science tasks (ideas, questions, and prior knowledge). Relearning to manage a classroom is vital
to teachers efectively carrying out SI.
The conducting of investigations cannot be prioritized over the science content. Sometimes
elementary teachers focus so much on conducting inquiry that misconceptions can be developed
in their classrooms. The Nowicki et al. (2013) research group looked at the factors that can support
teachers to engage their students in both investigations and teach accurate science content. Teachers
need high-quality curricular materials as well as targeted professional development to ensure that
scientifc inquiry is taught in a way where science content knowledge is developed.
Professional development alone does not ensure teachers (both in-service and preservice) will
utilize their teaching practices in the classroom. It has been found that teachers are more confdent
about implementing the new ideas of inquiry science lessons if they work together on a collaborative
team (Havu-Nuutinen et al., 2019). In-service teachers found working together as a team motivated
them to implement inquiry methods into their classrooms, whereas preservice teachers learned from
their teammates and used each other as resources throughout the implementation of inquiry science
lessons.
Teaching students using hands-on instruction and engaging students in scientifc inquiry has been
going on for several decades, but explicitly connecting students to the content that is rooted in the
students’ identity is a relatively new subsection of studying SI. It is commonly understood that science
539
is socially constructed and infuenced by culture, but fnding connection to the science content in
elementary school students has largely been ignored. Meyer and Crawford (2011) propose that SI
activities alone may not engage underrepresented groups of students. It is important not only to
engage students in inquiry investigations, but they must be connected to the students’ lives.
Teaching from a perspective of science being culturally embedded can lead to richly diverse les-
sons. There are hundreds of cultures and subcultures worldwide, and one might even argue each
classroom has its own culture. Understanding the culture of a teacher’s classroom and then making
connections to the students’ personal lives specifcally is very important in the delivery of scientifc
inquiry lessons (Zapata, 2013). For example, one study showed that the preparation of prospective
science teachers in integrating science and local student/school knowledge was an efective approach
to supporting open inquiry (Maretta, 2016).
Teachers’ Questions and Knowing About Scientifc Inquiry

Questioning is a key part of SI, and teachers need to understand and be able to ask and build on ques-
tions. Teachers’ abilities to ask questions shape SI in the classroom. A four-year professional develop-
ment study looked at the long-term impacts of critically building teachers’ abilities to ask questions
and for students to then investigate and ask their own questions (Chen et al., 2017). Teaching ques-
tioning has a huge impact on providing an environment for students to be able to understand and
participate in SI. The study found that through specifc professional development teachers moved
through four phases of their questioning during science lessons. They began as the “dispenser” of
questions, then moved to moderator, coach, and fnally, when the teachers could ask well-crafted
questions, they became a participant within their students’ investigations. This research found that
teachers need to move between various roles to empower students to participate in SI. The ability
to develop, ask, and build on questions while students are conducting investigations is key. Through
careful modeling and lesson planning, preservice teachers can be taught to ask higher-level questions
while their students carry out investigations. These questions help students understand how science
is conducted as well as to think deeper about investigations.
Connecting the Investigating of SI and Knowing About SI

There have been many studies looking at intentionally teaching about SI as students are conducting
investigations. These studies span both elementary and secondary classrooms and are rooted in the
explicit refective model of teaching (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000). Where students engage
in inquiry experiences and then refect on how these experiences connect to the work that scientists
do in the feld. This high level of teaching is learned in both preservice and in-service PD and in
preservice teaching programs.
Using investigations to teach NOS and SI is a popular way to deliver understandings about NOS
and SI. To establish what qualifed teachers are doing within their classrooms, one study found in
upper elementary classrooms that although they were conducting investigations, they mainly focused
on the students conducting investigations but did not include any explicit connections to the know-
ing about SI and very few explicit connections to NOS (Capps & Crawford, 2013).
Studies have looked at how teachers can lead students through an inquiry process, but having stu-
dents stop and refect at each step will directly connect to students’ ability to conduct inquiry as well
as understand SI. Teachers need to learn this through professional development and regardless of their
background in science learning can be taught to deliver these types of deep lessons (Tatar, 2012).
Another study followed teachers into their frst year of teaching. They looked at how the teachers’
science content courses impacted their teaching and explicit understandings of SI (as well as other
aspects of scientifc literacy). This case study research found that a series of science content classes
540
specifcally prepared for elementary education preservice teachers generated a practicing teacher that
was more explicit about the conducting of SI and understanding of SI versus the preservice teacher
who took general science classes at the university (Avraamidou & Zembal-Saul, 2010).
Summary
Over the past 15 years, scientifc inquiry has been a cornerstone of science teaching in elementary
classrooms. A great deal of professional development has been provided, aiding teachers to implement
inquiry science lessons in their elementary classrooms. It is critical that this professional development
is sustained over time and implemented quickly within the classroom; additionally, it is more efec-
tive when elementary teachers implement this professional development within school-wide initia-
tives. Elementary teachers fnd support through the grade level or school-wide delivery of SI lessons.
Not only should teachers be delivering inquiry lessons, they should also be mindful of the personal/
cultural connection that they can make with their students making the science lessons connected to
the students and their communities. Although great gains have been made in inquiry-driven lessons
in the elementary classroom there is still room for improvement on teaching elementary students’
knowledge of inquiry. There is a wealth of research on inquiry-based science instruction, but further
studies looking at students’ knowledge about SI should be conducted.
Teachers’ Understanding and Delivery of Science Content

Typically, elementary teachers are responsible for teaching all content areas, not only science. When
they go through their preservice education program, they are given classes in all areas: math, lit-
eracy, science, and social studies. This leaves very little time to become a specialist in any one area,
such as science. It has been shown that elementary school teachers do not feel comfortable teaching
science (Banilower et al., 2013), which of course is related to their science teaching self-efcacy.
This research leads to many professional development opportunities for in-service teachers to refne
their science content knowledge to help them improve their comfort for teaching science through
enhanced knowledge.
It is often thought that elementary teachers lack science content knowledge because they take
fewer classes in science content than their high school teacher counterparts. The number of courses
taken was found not to correlate with elementary teachers’ content understanding (Diamond et al.,
2013). This fnding brings into question methods for increasing elementary teachers’ knowledge of
science content. To identify elementary teachers’ science content understanding, a valid tool needs
to be created to assess teachers’ science knowledge (Maerten-Rivera et al., 2015). This assessment
was based on the public release items from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP),
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), as well as standardized science
assessments from various US states. This instrument was designed to see if professional development
interventions increased science content knowledge in teachers. The development and validation of
this instrument will allow a measurement of the efectiveness of science content professional develop-
ment. This was a two-part study where the research team looked to see whether their professional
development program focused on science content and pedagogy increased teachers’ science content
knowledge after the frst year (Diamond et al., 2014). This study found that professional develop-
ment can impact teachers’ subject matter knowledge, which can transfer to their students’ content
knowledge. Another group also looked at professional development on teachers’ content knowledge
as well as the transfer of content knowledge to students (Yang et al., 2018). It found that through
the creation of teacher learning communities with teachers that were engaged in over 150 hours of
professional development, both the teachers’ and the students had signifcantly higher science content
knowledge.
541
Another way to shape elementary teacher change is through the curriculum materials that teach-
ers use. Research has been conducted looking at English language learners (ELLs) and how a tar-
geted curriculum in science can be used to support not only the ELL content knowledge but also
the teachers’ content knowledge (Lee et al., 2016). Engaging in a yearlong professional development
program with an intense summer institute impacted teachers’ science understanding, inquiry under-
standing, language development strategies, and home language use. Another study looked at how
the pairing of professional development and the curriculum could impact teachers’ science content
knowledge instead of purely engaging with curriculum. It was found that teachers who had both the
modeled PD and the curriculum together had much better content understanding than those teach-
ers who simply implemented the curriculum (Donna & Hick, 2017).
Teaching for the purpose of developing scientifcally literate students requires that elementary
teachers have a frm understanding of science content knowledge. This is a vast undertaking when
elementary teachers are certifed to teach all content areas across multiple primary grades. Sev-
eral studies have found that establishing teacher learner communities can increase teachers’ content
knowledge in science. Additionally, the use of educative curriculum materials with professional
development support will increase teachers’ knowledge in science content as well as increase their
teaching of science.
Engineering in the Elementary Classroom

While engineering has tangentially been included in science curricula in the past, with the introduc-
tion of the NGSS in the United States and some standards in other countries (described in previous
sections), it has become a part of the elementary science classroom, and preparation for teaching
engineering generally should be included in science methods courses. In fact, policy documents exist
in certain states in the United States that encourage inclusion of engineering and technology in the
elementary science classroom (e.g., Von Zastrow & Kelley, 2019). These kinds of policy documents
help states embrace technology and engineering because studies suggest that exposure to them can
improve students’ performance in math and science, as well as increase their interest in STEM careers.
One of the challenges in including engineering in elementary classrooms as well as in elementary
science methods courses, is the fact that most elementary science methods instructors have never
taken an engineering course, and neither have most elementary teachers. Adding engineering to
the elementary classroom could also impact teachers’ self-efcacy as they are responsible for teach-
ing more. However, there have been studies undertaken to explore how to include engineering in
elementary classrooms and how to prepare elementary teachers to incorporate engineering into their
science instruction. We will review those studies in the following sections.
Including Engineering in Elementary Classrooms

There are several studies from around the world that recommend the inclusion of engineering in
elementary science classrooms. Case in point, in a study from Malaysia, the researchers (Ying &
Hamzaid, 2019) stated that the “E” in STEM is generally left out in elementary school, and as a
result children have insufcient knowledge of engineering and limited knowledge of engineering
practices. Ying and Hamzid endeavored to use the hands-on, heads-on, and hearts-on (3HS) process,
which targets the whole child to teach them about engineering. They emphasize that parents have a
huge infuence on students’ learning and so want to focus on developing parents’ attitudes and beliefs
regarding the importance of engineering instruction for their children. They advocate for parents to
be involved in the school and that it brings benefts to the students. They surveyed the parents to
determine parents’ perceptions of the program and interviewed some parents to provide an in-depth
view of parent perceptions of the 3HS strategy. Twenty-seven parents participated in the survey and
542
eight who were interviewed. Data were analyzed through SPSS on the surveys, and through emer-
gent themes on the interviews and open-ended questions. Parents agreed that the students liked the
engineering activities, learned from them, and their interests in engineering improved. They believe
their students gained knowledge, enjoyed interacting with others, and enjoyed learning content as
well as patience.
On the other hand, McFadden and Roehrig (2019) discuss engineering as a site for science
content to be taught. They argue that it will likely be difcult for elementary teachers to facilitate
open-ended discussions in these situations, as they are unaccustomed to teaching engineering. The
purpose of their study was to better understand how elementary students engage in an engineering
design challenge. There is a focus on norms of discourse that engineers engage in. The fourth-grade
teacher who participated in the study had designed the ten-day unit as part of a professional devel-
opment program. The research focused on a group of four students who were particularly good at
discussions, according to the teacher. The focus was on instances where students needed to balance
constraints of the project and the design process. Access of materials to complete designs took place
after approval of their design drawings. Students tended to use too many pronouns instead of calling
items by their names, which became confusing when discussing their design ideas. Students discussed
design faws and developed new designs. The teacher encouraged them to think through what they
were working on and to rethink designs. The teacher struggled with navigating the discourses of
reasons for engineering work, which initially inhibited the students’ discourse, as they were unclear
of the task. However, the teacher was good at aiding the students in sharing ideas once they concep-
tualized the task.
Wright et al. (2018) conducted a study that explored fve African American students and the
perceptions they held of themselves as engineers as a result of work in their classrooms as delivered
by their elementary teachers. They situated the study in a phenomenological variant of ecologi-
cal systems theory (PVEST), trying to interrupt defcit perspectives. The study took place in two
engineering classrooms in two diferent urban schools. One classroom had three ffth-grade African
American male students. The other team consisted of two fourth-grade African American female
students. There had been a White female in their group, but she moved. Classroom observations and
interviews were conducted of the students engaging in engineering tasks. When students were asked
to assess themselves on their engineering skills, they actually focused on whether they behaved in
class. Additionally, they talked about their peers as being good engineers if they didn’t get in trouble
or kicked out of class. When the interactions were analyzed, it was clear that they shared ideas and
created the engineering designs, but they also talked about how they shouldn’t argue or misbehave.
Students sought to minimize risks of being reprimanded for bad behavior, marginalizing teammates
from decision-making, and proposing “wrong” design solutions. Recommendations are for educa-
tors to think about ways to improve students’ identities as engineering students and also in concep-
tualization that a wrong design is a step toward the design needed.
Amidst concerns for the need for more engineers, Lie et al. (2019) noted that engineering should
be taught in the elementary grades. The main purpose of their study was to assess the efectiveness of
integrated STEM units designed to mitigate diferences among diverse populations of students. They
explored student infuences of gender, ethnicity, ELLs, and special education (SPED). They explored
teacher demographics of gender and number of years in the professional development program. Data
were collected in a STEM unit on GMOs. Students in grades 4–8 participated from three school
districts. Achievement gaps were found with ELL students in elementary schools and SPED status
and ethnicity in middle school. Small diferences were found in engineering performance between
White and Black students, and only at middle school level. No diferences were detected between
male and female students regardless of grade level. No diferences in student achievement or attitude
were found whether students had male or female teachers. However, diferences in attitudes between
males and females were found.
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Malone et al. (2018) conducted a study in PreK–3 STEAM classrooms where the focus was on
the Engineering is Elementary project. The researchers combined drama and the arts into STEM
projects in the PreK–3 classrooms. They studied results on students’ conceptual understandings of
engineering and technology, and teachers’ views about student engagement. Fourteen teachers par-
ticipated from low-income schools. The researchers found a 55% increase in understanding what
engineers do and a 36% increase in understanding of technology. The largest increase in understand-
ing was for the third graders, but all grades showed improvement. Misconceptions about engineering
and technology showed an overall decline. Students developed a greater interest in engineering. The
researchers believed that engineering education can begin with young children.
Preparing Teachers to Teach Engineering in Elementary Classrooms

Just because it is in the standards to include engineering in elementary classrooms does not mean that
teachers automatically know how to do that. Even though students as young as preschool can develop
understandings of engineering, most teachers have not taken an engineering course themselves and
have not been prepared to teach engineering to their students. Therefore, professional development
is essential, and a number of professional development programs have been designed and researched
to determine their infuence on teachers’ engineering practices. For example, Volk (2019) states that
there are tremendous declines in the numbers of technology and engineering education teachers and
teacher preparation programs over time since 1970, yet teachers are called to include engineering
in their science classrooms. Lozon and Grennon Brooks (2019) recommended that teachers could
capitalize on the playful nature of engineering and science and have that play enhance student learn-
ing. The authors call this purposeful play and discuss the importance of looking at self-initiated play
in terms of science and engineering and then the teachers serve as co-mentors and researchers. Next,
we review research studies that seek to improve teachers’ engineering teaching practices.
Zakharov et al. (2020) conducted a study that described and assessed the impact of an elementary
education engineering professional development program on student learning. The National Acad-
emy of Engineering (2020) has reported waning interest in engineering by students and recommend
emphasizing engineering beginning in elementary school, suggesting not to wait for middle or high
school. The professional development was partially face to face and partially online and was for
teachers of grades 2–4. The study was framed within communities of practice literature and required
teachers to form a community. The purpose of the study was to determine student science and
engineering knowledge as a result of participating in lessons from teachers who participated in the
program. The program consisted of three cohorts of 90 teachers. There were also 621 students who
participated from diverse classrooms in grades 2–4. A signifcant increase in science and engineering
knowledge was found across all grades. In second grade, 6% of the diferences in engineering knowl-
edge was explained by diferences in the teacher; for third grade, it was 15%, for fourth grade it was
10%, indicating that teachers who had participated in the community of practice for engineering
had stronger impacts on student knowledge. Additionally, students who had teachers with master’s
degrees scored higher on their science and engineering knowledge than those who did not.
Watkins et al. (2018) conducted research that spanned three years of a professional develop-
ment program to help in-service teachers incorporate engineering in their literacy contexts. They
focused on helping teachers to consider responsive teaching, meaning foregrounding students’ think-
ing, making connections with their thinking, and pursuing students’ ideas in the classroom. Thirteen
teachers participated in the professional development and the associated research. The researchers
videotaped the professional development sessions and made observations and videos of the teachers’
enactment of engineering units with their students. They interviewed teachers at the end of the
three-year program. There was a two-stage analysis procedure where they analyzed data sources indi-
vidually in the frst stage and then in the second stage developed conjectures that connected teacher
544
behaviors and ideas with responsive teaching with their students. Results showed that teachers in this
program were able to identify their students’ thinking and valued it in terms of their students’ engi-
neering designs. This fnding related to them creating opportunities for their students to engage in
engineering, developing and pursuing their ideas. The researchers recommend further emphasis on
responsive teaching in science, mathematics, and engineering to further enable teachers to identify
and build on student thinking.
In a study on preservice teachers, Dalvi and Wendell (2017) explored the use of video cases
to support preservice elementary teachers’ abilities to use responsive teaching in their engineer-
ing instruction. They emphasized the importance of building on student thinking and used a new
instrument called video case diagnosis (VCD) to measure preservice teachers’ engineering teaching
responsiveness. It was found in their study that the VCD was a valid and reliable measurement of
preservice teachers’ engineering teaching responsiveness and could therefore be used in future studies
designed to improve preservice teachers’ engineering teaching responsiveness.
Capobianco et al. (2020) explored fourth-grade teachers’ sense-making with learning to teach
engineering using a mixed-methods study. Data sources were teacher interviews before and after
enactment of multiple design tasks, as well as daily observations of instruction. Student data included
pre- and post-content assessments. Interviews and observations were analyzed using open coding,
and simple statistics were applied to the pre- and post-content assessments. Results showed that
teachers who showed the highest fdelity in implementing design tasks had students who had the
greatest growth on the content assessments. Results suggest that teachers’ experiences with teaching
design, attentiveness to student engagement, and perception of the nature of design tasks may have
infuenced how and what instructional moves teachers prioritized and how students performed.
Utley et al. (2019) note that engineering is now required to be in the elementary school in the
United States due to the NGSS. Traditionally, teacher prep programs did not prepare teachers to
teach engineering, and therefore elementary teachers likely lack accurate conceptions of engineer-
ing. Their study explored elementary teachers’ knowledge and perceptions regarding engineering,
and their self-efcacy for teaching engineering as a result of participating in a professional develop-
ment program. There were 30 teachers who participated in the program where the Engineering is
Elementary curriculum was used. Over the course of the semester-long program, there were three
diferent long-term sessions that took place. As a result, teachers improved their understandings of
engineering and technology, science content knowledge, and engineering teaching efcacy. The
researchers concluded that when teachers lack knowledge of engineering, even one training can
help, but a long-term series of three would be even better.
Wendell et al. (2019) acknowledged a need to prepare elementary teachers to teach engineer-
ing, if they were expected to be doing so. There need to be strategies to support the teachers in
helping their students meet the standards. Their study explored the epistemological framings that
elementary teachers employed when teaching engineering design, and which new epistemologies
appeared when they were asked to learn engineering design, with a focus on connections between
epistemologies as learners/teachers. This was a four-week professional development program for
new teachers, with quarterly call-back sessions to revisit ideas for the subsequent two years. Ten
teachers participated in the program, and two were chosen as case studies. Ana was the frst case, and
she wanted her students to discover and fnd out how things work. She had a hard time not provid-
ing advice as they were working on their engineering designs, but she was able to focus them on
diferent processes by asking them to consider their ideas, which gave the students agency and still
provided feedback. Ben was the second case, and he wanted his students to acquire an understanding
of a scientifc explanation related to a designed artifact. His students worked individually rather than
in teams. He found that his students had better understandings of the science concepts as a result of
working with materials. Ana’s team focused on client satisfaction and building the product required
by the engineering design problem. Ben’s team focused mostly on building the product and getting
545
the lesson completed. Ana framed science and engineering as building knowledge, Ben framed it as
the act of delivering a product and believed that teaching is delivering knowledge. From their fnd-
ings, the researchers recommended teachers focus on building knowledge.
Rich et al. (2017) conducted research on a yearlong training program to target elementary teach-
ers’ self-efcacy and beliefs about teaching computing and engineering. They noted that eforts to
promote STEM have historically focused on science and math, with less attention paid to technology
and engineering. This study focused on how educational systems can best prepare elementary teach-
ers to be competent and confdent instructors of computing and engineering through a yearlong
weekly professional development program. Participants were 27 K–6 elementary teachers at one
school. The professional development program included engineering and computing activities, plus
faculty training. Quantitative data were collected, as well as interviews of the teachers. The study
included teachers at a control group school that did not receive the training. Most teachers who par-
ticipated had no previous experience or training in computing or engineering. Some teachers exhib-
ited a willingness to explore, and others were intimidated by the idea of computing or engineering.
Those who were willing to experiment had better improvements in their teaching and efcacy by
the end of the program. Training infuenced their efcacy and beliefs. Teachers with higher efcacy
were active participants in the program. While teachers were not required to implement their train-
ing in the frst year of their training, several did teach engineering and computing in their elementary
classrooms, but to varying degrees. Teachers are expected to include computing and engineering,
but rarely do they have preparation to do so, and programs like this one can provide the support and
background knowledge they need to do so.
Rather than try to improve elementary teachers’ engineering practice through a professional
development program, Perkins Coppola (2019) modifed a science methods course to include engi-
neering instruction. The course was modifed to provide elementary teachers with experience with
the engineering design process and examined teachers’ self-efcacy for teaching engineering. To do
this, engineering mini units were added to the science methods course. Four sections from the 2016–
2018 school years were included in the study. Teacher efcacy for teaching engineering improved,
but no signifcant diferences were found for outcome expectancy. Self-efcacy for teaching engi-
neering improved the most, as well as classroom management for teaching engineering. This study
provides evidence that engineering education can be embedded into a science methods class and
can impact preservice teacher efcacy and ability to teach engineering. However, what is not clear
is whether anything had to be removed from the science methods class that would have supported
learning to teach science to make time for the engineering components to be included.
Summary
For elementary teachers to be able to teach about engineering, they need to have some knowledge
of engineering and also some training to provide such instruction. While it is clear that elementary
students can develop understandings of engineering, their teachers do need to have training and
experiences. It appears that more experienced and more adept teachers are better at incorporating
engineering and develop efcacy for doing so.
STEM in the Elementary Science Classroom

Similar to the inclusion of engineering in the elementary science classroom is the inclusion of
STEM. Indeed, there exists no common defnition for STEM, though it does stand for science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics. There have been recent calls for more attention to be
paid to integrating STEM into elementary schools, including the development of STEM-specifc
magnet schools (Sikma & Osborne, 2014). Dell’Erba (2019) calls for STEM to include artwork,
546
design with intention, be aesthetic, and communicate about process and outcome, but also claims
this is not a new practice. Several states in the United States, such as Georgia, Ohio, and Indiana,
have developed systems for STEM school certifcation, with Ohio also having a STEAM certif-
cation. Other states, such as Nevada, which already has a STEAM endorsement, are considering
diploma endorsements. Grifths et al. (2020) encourage inclusion of STEM instruction at the
elementary level to encourage more girls to persevere in STEM felds and ultimately obtain careers
in STEM. Changpetch and Seechaliao (2020) note that this inclusion of STEM is global, as they
built a model to aid teachers in Thailand to “teach STEM” through studying opinions of elemen-
tary teachers and students about STEM.
Some would argue that science should be taught in the science classroom, and certainly connec-
tions could be made to other content areas, similar to interdisciplinary teaching. In fact, some would
argue that STEM is simply another term for interdisciplinary teaching, though perhaps with more
focus, given the limited content areas to be integrated (Akerson et al., 2018). Regardless, if STEM is
included in an elementary classroom, it seems it should be included meaningfully and each discipline
that is part of STEM included in such lessons, or why would it be called “STEM”? Nonetheless,
research has been conducted to determine how elementary students learn STEM and practices for
helping elementary teachers to “teach STEM”. We review that research in the following sections.
Helping Students “Learn STEM” in the Elementary Science Classroom

There are several studies that have explored ways to help students learn STEM in elementary class-
rooms. For example, Vallera and Bodzin (2020) focused on agriculture as a unifying and contex-
tualizing topic to connect the STEM disciplines. They framed their study in terms of noting that
curriculum narrowing has resulted in a decline in science instruction, mainly from high-stakes testing
requiring testing in other subjects, and so STEM is more likely not to be included. The authors advo-
cate for contextualizing STEM into a topic area in order to ensure emphasis on all disciplines that
comprise STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) as important disciplines
within STEM. They discuss such a topic as being an integrated curriculum. They used agriculture as
that setting, including more than just food and nutrition, but the whole breadth of the agricultural
system. They sought to encourage increases in agricultural knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs, and
thus in agricultural literacy. They used quantitative design and instruments pre and post. Forty-seven
elementary students in the treatment group received STEM instruction embedded within the topic
of agriculture through a ten-day curriculum module. The control group consisted of 48 elementary
students who received science instruction at that same time using the district’s adopted FOSS cur-
riculum. The treatment group scored signifcantly higher on the post-test on knowledge acquisition,
including content knowledge as well as improved attitudes and beliefs about science, technology/
engineering, and agriculture. The researchers postulate that the authentic setting of the agriculture
topic enabled STEM to be integrated and improved student knowledge and attitudes toward STEM.
Wieselmann et al. (2019) conducted a study exploring diferences in the ways ffth-grade girls and
boys participated in group activities in STEM-focused, science-focused, and engineering-focused
units. They further explored how students applied their understandings of science when engaging
in an engineering design challenge in small groups. Data were collected across a 14-day unit that
focused at times on science and at other times on engineering. Students displayed gender-typical
performance enactments. The girls tended to pay attention, do the record keeping, and do what-
ever the boys said. They acted like “good students”. Within the engineering activities, they had
even more difculty. Boys did more of the activities and less of the record keeping. All students got
frustrated during engineering activities. These types of engagements are problematic, as girls did not
fully engage in science, engineering, or STEM, and therefore would not receive the same benefts
of instruction. Science instruction should begin prior to ffth grade, and single-gender groups may
547
be used to encourage girls to engage with materials and boys to make records, or specifc roles could
be assigned.
Depending on the school and district, some elementary teachers are required to teach STEM, but
does it afect student learning? It has been shown to be meaningful to students, but does it improve
learning? Seage and Tü regü n (2020) conducted a study that focused on comparing traditional sci-
ence teaching with STEM teaching on low-socioeconomic status students’ learning of STEM, or
STEM achievement. One hundred twenty-nine third-, fourth-, and ffth-grade students participated
in the study. One group had traditional face-to-face instruction using the 5E instructional model.
The other had face-to-face instruction combined with additional online learning focused on STEM.
Student achievement was tested through the assessments already used in the schools. Higher STEM
scores were achieved in the blended learning group. It could be that the online combined with onsite
instruction improved student learning, but it could also be that group had more STEM learning time.
Batdi et al. (2019) conducted a meta-analysis of STEM studies from 2002 to 2019. Overall, they
found from the studies that students in STEM courses had better achievement than students in classes
that used traditional teaching methods. STEM-based practices increase student achievement when
STEM focuses on the cognitive domain, is integrated, and also improves personal development.
Therefore, there is support in prior research that STEM instruction can positively impact student
achievement.
Preparing Elementary Teachers to Teach STEM

Given there is some evidence that appropriate STEM instruction can infuence elementary student
achievement, it would be important to appropriately prepare teachers to “teach STEM”, which
should certainly include defning STEM for teachers, providing a rationale for teaching STEM,
and appropriate modeling of STEM instructional strategies. Teachers need to develop practices for
teaching STEM, as well as conceptualize the importance of teaching STEM. The research in these
areas is described next.
Regarding teachers’ perspectives on teaching STEM, Ferguson and Sutphin (2019) used the
onion model (Korthagen, 2004) to explore teachers’ perceptions of important attributes of STEM
teachers and the hardest things about being teachers. These questions were explored prior to teachers
teaching their frst STEM lesson, and after they taught their lesson. In both pre and post responses,
“patience” was a frequently mentioned attribute in terms of importance to being a STEM teacher.
However, teachers’ perceptions of the importance of patience doubled from pre to post. Teachers
perceived that “delivery of content” was very important prior to and after teaching a STEM lesson,
but “professionalism” was the most important attribute that teachers stated post instruction. Teachers’
perceptions of the hardest part of being a teacher prior to as well as after teaching a STEM lesson
was creating learning environments and the sheer number of teacher responsibilities. Other attributes
that were also mentioned, but less often, were classroom management and diferentiated instruction.
Therefore, teaching one STEM lesson did not strongly infuence teachers’ perceptions of important
attributes of STEM teachers, nor the difcult parts of being a STEM teacher.
Madden et al. (2016) stated that popular media proclaims that STEM is important to children.
Their study explored the perspectives of preservice and novice elementary teachers’ conceptions of
the importance of STEM education. Data were collected through an online survey of 73 teachers.
All respondents stated that STEM was important for elementary students. Most believed it would
provide a foundation for future academics. Top responses from teachers were also that STEM would
provide a connection to students’ everyday lives, provide a positive attitude toward STEM, allow
integration of content, prepare students for future jobs, and promote higher-order thinking.
In another study that explored teachers’ perceptions of STEM, Firat (2020) argued that inter-
disciplinary teaching would help highlight the complexities of science. The researcher sought the
548
teachers’ perspectives on their knowledge of STEM, their beliefs about their abilities to teach STEM,
and their suggestions for teaching STEM. Interviews with ten elementary teachers were used to
determine the results. It was found that teachers had a mixture of knowledge about STEM, from not
hearing about it previously, to understanding it as interdisciplinary instruction. Four of the teachers
felt confdent teaching STEM. Teachers thought that STEM should be voluntary for students but
believed students should learn science as its own discipline.
Havice et al. (2018) stated that because STEM education is relatively new, teachers and admin-
istrators may need professional development to be able to create and implement integrative STEM
activities. Their study explored an institute’s efectiveness on increasing confdence in teaching
STEM, and short-term and long-term outcomes. Surveys indicated that participants liked the insti-
tute and believed it to be efective. Long-term efectiveness indicated self-efcacy for teaching STEM
was increased from the institute, and teachers sustained their abilities to implement integrative STEM
education. Therefore, professional development can improve teachers’ abilities to “teach STEM”.
Can STEM be culturally responsive? Van Ingen et al. (2018) argue that instead of conceptualizing
STEM and culturally responsive teaching (CRT) as distinct approaches to teaching, these approaches
can be intertwined and mutually benefcial. They called it “integrated STEM” when referring to the
integration of more than one STEM discipline. They focused on the engineering cycle for the cre-
ation of integrated STEM lessons for the elementary teachers they studied. They identifed fve key
decision points that teachers would go through when teaching STEM and incorporating CRT: (1)
choose a focus and apply a standard, (2) identify outcomes for focus and applied standards, (3) choose
a context and create an RFP, (4) develop career connections, and (5) create procedures for students to
document the design process. Adding the CRT will help connect students from diverse backgrounds
to the STEM content. Combining CRT with STEM will allow teachers to build on students’ prior
experience, community settings, cultural backgrounds, and ethnic identities. Engagement in CRT
can enhance selection of design challenges that connect to neighborhoods and cultures in which
students live.
Estapa and Tank (2017) agree that STEM education is becoming more prevalent at the elementary
level and note that recent reports have called for change in how these disciplines are taught, with
an emphasis on integration of the individual disciplines. They argued that high-quality professional
development could aid in teachers’ abilities to provide such instruction. Their study explored tri-
ads of classroom teacher, student teacher, and an engineering fellow as they experienced a profes-
sional development program that focused on STEM concepts that were centered on engineering
design. One characteristic they noted that made the program difcult was the lack of a defnition of
integrated STEM. There were 30 participants in the study, and all worked in the triads previously
described. The researchers found that engineering design as a context for integration enabled par-
ticipants to identify STEM content connections that could be implemented within the engineering
design activity. All triad members could identify multiple STEM content connections across multiple
disciplines. They found a challenge in sustaining the integration of STEM concepts across multiple
phases of the program, but through persistence they believe that the engineering design is a good
context for integrated STEM teaching.
Bowers and Ernst (2018) noted that new adoptions of standards and curricula require STEM to be
taught in elementary schools. Their study focused on exploring teachers’ profciencies for developing
lessons that integrate STEM, engage students in inquiry, support student collaboration as a STEM
team, and support strategic application of technology. These goals align with the Standards of Prac-
tice for STEM education in Maryland, where the study was conducted. They found that teachers
were able to design lessons that met these standards.
In an efort to develop confdent and competent STEM elementary teachers, Murphy and
Mancini-Samuelson (2012) designed a STEM certifcation for elementary teachers through which
they enroll in three interdisciplinary STEM courses. The courses covered themes such as chemistry,
549
biology, and engineering, and diferent courses were contained within those specialties, giving teach-
ers content knowledge about those topics.
Kim et al. (2015) studied how teachers infuence interest in STEM and STEM career pursuit.
While STEM is emphasized in middle and high schools, they claim it needs to begin in elemen-
tary school. The purpose of this research was to investigate preservice elementary teachers’ STEM
engagement, learning, and teaching when using robotics technology. They explored how teach-
ers engaged in robotics and whether there was change in STEM engagement after, as well as their
learning of STEM, and whether it infuenced their teaching. Tests were used that substituted terms
like “math” with “STEM”. It was found that the preservice teachers engaged in the robotics activi-
ties mindfully and actively. Their STEM engagement improved, and as such, activities such as these
would be useful in preparing teachers. STEM knowledge did not necessarily improve, but their
emotional engagement, such as interest and enjoyment, increased.
STEAM is often encouraged to be included in early childhood classrooms (DeJarnette, 2018).
However, teachers are generally not trained in STEM teaching, and very rarely STEAM education.
DeJarnette provided a STEAM curriculum to use with K–2 students composed of problem-based
activities based on engineering design models, and also provided long-term intervention in terms
of classroom support. DeJarnette observed teachers providing instruction to their students using this
curriculum. Data included survey questions regarding whether the teachers enjoyed and felt conf-
dent teaching STEAM. The researcher argued that young children are the perfect age for learning
STEAM disciplines. From their use of the curriculum, teachers in the study improved their attitudes
toward STEAM and their teaching of STEAM. Teachers also increased their beliefs that students
could learn STEAM. Teachers were able to develop STEAM lessons after using the researcher-
designed lessons, and as such the researchers recommend using a model lesson to aid teachers in
developing their own future lessons.
McFadden and Roehrig (2017) explored two teacher design teams during a STEM professional
development program. This program is composed as a design problem to better understand how
teachers engaged with complexities of integrated curriculum development around STEM. Participant
curriculum design conversations were audio recorded for 12 days during the professional development
program. Researchers found that when teacher design teams are not prompted with the value of a
STEM-integrated curriculum, they will follow their intuitions and plan accordingly as they generally
would. Involving teachers in the curriculum design requires participation with the ideas they will be
teaching in their own settings. It is important to push active teachers from design to mapping problem
solving to allow the teacher design teams to develop a voice and values for the integrated curriculum.
Another study explored how a science and math methods instructors worked together to provide
STEM instruction to their shared-methods students (Bartels et al., 2019). In this study the instruc-
tors provided examples of integrated STEM lessons and endeavored to help their students to not
only conceptualize STEM as an integrated discipline, but to help them design lessons and also note
how to adapt existing lessons to include at least three of the disciplines that comprise STEM. The
preservice teachers made connections to methods course concepts and strived to include all four
disciplines in their lessons, though the expectation was three. Given explicit support by two methods
instructors across both of their classes, the preservice teachers were able to develop an understanding
of STEM and to create lessons that integrated STEM disciplines. This study indicates that for pre-
service teachers to learn how to teach STEM, it will require a team efort by disciplinary specialized
teacher educators.
Summary
Similar to incorporating engineering into the elementary science classroom, it takes efort and train-
ing to be able to efectively incorporate STEM into science classrooms. There are various defnitions
550
of STEM, which makes it even more difcult to identify and incorporate. Efort needs to be made to
meaningfully incorporate and connect all STEM disciplines in one lesson or unit. As noted through-
out this chapter, elementary teachers tend to have low self-efcacy for teaching science. It is not
clear how adding engineering or STEM to the science curriculum infuences their science teaching
self-efcacy and how it infuences student understanding of science.
Conclusions/Discussion
Scientifc literacy has long been a goal of science education. However, despite best eforts, it is not
always easy to fnd a common defnition of scientifc literacy. If we take the stance that scientifc lit-
eracy comprises science as a way of knowing (NOS), practices of science (SI), and a body of knowl-
edge (science content), it is clear that we still have not been fully successful in helping elementary
students attain these understandings, nor in supporting teachers in their eforts to teach in such a way
that enables students to attain scientifc literacy.
Regarding NOS, though we know that students as young as kindergarten can begin conceptual-
izing science as a way of knowing (e.g., Akerson et al., 2019), it is clear that elementary teachers do
not naturally include NOS in their science lessons (e.g., Akerson et al., 2017). It is clear that teachers
can develop strategies for incorporating NOS into their science teaching, but it takes varying levels
of support (e.g., Akerson et al., 2012; Akerson et al., 2019; Brunner, 2019).
Similarly, teachers do not always teach about SI, nor through SI (e.g., Capps & Crawford, 2013;
Capps et al., 2016). While elementary teachers generally enjoy the hands-on aspects of teaching
through SI, they may struggle with incorporating accurate science content through inquiry. Students
may engage in inquiry and draw inaccurate conclusions, for example. Additionally, while teachers
may use SI as a method, they do not often teach about SI to improve their students’ understandings
about the practices of science and the kinds of methods that develop scientifc knowledge.
Elementary teachers also may struggle with science content knowledge, as they are required to
teach all science concepts and receive fewer science courses in their programs. Professional develop-
ment programs and appropriately designed educative curricula can be used to improve elementary
teachers’ science content knowledge (Donna & Hick, 2017).
As noted in this chapter, teachers’ conceptions of NOS, SI, and science content are related to
their self-efcacy (van Aalderen-Smeets & Walma van der Molen, 2013). If teachers perceive weak-
nesses in themselves, they are less likely to teach science, and there will be a cycle of either poor
or little science teaching at the elementary levels, so there needs to be an emphasis on improving
teachers’ knowledge and practice to ensure efective science teaching takes place. Which can be
more of a challenge now that we have added engineering and STEM into elementary science
classrooms.
Due to the addition of engineering, and the popularity of “STEM teaching”, elementary teachers
have added responsibilities in their science teaching. While it has already proven difcult for elemen-
tary teachers to incorporate NOS and SI into their classrooms, while teaching appropriate science
content, instead of working to make that better it seems that we have simply added more dimensions
to the elementary science curriculum. Now teachers (and those who prepare teachers) need to teach
engineering in their science classrooms, without ever taking an engineering course. Additionally,
rather than “simply” teaching science in their classrooms, they are asked to “teach STEM”, generally
without additional support and training. So adding engineering and STEM to science classrooms
means additional stressors on teachers and likely also afects their science teaching efcacy. Indeed,
without support, it could be that engineering is taught poorly and also that STEM is not taught as
a meaningful compilation of four disciplines, but either science, math, or engineering is taught, or
taught using technology. Simply adding more to the elementary science curriculum does not seem
the best approach for improving elementary science teaching.
551
Recommendations for Future Research

A great deal of research and work has been done over the last decade in the advancement of teach-
ing toward scientifc literacy for elementary teachers. There still are many areas that need to be
researched to better prepare and support elementary science teachers. These areas of research could
be clumped into three main areas of scientifc literacy, including understandings of NOS and SI,
engineering and STEM teaching, and science content.
Intentionally teaching NOS and SI is crucial to the development of scientifcally literate students.
The research has shown that teachers need support in interweaving NOS and SI and therefore
exploring educative curricula that interweave NOS and SI into the curriculum is a needed area of
research. Additionally, helping teachers learn to identify, modify, and use trade books to include NOS
and SI would be another area to support and research that would add to the feld.
As we teach toward scientifc literacy in the elementary schools, it is also important to notice the
trends toward including engineering and STEM into the expectations of elementary science teach-
ers: to connect with scientifc literacy researching how inclusion of engineering/STEM infuence
teachers’/students’ conceptions of NOS and SI, further research on the areas of how teachers can
improve student identities as engineers, and exploring how including engineering/STEM in a sci-
ence classroom efects science learning (positive or negative) in elementary classrooms. This research
can also focus on engineering/STEM’s infuence on teacher self-efcacy for science teaching. How
do preservice teachers “teach STEM” when provided instruction on integration of science and
mathematics methods courses? We should consider exploring how, and which, content areas can
be integrated efectively within science instruction. As elementary teachers work toward becom-
ing great science teachers, another area could look at what kind of feedback is needed for teachers’
STEM teaching to improve their abilities to integrate the disciplines in meaningful ways. There are
so many inroads made in preparing teachers to teach science, engineering, and STEM moving into
the future. There are many areas to research and grow as the development of scientifcally literate
students awaits us.
Other areas of research that can contribute to scientifc literacy for further exploration with
elementary teachers may include scientifc argumentation and how it infuences teacher practice and
building scientifc explanations. Additionally, computer science is a new push in science education
classrooms, at least in the United States. How does this inclusion afect elementary science teachers
and their science teaching?
Indeed, in our global world, those of us teaching from the NGSS perspective wonder how the
three dimensions of the standards – content, scientifc practices, and cross-cutting concepts – ft
within an elementary science curriculum, and what does it mean for some other important compo-
nents of scientifc literacy, such as NOS, to be pushed to an appendix?
Additionally, what diferences, if any, exist about views of what is important to teach about sci-
ence and how to teach those ideas globally at the elementary and primary levels? Sure, we have pro-
vided an overview of some of the science standards, but what can we learn from one another across
the world about these ideas in terms of helping all students become scientifcally literate?
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18
INTERDISCIPLINARY
APPROACHES AND INTEGRATED
STEM IN SCIENCE TEACHING
The discipline of science, which is an anchor of K–12 schooling and higher-education curricula
worldwide, comprises areas of study, including life, physical, and earth/space science. Interdisciplin-
ary approaches to the teaching of science have been prominent in education for more than a century,
and early documentation is found in journals within the feld, including the School Science and Math-
ematics journal (founded in 1901) and Science Education (established as the General Science Quarterly
in 1916). More recently, increased emphasis has been placed on integration of other disciplines
including mathematics, technology, and engineering concepts and skills as key facets of how science
occurs in the real world. This chapter builds upon the historical context, which was presented or
overlooked in this chapter in previous editions of the Handbook of Research on Science Education, Vol-
umes I (Abell & Lederman, 2007) and II (Lederman & Abell, 2014). Importantly, we touch on pre-
vious discussions regarding the defnition of integration, and we update the historical context with
the worldwide emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) integration
for economic competitiveness.
Conclusions reported in Czerniak (2007) in Abell and Lederman’s (2007) Volume I handbook
chapter and Czerniak and Johnson (2014) in Lederman and Abell (2014) in Volume II, suggested
that more research was needed on the use of integration in science, stating specifcally that research-
ers should: (1) examine the impact of integration on student outcomes, (2) investigate efective
models of preparing teachers to deliver integrated instruction, and (3) conduct empirical research on
the integration of engineering and science – as there were few articles available at that time. Thus,
we present a section on research supporting STEM integration, which covers important fndings on
the impact of interdisciplinary STEM approaches in the eight-year span since the last publication.
The research fndings focus on afective outcomes and skills, student academic outcomes, success
across various grade levels, and impacts on special populations, such as racial/ethnic backgrounds and
gender identity.
Notably, we discuss continued challenges to implementing integrated STEM. Among the chal-
lenges discussed include teacher views and teacher-related preparation challenges (e.g., teacher prep-
aration, transforming teacher education programs, professional development). We summarize the
considerable challenges that remain regarding available integrated curriculum, school structures, and
alignment of assessments to integrated instruction. Finally, we present research about specialized
STEM schools, which are sometimes seen as ways to overcome teacher- and school-related barri-
ers to implementing integrated STEM. Conclusions for the chapter provide guidance on needed
research and future directions.
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-22 559

Historical Context Since Previous Handbook Editions
Defnitions
The acronym STEM initially came from the United States (US) National Science Foundation as a
short way to convey the names of the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathemat-
ics that are most closely tied to innovation and competitiveness in the United States. In the context
of interdisciplinarity, STEM has evolved beyond representing the United States and the pure disci-
plinary content areas to a more evidence-based approach for implementing real-world, problem- or
project-based, meaningful instruction across the STEM disciplines and beyond (e.g., English, 2016;
Johnson, 2013; Johnson et al., 2021; Krajcik & Czerniak, 2018; Martin-Paez et al., 2019).
In the previous two versions of the handbook (Czerniak, 2007; Czerniak & Johnson, 2014), we
discussed how defnitions evolved over the decades, and we discussed the various forms of integra-
tion. Because no global policies parsed the defnition of integration and few research studies make
the distinction, we settle in this edition on the primary mode of interdisciplinarity as an approach to
teaching STEM content that can take the form of combining two or more of the STEM disciplines
within an instructional sequence for a short (one day) or more extended period of time (e.g., Li, Yao
et al., 2020).
Economic Competitiveness
Much of the worldwide focus on STEM integration is situated around the desire for economic
competitiveness. As a result, many countries aimed to focus on STEM and scientifc literacy in order
to compete with other countries, and many countries are moving toward integration of the STEM
disciplines in meaningful ways contextualized in the authentic world (e.g., Bascope et al., 2020;
DeColito, 2016; Ellis & Williams, 2020; Li, Wang et al., 2020; Rincón & Lane, 2017; Timms et al.,
2018; Wei, 2009).
North America
In North America, the United States witnessed a number of state and federal agencies establishing
goals for STEM literacy with an emphasis on integration. For example, the strategic plan outlined in
Charting a Course for Success: America’s Strategy for STEM Education (National Science and Technology
Council, 2018) emphasizes a “future where all Americans will have lifelong access to high-quality
STEM education and the United States will be the global leader in STEM literacy, innovation, and
employment” (National Science and Technology Council, p. 2). Key characteristics of this US Fed-
eral STEM Strategic Plan, among other things, are an increased focus on interdisciplinarity and the
integration of STEM disciplines, an emphasis on the STEM literacy, and building STEM talent for
future careers. This report states, “The best STEM education provides an interdisciplinary approach
to learning, where rigorous academic concepts are coupled with real-world applications and students
use STEM in contexts that make connections between school, community, work, and the wider
world” (National Science and Technology Council, p. 11). One of the pathways to success in this
report emphasizes the pivotal role of interdisciplinarity in STEM titled: “Engage Students Where
Disciplines Converge”, which aims to “make STEM learning more meaningful, transdisciplinary,
and inspiring to students by focusing on complex real-world problems and challenges that require
initiative and creativity” as well as “teaching learners to tackle problems using multiple disciplines”
(p. 8).
Canada’s Innovation and Skills Plan (2017) is a fve-year $950 million investment targeting innova-
tion to create STEM jobs and the talent to fll the new positions (e.g., DeColito, 2016). This plan aims
to situate Canada as a leader in the global economy with a focus on Canadian natural resources and
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Interdisciplinary Approaches and Integrated STEM
talents, such as advanced manufacturing, agri-food, clean technology, and health sciences. Emphasis
in this plan includes school–work integration to make STEM curricula relevant to real-world jobs.
South America
In South America, STEM education eforts (including place-based learning) appear to be in very
early stages with some emerging interdisciplinary programs with most of the schools still have tradi-
tional approaches to teaching science and focus on closing the education gaps found for students in
poverty (Bascope et al., 2020; Rincón & Lane, 2017).
Europe
Across Europe, countries have promoted STEM education and integration of curriculum as a means
to achieve economic competitiveness. Tasiopoulou et al. (2020) reported the European Nations
STE(A)M IT project (http://steamit.eun.org) aims to create and test an interdisciplinary framework,
provide K–12 teachers the capacity to focus on contextualized teaching, and ensure the contextu-
alization of STEM teaching by establishing a network of guidance counselors and career advisors in
schools who promote STEM jobs and help teachers make school–work connections.
Many European nations have policies in place that support STEM integration. Ireland presented
policy with emphasis on integrated STEM education across all levels of schooling with special emphasis
starting at early grades (Delahunty et al., 2021). Integrated STEM is heralded as a promising model for
21st-century STEM literacies that would also motivate students and increase engagement in STEM.
The Scottish Government (2019) published “The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathemat-
ics (STEM): Education and Training Strategy for Scotland” in October 2017 to promote economic
growth. The Strategy presented a plan to drive forward improvements in STEM education and train-
ing in Scotland, for all ages. Finland developed a successful national curriculum and revised teacher
preparation to stress multidisciplinary and project-based learning (e.g., Drake & Reid, 2020; Garner,
2015; Lavonen, 2020; Schafhauser, 2015). In Flanders, STEM integration emphasizes the deeper con-
nections between the STEM disciplines by involving students in design challenges centered around
real-world problems (Thibaut et al., 2019), which can help prepare students for STEM careers.
Asia
In Asia, several countries have national-level programs in place for STEM education, which focus
on scientifc literacy and economic development (Li, Yao et al., 2020), including China’s STEM
Education 2029 Innovation Action Plan (e.g., An et al., 2020; Ministry of Education of China, 2016,
2017), South Korea’s focus on “creative and integrative” learning (Cho & Hugh, 2017), and in
Singapore the STEM Applied Learning Programmes and STEM Industrial Partnership Programmes
(Teo, 2019). Regarding STEM in China, Wei (2009) argued that integration beyond science sub-
jects, where other disciplines are included in the teaching of science, is necessary to meet the goal
of scientifc literacy. Curriculum reform in China was driven by needs to increase the relevance of
schooling to children’s lives and to emphasize an inquiry approach to learning (Wei).
In contrast, however, STEM integration is limited in India (Kapoor & Shah, 2021), with most
schools emphasizing separate school subjects and school testing.
Africa
Many African nations have prioritized STEM and integrated STEM approaches to make them more
competitive in the global economy (e.g., Tikly et al., 2018), and this trend is even noticeable in
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developing countries, such as Nigeria (Badmus & Omosewo, 2020). More developed countries,
such as Egypt, have developed programs using interdisciplinary learning as a means to develop
21st-century skills to compete in a global environment (Heba, 2015). Tanzia, which has histori-
cally focused on literacy and mathematics in early grades, has shifted to emphasizing STEM in early
grades in order to build the knowledge and skills that will be needed in today’s economy (Ndijuye &
Tandika, 2020).
Oceania
Momentum for STEM has grown in Australia and has been in some respects a grassroots efort prior
to 2015 when the National Education STEM strategy was included in the National Innovation and
Science Agenda – including fnancial commitments to STEM through Early STEM Learning Initia-
tives and Embracing the Digital Age (Ellis & Williams, 2020). The emphasis on STEM integration
has been supported by the Australian government (Australian Government, 2021). Overall, the focus
in Australia is to grow a sustainable pipeline of STEM talent to insure economic competitiveness
(Timms et al., 2018). Similarly, New Zealand emphasizes education for economic competitive-
ness (Johnson, 2015), and the New Zealand curriculum suggests an integrated approach is efective
(Abbiss & Quinlivan, 2011).
Research Supporting Integrated STEM

Research focused on the integration of STEM has increased considerably since 2000, as Li, Wang
et al. (2020) revealed in their systematic review of STEM publications; their fndings indicated
research on STEM specifcally has been published in over 30 diferent journals. To examine the
impact of integration in K–12 education practice, the National Academy of Engineering, and the
National Research Council in 2014 commissioned a report that examined the status of STEM inte-
gration in the United States. The resulting report, titled “STEM Integration in K-12 Education:
Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research”, includes fndings of a two-year study by the com-
mittee (National Research Council [NRC], 2014). In this section, we focus on the research fndings
on integration that includes afective and skill-based learning outcomes, student academic outcomes,
success of integration across grade levels, and the impact of integration on special populations.
Affective and Skill-Based Outcomes

Curriculum integration advocates speak of the numerous afective advantages of integration in
science to help students see the relevancy of the curriculum to their personal lives, grow interest in
science, and motivation for student engagement (e.g., English, 2017; Myers, 2015; Nathan et al.,
2013; Rennie et al., 2012b; Roehrig et al., 2021; Ryan et al., 2017; Venville et al., 2004). Stu-
dents participating in an integrative STEM curriculum reported signifcantly more favorable attitudes
toward science than students from traditional classrooms (Toma & Greca, 2018) and were more
motivated to learn (Bevo et al., 2020). A study in Dublin demonstrated the efectiveness of integrat-
ing digital arts and fabrication with STEM to raise students’ interest in STEM subjects (Togou et al.,
2018). Project-based learning results in high levels of student engagement in learning (Brush & Saye,
2008). Problem- and project-based learning positively infuences student attitudes and career aspira-
tions in STEM (Beier et al., 2018; Belland et al., 2006; Chan et al., 2020; Crouch, 2015; Verma &
McKinney, 2015).
Numerous studies contributed to the knowledge base regarding the link between interdisciplin-
ary science teaching and other school-related gains (e.g., Asghar et al., 2012; Czerniak & Johnson,
2014; Song & Wang, 2021; Yang, He et al., 2018; Yang, Liu et al., 2018; You et al., 2018; Zhang &
562
Shen, 2015). In an experimental study, Rasul and colleagues (2018) found a group of students in an
integrated curriculum intervention had stronger scientifc process skills, inquiry skills, and creative
thinking than students without intervention. The problem-solving approach used within integrated
STEM classrooms is well suited for generating discourse, argumentation, and the iterative process
of redesign and refnement of ideas (e.g., Guzey & Aranda, 2017; Moore et al., 2021; Sampson
et al., 2013). A study of problem-based learning in New Zealand found that an integrated teaching
approach supported collaborative inquiry and refective practice (Brears et al., 2011). Integration
improves higher-order thinking skills (Bevo et al., 2020). Students in project-based learning environ-
ments demonstrated improved collaborative skills (ChanLin, 2008) and improved critical thinking
and problem-solving skills (Mergendoller et al., 2006). Kang (2020) researched student’s interdisci-
plinary knowledge and skills and found that students’ intentions to integrate STEM knowledge and
skills to solve complex problems can be predicted by their attitude and perceived behavioral control.
Student Academic Outcomes

The National Research Council [NRC], 2014) found that integration of STEM concepts and prac-
tices in K–12 has “promise to lead to increased conceptual learning within the disciplines”, (p. 3),
particularly for science education. Since then, evidence indicating the potential impact of integrated
STEM teaching within one or multiple teachers’ classrooms has grown considerably in recent years,
revealing gains in student outcomes within the STEM disciplines (e.g., Acar et al., 2018; Bevo
et al., 2020; Crotty et al., 2017; Guzey et al., 2019; Guzey et al., 2017; Guzey et al., 2016; John-
son & Fargo, 2014; Kang, 2020; Kazu & Kurtoglu Yalcin, 2021; Sondergeld et al., 2011; Vitale &
Romance, 2011; Wang & Song, 2021), as well as in other non-STEM content areas (e.g., Clark
et al., 2020) and college readiness overall (e.g., Pearson, 2017). Notable research regarding student
academic outcomes focused on individual studies, meta-analyses, and standardized assessment-based
achievement will be discussed in the next sections.
Individual Studies on Student Academic Outcomes

Guzey et al. (2017) conducted a quasi-experimental study of the implementation of a design-based
integrated STEM curriculum in grades 4–8 with over 4,000 students. Findings revealed students
who experienced the integrated STEM curriculum experienced gains on assessments of physical
science concepts. Crotty et al. (2017) examined outcomes of a professional development program
for nearly 50 teachers of grades 4–9 who were supported to develop integrated STEM units of
study. Findings indicated students who experienced the integrated STEM curriculum had positive
outcomes on pre/post assessments of engineering content knowledge. Guzey et al. (2019) explored
pre/post assessment of science and engineering content knowledge for 330 middle school students
who were taught using a design-based, integrated STEM curriculum. Findings in this study revealed
positive student gains in both science and engineering knowledge. Clark et al. (2020) examined the
use of an integrated approach in frst grade on disciplinary literacy and found students were able to
“produce higher-quality science informational texts” as scored by weighted writing rubrics.
Research is sparse regarding integrated STEM’s impact on student mathematics learning (e.g.,
English, 2016; NRC, 2014) and includes mixed fndings regarding the impact of integrated STEM
on mathematics achievement with some studies showing no gains (e.g., Guzey et al., 2016; Tolliver,
2016). However, Acar et al. (2018) investigation of Turkish students in fourth grade who received
integrated STEM instruction signifcantly outperformed the control group on both science and
mathematics tests.
Problem-based instruction in science teaching can produce signifcant growth in student
academic outcomes compared to more traditional science instructional methods (e.g., Craig &
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Marshall, 2019; Cutucache et al., 2018; Gijbels et al., 2005; Harris et al., 2015). Similarly, project-
based instruction has been shown to increase student achievement (Bartscher et al., 1995), is more
efective when teaching STEM subjects (Marx et al., 2004), is more efective in creating long-term
retention of concepts, and improves students’ ability to integrate and explain concepts than tradi-
tional teaching methods (Buck Institute, 2009; Geier et al., 2008; Penuel & Means, 2000; Rivet &
Krajcik, 2004; Schneider et al., 2002; Stepien & Gallagher, 1993). On high-stakes tests, problem-
based learning students perform as well or better than traditionally taught students (Geier et al.,
2008; Parker et al., 2011).
Teaching STEM within the context of 21st-century skills, such as communication and other Eng-
lish language arts components, has demonstrated the ability to also grow conceptual understanding of
disciplinary content (e.g., Graham et al., 2020; Tank, 2014; Wu & Rau, 2019), while science instruc-
tion has also been linked to growth in vocabulary learning for young children (Guo et al., 2016).
In the prior edition of this chapter, we noted the dearth of research on the impact of integration
with respect to engineering. In the United States, both the Framework (NRC, 2011) and NGSS
(NGSS Lead States, 2013) give attention to engineering, and many other countries have followed.
An analysis of the K–12 science standards of six countries (Australia, England, Estonia, Hong Kong,
South Africa, and Turkey) found integrated engineering and its elements in their science documents
(Ekiz-Kiran & Aydin-Gunbatar, 2021). In this edition, however, we still fnd few research studies
showing the learning outcomes of engineering studies. Studies exist that address students’ abilities to
engage in engineering design and solve problems, but little empirical evidence is presented regarding
increased content knowledge (e.g., Pleasants et al., 2019a, 2019b; Redmond et al., 2011).
Meta-Analyses of Studies on Academic Student Outcomes

Several meta-analyses have aimed to identify the impact of integrated STEM on student learning.
Kang (2020) conducted a meta-analysis to examine the impact of integrated STEAM (science, tech-
nology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) initiatives in South Korea implemented over the past ten
years. A meta-analysis was followed by surveys and interviews with students to identify their percep-
tions of the efects. It was found that the integrated STEAM approach to education had achieved
its intended goals. A meta-analysis of STEM education based on the integration of STEM aimed
to present the overall efect on students’ academic achievement by analyzing 64 research fndings
obtained from 56 quantitative studies published between 2014 and 2021 (Kazu & Kurtoglu Yalcin,
2021). The results showed that the efect of STEM education on students’ academic success was sta-
tistically higher in the random-efects model. A meta-analysis found moderate level of efectiveness
for improving students’ academic subject outcomes (Bevo et al., 2020).
Academic Achievement as Measured on Standardized Tests

We pointed out in the earlier editions of this chapter that standardized tests oftentimes fail to measure
the type of learning expected through an integrated approach, but students who experienced inte-
grated learning outperformed peers on standardized tests. This may suggest that integration creates
deep learning that transcends testing format or focus. Research studies enumerate various academic
advantages of integration in science in helping students form deeper conceptual understandings and
build connections across academic disciplines (e.g., English, 2017; Myers, 2015; Nathan et al., 2013;
Rennie et al., 2012b; Roehrig et al., 2021; Ryan et al., 2017; Venville et al., 2004).
Vitale and Romance (2011) found that an integrated approach produced signifcantly higher
achievement on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills in reading and science for children in frst and second
grades. Sondergeld et al. (2011) conducted a study of a STEM enrichment program for middle school
students from a large, urban school district. Findings revealed that students who participated in the
564
STEM integrated program realized statistically signifcant growth on state assessments of science and
mathematics, compared to comparison students from the same district. Similarly, Johnson and Fargo
(2014) conducted a longitudinal study of the integration of science and literacy with English language
learners and found that the integrated approach resulted in signifcant gains for students on state sci-
ence and English language arts assessments. These fndings may be explained by Wang and Song’s
work (2021) where students who participate in interdisciplinary science classrooms develop what is
called “interdisciplinary competence”, the ability use knowledge, skills, and evidence from two or
more disciplines to achieve a more holistic understanding than when studying within a single disci-
plinary content. Venville et al. (2012) refer to this as “powerful knowledge”. Interdisciplinary com-
petence or powerful knowledge represents deeper conceptual understanding; thus, students would be
expected to do well on the lower types of knowledge typically assessed on standardized tests.
Success of Integration Across Grade Levels

The existing research base includes studies of STEM integration at all grade levels, including early
childhood and elementary school (e.g., Acar et al., 2018; Hapgood et al., 2020; Nesmith & Coo-
per, 2020), middle school (e.g., Shahali et al., 2017; Song & Wang, 2021), high school (e.g., Chan
et al., 2020; Lynch et al., 2018; Peters-Burton et al., 2014; Pringle et al., 2020; Thibaut et al., 2018;
Wiswall et al., 2014), and post-secondary level (e.g., Margot & Kettler, 2019; Schrefer et al., 2019).
Becker and Park (2011) investigated the efects of integrative approaches among science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics on student academic learning through a meta-analysis of 28 studies
of integration. Findings indicated the largest efect sizes were when integration happened at the
elementary school level and smallest at the college level. Further, integration of all four STEM dis-
ciplines yields the largest efect size, with integration having a positive impact on both mathematics
and science achievement in most studies included in the analysis.
Impact of Integration on Special Populations

STEM integration has been shown to improve learning for students with disabilities (e.g., Basham
et al., 2020; Basham et al., 2011) and English language learners (e.g., Suh et al., 2020). Interdisci-
plinary and integrated STEM instruction has demonstrated the potential to motivate and engage
underrepresented and underserved students (e.g., NRC, 2014; Kennedy & Odell, 2014; Struyf et al.,
2019; Wang, 2013) in the learning of science, as well as a means to grow their STEM identities, self-
efcacy, and interest in science (e.g., Guzey et al., 2016; NRC, 2014) and STEM degree programs
and future careers (e.g., Burris & Welner, 2005; NRC, 2014; Johnson & Sondergeld, 2020; National
Academies, 2011). An integrated STEM approach provides an opportunity for all students to engage
in a “high-track curriculum” of their choosing, providing access for students with the intent of
closing the achievement gap for students from underserved communities, including those living in
urban areas (Burris & Welner, 2005). Project-based learning, in particular, has been shown to level
the playing feld for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in standardized assessments of
mathematics (Han et al., 2014). Additionally, research summarized in the National Research Coun-
cil (NRC, 2014) report on integration fnds that girls in K–12 settings are both more motivated to
pursue STEM careers and perform better academically with integrated STEM curricula.
Addressing Challenges to Interdisciplinary STEM Implementation

Although research has demonstrated a variety of positive outcomes of interdisciplinary STEM
approaches, challenges persist to implementing these approaches. Margot and Kettler’s (2019) sys-
tematic literature review of 25 articles examining teachers’ perceptions of STEM revealed that while
565
teachers value the potential of integrating STEM, there are prevalent barriers that must be addressed
to enable professional development and teacher education programs to be successful. Barriers that
were reported included lack of experience with pedagogy, knowledge of disciplinary content, access
to integrated curricula, school structure and class scheduling issues, and alignment with assessments.
Similarly, Pearson (2017) discussed challenges for teachers, including educator expertise across STEM
content areas, alignment issues between STEM instruction and summative assessments (local, state,
national), and time for teacher collaboration and planning.
In this section, we focus on addressing the aforementioned challenges in teacher preparation with
a focus on teacher’s views, disciplinary STEM content knowledge, STEM pedagogies, and enact-
ing authentic learning environments. We follow with a discussion regarding transformation teacher
education and teacher professional development. Since lack of integrated STEM curricula and school
structures are persistent barriers, sections on curriculum and school structures follow. Although we
presented evidence earlier in this chapter that students who experienced an integrated STEM curri-
cula performed well on standardized tests, we revisit the lack of alignment between integrated STEM
approaches and assessments. Finally, we discuss specialized STEM schools that have been created to
create supports for an integrated approach.
Teacher’s Views About Integration

The views and beliefs of teachers regarding curriculum integration have been studied around the
world (e.g., El-Deghaidy et al., 2017; Furman et al., 2016; Hamad et al., 2022; Margot & Kettler,
2019, Thibaut et al., 2019). Findings across studies suggest that teachers generally hold positive views
about curriculum integration but perceive barriers to adopting the practice. For example, in Ireland,
a study found STEM integration conficts with Ireland’s heavy, subject-focused educational system,
and teachers’ perceptions of priorities may limit eforts to integrate the curriculum (Delahunty et al.,
2021). One study demonstrated that a teacher’s experience in mathematics and total years of teaching
had a negative correlation with attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM (Thibaut et al., 2019),
which suggests that teacher preparation in multiple disciplines may improve attitudes. In mainland
China, a study found teacher belief factors hindered efective integration of engineering into science,
and as a result, teachers designed and implemented low levels of integration (Zhan et al., 2021).
Preparing Science Teachers to Use Integrated STEM

The success of interdisciplinary approaches in K–12 schools is dependent, in part, upon teachers to
be equipped to implement integrated STEM efectively. Indeed, the importance of preparing teach-
ers to implement interdisciplinary or integrated STEM instruction within science has been widely
discussed across research, policy, and practice contexts, as the key to successful implementation is
inextricably linked to teacher disciplinary content knowledge (science, technology, engineering,
mathematics) and command of STEM pedagogies and enacting authentic learning environments
(e.g., Burrows & Slater, 2015; Dare et al., 2019; Eckman et al., 2016; Johnson et al., 2021, 2015;
NRC, 2014; Ryu et al., 2019).
Disciplinary Content Knowledge

Teachers’ disciplinary content knowledge has been shown to be a limiting factor to the integra-
tion across the curriculum. In a study by Shernof et al. (2017), teachers reported challenges to
integrated STEM teaching, including their own lack of understanding of integrated STEM. Most
science teachers have limited understanding of STEM overall (e.g., Dare et al., 2019; Margot &
Kettler, 2019; Ryu et al., 2019), as well as engineering thinking and the engineering design process
566
specifcally (e.g., Cunningham & Carlsen, 2014; Moore et al., 2014; Roehrig et al., 2012; Ryan
et al., 2017). Further, the role of technology within an integrated STEM approach is often not
well understood by teachers who have misconceptions about what “counts” as the “technology”
thinking that using a Smart Board or 1:1 device for instruction is adequate (e.g., Dare et al., 2019;
Martin-Paez et al., 2019). McComas and Burgin (2020) argue that part of the challenge with
technology integration is that technology doesn’t have a disciplinary status, and they note, “The
National Research Council’s (2014) report on STEM integration agrees with our conclusion, stat-
ing that ‘technology, while not a discipline in the strictest senses, comprises the entire system of
people and organizations’” (p. 14).
Nadelson and Seifert (2017) identifed teacher STEM knowledge as a serious challenge to
integrated STEM implementation because teachers are commonly prepared to teach in only one
subject area. Similarly, Navy and Kaya (2020) found teachers in their PD programs experienced
challenges when implementing their developed integrated STEM curricular units due to limited
content knowledge across multiple disciplinary content areas. Elementary teachers are oftentimes
most challenged by lack of content knowledge (Horizon Research, 2013; McClure et al., 2017).
A study in Taiwan found infusing the engineering design process into STEM project-based learn-
ing helped preservice teachers’ thinking and ability to integrate across the curriculum (Kuen-Yi
et al., 2021). However, some researchers argue that the difculty with teacher preparation and
STEM integration rests with the fundamentally diferent ways of knowing in the disciplines (e.g.,
McComas & Burgin, 2020); as a result, it may not be feasible to prepare teachers to be well versed
in all STEM disciplines.
Integrated curriculum has been implemented in several ways over the years, ranging from mul-
tidisciplinary to interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary formats (e.g., Osborne, 2015; Vasquez et al.,
2013). Whereas in multidisciplinary curricula the individual disciplines are clearly present and distin-
guishable, the latter two approaches blur the lines between the disciplines more – mirroring more of
how the STEM disciplines and the areas within science exist in the real world, with interdisciplinary
content areas being interconnected in meaningful ways (e.g., Carr et al., 2018; Lederman & Niess,
1997; Moran, 2001) and transdisciplinary approaches possessing seamless connections around real-
world issues that connect social, economic, or environmental concerns. These approaches under-
score the difculty of preparing teachers with appropriate disciplinary knowledge. Multidisciplinary
approaches can be accomplished by having separate disciplinary teachers collaborate to develop inte-
grated curriculum, but interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary formats require teachers to have strong
content knowledge in multiple STEM areas and even in history and other subject areas.
STEM Pedagogies
Lack of teacher understanding about STEM pedagogies oftentimes limits their ability to integrate
subject areas. Integrated STEM requires the use of student-centered pedagogies, such as project- and
problem-based learning, engineering design, and inquiry-based learning. Navy and Kaya (2020)
found teachers in their professional development programs experienced challenges when imple-
menting their developed integrated STEM curricular units due to limited experience using inte-
grated STEM pedagogy. Numerous studies in the United States demonstrate that teachers are now
well prepared to teach using inquiry-based methods (e.g., Banilower et al., 2013; Fulp, 2000). A
study in Tanzania found that early childhood teachers were not aware of how to integrate tech-
nology and engineering into their programs (Ndijuye & Tandika, 2020). Similarly, Furman and
colleagues (2016) concluded that teacher education programs needed to include teachers’ engage-
ments in critical, interdisciplinary, and practical learning contexts to support the development of
creative pedagogies. In Australia, partnerships between teachers and industry have shown promise
for improving teachers’ ability to integrate across the curriculum by making science practical and
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authentic (Morris et al., 2021). Project- and problem-based learning are pedagogical approaches that
integrated STEM disciplines and have been frequently implemented within science teaching for
more than three decades (e.g., Capraro et al., 2013; Johnson et al., 2015, 2021; Krajcik & Czerniak,
2018; Krauss & Boss, 2013; McGehee, 2001; Ronis, 2007).
Enacting Authentic Learning Environments

Integrated STEM is a framework for the development of curriculum, delivery of instruction, and/
or school design (Johnson & Sondergeld, 2020) where student teams use their STEM knowledge
and skills while working collaboratively on a real-world problem and/or challenge with the task
of designing a potential solution or product (e.g., Beier et al., 2018; Craig & Marshall, 2019),
which provides experiences that better prepare students for STEM pathways and careers (e.g.,
Margot & Kettler, 2019). Nowadays, integration is driven more frequently by social constructs
than the content of academic disciplines (e.g., Johnson, 2013; Rennie et al., 2012b; Roehrig
et al., 2021).
A variety of approaches have been used to focus on real-world problems, such as the science, tech-
nology, and society (STS) movement several decades ago (e.g., Autieri et al., 2016; Kumar & Berlin,
1998; Yager, 1996) and, more recently, the citizen science trend (National Academies of Sciences
Engineering, and Medicine, 2018) and project-based science (Krajcik & Czerniak, 2018). Engineer-
ing design processes are central to the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013) and also give teachers ways
to have students present potential solutions to a problem (e.g., Crotty et al., 2017; Fan & Yu, 2017;
Roehrig et al., 2021).
Importantly, all these approaches to teaching integrated STEM enable students to see the con-
nections between what they are learning and their daily lives, often engaging them in addressing
pervasive challenges – often grounded in science – for their local communities and the world (e.g.,
Carter et al., 2015; El-Deghaidy et al., 2017; Johnson et al., 2021; Meyrick, 2011). Thus, it would
seem prudent for teacher preparation programs to include more about STEM pedagogies in their
programs of study.
Transforming Teacher Education Programs

The transformation of teacher education programs within higher education has proceeded at a very
slow pace compared to the respective enthusiasm and momentum in K–12 regarding integration of
STEM. Enderson et al. (2020) posit there are three formidable obstacles to building an integrated
STEM focus in teacher preparation programs, including (1) teacher content specialization in either
mathematics or science combined (typically not both) with a lack of understanding of technology
and engineering (the “T” and “E” in STEM), (2) teacher education models driven by accreditation
standards that do not include an integration focus, and (3) school structure. Some have pointed to
the variety of STEM approaches in school education and lack of a clear defning framework for
integrated STEM teacher education as a confounding variable, making higher education programs
slower to change (e.g., Burrows & Slater, 2015). As a result, interpretations of what the teacher edu-
cation focus on integrated STEM should look like are varied, including infusing engineering and/or
technology into existing science and mathematics methods coursework (e.g., Counsell et al., 2015;
DiFrancesca et al., 2014; O’Brien, 2010; Rinke et al., 2016), team-taught content courses integrating
the STEM disciplines (Murphy & Mancini-Samuelson, 2012), and inclusion of integrated STEM
units, projects, or activities to existing teacher education coursework (e.g., Counsell et al., 2015;
Dani et al., 2017; Jaipal-Jamani & Angeli, 2017; Stein & Muzzin, 2018). Importantly, it is noted that
considerable redesign of preservice teacher education would be necessary to help move integrated
STEM eforts forward (Shernof et al., 2017).
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Professional Development
Enabling science teacher change overall has been a pervasive historical challenge of science educa-
tion reform (e.g., Johnson, 2012; Johnson et al., 2014; Lee & Luykx, 2006; Luft & Hewson, 2014;
Southerland, 2012). Research has burgeoned on professional development (PD) programs focused
on STEM with the goal of enabling educators to gain experience, confdence, content knowledge,
skills, and self-efcacy in delivering interdisciplinary STEM instruction in science and other content
areas (e.g., Antoniou & Kyriakides, 2013; Banilower et al., 2007; Dare et al., 2019; Johnson et al.,
2017; Margot & Kettler, 2019; Ryu et al., 2019; Van Driel & Berry, 2012). In Finland, for example,
successful teacher professional development for integrated teaching rests on teacher collaboration
and autonomy whereby teachers develop project-based instruction around local topics and issues
(Haapaniemi et al., 2020).
Over two decades of research on teacher professional development reveals a substantive and clear
connection between participation in efective professional development programs, teacher acquisi-
tion of new pedagogical content knowledge, and increase in teacher quality (e.g., Czerniak et al.,
2005; Garet et al., 2001; Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Johnson et al.,
2017; Loucks-Horsley et al., 2007; Muijs & Reynolds, 2001; Penuel et al., 2007; Van Veen et al.,
2011). Key design features of STEM PD programs for teachers within their respective disciplinary
areas were discussed by Luft et al. (2020), which included (1) collaboration with other teachers, (2)
coherence of PD with school programming, (3) focus on subject matter knowledge and how students
learn, (4) adequate time and resources for training, and (5) ongoing evaluation of PD outcomes.
Professional development that specifcally prepares science teachers to deliver interdisciplinary
and/or integrated STEM instruction has been demonstrated to be efective. Professional develop-
ment is positively linked to teachers’ attitudes toward integrated teaching (Thibaut et al., 2019). Sig-
nifcant changes in teacher integration practices were seen in increased use of small group problem
solving through inquiry, increased engagement, and increased opportunities for student reasoning;
teacher efcacy, teacher outcome expectancies about integration, also improved signifcantly (Ander-
son & Tully, 2020). In Saudi Arabia, science and mathematics teachers’ perceptions of difculties
around integration decreased and their self-efcacy increased due to their participation in the PD
program (Aldahmash et al., 2019).
Curricula to Promote Integration

“Curriculum” is typically defned as a course of study or the academic content covered schools. In
the context of this chapter, we fnd few instances of a formally adopted school-based or national cur-
riculum that is integrated. Although we demonstrated in this chapter a worldwide push for integrated
curriculum, much of the content presented in schools worldwide continues to consist of teacher-
driven eforts to modify the existing adopted curriculum or to collaborate with peers from diferent
disciplines to integrate across content areas.
Integrated STEM can be implemented with multiple disciplines (and associated standards) being
taught at the same time within the same content class (e.g., Bell & Bell, 2018; Guzey et al., 2019;
Moore et al., 2020), as an integrated STEM lesson or unit that is delivered in multiple content classes
(e.g., Asunda & Mativo, 2017; Roehrig et al., 2012; Thibaut et al., 2018), or within a STEM-focused
school or traditional school where there is stand-alone STEM project time during the regular school
day with or without connections to the unit across the disciplinary content area instructional time
(e.g., Johnson & Sondergeld, 2020; Johnson, 2013; Johnson et al., 2021; Margot & Kettler, 2019).
To add to these potential variations, some approaches also leverage English language arts (ELA),
social studies, and the arts as the context and tools utilized within the instructional design and deliv-
ery (e.g., Breiner et al., 2012; Johnson et al., 2015, 2020, 2021; Johnson, 2013; Rennie et al., 2012a,
569
2012b; Pryor et al., 2016; Roehrig et al., 2021; Roehrig et al., 2012; Tank et al., 2018; Thibaut et al.,
2018). The term “STEAM” has been used to indicate ways in which the arts can be integrated to
engage with the STEM subjects (Colucci-Gray et al., 2017; Mejias et al., 2020). These authors report
that the arts are seen as a way to include creativity in interdisciplinary work and to making science
education more attractive to a broader population. The EuroSTEAM project (Haesen & Van de Put,
2018) is one such project that brought together partners from fve EU countries (the United Kingdom,
Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and Spain). In England, teachers’ use of design and technology education
within the school-based STEM curricula was reported by Bell and colleagues (2018). In Ukraine, it is
posited that STEAM curricula may attract more women and girls into STEM (Strutynska & Umryk,
2019). However, Davies and Trowsdale (2017) reported some concerns with pedagogical practices and
issues with integrating the arts. The authors argue that there is a need for deeper analysis of issues and
challenges and ongoing dialogue among STEM practitioners, artist, teachers, and educators.
Computational thinking has taken a prominent position within science education in the NGSS, as
well as within STEM education approaches overall (e.g., Lee & Grover, 2020), as computer science
education “has moved from a feld of advanced study pursued at undergraduate and graduate levels to
a central educational policy initiative in K-12 education” (Wiebe et al., 2020, p. 204). In recent years,
there has been an increased efort to introduce coding, programming, and computational thinking
across all grade levels, including early childhood education (Bers, 2018). Programs such as ScratchJr
are used with young children ages 5–7. Data presented by Bers (2018) shows robust computer science
use and integration into the curriculum in the UK and Nordic countries. A paper from Ukraine
summarizes eforts to implement robotics and 3D technology into the learning process as an impor-
tant component of integrated STEM (Strutynska & Umryk, 2019). Thus, educators are also looking
to include many types of technology into integrated STEM curriculum.
The Framework for K–12 Science Education (NRC, 2011) and Next Generation Science Standards
(NGSS Lead States, 2013) in the United States present an explicit and intentional integration of sci-
ence with mathematics and include engineering as a new context for learning important science,
technological, and mathematical skills and content (Hoeg & Bencze, 2017). Science and engineering
practices in the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013) include asking questions, defning problems, mod-
eling, planning and conducting investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, using mathematics
and computational thinking, constructing explanations and solutions, developing argumentation,
and communicating fndings. Clearly, these practices require students to use skills from engineering,
communication (literacy), and mathematics to engage in science inquiry. However, neither of these
seminal US publications provide curricula that teachers can use in their classrooms.
The aforementioned myriad of variations to integration poses problems for developing integrated
STEM curricula and might explain the lack of available integrated curricula. As mentioned in prior
editions of this chapter (Czerniak, 2007; Czerniak & Johnson, 2014), teachers oftentimes fnd it dif-
fcult to integrate STEM because of the lack of integrated STEM curricula and due to the historical
approach to have separate subject curricula. For example, Navy and Kaya (2020) found teachers in
their professional development programs experienced challenges when implementing their devel-
oped integrated STEM curricular units due to competing priorities of needing to cover their respec-
tive disciplinary content.
The issue regarding lack of curriculum is twofold: There continue to be scant commercially avail-
able curriculum adopted by schools that take an interdisciplinary approach across STEM subjects,
and the numerous teacher-developed interdisciplinary lessons have typically not been subjected to
widespread use or rigorous testing and oftentimes only superfcially blend academic content areas
with science. Further, few tools exist to judge the quality of integrated STEM curricula, and many
current tools are simply checklists of features.
Three general guidelines for the design of integrated STEM education initiatives were presented
by the National Research Council (2014); they include (1) the need for teachers to be explicit when
570
delivering integrated STEM learning experiences with “intentional and explicit support for students
to build knowledge and skill both within the disciplines and across disciplines” (p. 5), (2) the need for
supporting student development of knowledge in the individual disciplines to make sure conceptions
are not lost within the context of the problem or challenge, and (3) less is more – meaning teachers
should be strategic about how they connect learning across the STEM disciplines and attend to mak-
ing sure the curricula are age appropriate in regard to cognitive load.
Recently, researchers have developed frameworks to guide the assessment of the quality of inte-
grated curriculum. One such study examined 50 physical science units to understand the nature
of integration within them (Roehrig et al., 2021). The fndings were that the integrated units fell
into four categories: a science unit with some loose connections to engineering design, engineer-
ing design-focused units with superfcial science content, engineering design units with science as
the basis of the content, and well-designed and solid integrated STEM units. The resulting tool the
authors developed could be used to examine the integration of engineering practices into STEM
content.
Other frameworks for STEM integration (e.g., Moore et al., 2014; Johnson et al., 2021; Moore &
Hughes, 2018) have been used as a vehicle for building integrated STEM curricula. The Framework
for STEM Integration (Johnson et al., 2021) has seven primary elements, including (1) motivating
and engaging context; (2) engineering design challenges of relevant technologies or engineering
thinking, technological progress, and/or reverse engineering of technologies; (3) redesigning based
on results – learning from failure; (4) standards-based learning objectives embedded in real-world,
interdisciplinary problems, including STEM disciplines with non-STEM disciplines as desired; (5)
student-centered pedagogy; (6) teamwork, communication and other 21st-century skills; and (7)
integration of STEM and non-STEM disciplinary content throughout.
School Structures and Integrated STEM

Rennie et al. (2012a) summarized four generalizations regarding the nature and purpose of integra-
tion found specifcally in STEM curricula. First, there are a variety of forms of integration. Second,
integration requires a signifcant investment of efort to move away from the traditional, discipline-
centric approach of school curriculum. Third, integration focuses on real-world concepts tied to
personal interests and experiences of students. Last, the greater the emphasis on integration, the more
student-centered the learning environment is. Given these generalizations, considerable change in
traditional learning environments is necessary to successfully implement an integrated approach.
Many studies report school structure as a major obstacle to implementing integrated STEM cur-
riculum (e.g., Warkentien et al., 2022). For example, Shernof et al. (2017) reported challenges to
teachers’ integrated STEM teaching because of the traditional school structure. Although there is
great interest in China around STEM integration, it is reported that teachers face instructional chal-
lenges because of the current typical school structure (Dong et al., 2020). The success of the STEM
programs depends on teachers’ beliefs and their knowledge in adapting to instructional implementa-
tion of STEM concepts.
The organization of school into disciplinary content into “boxes” of science, technology, engi-
neering, and mathematics runs counter to the way that individuals encounter, interact with, and live
their daily lives (e.g., Chamberlin & Pereira, 2017; Johnson et al., 2013, 2021; Vasquez, 2014), and
this structure makes integration difcult because teachers are segregated by discipline and fnd little
time or ability to collaborate in an efort to integrate subjects. For example, Basham et al. (2011)
found that the most formidable challenge to implementing integrated STEM instruction was the
use of pacing guides by the school district, which the school was mandated to follow, leaving little
time for planned project- and problem-based integrated units. Other issues were the lack of time for
teachers to collaborate and plan integrated lessons (e.g., Hamad et al., 2022).
571
Aligning Assessments to Support Integrated Curricula

A poignant reminder of the deep-seated tradition of disciplinarity around the globe is the continued
discipline-specifc grounding for academic standards, and their associated assessments, developed
either locally or nationally (e.g., Gao et al., 2020; Johnson et al., 2020; Ellis & Williams, 2020; Leb-
eaume, 2011; Li, Yao et al., 2020; Venville et al., 2002). Basham and colleagues (2011) noted that
alignment issues associated with integrated STEM science teaching and the way science knowledge
is assessed today reveal that commercial, state, and national assessments continue to lag behind class-
room innovation – creating dilemmas for K–12 schools when determining instructional approaches
and for teachers who are often evaluated based upon student performance on testing. Findings from
a comprehensive review of assessment of interdisciplinary STEM education confrms that assessments
are overwhelmingly focused on monodisciplinary content knowledge (Gao et al., 2020). This lack of
alignment with integration and how students are assessed on state-mandated tests creates challenges
for teachers who are attempting to create and implement integrated STEM curricular units (Navy &
Kaya, 2020).
Advocates of STEM integration argue that assessments need to measure deeper conceptual
understanding, which students attain in integrated environments (e.g., Gao et al., 2020). An exam-
ple of deeper conceptual knowledge is one goal of the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013), and eforts
to improve associated assessments can be found in the work of Achieve (www.achieve.org) and the
National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), which is promoting three-dimensional (3D) assess-
ment tasks aligned with the three dimensions in the NGSS, which are more integrated in nature
and that are phenomenon driven and multidimensional (e.g., German, 2019; Penuel & DeBarger,
2016). Others point to the need to assess deep understanding across all STEM topics, rather than
the superfcial ones oftentimes seen when teachers integrate (e.g., science content might be con-
ceptually strong, but technology, engineering, or mathematics content is weak) (e.g., McComas &
Burgin, 2020).
Finally, assessments typically fail to assess important skills (hard and soft), which are learned in
integrated environments. Examples of hard and soft skills include critical thinking, problem solv-
ing, communication, collaboration, creativity, innovation, leadership, responsibility for learning (e.g.,
Carter et al., 2015; Modi, 2011; Shahali et al., 2017; Sias et al., 2017; Sondergeld & Johnson, 2019;
Thibaut et al., 2018; Ugras & Genc, 2018; Wang & Knobloch, 2018). Some tools have been devel-
oped in recent years that enable the assessment of student growth toward mastery of respective 21st-
century skills and have been used within K–12 schools, as well as out-of-school programs, including
extended summer internship programs (i.e., Sondergeld & Johnson, 2019), but more work needs to
be done to develop appropriate assessments for integrated curricula. A study focused on the assess-
ment of an interdisciplinary project in science and mathematics concluded that it was important to
have assessments that included specifc disciplinary knowledge as well as more generic skills (Hubber
et al., 2022).
Creating Specialized STEM Schools

Around the world, specialized STEM schools have been created to focus on STEM learning. The
frst STEM schools in the United States emerged in years prior to 2010 and were predominantly
selective STEM schools, designed to include the top achieving students in a given region with rigor-
ous admission requirements and some including tuition to attend (e.g., Lynch et al., 2018; Means
et al., 2017; Peters-Burton et al., 2020). The research on selective STEM schools demonstrated the
ability of these schools to achieve positive student outcomes on state assessments, college entrance
exams, and end-of-course assessments (e.g., Johnson & Sondergeld, 2020; Subotnik et al., 2013)
and narrowing achievement gaps for underrepresented students (e.g., Johnson & Sondergeld, 2020;
572
Wiswall et al., 2014). As a result, over 100 STEM public schools, oftentimes called inclusive schools,
have emerged in the United States, open to all students in a region – regardless of academic achieve-
ment levels – utilizing an interest-based selection model (Lynch et al., 2018; Means et al., 2008;
Peters-Burton et al., 2014, 2020).
Findings on the impact of inclusive STEM schools to date have been promising, as Young et al.
(2011) determined students who attended T-STEM inclusive high schools in Texas had signifcantly
higher scores on ninth- and tenth-grade state tests than comparison schools across the state. Means
et al. (2016) used propensity-score weighting and HLM to examine inclusive STEM schools in
North Carolina, fnding participation in STEM high schools had a positive impact on student grade
point average. In another study, Means et al. (2017) examined inclusive STEM high schools and
found positive relationships between attendance at the STEM schools and achievement in science.
Gnagey and Lavertu (2016) conducted a study of the Ohio’s inclusive STEM schools that examined
the efect of attending STEM schools for ninth and tenth grade on student performance on the
tenth-grade state assessment, revealing that two of the six schools had a signifcant impact on STEM
achievement.
Many inclusive STEM schools promote integration and are designed to help mitigate issues and
barriers covered to this point in this chapter. Basham et al. (2011) discussed that integral to STEM
school philosophy is an interdisciplinary STEM curriculum, utilizing problem- and project-based
strategies to deliver instruction. Some components of STEM high schools that take an integrated
approach (Lynch et al., 2018) include using reform instructional strategies and project-based learn-
ing; using integrated, innovative technology; including informal experiences; making connections
with business, industry, and the world of work; well-prepared STEM teachers; and fexible and
autonomous administration.
Additional evidence regarding integrated STEM approaches at the high school level is emerging.
Johnson and Sondergeld (2020) conducted a longitudinal study of an integrated STEM (I-STEM)
school in an urban area of the United States with a diverse student population. At the school, the
relevant standards-based content knowledge in each of the disciplinary courses was mapped into the
problem- and project-based learning units. Connections were made between the topic of learning in
the course for each day (i.e., science, mathematics, history, English, art), and the assigned problem-
and/or project-based learning unit, and associated problem or challenge student teams were tasked
with solving. The comparison group post-only research design examined scores on the Ameri-
can College Testing (ACT) for the I-STEM students compared to the 13 other comparable high
schools within the district. Overall, students at I-STEM scored signifcantly higher than students at
comparison schools on the ACT composite, as well as all subscales (English, mathematics, science,
reading). Female students at I-STEM scored signifcantly higher than their counterparts at other
district schools. I-STEM students from racial/ethnic minority groups signifcantly outperformed the
comparison schools on the science assessment. Finally, attendance at I-STEM was signifcantly higher
than for the comparison schools.
Future Recommendations
Integrated approaches to science teaching have continued to evolve for over a century. Overall,
this chapter reveals that interdisciplinary approaches and integrated STEM in science teaching are
increasingly valued worldwide at national levels and present in guiding strategic plans and academic
content standards. They remain a focus of attention and investments by government, industry, and
public and private foundations, with a key reason being the desire for economic competitiveness.
We see evidence of these in the citations used in this chapter that summarize national goals and
education plans; descriptions of programs that are partnerships with industry, which oftentimes focus
on strategies that are grounded in exploring real-world problems or topics; and the many citations
573
of research that were funded by public and private foundations. Some notable indicators of prog-
ress in the realm of interdisciplinary approaches and integrated STEM in science teaching over the
past decade include (1) disciplinary content standards that infuse other STEM disciplines and skills
within (e.g., Finland national curriculum and teacher preparation, South Korea STEM education
framework, US NGSS) and (2) national-level policy and strategic plan or guiding documents (e.g.,
Australia’s National Innovation and Science Agenda; Canada’s Innovation and Skills Plan; China –
STEM Education 2029 Innovation Action Plan; United States – federal STEM strategic plan, 2018).
Despite the considerable headway that has been made with national-level documents and policies
pointing to the importance of interdisciplinary and integrated STEM, there continues to be formi-
dable challenges that persist for those engaged in the work of integrated STEM. For integration to
become fully realized in schools, several eforts need to continue, and more empirical research needs
to be conducted. In conclusion, we present seven recommendations for continued work and research
that would provide future direction for integrated STEM.
1. Engineering and technology education. Research now demonstrates that integrated STEM instruc-
tion has a positive impact on students’ afective dispositions, skills, and academic content knowl-
edge. However, we still fail to fnd impact studies that examine academic learning gains when
including engineering in STEM education. Some research on computational thinking and tech-
nology-related integration was presented. However, more robust studies on the role of integrat-
ing technologies and engineering with science are needed.
2. Special populations. Some research afrms the importance of integration in special populations,
but continued research should focus on examining whether integrated STEM has the potential
close the considerable gaps in learning among diverse populations.
3. Curricula. Lack of commercially available and well-tested integrated curriculum materials con-
tinues to be a problem. Eforts should focus on making integrated curriculum widely available
to teachers and conducting rigorous research on the quality and impact of these curricula.
4. Assessments. Worldwide, there continues to be an alignment barrier between integrated STEM
and assessments typically used in schools. Eforts should focus on continued development of
compatible assessments and researching their viability. While some progress is being made on
assessments (e.g., German, 2019; Penuel & DeBarger, 2016), standardized assessments con-
tinue to be viewed as a barrier to widespread use of integrated STEM. The science education
community struggles with alignment issues given the way science is assessed at local, state, and
national levels (e.g., Basham et al., 2011; Shernof et al., 2017). This barrier is real to teachers
and schools relying on test scores as determinates of the quality of their schools and programs.
The feld would beneft from continued eforts to develop and research assessments that are
aligned with integrated curricula.
5. Teacher education. Although teachers generally believe integrated STEM is a positive approach for
teaching, teacher preparation programs and accreditation standards usually prepare teachers in
separate or single-subject expertise, which makes it difcult for teachers to teach all STEM top-
ics due to lack of content expertise. The feld would beneft from continued eforts to develop
and research integrated teacher education preparation programs.
6. Professional development. A proliferation of professional development programs show promise
for helping teachers learn how to integrate the STEM curriculum. More research should be
done regarding efective professional development programs that have potential to be replicated,
tested, sustained, and scaled if efective.
7. School structures. In many countries, the current school structures, and limited time available for
teachers to collaborate with peers from diferent disciplines make it nearly impossible for many
teachers to plan and implement integrated STEM units. Specialized STEM schools, many that
are public schools, are seen as a way for schools to overcome some of the pervasive barriers to
574
STEM integration, but it isn’t feasible for all schools worldwide to be STEM-focused entities.
Research on school structures that aford teachers the format, time, and support for integration
would inform future directions.
NOTE: We would like to thank Gillian Roehrig and Leonie Rennie for their feedback and helpful suggestions
for improving this chapter.
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19
TEACHING BIOLOGY
What Research Says
Hernán Cofré, Claudia Vergara, David Santibáñez,
Paola Núñez, and William McComas
Introduction
Biology education, a feld of study that focuses attention and research on efective instruction in
the life sciences, is also known as the didactics of biology in parts of Europe (McComas et al.,
2018; Reiss & Kampourakis, 2018) and South America (Cofré et al., 2021). Global climate change,
biological evolution denial, maintenance of human health issues, the need of sustainable agricul-
ture, sex education, and the emergence of and reaction to infectious diseases are some vital themes
that require people around the globe to achieve high levels of practical biological literacy. As the
COVID-19 pandemic has shown, many politicians, journalists, students, and members of the pub-
lic alike fail to understand basic biological concepts and likewise misunderstand how science itself
functions, which in turn has led them on many occasions to make poor decisions about their own
health and the well-being of the population at large (Dillon & Avraamidou, 2020). So, while we
feel it unnecessary to make the case that biology is a vital discipline of science, we are compelled to
ask if the huge number of studies conducted in the feld of biology education have done or might
potentially do something to improve teaching and public communication of vital and interesting
content with the feld of biology efectively targeting misconceptions of life science content while
contributing to enhanced learning outcomes of students (McComas et al., 2018). A frst step to be
able to answer this question is to try to review, systematize, and critically analyze this large amount
of scientifc production. In this chapter, we continue the work started in previous handbooks and
that was conducted recently by Kampourakis and Reiss (2018) and their many co-authors. Thus, we
have reviewed trends and issues in biology teaching within the science education literature broadly,
with some additions, such as the work of McComas et al. (2018), who recently considered “grand
challenges” in biology education.
In the last decade, there have been important developments in biology education research, which
may be corroborated with the publication of books on specifc topics of learning and teaching
biology, such as Multiple Representations in Biological Education, edited by Treagust and Tsui (2013);
Fostering Understanding of Complex Systems in Biology Education, edited by Ben-Zvi Assaraf and Knip-
pels (2022); and Critical Thinking in Biology and Environmental Education, edited by Puig and Jiménez-
Aleixandre (2022). There have also been books dedicated to the teaching and learning of specifc
aspects of biology, such as Evolution Education Re-considered, edited by Harms and Reiss (2019), or
Genetics Education, edited by Haskel-Ittah and Yarden (2021). In the same vein, there exists literature
reviews on the teaching of genetics (Stern & Kampourakis, 2017), teaching and learning evolution
586 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-23

Teaching Biology
(Glaze & Goldston, 2015), and those targeting an understanding of human biology (Peart, 2022).
However, no single article or book chapter has systematized the research within biology didactics of
the last decade (but see Kampourakis & Reiss 2018; Lazarowitz, 2014).
Therefore, we are pleased to provide a synthesis of what is known about research in biology
teaching and learning with implication for how to improve biology understanding among students.
Through our review of the research literature and the recommendations ofered we hope to propose
elements that may lead to the development of the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of biol-
ogy teachers and highlight the most urgent avenues through which to continue advancing research
on biological education. We are pleased to join the other 36 chapters in this handbook as one of
four focused directly on a scientifc discipline (chemistry, physics, biology, and earth sciences and
astronomy).
The Nature of Biology as a Science

Erwin Schrödinger, in his landmark book What Is Life? (1946), defnes the distinctiveness of the
science of biology by stating that living matter works “in a manner that cannot be reduced to the
ordinary laws of physics” (p. 76). On the other hand, Mayr (1996) proposes that biologists typically
follow several distinct approaches to understanding complex biological phenomena (see also Peter-
son, 2020). In fact, Cleland (2020) makes a distinction between biologists working from historical
perspectives (e.g., evolution, astrobiology, biogeography) and those engaged in experimental work
(e.g., physiology, cell biology), and she proposed that the methods used by historical biology are as
valid as those of experimental biology, because each practice is designed to exploit the information
that nature makes available to them (see also Mayr, 1996). Furthermore, biology has been recognized
as including both induction and deduction within its methods of generating knowledge (Marquet
et al., 2014; Mayr, 1996; Peterson, 2020), and the progress in the feld comes from the tension
between empiricism and theory and the contribution of descriptive and explanatory investigations
(Marquet et al., 2014).
However, biology not only has a unique focus (the living world) that distinguishes it from other
sciences, but it also makes use of philosophical principles shared with other sciences but in interesting
ways. For instance, laws or generalizations in some sciences are often seen to function invariably, but
in biology it is to see these generalizations function more as probablities rather than the absolutes seen
in the “hard” sciences. But this does not mean there are no laws in biology, just that they are nuanced.
Furthermore, evolutionary biologist Ernest Mayr (1996) also reminds us that the way in which biology
studies “the living” difers from that of other sister sciences, such as chemistry and physics. Just to name
a few particularities with respect to biological research, Mayr includes the importance of probability,
teleology, anthropomorphism, pluralism, emergence, and historical narration (Mayr, 1996). Further-
more, McComas (2018a), who takes the position that there are many elements of the nature of science
tie all sciences together, highlights four philosophical aspects that can be interesting for discussion in
biology class because they are somewhat unique in biology when compared with the “hard sciences”,
namely, reductionism, typology, determinism, and the challenges of universality. Therefore, all these
features of biology research and biological knowledge could have explicit consequences for biology
education (Kampourakis, 2013) and make discussions of the science of biology rich and nuanced.
One consequence of a study of biology is that it is a perfect environment for students to learn
about the nature of science (NOS) (Kampourakis, 2013; Lederman, 2018; McComas, 2007, 2018a,
b). Additionally, it is possible to propose that understanding biology necessarily implies under-
standing the nature of science, as many alternative ideas or myths about NOS can directly impact
the understanding of biological concepts (e.g., evolution as “just a theory”) (Scharmann, 2018)
or biological disciplines (e.g., ecology as a less exact science because it does not conduct experi-
ments) (Korfatis, 2018). The second consequence is that biological instruction can include much
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space for argumentation and the review of socioscientifc issues (e.g., Jiménez-Aleixandre & Eva-
gorou, 2018; Korfatis, 2018). Finally, because inquiry activities in secondary science classrooms are
heavily weighted toward experimentation, understanding the diverse methodologies that are present
in biology today (e.g., the distinction between experimental and historical biology) could improve
the diversity of scientifc methodologies represented in the science classroom and more accurately
represent the science of biology (Gray, 2014).
Research About Teaching and Learning in Biological Content Areas

Diferent proposals for the content to be included in biology have coincided with the recognition that
many are based on “core concepts” or “big ideas” about biology or life science (e.g., Duncan et al.,
2017; Harlen, 2010; Millar & Osborne, 1998), which usually include cell, inheritance, evolution, and
ecosystems. These big ideas also parallel many reports of research in biology education (Kampourakis &
Reiss, 2018). However, the issue of the functioning and regulation within organisms, whether at the
cellular or multicellular level, and their relationships with development, reproduction, nutrition, and
health are ordered in a much more diverse way. For example, Kampourakis and Reiss (2018) review
this topic in separate sections, such as human biology, reproduction and sexuality, development, and
health and disease. Therefore, to synthesize both the literature on research in teaching biology and
the most coherent organization of this content, in the following sections, we report our review of
the research on teaching and learning of biology in six main “shown to be of major interest” among
researchers, namely, cell, metabolism, human biology, genetics and inheritance, ecology, and evolution.
Considering Trends in Research on Biology Education

In this section, we will summarize an exploratory-descriptive analysis of trends in biology education
research between March 2010 and March 2022. For this purpose, we have analyzed articles with
empirical data published in fve prominent international science education journals, one of which is
dedicated specifcally to biology education. These include the Journal of Biological Education (JBE), and
the other four devoted to science education in general: Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST),
Research in Science Education (RISE); Science Education (SE), and the International Journal of Science Edu-
cation (IJSE). The entire abstract of the publication was reviewed to corroborate its status as empirical
research on a biology education topic. Our intention with the review of these fve journals is not to
assume that it is a representative sample of all the research in the feld, and certainly one limitation
of our review is that interested research in biology pedagogy may well have been published outside
our fve journals and associated resources. However, our goal is to guide our analysis of the most
important trends that we and other scholars in the feld have recognized (e.g., Harms & Reiss, 2019;
Haskel-Ittah & Yarden, 2021; Kampourakis & Reiss, 2018; McComas et al., 2018; Puig & Jiménez-
Aleixandre, 2022; Ben-Zvi Assaraf & Knippels, 2022). In addition, the subsequent analysis in the
next sections will not be restricted to the studies reported in these fve journals, but we will include
all those investigations that seem relevant to us to create a more coherent and meaningful synthesis.
Accordingly, 478 articles were recognized, which we classifed into seven categories: genetics
and inheritance, evolution, ecology (including plant biology), human biology (including physiology,
development, and reproduction), cellular biology, metabolism (including also molecular biology),
and general biology (studies that include a combination of the previous categories). In terms of the
total articles, the discipline with the greatest research development appears to be evolution and ecol-
ogy education (Figure 19.1). Importantly, the teaching of the cell, metabolism, and human biology
have a low number of research studies compared to their important curriculum ubiquity and their
great diversity of topics. On the other hand, the topics about science education that were more fre-
quently identifed were evolution and ecology.
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Figure 19.1 Number of articles assigned to any of the seven areas of biology education analyzed in this chapter.
The general biology category included some very specifc topics that were not assigned to any
of the other areas (e.g., astrobiology) or were works that included more than one of the topics
analyzed or the teaching and learning of biology in general was analyzed (e.g., initial education of
biology teachers).
Research in Teaching and Learning Evolution

Evolution is one of the most studied topics within biology education (Figure 19.1), including more
than 100 research articles published between 2010 and March 2022 in the fve journals analyzed.
This is ftting because evolution is both a difcult subject to teach and yet is the foundation for an
understanding of biology.
Research literature in this topic includes specifc ideas to teach about evolution in school settings,
and what the most efective sequence should be when presenting this content to students. Some
researchers have suggested that given the challenge faced by students in understanding the origin
of species (macroevolution) through microevolutionary processes, such as natural selection, it might
be convenient to review natural selection frst and then move on to the processes of speciation and
extinction (Nehm, 2018; Scharmann, 2018). For example, there are research results that show young
students (5–8 years old) can understand natural selection (e.g., Emmons et al., 2016; Frejd et al.,
2022). Another topic of discussion is the efcacy of reviewing inheritance and variability issues with
students either before (Mead et al., 2017) or together with evolution issues (Homburger et al., 2019).
Furthermore, there is research evidence that learning is benefted if evolution is included in biology
curriculum as a central and integrating theme, instead of another isolated unit of content reviewed
only after all other biological content has been covered (Pinxten et al., 2020). In a recent compara-
tive study between university freshmen from Flanders, Belgium, and the Netherlands, Pinxten et al.
(2020) found that Dutch graduates obtained a signifcantly higher score than Flemish graduates in a
validated questionnaire about knowledge of natural selection, but the relative frequency of alterna-
tive conceptions was comparable in both student groups. On the other hand, additional international
research has described the topics, depths, and emphases in which evolution is portrait in national
standards (see Deniz & Borgerding, 2018, for a review). For example, it has been described that in
France eight-year-old children learn about biodiversity, then about the classifcation of organisms
from an evolutionary point of view, and fnally, they learn about human evolution and evolutionary
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Cofré et al.
mechanisms (Quessada & Clément, 2018). In contrast, in other countries, such as Mexico, Germany,
and South Africa, evolution is approached in a fragmented way, and the content is only in secondary
school (Deniz & Borgerding, 2018). On the other hand, in terms of content topics, there are certain
cross-cutting topics, such as adaptation or natural selection, that appear in much research, while
other topics, which have been reported to be important in evolutionary education research, are less
frequently investigated, as is the case for human evolution (e.g., Bravo & Cofré 2016; Pobiner et al.,
2018) and phylogenetic relationships (Friedrichsen et al., 2016) (see also Table 19.1).
Learning Evolution
On the issue of student learning, researchers in evolution education have included a great diversity
of topics (Table 19.1). Regarding the topic of alternative ideas, in recent years, the study of students’
thinking about natural selection has moved from the identifcation and classifcation of alternative
ideas (e.g., Cofré et al., 2016; Nehm, 2018) to a description and understanding of how this emergent
Table 19.1 Topics of Science Education and Content Present in the Studies Reviewed Across Five Science
Education Journals Between March 2010 and March 2022 Targeting Evolution. The Concepts Are
Ordered From Highest to Lowest Frequency.
Pedagogical Topics DisciplinaryTopics
Learning
Alternative conceptions Natural selection
Learning progression Macroevolution
Conceptual change Phylogenetic tree
Tree thinking Deep time
Students’ interests, knowledge, or reasoning Origin of life
Ontological conceptual change Human evolution
Indigenous knowledge
Self-explanations
Statistical reasoning
Instructional strategies
Argumentation
ICTs, simulations, and visualization
Teaching outside of school
Models and representations
Inquiry and practical work
Conceptual maps
Other issues
Acceptance
Assessment about knowledge and acceptance
Nature of science
Pedagogical content knowledge
Teacher’s attitude, beliefs, or knowledge
Curricular issues
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process (Chi et al., 2012a) is explained (Evans et al., 2012; Nehm & Kampourakis, 2016; Parraguez
et al., 2021; Zabel & Gropengiesser, 2011). For example, some studies have shown that in the tran-
sition between need-based reasoning and a true natural selection explanation, high school students
mostly use the concept of variation and diferential survival to explain evolution by natural selection
(Evans et al., 2012). In accordance with this, Nehm and Kampourakis (2016) propose recognizing
not only the diferent components of students’ thinking (e.g., scientifc and nonscientifc elements)
but also their structure and coherence (see also Nehm, 2018). After analyzing the composition of
students’ explanations, Nehm and Kampourakis (2016) established that a student can combine need-
based reasoning with the scientifc ideas of mutation and inheritance to build a mixed response
(Cofré et al., 2016, 2018a, b; Parraguez et al., 2021). In a recent study, Parraguez et al. (2021) show
that while students exhibit diferent trajectories of thinking that are idiosyncratic and context depen-
dent, some patterns are also recognized, such as the proposal of teleological explanations by students;
the initial use of key concepts, such as mutation, survival, and diferential reproduction during the
trajectories; the abundance of mixed explanations during and at the end of the instruction; the low
coherence (sensu, Nehm & Kampourakis, 2016) in the structure of explanations, both in time and
through the diferent contexts analyzed; and the greater frequency of a learning sequence that starts
with the absence of explanations for evolution through intentionality and ends with explanations
that are more focused on natural selection. Another line of research about students’ thinking cor-
responds to analyses of students’ alternative conceptions about natural selection focus on “the need
of ontological conceptual change” (Chi et al., 2012a, b; Chi 2013; McLure et al., 2020). According
to this approach, students understand the “population process” of natural selection as an “ontological
event” in which change is driven and occurs at the individual level. Therefore, there is knowledge
(students vs. scientist) belonging to diferent ontological models (Chi, 2013). In a recent quasi-
experimental study, McLure et al. (2020), show signifcantly greater conceptual change in an experi-
mental class (which focused on making students’ aware of their currently held conceptual model and
providing opportunities to transfer the understanding between models) than in a comparison class,
in which students’ written explanations adopted many aspects of the scientifc ontological model. In
the same vein, some learning progressions to support evolution education have been proposed (e.g.,
Evans et al., 2012; Wyner & Doherty, 2017; Zabel & Gropengiesser 2011). For example, Evans
et al. (2012) suggested that understanding natural selection requires a “radical” conceptual change
approach in which students must switch from a naïve psychological explanation that uses an anthro-
pomorphic argument to a naturalistic explanation that avoids purpose and endorses the idea that spe-
cies can undergo signifcant change. To address this monumental challenge, the authors developed
a learning progression that includes four levels: (1) anthropomorphic reasoning external agent, (2)
want-based reasoning intrinsic cause, (3) need-based reasoning, (4) natural selection, and (5) evolu-
tionary origins. Other emerging studies on student learning include tree thinking (e.g., Seoh et al.,
2016), Indigenous knowledge (Sánchez-Tapia et al., 2018), self-explanations (Neubrand & Harms
2017), and statistical reasoning (Fiedler et al., 2019) (see Table 19.1).
Teaching Evolution
In the topics of instructional strategies, argumentation, NOS, and inquiry, as well as the use of con-
text and examples close to the daily lives of students, can have a good result in challenging alternative
ideas and achieve conceptual change (e.g., Glaze & Goldston, 2015; Harms & Reiss, 2019; McLure
et al., 2020; Núñez et al., 2022; see also Table 19.1). For example, Scharmann (2018) proposes that
two things should be taught about the NOS in evolution classes, namely, that scientifc theories are
powerful tools for the advancement of science and that theories are applied to the feld of science but
not to other areas, such as faith or religion. If these two things are clear, this should lower the anxiety
and discomfort levels of students who think that evolution is “against” their beliefs. On the other
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Cofré et al.
hand, students become interested when they face evidence of evolution in animal and plant popula-
tions by analyzing data (tables or graphs), watching documentaries of the work of real-life scientists,
or simply reading news about the efect of evolution on their lives. In our experience, many of the
students feel “astonished” to know that these changes are real and that there are many scientists who
have contributed to the theory of evolution nowadays (Núñez et al., 2022). The application of this
research coincides with a need that biology teachers in the United States have declared when they
are asked what they lack to carry out better evolution classes, i.e., know research that uses real data
and/or living organisms and have contemporary evolution examples (Friedrichsen et al., 2016). This
approach of having students work with evidence goes hand in hand with other teaching strategies or
approaches, such as inquiry, active learning, argumentation, and the review of examples of evolution
in daily life. Another important element suggested is to incorporate examples of human evolution
through inquiry-based teaching. Although the resistance to learning about human evolution is usu-
ally higher than the resistance to learning about evolution in other organisms, this approach has been
shown to have good results in improving the interest and attitude of secondary students toward evo-
lution, as well as the understanding of relevant aspects of the theory (e.g., Bayer & Luberda, 2016;
Pobiner et al., 2018). On the other hand, although the use of models and representations is a recog-
nized and widely used strategy in the teaching of biology, there is evidence that high school students
may not learn the concept of natural selection using cut-and-paste activities, candy, or toothpicks
to simulate within simulations (Sickel & Friedrichsen, 2012). In this work, through interviews with
students after their participation in the modeling activity, the authors realized that students often do
not understand the complexity of the natural selection process by engaging in an activity that is so
far from reality. Therefore, a frst step is not to present this as a practical activity or laboratory but
simply as a model, analogy, or simulation (Sickel & Friedrichsen, 2012). Ultimately, what has been
suggested is that students can use the models as tools for investigating and exploring natural phenom-
ena and not simply as games. Malone et al. (2019) found in a study where population changes in real
lizard species were simulated that the students of seven teachers who used the simulations gained a
greater understanding and decreased their visions of need more signifcantly than did the students of
the seven teachers who did not use this strategy.
Other Issues in Evolution Education

Finally, in other issues related with evolution education, the students’ acceptance of the theory of
evolution by natural selection (e.g., Cofré et al., 2018a, b), the development of assessment instru-
ments for measuring the knowledge about natural selection (e.g., Nehm et al., 2012), the acceptance
of the theory (e.g., Ha et al., 2019; Romine et al., 2017), and the diferent aspects of the knowledge
about natural selection (e.g., Cofré et al., 2017; Dotger et al., 2018), feelings and beliefs (e.g., Haw-
ley & Sinatra, 2019; Larkin & Perry-Ryder, 2015) of preservice and in-service biology teachers have
been major topics in the feld in the last decade (Table 19.1). For example, with respect to the issue
of PCK targeting evolution, qualitative studies have been focused on describing some component of
PCK of evolution, such as the learning of the students (Lucero et al., 2017), and others have studied
the development of PCK of evolution in in-service (e.g., Bravo & Cofré 2016) and preservice biol-
ogy teachers (Sickel & Friedrichsen 2018). An interesting aspect of this research is that both were
qualitative studies that used the Magnusson et al. (1999) model to understand the change of the
PCK component during a professional development program (e.g., Bravo & Cofré 2016) and initial
education (Sickel & Friedrichsen 2018). In both studies, an improvement in PCK of evolution was
described using content representations (CoRe) and PaP-eRs (pedagogical and professional experi-
ence repertoires) and the expansion, integration, and core concepts framework, respectively. On
the other hand, quantitative instruments for assessing PCK in evolution have also been developed
recently (Großschedl et al., 2019; Becerra et al., 2022).
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In summary, evolutionary education is one of the most vigorous areas of research within biology
education, both in student learning and teaching, and there is even a large development of studies
on diferent aspects of professional teacher education in this content (e.g., Sickel & Friedrichsen,
2013). Nevertheless, there are still frontiers to explore, especially around teaching and learning of
evolutionary content other than a mechanistic view of natural selection and how the integration of
this content with other areas of biology might lead to a more holistic learning of life sciences.
Research on Teaching and Learning Genetics and Inheritance

Due to its central importance to understanding biology and other issues present in our everyday lives
(e.g., genetic testing, genetically modifed food, gene therapy, forensic investigations), coupled with
the natural curiosity that students have about inheritance itself, the feld of genetics and inheritance
is a central focus of biological literacy (e.g., Boerwinkel et al., 2017; Duncan et al., 2017; Stern &
Kampourakis, 2017) and one of the most vigorous branches of research within biology education
(Figure 19.1) (see also Haskel-Ittah & Yarden, 2021). An important part of this literature is focused
on what should be taught and in what sequence (Table 19.2), even recognizing three conceptual
Education Journals between March 2010 and March 2022 Targeting Genetics and Inheritance. The
Concepts Are Ordered From Highest to Lowest Frequency.
Pedagogical Topics Disciplinary Topics

Learning
Alternative conceptions Molecular genetics
Learning progression Human genetics
Conceptual change Genetic determinism
Students’ attitudes and beliefs Biotechnology and genetic engineering
Students’ moral reasoning Mendelian genetics
Genetically modifed organisms
Instructional strategies Three models of inheritance
Argumentation Meiosis and cytogenetics
SSI and critical thinking Genetic variation
ICTs, simulations, and computer-based games ADN and protein synthesis
Inquiry-based instruction
Lab and practical work
Authentic research practices
Teaching outside of school
Other issues
Curricular issues
Pedagogical content knowledge
Teachers’ attitude, beliefs, or knowledge
Textbook analysis
Development and validation of assessment
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Cofré et al.
models in genetics (meiosis, Mendelian inheritance, and molecular genetics) (e.g., Freidenreich
et al., 2011). In addition, some authors have proposed that the teaching of genetics should include a
change in the curricular sequence, i.e., starting with the teaching of quantitative traits (e.g., height
in our species), which are typically explained by the action of more than one gene and by environ-
mental factors, and then moving on to simpler traits (Dougherty, 2009). Indeed, this geneticist and
educator believes:
Given what we know about the defciencies in the current curriculum and student under-
standing and armed with a better understanding of the genetics of complex traits, there is
no longer a compelling reason to maintain the historical sequence of our curricula.
(Dougherty, 2009, p. 8)
The same conclusion is reached as result of a Delphi study conducted by Boerwinkel et al. (2017),
which proposes that Mendelian genetics should be presented in the curriculum as “the exception
rather than the rule”. These proposals do not mean that single gene trait inheritance is inaccurate
but imply that this view should be included with caution to avoid reinforcing the misleading idea
of one-gene-to-one trait is the norm (Kampourakis, 2021). According to Wolfe (2012), there is a
curricular oversimplifcation of the gene–trait relationship as being one-to-one (including in biol-
ogy textbooks); from its inception, the chromosomal theory of inheritance has been presented as a
complex process of interactions between various genes and the environment.
Learning Genetics and Inheritance

There are multiple challenges to understanding genetics, which has been described as one of the
most complex topics for students to understand (Aivelo & Uitto, 2021; Bahar et al., 1999; Gericke &
El-Hani, 2018). Some reasons given by a sample of English students and teachers for ranking genetics
as the most difcult content to understand within biology were the complicated language, including
terms such as allele, gene, and homologs; the mathematical content of Mendelian inheritance exer-
cises; and the complexity of the process of meiosis and its similarity to mitosis (Bahar et al., 1999). In
the issue of students’ learning and thinking, many alternative ideas about inheritance and variation
have been reviewed (Gericke & El-Hani, 2018; Haskel-Ittah & Yarden, 2021; Stern & Kampourakis,
2017), for instance, students often have (1) difculty distinguishing between genotype and pheno-
type; (2) a deterministic view of genes associated with racism; (3) a lack of knowledge about where
genes are located or their relationship to DNA, chromosomes, and alleles; (4) a tendency to attribute
specifc and stereotyped functions to a gene (e.g., intelligence gene); (5) associating dominant alleles
with those most commonly found in the population; (6) making the assumption that all inheritance is
monogenetic; and (7) a failure to recognize the role of biological variation (see also Aivelo & Uitto,
2021; Alred et al., 2019; Castéra et al., 2008; Castéra & Clement, 2014; Krüger & Santibáñez 2021;
Stern et al., 2020). Of these alternative ideas, genetic determinism seems to be a main obstacle to
achieving genetic literacy because it is widely observed in not only students’ alternative ideas but
also school texts (Castéra et al., 2008) and teachers’ thinking (Castéra & Clement, 2014). In the lat-
ter study, which includes 8,285 in-service and preservice teachers from 23 countries, the fndings
show that genetic determinism is present in relation to both individuals (e.g., to justify intellectual
likeness between relatives) and groups of humans (e.g., to justify gender diferences or the superior-
ity of some human groups). The study also shows that more determinism is present among African
and Lebanon teachers than in teachers from Brazil, Australia, and European countries. Research in
genetics education has also shown that there are at least fve views of the gene presented in school
textbooks, which range from a traditional view that assumes the inheritance of characteristics to a
view that proposes multiple means of gene regulation (Gericke & Hagberg, 2007). Considering this
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background, a migration from a deterministic conception of the gene to a more realistic view has
been proposed, in which the gene is understood as a developmental resource, i.e., a molecular entity
that provides proteins by transcription and translation through biosynthesis processes, in which its
expression is variable and subject to complex relationships (Moss, 2003).
With respect to the development of a learning progression in genetics and inheritance, studies
conducted by Ravit Duncan and colleagues (Duncan et al., 2009, 2016) have proposed that the
teaching of genetic inheritance should start from basic or primary education to successively incor-
porate new concepts and greater depth regarding both the inheritance of traits and the variability of
traits (see also Todd et al., 2017, 2019). According to Duncan et al. (2009), there is sufcient infor-
mation on the teaching and learning of genetics to propose that students from sixth grade onward
can understand basic aspects of molecular genetics, which suggests that the classical, meiotic, and
molecular models can be taught from this same level through the end of secondary school. Duncan
et al. (2016) propose that reviewing aspects of molecular genetics before classical genetics results
in better learning outcomes than reviewing classical Mendelian inheritance and then following up
with molecular genetics. This two-year study, which included 117 seventh-grade students from two
schools, fnds a positive correlation between students’ performance after learning molecular genet-
ics and their understanding at the end of the next unit that includes Mendelian genetics. However,
the authors state that additional studies are required because the learning achieved in the classical
sequence is also signifcant, only to a lesser degree. A similar result has been found by Deutch (2018)
at the university level. In this study, a comparison of two sequential courses with similar groups of
students indicates that there are no statistically signifcant diferences in exam scores or fnal grades
between the two approaches (i.e., Mendelian genetics or molecular genetics frst). Therefore, it is
likely best to include a progression of the three models over time to create the best context for under-
standing abstract concepts, such as alleles, heterozygotes, or genes.
Teaching Genetics and Inheritance

In the topics of teaching genetics, multiple strategies have been developed to improve students’
understanding at diferent educational levels, including scientifc inquiry, the use of dramatizations
and analogies, the use of computer programs for problem solving, modeling, computer-based game,
socioscientifc questions, and argumentation (e.g., Donovan et al., 2019; Duncan et al., 2011; Ger-
icke & El-Hani, 2018; Jiménez-Aleixandre & Evagorou, 2018; Puig & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2011;
Puig et al., 2017; Sadler et al., 2015; Schwartz et al., 2021; Smith et al., 2009; Tal et al., 2011; see
also Table 19.2). For example, discussion or argumentation among peers has been used in many
studies to challenge the alternative idea of genetic determinism (e.g., Donovan et al., 2019; Jiménez-
Aleixandre et al., 2000; Puig et al., 2017; Zohar & Nemet, 2002). For example, in a case study that
involved tenth-grade students (n = 20) engaged in the practices of modeling and argumentation,
Puig et al. (2017) show that the use of evidence as part of argumentation helps students to relate
the three worlds of knowledge (i.e., theory, representation, and natural world). Using a teaching
sequence comprising eight tasks on genetics and evolution of human diseases, the authors conclude
that a relationship exists among the number of interactions between modeling and argumentation,
the connections between the worlds of knowledge and students’ capacity to develop a more sophis-
ticated representation. In a quantitative study focused on genetic determinism and racism, Donovan
et al. (2019) study three diferent samples, namely, 8th–9th-grade students (n = 166), 9th–12th-grade
students (n = 721), and adults (n = 176), with the aim of studying the relationship between learning
scientifc information about genetic variation both within and between US census racial groups and
a reduction in genetic essentialism and racial stereotyping in participants. The authors found that
the participants’ systematic analysis of human genetic variation data helped them develop the ability
to critique essentialist genetic beliefs about race. Donovan et al. (2019) report that learning about
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Cofré et al.
the social and quantitative complexities of human genetic variation research could prepare students
to become genetically literate. Furthermore, Aivelo and Uitto (2021) have recently described that
teaching approaches that place an emphasis on a one-to-one relationship from genes to traits or text-
books with stronger Mendelian emphasis result in students with stronger beliefs in genetic determin-
ism, while teaching approaches that emphasize epigenetics and complex human traits lead to lower
genetic determinism.
Other Issues in Genetics Education

Finally, about professional development and practices for the teaching of genetics, there are several
studies that have developed instrument for assessing PCK (Großschedl et al., 2019), described the
integration of the components of PCK of biology teachers (e.g., Park et al., 2012), as well as the
decisions they make regarding the use of diferent teaching strategies (e.g., use of multimodal rep-
resentations of molecular genetics concepts to engagement students in critical discussion [Nichols,
2018]), and specifc content and context to teach genetics at school (e.g., including human context
or not [Aivelo & Anna Uitto, 2019]) (Table 19.2).
In summary, genetics education is represented in a signifcant line of research with a long tradi-
tion within biology education, which includes a large variety of content and strategies to develop
student learning. Currently, it seems interesting to continue advancing in the investigation of how
the understanding of abstract concepts that are far from daily life can lead to scientifc literacy and
citizenship (e.g., Donovan et al., 2019, 2020; Upadhyay et al., 2020).
Research on Teaching and Learning Ecology

Research in ecology teaching and learning is one of the most studied topics within biology education
(Figure 19.1), including topics such as global climate change, ecosystems, food chain, carbon cycling,
fow of matter and energy, and the loss of biodiversity (Korfatis, 2018; Table 19.3). However, the topic
of ecology is sometimes avoided or not covered by biology teachers due to time constraints and because
this topic is often included at the end of many biology books, thus falling late in the school year when
time is lacking (McComas, 2003). In the same study, McComas (2003) found that there are important
concepts within the discipline that are either absent or presented at low frequencies, such as biodiversity,
succession, biospheres, conservation issues, or the relationship between ecology and evolution.
Learning Ecology
On the issue of students’ learning, research literature has showed that some fundamental concepts
are poorly understood by students, including the species idea, population, ecosystem, energy fow,
biodiversity, food chain, equilibrium, greenhouse efect, and the causes of climate change (e.g.,
Anderson & Doherty, 2017; Bermudez & Lindemann-Matthies, 2020; Jordan et al., 2009, 2014;
Korfatis, 2018; McComas, 2002; Reinfried & Tempelmann, 2014; Rousell & Cutter-Mackenzie-
Knowles, 2020; Varela et al., 2020). Therefore, it is unsurprising that many high school students face
great challenges to understand more complex concepts, such as the fow of nutrients and energy,
at diferent biological levels (Jin & Anderson 2012; Mohan et al., 2009). According to the study
reported by Jin and Anderson (2012), in a group of nearly 2,000 students between the 4th and 11th
grades, less than 10% achieved a high level of understanding (Level 4) in a learning progression about
matter cycles and energy fows. Other popular alternative ideas include the idea that plants obtain
their food or energy from the soil, that energy is reused by plants, and that matter and energy cycle
in the same way (e.g., Anderson & Doherty, 2017; Harm & Bertsch, 2018; Wernecke et al., 2018).
Similarly, research literature has shown that students of all ages hold a great number of alternative
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Education Journals Between March 2010 and March 2022 Targeting Ecology. The Concepts Are
Learning
Alternative conceptions Climate change and global warming
Learning progression Ecosystem
Conceptual change Environmental issues
System thinking Biodiversity
Students’ interests, beliefs, or attitudes Plant biology
Students’ drawings Carbon cycling
Food chain and food web
Instructional strategies Energy and matter fow
Argumentation Marine environment
SSI Animal ecology
Teaching outside of school Species interactions
Tics and simulations
Models and modeling
Other issues
History and nature of science
Professional development programs
Curricular issues
ideas in understanding other models of natural ecosystems, such as the food chain, food webs, and
the food pyramid (Bravo-Torija & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2012; Butler et al., 2015; Korfatis, 2018;
McComas, 2002). Some of these alternative ideas include notions like (1) the largest organism in
a food web is always the top predator and that the smallest is the producer, (2) changes in popula-
tions in a food chain occur only in a bottom-up manner and not in a top-down process, (3) natural
resources are infnite and therefore species can easily shift from one resource to another, (4) nature
tends to balance itself, and (5) the meaning of arrows in a food chain or food web are confused and
interpreted as going from predator to prey (Anderson & Doherty, 2017; Gotwals & Songer, 2009;
Hovardas & Korfatis, 2011; Korfatis, 2018).
Additionally, students seldom recognize feedback loops and indirect relations in ecosystems (Hogan,
2000); while they are aware of structures, students seldom reason about the behaviors and functions of
complex systems (Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007). All these learning challenges can prevent students from
making important decisions in their lives and preferring more sustainable ways of life. For example,
they do not understand that it is more efcient to feed or raise organisms at lower levels of the pyramid
or the food web (for example, it is more efcient to eat small pelagic fsh than top predators, such
as salmon or tuna) (Bravo-Torija & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2012). Regarding the issue of middle and
secondary students’ conceptions of biodiversity, literature from very diferent countries supports the
same pattern. For example, Menzel and Bögeholz (2009), in a sample of 16–18-year-old Chilean and
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German students, found that students generally defne biodiversity as the variety of plants and animals.
A similar view has been demonstrated by most of the 321 secondary students from 13 Argentinean
schools who participated in the study by Bermudez and Lindemann-Matthies (2020). The students’
responses strongly center on species richness and undervalue population size, functional characters,
and species evenness. All these studies show that genetic diversity is neglected as an integral part of bio-
diversity. A study conducted in South America also fnds that this simple view of biodiversity has no
infuence on school location (urban vs. rural) or gender (Bermudez & Lindemann-Matthies, 2020).
On the other hand, in the big issue of global climate change, many important alternative ideas have
been described, such as understanding greenhouse efect as a harmful phenomenon per se; the idea that
ozone depletion is a causal factor of global warming; students’ confusion among the diferent types of
radiation, such as solar and terrestrial radiation or ultraviolet and infrared radiation; and the belief that
generic actions, such as not polluting, can mitigate climate change (e.g., Reinfried & Tempelmann
2014; Rousell & Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles 2020; Varela et al., 2020).
Research about learning progression in ecology have included some of the core concepts reviewed
previously. For example, regarding the fow of matter and energy through an ecosystem, investiga-
tions have proposed postponing teaching about this topic explicitly until middle school but review-
ing only simpler ideas at elementary levels (Anderson & Doherty, 2017; Jin & Anderson, 2012;
Mohan et al., 2009). According to Anderson and Doherty (2017), elementary students can learn to
distinguish matter from nonmatter and recognize that living organisms are composed of the same
matter as nonliving objects. Middle and high school students can learn more detail about the carbon
transformation process in ecosystems if they become more able to associate energy with familiar
organic molecules (i.e., glucose, ATP, etc.) and potentially understand the nature of chemical bonds
to describe the energy within foods, fuels, and body tissues as “chemical energy” (Jin & Anderson,
2012). In a noteworthy result, Opitz et al. (2017) show that this more sophisticated student learning
of the energy concept can be applied in not only a biological context but also a chemistry and phys-
ics context, which can have notable curricular consequences. For other important issues of ecology
education, such as the understanding of community and population phenomena, it has been noted
that elementary students can learn that all ecosystems contain diferent types of organisms, that difer-
ent organisms have diferent life cycles, that there exist diferent types of interactions among species
(e.g., predation, mutualism, competition), and that changes in one population in a food chain will
afect other populations (e.g., Anderson & Doherty, 2017).
Ecology learning progressions have been also proposed for food chain understanding in preschool
students (Allen, 2017) ecosystem thinking (Hokayem & Gotwals 2016; Mambrey et al., 2020), car-
bon cycling (Mohan et al., 2009), and global climate change understanding (Varela et al., 2020). The
development of multiple learning progressions about energy and the fow of nutrients in food webs
or ecosystems includes rubrics, open questions, interviews, or context tasks that permit evaluation of
diferent students’ achievements (e.g., Bravo-Torija & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2012; Gotwals & Songer,
2009; Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007; Hogan, 2000; Hokayem & Gotwals, 2016; Jin et al., 2019). For exam-
ple, Jin et al. (2019) used a 12-item instrument, including four constructed-response items and eight
two-tier items (the two-tier items require students to choose an option and then explain their choice) to
evaluate secondary students’ understanding of ecosystems (the high school form contains 11 items, and
the middle school form contains 9 items). The assessment requires that students use discipline-specifc
systems thinking concepts, such as feedback loops or energy pyramids, to analyze and explain the inter-
dependent relationships in ecosystems and the impact of humans on those relationships.
Teaching Ecology
With respect to ecology instruction, there exists consensus that the topic is challenging to teach
without going out into the feld or investigating the environment (Anderson & Doherty, 2017;
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Korfatis, 2018). However, many efective strategies have been described in the literature in addi-
tion to teaching outside of school (Table 19.3). Importantly, learning outside the classroom must
be combined with strategies that can challenge the diferent alternative ideas and cognitive chal-
lenges that we have reviewed herein. There are many examples of research that show that certain
instructional interventions, including inquiry-based instruction and simulations, are successful in
developing system thinking in not only middle and secondary school students (e.g., Hmelo-Silver
et al., 2015; Jordan et al., 2014) but also in elementary school students (e.g., Hokayem & Gotwals,
2016). For example, Hmelo-Silver et al. (2015) studied what may be called the “aquarium mental
model” of 145 middle school students from two suburban public schools in the United States before
and after an intervention, including a classroom aquarium (installed and maintained approximately
one month before), function-oriented hypermedia for background information and reference, and
NetLogo simulations for computer-supported collaborative inquiry learning. After participating in
an instructional unit, students were shown to understand more about the structures, behaviors, and
functions of the ecosystem (aquarium); in addition, in both classes, between 63% and 77% of the
students demonstrated improved mental models, according to the fve models developed by Hmelo-
Silver et al. (2007).
Regarding the issue of energy, nutrient fows and food webs, learning should focus on the study
of food chains, while the metaphor of the balance of nature should be avoided (Korfatis, 2018).
Demetriou et al. (2009) propose a simple strategy for allowing students to construct a food web
using data collected from the feld, following three steps: (1) identifying the species in the ecosystem,
(2) defning the relationships between the species, and (3) constructing the food web. After applying
this intervention to a small group of fourth graders in a school in Cyprus, students were found to be
able to construct quite precise and complicated webs, including many species, and to draw multiple
trophic connections in a better way than students in the control group. To teach energy and nutri-
ent fows in food webs in secondary school, Wernecke et al. (2018) propose using learning from
alternative ideas by inserting an error in an ecological energy fow diagram derived from prevalent
alternative ideas about energy. The results of their study, which included 304 ninth-grade students in
Germany, show that students who successfully identify and explain the error achieve larger gains in
conceptual knowledge than those students who learn with a correct diagram. Conversely, a prepon-
derance of the results in the literature show that the inclusion of socioscientifc issues, as well as argu-
mentation and modeling, creates productive teaching contexts for challenging alternative ideas and
promotes both positive and active attitudes toward caring for the environment issues, climate change,
and biodiversity among students (e.g., Bravo-Torija & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2012; Dawson & Carson
2020; Gotwals & Songer, 2009; Osborne et al., 2017; Sadler et al., 2015; Zangori et al., 2020). For
example, Zangori et al. (2020), in a study with four US thirrd-grade classrooms (54 students in total),
showed that the intertwining of modeling and SSI served as an important bridge to support students
in considering causal relationships within ecosystems.
Other Issues in Ecology Education

In relation to other topics within ecology education, research has focused on the study of the efect
of professional development programs on the improvement of practices associated with topics such
as climate change (e.g., Drewes et al., 2019), but there is still much to be done in terms of the
development of the PCK of other content reviewed in this section (but see Großschedl et al., 2019).
However, an interesting topic to point out, diferent from the teaching and learning of ecological
content, is the inclusion of topics related to the nature of science, either in the context of teaching
climate change (e.g., Khishfe et al., 2017) or in other topics related to the ecosystem (e.g., Herman,
2018; Schizas et al., 2021). Apparently, the sum of SSI and environmental issues are a favorable con-
text for learning about NOS.
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In summary, ecology education is the feld of research in biology education with the biggest
development (Figure 19.1), but with a high prevalence of topics, such as climate change, biodiversity,
and ecosystem thinking (Table 19.3). A broad avenue that can be traveled in the future is to combine
studies on environmental issues with the understanding of other central concepts of ecology, such as
populations dynamics and the interactions between species (Korfatis 2018).
Research on Teaching and Learning Human Biology

Diferent life experiences (from pregnancy to illness and exercise) logically lead many students
to wonder how their body works and, more importantly, which decisions to make to maintain
health. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate ways to improve student literacy in this area. How-
ever, human biology is one of the least study topics in biology education (Figure 19.1, see also
Ben-Zvi Assaraf & Snapir 2018). If we add to this lower development of research in this area,
the fact that within human biology we fnd the greatest diversity of subtopics within six contents
studied (Table 19.4), the consequence is that there are areas within this content that present almost
no research, such as development (Kampourakis & Stasinakis, 2018) or the nervous system (Ben-
Zvi Assaraf & Snapir 2018). Thus, most of the research in this content concentrates on the study
of the concept of system in general, where the best-known systems are often used as examples
(circulatory or respiratory system) and the anatomy or structure of the human body as a whole
(Table 19.4).
Table 19.4 Topics of Science Education and Content Present in the Studies Reviewed Across Five Science Edu-
cation Journals Between March 2010 and March 2022 Targeting Human Biology. The Concepts Are
Learning
Alternative conceptions System thinking (usually respiratory or circulatory)
System thinking Human body (anatomy or structure and function)
Students’ interests and knowledge Reproduction and sexuality
Learning progression Nutrition and body health
Circulatory system
Instructional strategies Respiratory system
Models and representations Digestive system
ICTs, simulations, and visualization Diseases, microorganisms, and immune system
Teaching outside of school System and regulation
Lab and practical work Neurobiology
Inquiry-based instruction Health and body
Argumentation
Role play
SSI
Videogaming
Case study strategy
Other issues
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Learning Human Biology

On the issue of students’ learning, the study of alternative ideas has been one of the major research
topics in the area. For example, students’ knowledge and conceptions have been described regarding
the circulatory system (e.g., Fančovičová & Prokop, 2019; Özgür, 2013), respiratory system (e.g.,
Garcia-Barros et al., 2011; Reinoso et al., 2019), digestive system (e.g., Allen et al., 2021; Garcia-
Barros et al., 2011), obesity (Weissová & Prokop, 2020), reproduction and sexuality (e.g., Reiss,
2018; Sirovina & Kovačević 2019), microorganisms and disease (Byrne & Grace 2018; Prokop et al.,
2009), health-related biotechnology applications (van Lieshout & Dawson 2016), and homeostasis
(e.g., Zion & Klein, 2015). For example, Özgür (2013) investigated the persistence of alternative
ideas on the topic of the human blood circulatory system among students in four grades (319 ffth
and seventh graders and 400 preservice science teachers). The results show that many alternative
ideas among school students are no longer present in the responses of preservice teachers; however,
the frequency of others is not signifcantly diferent across the diferent educational levels studied.
Analogously, in a study of students’ ideas of the body’s internal structure, Andersson et al. (2020)
show that the number of internal organs that students can draw increases with age. In the study,
which included a group of 170 students between 4 and 13 years old who individually produced
drawings, the six internal organs most frequently indicated were the heart, brain, skeleton, stomach,
blood, and lungs, whereas other organs, such as the pancreas, cecum, vocal cords, and tonsils, were
mentioned by very few students (but see Dempster & Stears, 2014). Regarding this issue, Patrick
and Tunniclife (2010) found that a group of 71 in-service science teachers from the United States
demonstrated a similar pattern to that shown by students (see Andersson et al., 2020 for a review of
previous studies), i.e., the teachers can draw individual organs, but they are unable to draw the entire
organ system. Notably, the number of years a teacher has taught and the use of dissection in their
classroom appear to positively infuence students’ scores.
In the issue of alternative ideas about reproduction and sex education, Reiss (2018) notes that there
is extensive literature but unclear conclusions regarding this issue. For example, he notes that many
students struggle to relate the moment of conception to uterine structures and do not relate the
processes of menstruation, ovulation, and the probability of implantation of a fertilized egg. On the
other hand, Macintyre et al. (2015) explore sources of information and learning among adolescents
between 16 and 19 years old in relation to sexual health and sexuality. They conduct semi-structured
interviews to determine adolescents’ understanding of pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections
(STIs), and contraception. The fndings suggest that traditional taboos restricting dialogue on topics
such as sexual diversity and abortion appear to be falling and that certain traditional gender classifca-
tions may be changing, while challenges to discussing topics such as emergency contraception, sexual
violence, and sexual pleasure persist and must be addressed in teaching.
Regarding the topic of research about learning progression to support human body content, a
limited amount of literature exists compared with the large number of concepts and issues available
about organismal biology (e.g., Ben-Zvi Assaraf & Snapir, 2018; Reiss & Tunniclife, 2001; Rogat
et al., 2017). The most studied topic in this respect is the understanding of the human body as a com-
plex system (e.g., Ben-Zvi Assaraf et al., 2013; Gilissen et al., 2020; Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007; Tripto
et al., 2018; see also Ben-Zvi Assaraf & Snapir, 2018; Verhoef et al., 2018 for a review). For this
concept, at least three learning progressions or states of understanding have been proposed, namely,
the structure–behavior–function (SBF) theory (e.g., Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007); the components,
mechanisms, and phenomena (CMP) conceptual framework (Snapir et al., 2017); and the system
thinking hierarchy (STH) model (Tripto et al., 2018). For example, using the human respiratory
system as a model, Hmelo-Silver et al. (2007) studied the mental model of 21 middle school chil-
dren, 20 preservice teachers, and 13 experts. They found fve states of the system models recognized
(1=egocentric, 2=simple healthy lung, 3=healthy body, 4=pragmatic expert, and 5=hierarchical
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expert), which progress from simple and structure-based models to those that are more elaborate,
interconnected, and increasingly consider behaviors and functions. Notably, both middle school
students and preservice teachers showed to have representations that rank between levels 1 and 3,
while experts (respiratory therapists and pulmonary physicians) showed to use only levels 4 and 5.
On the other hand, Wenderoth et al. (2020) ofer a learning progression about ion movement using
the following six contexts: plant tropism, plant transport, neuromuscular, renal, cardiovascular, and
respiratory physiology.
Based on interviews from 90 participants and short-answer surveys from over 4,000 college stu-
dents, they propose a fve-level learning progression. Students at the frst level (L1), provide explana-
tions that tell stories in a non-mechanistic way that often contain teleological ideas. In L2, students
use limited mechanistic reasoning and attempt to explain the “why” or “how” by using relevant
concepts in a limited way. In L3, students use emergent principle-based reasoning and address ideas
about chemical and electrical gradients, but they make errors when integrating the components.
In L4, students use principle-based reasoning with an incomplete consideration of the relationships
among interacting components. Lastly, in L5, students use principle-based reasoning with full consid-
eration of the relationships among interacting components. On the topic of the anatomical structure
of the human body, the pioneering work of Reiss and Tunniclife (2001) describes how students
improve their understanding about their body with age. First, students learn that they contain some
individual organs, and then they realize that these organs are in specifc locations. Afterward, they
come to know that certain organs are joined together in functional units; fnally, students learn that
a few organs are joined into an entire organ system.
Teaching Human Biology

In the issue of instructional strategies, research suggests that biology teachers must promote the under-
standing of the human body and that of any organism as a complex system (e.g., Ben-Zvi Assaraf &
Snapir, 2018; Gilissen et al., 2020). According to these authors, teaching the human body as a com-
plex system must uphold the following four principles: (1) presentation of present human body sys-
tems in a conceptual framework that organizes all the systems components and their relationships; (2)
providing a means of externalizing their own mental system models; (3) providing a guide for using
system language and for drawing clear connections between the various aspects of the systems; and (4)
emphasizing connections between the hierarchical levels of the system. In accordance with the litera-
ture published in recent years, these principles can be implemented using various resources and strate-
gies, including simulations, physical models, drawings, and concept maps (e.g., Ben-Zvi Assaraf &
Snapir, 2018; Gilissen et al., 2020; Liu & Hmelo-Silver, 2013; Rogat et al., 2017). For example, Liu
and Hmelo-Silver (2013) use two diferent versions of hypermedia to teach about the human respira-
tory system. There was a function-centered version (called F-hypermedia) and a structure-centered
version (S-hypermedia) ofered to 20 college students in the United States. The results showed that
students in F-condition provided more elaboration, asked more explanatory questions, made more
connections to their prior knowledge, and demonstrated more metacognitive processing compared
to the dyads in the S-condition. Recently, Gilissen et al. (2020) proposed seven system characteristics
(boundary, components, interactions, input and output, feedback, dynamics, and hierarchy) in class-
room practice to teach human body systems. Using a lesson study as their research design, the authors
evaluated two lessons in two small upper-secondary biology classes (15–16-year-old students). After
using diferent instructional strategies in many activities (e.g., use a tangram with seven system traits,
create representations, perform role-play, draw graphs, ask questions). Findings showed that most
students were able to name and apply the seven characteristics in a glucose regulation system.
Regarding the issues of teaching sexuality and reproduction, research has shown that traditional
instruction and information-seeking activities for students are predominant (e.g., Eisenberg et al.,
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2013). However, a more signifcant strategy is the inclusion of socioscientifc problems (e.g., Brotman
et al., 2011; Dawson, 2011) and argumentation (Orlander & Lundegård, 2012). The latter authors
used argumentation as a strategy to address abortion with 15-year-old students in Sweden and report
on how scientifc content becomes relevant to students and how students shift the disciplinary focus
to the development of scientifc skills, such as argumentation, despite their low achievement in the
application of scientifc concepts. In another example, Orlander (2016) generated spaces for criti-
cal discussion on notions of femininity and masculinity and their comparison between humans and
animals and focuses on metaphors that have their origin in the animal world. The study recorded the
classroom interactions of 16 years (n=32) of age over the course of one semester. The results show
that students can understand that reproduction in animals presents many elements that humanize ani-
mal behavior and that these elements contribute to forming constructions of concepts of femininity
and masculinity in people.
Other Issues in Human Biology Education

There are few issues other than those related to learning and teaching human biology (Table 19.4).
For example, studies on teachers are few compared to other topics reviewed (e.g., evolution or
genetics) and generally focus on describing alternative ideas of some topic (see previous discussions).
One exception is the study by Schmelzing et al. (2013) reporting on the development of a ques-
tionnaire to assess the PCK of the circulatory system, or the study by Werner et al. (2019), which
investigated the implementation of two model-based lessons on the topic neurobiology in grade nine
by 32 biology teachers. In addition, there seems to be no research that evaluates the explicit con-
nection between the understanding of concepts of human biology and the nature of science (but see
Großschedl et al., 2019). There are only a few investigations in which some topics are used as a con-
text for teaching NOS, for example, infectious diseases (e.g., Pavez et al., 2016; Won et al., 2011).
In summary, human biology education is represented by a diverse area of research within biology
education but contains with an unequal development of research focus. Underdeveloped areas include
a lack of descriptions of students’ alternative ideas even as other areas, such as the study of some sys-
tems, have reached an important level of sophistication. Among the central themes of such research
is the issue of systems thinking, the development of learning progressions, and the implementation of
diferent teaching strategies. A topic that might also be explored relates to the best curricular sequence
to support student understanding of body system functioning. In this context, there are also impor-
tant possibilities in the integration of descriptive studies of body systems and the interaction between
concepts such as nutrition, health, regulation, and the immune function all within systems thinking
models (e.g., Gilissen et al., 2020). An unresolved question is whether the understanding of human
development should be integrated into this level of education or if, on the contrary, it should be
included in the teaching of heredity and evolution (Kampourakis & Stasinakis, 2018).
Research on Teaching and Learning Cell Biology

In addition to the theme of evolution, the cell is often reported as one of the most fundamental con-
cepts in biology (McComas, 2018b) because its study provides us with the answers to what life is and
how it works (Alberts et al., 2019). Learning about cells is complex, and the ideas that students obtain
regarding their structure, organization, and function have been addressed by research literature (e.g.,
Fernández & Jiménez-Tejada, 2019; McComas, 2018b; Table 19.5). In addition to the difculty
that this theme shares with others at the microscopic level, the infuence of the typical models used
to teach about the cell presents an additional challenge to its learning (e.g., Fernández & Jiménez-
Tejada 2019; Vlaardingerbroek et al., 2014). However, research development in cell education the
last decade has been lower than other biology topics examined (Figure 19.1).
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Table 19.5 Topics of Science Education and Content Present in the Studies Reviewed Across Five Science Edu-
cation Journals Between March 2010 and March 2022 Targeting Cell Biology. The Concepts Are
Learning
Alternative conceptions Cell structure
Students’ interests and knowledge Cell process
Learning progression Microorganisms
Stem cell
Instructional strategies Cancer
Models and representations Cell division
Argumentation
SSI
Other issues
Learning Cell Biology

On the issue of learning about cells, several authors have collected and described alternative ideas
from students and teachers (e.g., Allen, 2010; Fernández & Jiménez-Tejada 2019; Gonzalez-Weil &
Harms, 2012; McComas, 2018b; Vijapurkar et al., 2014). Among these ideas, the following are
some that may have greater consequences in the understanding of other phenomena or may have
received less attention from researchers: (1) confusion regarding atoms, molecules, and cells, as well
as not understanding the relationship between them; (2) cells are fat; (3) cells possess organs, such
as miniature replicas of human organs, while plant cells have (only) chloroplasts, just as animals have
mitochondria; (4) the energy within the cell is used only for activities such as movement and growth;
and (5) prokaryotic cells have no nucleus, which means that they lack DNA. Student ideas that cells
are two-dimensional can be particularly difcult to modify in elementary (Vijapurkar et al., 2014)
and secondary (McComas, 2018b) education; furthermore, there is evidence that even after learning
about cells, high school students can maintain a dissociated vision between organisms and the cells
that comprise them (González-Weill & Harms, 2012).
Difculties may also be associated with representations in textbooks, as shown by Vlaardinger-
broek et al. (2014), who verify the problems that high school students have in estimating the scale
of cells and their internal structures by misinterpreting the classic diagrams that appear in textbooks.
Various studies have shown that some students’ alternative ideas are also present in their teachers. For
example, in a study with 192 preservice teachers, Nawaf et al. (2015) show that up to 22% of the
participants accepted that a semipermeable membrane is required for difusion or that once a sub-
stance has dissolved in water, its particles stop moving (both invalid ideas). On the other hand, valid
instruments have been developed to gauge high school students’ understanding of cellular processes
(Sesli & Kara, 2012) confrming the thinking that students have when they are fnished with their
formal educational process experience. Although multiple-choice diagnostic tests have been the
norm in studies on the assessment of knowledge about cells, drawings and diagram interpretation
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have also been used. For example, Vlaardingerbroek et al. (2014) evaluate the interpretation of cell
diagrams and confrm that several years of school education generates distorted views about cell size
and scale in college students.
Teaching Cell Biology

Some of the challenges faced in learning about cells and their structure and function requires stu-
dents’ ability to understand objects and processes that are both three-dimensional and essentially
invisible. Therefore, textbooks usually start with basic microscopy or by introducing the use of
magnifying glasses starting in kindergarten. However, many schools lack the infrastructure to teach
cells based on laboratory practices; therefore, they end up using paper and pencil activities to teach
about cells (McComas, 2018b). This phenomenon and the classical cell representations used in ele-
mentary and secondary school education lead to the acquisition or strengthening of alternative ideas
about the dimensions and scales of cell structures and their internal components (Vlaardingerbroek
et al., 2014). In this respect, the diversifcation of cell biology teaching strategies has been identi-
fed as a need in the preparation of university courses (Veselinovska et al., 2011). In fact, according
to the compilation presented by McComas (2018b), in middle school, the practical activities used
are quite repetitive, and multiple versions can be observed in textbooks. A good review of diferent
and specifcally designed strategies for teaching about cells appears in Allen and Tanner (2003). In
the last years, research has been conducted on the use of highly diverse strategies, highlighting case
studies (e.g., Veselinovska, 2011), role-playing (e.g., Cherif et al., 2016), modeling and representa-
tions (Verhoef et al., 2008), the elaboration of arguments (e.g., Choi et al., 2010), SSI (e.g., France
et al., 2012), and inquiry context (e.g., Matuk et al., 2019; Röllke et al., 2021) (See also Table 19.5).
For example, Matuk et al. (2019), incorporated qualitative graphing activities into a seventh-grade
web-based inquiry unit about cell division and cancer treatment to perform two studies lasting two
academic years. Findings from the frst year (n = 30 students) showed that students gain understand-
ing about cell division, cancer, and cancer treatment after the intervention. The second study (n =
117 students), which included two versions of the same unit (one that students construct graphs and
one that they critique graphs), showed that both activities improved students’ integrated understand-
ing of graphs and cell content. Improving understanding of processes that are invisible and dynamic
may be supported with strategies based on dynamic computer visualizations (Oliver et al., 2019).
This study showed that high school students gain understanding in cellular processes of difusion,
osmosis, and fltration after a one-year intervention. Teaching cell theory has also been especially
approached throughout the history of science (Camacho et al., 2012) and has been proposed as an
excellent context by which to approach (and discuss) theory concepts from an epistemic perspective.
According to McComas (2003, 2018b) and others (e.g., Lewis 1972), cell theory, a label commonly
included in secondary books, is best defned as a law, generalization, or principle instead of a theory,
which it is not. Interestingly, many college and university textbooks call this important idea the “cell
principle”, a more appropriate name.
Other Issues in Cell Biology Education

There are few papers related to topics in cell biology education other than teaching and learning
(Table 19.5). Only recently have there been studies related to the development of instruments to
assess subject-matter knowledge about cell (Suwono et al., 2021) and PCK of this content and other
disciplines in biology (Großschedl et al., 2019). In summary, despite the great importance of the
study on the understanding and teaching of the functional unit of life, there is less research develop-
ment compared to other areas (e.g., evolution, genetics, or ecology). A possible way to invigorate
this line could be to continue the development of a more contextualized teaching, for example, by
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conducting more studies on the teaching of SSI in the context of stem cells, cancer, or other cellular
issues (Table 19.5). In addition, although there are few examples on learning progressions (Verhoef
et al., 2008), further development on cell-specifc processes (e.g., division, diferentiation) should
be encouraged.
Research on Teaching and Learning Metabolism

There exists a literature consensus that energy is a central idea for teaching and learning biology and
that the processes of photosynthesis and respiration are crucial to understanding it (e.g., Duncan
et al., 2017; Harms & Bertsch, 2018; NGSS, 2013; Opitz et al., 2017; Schramm et al., 2018). How-
ever, this area of biology education is one of the least developed in the research literature examined
(Figure 19.1) and least represented in suggestions for instructional approaches (Table 19.6).
Learning about Metabolism

On the issue of student learning about metabolism, numerous articles have been published over the
past 20 years on alternative ideas possessed by learners (e.g., Beals et al., 2012; Opitz et al., 2017;
Wernecke et al., 2018; Wilson et al., 2006). These studies highlight the existence of serious chal-
lenges in teaching and learning about energy, photosynthesis, and respiration, while also arousing
great interest among researchers who have proposed ideas to address these issues by focusing pri-
marily on the aim of knowing what the most widespread alternative ideas are and targeting them
(Bergan-Roller et al., 2020; Kubsch et al., 2020; Opitz et al., 2017; Parker et al., 2012; Ryoo &
Linn, 2012).
Among the most reported alternative ideas are (1) plants obtain their food from the soil through
their roots; (2) photosynthesis occurs during the day, while respiration occurs at night; (3) it is not
known where the energy obtained as a result of photosynthesis is contained; (4) plants do not breathe;
(5) respiration is synonymous with gas exchange; (6) animal respiration difers from plant respiration;
(7) it is not known that respiration is a source of energy; (8) energy is recycled and absorbed as a
result of photosynthesis; and (9) plants do not breathe, but the air is recycled and absorbed by plants
Education Journals Between March 2010 and March 2022 Targeting Metabolism. The Concepts Are
Learning
Alternative conceptions Cellular respiration
Students’ interests and knowledge Photosynthesis
Learning progression Protein synthesis
Instructional strategies
Other issues
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Teaching Biology
(e.g., Beals et al., 2012; Harms & Bertsch, 2018; Opitz et al., 2017; Parker et al., 2012; Park et al.,
2018; Schwartz & Brown, 2013; Wernecke et al., 2018; Wilson et al., 2006; Zangori et al., 2017).
For example, Parker et al. (2012) presents a diagnostic test that evaluates the knowledge of pho-
tosynthesis in university students who were enrolled in an introductory biology course with large
enrollment classes between 2004 and 2009. These authors also conducted interviews to complete the
information obtained in the tests. The results indicate that many college students lack both a basic
understanding of photosynthesis and the ability to reason with scientifc principles of the conserva-
tion of matter and energy and the hierarchical nature of biological systems. Regarding cellular res-
piration, a recent study by Bergan-Roller et al. (2020) uses concept maps as instruments to evaluate
previous knowledge in 182 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory biology course. The
authors also interviewed a small number of students, and the obtained information is used to cor-
roborate the inferences made from the concept maps. Results indicate that students have a simplifed
understanding of cellular respiration and its processes, as is evident based on the quantities of schemas
that were vaguely connected and organized by the subjects in this study.
Teaching Metabolism
Regarding learning challenges faced in teaching metabolism, Harms and Bertsch (2018) highlight
two characteristics presented by metabolism concepts, namely, (1) their abstract nature makes tangible
teaching and learning resources mandatory, very often using school texts, which, according to the
authors, are not used to their full potential, and (2) the high complexity of the concepts increases as
they interrelate with each other, which, according to the authors, could be intensifed by the fact that
energy is also a cross-cutting concept in the disciplines of biology, chemistry, physics, and engineer-
ing. In the same vein, various teaching strategies are described in the research literature (Table 19.6).
For example, in a quasi-experimental study including eighth-grade students (n = 30), Kubsch et al.
(2020) targeted energy representation and found that the construction of energy transfer models helps
students apply the systems transfer perspective successfully to explain phenomena. Similarly, Orbanić
et al. (2016) compared the constructivist teaching of photosynthesis with traditional instruction. Based
on a design including 201 Slovenian elementary school students (in ffth-grade classes) divided into
control and experimental groups, the authors report that constructivist teaching targeting students’
prior ideas improves the learning of photosynthesis and fosters the development of higher-order
thinking in students, thus increasing the level of scientifc literacy (Orbanić et al., 2016).
With respect to teaching strategies targeting respiration, Schramm et al. (2018) used a learning
progression, including inquiry-based activities, to improve the understanding of photosynthesis, respi-
ration, and biosynthesis processes among 563 middle and high school students. Their study examined
the impact of a two-week intervention and demonstrated that students achieve a better understanding
of photosynthesis and respiration in a way that avoids many common alternative ideas generally held
about these processes. In another study including the understanding of photosynthesis and respiration,
Schwartz and Brown (2013) use multiple representations to encourage a view of biological nested
systems in three preservice science teachers. The authors use three tasks that include concept maps,
drawings, concrete models, and guiding questions as instructional guides that can help scafold student
thinking about photosynthesis and cellular respiration within and across biological levels. According to
the qualitative results presented, Schwartz and Brown (2013) propose that these activities can be used to
identify alternative ideas and develop more sophisticated systems views, as well as formative assessments.
Other Issues in Metabolism Education

On the topic of teachers’ knowledge about metabolism, several studies report investigations of sub-
ject-matter knowledge (SMK) and PCK (e.g., Akçay, 2017; Brown & Schwartz, 2009; Käpylä et al.,
607
Cofré et al.
2009; Park & Chen 2012; Park et al., 2011, 2018; Großschedl et al., 2019). For example, Käpylä
et al. (2009) investigated the efect of the amount and quality of SMK on PCK about photosynthe-
sis, comparing ten primary and ten secondary (biology) teacher students. The main fnding of the
study was that primary preservice teachers were not aware of students’ conceptual difculties and
had problems choosing the most important content. Neither of the groups had knowledge of suit-
able experiments and demonstrations for teaching photosynthesis. In a more recent work, Park et al.
(2018) developed two diferent instruments for assessing PCK about photosynthesis. The authors
included two components of the PCK in their instruments, knowledge of student understanding
(KSU) and knowledge of instructional strategies and representations (KISR). Two interesting results
of the study were that although KSU and KISR are theoretically conceptualized as separate con-
structs constituting PCK, they were not loaded separately by PCA analysis and that a linear connec-
tion between teachers’ SMK, PCK, and classroom practice is not possible of state.
In summary, despite the importance of research on understanding metabolic processes, for exam-
ple, to understand processes at higher levels of biological organization (e.g., the ecosystem), learning
progressions such as those described in previous sections have not yet been developed. The diversif-
cation in the study of the teaching of other metabolic processes (e.g., protein synthesis), as well as the
connection with other levels of organization (Brown & Schwartz, 2008; Schwartz & Brown 2013),
or even other disciplines, in the subject of understanding the fow of energy (Harms & Bertsch,
2018) seem possible ways to develop this line of research.
Conclusions and Future Directions in Biology Education Research

In this chapter, we endeavored to provide a synthesis of the most prominent research topics in the
area of biology education or didactics of biology of the last ten years, guided by the exhaustive
review of fve prominent science education journals but also by our experience as biology teachers,
biology teacher educators, and researchers in some specifc areas of biology education. And while we
recognize that our efort may have weaknesses and be incomplete, we believe that some interesting
patterns have emerged from our analysis.
On the issue of biology topics, while some topics are especially developed, such as teaching and
learning about evolution, genetics, and ecology, others appear particularly defcient from a biology
education research perspective, including cell biology, metabolism, and some aspects of human biol-
ogy, such as development, the immune system, and the nervous system. These last topics and others
should be addressed by future researchers (See Tables 19.1 to 19.6).
The viral pandemic that began in 2020 and the continuing environmental catastrophes brought
about by climate change have placed various issues of biology into the everyday language of the
media and the public. The means available by which to access biological knowledge have multiplied,
and popular science texts on these issues are also multiplying. However, it has become apparent that
all this exposure has not allowed individuals and governments to make decisions that are consistent
with the evidence. It is possible that the underlying problem is that the time available for the study
of biology in schools is insufcient, particularly if it fails to include the scope and nature of science
(NOS). As many authors argue, biology is an ideal context in which to address the NOS and scien-
tifc argumentation and provide better bases for decision-making. We need additional studies on the
importance (or not) of including aspects of the NOS in biology teaching. While there seems to be
sufcient evidence to suggest that the teaching of evolution benefts from this knowledge, other areas
of biology could also potentially beneft from such knowledge, such as inheritance, neuroscience,
ecology, or climate change.
Although we have detailed knowledge of students’ alternative ideas in almost every piece of biol-
ogy content taught in school, learning progressions have not yet been developed for all the big ideas.
The topics most urgently in need of development are human biology, cell biology, and metabolism.
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We must take better advantage of the knowledge that we have about biology learning to identify and
describe the most relevant teaching strategies for understanding each content. Doing this will assist
students in providing explanations and hold understanding vital for efective decision-making. This
approach is especially relevant in human health and physiology issues, such as nutrition and sexuality,
where little research has been done about teaching and learning, and many public policy initiatives
are designed without the use of research evidence that promotes safer and healthier behaviors. It may
be that teaching strategies that seem efective in other areas (e.g., evolution, genetics, or ecology) may
also be efective regarding these topics.
More research is needed to show the real beneft (or not) of doing practical/laboratory work that
brings biological phenomena closer to students. While there is evidence of the contribution of the
use of empirical data and interactions with real systems and contexts in ecology and evolution, the
beneft of empirical work with macro-level phenomena for the understanding of microsystems (e.g.,
cell, genetics, or physiology) seems less clear. For these topics, there is signifcant evidence of the
teaching efectiveness of using models and representations, although more research is suggested to
assess the importance of model understanding and modeling skills. Finally, teaching strategies that
are widely used in content such as genetics, evolution, and ecology, such as argumentation and the
inclusion of socioscientifc issues, could also be investigated in topics related to the functioning of
human biology, cell biology, and metabolism.
Although the eforts of those who have conducted research in biological education are valued,
too often these recommendations do not make it into practice in schools. Thus, the current chapter
may present an opportunity that favors the incorporation of several recommendations that modify
the most common curricular modes, i.e., teaching molecular genetics before Mendelian genetics;
teaching an integrated approach to human body systems by systems thinking, instead of teach-
ing each system separately; the concept of development as an articulating axis; and other learning
progressions described in physiology, ecology, and evolutionary topics. In a broader sense, it would
be strategic to redouble the collective eforts so that certain core concepts can be studied transver-
sally between subjects, such as energy or complex systems, which have been shown to have similar
learning progressions during diferent school grades. It is even more urgent that several historically
exclusive concepts of biology be reviewed with a multidisciplinary approach, as occurs with sexual
education, genetics, or ecosystems.
The goal for all those interested in biology education is that we devise teaching and assessment
strategies to help students guide their learning about the biological world and help them achieve
biological literacy and are anxious that biology teachers and researchers work together in moving
toward this goal.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científco y Tecnológico, Fondecyt,
Chile (Grant # 1211920) to HC. We are grateful for the kind invitation to write this chapter from
the editors of the handbook.
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20
TEACHING PHYSICS
Introduction
Scientifc literacy has developed into the general and overarching aim of education in the sciences. The
vision of scientifc literacy serves as the frame for physics education across the world (Waddington
et al., 2007). Among other issues, scientifc literacy refers to the ability to understand and make
informed decisions about ecological, technological, communication, and health issues, as well as
positive values and attitudes toward science as a means to help address these issues (Ho et al., 2019;
Roseman et al., 2017; Schleicher, 2010; Spitzer & Fraser, 2020). Physics education must contribute
to helping students develop this ability; hence, physics education needs to provide students with
opportunities to learn about core ideas and practices of physics, which can help understand and
solve a broad range of problems beyond physics problems, including, for example, societal problems.
Research on physics education should fnd out how to achieve this vision.
In order to help achieve the vision of scientifc literacy, standards and curricula of physics generally
identify the following performance expectations as relevant: Students should
• Understand the core physical concepts and their applications in everyday life
• Understand the historical development and the current state of knowledge in physics
• Be able to use physics practices and respective technical devices in everyday life
• Hold a subjectively satisfying interest in physics and positive emotions toward physics, science,
and technology
• Act responsibly and autonomously with respect to sociopolitical issues related to physics and
technologies
In other words, students are expected to understand the special structures of physics as part of the
natural sciences, to deal with its contents and to apply its models, theories, and methods appropri-
ately. Another part of physics teaching should be about ways of thinking and working in physics (i.e.,
the nature of science and scientifc inquiry at the example of physics), the historical background of
physics, and major epistemological problems of physics. Students are also expected to learn to apply
physics practices of scientifc measurement and verifcation methods and to assess their validity and
reliability, deal with scientifc systems of order and classifcation, deal with the consequences of sci-
ence for social processes, and assess their efects on diferent areas of life. However, we also have to
be aware that physics does not explicitly address a part of nature epistemologically either. According
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-24 619

to Kloser (2013), a reductionist perspective of physics misinterprets the nature of living entities since
in biological contexts one single entity does not represent all other entities of the same kind. Finally,
yet importantly, learners should recognize that the natural sciences have found their way into many
professional felds of activity.
However, educational goals are generally formulated, often without taking into account the
learning theory background of the teachers’ necessary professional knowledge and the requirements
for the equipment of schools. Standards for science and physics are normatively set. From a scientifc
perspective, the question must therefore be asked how we can fnd out whether these standards,
when applied, actually achieve what is required. Two large-scale assessments exist that compare the
mathematical and scientifc education of students in many countries. PISA is organized by the Orga-
nization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and it explicitly refers to scientifc
literacy as an educational goal. In addition, PISA compares organizational aspects of the educational
systems of the participating countries. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
(TIMSS) addresses three cognitive domains – learning science concepts and then applying these concepts
and reasoning with them (Mullis & Martin, 2017) – across four disciplines: physics, biology, chemistry,
and earth science. The approach is consistent with the scientifc literacy concept. Both studies refer
to the secondary (middle) level of the school systems; TIMSS also investigates the primary level.
However, fndings from both studies are limited to conclusions about educational systems across
countries.
In order to assess the success of physics teaching at school, we need a theoretical model that com-
bines teaching practice with the requirements of the relevant national or internationally accepted
standards and the results of teaching and learning in the respective subject. The theoretical model
should include theories on teaching and learning of physics. The model used should be able to refer
to the quality of teaching physics, including framework conditions. This provides the opportunity
to evaluate the efects of characteristics of physics teaching (Fischer et al., 2014; Seidel & Shavelson,
2007) as well as the efect of teachers’ knowledge base (K. Neumann et al., 2019). The fndings may
have implications for the improvement of instruction through current research in physics educa-
tion and for educating and further educating of teachers. Nevertheless, physics teaching cannot be
analyzed without including all other felds, such as mathematics, engineering, or the learning sci-
ences. The demands and expectations made on physics lessons integrated in teaching science or as an
autonomous subject lead to an interconnection of the physics content areas to be taught in physics
lessons (blue), application areas for solving everyday problems (green), and professional knowledge
needed for teaching (orange) listed in Figure 20.1.
The conditions of the lessons determine the contents and characteristics of the necessary profes-
sional knowledge of physics teachers. The most important internal conditions are:
• The type of school (primary, lower secondary level, upper secondary level) at which the lessons
take place
• The respective age of the students (expected cognitive abilities, pre-knowledge, etc.)
• The respective organization of the school (commitment of the principal and the teaching teams, etc.)
• The equipment of the school and especially the equipment of physics (technical equipment and
condition of the school, experimental equipment of the physics laboratories, condition of the
classrooms, etc.)
• The motivation of the students and the teachers
Although there are country-specifc diferences in the layout of school levels in terms of grades, types
of schools at each level (e.g., diferent types of elementary schools, comprehensive schools, grammar
schools, vocational schools), on average similar curricula are formulated in more or less detail. In
the following, we will describe the consequences of the previously explained goals for content and
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Teaching Physics
Epistemology
Mathema˜cs
Physics
Astronomy Ecology
Meterology
Engineering
Teaching Physics Technology
Pedagogy
related to Biology
teaching Chemistry
Physics
General Linguis˜cs
pedagogy Sociology
Psychology Poli˜cs
Philosophy
Figure 20.1 Research and design of teaching and learning physics as complex interaction between diferent
sciences.
methods of physics teaching, diferentiating between school levels, according to UNESCO (2012,
p. 21), as primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary education (Chalkiadaki, 2018).
Goals of Physics Education Considering School Levels
Primary Education
In most countries, the physics (or more generally science) education at the primary school level
(grades 1–4/5/6) is one of three historically evolved types. In the English-speaking world, physics is
taught as part of science integrating elements of engineering, such as diferent approaches to science,
technology, society, ecology, and mathematics. In many European countries, and especially in the
German-speaking world, physics is taught as part of Sachunterricht, which includes elements from the
social sciences and social life; the natural sciences with examples from biology, chemistry, and phys-
ics; and scientifc methods, scientifc working, and also elements of engineering. As an example, the
cross-national Australian, German, and Taiwanese comparative research project EQUALPRIME
demonstrated how teachers of primary science created opportunities for students’ frst systematic
steps in the natural sciences at school (Ramseger & Romain, 2017).
Contents and Multiple Perspectives of Teaching

Many conceptions of primary and early childhood science or science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM) education are focusing on natural sciences, emphasizing science as human
621
endeavor, inquiry, and discovery approaches. These conceptions include aspects of the nature of science
(NOS), as well as scientifc inquiry (SI) and social relevance of science and technology development
and innovation. Most of the curricula relate to all natural sciences and cover topics important for
everyday life as context (Cairns & Areepattamannil, 2019).
Many science curricula at the primary level include the following topics: thinking and working
scientifcally, living things and the environment, the location of Earth in space, the geology of our
planet Earth, weather, climate and its anthropogenic change, energy, electricity, time, movement and
force, science and technology, everyday materials and their properties, chemical and physical changes,
and health and security problems. Notably, most of the topics belong to the disciplines of biology,
geology, and physics. STEM education includes a reference to mathematics, yet mathematics is usu-
ally additionally taught as an autonomous subject.
A range of studies have argued that the development of scientifc literacy requires the multiple-
perspectivity of content, scientifc work practices, and everyday contexts. Bryan et al. (2016), for
example, have argued the following categories have to be considered when planning and teaching
STEM as an integrated subject:
• Learning takes place in contexts that are to be processed through networked theoretical scientifc
approaches and procedures.
• Based on learning through experience in STEM, anchor sciences provide the content areas
(Bevan, 2017).
• As teamwork plays an increasingly important role in the natural sciences, it is also becoming a
more frequent topic in schools. In addition, teamwork is often linked to the use of digital media
(van Leeuwen & Janssen, 2019).
When dealing with weather phenomena, for example, physics measurement methods (e.g., experi-
ence by measuring temperature and precipitation over longer time periods) must be considered
processes in the sun–moon–earth system (astronomical observation) and on the Earth itself (e.g.,
humidity and pressure measurement and modeling of pressure diferences). Social and communica-
tive aspects play a role, for example, in the explanation of meteorological reports. When extending
the theme toward climate and (anthropogenic) greenhouse efect, chemical, biological, and math-
ematical aspects as well as communicative, social, and political phenomena have to be considered in
addition to explaining the origin, development, and efects. The entire instruction is underpinned
by structuring the experience using scientifc research methods and scientifc ways of working, such
as teamwork in experiments, observations, and theoretical modeling. The goal should be to enable
students to participate in discourses and decisions in their social contexts at the level of their experi-
ential and theoretical potential.
Teacher Education for Primary School

To acquire competencies in individual subjects, in teacher education students are required to con-
nect their experiences with diferent scientifc theories, to link diferent scientifc meta-concepts
and, as a result, to carry out a transfer to the often very complex context of everyday situations.
Accordingly, Hartinger and Griest (2015) suggest that this understanding of education in primary
school grades implies, for teachers, a multiple-perspective teaching of diferent subjects, problem
orientation, openness of content across and among diferent subjects, using prototypes (exemplary
approach) (Oser & Baeriswyl, 2001), and metacognitive-critical examination of subject content.
Accordingly, for teachers, multi-perspectivity requires studying the respective subject concepts in
terms of subject matter, including methodology, theory, and epistemology, in order to connect the
diferent scientifc approaches of the subject and relate them to the context. Although context-based
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Teaching Physics
instruction in physics is currently very popular, it should be recognized that in physics everyday
contexts are usually very difcult to model, not least because of their complexity (Taasoobshirazi &
Carr, 2008). Because of these demands, primary science teacher education is a university education
program in many countries.
In order to successfully construct and implement this instruction, there are two principal
approaches to teacher education: Teachers are either expected to be experts in the felds of knowledge
involved and in subject-specifc learning psychology, or generalists, whose education is rather charac-
terized by primary level–specifc learning psychology and pedagogy. Nevertheless, the efectiveness
of either type of teacher is an open question. From a meta- analysis of respective research, Mills et al.
(2020, p. 3) concluded that there is “insufcient evidence about whether expert teachers have a posi-
tive impact on instructional quality and student learning”. Brobst et al. (2017), however, observed
diferences in quality of science lessons between content experts and elementary generalists. Experts
spent more time for planning and teaching science, were signifcantly better in science knowledge,
and the content taught was more in line with the framework for quality elementary science instruc-
tion. According to Fauth et al. (2019), pedagogical content knowledge of expert elementary sci-
ence teachers was positively related to students’ interest, whereas teachers’ self-efcacy was positively
related to student achievement.
Considering the multitude of topics of all approaches to science education or even to STEM
education, the education of science teachers for primary levels is a challenge even for those who have
studied some science. The approaches to primary-level teacher education range from learning from
teaching examples to systematic and multiple-perspective teaching of the involved science subjects.
In addition, in some countries (e.g., Germany) there are teachers at the primary level who have not
studied science but are generalists who teach science voluntarily because often there is no expert
teacher for science at their school.
Lower Secondary Education

Lower secondary school systems typically cover grades 5 or 6 to 9 or 10. Integrated schools have
become the de facto standard in almost every country. In integrated schools, students of all ability
groups attend one school and are usually taught diferent subjects or a specifc subject on diferent
profciency levels. In a few countries, such as Germany, after primary school, students are assigned
to three types of school (Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium), depending on their academic perfor-
mance. However, there is a possibility to switch between the three types according to an appropri-
ate cognitive development of a student, and in addition there are diferent types of comprehensive
schools (Hotulainen et al., 2020).
In lower secondary education, physics is either taught as a separate subject or as a part of science.
In either case, several new trends have recently emerged:
• During the last decades, teaching from primary school to university changed its goal from
teaching content knowledge to supporting students in developing competence in the domain
in question. Competence in a domain is widely considered a conglomerate of knowledge, the
abilities and skills to apply this knowledge, together with attitudes, volitions, and emotions
(Köller & Parchmann, 2012; Leutner et al., 2017). The focus on supporting students in develop-
ing competence instead of teaching them knowledge leads to instruction that promotes active
learning and results in the need to change school content, its presentation, and assessments of
student performance. The teacher creates opportunities to learn situated in the socially relevant
contexts that students can use according to their ability, volition, and motivation with abilities
to learn by themselves (learning to learn, Stringher et al., 2021). Instruction thus becomes indi-
vidualized, more diverse, and reliant on discourse.
623
• Especially for physics teaching, many possibilities emerge to plan and perform lessons. Physics
is a science that requires ways of thinking that have social potential (top-down organization of
knowledge acquisition, scientifc thinking in experimentation, enlightenment, etc.), there are
many socially relevant situations in which physics is relevant, problems are solved analytically
and dynamically, and knowledge acquisition is not possible without mathematics (see the next
section).
• According to Nielsen and Nielsen (2019), as models play a central role in all sciences and
especially in physics, physical-mathematical modeling is important for physics as well as for physics
teaching and learning and not conceivable without a close relationship to mathematics (Lehavi
et al., 2019). Koponen (2007) sees physical-mathematical modeling as a bridge between experi-
ment and theory development, and according to Dounas-Frazer and Lewandowski (2018), it is
an integrated physical-mathematical process.
• To understand and use models and modeling on a specifc school level, and to teach it adequately,
is especially part of teaching physics. As a topic for secondary school, however, modeling must
be adapted with respect to the mathematics required. For example, radioactive decay processes in
physics are modeled with exponential functions; in secondary school, the relationship between
time and the number of decays is represented by the half-life instead. The representation of
functional relationships and mathematical descriptions of physics concepts must be adapted to
be consistent with students’ abilities (Galili, 2018; White Brahmia, 2019).
• Epistemology of physics can be seen as a part of philosophy and physics as prototype and source
of scientifc reasoning, scientifc working, and epistemology in all science subjects (Sin, 2014).
Thales of Miletus (c. 624 to 546 BCE) is generally regarded as the frst physicist as well as the
frst philosopher in the Western tradition. Among many others, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Galileo,
Copernicus, and Kepler up to Newton, developed physics as a causal science with a physical-
mathematical language. The result is called Newtonian physics, which supports a positivistic
philosophical position. The universe was supposed to function causally and like clockwork; from
this point of view, the laws of mechanics determine everything that happens in space and time of
the material world. According to Feyerabend (2020, p. 475), who started his academic career as a
physicist, “[i]t is a well-known fact that periods of great scientifc discoveries and correspondent
changes in scientifc theories are at the same time periods of increased philosophical produc-
tion”. At the end of the 19th century and in the frst half of the 20th century, almost all famous
physicists, such as Niels Bohr, Max Born, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Ernst Mach,
and Erwin Schrödinger, were concerned with a philosophical explanation of their discoveries
in relativity and quantum mechanics. Physics in secondary education can therefore provide an
important connection between philosophy (such as values, ethics, and epistemology) to rational
everyday action and to uncovering conspiracy theories and myths. Physics also provides guid-
ance on the causal and statistical consideration of evidence and risks in order to discuss and plan
one’s own and others’ activities (Russ & Odden, 2017).
Contents and Multiple Perspectives of Teaching

The goals that have been established for lower secondary education determine the selection and
sequence of the contents to be taught in physics, which difer from the selection and sequence of
contents in academic physics. In addition, it can be assumed that contents related to major chal-
lenges humanity is facing need to be covered. Physics can help, for example, modeling the spread of
epidemics and provides important data on which to base political and individual decisions. Physics
instruments, such as X-ray lasers, are essential to clarify the structure of complex organic molecules
and to gain insights for vaccine development. Even the spread of viruses in aerosols during sneezing
can be modeled by physicists to improve health protection measures.
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Teaching Physics
The following interacting themes are relevant for everyday life and should therefore be addressed
in primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary school physics classes:
• Weather and climate, their diferent modeling, measurement models, and consequences for daily
life and the future (drawing on thermodynamics, mechanics, forms of matter, electrostatics, and
measurement methods of physics)
• Energy, energy conversion, conservation of energy, dissipation, and consequences for the
anthropogenic greenhouse efect (drawing on thermodynamics, mechanics, electrodynamics,
and atomic physics)
• Transport and mobility (drawing on mechanics, thermodynamics, and electrodynamics)
• Physics aspects of health regarding pandemics, risk assessment, body functions, bionics, brain
functions and their measurement, and the scientifc character of medicine (drawing on statisti-
cal aspects of physics, mechanics, acoustics, optics and radiation physics, electrodynamics, and
atomic physics)
• Systematization of empirical experience (drawing on methods of experimental physics, the rela-
tionship between theory and experiment, and control of variables)
• The meaning of truth, right and wrong, new knowledge, and scientifc reasoning (drawing on
epistemology, processes, and the organization of knowledge acquisition in research)
All six themes require a multi-perspective view of the world, including at least the disciplines math-
ematics (including informatics), biology, chemistry, sociology, politics, psychology, ecology, and
economy. As this may be too much to expect from one teacher, it highlights the importance of
(interdisciplinary) collaboration between teachers, as well as the importance of providing teachers
with predesigned curriculum materials that teachers only need to adapt to the specifc class(es) they
are teaching.
Teacher Education in Lower Secondary

Countries have developed their own standards of physics teacher education. These standards refer to
the professional knowledge teachers need to carry out lessons, to self-organize their further learning as
teachers, and to stay healthy and resilient. The resulting model of physics teachers’ professional compe-
tence is shown in Figure 20.2. This model incorporates general competencies needed for orientation in
the structure of the respective educational system, school types and own schools, general knowledge on
organizing a lesson, and learning and teaching psychology. Professional knowledge is embedded in the
teacher’s values, orientations, and beliefs regarding teaching and society, in his or her motivation regard-
ing lessons, and in his or her abilities to self-regulate to maintain his or her ability to work. The academic
content of the diferent areas has to be adapted to the requirements of the respective school level.
In many countries, in addition to the respective subject aspects, there is a trend toward noncog-
nitive aspects of teacher professional competence, such as self-regulation, making student teachers
aware of attitudes, beliefs and motivational orientations as shown in Figure 20.2, and their place in
physics teacher education (K. Neumann, 2020; K. Neumann et al., 2017). It also has to be noted
that the organizational knowledge and counseling knowledge felds in Figure 20.2 include, amongst
others, that the abilities for cooperation/interaction and communication are often not explicitly
considered in research.
Upper Secondary Education

According to Bao and Koenig (2019), physics education should emphasize student acquisition of
essential 21st-century skills at the cognitive level (such as deep learning, problem solving, systems
625
Motivational
orientations
Beliefs
Self-
Values
regulation
Goals
Professional

knowledge
Physics Pedagogical Pedagogical

Domains of Organizational Counseling
content content psychological
626
knowledge knowledge knowledge

knowledge knowledge knowledge
Facets of Know- Know-

knowledge Deep
Know- ledge of Know- Know- ledge of
under- Explana-
ledge of solving ledge of ledge of effective
standing Episte- tory
students' physcis student learning class-
of mology know-
scientific tasks/ assess- proces- room
school ledge
thinking prob- ment ses manage-
physics
lems ment
Figure 20.2 Professional competence of teachers according to Baumert and Kunter (2013, p. 29).
Teaching Physics
thinking, critical thinking, computational and information literacy, reasoning and argumentation,
and innovation), the interpersonal level (such as ability to work creatively and collaboratively and
communicate clearly), and the intrapersonal level (such as metacognitive thinking, adaptability, and
self-management), as well as respective attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, physics education in the
upper secondary level is mainly oriented toward three goals: deepening general education, preparing
for higher-education studies, and scientifc propaedeutics (introducing students to the language and
methods of the natural sciences).
Contribution to Advanced General Education

Interpersonal abilities refer to creative group work and communication, and intrapersonal abilities
include metacognitive thinking, adaptability, and general problem solving but also career develop-
ment and organizing one’s own learning process. At the upper secondary level, the contribution of
physics is
to examine the broad concerns of science, to explore the nature of scientifc process and
practice, to provide students with an understanding of mathematics and the natural sciences,
to acquire appreciation for how scientifc knowledge of the physical and natural world is
attained and evaluated.
(Trout & Jacobsen, 2019, p. 1)
A specifc goal of physics teaching, especially at the upper secondary level, is to teach the scientifc
mode of encountering the world. This includes the development of physical-mathematical models of
physics phenomena (e.g., movement) as well as more abstract ones (e.g., space–time relationships of
physical objects) and an understanding of how these models have emerged as a consensus in the phys-
ics as agreed, standardized, and authoritative explanation of the respective phenomenon (Hart, 2008).
Science Propaedeutics
Scientifc propaedeutics refers to the introduction to goals, methods, and techniques of scientifc
work as well as their application in experimental contexts. For example, the Nobel Prize in Physics,
like the detection of black holes or the detection of gravitational waves, can be taken as an occasion
to discuss the process of physics research but also the role of theoretical models and the functioning
of modern experimental methods. This originates in a structural and content-related proximity to
the subject of physics at university and includes:
• The diferentiation of scientifc and everyday approaches and the explicit consideration of phys-
ics-specifc conceptual systems
• Physical-mathematical modeling
• Methodological abilities and knowledge in NOS and SI and extended subject-matter knowledge
• Consideration of diferent ways of approaching the world, such as the scientifc, the artistic-
aesthetic, and the philosophical approach
• The experience that connections between diferent subjects can be theoretical (e.g., modeling
of the anthropogenic climate change) and practical (e.g., a feld trip to a meteorological station
General Abilities Needed to Study

In many countries, allowing students to study has a general and a subject-specifc aspect. The gen-
eral aspect is important, among other things, because mathematical-physical modeling is an integral
627
part of physics theory formation. This modeling makes physics lessons at the upper secondary level
a prototype for other areas of society in which mathematization plays a role. For example, decay
processes are approximated using exponential functions, as in the case of pandemics; approximations
are often assessed, as in business management; or periodic processes are mathematically modeled, as
in medicine.
This originates a structural and content-related proximity to apply physics to everyday life and
includes the general abilities needed to study, such as the ability to self-refect, an appropriate expec-
tation of self-efcacy, the ability to make decisions, perseverance, and communication and coopera-
tion skills, but also motivation and resilience.
However, ability to study does not mean that university subjects can be entered into physics
studies at a high level without further adaptation. The universities are obliged to analyze the subject-
matter abilities of entering students in order to adapt the frst semesters accordingly and to coordinate
their own demands with the physics curricula of the schools.
Content and Multiple-Perspectivity of Teaching

Physics is included in all upper secondary school curricula all over the world. In classical and modern
physics, the curricula include the discussion of crucial concepts, such as space–time relations, state of
matter, mass, and energy, an introduction to relativity and quantum physics (Henriksen et al., 2014),
and modern methods of current empirical physics research, such as is done at the European Orga-
nization for Nuclear Research (French: Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire),
known as CERN, astrophotography, and electronic imaging or various methods of microscopy.
The aforementioned topics always contain aspects and occasions for a multiple-perspective view
of physics models and methods. Theoretical and experimental physics and their methods are modi-
fed and applied in many other sciences. Some examples include:
• In medicine and biology, physics plays a particularly important role, such as imaging techniques,
radio and telemedicine, bionics, etc. (Kane & Gelman, 2020).
• Many other sciences need physics methods to develop their own models, such as time deter-
mination in archaeology and history, location determination in geography and land surveying,
diverse methods in criminology and forensics, etc. (Liritzis et al., 2020).
• Physics models are applied and modifed by diferent sciences, such as energy in all natural sci-
ences (Opitz et al., 2019), engineering and nutrition, pressure, temperature and humidity in
meteorology, or electrodynamics in all felds dealing with the development and production of
electronic equipment.
In order to highlight the interconnectedness of physics with other subjects at school and to make
clear that results in all sciences may only be achieved if these sciences work closely together, teachers
of diferent subjects should cooperate. According to Sund and Gericke (2020), teachers in the subject
areas of science, social science, and language contribute complementary dimensions of content and
also diferent perspectives. However, they need time and the opportunity to get to know the difer-
ent approaches of their colleagues and to try out the collaborations. For students to experience and
value cooperative learning in a classroom setting, Johnson and Johnson (2018) identify four types of
cooperative learning at school:
• Cooperative base groups in a class are described as long-term, heterogeneous cooperative learn-
ing groups with stable membership.
• Formal cooperative learning is structured by the teacher, including learning goals as required by
the curriculum. Students cooperate in groups over a period of several weeks.
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Teaching Physics
• Informal cooperative learning opens the time frame as well as the group composition. Both
follow the requirements of joint (partial) goals. This kind of organizing a lesson includes direct
teaching, which can be structured by the teacher as informal cooperative learning groups and
short discussions among the students of a group.
• Constructive controversy describes the rules of argumentation in a group in order to reach
agreement on initially controversial points of view.
Teacher Education in Upper Secondary

The structure and content of teacher education for the upper secondary level is not comparable and
not standardized to any degree across countries. An analysis of teacher education is therefore beyond
the scope of this chapter.
The period and type of teacher education alone depends not only on professional and pedagogi-
cal requirements, but often also on the prestige of the profession in the respective country and on
income opportunities. In Switzerland, for example, future physics teachers must frst have a master’s
degree in physics and then complete a teacher training program. In the United States, students must
spend the frst two years studying liberal arts, a general education in social sciences, natural sciences,
and humanities that is equivalent to the basic knowledge required for teaching at the primary or
lower secondary level. Then, after various entrance tests, students are accepted to the teacher educa-
tion program. There, at either the university or a college, training is usually in the education major.
For the upper secondary level, students have to study another academic major. Field experience is
expected during the fnal year of study as the last step before entering the profession. While high
school teachers in Switzerland and in a few other countries, such as Finland and Singapore, are very
well paid and highly respected, teachers at the upper secondary level in the United States receive
comparatively little money, and their profession is less valued in society.
According to Darling-Hammond (2017), most countries in the world have developed standards
for teacher education for the diferent school levels, which are controlled by Departments of Educa-
tion and corrected if necessary and accompanied by other measures, such as equipment for physics
laboratories, number of students in a class, or social environment of the school location.
Quality Dimensions of Physics Instruction

Quality of instruction is typically measured by its efect on the cognitive and motivational develop-
ment of learners. Three general basic dimensions have proven helpful for describing quality teaching:
cognitive activation (e.g., the consideration of learners’ ideas and beliefs), emotional support (e.g., appre-
ciative interaction in the classroom), and classroom management (e.g., the establishment of rules and
routines). In addition, there are multiple other dimensions of quality of instruction in physics, which
we will discuss after briefy outlining the basic dimensions and their physics-specifc interpretations.
Cognitive Activation
In implementing cognitive activation in the classroom, there are approaches especially in math-
ematics education. Burge et al. (2015) identify teacher actions that have been elaborated as cog-
nitively activating in several studies. For science education, cognitively activating teaching should
be described as teacher actions that take into account the individual cognitive preconditions of the
learners, guide the learners to individually adequate cognitive activities oriented toward the learning
goal, and in which time on task is used comprehensively with regard to the individual abilities to be
developed. Accordingly, cognitive activating instruction includes the structuredness and clarity of
classroom activities organized by the teacher and his or her organization of the learning environment.
629
In addition, the teacher is oriented to the impact of the activities and to the already existing and
targeted abilities, and the consolidation and safeguarding of the currently achieved learning successes
of the students. According to Teig et al. (2019) and Lipowsky et al. (2009) cognitive activation and
classroom management are positively associated with student achievement.
Emotional Support
Wentzel et al. (2018) point out that both relations between students’ perceptions of teachers and
peer emotional supports are important for academic and personal well-being. Emotional support
includes a constructive classroom climate and good teacher–student relationships, and it primarily
infuences the motivation of learners. The teacher should be sensitive to problems of understanding,
should follow a patient and supportive approach to errors, should support the students motivation-
ally, and should be able and willing to respond in case of personal learning–related problems (Gasser
et al., 2018).
Classroom Management
Classroom management is the basis of all instructional eforts and an integral part of all phases
of teacher education. It is defned as activities of a teacher to manage a classroom to enable
efective learning processes of students. Fricke et al. (2012) elaborate discipline, rule clarity, and
disruption prevention as essential components. The phases in which experiments are conducted
and the great importance of developing theoretical-empirical concepts must be given special
attention as typical of physics teaching. Among others, Osborne et al. (2016) have demonstrated
the efect of structured reasoning and guided communication in science education. Experi-
mental group work is mainly a matter of teaching physics; therefore, science educators need to
develop specifc applications and learning environments beyond general principles of classroom
management, including rules for group work, management of experimental activities of the
students, and safety rules.
Learning Process–Oriented Teaching

Learning process orientation refers to instruction that teaches physics content in alignment with
students’ increasing ability to reason about this content. It takes into account all the essential learning
processes that can play a role in physics teaching at school, among others, such as developing con-
cepts, having one’s own experiences with physics contexts, and solving physics problems. According
to Oser and Baeriswyl (2001), lessons oriented to learning processes are necessary to optimize the
structure of a lesson for the cognitive needs of students. For this purpose, two structural levels of les-
sons are distinguished, the surface and the deep structure. The surface structure of lessons comprises
the directly observable, freely constructed elements of lessons, such as form of instruction, methods,
or media. The basic or deep structure consists of a sequence of learning steps that cannot be observed
directly. Ideally, these are congruent with a sequence determined by the learning goal and the laws
of learning psychology, which Oser calls choreography or basis models of learning. Appropriately
organized lessons have proven successful in several subjects. Geller et al. (2014) showed, for example,
that all students in a physics class beneft from the clarity of the structure, with low-achieving stu-
dents benefting the most.
Experimental teaching and scientifc work should be given special consideration in teaching phys-
ics. According to Hofstein and Mamlok-Naaman (2007), an essential element is setting and repre-
senting the lesson objective in the structure of a lesson (oriented to learning processes). To structure
instruction on experiments at all levels of the educational system, we need diferent models that focus
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Teaching Physics
on individual stages of the experimental process to optimize learning about physics (e.g., how is an
experiment designed, how are data analyzed, how can results be interpreted, or what are the conclu-
sions of the fndings in physics for the respective society?). Therefore, the focus of a lesson structured
according to learning processes refers not primarily to physics knowledge, but to the cognitive-
psychological description of the learning process. The goal for Newton’s axioms and, respectively,
the guideline for structuring the lesson would be learning a physics concept or for an experiment on
gravitation, structuring one’s own experience or solving a problem experimentally.
Teacher Decisions
The analysis of teachers’ decisions in the classroom and the subsequent action provide insight into
what education needs to be established so that teachers are able to make spontaneous decisions
with greater likelihood of being appropriate to the situation. In medicine, including standardized
patients has long been part of teaching nurses and physicians (Vu & Barrows, 1994), but the dialogic
situations and focused behaviors to be practiced there are easier to simulate than teaching–learning
situations. Teaching with video vignettes is a promising approach to modeling the complexity of
teaching and using classroom situations (Laws et al., 2015). According to Blomberg et al. (2013,
p. 95), fve research-based heuristics are helpful in order to produce an efective video-based learn-
ing environment:
1) The design of video-based activities should build on clearly articulated learning goals,
2) the video functions as a technological tool, the use of which is systematically accom-
panied by appropriate instructional strategies, 3) different kinds of video material should
be used to foster teacher learning, such as video of one’s own teaching versus a colleague’s
teaching, 4) teacher educators should be aware about the strengths and limitations of the use
of video in pre-service teacher education and stress the importance of addressing limitations,
5) finally, it seems important that, when using video, aligning the way learning is assessed
to the way learning is fostered increases the learners’ motivation as well as strengthens the
efficacy and accuracy of video-based learning environments.
These heuristics can be applied to diferent educational objectives. They help to produce videos and
video vignettes that efectively support the learning process of preservice teachers.
Expert and Everyday Meaning of Terms

Attention must be paid to the fnding that the expert meaning of a term does not correspond with
everyday language usage (Boholm et al., 2016; Ufer & Bochnik, 2020). Students’ understand-
ing of the terms used depends on their age and level of cognitive ability, language use, as well as
their competencies in physics and mathematics. In Germany, for example, the unit Kilometer pro
Stunde (kilometer per hour, km/h) is often referred to as Stundenkilometer (which translates to hours
times kilometers, h·km). Diferences between everyday and expert meanings lead to communication
problems and hindering students in developing a deeper understanding of physics concepts. The
question is which diferences between physics expert meanings and everyday meanings are toler-
able and how to resolve potential conficts (Doran, 2017). Physics instruction must be designed
such that it enables conceptual growth or change. In either case, the teacher must have a deep
understanding of the physics content. Knowledge of already identifed so-called everyday concep-
tions may need to be known, and teachers should realize that these are existing and new ones may
emerge as existing ones change (e.g., based on the explicit addressing of everyday conceptions in
the classroom).
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Teaching Core Physics Concepts and Practices

Teaching and learning of physics has changed substantially over the course of the past four or fve
decades (Mikelskis-Seifert et al., 2008). The change began with the second half of the 20th century.
Back then, physics instruction was mainly focused on teaching students a comprehensive body of
knowledge in selected content areas – and on top of it some problem-solving and experimentation
skills, although the general assumption was that the development of these skills happened as students
were learning the content. This perspective took a major blow with growing fndings from early
conceptual change research that revealed how simply teaching students knowledge may not only
inhibit them to explain physics models and to solve experimental problems, but make things even
worse by further confusing students, leaving them with misconceptions about physics (for an over-
view, see Vosniadou, 2008). Hence the idea was born that physics teaching needed to more carefully
attend to students’ conceptions of physics concepts and how they change over time.
As large-scale assessments toward the end of the 20th century indicated once more that many
students could not extend their understanding beyond fragmentary knowledge, the idea of teaching
physics through inquiry became increasingly popular. In a more active style of learning, students were
supposed to develop an understanding of scientifc concepts following the procedure of scientifc
inquiry, much like scientists do (National Research Council [NRC], 2000; NSF, 1996). Continued
fndings showed, however, not only that students were still not moving beyond an isolated factual
knowledge (OECD, 2001), but also that instruction had not much changed (Fischer et al., 2005;
Fischer et al., 2014; Kathleen J. Roth et al., 2006).
These fndings led to another wave of curriculum reforms at the beginning of the 21st century
(K. Neumann et al., 2010; for an overview, see Waddington et al., 2007). These reforms saw a
redefnition of the overarching aim of science education. Students were now supposed to develop
a certain literacy competence in science (Roberts, 2007); that is, the ability to use their knowledge
in conjunction with typical science practices to understand the modus of how scientists account the
world (Baumert, 2002; Le Deist & Winterton, 2005). In order to make room for orienting teaching
to students’ learning processes, to provide additional opportunities to accommodate for the ever-
growing body of scientifc contents that were expected to be covered in schools, a growing number
of researchers advocated to focus on the core concepts and practices of science instead of teaching
students a large body of facts about traditional content areas of science. These changes also gained
traction in physics education.
Core Physics Concepts

In order to address the issue with students having a fragmented isolated knowledge of facts only,
researchers have developed the idea of organizing curricula and instruction around core concepts (K.
J. Roth et al., 2006; Schmidt et al., 2005). Early works in conceptual change have built on views
of scientifc theory being represented by scientifc concepts and relations between these concepts
and that the meaning of each concept is determined by its relationships with the other concepts that
are part of the respective theory (Posner et al., 1982). As students learn about science, they learn
about new concepts and establish new relations between concepts. Some concepts become more
prominent as the number of relations to other concepts grows, whereas others lose relevance as their
relations stagnate (Clark & Linn, 2013). The concepts with a growing number of relationships are
helpful, for example, to describe a wider range of phenomena. These concepts are the core concepts
of the domain. They are necessary to acquire new knowledge and hence develop an understanding
of important theoretical aspects of physics. As the knowledge of experts is accordingly organized
around the core concepts of the domain (Bransford et al., 2000), there is a need to organize curricula
that successively and coherently support students to develop an understanding of important physics
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Teaching Physics
concepts. To organize curricula in such a way, it is important to understand how students build their
own concepts around a respective core concept.
There is no agreed set of core concepts in physics, but a particular consensus in the literature
about some of the most prominent ones. Amongst them, the concept of energy, the concept of mat-
ter, and the concept of interactions. In the following, we will summarize how students develop an
understanding of these concepts.
Energy
Energy is probably the most important concept of science. It is core not only to physics but also to
many if not all other disciplines of science (e.g., Eisenkraft et al., 2014). The importance of the energy
concept for physics results from the fact that it is a conserved quantity. The fact that energy is conserved
resulted in new discoveries (e.g., the neutrino) (Feynman, 2011). In physics teaching, the fact that
energy in an isolated system is conserved, allows for solving many physics problems (Chi et al., 1981).
In physics education there is a particular consensus that students need to learn about fve key
aspects of the energy concept in order to develop a scientifcally appropriate understanding of energy:
(1) energy is manifested in diferent forms, (2) energy can be transformed from one form into
another, (3) energy can be transferred from one place to another, (4) energy is dissipated/degraded
in all macroscopic energy transformation and transfers, and (5) energy is conserved (Krajcik et al.,
2014). Driver and Millar (1986) argued that this understanding of energy is a prerequisite for under-
standing the relevance of energy for society. Several large-scale studies have investigated how students
build understanding of these fve energy aspects over the course of compulsory schooling, and these
studies have found remarkably similar patterns. Namely, students seem to progress in their under-
standing by frst mastering the idea that energy is manifest in diferent forms, then to understand that
energy can be transformed and/or transferred; the ideas of energy dissipation and conservation come
later, and many students fail to understand these ideas by the end of secondary school (Herrmann-
Abell & DeBoer, 2018; K. Neumann et al., 2013).
These fndings suggest that parts of a curriculum organized around energy as a core idea of phys-
ics should start with introducing energy, for example, in the context of a mechanics unit, developing
knowledge of kinetic and potential gravitational energy and examining phenomena in which these
energy forms are transformed into each other (Fortus et al., 2012). Note that developing knowledge
of kinetic energy means an in-depth examination of the idea of kinetic energy and the factors (i.e.,
mass) and indicators (i.e., speed) it depends on (for details, see Nordine et al., 2010). In subsequent
units on electricity, thermodynamics, or optics, additional forms such as electrical energy, thermal
energy, or light energy and the related factors and indicators should be introduced and phenomena
should be examined, explanations of which require knowledge of these forms – efectively linking
physical quantities from diferent areas of physics, such as electrical power and heat. Once students
have learned about thermal energy, they can be introduced to the concept of energy degradation and
dissipation. Note that while energy degradation and dissipation are often used synonymously, they
in fact represent slightly diferent aspects about energy (for details, see K. Neumann et al., 2013).
Despite a wide range of research on improving the teaching and learning of energy itself (Millar,
2014; Nordine et al., 2010; Papadouris & Constantinou, 2011), the extent to which organizing the
contents of physics instruction around energy as a core concept in the described way has not yet
been examined.
Matter
Besides the energy concept, the concept of matter plays one of the most central roles for students
learning about the natural world (Harrison & Treagust, 2002). For one, because understanding the
633
structure and composition of matter is central to obtaining “deep and satisfying answers to key ques-
tions that we all ask about the world around us: What are things made of and how can we explain
their properties? What changes and what stays the same when things are transformed?” (Smith et al.,
2006, S. 11). The answers to these questions are relevant to answering scientifc phenomena, such as
water going back and forth between the Earth’s surface and atmosphere (NRC, 2012).
Much research has been carried out to investigate students’ concepts about matter (Nussbaum,
1985; Stavy, 1989). Andersson (1990) identifed two main categories of students’ conceptions: (1)
conceptions about the particle nature of matter (including conceptions about atoms, molecules,
and particle systems) and (2) everyday conceptions about matter and its transformations (including
concepts about chemical reactions, physical states, and their changes and conservation of matter)
(Krnel et al., 1998; Méheut, 2004). X. Liu and Lesniak (2005, p. 436) identifed four categories: (1)
structure and composition, (2) physical properties and change, (3) chemical properties and change,
and (4) conservation. A range of studies suggested that students develop an understanding within
the diferent categories starting from a mesoscopic toward a microscopic viewpoint of matter, and
that this progression is driven by students’ understanding of the structure and composition of matter
from a continuous concept of matter, over an understanding that matter is made up of particles to an
understanding of how the properties of matter depend on the confguration and interaction of these
particles (Hadenfeldt et al., 2016).
As students’ progression in developing an understanding of matter appears to develop in waves and
progression to the next level appears to depend on students’ understanding of the particulate nature
(Hadenfeldt et al., 2016), instruction should probably start by investigating obvious features of matter
(e.g., mass, volume), but introduce the idea of matter being made up from particles before moving
to more complex features, such as density. Delving into features such as charge requires a decent
understanding of how matter is made of particles, and the explanation of features such as color or
magnetism should probably be left to later grades (i.e., upper secondary level) (Lee & Liu, 2010).
This also has implications on how other core concepts are taught, such as the idea that (gravitational)
energy is energy stored in the gravitational feld between two objects (e.g., a ball and the Earth) or
how elastic energy is stored in electric felds between the particles of the object under strain (Nor-
dine et al., 2018). A similar issue applies to understanding the actual nature of interactions (see the
following section). Again, despite a broad range of research on students’ understanding and potential
strategies to support students in developing an understanding of matter, there is little research that
investigates the extent to which organizing instruction around matter and energy as core concepts
across grades leads to a more coherently organized knowledge.
Force
One of the core concepts of physics is that of force. The force concept is central to explaining and
predicting interactions between objects and within systems of objects (NRC, 2012). The concept
of force or, more generally, of interactions is all about explain and predicting interactions between
objects and with-in systems of objects (NRC, 2012, p. 113). Understanding the concept of force
involves an understanding of (1) the relationship between force and motion and (2) how forces add
to each other (Alonzo and Steedle (2009, p. 394f).
Students’ understanding of the concept of force and related concepts, in particular the concept
of motion, have been extensively researched (Duit, 2007). Instructional units have been developed
that aim to foster a deeper conceptual understanding of force and motion (Dekkers & Thijs, 1998).
Alongside this developing literature, physics educators worked to develop instruments suitable for
assessing and diagnosing students’ understanding of force. The most widely used and well studied of
these is the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), an instrument to assess students’ understanding of force
and motion (e.g., Hestenes et al., 1995). Alonzo and Steedle (2009) found that students’ progress from
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Teaching Physics
understanding force as a push or pull that may or may not involve motion over understanding that a
motion requires a force, or more specifcally a net force, to understanding that the net force applied
to an object is proportional to its resulting acceleration and that this force may not be in the direction
of the motion. Interestingly, their work focused exclusively on one-dimensional forces and related
motion and excluded other important aspects of force, such as Newton’s third law (Bao et al., 2002).
The fndings of I. Neumann et al. (2013) showed in comparison that students’ understanding of the
Newton’s Third Law aspect progresses very much in line with their understanding of the force and
motion aspect.
Initial fndings suggest that in the case of the force and motion aspect the goal is understanding
how (the net) force is linked to motion and, in particular, that force and motion do not need to point
in the same direction. In terms of the Newton’s Third Law aspect, the development occurs from
an everyday understanding that in the interaction of two objects, one object applies a force to the
other and that this force depends on properties to the object, to the expert understanding that for
every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. To date, there is little known research that has
investigated interactions to the extent that forces between objects arise from a few diferent types of
interactions: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear interactions. This, however,
has not been subject to research, and hence it is currently still an open question of how an under-
standing of force/interactions develops across diferent areas of physics.
Core Physics Practices

The shift away from content knowledge toward competence as the overarching aim of science edu-
cation (K. Neumann et al., 2010) has moved students’ procedural abilities in the focus of attention
needed for scientifc inquiry (Wieman & Perkins, 2005). In order to be truly competent in physics
and other sciences, students need to develop not only an understanding of the core concepts of the
domain or discipline but also the core practices, as many core practices of physics are indeed sci-
ence practices. There are three core practices, however, that are essential to physics competence:
mathematical modeling, problem-solving, and experimentation. We will discuss each of these core
physics practices in the following sections.
Physical-Mathematical Modeling
To develop an understanding of physics concepts of energy, matter, and interaction, mathematical
means are needed. Diferential equations and functional relations play a predominant role to describe
processes and states of matter in space and time, such as the equations of motion and oscillations
in mechanics in the meso world, the Poisson and Laplace equations in stationary heat conduction,
and in electrostatics and magneto statics, the Helmholtz equation for natural oscillations and natu-
ral modes and the Schrödinger equation for temporal change of the quantum mechanical state of
systems in the micro world. In this sense, physical-mathematical modeling plays an important role
from the beginning of learning physics at school (Galili, 2018), not only for physicists. Greefrath and
Vorhölter (2016) pointed out that mathematical modeling serves for solving tasks from the extra-
mathematical world in general. Mathematical descriptions and representations are used to describe
processes or situations in extra-mathematical systems as a translation between the extra-mathematical
and mathematical world. Niss (2010, p. 54) characterized this process by two subprocesses: the trans-
lation of extra-mathematical objects and their relations into appropriate mathematical representations
and the translation of extra-mathematical questions into mathematical questions.
In order to describe the interplay of mathematical modeling and scientifc modeling, Pospiech
(2019) combines the modeling cycle established in mathematics (Borromeo Ferri, 2011) with work by
Uhden et al. (2012) into a physical-mathematical modeling cycle (Figure 20.3). This cycle identifes
635
Physical-mathematical model
Simplification/
Idealization Steps of mathematization
mathematisation
World
Validation Steps of interpetation Technical

mathematical
operations
Figure 20.3 An integrated physical-mathematical model (Pospiech, 2019, p. 11); modifed from Uhden et al.
(2012).
the real world as a context, with generating a phenomenon as the frst step of a physics description of
the real world. To solve a problem, the modeling cycle includes the following steps: (1) generation of
a mental representation of the real-world situation (phenomenon), (2) transformation of the mental
representation into a mental representation of the problem, (3) transformation of the representation
of the problem into a physical-mathematical model (physics concept), (4) mathematical operations
based on the model leading to a mathematical result, (5) interpretation of the mathematical result in
terms of physics, and (6) matching of the result in terms of physics with the mental representation of
the situation or problem (see also Schwarz et al., 2009).
In this process of problem solving, the mathematical representation serves not only as a math-
ematical tool but also as a tool for describing the physics structure and content of the problem
(the physics concept) (Pietrocola, 2008). It must be noted that mathematical representations are
possible on diferent abstract levels, such as “more force causes more acceleration”, or “F=ma”.
The level of abstraction heavily draws on students’ mathematical knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Rather, qualitative representations of mathematical relationships are an important element in phys-
ics education. Mathematical representations can be introduced in younger age groups without
irritating the later introduction of abstract representations. The solution of the problem is again, as
in the model by Pospiech (2019), obtained through mathematical operations, interpreted in terms
of physics, and validated in terms of empirical evidence (Figure 20.3). Essentially, the process of
transforming the qualitative into an abstract mathematical model is, according to Uhden et al.
(2012), an interactive, iterative one in which the available mathematical knowledge and procedure
determines the way the problem can be represented (i.e., structured) and hence how the solution
can be interpreted. The mathematical representation and its interpretation in physics allows the
solution of the problem.
In summary, mathematics plays a major role in the modeling process in physics. The practice of
representing a physics problem, transforming it into a mathematical representation, solving it, and
interpreting it in terms of physics is commonly referred to as mathematical-physical modeling, math-
ematical modeling in physics, or mathematical reasoning (in physics). Despite much research on the
delineation of this process and on the development and empirical investigation of respective teaching
strategies (Borromeo Ferri, 2018), there is little understanding of the feld in how this practice devel-
ops over longer periods of time. There is a general sense in curricula that secondary school should
focus on the generation of the conceptual model from the phenomenon with an increasing degree
of mathematization, as in upper secondary school. In terms of the learning progression of scientifc
modeling by Schwarz et al. (2009), secondary school would focus on the elements of practice, and
upper secondary school would focus on the elements of practice with increasing abstractness of
mathematical representations. There is no existing research, however, that would confrm how the
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Teaching Physics
focus on qualitative representations of modeling before introducing more abstract aspects supports
students in mastering the practice of physical-mathematical modeling.
Problem Solving
Tasks and problems are defned diferently. In tasks, the initial state, a question, and usually the solu-
tion process are known, and the solution refers to the fnal state. In an analytical problem, the initial
state and the fnal state are given and an experimental procedure or a functional relation that is able to
generate the fnal state must be found (Fleischer et al., 2017). In contrast, complex problem solving
requires an exploratory phase to systematically determine the variables through interaction with the
problem. Therefore, the initial state is not fxed, and also the fnal state is often defned by a number
of possible outcomes determined by several (normative), sometimes contradicting goals (Dörner &
Funke, 2017).
Larkin and Reif (1979) summarize that expert problem solving is characterized by a knowledge
organized into sets of specifc strategies and an iterative process of successive refnements of the actual
solving procedure. That is, experts tend to start by developing an initial representation of a prob-
lem that is only later transformed into a mathematical representation (note the similarity with the
physical-mathematical modeling process). On the basis of this understanding of experts’ approaches
to problem solving, a range of studies have been carried out to investigate to which extent supporting
students (i.e., novices) in their problem-solving based on how experts approach problem solving will
lead to improved solutions and improved problem-solving practices. Historically, and probably even
today, physics teaching in many classrooms still places too much emphasize on an abstract mathemati-
cal representation – which is considered misleading novices to focus on superfcial problem features
(Hardiman et al., 1989). But nevertheless, Reddy and Panacharoensawad (2017) found that poor
mathematical skills and accordingly the lack of understanding the addressed physics concept were
major obstacles in the domain of problem-solving skills in physics. Weaver et al. (2018) state that in
physics undergraduate classrooms students often are invited to explore novel problems before they are
taught the underlying concepts and procedures. They compared students who explored a problem
(collaboratively or individually) on their own with students being instructed to solve a problem and
found that the learning outcomes were equal and even that there was no learning beneft of explor-
ing collaboratively compared to individually. On the contrary, Heller et al. (1992) noted that col-
laborative problem solving leads to better problem solutions. W. J. Leonard et al. (1996) found that
explicating problem-solving strategies supported students in correctly representing the problem and
identifying principles useful for the solution of the problems in terms of strategies not immediately
related to the problem-solving process itself. This applied in particular to complex and often context-
rich problems (Heller & Hollabaugh, 1992). An overview of problem solving in physics education
is given by Ince (2018).
Williams (2018, p. 299) relates the popular statement that
Physics is often seen as an excellent introduction to science because it allows students to

learn not only the laws governing the world around them, but also, through the problems
students solve, a way of thinking which is conducive to solving problems outside of physics
and even outside of science.
He argues that problem solving at school is mostly not represented in the curriculum, mostly
not taught explicitly, and if taught the problems are easy to solve. The problem-solving behav-
ior of students in schools, if not guided, is mainly characterized by trial and error rather than
focused action. However, the process of problem solving should be considered as a teaching goal
as well as solving analytical and complex physics problems and should take into account general
637
problem-solving skills already available (for complex problems, see Dörner & Funke, 2017; for
analytic problems, see Fleischer et al., 2017). Rebello et al. (2007) highlighted that complex
problem solving often involves transfer from a structured (classroom) to a semi-structured or
unstructured context. This transfer must be explicitly learned because most students are unable to
recognize similarities between the already structured context and the everyday context. Most of
the respective research suggests that there still is a need for teaching strategies to support students
in learning how to solve problems. According to Schmidt-Weigand et al. (2009), incremental
worked examples supported by strategic prompts are helpful for students to remember correct
procedures. Furthermore, the results of Akben (2020) suggest that teaching structured, semi-
structured, and free problem-posing explicitly improves students’ problem-solving competencies
and metacognitive awareness.
Experimentation
Klahr (2000) described the practice of scientifc investigation through experimentation as a problem-
solving process driven by a scientifc question (i.e., a problem) that requires an answer (i.e., a solu-
tion) and takes place in two spaces: the hypothesis space and the experiment space. The hypothesis
space includes hypotheses in all variations, valid or not, and the experiment space consists of the
experiments suitable for testing the hypotheses. The actual process of scientifc investigation through
experimentation then involves (multiple iterations of) three consecutive steps: (1) the search for
potentially applicable hypotheses in the hypothesis space, (2) the testing of the identifed hypotheses
through the selection and implementation of an experiment from the experiment space, and (3) the
analysis of the evidence obtained through the experiment in light of the hypotheses and the decision
whether the hypothesis can be accepted (with the inquiry process ending) or needs to be rejected
(with the process entering another iteration) (Emden & Sumfeth, 2016).
Klahr and Dunbar’s (1988) delineation of the practice of scientifc investigation through experi-
mentation into the planning, performance, and analysis of experiments has served as a foundation for
subsequent work that aims to identify the knowledge and skills involved in engaging in the practice
of scientifc investigation through experimentation (Hammann et al., 2008). As a result, in newer
research more diferentiated models of the abilities and skills needed to engage in scientifc investiga-
tion through experimentation are found (Schwichow et al., 2020). One of the most diferentiated
and complete models of the abilities and skills required to engage in scientifc investigation through
experimentation is described by Nawrath et al. (2011) as follows: (1) develop a (research) question,
(2) formulate hypotheses, (3) plan experiment, (4) set up (functioning) experiment, (5) observe and
measure, (6) analyze data, and (7) draw conclusions.
However, diferent models identify diferent numbers of activities, and hence slightly diferent
experimental abilities and skills. Through their basis models, Oser and Baeriswyl (2001) combine the
development of physics concepts with student experience and the systematic solution of complex
and analytical physics problems in experiments (Wackermann et al., 2010).
Teaching Content Areas in Physics

Despite the recent eforts on developing physics curricula organized around a few selected core con-
cepts (Fortus et al., 2012), the traditional content areas of physics – mechanics, optics, electricity, and
thermodynamics – as well as selected areas of modern physics, such as relativity theory or quantum
physics, still play a major role in physics teaching. Physics curricula in many countries are still mostly
organized in the traditional content areas of physics. In the following we will therefore, for the most
important traditional areas and selected areas of modern physics, delineate each area and discuss fnd-
ings on approaches to teaching these content areas.
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Teaching Physics
Traditional Content Areas
Mechanics
Academic work on mechanics problems dates all the way back to the ancient Greeks (Cartwright
et al., 2021). Already Archimedes has worked on describing the physical laws underlying levers.
Today, classical mechanics, sometimes also referred to as Newtonian mechanics (Wallace, 2020), is
described as the area of physics that is concerned with the motion and deformation of objects and
the respective forces. The two major areas of classical mechanics are, hence, kinematics and dynam-
ics. Kinematics is considered the area that describes the motion of objects and systems of objects, the
forces that cause the motion are not taken into account. The main ideas of kinematics are displace-
ment, velocity, and acceleration. Dynamics is the area that is concerned with the study of forces and
their efects on motion. Main ideas are mechanical equilibrium (i.e., a resulting force of zero and
hence no motion) and kinetics (i.e., forces leading to a change in motion).
In contrast to the long-standing focus on teaching mechanics as an area of physics, mechanics is
well known as one of the most difcult topics (Alonzo & von Aufschnaiter, 2018; Poutot & Blandin,
2015), and much research has been carried out on how to address this issue.
• The traditional approach to teaching mechanics starts with the introduction of speed and accelera-
tion in one dimension, and forces are introduced through their efects (e.g., Nie et al., 2019).
Research in this regard has mainly aimed to fx specifc issues or better support students in their
learning.
• Modeling instruction is one approach to supporting students for an improved learning about
mechanics (e.g., Halloun & Hestenes, 1987). To develop students’ understanding of a particular
domain, physicists successively develop (small sets of) models, and taking a similar approach will
help students develop a similar understanding (Brewe, 2008). Modeling instruction has been
shown to successfully support students in learning about mechanics in upper secondary school
(Mustofa et al., 2019) as well as at the college entry level (Brewe & Sawtelle, 2018).
• Hennessy et al. (1995) proposed an approach that is rooted in conceptual change theory. It uses
a series of interactive computer simulations by raising students’ awareness of the limitations of
their present conceptions, hence initiating conceptual change. A similar approach is taken by
Clark et al. (2011), who overlay game-play mechanics in a popular computer-based game with
formal physics representations and fnd high levels of engagement and subsequently substan-
tial improvement in students’ learning. Tiberghien et al. (2009) present a mechanics teaching
approach that is strongly based on physics or science education research, respectively. It relies
on modeling as a means to bridge between students’ everyday and physics knowledge and the
knowledge about mechanics to be taught, based on a theory of students thinking in two worlds
(the everyday world and the world of physics experts).
• A new, nontraditional approach in terms of how mechanics can be introduced is presented by Spatz
et al. (2020). Instead of kinematics, this approach starts with the introduction of dynamics. More
specifcally, building on students’ (principal) understanding that “nothing comes from nothing”,
the idea that any change in velocity of an object is the result of a force. In doing so, the approach
considers two-dimensional motions.
Much research has been done on how to identify and address the well-documented difculties stu-
dents have with learning mechanics in the classroom. Most, if not all, approaches build on the fnding
that students hold a broad range of particularly persistent everyday concepts of mechanics (Sinatra &
Taasoobshirazi, 2018). The research shows that the use of teaching tools such as simulations or teach-
ing strategies such as modeling, based on a model of how student thinking develops over time (e.g., a
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learning progression) can help bridge the gap between students’ everyday concepts and expert phys-
ics concepts, constructing the concepts accompanied by supporting tools such as simulations while
monitoring learning progression has proven to be a popular tool. Little research exists on teaching
mechanics that is fundamentally diferent from the traditional curriculum. Findings on these new
approaches are promising, but more research is needed to understand how these diferent approaches
afect students’ long-term progression in developing understanding of mechanics.
Optics
Optics is the content area of physics concerned with supporting students in developing explanations
of the many optical phenomena they can observe in their everyday lives – from shadows to the dif-
fraction of light on holograms (e.g., on banknotes). Optics is typically diferentiated into geometrical
optics and wave optics. The main ideas of geometrical optics are the propagation of light, the for-
mation of shadows, refection and refraction, as well as dispersion of light. The main ideas of wave
optics are nature and propagation, interference and difraction, as well as polarization of light waves.
Geometrical optics is often phenomenon-based in secondary school (e.g., Perales & Nievas, 1995),
whereas wave optics is commonly taught in a formal way in upper secondary school (e.g., Mešić
et al., 2016). Research on students’ understanding of both areas suggests a broad range of everyday
conceptions that play into students’ learning in geometric optics (e.g., Galili, 2018) and wave optics
(Hubber, 2006; Mešić et al., 2019). Hence, most approaches to teaching optics build on conceptual
change (Haagen-Schützenhöfer & Hopf, 2020; Uwamahoro et al., 2021).
A geometric optics curriculum developed and iteratively refned over a period of six years by
Haagen-Schützenhöfer and Hopf (2020) initially rests on three main ideas: (1) the sender–emission–
receiver (SER) model of vision, (2) rays of light, and (3) a point-to-point mapping model of image
formation. The SER model of vision serves as a starting point since it is well known that under-
standing of how vision works is essential for students to understand optical phenomena. To explain
phenomena involving secondary light sources, the SER mechanism is later developed into the
sender–emission–scattering–receiver (SESR) model. Students are helped to learn to adequately use
light rays as a model. Finally, objects are conceptualized as a collection of light-emitting points. Lenses
are then introduced as optical systems that converge these light bundles to an image point. Later, this
point-to-point model is developed into ray diagrams. The curriculum has been thoroughly tested,
and as a result changes and additions have been made. The additions include the introduction of the
idea of color after the discussion of vision and visibility. A large-scale quasi-experimental study on
the curriculum suggests improved learning for students taught by this curriculum in comparison to
students being taught in traditional instruction without reference to the SERS model.
Other geometric optics curricula take a similar, yet less refned approach. More specifcally, they
follow a similar sequence of ideas, but focus on other aspects of optics or diferent media. M. J.
Leonard et al. (2013), for example, situate a geometric optics curriculum in the context of telescopes.
Uwamahoro et al. (2021) enrich an optics curriculum with laboratory experiments, PhET simula-
tions and YouTube videos to the efect that the latter two groups outperform the other groups in
terms of their learning. In addition to revised curricula, there is a broad range of studies focusing on
how to address specifc issues within geometric optics, including the use of tutorials (Wosilait et al.,
1998) and simulations (Eylon et al., 1996).
Less research has focused on wave optics. Wosilait et al. (1998) designed a tutorial that makes
intensive use of the analogy between water waves and light to overcome common student difcul-
ties in learning about double-slit interference, multiple-slit interference, single-slit difraction, and
combined interference and difraction. Colin and Viennot (2001) suggest, based on an analysis of
student difculties, that there are two important strategies to address students’ difculties: raising the
awareness of the status of drawings, and the “backward selection” of paths of light; and Stefanel et al.
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(2014) present a modeling approach to single-slit difraction, beginning with a qualitative analysis of
difraction patterns before moving to quantitative modeling intensity distribution based on Huygens’
principle. Taking this work as a starting point, Mešić et al. (2016) highlight the importance of specifc
representations of the behavior of light waves in space and time to develop a conceptual understand-
ing of wave optics. The authors compare three representations to visualizing waves: sinusoidal curves,
sequences of electric vectors, and phasors, fnding that students being taught using the latter two
visualizations outperformed those being taught using sinusoidal curves, with a slightly better perfor-
mance for those who learned with phasors.
In summary, the research on teaching and learning of optics resembles research on the teaching
and learning of mechanics. There is a considerable number of curricula, mostly curricula that aim
to account for students’ everyday conceptions and hence improve learning. Many of these curricula
pay specifc attention to having students actively develop a ray model of light (in geometric optics)
or wave model (in wave optics). A broad range of research has also focused on how students can be
best supported in developing understanding of specifc phenomena (e.g., optical images). What is
missing, so far, is research on how students’ progress in developing an understanding of geometric or
wave optics across existing approaches.
Electricity
Electricity can be organized into electrostatics, the area of electricity being concerned with charges
and the behavior of charges and charged objects, and electrodynamics, the area being concerned with
electric circuits; the ideas of current, voltage, and resistance; as well as induction and electromagnetic
waves. Students’ problems with understanding electricity, in particular their everyday concepts, are
well documented (Metioui et al., 1996; Stocklmayer & Treagust, 1996). These concepts include
prominent everyday concepts of currents, such as: current is transformed into light, or a bulb lights
up when negative and positive charges clash (clashing current). Issues that have been found to be
particularly challenging are the concept of potential diference (Cohen et al., 1983) and electric and
electromagnetic felds (e.g., Viennot & Rainson, 1992). There appears to be less research on every-
day conceptions about charge and the behavior of charges (Hazelton et al., 2013). There is, however,
work that suggests that in the transition from electrostatics to electrodynamics a functioning micro-
scopic model is mandatory for understanding electrical circuits (Eylon & Ganiel, 1990).
Much research on how to teach electricity is located at the college entry level. Kohlmyer et al.
(2009), for example, compare students’ learning in a traditional introductory electromagnetism
course and one based on the Matter & Interactions curriculum. The Matter & Interactions cur-
riculum reorganizes the sequence of ideas, using the development of students’ understanding of the
feld concept and its interactions with matter at the microscopic level as a red thread (Chabay &
Sherwood, 2006), implementing the fndings by Eylon and Ganiel (1990). More specifcally, the
Matter & Interactions curriculum begins with stationary charges, electric felds, and their efects
on matter, followed by a focus on moving charges, magnetic felds, and a microscopic analysis of
circuits. The learning progression then moves to reasoning about patterns of time-constant felds in
space, as well as Gauss’s and Ampere’s laws. Finally, the focus turns to time-varying felds, Faraday’s
law, and Maxwell’s equations. The fndings about students’ learning are clearly in favor of those who
studied the Matter & Interactions curriculum compared to the traditional curriculum (Kohlmyer
et al., 2009). Building on a prior study on students’ difculties, McDermott and Shafer (1992) and
Shafer and McDermott (1992) developed a lab- and inquiry-based curriculum and a combination
of lecture and tutorials curriculum. The sequence of instruction implements model building as a
strategy, beginning with the development of a qualitative model of a simple electric circuit using the
concepts of current and resistance. Subsequently, more complex electrical circuits are investigated,
developing the model of the electric circuit into semi-quantitative model; in doing so, new concepts,
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such as potential diference or electromotive force, are brought in (Zuza et al., 2020). The concepts
of current, resistance, and potential diference are quantifed as the last point. The curriculum also
attends to specifc difculties that students may have, for example, with interpreting circuit diagrams
or the superposition of felds (see also Rainson & Viennot, 1997).
In summary, research on teaching electricity has produced a range of curricula for the college
entry level, that build on students’ understanding of matter to develop core ideas of electricity and
magnetism. What is missing, however, are insights into how students are best supported in develop-
ing an understanding of electricity as they progress from secondary to upper secondary school.
Thermodynamics
The last and probably most challenging classical area of physics is thermodynamics. Research has
repeatedly demonstrated the many problems that students have with core concepts such as tempera-
ture, heat, and internal (or thermal) energy (Haryono & Aini, 2021; McLure et al., 2020). More
specifcally, students were found to conceptualize heat and cold as substances and temperature as
a measure of their amount (Irawati & Sofanto, 2019) and to have difculties with the frst law of
thermodynamics (van Roon et al., 1994). In contrast to the broad range of research into students’
problems in developing a deeper understanding of thermodynamics, there is little research on how
to improve the teaching and learning of thermodynamics; and this research is mostly focused on
analyzing learning in the context of existing curricula, the development of new curricula, and again
mostly situated at the college entry level (Bain et al., 2014; Mulop et al., 2014).
One exception is a study by Cox et al. (2003) that examines the efect of teaching thermodynam-
ics with Physlets. The study uses materials that build on kinetic theory models. The materials in turn
use Physlets to visualize abstract thermodynamic concepts, such as the behavior of the particles of a
gas, support students in moving beyond a plug-and-chug problem-solving approach, and ofer stu-
dents opportunities to explore the behavior of thermodynamic systems by changing the parameters
of the underlying model. Similarly, Lewis et al. (1993) and Junglas (2006) present simulations to sup-
port engineering students learning about gas particles, the laws of thermodynamics, as well as ther-
modynamic engines. Findings by Lewis et al. (1993) suggest that students who used the simulations
in addition to the traditional curriculum developed a more normatively appropriate understanding
of core thermodynamic concepts.
Several researchers have ofered computer-based or online courses, amongst them Y. Liu (2011)
and Bullen and Russell (2007). Y. Liu (2011), for example, ofers a software designed to support
students in understanding thermodynamics by helping them solve three types of problems: to deter-
mine gas status after specifed processes, to evaluate thermodynamic properties at a given state; and to
analyze power, refrigeration, and heat pump cycles. The software ofers simulations to solve each of
these types of problems at diferent examples. The online course of Ngo and Lai (2003) ofers 22 small
lectures on thermodynamics content enriched with interactive simulations, animations, and examples.
In addition, the course ofers fve interactive performance tasks (so-called workshops) designed to
support students in developing the ability to work with thermodynamics tables. The vast majority of
this work, however, is directed at university-level students. One example of a thermodynamics course
directed at secondary school students is presented by Linn and Songer (1991). Using the computer-as-
a-lab-partner curriculum as a basis, the authors compare four diferent implementations in regard to
the extent to which these implements support students in developing a more integrated understanding
of thermodynamics. Focusing on temperature, heat energy, and phase state changes, the authors found
substantial advantages of students actively predicting outcomes and reconciling results and students
using a heat-fow model of thermodynamics to make sense of experimental fndings.
In summary, the broad range of work on the teaching and learning of thermodynamics has heavily
built on educational technology, in particular computers and simulations, to provide students with
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Teaching Physics
simplifed access to the complex models underlying thermodynamics. In particular, representations

of the relationships between a microscopic model of matter and macroscopic behavior, especially
phase state changes, appear to be promising for better student learning. For secondary school, the
early work of Linn and Songer (1991) suggests that a similar approach focusing on building a consis-
tent model of energy fows and engaging students in active refection of their experimental observa-
tions in light of this model had a positive efect on students’ learning (Goovaerts et al., 2019).
Modern Content Areas
Quantum Mechanics
Quantum physics has emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, when physicists found in difer-
ent experiments that the exchange of energy between electromagnetic waves (e.g., light) and matter
can only take place in multiples of Planck’s constant. Since then, quantum physics has expanded
the mathematical theoretical descriptions and scope of physics from the previously well-investigated
meso world to the micro world. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, the probabilistic
nature of quantum measurements is a refection of the inherently probabilistic behavior of quantum
entities, and the properties of a quantum system are indeterminate until measured. This includes the
collapse of the wave function as representation of a physics transition from an indeterminate state to
a well-defned state.
Students educated in classical physics prefer a realist perspective where all physical properties can
be determined in space and time (Baily & Finkelstein, 2009). This fundamentally diferent perspec-
tive compared to classical physics, and the deep integration of physics and mathematical concepts,
causes many difculties with quantum physics (Müller & Wiesner, 1999; Scotti di Uccio et al., 2020).
Students tend, for example, to interpret quantum phenomena using causal relations (Krijtenburg-
Lewerissa et al., 2017); they conceptualize the idea of observation as looking, which hinders the
development of an understanding of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics (Huseby &
Bungum, 2019), and fail to understand how measurement afects a system (Zhu & Singh, 2012). Stu-
dents are mostly thinking of light being both a particle and a wave, but few students understand this
description as indeterminate and well defned (Baily & Finkelstein, 2010; Henriksen et al., 2018).
Ireson (1999) identifes three clusters that are best described along two dimensions: Dimension one
refects students’ thinking with respect to wave–particle duality (from absolute thinking to dual think-
ing), and dimension two is about the stability and structure of the atom and the locatability of entities
(from simple atom/deterministic mechanics to complex atom/indeterministic mechanics). Clusters
can be characterized as quantum thinking (dual thinking, complex atom/indeterministic mechanics),
intermediate thinking (between absolute and dual thinking, simple atom/deterministic mechanics),
and mechanistic thinking (absolute thinking, simple atom/deterministic mechanics). Overall, if not
adequately addressed, it seems students take a realist perspective of quantum-mechanical phenomena
(Baily & Finkelstein, 2010).
Although quantum physics is a particularly new content for school physics and is mostly taught
from the upper secondary level and above, there is a broad range of approaches to teaching quan-
tum physics (for an overview, see Bungum et al., 2015, and their project Learning and Conceptual
Development in Relativity and Quantum Physics (ReleQuant) for upper secondary school physics).
ReleQuant is implemented in the form of three web-based modules (see also Henriksen et al., 2014,
p. 681f) and emphasizes the discussion between teacher and students as well as amongst students,
supporting students in refecting upon their thinking.
Petri and Niedderer (1998) describe a quantum mechanics unit for upper secondary physics. As
in the case of several approaches to teaching classical areas of physics, at the center of that unit is an
atomic model based on the Schrödinger equation. The unit successively builds an understanding of
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the atom “using eigenstates of the atom to describe bound states by their energy and spatial form of
orbitals and nodal surfaces” (Petri & Niedderer, 1998, p. 1077). Beginning by introducing the free
electron as a quantum object, before introducing the atom and various states of the atom as difer-
ent spatial orbital structures describing a time-independent distribution of an electron around the
nucleus. The wave function is initially interpreted as the probability of an electron’s location, main-
taining a particle view. The interpretation of the wave function shifts to the charge distribution to
overcome the conception of orbits, and the movement of electrons in orbits. The unit makes use of
computers, more specifcally the modeling software STELLA (https://iseesystems.com/about.aspx),
to avoid difculties arising from the complex mathematical nature of quantum physics.
Fischler and Lichtfeldt (1992) also present a quantum mechanics unit for high school physics that
avoids any reference to classical physics. The unit starts with electron difraction patterns that stu-
dents are already familiar with from wave optics. The unit then moves on to double-slit experiments
with electrons before introducing Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Subsequently, the quantiza-
tion of energy (for a square-well potential and the hydrogen atom) are derived by establishing an
analogy between the wave-like behavior of electrons in the double-slit experiment and the square-
well potential. This analogy is further explored in subsequent experiments (e.g., the Franck–Hertz
experiment). Only at the very end, the quantum nature of light and issues of interpretation of this
new perspective on physics are introduced. Results of an initial evaluation are favorable, suggesting
that students from the intervention group questioned their traditional conceptions, where students in
the control group still tended to approach the quantum phenomena with classical ideas.
Müller and Wiesner (2002) focus on the probability interpretation, the measurement process, and
the properties of quantum objects. The respective unit is divided into two parts. The frst part focuses
on photons as quantum objects, the second on electrons. This part starts with the photoelectric
efect, an illustration of the preparation of properties at the example of the polarization of light, lead-
ing to the examination of the wave and particle behavior of light in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer
using a virtual laboratory. The frst part ends with the probability interpretation. Part two picks up
from there, introducing the wave behavior of electrons with an electron difraction tube, followed
by the double-slit experiment. Based on a probability interpretation of the experiment, in the con-
text of which the wave functions, the position property and the measurement issues related to this
property are introduced. This part concludes with the introduction and exploration of Heisenberg’s
uncertainty principle.
Kaur et al. (2020), amongst others, proposed an attempt for the lower secondary level to enable
students to explore the ontological conceptual changes needed for a shift from the Newtonian (causal)
to the Einsteinian paradigm by reducing the complexity of the mathematical model of relativity and
warping of time, the curvature of spacetime and the quantization of radiation.
In terms of teaching methods, a broad range of methods are used across these approaches, from
traditional experiments to virtual experiments to simulations. One method that has received particu-
lar attention in the context of the teaching and learning of quantum physics are thought experiments.
Velentzas and Halkia (2013) use a thought experiment to teach Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
Findings from their study suggest that using thought experiments can help students master some
of the challenges they are typically facing in learning about quantum mechanics. Asikainen and
Hirvonen (2014) use the double-slit thought experiment to probe physics teachers’ understanding of
quantum mechanics. The study was carried out in the context of a quantum mechanics course for
preservice physics teachers and non-physics in-service teachers trying to qualify for teaching phys-
ics. The study combined a paper-and-pencil test asking a series of questions about the double-slit
thought experiment (e.g., what the intensity distribution for a beam of electrons passing the slit look
like) and interviews asking teachers to explain their reasoning about the double-slit experiment.
In summary, provided that quantum physics is an important yet relatively new area of school
physics, there is a considerable amount of research and respective approaches to teaching quantum
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mechanics. Common methods are computer-based simulations and thought experiments. What is
lacking is a systematic comparison of the diferent approaches, examining, for example, the efect of
taking a nonhistorical approach to quantum physics (e.g., Fischler & Lichtfeldt, 1992) in comparison
to the (dominant) historical approach (Müller & Wiesner, 2002).
Special Relativity Theory

Galileo Galilei (1623) is considered the frst to formulate the relativity principle. He argued that an
observer below deck of a not accelerated ship cannot deduce from the processes around him whether
the ship is in motion or not or: all physics laws (of mechanics) must apply equally in all inertial frames.
The frst problems with this view arose in electrodynamics; here electromagnetic felds and charge and
current distributions depend on a nonrelativistic transformation (relative velocity v≪c) of the consid-
ered inertial frame. For example, the induction voltage depends only on the change of the fow and
not on whether it was induced electrically or magnetically. Therefore, before Einstein, an absolute
inertial system was assumed, which was identifed as aether. Einstein refuted the aether theory and
instead extended Galileo’s postulate of relativity for mechanics to electrodynamics and optics. The
laws of physics, therefore also those of electrodynamics and optics, should apply to observers in all
inertial frames. Einstein introduced a maximum velocity c as a natural constant, which could describe
the behavior of matter in space and time consistently. With that, Einstein’s special theory of relativity
(STR) assumes that there cannot be the one inertial system but that one inertial system can be at rest
relative to another inertial system when gravity is excluded. In the general theory of relativity (GTR),
inertial systems are described with the inclusion of gravitational forces. The STR summarizes space
and time in a four-dimensional continuum called spacetime. The principle of SRT that was briefy
described and the invariance of the speed of light and their consequences, such as the relativity of
simultaneity, time dilation, and length contraction, is content for the upper secondary school level.
Already Hewson (1982) reports that c as maximum velocity in all reference frames is accepted
by students. Problems of understanding occur when the consequences of the STR are to be argued.
The transition from the previous absolute concept of space, time, and length to the relative one is not
only a mathematical problem but a change from an egocentric observer to an observer who observes
his own inertial frame and changes from one system to the other using Lorenz transformation, as the
following example demonstrates.
To teach the Lorenz transformation to the length contraction, one can start with the mathemati-
cal description and prove it empirically with the measurement of muons on earth. The lifetime of
a muon is about t = 2.3125 μs, its velocity about v = 0.9958c. From 𝑠 = 𝑣·𝑡 we get just a distance
traveled of s = 689.36 m before the muons reach the Earth through the atmosphere. This theoreti-
cally calculated distance is only a fraction of the actual distance traveled in our atmosphere of about
10 km. Now, how is it possible that muons can travel such a long distance contrary to the theoretical
calculations? The answer is given by special relativity, which states that at speeds close to the speed of
light, space and time change. More specifcally, muons traveling near the speed of light experience a
relativistic efect that shortens their distance from Earth. Therefore, the muons do not decay before
they can be measured on the Earth’s surface. According to Hughes and Kersting (2021), teachers have
to consider several forms of representation: mathematical formula; explanation, if necessary; pictures;
active mathematical elements (calculation of length contraction); and the critical assessment, whether
this makes sense in physics (relativistically). Nevertheless, the previous example is only indirectly
empirically supported by research.
According to Villani and Arruda (1998, p. 88):
It seems that the rising status of the new theory (the relativity theory) begins with an initial
understanding, followed by initial (superficial) plausibility and fruitfulness. Next there is a
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phase of increasing intelligibility and intellectual use of the theory and its aspects. The great-
est advance seems to be in solving some of the paradoxes involved. Very rarely, however,
does the learning process turn the Special Theory of Relativity into something plausible
for the students.
Kamphorst et al. (2019) propose to help students change their perspective by using event dia-
grams, Chu et al. (2019) expanded the idea of event diagrams using virtual reality environments to
visualize the twin paradox and the Lorentz contraction or whiteboard animations, as did Chiriacescu
et al. (2020). It is a matter of concern that there are hardly any investigations that examine the abilities
of students to develop physics concepts that cannot be experienced and therefore must always remain
abstract. Accordingly, there are no teaching proposals that in principle go beyond the approach of
visualization and thought experiments, as it was already proposed and practiced by Einstein. Nev-
ertheless, there is a long tradition of teaching along multiple representations. According to Ott
et al. (2018) and Vogt et al. (2020), multimedia learning research can help to structure instructional
material efectively to support constructing a mental model for abstract content such as STR. An
overview about teaching and learning STR is given by Alstein et al. (2021).
Summary
Describing the totality of physics education is not an easy task given the heterogeneous education
systems in the world. Therefore, we referred to standards and profles oriented to the OECD and
governmental standards and to research in the feld of science education. Empirical research in the
feld of education in general can only be generalized to a limited extent. This is partly due to the fact
that empirical research in schools started only in the 1950s and that it is always very complex and
with many systems-related limitations. In physics education research, early work was defned by the
presence of misconceptions (everyday language and expert language) and not primarily by students’
competencies, such as being able to apply concepts, motivation, or experimental skills. Only since
the end of the last century have learning processes and learning progress become a research goal.
There are systemic diferences in the design of elementary schools, as well as lower and upper sec-
ondary levels, across countries, making it difcult to compare and summarize classroom organization
and practice. Elementary schools almost universally aim to introduce children to scientifc and social
contexts in their respective societies, with an emphasis on the immediate environment. Scientifc
work and the interconnectedness of the diferent areas (multiperspectives) are more or less taken into
account. In some cases of lower secondary schools, physics is integrated into science lessons under
the heading of scientifc literacy and scientifc ways of working. In many countries, physics and the
other sciences are taught as separate subjects, as in the upper secondary level, but with scientifc
literacy and science work as an explicit focus in each subject. In upper secondary school, students
are usually prepared for university studies, so physics classes are often very mathematically oriented
toward universities. On both levels group work is often emphasized because it is believed to be an
important way to achieve results in science today. However, a distinction between the conditions that
allow learning and research is rarely made. Group work is therefore usually integrated into lessons
not only because it is supposed to allow better learning, but also to provide students with an idea of
how physics and science research in general is practiced today.
In the individual areas of physics, curriculum units have been proposed. Some aim at support-
ing students in developing conceptual understanding. Others emphasize learning that supports the
development of scientifc practices, such as problem solving. Many of these approaches, however, are
insufciently investigated for their efects. Accompanying research is often designed to show how the
units meet their respective goals or do so better than traditional instruction. But little research focuses
on how the units function; that is, for which students they work and why.
646
Teaching Physics
The concepts of teacher education range from university-based scientifc education for teachers
at all school levels, including subject-specifc education, teaching–learning psychology and pedagogy,
to education at special teacher seminars for teachers at the elementary and lower secondary level
and subject-matter training for teachers at the upper secondary level. The order of physics content
depends very much on the historical development of the science of physics, with an increase in ori-
entation toward current scientifc, social, and technological developments. In curricula and teacher
education there is rarely a problematization of the complexity of everyday problems. In practice, this
situation often leads to trivialization and misunderstanding. This is especially problematic because
physics concepts are actually always formed with reference to physical-mathematical modeling, and
this modeling becomes more complicated as problems become more complex. However, over the
past decades physics education research has accumulated a substantive body of knowledge about
students’ learning, instructional strategies, and efective instruction and curriculum, that has proven
to help address many of these challenges in practice (e.g., the physical-mathematical modeling of
complex problems, Pospiech & Fischer, 2021), and moreover provides a sound basis for continued
research into understanding how students learn about physics and how they can be best supported in
doing so through quality teaching.
Acknowledgments
We thank Prof. Dr. Andrée Tiberghien and Prof. Dr. David Treagust for their insightful comments
to our chapter that helped us understand the chapter from a reader’s perspective and subsequently
improve and clarify the line of argument.
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21
CHEMISTRY EDUCATION
RESEARCH
Recent Trends and the Onset of the Pandemic Era
Sibel Erduran and Aybuke Pabuçcu Akış
Introduction
Chemistry education research (CER) involves investigations into the teaching and learning of chem-
istry through qualitative and quantitative methods (National Research Council, 2012). There is now
a wide range of research-based publications that take CER as the main focus of their content, such
as the Journal of Chemical Education and Chemistry Education Research and Practice. Furthermore, science
education journals such as International Journal of Science Education, Science Education, Journal of Research
in Science Teaching, Science & Education, and Research in Science Education often publish manuscripts
dedicated to CER content. There are also chemistry-related journals, such as Foundations of Chem-
istry, that ofer theoretical perspectives on the nature of chemistry. Considering the vast amount of
literature on CER, it is beyond the scope of this chapter to provide an exhaustive account of the
recent history, let alone a comprehensive overview of CER. Rather, the purpose of the chapter is to
provide a brief overview of some recent trends in CER and then to focus on a selected set of themes
based on contemporary educational relevance and urgency of research for impacting educational
practice.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth a major shift in society as well as the
educational landscape. There has been growing mistrust in science, although one could also expect
appreciation of science given the importance of scientifc research in developing life-saving vaccines.
In order to unpack the issue of trust in the context of the pandemic, Eichengreen et al. (2021) exam-
ined how exposure to previous epidemics afected trust in science and scientists. They focused on
individuals exposed to epidemics in their country of residence involving 75,000 individuals in 138
countries with data on global epidemics since 1970. The researchers have thus demonstrated that
such exposure has no impact on views of science as an endeavor but that it signifcantly reduces trust
in scientists and in the benefts of their work. A signifcant fnding of Eichengreen and colleagues’
study was that the decline in trust is driven by individuals with little previous training in science
subjects. Such observations have raised questions about how science is taught in schools and universi-
ties, and indeed how the public’s understanding of the nature of science can be enhanced. Concerns
about public understanding of how science works has been growing in recent years (Dalyot et al.,
2019), particularly in relation to the ability to scrutinize scientifc claims and evidence, including
pressing issues such as climate change (Phoenix et al., 2017).
During the pandemic, many chemistry teachers and instructors were asked to carry on their
teaching online (Müssig et. al., 2020). Educators have thus faced new challenges in their teaching,
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-25 657

Sibel Erduran and Aybuke Pabuçcu Akısş
and new questions emerged for chemistry teaching and learning. For example, how can students
carry out chemistry experiments at home? Can applications on mobile devices help the learning of
chemistry? How can new technological tools, such as augmented reality (Ovens et al., 2020) and
platforms such as virtual reality (Winkelmann et al., 2017), support chemistry education? Further-
more, it has become increasingly important to consider chemistry in an interdisciplinary context
(Crujeiras-Perez & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2019). Research in integrated STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics) education has been growing, as evidenced by the emergence of new
journals, such as the International Journal of STEM Education, Journal for STEM Education Research, and
Journal of STEM Teacher Education. A major rationale for the integration of STEM subjects is that
students need to be prepared to engage in complex problem solving and exhibit critical-thinking
skills in rapidly changing digital societies and knowledge economies. The global urgency to improve
STEM education has been argued to be driven by environmental and social impacts of the 21st
century, which in turn jeopardizes global security and economic stability (Kelley & Knowles, 2016).
In this chapter, we review recent research on such themes in an effort to identify how some example
areas of CER have developed in recent years and particularly in the last two years since the emergence
of the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering the magnitude of the pandemic and its impact on education,
our intention is to highlight the landscape of CER that has increasing relevance and to problematize
where further research may be needed given the changing circumstances. We are motivated by the need
to explore how CER has responded to the demands of the pandemic context, which has highlighted a
significant mistrust in science and scientific reasoning (Barry, 2020), and as such, it has put into question
how chemistry education is treating understanding of what chemistry is about and how evidence-based
reasoning works in chemistry. Hence, we are guided by the need to explore the extent to which CER
has investigated understanding of what chemistry is about (i.e., nature of chemistry) and how evidence-
based reasoning (i.e., argumentation) works in chemistry. Furthermore, the pandemic context has led to
a significant uptake of technological tools to facilitate the teaching and learning of chemistry as educa-
tional institutions switched to online learning environments. Finally, the pandemic context has put into
question how interdisciplinary and complex problem solving can be integrated in STEM education.
Following a brief background on CER, we will thus focus on recent research on the nature of
chemistry. This body of literature (Erdruran, 2009, 2013; Erduran & Kaya, 2019; Erduran & Muga-
loglu, 2014; Erduran & Scerri, 2003; Hofstein et al., 2019; Izquierdo-Aymerich, 2013; Lombardi &
Labarca, 2007; Sarıtaş et al., 2021; Talanquer, 2013; Tobin, 2013) highlights a meta-perspective on
how chemistry works and clarifies some key aspects of chemistry knowledge and practices that are
important to capture in chemistry education. Subsequently, we turn to the literature on argumen-
tation in chemistry education (Erduran & Pabuccu, 2015; Erduran, 2019; Henderson & Osborne,
2019; Pabuccu, 2019; Pabuccu & Erduran, 2017; Towns et al., 2019), which has been growing in
recent years. Research on argumentation has highlighted the importance of students’ engagement
in norms and discursive practices of chemistry. Next, we discuss some recent developments about
research on virtual learning environments (Abdinejad et al., 2021; Eriksen et al., 2020; Habig, 2020),
which are gaining popularity particularly given the pandemic context. Finally, we turn to research
on STEM education and its interplay with CER (Pinger et al., 2020; York & Orgill, 2020). In all
cases, following a broad overview of research primarily from 2012, we focus on analyses of literature
in the January 2020–July 2021 time frame to interrogate the most recent coverage of CER. Through
a search on the ERIC database, we generate the profile of papers in order to draw out trends in the
literature. Research on these themes illustrate the potential of CER in improving chemistry teach-
ing and learning and highlight relatively new fields of research that hold the potential to expand the
evidence base in CER. Our review will illustrate not only the most immediate trends in research in
these areas but also will signal the need for significant shifts in the dominant areas of research in CER.
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Chemistry Education Research
What Is CER?
Recent examples of CER include emphases on the pandemic context (Talanquer et al., 2020) as
well as particular educational issues, such as formative assessment (Herridge et al., 2021), three-
dimensional learning (Cooper, 2020), mechanistic reasoning (Caspari et al., 2018), argumentation
(Deng & Flynn, 2021), and action research (Ivano et al., 2018; Mamlok-Naaman & Eilks, 2012),
as well as foci on particular subdomains and applications of chemistry, such as organic chemistry
(Crandel et al., 2020; Graulich & Bhattacharyya, 2017) and nanotechnology (Blonder & Mamlok-
Naaman, 2016). Early defnitions of CER (e.g., Kornhauser, 1979) advocated a chemical approach
to chemistry education research, using methods and approaches from chemistry itself. More recent
defnitions have emphasized a functional approach in highlighting the utility of CER in developing
understanding for improving chemistry education (Herron & Nurrenbern, 1999). Bodner (2005)
noted “chemistry education research is like research in any domain of chemistry. It is the process,
not the product that is important”. In articulating the nature of evidence in CER, Cooper and Stowe
(2018) stress a diferentiation of CER from chemistry research as follows:
CER studies difer from those in chemistry because (for the most part) the systems being
studied are composed of people rather than molecules and are therefore subject to the vaga-
ries of human behavior. Over the years methodologies developed by learning scientists have
informed CER studies, allowing the collection of data from which evidence-based argu-
ments could be made. Because CER is focused on how students learn about the behavior of
atoms and molecules rather than directly studying the atoms and molecule themselves, the
theories that guide the research, the experimental methodologies, and the data-collection
instruments must difer from those utilized in traditional chemistry research.
(p. 6053)
Such emphasis in the diferentiation of CER from chemistry may seem like a subtle point, but it
highlights a major issue in the history of CER where researchers have been more concerned about
subject matter than the educational research elements of CER. Indeed, a signifcant period in the his-
tory of CER has been what Cooper and Stowe (2018) call the “era of personal empiricism”, which
is framed from 1880 to 1964. Here researchers tended to emphasize the knowledge and technical
skills that students of chemistry need to acquire. Many studies in this period focused on descriptive
accounts without much theoretical framing.
It is not surprising that a great deal of emphasis was placed on subject knowledge during this
period and indeed beyond this period, arguably even to this day given the corresponding develop-
ments in the chemistry curriculum. Traditional approaches in chemistry curricula have emphasized
content knowledge (e.g., chemical reactions), practical work (e.g., titration experiments), and soci-
etal aspects of chemistry (e.g., efects of chemical pollution on the environment) (Erduran & Kaya,
2019). With the popularization of constructivism, another era began in CER from 1964 and lasted
until the early 2000s, when Cooper and Stowe (2018) signaled a shift when the National Research
Council research report “How People Learn” was published (National Research Council, 2000).
The articulation of expert knowledge in this report provided a goal toward which chemical educators
could specify learning objectives. A framework that has made a signifcant impact in the CER com-
munity in defning expertise in chemistry is Johnstone’s triangle that highlights the macro, sub-micro,
and symbolic levels of chemistry (Johnstone, 1991). In concluding their review, Cooper and Stowe
(2018) proposed a set of recommendations about the future of CER as (1) shifting the focus to a more
constructivist perspective, (2) understanding how to efectively make use of technology, (3) designing
appropriate assessments, (4) integrating relevant contexts into instruction, and (5) examining how
transformed teaching and learning might be disseminated and sustained (pp. 6078–6079). In this
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chapter, we will build on these recommendations and bring in further under-emphasized areas of
research in an efort to incentivize the CER community to shift toward investigations that require
further scrutiny.
Recent Trends in CER

In the past two decades, major reviews of chemistry education research have been produced (Cooper &
Stowe, 2018; Pinger et al., 2020; Towns & Kraft; 2011; Teo et al., 2014). Some of these reviews have
traced the history of CER broadly, as well as in the context of particular topics, such as the teaching
and learning of chemical kinetics (Bain & Towns, 2016) and spatial reasoning (Harle & Towns, 2011).
Teo et al. (2014) presented a content analysis of 650 empirical chemistry education research papers
published in two top-tiered chemistry education journals – Chemistry Education Research and Practice
and Journal of Chemical Education – and four top-tiered science education journals – International Journal
of Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Research in Science Teaching, and Science Educa-
tion from 2004 to 2013 (see Table 21.1). The authors found that empirical (CER) papers accounted
for 7.7% of the publications in the four science education journals. The most highly published area of
research was in conceptions and conceptual change, and most studies adopted mixed methods. The
majority of the studies were conducted in higher-education contexts and in the United States.
The researchers traced the methodological approaches of the papers, indicating the number and
percentage of papers that reported qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods studies. There were
relatively more quantitative than qualitative studies. Most studies adopted mixed methods. and “mix-
ing” typically occurred at the methods level with the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches,
such as interviews and Likert-scale surveys. Additionally, many mixed-methods studies involved
the transformation of qualitative data into quantitative data by coding and counting the frequency.
Although there was a great deal of emphasis on students’ conceptions and misconceptions, only a
few studies examined how misconceptions and alternative conceptions can be efectively addressed.
Furthermore, Teo et al. (2014) noted that very few studies examined how factors such as age, race,
gender, culture, and ethnicity afect teaching and learning. Finally, the majority of the studies were
conducted in higher-education contexts, most of them focused on general chemistry or courses at
the introductory level. A few studies were reported on upper-level undergraduates who majored in
chemistry or postgraduates in chemistry.
Table 21.1 Areas of Research in Chemistry Education Represented in Papers Published in Top Chemistry and
Science Education Research Journals (from Teo et al., 2014, p. 473)
Categories Number of Papers Percentage
Learning – students’ and teachers’ conceptions and conceptual change 170 26.2
Teaching 130 20.0
Learning – classroom contexts and learner characteristics 126 19.4
Goals and policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment 106 16.3
Educational technology 71 10.9
Teacher education 31 4.8
Cultural, social, and gender issues 11 1.7
History, philosophy, and nature of chemistry 4 0.6
Informal learning 1 0.1
Total 650 100
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In terms of research methods used in CER, Watts and Finkenstaed-Quinn (2021) argue that
qualitative research drives much of chemistry education research activity. Drawing from the litera-
ture on qualitative research methodology and content analysis, they describe the approaches for
establishing the reliability of qualitative data analysis using various measures of inter-rater reliability
and processes including negotiated agreement. They used this background literature to guide their
review of research articles containing a qualitative component and published in Chemistry Educa-
tion Research and Practice and the Journal of Chemical Education from the years 2010 through 2019
for whether they report evidence of reliability. They also followed this by a more in-depth analysis
of how articles from the years 2017 through 2019 discuss reliability. Their analysis indicates that,
overall, researchers are presenting evidence of reliability in CER articles by reporting reliability
measures, describing a process of negotiated agreement, or mentioning reliability and the steps
taken to demonstrate it.
Following an overview of the background on CER, we will now focus on four areas of research:
nature of chemistry, argumentation, technology, and STEM education. We focus on these areas
of research since there has been recent coverage of trends about these themes in both science and
chemistry education research literature, and we aim to investigate how such trends may have shifted
in the literature. Among these themes, argumentation, technology, and STEM education have gained
increasing popularity, while nature of chemistry has been reported to be lagging behind in CER. Teo
et al. (2014) reported that of 650 papers surveyed in top journals such as Chemistry Education Research
and Practice and Journal of Chemical Education from 2004 to 2013, only 4, or 0.6%, were dedicated to
history, philosophy, and nature of chemistry. It is thus worthwhile to examine the extent to which
there may have been any uptake in the literature about the theme of nature of chemistry. In contrast,
according to research on content analysis of top journals in science education carried out by Lee
et al. (2009), there has been a steady increase in the number of research publications focusing on
“argumentation”, which has “gained signifcant attention” (p. 2016) in recent years.
Hence, we are interested in investigating the extent to which CER has capitalized on this rela-
tively recent emphasis in the broader science education research literature. Through a systematic
analysis of the literature, Wu et al. (2021) identifed recent trends on the technology-enhanced
chemistry learning studies published in Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals from 2010 to
2019. The authors report that researchers are placing increasing emphasis on learners’ experience and
skill development in the learning process. Similarly, Li et al. (2020) identifed STEM education as a
rapidly developing feld of research that has taken discipline-based research toward a more interdis-
ciplinary account.
In each case, we will frst illustrate the background in the literature and subsequently turn to a
survey of the feld from 2012, particularly focusing on the period of January 2020–July 2021. In each
case, we have used the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) social sciences database
(https://eric.ed.gov) to trace the articles published in journals in this period. This database has been
used by many educational researchers to conduct literature reviews (Phillips, 2019). ERIC was estab-
lished in 1966, and it is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the US Department of
Education, is an index and selective full text database of educational research. The database contains
millions of bibliographic records for journal articles, books, conference papers, policy papers, and
other materials. We restricted our search to journal articles only because we wanted to capture pub-
lications that have been peer-reviewed. Publications focusing on research trends in science education
have tended to focus on particular journals as the content of their investigations. For example, Lin
et al. (2019) chose some key journals such as Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching,
and International Journal of Science Education to trace the trends in science education research. Consid-
ering the existence of journals dedicated to CER, such as Journal of Chemical Education and Chemistry
Education Research and Practice, we wanted to ensure that a broader range of journals were included
in the review.
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The search of publications in all cases included the use of the word “chemistry” and was comple-
mented with other words such as “STEM”, which will be described in each section separately.
Where there were instances from subfelds of chemistry, such as biochemistry and food chemistry,
we have included these articles as well when they were related to educational issues. Only articles
published during this period were included. In terms of the participants, we focused on students
(both secondary and tertiary) and teachers (both preservice and in-service). In focusing on recent
trends in CER, a rapid review was chosen as the method, over a more extensive systematic review.
This rapid systematic review synthesizes chemistry education research on using diferent keywords,
such as “augmented reality” and “artifcial intelligence”, coupled with chemistry from 2020 to July
2021, published in English and indexed in ERIC databases. We were guided by the following key
questions: (1) What themes did researchers investigate in their studies? And (2) what does CER
emphasize in diferent time periods, in particular since 2012, and subsequently focusing on the onset
of the pandemic from 2020 to 2021?
Research on Teaching and Learning of Nature of Chemistry

There is now a body of CER on what can be broadly referred to as “nature of chemistry” (Chamizo,
2013; Erduran, 2001; Erduran & Scerri, 2003; Lombardi & Labarca, 2007; Sendur et al., 2017;
Tumay, 2016; Woody, 2013). Research on the teaching and learning of nature of chemistry aims
to understand how teachers’, and ultimately students’, engagement with epistemic aspects of chem-
istry can be enhanced. It has been argued that the immersion of students in epistemologically rich
educational contexts is likely to facilitate the development of their epistemological commitments,
metacognition, and critical thinking (Erduran & Kaya, 2019). This area of research draws from schol-
arship in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science in order to inform and enhance chemistry
teaching and learning. Reviews of the literature (Erduran & Mugaloglu, 2014) are available along
with research on how the epistemological aspects of chemistry can be integrated in chemistry teach-
ers’ training (Erduran & Kaya, 2019; Erduran et al., 2007). This literature has highlighted some key
philosophical issues related to chemistry, such as reductionism (Erduran, 2005), as well as aspects of
chemistry knowledge, such as models (Erduran & Duschl, 2004; Sarıtaş et al., 2021) and laws (Erdu-
ran, 2007; Woody, 2013).
Erduran and Kaya (2019) introduce the idea of the “epistemic core” to illustrate how particular
epistemic themes can be framed for educational purposes. The framework is from Erduran and
Dagher’s (2014) characterization of the cognitive-epistemic systems of science. The “epistemic
core”, as we defne it to signify the centrality of certain epistemic categories, is related to the aims
and values, practices, methods, and knowledge in science. As such, they are about how and why
scientifc knowledge is constructed, evaluated, and revised. Table 21.2 provides some example
contributions of the learning of the epistemic aspects of chemistry to other learning outcomes,
such as epistemological commitments, metacognition, and critical thinking. For example, in
the case of methods, students’ critical-thinking skills would be improved if they could produce
arguments for and against the use of a particular method to investigate a problem (e.g., fltration
to separate insoluble sand from sand–water mixture versus evaporation to separate salt dissolved
in water).
Studies about nature of chemistry draw their theoretical foundations from philosophy of chemis-
try (e.g., Scerri, 2000). However, the applications of philosophy of chemistry in chemical education
theory and practice have been scarce (Tumay, 2016). A rare volume on the subject was compiled in
the journal Science & Education in 2013. The volume consists of papers that deal with a range of issues
raised in philosophy of chemistry in application to chemical education. For example, Izquierdo-
Aymerich (2013) argues for the generation of chemical criteria from the history and philosophy
of chemistry for informing the design of chemistry curriculum. Kaya and Erduran (2013) focus on
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Table 21.2 Potential Benefts of Learning the Epistemic Core of Chemistry (from Erduran & Kaya, 2019, p. 13)
Aspect of Epistemic Core Epistemological Commitments Metacognition Critical Thinking
Aims and values Students appropriate a Students are aware of their Students can evaluate
set of epistemic aims and use of epistemic aims and whether chemists’ claims
values from chemistry, such values of chemistry in their are in line with their
as commitment to accurate investigations projected epistemic aims
and objective evidence and values
Practices Students are committed Students can evaluate their Students can compare
to employing appropriate understanding of chemical and contrast the strengths
chemical practices, such as practices, such as modeling and limitations of
modeling and classifcation, and classifcation diferent practices, such
in investigating problems as experimentation and
observation
Methods Students value the Students can distinguish Students can advance
importance of diversity between diferent methods arguments for and against
of methods in chemistry, in chemistry and select the use of a particular
ranging from hypothesis them to be ft for purpose method to investigate a
testing to non-manipulative in problem solving problem
observation
Knowledge Students understand Students can evaluate their Students understand the
that chemistry relies own chemistry knowledge explanatory power of
on diferent forms of and characterize it relative chemistry knowledge as
knowledge, such as to established theories, well as its limitations
theories, laws, and models, models, and laws in
and that these knowledge chemistry
forms develop in time
concept duality, chemical language, and structural explanations, to illustrate how chemistry textbooks
could be improved with insights from such work. Talanquer (2013) presents a case that dominant
universal characterizations of the nature of science fail to capture the essence of the particular disci-
plines. The central goal of this position paper is to encourage refection about the extent to which
dominant views about quality science education based on universal views of scientifc practices may
constrain school chemistry. Garritz (2013) illustrates how teaching history and philosophy of physical
sciences can illustrate that controversies and rivalries among scientists play a key role in the progress
of science and why scientifc development is not only founded on the accumulation of experimental
data. The case of quantum mechanics and quantum chemistry is used as an example because it is
historically full of controversies.
Subsequent literature about the nature of chemistry has included studies that have involved school-
based research as well as conceptual papers about the purposes of chemistry education. Tolvanen
et al. (2014) discussed a range of research and development projects conducted with science teachers.
Twenty-fve lesson plans from four diferent projects involved in creating curriculum material utiliz-
ing the historical approach in chemistry education were analyzed to describe the nature of science
content included, as well as the historical experiments and narratives used. Based on the results of
descriptive content analysis of existing curriculum materials, the authors made several suggestions on
the successful design of lesson plans utilizing the historical approach. Tumay (2016) considered the
philosophical issue of “emergence”, which has signifcant implications for understanding learning
difculties and fnding ways of addressing them in chemistry. The author argued that many miscon-
ceptions in chemistry may derive from students’ failure to consider emergence in a systemic manner
by taking into account all relevant factors in conjunction.
663
Sjöström and Talanquer (2014) highlighted knowledge areas and perspectives that are needed by
the humanistic (and critical-refexive) chemistry teacher. The authors discussed diferent humanistic
approaches in chemistry teaching, from simple contextualization to socioscientifc orientations to
multifaceted problematization. They make the distinction between knowledge “in” chemistry versus
knowledge “about” chemistry, illustrating how various facets of chemistry knowledge for teaching
can be used to characterize diferent levels of complexity in the integration of the human element
into chemistry education. More recently, Upahi and Ramnarain (2019) analyzed textbooks for types
of representations in order to unpack difculties in communicating the nature of chemistry to stu-
dents. Their fndings indicated the dominance of symbolic representations, followed by submicro-
scopic, then hybrid and multiple representations. There was no evidence of mixed representations.
Haworth and Martin (2018) developed a series of computer-based laboratory experiments in
order to support undergraduate students in understanding the three-dimensional nature of chem-
istry and biochemistry. Students were introduced to the use of ChemDraw for the production of
professional-quality molecular structures, Chem3D for visualizing molecules in three dimensions,
and VMD for investigating protein structures and dynamics. Through a series of guided experi-
ments, the researchers involved the students in explorations of the important concepts in chemistry
and biochemistry, such as stereochemistry, protein secondary structure, intermolecular interactions,
molecular recognition, and protein dynamics. The fndings indicated a positive reception by the stu-
dents. Sendur et al. (2017) investigated the impact of the basic History and Philosophy of Chemistry
course on prospective chemistry teachers’ perceptions toward chemistry and the chemist. The fnd-
ings from interview data indicated that a large majority of the prospective teachers were able to fully
refect on their inadequacy about their previous knowledge about “chemistry” and “chemist”, and it
was seen that they could explain the reason they changed their creative comparisons as an outcome
of the History and Philosophy of Chemistry course.
Our search of the ERIC database for nature of chemistry–related publications included key terms
such as “nature of chemistry” and “philosophy of chemistry”. There were 18 papers identifed for
the time frame 2012–2019, and 6 published in the 2020–2021 time frame; the latter, accounting for
33%, were published since the onset of the pandemic (Table 21.3). In the next section, we will focus
on the publications generated since the pandemic began.
Literature From 2020 to 2021

A search on the ERIC database on papers with explicit reference to “nature of chemistry” in their
abstracts resulted in only two papers in the January 2020–July 2021 time frame. The frst paper, by
Gallardo-Williams and colleagues (2020), focused on student-generated videos and their use in prac-
tice. The authors relate these videos to the visual nature of chemistry, the role of laboratory work in
chemistry, and a desire to enhance digital literacy skills. They consider the place of student-generated
videos in chemistry education. The second paper, by Garrido et al. (2020), presents the argument
Table 21.3 Number of Nature of Chemistry-Related CER Publications
Years/Key Words Nature of Chemistry
2012–2019 18
2020 5
2021 (until July) 1
2020 and 2021 6
Percentages of 2020–2021 25%
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that the nature of physical chemistry and spectroscopy makes the subject difficult to comprehend for
many students, and they recommend the bringing together of the arts and science to provide innova-
tive learning methods and to facilitate the understanding of abstract concepts. Overall, the researchers
argue for the introduction of new perspectives in chemistry education, not only for student learning
but also for the potential of innovation by going beyond decompartmentalization of scientific and
artistic disciplines.
Using the key words “philosophy of chemistry”, as well as other combinations of “philosophy”
and “chemistry”, resulted in three further papers. Although there were a total of ten papers on the
ERIC database itself, most of the papers had fairly generic use of the word “philosophy” (e.g., educa-
tional philosophy), rather than a specific reference to the philosophical study of chemistry. Orduña-
Picón et al. (2020) explored heterogeneity of thinking and speaking about substance and analyzed
secondary data from the history of chemistry, philosophy of chemistry, and student thinking, as well
as primary data from student and teacher questionnaires and interviews. The conceptual profile zones
were found through identifying sets of ontological, epistemological, and axiological commitments
regarding each zone. Dunlop et al. (2020) describe a course called “Talking Chemistry”, which cre-
ated an extracurricular space for undergraduate chemistry students to build capabilities to flourish
through philosophical dialogue about chemistry. The researchers argue that philosophical dialogue
in undergraduate chemistry studies opens up opportunities for discomfort that can contribute to
students’ capabilities to achieve happiness and well-being by challenging students to think about their
subject in new ways. Finally, Ren et al. (2021) discussed the impact of personal moral philosophies on
the safe practice of students in chemistry. Using Forsyth’s distinct personal moral philosophies, they
reported that among Chinese students, situationism was the most common, followed by exception-
ism and then absolutism, with subjectivism as the least common. There was a gender effect about
idealism, which was more common among males than females.
Argumentation and CER

Argumentation, the justification of claims with reasons and/or evidence (Toulmin, 1958), has
emerged as a significant educational goal in science education in recent years (Erduran & Jiménez-
Aleixandre, 2007; Schwartz & Baker, 2017), including in CER (e.g., Deng & Flynn, 2021; Hosbein
et al., 2021; Petritis et al., 2021; Uzuntiryaki et al., 2021; Yaman, 2020). Reviews of literature on
recent trends in science education research have highlighted argumentation as one of the top areas
of research (Lee et al., 2009; Lin et al., 2014). Influential curriculum standards, such as the Next
Generation Science Standards in the United States (NGSS Lead States, 2013) have made explicit
reference to argumentation as a learning outcome. Argumentation has also been noted as an impor-
tant pedagogical approach in numerous school subjects, including chemistry (Erduran & Pabuccu,
2015), chemistry teacher education (Cigdemoglu et al., 2017), and the laboratory context (Petritis
et al., 2021).
There is now a book-length account of argumentation in chemistry education (Erduran, 2019)
that not only provides an overview of research but also offers some example resources, strategies,
and practical tips for teaching and learning (Cullinane & O’Dwyer, 2019; Henderson & Osborne,
2019). Research on argumentation aims to foster understanding of how evidence-based reasoning,
so central to scientific reasoning, can be integrated in teaching and learning. Such integration is
intended to empower students to critically engage in the evaluation of knowledge claims and sup-
porting evidence in considering a range of contexts, including socioscientific issues (Wiyarsi et al.,
2021) and in online learning environments (Tsai, 2018). An important framework for the definition
of argumentation has been Toulmin’s argument pattern (TAP), which has been used extensively in
research in science education (Erduran, 2018), including in the classroom-level implementation of
argumentation (Lazarou & Erduran, 2021). Aydeniz (2019) provides a summary and a critique of
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argumentation studies conducted in the field of chemical education and discusses implications for
practice and future argumentation studies in chemistry education.
There can be different theoretical orientations to the characterization of argumentation. Apart
from the epistemological accounts (e.g., Kelly & Takao, 2002; Siegel, 1995), there are accounts from
developmental psychology (e.g., Kuhn & Udell, 2003). Some researchers have framed argumentation
from a linguistic perspective, including language practices (Russell, 1983). Researchers have high-
lighted the important role that argumentation may play in the development of metacognitive skills
(e.g., Hacker et al., 2009). The chapters illustrate the richness of argumentation discourse at second-
ary (Msimanga & Mudadigwa, 2019) and tertiary (Towns et al., 2019) levels of education. Across
the chapters, links are made to related interdisciplinary concepts, such as STEM. Crujeiras-Perez &
Jiménez-Aleixandre (2019) discuss the characterization of interdisciplinary learning, understood as
the capacity to integrate knowledge and modes of thinking from two or more disciplines to produce
a cognitive advancement in ways that would have been impossible or unlikely through single disci-
plinary means.
Hofstein et al. (2019) focus on the processes through which students construct arguments in the
chemistry laboratory while conducting different types of inquiry experiments. The authors have
carried out studies with students based on experiments that differed in level of complexity and
found that the more complex experiments served as a better platform for developing arguments. The
review builds on earlier studies on argumentation in the laboratory context that have made explicit
links to how argumentation can promote students’ engagement in inquiry (e.g., Katchevich et al.,
2013). Christodolou and Grace (2019) discuss socioscientific issues–based education and the role
that argumentation plays within this in the context of chemistry education, in Erduran (2019). They
discuss the importance of formulating and developing socioscientific reasoning and engagement of
young people in active citizenship.
Aspects of teachers’ learning of chemistry and their professional development are discussed (Zem-
bal-Saul & Vaishampayan, 2019), along with issues of assessment (Ng, 2019) and particular topics
such as organic chemistry (Pabuccu, 2019; Pabuccu & Erduran, 2016) and physical chemistry (Towns
et al., 2019). Teaching and learning of argumentation in chemistry may present particular challenges
in low-income countries, an issue that is addressed by Msimanga and Mudadigwa (2019). Zembal-
Saul and Vaishampayan (2019) illustrate the demanding nature of supporting teacher development in
argumentation by using conceptual, epistemic, and social lenses. The authors argue that participation
in scientific discourse and practices are necessary for learning disciplinary core ideas and believed
to be one of the most pressing considerations in moving forward with the continuous professional
development of teachers, that of equity in opportunity and access to high-quality science learning
experiences.
Research on argumentation in particular branches of chemistry, such as organic and physical
chemistry, are reviewed. Pabuccu (2019) visits the difficulties that university students encounter
in learning organic chemistry. She presents studies on argumentation in organic chemistry educa-
tion. Both instructors and students might perceive organic chemistry as a subject that does not offer
much to debate, but rather demands much memorization. The chapter also includes the author’s
own reflections as a teacher educator on teaching organic chemistry through argumentation. In the
context of physical chemistry, Towns et al. (2019) investigate the use of argumentation in physical
chemistry. The authors highlight how they combined argumentation analysis with methodological
frameworks from chemistry, the chemical thinking learning progression, and Johnstone’s triangle to
provide further insight into the nature of argumentation in physical chemistry classrooms. They also
adapted a framework from undergraduate mathematics education research to illustrate the discursive
moves that instructors make in facilitating argumentation in their classes.
Msimanga and Mudadigwa (2019) make the argument that argumentation is a high-level form of
engagement that is difficult to establish, support, or sustain, particularly in constrained teaching and
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learning contexts such as prevail in many low-income contexts. The authors use examples drawn from
the South African chemistry education context, which is as diverse as the country’s general population
in terms of social, economic, cultural, and linguistic diferences. This diversity is partly responsible
for the persistent disparate learner experiences in spite of huge government eforts toward equitable
provision of education. Assessment plays a central role in educational practice. As such, argumentation
as a novel strategy for chemistry education would produce new demands on how teachers’ and stu-
dents’ understanding of and engagement in argumentation can be assessed. Ng (2019) highlights that
although recent revisions to the primary and secondary science curricula of some countries incorpo-
rated argumentation as part of the learning outcomes, there are still few guidelines on the assessment of
these abilities. The author reviews existing learning progression research on scientifc argumentation
and proposes a model for the design and construction of test items.
Research related to argumentation has at times referred to students’ reasoning with evidence
and data situated within chemistry knowledge and ways of reasoning. For instance, Christian and
Talanquer (2012) studied the use of reasoning strategies that science and engineering majors used
in self-initiated study groups in an undergraduate organic chemistry course. They found the same
predominant use of rule- and case-based reasoning at the undergraduate level and defned a fourth
reasoning mode: symbolic reasoning. They used it to classify students’ argumentation when they
mainly manipulated representations like atoms or bonds on a purely symbolic level without a clear
reference to their chemical nature. Hand and Choi (2010) investigated students’ use of multiple
modal representations (such as graphs, drawings, and mathematical or chemical equations) within
their written arguments as a consequence of completing a series of investigations of an organic
chemistry laboratory course.
Our search of the ERIC database for argumentation–related publications included key terms such
as “argumentation” and “chemistry”. There were 79 papers identifed for the time frame 2012–2019,
and 15 published in the 2020–2021 time frame; the latter, accounting for 16%, were published since
the onset of the pandemic (Table 21.4). In the next section, we will focus on the publications gener-
ated since the pandemic began.

The ERIC database was searched by using key words “argumentation” and “chemistry”. Altogether,
there were 15 articles for the time period. Eight of these were published in 2020 and seven from
January to July 2021. The topics of papers range from the use of argumentation to develop particu-
lar skills, such as critical thinking (Tuysuz & Nur, 2020), to the use of argumentation in laboratory
experiments (Petritis et al., 2021). Considering the underrepresentation of history, philosophy, and
sociology of chemistry in chemistry education in general, it is worth noting the presence of a study
on young children’s arguments in the context of the history of organic chemistry (Milanovic &
Trivic, 2020). There are also studies that have related themes with more implicit references to
Table 21.4 Number of Argumentation-Related CER Publications
Years/Key Words Argumentation
2012–2019 79
2020 8
2021 (until July) 7
2020 and 2021 15
Percentages of 2020–2021* 16%
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argumentation, for instance, the contextualization of chemistry in bioplastics and fossil-based plastics
topics (de Waard et al., 2020) and green chemistry principles (Koulougliotis et al., 2021) in order to
encourage discussions. In one study, there was an attempt to integrate diferent scientifc practices,
including argumentation, in teaching and learning sequences focusing on contexts relevant to every-
day life. For example, Muñoz-Campos et al. (2020) designed a teaching–learning sequence based
on learning the lactic fermentation model in the context of yogurt preparation such that argumen-
tation, inquiry, and modeling play a key role in the educational treatment. Implementation of this
teaching–learning sequence has shown an improvement in the lactic fermentation models proposed
by Spanish students aged 14–16.
Hosbein et al. (2021) examined student argumentation within a two-semester general chemistry
laboratory sequence using the argument-driven inquiry (ADI) instructional model for laboratory
instruction. Video recordings of group argumentation indicated a signifcant increase in the cogni-
tive, epistemic, and social aspects of target skills. Using the structure of observed learning outcomes
(SOLO) taxonomy as the analytic framework, Luo et al. (2020) examined the impact of the reason-
ing fow scafold (RFS) on secondary students’ written arguments. Their fndings showed that after
teaching intervention, students in the experimental group performed signifcantly better than those
in the control group on evidence and rebuttal, while there were no signifcant diferences on claim
or reason between the two groups. Kodani and Koga (2021) developed an argumentation-based
high school chemistry course on exothermic phenomena. The students were encouraged to design
comparative experiments and active interpretation of the results. The researchers thus provided an
example instructional approach whereby the students could engage in argumentation around experi-
ments that they themselves generated. Deng and Flynn (2021) designed argumentation-based organic
chemistry tasks that exhibited relational reasoning, relied on phenomenological concepts, and explic-
itly compared between possible claims. They discussed how course expectations related to diferences
in students’ argumentation. Seeratan et al. (2020) describe the conceptualization, design, develop-
ment, validation, and testing of a summative instrument that measures high school students’ ability
to analyze and evaluate data, construct scientifc explanations, and formulate scientifc arguments in
biology and chemistry disciplinary contexts.
The number of studies focusing on teachers and teacher education was relatively low. Yaman
(2020) examined preservice science teachers’ (PSTs) development of multiple levels of representation
and written arguments using an immersive approach to argument. The fndings from an empirical
study showed that PSTs’ holistic argument and multiple levels of representation increased over time,
they showed parallel patterns, and the increasing quality of argument and use of representations
were intertwined. The results also indicated that PSTs predominantly used the symbolic level of
representation and used it as a mediator between the macroscopic, microscopic, and algebraic levels.
Sonmez et al. (2021) examined the efects of practices based on the argumentation-based Inquiry
(ABI) approach on the critical thinking of 94 PSTs. The results showed that the teacher candidates
who went through the ABI process experienced signifcant improvements in their critical thinking
with regard to both skills and tendencies.
Najami et al. (2020) conducted a study on how scientifc laboratory lessons contribute to building
arguments, both cognitively and socially. The population consisted of 12 second-year PSTs and dem-
onstrated that groups conducting an open-ended experiment made more claims in their discourse
than did groups that conducted a confrmatory experiment and that the level of argumentation in
the open-ended experiment group was higher than in the confrmatory experiment group. Another
study that focused on PSTs laboratory-based argumentation skills was conducted by Uzuntiryaki-
Kondakci et al. (2021), who analyzed laboratory reports that were in the form of science writing
heuristic. The fndings showed that the participants’ argumentation skills developed over time as they
started to generate more powerful arguments, which also included deeper conceptual knowledge
during the argumentation-based laboratory.
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Technology and CER

The use of technology in CER has been investigated for a number of years. However, with the
onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, given the increased use of online learning environments, there
has been further emphasis on technology-enhanced chemistry teaching and learning. Wu and col-
leagues’ (2021) study provides a useful overview of the technology-enhanced CER studies before
the pandemic. Wu and colleagues (2021) investigated the technology-enhanced chemistry-learning
studies published in SSCI journals from 2010 to 2019. They used diferent codes to evaluate 60
comparative research studies. The authors found that most of the CER studies from 2010 to 2019
take technology as a tool for visual presentation or knowledge acquisition. These studies usually used
simulation, animation, or virtual lab for helping students learn inorganic or physical chemistry con-
tents (i.e., chemical bonding). Other researchers reported educational technologies could be quite
helpful in understanding and visualizing abstract chemistry concepts, such as atoms, molecules, or
chemical reactions (McCollum et al., 2014). However, not all CER studies reported technology’s
positive efects on chemistry instruction. The underlying reason could be that using technological
tools efectively and knowing content knowledge are not enough; teachers also should know how
to integrate technological tools into their lessons (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). This knowledge domain
is known as technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), and it requires three main
elements (technology, content, and pedagogy) and interactions between and among these domains.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, no one could have anticipated such a tremendous amount
of rapid change that led to the implementation of more technological tools by more chemistry
teachers. Thus, technology became a vital part of chemistry education with the use of virtual labs,
extended reality, etc. In this context, it is important to investigate how CER studies are afected by
the pandemic to varying extents. Thus, in this section we focus on diferent aspects of technology-
enhanced CER that has gained increasing attention: (1) TPACK, (2) virtual chemistry laboratory,
and (3) virtual tools, which can be classifed as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), artifcial
intelligence (AI), and 3D printing. In the rest of this section, we review recent trends in CER rela-
tive to these themes.
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)

TPACK requires knowing about how pedagogical practices and technology can be related to the
teaching and learning of specifc content (DeKorver et al., 2020). Nowadays, it is mainly accepted
that if technology is used properly, it improves learning and understanding (Kim & Hannafn,
2011). A search on the ERIC database on papers with key words “technological pedagogical con-
tent knowledge” and “chemistry” resulted in eight papers for the time frame 2012–2019, and fve
published in the January 2020–July 2021 time frame; the latter, accounting for 38%, were published
since the onset of the pandemic (Table 21.5).
Table 21.5 Number of TPACK-Related CER Publications
Years/Key Words TPACK
2012–2019 8
2020 4
2021 (until July) 1
2020 and 2021 5
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Prior to the pandemic, TPACK-related studies usually focused on developing and evaluating
teachers’/preservice teachers’ TPACK (Bat-Shahar et al., 2019). Some of them investigated the
efects of diferent courses on one’s TPACK. For instance, Bat-Shahar et al. (2019) reported
how a professional development workshop afected teachers’ TPACK confdence. Similarly,
Calik and his colleagues (2014) searched the efects of the “Environmental Chemistry” Elective
Course via Technology-Embedded Scientifc Inquiry model on senior science student teach-
ers’ TPACK levels. Cetin-Dindar and her colleagues (2018) examined the TPACK level of
preservice chemistry teachers before and after a course related to educational and instructional
technologies.
With the onset of the pandemic, the number of TPACK-related studies in CER has increased (see
Table 21.5). Most of them were interested in supporting teachers when using technology to teach
chemistry during the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, Rap and his colleagues (2020) investigated
how a research-based approach supports high school chemistry teachers in an online environment.
They developed a questionnaire by using the TPACK framework to search the difculties teachers
encountered, their needs, and their means for sharing their knowledge, materials, and teaching strat-
egies for online teaching. After they determined teachers’ needs by the analysis of the questionnaire,
they also mentioned the activities that were developed in order to address them. Similarly, DeKorver
et al. (2020) created a Facebook group called “Strategies for Teaching Chemistry Online” to support
chemistry instructors. At short notice, 2,600 instructors participated in their group to ask ques-
tions and share their experiences with the group. In their project, researchers presented a qualitative
analysis of the content generated by the group according to the TPACK framework. Furthermore,
Carpendale et al. (2020) studied with chemistry preservice teacher educators and asked them to write
vignettes that illustrate how they modeled the use of digital technologies to promote their learning
in chemistry education. The authors believe that the pandemic is a good opportunity for teacher
educators to revise their TPACK.
Virtual Chemistry Laboratory

The practical work is an integral part of chemistry and plays a vital role for students’ learning of
chemistry (Ali & Ullah, 2020). In this context, there is a long tradition of CER focusing on the
teaching and learning of practical chemistry. Despite the importance of practical chemistry, some
researchers reported most of the institutions in developing countries are characterized by a poor
standard level of education that resulted from many factors, such as lack of laboratory facilities,
unavailability of lab equipment, and overcrowded classrooms (Cengiz, 2010). A virtual chemistry
laboratory could provide an opportunity to address the problems where absence of laboratory in a
school or the procedure of the task is hazardous, unafordable, or too time-consuming to perform.
Moreover, it is also found useful for familiarizing students with chemistry laboratories and engaging
them with essential laboratory concepts (Levonis et. al., 2021). For instance, Broyer and colleagues
(2021) designed a virtual reality laboratory experience for undergrad students, giving them an oppor-
tunity to gain laboratory experiences.
Clemmons and colleagues (2019) designed a 360° virtual laboratory tour to provide a safe, vir-
tual experience for frst-year students. A 360° tour is a simulation of a real location, which uses
360° panoramas, videos, text, and narrations. As a result, researchers stated that using 360° images
and tour software have a great impact on improving students’ preparation for their frst laboratory
classes. Levonis and colleagues (2021) also designed and used a 360° virtual laboratory tour. They
utilized it to familiarize the second-year undergraduate students with the research laboratory envi-
ronment, equipment, and skills needed to undertake the subject and frst laboratory session. Many
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other researchers have also listed the advantages of using a virtual laboratory in chemistry classrooms
as follows (Ali & Ullah, 2020; Tatli & Ayas, 2010):
• Virtual laboratories provide a personalized online laboratory experience. Thus, students can
perform their experiments without the instructor.
• Virtual laboratories help students see the experimental process in detail.
• Virtual laboratories do not have many problems that are encountered in traditional laboratory
applications. Breaking of glassware, making mistakes, or repeating the experiment is not an issue
for the virtual learning environment.
• Virtual laboratories provide enjoyable experiences for chemistry students.
Moozeh and colleagues (2020) developed two interactive post-laboratory exercises that complement
and extend the hands-on laboratories. The exercises allowed undergraduate chemistry students to
repeat experiments. Thus, students got an opportunity to reinforce and extend the laboratory-gained
knowledge in a new virtual context by comparing two diferent chemical reactions related to the
experiments they had performed. Ali and Ullah’s (2020) study is a very useful source to unravel the
nature of the VCL-related studies before the pandemic. Their study provides a comparative review
of virtual laboratory resources for chemistry education during the period 1997–2020. In addition to
their study, we observed that many VCL studies published before the pandemic
• Were mainly interested in comparing virtual and real chemistry laboratory applications on dif-
ferent learning environments (Hawkins & Phelps, 2013; Penn & Ramnarain, 2019; Tatli & Ayas,
2012)
• Were usually accepted as a supportive factor to real laboratories and enriched learning experi-
ences of students in these studies (Hawkins & Phelps, 2013; Tatli & Ayas, 2012)
• Preferred to use videos or simulations in VCL (i.e., Penn & Ramnarain, 2019)
For instance, Tatli and Ayas (2012) developed a VCL related to “chemical changes” by making use
of the constructivist theory and following a predict-observe-explain strategy, including presentations
in macro, micro, and symbolic levels, and relating it with daily life. Researchers reported that VCL
software helps teachers in creating a constructivist learning environment. Moreover, Hawkins and
Phelps (2013) used a virtual vs. hands-on scenario for an electrochemistry laboratory to investigate
which is more efective for teaching. As a conclusion, they did not observe any signifcant diferences
in scores on either the pre-test, post-test, or the hands-on setup test.

The last ten years of studies (2012–2021) are explored by using the keywords virtual laboratory chem-
istry (without quotation marks) in the ERIC social sciences database. There were 104 journal CER
articles for a ten-year period. Twenty-fve of these articles were not included in the study. Thus, we
investigated 79 VCL journal articles here (see Table 21.6); 42 of them were from the timeframe of
the emergence of the pandemic.
With the onset of the pandemic, many VCL studies focused on overcoming physical separation
during COVID-19. Some examples of the titles of articles provide an indication of the extent to
which the pandemic has infuenced researchers’ emphasis on this theme: (1) “Converting a Two-
Week Chemistry Course for High School Students to a Virtual Format during COVID” (Albright
et al., 2021), (2) “Insights and Initiatives While Teaching Organic Chemistry I and II with Labora-
tory Courses in the Time of COVID-19” (Dunnagan et al., 2020), (3) “Remote Teaching of General
Chemistry for Nonscience Majors during COVID-19” (Njoki, 2020), and (4) “Squaring the Circle
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Table 21.6 Number of VCLs in CER
Years/Key Words VCL
2012–2019 37
2020 25
2021 (until July) 17
2020 and 2021 42
by Attempting to Teach a Lab Class in the Cloud: Refections after a Term in Lockdown” (Logo-
thetis & Flowers, 2020). Furthermore, the number of virtual reality tools integrated into VCLs has
increased (Broyer et al., 2021; Dunnagan et al., 2020; Maksimenko et al., 2021). In order to adapt
the chemistry laboratory to the pandemic, several proposals have been made. For instance, Soong
and colleagues (2021) designed an open-source remote titration unit. They showed that elements
of experiential learning can be retained for online laboratory activities. Moreover, Spitha and col-
leagues (2021) presented a virtual lab activity for analytical chemistry students during the COVID-19
pandemic. They found that the activity motivated the students to engage in the scientifc practice of
modeling the submicroscopic nature of absorption and helped them to understand Beer’s law.
Virtual Tools
In order to accommodate social distancing requirements in the pandemic era, many laboratory exer-
cises have rearranged for an online experience (Soong et al., 2021). Virtual tools provide a strikingly
diferent perspective for laboratories. Now with the pandemic, the usage of virtual tools such as aug-
mented reality and virtual reality has been increasingly popular in CER. An element of the popular-
ity of these tools also relates to the fexibility they ofer for the teaching and learning of chemistry,
particularly in relation to safety concerns in practical work (Hensen et al., 2020). In chemistry educa-
tion in particular, these tools can be used as an innovative technology to teach abstract subjects when
there is no opportunity to make direct observations or gain laboratory experience (Yilmaz, 2021).
This allows students to observe abstract concepts, such as elements and their properties. Thus, this
experience is useful to bring a realistic and interactive laboratory experience to students who may
have limited experience in a laboratory setting (Broyer et al., 2021). VR could be useful for students
who are unable to be present in the lab due to disabilities and attendance challenges (Dunnagan
et al., 2020). For instance, Smith and colleagues (2020) studied with 17 visually impaired students on
chemistry atomic orbital content, and they asked them to use either print or tactile graphics or 3D
models in rotating order.
Our search of the ERIC database for the key terms related to the virtual tools (i.e., “augmented
reality”, “virtual reality”, “artifcial intelligence”, or “3D printing”). There were 41 papers identifed
for the time frame 2012–2019, and 48 published in the 2020–2021 time frame; the latter, accounting
for 54%, were published since the onset of the pandemic (Table 21.5). In the next section, we will
focus on the publications generated since the pandemic began.

Until the pandemic, although new technologies have advocated for chemistry education, their use
was less pronounced than nowadays. Teachers and lecturers had to switch to online learning envi-
ronments during national lockdowns around the world. Our purpose in this section is to explore the
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Table 21.7 Number of Virtual Tools-Related CER Publications
Years/Key Words AR VR 3D Print AI VT Total
2012–2019 11 6 23 1 41
2020 10 8 13 4 35
2021 (until July) 4 4 3 2 13
2020 and 2021 14 12 16 6 48
Percentages of 2020–2021* 56% 67% 41% 85% 54%
*Percentages of papers published in 2020/2021 in terms of a decade
extent to which the number of chemistry education studies focused on, such as AR, VR, AI, or 3D
printing, may have increased since the emergence of the pandemic in 2020. The review is under-
pinned by the fve-stage Arksey and O’Malley framework (2005) where we began with the research
questions and subsequently conducted the reviews in light of some inclusion and exclusion criteria,
selected articles, and reported the fndings relative to the research questions.
Although we are particularly interested in the trends in the past two years, we have also col-
lected data from the past ten years of studies (2012–2021) in order to contextualize the fndings (see
Table 21.7). We observed that CER papers, including the application of AI, VR, and AR, have
enormously increased in the last two years. The percentages of the AI, VR, and AR papers published
during the pandemic are as follows: 75%, 67%, and 56%, respectively (see Table 21.7). Moreover, the
ratio for the papers belonging to the 2020–2021 time frame for 3D printing studies in CER is 41%.
Before the pandemic, the number of 3D printing CER papers was 23, and it was much more than
the AI, VR, and AR CER papers.
Augmented Reality (AR)

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that overlays virtual objects over real images in real time via
a computer screen or smartphone (Azuma, 1997). With the help of AR, digital elements like texts,
directional signs, 3D models, or animations can directly be projected on real-world objects (Habig,
2020). Since the 1990s, AR has been used in educational felds in all levels of schooling (Wang et al.,
2018). Smartphone-based AR systems can develop simulations, models, and virtual objects that sup-
port learning chemistry (Pence, 2020). Examples of chemistry education applications include the
following: Elements 4D, Chirality 2, Arloon Chemistry, MoleculAR, MODELAR, AR Carbon
Hybridization, Chemistry AR, QuimicAR, and Chemist.
Many CER researchers have used AR technology widely to help students visualize three-
dimensional chemical structures (e.g., Abdinejad et al., 2021; Babak, 2020; Eriksen et al., 2020;
Habig, 2020; Henrique et al., 2021; Wright and Oliver-Hoyo, 2021). The visualization power of
AR and the integration with the real world allow chemistry educators to provide students with an
opportunity to explore the diferent levels of representation in chemistry at the same time (Ovens
et al., 2020). For instance, Abdinejad and her colleagues (2021) used an ARchemy app, developed to
help students visualize difcult 3D concepts, and at the end of the study they got positive feedback in
regard to the value and perceived usefulness of this app for organic chemistry students. Additionally,
Wright and Oliver-Hoyo (2021) developed an AR app and an activity worksheet to support students
in visualizing the concepts involved when solving proton nuclear magnetic resonance problems.
They used the compare−predict−observe−explain cycle and contrasting cases to guide students to
abstract principles about how proton equivalency, nuclear spin, electronegativity, and anisotropy
impact the number, intensity, splitting, and shift of signals on a spectrum.
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Aligned with Abdinejad and her colleagues’ study, they observed that the AR app was well
received by students. Moreover, Eriksen et al. (2020) described the procedure to make a simple AR
app to visualize any 3D chemical model by using free software. The process can be applied to make a
3D representation of any 2D object, and they envisaged the app to be useful when visualizing simple
stereochemical problems, when presenting a complex 3D structure on a poster presentation or even
in audio-visual presentations. Also, their method works for all molecules, including small molecules,
supramolecular structures, MOFs, and biomacromolecules. Babak (2020) described three methods
to produce 3D AR objects for chemistry courses. These open-source methods were as follows: using
Pymol for biomolecules, Blender for comparing structures, and Octave for electron orbitals. In the
study, Babak (2020) presented the use of these in lecture activities and as part of an extended labo-
ratory. Preliminary feedback of the study showed that the implementations of AR helped students
visualize 3D objects and it generated interest. Additionally, Aw and colleagues (2020) developed and
described their AR project, which is a free-to-use mobile app called Nucleophile’s Point of View
(NuPOV). Unlike other AR apps, NuPOV allows organic chemistry students to interact, using their
fngers, with 3D molecules and understand at a deeper level through an individualized and self-
directed learning experience. They also reported that the students appreciate the AR app.
Many chemistry education studies have reported the positive efects of AR technology on cogni-
tive factors, such as students’ conceptual understanding (Cen et al., 2020; Wright and Oliver-Hoyo,
2021), and afective factors, like students’ attitude toward chemistry (An et al., 2020). Schmid et al.
(2020) described an accessible implementation of AR projections for the depiction of complex
structures and motifs, including atomic orbitals and elemental allotropes. Moreover, An et al. (2020)
introduced the Augmented Reality in Educational Laboratory (ARiEL) that was designed to connect
students to information on scientifc instruments. While students used the pH meter and conductiv-
ity meter instruments, they measured students’ attitude toward chemistry instrumentation.

The research papers on AR were traced using the key words “augmented reality” and “chemistry”
in the ERIC social sciences database. Thirty journal articles have been found in ERIC since 2012.
Five of these articles were not included in the study. For instance, one article, titled “Using Virtual
Reality to Demonstrate Glove Hygiene in Introductory Chemistry Laboratories”, was deleted from
the AR paper list because it was about the implication of VR instead of AR. Moreover, the articles
“Trends in Educational Augmented Reality Studies: A Systematic Review” and “How Should
Chemistry Educators Respond to the Next Generation of Technology Change?” were deleted from
the list because they do not focus on implications of AR in chemistry learning. More than half of the
papers in a decade (14 papers) belonged to the January 2020–July 2021 time frame.
In summary, we observed that the articles on AR from 2020 to 2021 mainly describe their appli-
cation of AR technology in various chemistry courses (e.g., Ovens et al., 2020). Most of these stud-
ies have been conducted in organic chemistry courses and with undergraduate students (Abdinejad
et al., 2021; Aw et al., 2020; Habig, 2020; Wright & Oliver-Hoyo, 2021). Mostly researchers have
observed that AR technology facilitates students’ learning (Cen et al., 2020; Wright & Oliver-Hoyo,
2021), aids students in improving 3D visualization (Abdinejad et al., 2021; Eriksen et al., 2020), and
increases students’ interest in chemistry (Habig, 2020).
Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual reality (VR) can be accomplished either by viewing on a computer screen (Winkelmann
et al., 2017) or with headsets that block out the real world (Babak, 2020). VR-assisted chemistry
education has been made with various applications (e.g., EduChem, a calorimetric titration app,
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ChimeraX). VR can give students a great experience of what the world looks like at the molecular
level (Pence, 2020), but it also isolates students from their peers and instructors. In addition to this
social isolation, the requirements of hardware equipment and time when it is used can be counted
as cons of using VR as part of the lectures (Babak, 2020). However, many researchers have reported
the pros, such as improving visualization (Bennie et al., 2019), providing an online laboratory expe-
rience (Broyer et al., 2021; Ferrell et al., 2019), and ofering convenient and inexpensive feld trips
for chemistry courses (Fung et al., 2019). Some researchers preferred to integrate a VR laboratory
to hybrid learning (Astuti et al., 2020). They developed a 3D visualization program in VR and
found that 3D visualization media efectively improved students’ critical-thinking skills and scientifc
attitude. Moreover, Dai and colleagues (2020) reported VR sessions helped inorganic chemistry
students to learn complicated aspects of metal coordination chemistry and molecular orbitals via an
immersive 3D experience.

When we explored the last ten years of studies (2012–2021) by using the key words “virtual reality”
+ “chemistry” in the ERIC social sciences database, we found 22 articles related to VR applications
for chemistry learning. Four articles were not included in the study. For instance, the article “Vir-
tual Reality in Science Education: A Descriptive Review” was deleted from our VR list because
it does not only focus on chemistry learning environments. Moreover, the other three papers that
were included in the ERIC AR list were counted in the VR one (i.e., “Who Can Beneft from
Augmented Reality in Chemistry?”, “Sex Diferences in Solving Stereochemistry Problems Using
Augmented Reality”, and “Interacting with Three-Dimensional Molecular Structures Using an
Augmented Reality Mobile App”). We observed that 67% of the VR CER papers (12 papers) pub-
lished in the last decade belonged to the January 2020–July 2021 time frame. Consequently, a total of
12 eligible articles were reviewed. Partially, fndings revealed undergraduate students were the most
studied group (Broyer et al., 2021; Dai et al., 2020; Dunnagan and Gallardo-Williams, 2020; Dun-
nagan et al., 2020; Elford et al., 2021; Maksimenko et al., 2021), and the studies have mostly been
conducted in laboratories (Broyer et al., 2021; Dunnagan & Gallardo-Williams, 2020; Dunnagan
et al., 2020; Maksimenko et al., 2021). Moreover, VR technology preferred to be used in various
topics, such as laboratory safety (Broyer et al., 2021), ocean acidifcation (Géraldine et al., 2021),
green chemistry (Gawlik-Kobylinska et al., 2020), atomic structure (Maksimenko et al., 2021), ste-
reoisomers (Elford et al., 2021), coordination chemistry (Dai et al., 2020), infrared spectroscopy
(Dunnagan et al., 2020), and thermodynamics (Gandhi et al., 2020). The researchers have argued
that VR technology enhances learning among students (Dai et al., 2020; Maksimenko et al., 2021),
aids in improving 3D visualization (Astuti et al., 2020; Elford et al., 2021; Gandhi et al., 2020), and
increases critical-thinking skills (Astuti et al., 2020).
Artifcial Intelligence (AI)

Artifcial intelligence (AI) is the use of computer programs to perform tasks, like decision-making,
that normally require human intelligence (Pence, 2020). AI has some great impact on our life today,
and it is literally shaping the future of multiple industries. Manufacturing robots, self-driving cars,
smart assistants, proactive healthcare management, disease mapping, and automated fnancial invest-
ing are just some examples for AI applications. Many people are concerned about the potential
impacts of AI on our future life, like job loss. Although it is not expected that AI replace chemistry in
the near future, it is strongly believed that AI will play an active role in the future of chemistry. For
instance, many researchers have been interested in using AI to develop new drugs (Maryasin et al.,
2018; Peiretti & Bruner, 2018). Moreover, AI applications can be benefcial for chemistry education
675
by ofering more personalized learning opportunities for students, by helping teachers assess students
or by facilitating the teaching of chemistry concepts.

Studies in the past ten years were explored by using the key words “artifcial intelligence” and
“chemistry” in the ERIC social sciences database. The fnal articles included in our review include
as many as eight articles related to designing an AI application for chemistry learning; of them were
published after 2020. The data suggest that the use of AI in CER is becoming increasingly popular.
Some researchers preferred to integrate AI to assess students’ responses (i.e., Maestrales, 2021). For
instance, Noyes and colleagues (2020) analyzed students’ explanations of London dispersion forces by
using a previously developed prompt and coding scheme. They found that by using machine learn-
ing resources, they could automatically characterize students’ responses at a high level of accuracy
compared to human coders. In addition, many researchers used an AI software package to facilitate
the teaching of chemistry concepts. Soong and colleagues (2020) argued that CASE (computer-
assisted structure elucidation) is useful for better understanding NMR spectroscopic principles. Healy
and Blade (2020) utilized a state-of-the-art AI model as a tool for teaching organic synthesis online.
3D Printing
The use of 3D printing in chemistry education has expanded widely in the last decade (Fourches &
Feducia, 2019; Grumman & Carroll, 2019; Jones et al., 2021). Crowe and colleagues (2021) used 3D
printing in a middle school for teaching about water/surface interactions on both hydrophilic and
hydrophobic surfaces. They reported that the 3D-printed method, compared to simply holding the
smart device by hand, provided better-quality images and an improved data acquisition experience
when measuring the contact angle. Moreover, Renner and Griesbeck (2020) presents a 3D printing
lab in which students can learn the basics of 3D printing using a predesigned 3D-printed continuous
fow reactor for photochemical reactions, especially for photo oxygenations. Brannon et al. (2020)
argued that employing 3D printing ofers students a more accurate physical and visual representa-
tion of bond angles and lengths and can help students visualize small molecule structures in teaching
crystallography.

Searching with the key words of “3D printing” and “chemistry” for the last ten years resulted in
41 articles. Two articles, “How Should Chemistry Educators Respond to the Next Generation
of Technology Change?” and “Teach Wood Science”, were not included in this list because of
the exclusion criteria of the study. Thus, we reviewed 16 papers in the January 2020–July 2021
time frame. Reports of 3D-printed models for improved visualization of chemical phenomena
(Fourches & Feducia, 2019), as well as facilitating student understanding of challenging concepts
including NMR spectra (Jones et al., 2021) and high-resolution molecular models (Grumman &
Carroll, 2019), are rapidly increasing.
The review of CER and its emphasis on technology, particularly in relation to the recent COVID-
19 pandemic context since 2020, has demonstrated that technology has inevitably been an integral
part of chemistry education. However, further research is needed to improve (pre-service and in-
service) chemistry teachers’ TPACK for efective technology integration in chemistry education.
Today’s chemistry teachers should both have knowledge of and the ability to use technological
vehicles and know how to integrate them into their lessons. Research points to the difculties
faced by chemistry teachers in integrating educational technologies into their classrooms during
676
the COVID-19 pandemic. The trends illustrate that the most pronounced increase in the number
of research articles in the past two years of the pandemic has been in relation to VCL, AI, AR, and
VR. Many researchers have listed the advantages of using virtual laboratories in chemistry classrooms.
For instance, it has been widely accepted that using virtual laboratories as pre-laboratory activities
increases students’ confdence and reduces students’ anxiety about the laboratory classes.
Nowadays, there is a wide range of applications that can be used in VR- or AR-assisted chemis-
try education. Extended reality (XR) is a hypernym term for virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality
technologies. XR is a topic with increasing research interest in CER. XR may be helpful to address
educational problems in teaching chemistry online. For instance, AR could help students over-
come barriers presented by traditional ball-and-stick modeling methods (Abdinejad et al., 2021). In
addition, VR may be used to give a student the experience of environments and instrumentation
that may be found too expensive or too dangerous to encounter in real life. A student can observe
the reactions among the molecules or can perform a gradually dangerous chemical reaction that
is required to be guided by a trained professional (Pence, 2020). The reviewed literature indicates
that AR is more likely than VR to be used in the classroom because it does not require signifcant
hardware and it does not separate students from the collective learning experience (Wright & Oliver-
Hoyo, 2021). As the data illustrate, research reported studies involving the use of AR technology in
educational settings, especially those of STEM, has increased signifcantly in the past few years (An
et al., 2020). Some work related to AR was related to other themes, such as the fipped classroom
format (Aw et al., 2020) as well as blended (Burchett et. al., 2016; Fung, 2015) and hybrid learning
(Enneking et. al., 2019).
STEM Education Research and CER

Chemistry is a discipline that sits at the interface of science, technology, engineering, mathematics,
and medicine (STEMM) subjects (and those aligned with or informed by STEMM subjects). It is
not therefore surprising that chemistry education research has placed an emphasis on STEM teach-
ing and learning (Aydin-Gunbatar et al., 2018). Aydin-Günbatar (2020) created a STEM activity
related to acid–base chemistry and engaged junior preservice chemistry teachers in using indicator
solutions from plant sources and produced pH paper strips by the use of flter paper and cofee flters.
By integration entrepreneurship into the activity, the participants were asked to market their prod-
ucts through product logo design and product advertisement. Hardy et al. (2021) discussed the sig-
nifcant potential of inclusion of chemistry STEM activities in higher education and the real-world
importance in personal, organizational, national, and global contexts. They outline the development
and implementation challenges attributed to legacy higher-education infrastructures, and curriculum
design that ensures inclusivity and collaboration and is pitched and balanced appropriately. They
conclude with future possibilities, notably highlighting that chemistry, as a discipline, underpins
industries that have multibillion-dollar turnovers and employ millions of people across the world.
Business (Caprile et al., 2015) and industry (Prinsley & Baranyai, 2015), as well as educational pol-
icies, have been advocating the importance of STEM education (Honey et al., 2014) in meeting the
challenges of contemporary societies. Li et al. (2020) conducted a systematic analysis of 798 articles
in STEM education published between 2000 and the end of 2018 in 36 journals to get an overview
about developments in STEM education scholarship. The researchers examined the selected journal
publications both quantitatively and qualitatively, including the number of articles published, journals
in which the articles were published, authorship nationality, and research topic and methods over the
years. The results show that research in STEM education is increasing in importance internation-
ally. The authors highlight the difculty in identifying what is meant by STEM, considering some
defnitions are inclusive of not only physical sciences but also social sciences. Furthermore, Li and
colleagues highlight the various ways in which researchers have been considering STEM education
677
research as multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary (Vasquez et al., 2013). Indeed,

the emphasis on multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary has been a key aspect of
STEM education research, which has recognized that many complex real-life problems in science
require input from a range of disciplines, so it is important for learning environments to model such
complexity if future professionals will be able to function in their careers.
A parallel line of research has been developing in STEAM education inclusive of the arts (Colucci-
Gray, 2019). Integrated STEAM education is an approach to preparing a quality STEM workforce and
literate citizens technology-based society by integrating science, technology, engineering, arts, and
mathematics in education. Its emphasis on arts (e.g., fne arts, language arts, liberal arts, and music) sets
it apart from STEM eforts. There have been arguments about the inclusion of humanities as well as
the arts in STEM education (De la Garza, 2019). A key rationale for STEAM has been the develop-
ment of creativity and informed citizenship (Henriksen, 2014). The concern about students’ interest
and motivation in STEM subjects has also played a role in integration of the arts as a means to foster
engagement (Conradty & Bogner, 2020; Marín-Marin et al., 2021). Furthermore, there is an increas-
ing demand for professions linked to the use of technological media and tools (Anisimova et al., 2020),
as human labor is increasingly being replaced by machines. It has been argued that the arts develop
STEM skills (Angel & Salgado, 2018) as well as social competence (Burnard & Colucci-Gray, 2019).
When we turn to the intersection of research in CER and STEM education research, several pat-
terns emerge. First, there are studies that have focused on particular STEM skills and applied them
to chemistry education. For example, the December 2019 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education
was dedicated to the incorporation of systems thinking in chemistry education (Mahafy et al., 2019).
In order to provide a rationale for systems thinking in chemistry education, authors of one of the
papers in the special issue, Constable et al. (2019), argued that chemists need to be able to understand
their work in terms of systems. The researchers state that since systems thinking is a framework to
understand and manage systems, the introduction of systems thinking in chemistry education would
assist learners to navigate complex, interrelated concepts typical of systems. Another pattern in the
way that researchers in CER have referred to STEM is in a fairly generic sense of physical sciences
(e.g., Cohen & Kelly, 2019) without a particular attempt at integrating technology, engineering, and
mathematics, but rather to frame their discussion in relation to the broad context of STEM even if
they make reference to integration in STEM. For example, Huri et al. (2019) developed and applied
an instrument on electrolysis to secondary school students. The analysis of the data on students
focused on students’ understanding of electrolysis without any other outcomes of learning that would
be expected of an integrated STEM approach.
Our search of the ERIC database for the key terms related to STEM education and CER
employed terms such as “STEM” and “chemistry”. There were 259 papers identifed for the time
frame 2012–2019, and 101 published in the 2020–2021 time frame; the latter, accounting for 28%,
were published since the onset of the pandemic (Table 21.8). In the next section, we will focus on
the publications generated since the pandemic began.
Table 21.8 Number of STEM-Related CER Publications
Years/Key Words STEM
2012–2019 259
2020 65
2021 (until July) 36
2020 and 2021 101
Percentages of 2020–2021 28%
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The search of the ERIC social sciences database using the key words “STEM” and “chemistry”
yielded 101 articles for the time frame January 2020–July 2021. Several themes emerge from the
papers in this period, including students’ identities, entrepreneurship, and teachers’ professional
development in integrated STEM. The gender issues in STEM education in the context of chemistry
education have been highlighted in diferent national contexts, including Vietnam (Dinh & Nguyen,
2020) and South Africa (Naidoo & Sibanda, 2020). Spaulding et al. (2020) examined an archival data
set containing perceptions of peer mentors to determine if there were diferences in perceptions of
the mentoring experience. Signifcant gender diferences were found for academic professionalism
and academic relationships, with females noting that as a result of participating in the mentoring pro-
gram they believed they gained in these areas more than their male counterparts. Similarly, there has
been some synthesis of issues related to marginalized communities in chemistry education. Bancroft
et al. (2020) examined the impact of a fipped model on students’ course performance in general
chemistry on the basis of their race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Their results show that the
marginalized students were signifcantly more likely to have higher course grades in the fipped-
model course as compared to the traditional course.
With the rise of the infuence of STEM in CER, themes such as entrepreneurship have begun
to emerge in the literature (i.e., Pabuccu-Akis & Demirer, 2022). Aydin-Günbatar et al. (2020)
designed a STEM+ (STEM with art and entrepreneurship) activity on acid–base chemistry, specif-
cally, pH indicator and strips designs. Thirteen junior preservice chemistry teachers participated in
the activity and produced indicator solutions from plant sources found easily at grocery stores and
produced pH paper strips by the use of flter paper and cofee flters. After producing indicators and
strips, the participants were encouraged to market their products through product logo design and
product advertisement. The activity is useful regarding learning acid–base chemistry, indicators’ and
strips’ properties, carrying out investigations, and designing solutions.
Systems thinking is another theme that has infltrated CER with the rise of STEM eforts. York
and Orgill (2020) constructed a tool that provides an operational defnition for systems thinking
in chemistry education and serves as a guide for the design and analysis of systems thinking activi-
ties. The tool, referred to as “Characteristics Essential for designing or Modifying Instruction for a
Systems Thinking approach” (ChEMIST), identifes fve essential characteristics of a systems think-
ing approach, along with corresponding systems thinking skills through which students can dem-
onstrate their engagement in each essential characteristic. The authors describe the inspiration and
development of the tool and provide examples of how the tool might be used to support chemistry
teaching and learning from a systems thinking approach. Research has also focused on the articula-
tion of teachers’ professional development in integrated STEM (Dinh & Nguyen, 2020), including
pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in relation to STEM teaching in the context of chemistry.
Summary
Our survey indicates that among the CER themes investigated in the past ten years, the majority of
studies were in STEM education (54.6%) followed by technology (27.5%), argumentation (14%),
and nature of chemistry (3.6%) (see Table 21.9 and Figure 21.1). When we examine the patterns
more closely for the past two years since the pandemic has emerged, we see that the proportion of
CER studies focusing on technology accounts for a higher percentage than when compared to the
overall time frame (Figure 21.2a and b). Indeed, during the pandemic, we observed that the percent-
ages of the technology studies in CER (43.8%) were close to the number of STEM studies (46.5%).
The proportion of CER on STEM education as well as argumentation and nature of chemistry have
gone down, argumentation more signifcantly (Figure 21.2 a, b, c). These patterns suggest that even
679
Table 21.9 Number of Studies in CER Per Year
Years/Key Words Nature of Chemistry Argumentation STEM Technology*
2012–2019 18 79 259 86
2020 5 8 65 64
2021 (until July) 1 7 36 31
2020 and 2021 6 15 101 95
Total 24 94 360 181
2012–2021 (July)
*Technology (TEC) = TPACK+ VCL + VT
Figure 21.1 Distribution of CER papers (purple, 2012–2019; green 2020–July 2021).
though themes such as nature of chemistry and argumentation have become signifcant in the pan-
demic era, the number of publications on these themes have not increased in the January 2020–July
2021 time frame. However, the trends suggest that there has been an increase in the use of virtual
tools and online technologies. Also, more studies need to be done to integrate argumentation and
nature of chemistry into online learning environments.
The disconnect between the focus of chemistry learning outcomes, and the tools for support-
ing teaching and learning during the pandemic, could potentially be due to the relative availability
of tools that have been deliberately designed to support argumentation. However, Henderson and
Osborne (2019) have recently highlighted that computer technology has been applied to support
student construction, critique, representation, and sharing of arguments. These authors have pro-
vided examples such as computer-supported collaborative argumentation (CSCA) and argumen-
tation-based computer-supported collaborative learning (ABCSCL). Indeed, several reviews of the
680
Figure 21.2.a and 21.2.b Percentage of CER papers from (a) 2012 to July 2021 and (b) 2012 to 2019.
681
Figure 21.2.c Percentage of CER papers from 2020 to July 2021.
intersection of argumentation and computer technology–supported instruction have been conducted

during the period included in our review (e.g., Pinkwart & McLaren, 2012), and others are also
available for previous periods (e.g., Clark et al., 2007). It could also be due to the fact that a great
number of researchers involved in CER on virtual tools have not necessarily incorporated nature
of chemistry and argumentation as signifcant themes relevant for chemistry teaching and learning.
Research on virtual tools during the pandemic years has indicated that the use of technology in
learning has been well received by students. In particular, tools such as 3D visualizations have been
suggested as being useful instructional tools. Considering the challenges that have been experienced
in education with respect to face-to-face teaching as well as the limitations of online learning envi-
ronments, it is anticipated that the future of chemistry education will involve a mix of both, for
example, through fipped learning approaches. Furthermore, the increase in CER studies focusing
on STEM indicates an upward trajectory. In the past one and a half years, there have been 33% more
CER studies than in the past ten years combined. It is likely that there will be further intersections
of research in STEM education and virtual tools in the context of chemistry teaching and learning
at all levels of education. However, as these novel perspectives in CER develop and increase, it is
worth qualifying that the content of these approaches in terms of “chemistry” will become critical.
At a time when the skills of scrutinizing evidence and reasons, as well as understanding how science
works, have taken a prominent role, it will be important to prioritize these areas in future studies,
particularly given the urgency related to the increasing level of mistrust in science as well as science
denial (Eichengreen et al., 2021).
Future Directions
The onset of the pandemic context has raised a range of issues that relate to understanding how
chemistry works both as a domain but also in relation to other disciplines, for instance, in relation
to integrated STEM. The ability to scrutinize evidence and claims has signaled the importance of
argumentation for chemistry education practice and research. The switch to online learning environ-
ments has highlighted the importance of virtual learning tools to support the teaching and learning
of chemistry. In this chapter, we focused on areas of CER to target knowledge and skills that the
682
pandemic era demands on chemistry learners. Future research can broaden the scope of such trends
to be inclusive of related aspects, such as the societal context of the pandemic, which has also high-
lighted other issues, such as social justice, that have become more pronounced for education. As
previous reviews highlighted (Teo et al., 2014), the focus on the cultural, gender, and social aspects
of CER has been under-emphasized in the literature (Gerdon, 2020; Markic et al., 2016), and only
since 2020 has there been more of an emphasis on the political dynamics of chemistry and its impor-
tance for chemistry education. STEM education further raises questions about equity and inclusion,
including disabilities (e.g., Isaacson & Michaels, 2015), have been raised in previous CER and is
likely to be an area that more attention will be devoted to in the near future.
Acknowledgments
We thank Vincente Talanquer, Rachel Mamlom-Naaman, Jan van Driel, and Charlene Czerniak for
useful and constructive feedback on this chapter.
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22
EARTH SCIENCE EDUCATION
Introduction
Earth science is the study of the earth, its atmosphere, waters, deep interior, and other components.
Since we live on Earth, earth science must also encompass impacts on humans – what happens to the
planet happens to us. Earth science as a discipline is vital to the future of humanity, yet it is under-
resourced and undertaught globally. Water, soil, and air pollution cause serious health impacts to
fence-line communities living on the margins of polluting industries. Drought, fres, earthquakes,
catastrophic fooding, tsunamis, tornadoes, and other natural hazards wreak economic and physical
havoc on communities, as well as global interactions. Climate change, long recognized as having
the potential to worsen natural hazards and fundamentally disrupt human endeavors like agriculture,
has surpassed a vital tipping point, with global temperatures expected to rise 1.5°C before 2040 due
to post-industrial human activities (IPCC, 2021). Concerns for the sustainability of environmen-
tal practices and the vast social science and education literature on environmental values, insight,
and norms suggest academics understand the importance of the earth system for humanity (Stefen
et al., 2020). Despite this, earth science subjects are often ignored in classrooms across the globe and
throughout the educational system. Similarly, earth science (or geoscience) education research is
undervalued, with little recognition within broader research communities, little recognized impact
on earth science education globally (NRC, 2012), and little integration with broader societal con-
cerns (Orion, 2019).
The purpose of this chapter is to query the current state of earth science education in terms of
advances in both practice and research and at both the school and university levels. We focus on
characteristics of earth science in secondary schools (grades 6–12) and university (tertiary) settings
and compare the current status of earth science education to historical trends. We also consider
Indigenous knowledge – sometimes called Indigenous ecological knowledge (IEK), two-eyed seeing
(TES), or both-ways – as an important and often underused mechanism for increasing earth science
participation by Indigenous and other underserved students (Hatcher et al., 2009; Michie et al.,
2018; Moorman et al., 2021). From this lens, we provide an overview of recent advances (since 2014)
in educational innovations and educational research. Taken as a whole, we articulate concerns about
the state of earth science education in terms of both focus and content as well as what we see as a rela-
tive lack of progress in earth science education research. Finally, we propose several areas for future
efort that would help to meet the growing need for (1) science education practice that embraces the
earth as a laboratory for understanding and (2) science education research that investigates the value
692 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-26

Earth Science Education
of earth science education in helping society tackle ever-present environmental concerns. Embed-
ded in these is a recognized defcit in enrolling and graduating teachers who can meet the need for
training students who can reason about the earth through a school curriculum that includes earth
science as a core science discipline alongside bioscience, chemistry, and physics. Trained students
can go on to be citizens making efective environmental decisions as well as earth scientists engaging
energy, climate, water, and resource industries and problems. Finally, we use the term “earth science”
rather than “earth systems science”. While we previously argue (e.g., Orion & Libarkin, 2014) that
Earth’s systems should form the foundation for earth-related instruction, we also fnd little move-
ment toward earth systems instruction globally. Thus, we use the more general “earth science” in this
review while continuing to argue that earth systems should be the foundation of instruction.
Reviews of the status of earth science education and education research have repeatedly pointed
out the same concerns about the role of earth science in schools (e.g., Orion & Ault, 2007; Orion &
Libarkin, 2014) and the dire need for a workforce trained in earth-related felds (e.g., Mosher &
Keane, 2021). Across continents and grade levels, earth science is often relegated to the bottom of
the school science food chain. Earth science is seen as a less rigorous physical science, may be dis-
tributed into other felds rather than taught as a stand-alone science (e.g., Hoisch & Bowie, 2010),
and is generally not understood by students as a potential career feld. All told, we agree with many
authors who argue that the future of humanity may depend on citizens and scientists who are trained
to observe, heal, and act compassionately in concert with the earth. For decades, earth scientists and
educators have called for increased attention to earth science education in primary and secondary
schools (e.g., Lewis & Baker, 2010) as well as universities (e.g., Foth & Starr, 1971; Hofman & Bar-
stow, 2007). These calls often focus on content and skills, as well as the decision-making and behav-
ioral impacts that require understanding of the planet. Earth science is also recognized as playing a
role in civic science education where students are taught to take informed action on science-based
public issues (Levy et al., 2021). Certainly, earth science appears within standards or teaching norms
across many diferent countries. At the same time, earth science is often relegated to lower grade lev-
els or to piecemeal distribution in or with other sciences. Many educators also experience difculty
ftting earth science into the curriculum for advanced secondary students, preservice teachers, and
university students more generally. To begin this chapter, we frst discuss the global status of earth
science education, using the United States and Israel as deep case studies, and with examples from
around the globe.
Secondary (Middle and High School) Earth Science Education

In general, the world has a complex relationship with earth science education. Globally, most coun-
tries incorporate earth science concepts into primary (elementary) and secondary education stan-
dards, although with varying levels of attention. Some countries, like the United States, provide
explicit linkage to earth science through national standards (see, for limited examples, the United
States and Germany in Jaimes et al., 2020). While these national standards are not always binding
to individual school districts, they typically serve a signifcant role in shaping school requirements
(King et al., 2021).
We use the United States as an example for how earth science is incorporated into standards and
instruction. While the US Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) recognize
earth science education as necessary in schools, earth science manifests in diferent ways across the
US school curriculum (Hofman & Barstow, 2007). Some traction has been made in US states expe-
riencing signifcant impact from natural hazards and/or extractive industries. For example, the state
of Texas hosts signifcant oil and gas reserves and is home to major petroleum industries. Texas is also
home to hurricanes, fooding, sinkholes, wildfres, and severe drought. The status of earth science in
Texas has ebbed and fowed, from the near complete removal of the subject in the late 1990s (Roy,
693
2002) to a resurgence a decade later that prompted extensive teacher preparation in earth science
(Ellins et al., 2013).
Although the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013) explicitly incorporate earth and space science as a
distinct discipline, students receive limited opportunity to engage in earth science topics alone. Earth
science is typically taught in the United States in late middle and early high school, with few high
school students taking advanced courses in related felds, such as oceanography or geoscience. This
early focus on earth science and the lack of availability of advanced coursework or placement exams
sets earth science apart from the other core sciences of physics, chemistry, and bioscience. In addi-
tion, teachers are often unprepared to teach earth science, prompting repeated calls for improving
teacher preparation (Lewis & Baker, 2010; Luft et al., 2020).
The lack of trained earth science teachers in the United States was recognized as problematic as far
back as the 1960s (Stephenson, 1964) and continues today (Wilson, 2019). In fact, less than 5% of all
primary and secondary teachers hold an earth-related degree (Wilson, 2019). While teachers in bio-
science, physics, and chemistry classrooms report deep training in those disciplines, teachers in earth
science courses typically experience minimal, if any, earth science coursework during their prepa-
ration (Weiss, 2002). In 2010, less than 20% of eighth-grade earth science teachers majored in an
earth science feld (Lewis & Baker, 2010). Similarly, only 5% of US middle school (grades 6–8) earth
science teachers hold an earth science degree; most have at most one introductory university course
in earth science (Banilower et al., 2018). High school (grades 9–12) teachers are also ill-prepared to
teach earth science. Only 15% of high school earth science teachers hold degrees in earth-related
felds. Well over half of all earth science teachers have had one or fewer earth science courses, with
36% reporting no training at all (Banilower et al., 2018). These numbers have seen little change in
the past two decades. In 2005, only about 40% of all secondary earth science classrooms were taught
by teachers with at least six courses in earth science felds (Blank & Langesen, 2005) or who were
certifed to teach earth science (Banilower et al., 2015).
This lack of training for earth science teachers is refected in the lack of integration of earth sci-
ence subjects across the school curriculum and calls to improve earth science education generally
(e.g., Hofman & Barstow, 2007). In addition, teaching “out-of-feld” (in subjects for which the
teacher has no prior coursework) explains some of the underperformance of teachers taking earth
science certifcation exams (Ndembera et al., 2020). Out-of-feld teaching (Luft et al., 2020) also
negatively impacts student performance on standardized tests, as well as career interest (Taylor et al.,
2020). Finally, no advanced placement (AP) exam – used in the United States to provide university
credit for advanced high school coursework – exists in the United States for earth science, nor would
most schools be able to staf positions for AP earth science courses if ofered.
Orion et al. (1999) compared Israeli and US earth science education and found striking similari-
ties despite diferences in national education systems. For the last three decades, the Israeli earth sci-
ence education status has been a constant struggle within a system seeking progressive development
while maintaining essentialist norms. It is a struggle between quality and quantity, a struggle between
education and the politics of national and international testing, and a struggle to attract earth sci-
entists to support earth science education in schools. Although quite a few Sisyphean events can be
characterized in the struggle over time, overall a slow but stubborn progress curve can be discerned.
Orion (2021) described 40 years of the evolution of earth science research in Israel from the 1980s.
A vigorous evolution resulted in a unique K–12 earth system, inquiry-based approach program. The
approach and how it is carried out in classrooms are highly valued by students, parents, teachers,
principals, and senior ofcials in the Ministry of Education. Moreover, the curriculum materials were
translated to English, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, and Greek and 2–5-day workshops for
teachers have been conducted worldwide. However, even during the earth systems crises that the
world is experiencing these days, it is still not enough to break through the ignorance and politics of
school systems and indiference and the lack of geoethics of many geoscientists.
694
Therefore, Israeli earth science education has been growing with great success only within progres-
sive-type schools or within essentialist schools with progressive principals. An additional strategy to
bypass the essentialist system is the Distance Earth Sciences National Class (DENC). Instead of trying
to attract essentialist schools to open a progressive earth system program, the DENC attracts students
from diferent schools around Israel to study the same program as students from a school-based pro-
gram, but as hybrid distance learners. A computerized, web-based, distance-learning program identical
to the regular inquiry-based program is implemented for these students. For example, students conduct
all the inquiry-based lab activities at home with lab kits and guided by the instructions on the DENC
website. All the feld trips are implemented, but instead of gathering in the morning near the school
gate, the DENC students gather in the central train station in Tel Aviv. The students are supervised with
the same intensity as a regular class, but instead of a face-to-face meeting, the teacher conducts virtual
meetings with each student. This approach in Israel may serve as a guide for other countries seeking to
increase the number of students engaging with advanced earth science in high school.
Earth science in some countries has a similar profle to the United States and Israel. For example,
Germany has included earth science in its national standards. Schools in Germany teach geography
as one of four required sciences, with national standards developed by the German Geographical
Society (2014). Earth science is taught within the geography curriculum. As in the United States,
individual school regions determine how those standards are implemented. Inclusion of earth science
in Taiwanese schools is quite similar to the United States, Israeli, and German models (Chang et al.,
2006). Other countries include earth science in secondary education as part of a combined Earth &
Environmental curriculum (e.g., Australia) or within other disciplines entirely (e.g., in biology in
Portugal). Earth science in Latin America is typically subsumed into other sciences rather than taught
as a unique and vital science (King, 2013).
In Australia, earth science is included in secondary education in combination with space and
environmental science, depending on the secondary grade level (Australian Academy of Science,
2018). Australian education also identifes priority areas, one of which – sustainability – considers
the extent to which Earth will be able to sustain life into the future. Skamp and Green (2022, p. 1)
argue that the conceptualization of systems “needs to be explicitly placed and ‘seen’ within the con-
text of an Earth System Science framework”. The importance of sustainability within earth science
is also being recognized in other countries (Gilbert et al., 2020). Earth systems thinking as vital for
reasoning about sustainability is also increasingly being recognized as necessary for efective decision-
making for a global future (Pennington et al., 2020).
Very recently, King et al. (2021) analyzed the status of earth science in schools across 51 difer-
ent countries. Results suggest that while demand for decision-making around earth science topics
as well as for trained geoscientists has increased, school curriculum and teacher preparation lag
severally behind need. Simply put, earth science education in school settings is of low importance
relative to other sciences globally, with common concerns about lack of teacher preparation in
nearly every country. Yet, natural disasters, climate change, water resource concerns, and a growing
energy demand is bringing the importance of earth science to the attention of school planners. For
example, Shah (2013) called for more robust incorporation of earth science into schools in Malaysia,
and Duraiswami and Krishnamurthy (2020) evidenced the importance of training teachers in earth
science in India. These and other emerging works continue to push for more robust earth science
education in schools worldwide.
University-Level Geoscience Education

Rather than the “earth science” used when discussing secondary schools, the term “geoscience” is
much more commonly used at the university level, and thus we employ it here. University educa-
tion is often tied to workforce needs. While the late 1970s were seen as a job boom for geoscientists
695
internationally (Friedman, 1978), the geoscience job market had begun to decline in the mid-1980s,
and university enrollments dropped. Three decades ago, Mirsky (1990) and Press (1991) warned that
the geosciences were experiencing a decline in enrollment and would be unable to keep up with
the need for society to tackle pressing questions about the environment, energy, and climate. This
enrollment decline has persisted, with continued attempts (and limited success) to increase interest in
the earth-related sciences as a career.
In the United States, scholars considered the publication of the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013)
a potential boon for geoscience education and training (Wysession, 2014). In particular, the inclusion
of earth and space science as a core discipline suggested schools would see a resurgence of qualifed
earth science teachers and even perhaps that the number of undergraduates enrolling in earth-related
felds would increase as primary and secondary students were exposed to earth science. This hope has
yet to be realized. A very recent document addresses the low enrollment in the geosciences and pro-
vides a vision for the future of undergraduate geoscience in the United States based on perspectives
of a wide range of academics, department heads, and industry professionals (Mosher & Keane, 2021).
The vision includes skills, including domain-specifc skills (e.g., feld abilities) as well as domain-
general skills (e.g., critical thinking). In addition, the vision document acknowledges the importance
of increasing the diversity of people in the feld to help the geosciences meet a growing need and
ensure the discipline is situated to address the needs of the world.
University education in geoscience prepares students for related careers. Extraction of resources,
such as oil, gas, minerals, gemstones, and water, dominates much of the career opportunities for geo-
scientists. For example, the oil and gas industry employs more BS and MS geoscience graduates in the
United States than any other employment sector (Wilson, 2019). In 1999, an entire issue of the Jour-
nal of African Earth Sciences was devoted to university earth science education, evidencing the coop-
eration across countries to develop earth science programs to train scientists to work in burgeoning
mining, fossil fuel, and green energy industries (Rollinson et al.,1999; Gonzales & Keane, 2010).
Less than 25% of the roughly 2,800 US universities ofering bachelor’s degrees house geosci-
ence or similar departments (Wilson, 2019). Unlike other sciences, earth science coursework is not
typically required of US students outside of the geoscience major. While undergraduate students in
liberal arts programs typically complete general science courses designed for nonmajors, these courses
do not require engagement with specifc sciences (Vandergrift et al., 2020). Similarly, while science
majors often must complete advanced mathematics and basic physics and chemistry courses, geosci-
ence is typically ignored as a core science. For example, eforts to transform so-called gateway courses
focus on bioscience, chemistry, and physics (Cooper et al., 2015), with little or no attention to how
geoscience is taught and learned. In many ways, geoscience is not recognized as a “real” science
despite its importance to much of how people live, work, and thrive. Moreover, recent work suggests
that geoscience courses as taught at university are not meeting the needs of all students, including
potential teachers (Egger, 2019).
Geoscience education has existed as a domain of scholarship as long (or longer) than other disci-
pline-based science education felds. The Journal of Geological Education (now the Journal of Geoscience
Education) published its frst issue in 1951, over 70 years ago. Back in 1972, Mayer and Wall (1972)
described the state of geoscience education research through an annotated bibliography containing
over 160 references published in the late 1950s through early 1970s. This feld of scholarship was
clearly well established many decades ago. Despite the longevity of geoscience education as a research
domain, it is unclear why geoscience still plays a minor role in university education.
Recent Earth Science Education Research Advances (2014–2021)

Orion and Ault (2007) and Orion and Libarkin (2014) reviewed the status of earth science educa-
tion research from the end of the 20th century until the beginning of the second decade of the 21st
696
century. According to these two prior reviews, earth science education research followed a similar
course to science education research more broadly. Here, we summarize some of their fndings to
place this chapter in context with earlier works. Orion and Libarkin (2014) described earth systems
science education, including goals, challenges to teaching and learning, and the status of research and
assessment. In doing so, several areas for future research were identifed. In particular, the authors
argued that research should proceed in response to global needs for efective decision-making in the
face of environmental crises, including climate change. Six focus areas were identifed that together
were necessary for a program of study that could impact reasoning and decision-making globally,
including environmental insight, interdisciplinary training, conceptual understanding research, deci-
sion-making research, expertise research, and new technologies for knowledge dissemination.
The 1990s were the golden age of science education – the era of constructivism. The construc-
tivism paradigm infuenced both the perception of curriculum development and the research meth-
odologies dominating investigations into classrooms. The focus of curriculum development shifted
from the teacher-centered approach to a learner-centered approach. Simultaneously, the research
methodology moved from the quantitative paradigm to one of the qualitative and mixed-methods
approaches. However, the development of science education has never followed a gradual linear line
(Frelindich, 1998). Instead, it goes through a series of reforms, which arise in cycles (Hurd, 1986).
As these reforms do not cause punctual development, they are characterized by a so-called pendulum
efect. This means that rather than following a pattern of linear progression, before the concurrent
reform can reach maturation it is replaced by a new reform that drives the science education feld
in a diferent direction. The “pendulum” swings between the educational paradigm endpoints of
essentialism and progressiveness.
Essentialism has been the dominant education approach in public schools worldwide since their
foundation in the 18th century. This socioeconomic approach sees the child as raw material and the
school as the means to mold the child into an obedient and productive citizen. Therefore, essential-
ism ignores the element of personal relevance. Students, as individuals, must accept and perform
whatever the authorities have decided they should learn, regardless of how relevant they fnd it
for their present-day life. While the essentialism paradigm is based on the conservative reduction-
ist philosophy, the progressive paradigm perceives learning holistically in connecting emotions and
cognition, integrating learning environments, and taking an interdisciplinary approach. Thus, the
constructivist reform of the 1990s required that the science education establishment moves from
the perspective of disciplinary-driven schooling, with the primary goal of preparing a nation’s new
generation of scientists (reductionism) to that of integration and systems, with attention focused on
educating students for lives of social responsibility within democratic societies (holism).
The 1990s constructivist reform probably triggered Prof. Vic Mayer to introduce the holistic
earth systems educational approach, a new paradigm for earth science education (Mayer, 1995).
Orion (2002, 2007) based the earth systems educational approach on the inquiry-based learning
method and the integration of the outdoor learning environment as an essential component of the
teaching sequence. The highlights of the three decades’ worth of research that established the earth
systems educational approach are the model for the development and implementation of feld trips as
an integral part of the science curriculum (Orion, 1993; Orion & Hofstein, 1994) and the hierarchic
and pyramidal systems thinking structure (Figure 22.1). This model emerged from an analysis of a
series of studies exploring the various cognitive higher-order thinking skills that are needed for sys-
tems thinking (Kali et al., 2003; Dodick & Orion, 2003; Ben-Zvi Assaraf & Orion, 2005; Ben-Zvi
Assaraf & Orion, 2010).
In the eight years (2014–2021) since Orion and Libarkin (2014) was published, the feld has
advanced to build upon existing knowledge and incorporate new paradigms into earth science class-
rooms, programs, and research activities. In this section, we frst review recent innovations in earth
science education and then provide an overview of research demonstrating the breadth of work in
697
Figure 22.1 The systems thinking hierarchy (STH) model, after Orion (2021).
the feld. This review includes all felds related to earth science, from geology to oceanography to
planetary science. Although we utilized a broad search and included relevant literature wherever
published, the review naturally highlights literature appearing in geoscience/geography education
journals (e.g., Journal of Geoscience Education), science education journals (e.g., International Journal of
Science Education), and journals in earth science felds that publish education research and practice
(e.g., Geosphere). We have striven to include as many diferent authors from as many diferent contexts
as possible. We purposefully include work emerging globally to highlight scholars in countries often
ignored in the earth science education discourse dominated by North America and Europe. Still, this
review cannot be exhaustive of all literature. We encourage readers to use this text as a starting point
for their own explorations of the status of earth science education research internationally.
Expanding the Holistic Earth Systems Educational

Approach: The Emotional–Social Component
As mentioned, the research underlying the development of the earth systems educational approach
focused on the cognitive aspects of systems thinking (the STH model). However, each of the stud-
ies, with no exceptions, that focused on the cognitive components indicated a dualism between the
cognitive and emotion. The dualism was found at the elementary, junior high, and high school levels
(Orion 2021). Merhav (2013) examined the engagement of high school earth science students in
writing feld-trip reports. This assignment required students to demonstrate a variety of higher-order
thinking skills. Therefore, the research hypothesis was that the students’ initial cognitive abilities
while participating in the learning process would be the central factor infuencing the performance
level for this task. However, the fndings indicated no signifcant correlation between initial thinking
skills (such as systems thinking and logical thinking), and the students’ engagement and performance
in writing about the logical sequences and the earth systems interrelationships in their feld reports.
In contrast, engagement and students’ cognitive abilities were found to be mainly infuenced by
emotional aspects.
Inquiry-based learning in small groups at school is embedded in the earth systems education
approach, in both indoor and outdoor learning environments. Thus, the earth systems educational
698
approach creates numerous opportunities for social interaction and depends on students’ social ability
to interact with their peers in a learning process, and on the teachers’ ability to deal with this social
aspect (Merhav, 2013). For example, teachers must be able to adjust the laboratory space to allow
students to move between diferent groups, thereby facilitating their interactions and encouraging the
spontaneous social interactions central to socio-constructivism. For example, Eyov (2017) presented
a mechanism of interactions in which a positive social situation that includes social connections, or a
sense of belonging that stems from the existence of these relationships, constitutes a fundamental fac-
tor for the development of independent learning skills. Schechter (2020) confrmed the relationships
between social well-being and engagement in the learning process. The social well-being of the earth
science students was found to be positively infuenced by the following characteristics of the progres-
sive earth systems educational approach: (1) the inquiry-based learning that encourages and creates
opportunities for social interaction, (2) the teaching model in the outdoor learning environment, (3)
the architecture of the indoor learning environment, and (4) the open teacher–student relationships.
The emergence and development of the emotional axis indicated that learning is, frst and foremost,
an emotional process. Cognition joins the process only after the emotional need has been met. The
learning method (e.g., inquiry-based learning) and the learning environments (indoor, outdoor, and
digital) are tools to ignite the emotional need and then develop and scafold the cognitive abilities,
thereby maintaining the emotional-social aspects of learning.
Orion (2015, 2019, 2022) prefers to use the term learning instinct rather than “motivation for
learning”. He claims that, ultimately, learning is a natural process, an instinct, and like any instinct,
the urge to learn is only called into play by a stimulus or a need. The inborn abilities to learn and
teach are not the exclusive domain of the human species; they are also naturally inherent in animals.
For example, the lioness and her cubs have innate characteristics that allow them to teach and learn
how to hunt for prey. The learning mechanism in humans, as in other animals, is instinctive, and
therefore occurs in response to stimulation. Possibly, the diference between humans and other spe-
cies lies in the relationship between learning and the characteristics of the natural and intrinsic moti-
vation for learning. For humans, learning has evolved far beyond the most basic existential survival;
it also serves humans’ natural curiosity and inborn tendency to seek novelty and challenges. Thus,
as already noted, in humans, the main stimulus for learning is emotional, and cognition follows this
emotional need. Orion (2019) suggests four objectives for future directions in earth science educa-
tion research. One of them is “Understanding and tapping into the ‘learning instinct’”. He claims
that the shift from traditional teaching to earth systems education requires, among other things, the
understanding that learning is a natural process – it is an instinct. The gap between the natural instinct
of learning and the traditional schooling approach is a central reason for the worldwide phenomenon
of children’s reluctance to attend and struggle to learn in schools. Children must fnd their own
meaning and relevance in what they learn in school since this sense of relevance is likely to stimulate
their interest in the subject matter – thus tapping into their learning instinct. Earth science educa-
tion has great potential to stimulate students’ learning instinct by helping them see the relevance of
what they learn in their own daily life. This relevance highlights the importance of creating personal
relevance through integration of the outdoor learning environment and the development of social
wellness (Orion 2021, 2022).
Environmental Insight
Orion and Libarkin (2014) encouraged earth science education researchers to explore the infu-
ence of systems thinking on the development of environmental insight among students and adults.
Environmental insight involves the ability to overcome cognitive barriers to spatial and temporal
thinking, retrospection, and understanding phenomena across scales of many orders of magnitude;
integrates multiple sciences; and develops a cognitive capacity for systems thinking. Few studies
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followed that encouragement. Levy et al. (2018) explored variables that infuence the environmental
behavior of adults. One of the main fndings of this study was that systems thinking skills signif-
cantly infuenced adults’ positive environmental behavior. Orion (2016), using a comparative study,
showed that the systems thinking abilities of high school students participating in an earth systems
program were signifcantly higher than those of students from the same schools who did not study
the earth systems program. In addition, the environmental insight of this earth systems group of stu-
dents was signifcantly higher than that of the other students, including students who had studied a
traditional environmental science program.
Vasconcelos and Orion (2021) refect on the sustainability movement and suggest earth science
education in general, and earth systems education in particular, as a key component of education for
sustainability. Humans play a critical role as participative beings in the earth’s subsystems. People must
acknowledge that life on Earth depends on geoethically responsible resource management. Yet, the
world is far from achieving sustainable development, emphasizing the need for earth science educa-
tion in promoting sustainable decision-making and behavior. Earth systems education is designed to
be an efective learning tool for developing environmental insight. Through a holistic view of Earth,
students learn that humans can have a healthy existence on our planet while minimizing detrimental
environmental impacts.
The year 2021 is a milestone in the public’s understanding that the climate crisis is not an intel-
lectual debate (IPCC, 2021). The extreme climatic events that afected the earth this year illustrated
that the crisis is already here. Many environmental man-made crises, including the climate crisis that
jeopardizes humans’ existence on Earth, are, in part, an educational failure. Orion and Libarkin (2014)
call for development of environmental insight among students is relevant today even more than in
the past. Environmental insight research is still in its initial stages yet has the potential to reduce the
disturbing gap between the need for earth sciences education and its low profle in schools.
Geoethics and Geoscientists’ Responsibility for Education

Greco and Almberge (2018) edited an e-book that looks at earth science education from a global
perspective. This document surveys 27 countries participating in the International Earth Science
Olympiad (IESO; Orion et al., 2020). The e-book’s chapters, written by the mentors of the students’
teams, describe the interrelationships between IESO and the status of earth science education in
each country. Each chapter manifested the high educational potential of earth science education
that has not been echoed in educational systems worldwide. Many students leave the school system
with misconceptions and misapprehensions of the relevance of earth science and the importance of
earth science education. These attitudes are mirrored in the narrow perspectives of the reductionist
policymakers of schooling, including politicians, scientists, and educators. Consequently, there has
been no appreciable change in the earth science profle in schools and how it is taught. As a result,
this vicious cycle continues for generations without any signifcant progress.
Orion (2019) suggested that narrowing the gap between earth science needs and school instruc-
tion requires holistic eforts on multiple fronts, one of which is in the hands of the geoscience com-
munity. The bridging process should start within the geoscience community. It requires a genuine,
profound change in the quality and focus of teaching in schools and universities. Geoscientists should
pave the way for earth science education within schools through direct political engagement and
negotiation with government education ofcials and indirectly through the mass media. Then, they
should leave the door open for earth science educators who have the knowledge and experience to
develop an inquiry-based earth systems curriculum and implement it within schools’ teachers.
A deep change in the status of earth science education in schools requires a deep shift in the atti-
tudes of geoscientists toward their social responsibility. This responsibility is part of the professional
ethics of a geoscientist, as announced in 2016, during the 35th International Geological Congress in
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Cape Town, South Africa, in the document known as the Cape Town Statement on Geoethics (Di
Capua et al., 2017). Geoethics emerged as a new feld of research in the early 1990s and is now a
consolidated feld of study. Introducing an ethical dimension in (geo)science education is not a new
approach, but its prominence has increased in recent years (Almeida & Vasconcelos, 2015). Antonio
Stoppani (1824–1891) presented the concept of “Anthropozoic” to describe the period in which
human activity began to be signifcant and decisive in the dynamics of the earth system; this is con-
sidered a preamble to the emergence of geoethics (Lucchesi, 2017).
Vasconcelos et al. (2016) highlighted the need to disseminate geoethics amongst future geologists,
geology teachers, students, and citizens. Some innovative resources for teaching scientifc dilemmas
that deal with geoethics and its implications were developed in 2020 as part of an international proj-
ect undertaken by scientists and geoscience educators (Vasconcelos et al., 2020). The conceptual basis
of this work was to contribute to a better understanding of scientifc concepts and the complexity of
ethical issues. It demonstrated that democratic societies must address challenges associated with sus-
tainability problems on Earth; their resolution requires knowledge, expertise, and ethics; and eforts
to build a socially responsible and ethically committed future geoscientifc community can serve as
models for the future. Vasconcelos and Orion (2021) suggested that teaching geoethics, along with
the promotion of environmental insight, will lead to a sustainable earth science education and foster
sustainable governance.
The ethical principles that a community embraces often depends on its wider cultural view. Ethi-
cal principles are encoded into policy – for environmental decision-making, the ethical principles
held by the people making policy will dictate what that policy looks like. Anthropocentrism, the
notion that all other beings are means to human ends, has been noted as at the center of most of
the ecological crises being experienced today (Kopnina et al., 2018). Similarly, resourcism considers
the environment as having value only as a space for resource production for human needs; argument
could be made that mining, drilling, and similar activities are fundamentally based in a resourcism
view (Evanof, 2007). Alternatively, non-anthropocentric views recognize that all objects in nature
have value, including but not exclusively humans. The argument has been made that movement from
anthropocentric to non-anthropocentric values must occur for natural resource management to be
sustainable (Gratani et al., 2016).
Although it is tempting to consider ethics to be a universal norm that can be applied in all cases,
ethical decision-making depends deeply on specifc contexts. Certainly, this is evident in the dispa-
rate forms that ethics take in general, within environmentalism, and for specifc communities. Ethics
will have diferent meaning to diferent communities and the evaluation that a decision is ethical is
highly dependent on experiences, goals, and culture. The specifc context of earth and environmen-
tal sciences is of unique importance to professional ethics because of the potential for professional
activities to cause harm to people and animals and the environment. In the United States, we look
to professional organizations to frame ethical norms. For US geoscientists, the American Geoscience
Institute (AGI, n.d.) provides ethical principles, while the National Society of Professional Engi-
neers (NSPE, n.d.) provides ethical norms for engineers. These principles are primarily grounded
in an anthropocentric worldview. The Cape Town Statement on Geoethics (Di Capua et al., 2017)
described earlier was developed recently to instill societal and cultural obligations into the roles and
responsibilities of geoscientists wherever human activities interact with the earth system.
Beyond disciplines, diferent cultures can espouse diferent ethical norms. In the context of the
earth, Indigenous ethics are of particular importance. We note that Indigenous ethics are tied tightly
to specifc peoples, tribes, and contexts. At their most fundamental, Indigenous ethics are based on
a process of building trusting relationships and operate on a community scale rather than at the scale
of individuals. Indigenous conceptualizations of ethics center the four “Rs”: relationality, reciprocity,
responsibility, and rights (Awāsis 2021; Kimmerer, 2013; Parker et. al. 2019; Wilson 2001). Rela-
tionality is an accountability to relationships (both human and nonhuman) where actions support
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the relationship and well-being of those involved. Those relationships should be reciprocal (mutually
benefcial) and based on an understanding of the relationship holders’ responsibilities and rights.
Responsibilities encompass intergenerational (i.e., the seven generations before and after yourself or
the three generations before, your current generation, and the three generations after) relationships
and the concept of the “covenant of reciprocity”, where nonhuman beings are to be treated with the
same respect that we give our human relatives. This worldview changes the focus from looking at the
land as a natural resource to be exploited to one of a balanced reciprocal relationship where the land
and nonhuman beings are relatives to be valued. Finally, Indigenous peoples’ ethical principles are
informed by legal sovereignty, which gives them governance and rights over their land-based practices
and ways of living (Awāsis, 2020).
Other Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Outcomes

The earth science education community has long recognized the need for articulating clear research
directions to advance the feld. In secondary education, Lewis and Baker (2010) recognized the
lack of qualifed earth science teachers and suggested research questions and sociocultural theories
that should drive a future research agenda. Skamp (2020) found that secondary education research
focused on earth science topics remained much less common than education research in other sci-
ence disciplines, suggesting little movement in the ensuing decade. At the university level, a US-
based community focused primarily on undergraduate education has articulated ten themes for future
“geoscience education research” (St. John et al., 2020). Mirroring prior work in the undergraduate-
focused community, these themes are dominated by knowledge and skills with some attention to
noncognitive domains, including societal issues, afect, behavior, and institutional change. More
broadly, Orion (2019) recognized the lack of impact of most earth science education research as
well as the lack of traction for earth science education within schools internationally over many
decades (King et al., 2021). Several potentially fruitful directions for research, including environ-
mental insight, earth science and social well-being, decision-making, and utilizing nontraditional
instructional approaches, are suggested as methods that might bridge the troubling gap between the
need for earth science within society and lack of attention earth science receives across the educa-
tional spectrum.
This research section considers documentation of instructional eforts in indoor and outdoor set-
tings and for work both tied to and separate from instruction. Research cannot always be easily sepa-
rated into research and instructional work; researchers may be teachers who use their classrooms as
the place where data are collected, and often those data inform teaching practice. In addition, many
education researchers consider research as meaningful only when it is applied within an instructional
setting. We include work that asks questions in the context of specifc instruction, considers instruc-
tion more generally, and/or probes concerns that face earth science felds broadly, both within and
outside of educational settings.
In reviewing the past eight years (2014–2021), we identifed thousands of papers that consider
pedagogy, conceptions, and diversity in earth-related felds. Some of these papers discuss the poten-
tial for reforming instructional practice, and other studies document what is currently occurring in
learning spaces, often with data evaluating instructional efcacy. In general, we fnd that while the
literature describes multiple exciting new approaches for engaging students in deep thinking about
the earth and its systems, most instruction is similar to approaches documented and discussed in the
earliest issues of the Journal of Geological Education and already discussed in numerous prior reviews.
Egger (2019) draws a similar conclusion based on a survey of nearly 4,000 US faculty and analysis of
150 course syllabi. Most geoscientists are teaching for conceptual understanding (rather than afective
or behavioral change) and teach in ways that require low cognitive efort on the part of students. King
et al. (2021) similarly fnd that earth science education in schools internationally is no diferent than
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it has been in the past. That is, we are not training our children or university students to think about,
engage ethically with, or be efective decision-makers about the earth.
Despite this, recent pedagogical advances ofer insight into approaches that may increase instruc-
tional efcacy. We begin frst with a review of studies considering pedagogies most likely already
familiar to the reader and follow on with new approaches. Many of these new approaches are taking
advantage of the afordances of technology and often in response to new challenges imposed by the
COVID-19 pandemic. Learning can be broken down into three domains: afect (feelings), behavior
(actions), and cognition (thoughts). Earth science education often stems from larger goals to: (1) edu-
cate citizens to be efective decision-makers and to behave in environmentally sustainable ways (e.g.,
Gilbert et al., 2020) or (2) encourage students to choose careers in earth-related felds (Mosher &
Keane, 2021). In alignment with the progressive paradigm described earlier, a large body of research
points to the importance of afective infuences on environmental behavior (e.g., Hamann & Reese,
2020), with changes in attitudes, motivation, or interests recognized as vital for encouraging behav-
ioral change. Perhaps a disconnect, the vast majority of earth science instruction in schools and
universities focuses on cognition, and specifcally on knowledge and skills deemed important for
earth science understanding. Most work on learning objectives in earth science, for example, focus
on specifc content knowledge (e.g., LaDue & Clark, 2012), and conceptions-oriented visuals play
an important role in earth science assessments (LaDue et al., 2015). We focus frst on earth science
education research focused on conceptual or skills change and follow with work related to afect and
behavior. We also include work that considers the role of culture and society in earth science; after
all, earth science and humanity are deeply intertwined.
Nearly two decades ago, Libarkin (2006) provided an overview of the status of geoscience educa-
tion research and capacity in the United States. At the time, there were nine faculty in the United
States hired (or transitioned into) tenure-stream geoscience education research positions in the sci-
ences, with fve of those faculty ofering training opportunities for MS or PhD students. In 2014,
Orion and Libarkin noted the importance of training researchers who could work on unique issues
in earth science education and who could move fuidly across domains, such as social science, that
often intersect with earth science. Discussion of the nature of geoscience education research programs
has continued to progress (McNeal & Petcovic, 2017). Today, roughly 30 faculty occupy geoscience
education research positions as faculty in colleges of science. Nearly 20 graduate programs (Libar-
kin, 2021) in geocognition and/or geoscience education research exist in the United States, with
programs cropping up internationally (i.e., University of Canterbury, New Zealand). As might be
expected, this growth in programs is accompanied by a growth in earth science education research.
Cognitive Outcomes
Cognitive outcomes typically focus on conceptions, although specifc skills, such as spatial (Ormand
et al., 2017) or feld-based (Nazareth et al., 2019), also receive attention. As might be expected,
research into student conceptions of earth science phenomena continues as an important thrust of
research within the earth science education research community. This research focuses on a wide
array of domains, including plate tectonics (Mills et al., 2017), rock deformation (Hubenthal, 2018),
water (Vo et al., 2015), weather (Karpudewan et al., 2015), planetary science (Jaimes et al., 2020),
evolution (Kirby et al., 2021), and climate change (Boferding & Kloser, 2015; Libarkin et al., 2018).
Other areas of cognition, including spatial skills (Ormand et al., 2017), ability to read scientifc
visuals unique to earth science, such as topographic maps (Atit et al., 2016), and ability to represent
phenomena visually (Libarkin et al., 2015) also receive signifcant attention. This work generally
considers the roles of everyday experience, instructional practice, constructivism, and informal expe-
riences in producing conceptual change. This form of scholarship will (and should) continue within
the feld as it provides an important foundation for other forms of research. At the same time, work
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connecting cognition to afect, behavior, and sociocultural constructs is needed if we are to meet
the demands for an equitable earth science workforce and a public able to make efective decisions
about earth-related processes.
A useful summary of instructional approaches that impact conceptual change can be found in
Mills et al. (2016). Other reviews on specifc topics have also emerged, such as Ormand et al.’s (2017)
review and intervention impacting student ability to solve spatial-visual geologic problems and Mon-
roe et al.’s (2019) review of efective strategies for teaching climate change. Certainly, a variety of
approaches to improving cognitive outcomes have been proposed (e.g., Moutinho et al., 2017). We
have chosen a small handful of studies to discuss as a means for summarizing recent advances in geo-
science instruction geared toward cognitive change.
Investigation of inquiry as an alternative to lecture has a long history in science education, includ-
ing in earth science. Inquiry-based studies provide insight into hands-on instruction that may be
more or less efective. Findings generally align with what we know about inquiry-based instruc-
tion – inquiry when done well is much more efective than traditional lecture for moving students
toward better reasoning skills. For example, a study of inquiry approaches in a high school classroom
provided insight into how diferent types of inquiry help students engage in scientifc thinking
and transfer concepts to new earth science domains (Fang et al., 2016). At the same time, it is well
established that the level of instructor training in inquiry is refected in the extent to which prac-
tice changes and students learn. Adoption of inquiry-based materials by university faculty without
additional training certainly impacts teaching practice, albeit with small enough changes that lesson
adoption alone is likely not sufcient to move faculty away from traditional lecture and toward efec-
tive inquiry (Czajka & McConnell, 2019). Robust training in inquiry instruction, on the other hand,
shows signifcant promise for improving student learning around complex, potentially charged topics
like climate change (Bush et al., 2016).
As has been documented in other sciences, students are likely to gain deeper understanding of
and connection to earth science when they are able to link concepts to everyday life (Brkich, 2014).
Place-based education ofers one mechanism for connecting science to lived experience by provid-
ing lessons embedded within students’ environment and cultural context. Place-based education is
efective for earth science learning in a wide range of places from urban environments (Kirkby, 2014)
to tribal lands (Ward et al., 2014). Place-based education has also shown promise for bridging gaps
between the importance of tapping into student experience for enhancing interest and learning and
science standards that are often couched in general, global terms (Semken & Garcia, 2021). Some
place-based education takes advantage of experiential opportunities, such as geocaching experiences
documented by Lazar and colleagues (2018), while others acknowledge the importance of ties to
culture and community (e.g., Roehrig et al., 2012).
Advances in technology have resulted in the development of new pedagogies as well as the ability
to deploy evidenced approaches to geographically distributed students. These technologies provide
opportunities to transcend the inherent difculties in conceptualizing earth science phenomena that
occur over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. For example, three-dimensional projection
systems allow display of planet-scale data sets in the spatial dimensions that mirror the planet’s scale
and with the ability to show change over time. Rather than projecting a two-dimensional simulation
of a three-dimensional world, these projections allow the earth’s entire system to be displayed and can
help learners make sense of complex data (Goldman et al., 2010). Researchers investigating spherical
displays found that the presence of interpreters who can guide visitor engagement enhances both
use of the display as well as perceived learning (Schollaert Uz et al., 2014; Hayward & Hart, 2015).
These studies align with research indicating that viewers often have difculty making sense of data
visualizations on their own and would beneft from guidance (Stofer, 2016). Thus, this body of work
suggests that use of data visualization, much like inquiry, is most efective when adequate support for
students is put in place.
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In addition to bridging the divide between Earth and human temporal and spatial scales, tech-
nology can also fll gaps between traditional teaching approaches and student needs. For exam-
ple, many earth scientists view feldworkk – engagement with geological phenomena in outside
environments – as necessary for training (Atchison & Libarkin, 2016). However, some students
either do not want to or cannot participate in feld trips because of disability, family/career obliga-
tions, or other competing needs. Virtual feld trips have existed for many years, although technol-
ogy is only now catching up to allow for detailed evaluation of virtual experiences. For example,
Klippel and colleagues (2019) provided virtual feld trips to global spaces that students would oth-
erwise not have been able to visit; their evaluation found that students enjoyed the virtual feld
trips and demonstrated conceptual understanding. Similar work suggests combining virtual feld
approaches with other technologies, such as games, can signifcantly improve accessibility (Bursztyn
et al., 2015). Other curricular innovations, like 3D printing, ofer students access to previously inac-
cessible specimens and with details that allow for deep investigation. As expected, student engage-
ment increases when students are able to physically handle, rather than simply look at, samples (such
as fossils; Grant et al., 2016).
Affective and Behavioral Outcomes

In addition to the social-emotional component discussed earlier, afective outcomes cover a wide
range of emotional impacts of instruction, including interest, motivation, and identity. Van der
Hoeven Kraft (2017) provides a review of research related to student interests and with particular
focus on earth science domains. This review evidences the need for signifcant new research into
how students gain interest within the feld. Similar to this author, we argue that interest must be
carefully defned. For example, the social cognitive career theory approach (e.g., Kier et al., 2014)
suggests interest in a domain is infuenced by experiences, perception of one’s ability to perform
domain-related activities (self-efcacy), and belief that these activities will lead to a specifc outcome
(outcome expectations). Byars-Winston et al. (2016) incorporated science identity (Carlone & John-
son, 2007) into the model, recognizing the importance of identity for encouraging interests, particu-
larly among underrepresented students. Pugh et al. (2019) applied social cognitive career theory to an
investigation of sex diferences in recruitment and retention within geoscience programs. Similarly,
social capital theory has been applied to earth science to understand how trust and sense of belonging
impact satisfaction for students and professionals (McCallum et al., 2018).
Learning in out of school spaces, from museums to zoos to nature centers, can be incredibly
impactful for sparking interest about the earth and for setting students on career paths that embrace
the planet. These programs can be particularly important for schoolchildren and preservice teachers.
Certain concepts, like fossils as a window into Earth’s past, provide a level of excitement that can
sustain engagement with earth science concepts (Clary & Wandersee, 2014). Dawborn-Gundlach
et al. (2017) found that an immersive museum program enhanced preservice teachers’ interest in
earth science as well as their ability to connect concepts to other sciences.
In general, education around knowledge and skills will have little impact on the world without
afective involvement and eventually behavioral change. Behavior itself is infuenced by risk per-
ceptions, values, attitudes, worldviews, and other sociocultural constructs. Research has considered
how people make decisions in areas that link earth science education to lived experience with, for
example, natural hazards (Ariccio et al., 2020; Drost et al., 2016), climate change (Van der Linden
et al., 2015), and career choice (Stokes et al., 2015). Studies of risk perception have found that risk
associated with natural hazards, climate change, and other earth phenomena is highly dependent on
sociocultural context (Keul et al., 2018; Libarkin et al., 2018). Even young schoolchildren can build
links between their lived experiences and earth science (Brkich, 2014), although personal connection
lessens as content becomes more academic and less tangible.
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More generally, earth science provides an interesting context in which to investigate thinking,
learning, and social processes. For example, the intractable lack of diversity in the type of people
engaging in earth science education and careers, recognized decades ago and yet still little chang-
ing, is receiving signifcant attention. Earth science is one of the least diverse disciplines globally
(Bernard & Cooperdock, 2018), and this lack of diversity cuts across disability, race, gender, cultural,
and socioeconomic lines. Most of the research focusing on diversity has begun, as makes sense, with
review of prior work. For example, suggestions for ways to enhance the accessibility of the geosci-
ences for students with disabilities emerged from a synthesis of research fndings (Carabajal et al.,
2017; Stokes et al., 2019). Similarly, consideration of intersectionality for enhancing diversity in earth
science suggests new directions for both research and instruction (Mattheis et al., 2019; Núñez et al.,
2020). Building on explicit linkages to culture can bring diverse groups into earth science education
and careers (e.g., Ricci & Riggs, 2019).
While researchers may recognize the importance of evidence-based action to enhance diversity,
programs and organizations are often slow to embrace direct action and change. Dutt (2020) points
out racism is inherent to the geosciences and Ali et al. (2021) lay out 20 specifc action steps organiza-
tions can take to combat racism and promote diverse participation. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic
has forced teachers and faculty to rethink traditional approaches to instruction, from what to why to
how we teach (Zhao, 2020). This rethinking has opened up spaces that disabled people have been
fghting for access to for many years (Maity et al., 2021). We should carefully consider which com-
ponents of pandemic instruction in earth science should be retained to ensure we do not lose some
of the important perspectives we have gained.
Finally, we should recognize how unique cultural, economic, and historical factors shape earth
and environmental ethics in diferent communities (e.g., Heyd, 2004). Earth science educators would
do well to consider how Indigenous ethical norms, for example, might impact teaching and conduct
of earth science. Earth and environmental justice require refecting on who is making decisions about
Earth’s resources and human impacts on the planet, whose voices are being heard in the decision-
making, and who benefts from specifc outcomes. The value of incorporating Indigenous knowl-
edges into science education is well evidenced (e.g., Hatcher et al., 2009; Roehrig et al., 2012; Apple
et al., 2014; Michie et al., 2018; Moorman et al., 2021), and especially for building pathways for
typically underserved students to participate in earth science as a domain of inquiry and a career tra-
jectory. The model of two-eyed seeing may be particularly valuable for providing deep connections
between Western and Indigenous sciences, especially where classrooms value co-learning and con-
necting science to culture and community (Hatcher et al., 2009). Two-eyed seeing has been used to
transform geography (Moorman et al., 2021) and chemistry (Michie et al., 2018) instruction; these
studies can serve as a model for what earth science might look like if curriculum bridges multiple
ways of knowing in the world.
Cross-National Efforts
While much of our collective research and instructional efort occurs within individual countries
(or even provinces, states, or individual schools), some efort has been undertaken to bridge gov-
ernmental boundaries to further earth science education and education research (e.g., King, 2015).
The International Geoscience Education Organization (IGEO) was formally announced in 2000,
and its main purpose is to promote earth science education at the school level worldwide. Changing
the focus and practice of earth science in school is a major tool of IGEO to fulfll its objective. The
International Earth Science Education Olympiad (IESO) that IGEO launched in 2005 was thought
to be a powerful tool that would lead IGEO toward fulflling that objective. The main reason
beyond IESO was to inspire earth science educators with state-of-the-art teaching strategies and
techniques. According to Orion et al. (2020), all activities of IESO (www.ieso-info.org/) are based
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on systems thinking skills, critical analysis, teamwork, feld observations, data collection, internet
searching for reliable information, and communication skills (oral and textual). The common thread
that runs through all assignments in IESO is the earth system approach – the understanding that
planet Earth is one single system comprising various subsystems that interact amongst themselves
(Stefen et al., 2020).
Like other Olympiads, IESO includes individual tests (written, feld, lab practical tests). How-
ever, it also includes cooperative activities that are unique and special when compared to other sci-
ence olympiads. They promote teamwork, international cooperation, and collaboration and forge
bridges of friendship among young students across the world. The two cooperation activities are the
International Team Field Investigation (ITFI) and the Earth System Project (ESP). The spirit behind
these activities is cooperation and the coming together, mingling, and working together of students
from diferent nationalities, diverse cultures, and varied backgrounds. This is particularly important
today and even more so in the future because major strides in scientifc research are no longer pos-
sible through the eforts of individuals, but rather through groups of scientists. It was expected that
the mentors would take back home ideas and practices of earth systems inquiry-based education and
implement them with schoolteachers in their countries.
Close reading of the IESO e-book (Greco & Almberge, 2018) suggests that after more than a
decade of implementation, the infuence of IESO on the quality and quantity of earth science edu-
cation in schools of the participating countries is minimal. It seems that part of the limited success
of IESO to promote and improve earth science education in schools is related to the lack of partici-
pation of schoolteachers in the IESO processes. At least half of the IESO mentors are geoscientists
with no school-level earth science education background. Therefore, in most countries, the schools
are not involved with the preparation process. Without such involvement of teachers, there is no
chance to infuence the quality of earth science education in schools. Thus, the geoscience com-
munity itself plays its own role in the disturbing gap between the potential of earth science and its
low profle in schools.
While IGEO and the IESO are the most prominent and far-reaching examples of collaboration
across political boundaries (e.g., King et al., 2021), some scholars have begun moving beyond geo-
graphic boundaries. Cross-cultural scholarship has the potential to generate insights into the infu-
ences of culture, lived experience, and underlying cognition on learning and learning processes. For
example, Fermeli et al. (2017) evaluated student interest in geoscience in Greece, Spain, and Italy.
Overall, students across countries expressed the most interest in topics – like natural disasters – that
had a direct impact on society, suggesting that a change to how we teach geoscience might encourage
greater student engagement regardless of country. Jaimes et al. (2020) evaluated student ideas about
changes to life and the earth over time in both US and German contexts. Within both populations,
students had difculty understanding deep time and held similar conceptions about changes (or lack
of) to Earth’s continent and shape. However, perspectives of the earth and life as recent occurrences
only appeared in the US students. These fndings suggest that an international program of study,
while possible, would need to recognize cultural or place-based infuences on learning.
Shankar et al. (2017) and Duraiswami and Krishnamurthy (2020) reported on a series of teacher-
training workshops in India focused on earth science. Those workshops were similar to workshops
conducted worldwide over the last 15 years (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, China,
Ethiopia, Germany, and Greece). Although the local success of each of the earth systems educational
approach workshops (Ben-Zvi et al., 2008), their long-term impact is still to be explored. Orion
(2015) and Shankar et al. (2017) indicated that such sporadic workshops are not enough for closing
the gap between the rhetoric of educators about the meaning of learning and how it works in prac-
tice. This gap is so deep that the process of preparing teachers to teach earth systems inquiry-based
programs amounts to professional change, not just professional development. Such a deep chance
requires resources, which depends on the political system that controls the school systems. The
707
International Union of Geological Sciences established a Commission on Geoscience Education in

2004 to directly address the need for better earth science education globally (IUGS, n.d.).
Unfortunately, the essentialism-based teaching culture dominates most of the school systems
worldwide. This means that a genuine revolution in education will begin only from grassroots move-
ments. It will emerge from those who understand that the traditional school system invented about
200 years ago as part of the Industrial Revolution was designed to serve the economic interests of
social elites and not learners’ interests.
Conclusion
This review, together with the previous reviews of Orion and Ault (2007) and Orion and Libarkin
(2014), documents the past four decades of earth science education practice and research. Altogether,
these three reviews suggest that earth science education research has established a solid theoreti-
cal foundation for practicing earth science education in schools and universities. This foundation
encompasses a broad range of crucial aspects for efective secondary and university instruction. It
provides learners with the cognitive skills needed to develop environmental insight. It includes a
solid understanding of the alternative conceptions students bring into the earth science classroom
and the subjects, methodologies, and educational strategies that are most efective for developing
students’ thinking skills. Some of these thinking skills (like understanding deep time, cyclic think-
ing, and systems thinking) are unique to earth science education. The research also suggests efcacy
of integrating indoor learning environments (classroom, lab, and computer) with outdoor learning
environments. And yet, despite the availability of this theoretical and practical research and the now
widespread recognition that understanding Earth’s interconnected subsystems is crucial to the future
of humanity, the status of earth science education has remained essentially unchanged. Earth science
concepts are often wrongly considered of less rigor and substance than other areas of science, and
educational methodologies often neglect the inquiry-based approaches that can be used inside and
out to enhance interest and understanding.
Curricular practice across the school and university system has not changed signifcantly in the past
decade (or perhaps century). This includes a tight focus on content knowledge, with limited attention
to afect and decision-making vital for addressing natural hazards, climate change, and environmental
justice. We argue that efective earth science education must acknowledge the idea that earth science
is a natural and social science (Oreskes, 2015). Humans infuence the earth system in ways that are
perilous to both the planet and themselves. Whereas the aspects of earth science most important to
humanity are related to environmental insight, geoethics, sustainability, and systems thinking, instruc-
tion still heavily focuses on content knowledge focused on the solid Earth and its surface.
We encourage the earth science education community to refect deeply on what we teach and
why we teach it. We urge educators and researchers alike to move away from business as usual and
refect on the fact that an entire generation of teachers and faculty have moved through their careers
without any substantive change in teacher preparation or students choosing earth science as a career.
We argue that reimagining earth science education will open students’ eyes to the potential of the
discipline as a career feld and the importance of earth science for everyday life. This reimagining
can thus impact who sees earth science as a place where they could thrive and belong. While work
on diversity, equity, and inclusion has increased, we fnd that most of this work is limited to point-
ing out the lack of diversity in earth science or proposing mechanisms that might increase diversity.
Certain domains of scholarship, like place-based education (e.g., Semken & Freeman, 2008) or
Indigenous pedagogies (e.g., Michie et al., 2018), have long recognized the importance of including
culture and society in earth science teaching. Relatedly, new earth science education practice and
research is emerging in literatures written in languages other than English. As is common within
the scientifc literature in general, the English-speaking research world does not efectively engage
708
with work emerging in spaces where English is not the language of research publication. This lack of
engagement is problematic. We must take advantage of organizations, like the International Geosci-
ence Education Organisation (www.igeoscied.org/) and the Commission on Geoscience Education
(https://iugscoge.org/), that bring together practitioners and researchers to share resources and col-
laborate. This collaboration bridges the gap between pedagogy and research that is disseminated in
English and work produced for communities in a local or regional language. In addition, the lack of
diverse voices in much of our curriculum development and education research is concerning.
A documented gap exists between discipline-based education research and classroom practice
(e.g., DeChenne et al., 2014). As one would expect, there is a tenuous relationship between earth
science education research and practice. That is, research does not necessarily translate into how
teaching and learning environments are formulated. For example, while Mosher and Keane (2021)
provide a well-articulated vision for university geoscience education that is based on discussions with
geoscientists from many career felds, there is a surprising lack of reference to published geoscience
education research (e.g., Arthurs, 2019) beyond that of a few authors.
The perspective and deep insight that could be gained from international colleagues in Europe,
Africa, and Asia is missing. This is particularly troubling when one considers that (1) concerns over
declining US undergraduate enrollments and lack of qualifed teachers in earth science can be traced
back to the 1990s (or earlier), (2) many countries around the world are experiencing visible loss of
geoscience programs (“Geoscience On The”, 2021), and (3) valuable research identifes reasons for
lack of majors and evaluates eforts to increase interest in earth science careers (see earlier in this
chapter). These studies can and should inform practice recommendations. Additionally, countries
should look beyond their own borders to identify practices that can retain, promote, and sustain new
geoscientists.
King et al. (2021) documented the persistent lack of earth science instruction in schools globally.
Earth science is still under-taught in schools and universities despite decades of calls for increasing
capacity for earth science instruction as well as student interest in pursuing earth science careers.
Simply put, we do not have enough scientists trained in earth-related felds, nor do we have enough
teachers trained to teach earth science in schools. At the same time, earth science is often neither
required nor encouraged as a core component of the science curriculum (King et al., 2021). Whether
the lack of interest in earth science leads to the lack of trained teachers and training, or vice versa, the
global public are not being educated to tackle looming environmental problems. We must work to
combat the notion that earth science is not a gateway or core science. Rather, we must recognize that
the lack of training for earth science teachers and the low enrollment of students in university earth
science majors are problems that can be fxed with cooperation across institutional and disciplinary
boundaries. In addition, we should look to countries that have seen success in tackling low training
metrics to gain insight into which practices may hold promise globally.
Orion (2019) suggested that the explanation for the gap between the importance of earth science
and classroom practice is a vicious cycle of unawareness. As a result of the improper practice of earth
science education in most countries, many students leave school with misconceptions and misap-
prehensions about the relevance of earth science and the importance of earth science education.
Because of these beliefs, some ofcials in education, including politicians, scientists, and educators,
have maintained their narrow perspectives with little attendant change in the profle of earth science
in schools or in the way it is taught. This vicious cycle thus continues for generations without any
signifcant progress, a situation that is only amplifed by the tendency of geoscientists worldwide to
stay away from public activity, including the educational system. Consequently, there is insufcient
support for promoting the quality and quantity of earth science in schools. Moreover, the essentialist
philosophy that most schools in most countries preserve and support ignores the element of personal
relevance, and as a result, many students worldwide fnd that most of their required subjects are bor-
ing and lose their intrinsic motivation for learning.
709
Future research in the feld of earth science education should focus on breaking this vicious circle.
Bridging the disturbing gap between the educational potential of earth science and its low profle in
schools requires a new and holistic research agenda. This holistic agenda should encompass the deep-
ening of the existing research of the earth systems educational approach and an investment in new
avenues of research designed to enlist massive support from the geoscience community. The holistic
agenda should also encompass both the school system level and the higher-education level. Modeling
is one of the most powerful educational tools. School teachers tend to teach similarly to their univer-
sity teaching models. The geoscience teaching reform should therefore start at the university level.
However, the engagement of the geoscience community within a nonscientifc activity and leading
them toward progressive teaching methods requires a deep change in the attitudes of geoscientists
toward their social responsibility.
Thus, research in this area should look for the attitudes of academic geoscientists toward aspects
such as geoethics, earth systems science, and teaching methods (Orion, 2019). Above all, we can
conclude that a well-trained next generation of scholars is necessary to meet the pressing need for
building learning experiences that enhance the reform of traditional earth science teaching in both
universities and schools. That new generation of earth science education leaders is a tremendous
future challenge of earth science education research. The aforementioned new challenges of earth
science education research should go hand in hand with the research eforts to expand and deepen
our understanding of the following felds of research:
Environmental insight: An extensive research efort is still needed to explore the infuence of system
thinking skills and geological deep time perception on the development of environmental insight.
Moreover, a better, broader, and deeper understanding of what it means to be an environmentally
insightful citizen is needed. What does it look like for people to live environmentally just lives? How
does decision-making at personal, professional, and political levels refect environmental insight?
Earth science education and social well-being: Since learning in school takes place in a social environ-
ment, social wellb-eing is expected to be the main factor that afects the optimal emotional state for
learning. Inquiry-based learning in small groups at school is embedded within the earth science edu-
cation approach, both in indoor learning environments and in the outdoor learning environment. As
a result, earth science education can create numerous opportunities for social interaction. It depends
on students’ social ability to interact with their peers in a learning process and on the ability of teach-
ers to deal with this social aspect. Future research should examine the interrelationship between
the social well-being of earth science students and the learning and teaching of earth science. This
research area might deal with research questions like: (1) What indicators of social well-being can
be identifed among earth science students? (2) To what extent does the students’ social well-being
afect the level of their engagement in the learning process? (3) What is the efect of the learning
method in the earth science program on the students’ social well-being? And (4) what is the efect of
the teaching method on the social well-being of students?
The learning instinct: Engaging the learning instinct is the opposite of the traditional approach to
teaching that is commonly adopted in schools and universities. It is based on a close engagement
of the learner in the learning process and not on the transmission of information and short-term
memorizing. Thus, a central component of the earth science education research agenda should be
exploring the interrelationships between teaching about earth systems and stimulating the learning
instincts of earth science learners.
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23
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Introduction
The term “environmental education” is now approaching 60 years old and is well established in edu-
cation circles. There are journals, handbooks, curricula, and associations devoted to the subject. In
this chapter, we will briefy discuss the history of environmental education before reviewing research
topics, methodologies, and methods. We will also look at some criticisms of environmental educa-
tion and at future directions for research.
People have been teaching each other about the environment for thousands of years, whether it
be how to fsh, how to navigate, how to survive in the wild, or how to grow crops. As we developed
better insights into what worked and why, more codifed approaches emerged. For example, in the
middle of the 17th century, Samuel Hartlib wrote “Essay for Advancement of Husbandry Learning”,
aimed at educating apprentices working in the sector (Webster, 1970). As we moved closer to today’s
societies, we had the luxury of being able to consider the aims and purposes of education from more
philosophical perspectives. Over 100 years after Hartlib’s pragmatic essay, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s
“Emile, or On Education” argued for education that was more than simply reading books; it involved
nature teaching children, not teachers.
Moving closer to the present day, Keith Wheeler, one of the actors in the recent history of
environmental education, identifes Sir Patrick Geddes as “Undoubtedly . . . the founding father
of environmental education” (1975, p. 4). Geddes, a man of diverse interests and talents, was
appointed Assistant in Practical Botany at Edinburgh University in 1880. He was based at the
Royal Botanic Garden, and four years later, started the Environment Society (later the Edinburgh
Social Union) “to encourage local residents to survey, plan, and improve the local environment”
(National Library of Scotland, n.d.). Geddes is best known now as the founder of town plan-
ning, but Wheeler identifes the key role he played in promoting links between education and
the environment:
[He] was unique and before his time in that he saw a close connection between the quality
of education and the quality of the environment. He argued that a child brought into con-
tact with the profound realities of his [sic] environment would only be more likely to learn
better, but also develop a creative attitude towards his [sic] surroundings.
(p. 3)
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-27 717

We think it is important to discuss the early history of environmental education because we agree
with Ferreira, who wrote: “Examining the historical in our present ways of thinking and ways of
doing in environmental education allows us to ask new questions of our work” (2013, p. 67).
First Use of the Term “Environmental Education”

In this section, we look at environmental education’s emergence as a distinct feld in the second
half of the 20th century. The frst recorded use of the term “environmental education” that we can
fnd occurred during a “Conference on Education” that had the theme of “Countryside in 1970”.
It was held at Keele University, in the UK, in March 1965 (Wheeler, 1975, 1985; Carson, 1978;
Sterling, 1992). The conference was the second in a series, organized by the Nature Conservancy
Council, which had started in 1963. The patron of the series was Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
(1921–2021) who was known to have a love of the countryside. The conference participants came
from diverse sectors, including conservation, recreation, land use, and education. Among the edu-
cation participants were representatives of various school subjects, including biology, geography,
natural history, and rural studies. The attendees addressed the educational dimension of issues that
had emerged from an initial conference held two years earlier. Contemporaneously, participants at
another UK conference, in Leicester, recommended that a Society for Environmental Education
be formed: “thereby allowing the various factions within the emergent Society to work together
towards teaching for the betterment of the environment as they could not all agree to each using the
methods of ‘environmental studies’” (Wheeler, 1975, p. 9).
Perhaps unsurprisingly there are alternative histories of the term “environmental education”. One
of the most persistent is John Disinger’s erroneous statement that the “frst known use of the term envi-
ronmental education occurred at a 1948 conference” (1984, p. 109). Close examination of Disinger’s
claim reveals some serious inconsistencies. Disinger attributes the frst use of the term to “Thomas
Pritchard, at that time Deputy Director of The Nature Conservancy in Wales” (p. 109). However, the
Nature Conservancy was not established in the UK until 1949, so he cannot have been its representa-
tive in 1948. Pritchard actually joined the Nature Conservancy in 1967 (Martin & Wheeler, 1975), and
his recollection is that “in the early days it was called conservation education (the term environmental
education was not used until the mid-sixties)” (p. 177; see also Pritchard, 1968). Disinger’s account also
omits the key roles played by a number of colleagues, including Jan Čeřovský, James Swan, Harry Wals,
and Clay Schoenfeld, the frst editor of The Journal of Environmental Education.
James Swan describes a key moment in the history of environmental education in the United States:
in 1969, inspired by the international movement building toward Earth Day in 1970, a
group of faculty and students at the University of Michigan met in a seminar to envision
a new direction for shaping educational policy about the environment. The name for this
new educational thrust became “Environmental Education”.
(Swan, 2010, p. 3)
The frst conceptual framework for “environmental education” appeared in the inaugural issue of The
Journal of Environmental Education (Stapp, 1969). Intending to rectify the shortcomings of conserva-
tion education, Stapp argued that environmental education should empower citizens through helping
them become knowledgeable about the biophysical world and its issues, as well as competent and
motivated to resolve those issues (see also Stapp et al., 1970).
So the question might be, why did environmental education emerge in the early 1960s? One
reading is that the 1950s saw a new world order and a focus on looking toward a better future for
society after the catastrophic Second World War. Scientifc advances were seen by a number of com-
mentators and politicians as ofering a key to this somewhat utopian dream. But it soon became clear
718
Environmental Education
that many of the new scientifc and technological advances had concomitant negative impacts and
were by no means risk free.
One example of the negative impacts was forensically examined by a US scientist and science
communicator, Rachel Carson. In 1962, she published Silent Spring (Carson, 1962), detailing the
immense rippling impact that pesticides were having on insect life and ecological communities. The
book drew the attention of millions of people to the potential dangers of modernity.
In the UK, Wheeler traces the trigger of the environmental revolution to a series of six lectures
broadcast on the BBC in 1969. The speaker was an ecologist, Sir Frank Fraser Darling, and the talks
were titled Wilderness and Plenty. Wheeler notes that “almost overnight the environment became
a topic debated on chat shows, pronounced upon by pop stars and even [inspiring] the TV drama
series, Doomwatch” (Wheeler, 1975, p. 13).
Over the next 50 years, a new public vocabulary emerged such that today most English-speaking
people would be familiar with terms such as “pollution”, “ozone layer”, “global warming”, and
“climate change”, even if they might be less familiar with “habitat” and “biodiversity”. To what
extent this new understanding can be attributed to environmental education in either the formal or
the informal sector is, though, hard to divine.
Debate about what is meant by environmental education began in the 1970s and continued for many
years afterward (Reid & Dillon, 2017). One of the early pioneers of research in environmental education,
Arthur Lucas, noted that defnitions of the term could be classifed using one or more of “about”, “in”,
or “for” the environment (Lucas, 1979). Many studies have focused on the impact of feldwork (“in”) on
students’ knowledge (“about”) and attitudes toward conservation, etc. (“for”). For the purposes of this
chapter, we draw on Clark, Heimlich et al.’s (2020, p. 381) conceptualization of the term:
Environmental education works to move people to action for the tangible benefit of the
environment and humanity. To realize these benefits, people must connect experientially
with the environment, learn needed skills, and understand the complicated social and cul-
tural connections between humanity and the natural environment.
A Brief History of Environmental Education Research

Having looked at diferent conceptualizations of the term “environmental education”, we now
turn to look at the emergence of environmental education research. We start by looking at the frst
volumes of The Journal of Environmental Education, which was very infuential in both refecting and
steering the feld. We examine how research broadened from being mainly positivist in nature to
become more diverse and more in tune with Clark, Heimlich et al.’s conceptualization of EE as
being about understanding the “complicated social and cultural connections between humanity and
the natural environment” mentioned previously.
It took four years from the emergence of the term “environmental education” to the publication
of the frst edition of The Journal of Environmental Education in 1969. Not surprisingly, the early issues
are, generally, bereft of research studies. However, in Volume 1, Issue 3, there is an extract from the
National Audubon Society’s Manual of Outdoor Interpretation, written by Byron L. Ashbaugh,
Chief of the Outdoor Education Services, Genesee County Parks and Recreation Commission,
Flint, Michigan. Titled “Interpretive Research Directions”, the one-page communication contains
some prescient observations including:
The quality of the environment and the relationship of life to it will play major roles in
determining the future of our society. Surely the cost of a deteriorating environment will
be measured in terms of physical and mental decay and social maladjustments.
(Ashbaugh, 1970, p. 77)
719
Ashbaugh notes that conservation involves protecting and managing natural resources, which would
involve regional and urban planning, wise use of land and water, protecting open spaces and scenic
beauty, etc. “But”, he notes, “it is not enough to be merely interested in problems of environmental
well-being. Citizen action is needed” (p. 77). Ashbaugh argues that citizen action relies on educa-
tion and interpretation, and that “Various elements of the interpretive efort are now accepted areas
of research in colleges and universities”. He then lists a number of topics that could be pursued by
research: vandalism, ecological impact, interpretation as a management device, quality control, mes-
sage design, efectiveness, and sociological overtones. While some of the questions that Ashbaugh
lists under each heading might fall within the remit of conservation studies or environmental com-
munications, others are recognizable now as topics of interest to today’s environmental education
researchers. For example, “How efective are the various media and approaches used in interpreta-
tion? For example, is a diorama more efective than an automated slide show?” and “How can inter-
pretation be efective simultaneously for mixed groups of children and adults?”
Annette Gough has commented that “much of the earliest research in environmental education in
the United States took the form of positivist inquiries which worked from the premise that the key
goal of environmental education is the acquisition of responsible environmental behavior” (Gough,
2013, p. 17). This phenomenon may well be explained by the scientifc background of conserva-
tionists such as Ashbaugh. Another factor is the predominance of quantitative psychologists in US
education departments up until the 1990s (see, for example, Marcinkowski, 1993).
It was not until 1993 that this state of afairs was challenged head on by Ian Robottom and Paul
Hart (Robottom & Hart, 1993). Thus began a long critique of reductionist approaches to research in
environmental education centered around what Robottom described as a key problem:
Environmental issues do not fundamentally consist of objectively existing facts that are more
usually the concern of science and science education. If it is recognised that environmental
issues actually consist of diferences of opinion among human beings about the appropriate-
ness of certain environmental actions, then it can be seen that environmental issues are best
understood within a social discourse rather than a scientifc discourse.
(Robottom, 2003, p. 34)
The 1990s saw increasing divergence in approaches to environmental education research in a range
of countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa,
Spain, and the UK (see, for example, Rosenberg & Togo, 2017). The dominance of positivist para-
digms was irretrievably broken. As Annette Gough wrote:
These are very diferent visions of research in environmental education from the simple focus
on changing behaviors. They recognize that behavior change refects non-linear rather than
linear theories of knowledge. Linear epistemologies strive for one coherent knowledge sys-
tem, are underpinned by assumptions of universality, foundation, homogeneity, monotony
and clarity, and consider unknowns, or conficting knowings, as “not-yet-resolved-but-in-
principle-resolvable” imperfections (Bauman, 1993, p. 8). In contrast, achieving behavior
change relates more with non-linear theories of knowledge which “accept unknowns as
well as plurality, dissent and conficting knowledge claims as central and inevitable compo-
nents to understanding knowledge construction, deconstruction and reconstruction pro-
cesses” (Ward, 2002, p. 29).
(Gough, 2013, p. 18)
Almost ten years after Robottom and Hart’s seminal paper, Environmental Education Research published
one of the most highly cited papers in the feld: “Mind the Gap: Why do people act environmentally
720
and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?” by Anja Kollmuss and Julian Agyeman
(2002). The authors asserted that while all the most infuential and commonly used analytical frame-
works, including the early US linear progression models, had some validity: “the question of what
shapes pro-environmental behavior is such a complex one that it cannot be visualized through one
single framework or diagram” (p. 239). Kollmuss and Agyeman then analyzed:
the factors that have been found to have some infuence, positive or negative, on pro-
environmental behavior such as demographic factors, external factors (e.g. institutional,
economic, social and cultural) and internal factors (e.g. motivation, pro-environmental
knowledge, awareness, values, attitudes, emotion, locus of control, responsibilities and
priorities).
(p. 239)
They then pointed out that attempts to incorporate these factors into a single model “might be
neither feasible nor useful” (p. 257). Old habits die hard, though, and many studies still focus on
assessing people’s knowledge and attitudes with a view to then educating them to behave in more
environmentally friendly ways (Marcinkowski & Reid, 2019; Mónus, 2020; Sahin et al., 2020).
In the last 20 or so years, as Paul Hart noted in his (2007) review, the feld now embraces
researchers who address issues of identity, place, culture, and sustainability (see also Ardoin & Bow-
ers, 2020; Ardoin et al., 2018; Reid & Dillon, 2017) using a range of qualitative and post-qualitative
approaches. In the following sections, we examine some areas of environmental education that
have developed since the second edition of this handbook (Dillon, 2014). We acknowledge that
this is not an exhaustive review, but it should provide an insight into recent developments in the
feld.
Notable Environmental Education Trends and Topics
Place-Based Education
Place-based education (PBE), which, as we will show later, aligns with sustainability education,
has early origins in Indigenous people’s (e.g., Native Americans) teaching values and culturally and
environmentally situated pedagogies that have been endorsed by scholars such as Dewey (1916).
However, it was only around 20 years ago that the term “place-based education” was formally estab-
lished (Elder, 1998). What distinguishes PBE from other contextually rich and situated pedagogies is
its connection to place, which “is any locality that becomes imbued with meaning through human
experience” (Semken et al., 2018, p. 543). Recent research has sought to further demonstrate the
efcacy of PBE to reach its goals, which entails promoting and leveraging students’ and instructors’
sense of place and attachment to real “others” (people and the environment) to advance environ-
mental science literacy and pro-environmental behaviors (Gruenewald & Smith, 2014; Semken &
Freeman, 2008; Sobel, 2004; Zeidler et al., 2019). Semken et al. (2018, p. 545) outline fve typical
characteristics of PBE:
1. Content focused explicitly on the attributes of a place (e.g., geology, climate, ecology, culture,
economics, history)
2. Acknowledging, and when possible explicitly incorporating, the diverse meanings that place
holds for the instructor [teacher], the students, and the community (e.g., locally situated tradi-
tional ecological knowledge and/or scientifc knowledge about local natural phenomena)
3. Authentic experiences in that place or in an environment that strongly evokes the place (e.g.,
experiential learning, feldwork, service-learning, immersive virtual feld environments)
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4. Promoting pro-environmental and culturally sustainable practices and lifestyles in the places that
are studied
5. Enriching the senses of place of students and instructors alike
Several factors (e.g., curricula standards, media) related to learning can impede people from engaging
in meaningful interactions with nearby places, and many people misunderstand, fear, and avoid the
natural environment (Semken & Freeman, 2008). Place-based approaches exhibiting the aforemen-
tioned fve characteristics provide a promising pedagogical model for helping learners achieve a range
of academic and nonacademic outcomes to include a deeper understanding of science concepts, a
reduction of fear and exploitation of nature, the retention of students from Indigenous communities,
and the promotion of local ecological and sociocultural sustainability. The research reviewed here is
not exhaustive but provides representative examples of scholarship that demonstrate the aforemen-
tioned PBE characteristics.
The Journal of Geoscience Education devoted two issues that profle 22 papers that describe and assess
the implementation of place-based and culturally rich geoscience teaching (see Apple et al., 2014a,
b for summaries of each issue). Among the topics addressed by the contributors were the efcacy of
PBE in urban contexts to promote students’ sense of place and environmental science identity and
engagement. For instance, DeFelice et al. (2014) engaged underrepresented New York City urban
youth in science through PBE approaches, including leveraging authentic experiences in an envi-
ronment that strongly evoked the students’ sense of place. More specifcally, the program engaged
students through research of soil compaction and algal blooms in Prospect Park and the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden, places the students had built lived connections to. Through situating these places
as an active agent, the program enhanced high school students’ science identities and preference for
working in feld settings. In a later study, also conducted in New York City, Russ et al. (2015) used
a narrative inquiry approach to research the under-investigated area of why and how urban environ-
mental education programs nurture ecological place-meaning. The research involved in-school and
out-of-school science educators and secondary students across seven urban environmental education
programs. Promoting pro-environmental and culturally sustainable practices, the programs engaged
students in activities such as environmental restoration and monitoring of aquatic and terrestrial
habitats as well as community and urban gardening. Through their investigation, Russ et al. (2015)
demonstrated that the programs and educators, and the experiences and social interactions they fos-
tered, cultivated students’ ecological place meaning, ecological identity and conceptions about how
to improve the local environment.
The socioscientifc issues (SSI) framework can accommodate environmental education from
local place-based to broader global scales, and presumes that: (1) environmental issues are inher-
ently complex; (2) understanding the science underpinning these issues is necessary, but insuf-
fcient, for resolving these problems; (3) educating learners toward responsible citizenry and
sustainable environmental engagement requires development of conscience, which includes self-
awareness, self-regulation, and explicit moral recognition of being an impactful component of a
larger system; (4) educational activities must provide learners opportunities to explore complex
problems, negotiate multiple solutions, and develop and justify their own perspectives; (5) learners’
negotiation of the multiple facets (e.g., the unequal impacts on diverse groups and the environ-
ment, ethical concerns, political and ideological dimensions) of environmental issues is crucial for
their developing a functional scientifc literacy aimed toward responsible sociocultural and envi-
ronmental stewardship (Herman et al., 2018). PBE has recently been identifed and implemented
as a modality that can provide rich situated contexts for SSI instruction on environmental topics,
with Zeidler et al. (2019) advocating that through place-based learning environments, educators
can leverage students’ place attachment to people and nature in order to promote their deeply
conceptualizing and resolving SSI.
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PBE that has implemented the SSI – framework has promoted students’ conceptualizing scien-
tifc claims and the nature of science, weighing ethical and sociocultural considerations, negotiating
the intended and unintended outcomes of environmental resolutions, socioscientifc reasoning and
discourse, developing a sense of place, and enacting pro-environmental behaviors. For example,
Birmingham and Calabrese Barton (2014) investigated how underrepresented middle school stu-
dents’ understandings of science and place infuenced and were leveraged through their educated
civic action of identifying the need for, planning, and conducting for their peers and community
members a “green carnival” focused on local green energy issues. The green carnival appeared to be
among the outcomes of the students’ participation in a year-round after-school program. The activi-
ties facilitated their inquiry into, developing science and technology expertise about, and educating
others about Great Lakes City energy SSI. The students’ educative action planning entailed designing
exhibits focused on three messages of energy efciency and technological advances, energy and the
environment, and renewable energy technology – all linked to a common theme about anthropo-
genic climate change and carbon emission mitigation. Furthermore, the students’ planning involved
developing and utilizing a critical understanding of place and navigating the social, political, and
economic dimensions of Great Lakes City while considering the role of green energy solutions for
that community. Notably, this study highlights how content focused explicitly on the attributes of a
place plays an important role for promoting inclusive science learning and educative action regarding
local environmental issues in ways that are lacking in contemporary science education standards and
frameworks (For more explanation, see the section in this chapter titled “Contemporary Standards
and Environmental Education”).
Herman (2018) and Herman et al. (2019) investigated the impact of week-long place-based SSI
instruction in Yellowstone National Park, in the United States, on 60 secondary students’ science
conceptions and compassion toward others impacted by SSI (see Herman et al. (2021) for similar
pedagogy implemented at the post-secondary level). The SSI instruction entailed several of the
aforementioned characteristics of PBE to include: (1) content focused explicitly on the attributes of
Yellowstone ecology, culture, economics, and history; (2) authentic experiential feld experiences
in Yellowstone that strongly evoked a sense of place; and (3) promotion of pro-environmental and
culturally sustainable attitudes and behaviors in the place that was studied. The instruction focused
on the sociocultural and ecological facets of wolf extirpation and reintroduction, and coincided with
immersive experiences (e.g., wolf watching and nature hikes to riparian feld research areas) with
biologists involved with the reintroduction and research eforts. Through the Yellowstone place-
based SSI instruction, the students’ trophic cascade and nature of science (NOS) views became more
accurate and were contextualized with examples refective of their experiences. The students’ com-
passion toward nature and humans, and their willingness to resolve SSI, also signifcantly increased
and became more contextualized. Furthermore, signifcant associations were found between the
students’ pro-environmental behavior of donating their participant incentive to a Yellowstone envi-
ronmental organization, and their exhibiting elevated NOS views and compassion for nature and
people impacted by SSI.
Capkinoglu et al. (2019) investigated Turkish middle school students’ argumentation as they
engaged local environmental SSI through one of the following modalities: (1) feld trips where
the SSI occurred, (2) reading newspaper articles refecting the positive and negative aspects of each
SSI, or (3) visual and verbal presentations refecting the positive and negative aspects of each SSI.
The local SSI included: (1) an artifcial lake, (2) using chicken coops in the city center, (3) health
and environmental impacts related to local leather tanneries, (4) health implications of cellular base
stations (mobile phone masts), and (5) hydroelectric power plants. Unexpectedly, students who par-
ticipated in the feld trips produced the lowest overall quality of arguments – despite directly expe-
riencing the environments where the SSIs occur. Implications from this investigation include the
need for providing adequate planned and spontaneous instructional support for students while they
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engage place-based environmental issues. While all three groups received a similar two-week train-
ing in argumentation and engaged similar SSI, key diferences occurred regarding how they were
pedagogically supported to engage with the SSI. The students who explored the SSI via newspapers
and presentations both received succinct, focused, and accurate perspectives of the SSI, which were
immediately followed by participation in facilitated small group and whole-class discussions. The
feld-trip group’s learning experiences appeared much less pedagogically structured and supportive
in regard to making the nuances of the environmental topics explicit. More specifcally, the students
visited and observed the local environments where the SSI occurred and experienced informal inter-
actions with stakeholders to include short interviews and presentations about the technical content
associated with the SSI (e.g., aspects of chicken and leather processing and base stations). Such
authentic experiential activities are characteristic of PBE. However, the students seemed to experi-
ence difculties with autonomously making sense of the feld experiences and then transferring those
experiences to discussions that occurred well after the feld trips were complete. In summary, Cap-
kinoglu et al. (2019, p. 849) allude to the importance of explicitly scafolding students to understand
the complex facets of SSI during place-based instruction through stating “experiences with SSIs in
their authentic locations are not sufcient by themselves for generating quality arguments; drawing
conclusions and making logical judgments about the cases/efects/people encountered in those envi-
ronments is also required”. These sentiments align with Tal et al. (2014), who argue that exemplary
learning in natural environments entails collaborations between teachers and informal educators and
stakeholders in the interest of achieving specifc learning goals and leveraging the natural and cultural
contexts of an environment to engage learners in active learning and meaningful discussions (see also
Aarnio-Linnanvuori, 2019).
Kim et al. (2020) investigated how an eight-week community-based environmental SSI (SSI-
COMM) program promoted 441 middle school students in Seoul, South Korea, to develop sense of
place and character and values as citizens. The SSI-COMM program engaged students through class-
room and community activities focused on recycling, fne dust impacts on health, and abandoned
pets. More specifcally, the program organization and implementation refected the aforementioned
PBE characteristics and involved four stages of (1) recognition – students investigated the issues
through data collection (e.g., airborne dust concentrations provided by Air Korea) at school and
authentic interactions with community stakeholders, such as local health specialists; (2) exploration –
learning the basic community- and place-relevant concepts and concerns underpinning the issues
through school activities (e.g., investigating the efectiveness of masks) and interactions with teachers
and local experts; (3) sharing – disseminating what was learned in the previous stages to colleagues
and community members; and (4) action-taking – generating and implementing pro-environmental
practices to help resolve the SSI, such as producing and distributing educative materials to local
apartment complexes. From before to after the program, the students demonstrated signifcant, yet
moderately small to moderate, increases in their pre to post scores measuring three aspects of sense
of place (place identity, place attachment, and place dependence). Furthermore, the students’ shifts
in their social and moral compassion (e.g., moral and ethical concern for those impacted by SSI) and
socioscientifc accountability (e.g., willingness and responsibility to resolve SSI) scores demonstrated
similar gains. However, the students’ ecological worldview (e.g., beliefs about humans’ intercon-
nectedness with nature and sustainable development) remained unchanged. From the results of this
investigation, the authors concluded that improving students’ sense of place can provide a foundation
for promoting character and values as citizens.
Kim et al.’s study could be described as a “citizen science” project. Silvertown describes a citizen
scientist as “a volunteer who collects and/or processes data as part of a scientifc enquiry” (2009,
p. 467). In the past couple of decades, the number and type of citizen science projects have increased,
and they include activities such as sorting galaxy shapes, identifying animals from photographs, and
counting eggs in nests. Dillon et al. (2016, p. 450) provide a categorization of strands of citizen
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science (CS) projects: science-driven SC, policy-driven SC, and transition-driven civic science. Of

these, transition-driven civic science, they argue, is best placed to deal with wicked problems:
one needs to realize that citizens have or need to have agency; scientific knowledge includes
other types of knowledge, for instance, indigenous knowledge and local knowledge; and
actions to improve a situation require social learning between the multiple stakeholders
affected by an issue. With these realizations, CS becomes civic science in that the questions
being addressed, the ways data are collected and knowledge and meaning are constructed,
and the course of action to be taken are co-created and therefore not driven by science or
policy making but rather supported by science and new forms of governance. Civic science
tends to focus on involving scientists as one group of the stakeholders among many in a joint
learning process around so-called wicked problems.
This approach is a development of the ideas of Wals et al. (2014), who argued that there needs to be
a convergence between science education and environmental education.
Environmental Education and Its Impact on Health and Well-Being

The relationship between health education and environmental education has been explored for a
number of years, particularly in countries such as Denmark. However, in recent years, and particu-
larly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the value of engaging with the outdoors in terms of
mental and physical health has been increasingly appreciated. A number of reviews of the impacts of
outdoor environmental education have established a sound evidence base for policymakers.
Rickinson et al. (2004) in their review of research on outdoor learning, identifed a number of
studies that suggested health benefts with engaging with nature. They noted that Grahn et al. (1997)
had reported that children attending an “outdoors in all weather” day care facility took fewer sick
days from their program than their peers who attended an urban day-care facility surrounded by tall
buildings. A few years later, Skamp and Bergmann (2001) had identifed calming efects and reduced
vandalism and littering as outcomes of an intervention called Learnscapes. Since then, research into
the impact of time spent outdoors on health and well-being has grown substantially.
One reason for the growth in interest is the increase, in many countries, in mental health dis-
orders, obesity, and social deprivation. For example, Sadler et al. (2018) found that one in eight
5–19-year-olds in the UK had at least one mental health disorder in 2017 and that the rate had
increased from 9.7% in 1999 to 11.2% in 2017. Viner et al. (2018) have projected that, also in
the UK, by 2030 just under a quarter of 11-year-old boys overall will be obese, and that fgure
rises to just under a third of boys in the most deprived parts of the country. The value of being
outdoors, whether for relaxation or exercise, has been known for a very long time, but as the
number of people sufering from stress and other medical conditions has grown, so too has inter-
est in researching how and why engagement with the environment has benefcial impacts. Not
surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased awareness of the preventative and restorative
value of the outdoors.
Lovell (2021), summarizing her scoping review into related literature, for a UK government
agency, noted that:
There is increasing interest as to how the natural environment could be utilised as a health
promotion tool, setting or context in which to address the increasing burden of health prob-
lems [However as] yet there have been few attempts to draw together and synthesise evi-
dence specifically relating to which natural environment based health interventions work,
for whom, in what circumstances, and why. Similarly, there has been little effort to map
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provision, identify systems through which interventions can be most effectively delivered,
or to identify cost-effective approaches.
Not all interventions are deliberately educative, of course, although many are. The school is one of
the most important settings and mechanisms through which we can address the health and well-being
of children and young people (Fazel et al., 2014). As a result, there is considerable interest in identify-
ing efective interventions and intervention points and in understanding how educational cultures,
practices, and environments can be modifed or used to support the equitable physical, social, cogni-
tive, and academic development of children and young people (Durlak et al., 2011; Fazel et al., 2014;
Vander Ploeg et al., 2014; Weare & Nind, 2011).
Ohly et al. (2016) reported on their systematic review of the health and well-being impacts of
school gardening. They identifed a number of benefts, including enjoyment, feelings of achieve-
ment, satisfaction, and pride from seeing plants that they had planted grow, as well as the satisfaction
of harvesting crops. Findings from qualitative studies suggested that gardening supported children,
particularly those with learning difculties, to increase their confdence and self-esteem.
Emotive Dimensions of Environmental Education

An extensive body of scholarship identifes several emotive dimensions as complex and integral fac-
tors that may facilitate or inhibit environmental education eforts and pro-environmental and pro-
social behaviors (de Leeuw et al., 2015; Giford, 2011; Giford & Nilsson, 2014; Klöckner, 2013;
Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002; Pooley & O’Connor, 2000; Russell & Oakley, 2016). Among the types
of afect addressed through this body of work are compassion and empathy, feelings of responsibil-
ity and moral obligation, willingness to act, and self-efcacy and sense of control. The scholarship
reviewed here represents recent eforts by the felds of environmental psychology and education to
determine the important role these afective dimensions play in pro-environmental and pro-social
engagement and how the feld can use educative eforts to promote emotive dimensions aligned with
encouraging environmental and sociocultural sustainability.
Research demonstrating how afective dimensions associated with pro-environmental engagement
includes work from Klöckner (2013), de Leeuw et al. (2015), and Pfattheicher et al. (2016). Klöck-
ner’s (2013) meta-analytical structural equation modeling study, which used 56 data sets to propose
a model based on the prolifc environmental psychology theories (e.g., theory of planned behavior,
norm-activation theory, and value-belief-norm theory), concludes that moral obligation and motiva-
tions and perceived behavioral control, among many other variables, are important for environmental
intent and behavior. Through a theory of planned behavior–based investigation involving 602 high
school students, de Leeuw et al. (2015) also demonstrated through structural equation modeling
that perceived control signifcantly predicted environmental intentions and behavior. Furthermore,
this study also showed that empathetic concern impacted behavioral, normative, and control beliefs,
which in turn infuenced intentions and behavior. De Leeuw et al. (2015) noted that students with
higher levels of empathetic concern also scored higher on all theory of planned behavior scores than
their peers who demonstrated lower levels of empathetic concern. Pfattheicher et al. (2016) reported
a study involving 2,096 students from Germany and the Netherlands and demonstrated that disposi-
tional compassion was signifcantly, yet modestly (r = 0.27–0.28), correlated with pro-environmental
values and intentions and signifcantly predicted reported pro-environmental donations.
Recent scholarship has illuminated how environmental education practices may promote pro-
environmentally aligned afect. Implications of this body of work include that interventions focused on
promoting pro-environmental engagement must do more than just inform from a cognitive perspec-
tive (i.e., teach science). They should also encourage empathetic concern, positive attitudes toward the
environment, and self-efcacy to act. Goralnik and Nelson (2015; 2017) studied fve years of university
726
student writing data to determine how a place-based ecology- and ethics-focused feld philosophy
course (in Isle Royale National Park) promoted learning, moral development, and empathy for nature.
The course used a morally inclusive environmental and citizenry decision-making approach that drew
from Leopold’s (1949) ideas of moral accretions and ecofeminist ethics of care approaches (Plumwood,
1991; Warren, 1990) and focused on relationships and emotional engagement with the natural world
through activities such as readings, written refections, and feld discussions with Isle Royale Wolf-
Moose Project ecologists and National Park Service rangers. The data sources analyzed by Goralnik
and Nelson (2015; 2017) demonstrate that the feld philosophy course promoted the students to move
from a dualistic to a more complex way of knowing characterized by an enhanced understanding of
the natural world, empathetic awareness, moral agency, and sense of self.
Herman et al. (2020), with similar pedagogical objectives, implemented a place-based SSI course
in the Greater Yellowstone Area that was experienced by 24 undergraduates from diverse academic
majors. The course activities entailed feld experiences (e.g., wolf observations, nature hikes) and
interactions with stakeholders (e.g., ranchers, members of the Native American Community, wild-
life biologists) impacted by Yellowstone environmental issues, and then deconstruction of the salient
features of those interactions, such as the type of questions used, perspectives involved, moral and
ethical dimensions present, and the emotive responses expressed. Analysis of the students’ pre- and
post-course qualitative data sources demonstrated a range of emotive reasoning, which the authors
organized into a hierarchical taxonomy that included apathy, passive care, moderated concern, and
empathetic dissonance. The students’ moderated concern, which was expressed diferently when
considering nature versus humans, took the form of value judgments, claiming helplessness, and dif-
fusing responsibility to others. The empathetic dissonance expressed by the students for people and
nature impacted by SSI entailed compassion, guilt for not resolving SSI, anger toward those that are
perceived to cause SSI, and righteous indignation when perceived moral principles of equity and
justice are violated. After the place-based SSI instruction, the students’ responses demonstrated more
moderated concern and empathetic dissonance and contextualizing through experiences gained
through that instruction. The previously addressed work of Herman (2018) utilizing similar moral
and emotive perspective-taking activities as Herman et al. (2020), but with secondary students,
showed that students who donated to a Yellowstone environmental organization expressed signif-
cantly higher levels of compassion for nature and people impacted by SSI than their non-donating
counterparts.
Some scholarship is concerned with the potential negative emotive impact of environmental
education practices. For instance, Russell and Oakley (2016, p. 14) address how many scholars worry
about the “doom and gloom” and crisis discourse in the feld – particularly regarding climate change
education (see Hufnagel, 2015; Ojala, 2015; Quigley, 2016; Siperstein, 2015). For instance, Hufna-
gel’s (2015) study, grounded in sociolinguistics and ethnography, investigated the emotional responses
of 30 preservice elementary teachers when they learned about climate change and its impacts on
ecological systems in an undergraduate science course. The course used a Claims Evidence Reason-
ing (CER) framework (McNeill et al., 2006) and focused on climate change–associated biological
population responses (e.g., evolution, migration, extinction) and impacts on human food production.
Throughout the course, the preservice teachers’ emotional expressions regarding climate change
included fear, anger, guilt, helplessness, and frustration, which were mostly about climate change
impacts. However, the preservice teachers also appeared to distance themselves from the causes and
impacts of climate change by focusing on how others cause and are impacted by climate change.
Conversely, the preservice teachers provided deep and personal emotional expressions, refective of
guilt, for not doing more to help resolve the climate change problem. Hufnagel (2015) concluded
that the fndings of the study challenge the dichotomous assumption that positive emotions enhance
learning and negative emotions impede learning, and that lingering questions persist regarding the
role all types of emotions play in science learning.
727
Research by Ojala (2015) further demonstrates the complex ways diverse environmental educa-
tion approaches can infuence positive and negative afect and environmental engagement. More
specifcally, Ojala (2015) surveyed 624 high school students and sought to explore the relationships
between constructive hope and hope based on denial concerning climate change, environmental
engagement (i.e., behaviors), perceptions about environmental education practices (e.g., teachers’
attitudes toward negatively expressed emotions and outlook toward environmental issues) and gen-
der. Students who expressed hope characterized by denial demonstrated a lesser likelihood to behave
pro-environmentally and responded that their teachers communicated in pessimistic ways and dis-
missed student emotions regarding environmental and social issues. Conversely, higher levels of con-
structive hope among students were associated with higher levels of pro-environmental engagement
and a sense that their teachers were accepting of negative emotions and portrayed more positive
problem-solving practices regarding societal and environmental issues. Implications from this study
include that teachers should acknowledge that climate change information can instigate negative
emotions among students and respectfully use those instances as “teachable moments” to promote
constructive hope (Ojala, 2013; Pacifci & Garrison, 2004). Furthermore, teachers would do well to
consider discussing environmental issues, such as climate change, in an optimistic, solution-oriented
way in order to empower student action.
Climate Change Education

Earlier, we noted Clark, Heimlich et al.’s (2020) conceptualization of environmental education
as involving understanding “the complicated social and cultural connections between humanity
and the natural environment” (p. 381). The most urgent issue to which this applies is climate
change.
Anthropomorphic climate change, whilst denied by some people, is widely accepted by the sci-
entifc community (Kagubare, 2019). It is, perhaps, a unique issue whereby public opinion difers
quite markedly from country to country depending on a whole range of political and cultural fac-
tors. For example, a YouGov poll of Spanish respondents found that 69% believed that “the climate
is changing and human activity is mainly responsible”, whereas the fgure in the United States was
38% (YouGov, 2019). As a consequence, the need for climate change education, and the teaching
approaches required, vary considerably depending on the local context.
Governments and their agencies have committed to addressing this wicked problem (Wals
et al., 2014) in a number of ways through their policies and actions. For example, the UN
Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13: “Take urgent action to combat climate
change and its impacts” has as one of its fve targets: “Improve education, awareness-raising and
human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction
and early warning” (SDSN, 2015). Implicit in improving “human and institutional capacity” is
a realization that the end product has to be some sort of behavioral change at the personal and
public levels.
As with much environmental education, climate change education often focuses on increasing
awareness and on taking action (Lundholm, 2019). Actions might range from monitoring whether
classroom lights are turned of when the rooms are empty to organizing community events and
engaging in protests and strikes. The need for community-level action has been argued by a number
of authors (e.g., Kenis & Mathijs, 2012; Lundholm, 2019; Trott, 2019a). Such action might include
communicating with friends or family about the issue (Valdez et al., 2018), or it might include col-
laborative projects (Birmingham & Barton, 2014). Increasingly, there is an awareness of the social
justice issues associated with global climate change (Kagawa & Selby, 2009). Because of the social
justice dimension of climate change (Howell & Allen, 2019), a number of researchers have argued
728
for cross-curricular approaches (e.g., Hawkey et al., 2019; Rousell & Cutter-McKenzie-Knowles,

2020; Schreiner et al., 2005).
How climate change is covered in school curricula continues to be a topic of research interest.
In most cases, as was found by Erdogan et al. (2009), in their analyses of curricula in Bulgaria and
Turkey, the focus tends to be on the science more than on what can be done about the problem. Sin-
gapore’s curriculum states that children should be introduced to global warming in the elementary
(primary) years (Chang & Pascua, 2017). However, the topic is present only in the curricula for sci-
ence and geography, and there is no mention of social justice issues. Even when the curriculum does
cover aspects of behavioral change, the examples tend to focus more on consumer choice (recycling,
etc.) than on systemic change, a fact that was observed by Wynes and Nicholas (2017) in their study
of Canadian school science textbooks. Conversely, perhaps, Chawla and Cushing (2007, p. 438) have
suggested that “small-scale actions at the level of the classroom, the school yard and the local environ-
ment” are most appropriate in the primary school years.
Climate change is one area of SSI where teacher opinion has been reasonably well examined. A
study carried out in the United States by NPR/IPSOS (2019) found that 86% of teachers (n = 505)
surveyed thought that climate change should be taught in school. A surprisingly small number (8%)
opined that it should not be taught. Approximately 40% of the participants were teaching climate
change during the year of the study, whereas 56% were not. In terms of the reasons identifed by
those participants who were not teaching about climate change, the top three given were: (1) “It’s
not related to the subject(s) I teach” (65%); (2) “Students are too young” (20%); and (3) “I don’t
know enough about it” (17%). In terms of when the teachers thought that climate change should be
taught, just over half the respondents felt that climate change education should start in kindergarten
(9%) or elementary (primary) school (44%).
In the same year, a survey of 352 UK teachers, carried out by YouGov (2019) for Oxfam and the
UK School Climate Network (UKSCN), found that 69% wished to see more teaching in schools
about climate change. A total of 70% of respondents supported radical change in UK legislation to
make the education system ft for the times in which we live (YouGov, 2019). Whereas 89% of the
teachers agreed that UK students should always be taught about climate change, its implications for
environments and societies around the world, and how these implications can be addressed, only 18%
said that they had received adequate training to teach about climate change and its impacts. In a more
recent study by Howard-Jones et al. (2021) almost three quarters of a group of UK teachers were cur-
rently teaching the topic or talking to their students about it. This is a greater level of student–teacher
interaction on this topic than the 42% reported in the United States in 2018 (NPR/IPSOS, 2019).
For more on teachers’ views, practices, and preparation, see later in this chapter.
A number of US studies suggest that children’s learning in school can have an impact on the
understanding of their parents or other adults – a process known as intergenerational learning. For
example, Lawson et al. (2019) describe a school activity in which children interviewed their parents,
which led, subsequently, to greater adult awareness of climate science (see also Ojala, 2012; Sanson
et al., 2018; Trott, 2019a, b).
In terms of what works in climate change education, Monroe et al. (2017) identifed 959 poten-
tially relevant sources. However, only 49 of them met their criteria of focusing on assessment of
climate change education interventions. Monroe et al. looked at the purpose of the intervention, the
assessment methodology, and then identifed strategies that might result in efective interventions.
Two themes were identifed that are common to most environmental education: (1) focusing on
personally relevant and meaningful information and (2) using active and engaging teaching methods.
Four themes specifc to issues such as climate change were also generated: (1) engaging in delibera-
tive discussions, (2) interacting with scientists, (3) addressing misconceptions, and (4) implementing
school or community projects.
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Ocean Literacy
A growing area of research interest is in an area of environmental education that is now commonly
termed “ocean literacy”. The term “marine education literacy” had been in use since at least the late
1970s (Spector, 1979; 1980), but ocean literacy has become much more common following a virtual
conference that was directed by Francesca Cava in January 2002. The attendees agreed that ocean
literate pre-college graduates should be:
• Aware of issues concerning the usage and sustainability of the oceans as a fnite resource
• Cognizant of both global and local environmental issues and the interconnectedness of all species
• Knowledgeable of technological impacts on oceans
• Able to diagram ocean problems, policies, and issues
• Aware of the importance that oceans serve in our daily lives
• Knowledgeable of the enormity and complexity of oceans
As is often the case, it took a few years to refne conceptualizations of the term and, in 2005, Cava
et al. came up with:
Ocean literacy is an understanding of the ocean’s infuence on you and your infuence on
the ocean. An ocean-literate person understands the fundamental concepts about the func-
tioning of the ocean, can communicate about the ocean in a meaningful way, and is able to
make informed and responsible decisions regarding the ocean and its resources.
(Cava et al., 2005, p. 9; see also Cudaback, 2006)
Seven essential principles were identifed, all of which have a strong scientifc dimension:
1. The Earth has one big ocean with many features.

2. The ocean and life in the ocean shape the features of the Earth.
3. The ocean is a major infuence on weather and climate.
4. The ocean makes the Earth habitable.
5. The ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems.
6. The ocean and humans are inextricably interconnected.
7. The ocean is largely unexplored.
(COSEE, 2005)
However, implicit in the ability to make “informed and responsible decisions” is a recognition of the
need to consider values in the context of socioscientifc issues.
Cava et al. (2005, p. 4) pointed out that “for many years core curricula for grades K-12 have not
included ocean topics”, and Schoedinger et al. (2005) noted that “Ocean sciences were idiosyncrati-
cally left out of the [US] National Science Education Standards and most state standards, resulting
in a decline in the public’s attention to ocean issues”. For a country that has such a huge coastline,
and which relies on the oceans for trade, recreation, and tourism, that seems a curious omission.
Garrison (2007, p. 198), in a short paper, lists a number of concepts that might to be taught as part
of ocean literacy and points out that the question that teachers should ask is: “How can one guide
students to use knowledge for the greater good, use information to make intelligent decisions, and
use data to teach others?”
As with many aspects of environmental education, a number of surveys have been carried out to
establish levels of public knowledge (see, for example, Belden Russonello et al., 1999; Bidwell, 2017).
However, Uyarra and Borja (2016) argue that ocean literacy “is not only an educational matter, but
730
an attitude in which understanding of the ocean’s infuence on people and people’s infuence on the
ocean will result in a positive human behavioural change” (p. 1) (see also Dupont & Fauville, 2017;
Fauville, 2019; Fauville et al., 2020; Schoedinger et al., 2010; Strang et al., 2007).
Any initiative aimed at improving ocean literacy needs to take account of what students already
know. Ballantyne (2004) carried out focus group interviews with 54 school students aged 10–11
years old in three elementary schools in Cape Town, South Africa. The author concluded that
“although students are interested in marine life and are familiar with terms such as currents, tides
and waves, their understanding of these concepts is limited and confused” (p. 159). Ballantyne argued
that aquaria had a role in developing public understanding which could lead to habitat conservation
and species survival. Johnson and Potts (2004) discuss the role of museums and aquaria in promoting
ocean literacy noting that “particular attention needs to be given to the translation of core termi-
nology (i.e., scientifc terms) into appropriate and accessible language; increasing the potential for
interactive and IT-based interpretation; and the balance of ‘intrinsic’ and ‘ersatz’ exhibits and objects”
(p. 310) (see also Johnson & Potts, 2002; 2006).
In a comparative study, using an online survey with pupils aged 12–14 years in three UK schools
and six Portuguese schools, Leitão et al. (2018) assessed ocean literacy and also asked where students
thought they had acquired their knowledge. There was no signifcant correlation between the main
source of information and levels of knowledge. Leitão argued “that the more the pupils know about
the ocean the more important it is for them and the more they feel personal responsibility for its
well-being” (p. 5058). This, of course, is a testable hypothesis. More recently, Fauville (2017a, b) has
studied the impact of a cost-efective teaching intervention in which 61 high school students took
part in an online asynchronous discussion with a marine scientist. The topic of the discussion was
ocean acidifcation, and a virtual laboratory and a virtual lecture were the pedagogic techniques used.
Fauville reported that the study shows “how interacting with a scientist gives the students an entry
point to the world of natural sciences with its complexity, uncertainty and choices that go beyond the
idealised form in which natural sciences often are presented in school” (p. 2151).
Dupont (2017) describes an interdisciplinary activity – “I am the Ocean” – which had been
developed by an artist and a scientist “to help students understand, connect and be equipped to take
actions on marine global changes” (p. 1211). During the activity, students took part in feld trips,
open discussions, and sensory immersion. Dupont claims that the activity “illustrates how art and
metaphors can add an emotional and physical dimension to science communication, allowing a bet-
ter understanding of otherwise invisible threats, and move from knowledge to passion” (p. 1211).
Keener-Chavis et al. (2009) describe a larger-scale project which involved the US National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Okeanos Explorer:
Using a systematically mission-driven exploration protocol and advanced technological

instrumentation and systems to explore little-known or unknown regions of the ocean,
the ship will employ an integrated telepresence system that will provide broadband satellite
transmission of data and discoveries in real time for science, education, and outreach.
(p. 73)
The authors outline the afordances of the ship for “learning in new ways”, which include providing
real-time data in various learning environments.
Marrero and Mensah (2010) report on a case study of a group of seventh-grade (ages 12–13) US
students who took part in an ocean literacy–focused curriculum – Signals of Spring – ACES. The
authors used focus-group interviews, student-produced documents, and a decision-making task to
explore students’ decision-making: “The 7th grade students in this study were able to apply ocean
concepts pertaining to physical and biological processes to personal and societal decision making
related to pollution, food choice, and on a sample SSI-based task” (p. 1).
731
Finally, Hall et al. (2013) document an approach to teaching ocean acidifcation and healthy soil to
inner-city communities in the United States using authentic science research activities. Stock (2010)
identifes barriers facing teachers (which are, primarily, high-stakes testing and a lack of time). Wyles
et al. (2014) discuss negative outcomes of public visits to marine environments, such as the impact
on ecosystems of foraging/rock pooling activities.
Greely and Lodge (2009) describe how they devised the Survey of Ocean Literacy and Engage-
ment (SOLE). The instrument consists of a 57-item survey instrument that was devised to align with
the Essential Principles and Fundamental Concepts of Ocean Literacy (COSEE, 2005) mentioned
earlier. The authors used a Rasch analysis to refne and validate SOLE as “a reasonable measure
of ocean content knowledge (reliability, 0.91)”. In terms of the fndings of the study:
Results revealed that content knowledge and environmental attitudes significantly contrib-
uted to ocean literacy. Teens demonstrated a 2–32% increase in content knowledge following
the OCG learning experience. The most significant content gains correlated with ocean lit-
eracy Essential Principles 1, 2 and 5. Analysis of environmental reasoning patterns revealed
that biocentric reasoning (71%) was most important to teens in solving ocean dilemmas.
Further, teens reasoning about challenging ocean dilemmas were capable of supporting a
position, counter-argument, rebuttal, and accurately use scientific information.
The SOLE was used by Greely (2008) in an exploratory study of 30 females aged 13–14 as they
took part in a girls-only oceanography camp. Greely used a mixed-methods approach involving
three quantitative instruments: the SOLE, the Survey of Ocean Stewardship (SOS), and Scenarios of
Ocean Environmental Morality (SOEM). She found that:
SOLE and SOS revealed that content knowledge and environmental attitudes signifcantly
contribute to ocean literacy. Analysis of SOEM demonstrated that biocentric environmen-
tal reasoning was most important to teens in solving specifc ocean dilemmas. Analysis of
[ocean socioscientifc issues] from interview responses revealed three patterns of informal
reasoning (rationalistic, emotive and intuitive).
(p. x)
Chen and Tsai (2016) surveyed 825 Taiwanese university students and reported that they appeared
to possess “a highly positive attitude towards the marine environment and a moderate self-reported
level of marine knowledge”, although they were not “actively engaged in environmental protection
endeavors” (p. 958). Another Taiwanese study, by Lin and Li (2017), involved examining how 54 uni-
versity students of various academic disciplines enrolled in a unit on sustainable oceans. The authors
used auto-photography and reported that:
Overall, students demonstrated vague perceptual awareness about who should take responsi-
bility concerning lifeworld-related issues. Also, their perceptions were afected by their choice
of academic discipline. Engaging students in inter-/transdisciplinary learning, integrating the
arts, science and community, helped develop a more balanced, action-motivated conception
of sustainability. Post-test patterns of change in students’ vision and action were observed.
(p. 554)
Environmental Education and Sustainability

The notion of sustainability has been mentioned already. Returning to Robottom’s observation that
“environmental issues are best understood within a social discourse rather than a scientifc discourse”
732
(Robottom, 2003, p. 34), what now is the role for science education in environmental education
and, indeed, in sustainability education?
In the late 1980s, following the publication of the Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987), the term
“sustainable development” emerged as a key concept refecting the need to address increasingly urgent
environmental and social problems. Sustainable development refects a focus on an ongoing process
rather than a fxed outcome (sustainability). In 1997, the Thessaloniki Declaration (UNESCO, 1997)
promoted “education for sustainability”, but that soon became “education for sustainable develop-
ment” (ESD). The term “environmental education” was almost absent from the declaration. Indeed,
one of the two references suggested that environmental education be referred to as “education for
environment and sustainability”.
Over the years since then, the relationship between ESD and environmental education has been
discussed and debated (Ashley, 2005; Hesselink et al., 2000; Wals & Jickling, 2000). Hesselink et al.
(2000) elicited the views of 50 experts from 25 countries about the relationship. The most popular
view was that ESD was a stage in the evolution of environmental education. A less popular view was
that environmental education was part of the broader church of ESD (see also Scott & Gough, 2003).
It is hard to imagine an education for sustainability, or for sustainable development, without sci-
ence. But teaching about the science of the environment without recognizing the importance of
culture, economics, and politics would be perverse. As we discussed in the section on climate change
education and the section on contemporary standards and environmental education, it is not unusual
to fnd science teachers just teaching the science and leaving it to other subjects to cover the social
dimension. However, this approach seems to encourage a siloed view of the curriculum that does not
mirror the reality of people’s lives (Selby, 2001; Sterling, 2005). It also fails to address the issue that
Symons raised more than 20 years ago:
In the developed world, the environmental movement has been largely the province of the
white middle classes. This may be because, by concentrating on endangered species in far-
away lands and on ‘invisible’ problems like the destruction of the ozone layer, it has failed to
connect with the concerns of people for whom the most pressing environmental issues are
cold, damp housing, alienating, noisy streets; lack of access to the facilities they need; or in
some cases fear of leaving their homes in case of bullying or racist attacks.
(2000, p. 24)
Symons’s criticism brings into question what might be understood by terms such as “environmental
science literacy”.
Environmental Education as Part of Science Education: Tensions and Defcits

Historically, some discomfort has been expressed among science educators and environmental edu-
cators with school science teachers implementing environmental education (Gough, 2016). Some of
this tension can be attributed to the sociocultural, value- and behavior-based, and interdisciplinary
aspects of environmental education proposed in the 1970s (e.g., UNESCO 1978), which appeared
discordant with conventional perspectives and representations in science education and curriculum
that portray science as objective and a distinct, rational, and value-free enterprise. Unfortunately, this
schism persists, and environmental and sustainability education remains a limited pedagogical focus
in formal schooling in most countries for multiple reasons. These include:
1. Governments’ and policymakers’ marginalizing of, science education curricular documents’ and
standards’ defcient coverage of, and teachers’ reluctance and inability to sufciently teach envi-
ronmental and sustainability topics (Gough, 2016).
733
2. Science education and environmental education eforts tending to prioritize prioritizing difer-
ent foci, with the former traditionally being concerned with learners’ understanding of natural
phenomena and the latter targeted on promoting critical and ethical environmental awareness,
decision-making, and citizenship (Wals et al., 2014).
Recent concerns about incorporating environmental sustainability into science education eforts
include that an oversimplifed and technocentric version of sustainability will be promoted that
privileges STEM-centric disciplines and content but is devoid of social, cultural, and ethical dimen-
sions (Feinstein & Kirchglaser, 2015). Such concerns have also been articulated regarding siloed
STEM-centric science education curricula more generally (Zeidler, 2016; Zeidler et al., 2016). For-
tunately, scholars have also recently called for and sought ways to research and converge integrated
environmental education and sustainability pedagogical practices and values within science education
eforts in a more interdisciplinary, synergistic, and contextual manner that would prepare students to
engage current complex global environmental issues (Achiam et al., 2021; Dillon, 2016). However,
a subset of this scholarship, some of which is addressed later, has specifcally focused on the defcits
that remain regarding the promotion and integration of environmental and sustainability education
in formal science standards, curricula, and practices, which may contribute to the discomfort among
science educators and environmental educators with school science teachers’ implementation of
environmental education. Here we address two major areas of focus that illustrate how these defcits
exist: (1) how and why contemporary science education standards provide scant attention to envi-
ronmental education and (2) school science teachers’ environmental education views, practices, and
preparation.
Contemporary Standards and Environmental Education

Scholars such as Gough (2016), Feinstein and Kirchgasler (2015), and Hufnagel et al. (2018) express
concern with how environmental sustainability is portrayed in nationally implemented standards,
with the understanding that those standards shape teachers’ practices. Gough (2016) notes that the
cross-curricular status of environmental and sustainability education has been increasingly diminished
in the national curriculum of Australia and England to the detriment of empowering learners to make
informed decisions that help achieve a socially just and environmentally sustainable world. Feinstein
and Kirchgasler (2015) argue that three themes (universalism, scientism, and technocentrism) are
commonly associated with sustainability in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, NGSS
Lead States, 2013), which collectively promote sustainability as a set of global problems that impact
all humans equally and are resolvable primarily through science, technology, and engineering solu-
tions. Hufnagel et al. (2018) used a textual and discourse analysis approach to classify how the NGSS,
particularly the performance expectations, present environment and environmental issues. Broadly
speaking, Hufnagel et al. (2018) demonstrate that the NGSS largely frames the environment ambigu-
ously and inconsistently and as an entity unconnected from humans, ascribes agency to actions and
activities instead of people, and privileges technocentric solutions to environmental issues.
The work of Clark, Sandoval et al. (2020) explicitly investigates and empirically substantiates
some of the concerns of Feinstein and Kirchgasler (2015) and Hufnagel et al. (2018) through demon-
strating that three high school teachers’ eforts to design and implement NGSS-based lessons resulted
in instruction and student dialogue that detaches humans’ role and agency relative to climate change.
Other scholarship, which does not explicitly test the defcit impact of standards on teachers’ envi-
ronmental education practices, appears to indicate how standards may infuence science education
research and practice. For instance, Gunckel et al. (2018) investigated whether supporting teachers to
use a learning progression–based curriculum impacted their content and pedagogical content knowl-
edge for teaching model-based science (NGSS, 2013; NRC, 2012) about water movement through
734
environmental systems. However, the Water Systems Learning Progression framework underpin-
ning this study’s eforts appears fairly STEM centric – primarily focused on natural and human-
engineered dimensions of water movement through four levels of accounts spanning from those
common among upper elementary students (level 1) to those resembling NGSS-aligned model-based
explanations expected from high school students (level 4). Notably, only level 1 accounts appeared
to refer to humans, but these references appeared anthropocentric (e.g., identifcation of humans as
movers and changers of water and descriptions of water as fulflling human needs). Absent through-
out the Water Systems Learning Progression framework are more nuanced accounts of how people
are interconnected with (particularly levels 2–4), and the diverse sociocultural and ethical dimensions
of, water in varied environmental systems. After implementing the curriculum, the majority of the
teachers’ water systems accounts, learning goals for students, and instruction improved modestly,
but still largely seemed to resemble those prevalent with traditional “school science” of focusing on
defning vocabulary and naming processes of the water cycle.
Feinstein and Kirchgasler (2015), Hufnagel et al. (2018), and Clark, Sandoval et al. (2020) do
express some positivity about the inclusion of the environmental and sustainability topics in the
NGSS, and eforts to implement those topics. Eforts to promote teachers’ and students’ content
knowledge regarding environmental issues are also seen as important (e.g., Gunckel et al., 2018).
However, refecting Eisner’s (1985) argument regarding the null curriculum, concern may be raised
about what those standards leave out and how that infuences research and practice. More specif-
cally, the worry is that literal implementation of environmental topics as portrayed by the NGSS and
other national standards in classrooms may impede eforts to help students understand the nuanced
social, cultural, political, and ethical dimensions of environmental issues. As such, students will be
ill-prepared to participate in a democratic society to resolve those issues.
Scholars concerned with this undesirable outcome have advocated the reconstruction of sci-
ence education standards, curricula, and practices in a manner congruent with what is promoted
through more progressive democratic-oriented frameworks for science and environmental literacy
(Hodson, 2011; Sjöström & Eilks, 2018; Yacoubian, 2018; Zeidler, 2016; Zeidler et al., 2016). For
instance, Sjöström and Eilks (2018), building from the works of Roberts (2007, 2011), Aikenhead
(2007), Hodson (2009, 2011), and others, articulate a continuum consisting of three increasingly
progressive visions (Vision I, II, and III) of scientifc literacy. At one end is Vision I, a traditional
version of scientifc literacy that forefronts scientifc content and processes and has been criticized
for its connections to a neoliberal ideology and overemphasis on converting students to scientists.
Vision II, in the middle of the continuum, seeks to prepare students to understand in a functional
sense how science applies in everyday life and society. Building from Vision II, Sjöström and Eilks
(2018, p. 4) advance Vision III scientifc literacy, which is a “politicised vision of science education
aiming at dialogical emancipation, critical global citizenship, and socio-ecojustice”. Similar to this
call by Sjöström and Eilks (2018), Yacoubian (2018) advocates that the role of science education is
to empower future citizens as part of a democracy to critically engage real-world SSIs through sup-
porting them to practice refectively exploring SSIs and how broader political, social, and economic
systems associate with those SSIs. Abstracted to environmental education, these more progressive
visions for scientifc literacy refect a three-dimensional environmental literacy as advocated by Sta-
bles (1998) and profled by Hodson (2011, p. 21). These three dimensions consist of: (1) functional
environmental literacy – comprehension of the language and ideas used to describe and theorize the
natural and built environments and the ability to obtain and critique further knowledge; (2) cultural
environmental literacy – comprehension of how the natural environment has been infuenced by human
needs and activity as well as by natural processes, and a recognition of the important role natural
images and landscapes play in human culture; and (3) critical environmental literacy – comprehension of
the economic, sociocultural, and political factors that contribute to environmental change and how
environment-impacting decisions are made and can be infuenced.
735
Contemporary science education standards and curriculum documents appear to be STEM-

centric and primarily situated to promote a superfcial Vision I type of scientifc literacy, and include
intermittent calls for achieving shallowly framed Vision II–aligned goals of linking science to society
(Zeidler, 2016; Zeidler et al., 2016). The tension of attempting to achieve these two visions regarding
science more generally has been noted by Aikenhead (2006) as “pipeline science – preparing future
scientists” versus “science for all” (also see Sjöström & Eilks, 2018, p. 66). Because of these standards’
and curricular documents’ defcits, practitioners in the science education feld stand a paltry chance
of promoting more compelling, progressive, and democratic forms of scientifc literacy more broadly;
and even less of a chance of promoting democratic environmental literacy when teaching about
environmental education issues more specifcally. Reconstruction of science education standards and
curricular eforts that aim for Vision III and democratic type science and environmental literacies
must incorporate more thorough sociocultural perspectives through stronger SSI-based education
and associated pedagogies. Such eforts have been advanced through progressive science in context
(SinC) movements advocating complex versions of STSE and SSI pedagogies where the sociocultural
and ethical dimensions of environmental issues and their resolution are weighed alongside scientifc
knowledge (see Bencze et al., 2020; Herman et al., 2018; Hodson, 2011; Sjöström & Eilks, 2018 for
discussions about and examples of these pedagogies. Further examples appear in the section titled
“Place-Based Education”). Further recommendations include the need for science education, simi-
lar to environmental education, to leverage interdisciplinary collaborations with educators from the
humanities and social sciences in order to implement pedagogies that promote multifaceted holistic
understandings of environmental issues (Feinstein & Kirchgasler, 2015).
Science Teacher Environmental Education Views,

Practices, and Preparation
A number of scholarly works (including Gunckel et al., 2018, discussed earlier) attempt to under-
stand and promote teachers’ knowledge bases and practices regarding environmental education.
Evans et al. (2017) provides a broad-scale study that explicates the rationales, theoretical perspectives,
practices, and challenges of various approaches to embedding sustainability in teacher education.
This investigation of existing peer-reviewed literature, starting with 907 and reduced to 28 relevant
publications, categorized the reviewed studies across four approaches to embedding sustainability
education in teacher education from that which systemically occurs across curriculum areas, courses,
or institutions to that which occurs through a dedicated elective subject. Concluding their inves-
tigation, Evans et al. (2017, pp. 413–414) provide four broad discussion points about sustainability
education interventions in teacher education:
1. Sustainability education in teacher education is still an emerging area of curricular activity

driven by individual academics at the micro level within the teacher educator’s sphere of infu-
ence, rather than through broad-scale (e.g., across program and institutions) systemic approaches.
Encouragingly, however, extant eforts to include sustainability in teacher education occurs in
“patches of green” across a range of curriculum disciplines to include those beyond the sciences
(e.g., English, the arts).
2. Sustainability education in teacher education eforts is reported to be based in a range of peda-
gogical approaches (e.g., constructivist, inquiry, and/or experiential). However, most reviewed
works largely employed transmission modes of teaching, and little or no critical evaluation
was conducted on the pedagogies implemented to determine their efcacy for promoting
the knowledge, skills, values, and dispositions required to implement sustainability education.
Notably concerning among some of the reviewed scholarship was the absence of the afective
dimensions of sustainability education and the apparent assumption that acquiring sustainability
736
knowledge and skills by teachers would lead them to later implement sustainability education in
professional practice.
3. Sustainability education in teacher education is a relatively nascent feld and has a very small
research base, which stems mostly from work conducted in Australia. While scholarship has
also been reported from the United States, Europe, and Asia, the research base for sustainability
education in teacher education must be signifcantly expanded globally.
4. Reported sustainability education in teacher education eforts are generally under-theorized
accounts regarding how to plan and implement sustainability education. For instance, many
reviewed works state the processes and results of pedagogical interventions, but insufciently
address the underpinning theoretical frameworks and analytic evaluative accounts of those peda-
gogies. Future eforts to help sustainability in the teacher education feld become more robust
should include expanding the scholarship to include more theorizing of diferent pedagogical
approaches, which could entail strong engagement with educational and environmental theory.
Concerning trends regarding teachers’ preparation, knowledge bases, and practices regarding envi-
ronmental topics have been documented elsewhere. Borg et al. (2014) conducted a nationwide
questionnaire study of 3,229 Swedish upper secondary school teachers’ conceptual understanding
of sustainable development in relation to their subject discipline and teaching experience. Results
from these eforts demonstrate that the ecological dimension was commonly recognized among
the teachers as an aspect of sustainable development, but that only half of the teachers considered
social dimensions to be part of sustainable development. Overall, the teachers were dubious about
the economic dimension of sustainable development, with 18% agreeing and 19% disagreeing that
stable economic growth is a prerequisite for SD. Notably, social science teachers stressed the social
dimensions, and science teachers stressed the ecological dimensions of sustainable development. Col-
lectively, the surveyed teachers appeared to lack a holistic understanding of sustainable development,
and 76% (71% of surveyed science teachers specifcally) and 70%, respectively, indicated never having
studied sustainable development in their teacher education program or post-program professional
development. Herman et al. (2017) surveyed 102 Florida (FL) and 118 Puerto Rico (PR) secondary
science teachers who indicated they teach climate change as distinct lessons, a unit, or a unifying
theme of a course. Regarding their climate change science knowledge, the teachers demonstrated
concerning misconceptions that were similar to those pervasive among the general public (Bord
et al., 1998). For instance, a large proportion of the surveyed teachers inaccurately identifed ozone
layer depletion as a primary cause of climate change and that heating and cooling of homes was not
a primary cause of climate change. Furthermore, half of the FL and just over two thirds of the PR
teachers inaccurately responded that in order to be valid, climate change science must be based on
controlled experiments. The majority of the teachers’ reported climate change practices focused
on climate change impacts on natural phenomena (e.g., 58% of FL and 44% of PR teachers report
extensively covering sea level rise). However, much less coverage was dedicated to climate change
mitigation and social and political considerations, with between 17% and 21% of the teachers indicat-
ing they extensively taught these topics.
Innovative eforts have been recently conducted by scholars to promote more efective environ-
mental education practices of in-service teachers. For instance, Kerr (2016; 2020) qualitatively inves-
tigated how implementing an outdoor science and environmental education co-teaching professional
development program impacted eight Northern Ireland elementary and middle grade teachers and
their students. Salient features of the program included elementary and junior high school teachers
collaboratively participating in workshops that addressed co-teaching practices; and the teachers’
co-planning, co-teaching, and co-refection of outdoor science/environmental education activities
focused on topics such as invertebrates, habitats, and food chains at local parks and natural areas.
The authors note that outdoor science teaching was quite challenging for the elementary teachers
737
who were not science education specialists or science degree holders. However, those challenges
appeared to be mitigated to some degree because of the help provided through collaborations with
the experienced junior high school teachers. The cognitive, afective, and social outcomes of the
program appeared relatively positive for teachers and students and included: (1) teachers’ increased
knowledge, confdence, enthusiasm, and collaborations regarding outdoor science/environmental
education practices and (2) students’ enhanced science knowledge, socialization, and comfort with
transitions across the primary and secondary grades.
Criticisms of Environmental Education

Criticism of environmental education seems almost cyclical in nature. In 1997, the New York Times
printed a story headlined “Critics Rise Up Against Environmental Education” (Cushman Jr., 1997).
Drawing on the opinions of critics such as Michael Sanera, the Times opined:
A backlash is developing among people who say the environmental education movement
is based on flawed information, biased presentations and misguided objectives. At worst,
they contend, impressionable children are being browbeaten into an irrational rejection of
consumption, economic growth and free market capitalism.
Sanera, described as a policy analyst at the Claremont Institute, “a conservative research organization
in California”, asserted that: “When you look at what is happening in environmental education, it
sets any reasonable person reeling at the abuses”. He subsequently co-authored a book titled Facts,
not fear: A parent’s guide to teaching children about the environment (Sanera & Shaw, 1996). Writing in the
Free Market Forum almost a decade later, Sanera (2008) concluded:
Professional environmentalists have captured the vast majority of environmental education

and have designed it to serve their own ends. Reforming EE will be impossible until edu-
cators can change the definition of the field to align with the proper principles of science
education.
A decade later, Blumstein and Saylan (2007) outlined a very diferent critique, arguing that “the
environmental education community may have failed the greater cause and may indeed have lost
sight of its original purpose” (p. 976). Their argument, which focuses predominantly but not exclu-
sively on the situation in the United States, is that environmental educators have focused more on
teaching respect for nature and awareness of the environment and not enough on behavioral change.
Blumstein and Saylan do not pull any punches, for example, “we believe deeply that simply bumbling
around without directed objectives, without creating personal empowerment, and without creating
measurable positive impacts is a waste of time and money” (p. 976). They develop their ideas further
in a book of the same name: The failure of environmental education (and how we can fx it) (Saylan &
Blumstein, 2011). Their solutions for “fxing” it include designing programs that can be evaluated
with pre-/post-tests, teaching a worldview, teaching how governments work, and teaching critical
thinking. The rest of this chapter might convince you that the environmental education community
already does these and more; however, as Hamilton-Smith (2011) argues, Blumstein and Saylan’s
arguments may serve to help practitioners and researchers to reassess their approach.
Annette Gough (2013) ofers a more nuanced critique of aspects of environmental education
research, pointing out some of the “blind spots and blank spots” (to use Wagner’s [1993] terms) that
“confgure the ‘collective ignorance’ of Western-enculturated environmental education researchers as
we struggle to enact defensible ways of thinking globally” (p. 28). In articulating a critical history of
“Thinking globally in environmental education”, Gough poses a key question, “How can we think
738
globally without enacting some form of epistemological imperialism?” Gough suggests that a way
forward might involve:
a process of constructing transcultural “spaces” in which scholars from diferent localities

collaborate in reframing and decentering their own knowledge traditions and negotiate
trust in each other’s contributions to their collective work. For those of us who work in
Western knowledge traditions, a frst step must be to represent and perform our distinctive
approaches to knowledge production in ways that authentically demonstrate their localness.
We might not be able to speak – or think – from outside our own Eurocentrism, but we can
continue to ask questions about how our specifcally Western ways of “acting locally” (in
the production of knowledge) might be performed with other local knowledge traditions.
(p. 28)
Such a process, which might be a frst step in decolonizing environmental education (Korteweg &
Russell, 2012), might result in “the limits and strengths of the local knowledge tradition we call West-
ern science [becoming] increasingly visible” (see also Harvester & Blenkinsop, 2010; Ngcoza, 2019).
However, this process holds challenges for teachers, as Lowan-Trudeau (2019, p. 62) points out:
“Educators who introduce critical socio-ecological issues into learning contexts often experience
formidable internal and external challenges”.
Other internal criticisms of environmental education research are that “too much emphasis has
been placed on education ‘in and about the environment’ rather than education focused on ‘being
for the environment’ (Davis, 2005)” (Blye & Halpenny, 2020, p. 3). Blye and Halfpenny also point
out that “research has tended to focus on knowledge as the predictor for environmental behaviours
rather than attitudes”. This point was discussed earlier but continues to be an issue in the research
community. Earlier, we referred to Symons’s criticism of the middle-class nature of the environmen-
tal movement, and she argues that:
Environmental education (both at school and government level) often focuses personal
responsibility and changes in individual lifestyle, rather than on exploring the structures
within which we all live, which have a far more fundamental impact on the environment
than do our individual actions.
(2000, p. 25)
The feld has moved on, though it can still be criticized for being too inward looking. In an editorial
essay, Alan Reid, editor of Environmental Education Research, discusses “Blank, blind, bald and bright
spots” (2019). Reid argues that the feld will develop if researchers focus on providing “insights into
policies, philosophies, practices and their intersections from diferent parts of the world” (p. 176). That
would entail “not just simply reporting, advocating or evaluating existing work, but critically research-
ing diferent approaches, trends, and ways of doing environmental and sustainability education” (p. 177).
Conclusions and Future Directions

From a position on the periphery of science education, emerging as it did from rural science, envi-
ronmental education is increasingly becoming a core pillar. Science teaching has always taken the
natural world into account, but we now see that environmental education allows science education
a further layer of legitimacy at the heart of education and schooling (Wals et al., 2014), provided
that it recognizes that values play a key role in addressing socioscientifc issues and that science is not
neutral. The extent to which this convergence results in a truly transformative educational experi-
ence remains to be seen – we have a long journey ahead.
739
Environmental education research is carried out throughout the world and is reported in a range
of journals that refect national and regional perspectives, including the Australian Journal of Environ-
mental Education, the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, the Korean Journal of Environmental
Education, the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, as well as journals that do not.
The diversity of the feld is refected in the titles of papers that have recently been published: “Pre-
dicting engineering students’ desire to address climate change in their careers: An exploratory study
using responses from a U.S. National survey” (Shealy et al., 2021); “It’s about time: Perceived barri-
ers to in-service teacher climate change professional development” (Ennes et al., 2021); “Navigating
inclusion and legitimacy in campus-community environmental partnerships to advance urban social-
ecological resilience” (Maharramli et al., 2021); and “The efects of information source on higher
education students’ sustainability knowledge” (Michel & Zwickle, 2021). Research in environmental
education is also published in the mainstream science education journals, suggesting that researchers
have a variety of high-quality, internationally peer-reviewed journals in which to publish.
In terms of future directions, we might wish to see a move away from studies of preservice knowl-
edge of teachers, which seem to be based on an unhelpful defcit model of teacher preparation (see,
for example, Nyarko & Petcovik, 2021), and more toward case studies of successful implementation
of innovations that genuinely lead to people living more sustainable lives. We will, of course, see
several years of papers describing the impact of COVID-19 on people and the environment, and we
may also see growing numbers of papers looking at issues of decolonization.
We began the chapter by looking at the history of environmental education and environmental
education research. In discussing possible research directions, we need to be aware of what our pre-
decessors said. Arthur Lucas, who we mentioned earlier, identifed future research directions in 1980,
more than 40 years ago. He argued for education research that:
(i) tests the efectiveness of programs by examining their efects on behaviour, and not on
attitude change alone;
(ii) establishes causal relationships, not merely correlations between knowledge, behav-
ioural intentions, and behaviour, in particular examining the causal links between
behaviour/ attitudes and . . . factual knowledge and conceptual knowledge;
(iii) investigates the efectiveness of techniques of changing behaviour in producing stable,
environmentally sound behaviour, given that this behaviour can be determined; and
(iv) attempts longitudinal studies of formal and informal environmental education on adult
behaviour.
(1980, pp. 20–21)
It would be hard to argue that any of those four areas did not still require more research.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Ben Janney for his assistance with the literature search, organizing and sum-
marizing the main points, and referencing. We would also like to thank Sally Birdsall and Paul Hart
for their thoughtful critiques of the frst version of this chapter.
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24
SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY LITERACY
The Missing Link on the Continuum
From Science Literacy to Scientifc Literacy
Introduction
“Science is not just a body of knowledge that refects current understanding of the world; it is also a
set of practices used to establish, extend, and refne that knowledge” (NRC, 2012, p. 26). In concep-
tualizing scientifc literacy, considering the multidimensionality of science is paramount. Scientifc
literacy includes understanding foundational and core science concepts, scientifc inquiry practices,
and epistemic features and functions of those concepts and practices. This chapter focuses on scien-
tifc inquiry as practices, epistemology, and knowledge that are fundamental to scientifc literacy. We
examine what science education scholars have explored and learned in relation to scientifc inquiry
since the publication of Volume II of the Handbook of Research on Science Education (Lederman &
Abell, 2014). We look to the research to identify trends related to the meaning of inquiry, the foci
and contexts of inquiry for teaching and learning, and the status of goal achievement with respect to
inquiry-based recommendations for scientifc literacy. We ask: What is the role of knowledge about
scientifc inquiry as individuals move from being science literate to becoming scientifcally literate?
We introduce the construct of scientifc inquiry literacy (SIL) as essential to cognitively transition from
being science literate to being scientifcally literate. Recommendations are ofered for research, cur-
riculum, and assessments in eforts to advance the understanding of scientifc inquiry to achieve the
science education community’s goal to achieve scientifc literacy in today’s (and tomorrow’s) world.
Scientifc Literacy: Back to the Basics
Bybee’s Dimensions
In 1995, Rodger Bybee laid out three dimensions of scientifc literacy. He described these dimen-
sions in relation to science education reforms of the time (e.g., NSES), but looking upon these
dimensions seems appropriate now, 25 years later, as we look to how scientifc inquiry has been
framed, used, and infuential toward a scientifcally literate society. The frst dimension Bybee (1995)
described is functional scientifc literacy, a.k.a. vocabulary. He stated that a functional achievement
includes the “use [of] scientifc words appropriately and adequately” (p. 29). Clearly, vocabulary and
the appropriate use of scientifc terminology is part of scientifc literacy; however, the overemphasis
on vocabulary knowledge in terms of defnitions over appropriate and adequate use is too common.
Knowing (as in rhetoric) is not understanding. Bybee even mentioned this misguided attention to
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-28 749

vocabulary through pedagogy and assessments in his accounts over 25 years ago. The issue with
assessments related to scientifc literacy is beyond the focus of this chapter, but we acknowledge the
issue and strongly recommend readers take note. What is actually assessed to determine scientifc
literacy, and where does scientifc inquiry ft with this approach? Later in this chapter, we address
assessment of understandings about scientifc inquiry as well as understandings about specifc sci-
entifc practices of inquiry. These assessments aim to push past vocabulary toward conceptual and
epistemic features necessary for functional scientifc literacy.
The second dimension of scientifc literacy that Rodger Bybee described is conceptual or proce-
dural scientifc literacy (1995). He discusses this dimension as relevant to unifying conceptual ideas
that cross science disciplines (perhaps a prelude to the Next Generation Science Standards [NGSS]?).
This dimension focuses on practices and broad foundational scientifc concepts, including “proce-
dures and processes that make science a unique way of knowing” (p. 29). We would come to distin-
guish the conceptual and procedural aspects of scientifc literacy in reforms of later years, with the
“unique way of knowing” getting somewhat lost in the transition (NGSS, 2013). Which brings us to
the third dimension of Bybee’s scientifc literacy: multidimensional scientifc literacy. This dimension
of “scientifc literacy extends beyond vocabulary, conceptual schemes, and procedural methods to
include understandings about science” (p. 29). Herein lies attention to understanding NOS knowl-
edge and understanding nature of scientifc inquiry (NOSI).
Roberts’s Vision I and Vision II

Douglas Roberts (2007) detailed his distinction between types of science/scientifc literacy in his
2007 chapter in the frst Handbook of Research on Science Education (Lederman & Abell, 2007). He
articulated a distinction between Vision I science literacy and Vision II scientifc literacy. Vision l
focuses on the products and process of science itself. Vision I is consistent with Bybee’s frst and
second dimensions where learners are to achieve mastery of concepts, language, and processes of
science. Vision II is more appropriately considered scientifc literacy, where societal and human life
situations as related to science and scientifc issues become relevant. It focuses on science-related
situations in which considerations other than science have an important role. Roberts and Bybee
joined their thoughts in 2014 to further clarify Vision II. “In Vision II classrooms, students learn how
the discourse of resolving issues and making decisions difers from and complements the explanatory
discourse of science itself” (2014, p. 546).
Chapter Overview
In this chapter we focus on what is new within the recent research related to the “doing” of scientifc
inquiry and “understanding knowledge about” scientifc inquiry, as related to scientifc literacy. All
three dimensions of scientifc literacy that Bybee laid out in 1995 and the two visions articulated by
Roberts in 2007 are relevant to scientifc inquiry research today. But to what extent are these dimen-
sions and visions emphasized in science education research, and what is the role of scientifc inquiry
in furthering the development of a scientifcally literate society?
This chapter addresses these questions by reviewing and summarizing the research on scientifc
inquiry in terms of teaching approaches and student outcomes. We discuss researchers’ continued
interest in investigating the role of students’ engagement in science in terms of improving their
science content understandings as well as improving students’ attitudes toward science. Noting a
considerably large number of studies that focused on the role of teaching, learning, and assessing
argumentation to improve science literacy, we have included a summary of each category in subsec-
tions within this chapter.
750
Scientifc Inquiry Literacy
In terms of knowing about scientifc inquiry as a body of knowledge, resent research has been able
to collect data from populations we have not been able to assess in the past. This is primarily due to
the development and validation of new assessment instruments. We summarize the fndings of recent
small- and large-scale studies to determine the success of science education thus far in its eforts to
establish scientifc literacy. Finally, we ofer suggestions as to how developing scientifc inquiry literacy
may act as a conduit between science content literacy and the ultimate goal of scientifc literacy.
Status of Scientifc Inquiry

Six decades ago, Joseph Schwab (1962) stressed the importance of public understanding of the source
and justifcation of scientifc knowledge. He stated, “The knowledge won through enquiry is not
knowledge merely of the facts but of the facts interpreted. And this interpretation, too, depends on
the conceptual principle of the enquiry” (p. 14). Interestingly, it is suggested that Schwab chose this
particular spelling of “enquiry” to draw attention to its importance. Without understanding the val-
ues and assumptions that are inherent to scientifc knowledge (NOS knowledge) and the processes
and nature of those processes by which the knowledge is created and accepted (scientifc inquiry,
NOSI), the learner can do little more than construct an image of science consisting of isolated “facts”
void of context that make the knowledge relevant, applicable, and meaningful. As such, science
education reform eforts, past and present, encourage the teaching of scientifc inquiry/practices and
NOSI across various science disciplines. The aim is to enable the development of disciplinary-based
subject matter knowledge while promoting understandings of NOS knowledge and understandings
about scientifc inquiry [NOSI] that are representative of authentic scientifc practices. Through
these experiences, along with targeted pedagogical strategies, learners should value and understand
scientifc claims to the extent that they can evaluate claims, negotiate competing perspectives, and
make informed personal, social, and political decisions that are grounded in scientifc knowledge.
Scientifc inquiry has been defned and described in myriad ways through research, curricula, and
education reform documents (Bybee, 2006; Crawford, 2014; Erduran & Dagher, 2014; NRC, 2000;
Osborne, 2014a; Rönnebeck et al. (2016); Furtak. et al. (2012); Schwartz et al., 2013; among many
others). Based on our collective reading of the literature and own experiences with the construct,
we consolidate and fnd consensus amongst many descriptions. Put “simply”, scientifc inquiry refers
to physical and cognitive activities, standards, and communities of epistemic practices involved in
constructing, evaluating, and using scientifc knowledge for the purpose of gaining understanding of
the natural world. Such activities include, but are not limited to, asking scientifc questions, design-
ing investigations, using and constructing scientifc models, collecting and analyzing data, generating
and evaluating evidence-based arguments, recognizing (and evaluating) alternative explanations and
uncertainties, and generating explanatory and inferential representations. This generation of scien-
tifc knowledge is robust, yet subject to change with new observations or diferent interpretations of
existing information. Of course, this is not inclusive of all activities involved in the doing of scientifc
inquiry, as the processes are dynamic and contextualized within communities and domains that gen-
erate science as a way of knowing and understanding the natural world.
Moreover, we distinguish scientifc inquiry from nature of scientifc knowledge (Lederman,
2019), with NOS knowledge refecting the nature of the knowledge itself and scientifc inquiry
refecting the processes by which the knowledge is generated, accepted, and utilized. When we refer
to the nature of scientifc inquiry (NOSI), we refer to the nature of those processes that requires
having knowledge about scientifc inquiry activities, mindsets, and epistemic practices and functions.
We ofer this current description of scientifc inquiry with the full expectation that the construct
is no clearer today than it was 50 or even 10 years ago (Crawford, 2014; Rönnebeck et al., 2016).
Yet, research forges on to explore how students and teachers conduct scientifc inquiries and what
751
learning outcomes result from those experiences, especially with respect to achieving functional
scientifc literacy.
Connecting NOS/NOSI, practices of scientifc inquiry, and traditional science subject matter
is suggested to enhance an overall understanding of science, and thus scientifc literacy (Driver
et al., 1996; Lederman & Lederman, 2014; Osborne, 2014a; Roberts & Bybee, 2014). For our
purposes, we ask: What is the status of scientifc literacy from the perspective of understanding
knowledge about scientifc inquiry and having abilities to engage in scientifc investigations and
sense-making?
Trends in the Research

The articles selected for inclusion in this review were identifed through multiple rounds of searches
in online publication databases of peer-reviewed science education journals. We sought articles pub-
lished between 2014 and early 2021 that pertained to research on teaching or learning of inquiry,
scientifc inquiry, scientifc practices, and NOSI. We identifed 2,782 articles from these searches and
selected 406 as most relevant for this review. Of these, some were deemed irrelevant to our primary
focus or redundant to foci of other chapters and are not included here. We also revisit some of the
earlier research as appropriate to discuss trends and needs for further work.
The majority of current research predominantly focuses on the doing of scientifc inquiry (i.e.,
inquiry as activity) rather than knowing about scientifc inquiry (Furtak & Penuel, 2019; Furtak
et al., 2012; Manz et al., 2020; Rönnebeck et al., 2016). In the United States, many of these studies
are a result of the release of the NGSS in 2013 where inquiry processes are referred to as practices.
There has been great interest in the success of implementing and learning of these practices in
K–12 classrooms. Osborne (2014a, b) spoke of distinctions between scientifc inquiry and scientifc
practices, as defned by the goals of education. He discusses the confusions and limitations of focus-
ing on teaching science as inquiry by articulating the distinction between the goals of authentic
scientifc inquiry as conducted by scientists (to generate new knowledge) and the goals of school
science (to generate understanding of existing old knowledge). A consequence of this confusion for
decades was that the act of conducting most any activity that involved movement, manipulation of
materials, recording of information, or basic “hands-on” lessons were labeled as “inquiry” regard-
less of cognitive engagement or target learning goal (Furtak & Penuel, 2019). Many “inquiry-based
science lessons” focused more on “rhetoric of conclusions” (Schwab, 1962) than on meaningful
critical thinking, decision-making, and negotiating evidence. The shift in science recommendations
(a US-centric shift) intended to clarify the goals of science education with respect to student engage-
ment in inquiry practices and understanding of what scientists do. As will be discussed later in this
chapter, recent research provides an initial glimpse into how discourses of scientifc practices are or
should be prioritized in learning contexts. The contribution of inquiry toward achieving Vision II
scientifc literacy (Roberts, 2007; Roberts & Bybee, 2014) has not been explored as much, which
has its implications as well.
Our review reveals an increasing attention on scientifc inquiry beyond the engagement of learn-
ers in scientifc practices or through inquiry-based science teaching emerged, but minimally. We
fnd that trends in funding, reform recommendations, and research eforts still show a global interest
in the doing of scientifc inquiry with increasing focus on advancing learning outcomes to include
critical thinking and reasoning, afective qualities, science identity, and career aspiration. Research
on the teaching and learning of argumentation as a scientifc practice has especially grown, with ties
to scientifc inquiry broadly and investigative skills specifcally. We place this body of work within
the “doing scientifc inquiry” category. Another area of increased global attention is in exploring
learners’ knowledge about scientifc inquiry and what contextual situations and experiences impact
such understandings. The advancement of new research instruments has aforded the community
752
opportunity to explore the state of scientifc inquiry literacy on a global level. We discuss these
trends, the research therein, and recommendations arising from this body of work.
Doing Scientifc Inquiry

During the review period, much research focusing on doing scientifc inquiry shifted toward a
view of science teaching and learning grounded in a “science-as-practice” framing that includes
four dimensions: conceptual, social, epistemic, and material (Ford, 2015; Lehrer & Schauble, 2006;
Stroupe, 2014). These dimensions overlap signifcantly, and many studies of doing scientifc inquiry
focused on various combinations of approaches and outcomes. Among the studies reviewed, much
of the focus on scientifc inquiry comprised two prominent activities: conducting investigations
and arguing from evidence. Studies focused on scientifc investigations explored diferent concep-
tualizations that could support learners in developing more rigorous methods as well as classroom
and student factors that shape how learners engaged in conducting investigations. Argumentation
researchers studied multiple aspects of this fundamental component of scientifc inquiry, including
how uncertainty enhances learning through argumentation, the critical role of critique, how learn-
ers use evidence to develop knowledge claims, the conceptual resources students leverage during
such activities, how discourse shapes argumentation, and what teachers know and how they learn
about implementing scientifc argumentation in the classroom. Studies focused on inquiry more
broadly provided insight into learning outcomes resulting from various classroom contexts and fac-
tors that infuence them, including more authentic inquiry experiences. Pervading many of the
studies focused on doing scientifc inquiry were considerations of the manner in which students’
participation emerged in classrooms but also continued challenges in understanding why they did so
and ways to support a more meaningful understanding of the epistemic dimension of inquiry.
Epistemic Agency
Building from the science-as-practice view of inquiry, scholars noted that certain dimensions received
much more attention historically than others (Stroupe, 2014). One of the prominent themes emerg-
ing across literature around doing inquiry concerns the lack of teachers’ and students’ understandings
of the epistemic dimension of inquiry practices and experiences. That is, teachers teach students
using a variety of tools and approaches grounded in science-as-practice, yet both groups of classroom
actors lack understanding of the epistemic purpose for those practical eforts and the contours of how
such activities construct and evaluate new knowledge (Berland et al., 2016; McNeill et al., 2017).
Thus, although using higher-quality instructional materials, teachers’ and students’ eforts can often
become performative rather than representing rigorous intellectual work.
This view toward the teaching and learning of science necessitates the development of inquiry
experiences and classroom cultures where students are aforded opportunities to participate with
epistemic agency (Stroupe, 2014). Considering classroom culture during scientifc inquiry, several
critical elements emerge, including the nature of the inquiry activities themselves, the material and
dialogic resources employed, and how sensemaking goals and authority manifest during those expe-
riences. Epistemic agency refers to an actor’s (teacher or student) ability to shape the production
of knowledge occurring in inquiry learning experiences and the practices used to do so. Thus, for
students to meaningfully participate in inquiry, power must be shared such that students are able
to determine the manner in which phenomena are explored and knowledge claims developed and
evaluated (Berland et al., 2015). A collection of scholars provide insight into ways that epistemic
agency can be fostered in students through opportunities that focus on students’ ideas as intellectual
resources that are leveraged to help them build understanding and useful knowledge products while
changing classroom structures that limit such work (Miller et al., 2018).
753
Students take up epistemic agency when they pose questions about provocative phenomena.
These questions are leveraged by the teacher to mutually develop guiding question(s) for investi-
gation. The development of investigative procedures ofers students opportunities to be epistemic
agents, particularly as teachers support developing multiple procedures for data collection and analysis
based on varying student ideas rather than intentionally leading all students to one specifc design
(or following a predetermined textually based procedure). When students develop an explanatory
product to communicate fndings from their investigations, including arguments, models, and expla-
nations, students assume epistemic agency as they propose, consider, and critique each other’s knowl-
edge contributions in conjunction with established scientifc ideas. As students and teachers pursue a
consensus understanding of the focal phenomenon, opportunities emerge to refect on the nature of
scientifc inquiry and apply that knowledge across diferent phases and contexts. Such refections can
be initiated by teachers throughout phases of inquiry activity through purposeful and explicit ques-
tioning that presses learners to consider how their activities build scientifc knowledge. This refective
work can include considering why some procedures or ideas lead to more reliable knowledge and
their alignment with established epistemic principles of science, such as connections between inves-
tigative questions, methods, and outcomes and the transformation of data into evidence.
Conducting Scientifc Investigations

The practice of designing and conducting investigations grounds the investigative sphere of scientifc
inquiry while also greatly shaping the evaluative sphere and reciprocally informing the explanatory
sphere (Osborne, 2014a). Conducting investigations comprises unique learning experiences for sci-
ence classrooms long considered the key element of inquiry (Banilower et al., 2018; Lunetta et al.,
2007). However, research demonstrates that although the most prominent guiding vision for science
classrooms, those visions remain elusive (Banilower et al., 2018; Heinz et al., 2017). The models,
theories, laws, and other descriptive and explanatory knowledge products that serve as scientifc out-
comes do not arise without the myriad investigative approaches taken to explore the natural world.
Over the review period, a consistent theme focused on inquiry in science classrooms continues to
assert the overall beneft to learning that inquiry investigations hold for students. These benefts
extend across several outcomes of interest, including conceptual understanding, practical competen-
cies, sociocultural dynamics, and those related to afect and identity formation (Chi et al., 2019; Dini
et al., 2021; Starr et al., 2020; Teig et al., 2020; Zimmerman & Weible, 2018). However, across the
collection of studies focused on the investigative phase of inquiry, a focus on the epistemological
functions of students’ activities, including explicitly exploring and refecting on knowledge of the
nature of scientifc inquiry, remains limited.
To foster new instructional approaches that consider the epistemic work of inquiry, several schol-
ars developed frameworks focused specifcally on designing and conducting investigations. Reconsid-
ering investigations through a science-as-practice view, the investigation framework presents them as
involving the development of “empirical systems” where learners work toward aligning three related
system models through construction and critique (Manz et al., 2020). The explanatory model of real-
world phenomena generates questions and improvement of this model is an ongoing focus of inquiry
processes linking the explanatory model to the empirical model that develops and shifts in light of the
kinds of methods appropriate for the questions posed. Finally, a data model develops as the empirical
model helps determine the measurements and data to be collected and what to privilege as evidence.
Similarly, Wei and Li (2017) developed a framework of eight dimensions considered when teach-
ers implement experiments, including conceptual, epistemic, procedural, material, social, temporal,
safety, and pedagogical. Exploring teachers’ goals for implementing investigations identifed shared
aims, including using investigations to teach how scientifc knowledge is generated, methodologi-
cal design, iterative development involving data collection and analysis, and arguing from evidence
754
(Dunlop et al., 2020). These frameworks share an emphasis on helping students understand not
only what to do during an investigation, but also how and why they engage in investigative activi-
ties in certain ways. Such refections can arise throughout inquiry experiences, particularly through
teacher questioning (Benedict-Chambers et al., 2017). Such considerations must be given space dur-
ing investigations for students to have the opportunity to gain understanding of the epistemic work.
Factors Infuencing Learning About Planning and

Conducting Scientifc Investigations
The nature of what scientifc inquiry entails and what is considered an investigation remains an open
question for science education (Manz et al., 2020). However, the benefts of investigations in sup-
porting science learners at all grade levels continue to be reported. After conducting several inves-
tigations, high school students demonstrated noticeable growth in their ability to monitor data and
address the emergence of anomalous data, including revising their procedures (Crujeiras-Pérez &
Jimenez-Aleixandre, 2019). Middle school students investigating forest ecosystems and sustainable
development enhanced their ability to generate testable questions, plan two-factor experiments, and
identify appropriate controls (Roesch et al., 2015). Elementary students engaged in an eight-week
inquiry-based experience also improved in their experimental design skills, including establishing
valid comparisons, proposing pertinent designs, and identifying constants (Di Mauro & Furman,
2016). Other studies ofer insights for supporting learners’ developing epistemic knowledge of con-
ducting investigations and transferring that knowledge to unique contexts. Kruit and colleagues
(2018) determined that explicit instruction about the practice and epistemic function of investiga-
tion design encouraged students’ transfer of these skills to new scenarios. Students who experience
problem-based instruction framing their inquiry work were better able to transfer control of variables
strategies (CVS) understandings to novel science problem contexts (Kuhn et al., 2017). These stud-
ies suggest that intentional focus and iterative refection can help students enhance profciency with
scientifc investigations toward understanding the nature of scientifc inquiry. We note, however,
that these studies did not directly measure understandings of NOSI.
Student curiosity and afect appear to play a supportive role in students’ learning about conducting
investigations. When elementary students engaged in experimental design and refection, measures
of their curiosity and knowledge acquisition showed a signifcant positive relationship (van Schijndel
et al., 2018). Wu and colleagues (2018) showed positive statistical interactions between Taiwanese
students’ curiosity and investigation design ability mediated through their engagement in laboratory
experiences in both formal and out-of-school contexts. Zimmerman and Weible (2018) explored
how digital photo scafolds infuenced students’ uptake of epistemic agency, expanding the construct
to include students being externally recognized for their investigative sense-making, which has also
been emphasized for science teachers (Bryce et al., 2016). Dini and colleagues (2021) highlight how
engaging in iterative inquiry investigations invokes a range of emotional responses that teachers need
to remain aware of as they support learners.
Other studies support the benefts that planning and conducting investigations provide, albeit with
some complexities emerging with particular aspects of classrooms. Although social interaction is fun-
damental to learning (Vygotsky, 1978), Jobér (2017) employed ethnographic methods to document
how small group interactions also limit opportunities for some students to advance their learning as
group pressures involving social identities and cultural capital overshadow productive epistemic con-
tributions. Meyer and Crawford (2015) highlight a teacher’s eforts at combining authentic inquiry
experiences with multicultural education strategies to support multilingual learners’ investigations,
including sharing knowledge construction authority through NOS activities using their native lan-
guage and providing supports to make connections with scientifc English. Multilingual students
demonstrated advanced science learning, including more authentic views of science as an endeavor,
755
rather than just a school subject, and a stronger afnity toward science and interest in pursuing
science careers. Zhang (2018) explored how diferent conditions involving teachers withholding
information from students during investigations impacted their learning. The premise rests on the
expectation that teachers withholding information would motivate students to seek it on their own,
taking up epistemic agency. However, students who engaged in investigations without the teacher
withholding information demonstrated signifcantly better reasoning abilities. Thus, the use of scaf-
folds during classroom investigations emerged as a consistent research focus comprising an array of
various tools and contexts investigated (Arnold et al., 2014; Bruckermann et al., 2017; Großmann &
Wilde, 2019; Kluge, 2014) that highlighted that students tend to focus on the “how” and not the
“why” of their procedures and explanatory work.
Beyond the studies just described, a plethora of theoretical and empirical work around doing
inquiry continues to explore various aspects of classroom implementation. The feld continues to
complexify classroom inquiry and develop more sophisticated understandings of elements of inves-
tigation, such as CVS and productive scafolds for data collection and analysis. However, a need for
emphasizing and focusing on the epistemic function of these activities continues to emerge across
studies. This need becomes even more pressing as understanding why diferent investigations lead to
diferent insights that ultimately shape how learners use their epistemic understandings outside of any
classroom, which is, after all, functional scientifc literacy. This growing need motivates our attending
to learners’ understandings of the nature of scientifc inquiry across the globe.
Argumentation
Within the body of research on the doing of inquiry, there emerged increased interest in particular
practices since the publication of the last handbook. Perhaps this is an outcome of the emphasis on
“practices” in the US-based NGSS and other international standards, or perhaps these studies became
possible because of the development of new assessments available to researchers to measure the
learning of these practices. Argumentation was the primary area that drew the interest of the science
education research community. Among the collection of articles assembled in our review, studies
explicitly focused on argumentation represent the second-largest grouping of publications, follow-
ing only the group of studies representing inquiry broadly through various assemblages of activities.
Argumentation entails a collection of products and processes that serve as a central sensemaking
efort connecting investigative and explanatory phases of scientifc activity and a central component
to high-quality inquiry experiences (NRC, 2012; Osborne, 2014a). This level of attention refects
the critical role that arguing from evidence maintains in helping learners make sense of relevant phe-
nomena, ill-shaped problem contexts, and the results of inquiry activities. Henderson et al. (2018)
analyzed artifacts from a 2015 meeting to develop fve central themes describing the most pressing
issues for argumentation research. Three themes (classroom culture valuing argumentation, pedagog-
ically supporting student discourse and collaboration, and teachers learning about argumentation)
characterize the foci of a number of studies reviewed, while the other two themes (communicating
across diferent theoretical frameworks and validly assessing argumentation) did not receive a sig-
nifcant amount of attention. We have no doubt that interest in argumentation will continue to be
ongoing and robust. The following is a summary of research collections that speak directly to those
themes exploring the dynamics of inquiry learning shaped by argumentation.
Uncertainty
A fundamental goal of scientifc inquiry entails making sense of uncertain or unfamiliar phenomena,
with argumentation working as a central practice supporting the development of plausible explana-
tions. Manz (2015) conducted an extensive literature review comparing and contrasting the contexts
756
in which scientists and science learners engage in argumentation, emphasizing that authentic scien-
tifc epistemic work is grounded in uncertainty, providing a need for evidence to support knowl-
edge claims. Drawing from that characteristic, Manz (2015) highlights the importance of continued
exploration of the role of embedding classroom argumentation experiences in uncertainty and how
it can be leveraged in support of learners. Manz and Renga (2017) demonstrate that class discussions
about evidence are complex opportunities to leverage student uncertainty. These episodes rely on
teachers’ questions and discursive moves to foster students’ epistemic agency in evaluating diferent
bodies of evidence using each other’s ideas as intellectual resources. Manz and Suárez (2018) high-
light three curriculum adaptation strategies that infuence teachers’ development of more nuanced
understandings of the role of uncertainty, including anchoring argumentation instruction in complex
phenomena, providing students opportunities to iteratively refne their investigations, and leverag-
ing variation in students’ investigations and analyses to discuss discrepancies. Uncertainty works as
an inherent characteristic when considering the nature of scientifc inquiry that emphasizes multiple
investigative methods that may produce varied results.
Several scholars focused on the dynamic role uncertainty plays in argumentation instruction for
both teachers and students through a variety of approaches. Uncertainty combines with other criti-
cal elements of argumentation, including claims and justifcation, to form a unidimensional scale in
Rasch analysis of a high school student’s performance on a series of argumentation tasks (Lee et al.,
2019). Further, students’ assessment of uncertainty in their arguments was a signifcant contributor to
the quality of arguments they produced, and those who did express uncertainty focused on scientifc
sources for it (Buck et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2019). Chen and colleagues have qualitatively explored
the dynamics of uncertainty as a central feature where teachers manage elementary students’ uncer-
tainty to help them construct and critique arguments (Chen, 2020; Chen et al., 2019; Chen & Qiao,
2020). Three strategies teachers use to manage student uncertainty include fostering uncertainty
about complex investigative phenomena, maintaining uncertainty by seeking out inconsistencies
across students’ investigations and arguments, and reducing uncertainty by connecting prior learning
experiences (Chen et al., 2019). Dialogic interactions and episodes of evaluation in these argumenta-
tive contexts gradually changed to where elementary students took up the management of uncertain-
ties with teacher support (Chen, 2020; Chen & Qiao, 2020).
Using Evidence
A hallmark of the nature of scientifc knowledge is its reliance on evidence, and thus, a primary
aspect of scientifc inquiry is the development of evidence from data. Evidence, broadly conceived,
serves as the foundational object of argumentation as scientifc arguments are built from evidence
that is generated from the analysis and representation of data for the purpose of answering a scientifc
question. McNeill and Berland (2017) elaborated the role of evidence across several scientifc prac-
tices, including argumentation, describing three design principles, including grounding instruction
in making sense of phenomena, providing learners chances to transform data through varied meth-
odological and analytical approaches, and embedding dialogic interactions where students use infor-
mation with each other. Duncan et al. (2018) extend what evidence entails through proposing the
grasp of evidence framework that identifes fve interconnected dimensions (evidence analysis, evalu-
ation, interpretation, integration, and how laypeople can use evidence) describing how experts use
evidence while also emphasizing the use of scientifc evidence by nonexperts. The authors explain
the epistemic goals of each dimension with relevant examples, yet do not argue for K–12 students
achieving full expert-like use of evidence. Inquiry instruction designed using these ideas can aford
students opportunities to apply their understandings of the nature of scientifc inquiry, particularly
the nature of evidence and its alignment with knowledge claims. To date, relatively few studies take
advantage of this opportunity to push students to this level.
757
Students use evidence in scientifc argumentation to develop and evaluate tentative knowledge
claims that ofer explanations of uncertain phenomena (Manz, 2015). Yet, the coordination of evi-
dence with those knowledge claims presents challenges for students, particularly in refning claims.
Novak and Treagust (2018) determined that students have challenges with revising their argument
claims in light of new evidence, either ignoring the new evidence, seeing revision work as too
demanding, or simply not having previous experiences with such work. These challenges emerged
even in light of whole-class debriefng discussions, teacher feedback, and providing written scafolds.
Similarly, Walker and colleagues (2019) found undergraduate students reticent to alter their claims
when presented with explicitly contradictory evidence, viewing such revisions as invalid to the pro-
cess of argumentation. Work from Kuhn and colleagues (2017) supports that argumentation instruc-
tion grounded in problem-based learning supported learners’ ability to transfer their argumentation
skills and knowledge to novel problem contexts.
Critiquing and Evaluating Scientifc Arguments

Scientifc inquiry encompasses not only the generation of knowledge but also the refnement and
improvement of our understanding of the natural world through a communally shared responsibility to
evaluate scientifc knowledge through critique (NRC, 2012). A critical facet of high-quality argumen-
tation research focuses on supporting learners in evaluating and critiquing theirs and others’ arguments
regarding similar phenomena. Indeed, arguments that include elements of rebuttal critiquing the limita-
tions of competing knowledge claims around the same phenomena represent more sophisticated epis-
temic cognition (Osborne et al., 2016). Engaging students in critique ofers them opportunities to learn
how to contest what they know and gain more epistemic agency (Manz, 2015). However, research
demonstrates that this intellectual work rarely occurs in science classrooms, as much of the efort focuses
on the generation and justifcation of arguments (Christodoulou & Osborne, 2014; Waldrip & Prain,
2017). Henderson and colleagues (2015) ofer fve arguments for the central role of critique in scientifc
argumentation, including ones grounded in the nature of scientifc work, student motivation, literacy
skills and comprehension, pedagogical considerations, and mastery-oriented learners. Across these argu-
ments, successful science learning requires opportunities for refecting on knowledge and its nature
while comparing and evaluating evidence for competing claims, further establishing the importance of
developing students’ understanding that conclusions must be consistent with evidence.
Social structures and interactions in the classroom greatly infuence the development of students’
evaluative and argumentative abilities that have a direct connection to improving their understand-
ing of various science concepts and the nature of scientifc inquiry (Chen et al., 2020). Students
experiencing several rounds of whole-class discussion focused on sharing and critiquing knowledge
claims grew in their use and quality of evidence to support their arguments and rebut others (Chen
et al., 2016). Students also made stronger connections between their verbal and written epistemic
work, enhancing both over time. Small group interactions can activate students’ epistemic resources
to evaluate arguments when preceded by structured individual refections of personally developed
arguments (Jafari & Meisert, 2021). Common across these studies and others, refective discussions
and writing served as opportunities for students to refect on their understanding of scientifc inquiry
and argumentation in other contexts (Lin & Chan, 2018).
Student Resources
The role of learners’ resources in scientifc inquiry continues to be explored, with specifc atten-
tion to particular aspects of inquiry, including argumentation. In establishing a classroom culture
that values argumentation, several studies highlight the contribution of resources that originate with
students themselves. Concerning the interaction between students’ argumentation abilities and their
758
Scientific Inquiry Literacy
(Dunlop et al., 2020). These frameworks share an emphasis on helping students understand not
only what to do during an investigation, but also how and why they engage in investigative activi-
ties in certain ways. Such reflections can arise throughout inquiry experiences, particularly through
teacher questioning (Benedict-Chambers et al., 2017). Such considerations must be given space dur-
ing investigations for students to have the opportunity to gain understanding of the epistemic work.
Factors Influencing Learning About Planning and

Conducting Scientific Investigations
The nature of what scientific inquiry entails and what is considered an investigation remains an open
question for science education (Manz et al., 2020). However, the benefits of investigations in sup-
porting science learners at all grade levels continue to be reported. After conducting several inves-
tigations, high school students demonstrated noticeable growth in their ability to monitor data and
address the emergence of anomalous data, including revising their procedures (Crujeiras-Pérez &
Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2019). Middle school students investigating forest ecosystems and sustainable
development enhanced their ability to generate testable questions, plan two-factor experiments, and
identify appropriate controls (Roesch et al., 2015). Elementary students engaged in an eight-week
inquiry-based experience also improved in their experimental design skills, including establishing
valid comparisons, proposing pertinent designs, and identifying constants (Di Mauro & Furman,
2016). Other studies offer insights for supporting learners’ developing epistemic knowledge of con-
ducting investigations and transferring that knowledge to unique contexts. Kruit and colleagues
(2018) determined that explicit instruction about the practice and epistemic function of investiga-
tion design encouraged students’ transfer of these skills to new scenarios. Students who experience
problem-based instruction framing their inquiry work were better able to transfer control of variables
strategies (CVS) understandings to novel science problem contexts (Kuhn et al., 2017). These stud-
ies suggest that intentional focus and iterative reflection can help students enhance proficiency with
scientific investigations toward understanding the nature of scientific inquiry. We note, however,
that these studies did not directly measure understandings of NOSI.
Student curiosity and affect appear to play a supportive role in students’ learning about conducting
investigations. When elementary students engaged in experimental design and reflection, measures
of their curiosity and knowledge acquisition showed a significant positive relationship (van Schijndel
et al., 2018). Wu and colleagues (2018) showed positive statistical interactions between Taiwanese
students’ curiosity and investigation design ability mediated through their engagement in laboratory
experiences in both formal and out-of-school contexts. Zimmerman and Weible (2018) explored
how digital photo scaffolds influenced students’ uptake of epistemic agency, expanding the construct
to include students being externally recognized for their investigative sense-making, which has also
been emphasized for science teachers (Bryce et al., 2016). Dini and colleagues (2021) highlight how
engaging in iterative inquiry investigations invokes a range of emotional responses that teachers need
to remain aware of as they support learners.
Other studies support the benefits that planning and conducting investigations provide, albeit with
some complexities emerging with particular aspects of classrooms. Although social interaction is fun-
damental to learning (Vygotsky, 1978), Jobér (2017) employed ethnographic methods to document
how small group interactions also limit opportunities for some students to advance their learning as
group pressures involving social identities and cultural capital overshadow productive epistemic con-
tributions. Meyer and Crawford (2015) highlight a teacher’s efforts at combining authentic inquiry
experiences with multicultural education strategies to support multilingual learners’ investigations,
including sharing knowledge construction authority through NOS activities using their native lan-
guage and providing supports to make connections with scientific English. Multilingual students
demonstrated advanced science learning, including more authentic views of science as an endeavor,
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and her colleagues ofers a substantial body of scholarship focused on how teachers understand and
enact science teaching grounded in argumentation. This research group developed and empirically
validated a framework describing teachers’ PCK for argumentation (Loper et al., 2017; McNeill
et al., 2016). Their framework identifes two primary dimensions to teachers’ PCK for argumenta-
tion with each having two focal conceptions. The frst dimension focuses on teachers’ evaluation and
support of students’ justifying their knowledge claims, which includes supporting use of high-quality
evidence and scientifc ideas to link evidence and claim (i.e., reasoning). The second dimension
emphasizes how teachers evaluate and support students’ verbal interactions, including building of
and critiquing each other’s ideas while critiquing competing claims. This work resulted in a tool
measuring teachers’ PCK for argumentation (see Research Tools, Table 24.1) that is grounded in
classroom scenarios of argumentation instruction (McNeill et al., 2016).
Several studies provided insight into the contours of teachers’ PCK for argumentation across
individual classrooms and broad groups of teachers. Working with ten US middle school science
teachers, McNeill and colleagues (2017) determined that many of the teachers valued argumenta-
tion but had limited understanding of its epistemic function, resulting in enactments of pseudoar-
gumentation refecting performative eforts that lacked authentic sense-making. Wang and Buck
(2016) demonstrated a disconnect between a teacher’s “narrated” PCK for argumentation and
“enacted” PCK, including limited understanding of the epistemic function of argumentation. The
teacher continually centered himself as the knowledge authority, which limited students’ epistemic
agency.
Teachers’ beliefs and PCK for argumentation show great reciprocal infuence on the nature and
quality of their enactments of argumentation instruction (McNeill et al., 2017). Knight-Bardsley
and McNeill (2016) showed how some teachers employ high-quality argumentation resources as
designed, resulting in benefcial shifts in their beliefs and PCK, while others adapt resources in
ways where they inaccurately rename their current teaching practices as argumentation. Following
a three-year professional development program, Collins and colleagues (2019) found that partici-
pating teachers still focused on student behavior and engagement as proxies for learning, rather
than the nature of students’ ideas, while maintaining defcit beliefs about students’ developmental
capabilities. Working through a yearlong professional development efort using an argumentation
instructional model, participating teachers adapted instructional resources through their epistemic
beliefs (Sengul et al., 2020), with some completely ignoring whole phases of epistemic work due to
concerns for students’ writing and accountability testing (Sengul et al., 2021). While these teach-
ers espoused understanding and commitment to engaging students in argumentation, their beliefs
related to other student and institutional factors took priority in instruction. These studies point
to the importance of addressing teacher knowledge of argumentation and how beliefs support
meaningful argumentation instruction. PCK for argumentation specifcally, and inquiry generally,
continues to be a messy construct.
Teachers’ Learning About Scientifc Argumentation

For teachers to enact epistemically rich science inquiry learning, they must also be aforded chances
to learn and grow in their own understanding of the epistemic goals and functions of inquiry prac-
tices. Several studies focused on supporting teachers’ learning about argumentation and associated
instructional practices. Socioscientifc and problem-based activities were found to be benefcial to
teachers’ learning in several ways, including the development of environmentally responsible behav-
ior (Fettahlioğlu & Aydogdu, 2020), lesson planning (Quinlan, 2020), and certain aspects of their
PCK, including knowledge of students, instructional strategies, and assessment. Preservice teach-
ers experiencing chemistry coursework grounded in scientifc argumentation increased the use of
rebuttals in their arguments (Pabucca & Erduran, 2017). Özdem Yilmaz and collaborators (2017)
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determined three types of development in graduate assistants’ instruction, with some employing
a focus on structural aspects of argumentation, while others leveraged instruction to activate and
extend student thinking, and still others enacting instruction ofering students opportunities to take
up epistemic agency. Teachers experiencing argumentation professional development used more
questions to guide students and gradually shifted to giving students more responsibility and inter-
pretive authority during verbal argumentation (Murphy et al., 2018). Researchers found teachers’
who used rigorously developed educative curricular materials with high fdelity also tended to enact
instruction that aligned with the major underlying epistemic goals for argumentation (Arias et al.,
2016; McNeill et al., 2017). Teachers’ use of such materials was related to if those materials were
incorporated into other resources, such as lesson plans or prompts for teacher self-refection (Loper
et al., 2017) and improved their PCK for argumentation (Marco-Bujosa et al., 2017).
Several important considerations for supporting teachers’ learning of argumentation arise from
this work to support learners in learning about the epistemic nature of scientifc inquiry. Foci that
warrant further interrogation and investigation include (1) broadening the focus of teacher learn-
ing to include their beliefs and PCK for argumentation, (2) emphasizing the epistemic function of
argumentation rather than just structural features, (3) supporting teachers in refectively using high-
quality instructional materials, and (4) providing teachers opportunities to problematize their prior
teaching to motivate their eforts to explore and enact more epistemically rich instruction (McNeill
et al., 2017; Sengul et al., 2021). Supporting teachers through enhanced understanding of their
learning about argumentation can lead to more productive classroom inquiry experiences. These
improved learning opportunities for teachers ofer students chances to grow in their profciency with
a central science sensemaking activity that adds meaning and relevance to the investigative work that
more commonly occurs during classroom inquiry.
Student Outcomes From Doing Inquiry

Research continues to examine potential relationships between inquiry-based (doing) science
learning experiences and science achievement, identifying a variety of associations and infuential
factors (Crawford, 2014; Koksal, & Berberoglu, 2014; Minner, D. D. et al., 2010; among oth-
ers). The keys to interpreting this body of research is to understand what inquiry the learner was
engaged in (i.e., what were they doing) and what achievement was measured. The conditions
under which these activities were conducted are important considerations. Inquiry happens in
context, as does assessment. A common assumption is that inquiry-based science instruction will
lead to better science achievement and afect (Minner et al., 2010). In their literature review
from over ten years ago, Minner et al. (2010) identifed an increasing trend in the use of inquiry
strategies for science instruction. They focused on the impacts of “actively engaging students” in
inquiry activities as more efective for conceptual gains than simply hands-on activity. Unfortu-
nately, based on the current literature around inquiry-based science instruction, not much has
changed to extend active engagement beyond the doing of scientifc inquiry. What has been the
impact on student achievement? According to a study of the relationship between reported inquiry
engagement and achievement on PISA, learners from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada with
more inquiry learning experience scored lower on the science assessment portion than those who
reported fewer inquiry experiences (McConney et al., 2014). While the results suggest a negative
correlation between inquiry engagement and science literacy achievement (as measured by PISA),
the authors also recognize that not all inquiry instruction is equal. Despite there being national
calls in these countries for increased inquiry pedagogy and inquiry-based curriculum, the qual-
ity of the curricula and teacher preparation varies (McConney et al., 2014; Minner et al., 2010).
McConney et al. state, “Faced with a myriad of methods, materials, and models of teaching and
learning in science, it undoubtedly can be confusing for science teachers and science educators to
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discern research-supported practice” (p. 974). To address this issue, they recommend teachers who
aim to efectively include inquiry-based pedagogy in science instruction “need to be supported
by advancing interest in and understanding of inquiry” (p. 974). Unfortunately, it does not appear
that the situation has improved. A 2019 study reports from the 2015 PISA results, showing the
same negative correlation between inquiry engagement and science achievement of nearly 8,000
students in Taiwan (She et al., 2019). Through regression analysis, these researchers fnd the high-
est predictor of scientifc literacy (as measured by PISA) is epistemic beliefs about science. Liou
(2020) ofers similar fndings with students from Taiwan. These studies lead us to question what
“scientifc literacy” is measured by the PISA. Nonetheless, we see the call for improving learners’
understandings of science epistemology, which includes knowledge about scientifc inquiry in
order to improve scientifc literacy.
Factors Impacting Inquiry Outcomes

Inquiry does not happen in a vacuum. Context matters. Myriad factors can infuence what is done,
learned, and infuenced through various types of inquiry. In a study that sought correlations between
PISA science achievement scores and diferent factors, Chi et al. (2018) studied associations between
Chinese students’ inquiry activities, science achievement, teacher support, and classroom climate.
They chose to also include factors of gender and socioeconomic status. Using the 2015 PISA results
for diferent subsets of the assessment to determine science achievement, their results indicated low-
SES students who experienced inquiry-based activities had higher achievement scores. Mupira and
Ramnarain (2018) conducted a study of tenth-grade students in South Africa enrolled in physical
science courses. The quasi-experimental study showed that those students who had experienced
inquiry-based learning showed signifcantly more gains toward mastery goal orientations, while their
counterparts who were taught through a more traditional lecture style approach did not show gains
in mastery orientations. The researchers report that the increase in mastery goal orientation can lead
to increased science achievement as well as afective outcomes.
Chi et al. (2019) explored potential diferences in eighth-grade students’ scientifc inquiry
competencies based on disciplinary contexts. The researchers developed a hands-on performance
assessment to measure student scientifc inquiry competence. They defned inquiry competence
as: “the ability to integrate science knowledge and skills to identify scientifc questions, design and
conduct investigation, analyze and interpret information and generate evidence-based explana-
tions” (p. 2737). The designed assessment tasks were contextualized within biology, chemistry, and
physics. At the time of taking the assessment, the students had more experience with physics than
the other two disciplines. Using Rasch modeling, their study of 251 students in Shanghai, China,
found that students’ scientifc inquiry abilities difered depending on the context of the activity.
The researchers determine that inquiry competencies are not generalized, but rather are disci-
pline specifc. Not addressed in this study is the diference in experience the students had within
the various disciplines. There is no indication of how their subject-matter knowledge varied or
how their understanding of the specifc contexts varied, which may relate to variance in inquiry
competencies.
A study of middle school students in China (Huang et al., 2017) explored ways to increase
students’ question-asking abilities in the context of scientifc inquiry learning. The middle school
students were not profcient in asking questions that would lead to scientifc investigations they
could pursue. The intervention provided opportunities for the students to develop questioning
strategies and understandings of the role of questions in scientifc inquiry. Pre/post t-test analysis,
as well as interview data, demonstrated increased abilities in students’ questioning, demonstrating
that explicit instruction toward such specifc goals of scientifc inquiry is achievable. Phillips et al.
(2018) explored the goal of questioning further with grade 5 students in the United States. Their
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study suggested that problematizing situations for scientifc study may be a more authentic approach
to beginning inquiry investigations than stating a question. The ffth-grade students were successful
in engaging in inquiry activity through the problematizing approach. To our understanding, ques-
tioning and problematizing are similar in that they raise curiosity in a phenomenon, which leads to
questions and investigation.
Impacts of Authentic Inquiry

The notion of “authentic” inquiry experiences remains a topic of interest, albeit nebulous yet intrigu-
ing (Schwartz & Crawford, 2004). Rivera Maulucci et al. (2014) reported outcomes of urban middle
school students who participated in what they described as an authentic science inquiry program.
Their framework of “authentic” scientifc inquiry was for the experience “to be transformative of
students’ views of themselves as knowers and doers of science” (p. 1121). The researchers used a
multi-case study design to develop narratives based on teacher journals, student work, classroom
video, interview data, and performance assessment data. They identifed six dimensions of scientifc
inquiry that infuenced the students. These included: students develop authentic and personally
relevant science knowledge; students’ funds of knowledge shape their inquiries; students’ relation-
ships with science and sustained interest in science are transformed; students’ identities as potential
scientists are afrmed; students engage in science as a social enterprise; and students develop a sense
of agency. They developed rich narrative case studies of six youth, demonstrating the experiences
with inquiry that reported to infuence their academic agency, skills of inquiry, science identities,
and science achievements.
Experiencing longer-term inquiry investigations has been the focus of several recent studies.
Kapon (2016) explored outcomes related to physics students conducting investigations over 18
months. The extended and mentored research experience reportedly resulted in gains in science
content, inquiry skills, interest in science, self-efcacy as a scientist, persistence in the face of adver-
sity, and understanding of the abstraction of science. Kapon goes further to suggest that the students
came to understand the social aspect of scientifc inquiry through the importance of mentor/mentee
interactions. A larger study by Starr et al. (2020) explored 1,079 undergraduate students who par-
ticipated in ten-week course-based biology research experience. Through the course experience, the
students reported increased motivation, connection with the science (science identity), career aspira-
tions toward science, and improved classroom climate. The researchers report greater improvements
in these areas in students from underrepresented minoritized groups. Robnett et al. (2015) ofered
similar results regarding research experiences for undergraduates, leading to enhanced science identi-
ties, with self-efcacy found to be a mediating factor.
In a comprehensive review of the literature on science research experiences for teachers (Krim
et al., 2019), 178 papers were reviewed that included empirical data on outcomes specifcally rel-
evant for programs that involved teachers in science research experiences. Results provide a sum-
mative look at recent programs and reported impacts, plus identify gaps or misalignments between
goals and measured outcomes. The review points to a lack of research (and programs) specifcally
targeting (1) participation and outcomes related to learners from underrepresented populations,
(2) methods for translation of research experiences into instructional practices, (3) measurement
of impact on instructional practices, and (4) a theoretical framework that guides program design
and analysis.
While it is clear that funding and resources continue to support science research experiences
for students and teachers (Krim et al., 2019), the focus of these programs may remain too embed-
ded within the doing of inquiry for the purpose of developing skills and content knowledge over
the development of understanding about scientifc inquiry. Additionally, the impact of authentic
scientifc inquiry experiences on participants from traditionally underrepresented groups in science,
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including women and people of color, deserves more purposeful attention. There is an untapped
research area to take a deep dive into the lasting impacts and potential of gaining a sense of belonging
through engaging in a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). More research is needed on
the impact of inquiry experiences toward increasing science identity development and career aspira-
tions, especially for minoritized groups (Rivera Maulucci et al., 2014; Robnett et al., 2015; Starr
et al., 2020; and others).
Understanding Knowledge About Scientifc Inquiry:

Nature of Scientifc Inquiry
NOSI and NOS are epistemic features of science. They are often used synonymously and often
include scientifc inquiry in the grouping (Erduran & Dagher, 2014; Lederman, 2019). We’ve already
distinguished scientifc inquiry as practices, content, and pedagogy. Thus, the epistemic features and
functions of scientifc inquiry from this perspective are clearer, even though the long-held notion
that the doing of inquiry is equivalent to the doing of NOS or the doing of NOSI frustratingly
remains (Allchin, 2012). Schwartz and Crawford (2004) articulated one of the key elements for teach-
ers to efectively integrate explicit-refective NOS instruction was that they embrace the distinction
between doing science and knowing about science. Through such a lens, doing NOS or doing NOSI
is meaningless.
When we talk about understandings of NOS or understandings of NOSI, we refer to how one
understands science epistemology. An epistemological view refers to one’s understanding of what
knowledge is and where knowledge comes from (von Glasersfeld, 1993). Epistemological views
of science involve one’s view of scientifc knowledge as a way of knowing and explaining the
natural world (NOS) and one’s view of the nature and rationale of the processes through which
that knowledge is constructed and justifed within the scientifc community (NOSI). NOS and
NOSI encompass basic philosophies, values, characteristics, and underlying assumptions that are
intrinsic to scientifc knowledge and the processes of its development, including the infuences
and limitations that result from science as a human endeavor. Although separately stated, NOS
knowledge and NOSI are not mutually exclusive entities, for the processes and the products are
infuentially connected (Kampourakis, 2016; Lederman, 2019; Neumann et al., 2011; Schwartz
et al., 2013).
Why NOSI?
Why is an understanding knowledge about scientifc inquiry [NOSI] important for scientifc lit-
eracy? This idea is not new, but this idea has been overlooked in science curricula and assessments.
We need only to consider what is happening in the world today with the pandemic of COVID-19
and the climate change urgency. How is society receiving, interpreting, evaluating, and making
decisions about these critical socioscientifc issues? What resources do individuals draw upon to
make sense of the science and implications of actions? First and foremost, we are not running to
the garage to perform an experiment with viruses or fossil fuels. The skills of scientifc practices are
the skills of scientists (NRC, 2012). The resources we draw upon to make sense of socioscientifc
issues do not include doing these practices, but rather they include understanding the nature of these
practices and how they lead to valid scientifc claims. Revisiting Roberts’s Vision II (Roberts, 2007;
Roberts & Bybee, 2014), scientifc literacy includes knowledge of science concepts and how they
are developed, but with the added essentiality of application of these knowledge domains for use in
society. The doing of science (skills of inquiry, doing scientifc practices) are useful to a limit toward
what we consider functional scientifc literacy. Having knowledge about scientifc inquiry as another
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cognitive domain pushes the individual beyond skills into meaningful understandings and abilities to
interpret and evaluate scientifc claims, including personal situations that have a scientifc basis (e.g.,
Do I get this vaccine or not?), that are pertinent to society. Herein lies why NOSI is an essential
component of scientifc inquiry literacy and essential for scientifc literacy. We now ask, based on the
current literature, what is the state of learners’ understandings about NOSI?
Assessing NOSI
Perhaps the area that has shown the most productivity in recent years related to scientifc inquiry
is the assessment and exploration of learners’ understandings about NOSI. Given that scientifc
inquiry has been emphasized for over a century (Lederman, 1992), the science education com-
munity was more than ready for a valid and reliable assessment of NOSI conceptions in order to
test the assumptions of many reform and standards documents that “doing inquiry” is sufcient to
understand NOSI (J. Lederman et al., 2014). The literature consistently shows the limitations of
developing understandings of NOS knowledge through engaging in scientifc inquiry experiences
alone (Khishfe & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Lederman & Lederman, 2014; Morrison et al., 2009;
Sadler et al., 2010). Such experiences include classroom-based investigations, authentic science
research contexts, and historical deep dives. While benefcial for other learning outcomes, such
as science content, inquiry skills, and afective factors, engaging in inquiry alone does not inher-
ently lead to meaningful conceptions about NOS. What about NOSI? With the development of
the Views About Scientifc Inquiry (VASI) questionnaire (Lederman et al., 2014), researchers have
begun exploring this question.
The VASI arose from a previously developed instrument, Views of Scientifc Inquiry (VOSI),
which is based on an overlapping but diferent NOSI framework (Schwartz, 2004; Schwartz et al.,
2008). The VOSI is a useful instrument for exploring certain features about scientifc inquiry, includ-
ing anomalous data and justifcation of scientifc claims, two underresearched areas of scientifc
inquiry. The inception of the NGSS in the United States sparked a need to develop an instrument
that more closely aligns with that framework (NGSS Lead States, 2013). This framework includes
aspects of inquiry that are accessible to learners from a young age (Lederman et al., 2014). The
aspects are: scientifc investigations all begin with a question but do not necessarily test a hypoth-
esis; there is no single set or sequence of steps that all investigations follow (i.e., there is no single
scientifc method); inquiry procedures are guided by the question(s) asked; all scientists performing
the same procedures may not get the same results; inquiry procedures can infuence results; research
conclusions must be consistent with the data collected; scientifc data are not the same as scientifc
evidence; and explanations are developed from a combination of collected data and what is already
known. Describing NOSI in this way is not new. Interestingly, similar aspects about inquiry were
explicated 60 years ago in Schwab’s The Teaching of Science (1962). These aspects provide a framework
for exploring how school-age youth understand what scientists do in generating and validating scien-
tifc knowledge. As the VASI developers reinforce, these aspects are not meant to be a defnitive list
of isolated outcomes with respect to inquiry, but rather they present cross-curricular relevance and
are understandable to school-age children.
The VASI instrument contains seven open-ended (constructed response) items that target eight
NOSI aspects (Lederman et al., 2014). To increase validity of the VASI, semi-structured interviews
follow the administration of the survey in order to clarify written responses and allow further explo-
ration into participants’ conceptions. Data are analyzed according to the extent to which participants
express understanding of the targeted aspects, using categories of “informed”, “mixed”, and “naive”.
The developers conducted extensive validation measures of the VASI items and administration pro-
tocol. After rounds of face and content validity with experts, they surveyed and interviewed middle
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school students and adjusted wording of items as necessary. After which they surveyed nearly 250
middle and high school students and interviewed 20% of this sample to ensure the students inter-
preted the items in the manner intended and to capture a range of conceptions. The researchers
found 95% agreement between the written and verbal responses, providing evidence of strong valid-
ity of the instrument to elicit respondents’ views of NOSI.
Students’ Understandings of NOSI

With the development and validation of the VASI in multiple languages, two large-scale global
investigations of learners’ knowledge about inquiry have been reported (Lederman et al., 2019,
2021). These studies enable a comparison of learning growth between grades 7 and 12 globally. First,
Figure 24.1 provides a graphical representation of seventh graders’ views of each targeted aspect of
NOSI, as determined by the VASI instrument and follow-up interviews (Lederman et al., 2019). It
is important to note that the international collaboration included translation and validation of the
VASI into languages appropriate for country and/or region. There were 2,634 students across 20
countries in the study.
By grade 7, only 20% of students have a solid understanding of the role of questions in scientifc
inquiry. More troubling is that 55% are committed to there being only one way to conduct inves-
tigations, that being through a single, step-wise scientifc method. Only 35% of these learners are
informed about the connection between conclusions (claims) and the data collected. Then, only 10%
have a good understanding of the distinction between data and evidence, where evidence is produced
from the analysis and representation of the data collected. In short, seventh graders around the world
are not achieving scientifc literacy in terms of their understanding about scientifc inquiry.
In a second international collaborative study that included a sample of 3,917 grade 12 students
across 32 countries, Lederman et al. (2021) reported on how these students, who are around 18
years of age and about to enter society as adults, understand scientifc inquiry. In this exploratory
study, again using the VASI instrument translation and validated for use in diferent languages, they
found that these students fared only slightly better than the seventh graders (Figure 24.2). However,
chi-squared analysis showed no signifcant diferences between the cross-sectional 7th-grade and
12th-grade samples in terms of informed views of NOSI. When we consider the extent to which
7th Graders’ Views about Scientific Inquiry

60
50
40
Percent
30
20
10
0
Starts with a Multiple Same Procedures Conclusions Procedures Data and Conclusions
Question Methods Procedures Influence Must be are Guided by Evidence are Developed
May not Yield Results Consistent the Question are not from Data and
Same Results with Data Asked the Same Prior
Collected Knowledge
Aspect
naive mixed informed
Figure 24.1 A global snapshot of seventh graders’ views about scientifc inquiry [N=2,634] (data from Leder-
man et al., 2019).
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Starts with a ques•on Mul•ple methods Conclusions must be consistent with Procedures are guided by the ques–on
100 100 data collected asked
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7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th
Naïve Mixed Informed Naïve Mixed Informed Naïve Mixed Informed Naïve Mixed Informed
Views by Grade Views by Grade Views by Grade Views by Grade
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Same procedures may not yield Procedures infuence results Data and evidence are not the same Conclusions are developed from data
same results 100 100 and prior knowledge
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7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th 7th 12th
Naïve Mixed Informed Naïve Mixed Informed Naïve Mixed Informed Naïve Mixed Informed
Views by Grade Views by Grade Views by Grade Views by Grade
Figure 24.2 A global comparison of views about scientifc inquiry for 7th graders and 12th graders (data from Table 2 in Lederman et al., 2021).
these students understand scientifc inquiry for functional scientifc literacy, there are clear gaps and
concerns.
That there are only moderate gains between 7th grade and 12th grade is disturbing and problem-
atic. That not even 50% of these students who are entering society after grade 12 have fully informed
understandings of any aspect of scientifc inquiry should be alarming to all science educators. Many
of these students will have no more formal science education.
Consider the implications for scientifc literacy necessary to navigate current socioscientifc issues.
Is it a wonder that science denial, misunderstandings, and appeals to political agendas that distort the
science remain prevalent? Individuals are not going to conduct their own investigations to make sense
of scientifc information presented to them. They must rely on their understandings of investigative
design, diferences in interpreting data and evidence, variability in representations, and evaluation
of scientifc claims. From this perspective, it is clear that knowledge about scientifc inquiry is more
functionally useful for scientifc literacy than doing inquiry.
Researchers exploring students’ views in individual countries report similar fndings using the
VASI instrument and interviews. Students in Sweden, for example (Gyllenpalm et al., 2022), demon-
strated that on average, fewer than 50% of the sample held informed views of NOSI. The researchers
suggest that “Although many factors may be relevant to explain the results presented here, we believe
that two of these stand out: the low level of inclusion of explicit descriptions of scientifc inquiry in
science textbooks, and how this content is tested in national tests” (Gyllenpalm et al., 2022). Sec-
ondary students in South Africa were found to hold slightly more informed views of most aspects
of NOSI, with the exception of multiple methods (Gaigher et al., 2014). The authors attribute the
higher success to the National Curriculum that aligns more closely with inquiry aspects. In Turkey,
students from three diferent types of secondary schools demonstrated variable views about scientifc
inquiry (Leblebicioğlu et al., 2020), with most students demonstrating mixed or naïve understandings
of most aspects.
Several studies of middle school students also point to the need for explicit/refective instructional
attention for learners to gain understandings about scientifc inquiry, even in the context of inquiry
activities. In Israel, the VASI was used to explore grade 7 and 8 students’ understandings about
inquiry (Eliyahu et al., 2021). They found that, overall, the students did not hold informed views,
similar to the Lederman et al. (2019) results. They recommend attention be given to preparing teach-
ers to engage in explicit/refective instruction within inquiry contexts.
Two studies of Turkish middle school students show the impact of such instruction on middle
school learners. Leblebicioğlu and colleagues (2017, 2019) identifed gains in NOSI conceptions
when the targeted inquiry aspects were brought to the attention of the children who participated in
science camp investigations about plants, animals, water, and soil. This explicit instruction included
discussions and refection activities based on their inquiry investigations. In the 2017 study, VASI
and interview results demonstrated that the middle schoolers made gains particularly with respect
to three aspects: questions guide investigations, multiple methods, and explanations are developed
from data and what is already known. In a follow-up study, the researchers found similar results with
the addition of retention data (Leblebicioğlu et al., 2019). The VASI pre-, post-, and delayed post
(two months) results showed that the students were most successful in retaining their developments
for the aspects of questions guide investigations, multiple methods, and diferences between data and
evidence. These two studies demonstrate how an out-of-school context, with explicit instructional
engagement, can lead to improved understandings for middle school children. Unfortunately, such
explicit/refective instruction is not yet widespread.
As stated by J. Lederman et al. (2021):
It seems clear, worldwide, that science is often taught by lecture or teacher-centered class-
rooms. Of the 32 countries/regions in this study over half of the sample reported the science
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teaching in these classrooms was teacher-centered lecture-based experiences with very few
to no laboratory investigations.
(p. 1013)
We agree that pedagogy is a contributing factor. We also add that even students who experience
inquiry pedagogy do not necessarily develop informed and functional views about scientifc inquiry.
Just like with NOS, engaging in inquiry investigations alone is insufcient to foster meaningful
understandings of NOSI. Explicit instructional attention and refective prompts and discussions that
spotlight inquiry aspects in the context of those investigative experiences have been shown to be
more efective toward NOSI learning outcomes (Lederman & Lederman, 2014). In a study of sec-
ondary students’ learning about scientifc inquiry, Concannon and colleagues (2020) found gains
in students’ understandings with respect to those NOSI aspects that the teacher targeted through
explicit/refective instruction. Those that were not made explicit showed minimal or no gains (Con-
cannon et al., 2020). These results continue to support the need for teachers to intentionally plan
for and teach knowledge about NOSI and that these constructs are not intuitively learned by simply
doing inquiry, no matter how authentic the experiences are.
What about young learners? During the validation of an oral protocol to assess young children’s
views of NOS and NOSI, the pilot group of kindergarten students demonstrated the ability to suc-
cessfully learn about NOSI aspects that were intentionally taught within developmentally appropriate
science instruction (Lederman & Bartels, 2018). Both life and physical science topics were taught
over a three-month period. The resulting pre and post data show a signifcant gain in the children’s
understanding that science investigations begin with a question, procedures are guided by the ques-
tion, scientists may use diferent methods to answer their questions, and that conclusions have to
be supported by data and evidence. This supports the assumption that even children as young as
fve years old can begin to learn about NOSI. Their scientifc literacy can begin to be developed as
soon as science instruction begins. The Young Children’s Views of Science (YCVS) is the resulting
oral protocol that continues to be used to elicit understandings of science from children who are
not developmentally able to read, write, or comprehend a traditional paper-and-pencil assessment
(Lederman & Bartels, 2018).
Other assessments are being developed and validated for varied uses. As part of a large study that
developed a competence-based model for inquiry (Nehring et al., 2015), Nehring (2020) developed
a Likert-scale assessment in order to examine 802 secondary students’ understandings of NOSI. This
study was initiated from the perspective of the multidimensional nature of epistemic cognition, which
includes NOSI. The competencies include (1) observing as theory-driven activity, (2) experimenting
as manipulation of variables, and (3) using models as tools for inquiry. This competence model was
used to create a Likert-scale survey to target aspects of NOSI, as aligned with the model. He used
these competencies to identify ten views of NOSI (fve naive and fve informed) (Nehring, 2020),
which were developed into Likert-scale items. Nehring employed structural equation modeling and
found the survey distinguished naive and informed categories of NOSI conceptions. Nehring used
latent class analysis, including interview data, to test for ft against fve models (unidimensional, two
dimensional, three dimensional, six dimensional, ten dimensional). Results support NOSI as a mul-
tidimensional construct. The researchers note that use of instruments that categorize understandings
of NOSI aspects as naive or informed is supported by their results. Moreover, the results support
fndings and recommendations from other researchers that caution against lumping NOSI views into
a single score (Lederman et al., 2014; Mesci & Schwartz, 2017; Schwartz et al., 2008), an approach
often desired for quantitative large-scale studies seeking to compare populations or identify gains.
Collectively, these instruments have pushed the feld of scientifc inquiry research forward. Notably,
it seems the research on knowledge of NOSI has revealed more about what students don’t know
about NOSI than what they know!
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Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Scientifc Inquiry

Teacher professional learning programs continue to focus on engaging science teachers in inquiry
experiences and development of inquiry-based science lessons (Enderle et al., 2014). Despite these
eforts, it seems that teachers remain challenged to understand what scientifc inquiry is and what
scientifc inquiry looks like in practice (Herranen & Aksela, 2019; Kaya et al., 2021), and as the
prior section discusses, teachers are not yet efective in teaching about NOSI. Ongoing supports and
experiences for teacher development are essential (Capps et al., 2012; McNeill et al., 2017). Zion and
colleagues examined science teachers’ experiences with and understandings of inquiry as a dynamic
process (Zion et al., 2020). They found that as teachers experience scientifc inquiry with explicit
attention to variation and fuctuation during the process as well as explicit NOSI instruction, the
teachers made more gains in understanding NOSI. These types of programs are essential if we are to
make gains in scientifc literacy.
While it has been well documented that a teacher’s knowledge about NOS and scientifc inquiry
are not directly translated into classroom practice (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 1998; Hanuscin et al., 2011;
Lederman & Zeidler, 1987; Mesci et al., 2020; Schwartz & Lederman, 2002; among others), there
has been little exploration into the complexities of NOS or scientifc inquiry understandings in rela-
tion to what is communicated in practice. A study by Bartos and Lederman (2014) examined the
NOS and scientifc inquiry knowledge structures held by four physics teachers in relation to struc-
tures communicated through their classroom practice for those constructs. They developed an instru-
ment to determine NOS and scientifc inquiry knowledge structures, the Knowledge Structures for
NOS and SI survey (KN4NS) with interviews. The teachers determined what concepts they con-
sidered pertained to NOS and SI and diagrammed how they understood relationships among those
concepts. The researchers constructed diagrams based on classroom observations of the teachers. The
two diagrams were compared. While the teachers held informed views of NOS and SI, they varied
in knowledge structures. Moreover, there was little alignment between the teachers’ knowledge
structures and their espoused structures as evidenced in classroom practice. Relative to the teach-
ing of NOSI, results indicate PCK for scientifc inquiry demands more than complex knowledge
of NOSI. PCK for NOSI requires knowledge of assessments, connections between NOSI and the
context of other subject matter, and perhaps most importantly, intentions to teach and beliefs in the
importance of student understandings about NOSI play a role in how teachers plan and implement
NOSI instruction. These results are similar to the fndings related to PCK for argumentation (Sengul
et al., 2021).
In a recent study by Mesci et al. (2020), a PCK framework was used to explore preservice teach-
ers’ understandings about scientifc inquiry, NOS, and PCK for NOS/NOSI during a one-year
development program. The program involved a three-month science research experience, group
sessions for refection and discussion, a NOS/NOSI course, and a teaching practicum. Using a pre/
mid/post design with the VNOS, VASI, interviews, observations, and artifacts, they tracked changes
in the preservice teachers’ views of NOS, NOSI, and PCK. Through case study analysis, they report
the preservice teachers’ successes in developing and using informed views of NOS and NOSI. Their
PCK for NOS and NOSI varied, and results suggest variances related to teacher self-efcacy, general
pedagogical orientations (e.g., teacher- or student-centered), and assessments and lesson-planning
profciency. Again, intent to explicitly teach NOSI within the context of the other science subject
matter, and understanding of the connections between NOSI and that other subject matter were also
factors (Bartos & Lederman, 2014; Schwartz & Lederman, 2002). This study calls for more explora-
tion of how novice science teachers develop PCK for NOSI.
Interest in exploring how teachers’ PCK for teaching in informal science learning spaces lead
to a study of 41 science teachers’ understanding and use of inquiry pedagogy during a professional
development program at a science center (Cigdemoğlu & Köseoğlu, 2019). The teachers participated
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in nine modules designed to introduce them to inquiry activities and pedagogy, with explicit instruc-
tion on NOS and scientifc inquiry. The researchers administered a Turkish version of VASI (Karışan
et al., 2017) to the participants and interviewed a portion of them. Results showed the teachers
gained understandings of all the targeted NOSI aspects on the VASI. Examining their lesson plans
revealed some connection between the teachers’ views of scientifc inquiry and their inquiry les-
son plans. However, the extent of alignment was considered insufcient to fully engage students in
inquiry investigations. The researchers suggest a need to purposefully focus on developing PCK for
teaching within a science center, especially if the goal is to employ inquiry pedagogies.
Perhaps the most in-depth study of teachers’ developing knowledge about scientifc inquiry and
inquiry pedagogy in recent years is reported by Lederman and Lederman (2019). Their project
Inquiry, Context, and Nature of Science (ICAN) spanned fve years and involved 236 science teach-
ers and over 23,000 students from the United States. Each teacher participated for at least one year.
The program included science research experiences, extended workshops, classroom support, model
lessons, curriculum development, and assessment practices related to NOS knowledge and scien-
tifc inquiry. Using versions of the VNOS and VASI instruments and interviews (pre/post), results
demonstrate that the extended professional development activities lead to improved understandings
of NOS and NOSI as well as improved abilities to employ explicit/refective inquiry and NOS
pedagogy. Most notable from this fve-year study is the progression teachers made in their abilities to
include explicit/refective attention to NOS and NOSI in their classroom practice. Although their
conceptual knowledge of the constructs developed frst, their pedagogical understandings and abili-
ties progressed from implicit to didactic (lecture or direct instruction) to explicit (intentional and
planned, with assessments) as they went through the program. Results support the need for contin-
ued and extended opportunities for teachers to learn about and be supported through developing
PCK for NOS and scientifc inquiry.
Research Tools
Across the collection of studies reviewed, several promising research resources and tools were devel-
oped by scholars with a range of foci and contexts related to scientifc classroom inquiry (Table 24.1).
The resources described here are not an attempt at creating an exhaustive list of all available tools
and frameworks produced during the past several years. The intent of this table is to highlight some
instruments and frameworks that may contribute to other researchers’ investigation of inquiry-based
science education. We have organized these resources along two dimensions. The frst organizing
element distinguishes between resources that focus on teachers’ and students’ knowledge of scien-
tifc inquiry or on their abilities to do scientifc inquiry. The next distinction involves whether the
resource works more as an analytical framework that can be used with multiple data sources or if it
is a measurement tool that can be used as a data source.
Looking across the collection, there are fewer analytical frameworks that can be used to explore
learners’ knowledge about scientifc inquiry, while there are signifcantly more frameworks available
to explore learners’ abilities with the doing of scientifc inquiry. The development of more analyti-
cal frameworks for “doing” compared to “knowing” can be partially attributed to an increased focus
on particular aspects or elements of scientifc inquiry, such as argumentation, modeling, or CVS for
investigation design. In contrast, conceptual work around knowledge of inquiry has been a scholarly
focus for much longer prior to the period of this review, so such specifcation has already occurred.
However, those tools are grounded in theoretical frames that some researchers may also fnd useful for
analytical purposes. For tools measuring learners’ knowledge of inquiry, we also see a tendency for
instruments to focus on broader conceptualizations of scientifc inquiry, as opposed to focusing on
specifc elements like argumentation. The measurement tools focused on the doing of inquiry more
commonly focus on specifc aspects of inquiry.
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Table 24.1 Research Tools for Scientifc Inquiry
Type of Instrument Description Source
Knowledge about scientifc inquiry

Measurement tool Knowledge Structures for Nature of Science and Bartos and Lederman
Scientifc Inquiry (KS4NS) is an open-ended (2014)
questionnaire used to elicit what concepts pertain to
NOS and SI and to represent any relationships among
those concepts diagrammatically
Measurement tool Views About Scientifc Inquiry (VASI) is an open- Lederman, Lederman
ended, constructed response eight-question tool that et al. (2014)
explores the sophistication of students’ understandings
of various theoretically grounded aspects of the nature
of scientifc inquiry (NOSI)
Measurement tool Young Children’s Views of Science (YCVS) Lederman et al. (2018)
Measurement tool The Pedagogical Content Knowledge for McNeill et al. (2016)
Argumentation tool includes several multiple-choice
and open-ended questions using four classroom
vignettes to explore theoretically derived/empirically
supported elements of teachers’ PCK for classroom
scientifc argumentation
Measurement tool Model of Modelling Diagram (MMD) involves Blanco-Anaya et al.
specifc tasks that can be used to analyze high school (2017)
students’ ability with and understanding of modeling,
with recommended changes for managing individual
and group performances
Measurement tool 47-item Likert-scale instrument to assess NOSI views Nehring (2020)
based on inquiry competencies model (biology and
chemistry)
Measurement tool Science-P Reasoning Inventory (SPR-I) measures Osterhaus et al. (2020)
elementary students’ understanding of experiments,
data interpretation, and nature of science
Doing of scientifc inquiry
Analytical framework Epistemologies in practice framework focuses on two Berland et al. (2016)
dimensions of students’ doing of inquiry through
various practices, including goals for the knowledge
construction work and how they epistemically
participate in such work
Analytical framework Task Analysis Guide in Science (TAGS) is a two- Tekkumru-Kisa et al.
dimensional framework used to analyze student tasks (2015)
for interactions between cognitive demand and the
integration of content and inquiry practices
Analytical framework To assess the quality of students’ scientifc explanations, de Andrade et al.
the six-level framework works to identify the presence (2019)
or absence of several elements of high-quality
explanations through a series of targeted questions
Analytical framework Framework used to analyze student drawings of Tang et al. (2019)
various physics and chemistry concepts that focuses
on seven diferent dimensions of drawings to interpret
their presentational, orientational, and organizational
meaning
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Type of Instrument Description Source
Analytical framework epistemic frames are used to explore a classroom Campbell and Fazio
community of practice in modeling activities, (2020)
providing nuanced and contextualized understandings
of student and teacher activity
Analytical framework Six-level framework that identifes various empirically Göhner and Krell
validated modeling strategies that preservice teachers (2020)
engage in when working through modeling tasks
Analytical framework Teacher-adapted TAP developed during the efort Lazarou and Erduran
being researched that improved the analysis of quality (2021)
of students’ argument products
Measurement tool CVS Inventory (CVSI) measures a holistic collection Schwichow et al.
of students’ competencies with respect to their (2016)
understanding and ability with control of variables
strategies (CVS)
Measurement tool Model of Modelling Diagram (MMD) involves Blanco-Anaya et al.
specifc tasks that can be used to analyze high school (2017)
students’ ability with and understanding of modeling,
with recommended changes for managing individual
and group performances
Measurement tool Based on a TAP adaptation, the Epistemic Cognition He et al. (2020)
of Scientifc Argumentation (ECSA) assessment also
allows for considerations of context in relation to
measuring students’ argumentation abilities
Measurement tool Multiple-choice instrument used to assess scientifc Krell et al. (2020)
reasoning competencies in preservice teachers.
German, English, and Spanish versions all validated.
Recommendations
While the research is consistent to demonstrate positive aspects of inquiry-based science instruc-
tion with respect to motivation, self-efcacy, critical thinking/reasoning, mastery-goal orientations,
science content achievement, and science identity development, the research is also consistent to
demonstrate inquiry-based learning experiences alone do not necessarily lead to meaningful under-
standings about inquiry to the extent that learners achieve multidimensional scientifc literacy (Bybee,
1995), or Vision II of scientifc literacy (Roberts, 2007; Roberts & Bybee, 2014).
The research clearly documents the continued interest in substantiating the involvement and suc-
cesses of teaching and learning for learners to do science and understanding science concepts. The
practice of argumentation has been particularly targeted in current research as an important activity
for students to engage in and apply to classroom-based investigations. Additionally, classroom-based
science has increasingly moved from simple hands-on activities to better-designed, question-driven
investigations. However, there is a missing link. While students may be gaining science content
knowledge, they are not gaining knowledge about scientifc inquiry. A gap remains in students’
abilities to do science or identify science content, perform the skills of scientists, and their abilities
to use their understanding of science when they need to in their daily lives. Apparently, the shift to
students’ involvement in doing science, no matter how sophisticated the investigations have become,
has not increased students’ levels of scientifc literacy as refected by understanding scientifc inquiry
(Lederman et al., 2021). Inquiry teaching that is used to reinforce science content learning and only
773
focuses on and assesses performance-based student outcomes inadequately prepares students to exit
formal K–12 classrooms with the abilities to be informed consumers of science. Unarguably, science
content teaching increases students’ science literacy, Roberts’s Vision I, as they proceed though K–12
education. But there remains the dilemma of moving between being science literate and being sci-
entifcally literate, Roberts’s Vision II.
We contend that knowledge about scientifc inquiry provides the cognitive understandings nec-
essary to dissolve the membrane between these two versions of literacy. Rather than existing in
isolation as dichotomous entities (Science – Scientifc), knowledge about scientifc inquiry links the
two to provide the foundations to developmentally and intellectually progress from learning science
content, doing science, and applying science to related decisions in daily life. We ofer “scientifc
inquiry literacy” as Vision 1.5, the knowledge that is essential to move between Vision I, science
literacy, and Vision II, scientifc literacy.
This poses the question, does science education need another type of literacy? Apparently, yes.
When one considers society’s insufcient abilities to use and trust science despite the increased atten-
tion science education has had in K–12 classrooms around the world, there is a missing link. There
has certainly been an emphasis on science content learning, authentic experiences to do science, and
considerations of science as an integral and important part of everyday decisions. Vision 1.5, scientifc
inquiry literacy (SIL), represents the intermediate level of understanding inquiry within the progres-
sion between the two anchors, science literacy and scientifc literacy.
What Is the Consequence of Not Achieving Vision 1.5?

Evidence From the Global State of Scientifc Literacy
In their book Why does E=mc2? physicists Brian Cox and Jef Forshaw describe science as a
discipline that celebrates uncertainty, and recognizing this is the key to its success. Science
is imperfect and that’s a good thing! We’ve built a world based on science and discovery.
So more people need to understand this, for the sake of society – and democracy at large.
(Cox & Forshaw, 2009)
Our review of the most recent research on what learners understand about NOSI and the
doing of scientifc inquiry, even with emphasis on arguing from evidence, shows an overall
failure of the current way science is taught. For decades there have been reform eforts around
the world that emphasize scientifc inquiry, inquiry-based science teaching, and more recently
NOSI. Apparently, this is not enough to adequately inform society of what science is and how
it works. Missing is a solid understanding of what constitutes a valid scientifc argument, of how
to evaluate the validity of a scientifc claim, of the rationale for uncertainty and change, of what
scientists do. Doing science investigations, no matter how they refect “real scientifc endeavors”
do not intuitively establish the understanding the scientists can legitimately and appropriately
decide on using diferent procedures to answer the same questions, disagree when considering
the same data, and they change their conclusions when ofered new evidence. This is not fimsy
work; this is science.
Additionally, society seems much more willing than ever before to simply ignore or dismiss incon-
venient scientifc facts, preferring to judge science by how well it agrees with the way they want the
world to be! People are not only scientifcally illiterate, they have chosen to redefne science to suit
their needs. Motivated reasoning can not only be dangerous to individuals but to their community as
a whole. In the current times of a global pandemic, society has shown a lack of trust in science, much
of which is due to a lack of understanding of what science is and what scientists do in the generation
of scientifc knowledge. We have reached a critical tipping point of crisis in science education. The
774
consequence of having scientifc facts at our fngertips, “facts” that anyone can post and perpetuate
regardless of scientifc validity, is a society of blind followers without meaningful understanding of
the scientifc source or nature. Isn’t this mindset of facts over understanding refected in the overuse
of large-scale standardized curriculum and assessments that focus on science content? Despite decades
of pushing to change the system, with some successes along the way, the overall system is the same.
The international studies of learners’ understandings of NOSI from elementary through secondary
show that years of schooling are unsuccessful to foster scientifc literacy sufcient to understand that
“imperfect science” is what science is (Cox & Forshaw, 2009). We must learn from what has been hap-
pening in today’s world regarding mistrust, denial, and misinformation about vaccines, global climate
change, and natural resource depletion. Society is not just uninformed about scientifc inquiry. Soci-
ety is vulnerable. We draw upon the work of Thomas Kuhn to know that the current paradigm of
science education is in crisis. What will replace it?
How Do We Achieve Vision 1.5, Scientifc Inquiry Literacy?

As with all other types of knowledge, researchers need to consider the pedagogical pathways needed
to successively guide students toward more sophisticated understandings and applications of science.
These nonlinear trajectories will require educators to develop a PCK for each of the levels of lit-
eracy. There is a large body of research on the teaching, learning, and assessing of science content.
Similarly, literature abounds in what it means to be scientifcally literate. What remains is the void
of information on the development of teachers’ PCK for scientifc inquiry literacy. Preservice and
in-service teachers need to learn how to have their students refect on what they learned about
the scientifc endeavor when they were engaged in doing investigations and then generalize these
experiences to the work of all scientists. Through professional learning opportunities that focus on
teachers’ understanding of the epistemic function of these practices and how NOSI provides direly
needed context for such learning, scientifc literacy can be realized in K–12 science education
environments.
But teachers cannot teach what they themselves do not know, and they won’t teach what they do
not value. There needs to be more research on the success of knowing about scientifc inquiry in the
development of students’ scientifc literacy. This requires the need for the science education com-
munity to adjust the continued emphasis on research concerning doing science inquiry by teachers
and students to include the teaching, learning, and assessing of knowledge about scientifc inquiry
and more importantly using the results of these studies to afect preservice and in-service teachers’
knowledge and attitudes toward Vision 1.5, scientifc inquiry literacy. The burden of the lack of
societal scientifc literacy does not fall solely on the shoulders of the scientifc community. Once
students leave formal education, the primary sources of science research come to them through
social media and the press. These sound bites of information are not necessarily vetted or accurate.
Science educators need to prepare students to be aware of these possibilities, scrutinize science-
related information and evaluate the validity of the reporting. These practices are all elements of
scientifc inquiry literacy.
Finally, scientists themselves are not exempt from adding to public confusion, skepticism,
and misunderstanding about science. They need to take a greater role in the reporting of their
work to ensure it is clearly and accurately passed on to the public rather than have it reinter-
preted and filtered through social media or the press (Dean, 2017). Consequently, if scientists
like Cox and Forshaw (2010) want the public to know that science is appropriately uncertain,
then they share the responsibility of educating the public about their work. Clearly, research
on the impact of the role of scientists’ involvement in educating the public about their work
could inform the science education community as to how to better achieve Vision 1.5, scien-
tific inquiry literacy.
775
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge and thank the reviewers of this chapter, Valarie Akerson and Selina L. Bartels, for
their insightful and constructive comments.
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SECTION V
Curriculum and Assessment in Science

Section Editors: Bronwen Cowen and Anders Jonsson
25
SCIENCE, SCIENTIFIC LITERACY,
AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
Jonathan Osborne
The essential focus of this chapter is the question of what does it mean to be literate in science? This
chapter will advance three broad answers. In 2007, Roberts argued for two visions of the concept
of scientifc literacy, Vision I – what it means to be literate within science – and Vision II – what it
means to be literate for somebody who is an outsider to science, essentially an external view of sci-
ence and its workings (Roberts, 2007). The latter he saw as deriving its meaning from the capabilities
needed to deal with issues that had a science-related component that students are likely to encounter
as citizens. Feinstein has defned these internal and external contexts as requiring, respectively, the
“competent insider” and the “competent outsider” (Feinstein, 2011). Being clear about which of
these is the goal, and what it means to be competent in these two contexts, is what this chapter seeks
to answer.
Another more recent answer to this question of what it means to be scientifcally literate as an
outsider comes from a view that we are living in a society of ever-increasing complexity where we
are increasingly epistemically dependent on the knowledge and expertise of others (Hardwig, 1985;
Nichols, 2017; Norris, 1997; Origgi, 2004). Whether it is the mechanic who fxes your car, the
doctor who investigates your health, or the scientist discussing the reasons for believing in climate
change, we are epistemically dependent on their interpretation of the evidence. No individual has
all the knowledge necessary to make an informed consideration and decision of how to act in all
contexts. Our knowledge is essentially limited and bounded (Bromme & Goldman, 2014; Simon,
1966). Hence, we are collectively dependent on the knowledge of others and a network of difering
expertise. In such a context, scientifc literacy becomes a collective property of a community and not
something that can be attained by any one individual (National Academies of Sciences, 2016), which
can be conceived of as Vision III.
A more radical version of Vision II sees the goals of scientifc literacy as the use of scientifc
knowledge for action, particularly to address issues of emancipation, and social, economic, and envi-
ronmental injustice (Bencze et al., 2020; D. Hodson, 2009; Sjöström & Eilks, 2018). Given the
impending climate crisis, traditional notions of scientifc literacy are seen as inadequate to prepare
students for the world in which students will need to act. The dilemma for science education is
that such arguments take science education overtly into the realm of moral, economic, and political
considerations. Put simply, knowing about climate change and global warming and its consequences
is insufcient. The student of today is faced with the issue of whether they should eat meat, how to
get clean water, and how to deal with the threats from disease. Any science education that fails to
consider such issues seems very removed from the issues that confront young people in their daily
785 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-30

Jonathan Osborne
lives. Such a goal would undoubtedly represent a radical transformation from the traditional forms of
science education that are practiced in most classrooms across the globe.
This chapter will begin by clarifying the traditional meanings given to scientifc literacy. It will
then ofer a perspective on the science and their epistemic social practices that enable the produc-
tion of reliable knowledge. This is necessary to explain what the competent outsider might need to
understand about science to comprehend the plethora of claims that confront them daily. In par-
ticular, I will consider how the contemporary contexts have changed and the implications for the
knowledge and competency that school science now needs to address. How each of these alternative
visions of scientifc literacy contribute to an efective science education will be discussed. My pri-
mary contention, however, is that if we are to make a consistent and coherent argument for scientifc
literacy, we need some common understanding of what it is and why it matters. This chapter must
be seen as a contribution to that goal.
The Diverse Meanings of “Scientifc Literacy”

Societies often use the argument for scientifc literacy as a legitimate goal that justifes educating all
students in science. The problem is that commonly it is a vague and ill-defned notion. The broad
goal of scientifc literacy for all is unquestionable, but the lack of clarity surrounding the term is
suggestive of a chimera to cloak the real focus of science education – the foundational education for
the future scientists – scientists who are needed to sustain the economic well-being of the country.
Indeed, the economic imperative has been a recurrent feature of the rationale for science education
since the inception of formal science education (Committee to Enquire into the Position of Natural
Science in the Educational System of Great Britain, 1918; Dainton, 1968; National Research Coun-
cil, 2012; The Royal Society, 2014).
“Scientifc literacy”, like other much vaunted literacies, such as “fnancial literacy” and “computer
literacy”, is really a programmatic term. Essentially, a term that points to a diverse set of goals that
educators, scientists, and politicians want for citizens and society that fall under a loose but recog-
nized mantra. While the goals are broadly agreed upon, they may difer signifcantly in emphasis
and importance in their varying articulations (Norris et al., 2014). Most of the literature on science
literacy has used the term “science literacy” in its Robert’s Vision II sense (DeHart Hurd, 1958;
Laugksch, 2000; Millar & Osborne, 1998; National Research Council, 2012; Shen, 1975; Shortland,
1988), asking what kinds of knowledge, understanding, and competency are necessary for the com-
petent outsider. Even then, within that sense, there is range of diferent meanings attributed to what
it might mean. Reviewing its historical and contemporary meanings, DeBoer (2000) found nine
diferent uses for the term (DeBoer, 2000), which were:
1. Teaching and learning about science as a cultural force in the modern world
2. Preparation for the world of work
3. Teaching and learning about science that has direct application to everyday living
4. Teaching students to be informed citizens
5. Learning about science as a particular way of examining the natural world
6. Understanding reports and discussions of science that appear in popular media
7. Learning about science for its aesthetic appeal
8. Preparing citizens who are sympathetic to science
9. Understanding the nature and importance of technology and the relationship between technol-
ogy and science
Possibly the conception of scientifc literacy that carries the most weight these days is the one
used by the OECD for the assessment of scientifc literacy for the triennial tests conducted for the
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Science, Scientifc Literacy, and Science Education
Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA), if only because this conception is used as
the basis for testing in over 80 countries, with science as the primary focus every nine years (OECD,
2006, 2012). The latest draft version for the 2025 tests ofers a conception of science literacy defned
in the following manner:
Scientifc Literacy is the ability to engage with science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a
refective citizen.
A scientifcally educated person, therefore, is willing to engage in reasoned discourse about science
and technology which requires the competencies to:
1. Explain phenomena scientifcally

Recognise, construct and evaluate explanations for a range of natural and technological phenomena.
2. Construct and evaluate designs for scientifc enquiry and interpret scientifc data and
evidence critically
Appraise and evaluate ways of investigating questions scientifcally and interpret and evaluate
scientifc data critically.
3. Research, evaluate and use scientifc information for decision making
Obtain scientifc information on a specifc global, local or personal science-related issue and evalu-
ate its credibility, potential faws and the implications for personal and communal decisions.
From this perspective, scientifc literacy is seen as a competency defned not just in terms of what an
individual knows and understands but what they can do with their knowledge (Rychen & Salganik,
2003; Voogt & Roblin, 2012). The PISA defnition is very much an articulation of the Vision II
sense – what the competent outsider needs to know in today’s society.
One of the most extended discussions of what we might understand by scientifc literacy was
ofered by Shamos over 25 years ago (Shamos, 1995). There Shamos argued that there were really
three versions of scientifc literacy which were:
1. Cultural scientifc literacy. This is a grasp of certain background information about science, such
as viruses, antibiotics, atoms, and molecules, essentially a basic lexicon of terms that could be
acquired by rote or understood with an internet search.
2. Functional scientifc literacy. Here the individual not only has a knowledge of the basic lexi-
con of science but can also use it to converse, read, and write coherently, using science terms
in a nontechnical but nevertheless meaningful context, such as knowledge of the solar system,
how the earth revolves around the sun and how we get the oxygen we breathe. The number of
individuals with this kind of literacy has been measured over an extended period by John Miller
(Miller, 2010). His research suggests that about 25% of the US population attain this level of
literacy.
3. “True” scientifc literacy. Such an individual has some understanding of the overall enterprise of
science, its social institutions, and the norms and values that govern its function; they are aware
of the major conceptual schemes that form the foundations, understand the nature of scientifc
investigation, and have acquired a set of scientifc attitudes of mind. Shamos estimates the frac-
tion of adults with this true level of literacy as 5%, which is approximately the same percentage
as those who work in science-related professions (National Science Board, 2018).
Another defning contribution clarifying what was meant by the concept of scientifc literacy was
ofered by Norris and Phillips (2003). Their insight was to point to the fact that the term had two
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dimensions. One was being literate within the domain, that is, being able to read, write, and talk sci-
ence as it is commonly discussed within the discipline. This they saw as the “fundamental sense”. The
other was the “derived sense” – akin to Robert’s Vision II – and being able to use scientifc knowl-
edge and apply it to the many diverse science-related issues that confront us daily. This contribution
is important, as it reminds us that when it comes to teaching and learning science, a primary goal has
to be to develop the competency and capability to be literate within the domain, what Shanahan and
Shanahan call disciplinary literacy (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). “Derived” literacy is, as its name
implies, dependent on fundamental literacy. To be able to think critically about a domain and its
claims requires some knowledge of the domain, and that knowledge is built, at least in part, on the
capability to read, write, and talk using the concepts and ideas of the discipline (Chinn et al., 2020;
Willingham, 2008) – that is “fundamental” literacy.
Norris and Phillips’s contribution is key, as it reminds us that literacy is not something that stands
in some kind of distant functional relationship to the sciences – something that facilitates its practice
but is not essential to the activity itself. Rather, as Norris and Phillips argue, reading, writing, and
talking are constitutive of science itself. It is impossible to imagine the activity of science without
engaging in one or more of these activities (Norris & Phillips, 2003). In that sense, literacy is funda-
mental to science. And, if it is fundamental to science, it must be fundamental to the teaching of science.
What Norris and Phillips point out is that, just as there can be no houses without roofs or windows,
there can be no science without reading, talking, and writing. Or, as I have framed it in my own
writing, science without literacy is like a ship without a sail (Osborne, 2002). A similar view is articu-
lated by Postman and Weingartner (1971) when they argue:
Almost all of what we customarily call “knowledge” is language, which means that the key
to understanding a subject is to understand its language [emphasis added]. . . . A “discipline” is
a way of knowing, and whatever is known is inseparable from the symbols (mostly words)
in which the knowing is codifed. What is biology (for example) other than words? If all
the words that biologists use were subtracted from the language, there would be no “biol-
ogy”. . . . This means, of course, that every teacher is a language teacher: teachers, quite
literally, have little else to teach, but a way of talking and therefore seeing the world.
(p. 102)
I will argue that Norris and Phillips’s conception of scientifc literacy is more useful than that ofered
by Roberts because their terms point more clearly to a distinction between what the insider needs
to function within science (fundamental literacy), and what the outsider needs to engage compe-
tently with science (derived literacy). Although are both interdependent. The more you are literate
in the fundamental sense, the easier it is to use that knowledge in a derived sense. One major reason
for foregrounding Norris and Phillips’s distinction is that it emphasizes the importance of teaching
literacy within science. Why does this matter? Because as outlined earlier, language is central to learn-
ing science. As Lemke (1990) points out: “The one single change in science teaching that should do
more than any other to improve students’ ability to use the language of science is to give them more
practice actually using it” (p. 168). Yet “traditionally science teachers have had little concern for text”
(Wellington & Osborne, 2001, p. 41).
Rather, many teachers have chosen to work with what I call the vaccination model of literacy – a
conception that sees literacy as the responsibility of the language arts teachers to ensure that their stu-
dents have been inoculated with the ability to read and write text. The idea that literacy is in some sense
fundamental to science makes a point that teaching literacy is central to good teaching of science – that
each discipline has its own forms of literate expression that must be taught within the discipline. And
what is important to understand is that teaching literacy does not mean front-loading the experience
by teaching lists of vocabulary. To do that is to emulate the worst forms of language teaching that place
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an emphasis on vocabulary and grammar and which have been abandoned by the language teach-
ing community. Such a perspective on language is essentially defcit-orientated based on a view of
what students do not have rather than asset-orientated and building on what students do have. Taking
an asset-orientated approach is especially important for multilingual learners (O. Lee, 2021; National
Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine, 2018). Such students are often seen as lacking basic
literacy and hence incapable of dealing with disciplinary literacy. I would argue that teaching literacy
within science is equally important for all students. All students are being asked to learn a new language.
What they need is practice in reading, talking, and writing science, building on what they already have.
The Scientifc Enterprise

To discuss any conception of what it means to be scientifcally literate, however – either from within
the domain or as an outsider – it is necessary to have some view of the scientifc enterprise itself.
Essentially, what do we understand the activity to be that we wish people to value and understand?
For the purposes of this chapter, and as the basis of the argument I will make for the meanings of sci-
entifc literacy, what follows is a personal view of that enterprise. While it is not a complete account,
I would argue that it is coherent and defensible. Such an account matters not just for the purposes of
this chapter but to all engaged in science education. It is the premise, rarely explicitly articulated, of
all science curricula and the goals we have for science education.
To start, all the sciences attempt to answer three questions about the material world (Ogborn,
1988; Osborne, 2011). These are:
1. What exists? The ontic question.

2. What causes this event/phenomenon to happen? The causal question.
3. How do we know? The epistemic question.
In addition, scientifc knowledge invites two other questions:
4. How do we talk about this phenomenon/explanation? The communicative question.

5. What can we do with this knowledge? The technological question.
All of these questions are also a focus for outsiders, for example, “What is a vaccine?”, “What causes
climate change?”, or “How can we be certain that climate change is not a natural efect?” Question
5, in particular, raises a set of ethical, moral, and political issues, which is the concern of most outsid-
ers. The goal of an education for scientifc literacy should, therefore, be to develop the competency
to engage in meaningful discourse about such questions and, some would argue, to facilitate action.
To answer these questions, the sciences use of a range of “styles of reasoning” (Crombie, 1994;
Hacking, 1992; Kind & Osborne, 2017) and defnitely not a singular scientifc method – a myth that
still persists despite its absurdity (e.g., did Darwin or Einstein use the scientifc method to derive
their ideas?) (Bauer, 1992). Some major styles of reasoning are mathematical deduction, experimen-
tal exploration, hypothetical modeling, categorization and classifcation, probabilistic reasoning, and
historical-based evolutionary reasoning. In doing so, they use a mix of deductive mathematical and
logical arguments (e.g., Newton’s laws) inductive generalizations (e.g., the laws of conservation of
energy/momentum etc.), and abductive arguments (inference to the best explanation, e.g., theory of
evolution, origin of the continents).
Categorization and classifcation are necessary to answer the ontic question of what exists. Until some-
thing has been identifed and defned we cannot talk about it (Bowker & Leigh Star, 1999), and how we
talk about it – what it means to be literate in the sciences – is a central focus of this chapter. This style
of reasoning is needed as much to defne concepts such as heat and temperature, speed and velocity, and
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Jonathan Osborne
chemical and physical change as it is to defne the attributes of species, the diference between a fsh and
a mammal and more. Making the distinction between heat and temperature, for instance, was one of the
great intellectual achievements of the 18th century and one that still troubles many a student of physics.
Experimental exploration, hypothetical modeling, mathematical deduction, and historical-based
evolutionary reasoning are necessary to answer the causal question of why something happens or, in
the case of the origin of the species, the continents or the universe, how they came to be. Proba-
bilistic reasoning is necessary for two reasons. One, it is essential to deciding whether a pattern is a
random event or not. If not, then it provokes scientists to identify an underlying cause. The identi-
fcation of the association between incidence of skin cancer and latitude, the link between resistance
to smallpox and infection by cowpox, and location of cholera infections around the Broad Street
pump in London all led to the development of our scientifc knowledge. Second, it is the basis of
many sampling procedures when it is impossible to measure whole populations. Each of the sciences
has its own entities it brings into being and draws on these styles of reasoning in diferent and varied
ways. There is no overarching singular narrative that can consider the sciences as a universal common
entity. The argument, for instance, that there is a set of cross-cutting concepts (National Research
Council, 2012) that unifes the disparate science has no scholarly basis (Osborne et al., 2018). Rather,
each of the sciences depends upon a body of knowledge and a set of methods that are distinct for
that science – a body of knowledge that must be acquired if one is to become literate in that domain.
To acquire the knowledge to be literate within the domain, however, is hard (Millar, 1991). As the
19th-century French scientist Claude Bernard famously said: “Science is a hall full of awe and wonder.
The problem is the long dark kitchen you have to go through to get there”. First, this is not simply
because learning science requires coming to terms with an ontological zoo of unfamiliar entities: ions,
electrons, atoms, cells, chromosomes, genes, molecules, quanta, radiation, nuclei, electric charge, volt-
age, current, wavelength, frequency, and more. Rather, it requires a set of coherent, conceptual frame-
works that integrate a set of complex interrelationships and explain the signifcance of each element.
Such knowledge takes time to acquire and does not consist of some miscellany of facts to be regurgi-
tated at the press of a button or in response to an exam question. Rather, it requires an understanding or
overview of the major explanatory frameworks that science ofers of the material world (Harlen, 2010).
However, the big ideas of the sciences are fundamentally unnatural (Cromer, 1993; Wolpert,
1992), from the idea that day and night are caused by a spinning Earth rather than a moving Sun, to
the idea that you look like your parents because every cell in your body carries a chemically coded
recipe about how to reproduce yourself, science challenges our instinctive common sense. The
teacher of a science is not just a teacher of a foreign language but also a teacher of a set of what to
many would seem to be “crazy ideas” (Osborne, 2019). Table 25.1 shows one partial list of “crazy
ideas” that are common to science.
Table 25.1 Ten Ideas That Are Unnatural, Uncommon Sense, or That Would Appear “Crazy” When First Proposed
1. The Earth is a sphere not fat.

2. Airplanes are supported by the air.
3. Day and night is caused by a spinning Earth.
4. The continents have moved.
5. We have evolved from other animals.
6. The earth is 5 billion years old.
7. Diseases are caused by tiny living organisms.
8. Most of the atom is empty space.
9. Heavier things do not always fall faster.
10. Most of the atoms that make up our bodies were created in stars a long time ago.
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THE REAL THEORIES

WORLD AND MODELS
Observing Creative thinking

Experimenting ARGUE, Reasoning
Measuring CRITIQUE Calculating
Testing Planning
COLLECT DATA, FORMULATE

TEST SOLUTIONS HYPOTHESES,
PROPOSE SOLUTIONS
Developing explanations
Investigating Evaluating and solutions
Figure 25.1 A model of scientifc activity (National Research Council, 2012, p. 45).
These ideas are produced by scientists working in the three spaces shown by Figure 25.1. These
are an “investigation” space, which requires scientists to engage in the practices of asking questions
about why the material world might be the way it is, or why phenomena happen in the way they
do. This in turn leads to an activity of constructing explanations requiring models to be developed
and used. Many of these models may be mathematical or represented by algorithms on a computer,
which requires the use of mathematical and computational thinking. Such scientists are working in a
sphere of activity represented by the right side of the fgure of developing explanations.
Such ideas then must be tested experimentally, which requires scientists to engage in planning
and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, and mathematical and computational
thinking to analyze the results, all activities undertaken in the investigation space on the left. Engag-
ing in argument is the core central process and takes two forms: engaging in argument using the
evidence produced by empirical inquiry and engaging in arguments about hypothetical predictions
and how well they are supported by the data.
Using such a model of the sciences, it is possible to identify eight practices that are common across
all the sciences:
1. Asking questions and defning problems

2. Developing and using models
3. Planning and carrying out investigations
4. Analyzing and interpreting data
5. Using mathematical and computational thinking
6. Constructing explanations and designing solutions
7. Engaging in argument from evidence
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
All of these practices require an understanding not just of disciplinary knowledge but procedural and
epistemic knowledge (OECD, 2016). For instance, what is a variable, a double-blind trial, or the
control of variables strategy and more – knowledge that Gott and coworkers have listed as “concepts
of evidence” (Gott et al., 2008).
The sciences that we practice, use, and teach are a contingent, cultural product – essentially
the outcomes of the random walk of cultural history (Hacking, 2012). The ideas and theories are
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Jonathan Osborne
infuenced by the cultural values and beliefs of those who work in science and the values and pol-
icy imperatives of contemporary society. Would the atom bomb have been developed so rapidly if
America were not at war? Likewise, would the enormous funding of COVID-19-related research
have happened in another context? Moreover, to the extent that the participation of women and
underserved minorities have been severely limited, the ideas are imbued with the values of Western
white males (Harding, 1991; Longino, 1990; Medin & Bang, 2014). How science would have been
diferent in a context where more groups participated is impossible to know, but it would have cer-
tainly been diferent.
Moreover, contemporary science is a highly organized social activity governed by a set of formal
and informal agencies. As a social system, it is governed by norms and institutions and practiced by
epistemically sullied agents who are motivated by individual glory garnered from producing reliable
trustworthy knowledge (Kitcher, 1990). The system of rewards and incentives is fercely competi-
tive with position and status dependent on success at what, nevertheless, is a virtuous goal and moral
achievement (Harré, 1986). Policy imperatives, norms, and institutions create incentives to which
researchers respond in choosing their research and publication strategies. These choices in turn shape
what we know about the world. Status is achieved initially by obtaining a doctorate and then by a
program of research leading to publications in high status journals. Exceptional research is rewarded
with considerable funding, membership of prestigious scientifc institutions and prizes (e.g., a Nobel
Prize).
Scientists, members of the scientifc community (a social institution), decide upon what counts as
“proper” procedures, “up-to-date” research methods, etc. in science using a process of peer review in
a narrow sense to ensure that research papers are scientifcally accurate, meet the standards of accepted
scientifc methods, and are relevant to other scientists in the feld.
The peer-review process, as the judge in the last trial of whether it was legitimate to teach intel-
ligent design (Dover vs. Kitzmiller), elegantly pointed out:
is “exquisitely important” in the scientifc process. It is a way for scientists to write up their
empirical research and to share the work with fellow experts in the feld, opening up the
hypotheses to study, testing, and criticism. . . . Peer review helps to ensure that research
papers are scientifcally accurate, meet the standards of the scientifc method, and are rel-
evant to other scientists in the feld.
(Judge Jones, 2005, p. 87)
Because peer review prior to publication is only a partial check on the validity of research fndings,
scientists rely on the communal and collaborative nature of scientifc investigation to establish the
trustworthiness of the fndings; that is, peer review in the broader sense. Moreover, one individual claim
alone is rarely sufcient. Subsequent studies, often using diferent methods, are needed to confrm
novel conclusions or to show how others can build productively on any new fndings. Independent
replication by other scientists indicates that the same methods will consistently yield the same out-
comes – another occasion to detect errors. The need for checking each other’s work has led many
to advocate for more open sharing of data and pre-posting of methods and standards of analysis. In
short, science benefts from the critical examination by peers. In this manner, the community works
to develop the practices that help to expose biases and remedy short-term error. Only then is it pos-
sible to construct knowledge that can be trusted with growing certainty.
Moreover, scientists hold a commitment to seeking “truth” or models that are “true enough”
(Elgin, 2017). The goal of the sciences is the construction of a model that afords the best under-
standing of a phenomenon even if it has recognized limitations. As a community, it is this commit-
ment that binds scientists as a group, and transgressions when done deliberately are punished severely
(B. Martin, 1992).
792
In this context, science education for all can only be justifed if it ofers something that is of
enduring value to all. That must be the knowledge necessary to be a “competent outsider” (Feinstein,
2011), that is, the knowledge and competency valuable for the “derived” notion of scientifc literacy.
And, given that most students are destined to become “outsiders” to science, it is this knowledge and
competency that should be preeminent in any science curriculum. Knowledge of the “big ideas” of
science is undoubtedly a contributing element to the specialized knowledge required to be a “com-
petent outsider”. However, to learn very specifc elements of knowledge that they will rarely, if ever,
use – the shapes of electron orbitals, the chemical structure of benzene, or the stages of meiosis and
mitosis – is salient only for the small minority who will go onto science-related careers. Moreover,
even the science specialist is only an expert within their limited domain. What does the evolution-
ary biologist know about climate change? Or what does the theoretical physicist understand about
viruses and their spread over and beyond others? In short, we are all epistemically dependent, and all
future citizens need a form of science education that will better support them to become competent
outsiders.
If this is so, then given the brief overview of the scientifc enterprise that space permits, which of
these features are important for the derived sense of scientifc literacy?
Scientifc Literacy in the “Derived Sense”

As discussed earlier, there is little consensus about the meaning of scientifc literacy in its derived
sense. Consequently, is has become little more than a programmatic term. Sifting through the exten-
sive writing on this topic, it is possible to identify four broad themes. These are:
• An appreciation of the sciences as a process and their cultural achievements

• An emphasis on science inquiry that understands and values the sciences for their ability to
answer questions about the nature of the material and living world and its capability to generate
new knowledge
• A problem-solving emphasis that values the sciences for the contribution they can make to
resolving issues and technical problems
• A decision-making emphasis that values the sciences for how they help to identify salient ques-
tions and informs the resolution and deliberation of important issues
Given the limited nature of this chapter, it is not my intention to review extensively the literature
on each of these themes. For that, the reader would do well to start with the 2016 National Acad-
emies report, which ofers a good summary of the many perspectives on derived scientifc literacy
(National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine, 2016). Rather, what I will ofer is a
summary of the present best arguments for the importance of each of these themes.
The Cultural Achievements of Science

This cultural argument for science education is one that has historically been undervalued. Tradition-
ally, the sciences have been valued for their utility, with an emphasis on experiment and observation
that has ignored its cultural and intellectual achievement. Fundamentally, science is a set of ideas
about the material and natural world and not some unique approach to inquiry. Essentially, the sci-
ences are a major human endeavor that has been remarkably successful. If you ponder on the fact that
a little over 400 years ago, Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher, was burned at the stake in the
Campo del Fiore, the main square in Rome, in part for supporting the Copernican worldview that
the earth went around the sun, and then compare that with the modern understanding we have, you
get some sense of the cultural achievement of the sciences.
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The knowledge provided by the sciences should rightfully astound us. The idea that the conti-
nents were once one, that the universe started with a big bang and that we can date it, that stars are
suns in their own right, and many, many more scientifc ideas are genuinely awesome. Yet so much
of science education has lost sight of that awe. As Dawkins so elegantly puts it in his own homage to
the sciences, Unweaving the Rainbow (Dawkins, 2000):
There is an anaesthetic of familiarity, a sedative of ordinariness which dulls the senses and
hides the wonder of existence. For those of us not gifted in poetry, it is at least worth while
from time to time making an efort to shake of the anaesthetic.
(p. 11)
Or, as Pinker puts it: “[s]cience has provided the world with images of sublime beauty: stroboscopi-
cally frozen motion, . . . graceful spiral galaxies and diaphanous nebulae. . ., and a luminous Planet
Earth rising above the moon’s horizon” (Pinker, 2018). Moreover, as he points out, it has “granted
us the gifts of life, health and wealth” and knowledge, which have eradicated diseases such as small-
pox, which killed 300 million people in the 20th century alone making the deaths from the current
COVID-19 pandemic look like chump change. Likewise, the development of penicillin reduced the
deaths from infectious diseases per year from 90,000 in 1900 to 2,300 in 1980 in the UK alone. And
how many more across the globe?
Yet, those arguing for the value of this perspective remain lone voices in the wilderness over-
shadowed by the utilitarian argument for its usefulness and economic value (Hadzigeorgiou, 2012;
Stolberg, 2008). Not to give ourselves over to wonder “leaves open the possibility that teachers and
their pupils will conclude that science is personally meaningless, and unwilling or unable to address
issues of personal signifcance” (Stolberg, 2008, p. 1958). Moreover, as more recent research has
shown, the disposition to experience awe predicts a more accurate understanding of how the sciences
work, rejection of creationism, and rejection of unwarranted teleological explanations more broadly
(Gottlieb et al., 2018; Valdesolo et al., 2016).
Somebody who is culturally scientifcally literate then would have some sense of the intellectual
achievement that the sciences represent. They would be able to identify 5–10 scientifc ideas that
that have had a transformative efect on our culture and explain why. In addition, they would be able
to point to the transcendent nature of this knowledge, that the phenomenon can be explained, to
wonder at its possible beauty, and to recognize the intellectual creativity that imagined the world not
as it appears to be but as one that would often defy common sense (Wolpert, 1992). If, as Oakeshott
argues, the function of a good liberal education is to ensure students inherit a knowledge and under-
standing of human achievements, then contemporary science education must largely be judged a
failure (Fuller, 1989). And a failure that is vividly illustrated in any social conversation by the response
to the question, “what important ideas do you remember from your school science?” The ensuing
hesitation and uncertainty speak volumes.
Science Inquiry or the Epistemic Value of Science

This perspective places a value on understanding the scientifc approach to inquiry. It has its roots in
the Deweyian prioritization of inquiry as an approach to life (Dewey, 1916). It basically argues that
the sciences have developed distinct methods to answering empirical questions that produce reliable
knowledge (Elgin, 2017; Ziman, 1979), though it foregrounds the empiricist approach of science
rather than its theoretical achievements. This empiricist view argues that the process of asking ques-
tions, designing investigations, controlling variables, and collecting and analyzing data produces reli-
able fndings about the material world and accounts for the success of the sciences (National Academy
of Science, 1995). In itself, this is not incorrect. It is, however, inadequate. For the sciences have
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many more ways of producing reliable knowledge and addressing the questions the sciences ask. For
instance, one of the most successful methods of the sciences is the double-blind trial, which rarely
gets a mention in most science curricula. Moreover, as pointed out initially, scientifc work relies on
a range of styles of reasoning, only one of which requires tightly controlled empirical investigation.
Another problem with the overemphasis on empirical inquiry is that it suggests that there is a
singular scientifc method – a kind of quasi-algorithmic approach that can be applied to answer
all questions. As a corollary, there are two problems. First, this is simply so wrong that it is a gross
misrepresentation of the sciences (Bauer, 1992; Blachowicz, 2009). Nevertheless, it is still a delusion
that many practicing scientists hold, having been ofered nothing better than this account during
their own education. As Lakatos famously said, “most scientists tend to understand little more about
science than fsh do about hydrodynamics” (Lakatos, 1970, p. 148). Second, it undervalues the intel-
lectual and creative work that must go into science, the creative work to invent new theories and new
entities that transcend the common imagination – an Earth that is a sphere, an atom that is mostly
empty space, light that travels at a speed that is invariant with respect to the speed of the observer, or
tiny microorganisms that transmit disease and more. Without this broader perspective, this argument
for the derived value of scientifc literacy is weak, shallow, and unconvincing.
One attempt to address this weakness can be found in A Framework for K–12 Science Education
(National Research Council, 2012) and the ensuing Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS
Lead States, 2013). These present the sciences as the product of a body of work founded on a set of
core disciplinary ideas, undertaken by scientists who use a set of eight common scientifc practices
and are united by a set of seven cross-cutting concepts. While this is an improvement presenting a
more complex and less algorithmic approach to scientifc work, it sufers from two major weak-
nesses. The frst is that there is “no scafolding to get students from isolated individual practices” to
an understanding of “the social and institutional practices of the various communities” – practices
that form the basis for our trust in science (Rudolph, 2020). Second, any account of how scientifc
work is founded on a body of procedural and epistemic knowledge – knowledge that is essential to
understanding the nature of scientifc practice (Gott et al., 2008; Kind & Osborne, 2017).
Thus, no argument for the value of derived scientifc literacy can really be taken seriously unless
it acknowledges the breadth of approaches undertaken in the sciences, the procedural and epistemic
knowledge necessary to undertake specifc forms of enquiry, and most importantly, the social prac-
tices of the scientifc community that enable the production of reliable knowledge.
The absence of any focus on the epistemic constructs and practices that underpin the sciences
also means an absence of any discussion of science’s most fundamental commitment to contempo-
rary culture – the idea that science values justifed true beliefs – beliefs that are justifed by empirical
evidence. Given the importance of this value in a contemporary context where individuals are sur-
rounded by a food of misinformation and disinformation, the failure to communicate and explain
how reliable knowledge is achieved in science must be seen as a major weakness of any argument
for the value of science education, which talks about the value of scientifc inquiry and the modes
of thought required.
The Value of Science for Problem Solving

Rather than presenting the virtues of the sciences, the emphasis traditionally has been on its prag-
matic value for problem solving. The basis of this argument is that the sciences provide a set of
skills that enable or support the solving of problems in everyday life. The strength of its argument
lies in the notion articulated by Popper that “All life is problem solving”. If so, then what kind of
contribution can the sciences make to the challenges posed by everyday life? The argument that a
little science knowledge enables you fx everyday technology is no longer tenable; most technol-
ogy is now so black boxed that it is beyond simple repair. Perhaps, then, the best argument is that
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scientifc knowledge informs decision-making, for instance, that a knowledge of basic human/animal
physiology is essential to engage in meaningful conversations with doctors and surgeons, or that an
understanding of energy fow supports decision-making about energy conservation. However, there
is little evidence, as Millar (1996) argues, “that physicists have fewer road accidents because they
understand Newton’s laws of motion, or that they insulate their houses better because they under-
stand the laws of thermodynamics.” (p. 11). Even in contexts where you might think that scientifc
knowledge would be useful, such as the regulation of personal diet, research on students’ choice of
foods show that it bears no correlation to their knowledge of what constitutes a healthy diet (Merron &
Lock, 1998).
A stronger argument is that knowledge has value in its use, that there are common tasks that the
average citizen is confronted with that the sciences develop the ability to deal with. Life demands the
performance of certain capabilities that scientifc knowledge supports. This argument is supported
by the increasing expectations of the outcomes of education in society that have occurred in the past
100 years (Baker, 2014). In the case of the sciences, the best articulation of what those competen-
cies might be comes from the OECD PISA framework, which argues that the scientifcally literate
individual needs to be able to “engage in reasoned discourse about science and technology”. What
this view of scientifc literacy is really saying is that the problems that confront the modern individual
are not just technical ones but epistemic ones, that of gaining sufcient reliable information to make
informed decisions. The basic manipulative skills developed by the sciences are of little value when
confronted by a failed modern car engine on the highway. Thus, in the contemporary context, the
argument that science develops the knowledge and capabilities that enable us to manage, manipulate,
or repair the technology has little value. Rather, the citizen of today is confronted by the challenge of
evaluating the plethora of information available on the information superhighway and being able to
evaluate its import and signifcance – the last of the four emphases embodied in the “derived notion”
of scientifc literacy.
The Value of Science for Decision-Making and Action

Across the globe, there is an increasing concern about the ease with which people accept beliefs for
which there is no material evidence, and for which there is often good evidence to the contrary.
Whether it is the idea that the earth is fat, that vaccines cause autism, or that climate change is a
hoax, the willingness of individuals to accept irrational beliefs – irrational in the sense that there is
no evidence to support them – is of grave concern. Some of these beliefs – for instance, that vaccines
are harmful – endanger not only the lives of those who hold them but the whole community who
depend on a high level of vaccination to ensure its health.
Despite 400 years of the Enlightenment project, which has seen enormous advances in our under-
standing of the material world, our health, lifespan, and material comfort, the commitment to evi-
dence as the basis of belief is still called into question by a substantial minority of individuals who
cling to beliefs that scientists would judge to be irrational. As Siegel argues,
the rationality of science is secured by its commitment to evidence; the fostering of a com-
mitment to evidence is a fundamental educational aim . . . and science education can, and
should be seen as a central component of an education dedicated to the fostering of ratio-
nality and critical thinking.
(Siegel, 1989)
One explanation for the lack of credence given to scientifc knowledge is the argument that
elite groups use mass culture to impose a corrupting culture on uncritical masses (Reid & Norris,
2016). Another argument is that such beliefs are a measure of identity and essential for acceptance
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within a community (Kahan et al., 2012; Origgi, 2019). Faced with a choice between rational belief
and exclusion from a community, individuals behave rationally and ostensibly accept a seemingly
irrational belief. Another argument for why people accept information uncritically is that living in
an increasingly complex society, we are ever more dependent on expertise. Thus, the idea that we
could be intellectually independent is a myth (Hardwig, 1985; Norris, 1997). The modern car, house
heating systems, and consumer electronics are all beyond our comprehension. Thus, we are reliant
on expertise that too often we lack the knowledge to judge. However, daily life confronts us with
situations where we have a need to know whether what is claimed is true – what some authors have
termed “science for specifc social purposes”, and the frst port of call when seeking more knowledge
is the internet (Feinstein, 2011).
However, the growing concern is the potential of social media and the internet to present and
circulate false beliefs (Kozyreva et al., 2020; McIntyre, 2018; Nichols, 2017). The essential problem
is that traditional sources of information (which had gatekeepers) have been displaced by unregulated
open access through both the internet, which bypasses experts and certifed authorities, and social
media, where misinformation can spread rapidly and widely through existing social networks (Höt-
tecke & Allchin, 2020; Vosoughi et al., 2018). Vosoughi et al. found that it took the truth about six
times as long as falsehood to reach 1,500 people and 20 times as long as falsehood to reach the same
audience. Falsehood also difused signifcantly more broadly and was retweeted by more unique users
than the truth at every stage. In short, misinformation spreads faster and is more novel. Moreover,
as Breakstone et al. (2021) show, when a randomly selected sample of high school students were
presented with six tasks of evaluating the veracity of reports on social media, students struggled with
all of the tasks, with over 90% of the student responses scored at the beginning level on four of the
six tasks and with fewer than 3% scoring at mastery level. In total, 58% of the students had an aver-
age composite score of 0, and only 13 students out of the 3,402 scored at the mastery level on all
six tasks (0.38%). Without a traditional professional gatekeeper, and lacking the skills necessary, how
then does the individual sort truth from falsehood or deceptive half-truth? Particularly as knowledge
becomes actively transformed, reconfgured, and recontextualized as it travels through communica-
tion networks.
Historically, there have been two approaches to addressing this issue. One is protectionism,
also referred to as the inoculation model, or “boosterism”, which maintains that students need to
be educated with a set of epistemic tools to protect themselves against misinformation or “mis-
takes”; disinformation or “lies” or “hoaxes”, which are false and spread deliberately to deceive;
and malinformation or “gossip”, which may perhaps be correct but is intended to harm. To
address this threat, there is a growing body of international work, each of which has developed a
set of approaches to educate children from elementary school upwards in a set of heuristics that
will arm them against false claims (Breakstone et al., 2018; Henley, 2020; Neuvonen et al., 2018).
The approach of Wineburg and his collaborators has been to develop a set of generic approaches
to evaluating information, particularly that obtained from Google. The frst is “click restraint”,
employed to gain a sense of the information neighborhood in which they have landed. Expert fact
checkers do not automatically look at the top research results. Rather, they read the small piece
of information beneath each result. When they land on a page, they take their bearings about
the landscape they fnd themselves in “reading laterally” by leaving it within less than 30 seconds
and checking its credibility from other pages. They prioritize three questions: “Who’s behind the
information?” “What’s the evidence?” And “what do other sources say?” (Wineburg & McGrew,
2019). More context specifc approaches that are based more strongly in science and aimed at
undergraduates can be found in the work of Bergstrom and West, who have developed a course
to Calling Bullshit, an eponymous book and a website (Bergstrom & West, 2020). Another is the
course “Sense & Sensibility & Science” developed and ofered by Saul Perlmutter at UCB that has
attracted a lot of attention and funding.
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The second approach to addressing this issue has been the cultural studies approach to media
education, which gives more weight to the idea that, having grown up in such an information-rich
environment, students have a body of knowledge about how to address such issues (Reid & Norris,
2016). Clearly, the empirical evidence does not support such a view (Breakstone et al., 2021; Hargit-
tai, 2010), but this argument does suggest building on what expertise students might have already
rather than treating them as blank slates.
What then is the contribution of science education to addressing this problem? While all dis-
ciplines can contribute to developing this expertise, science has a particular importance because it
holds the construction of “true” knowledge and understanding of the material world as a prime
goal. This is not the goal of mathematics or language arts. My argument would be that a minimum
requirement of science education must be that it develops the ability to evaluate expertise in science.
Essential to this competency is an understanding that science is a communal enterprise and that
science is not infallible. In many ways, error is absolutely the norm in the sciences (Allchin, 2012).
And, while individual scientists or teams might be mistaken, the community is more trustworthy and
that its goal is closure, which is attained when there is overwhelming consensus – consensus that is
established through the fundamental mechanism of peer review. Moreover, that consensus is a con-
sensus of experts (Collins, 2014; Crease & Selinger, 2006; Oreskes, 2019). Science is not a democracy
where one scientist’s views are as valuable as another. The views that matter are the views of those
who have relevant background knowledge, skills in interpreting particular results, and awareness of
potential faws in reasoning. Thus, a petition claiming that vaccines are dangerous is meaningless if
the signatories are not scientifc experts on vaccination.
Then there is a set of data literacy skills, for example, the knowledge that correlations are not
necessarily causal, the common manipulations used to massage data to support an inappropriate
interpretation, and reasoning based on fawed samples, such as using outliers as the evidential basis of
an argument. Finally, there is a need to develop the generic skills that are applicable in all disciplines
advocated by those who are concerned about civic reasoning (Hertwig, 2017; C. D. Lee et al., 2021;
Wineburg & McGrew, 2017). In short, there is a need to take an external view of the sciences and
ask what are the capabilities and knowledge necessary to become a competent outsider – somebody
who knows that they stand at an epistemic distance to science itself but yet is capable of interrogating
the work of scientists in a valid and justifed manner (Feinstein, 2011). And, if science education is
not going to step up to the plate to provide this kind of education, what school discipline is?
What Feinstein (2011) argued is that the focus of traditional science on the canon of concepts and
theories is an internal account that leaves most students as “marginal insiders”’ – that is, people with
a repertoire of poorly understood ideas that are of limited utility. As he points out, a knowledge of
fuid dynamics is hardly helpful when it comes to fxing your brakes. Rather, competent outsiders are
“people who have learned to recognize the moments when scientifc knowledge has some bearing
on their needs and interests and to interact with sources of scientifc expertise in ways that help them
achieve their own goals” (p. 180). Moreover, competent outsiders have had an education which has
developed the basic tools required to interrogate expertise.
The literature on the public engagement with science is replete with instances that demand the
outsider to make an informed judgment about scientifc information they do not fully understand
(Layton et al., 1993; Wynne, 1996). Moreover, as Ryder’s work shows, a careful analysis of science
in the media shows that a functional scientifc literacy is dependent much less on a knowledge of any
science – as so often, the scientifc nature of the focus of interest lies beyond anything that school
science might ofer. Rather, it is a knowledge about a science and an ability to ask the right questions
that matters (Ryder, 2001). Confronted with claims whose veracity we are incapable of checking
ourselves, we are forced to maintain a policy of circumspection and adopt a stance that must begin
by questioning the credibility of the source, asking whether a scientifc consensus exists, what their
claims to expertise in the domain are and whether the claims have been vetted by peers (Osborne
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et al., 2022; Sharon & Baram-Tsabari, 2020). Such a focus for science education is one that standard
curricula have notably avoided.
Currently, the total absence of any exploration of these issues plays into the hands who would
use science duplicitously. As example after example shows (see, e.g., Fisher (2021), it is not that the
Flat Earthers, the climate change deniers, or the anti-vaxxers deny science. Rather, many of their
arguments are cloaked in a superfcial respect for science presenting a façade of expertise that actually
appeals to science. The Flat Earthers will point to the importance of observation in science and trust-
ing your senses. Or the climate change deniers will present you with partial and incomplete evidence,
such as the spreading of sea ice, and invite you to evaluate the arguments yourself. These are traps
set for the unwary who do not understand how their bounded knowledge limits their capability to
evaluate such arguments (Bromme & Goldman, 2014). Another common technique used with the
efects of tobacco smoking, acid rain, and climate change is to sow seeds of doubt calling into ques-
tion the scientifc consensus (Oreskes & Conway, 2010).
As Oreskes points out more recently, the challenge for the outsider is one of epistemic trust and
knowing the criteria that need to be applied to evaluate those who claim to speak with authority
on scientifc issues (Oreskes, 2019). Establishing trust in any scientifc claim means asking a series
of questions: “Is this person an accredited scientist in the domain?” A nuclear physicist who is mak-
ing claims about climate change is not. “What is the scientifc consensus on this topic?” If the claim
stands in opposition to a well-known consensus, there are serious reasons to doubt it. “How much
certainty can we ascribe to the claim?” Science-in-the-making is inherently uncertain, especially
when the phenomenon is complex, the models are limited, or the data sample is constrained (Berg-
strom & West, 2020). School science deals in certain knowledge and implicitly communicates that
as a normative value of science. Real science – that produced by practicing scientists – is riddled
with uncertainty as it is generally pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Any experiment can only
be a limited sample of the whole population, or a result may be an outcome of measurement error
or just a freak result. Therefore, science has developed systematic ways of addressing uncertainty and
expressing the degree of confdence they might hold in any result. Some appreciation of these pro-
cesses is essential to any derived sense of science literacy.
And, if the derived value of scientifc literacy is important, then the failure to even consider
addressing this competency and address the aforementioned issues in science education speaks vol-
umes. Its omission says that science education is preoccupied with ofering an internal account of the
sciences, seeing itself as a pre-professional preparation for the future scientist, rather than developing
the knowledge and competencies vital to modern life. In short, training the future scientist that less
than 5% will become rather than thinking about the needs of the other 95%. As ever, it suggests that
the notion of scientifc literacy is more talked about than taught – essentially a fg leaf to justify the
place of the sciences at the curriculum high table. How much longer can the omission of these topics
on contemporary curricula persist?
Scientifc Literacy in the “Fundamental Sense”

Any chapter on the topic cannot ignore the fact that the concept of scientifc literacy has a fun-
damental meaning as well. Being literate in science means being able to use at least some of the
forms of disciplinary language that science uses to communicate meaning, requiring scientists to
engage in reading, writing, and talking to communicate with others. Tenopir and King (2004)
found that scientists spent over 50% of their time engaged in literate activities. Since then, the
advent of the internet and the rise of email as a mode of communication would suggest that
even more time is spent on the literate activities of reading, writing, and talking that the sciences
demand. Scientifc literacy in the derived sense is dependent on being literate in the fundamental
sense.
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The predominance of literate activities in the sciences stands in stark contrast to their virtual
absence within science lessons. For instance, Lunzer and Gardner (1979) found that pupils in the frst
year of secondary school spent only 9% of their science lesson time reading. This had increased to
only 10% by the fourth year of secondary education. Of this small amount, a large proportion (up
to 75% in some cases) was reading from the blackboard or from an exercise book. For over 90% of
all pupils’ reading occurred in “bursts” lasting less than 30 seconds. Similarly, in a study conducted
20 years later, Newton and colleagues found that the percentage of time devoted to lesson reading
even in non-laboratory-based lessons was only 3% (Newton et al., 1999). Although Weiss found a
substantively higher percentage of time devoted to reading based on teachers’ self-reports (36%), the
reading that did occur was largely from the overhead projector, or from instruction sheets for experi-
ments (Weiss et al., 2003).
Why is any emphasis of what it means to be scientifcally literate so absent, underdeveloped
and forgotten? One explanation is that too many teachers hold the simple view of reading. This
conception sees reading as a process of decoding the words on paper (Olson, 1994; Pressley &
Wharton-McDonald, 1997). From this, the challenge is simply one of vocabulary. Students cannot
comprehend because they do not know what the meanings of, for instance, the words “photosyn-
thesis”, “quantum”, or “mitosis” are. Remediation is just a process of ensuring that they have been
introduced to the correct vocabulary and understand the meaning of the individual words. Language
is seen as serving as a labeling function whose meaning is precise, literal, and devoid of any ambiguity
(Sutton, 1996). Students’ difculties are then simply an inevitable problem of individuals who lack
the appropriate technical vocabulary (McKeown et al., 2017; C. Snow, 2010). Whilst this account
may appeal – after all, there is a considerable vocabulary of specialized words used in all the sciences –
it is simplistic, misconceived, and fundamentally fawed.
Literacy as a Constructive Process

Fundamental literacy, whether it is receptive, requiring reading, or productive, requiring writing, is
a constructive act. Words do not wear their meaning on their sleeve – rather, their meaning must be
inferred (Norris & Phillips, 1994, 2003; Olson, 1994; Pearson et al., 2010). As such, reading is criti-
cally dependent on the background knowledge of the reader and requires the active construction of
new meanings, contextualization, and inferring what the author’s intent was (Pearson et al., 1979b;
Yore et al., 2003). Likewise in writing, words must be chosen carefully to express the author’s intent.
As much as we would like words to have a fxity of meaning, there are limits to what words can
express. As Wittgenstein argued, language only makes sense in the context of its use (Wittgenstein,
1953) typifed by the use of the word “force” in these two sentences: “Karl Marx was a political
force in his life” versus “The force on the book at rest is equal and opposite to the force of gravity”.
The consequence is that for each of us meaning requires us to engage in a process of hypothesizing
what the author meant. In short, in constructing meaning. This means that building understanding
requires students to be given opportunities to practice using the language and engage interactively
with each other using some of the strategies outlined later (Chi, 2009). Language is a set of meaning-
making practices. Vocabulary is not. The essential function of words is to communicate meaning.
Students have to be given the opportunity to hear new words, draw on their own linguistic resources,
and use them if they are to develop fuency within a domain and understand the concept (C. E.
Snow et al., 2009). This requires academically rigorous instruction, which rather than lowering the
language demand to the level of current profciency, makes demands that students use new words in
the appropriate scientifc context (Bunch, 2014). This is important for all learners but particularly
multilingual learners (O. Lee & Stephens, 2020). In short, “language profciency is not a prerequisite
for content instruction, but an outcome of efective content instruction” (National Academies of Sciences
Engineering and Medicine, 2018, p. 10, emphasis added).
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A consequence is that reading is necessarily iterative or refective. Text that uses familiar words
and contexts requires little inference. Such texts are of low lexical density using two or three terms
that require comprehension and synthesis (e.g., “My mother was in love with my father”). Longer
sentences using unfamiliar terms require an iterative process of refection, as in the sentence: “The
atomic nucleus absorbs and emits energy in quanta or discrete units”. These sentences must be read
and reread and then the meaning inferred. Being able to do this successfully is what it means to be
scientifcally literate in the fundamental sense. In some instances, it requires activating the appropriate
background knowledge; in others it requires using approaches that support and monitor comprehen-
sion, and then there is the process of consolidation, which helps to tie down a succinct summary of
what has been expressed.
The Challenge of Science Texts

Science texts are difcult. They make extensive use of technical vocabulary. Their sentences are
written in a dense prose, often using the passive voice, and they are accompanied by many diagrams,
charts, and fgures that are essential to understanding the meaning of the text. But why is this? Must
it be so? The answer is an unequivocal yes. In all professional contexts, language evolves to be as
efcient as possible in communicating meaning. The consequence is a development of a professional
language that is only understood by those who have been inducted into the meaning of the terms
and how to use them appropriately. This is as true for a group of lawyers, doctors, or architects as it
is for scientists. This view of language, which goes under the name of systemic functional linguistics,
is that:
Technical language has evolved in order to classify, decompose and explain. The major sci-
entifc genres – report, explanation and experiment – have evolved to structure texts which
document a scientist’s world view. The functionality of these genres and the technicality
they contain cannot be avoided; it has to be dealt with. To deal with it, teachers need an
understanding of the structure of the genres and the grammar of technicality. . . . Ways must
be devised to provide access to this technology. And the answer must not be watering the
technology down.
(Halliday & Martin, 1993)
What then are the features of this technical language that make it so difcult? Knowing what those
challenges are is a vital element of the knowledge of the professional science educator if they are to
help their students learn from such texts. In summary, they are:
Lexical density: The most recognized feature of informational science texts is their sheer quantity
of information or lexical density (Halliday & Martin, 1993). Lexical density refers to the number of
content words within a text and how much information is in the text. The consequence is that the
cognitive demand of constructing meaning from science texts is such that it cannot be comprehended
in one pass. Rather, the reader must break, annotate, and refect to construct meaning (Davies
& Greene, 1984; Sweller, 1994). More than anything else, lexical density is the major distinction
between narrative and informational texts.
Vocabulary and academic language: Informational science texts use both technical vocabulary and
academic language extensively (Pearson et al., 2010; C. Snow, 2010; Wellington & Osborne, 2001).
Technical vocabulary are words that have a specifc meaning within a discipline, while academic
language refers to words that are encountered in academic discourse but are not specifc to any dis-
cipline. Indeed, the quantity of words encountered in a high school science course can exceed that
introduced in learning a foreign language (Merzyn, 1987). One of the fundamental difculties in
teaching the sciences is the common perception that it is reliant on a technical vocabulary of words
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that are unfamiliar to the uninitiated. Yet, as study after study has shown, while the technical words
do naturally cause difculty with comprehension, it is the nontechnical but unfamiliar words – in
short, words that are used in academic English or “academic words” like “abundant”, “linear”,
“diversity”, “stimulate”, and more that students fnd just as difcult to comprehend (Farrell & Ven-
tura, 1998; Marshall et al., 1991; Pickersgill & Lock, 1991; C. Snow, 2010).
Another feature of academic language is the use of the passive tense. As Snow points out: “in
everyday language most sentences begin with pronouns or animate subjects; verbs refer to actions
rather than relations; and long sentences are characterized by sequencing of information rather than
embeddings” (p. 450). But what of science? Here, the personal is often excised and students are
encouraged to write in the passive voice. So, rather than writing “we heated the copper sulphate”,
the standard genre of science would use the wording “the copper sulphate was heated”, resulting in
the exclusion of any sense of an actor or the personal. Similarly, reports or explanations in the sci-
ences tend to remove the agents, the scene, the motives, and any sense of temporality. The argument
for this approach in the sciences is that it is the object that is the primary feature of interest rather than
what is done to it (Wellington & Osborne, 2001). Maintaining the impersonal authoritative stance,
however, creates a distanced tone that is often puzzling to adolescent readers and is difcult to emu-
late in their writing.
Logical connectives: Logical connectives are words that combine two sentences or statements (e.g.,
therefore, so, thus). Logical connectives are essential to constructing an argument, generating the
relationships between claims, warrants, and data, and a means of contrasting and comparing phe-
nomena (Fang, 2008; Gardner, 1977; Halliday & Martin, 1993). In science, they are vital to express
causality – how one thing follows from another. Commonly, however, connectives are excised from
science texts to improve readability by shortening sentences even though struggling readers beneft
from more explicit texts (i.e., the ones that contain more connectives) and readers beneft from add-
ing explicit connectives to diminish the amount of inferential processing (Ainsworth & Burcham,
2007; O’Reilly & McNamara, 2007; Roman et al., 2006).
Nominalizations: A nominalization is a verbal description of a process that is converted into a noun
(e.g., the process of cutting down the forest is referred to as “deforestation”). Nominalizations allow
complex ideas to be expressed with the minimal use of language (Halliday & Martin, 1993). In scien-
tifc journals, one in seven nouns is a nominalization (Holtz, 2009). Nominalization removes human
agency, as in the previous example. We no longer know who conducted the deforestation, and the
process becomes an abstraction, making it harder to conceptualize (Schleppegrell, 2004; Unsworth,
1999). Typical examples might be “the rate of engine failure” rather than writing “the rate at which
engines fail” or “glass crack rate” rather than “the rate at which a glass crack grows”. In both, the verb
has been converted into a noun. The sciences abound with such words: condensation, absorption,
scattering, reduction, and transmission are examples of words that are derived from nouns and used
because they are functionally efective at capturing a process with the minimum number of words.
Multimodality: Natural language is very limited in its ability to describe continuous variation,
shape, and the interrelationships of structure, form, and function. Indeed, as Lemke argues, often it
cannot do so (Lemke, 1998). To communicate meaning, the sciences depend on a synergy of semiotic
signs: symbols to represent elements; quantities and units to represent amounts; graphs and charts to
summarize relationships, frequencies, and patterns; tables to summarize numerical data; and math-
ematics to express relationships (Kress et al., 2001; Lemke, 1998; O’Halloran, 2011). For instance,
consider the common standard diagram of the heart. Imagine, if you will, how difcult it would be
to describe this organ to another without the use of diagrammatic representation. Likewise, many
other phenomena and their patterns of interaction are best described in the language of mathemat-
ics, which becomes a bridge between verbal language and the meaning scientists seek to express. So
complex are some of the concepts and ideas that the sciences wish to communicate that they cannot
be communicated with words. The modern theoretical physicist often speaks a language heavily
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dependent on mathematics. Thus, the task confronting the student who wishes to become literate
in science is not one of learning the language of science, but one of learning the languages of the
sciences.
Visualizations: Increasingly, ideas in the sciences are communicated through static or dynamic
visualizations. That is, visualizations are representations of an object, situation, or set of information,
as a chart or other image. Contrary to the common perception that these facilitate communication,
students often have difculty in understanding and interpreting such representations (O’Toole, 2004;
Phillips et al., 2010; Zhang & Linn, 2011). Thus, contrary to the idea that a diagram, chart, or com-
puter visualization might make it easier to understand, the opposite is often true.
Given then, that science teachers are not generally well prepared to help their students penetrate
the challenges of scientifc texts, and often do not consider it their responsibility, what pedagogic
methods would address these challenges?
Teaching Reading in Science

Not surprisingly, there is an extensive literature on how to support the teaching of reading. Drawing
from this body of work, there are some clear approaches to ofer the teaching of fundamental literacy
in science. The fndings of this research see reading for learning in any discipline as requiring three
separate phases of “pre-reading”, “during reading”, and “post reading”.
Pre-reading. Activating prior knowledge is a lesson that comes from the schema theory of reading
and is now a well-established principle of all theories of reading (Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Olson,
1994; Pearson et al., 2010). This approach has demonstrated signifcant positive efects on children’s
ability to read (Pearson et al., 1979a; Recht & Leslie, 1988; Spires & Donley, 1998). The essential
tenet of this theory is that all new information is interpreted in terms of organized structures that
mediate how we see the world – that is, our background knowledge is the lens that shapes what we
perceive (Ausubel, 1968). Thus, reading any new text is helped if the appropriate schema is retrieved
from long-term memory prior to reading. Activating what might be salient knowledge then helps
students to infer what the intended meaning of the text might be.
A common technique is the use of anticipation guides. These present selected elements of the
text and ask students to consider whether they might be true or false. This activity helps to activate
the appropriate background knowledge that students may have. After reading, students are given an
opportunity to reevaluate their choices and provide the evidence from the text that supports their
choice (Dufelmeyer, 1994). Such an approach is also valuable because it provides a motivation to
read the text closely. Yet another technique for pre-reading is providing students with a set of key-
words from the text and asking them to discuss what they might mean.
During reading. Because of the challenges of science text, reading in the sciences needs to be refec-
tive and active. This means that reading has to be supported by specifc strategies that demand that the
student is refective and active – the use of which has been shown to improve reading comprehen-
sion (Hall, 2016). Strategies that encourage the student to analyze and refect, such as underlining,
tabulating, and labeling the text for its major features, are a set of structures that support close reading
and should be part of every teacher of science’s repertoire of common practice (Cervetti et al., 2006;
Davies & Greene, 1984; Wellington & Osborne, 2001).
Other important strategies found to be efective are encouraging students to take a critical dis-
position to the text by generating questions (Beck & McKeown, 2006; King, 1992a; Rosenshine
et al., 1996). Question generation is both an important strategy for fostering comprehension and for
self-regulation that demands concentration on the main ideas, while checking to see if the content
is understood. Identifying where the ideas communicated by the text may difer with students’ own
prior knowledge then generates conceptual confict and the potential for revision and change. Tradi-
tional texts are unlikely to do this as they do not address common misconceptions that students might
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hold. Texts that do are refutational texts where common scientifc misconceptions are challenged
explicitly in addition to explaining the consensual scientifc understanding of a concept (Guzetti
et al., 1997; Hynd, 2001). Concept maps are another means of exploring misconceptions, though
more in a discursive way (Keogh & Naylor, 1999; Sizmur & Osborne, 1997). Such strategies can
allow students to compare their predictions with the arguments made in the text and resolve any
diferences between their prediction and what the text states. And both have signifcant efects on
student learning.
Post reading. Post-reading activities that summarize and organize the salient features of a text
in a distilled form help students understand and remember what they have read. Strategies that
require summarization signifcantly improve comprehension and long-term recall (King, 1992b).
These activities can occur in a variety of forms, including writing, tabulation, graphical organizers,
or a combination of writing and interactive tasks (Atay & Kurt, 2006). Typical approaches are the use
of Frayer models, Cornell notes (Adams & Pegg, 2012), or diagram completion and labeling (Wel-
lington & Osborne, 2001). Although there is less empirical evidence of the efects of post-reading
instruction on reading comprehension, it is a necessary component in addition to pre-reading and
during-reading strategies. And the socially mediated experience of constructing meaning can only
be completed post reading by students discussing their interpretation of the text through “weighing
and balancing the alternatives to determine which interpretation best fts the text” (Yarden et al.,
2015, p. 63). Multiple understandings are more likely to happen in a group than in an individual, and
a group can better evaluate the key points, particularly with the guidance of a knowledgeable leader
in the form of a teacher.
In summary, efective reading instruction requires instructional strategies to be used prior to
reading, during reading, or post reading. When combined into a single instructional approach, the
sequence of “pre-during-post” instruction improves students’ comprehension of science concepts in
real-world feld settings, such as the middle school science classroom (Radclife et al., 2008).
Teaching Writing in Science

Students write every day in schools – on computers, in notebooks, or on worksheets. They write
stories, poems, and answer questions on what they have done, what they have read, or what they
have been told. What is all this writing for, and in the case of science, how can it help them to learn
science?
There are three recognized forms of writing – the transactional, the expressive, and the poetic
(Lunzer & Gardner, 1979; Sutton, 1981). By far the most familiar to young students is the expressive –
writing that attempts to communicate feelings, experiences, and emotion. Commonly it uses an
everyday vocabulary, prefers the use of the subjective, and relies on verbs and adjectives that capture
a lived experience. This is not the language of the sciences. Neither is the poetic, which uses lan-
guage to attempt to capture an experience in ways that are uniquely personal and draws heavily on
metaphor and allusion.
The primary purpose of writing in the sciences is as a knowledge-transforming activity to con-
struct meaning drawing on our own cognitive understanding of the idea or concept (Bereiter &
Scardamalia, 1987; Rowell, 1998). As Halliday and Martin point out: “[l]earning science is the same
thing as learning the language of science. Students have to master these difculties; but in doing so
they are also mastering scientifc concepts and principles” (Halliday & Martin, 1993, p. 84). And, as
Langer and Applebee show, writing both shapes thinking and learning and is most efective for those
who do not understand the content well (Langer & Applebee, 1987).
The language of the sciences is predominantly transactional, though. Transactional language takes
for granted that the writer means what is expressed and that it is a veridical account of objective
knowledge. Such writing constructs arguments for the claims it reports based on evidence. It can be
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challenged but only on the basis that the evidence is fawed, used inappropriately, or the logic of the
argument is fawed. While such a view fails to acknowledge how all language shapes thought and
communication (Bazerman, 1988; Montgomery, 1996), it is the language not just of the sciences
but of intellectual inquiry in general, of technology, such as the manuals that accompany many a
consumer purchase, technical reports and government policy papers. In short, it is the language used
for informing, advising, persuading, and theorizing. As such, it is the language that is least familiar
to students, but it is the language that dominates school writing and is the most important to profes-
sional advancement, and I would argue, it is the genre that is least well-taught in schools.
And it is precisely because writing is demanding – something any author knows – that it must
be supported in two key ways. First, it needs structure to help introduce the writer to the common
genres of the discipline (Calkins, 1986; Calkins & Ehrenworth, 2016; Lewis & Wray, 1995). As Mar-
tin argues, the way scientists write descriptions, reports, recounts, procedures, explanations, argu-
ments, and discussions are forms of writing that are privileged in society (J.R. Martin, 1998, 2009).
Learning how to produce such forms not only helps students to understand how language functions
in the sciences but in society more widely. This form of writing is the language of the technical/
policy brief, the government review, or ofcial communication – in short, it is the language of power
(Delpit, 2006).
However, students cannot learn the structure of these genres if they are not explicitly shown their
structures or if they are not given feedback as to whether they are being used appropriately. Hence,
teachers of writing place great emphasis on “frames” (Wray & Lewis, 1997). The standard and overly
simplistic frame that nearly all students are ofered for writing is the experimental report, with its
headings of “Aims”, “Methods”, and “Conclusions”. As any teacher of a science can tell you, the
novice writer does not fnd this very helpful and is often puzzled or confused as to what should be
written here. Thus, students need support by providing pointers to what they should be writing:
Aims: What was the purpose of the experiment? What question or questions were you trying to
answer? Why was the answer to this question important?
Methods: What measurements/data did you collect? What apparatus did you use? What did you
do with it? How many of each did you collect? What did you do to reduce the error that might have
occurred? How did you choose to present the results? What are the major fndings?
Conclusions: Has the experiment made it possible to answer your question? How confdent are you
in the result? What would it be good to do next to improve your/our understanding?
As well as the experimental report, there are other frames required for writing in science:
• The recount, or description of an event or a phenomenon

• A report, such as the diference between living and nonliving organisms, the impact of climate
change, or ways of producing electricity renewably
• An explanation of a phenomenon, for example, how the circulatory system in the body works,
how an airplane fies, and more
• An argument for a position, for example, that animals be kept in zoos, that we all should drive
electric cars, etc.
• And a discussion putting both the arguments for and the arguments against, for example, whether
vaccination should be compulsory.
And again, all of these need scafolds of the form provided for the experimental report if the student
is to be helped to produce writing of this nature.
Research, albeit conducted some time ago, showed that the audience for writing in school science
was teacher-as-examiner (87%), pupil–teacher dialogue (7%), and miscellaneous (e.g., worksheets)
(N. Martin et al., 1976). While the percentages might have changed somewhat, there is no reason to
think that writing for the teacher-as-examiner still does not predominate. Such writing requires the
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student to be productive simply to satisfy the teacher’s demand and to produce a product on which
the student solely expects to be assessed. As Martin et al. comment: “[w]hat this means, though, is
that the single most important use for writing . . . appears to be as a means of testing and not as a
means of learning” (p. 22, emphasis added). Writing is not seen then as part of the learning process but
something that happens after learning. Research would suggest that there are two fundamental ways
of dealing with this. One is changing the audience for whom the student is writing, and the other
is to make the production of texts a collaborative enterprise (N. Martin et al., 1976; Rowell, 1998).
Students can write for their peers, for a school newspaper, produce a poster for a parent’s evening,
write a letter home to somebody who missed the lesson in school that day, or an explanation for a
younger student (Wellington & Osborne, 2001). Likewise, the expressive form can be used by asking
students to write an article for the New York Times, the National Enquirer, as an entry in their own
diary, as a video of their project, a poster for the school hall,1 or even a poem.
Second, the production of texts is much more engaging when done collaboratively. Whether it be
a poster, a video, or just a report, students fnd it much easier to undertake such work where they can
learn from each other. This is as true for working on a concept map as it is for producing a carefully
considered written report (Chi, 2009; Keys, 1994; Sizmur & Osborne, 1997).
The fnal form of writing that students are required to undertake is note-taking. The role of
copying – a device by which the notes of the teacher become the notes of student without going
through the mind of either – is reduced these days. Nevertheless, students need to be encouraged
to keep science notebooks as part of their daily writings. There are several variants of this basic idea
and their uses. Journals may be used for recording thoughts, they may ofer a means of entering
into a dialogue where they record not only their thoughts but their emotions, and as team journals
(Hanrahan, 1999; Rivard, 1994). In addition, they also provide a window into student thinking,
which is valuable for the purposes of formative assessment (Ruiz-Primo et al., 2004). Another form
of note-taking that gives a structure to support students in acquiring the habits of synthesis and focus
required for note-taking is a Cornell note. These simply consist of dividing a sheet of paper into three
boxes. On the left, a narrow one-inch margin is for keywords or questions supplied by the teacher
or student that must be answered. On the right, most of the paper is for notes on the main ideas or
answers to the question, while the bottom 1.5 inches of the paper is devoted to writing a summary.
And, as elegantly summarized by Rivard (1994):
Students write a lot, but rarely to enhance learning. Students using appropriate writing-
to-learn strategies are more aware of language usage, demonstrate better understanding and
better recall, and show more complex thinking about content. Studies suggest that exposi-
tory writing tasks, like explaining, note taking, and summarizing, are efective strategies for
enhancing learning.
(p. 975)
The Role of Talk in Science

Becoming scientifcally literate in the fundamental sense is about becoming fuent in the discipline
and learning a new language. Acquiring confdence with a new language, as any teacher of languages
will tell you, is dependent on opportunities to practice and use that language (van Lier, 1996). The
seminal book that has laid the foundation for the importance and role of talk in learning a science
is Talking Science (Lemke, 1990). Since then, there has been a growing body of evidence of its value
and importance (Alexander, 2020; Chi, 2009; Gallas, 1995; Mercer et al., 2004; Mortimer & Scott,
2003; Osborne, 2010). Summarizing much of the evidence in her seminal meta-analysis of types of
learning activities, Micki Chi (2009) points out that interactive activities, which are the most efec-
tive, are those that facilitate discourse between students.
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The dominant form of talk in most classrooms, but particularly science classrooms, is what Lemke
(1990) calls “triadic dialogue” and others call “initiation-response-evaluation” (IRE) (Cazden, 2001;
Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975; Wells, 1999). The three features of this dia-
logue are that it is initiated by the teacher with a question. The student commonly ofers a short
phrase-like response and then the teacher provides feedback, which is commonly of an evalua-
tive nature, as in the following example: teacher: “What is the symbol for Calcium?”, student:
“Ca”, teacher: “Correct”. This form of linguistic practice has three problems. First, this dialogue is
unnatural. Normally the person who does not know is the person who asks the question rather than
the person who does know. Second, it requires such limited use of language by the student that it
minimizes their opportunities to practice the language of science. Third, it presents knowledge in
bivalent terms as being true or false, reinforcing an absolutist epistemology that leaves no room for
ambivalence or uncertainty.
Moreover, the overwhelming dominance of this form of discourse is highly problematic for a
discipline whose literate demands are considerable. Not giving students the opportunity to ask or
consider open-ended questions such as “Is a seed alive?”, “How could the continents have moved?”,
or “Which is the best explanation to explain why day and night happens?” is to deny a window into
the nature of scientifc inquiry. In short, it is not enough to introduce students to what we know, they
must be provided with some insight into how we know and to practice using the language needed
to talk about scientifc ideas.
How is this to be done in a manner that is structured, focused, and academically productive?
During the past 30 years, the turn to dialogue and research programs on argumentation have led to
a better and deeper understanding of how talk in science lessons can be supported and structured
(Alexander, 2005, 2020; Knight et al., 2013; Michaels & O’Connor, 2012; Osborne et al., 2016).
First, there must be something to discuss. The stimulus can be an open-ended question or a set of
alternative statements about a phenomenon, such as “Day and night are caused by a spinning earth”
versus “Day and night are caused by a moving sun”. What is important at this stage is that the idea
under discussion is not owned by any individual, as students do not like to own an idea only to have
to admit they were wrong. The following formats then enable discussion while avoiding personal
exposure of your own fawed thinking.
Turn and talk: This format simply requires students to do what its title implies. It provides students
opportunities to discuss ideas using whatever linguistic tools they have at hand and practice using the
language of science.
Listening triads: Students are asked to discuss a scientifc idea. One student elaborates on why they
think it might be true, false, or fawed. One student interrogates the talker, asking for elaboration
or challenging their reasoning, and the third makes notes of important points. Its value lies not just
in forcing explanations from the talker but in demanding close listening by the other two students.
Concept cartoons and Page Keeley probes: These provide up to four statements about a common
phenomenon for students to discuss and evaluate (Keeley et al., 2005; Naylor & Keogh, 2000). Their
format is engaging, and research shows that these are highly efective (Keogh & Naylor, 1999).
Concept maps: Students are provided with a blank sheet of paper and 6–10 key terms on a topic.
Working collaboratively, they discuss how to order them and how they are related (Novak & Gowin,
1984). Computer software for this task is also widely available so the maps can be stored, shared,
and readily updated. Again, research has shown their use to positively improve student learning and
signifcantly improve student attitudes to learning (Horton et al., 1993; Sizmur & Osborne, 1997).
Clickers and online discussion structures: There is a range of web-based discussion boards that enable
students to respond to a question or post arguments using an app on their phones. The original ver-
sions of these used handheld clickers, but the web-based versions ofer more facilities and preserve
the anonymity of the student commenting. The instant nature provides valuable information that
the teacher can use formatively; the anonymity gives students more confdence. Their use, again,
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has been shown to be efective at improving student learning (Crouch & Mazur, 2001; Smith et al.,
2009).
Argument lines and four corners: These structures ask students to position themselves physically in the
classroom depending on their view about a proposition. The argument line uses a simple dichoto-
mous structure of agree–disagree, and students can position themselves on the line depending on the
extent to which they concur with the two polar ends. Once there, they can discuss with their peers
who are also in that position the reasons why they are there and the reasons why the others elsewhere
are wrong. The four corners version of this ofers students four choices of “strongly agree”, “agree”,
“disagree” or “strongly disagree” (Osborne et al., 2016).
So why talk? Talk ofers students the possibility of supporting the reciprocal development of
understanding between individuals and the group. As Vygotsky (1981) noted, “the individual devel-
ops into what he/she is through what he/she produces for others” (p. 162), and it is in the efort to
formulate our ideas for others that we most efectively clarify them for ourselves (Chi, 2009; Hatano
& Inagaki, 1991). The notion that education is best conceived as a process of transmission – a one-
way conduit providing access to knowledge – is both fundamentally fawed and empirically unjusti-
fed (Chi, 2009; Hake, 1998).
Perhaps it is best to leave the last word on the role of fundamental literacy in science with Douglas
Barnes, whose seminal book From Communication to Curriculum in 1976 started the whole focus on
language in the curriculum (Barnes, 1976): “The more a learner controls his [sic] own language strat-
egies and the more he is enabled to think aloud, the more he can take responsibility for formulating
explanatory hypotheses and evaluating them” (p. 29).
Scientifc Literacy – Alternate Visions

I have ofered two visions of scientifc literacy: the derived sense and the fundamental sense. There
are, however, other conceptions of scientifc literacy. One is that scientifc literacy is not a property
of individuals but a collective property of a community. This is a view argued for by Roth and Lee
(2002). Drawing on multiple ethnographic case studies, they argue that “scientifc literacy is a prop-
erty of collective situations and characterizes interactions irreducible to characteristics of individuals”
(p. 34). What is meant by this? Essentially that the expertise required to address science-related issues
is more than the knowledge and competency held by any one individual. As argued in the National
Academies report:
[c]ommunities faced with critical environmental issues – such as dangerous levels of lead
in their water supply, clusters of cancer or other illnesses, the prospective consequences of
fracking, road construction through communities or protected areas, or the introduction of
new industries – can achieve levels of sophistication in science literacy that transcend the
knowledge or skills of any individual in the community.
(National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine, 2016)
What this means is that productive science literacy emerges at the interface between the disparate
knowledge possessed by individuals and communities. Clearly the focus of school science is on the
individual and the development of individual capability, but working in a community requires the
ability to recognize what kinds of knowledge you do – or do not hold – how to identify expertise,
how to draw on local knowledge, and how to recognize that considerations of what to do often have
an important scientifc dimension. What this view of scientifc literacy is acknowledging is the fact
that we are all epistemically dependent. We cannot know everything, and in choosing to focus on
some domains, we choose to neglect others. Time is, after all, fnite. Recognizing our limitations
and the need for the knowledge of others is part of what it means to be scientifcally literate. One
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vehicle for developing some sense of the need to work collectively can be found in the 40 years of
work on teaching about science in society and socioscientifc issues, which can be used as a means
of exploring the role of the sciences in personal, local, and global contexts (Ratclife & Grace, 2003;
Sadler et al., 2007; Solomon & Aikenhead, 1994; Zeidler & Nichols, 2009). Many of the simulations
and role-plays show how such issues are best addressed collectively.
If there is a message in this view of science literacy, it is that students need to realize that they can-
not know everything. The idea that there are some content-transcendent goals that can be achieved
by an education in science that would make students intellectually independent is a myth – an
unachievable illusion (Norris, 1997). An illusion, however, that is at the heart of the liberal perspec-
tive on education, that it is somehow possible to achieve sufcient knowledge necessary for intel-
lectual autonomy. It is not. Even if we have access to more information than before, we still have to
make sense of it and evaluate its importance. That often requires knowledge we do not have. Rather,
we should aim to teach intellectual humility: to recognize what we do not know, how to seek out
those who do, and how to decide whether they can be trusted. Lapsley and Chaloner (2020) would
go further, arguing that any valued science education requires the acquisition of a scientifc iden-
tity, which holds a respect for truth and requires the development of metacognitive identity. One
of the problems of the internet is that it ofers access to a vast array of information. While some of
this undoubtedly extends the boundaries of human capacities (for instance, the author often uses a
plant identifcation app to remediate his lack of knowledge of plants), it also deceives people into
believing that they have no need of experts creating ”an army of ill-informed, angry citizens who
denounce intellectual achievement” (Nichols, 2017). Chinn et al. (2020) argue that this requires a
focus on epistemic Aims, epistemic Ideals, and Reliable epistemic processes – the AIR model. This
model foregrounds “the importance of students’ epistemic aims, the variety of epistemic criteria
that students adopt, and the importance of the reliability of the epistemic processes used to produce
knowledge” (p. 52).
Others seek an education for action. At the core of this argument is a humanistic view of the
world that sees science as a cultural product in the service of the broader goals of prosperity, health,
and happiness (Aikenhead, 2005; Bencze et al., 2020; Derek Hodson, 2003; Sjöström & Eilks, 2018).
This view of science literacy, they argue, is distinct and better seen as a Vision III conception, or
what might be termed “critical science literacy”. While there are diferences in these approaches,
they all see Vision III as an approach requiring students to engage with contemporary issues (e.g.,
“Should we eat meat?”) that go beyond the narrow internal view of science promoted by school
science and demand the consideration of issues of economics, politics, Indigenous knowledge, and
values – and then their resolution with recommendations for action. Such socially acute questions
require and develop critical awareness and refexivity aimed at politicization and social and ecologi-
cal justice (Sjöström & Eilks, 2018). This takes various forms, such as “education for sustainability”.
However, the distinction between Vision II and Vision III is less clear, being described as the dis-
tinction between “neoliberalism (Vision II) and ideological awareness (Vision III)” or “cognition/
metacognition (Vision II) and epistemic and transformative learning (Vision III)”. This is essentially
a distinction of programmatic goals.
Nevertheless, the achievement of any Vision III outcomes still depends on many of the compe-
tencies and knowledge required for both the fundamental and derived notion of scientifc literacy
outlined earlier in this chapter. As both Willingham (2008) and Chinn et al. (2020) point out, criti-
cal thinking is dependent on a knowledge of the deep structure of the discipline that help to make
judgments about uncertainty and plausibility. Thus, as valuable as the Vision III outcome might be,
there is no escaping the fact that there is a both a fundamental and derived element to producing a
scientifcally literate student – somebody who is capable of being a “competent outsider”. Given the
moral and political issues raised by climate change, embedding their consideration in the context of
school science is inescapable. To do anything less would make science education seem irrelevant to
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far too many students. For many teachers of science this is a boundary problem, and straying into
this domain can raise concerns. The response to that is best articulated by a young student herself:
But still like this morning we were talking about genetic engineering. . . . She didn’t want
to know our options and I don’t reckon that the curriculum lets them, lets us discuss it
further. I mean science, okay you can accept the facts, but is it right, are we allowed to do
this to human beings?
(Osborne & Collins, 2001)
The Last Word

The key questions for the majority of people when they are inevitably confronted by a science-
related issue will be “How do I fnd out more about this issue?” and “Whom am I to trust?” Clearly
some fundamental literacy in the sciences is essential to make sense of scientifc arguments but that
will only take you so far when much of the science is beyond the comprehension of anybody who
is not a specialist. More important is a knowledge about science and how that scientifc knowledge
is produced. What is the professional expertise of the scientist making these arguments? Does she
or he undertake research in this domain? Have the fndings on which the claims are based been
peer-reviewed? What is the level of scientifc consensus on this topic? Are there other sources of
knowledge that should be considered? Moreover, being competent at anything requires practice.
If science education fails to provide the opportunities to practice – to build the capability to be a
competent outsider – should we be surprised if individuals refuse to be vaccinated, if local environ-
ments are destroyed by unregulated reprocessing of lead-acid batteries, or if community livelihoods
are destroyed by the ravages of climate change? I think not.
Note
1 For a more extended list of possible audiences, see Wellington and Osborne (2001, p. 77).
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26
THE USE OF CONTENT
STANDARDS FOR CURRICULUM
REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES
A Historical Analysis
George E. DeBoer
With the current reform movement in science education in the United States approaching its 40th
year, it seems appropriate to review its history and its possible future. Standards-based accountabil-
ity in education began in 1983 with the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on
Excellence in Education, 1983) and is now frmly entrenched as national education policy in the
United States. The country’s decentralized educational system limits the infuence the federal gov-
ernment can have in education to just those areas of genuine national concern, but despite those
limits, there are areas where it has been able to exert authority over the states, and standards-based
accountability is one of them. In this chapter, I will explore the development of federal education
legislation in the United States that established standards-based accountability; the role played by
professional scientifc and science education groups in creating standards; and how some views have
changed during this 40-year period regarding the nature of science, the scientifc enterprise, and how
children learn, while others have remained the same. The chapter builds on two previous works of
mine in this area, “History of the Science Standards Movement in the United States” (DeBoer, 2006)
and “The History of Science Curriculum Reform in the United States” (DeBoer, 2014).
Historical Background
For more than a century, there has been an ongoing debate in the United States about what students
should learn about science and how they should learn it. The Committee of Ten of the National
Education Association, meeting in 1893 (NEA, 1893), emphasized intellectual develop through
frsthand engagement with the physical world. The laboratory was thought to be a key element of
instruction, and educators debated whether students could learn through their own independent
investigations or if they needed guidance from a knowledgeable teacher. For the frst half of the 20th
century – a period widely referred to as the Progressive Era in American education – in response
to the increasing number of students in school, many of whom were immigrants working in urban
factories, the focus shifted to student interest, content relevance, and the applications of science.
The new industrial economy, it was thought, required a much more practical education. Follow-
ing World War II and driven by Cold War competition with the Soviet Union, there was a shift
toward increasing the scientifc workforce by recruiting students into science and toward raising the
817 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-31

George E. DeBoer
level of scientifc knowledge in the society. This was meant to encourage students to pursue careers
in science and to give the public an appreciation for science so they would support it fnancially.
Massive amounts of money were provided by the federal government to develop new curriculum
materials – mainly through the National Science Foundation – to raise the level of science instruction
and inspire more students to consider careers in science. This postwar period, which extended into
the 1960s, was followed by a period during which the relationship between science and society was
emphasized once again, reminiscent of the frst half of the century when practical and applied studies
dominated. This science-technology-society (S-T-S) approach brought issues of student interest and
engagement and content relevance to the forefront again. The term “science literacy” was often used
to describe the goals of science education during this period, and because of the return to child-
centered teaching and learning so common in the Progressive Era, some referred to the approach as
neo-progressivism (see Ravitch, 1983).
The Beginning of the Standards Movement

This neo-progressive period of the 1970s and 1980s broadened what educators saw as the purposes
of education to include personal health, character, and citizenship along with the academic subjects.
In the area of science, a broad-based interpretation of science literacy included social and per-
sonal relevance as well as a focus on the structure of disciplinary content. But as curricular options
widened and diverged from traditional academic content, there were concerns that the education
students were receiving was not preparing them for the world of work or for college, and the mean-
ing of a high school diploma was in question. In response, states introduced competency tests that
assessed students on the minimum basic skills that were thought to be critical before graduation. Later
research showed that at least at the lowest level more students were demonstrating basic competen-
cies than before, but also that there were also fewer high-scoring students (National Commission on
Excellence in Education, 1983; Elmore, 1998).
This failure of basic competency testing to raise achievement across the board, combined with
low performance by American students on international tests and a belief that the United States was
falling behind other countries economically, shifted policymakers’ attention from student interest,
content relevance, and minimum competency to a broad-based call for excellence. What was needed,
it was said, were higher standards, longer school days and years, stifer graduation requirements, and
more accountability throughout the educational system. The concern was that the educational sys-
tem had grown soft.
During the 1980s there were seemingly endless reports on how poorly US students (and schools)
were doing, even placing the blame for the stagnant US economy on the educational system. One
highly infuential report was by the National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983).
Another less well known, but also very important report, particularly for the sciences, came from the
National Science Board of the US National Science Foundation (1983a).
“A Nation at Risk”
The National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE) was established in August 1981,
and its report “A Nation at Risk” was presented in April 1983. The NCEE was a cabinet-level
commission established by then Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell. He had wanted a presidential
commission, but President Reagan had no interest in what he saw as an expansion of the federal gov-
ernment’s role in education. The NCEE report was a call to mobilize the eforts of the federal gov-
ernment in cooperation with states and local school districts to improve the education of American
students in all academic areas but with special attention to be given to science and mathematics. The
NCEE said that the country had lost sight of its true educational mission, and because the new raw
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Content Standards for Curriculum Reform in the United States
materials of international commerce were knowledge, learning, information, and skilled intelligence,
there needed to be a return to a more academic focus and more disciplined efort by students if the
United States was to be successful on the world stage.
The vision was to increase the intellectual strength of the society by creating a shared foundation
of knowledge on which citizens could debate complex societal issues, and by focusing on lifelong
learning so that citizens would continue to improve the quality of their lives and their communities
after graduation. Schools should foster comprehension, analysis, and problem solving rather than the
mastery of rudimentary knowledge or technical and occupational skills.
This was not the frst time that there had been this kind of call for excellence in the society. One
notable example was that of John Gardner in his 1961 book Excellence: Can we Be Equal and Excellent
Too? There he used the phrase “toning up a whole society . . . bringing a whole people to that fne
edge of morale and conviction and zest that makes for greatness” (Gardner, 1961, p. xiii). Such “ton-
ing up” also aptly describes the goal of the Commission on Excellence in Education.
Under the NCEE recommendations, all high school students would learn the “new basics” of
English, mathematics, science, social studies, and computer science. In science, students would be
introduced to: (1) the concepts, laws, and processes of the physical and biological sciences; (2) the
methods of scientifc inquiry and reasoning; (3) the applications of scientifc knowledge to everyday
life; and (4) the social and environmental implications of scientifc and technological development
(National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, p. 25).
To achieve these higher standards, the commission recommended more homework, longer school
days, a longer school year, better attendance policies, placement and promotion of students based on
academic progress, and higher graduation requirements. Except for its emphasis on the “new basics,”
there was no further elaboration of what the academic content of those courses should be.
The commission emphasized that higher standards, i.e., excellence, should be for everyone. All stu-
dents should be expected to work to their capacity and allowed to develop their talents to the fullest,
but the commission stopped short of recommending that all students should study the same material.
With the release of this report, the standards movement had begun. The vision was of an academi-
cally educated society that would share a common culture. Excellence for all would be ensured by
instituting accountability measures, including standardized tests that would be administered between
high school and college and between high school and the world of work as part of a national (but not
federally controlled) system of state and local testing.
“Educating Americans for the 21st Century”
The Report Reinforces Recommendations in “A Nation at Risk”

In September 1983, just fve months after “A Nation at Risk” appeared, the Commission on Precol-
lege Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology of the National Science Board, an advisory
group to the National Science Foundation, issued its report “Educating Americans for the 21st Cen-
tury” (National Science Board, 1983a). Echoing the NCEE, the commission argued that the educa-
tional system had undergone a period of neglect and recommended higher expectations for student
course-taking and achievement, as well as a system of objective measurement to monitor progress.
The commission proposed a return to the basics in a new form, not only reading, writing, and
arithmetic (the basic competencies), but also communication and higher problem-solving skills, and
scientifc and technological literacy. These were “the thinking tools that allow us to understand the
technological world around us” (p. v).
The report recommended that students should have early hands-on experiences and should
formulate questions and seek answers from their observations of natural phenomena. The courses
should be oriented toward practical problems that require the collection of data, the communication
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George E. DeBoer
of results and ideas, and the formulation and testing of solutions to those problems. They should be
designed to “improve the use and understanding of calculation and mathematical analysis” (p. 45),
develop a respect for quantitative observation and thinking, and stimulate an interest in scientifc,
engineering, and technical careers.
The commission recommended that the number of topics in science courses should be drastically
reduced, in part by integrating content within subject areas and by making connections between
subject areas, especially between mathematics, science, and technology. “To conduct curriculum
development as though the disciplines exist independently of each other does an injustice to the
natural and necessary integration of mathematics, science and technology” (p. 93). But their recom-
mendations for content integration went even further:
[W]e hope that teachers of mathematics, the natural and social sciences, technology, of
reading and writing, history, English and the arts, will seize the numerous opportunities to
demonstrate the interdependence of human knowledge and encourage students to apply the
skills and concepts from one discipline in seeking solutions in the others.
(p. 93)
Content recommendations were given for each science subject area and organized into three
grade bands within subject areas. At the high school level, the commission recommended that biol-
ogy should emphasize “genetics, nutrition, evolution, reproduction of various life forms, structure/
function, disease, diversity, integration of life systems, life cycles, and energetics” (p. 98). They said
that curriculum should be organized progressively so that it develops knowledge and skills “consis-
tently and coherently throughout the years of elementary and secondary education” (p. xi). Careful
to avoid the appearance that they were recommending a national curriculum, they said:
This does not imply either a lockstep or “national” curriculum; local diversity and variation
is a key strength of American education. Rather, we call for a consensus on new educational
objectives and a coherent national pattern – a framework for consistent education within
which alternative curricula and materials and local interpretation are encouraged.
(p. xi)
“[T]hese are guides that state and local ofcials might use in developing curricula for local use”
(p. 41). Regarding the question of equal opportunity for all students: “Discrimination, and the lin-
gering efects thereof, due to race, gender and other such irrelevant factors must be eradicated com-
pletely from the American educational system. Excellence and elitism are not synonymous” (p. vii).
Recommendations Regarding Research on Teaching and Learning

Finally, the commission recommended that educators should make use of the latest information on
the teaching and learning processes when developing the recommended curricula and that addi-
tional research in this area should be supported with federal funds. “This research should further the
recent progress in the cognitive sciences” (p. 48). The commission reported that cognitive research
had found that “virtually every child can develop an understanding of mathematics, science and
technology if appropriately and skillfully introduced at the elementary, middle and secondary levels”
(pp. 12–14).
The commission drew its fndings from a summary of a report by the Federation of Behavioral,
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences that was included in a separate source materials document
(National Science Board, 1983b) and that highlighted specifc areas of research. One of those areas
focused on the value of having students form mental models of the problems they were given rather
820
than expecting students to simply apply mathematical procedures and formulas to the solution of
those problems. Another area of research focused on the misconceptions that students develop and
how such misconceptions might be addressed. A classic example that the report used to illustrate this
area of research is the mistaken idea that many people have that for an object to stay in motion, a
constant force must be applied to it. Because we live in a world where the force of friction is always
operating to counter the motion of an object, it is true that a force must be applied to keep objects
moving. However, with no friction, an object set in motion would stay in motion without the need
for a force to keep it moving, and that is the science idea students are expected to learn. The report
also described research on general regulatory factors involved in learning, such as planning, decid-
ing on ways to approach problems, and strategies students can use to monitor their performance.
Other areas of research included the importance of well-organized knowledge when acquiring new
knowledge and how the mental processing of experts and beginners difers (National Science Board,
1983b, p. 112).
The report by the cognitive scientists also acknowledged that an area that had not yet yielded many
defnitive results involved the question of whether cognitive skills could be transferred from one domain
to another. Specifcally, could general problem-solving methods and strategies be easily applied to new
domains, or must they always be taught explicitly in the context of the problem at hand?
Finally, there was a discussion of Piaget’s claim that young children lack the conceptual structures
for abstract thinking. Even as early as 1983, so many exceptions were being found to that generaliza-
tion that it seemed that a more efective strategy would be to build on students’ prior knowledge,
using whatever cognitive skills they had at that time: “instruction should be designed to capitalize
on important conceptual building blocks that children have, rather than assuming that they have no
cognitive basis for developing understanding of important abstract principles” (p. 128).
The National Science Board’s report laid out the basic outline, and even many of the details, of
what would become the approach to framing science education content standards. By specifying
the content of recommended courses, at least at the topic level, and by saying that these courses
were intended for all students, the commission took a step toward the “science for all” that we have
come to know in the United States. By making use of the results of cognitive research, curricular
decision-making and, eventually, standards development was moving toward a cognitive psychol-
ogy perspective. Along with “A Nation at Risk”, the report stood at the beginning of the standards
movement in science education. But still to come would be more than 30 years of legislative debate
over standards-based accountability as well as discussions within the science education community
about what standards should look like.
Response From a Professional Science Organization

The frst national organization to describe the knowledge and skills that all citizens should have in
science was the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Founded in 1848, AAAS was
the world’s leading general scientifc society, the publisher of Science magazine, and through much
of the 20th century had been active in the area of science education. In 1981, F. James Rutherford
became executive director of their education division, and in 1985 he began work on Project 2061,
a program to foster science literacy for all Americans. Rutherford was already well acquainted with
eforts to reform science education, having served under President Jimmy Carter as the assistant
director for education at NSF, where he was responsible for all science, mathematics, and engineer-
ing education programs. He also had served as assistant secretary for research and improvement at
the US Department of Education under President Carter. During the 1960s he, along with Gerald
Holton and Fletcher Watson at Harvard University, directed the Harvard Project Physics program
and authored a series of textbooks that were used in physics classrooms primarily during the 1970s
and 1980s. Given that one of his collaborators, Holton, was a member of the National Commission
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George E. DeBoer
on Excellence in Education that produced “A Nation at Risk” and that Rutherford had been an
assistant director at the NSF just a few years before its advisory committee published “Educating
Americans for the 21st Century,” it is no surprise that it would be Rutherford who would lead the
efort to defne science literacy for all.
Up to this point, however, no one at the national level had attempted to defne with any detail
what that content would be, but Rutherford’s writing in the late 1970s shows that he had been
thinking about it. In one of those papers, he discussed whether the usefulness of science knowledge,
its cultural value, or its social aspects was most important in choosing what all students should know
(Rutherford, 1978a). In another paper, he wrestled with the question of “relevance” in science edu-
cation. Is vocational, personal, or social relevance the most important (Rutherford, 1978b)?
In the spring of 1984, just months after the release of “Educating Americans for the 21st Century”
by the National Science Board, Rutherford was in discussions with the Carnegie Corporation of
New York about a three-phase project to: (1) identify the science content that is worth knowing and
relevant to today’s students, (2) provide guidance on how to organize schools and the curriculum to
achieve the learning goals that would be identifed in Phase I, and (3) create a plan for implement-
ing the goals of the project. The stimulus for the proposal was a conference hosted by the Exxon
Education Foundation from January 17–20, 1984, and its report, “Science Education in the United
States: Essential Steps for Achieving Fundamental Improvement”. Finding the curriculum in most
schools “much too narrow in scope and too bound to traditional disciplines to meet the requirements
of true scientifc and technological literacy” (Exxon Education Foundation, 1984, p. 7), the report
emphasized the need for a new conceptual framework for scientifc and technological education.
Following approval by Carnegie and with funding for Phase I in hand,1 the AAAS Board of
Trustees approved the creation of Project 2061 early in 1985. The project was given its name because
Haley’s Comet, which was visible from Earth in 1985, would return in 2061. This meant that many
of the people who would see the comet’s return would be starting school in 1985, surely enough
time to achieve the goal of science literacy for all.
The project was to have expert panels in: (1) biological and health sciences, (2) mathematics, (3)
the physical and information sciences and engineering, (4) the social and behavioral sciences, and
(5) technology (AAAS, 1989). The job of the panels was to refect on all aspects of their respective
disciplines to identify the knowledge and skills in their domain needed for science literacy.
When it was published in 1989, Science for All Americans was the most complete statement to date
of what the scientifc community thought were the essential knowledge and skills for all students to
have by the time they graduated from high school. If it could be implemented, it would constitute a
major reconceptualization and reorganization of science education in America.
In contrast to many of the reports produced during the 1980s, Science for All Americans did not
propose a get-tough approach or that schools should teach more science content. Instead, it suggested
that schools should focus on a core set of ideas and skills that have the greatest scientifc, educational,
and personal signifcance and should teach science for deeper understanding. The recommendations
for content and for pedagogy were meant for all students regardless of social circumstances or career
ambitions. Criteria for content selection included: (1) the utility of the content for employment,
personal decision-making, and intelligent participation in society; (2) the intrinsic historical or cul-
tural signifcance of the knowledge; (3) the potential to inform one’s thinking about the enduring
questions of human meaning; and (4) the value of the content for the child’s life at the present time
and not just for the future (AAAS, 1990, pp. xix–xx).
Its tone was positive and uplifting, demonstrating a deep concern for both human and societal values:
Education has no higher purpose than preparing people to lead personally fulflling and
responsible lives. For its part, science education – meaning education in science, mathemat-
ics, and technology – should help students to develop the understandings and habits of mind
822
they need to become compassionate human beings able to think for themselves and to face
life head on. It should equip them also to participate thoughtfully with fellow citizens in
building and protecting a society that is open, decent, and vital.
(AAAS, 1990, p. xiii)
In an efort to be comprehensive as well as to break the sharp boundaries between the science dis-
ciplines, Science for All Americans included the social sciences and mathematics under the umbrella
of science; emphasized the connections between science, technology, and society; addressed the
sociocultural dimensions of science; used historical episodes to demonstrate the growth of science
over time and the relationship between evidence and theory; described common themes that cut
across many of the science disciplines; and spoke to the knowledge and skills that citizens needed to
be intelligent consumers of science and technology. There was a chapter on the nature of science,
the nature of mathematics, and the nature of technology; chapters related to the physical setting, the
living environment, the human organism, human society, the designed world, and the mathematical
world; a chapter on historical perspectives; a chapter on common themes applicable across many of
the felds of science; and a chapter on habits of mind.
Historical episodes were included to demonstrate how scientists connect new observations
to existing theory and how scientifc development is infuenced by societal views just as science
and technology infuence the development of society. This sociocultural perspective was meant to
broaden students’ view of the nature of science and technology and of scientifc progress.
The absence of disciplinary labels was a deliberate attempt to present science as an interdisciplin-
ary study. In that regard, their October 28, 1985, report, “Project 2061: Education for a Changing
Future”, said:
Phase I is thoroughly interdisciplinary. The project will not confne itself to particular
school science disciplines (namely, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and the earth
sciences), but will instead cut across all science and engineering felds. It is more concerned
with ideas than with boundaries. The eventual sorting of content into curriculum – the
full array of courses, subjects, and grade levels – may turn out to be very diferent from the
present confguration.
(AAAS, 1985, p. 5)
Regarding What Constitutes Sound Teaching and Learning

Science for All Americans drew on many of the theoretical positions and lines of research current at the
time. From developmentalists like Piaget there was the idea that children’s intellectual growth comes
from direct experience with the tangible world and that their manipulation of familiar objects in
multiple contexts leads progressively to the ability to generalize those experiences to more abstract
ideas.
Students need to get acquainted with the things around them – including devices, organ-
isms, materials, shapes, and numbers – and to observe them, collect them, handle them,
describe them, become puzzled by them, ask questions about them, argue about them, and
then to try to fnd answers to their questions.
(p. 201)
The idea that hands-on experiences are of most value when they occur in the context of existing
conceptual structures comes from cognitive scientists such as Bruner (1960), Ausubel (1968), and
Gagne (1977), who argued that the ideas students have when they come to school are always the
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George E. DeBoer
starting point for their learning. And because learning occurs in the context of relevant conceptual
structures that continue to grow and become more complex, it is important not to overload stu-
dents with too many separate ideas: “Schools should pick the most important concepts and skills to
emphasize so that they can concentrate on the quality of understanding rather than on the quantity
of information presented” (AAAS, 1990, p. 198). Finally, learning comes from repeated engagement
and practice in the things students are expected to learn:
students cannot learn to think critically, analyze information, communicate scientifc ideas,
make logical arguments, work as part of a team, and acquire other desirable skills unless they
are permitted and encouraged to do those things over and over in many contexts.
(p. 199)
In the 1988 ASCD Yearbook, Content of the Curriculum, editor Ronald Brandt analyzed reports
describing difering conceptions of the curriculum for ten school subjects, including science, math-
ematics, technology, home economics, physical education, English, social studies, foreign languages,
the arts, and health. He used an analytical scheme based on one developed by Eisner and Valance in
their Conficting Conceptions of the Curriculum (1974), which saw the school curriculum as accomplish-
ing fve main purposes: (1) a way to transmit the culture by providing students with the opportunity
“to acquire the most powerful products of man’s intelligence,” including the logical and structural
bases for the disciplines; (2) a way to develop generalized cognitive skills that can be applied across
multiple contexts and contents; (3) a tool for communicating and facilitating learning through sys-
tematic and efcient “packaging and presenting” of the material to students; (4) a vehicle of self-
actualization, by which students discover things by themselves through personally satisfying and
liberating experiences; and (5) a way for students to understand and appreciate the social issues of the
day, either as a part of personal development or as a lead in to active intervention for the reconstruc-
tion of society. In his adaptation of the scheme, Brandt divided the frst category into two parts, one
that focused on transmitting the cultural in general, and a second that focused on the diferences
between the individual disciplines – a structure of the disciplines approach – giving him six alto-
gether (Brandt, 1988, pp. 4–5). When he analyzed an early draft of what would become Science for All
Americans, he found all six of these conceptions of the curriculum present. The only other content
area that had more than two was technology, and it had three. For better or worse, the vast array of
conceptions of the curriculum that science educators had been debating for decades had all found
their way into this latest attempt to rethink the nature of science teaching in the country.
This comprehensive approach to science literacy called for fundamental change in how the cur-
riculum would be conceptualized and organized. Its “less is more” approach; its inclusion of math-
ematics, technology, engineering, and the social sciences under the umbrella of science; its attempt
to break down disciplinary boundaries; and its emphasis on the sociocultural dimensions of the
scientifc enterprise all were radical departures from how science was typically taught in schools.
A Push by States for National Education Goals

Along with this efort by the scientifc community to identify the most important science content,
another force that would greatly infuence the development of standards were the states’ attempts
to improve the quality of their schools and their economies. The initial reaction of the states to “A
Nation at Risk” was for them, individually, to raise high school graduation requirements, raise col-
lege admission standards, add assessments, increase the school day and year, and improve the quality of
teaching (Doyle & Hartle, 1985). But individual states also saw the value in joining with other states
to create shared national goals and in enlisting the support and cooperation of the federal government.
This would require the development of new collaborative relationships and shared responsibility for
824
education across the states, between the states and the federal government, and between the states and
local school districts. One idea that was proposed was that the states would establish the educational
goals and the ways of measuring progress toward meeting them, and they would publicize the results
of those accountability measures. For their part, the local school districts would agree to be held
accountable for meeting those goals (Schwartz & Robinson, 2000). This agreement was a major step
toward the establishment of a coordinated system of performance-based accountability at the school
and school district level throughout the country. The next step would be to establish a framework that
would enable the states to work collaboratively with the federal government on meeting those goals.
In 1988, George H.W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis for president. During the campaign, Mr.
Bush agreed to meet with the governors to discuss setting national education goals (Vinovskis, 1999). In
January 1989, the National Governors Association executive director sent a letter to the White House:
There is a growing recognition that an essential next step for education reform is establish-
ing consensus around a set of national goals for education improvement, stated in terms of
the results and outcomes we as a nation need for the education system. We propose that
the President and the Governors use their meeting to initiate a highly visible 9–12 month
efort to establish long-range goals and targets for educational improvement. The intent is
that together they establish a vision of the nature of the education system and the results it
must produce by the beginning of the 21st century.
(Vinovskis, 1999, p. 28)
A joint communique issued by the governors and president at the end of the summit read:
The President and the nation’s Governors agree that a better educated citizenry is the key to
the continued growth and prosperity of the United States. Education has historically been,
and should remain, a state responsibility and a local function, which works best when there
is also strong parental involvement in the schools. And as a Nation we must have an edu-
cated workforce, second to none, in order to succeed in an increasingly competitive world
economy. . . . We believe that the time has come, for the frst time in U.S. history, to estab-
lish clear, national performance goals, goals that will make us internationally competitive.
(Vinovskis, 1999, p. 38)
Agreements were reached to establish a process for setting the goals, as well as a panel to oversee the
process and to report annually on progress in achieving those goals. In February 1990, six national
goals were announced by the president and adopted by the governors: (1) ensure that every child starts
school ready to learn; (2) raise the high school graduation rate to 90%; (3) ensure that each American
student leaving the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades can demonstrate competence in core subjects; (4) make
US students frst in the world in math and science achievement; (5) ensure that every American adult is
literate and has the skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and respon-
sibilities of citizenship; and (6) liberate every American school from drugs and violence so that schools
can encourage learning (U.S. Department of Education, 1991). In July 1990, the president formed the
National Education Goals Panel, which would be responsible for issuing annual reports on the progress
of the states and the nation toward meeting the six goals. It was Goal 3 – competence in core subjects –
that would open the door for a national policy on content standards in the academic subjects.
On April 18, 1991, President Bush released “AMERICA 2000: An Education Strategy” (U.S.
Department of Education, 1991), which described a plan for moving the nation toward the national
goals by the year 2000. Under his plan, content standards in each of fve core subject areas would be
developed in conjunction with the Goals Panel. “These standards will incorporate both knowledge
and skills, to ensure that, when they leave school, young Americans are prepared for further study and
825
George E. DeBoer
the work force” (p. 21). Tests of that content would be developed in conjunction with the Goals Panel.
Colleges would be encouraged to use those high-stakes tests in admissions, and employers would be
encouraged to use them in hiring. To ensure accountability to the public, school districts would issue
report cards on results to provide clear (and comparable) information on how the schools were doing.
Because explicit content goals in the subject areas were not yet available, the president said:
First, what students need to know must be defned. In some cases, there is a solid basis on
which to build. For example, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the
Mathematical Sciences Education Board have done important work in defning what all
students must know and be able to do in order to be mathematically competent. A major
efort for science has been initiated by the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.2 These eforts must be expanded and extended to other subject areas.
(U.S. Department of Education, 1991, p. 70)
With the president’s declaration that standards “will be developed . . . for each of the fve core sub-
jects,” and his explicit mention of the work of AAAS, the focus at Project 2061 shifted from develop-
ing school-based curriculum models aligned to the science literacy goals in Science for All Americans
to transforming them into specifc statements of knowledge and skills to be learned by the end of
each of four grade bands. These learning goal statements were eventually published as Benchmarks for
Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993).
National Science Education Standards

America 2000’s April 1991 call for professional organizations to develop content standards in the
academic felds also found a receptive ear at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and
then at the National Research Council (NRC). In the spring of 1991, almost immediately following
the president’s call for national standards, the president of NSTA, along with its executive director,
and backed by a unanimous vote of the NSTA board, wrote to the chair of the NRC to ask them to
coordinate the development of national content standards in science. The request had support from
science and science education associations, the Goals Panel, the US Department of Education, and
the National Science Foundation (Bybee, 1997). On September 16, 1991, an award to the NRC was
announced by the Secretary of Education, and a chair was appointed to head a National Committee
on Science Education Standards and Assessment (NCSESA) to oversee the project. The NRC was
encouraged to draw upon the expertise and experience of both AAAS and NSTA, and both groups
were represented on the national committee (Bybee, 1997).
How Similar Were Benchmarks for Science Literacy

and the National Science Education Standards (NSES)?
One of the outcomes of the decision by the NRC to develop science standards is that there would
soon be two separate statements in the United States developed by two prominent national science
organizations. Therefore, it is appropriate to ask how similar they were and how they difered. It is
not surprising that in the end, given how much work the AAAS Science Panels had done identifying
the most important science ideas and skills for students to learn, frst as the basis for Science for All
Americans and then for Benchmarks for Science Literacy, and how closely Project 2061 staf worked with
the NRC on the development of the NSES content standards, that there would be little diference
between the science content in the two documents and that much of that diference would be in the
organization of the content. A comparison of the topics covered in the two documents is shown in
Table 26.1.
826
Table 26.1 A Comparison of the Science Content Covered in Benchmarks for Science Literacy and the National
Science Education Standards
Benchmark Topic Headings NSES Categories
• The nature of science • Unifying concepts and processes in science

• The nature of mathematics • Science as inquiry
• The nature of technology • Physical science
• The physical setting • Life science
• The living environment • Earth and space science
• The human organism • Science and technology
• Human society • Science in personal and social perspectives
• The designed world • History and nature of science
• The mathematical world
• Historical perspectives
• Common themes
• Habits of mind
It was at the level of learning goals for students where the greatest level of convergence between
NSES and Benchmarks could be seen. An internal study by Project 2061 showed approximately 90%
content agreement (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1997, pp. 75–89; Nel-
son, 1997) in what students were expected to learn.
In addition to the content similarities, both Benchmarks and NSES drew upon the results of cogni-
tive science research to justify the placement of science knowledge and skills by grade band, and they
paid attention to the sociocultural dimension of the nature of science and science learning. At each
grade band, NSES included a content standard on science in personal and social perspectives. For
grades 9–12 the standard reads: “As a result of activities in grades 9–12, all students should develop
understanding of personal health, population growth, natural resources, environmental quality, natu-
ral and human-induced hazards, and science and technology in local, national, and global challenges”
(NRC, 1996, p. 193). Each subject area also included a history and nature of science standard, which
were used to “elaborate various aspects of scientifc inquiry, the nature of science, and science in dif-
ferent historical and cultural perspectives” (p. 200). Benchmarks included similar content in a chapter
on the nature of science and a chapter on historical perspectives.
The biggest diference between the two was in the relative emphasis on inquiry – as something
students learn to do, something they learn about, and as a way of teaching that emphasizes student
investigations. In its “Call to Action,” the NRC said that the standards “emphasize a new way of
teaching and learning about science that refects how science itself is done, emphasizing inquiry as a
way of achieving knowledge and understanding about the world” (p. ix). Later, when recommending
changing directions for science content, “inquiry” is again the dominant theme, urging that there
should be greater emphasis on “doing more investigations in order to develop understanding, abil-
ity, values of inquiry and knowledge of science content” (p. 113). In its “Overview,” the NRC said:
“Implementing the Standards will require major changes in much of this country’s science educa-
tion. . . . Inquiry is central to science learning” (p. 2). In 2000, the NRC published Inquiry and the
National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning. The purpose of this follow-up
report was to “help educators improve the quality of teaching, learning, ands assessment through the
use of inquiry” (p. xvii).
The developers of Benchmarks, on the other hand, although not opposed to introducing students
to the nature of scientifc inquiry, considered the values, skills, and dispositions that characterize sci-
entifc thinking as more important for addressing the many problems that people face in their daily
lives, both those in science-related areas and in areas besides science, mathematics, and technology.
827
George E. DeBoer
The problem-solving attitudes and skills that Benchmarks focused on include honesty, curiosity, open-
mindedness, skepticism, thinking quantitatively, using tools to assist in making observations, and
communicating clearly. Skills needed to evaluate the claims that bombard people every day, from
mass media and even from each other, include deciding which ones are supported with evidence and
sound logic and which ones are not. NSES was more geared toward preparing students to engage in
scientifc investigations, and Benchmarks was more focused on preparing students to become informed
citizens, able to use the skills, values, and dispositions of the scientifc way of thinking throughout
many areas of their life. Both Benchmarks and NSES argued that their approach leads to improved
learning of science and the preparation of well-informed citizens.
Federal Legislation Requiring Academic Content Standards

Even as work on the National Science Education Standards and Benchmarks was underway, the ques-
tion of how they would ft into federal and state education policy and whether there would be
national assessments to accompany them still had to be addressed.
In June 1991, Congress established a National Council on Education Standards and Testing
(NCEST) to explore the feasibility and desirability of creating national education standards and a way
to measure their attainment.3 Its report, “Raising Standards for American Education,” was released in
January 1992. The council recommended the creation of a new oversight body that would be called
the National Education Standards and Assessment Council (NESAC). The council would establish
national guidelines for standards and assessment development and review and certify standards and the
plans for assessment systems. The members of this new council would be appointed by a reorganized
National Education Goals Panel, which would now be composed of two members of the adminis-
tration, eight governors, and four members of Congress selected to ensure bipartisan membership.
This would not be a federal agency, but the federal government would have a signifcant role to play.
The council also emphasized that it was important that content standards and assessments be part
of a system of educational reform in which standards and assessments were tied to state curriculum
frameworks and professional development opportunities for teachers. This idea of standards as the
center of systemic reform would become one of the major justifcations for the value of content
standards. If done right, it was argued, with content standards at the center and all parts of the system –
teacher education, curriculum development, student assessment – refecting them, that would help
move the country toward meeting the national goals.
In summary, the National Council on Education Standards and Assessment was proposing to
Congress that national content standards be developed in the fve core subject areas set out in the
National Education Goals report (English, mathematics, science, history, and geography), along
with a system of assessments to measure achievement of those standards, performance standards that
defned levels of student competence, a new entity that would certify standards and assessments, and
a completely new, systemic approach to education reform in which professional development, cur-
riculum development, teacher education, and student assessment would all be aligned to the content
standards at the center. It was a bold proposal that would provide a clear and rational path toward
accomplishing the national goals.
But at this point these were simply the recommendations of a Congressionally appointed council.
What that council had devised was a carefully thought out and aggressive plan for accomplishing
the national goals, but when the plan was put forward as part of the “America 2000” legislation to
Congress, it struggled to gain support. Democrats had issues with a national test if it was going to
be used for high-stakes purposes, fearing that disadvantaged students in under-resourced schools
would be penalized. They insisted that the legislation include a provision to assess school resources,
which could then be used to help explain and address low performance. The Bush administration
and Congressional Republicans, on the other hand, thought that an assessment of school resources
828
would be an intrusion by the federal government into curriculum, textbooks, teacher training, and
other matters normally dealt with by local school boards. In the end, “America 2000,” with its pro-
posed oversight of the standards-setting process, died in the Senate (Schwartz & Robinson, 2000) and
would never become federal law.
A New Administration
The proposals laid out in President Bush’s “America 2000” report were ambitious and far-reaching,
but they remained for the moment as recommendations of an administration about to leave ofce.
In November 1992, George Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, and the
Democrats took control of the White House. But because many of the ideas in “America 2000”
had come from the governors at the Education Summit that Bush had convened shortly after he
took ofce in 1989 – including Clinton as governor of Arkansas – the general strategy for reforming
education and the push for national standards and assessments remained intact and continued to be
pushed by the Clinton administration.
Promises to Keep: Creating High Standards for American Students

In May 1993, during President Clinton’s frst year in ofce, the National Education Goals Panel,
which had been in operation since it was established by President Bush and the nation’s governors
in July 1990, convened a Goals 3 and 4 Standards Review Technical Planning Group to make rec-
ommendations for criteria that a standards and assessment oversight panel could use to review and
certify national content standards. In their legislative proposal, the Clinton administration changed
the name of this oversight panel from the Bush-proposed National Education Standards and Assess-
ment Council (NESAC) to the National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC) in
order to reduce the emphasis on assessment, but otherwise NESIC was essentially the same oversight
group that had been proposed as NESAC in President Bush’s America 2000 legislative proposal. In
November 1993, the group submitted its report, “Promises to Keep: Creating High Standards for
American Students” (Goals 3 and 4 Technical Planning Group, 1993).
The group recommended that NESIC would review any standards that were submitted but that
only standards in the original core areas of English, mathematics, science, history, and geography,
plus foreign languages, citizenship/civics, and the arts would be certifed, and only one set of con-
tent standards would be certifed in each area. The idea was that NESIC would put their stamp of
approval on one set of content standards for each content area and the states would then select from
those certifed content standards a package of approved standards that would form the core of their
state’s curriculum. States would be advised not to overload the core curriculum so that there would
be room for local schools to add to it as they saw ft. States could also develop their own standards,
but if they did, it was expected that the NESIC-certifed standards would serve as a point of refer-
ence and that the states would have to show how their standards were aligned with the national
standards. In putting together their core curriculum, the states would be expected to pay attention
to cross-disciplinary connections so that instruction met the larger goals of preparing students to
“think logically, support assertions with evidence, draw inferences, and apply what is known to a
new situation” (p. 10). According to the report, although these thinking skills are not necessarily
a focus of any single disciplinary area, they are skills that are necessary preparation for citizens “to
compete in a global economy, exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and use their
minds well” (p. 21). The point was that these thinking and reasoning skills were important enough
to be included in a state’s core curriculum even if they were not typically the domain of any specifc
content area.
829
George E. DeBoer
The group identifed specifc criteria for NESIC to use when reviewing content standards: The
standards should be world class, that is, at least as challenging as the standards of other leading indus-
trial countries; focused on the most important knowledge and skills in a discipline; useful for citizen-
ship, employment, and life-long learning; clear enough to be understood by parents, teachers, and
students; allow for fexibility in implementation by states and local communities; and attainable by
all students (pp. 12–16).
The Technical Planning Group also provided guidance on establishing performance standards, that
is, the criteria for determining whether student performance had reached an acceptable level. The
group said that the professional organizations who would be developing standards should begin
this process of performance standard setting by at least pointing toward how student competence
might be measured and judged. One possibility was that the work of US students could eventually
be compared to that of students from high-performing countries around the world. Finally, it was
recommended that NESIC should promote the development of curriculum models other than the
traditional disciplinary categories to show how the national standards could be confgured for inter-
disciplinary study.
As the scope and detail of the recommendations for oversight of the standards setting process dem-
onstrated, there was a strong belief that centralized leadership would be needed if the country was to
develop high-quality content standards and achieve the national education goals.
Goals 2000
In 1994, two signifcant Clinton-era pieces of standards-related education legislation were passed.
The frst was the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. The main purpose of Goals 2000 was to provide
a framework for the reauthorization of all federal education programs. The second was the Improv-
ing America’s Schools Act (IASA), a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965.
Goals 2000 added two new goals to the existing six – one on teacher professional development
and one on promoting the involvement of parents in their children’s education – and it included
a proposal for establishing NESIC to certify voluntary state and national standards and oversee the
standards-setting process.
The Goals 2000 legislation also secured the National Education Goals Panel in federal law. The
group had been operating as a presidentially appointed panel since 1990 but had never been approved
by Congress. It was now codifed in law, with responsibility for reporting annually on progress on the
eight national goals. The Goals Panel would also have responsibility for
reviewing the voluntary national content standards, voluntary national student performance
standards and voluntary national opportunity-to-learn standards certifed by the National
Education Standards and Improvement Council, as well as the criteria for the certifcation
of such standards and the criteria for the certifcation of State assessments by the National
Education Standards and Improvement Council.
(Goals, 2000, p. 134)
The Goals Panel would now exist as an agency of the federal government’s executive branch to
advise the president, the secretary of education, and Congress. Goals 2000 would give the federal
government considerable say in the oversight of the nation’s standards-based educational policy. That
authority would come from NESIC, which would certify all national content and student perfor-
mance standards.
NESIC had plenty of work to do to bring order and quality control to the standards-setting
process. Various groups were developing standards, sometimes creating confusion. The biggest
830
setback came when the US Senate voted 99-1 to denounce the history standards, saying its empha-
sis on multiculturalism portrayed Western civilization in an unfattering light. On top of that,
funding for the English language arts standards was terminated for a lack of progress (Schwartz &
Robinson, 2000). In science, AAAS had released Benchmarks for Science Literacy, and the NRC was
working on its National Science Education Standards.
Despite the need for a more orderly and coordinated approach to standards development that
NESIC was meant to provide, late in 1994, none of the 19 members of the council had yet been
appointed. Then, in the November 1994 national midterm elections, Republicans took control
of both the House and Senate for the frst time since 1952. With the Republicans in control
of Congress, NESIC never got of the ground. In place of a centralized certifying body, groups
like the American Federation of Teachers, the Council for Basic Education, and the Thomas B.
Fordham Foundation began to ofer reviews of content standards, and a free market approach to
standards creation and evaluation took hold in which the states and local communities had to
make their own decisions about which standards they would use (Schwartz & Robinson, 2000,
pp. 199–200). Objections by more conservative lawmakers to what looked like increasing intru-
sion on the part of the federal government in education made certifcation of standards by a panel
like NESIC untenable.
But even without the quality control that NESIC would have provided, the Goals 2000 legislation
did establish the basis for standards-based accountability in the key subject areas as national educa-
tion policy. This was widely accepted at the state, local, and national levels, especially the ideas that
academic content standards should be clearly stated, that there should be assessments linked to the
standards to make it possible to monitor success, and that the standards should apply equally to all
students. Those general principles of standards-based accountability established the framework that
would guide all federal education legislation going forward.
Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA)

The second important Clinton-era education bill was the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA).
This was another fve-year reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
of 1965. Title I of the bill directs funds to high-poverty schools, but the bill also had the broader
purpose of improving all schools and the education of all children. A key feature of the bill was that
for the frst time, the standards-based accountability provisions in the Goals 2000 legislation would
apply to federal education law. Under IASA, any state seeking funding for the improvement of its
school programs had to submit a plan consistent with the requirements of the Goals 2000 legislation.
Requirements included having challenging content standards, three levels of student profciency,
assessments in at least mathematics and reading/language arts aligned with those content and perfor-
mance standards, and a benchmark against which to measure improvement – referred to as adequate
yearly progress – for each major subgroup (racial, ethnic, gender, etc.). To maintain the independence
and autonomy of the states and to limit federal control, the states were not required to submit their
standards to the Secretary of Education for approval.4
After a decade-long concerted efort to establish national content standards along with a strong
federal presence in coordinating and exercising quality control over the process, IASA was the frst
step toward moving this responsibility almost completely back to the states. National goals – like the
ones in Goals 2000 – had been widely accepted because they were broadly stated, but when it came
to specifying what students should know in each content area and how to assess that knowledge,
too many legislators were opposed. Mainly, they were concerned that this would lead to a national
curriculum controlled by the federal government. As with Goals (2000), the passage of IASA frmly
established standards-based accountability into federal education legislation, a major step forward in
the standards movement.
831
George E. DeBoer
1996 The National Education Goals Report

With the 1994 legislation in place, but without a central body to oversee the standards-setting
process, responsibility for developing standards and assessments had shifted to the states. The
only federal oversight of the nation’s academic goals would come from the National Education
Goals Panel, and that would be limited to the two broad academic goals that: (1) all students
would receive a high-quality education in the core academic areas and (2) that the United States
would be frst in the world on international tests by 2000. With no authority over the standards-
setting process, the emphasis of the Goals Panel’s 1996 report changed to ofering states and local
school districts advice on creating their own standards and creating assessments aligned to those
standards.
The Goals Panel remains convinced that it will be impossible to achieve the National Edu-
cation Goals unless states and local communities demand more from their students by setting
rigorous standards for student achievement and by designing new forms of assessment to
determine whether students have mastered challenging subject matter.
(National Goals Panel, 1996, p. vii)
But the panel also recognized how difcult standards setting was:
What should 4th graders know about American history? What kinds of computer skills
should they be expected to master? Should all 8th graders be able to solve algebra prob-
lems? Should they be able to dissect a frog and identify its major organs? In order to
receive a high school diploma, should school districts require their 12th graders to design
and conduct chemistry experiments? Should high school graduates be expected to play at
least one musical instrument? Should they be required to speak, read, and write a foreign
language? Are these expectations too high? How do they compare to the expectations
held for students in other countries? In today’s world, what basics should all students
learn?
(National Goals Panel, 1996, p. 1)
Questions like this are difcult to answer, and each one raises more questions, but it was generally
agreed that even after more than a decade of talking about the need for excellence in education,
academic expectations were still too low and needed to be raised. In its advice to states on standards
development, the 1996 Goals Panel report repeated many of the themes that had been included in
previous reports: “Challenging academic standards [should] emphasize a thorough understanding of
subject matter, plus problem-solving skills; integration and application of knowledge across difer-
ent subject-matter disciplines; and thinking skills” (National Goals Panel, 1996, p. 1). Standards also
should be comparable to the best in the world.
The report also recognized that tensions might exist between the states and local school districts
over the setting and monitoring of standards. To address the concern that specifying standards might
seem to be overly prescriptive to local schools, the report said:
As a reminder, standards defne the essential concepts and skills that we expect all students
to know and be able to do. However, they should not prescribe what should be taught to
enable students to reach the standard (curriculum), nor should they dictate how the material
should be taught (instruction). These decisions are best left to teachers and other school staf
who work most closely with students.
(National Goals Panel, 1996, p. 7)
832
1996 National Education Summit

With control of content standards and responsibility for their quality and implementation having
moved to the states but not yet widely implemented, a second National Education Summit took
place in March 1996 in Palisades, New York. This time it was the business community that took the
lead role. The chief executive ofcer of IBM, Louis Gerstner, hosted the event, and President Clin-
ton was an invited guest and lunchtime speaker. The governors agreed to set high academic standards
at the state and local levels, and the business leaders said they would look favorably on states that had
academic standards when looking for places to set up new businesses (PBS Frontline, 2002).
But the question remained: How would the states know if their individual state standards stacked
up well against the best in this country and in the world? A 1996 opinion poll conducted by U.S.
News & World Report indicated “that fully three-quarters of the respondents thought that school
standards were too low” (PBS Frontline, 2002).
To help answer the question about quality, the governors and business executives founded
Achieve, Inc. as a bipartisan, nonproft efort to assist with the setting and implementing of standards
at the state level. Achieve would, in efect, be a private, independent replacement for NESIC. It
would develop a common set of criteria for evaluating the states’ standards and for ensuring align-
ment between standards and assessments. The goal would be the same, the nationalizing of criteria
for evaluating quality, but this would be done by a private nongovernmental agency, not the federal
government (Schwartz & Robinson, 2000).
Voluntary National Test

Even though the political winds had shifted away from national standards and a national test, Presi-
dent Clinton continued to support them. In his 1997 State of the Union address he again appealed
for national standards and voluntary national tests prepared by the federal government. Under his
plan, starting in the spring of 1999, fourth graders would take a reading test and eighth graders a
math test developed by the US Department of Education (Harris & Baker, 1997). The reading test
would be based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and the math test
would be based on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). But Clinton’s
1997 proposed legislation for a voluntary national test (VNT) failed to gain support in Congress. As
before, opponents included Congressional Republicans who felt that it gave the federal government
too much control over education and Democrats who felt that disadvantaged students would suf-
fer without adequate opportunity to learn the material being tested. In his next State of the Union
address, Clinton made no mention of national standards or assessments.
With respect to science, by the time the National Science Education Standards appeared in 1996,
the hope that there would be national standards that all states would follow seemed lost. States could
still make use of Science for All Americans, Benchmarks, and NSES in writing their own standards, but
for now there would be no common standards in science. And despite the fact that states made use
of the existing standards documents as they prepared their own standards, penetration into the edu-
cational system was relatively low. In their 2000 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Educa-
tion, Horizon Research, Inc. found that only 10% of middle school teachers were “very familiar”
with the NRC Standards and an additional 23% were “fairly familiar” (Fulp, 2002, p. 8).
No Child Left Behind

Eight years later, under the administration of President George W. Bush, the Elementary and Sec-
ondary Education Act of 1965 was again reauthorized, this time as the No Child Left Behind Act of
2001 (NCLB, 2002). Compared to IASA, the bill emphasized even greater public accountability, and
833
George E. DeBoer
it tied federal funding directly to meeting student performance targets. The law also ended authoriza-
tion of Goals 2000 legislation and the Goals Panel. A decade of eforts to achieve ambitious national
goals did not produce many successes. NAEP reading and math scores were up slightly, and more
children were better prepared to begin school, but in the areas of school safety and teacher quality,
the nation had gone backward, and in the other areas there was little change. In response, NCLB
doubled down on accountability by adding additional provisions to monitor progress toward meeting
the basic academic goals and progress toward narrowing the achievement gap.
Under the new law, by the 2005–2006 school year, states would be required to test students annu-
ally in reading and mathematics between grades 3 and 8, and at least once during grades 10–12. By
the 2007–2008 school year, students would be tested in science in each of three grade bands (3–5,
6–9, and 10–12). Every two years, states would be required to administer the NAEP mathematics and
reading tests to a sample of students in grades 4 and 8. This would allow states to compare the dif-
fculty of their tests against NAEP, and it would put pressure on them to set profciency levels at least
as high as NAEP. The law also required schools, school districts, and states to disaggregate test score
results for major racial and ethnic groups, income groups, students with disabilities, and students with
limited English profciency.
As with the 1994 Improving America’s Schools Act, the new legislation called for states to defne
three levels of profciency and to measure students with respect to those profciency levels. The goal
of NCLB was for all students in the country to reach their state’s standard of profciency in reading
and math by 2014. All groups – defned by race, ethnicity, income, and other characteristics – should
show progress toward that goal. Failure of a school to have its students make “adequate yearly prog-
ress” (AYP) would result in actions intended to help the school improve. In addition to technical
assistance, staf changes, and the possibility of private or state takeover of the failing school, students
in schools that did not meet their target goals would be able to transfer to another school or use their
Title I funds to pay for tutoring or other supplemental services.
NCLB continued the standards-based accountability movement that began in the early 1980s,
strengthened with passage of the Improving America’s Schools Act (1994) and the Goals 2000:
Educate America Act (1994). The NCLB legislation of 2001 also took the focus on standards-based
accountability signifcantly further through the specifcity of its requirements, sanctions, and pub-
lic reporting. NCLB also put more weight on the state assessments as a measure of school success.
In fact, under NCLB, AYP determinations were based solely on student performance on the state
assessments. In contrast, under IASA, multiple measures of student performance could be used to
determine if a school or school district was meeting its goals (CCSSO, 2004). Enforcement also came
by way of the forced transparency of annual “report cards” in which states had to publicly share the
results of state testing, disaggregated by subgroup.
It was an encouraging sign to science educators that science testing was mandated to begin starting
in the 2007–2008 school year. But because results would not be included in the determination of the
school’s performance, it was widely believed that NCLB’s emphasis on full profciency in math and
English language arts by 2013–2014 signifcantly diminished attention paid to science under NCLB.
The Obama Years

Holding schools accountable for the success of all subgroups was NCLB’s fnest feature. But the
increased testing became too onerous, the sanctions against schools were too severe, and it soon
became obvious that the goal of achieving 100% profciency in math and English language arts for
all students by 2014 was unrealistic.
When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, not only did his administration have to work
within the provisions of NCLB, but it also inherited one of the worst economic recessions in recent
memory. In response to the economic crisis, in February 2009, President Obama signed into law the
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American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a stimulus package to save and create jobs and
invest in various parts of society, including education. Some of the money was used for a competitive
$4.35 billion education grant program to the states called “Race to the Top.” The money was also
used to advance the administration’s education agenda, including using student test scores to evaluate
teachers and adopting Common Core State Standards in math and English language arts.
As it became more and more clear that the goal of profciency in math and reading for all students
by 2014 could not be met, in 2011 the Obama administration began ofering states waivers of some
of the provisions of NCLB. The waivers would allow states to set more achievable profciency goals
and develop their own systems for improvement and accountability. In return, the states would have
to adopt standards for college and career readiness and use student test scores as part of the evaluation
package of teachers.
Then, in December 2015, the US Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act to replace
NCLB. As with the previous versions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a key goal
of the bill was to close the achievement gap. Although the focus of the new bill was still on stan-
dards-based accountability, the bill took a less rigid approach to determining how success would be
measured.
Under the new bill there would still be annual testing and reporting by subgroups, but states could
limit testing at each grade level as a percentage of total instructional time. Compared to NCLB,
the role of the federal government in holding the states and local schools accountable was greatly
reduced. The Department of Education provided a framework within which the states had to oper-
ate, but the design of the education plan and its implementation were left to the states. The state plans
would be reviewed by independent panels of experts, but the Secretary of Education was prohibited
from participating in any part of the review process and could not infuence the states’ adoption of
standards, including the adoption of the Common Core State Standards. This was a clear repudiation
of the Obama administration’s push for states to adopt common standards.
Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, standards and assessments could either be designed by
the states or chosen from existing standards and assessments. The only requirement was that they be
aligned with entrance requirements for credit-bearing coursework in the state’s system of higher edu-
cation and with relevant state career and technical education standards. The standards would be used
to guide the education of all students. As with previous federal legislation, a state could not develop
or use alternate academic achievement standards for any subgroups of children.
As another indicator of how much additional latitude was created in the area of accountability, and
a clear break from the idea of having highly specifed content standards, states could now allow local
districts to use standardized tests such as the ACT or SAT exams to measure student academic prog-
ress if it could be shown that the test was aligned to the state’s academic standards and comparable
to the other state assessments in content coverage and quality. Once a locally chosen assessment was
approved by a state, it could be used by any other school district that requested to use it.
Unlike NCLB, which focused on a single standardized state test in reading and one in math, the
tests under ESSA had to test students’ “higher order thinking skills and understanding,” something
that would be difcult to accomplish with traditional standardized tests. To meet the requirement,
assessments could be delivered in a variety of forms, including portfolios, projects, or extended
performance tasks. A report by Darling-Hammond (2017) reviewed four models of expanded assess-
ments that had been used successfully in the United States and in other countries.
Although the scope of possibilities for measuring student success was greatly enlarged and focus
was on assessing students’ higher-order thinking skills, the major feature of the bill, as with NCLB,
was still public accountability. The bill required each state and school district to publish report cards
that included test scores (including NAEP test results), high school graduation rates, school fund-
ing information, and teacher qualifcations. Information had to be broken down within the state,
the local education agency, and the school, and by each of the key subgroups of students, including
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George E. DeBoer
gender, major ethnic and racial groups, migrant status, students who were and were not economically
disadvantaged, English profciency status, and children with and without disabilities.
Although teacher qualifcations had to be reported, the US Department of Education could not
require states to evaluate teachers. Under NCLB, all teachers in core academic subjects had to be
“highly qualifed,” which was defned as having a bachelor’s degree, demonstrated knowledge, and a
certifcate in the subjects they taught. Under the Obama administration’s waiver program, states also
had to include student test results as part of their plan to evaluate teachers, but ESSA eliminated the
“highly qualifed” teacher requirement, leaving it up to each state to determine the qualifcations for
teachers in their state.
Consistent with ESSA’s overall shift away from federal control of education, the main reason why
the teacher requirement was eliminated was to return the responsibility for assessing teacher quality
to the states. Critics of NCLB saw the federal government’s involvement in defning what constitutes
a qualifed teacher as an intrusion into state education policies. Others recognized that the policy
failed to acknowledge the shortage of teachers who ft the federal requirements. Without major
investments in developing a supply of well-qualifed teachers, the requirement would be impossible
to meet (Darling-Hammond, 2007).
Unlike NCLB, which focused solely on a state’s tests of achievement in math and English lan-
guage arts, under ESSA the state plans had to include multiple measures of accountability. The four
mandatory criteria were academic achievement, academic progress, English language profciency,
and high school graduate rates. In addition to those four criteria, the states were also required to
choose a ffth measure of school quality/student success. The list included kindergarten readiness,
access to and completion of advanced coursework, college readiness, discipline rates, and chronic
absenteeism. For each criterion chosen, outcomes had to be measurable and comparable across
schools within the state.
In a nutshell, ESSA was a more fexible version of NCLB. In theory, the fexibility of ESSA also
provided the opportunity for more schools to emphasize student performance in science as part of
their accountability package, but there was no mandate that that be done.
One More Attempt at Common Standards in Science

Even though standards setting, and the development of assessments aligned to them, were now in the
hands of states, interest in revisiting the idea of common national standards reappeared in the early
part of the 21st century. In 2007, a Commission on Mathematics and Science Education was estab-
lished by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Institute for Advanced Study to explore
the possibilities for developing common standards for science education.
The Commission believed that developing common standards, and using them as the center-
piece of systemic reform, was the best way to improve science education. With common standards,
educational eforts across the country could be concentrated on the development of curriculum,
instruction, assessment, and teacher education programs all focused on a set of agreed-upon core
ideas that all students should know. Compared to existing state standards, these new common stan-
dards should be more clearly related to the knowledge students need to succeed in college and the
world of work, they should be fewer in number, and they should aim higher in terms of intellectual
challenge.
The report acknowledged the Common Core State Standards initiative in mathematics and Eng-
lish language arts and proposed that the development of Common Core State Standards in science
should be next in line. To strengthen its case, Carnegie commissioned Achieve, Inc. to form partner-
ships with states to undertake the work (National Research Council, 2012). The Commission also
announced that the National Research Council would be convening a planning meeting sponsored
by the National Science Foundation during the summer of 2009 as the frst step toward revising the
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National Science Education Standards (Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Institute for
Advanced Study, 2009).
The report suggested that the new science standards should be built around four strands of science
profciency identifed in the 2007 National Research Council report, “Taking Science to School:
Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K–8”:
• Know, use, and interpret scientifc explanations of the natural world

• Generate and evaluate scientifc evidence and explanations
• Understand the nature and development of scientifc knowledge
• Participate productively in scientifc practices and discourse (p. 36)
The research summarized in “Taking Science to School” (TSTS) would form the theoretical basis
for the development of NGSS. Beginning with the acknowledgment that there were a variety of
perspectives on science and science learning that often overlapped, TSTS summarized three of those
perspectives: (1) scientist as problem solver and logical reasoner, (2) science as a process of theory
development, and (3) science as practice, in which problem solving and theory development are
conducted within a broad sociocultural context.
TSTS acknowledged that each of these views could be useful to teachers:
Thus, if one looks from the perspective of science as a process of reasoning about evi-
dence, one sees that logical argumentation and problem-solving skills are important.
Certain aspects of metacognition are also highlighted, such as the ability to be aware
when one’s previously held convictions are in confict with an observation. If one looks
at science as a process of theory change, one sees that teachers must recognize the role
of students’ prior conceptions about a subject and facilitate the necessary processes of
conceptual change and development. Finally, when one looks at science as a process of
participation in the culture of scientifc practice, attention is drawn to the ways in which
children’s individual cultural and social backgrounds can, on one hand, create barriers to
science participation and learning due to possible conficts of cultural norms or practices
with those of science and, on the other hand, provide opportunities for contributions,
particularly from students from nonmainstream cultures, that enrich the discourse in the
science classroom. One also sees a range of practices, such as model building and data
representation, that each in itself is a specifc skill and thus needs to be incorporated and
taught in science classrooms.
(National Research Council, 2007, pp. 35–36)
TSTS had begun to lay the groundwork for new standards in science.
“Common Standards for K–12 Education?”

While planning was proceeding on the revision of NSES, the National Research Council was hold-
ing two workshops, one on current standards-based reform eforts in the states and the other on
possibilities for establishing new common standards across the states. The 2008 report “Common
Standards for K–12 Education? Considering the Evidence” (National Research Council, 2008) noted
that even though a number of groups were again advocating for “a single set of academic standards in
core subjects that states would be encouraged or required to adopt or closely model,” the efectiveness
of standards-based reform and the advantage of having common standards for use across the country
were still open questions. The report noted that the vision of standards-based systemic reform had
not yet been met – especially the expectation that all parts of the system, including curriculum,
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George E. DeBoer
instruction, teacher preparation, professional development, and assessment would be aligned to the
content standards – at least not as had originally been hoped.
The report noted that standards were having relatively minor infuence, because just by introduc-
ing standards: “You are not changing who is in the classroom. You are not changing what teachers
know” (p. 35). The same was true for common standards. Unless the focus was on how to improve
teaching and learning for everyone, standards – common or not – would not by themselves lead to
the improvements that standards-based reform was hoping for.
But standards-based accountability was appealing to the public and to education leaders because
it let everyone know what it was that schools were trying to accomplish, and it forced schools to
report results to the public. For that reason, and not because it had improved student performance or
closed the achievement gap, it was now the nation’s accepted approach to framing education policy.
And that is why, in 2009, near the start of the Obama presidency, the state governors, along with
Achieve, initiated the Common Core State Standards project in math and English language arts, and
it is why the NRC began work on a framework that would eventually lead to the Next Generation
Science Standards.
A Framework for K–12 Science Education

Following the recommendation of the Carnegie Commission, a committee was formed at the
National Research Council and charged with developing “a framework that articulates a broad set
of expectations for students in science” (National Research Council, 2012, p. 1). The framework
would be the frst part of a two-step process. Following the development of the framework, new
standards in science would be developed by Achieve. The work would be funded by the Carnegie
Corporation of New York.
Without explaining why the existing standards had failed to fulfll their promise, the committee
made three recommendations for new standards: First, science content would be organized around
increasingly more sophisticated treatment of core ideas beginning in elementary school and running
through high school. This would build on the notion of “learning as a developmental progression.”
Second, there would be a focus on a smaller number of core ideas, which should “give time for
students to engage in scientifc investigations and argumentation and to achieve depth of understand-
ing of the core ideas presented” (National Research Council, 2012, p. 11). Third, the practices that
scientists and engineers use in scientifc inquiry and engineering design should be integrated with
science concepts when designing learning experiences. These were not new ideas, but they still had
currency, so it was not surprising that they would be included in a new science standards document.
The stated goal of the new framework also captured many of the personal and societal goals that
had been ofered over the years to justify why science should be in the curriculum, including: “to
ensure that by the end of 12th grade, all students have some appreciation of the beauty and wonder
of science; possess sufcient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions
on related issues; are careful consumers of scientifc and technological information related to their
everyday lives; are able to continue to learn about science outside school; and have the skills to enter
careers of their choice, including (but not limited to) careers in science, engineering, and technol-
ogy” (National Research Council, 2012, p. 1).
In many ways the recommendations in the Framework reiterated what was in the National Science
Education Standards and Benchmarks for Science Literacy, but there were also diferences. One change
compared to NSES was that the Framework recommended that engineering be treated as a separate
discipline. NSES had included a standard on science and technology at each grade band, which intro-
duced students to the abilities and understandings related to technology and engineering, but it did
not recommend that engineering be treated as a separate disciplinary area. The Framework also moved
away from the NSES’s use of inquiry as an organizer for both content and instruction. It substituted,
838
instead, the practices of science and engineering, arguing that “practices” better suggests the com-
bined use of the skills and the knowledge required for scientifc investigations. Inquiry as an organizer
of content and instruction had also been difcult to communicate clearly to teachers, curriculum
developers, and assessment developers because of the multiple and complex ways the term was used.
The Framework also recommended a three-dimensional structure for science: a content dimen-
sion, a practice dimension, and a crosscutting concept dimension. It recommended that the learning
goals for students be described as “performance expectations” that integrate those three dimensions.
Students should learn and be held accountable for the core ideas and crosscutting concepts of science
while engaging in the practices of science.
Finally, the report admitted that additional research on teaching and learning was needed to fully
justify the recommendations that were being made:
Throughout this report, the committee has acknowledged that the evidence on which the
framework rests is incomplete. In this fnal chapter, we lay out aspects of a research and
development (R&D) agenda we think is needed to provide evidence-based guidance for
future revisions to K-12 science education standards, which we expect will occur within
the next 10–15 years.
(NRC, 2012, p. 311)
The proposed research agenda focused on: (1) understanding how students learn the core ideas and
practices of science and how best to support that learning and (2) understanding how national and
state-level standards are interpreted and used to infuence K–12 education practice and policy.
Next Generation Science Standards

Using the NRC Framework as a guide, Achieve took the next step toward the development of the
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Unlike the Framework, NGSS was structured primarily
to give direction to assessment development by ofering examples of the types of tasks that could
be used to test the knowledge and skills laid out in the Framework. The diference between the two
documents was made clear in the Introduction to NGSS:
there is a diference in the purpose of the Framework and the NGSS. The Framework projects
a vision for K-12 science education. . . . The purpose of the NGSS is more limited. It is
not intended to replace the vision of the Framework, but rather to support that vision by
providing a clear statement of the competencies in science and engineering that all students
should be able to demonstrate at subsequent stages in their K-12 learning experience.
(Achieve, 2013, p. xix)
These competencies were written as performance expectations that combined the three dimensions
of science recommended in the Framework – disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and sci-
ence and engineering practices – and they were intended to be written broadly enough so that there
could be fexibility in the design of tasks that might appear on a student assessment.
What is at the heart of NGSS, then, is the structure of the performance expectations, not how
they are arranged with respect to each other and not how specifc core ideas, practices, and crosscut-
ting concepts are paired with each other. The performance expectations are meant to be examples.
Students should be tested on their ability to use science ideas and the practices of science to make
sense of phenomena in the natural world in a wide range of contexts.
The inclusion of performance expectations goes beyond what is in Benchmarks and the National
Science Education Standards in two ways: First, neither of those previous standards documents
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George E. DeBoer
specifed observable, measurable behaviors to be assessed because neither of them was intended pri-
marily for guiding the development of assessments. They were not accountability documents, but
rather visionary statements of what science education could be, much like the NRC’s Framework.
Second, the performance expectations in NGSS expect that assessment (and instruction) will be
done at the intersection of disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting
concepts. Previous standards also included those three dimensions and said that all of them should be
included in instruction, but they left it to curriculum and assessment developers to fgure out how
to do that.
As noted earlier, another defning feature of the Framework and NGSS is the emphasis on the
practices of science and engineering. These practices are meant to constitute the real, authentic every-
day actions and activities of scientists and engineers rather than formal, abstracted lists of categories
of scientifc analysis. The practices of science represent what scientists do, and when taken together
represent the big picture of science. Although the origins, development, and many applications of
practice theory is much too involved to describe here, the NRC Framework includes an easy-to-
understand model of three spheres of activity that scientists engage in. A similar model is described
in Ford and Forman’s (2006) discussion of the “practice turn” in social theory.
In the NRC Framework version of the practices model (National Research Council, 2012, p. 45),
there is an investigating sphere in which scientists defne a problem or question and then plan and
conduct the investigation. There is a developing explanations and solutions sphere in which scientists
make sense of their observations and develop explanations for what they observe. And there is a third
sphere, an evaluating sphere, between the other two, in which scientists make critical judgments about
their own work and that of others. It is in that third sphere that they critique, argue, and analyze the
design of an investigation, the methods used, the soundness of the reasoning connecting observations
to theory, and the quality of the evidence used to make claims.
This three-sphere model also makes it clear what the purpose of scientifc argument is and what
the diference is between argument and explanation: Explanation belongs in the sensemaking sphere,
and argumentation belongs in the evaluation sphere. The model also makes clear what is meant by
“evidence.” After observations are made in the investigation sphere, they are used as evidence in the
developing explanations and solutions sphere, and they are evaluated in the evaluation sphere. It is
there where the quality of evidence must meet certain agreed-upon standards to be useful.
THEORIES
THE REAL WORLD
AND MODELS
Ask Questions Imagine

Observe ARGUE Reason
Experiment CRITIQUE Calculate
Measure Predict
ANALYZE
COLLECT DATA FORMULATE HYPOTHESES

TEST SOLUTIONS PROPOSE SOLUTIONS
Developing Explanations
Investigating Evaluating
and Solutions
Figure 26.1 The three spheres of activity for scientists and engineers.
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Reactions to the Framework and NGSS

Any attempt to defne what all students should know and be able to do in science – especially when
the recommendations are meant for the entire country – is bound to have its critics. The August
2018 issue of the Journal of Research in Science Teaching was devoted to such a critical review of NGSS.
The papers covered two broad themes: (1) conceptual framing: Do the NGSS appropriately articulate
values of science, engineering, and a democratic society important in educating students? And (2)
instructional enactment: How can the goals of the NGSS be achieved in classrooms to best support
student learning (Brown & Sadler, 2018)?
One of the papers argued that the description of evidence-based reasoning in NGSS was over-
simplifed and did not do justice to the complexity of issues that need to be considered when using
evidence, such as what counts as good evidence, how diferent evidence supports competing claims,
what constitutes sufcient evidence, or how evidence from multiple sources often accumulates over
time in support of a hypothesis (Duncan et al., 2018). Another paper raised the question of how to
give students opportunities to construct knowledge and meaning for themselves, i.e., grant them
epistemic agency, while at the same time teaching to standards that explicitly lay out canonical
knowledge and practices (Miller et al., 2018). A third wondered whether “asking questions” should
be the frst step in an investigation. It was suggested that a better description of that frst step would be
“problematizing,” in which discussions and debates take place that clarify what needs to be asked and
investigated (Phillips et al., 2018). A fourth paper raised the question of whether NGSS adequately
incorporates dimensions of social responsibility in engineering education or, instead, if the approach
that is presented is overly utilitarian, technocratic, and focused on the economic benefts of the work
engineers do. They proposed a model in which students are encouraged to consider the sociocul-
tural, historical, and political context of the problems they are trying to solve (Gunckel & Tolbert,
2018). Still another took issue with NGSS’s use of crosscutting concepts as an organizer for the vari-
ous disciplines. They proposed in its place a framework based on six styles of scientifc reasoning that
had earlier been elaborated by Crombie (1994): mathematical deduction, experimental exploration,
hypothetical modeling, categorization and classifcation, probabilistic reasoning, and historical-based
evolutionary reasoning.5 The authors argued that science is better characterized by its diversity than
by its unity and that portraying science as primarily about making hypothetico-deductive arguments
is simply incorrect. In fact, they claimed that there is no single algorithmic procedure for generating
scientifc knowledge (Osborne et al., 2018).
Two papers addressed the question of implementation: One looked at how a group of teachers
working as part of a professional learning community tried to make sense of NGSS and use it to plan
their tenth-grade biology course. What the teachers saw as the main goal of NGSS was to substi-
tute “skills” for content. This perceived reduction in content was difcult for them because content
teaching is what many of them said gave them their identity as science teachers. With respect to
modeling, the researchers reported that the teachers’ interpretation of models was limited to that of
physical representations. Teachers also made no attempt to incorporate engineering practices into
their lessons (Friedrichsen & Barnett, 2018). Another paper that focused on implementation found
that three-dimensional learning was a “heavy lift” for most teachers and their students and that devel-
oping classroom activities to “encourage three-dimensional engagement with phenomena is intense,
demanding work that must be done through partnerships with teachers and researchers, and includ-
ing both material supports and professional development” (Anderson et al., 2018).
Finally, one of the papers asked: How will we know if claims of alignment of assessment, cur-
riculum, and instruction to NGSS are valid? By what criteria will those alignment claims be judged?
As it is, many diferent approaches to alignment are being used, and the authors argued that better
agreement and clarity is needed on what the target is that we are aiming for and how to measure it
(Fulmer et al., 2018).
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George E. DeBoer
These papers do not begin to cover the wide range of comments and suggestions that have been
made on how to improve this latest iteration of national standards in science, but they do ofer a
glimpse into how difcult it is to create something that satisfes all tastes and all perspectives. A more
fundamental question, then, is whether the purpose they serve in the present sociocultural environ-
ment is valid and if such standards are needed at all. It is to that question that I will turn briefy in
this last section.
The Future of Content Standards in Science

It has been almost 40 years since “A Nation at Risk” was written, more than 30 years since the
publication of Science for All Americans, and nearly that long since Benchmarks for Science Literacy and
NSES appeared. Even Next Generation Science Standards is ten years old. It is reasonable to ask what
the impact of this standards-based approach to science education has been.
Effect on National Education Policy

From the perspective of national education policy, standards-based accountability and forced trans-
parency through public reporting has been codifed into federal law, while at the same time the
authority of states and local school districts for education has been confrmed, even strengthened.
States are mandated to have content and performance standards, but they are fully responsible for
which standards are chosen and for their implementation, as long as it can be argued that they prepare
students for higher education and the world of work. The federal government cannot interfere in
any way in those basic responsibilities. The hope that there could be a more centralized approach to
standards setting and oversight has come and gone.
As of today, there are 20 states and the District of Columbia that have adopted NGSS, represent-
ing 36% of the students in the country. Another 24 states have developed standards that are based
on recommendations in NGSS. They represent another 35% of the students in the country (NSTA,
n.d.). Whether more or fewer states will choose to use NGSS as their standards or modify them for
their own purposes is unknown at this time. Massachusetts is one state that adapted NGSS, both to
take advantage of the resources that NGSS provides and to better meet the needs and interests of
the citizens of Massachusetts (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education,
2019). Their performance expectations include not three but two dimensions: disciplinary core ideas
and science and engineering practices. Teachers are also asked to pay attention to the crosscutting
concepts, and each grade level from kindergarten to eighth grade includes a suggested theme, most
coming from the NGSS crosscutting concepts (change, patterns, wholes and parts, systems, cause and
efect, etc.). The state also gives socially relevant experiences more prominence: “Real applications
of science – and rapid developments in STE felds such as biotechnology, clean energy, medicine,
forensics, agriculture, or robotics – can promote student interest and demonstrate how the core
ideas in science are applied in real-world contexts” (p. 14). Along with conceptual understanding of
disciplinary core ideas and science and engineering practices, the applications of science are elevated
to the top level in their model and featured as the third of three interrelated components needed to
prepare students for citizenship, higher education, and the workplace. Finally, the state emphasizes
local control of which contexts are chosen.
Effect of Content Standards and NGSS on Classrooms and Teacher Behavior

As for the efect the new content standards have had on teachers and classrooms, the National Survey
of Science and Mathematics Education provides some information. A comparison of results from
their 2012 (Banilower et al., 2013) and 2018 surveys Banilower et al., 2018) shows very similar
842
results in teacher attitudes and practices on the two surveys. Although in many cases the two surveys
used diferent questions, there were enough questions used in common to make meaningful com-
parisons.6 Focusing just on middle school teacher responses to questions that were on both surveys
(2012 results followed by 2018 results), teachers thought that: most class periods should provide
opportunities for students to share their thinking and reasoning (95%, 92%); it is better for science
instruction to focus on ideas in depth, even if that means covering fewer topics (77%, 74%); and at
the beginning of instruction of a science idea, students should be provided with defnitions for new
scientifc vocabulary that will be used (78%, 72%). When teachers were asked how much emphasis
various instructional objectives would receive in their classes, the highest percentages were reported
for: understanding science concepts (80%, 77%), increasing students’ interest in science (57%, 31%),
and learning about real-life applications of science (45%, 29%). The fallof in the number of posi-
tive responses to these last two instructional objectives might raise questions about whether the
NGSS emphasis on students’ engagement in science practices has reduced an emphasis on real-life
applications and student interest. But, overall, there were only small diferences in how the teachers
responded on the two surveys, six years apart, and after NGSS had appeared.
Effect of Content Standards on Students

What about students? Is there a way to judge the impact of science content standards on students’
achievement in science? There are three assessment programs that use rigorous methodologies to
provide a national picture of students’ understanding of science: NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA. NAEP
has been reporting national results since 1969,7 PISA has been reporting international results since
2000, and TIMSS since 1995. Scores on NAEP – the only national test that carefully samples the US
population – have moved up and down only slightly from one testing to the next.8 Speaking of the
standards-based accountability that was in efect between 2002 and 2015, Jennings says: “The bottom
line was that the policy represented by NCLB did not produce signifcant increases in students’ tests
scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). If it had, many of its faults would
have been forgiven” (Jennings, 2020, p. 61). The same can be said for scores on PISA and TIMSS
(Serino, 2017). The only conclusion that can be reached about the efect of standards on student
learning – at least as measured by these national and international tests – is that there is no evidence
of efect one way or another. Scores have remained remarkably stable throughout the standards-based
accountability era.
Conclusion
What can be said about the impact of standards-based accountability from these limited observations
is, frst, that it is frmly embedded in law as national education policy. Perhaps its fnest feature is
that all students are expected to be held to the same high standards and that those expectations are
publicly known, as is information about how all subgroups perform on tests of those standards. What
efect standards have had on teacher attitudes and behaviors, or on student learning, is difcult to
say. From the assessments that are available, it seems to be very little. There are so many other factors
that afect what teachers do in the classroom and how that afects student learning that it is almost
impossible to isolate the efect of standards as a separate variable.
This is not difcult to understand. When we think about trying to infuence the teaching of sci-
ence in the United States, what is often forgotten is how large, complex, and decentralized the edu-
cational system is and how vast the scientifc enterprise is. From teacher preparation and professional
development, where states have only limited oversight, to classroom instruction, where they have
essentially none, local and individual teacher autonomy is the rule. The hope that standards might
be at the center of a rational systemic approach to science education can only be realized if all the
843
George E. DeBoer
autonomous participants – teachers, teacher educators, assessment and curriculum developers – agree
to the plan. That’s a lot to ask when no one has central authority. It is no wonder that standards have
not translated into student outcomes. Student learning is far too removed in the causal chain.
As for the feld of science itself, there is simply too much to teach. This has been acknowledged
throughout the entire period of standards-based reform. Beginning in 1983, and even well before
that, there have been calls to reduce the number of topics taught by making the content more the-
matic and conceptual. But suggestions to integrate the teaching of science, mathematics, and tech-
nology – and even to include links to the social sciences and humanities – seem to increase what is
taught, not reduce it. It is a truism that even broad themes need to be elaborated with examples from
multiple contexts for them to be meaningful. When we add in crosscutting concepts, science and
engineering practices, applications of science, and the sociocultural context in which science takes
place, it is easy to see how “less is more” becomes “too much.”
Not only is there the issue of the vastness of the teaching and scientifc enterprises, which afects
the feasibility of content standards having an impact on the system, but there is also the question
of variability in how science is done. When considering how to describe the varieties of scientifc
knowledge as part of the planning and teaching of a liberal program in the sciences at the University
of Chicago, Joseph Schwab said: “Presentation of a taxonomy of scientifc enquiries would under
any circumstance be an act of presumption. Where the taxonomy is for a special purpose, careful
statement of limitations in validity are all the more demanded” (Schwab, 1978, p. 80). For Schwab, it
was a question of humility in the face of responsibility to lead. Certainly, there are many good ways
to defne and to teach science. Is there a best way?
NGSS is ten years old. Is it time to start thinking about a new version of standards that states could
adopt or adapt, or do states already have sufcient models to guide their own standards development?
There are visionary statements such as Science for All Americans and the Framework for K–12 Science
Education. There are standards documents such as Benchmarks for Science Literacy, with its interdisci-
plinary approach to preparing students for citizenship; the National Education Science Education
Standards, with its focus on science inquiry; and the Next Generation Science Standards, with its
emphasis on the practices of science. Perhaps it is time to consider the job of creating national-level
standards now complete and let the states continue to build their own standards from what currently
exists. Massachusetts – as well as other states– has created a curriculum framework that fts the needs
and desires of the state very well.
Even the National Research Council’s 2008 report found it difcult to wholeheartedly support
such standards development (National Research Council, 2008). Referring specifcally to how the
courts view content standards, the report said: “The courts are interested in citizenship and the broad
parameters of knowledge and understanding that young people need. They might be infuenced by
common standards to inform the debate, but the specifcs are unlikely to shape court rulings” (p. 72).
This statement could apply just as well to members of the US Congress, classroom teachers, and the
public. There are lots of ways to educate for informed citizenship; keeping that as the end goal is
what seems to matter most to people.
The broad development of informed citizens is, then, the direction that current federal legislation
has moved us. The Every Student Succeeds Act grants maximum freedom to the states to defne
what students should know and be able to do in science (and other subjects as well), and it insists on
states having multiple and varied methods to assess how well the schools are meeting their obligation
to students. More realistic goals, new ways to measure student growth, and a less rigid approach to
accountability is what the law calls for. As noted, a state can even use a standardized college admis-
sion test such as the SAT or ACT as part of their package of assessments for measuring student com-
petence and school quality. This suggests that there is little appetite in the country for high-stakes
testing, especially when a single test is used to judge a student, school, or teacher. A diverse package
of assessments has more appeal. Academic content standards will continue to provide states a highly
844
visible benchmark against which to judge their schools’ success in educating all students for citizen-
ship, higher education, and the world of work, but putting pressure on students and teachers to get
higher scores on tests aligned to highly specifed content standards may be counterproductive and
seems to be out of favor for now.
Science for All Americans was written in response to pleas from the 1983 National Commission
on Excellence in Education and the National Science Board to help reform the educational system;
Benchmarks and NSES came about because of the desire of President George H.W. Bush for national
content standards; NGSS was undertaken because the development of the Common Core State
Standards in mathematics and English language arts during the Obama presidency seemed to present
a new opportunity for common standards in science to be developed and used across the country. It
is almost certain that any future attempt to precisely defne what students should know will be driven
by a similar sense of momentary urgency.
In the meantime, there will continue to be a need to clearly express what is most important for
students to learn in all academic felds. Things are moving fast in this society, and students should be
aware of and able to attend to the transformations that are occurring as they are happening. The cur-
rent pandemic and the threat of even more viruses being transmitted from animals to humans, in part
due to the equally threatening environmental changes that we are experiencing and causing, are two
powerful examples of how our technological capabilities, scientifc knowledge, and ethical systems
intersect. Science teachers need to be broadly educated so they can adapt quickly to these changes,
not be locked into a structure that needlessly constrains them. If fve or ten years from now it seems
right to try again, the standards that are created will have to be highly fexible and, as is true for all
educational objectives – regardless of how they are formatted – they will have to be consistent with
the political realities and societal needs at that time. If they are too narrow in scope and too bound
to the traditional disciplines, they will not meet the requirements of true scientifc and technological
literacy the society needs.
As education researchers committed to a scientifc way of thinking, it should be obvious that there
is scant evidence to support the idea that highly specifed standards and prescribed approaches to
teaching science improve student learning in a measurable way. Perhaps this is understandable. It’s not
just that current science content standards add specifcity to what should be taught but that they pres-
ent a highly complex, even utopian (Tyack & Cuban, 1995) vision of what good education should
be. Complexity of vision has been often cited as a main reason why teachers have difculty accepting,
perhaps even grasping, what is being recommended, what it should look like in the classroom, and
how it is to be implemented (Gabel, 2006, p. 249).
For a very long time, there has been a dominant paradigm of science teaching that emphasizes a
conceptual understanding of the physical world. Teachers think of themselves as efective if they can
make complex ideas clear to their students. This paradigm is supported by textbook publishers and
assessment developers, as well as by college and university faculty who expect students to come to
them with a basic conceptual understanding of the physical world. To ask teachers to fundamentally
change how they look at education and what they do in the classroom is to ask a lot (Tyack & Cuban,
1995, p. 9).
Therefore, before there are any further attempts to develop new standards in science, several
questions should be addressed. The most basic is whether the agreement that states made with local
schools – and that the federal government made with states – to focus on educational outcomes
rather than inputs needs to be revisited. It may simply be too difcult to get an accurate measure
of, or understanding of, school (and student) outcomes given how many variables may be afecting
them. Outcome measures are also prone to abuse, sometimes because of excessive attention paid
to teaching to the test or by manipulating student outcome data. Perhaps paying more attention to
inputs such as human and physical resources would be a better measure of school quality. Afterall,
the quality of colleges and universities is based largely on the quality of their human and physical
845
George E. DeBoer
resources, not the outcomes of their graduates. If it is still determined that output evaluation is the
best, policymakers should ask if they are looking at the right outputs. Maybe changes in teacher
behavior or improvements in student learning are too complex to link to any specifc structural orga-
nization of learning goals. Perhaps it is enough that content standards require the goals of a school or
state to be made publicly available so that they can then be held up for all to see and so that they can
act as a public record of what all students are expected to receive instruction on, regardless of who
those students are.
Finally, there is one more question that was alluded to earlier, and that is the question of the grain
size and specifcity of the learning goals. How can learning goals (and accompanying assessments) be
described in such a way to provide both needed guidance but also latitude in their implementation?
The body of knowledge in science, its methods, its applications, its cultural context, and its history
are enormous. How can educators be given the fexibility to choose science principles, contexts,
and applications without being unduly constrained and yet ensure that students will have a valu-
able experience in the science classroom? If the end goal is to educate for informed citizenship, the
learning goals that students are held accountable for may need to be more broadly stated than they
currently are.
There are many more questions like this that need to be answered, and based on this review of the
history of standards development in the United States, answering questions like these should be the
next step before any additional standards development takes place.
Notes
1 Additional funding would soon follow from the Mellon Foundation.
2 The president was referring to the creation of Project 2061 in 1985 and the publication of “Science for All
Americans” in 1989.
3 https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-105/pdf/STATUTE-105-Pg305.pdf#page=1
4 The secretary of education had the authority to approve or disapprove a state’s plan but not the authority to
require a state to include or delete any specifc elements of its content standards or to use specifc assessment
instruments or items. If a state did not develop its own content standards or assessments, it could choose one
from another state that the secretary had already approved. The legislation emphasized that: “Nothing in this
part shall be construed to authorize an ofcer or employee of the Federal Government to mandate, direct,
or control a State, local educational agency, or school’s specifc instructional content or student performance
standards and assessments, opportunity-to-learn standards or strategies, curriculum, or program of instruc-
tion, as a condition of eligibility to receive funds under this part” (IASA, p. 11).
5 Joseph Schwab made a similar proposal for teaching the diversity of scientifc knowledge to undergraduate
students in Science, Curriculum, and Liberal Education (1978) when he was at the University of Chicago. His
list included taxonomic science, measurement science, causal science, and relational (analogical) science. The
paper had appeared in a slightly diferent form in The Journal of Education, 3, 1949, pp. 245–266.
6 Horizon also surveyed teachers in 2000. Those results can be seen at http://www.horizon-research.com/
reports.
7 The frst NAEP exam that was used during the science standards era was administered in 1996, and the
framework for that test was developed in 1991. The 1991 framework was the frst to be based on reports that
had been issued during the 1980s following the release of “A Nation at Risk” in 1983. The framework com-
mittee also took advantage of recently released eforts regarding what all students should know and be able to
do in science. It mentions AAAS’s “Science for All Americans”; NSTA’s Scope, Sequence and Coordination
Project; and the 1983 report of the National Science Board, “Educating Americans for the 21st Century” as
having infuenced its selection of content and item types for the 1996 assessment. It also acknowledged that
international tests such as TIMSS and PISA infuenced the design of the 1996 test (National Assessment Gov-
erning Board, 1999). That assessment framework would not be revised again until it was revised for the 2009
test and then used at least through the 2019 administration of NAEP Science. The 2009 NAEP framework
was based on both “Benchmarks for Science Literacy” and NGSS.
8 Results from the 2019 NAEP science test that were reported in late spring of 2021 showed a similar pattern.
Comparing results from the 2019 administration of NAEP to scores in 2015, the average science score was
lower for grade 4 and not signifcantly diferent for grades 8 and 12.
846
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27
RESEARCH ON TEACHING,
LEARNING, AND ASSESSMENT
OF NATURE OF SCIENCE
Introduction
This chapter provides a systematic review of research on the teaching, learning, and assessment of
nature of science (NOS) in science education since the time of the publication of Volume II of the
Handbook of Research on Science Education (Lederman & Abell, 2014) – the eight-year period from
2013 to 2020. Additionally, this chapter builds on, combines, and updates the reviews of empiri-
cal research in two separate chapters of Volume II of the handbook on NOS teaching and learning
(Lederman & Lederman, 2014) and NOS assessment (Abd-El-Khalick, 2014). Our aim here is not to
provide a comprehensive review of this domain since its inception in the mid-1950s, though emer-
gent trends, patterns, and fndings from the present review are contextualized and interpreted from
within the overall historical development of NOS research. The long-lived and extensive research
eforts on NOS in our feld up to the frst years of the second decade of the 21st century have been
well documented and summarized in several reviews of the literature (e.g., Abd-El-Khalick, 2014;
Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000a; Deng et al., 2011; Lederman, 1992, 2007; Lederman & Leder-
man, 2014; Meichtry, 1993).
Sixty-fve years after it started in earnest, NOS research remains a vigorous domain around the
globe. The past eight years witnessed intense articulation, with several important and consequential
research eforts. As detailed in this chapter, a close examination of the literature reveals a number of
overall shifts within and beyond established patterns and threads of NOS research. First, interven-
tions aimed at improving NOS understandings among teachers and students represent the leading
category among studies in this review. Noteworthy here is that typical, past arguments about how
best to teach NOS have all but subsided. Almost all researchers now clearly acknowledge and ground
their efort to improve learners’ NOS understandings in the explicit-refective (E-R) NOS teach-
ing framework (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000a). Importantly, this framework is now increas-
ingly realized in an admirable array of diverse, innovative, and multifaceted instructional sequences,
pedagogies, and contexts. Also, interventions now mostly count in weeks and months compared to
the short-lived ones that were common in the feld. Still, there is a severe shortage of randomized
controlled interventions of the type one would anticipate seeing in such a mature feld of research.
Second, NOS assessment has stabilized into a continuation of framework and instrumentation pat-
terns articulated by Abd-El-Khalick (2014), with very few systematic eforts to develop new NOS
assessment approaches or instruments. Yet, studies that assessed and characterized conceptions of
NOS among one group of learners or another – literally, from kindergarten (KG) through working
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-32 850

Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of Nature of Science
scientists – constitute the second-largest category of empirical work in the last eight years. A note-
worthy shift is that 60% of the latter studies went beyond the sole assessment of participant concep-
tions to examine relationships between NOS conceptions and a host of other constructs, concepts,
and contexts, as well as – to a much lesser extent – practices or actions. Third, a decidedly growing
category of NOS research includes examinations of the manner, accuracy, and/or extent of NOS
representations in national science education frameworks, curricula, and/or standards, as well as in
commercial science textbooks and other instructional resources. These studies now are as prevalent
as those that assessed NOS conceptions and refect a growing realization and concern about the
substantive impact (mostly unfavorable, the studies show) of the treatment of NOS in curricula and
instructional resources on achieving much-desired NOS learning goals.
While vigorous, there is much to be desired of a domain as established and mature as NOS
research. We conclude our review with articulating crucial issues, even shortcomings, with trends
in this domain and outlining key directions for future research. The issues come into sharp focus
when lessons gleaned from this review are considered from a historical perspective and juxtaposed
on the failure to help citizens achieve functional forms of scientifc literacy. This failure, which has
been anticipated by researchers and reinforced by data over the decades (e.g., Bauer & Falade, 2014;
DeBoer, 2000; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016; National Sci-
ence Board, 2016, 2020; Shamos, 1995), was made crystal clear and ever more urgent with the onset
and current escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we frst argue for the need to shift
NOS research from a current seeming negative to a positive heuristic by leveraging the distinction
inspired by the work of Hans Reichenbach between the context of discovery and the context of
justifcation (Giere, 1988). Second, we advance that a current trend to continue scouring the rich
literatures on the history, philosophy, and sociology of science and expanding the list of NOS areas
that “should” be addressed in precollege classrooms is counterproductive. Instead, similar to the
approach in research on socioscientifc issues (SSI) (see Zeidler, 2014), we need to direct our research
eforts to identify those NOS areas, constructs, or aspects that are highly correlated with behaviors that
are robustly informed by science, such as mask wearing during a global pandemic. In other words,
the feld of NOS research is at a juncture where we need to start holding ourselves accountable for
observable outcomes where science matters most for the well-being of the people whom we serve
best by empowering them to achieve and demonstrate functional forms of scientifc literacy.
Inclusion Criteria
To be eligible for inclusion in this review, literature related to NOS teaching, learning, and assess-
ment had to meet a set of criteria. First, given the long-lived and established nature of NOS research,
we limited our review to empirical studies published in rigorous, peer-refereed journals. Thus, our
review excluded research reported in theses and dissertations, books and book chapters, confer-
ence papers and proceedings, internet repositories, and various forms of monographs not published
in such journals. Drawing on peer-refereed journal publications aimed to ensure the rigor of the
research consulted and robustness of our conclusions. We defned rigorous, peer-refereed journals as
those currently included across major citation indexes, namely, Scopus® (Elsevier) and Web of Sci-
ence® (Clarivate Analytics, including the Social Science Citation Index). The studies reviewed here
were published in three dozen journals, including those solely focused on science education (e.g.,
CBE-Life Sciences Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, and Science Education), and journals
with broader foci (e.g., Educational Sciences – Theory & Practice, Professional Development in Education,
and Teaching and Teacher Education). A focus on empirical research also meant that we did not review
theoretical, conceptual, or position NOS papers. Our reasoning was that major developments in
theorizing or conceptualizing the construct of NOS and/or NOS research would be realized in the
framing of empirical works in the feld and, thus, will be captured and reviewed. Second, as noted
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earlier, this review included studies that were published between 2013 and 2020 – excluding studies
published in 2013 and already captured in the reviews by Lederman and Lederman (2014) and Abd-
El-Khalick (2014) in Volume II of the handbook. Third, even though a serious limitation, we only
consulted literature with full text – as compared, for example, to an abstract or executive summary –
available in English. Even with these strict inclusion criteria, we admitted a total of 132 empirical
studies for review.
NOS Research Landscape: A Vigorous, Shifting, Global Domain

Researchers from around the globe continue to vigorously engage with NOS. Each year in the
review period saw the publication of one to two dozen empirical, refereed studies with larger num-
bers observed in the last three years (2018–2020). Studies were conducted or drew on participants
from 34 nations in every inhabited continent. Slightly more than one-third of the studies (36%)
were based in the United States, followed by 21% in the Middle East (especially Israel, Lebanon,
and Turkey), 19% in Europe, 13% in Asian and Southeast Asian nations, and slightly less than 4%
each in African and South American nations and Canada. Moreover, researchers have assessed and/
or attempted to promote more informed NOS understandings, or worked to improve instructional
practices related to NOS, among learners and instructors across the formal learning continuum from
KG (e.g., Bilican et al., 2020) and elementary school (e.g., Koerber et al., 2015) through graduate
school (Myers & Abd-El-Khalick, 2016) and university faculty (e.g., Wan et al., 2013), as well as
among practicing scientists (Woitkowski & Wurmbach, 2019) and citizens (e.g., Price & Lee, 2013).
Yet, there were dominant patterns in terms of the studies’ contexts and goals.
To discern patterns and characterize the landscape of NOS research over the past eight years, we
examined the reviewed studies in terms of goals, participants, and educational settings and/or levels.
For instance, we coded studies by whether they targeted learners (e.g., elementary students, college
students, citizens) or instructors (e.g., secondary teachers, college faculty); and whether they aimed
to merely characterize or to improve learner NOS conceptions, or impact instructors’ planning or
classroom practice; as well as by targeted educational level (e.g., elementary, secondary, college) and
context (e.g., preservice or in-service teacher education). Of 132 studies, 21 were coded as represent-
ing two, and 10 as addressing three, contexts of study. For instance, Afalo (2014) set out to improve
NOS understandings among preservice elementary and secondary teachers. We coded this study as
two instances of an intervention that addressed NOS conceptions among two groups of teachers,
one for prospective elementary and the other for prospective secondary teachers. Yeh et al.’s (2019)
study was coded as three instances because the authors analyzed representations of NOS in Taiwan’s
national curriculum guidelines at the elementary, lower secondary, and upper secondary levels. This
fner-grained analysis resulted in coding the 132 studies as 173 instances. Yet, the nuanced emergent
patterns remained consistent for the two pools of coded works, which we will refer to as “studies” in
the following sections. These patterns are presented in Figures 27.1 and 27.2.
NOS research remains predominantly focused within formal educational settings. Of 132 stud-
ies, less than a handful were undertaken in informal learning settings (e.g., Bilican et al., 2020; Price
& Lee, 2013; Schellinger et al., 2019). Also, NOS research continues to be primarily centered on
elementary and secondary education. Of the settings in which NOS research was undertaken, 90%
addressed elementary (23.5%) or secondary (66.5%) students and/or teachers. Studies at the sec-
ondary level that reported the targeted grade level(s) were split almost evenly between lower (e.g.,
middle or junior high schools) and upper (e.g., high schools) secondary grades. Studies at the col-
lege level, including undergraduate and graduate programs, accounted for 8.2% of all settings, fol-
lowed by a distant third category that included KG and early childhood education (ECE) classrooms
(1.8%). It is admirable that a few researchers have launched recent eforts to address kindergarteners’
NOS conceptions (Alan & Erdoğan, 2018) or enable KG and ECE teachers to incorporate NOS in
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their teaching (Akerson et al., 2019; Bilican et al., 2020). The small number of the latter studies is
understandable given the nature of the NOS content and grade levels targeted by our reform eforts.
However, it is concerning that six decades after the launch of this domain, research on teaching
about NOS on the other end of the science education continuum remains dismal. Only 3 of 132
studies examined the impact on student learning of NOS interventions embedded in college science
courses (Eshach et al., 2013; Grifard et al., 2013; Schussler et al., 2013). As was the case more than
two decades ago, the task of developing teachers’ NOS conceptions continues to largely fall on the
shoulders of science teacher educators, who already struggle with addressing the demands of highly
regulated and ever expanding curricular requirements and domains (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman,
2000a). Future teachers continue to join preparation programs with, at best, limited NOS under-
standings, having missed opportunities to learn about this domain in the context most conducive to
developing robust conceptions of the workings of science, namely, college science content courses.
Thus, as evident in this chapter, teacher educators are not able to home in on helping teachers expe-
rience, internalize, and implement efective NOS instruction. Instead, they are left with the dual
agenda of improving preservice and in-service teachers’ NOS conceptions, as well as developing their
pedagogies and instructional strategies for efective NOS teaching. Indeed, over the past eight years,
67% of all interventions involving precollege teachers aimed to improve teacher NOS understand-
ings or examine how these understandings interact with other variables. Only 33% of interventions
attempted to improve teacher NOS instructional practices. This dual agenda compromises the band-
width of science teacher educators to impact precollege NOS teaching. There is need for science
educators to continue to reach out to, and collaborate with, scientists toward making NOS teaching
and learning a higher priority in college science courses.
The reviewed NOS research fell in four broad categories (see Figures 27.1 and 27.2). First, inter-
vention studies have, by far, dominated the past eight years: 52% of all studies included an interven-
tion designed to promote NOS understandings among precollege (13%) or college students (2%),
or improve NOS understandings and/or instruction among precollege teachers (23%) and college
instructors (2%). Within this frst category, 69% of all interventions were directed at precollege
teachers and 31% at learners, from kindergartners to undergraduate college students. Secondary
teachers – equally split between lower and upper secondary grades, were most often targeted by
researchers (59% of all interventions with instructors), followed by elementary teachers (23%) and a
small minority of KG and ECE teachers (3%). Among precollege teachers, the balance of interven-
tions titled toward practicing or in-service (59%) compared to prospective or preservice teachers
(41%). In terms of aim, 45% of all interventions sought to promote more informed NOS under-
standings among learners or teachers (71% and 33% of all interventions with learners and teachers,
respectively). Next, in addition to improving NOS conceptions, another 33% of all interventions
gauged the relationship between these conceptions and other domains, such as secondary school stu-
dents’ intention to engage with pro-environmental behaviors (Herman, 2018), in-service elementary
teachers’ goals for teaching science (Anderson & Moeed, 2017), and teachers’ planning to teach (e.g.,
Demirdogen & Uzuntiryaki-Kondakci, 2016) or rationales for teaching about NOS (e.g., Leden &
Hansson, 2019). Finally, 22% of all interventions were those that aimed to impact teachers’ actual
NOS instruction (e.g., Gandolf, 2020; Mulvey et al., 2016). In this regard, it should be noted that
interventions directed at teachers were equally split three ways among those aimed at improving
teacher NOS understandings, examining relationships between improved understandings and other
areas, and improving teachers’ NOS instruction.
As Figures 27.1 and 27.2 show, the next two broad NOS research categories were equally preva-
lent, each comprising 23% of all reviewed studies. The second category included descriptive and/
or correlational studies, which were evenly split in aiming to only characterize participants’ NOS
understandings (53%) and also examining relationships between the assessed NOS conceptions and
other variables or areas. Examples of the latter include middle school students’ inquiry skills (e.g.,
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Kremer et al., 2014), undergraduate college students’ NOS conceptions compared across cultural
contexts (Šorgo et al., 2014), preservice elementary teachers’ acceptance of evolutionary theory
(e.g., Coleman et al., 2015), and preservice lower secondary teachers’ self-efcacy for science teach-
ing (Kelly & Erduran, 2019). Of these descriptive studies, 45% were focused on precollege students
(29% being secondary school students), 8% on other learners (practicing scientists or citizens), 38%
on preservice and in-service teachers, and 8% on college instructors. In the third broad category
were studies that examined the inclusion, prevalence, and/or accuracy of representations of NOS
areas, domains, and/or aspects in national curricula or curriculum guidelines (56% of all studies in
this category), commercial science textbooks (34%), and other instructional resources (9%). Of the
analyses, 78% were applied to secondary school curricula, textbooks, or instructional resources, and
22% to elementary school documents. The fourth and fnal broad category included research on
NOS assessment and was, by far, the least prevalent, comprising 6% of all studies. Some of the studies
developed new quantitative NOS assessment instruments for elementary (Koerber et al., 2015) or
secondary school students (Harrison et al., 2015; Lin et al., 2013). The other studies examined a new
approach to analyzing responses generated from the Views of Nature of Science (VNOS) question-
naire, which was developed by Lederman et al. (2002) (Peters-Burton et al., 2019), or gauged the
impact of type of NOS assessment item on students’ responses (Kruse et al., 2019).
The aforementioned patterns point to major and decided shifts in NOS research. First, research
on assessment and the development of new instruments has slowed down. Consider, for instance, the
eight-year period immediately preceding the current review, 1993–2012. This period saw the formal
development of 12 new NOS assessment instruments, seven forced-choice and fve open-ended
(Abd-El-Khalick, 2014), compared to three new forced-choice instruments developed between 2013
and 2020. Currently, researchers seem to believe they have the tools needed to gauge learner NOS
conceptions and changes therein brought about by interventions. While a few issues linger (see next),
the rush to develop NOS instruments – more than two dozen in the 45 years preceding the current
review – has considerably slowed down. In sharp contrast, research that examined science standards,
curricula, and/or textbooks for treatment of NOS has grown rapidly to account for 23% of studies
reviewed here. When Abd-El-Khalick et al. (2008) published their investigation into NOS represen-
tations in high school chemistry textbooks, there hardly had been any such eforts over the course
of the preceding fve decades of NOS research. Up to that point, a few relevant studies had analyzed
science textbooks for their representations of broad scientifc literacy themes (e.g., Chiappetta et al.,
1991) or historical accuracy of treatment of specifc science concepts (e.g., Niaz, 1998; Rodriguez
& Niaz, 2002). This is a signifcant development as researchers seem to have come to terms with the
futility of eforts to impact NOS learning on any large scale as long as science standards, curricula,
and/or textbooks, which heavily impact teaching and learning in precollege science classrooms,
prevail in paying limited attention to NOS, at best, or explicitly propagating naïve representations
of NOS, at worst (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2017). Eforts to scrutinize and publicize the status and, in
some cases, failures of curricula and instructional resources to align with the long-pursued goal of
developing learner NOS understandings toward achieving scientifc literacy are crucial. These eforts
might compel developers and publishers to pay due attention to addressing and promoting NOS in
science standards, curricula, and/or textbooks.
Six decades in the making, the prevalence of naïve understandings about NOS among a major-
ity of precollege students and teachers, as well as college learners is well documented in the feld
of NOS research. We have prolifc explications of ideas about NOS held by learners and teachers
across the educational continuum, which necessitate and enable action. Thus, it was most welcome
to see yet another major shift in research on NOS, namely, a departure from continuing to “admire
the problem”, a move away from the sole focus on characterizing NOS conceptions among study
participants. Indeed, if we consider studies that involved learners and teachers over the past eight
years, only 16% were solely focused on assessing NOS conceptions. The larger majority, 84% of
854
these studies, either examined how NOS conceptions were related to other domains (14%), reported
on interventions aimed to enhance NOS understandings (54%), or intervened to improve teaching
about NOS (16%). The assessment of participant NOS views in these studies was not the sole focus
but a necessary part of the broader aim of investigations. In the following sections, we take a closer
look at studies in each of the aforementioned four broad categories of research. We frst turn, though,
to examining the state of the very construct of NOS.
NOS Construct
Science educators have been working on NOS for precollege classrooms in earnest since the mid-
1950s. Thus, there is a voluminous literature on conceptualizing NOS as a construct for science
education (for an overview, see Abd-El-Khalick, 2012a). An early inclusion of afective and attitudi-
nal elements under NOS (e.g., interest in science, scientifc attitudes, attitudes toward science) was
frmly abandoned by the mid-1970s (Abd-El-Khalick, 2014). The 1960s saw the onset of what is best
described as an “aspects approach to NOS”: a set of descriptors signaling NOS domains and ideas
that science education researchers deemed relevant and accessible to precollege students (see Table
27.1). A largely overlapping, albeit not identical, set of NOS aspects has emerged over a fve-decade
period to refect convergence or consensus among science educators, and provided a basis for NOS
research and development eforts. Consensus has emerged through several approaches: analyzing his-
tory, philosophy, and sociology of science (HPSS) literatures (e.g., Abd-El-Khalick et al., 1998; Deng
et al., 2011; Hodson, 1991; McComas, 2020a), empirically identifying points of agreement about
NOS in global science education reform documents (e.g., McComas & Olson, 1998), develop-
ment of national reform documents (e.g., AAAS, 1990), and establishing agreement among experts
(Osborne et al., 2003). The consensus NOS framework and key aspects have been consistently
deployed and emphasized, with some nuance and variation, across reform documents around the
globe for close to four decades now (e.g., AAAS, 1990, 1993, 2001; Council of Ministers of Educa-
tion, Canada, 1997; Millar & Osborne, 1998; NRC, 1996; NGSS Lead States, 2013b; NSTA, 1982).
No such major reform documents have come out since 2013. Lederman and Lederman (2014) and
Lederman (2019), however, noted that variations in contextualizing NOS in reform documents have
led to confusion or lack of clarity about the construct. These include the NRC’s (1996) blurring the
distinction between NOS and inquiry, and the implication that NOS belongs to scientifc practices
due to how NOS aspects appear in the NGSS Lead States (2013a) standards (see McComas & Nouri,
2016). Yet, close examination of domains and ideas under “history and nature of science” in the
NRC (1996) standards and NGSS Lead States (2013b) Appendix H reveals, again, a largely consistent
set of consensus NOS aspects.
Researchers draw on overlapping sets of consensus NOS aspects from several sources, includ-
ing, among others, Abd-El-Khalick et al. (1998, 2008), Driver et al. (1996), Lederman et al.
(2002), McComas (1996, 2020b), and Osborne et al. (2003). Table 27.1 outlines one such set
adapted from Abd-El-Khalick et al. (2008). Importantly, having emerged from works of sci-
ence education researchers and educators, the consensus framework is not a formal philosophical
stance or theory of science. It is silent on high-level philosophical controversies and – like reform
documents, leverages the pragmatic irrelevance of these controversies to precollege students and
scientifc literacy. Also, reform documents (e.g., AAAS, 2001) and researchers have generated
models showing interconnections among NOS aspects (e.g., model underlying the VNOS – C
in Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000b). Yet, owing to its nature, researchers vary in their selec-
tion of, and focus on, particular NOS aspects when deploying a consensus framework. They
range from focusing on a subset of two (e.g., Papadouris& Constantinou, 2014) or three aspects
(e.g., Michel & Neumann, 2016) to adopting fuller sets (e.g., Cofré et al., 2018; Eymur, 2019;
Schussler et al., 2013).
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Table 27.1 An Illustrative Example of Consensus NOS Aspects
NOS Aspect Core Elements

Empirical Scientifc claims are derived from, and/or consistent with, observations of natural
phenomena. Scientists, however, do not have “direct” access to most natural phenomena:
Their observations are almost always fltered through the human perceptual apparatus,
mediated by the assumptions underlying the functioning of “scientifc” instruments and/or
interpreted from within elaborate theoretical frameworks.
Inferential There is a crucial distinction between observations and inferences. Observations are
descriptive statements about natural phenomena that are accessible to the senses (or
extensions of the senses) and about which observers can reach consensus with relative ease
(e.g., objects released above ground level tend to fall to the ground). Inferences, on the other
hand, are statements about phenomena that are not directly accessible to the senses (e.g.,
objects tend to fall to the ground because of “gravity”). Scientifc constructs, such as gravity,
are inferential in the sense that they can only be accessed and/or measured through their
manifestations or efects.
Creative Science is not an entirely rational or systematic activity. Generating scientifc knowledge involves
human creativity in the sense of scientists inventing explanations and theoretical entities. The
creative NOS, coupled with its inferential nature, entails that scientifc entities (atoms, force
felds, species, etc.) are functional theoretical models rather than faithful copies of “reality”.
Theory-driven Scientists’ theoretical and disciplinary commitments, beliefs, prior knowledge, training,
and expectations infuence their work. These background factors afect scientists’ choice
of problems to investigate and methods of investigations, observations (both in terms of
what is and is not observed), and interpretation of these observations. This (sometimes
collective) individuality or mindset accounts for the role of theory in generating scientifc
knowledge. Contrary to common belief, science never starts with neutral observations. Like
investigations, observations are always motivated and guided by, and acquire meaning in light
of questions and problems derived from, certain theoretical perspectives.
Tentative Scientifc knowledge is reliable and durable, but never absolute or certain. All categories of
knowledge (“facts”, theories, laws, etc.) are subject to change. Scientifc claims change as
new evidence, made possible through conceptual and technological advances, is brought to
bear; as extant evidence is reinterpreted in light of new or revised theoretical ideas; or due
to changes in the cultural and social spheres or shifts in the directions of established research
programs.
Myth of the This myth is often manifested in the belief that there is a recipe-like stepwise procedure
“Scientifc that typifes all scientifc practice. This notion is erroneous: There is no single “Scientifc
Method” Method” that would guarantee the development of infallible knowledge. Scientists do
observe, compare, measure, test, speculate, hypothesize, debate, create ideas and conceptual
tools, and construct theories and explanations. However, there is no single sequence of
(practical, conceptual, or logical) activities that will unerringly lead them to valid claims, let
alone “certain” knowledge.
Scientifc Scientifc theories are well-established, highly substantiated, internally consistent systems of
theories explanations, which (1) account for large sets of seemingly unrelated observations in several
felds of investigation, (2) generate research questions and problems, and (3) guide future
investigations. Theories are often based on assumptions or axioms and posit the existence of
non-observable entities. Thus, direct testing is untenable. Only indirect evidence supports
and validates theories: Scientists derive specifc testable predictions from theories and check
them against observations. An agreement between predictions and observations increases
confdence in the tested theory.
Scientifc laws In general, laws are descriptive statements of relationships among observable phenomena.
Theories, by contrast, are inferred explanations for observable phenomena or regularities
in those phenomena. Contrary to common belief, theories and laws are not hierarchically
related (the naïve view that theories become laws when “enough” supporting evidence is
garnered, or that laws have a higher status than theories). Theories and laws are diferent
kinds of knowledge, and one does not become the other. Theories are as legitimate a product
of science as laws.
856
NOS Aspect Elements

Social Scientifc knowledge is socially negotiated. This should not be confused with relativistic
dimensions of notions of science. This dimension specifcally refers to the constitutive values associated with
science established venues for communication and criticism within the scientifc enterprise, which
serve to enhance the objectivity of collectively scrutinized scientifc knowledge through
decreasing the impact of individual scientists’ idiosyncrasies and subjectivities. The double-
blind peer-review process used by scientifc journals is one aspect of the enactment of the
NOS dimensions under this aspect.
Social and Science is a human enterprise embedded and practiced in the context of a larger cultural
cultural milieu. Thus, science afects and is afected by various cultural elements and spheres,
embeddedness including social fabric, worldview, power structures, philosophy, religion, and political and
of science economic factors. Such efects are manifested, among other things, through public funding
for scientifc research and, in some cases, in the very nature of “acceptable” explanations of
natural phenomena (e.g., difering stories of hominid evolution have resulted from the advent
of feminist perspectives brought about by increased access, participation, and leadership of
females in the biosocial sciences).
Note: Adopted from Abd-El-Khalick et al. (2008).
The previous overview should not be taken to indicate full agreement about the construct. Surely,
key disagreements have been put to fnal rest, including the impossibility of teaching about NOS
given philosophical controversies, confating NOS with personal epistemologies, and equating NOS
with scientifc inquiry or practices. Yet, there are other conversations and healthy debates about
the “nature of NOS”. These include critiques of the consensus approach as too general in favor of
adopting domain-specifc philosophies of science, such as philosophy of biology (Rudolph, 2000) or
philosophy of chemistry (e.g., Cetin et al., 2010) to inform science curricula and NOS instruction.
Abd-El-Khalick (2012a), nonetheless, articulated how domain-specifc approaches fail to address the
issues identifed as supposedly plaguing domain-general models. Also, departing from Wittgenstein’s
(1973/1953) work in linguistics, some researchers (e.g., Irzik & Nola, 2011) have argued for replac-
ing the consensus approach with a family resemblance approach (FRA) as a broader, more inclusive
framework to capture additional NOS dimensions. Erduran and Dagher (2014a) reconceptualized
the FRA by drawing on science education research perspectives to outline educational applications
for the framework, now dubbed the Reconceptualized FRA-to-NOS, or RFN (Kaya & Erduran,
2016). The RFN outlines 11 broad, concentric NOS domains deemed relevant to precollege stu-
dents: aims and values, knowledge, practices, and methods and methodological rules; social values,
scientifc ethos, professional activities, and social certifcation and dissemination; and social organiza-
tions and interactions, political power structures, and fnancial systems. Abd-El-Khalick (2012a) and
Kampourakis (2016) have convincingly argued that domain-general and -specifc approaches to, as
well as the consensus and FRA/RFN frameworks for, conceptualizing the construct and identifying
NOS themes and domains relevant to precollege students are not incompatible or contradictory. Far
from it, these approaches and frameworks are compatible along explicit continuities and do not have
inconsistent or contradictory implications for NOS teaching and learning. Like with the consensus
framework, researchers use convergent instruments and open-ended approaches to assess learners’
NOS understandings, and focus on varied subsets of the RFN, ranging from a single domain (e.g.,
Kelly & Erduran, 2019) to the full array (e.g., Park et al., 2019). Importantly, unlike the consensus
framework, the FRA/RFN has yet to build the empirical support for developmental appropriateness
or helping learners develop functional scientifc literacy. The major issue with the RFN is that the
substantively expanded domains of NOS will multiply the complexity and challenges for realizing the
much-desired NOS learning goals, which have already proved elusive with a narrower set of critical
domains despite seven decades of intensive NOS research and development.
857
The consensus framework continues to overwhelmingly dominate NOS research. Of the studies
reviewed here, 76% explicitly adopted, and an additional 5% used without explicitly naming, a con-
sensus NOS framework. The FRA/RFN was used in 8% of the studies, mostly by the framework’s
originators (Akgun & Kaya, 2020; Erduran & Dagher, 2014b; Kaya & Erduran, 2016; Kaya et al.,
2019; Kelly & Erduran, 2019; Park, Wu et al., 2020; Yeh et al., 2019). The remaining 11% of studies
either did not articulate a framework or adopted an alternate framework, including a domain-specifc
approach (Herman, 2018; Herman, Olson et al., 2019), Nott and Wellington’s (1993) model, or ele-
ments from Hofer and Pintrich’s (1997) model.
Research on NOS Assessment
The Evolving Landscape of NOS Assessment

NOS assessment has had a long and rich history that launched in 1954 with the development of the
Science Attitude Questionnaire (Wilson, 1954). In his comprehensive review of this history, Abd-El-
Khalick (2014) documented the development and use of 32 unique instruments between 1954 and
2012. Of these, 28 instruments (87.5%) were convergent or forced-choice assessments with Likert-
type, multiple-choice, and/or agree/disagree items. Only 4 of 32 instruments (12.5%) were open-
ended or generative. As with this review, Abd-El-Khalick only admitted unique instruments that
were rigorously developed and validated, to the exclusion of instruments that amounted to the adap-
tation, modifcation, recombination, and/or translation of unique instruments. More telling than
the number and type of instruments, nonetheless, was the pattern of their use by researchers who
examined NOS conceptions. There was a major shift in the use of forced-choice versus open-ended
NOS instruments over nearly six decades of empirical NOS research (Abd-El-Khalick, 2014, Fig-
ure 27.1). The four decades from the mid-1950s to mid-1990s saw the exclusive use of forced-choice
instruments in all except a handful of studies. In the late 1990s, the use of open-ended instruments
and variations on these instruments picked up considerably. Even though researchers continued to
use forced-choice instruments, by the early 2000s, open-ended instruments were consistently used
in about half of the studies, and by 2010, more than 65% of empirical studies were deploying open-
ended NOS assessment instruments.
Instances of use by researchers of NOS instruments, whether forced-choice or open-ended, is
quite telling. Yet, enumerating instances does not fully capture the intricacies that might underlie
researchers’ decisions to use a certain instrument or one type of instrument over another. To further
examine patterns of NOS assessments use, Abd-El-Khalick (2014) created an “index of use” score to
account for the use of an instrument by researchers other than its original developer(s) and the lon-
gevity of this use beyond an instrument’s initial development. The index revealed that three instru-
ments accounted for more than 50% of all instances of using the 32 NOS assessments between 1954
and 2012. These were two forced-choice instruments – Test on Understanding Science (TOUS)
(Cooley & Klopfer, 1961) and Views of Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS) (Aikenhead et al.,
1989) – and the open-ended VNOS (Lederman et al., 2002). Of the family of VNOS questionnaires
(Forms A through E), the VNOS – C (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 1998) was, by far, the open-ended
instrument most used by researchers. Additionally, when these three instruments are considered, the
shift from using forced-choice to open-ended assessments of NOS conceptions becomes even more
pronounced (Abd-El-Khalick, 2014, Figure 27.2).
Substantive reasons underlie the pronounced shift toward using open-ended assessments at the
expense of forced-choice variants. Aikenhead et al. (1987) noted that, by their very psychometric
nature, forced-choice instruments are theoretically driven. The model underlying the development
of an instrument has to be anchored in certain theoretical perspectives on philosophy of science.
858
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Research on NOS assessment Descriptive studies: Assess Intervention studies: Improve Analysis of curricula,
NOS conceptions, relate to NOS conceptions, impact textbooks, resources
other dimensions NOS teaching
Elementary Students Secondary Students College Students Other Learners
Elementary Teachers Secondary Teachers College Instructors Other Instructors
Figure 27.1 Four categories of NOS studies by percent of all studies coded by major aim, participants, and
educational level or context (2013–2020).
Likewise, the construction of the instrument’s items and preferred answers is anchored in the chosen
philosophical perspective(s), while item distractors often are derived from alternate or competing
philosophical variants. Aikenhead et al. concluded that forced-choice instruments sufered a seri-
ous threat to validity stemming from the unavoidable assumption that respondents chose certain
responses for reasons that align with those of the instrument developers. Thus, resulting charac-
terizations of respondents’ NOS conceptions – often coherent and aligned with one philosophy of
science or another – were more an artifact of the instrument in use than an authentic assessment of
what learners actually thought (Driver et al., 1996). To help address this major shortcoming, Aiken-
head et al. (1989) used an empirically – instead of a theoretically – based approach to develop their
instrument. The VOSTS items, answers, distractors, and reasons for selecting answers to an item
were all derived from open-ended interviews with secondary students. Lederman and O’Malley
(1990) further extended these arguments and provided evidence to establish the need to depart from
all forms of forced-choice responses (whether empirically or theoretically based) in favor of using
open-ended interviews to elicit, clarify, and probe leaners’ NOS conceptions. The open-ended items
used by Lederman and O’Malley constituted the core of an expanded interview protocol that was
later developed into the VNOS questionnaire (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 1998; Lederman et al., 2002).
Open-ended instruments proved especially useful in advancing NOS research. These instruments,
frst, furnished robust evidence that elucidated how learner views, far from being coherent or aligned
as inferred from forced-choice instruments, were rather fuid or localized and, in some cases, inter-
nally inconsistent, fragmented, or contradictory (e.g., Abd-El-Khalick, 2004; Russell & Aydeniz,
2013; Urhahne et al., 2011). Second, the probing and elucidation of teacher views made possible by
859
100%
Impact
Resources
of item
type Impact
90% NOS
teaching
Assess
NOS
80% views,
Novel relate to
analysis other Textbooks
areas
70%

Impact
views,
relate to
60% other
areas
50%
40%
860
Develop
30% tool National
Assess curricula,
NOS guides
views Impact
NOS
20% views
10%
0%
Research on NOS Research on NOS Descriptive studies: Descriptive studies: Intervention studies: Intervention studies: Analysis of curricula, Analysis of curricula,
assessment assessment Assess NOS Assess NOS Improve NOS Improve NOS textbooks, resources textbooks, resources
conceptions, relate to conceptions, relate to conceptions, impact conceptions, impact
other dimensions other dimensions NOS teaching NOS teaching
Elementary Secondary College Other Preservice teachers Inservice teachers College instructors
Figure 27.2 Patterns by percent within category for four categories of NOS research by aim, participants, and educational level or context
(2013–2020).
using open-ended instruments helped to explicate the mediated relationship between teachers’ NOS
conceptions and their instructional practice (e.g., Aydin, 2015; Lederman, 1999; Schwartz & Leder-
man, 2002; Wahbeh & Abd-El-Khalick, 2014). Third, this use aided in delineating the knowledge
base and pedagogical content knowledge that underlie teachers’ ability to deploy efective NOS
instruction (e.g., Hanuscin et al., 2011; Supprakob et al., 2016). Fourth, open-ended instruments
helped ascertain and gain fne-grained understandings of the relative efectiveness of various NOS
instructional modalities and interventions, and the specifc ways in which these interventions and
their instructional elements interacted with learners’ prior understandings and contexts (Lederman
& Lederman, 2014).
Except for a pronounced decrease in studies aimed at developing new NOS assessment instru-
ments or approaches systematically and rigorously, the aforementioned patterns held frm during
the past eight years. First, the adaptation, modifcation, recombination, and/or translation of unique
NOS assessments, both for open-ended and forced-choice instruments, continued in earnest. For
instance, Temel et al. (2017) translated and adapted the Nature of Science Instrument – Elementary
(NOSI-E) (Peoples & O’Dwyer, 2012) for use in Turkey. They applied confrmatory factor analy-
sis (CFA) to NOSI – Secondary (NOSI-S) responses collected from 261 upper secondary Turk-
ish students and reported acceptable validity and reliability metrics for the translated and adapted
NOSI-S. In some cases, eforts that modifed and/or recombined extant instruments paid little
attention to the methodological principles that underlie radically diferent approaches to assessment.
For instance, Park et al. (2014) developed their own NOS survey by adapting items selected from
the open-ended VNOS – C, and forced-choice items from the Nature of Scientifc Knowledge
Scale (NSKS) (Rubba, 1976; Rubba & Andersen, 1978) and Student Understanding of Science
and Scientifc Inquiry (SUSSI) (Liang et al., 2006). The survey comprised 15 fve-point Likert
and 5 open-ended items. The open-ended items were split into two sets, one with two and the
other with three items, to generate two – essentially non-equivalent – forms of the survey. Middle
school students were administered the two forms randomly to address concerns about their abil-
ity to respond to all fve open-ended items in the time available. Other studies combined subsets
of items from theoretically and empirically based forced-choice instruments. For instance, Uyar
et al. (2018) coupled items from the NSKS and VOSTS to gauge NOS understandings to select
their participant third-grade preservice teachers. Bautista et al. (2014) and Schussler et al. (2013)
combined VOSTS and VNOS – C items to assess NOS conceptions among graduate teaching
assistants. While seemingly unproblematic, the earlier discussion regarding the shift from theoreti-
cally driven, quantitative to open-ended, generative assessments and the divergent assumptions that
underlie the development of these diferent assessment approaches, sheds light on issues that belie
interpreting results from these hybrid instruments. Still, in other cases, authors developed their own
forced-choice instruments comprising true–false items (e.g., Šorgo et al., 2014) or Likert-type and
multiple-choice items (e.g., Krell et al., 2015) without providing psychometric evidence to sup-
port instrument validity and/or reliability. Other researchers developed NOS instruments without
establishing all crucial psychometric proprieties. Kaya et al. (2019), for instance, developed the
RFN Questionnaire, which consists of 70 Likert-type items addressing RFN categories (Erduran &
Dagher, 2014a). Kaya et al. established the content validity of the items and reported a robust 0.8
Cronbach alpha reliability measure. However, no attempt was undertaken to establish any sort of
construct validity for this questionnaire. Finally, in a few studies, authors used a subset of items from
open-ended instruments, such as the VNOS – C, to gauge participants’ NOS conceptions (e.g.,
Shultz & Gere, 2015). Some authors (e.g., Temel et al., 2017) were careful to use methodological
safeguards to ameliorate threats to validity, reliability, trustworthiness, and/or consistency of NOS
assessments when valid and reliable instruments or subsets of these instruments were used outside
the contexts in which they were developed and validated, or when instruments were adapted,
modifed, and/or recombined. However, these safeguards were not applied in all these instances
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(e.g., Park et al., 2014), which casts doubt on study inferences and conclusions and contributes to
the “messiness” of assessing learners’ NOS conceptions, especially when authors tended to general-
ize or overgeneralize their conclusions.
Second, the marked departure from the use of forced-choice instruments to assess NOS concep-
tions persisted during the past eight years. Indeed, generative approaches and open-ended NOS
instruments drawing on the VNOS family of questionnaires were used in 66% of reviewed studies.
It was noteworthy that the VOSTS, one of the most widely used instruments in the feld, was now
rarely deployed, and only in combination with another instrument, such as the VNOS – B (Bautista
et al., 2014; Schussler et al., 2013), NSKS (Uyar et al., 2018), or SUSSI (Herman & Clough, 2016).
Forced-choice, quantitative instruments were used in 34% of all studies. Close to half of these instru-
ments were developed by authors for use in the study at hand, mostly without the requisite rigor
and/or examination of psychometric properties underlying robust quantitative assessments (e.g.,
Krell et al., 2015; Kremer et al., 2014). The remaining studies used other established instruments,
such as Rubba’s (1976) NSKS (e.g., Price & Lee, 2013; Uyar et al., 2018), Chen’s (2006) Views on
Science and Education Questionnaire (VOSE) (Burton, 2013), Neumann’s (2011) Nature of Sci-
ence and Scientifc Inquiry Questionnaire (NOSSI) (Michel & Neumann, 2016), and Liang et al.’s
(2006) SUSSI, both in its original or modifed forms (e.g., Das et al., 2019; Kruse et al., 2017; Stott
& Hattingh, 2020). The SUSSI was the quantitative instrument most commonly used, having been
employed in seven diferent studies.
An array of generative NOS assessments was used in 26% of all reviewed studies. These included
the often-used approaches of author-developed open-ended interviews (e.g., Kelly & Erduran, 2019;
Wan et al., 2018) and semi-structured interviews (e.g., Reinisch & Kruger, 2018; Schroeder et al.,
2019; Wan & Wong, 2016). Many studies also generated written responses through author-developed
open-ended prompts and questionnaires, which were often followed by individual interviews with
a selected group of study participants. For example, in-service elementary teachers in Anderson and
Moeed’s (2017) study responded to a prompt that probed their beliefs about the purpose of science
education and aims of New Zealand’s science curriculum. Khishfe (2019) developed, and estab-
lished face and content validity for, an open-ended questionnaire to assess lower secondary students’
views on the empirical, tentative, and subjective NOS across a number of scientifc contexts (plate
tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes). She coupled each questionnaire administration with follow-up
interviews with a subsample of participants. Examples of other generative prompts and tasks include
the work of Papadouris and Constantinou (2014), who assigned sixth graders the tasks of distin-
guishing observational and inferential statements and evaluating a fctitious dialogue to further probe
their understandings of this distinction. Gandolf (2020) engaged secondary biology teachers in four
collaborative teaching and learning planning sessions, which targeted the explicit and meaningful
inclusion of several NOS aspects in instruction on regular science content (e.g., magnetism and
evolution). Audio recordings of unstructured conversations during pre-teaching sessions and semi-
structured conversations during post-teaching sessions provided the data for insights into teachers’
thinking about NOS. Myers and Abd-El-Khalick (2016) used science fction (sci-f) as a context to
probe the NOS conceptions of doctoral students from various disciplinary backgrounds. Participants
frst screened a sci-f flm and then wrote a critical review, which asked them to summarize the sto-
ryline and express likes and dislikes about the flm, as well as describe and explain what messages the
flm communicated about what science is and how scientists come to know about the world. The
critical flm review provided the context for follow-up individual interviews to further explore and
clarify the key ideas that participants addressed in their writing.
The VNOS family of open-ended questionnaires, Forms A–E (Lederman et al., 2002), were used
to assess NOS conceptions in 40% of all studies. Among these, the VNOS – C was the version most
widely used, accounting for half of the studies that deployed the VNOS and 20% of all reviewed
studies. VNOS questionnaires were deployed as interviews (e.g., VNOS – B: Eymur, 2019) or used
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as card sort tasks (e.g., VNOS – C: Burke et al., 2018). VNOS were also used as paper-and-pencil
instruments in their entirety without the recommended follow-up interviews (e.g., VNOS – B: Pil-
iouras et al., 2018; VNOS – C: Grifard et al., 2013; VNOS – E: Meyer & Crawford, 2015) or with
follow-up interviews (e.g., VNOS – B: Ozgelen et al., 2013; VNOS – C: Mesci, 2020; VNOS – D:
Pavez et al., 2016). In some cases, researchers slightly modifed the original forms (e.g., VNOS – B:
Piliouras et al., 2018; VNOS – C: Valente et al., 2018) while in other cases, they used a selected
subset of items (e.g., Burgin & Sadler, 2016; Shultz & Gere, 2015). Still in other cases, the use of the
VNOS was coupled with another instrument, such as VOSE (e.g., VNOS – C: Russell & Aydeniz,
2013) or VOSTS (e.g., VNOS – B: Bautista et al., 2014). In efect, when open-ended questionnaires
are considered, “NOS views have almost exclusively been assessed using the . . . VNOS . . . suite of
instruments” (Peters-Burton, 2019, p. 1027).
The variety of open-ended approaches to NOS assessment could be perceived, at frst, to be
overwhelming or even counterproductive. As we discuss later, the wide variety in these (and in
forced-choice) assessments and nature of the ensuing reporting of fndings certainly hampers the fea-
sibility and meaningfulness of comparisons across NOS research interventions, contexts, and locales.
Nonetheless, most researchers who used open-ended approaches were careful to delineate the NOS
aspects they addressed and match their assessments with those aspects. Also, many researchers did not
exceed the scope of inference allowed by assessments developed for specifc studies, contexts, and/or
audiences. Finally, 80% of all studies involving learners and instructors explicitly adopted a consen-
sus NOS framework (with the remaining 20% evenly split between not discussing any, or explicitly
adopting an alternative, underlying NOS framework) and, thus, were conceptually aligned. Taken
together, these factors make possible the piecing together of broad fndings across studies. Such syn-
thesis, however, would be painstaking and cumbersome, and will be hampered by having to compare
studies through matching specifc NOS aspects, participants, contexts, and/or educational levels
between one study and the next.
Research on NOS Assessment: 2013–2020

Beyond the above general patterns, we now turn to examine the handful of studies over the past eight
years that researched NOS assessment. Kruse et al. (2019) assessed the impact of type of NOS ques-
tion on responses from sixth graders engaged in E-R NOS instruction embedded in inquiry teach-
ing. Students read an identical history of science (HOS) short story and responded to one of four
randomly assigned types of questions after each paragraph: general refection questions (e.g., “What
do you notice or want to remember?”), general NOS questions (e.g., “What does this say about
science and how scientists work?”), specifc NOS questions focused on certain aspects (e.g., “How
do you think science and technology afect each other?”), or specifc NOS questions with preamble
(e.g., “Notice that science is helping develop new clock technology and that new technology is help-
ing science. How do you think science and technology afect each other?”). The authors found that
general refection questions provided no pertinent insights into students’ NOS ideas, while general
NOS questions generated informative responses for 65% of respondents. Reponses to specifc and
specifc with preamble NOS questions generated similar, and the most accurate, representations of
student NOS ideas. The majority of students (70%) articulated normative, compared to descriptive,
ideas about specifc NOS aspects targeted by the latter two types of specifc questions. Kruse et al.
concluded that NOS ideas are not intuitive to students and similar to E-R NOS instruction, student
ideas need to be explicitly solicited with specifc NOS questions.
Owing to the ubiquitous use of the VNOS (Lederman et al., 2002), Peters-Burton et al. (2019)
investigated the utility of applying epistemic network analysis (ENA) to VNOS – B responses, using
the group as the unit of analysis. This novel approach was compared to more traditional VNOS
analyses, in this case, using individuals as the unit of analysis and coding their responses as indicative
863
of naïve, transitional, or informed views of NOS aspects. The study compared responses from 23
preservice secondary and in-service elementary teachers prior to, and after the completion of, a
graduate course featuring E-R NOS instruction. The authors open-coded pre- and post-VNOS – B
responses into 45 and 41 statements, each with a stand-alone meaning, respectively. The statements
appeared as movable cards in a software package, which allowed sorting cards into separate virtual
bins. Statements were excluded when participants could not reach consensus on the sorting or when
a statement was not understandable to them. Virtual bins were treated as unit matrices, representing
pairings of statements. Next, a network model generation software was used to map statements as
nodes and connect paired nodes with line segments. The resulting visual network model indicates
three characteristics of mapped data: Centrally located nodes indicate ideas that are most connected
to other ideas; node clusters show how ideas are deemed to be interrelated; and distances between
nodes indicate the strength of connections among ideas, where short distances represent stronger
connections. Peters-Burton et al. (2019) found that ENA and traditional VNOS – B analyses con-
verged in revealing where participants made or did not make progress in NOS understandings. As a
group, ENA showed that, at the course outset, no central ideas helped frame participants’ thinking
about diferent NOS aspects, and the network model produced a variety of weak clusters owing to
possible difculties among participants to distinguish between unfamiliar ideas. At the end of the
course, central ideas were still missing, yet three major clusters were evident, such as one that con-
nected the empirical and theory-laden NOS with the nature of theories and laws. The authors noted
that this novel approach helps visualize pre- and post-intervention models and provide a diferent
perspective on how learner groups organize their NOS ideas. They also identifed drawbacks for
ENA, including the labor-intensive nature of coding statements, and specialized expertise needed
to use the software and make the nuanced decisions needed to examine and interpret nodes. Also,
ENA works at the group level and thus cannot provide information about individual learners or
disentangle the impact of working with peers to sort statements on a learner’s own NOS views from
the impact of the intervention in use.
Lin et al. (2013) developed the Students’ Views of Nature of Science (SVNOS) instrument to
examine lower secondary Singaporean students’ conceptions of consensus NOS aspects. A pool of 51
fve-point Likert items adapted from other instruments to address 8 aspects was administered to 359
seventh and eighth graders. CFA supported a SVNOS structure with 7 scales and 33 items. Students
with higher SVNOS scores are characterized as having more constructivist-oriented, while students
with lower scores are deemed to hold empiricist-oriented, views of the target NOS aspects. The
instrument did not bring novel elements to forced-choice NOS assessments and had not been used
in any reviewed study since its development. Harrison et al. (2015) developed the Student Science
Questionnaire (SSQ) and examined how its empirical structure matched the multidimensionality
of NOS inferred from the NGSS framework (NGSS Lead States, 2013a, 2013b). The SSQ, which
included 18 multiple-choice (MC) and 10 fve-point Likert-scale NOS items, was administered to
1,433 secondary students. Using item response modeling, the authors found a multidimensional
approach resulted in a better-ftting model and improved item functioning when compared to a
model treating NOS as a single dimension. The resulting subscale scores provided information on
respondents’ NOS theme profles and thus allow for greater fdelity when examining learner NOS
conceptions compared to a global NOS score. Koerber et al. (2015) examined the validity of a
forced-choice, multiple-select (MS) paper-and-pencil instrument in assessing third graders’ under-
standing of how scientists develop and test ideas about the world, and the mediating role of theoreti-
cal and sociocultural frameworks in interpreting the relationship between hypotheses and evidence.
The authors chose the MS format to facilitate performance in young children by lowering cognitive
demands needed to produce spontaneous verbal answers, reduce the probability of correct guessing
by coding patterns of answers to diferent levels of understanding, provide an efcient means to assess
large learner samples, and make possible conducting sophisticated quantitative data analyses. Two
864
studies were used to examine validity: First, responses to MS tasks from 68 students were compared
to ideas they expressed during individual interviews and, second, responses to MS and MC items
from 243 students were compared. Interview and MS responses across all items were signifcantly
correlated, yet interview items were more difcult for students than MS items. Most third graders
judged to hold intermediate or advanced understandings through an interview question were cred-
ited with an advanced understanding on the respective MS item, but not vice versa. The authors
also found that MS and MC responses were highly correlated and that MS tasks were less afected by
guessing than MC items. Koerber et al. (2015) concluded that the evidence supported the validity
of their instrument. Finally, the authors demonstrated the added utility of the instrument in allow-
ing for sophisticated analyses by running a multinomial logistic regression model, which showed
that socioeconomic status (SES) served as a predictor of students’ membership in a group with lower
performance on the instrument.
Conclusion
Overall, NOS assessment has largely stabilized, with a decided and persistent shift from using forced-
choice to open-ended assessments. Currently, we are not aware of theoretical arguments that take
issue with the validity, trustworthiness, or meaningfulness of using open-ended approaches or instru-
ments. Yet, this use is not without its pragmatic and practical burdens. First, administering open-
ended instruments, such as the VNOS, and analyzing qualitative responses to open-ended questions
are time, resource, and labor intensive, especially for large-scale studies (Koskal & Cakiroglu, 2010;
Woitkowski & Wurmbach, 2019). Indeed, economy of administration and data analysis are often
invoked as underlying the decision to use forced-choice NOS instruments. Thresholds that trigger
this decision vary between researchers, likely dictated by available bandwidth and resources. For
instance, economy was cited as the reason for using and/or developing forced-choice NOS instru-
ments by Krell et al. (2015), with more than 500 preservice teachers in their study, and by Woit-
kowski and Wurmbach (2019), who examined NOS understandings among 50 university professors.
Second, analyzing and interpreting responses to open-ended instruments, such as the VNOS, entail
having a sound conceptual understanding of the epistemological orientations regarding consensus
NOS items, and “require having ability and knowledge to use complex qualitative coding, analyzing
and interpretation techniques” (Koskal & Cakiroglu, 2010, p. 198; see also Woitkowski & Wurm-
bach, 2019). While they appreciate the advantages of using open-ended assessments, some research-
ers or their associates, however, might not have the expertise needed for qualitative data analysis and
interpretation. Thus, they either take on laborious analyses on their own or recruit collaborators to
undertake or assist with the task. Resorting to teams presents additional burdens to ensure consis-
tency in coding and interpreting qualitative responses. Voiced by many researchers, these concerns
suggest that the variance in drawing inferences about NOS views across studies might be larger than
expected, which compromises our ability to make valid comparisons or generalize across interven-
tions, studies, and contexts. Third, qualitative assessments do not meet the growing, urgent needs
to statistically examine interrelationships among variables related to NOS teaching and learning,
and meaningfully synthesize fndings across studies or contexts to make headway in the feld. Thus,
instead of reverting to the problematic use of forced-choice assessments, “the next chapter in the
evolution of NOS assessment is the development of valid and reliable as well as efcient ways to
quantify student responses to open-ended instruments” (Abd-El-Khalick, 2014, p. 642; also see Her-
man et al., 2021, for a similar approach in SSI research).
Indeed, over the past 15 years, there have been several eforts to quantify qualitative responses
to open-ended NOS instruments or items (e.g., Das et al., 2019; Miller et al., 2010) and VNOS
responses (e.g., Burgin & Sadler, 2016; Koskal & Cakiroglu, 2010) to enable statistical analyses and
cross-study comparisons. In almost all cases, categorical scores were applied to qualitative inferences
865
about respondents’ NOS views, assigning a certain numeric score to one or another response code
or category. The labels and number of categories (e.g., non-classifable, silent, naïve, partially naïve,
transitional, plausible, partially informed, informed, articulate, advanced, etc.) and corresponding
numeric scores and score ranges (0–2, 1–4, etc.) were highly varied across studies. To achieve the
much-needed evolution in NOS assessment, we frst need to bring some unity to the number of
categories, scores, and score ranges used to qualify and then quantify learner NOS understandings.
Next, we need to develop and validate fne-grained, analytical guidelines and tools to scafold analy-
ses of qualitative NOS responses, as well as draw inferences about and score assignment to levels of
NOS understanding. These tools would lessen the aforementioned burden of analysis and mitigate
issues that result from high-level inferences about learner NOS understandings that might be gener-
ated from qualitative analyses, especially when undertaken by research teams. Without some consen-
sus around these dimensions, it will be very hard to move forward if our goal is to synthesize fndings
across the feld and make robust recommendations for science education policy and curricula, as well
as for NOS teaching and learning.
Representations of NOS in Science Curricula,

Textbooks, and Instructional Resources
In most classrooms, textbooks “defne academic subjects as students experience them . . . and rep-
resent school disciplines to students” (Valverde et al., 2002, p. 2). Researchers have long established
the central role that textbooks play in embodying curriculum for science classrooms. Chiappetta
et al. (2006) and Weiss et al. (2001) noted that more than 90% of secondary school science teachers
in the United States rely on textbooks to organize and deliver instruction. Textbook infuence is
exacerbated for science teachers who lack robust understandings of their content (Hashweh, 1987),
which remains the case for a majority of teachers in relation to NOS. In turn, national standards, cur-
ricula, and/or curricular guidelines have or should have a major impact on textbook content both in
countries with centralized national curricula, like Lebanon or Turkey, and countries where curricular
standards often are adapted for local contexts, such as in the United States. Moreover, researchers
have established that teachers often cite the availability of NOS-specifc instructional materials and
resources as a major factor that impedes their NOS teaching eforts (Lederman & Lederman, 2014).
Thus, research into how science standards, curricula, textbooks, and instructional materials and
resources treat NOS is crucial to understanding the extent to which these dimensions of schooling
facilitate or hinder NOS teaching and learning.
Research on Standards, Curricula, and Curricular Guidelines

In a set of studies, Erduran, Dagher, and their colleagues (Erduran & Dagher, 2014b; Kaya & Erdu-
ran, 2016; Park, Wu et al., 2020; Yeh et al., 2019), and Cheung (2020) examined the extent to which
a number of national standards, curricula, or curricular guidelines addressed NOS dimensions in the
FRA or RFN frameworks. Erduran and Dagher frst deployed, and assessed the utility of, the FRA
as an analysis framework to examine a draft of the Irish junior cycle science curriculum and assess-
ment specifcations. They argued that the FRA provided a robust analysis tool, especially in terms of
both identifying and scrutinizing the interconnectedness of NOS ideas in the analyzed documents.
Kaya and Erduran analyzed and compared the Turkish middle school science curricula of 2006 and
2013, and compared the latter to the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013a) and 2015 Irish middle school
curriculum. They reported that the 2013 Turkish curriculum was an improvement on the 2006
version in terms of addressing a seventh FRA, namely, the social-institutional dimension of science.
Both versions, nonetheless, did not fare as well as the NGSS and Irish curriculum, which included
statements addressing almost all FRN dimensions, albeit the coverage was fragmented and did not
866
contribute to a meaningful, whole representation of NOS. Yeh et al. analyzed the Taiwanese 2006,
grades 1–9 science and technology curriculum and 2016, grades 1–12 science curriculum guide-
lines. The 2006 curriculum underscored developing student knowledge of experimentation and
emphasized cognitive-epistemic systems over social and institutional contexts of science. The latter
became more prevalent in the 2016 guidelines, which also shifted from a discrete list of inquiry skills
and scientifc methods in 2006 to highlight inquiry and scientifc ways of thinking. Park, Wu et al.
(2020) compared representations of the nature of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM) in the NGSS and national science curricula in Korea and Taiwan. The authors reported a
general underrepresentation of mathematics in all three documents, and a particular overemphasis
on the science-engineering intersection in the NGSS and Korean document. Cheung used ENA to
visualize interconnections in their analyses of “curriculum emphases” and “learning targets” of the
Hong Kong precollege biology curriculum, and the alignment between these curricular elements
and high-stakes public biology examinations in the state. Like other studies, Cheung found the cur-
riculum placed more emphasis on cognitive-epistemic than social-institutional systems, with little
interconnections within the latter dimension. High-stakes tests were found to be not well aligned
and, at times, inconsistent with the curriculum. For instance, learning targets related to social values
in science were not covered in testing, whereas tests covered topics, including social certifcation,
political power structures, and fnancial systems, that were not included in the curriculum.
Another set of studies adopted a consensus NOS framework to examine science standards and
curricula. Ferreira and Morais (2013) analyzed the national Portuguese middle school natural and
physical sciences curricula. They found that scientifc methodology was given priority at the expense
of aspects related to the social construction of scientifc knowledge. Internal sociology of science
received less emphasis than scientifc processes and methods, and external sociology or interactions
between science, technology, and society received the least attention among the three dimensions.
McComas and Nouri (2016) analyzed the NGSS for inclusion of key NOS aspects and supporting
exemplar statements, and how these aspects were related to other NGSS dimensions. NOS, they
reported, was not featured as strongly as NGSS disciplinary core ideas, practices, and crosscutting
concepts. Some key aspects (e.g., inferential, creative NOS) were missing or merely implied; some
exemplar statements were not well aligned with, or not used to demonstrate, the respective aspects;
and several aspects were not linked to NGSS dimensions. Relegating NOS categories to an NGSS
appendix rendered them less visible and diminished opportunities to meaningfully link them to other
NGSS dimensions. The authors concluded that, as is, the NGSS cannot guide efective NOS instruc-
tion. They advocated that NOS should stand on its own as a fourth dimension, be embedded in the
main NGSS standards, and be meaningfully linked to other dimensions. Lederman (2019) examined
how three US reform documents contextualize and establish the relationship between scientifc
inquiry (SI) and nature of scientifc knowledge (NOSK). These were Benchmarks for Science Literacy
(AAAS, 1993), the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996), and the NGSS. Lederman
found that all three documents confated or did not clearly diferentiate SI and NOSK and thus failed
to present or support an integrated approach to science teaching. Olson (2018) examined school
science standards from nine diverse countries: Australia, Canada, Colombia, Indonesia, Lebanon,
Mexico, Thailand, South Africa, and the United States. Analyses focused on the placement of NOS
references in the documents, and whether NOS learning outcomes were explicitly and thoroughly
stated to provide curriculum developers and teachers with clear guidance on student NOS learn-
ing. Seven of nine documents rated low in terms of articulating NOS learning outcomes, fve had
no such outcomes, and a handful of explicit outcomes were dispersed across four documents. Most
documents relegated NOS to front or back materials and had disjointed NOS representations. Naïve
NOS ideas were also evident in some documents. Summers et al. (2019) used Abd-El-Khalick
et al.’s (2008) rubric to examine the longitudinal treatment (naïve versus informed) and presentation
(implicit versus explicit) of NOS representation in US state science standards. They analyzed 11,000
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pages from 98 documents representing 48 states, often including multiple documents per state, from
1980 to 2016. Up to 1990, documents were very vague about, and mostly with no or naïve rep-
resentations of, NOS. Starting in the 1990s, a majority of documents had a stand-alone NOS sec-
tion, which was mostly decoupled from science content. Surprisingly, over more than 30 years, US
state standards have improved very little in their coverage and representation of NOS. A majority of
standards documents remain silent on several key NOS aspects, and the number of aspects showing
explicit, informed representations has held constant since the mid-1990s rather than continuing to
improve. The NGSS performed very well compared to many contemporary documents but failed
to address all target NOS aspects in a desirable manner, as reported in McComas and Nouri’s (2016)
study.
Research on Science Textbooks

Of 13 studies that analyzed NOS representations in science textbooks, 10 adopted a consensus, 2 an
FRA (Park et al., 2019, Park, Yang et al., 2020), and 1 both NOS frameworks (Nylehn & Odegaard,
2018). Nylehn and Odegaard analyzed all 31, grades 5–10, science textbooks in Norway for their
representations of the construct of species, which they found to be scientifcally problematic and
oversimplifed. Textbooks missed the opportunity to use “species” as a context for addressing key
NOS ideas. Park et al. (2019) analyzed sections on general relativity theory (totaling 65 pages) in
fve Korean high school physics textbooks by fve publishers. Textbooks addressed 4 of 11 cognitive-
epistemic and social-institutional categories, and remained silent on the social, political, economic,
and social-cultural contexts of science. With one exception, all 50 NOS references in the fve text-
books were implicit. Park, Wu et al. (2020) analyzed the “scientifc inquiry and history” chapter in
seven grade 10 textbooks (totaling 215 pages) for explicit NOS tasks. The 79 tasks addressed only 3
of 11 FRA areas and were focused almost exclusively on cognitive-epistemic aspects. Even though
approved by the Korean ministry of education and deemed to be aligned with the national cur-
riculum, the textbooks difered considerably in the number of NOS tasks (4–32 tasks), HOS con-
textualization of the tasks, and pedagogical approach. Thus, the textbooks provided students with
substantially diferent opportunities to learn about NOS.
In four similar studies, Ramnarain and colleagues drew on Chiappetta et al.’s (1991) or Abd-El-
Khalick et al.’s (2008) frameworks to examine NOS representations in textbooks. They analyzed
the most widely used high school biology textbooks in South Africa (Ramnarain & Padayachee,
2015) and Singapore (Chua et al., 2019), and middle school natural science textbooks in South
Africa (Ramnarain & Chanetsa, 2016), as well as federally adopted high school chemistry textbooks
with 75% of Nigeria’s market share (Upahi et al., 2020). They found textbooks mostly portray
NOS infrequently, poorly, and implicitly. For example, South African grade 10 biology textbooks
rarely addressed NOS and represented science as a body of knowledge, while grade 9 natural sci-
ence textbooks only had a handful of – as low as six NOS references across hundreds of pages and
scored poorly on Abd-El-Khalick’s rubric – as low as +4 out of a possible maximum of +33 points.
Singaporean high school biology textbooks fared a little better, with scores ranging from +6 to +18.
Yet, representations mostly were implicit, and textbooks remained silent on social and cultural NOS
aspects, among other key ideas. Textbooks, including those from Nigeria, also addressed NOS within
stand-alone front matter rather than embedding NOS references in explicit and informed ways in
science content.
Vesterinen et al. (2013) drew on philosophy of chemistry and Chiappetta et al.’s (1991) work to
analyze fve Finnish and Swedish upper secondary textbooks. They found the textbooks addressed
content and investigative NOS at the expense of addressing science as a way of thinking or inter-
actions between science, technology, and society (STS). Textbooks represented the tentative and
empirical NOS well, while rarely addressing inferential, social, and societal dimensions of NOS.
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Campanile et al. (2015) studied narrative and other textual elements (fgures, headings, etc.) related
to Mendelian genetics in seven high school textbooks widely used in the United States and inter-
national baccalaureate program. Materials addressed the empirical and inferential, while remain-
ing silent or misrepresenting the theory-laden, creative, tentative, and social-cultural NOS. More
importantly, all 237 instances identifed as addressing NOS aspects were implicit. Similarly, poor
NOS representations were reported for fve Chinese middle school physics textbooks approved by
the Ministry of Education (Li et al., 2020). Andersson-Bakken et al. (2020) analyzed images of NOS
conveyed by tasks in three widely used Norwegian high school textbooks. Tasks were classifed as
closed, asking students to reproduce or reason about answers or procedures, or as open, requiring
students to perform tasks or explore or evaluate evidence and literature. With 80% of tasks classifed
as closed, textbooks represented science as a body of defnitive answers with little room for interpre-
tation. Also, while introductory chapters had explicit NOS representations, the bulk of textbooks
either remained silent or conveyed some NOS ideas implicitly.
Finally, in addition to examining NOS representations, a few researchers attempted to identify
how representations are impacted by stakeholders involved in textbook development and production.
In the context of the in-situ development of a high school chemistry textbook unit, DiGuiseppe
(2014) examined the impact on NOS representations of interactions among textbook authors, edi-
tors, reviewers, and publishers. DiGuiseppe captured interactions through interviews, group emails
and discussions, and feld notes, as well as analyzed all unit drafts. Several factors impacted how
NOS representations were developed and implemented: Content accuracy and consistency, align-
ment with local standards, appropriateness for target students, marketability, and available work-
place resources. The latter two emerged as most signifcant and interacted with the other factors to
determine whether NOS ideas were implicitly or explicitly represented. In a longitudinal study that
examined textbooks over a period of four decades, Abd-El-Khalick et al. (2017) examined the man-
ner and extent of NOS representations in market-commanding US high school biology and physics
textbooks, the extent to which representations had changed over the decades, the relative impact of
discipline, and textbook publishers versus authors on these representations. Analyses targeted 4,300
pages from introductory chapters and sections likely to address NOS, and content chapters (on heat,
electricity, Newton’s laws of motion, circulatory and nervous systems, genetics, and photosynthesis)
from 34 textbooks in 7 “connected series”; namely, textbook editions with the same title, authors,
and/or publisher. Abd-El-Khalick et al.’s (2008) rubric was used to score textbooks for the accuracy
(naïve versus informed) and manner (implicit versus explicit) of NOS representations, and extent (in
textbook pages) to which target NOS aspects were addressed. On average, less than 2.5% of textbook
pages were dedicated to NOS ideas. Representations were discernibly less than favorable: With a
possible range of −30 to +30 points, scores for ten biology textbooks ranged from −4 to +6 points,
and except for one series, physics textbook scores ranged from −2 to +11 points. NOS represen-
tations did not difer by content area and, surprisingly, did not improve substantially over the past
several decades. The latter fnding was the case despite major US reform eforts emphasizing NOS
as a central theme and explicitly calling for addressing NOS in precollege classrooms since the early
1990s. Finally, analyses strongly suggested that textbook authors have a relatively greater impact on
NOS representations compared to textbook publishers.
Research on Instructional Materials and Resources

Kelly (2018) used a consensus framework to examine NOS representations, as well as breadth of sci-
ence and diversity of scientists in 28 trade books for elementary students. All books had won awards
from the US National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Seven books had no or infrequent
NOS references, while only a few had many references related to the empirical, social, inferential,
and tentative NOS. The books focused on biology, and their images mostly depicted scientists as
869
white and male. Kelly noted that while these fndings were an improvement over past research (e.g.,
Abd-El-Khalick, 2002), the analyzed trade books left much to be desired in terms of their depic-
tions of NOS. Summers and Abd-El-Khalick (2019) used Abd-El-Khalick et al.’s (2008) rubric to
examine NOS treatment and presentation in eight lesson plans and related materials for elementary
and secondary students available through an NSTA database. Only three of ten target aspects were
addressed in all eight lesson plans (empirical and inferential NOS, and aspects of scientifc theories).
Sixty percent of NOS references were naïve and/or implicit. Only three of eight plans and materials
connected the NOS aspects they addressed across their introductory, content delivery, discussion, and
assessment sections. The authors concluded that the analyzed plans would place undue burden on
teachers who aim to enact efective NOS instruction.
These two relatively recent studies do not represent a pattern in NOS research over the review
period. Yet, we presented the studies in a separate subsection to underscore the need for addi-
tional research in this area. Science teachers have and continue to plea for NOS-specifc instruc-
tional resources (e.g., Abd-El-Khalick et al., 1998; Herman et al., 2013; Wahbeh & Abd-El-Khalick,
2014). To the extent that the previous studies speak to the quality of instructional resources available
to support teachers’ eforts to address NOS, there is a need to dissect the issues with and failings of
available resources and to identify and assess the impact of exemplary resources and materials in facili-
tating teachers’ efective NOS instruction.
Conclusion
Given their crucial role in supporting eforts to teach about NOS, more research is needed to exam-
ine, and develop and gauge the efectiveness of, available NOS-specifc instructional materials and
resources. Still, unfortunately, consistent fndings about the extent and manner of NOS representa-
tions in national standards and curricula, and commercial science textbooks, present a formidable
challenge for scaling up efective NOS instruction in schools. Irrespective of NOS framework, meth-
odology, and national context, researchers found science standards, curricula, and textbooks to be
lacking. These documents: (1) paid little attention to, or addressed a limited set of, NOS ideas; (2)
remained silent on several key NOS ideas and mostly had few implicit references to these ideas; (3)
explicated naïve NOS ideas; and/or (4) failed to embed NOS in, or connect it to, science content.
Also, NOS treatment in these documents did not improve substantially over the past few decades to
refect increasing emphases on NOS in science education scholarship and reforms. Little will change
absent concerted eforts to bring major improvements to curricula and textbooks, which often serve
to mediate the translation of learning goals into enacted classroom instruction.
Yet, ways in which we might contribute to improving NOS representations are complicated. While
necessary, researching the failings of curricula and textbooks in providing comprehensive, informed,
explicit, and/or content-embedded representations of key NOS ideas is not sufcient. These fndings
should be brought to schoolteachers and leaders, policymakers, curriculum development bodies and
authorities, and textbook authors and publishers, who might not closely follow research publications.
Science education researchers need to translate these fndings into specifc, actionable recommenda-
tions and advocate for these with all stakeholders. These eforts might be more efective in nations
with centralized curricula, which largely determine textbook contents and instructional materials
foci. However, as crucial as it is, shaping national curricula is but a frst step. As Park, Wu et al. (2020)
reported, textbooks approved by the Korean ministry of education as aligned with the national cur-
riculum still provided students with substantially difering opportunities for learning about NOS.
Impacting textbook development and marketing are crucial next steps. Nonetheless, the sheer size and
infuence of the industry presents unique challenges. In the United States alone, the precollege text-
book market is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that strives to respond to a collage of state-specifc sci-
ence education standards, which include substantially varying NOS representations (Abd-El-Khalick
870
et al., 2017). Also, as DiGuiseppe (2014) found, a host of mediating factors interact to infuence text-
book treatments of NOS. There is urgent need for additional, fne-grained research into the particu-
lars and forces that shape and determine the content of science textbooks. Without such research, we
have little guidance for action and advocacy aimed at improving how NOS is included in textbooks.
In the interim, Abd-El-Khalick et al.’s initial fnding that textbook authors might have a relatively
larger infuence than publishers on NOS representations suggests a need to target outreach eforts at
authors rather than try to infuence the mammoth textbook publishing industry.
Descriptive NOS Studies

Thirty-two studies focused on gauging student or instructor NOS conceptions, 20 of which also exam-
ined relationships between these conceptions and several variables or domains. Twenty-three studies
explicitly adopted a consensus NOS framework, and an additional three addressed subsets of consensus
NOS aspects, without naming the framework. Akgun and Kaya (2020) and Kelly and Erduran (2019)
explicitly adopted the FRA and FRN frameworks, respectively. Hofer and Pintrich’s (1997) framework
was used by Peters-Burton and Baynard (2013) and Kremer et al. (2014), while Schroeder et al. (2019)
and Woitkowski and Wurmbach (2019) used elements from the framework, which is focused on cer-
tainty, simplicity, sources, and justifcation of (albeit not specifc to scientifc) claims to knowledge.
Research on Learner NOS Conceptions

At the lower secondary level, studies used mostly convergent instruments developed by authors or
adapted from the SUSSI, VNOS – C, and/or NSKS to examine views among samples ranging from
a couple to several hundred students from Bhutan, Canada, Germany, Korea, and/or the United
States (Das et al., 2019; Kremer et al., 2014; Kruse et al., 2019; Park et al., 2014). Generally, students
held mixed or developing conceptions (also in Peters-Burton & Baynard, 2013), more informed on
the empirical, creative, inferential, and/or tentative NOS and more naïve on the nature of theories
and laws, and social and social-cultural dimensions. Also, Park et al. reported that Canadian eighth
graders held more multiculturalist views of science than their Korean counterparts, probably own-
ing to the former’s educational experience. Kremer et al. noted improvements in, but no relation-
ship between, student NOS views and inquiry skills from grades 7 through 9. They concluded that
inquiry processes provide contexts for developing NOS understandings, but learners need explicit
instructional support to adequately connect science processes to NOS.
Studies of high school students involved smaller samples, counting in the tens (Burgin & Sadler,
2013; Burke et al., 2018; Khishfe et al., 2017; Kohut, 2019; Schroeder et al., 2019), except Khishfe’s
(2017) with 261 students. Also, except for Kohut’s author-developed survey, the studies used open-
ended, VNOS-based surveys, card sort tasks, or interviews. Schroeder et al. found no general growth
pattern among 33 students in identifying uncertainty in data collection and interpretation, general-
izing or theorizing, albeit more ninth than ffth graders understood the impact of scientists’ views on
data interpretation. Students’ ability to identify uncertainty in personal and professional science were
correlated. Yet, the authors concluded that simply engaging in inquiry without explicit discussion
is unlikely to substantially change students’ established views (see Khishfe & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002).
Similarly, Burgin and Sadler reported partial consistency between students’ formal and practical epis-
temologies, respectively gleaned from open-ended interviews and engagement in authentic research
apprenticeships. They also called for E-R instruction to help students bridge these epistemologies.
Notably, student views on NOS and evolutionary theory, assessed by a NOS Survey and Beliefs about
Origins Survey developed by Kohut, were not statistically correlated. Kohut noted that creationists can
use aspects, namely, the subjective and tentative NOS, to argue against scientifc validity. Students could
agree that scientists’ beliefs matter, theories are tentative, and scientists make assumptions, and yet reach
871
opposite conclusions about scientifc reliability. Kohut highlighted the infuence of social and cultural
situatedness on students’ NOS responses. Such situatedness was evident in Burke et al.’s study where
Canadian students with varied SES viewed a play themed around genetics, luck, and faith, and discussed
interactions between Western, modern science, and other knowledge systems. High-SES students were
interested in scientifc careers and viewed science as objective, authoritative, and distinct from knowl-
edge forms. In contrast, low-SES students were not interested in scientifc careers and viewed science
as messy, noting it impacts and is impacted by society. However, SES was not associated with student
NOS views in Khishfe’s and Khishfe et al.’s studies. Khishfe found that consistency of student views of
the empirical, subjective, and tentative NOS varied depending on whether these views were elicited in
the context of scientifc (plate tectonics, atoms, dinosaurs) versus SSI (genetically manufactured foods
[GMFs], global warming). Students had difculties transferring NOS conceptions across contexts.
Finally, Khishfe et al. found that female 11th graders in Saudi Arabia held more informed NOS views
than male students and generated better arguments, counterarguments, and rebuttals. They reported
that student arguments difered across contexts, and more informed NOS views were associated with
better argumentation. It is noteworthy that, unlike studies of lower secondary students that mostly
used convergent NOS instruments, fndings from this set of studies were more divergent, at times even
contradictory. These fndings reinforce the situatedness and nuance of NOS responses elicited through
open-ended approaches yet raise questions about the construct being assessed across studies.
In college, essays by South Korean nonscience majors revealed appreciation of sociocultural
dimensions and personal qualities of scientists, and struggle with science’s purpose and methods
(Hwang, 2015). Also, unlike with methods, students did not derive lessons about NOS from read-
ings they analyzed in their essays. Yet, using an author-developed, RFN survey, Akgun and Kaya
(2020) found that Turkish undergraduate nonscience majors held more sophisticated NOS views
than science majors for aims and values; diversity of methods; and role of economic, political, and
social dimensions. They replicated Kimball’s (1967–1968) fndings using the Nature of Science Scale
and, like Kimball before them, suggested the diferences are related to nonmajors completing more
coursework in philosophy, history, and psychology. Šorgo et al. (2014) administered their own true/
false survey to 994 frst-year college students in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey,
and reported poor NOS understandings across nations. For master and doctoral level Turkish science
students, Aydeniz and Bilican (2014) reported mixed VNOS – C results. Participants understood
scientists’ motivations and the empirical and creative NOS, but struggled with theory-ladenness,
theory development, and modeling in science. In Myers and Abd-El-Khalick (2016), science and
nonscience doctoral students addressed open-ended NOS prompts after screening a sci-f flm. Par-
ticipants portrayed science as being principally based on not only empirical evidence but also “faith”,
and stressed that assumptions, trust in knowledge and authority, and theory choice draw on “faith”
in science. The authors noted that sci-f flms generate powerful images of science in the populace –
some very naïve – and will impact NOS conceptions irrespective of viewers’ level of science literacy,
creating yet another major challenge to promoting NOS understandings. Finally, Peters-Burton and
Baynard (2013) reported that scientists in their study held sophisticated NOS conceptions. Woit-
kowski and Wurmbach (2019) administered their survey to 50 physicists from 20 German universi-
ties. They reported that, except for certainty of knowledge and scientifc methods, participants held
informed NOS conceptions. Scientists thought knowledge was demonstrable and objective, and
experiments were the dominant scientifc method.
Research on Teacher NOS Conceptions

Four studies assessed teacher NOS conceptions. Gencer (2014) found that Turkish preservice ele-
mentary teachers who diagrammed concepts and answered questions about theories in focus groups
held superfcial understandings of several NOS aspects. Preservice secondary biology teachers in
872
Germany interviewed by Reinisch and Kruger (2018) depicted theories as uncertain or “unproven”
and models as simplifed copies of natural phenomena and did not appreciate the need to test model
ft with data. Peters-Burton et al. (2019) found that, as a group, in-service elementary and preservice
secondary teachers did not articulate central ideas or identify links among several NOS aspects. Stott
and Hattingh (2020) assessed NOS views among South African preservice elementary and middle
school teachers using the SUSSI, then compared these to fndings reported for teachers from China,
Turkey, and the United States. SUSSI mean scores were higher for Chinese teachers, yet similar
across other nations. South African teachers held more informed views of the nature of theories and
laws but struggled with the creative NOS and myth of the scientifc method. Overall, these fndings
are consistent with past research showing that teachers lacked robust NOS understandings that are
necessary, although not sufcient, to teach about NOS.
Wan et al. (2018) used open-ended interviews to examine relationships between in-service sec-
ondary teachers’ NOS views and features of their Confucian and Chinese culture. Teachers who had
coursework in inquiry and HOS but not NOS held several informed views. Still, they expressed
alternative NOS views, evidencing a strong cultural impact. Coleman et al. (2015) examined the
relationship between NOS conceptions and acceptance of evolution. Graduate and undergraduate
preservice teachers in South Africa completed surveys on NOS (Rutledge & Warden, 2000) and
Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (Rutledge & Warden, 1999). Participants’ accep-
tance of evolutionary theory was found to be independent of changes in their conceptual under-
standing of evolution and NOS beliefs.
Eight studies examined teacher NOS understandings and aspects of teaching about NOS. In pre-
college classrooms, studies focused on in-service secondary teachers, except for Kelly and Erduran
(2019) who studied preservice teachers. Their study examined how self-efcacy for NOS teaching
was related to two Irish teachers’ understandings of one FRA dimension. Teachers showed interest
in, and understanding of, epistemic and cognitive elements under aims and values of science. They
also were cognizant of strategies to address NOS (e.g., inquiry and HOS teaching approaches). Wan
and Wong (2016) interviewed Hong Kong teachers about their values for NOS teaching. Teachers
invoked several values, including learning science content and ethics, increasing interest in science,
supporting inquiry and thinking skills, and passing national tests. However, studies involving obser-
vation of classroom practice did not support the import of the latter dimensions for NOS teaching.
Herman et al. (2013) found that levels of implementing NOS instruction for 13 teachers with robust
NOS understandings were not related to their self-efcacy, and expressions of valuing utility for,
teaching about NOS. Instead, understanding of efective NOS pedagogy and how students learn
about NOS were most salient in whether teacher classroom implementations were low, medium, or
high. The authors noted that valuing NOS instruction for reasons beyond learning science or NOS,
namely, for SSI decision-making and citizenship, did impact NOS instruction. Supprakob et al.
(2016) also reported that informed NOS views among six novice Thai chemistry teachers and their
expressions of various orientations for NOS teaching (e.g., inquiry and problem-based learning) did
not translate into their instruction, which was dominated by lecturing. Teachers lacked in pedagogi-
cal content knowledge (PCK) for NOS teaching, which also includes knowledge of NOS teaching
strategies and assessment. Bartos and Lederman (2014) assessed alignment between teacher knowl-
edge structures for NOS and classroom practice. Teachers held informed NOS views and graduated
from a program that emphasized PCK for NOS. Yet, translation into practice was mixed, ranging
from limited to moderate and marked. The authors noted that teachers had difculty planning for
NOS teaching and developing their PCK, voicing need for support with NOS-specifc instructional
resources.
At the college level, Wan et al. (2013) examined Chinese science teacher educators’ percep-
tions of NOS content that is adequate for preservice teachers. The faculty members held mixed
NOS understandings and mixed visions for NOS content needed for teachers. Bautista et al. (2013)
873
examined factors that hindered or facilitated the translation of nine graduate teaching assistants’
NOS conceptions into E-R NOS instruction in their undergraduate biology course. Participants’
implementations were varied and mediated by valuing NOS for their students, time availability, train-
ing in E-R pedagogy, NOS-specifc instructional materials, and ability to lead discussions. Finally,
Aydin (2015) reported that a chemist teaching a graduate elective course held robust NOS views
and believed teaching NOS is importance. Instruction was teacher-centered and drew on HOS but
did not include assessment of NOS learning. The scientist noted that they learned about NOS from
NOS literature, not from their scientifc training, and noted that deep content knowledge helped
them teach about NOS.
Conclusion
Consistent with long-lived research fndings, students and teachers from across the globe and across
the continuum from elementary to graduate school continue to lack informed, let alone robust,
NOS understandings. While science content, SSI, and engagement with inquiry or HOS provide
contexts for NOS learning, there is evident need for E-R instructional interventions to help learners
develop and bridge their conceptions across contexts. Examination of relationships between student
NOS understandings and other variables showed divergent results, such as whether understand-
ings are related to SES, sex, and/or grade levels. Divergence reinforces the nuance and situatedness
of NOS responses elicited through open-ended approaches and suggests the need for additional
research. Importantly, such divergence raises serious questions about how NOS conceptions are
being characterized across studies. There is need to revisit how we assign qualitatively elicited NOS
conceptions along varied continua from naïve to informed.
Findings continue to show that, while necessary, teacher understandings are not sufcient for
efective NOS instruction. Importantly, fndings also cast doubt about the extent to which verbalized
valuations of the importance and/or utility for NOS teaching play a role in translating teacher con-
ceptions into instruction. Emergent evidence points to the crucial role of not only NOS PCK (e.g.,
knowledge and experience with efective NOS pedagogies and assessments), but also the availability
of NOS-specifc instructional resources. Importantly, it now is virtually universally accepted that if
we want students to learn about NOS, then we need to explicitly plan for, and teach toward, this
goal. We also need to accept that if we want teachers to teach about NOS, then we need to equip
them with robust NOS understandings, efective NOS pedagogies and assessments, and provide
them with context and/or content-specifc NOS instructional materials and resources.
Intervention NOS Studies

Of 72 intervention studies, 26 were undertaken with students in KG through college, and 46 with
preservice and in-service precollege teachers. As detailed next, some intervention studies aimed to
improve students’ or teachers’ NOS understandings. Among the latter, a subset of studies also exam-
ined factors that mediate the translation of improved NOS understandings into instructional planning
and/or practice, while others deployed interventions with the aim of impacting NOS instruction.
Impacting Learner NOS Conceptions

Of 26 studies targeting students, 17 (65%) were at the secondary – middle and/or high school –
level. Three studies involved elementary (Akerson, Weiland et al., 2014; Meyer & Crawford, 2015;
Schellinger et al., 2019) and four undergraduate college students (Eshach et al., 2013; Grifard
et al. 2013; Leung, 2020; Schussler et al., 2013), while a single study each involved KG students
(Alan & Erdoğan, 2018) and citizens (Price & Lee, 2013). Improving learner domain-general NOS
874
conceptions was the sole focus of most studies (73%). Additionally, Khishfe (2013, 2014, 2015,
2019) gauged the retention (also Meyer & Crawford, 2015) and transfer of NOS views across science
content and SSI domains among secondary students. Herman (2018) and Herman, Owens et al.
(2019), respectively, examined the relationships between improved domain-specifc NOS views and
secondary students’ pro-environmental intent and domain-specifc explanations. All but three studies
adopted a domain-general consensus, while Herman and colleagues used a domain-specifc NOS
framework. Only Leung’s (2020) framework approached NOS as an active ability supported by sci-
ence practice rather than knowledge about science.
Seventeen studies adopted an E-R NOS instructional framework, while four used implicit and
three compared the impact of explicit versus implicit NOS instructional approaches. Two studies used
place-based SSI instruction to improve domain-specifc NOS conceptions. Herman (2018) and Her-
man, Owens et al. (2019) engaged 60 grades 7–11 students with place-based SSI instruction during
a feld trip to Yellowstone Park. Students learned about environmental science, wolf reintroduction,
and stakeholder groups’ perspectives; hiked the park and interacted with ecologists; and discussed
readings and flms. They responded to Likert and open-ended items on an author-developed sur-
vey about environmental concepts (trophic cascade explanations) and attitudes (compassion toward
people and nature), intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior, and domain-specifc NOS
ideas. The latter included nature of environmental theories, observation versus interpretation, and
cultural infuences on environmental science. Domain-specifc NOS conceptions improved and were
correlated with increased accuracy and complexity in students’ environmental explanations. What is
noteworthy is that Herman and colleagues were unique among all studies reviewed here in assessing
behavioral intentions, which are a precursor to actions. Their fndings point to a relationship between
student NOS understandings and intentions to engage with pro-environmental behaviors.
Consistent with past research, implicit interventions reported little impact or mixed results, at best.
Price and Lee (2013) used the NSKS to gauge the impact of engaging 333 citizens (41 years mean
age, 61% college graduates) over six months with “Citizen Sky” and internet-facilitated inquiry.
They reported improved NSKS scores, albeit these were not correlated with participation level of
volunteer citizens, which casts doubt on the approach’s efectiveness. Grifard et al. (2013) engaged
undergraduate college students in Qatar with weekly book club readings and discussions about the
history of biology and medicine over 14 weeks. Data showed no diference between 22 interven-
tion and 34 comparison students after controlling for initial diferences. All participants improved
on some NOS aspects and struggled with others (e.g., nature of theories and laws). Shultz and
Gere (2015) asked 58 high school students to read and summarize an original 1916 scientifc paper
by Lewis (1916), describe how Lewis evolved his theory, compare Lewis’s to other theories, and
review responses generated by their classmates. VNOS – B responses showed mixed results: students
improved on some NOS aspects (e.g., creative) but not others (e.g., theory-laden). In Brazil, Schifer
and Guerra (2015) had 85 ninth graders discuss a historical narrative on electricity in seven sessions
over four weeks. Students generated and answered their own questions and responded to researcher
open-ended prompts. The authors concluded that HOS could engage students with thinking about
NOS but did not report on substantial changes in their participants’ conceptions.
The aforementioned fndings were confrmed by researchers who assessed the relative impact
of implicit and explicit instructional approaches. Burgin and Sadler (2013) engaged 30 high school
students in a seven-week, authentic, residential research apprenticeship in a university laboratory.
They compared the efectiveness of implicit, explicit, and refective NOS instruction embedded in
the apprenticeship’s research seminar. Responses to modifed VNOS questions and interviews with
six students who experienced diferent instructional modes showed the explicit approach was most
efective, especially when embedded in authentic research. Eymur (2019) delivered and compared
the impact of implicit and explicit NOS instruction embedded in argument-driven inquiry. Instruc-
tion engaged 45 11th graders (24 randomly assigned to explicit teaching) in 18, 45-minute sessions
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over nine weeks. VNOS – B–based interviews showed hardly any change among comparison group
students versus marked improvements from naïve to transitional and informed NOS conceptions
among intervention students. Schussler et al. (2013) created and compared four NOS treatment
combinations through pairing E-R versus No E-R and expository versus inquiry instruction. Treat-
ments were randomly assigned to 31 intact sections enrolling 602 students in a 15-week undergradu-
ate biology course. VNOS – B and VOSTS data showed that absence of E-R components resulted
in either no improvement or loss in student understandings of some NOS aspects. Adding E-R
elements improved the impact of both expository and inquiry instruction, even though the combina-
tion of E-R/expository instruction showed more improvement for more NOS aspects. The authors
highlighted an interaction between specifc NOS aspects and growth resulting from combining E-R
elements with either expository or inquiry teaching.
The majority of studies (17, or 65%) adopted the evidence-based efectiveness of the E-R frame-
work as a point of departure to design varied and innovative NOS interventions. Alan and Erdoğan
(2018) engaged low-SES, KG Turkish students with nine NOS activities over ten days embedded
within a visit to an interactive science center. The Young Children’s Views of Science interview
protocol (Lederman & Lederman, 2010) showed marked improvement in all student views on the
tentative, inferential, and creative NOS and slight improvements on the empirical and subjective
NOS. At the elementary level, researchers deployed E-R instruction with at-risk students using
generic and content-embedded activities integrated into inquiry learning and children’s literature for
an academic year (Akerson, Weiland et al., 2014); urban, underrepresented, dual-language students
using multicultural-focused inquiry and language-learning supports for several months (Meyer &
Crawford, 2015); and upper elementary students using an inquiry-oriented, technology-enhanced
curriculum in formal and informal settings for three weeks (Schellinger et al., 2019). Student under-
standings improved substantially with explicitly targeted NOS aspects. Improvements interacted with
students’ ability levels and were less pronounced for the social and subjective NOS. Papadouris
and Constantinou (2014) launched their E-R approach with generic NOS activities, followed by
exploring the history of energy concepts, and wrapped with context-embedded epistemic discourse,
resulting in improved conceptions among 64 middle school students of the inferential and creative
NOS. In a brief, three-day summer camp intervention, Michel and Neumann (2016) reported simi-
lar learning among two groups of middle schoolers who experienced E-R NOS instruction with
and without learning about energy concepts. In both conditions, student NOS and content learn-
ing were correlated, pointing to a possible relationship between improved NOS understandings and
learning science concepts. Peters-Burton (2015) enriched E-R, content-embedded NOS teaching
with a focus on self-regulated learning skills (self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and attribution pro-
cesses) facilitating substantive growth in middle school students’ NOS conceptions and interrelated-
ness among these conceptions.
In four studies that used single or intervention and comparison group designs and focused on
middle and high school students, Khishfe (2013, 2014, 2015, 2019) assessed the retention and transfer
of NOS understandings across science content areas (e.g., earthquakes, volcanoes) and SSI contexts
(e.g., genetically manufactured organisms, fuoridation). Khishfe (2014) augmented the intervention
with instruction in argumentation. Findings confrmed the efectiveness of E-R instruction delivered
over several weeks or months. Some students retained NOS understandings four months later. Over-
all, student NOS understandings transferred well into science and SSI contexts that were similar to
those in which they developed their NOS conceptions, and much less so into less familiar contexts.
At the high school level, E-R NOS instruction embedded in authentic inquiry and enriched through
an online discussion forum resulted in substantial growth across all target NOS aspects (Russell &
Aydeniz, 2013). Cofré et al. (2018) engaged 11th graders with learning about evolution with and
without contextualized NOS instruction over three 90-minute sessions. Students in both groups
learned about natural selection; however, only intervention students improved in their acceptance of
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evolutionary theory, which was coupled with improved NOS understandings, especially inferential
NOS. Tsybulsky (2018) found that two conditions of a six-week intervention with 210 Israeli stu-
dents enrolled in an advanced high school biology course resulted in improved understandings of fve
target NOS aspects. However, the analysis of adapted primary scientifc literature approach (APL)
was more efective with advanced-level students than the second condition, which involved visits
to authentic university laboratories (AULs). Tsybulsky et al. (2018) further diferentiated E-R NOS
instruction for 497 students in intact sections of their biology course with diferent preparations for
AULs. Students in two intervention conditions were either presented to the laboratory research team,
project, and language (to reduce geographical and psychological novelties) or engaged in conversa-
tions about the research program, inquiry, and NOS (to reduce cognitive novelty). During AULs,
students talked with researchers about investigations and links to NOS. Back in classrooms, students
read HOS cases and refected on their AULs from inquiry and NOS lenses. Compared to the con-
trol, all treatment students improved in attitudes toward science and NOS understandings, which
they retained six months later. Eshach et al. (2013) and Leung (2020), respectively, engaged college
students with E-R instruction using HOS case studies on Noble laureates and practice-based SSI
instruction incorporating readings, hands-on activities, and peer interaction. Both studies reported
substantial growth in their undergraduate participants’ NOS understandings.
Impacting Teacher NOS Conceptions and NOS Instruction

Improving teacher NOS understandings, exploring factors that mediate translation of these under-
standings into instruction, and impacting NOS instruction was, by far, the dominant NOS research
domain (35% of all studies) over the review period. Of 46 studies, 39 (85%) explicitly and 4 (9%)
implicitly adopted a consensus NOS framework, addressing all or subsets of related NOS aspects.
The remaining studies adopted the RFN (Kaya et al., 2019), Nott and Wellington’s (1993) (Mansour
et al., 2016), or Fleener’s (1996) framework (Afalo, 2014). Most studies (65%) used VNOS (52%)
or open-ended questionnaires and interviews for NOS assessment. Other authors used convergent
type assessments, including the NOSS (e.g., Mansour et al., 2016), modifed SUSSI (e.g., Kruse
et al., 2017), or VOSE (e.g., Burton, 2013), or developed their own questionnaires or assessments.
Studies were almost equally split in focusing on preservice (45%) and in-service (55%) teachers, 28%
involved middle school teachers, and 36% each were undertaken with elementary and upper second-
ary teachers.
Seventeen studies (37%) were solely focused on improving teacher NOS conceptions and were
undertaken with preservice teachers (except Kartal et al., 2018; Kaya et al., 2019). Almost all were
smaller in scale, involving 4–45 teachers, and used an E-R teaching framework. Some interven-
tions were brief and episodic – lasting a few hours, such as reading and refecting on a historical
controversy (García-Carmona & Acevedo-Díaz, 2017), case study (Aragón-Méndez et al., 2019), or
vignette (Lorsbach et al., 2019). Others were extended, spanning several weeks (Capps & Crawford,
2013; Kaya et al., 2019; Valente et al., 2018), embedded throughout semester long courses (Afalo,
2014; Mesci, 2020; Ozgelen et al., 2013; Tala & Vesterinen, 2015) and two-course sequences (Krell
et al., 2015; Zion et al., 2020), or threaded throughout a teacher preparation program (Herman &
Clough, 2016; Kartal et al., 2018). E-R instruction or elements were enacted within varied contexts,
ranging from the aforementioned historical approaches to embedding NOS instruction in under-
graduate science courses (e.g., Afalo, 2014); using online-structured dialogue environments to sup-
port collaborative NOS learning (Mansour et al., 2016); teachers interviewing scientists about their
epistemological and methodological perspectives, followed by enrolling in a course, on modeling
practices (Tala & Vesterinen, 2015); authentic research internships coupled with refective seminars
(Capps & Crawford, 2013; Valente et al., 2018); and “scientifc experimental theatre”. In the lat-
ter study, Melo and Bachtold (2018) adapted the play Copenhagen, which was based on a meeting
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between Bohr and Heisenberg, into a theater-based pedagogical device. Eight preservice teachers
experienced a reading and explanation of the play, asked questions of the narrator and audience,
and then revised and staged the narrative. Mesci used a PCK-based NOS teaching model to sup-
port 39 preservice teachers to experience and plan why and how to teach and assess student NOS
understandings, think about NOS’s place in the curriculum, and explore connections between NOS
and science content. Herman and Clough (2016) initiated preservice secondary teachers with a
NOS-specifc course and had them revisit NOS teaching, learning, and assessment throughout their
licensure program. Their teachers retained NOS understandings two to fve years after graduation.
All studies reported substantial gains in NOS understandings. In some studies, teachers struggled
with the myth of the method and nature of theories and laws. Again, evidence strongly supported the
efectiveness of E-R instruction. Valente et al. (2018) noted that major gains in NOS understandings
were only detected after refective seminars. They highlighted the need for structured scafolding and
refection to promote NOS conceptions when immersing teachers in authentic research experiences
(also see Capps & Crawford, 2013). Similarly, García-Carmona and Acevedo-Díaz (2017) found that
teachers’ own discussions did not impact their NOS conceptions, which were improved following
explicit intervention in the form of generating cognitive dissonance, followed by refective prompts
and connections to additional historical cases.
In addition to improving teacher conceptions, another ten studies explored the impact of inter-
ventions on factors that might mediate the translation of NOS conceptions into instruction (except
Cofré et al., 2017, who aimed to improve in-service teachers’ NOS views and acceptance of evolu-
tion). Factors included rationales, orientations, and pedagogies for science and NOS teaching. The
studies had a profle similar to the 17 described earlier in terms of NOS framework, instruction,
assessments, and teachers, except that all ten studies featured extended interventions spanning weeks
or entire courses. Faikhamta (2013) and Demirdogen and Uzuntiryaki-Kondakci (2016) examined
the respective impact of a PCK-NOS course and a “Research in Chemistry Education” two-course
sequence on orientation to NOS teaching. In the latter study, preservice secondary teachers’ views
improved after the frst NOS-focused course, but their NOS teaching orientations were unchanged.
The second NOS-PCK course was needed to help teachers align instructional plans in consider-
ation of learners, assessment, and teaching strategy. Faikhamta reported favorable shifts in 25 in-ser-
vice elementary and secondary teachers’ orientations toward E-R content-embedded teaching and
inquiry instruction, which paralleled teacher experiences during the intervention. Kruse et al. (2017)
reported that preservice teachers engaged in an E-R NOS course emphasizing modeling thought
that learning about NOS would increase school students’ interest in science. Kruse at al. also noted
that being explicit about E-R teaching was needed to shape participants’ NOS pedagogies and that
a single course is hardly sufcient to impact rationales and pedagogies for NOS teaching. Akerson,
Nargund-Joshi et al. (2014) examined the impact on NOS understandings and NOS teaching strate-
gies of E-R teaching enacted within four contexts in four elementary science methods courses. The
contexts were: NOS as a course theme, problem-based learning (PBL), authentic inquiry, and refec-
tive teaching. Elementary teachers’ NOS views improved across all courses, showing the least growth
in the authentic inquiry context. Teachers noted the importance of NOS teaching and drew on
strategies they experienced in their specifc course, evidencing a context-dependency for developing
NOS instructional repertoires. Leden and Hansson (2019) worked with ten experienced Swedish
teachers over three years reading about, engaging with, and discussing NOS to explore their perspec-
tives on progressions in NOS teaching rationales across grade levels. Teachers believed that almost
all NOS aspects can be taught at some level of depth at every grade. Owing to students’ maturity
and experience, some NOS aspects are better addressed in later school years, and those most chal-
lenging could be revisited every year at increased levels of sophistication. NOS ideas ft for hands-on
teaching (e.g., empirical) are better started early, while abstract ones (e.g., sociocultural) are more
suited for later school years. Teachers also emphasized the importance of matching contexts with
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levels of sophistication to address NOS aspects at a given grade level and lamented the lack of good
examples for NOS teaching. Anderson and Moeed (2017) engaged 26 in-service teachers with the
New Zealand Primary Science Teacher Fellowship: six months of work alongside feld scientists and
opportunities to connect these experiences to science curriculum and classroom instruction. Teach-
ers’ views improved, and they highlighted the importance of NOS learning for scientifc literacy
and citizenship. Rebull et al. (2018) engaged secondary teachers with similarly authentic research
and knowledge dissemination activities guided by mentor astronomers. They showed gains in NOS
conceptions and preference for changing their instructional practices. Kutluca and Aydin (2017)
engaged 27 preservice elementary teachers with theoretical learning about, and practical activi-
ties on, argumentation, NOS, and SSI using E-R strategies for 11 weeks. Relative to comparison
teachers who only learned the theory, intervention teachers developed better NOS conceptions and
valued E-R NOS teaching for improving learning experiences. Finally, in a 120-hour intervention
spanning six months, Pavez et al. (2016) deployed E-R NOS teaching with HOS, contextualized and
decontextualized NOS activities, and argumentation. Biology teachers’ NOS views improved, and
they valued HOS as a context for NOS teaching. However, albeit their lesson plans included explicit
NOS teaching goals, teachers struggled with incorporating HOS to address complex NOS aspects
and with planning for student assessment.
Nineteen studies aimed to improve teachers’ conceptions, support their NOS instructional
planning and/or implementation, and examine their NOS teaching. All studies explicitly adopted
a consensus framework, 17 (89%) used E-R approaches, 16 (84%) had in-service teachers, and 15
(79%) featured extended interventions lasting weeks and months. Twelve studies used the VNOS,
four used author-developed instruments, the modifed SUSSI (Herman et al., 2013, Herman,
Olson et al., 2019), and VOSE (Burton, 2013). Teachers’ NOS instruction and post-instruction
refections were examined through lesson plans and recordings of planning sessions; researcher
classroom observations, recordings, and/or feld notes; and/or teacher post-instruction interviews
and journals. The major consistencies across studies allow for drawing robust inferences. Following
a relatively brief, 30-hour professional development (PD) featuring E-R NOS instruction embed-
ded in science activities, two secondary teachers showed improved understandings yet struggled
with teaching. Their NOS instruction was short-lived and mostly didactic, owing to lack of
confdence in their NOS views and perceptions of their students’ interest in NOS (Dogan et al.,
2013). Burton (2013) worked with 17 secondary science teachers for three hours a week over fve
months using HPS and had teachers analyze artifacts produced by their students. Similar to Dogan
et al.’s (2013), Burton’s teachers grew in their understandings, yet their NOS teaching was mini-
mal, even though their plans featured more inquiry and elements of E-R teaching. Also, teach-
ers thought their students did not learn much about NOS. Deniz and Adibelli (2015) engaged
four second-grade teachers in a graduate course to learn, and develop action research plans to
teach, about NOS. Translation of improved conceptions into teaching was limited, and teachers
cited perceptions of the relative importance of NOS outcomes and developmental appropriate-
ness and complexity of NOS ideas as impeding factors. Eren-Şişman et al. (2020) worked with
in-service elementary and middle school teachers over four four-hour sessions to improve their
NOS understandings and help them integrate NOS into teaching in an informal science learning
center. Teacher views improved, yet the authors reported only 1 of 18 was particularly success-
ful in addressing NOS instructionally. Dibattista and Morgese (2013) had 24 secondary teachers
collaborate with university professors to develop plans and teach NOS lessons featuring HOS. A
survey of participants’ 418 students showed improved understandings of two NOS aspects and
attitudes toward science. Bilican et al. (2014) examined preservice elementary teachers’ views and
micro-teaching following a NOS-focused science methods course. Teachers who showed more
substantial growth in NOS understandings, as refected in responses to critical incidents, also used
more efective student-centered NOS instruction. All six studies recommended further supports
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for NOS teaching beyond enhancing teacher NOS understandings; a recommendation that was
taken to heart in the next set of studies.
In three studies, Akerson and colleagues provided preservice elementary (Akerson et al., 2017)
and ECE teachers (Akerson et al., 2019), and an in-service KG teacher (Bilican et al., 2020)
additional supports for NOS instruction embedded or initiated in science methods courses. The
respective supports were a modifed Japanese lesson study model (see, for example, Doig and
Groves, 2011) to enable collaborative planning and refection on teaching; creating children’s
books to design and teach NOS lessons, then assess student learning and refect on teaching; and
collaborative learning about, planning for, and teaching NOS between a graduate teaching assistant
and a KG teacher. The studies reported improved NOS understandings among participants and
varying levels of success with E-R NOS teaching. Mediating factors included the extent of teach-
ers’ refection on instruction and revising plans or approaches; depth of science content and NOS
understandings; classroom management skills; and mentor skills in modeling NOS instruction,
bolstering teacher confdence, and scafolding teachers to assume more NOS teaching responsibil-
ity. Wahbeh and Abd-El-Khalick (2014) engaged 19 in-service secondary science teachers with
a summer-long E-R NOS course embedded in science content and inquiry and enriched with
HPS. Teachers were supported in planning for, and closely followed over a whole school year as
they implemented, NOS teaching. They could call on the researchers to model or co-teach NOS
with them, and many did. Teachers’ NOS understandings grew substantially and were retained fve
months later. Examination of diferential NOS teaching enactments helped identify key mediat-
ing factors: depth of science content and NOS understandings; skill in assessing and monitoring
changes in student views; expertise with student-centered and inquiry pedagogies; and availability
of, and profciency with locating and/or modifying, NOS-related instructional resources. Collab-
orative study, planning for, and teaching NOS was central to Gandolf’s (2020) work with a sec-
ondary biology teacher. They addressed NOS explicitly in direct teaching, homework, and student
debates. The teacher’s knowledge of HOS and NOS, confdence in facilitating conversations, and
responding to classroom conditions all improved, as did their satisfaction with students’ engage-
ment with NOS. In a study unique in involving special education elementary teachers, Mulvey
et al. (2016) engaged teachers in a graduate course intensively focused on inquiry and NOS.
Teachers’ conceptions improved, and the four implemented E-R NOS instruction using inquiry
and substantive content as context. They attributed their success to modeling by course instructors
and experiencing NOS and inquiry instruction themselves, practicing questioning strategies and
communicating with general education teachers. Piliouras et al.’s (2018) year-long intervention
with four teachers experienced with inquiry aimed to develop their NOS conceptions and dis-
course analysis skills, which were deployed to plan, implement, and refect on E-R NOS teaching.
Teachers implemented efective NOS teaching practices, particularly discourse-based strategies,
and started to emphasize NOS more explicitly as evidenced in their refective communicative
repertoires. Brunner and Abd-El-Khalick (2020) used modifed science trade books, a device
ubiquitous in elementary classrooms, to impact teacher and student NOS understandings. Modify-
ing trade books was necessary owing to evidence that even widely used, award-winning books fail
to address NOS (Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Ford, 2006; Kelly, 2018). In a counterbalanced design,
eight fourth- and ffth-grade teachers engaged 184 students with month-long read-aloud sessions
featuring three levels of trade book treatment: unmodifed; modifed, with E-R NOS references
and prompts; and modifed plus wrap-around educative NOS materials for teachers. Unmodi-
fed books had virtually no impact. The modifed versions resulted in improved teacher NOS
understandings, especially when coupled with educative materials. Free recall tasks and interviews
showed improved student views of the empirical and inferential NOS. Teachers expressed favor-
able views of the intervention and higher comfort levels with NOS teaching, which make such
resource-lean devices particularly useful for broad, scalable interventions.
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Herman et al. (2017) examined levels of NOS implementation for 13 secondary teachers two to
fve years following graduation from a teacher education program featuring an intensive, persistent
NOS focus – that started with a NOS course and was threaded throughout the program. Twelve
teachers taught NOS: four showed high, fve medium, and three low implementation levels. High
implementers went beyond their program experiences using inquiry and HOS teaching resources.
Medium and low implementers voiced a consistent need for more NOS teaching resources. The
authors noted that teacher education programs lacking a major focus on NOS are not likely to result
in NOS implementations. In a follow-up study, Herman, Olson et al. (2019) examined the impact of
informal support networks – both within and across school buildings – on these 13 teachers’ imple-
mentation levels. Nine medium and high implementers attributed their success to informal net-
works, which enabled them in spite of institutional constraints that either did not support or worked
against accurate and efective NOS instruction. Efective networks included individuals who valued
and were committed to NOS instruction, understood what such instruction entailed, and shared a
desire to improve their teaching. Owing to the rarity of efective NOS instruction in schools, the
authors articulated a preference for these informal networks compared to formalized mentorships
and collaborations. In the only randomized controlled trial (RCT) over the review period, Maeng
et al. (2018, 2020) engaged 235 (145 treatment) volunteer elementary teachers, randomly assigned
by school, in an extended PD. In a four-week summer institute, they experienced 152 hours of
modeled E-R NOS instruction embedded in PBL and inquiry. Teachers planned, implemented,
and refected on teaching their own units. They were also coached throughout the academic year.
Unlike control teachers, treatment teachers demonstrated better understandings of NOS, BPL, and
inquiry constructs, and explicated partially or fully aligned views of associated pedagogies. While all
participants believed that students could learn NOS implicitly, treatment teachers had more con-
fdence in implementing NOS, inquiry, and PBL instruction. They attributed such confdence to
institute experiences, peer collaboration, and coaching. Indeed, in four observations, a mere 2% of
control teachers taught NOS explicitly. In comparison, 67% of treatment teachers taught NOS once,
55% twice, and 9% four times. Their instructional strategies ranged from “not connected, teacher-
driven” with lessons simply verbalizing NOS concepts, to “connected, teacher-driven” where NOS
ideas were explicitly embedded in science content but lacked refective elements, and “connected,
student-centered” providing students opportunities to refect and connect NOS concepts to their
activities and the work of scientists. Many teachers missed opportunities for student refection, and
some misrepresented some NOS aspects. Finally, Lederman and Lederman (2019) examined the
impact of a large-scale, fve-year PD project on 236 in-service elementary and secondary teachers’
knowledge domains and NOS instruction. The domains included understandings of science con-
tent, NOS, and SI, as well as NOS-PCK. In each of the fve years, teachers participated in summer
institutes, academic-year activities, research internships, and several opportunities for collaboration
and refection. The study was unique in its systemic examination of teachers’ knowledge domains,
their instructional implementations, and impact on NOS conceptions among thousands of students.
Teachers grew substantially in all target knowledge domains and progressed from implicit to didactic
to E-R NOS instruction, which was eventually implemented by 75% of all teachers. Student NOS
understandings also improved, albeit not to the same extent as their teachers, with students in higher
grade levels evidencing more substantial growth.
Conclusion
Some 25 years ago, Abd-El-Khalick et al. (1998) emphasized that “explicit attention to the NOS is
essential”, as is the need to “avoid the apparent tendency to think that the NOS can be taught implic-
itly through student participation in science” (p. 432). “Irrespective of the specifc approach used”,
whether direct instruction, HPS, or inquiry, “explicitness and refection should be made focal to any
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attempt geared toward improving” NOS conceptions (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000a, p. 695).
Initial reactions misconstrued this approach as didactic NOS teaching and maintained that teach-
ers and students are better served by teaching and learning about NOS through mere engagement
with science practices, inquiry experiences, authentic research, and/or HPS (see Abd-El-Khalick,
2012a). Far from calling for didactic teaching, the E-R framework provides overarching guidance
for efective NOS instruction. The label “explicit” “emphasizes the need for including specifc NOS
learning outcomes in any instructional sequence aimed at promoting NOS understandings”, and
the label “refective” stresses “the need for the provision of structured opportunities designed to
encourage learners to examine their science learning experiences from within a NOS framework”.
We have always noted that in terms of context for NOS teaching, “our strong preference would be
for choosing pedagogical approaches that are active, student-centered, and collaborative in nature, as
well as embedded in science content and authentic inquiry-oriented experiences” (Abd-El-Khalick,
2012b, p. 1057). After years of debate and research on the relative efectiveness of implicit and E-R
approaches, this review evidences a major and crucial shift in research toward a ubiquitous endorse-
ment of E-R NOS teaching. This alignment enabled researchers to focus on designing and deploying
the array of innovative and engaging interventions described earlier drawing on all possible contexts
for NOS teaching. The few studies that used implicit approaches (Grifard et al., 2013; Price & Lee,
2013; Shultz & Gere, 2015; Schifer & Guerra, 2015) or compared approaches (Burgin & Sadler,
2013; Eymur, 2019; Schussler et al., 2013) only reinforced the efectiveness of E-R NOS instruction.
We know how to help students and teachers develop their NOS understandings, which seem to
be further bolstered by extended and substantive interventions compared to short-lived ones. When
it comes to students, the previous studies suggest limited transfer of NOS conceptions across science
and SSI contexts. More research is needed to understand such transfer and expand and establish our
understanding of correlations between improved NOS conceptions and other domains – such as SES,
acceptance of evolutionary theory, argumentation, or pro-environmental behaviors, which remains
rather sketchy. It is noteworthy that only one study examined possible relationships between NOS
understandings and behavioral intentions (Herman, Olson et al., 2019), a crucial area that would
merit more attention if we were to establish real-world consequences for NOS learning. Still, the
area where our knowledge continues to be dismal is the developmental appropriateness of NOS
ideas for school students. Studies showed diferential learning, where students learned about some
NOS aspects (e.g., creative NOS) and struggled with others (e.g., nature of theories and laws), or
where older students fared better than younger ones. Yet, we are missing a conceptualization of such
appropriateness and systematic investigations in this area. Surely, student abilities to write about,
verbalize, and discuss NOS ideas point to meaningful internalization. However, we need constructs
or measures external to the NOS concepts themselves to anchor decisions about developmental
appropriateness. We revisit this idea later.
While not sufcient, studies reafrm that deep understandings of science content and NOS, as
well as NOS-PCK are necessary for efective NOS teaching. So are knowledge domains and skills
associated with robust teaching writ large, including efective classroom management; asking ques-
tions and leading discussions; assessing and monitoring student learning and growth; designing and
implementing active, student-centered pedagogies; and refecting on and adapting instruction. The
studies also reafrm that “NOS should be made a pervasive theme throughout science teacher educa-
tion” to enable the translation of teachers’ NOS conceptions into classroom practice (Abd-El-Khal-
ick & Lederman, 2000a, p. 695). Short-lived interventions hardly resulted in any NOS instruction
by teachers. In comparison, higher levels of NOS implementation were evident in studies featuring
deep and extended interventions focused on science content, NOS, NOS-PCK, and/or student-
centered pedagogies, depending on the attributes of particular teacher groups. Interventions were
particularly efective when coupled with modeling target pedagogies and practices, peer collabora-
tion, mentoring, coaching, and/or co-teaching, as well as providing opportunities for refection and
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possible availability of informal support networks. Importantly, large-scale studies (e.g., Lederman &
Lederman, 2019; Maeng et al., 2018, 2020) served to show the success and scalability of intensive,
extended eforts in not only substantially impacting classroom NOS instruction but improving school
students’ NOS understandings as well. Finally, the persistent calls by teachers for more NOS-specifc
instructional resources point to challenges with transferring NOS implementations across science
contents, contexts, and grade levels. We need to make these resources available to teachers. This can
partially be achieved by making detailed, digital instructional materials and resources used in research
studies publicly available and accessible, which is possible under current practice by most research
journals. Researchers could continue to study their own practice by assessing the impact of various
interventions and approaches on teachers’ and students’ NOS understandings. At this point, the con-
tribution of these studies to the literature would be limited. Yet, such contribution would be signif-
cantly bolstered if evidence-based, NOS instructional resources were made available to all teachers.
The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Watershed Moment

for the Future of NOS Research
Throughout this review of empirical studies, we drew conclusions about the status of and implica-
tions for future NOS research. Essentially, the core rationale for pursuing NOS learning for precol-
lege students remains unchanged, namely, NOS being a core component of scientifc literacy. There
now is overwhelming consensus that NOS is a set of ideas and understandings about science that
can be assessed by eliciting learner responses, rather than a set of epistemic dispositions or practices
that can only be accessed by observing learner behaviors. Assessment has stabilized with clear prefer-
ence for, and dominance of, open-ended approaches. Researchers continue to deploy quantitative
instruments, largely due to the burdens of collecting, analyzing, and/or interpreting qualitative data
and crucial need to conduct advanced statistical analyses. Irrespective of target NOS ideas, there
is ubiquitous adoption of an E-R instructional framework. E-R NOS teaching has manifested in
mostly extended learning experiences, deploying an array of innovative pedagogies, and drawing on
various contexts that range from inquiry and authentic research to science content and/or HPSS. We
now know how to teach NOS to students and their teachers. We also know about the knowledge
domains, instructional skills, and scafolds needed to enable and support teachers in implementing
efective NOS teaching. We have solid, growing evidence that NOS instruction can be scaled up and
does impact student NOS learning.
Yet, seven decades after research started in earnest, the goal of large-scale NOS learning remains
elusive. Irrespective of educational level, audience, and locale, all studies indicated that most students
and teachers started with naïve understandings of most target NOS ideas. We have major challenges.
Most science curricula and textbooks examined were highly likely to impede rather than facilitate
NOS teaching and learning. We need to vigorously pursue this research domain and evidence-based
advocacy to change the current status. There also is a dearth of evidence-based, vetted content-
and context-specifc NOS instructional resources available to teachers. We need to incentivize and
reward researchers who engage with developing and testing such resources. For instance, editors of
high-impact research journals could dedicate special issues to publish these development studies.
We have mixed results about whether and how NOS understandings positively impact other focal
dimensions, ranging from better engagement with inquiry and argumentation to acceptance of evo-
lutionary theory. We continue to be challenged in producing robust evidence that would convince
curriculum developers and teachers of the value of NOS learning. Still, a most critical challenge is
that researchers working within a dominant NOS consensus and other frameworks either emphasize
one or another subset of, or continue to add new, NOS ideas for precollege students to learn. There
really are no underlying solid empirical bases for selecting one set of NOS ideas or another apart
from researcher preference and wisdom of educational judgment about learner audiences and the
883
conditions or contexts under which they are taught. Researching the developmental appropriateness
of NOS understandings is sorely needed. Yet, it is not clear how to conceptualize this appropriate-
ness, even though we surely need to anchor it in indicators that go beyond evidence that students
understand NOS ideas. Also critical is that a focus on varying sets of NOS understandings across
levels and locales coupled with various assessment approaches and valuations of levels of informed-
ness or naivety make cross-study and cross-context comparisons very messy. We believe this messiness
underlies some of the aforementioned issues and undermines progress of future NOS research, devel-
opment, and advocacy eforts. We, again, stress the need to develop and validate analytical frame-
works to quantify qualitative NOS assessments. However, if we are successful in the latter regard, we
still have one central challenge. We come back full circle to the NOS construct and core question:
What are consequential NOS learning goals, and what is their optimized scope and sequence across
precollege curricula as informed by their developmental appropriateness? If the past few decades are
any guide, we confdently predict more long-drawn theoretical debates in the attempt to answer this
central question. Researchers will likely continue to scour and draw on the vast and growing litera-
tures of HPSS to proliferate and champion more or new NOS areas and ideas that students “should”
learn. Next, we go about attempts to teach various subsets of these ideas to various learner audiences
and assess student learning in the absence of robust means to conduct valid, meaningful cross-study
and cross-context comparisons. The current cycle will likely repeat, and we most likely will fnd
ourselves at this same juncture some decades later. Here, the continuing and devastating COVID-19
(COVID) pandemic comes into play with present and clear warnings, guidance, and implications for
the future of NOS research in science education. In outlining these, we use the United States as a
case study, knowing that readers can draw their own conclusions based on similarities and diferences
in their locales.
COVID is a century-defning event that, literally, has immediately impacted every person on the
planet and inficted unparalleled loss in life and treasure everywhere. It became crystal clear that an
efective vaccine stood between the globe’s recovery and a catastrophe of the sort depicted in horror
science fction. We all turned to science, and it delivered highly efective vaccines in relatively record
time. Science saved the day. Nonetheless, the pathway to recovery has, and continues to be, tumul-
tuous for a host of complex reasons. One major reason, no doubt, has been the lack of functional
scientifc literacy among the populace as evident in widespread disregard for engaging with science-
informed decisions and behaviors to mitigate and help end the pandemic. Indeed, it is hard to imagine
a crisis that would have put scientifc literacy to the test as did COVID. Irrespective of varied defni-
tions, an enduring core premise of scientifc literacy has been enabling secondary school graduates to
make informed decisions on science-related personal and societal issues (DeBoer, 2000). Issues often
addressed in science education, especially SSI research, entail complex decisions and behaviors with
distal and/or delayed consequences. These include refraining from smoking or consuming GMFs and
negotiating various, confusing instructions to recycle household containers hoping to make a minute
contribution to, supposedly, a much larger efort that would likely mitigate global climate change in
the distant future (see Zeidler, 2014). COVID presented people with a radically diferent situation.
Crucial decisions and behaviors were simple and, in the United States, accessible and attainable:
wearing a mask and presenting one’s arm at a close location for free vaccination. Consequences were
visible and stark in proximity and fnality: possibly losing one’s life or causing a loved one to possibly
lose their life, all within a few weeks from the onset of infection. Still, hundreds of thousands in the
United States died needlessly because they, those close to them, or others ignored or refused to engage
these simple behaviors or get vaccinated. For instance, Ortaliza et al. (2021) estimated that in the
second half of 2021 alone, close to “163,000 COVID deaths . . . likely would have been prevented
with vaccinations”. In efect, as early as June 2021, nearly all US COVID deaths were preventable
(Soucheray, 2021). Reasons underlying these ill-informed decisions are varied and complex, includ-
ing politicizing COVID and vaccines, household income, individual political ideology and afliation,
884
and disparity of historical realities and experiences of racial minorities across the United States. Yet,
crucially, education matters. Data show that education level signifcantly outweighs race and political
identifcation in getting vaccinated and/or believing in vaccine safety and efectiveness (e.g., Leon-
hardt, 2021; Miller, 2021; Preidt, 2021). Gaps are markedly large between college and noncollege
graduates. For instance, among Democrats, 58% of nongraduates reported being vaccinated com-
pared to 85% of college graduates. Among respondents who identifed as Black, 78% of graduates
were vaccinated compared to 43% of noncollege graduates. Importantly, irrespective of politics, race,
or SES, no more than half of US secondary school graduates were vaccinated (Leonhardt, 2021).
Considering that only 37.5% of US citizens aged 25 and over had a bachelor’s degree or higher in
2020 (United States Census Bureau, 2021), secondary education remains, by far, the major means to
promote scientifc literacy and science-informed decision-making among the populace on current
and future critical challenges, such as a devastating global pandemic. There are urgent and critical
implications for precollege science education, and addressing NOS is no exception.
For NOS, a priority should be bolstering individual- and societal-level trust in science. In the
case of COVID, global data show that after controlling for individual-level drivers, including educa-
tion and income, “people in countries with higher average levels of trust in science are also more
confdent about vaccination” (Sturgis et al., 2021). Yet researchers seem to have little concern about
possible relationships between NOS and trust in science. Only 1 of 132 reviewed studies expressed
any such concern: Kohut (2019) noted that NOS aspects, such as the subjective and tentative NOS,
could be used to argue against scientifc validity, as with creationist attacks on evolutionary theory.
Good and Shymansky (2001) voiced similar concerns based on conceptual analysis of tensions
inherent to the treatment of NOS in national reform documents (i.e., AAAS, 1990; NRC, 1996).
Among these tensions were assertions that scientifc knowledge is at once stable and tentative and
that both continuity and change are persistent features of this knowledge. They concluded that “the
postmodern relativist could select statements that paint science as epistemically equivalent to the
social sciences or even the arts and humanities” (p. 173). Beyond conceptual analyses, we should
ask, is there evidence to merit concern? The answer is yes. Two decades ago, Abd-El-Khalick
(2001) found that learning about NOS enabled elementary teachers to critically reexamine their
scientistic disposition. NOS instruction, however, “seemed to have facilitated or expedited the shift
from ‘dualism’ and ‘scientism’ to ‘naïve relativism’” (p. 230). Citing the creative, social, and tentative
NOS, participants were not willing to make a high-stakes decision about nuclear energy despite
being assured of overwhelming scientifc consensus that associated risks were minimal. Instead, they
expressed anxiety and reluctance as they sought to assert absolute certainty in nuclear reactor safety,
which was in direct confict with what they just internalized about NOS. In efect, their overall
trust in science was negatively impacted. While this shift might be a necessary step toward develop-
ing robust, holistic understandings of NOS, it surely is not sufcient and merits serious attention.
“Those interested in teaching about NOS should attempt to research and understand the interac-
tion between learners’ broader epistemic views and their learning about specifc NOS aspects as well
as the developmental appropriateness of those NOS aspects”, which we deem necessary for school
students and their teachers to internalize (Abd-El-Khalick, 2001, p. 230). The fndings compelled a
reexamination of our work. For example, we abandoned the label “subjective NOS” altogether in
favor of its technical, philosophically equivalent “theory-laden NOS” due to possible misinterpreta-
tions of the term “subjective” (e.g., Abd-El-Khalick, 2004; Abd-El-Khalick & Akerson, 2004). We
also explicitly raised concern about the need to address a possible shift to naïve relativistic notions
of science as a consequence of surface-level understanding, teaching, and/or leaning about NOS
(Abd-El-Khalick, 2005; Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2008). Here, we need to be crystal clear: We are not
advocating for a retreat from NOS teaching. Far from it, COVID clearly demonstrated the value
of understanding how science works and the attributes of scientifc knowledge, as well as trust in
science. We are stressing the need to hold ourselves accountable by recognizing that NOS learning
885
outcomes might and do have implications for engagement with, and overall trust in, science. Also,
we are not arguing for a focus on one set of NOS ideas over another. We are making the case for
an empirically based approach for selecting, scoping, and sequencing NOS learning outcomes for
precollege education by tying these outcomes to science-informed decision-making, behavioral
intentions, and/or behaviors. To do so requires laying the groundwork for shifting from surface
structure understandings of issues at hand to deeper reorganization of conceptual understandings
that are congruent with well-informed actions.
First, a responsible approach to NOS in science education should recognize that, while necessary,
deconstructing learners’ naïve NOS conceptions is not and should not be a goal. Deconstruction is
merely a frst step in the process of enabling learners to reconstruct informed, holistic, and robust
NOS understandings that bolster engagement with and trust in science. As we alluded to earlier, at
times there seems to be an implicit negative heuristic underlying some NOS research, a sense that
the goal of NOS instruction is only to problematize learners’ current understandings. This inference
derives from: (1) an often-noted approach of listing the NOS ideas where learners made progress
(e.g., empirical, creative, tentative) and those where little or no progress was evident (e.g., nature of
theories and laws, social and sociocultural dimensions) absent discussion of concern about underlying
reasons or possible larger implications and (2) a continued proliferation of complex NOS ideas and
domains to be learned despite ample evidence that learners and teachers are struggling with some
core NOS ideas. One often gets the sense that the goal merely is to convey to students the message
that science is very complex and messy, which it is, and that scientifc knowledge is a human con-
struct waiting to be debunked, which it is. The message that is often missed is that despite all these
inherent challenges, science remains the most successful and fruitful human endeavor to date, and
the goal of NOS teaching, and our responsibility, is to educate learners about how science manages
to prevail. This positive heuristic is core to NOS research. For instance, a focus on tentativeness is
not intended to sew mistrust in scientifc knowledge but to prepare learners for inevitable changes
in this knowledge: changes evident in emergent knowledge (e.g., continual reassessment of the value
of mask wearing and importance of surface transmission during the frst year of COVID) and estab-
lished knowledge (e.g., host specifcity of viruses). The inferential NOS is not meant to indicate that
we can never really know in science, but to dispel the intuitive folk idea that “seeing is knowing”;
we can know with high levels of certainty without being able to ever “see” an entity or mechanism.
Dispelling the myth of one scientifc method is not intended to indicate that scientifc research is
haphazard or mere trial and error. There are numerous, established methods in science that apply in
specifc situations, such as randomized controlled trials (RCTs). An understanding of RCTs could
have lessened the impact of misinformation campaigns about the safety of COVID vaccines. Yet, we
could still know that smoking causes cancer absent RCTs, which are not ethical in this situation.
Myth of the method and creative NOS are intended to help all learners envision possible futures in
science, dispelling the myth that creative people are better suited for the arts and humanities. The
social NOS is not intended to suggest that scientists barter in the currency of knowledge claims but
meant to teach how norms of scientifc practice, such as double-blind peer review and disclosure
of conficts of interest, were established to mitigate personal and institutional biases in science. The
empirical NOS is not intended to convey the narrow notion that “scientists use evidence”, but to
deeply explore empirical evidence and its interactions with other NOS aspects as a defning and
distinguishing feature that sets science apart from other forms of knowing. For instance, nowadays
we make much of the role of power structures and political forces in science. While these surely play
a role, we saw in the case of COVID how their infuence faded in the face of evidence. Despite the
backing of incredibly powerful nations, the purported efectiveness of some vaccines did not stand
against empirical tests. (We fnd it interesting that most studies report empirical NOS among aspects
that are consistently mastered by participants, albeit to our minds and based on our experience, this
is one of the most complex NOS dimensions to learn.) We could go on, but the value of a positive
886
heuristic is clear: An integrated, informed, and robust understanding of NOS should lead to a healthy
critical perspective on, more engagement with, and higher levels of trust in science.
Second, it is important to note that we are not questioning the intellectual validity of NOS ideas
currently emphasized by researchers. These ideas are grounded in established scholarship in HPSS. As
noted, however, NOS ideas present difcult tensions for scientifc literacy and for precollege students
and teachers, particularly when it comes to trusting science in matters of life and death, such as get-
ting a COVID vaccine while knowing that scientifc discovery is messy and that scientifc knowledge
is tentative. It is possible to address these tensions to a good extent by adopting a heuristic to organize
NOS ideas and teaching: the distinction between the context of discovery and context of justifca-
tion, or between the generation of scientifc claims to knowledge and their justifcation or valida-
tion. Philosophers of science have maintained the distinction, in one form or another, since Hans
Reichenbach frst introduced it (Giere, 1988). The distinction was crucial to Popper’s (1934/1992)
falsifcationist theory of scientifc method, where messiness of scientifc discovery is natural:
There is no such thing as a logical method of having new ideas, or a logical reconstruction
of this process . . . every discovery contains ‘an irrational element,’ or a ‘creative intuition’. . . .
The act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis
nor to be susceptible of it.
He continued, “the question how it happens that a new idea occurs . . . may be of great interest
to empirical psychology; but it is irrelevant to the logical analysis of scientifc knowledge. This lat-
ter is concerned . . . only with questions of justifcation or validity” (pp. 31–32). Philosophically, the
distinction is not as clear-cut as it frst was made to be (see Abd-El-Khalick, 2003 for an analysis).
However, it is useful as an organizing principle for NOS and true of how science operates in the
messy real world. In the case of COVID, we saw wholesale interactions between science and a host
of sociopolitical, cultural, governance, and other dimensions that are worthwhile teaching about.
Established scientifc discovery practices were fast-tracked or by-passed. For example, competitive,
peer-reviewed grant application processes were sidestepped altogether, and unlimited public funds
were made available to for-proft and not-for-proft entities, both with longstanding and barely any
record of past success. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fast-tracked vaccine applica-
tions at the expense of other applications for life-saving medicines in its long-established queue.
However, despite incredible pressures, the FDA refused to compromise a single step in its validation
process – scrutinizing evidence for vaccine safety and efectiveness, before issuing emergency use
authorization for administering approved vaccines. If we desire for students to understand the messi-
ness of science – the context of discovery, we ought and have to teach them how all scientifc claims
answer to empirical evidence and rigorous testing – the context of justifcation.
Finally, by now we hope it is amply clear that an evidence-based scope and sequence for NOS
learning outcomes should be accorded high priority in research. To make a meaningful contribu-
tion to scientifc literacy, we need a developmental teaching approach where NOS ideas are spiraled
across the precollege curriculum and revisited at increasing levels of sophistication and interrelatedness
(Abd-El-Khalick, 2012b). Currently, it is hard to make progress because we continue to add to NOS
ideas and debate which ones we ought to teach. We also lack empirical bases for the developmental
appropriateness of NOS ideas to make informed choices about scope and sequence. A way out of the
impasse is to anchor developmental appropriateness in indicators that go beyond ascertaining student
understanding of, or ability to apply, NOS ideas to other science learning domains (e.g., evolutionary
theory) or science practices (e.g., inquiry, argumentation). Instead, these anchors could include science-
informed decision-making, behavioral intentions, and/or behaviors (similar to the SSI literature; see
Zeidler, 2014), as well as trust in science. Among the studies reviewed here, only Herman (2018) exam-
ined a possible relationship between NOS and behavioral intentions (in this case, pro-environmental
887
behaviors), and none examined possible relationships with trust in science. This clearly is an untapped
yet important domain of NOS research. To make headway, we might want to avoid launching with
controversial issues often used in science education, because the goal here is not to exercise student
argumentation skills and leave them with yet another message about the messiness of science. Instead,
the goal is to assess which NOS ideas, at what level of depth, and in which combination would make
a diference in the real world. We could start with less controversial, science-informed decisions and
behaviors of the sort citizens faced during the COVID pandemic – simple decisions and behaviors that
are evidentiarily robust and stark in their immediacy and consequence. NOS aspects or ideas that cor-
relate or lead to these sorts of behaviors and/or bolster trust in science would be given curricular and
instructional priority over others, irrespective of how important we consider those other NOS ideas to
be. What we are suggesting here is a long-term research program that entails much conceptual develop-
ment and empirical work. Yet, such a program might propel us toward establishing a clear value, and a
valid curricular scope and sequence, for NOS learning in the precollege years.
Author Note
I dedicate this chapter to the memory of Norman G. Lederman, who passed unexpectedly on Feb-
ruary 26, 2021, at the height of his outstanding career. He was 69. Our global community lost a
remarkable science teacher, science teacher educator, science education researcher, and leader. I lost
my teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Dana L. Zeidler and Judith S. Lederman, who reviewed this chapter.
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28
EXPLORING AND EXPANDING
THE FRONTIERS OF
SOCIOSCIENTIFIC ISSUES
Introduction
Conceptualizing Socioscientifc Issues

In 2010, there was a wake-up call that began somewhat locally in the pristine waters of the Gulf of
Mexico but soon reverberated with global scientifc, political, environmental, and social ramifca-
tions. An oil-drilling rig, named Deepwater Horizon, exploded, killing 11 individuals and releas-
ing over 4 million barrels of oil over a duration of 87 days. As the largest oil spill in history moved
throughout the waters of the Gulf, its efects were devastating, killing wildlife, polluting wetlands,
contaminating the seabed, staining beaches, and harming people who consumed Gulf seafood. The
economic and environmental impact on the southeastern states of the United States that bordered the
Gulf was also distressing. British Petroleum (BP), the company held liable for the disaster, did have
an environmental impact statement that it had submitted prior to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but
the problem was that BP had “cut and pasted” the same impact statement for all its drilling operations
worldwide, disregarding the particular environmental contexts of their operations. BP employed the
use of a chemical dispersant, Corexit 9527A, to aid in the break-up of oil into lower concentra-
tions. Unfortunately, the short- and long-term efects of Corexit on fsh, corals, sea turtles, birds,
and humans is understudied, but reports of kidney and liver disorders exist (Center for Biodiversity,
2020). The fact that the environmental impact studies used by BP were the same regardless of par-
ticular localities made this an instantaneous global issue.
Now a decade later, as we conclude writing this chapter in the summer of 2022, the novel
coronavirus, responsible for COVID-19, has gripped the world’s attention and resources with over
610 million cases of infection and over 6.51 million deaths worldwide. At present, microevolution
continues to do what microevolution does, and now the more transmissible and deadly version, the
Delta variant, has gripped the world, and other novel variations likely will follow. These numbers,
unfortunately, will surely continue to rise until vaccines can be further developed, distributed, and
implemented throughout the world. To this point, the United States holds the grotesque distinc-
tion of representing over proportionately the lion’s share of infections and deaths in total and per
capita of the world population. The transparency of sharing information, the responses of diferent
countries, the eroding trust of the media, the degree of confdence in governments, and the range of
depth of character that individuals display has fundamentally shifted the ground under our feet as this
pandemic continues to unfold. Further eforts to confront this pandemic have been hampered by an
899 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-33

inability to inform policy by scientifc evidence because of the confation of political, legal, religious,
and societal perspectives with shifting personal norms. And policy decisions, it has been argued,
refect the underlying moral commitments of any society (Zeidler, 1984). Consider, for example, the
policy issues involved with the equitable distribution of vaccines among countries that difer in GDP,
as well as diverse factions that vary in risk, wealth, and power, within various countries.
These two events represent model cases of socioscientifc issues (SSI). Embedded within them
are evidence of cognitive and moral dissonance, where scientifc evidence, real-time data collec-
tion, analysis, interpretation, and investigation become entangled with sociopolitical decisions, and
where a public understanding of science literally is tantamount to life and death decisions at global,
national, regional, and personal levels. We have argued in past writings that having a broad functional
conceptualization of scientifc literacy necessarily means having an appreciation for humanistic kinds
of sociocultural elements that contextualize SSI, and its pedagogical importance to science education
(Zeidler, 2014; Zeidler et al., 2005, 2019). While the impact of any given SSI may not invoke global,
scientifc, political, environmental, and social impacts at the scale and depth of Deepwater Horizon
or COVID-19, any given SSI (albeit on local and smaller scales) for science education purposes,
generally possess the following four elements:
1. Utilize personally relevant, controversial, and ill-structured problems that require scientifc, evidence-based
reasoning to inform decisions about such topics. By this we mean that while there certainly are many
issues with important implications to the world around us that are relevant to the scientifc com-
munity proper, as educators, we need to fnd a means to connect features of scientifc impor-
tance, that might seem distant and alien to students, to features of personal meaningfulness in
their lived experiences.
2. Employ the use of scientifc topics with social ramifcations that require students to engage in dialogue, discus-
sion, debate, and argumentation. This refects our pedagogical view that the progression of science,
as well as our understanding of the science of education, is fundamentally a sociocultural process
connected to the teaching and learning of science necessitating shifts between emic and etic
perspectives of issues – something that requires what we refer to as socioscientifc perspective
taking.
3. Integrate implicit and/or explicit ethical components that require some degree of moral reasoning. The
emphasis here is our recognition that a fully functional view of scientifc literacy must necessarily
subsume the notion that the quality of the human condition depends on blending elements of
the better angels of our cognitive as well as our moral talents.
4. Emphasize the formation of virtue and character as long-range pedagogical goals. In providing the kinds
of experiences through SSI that will live fruitfully in educationally signifcant ways, we aim to
wed practical wisdom with moral virtue to provide the conditions under which eudaimonia may
take root.
Framing SSI in This Chapter

It is the deliberate emphasis on the collective and integrative nature of these four elements that tend
to distinguish SSI from other important science-in-context (SinC) conceptualizations of science
education (Bencze et al., 2020). When compared to its similarly rooted SinC siblings, its distinction
lies in the deliberate refusal to entertain the bifurcation of science into nonnormative components
(processes of science) and normative components (moral imperatives). Hence, the SSI framework is
ensconced in a progressive tradition of education that fosters moral intelligence and social respon-
sibility as part and parcel of the science education curriculum. The centrality of importance for
how SSI contributes to progressive ideals in the science education community, including but not
limited to science teacher education, public understanding of science, and eforts aimed to facilitate
900
The Frontiers of Socioscientifc Issues
responsible citizenship, has been made clear and advocated in many recent works of scholarship in the
feld (e.g., Bencze et al., 2020; Evagorou, Nielsen et al., 2020; Kinskey, 2020; Owens et al., 2017).
It is abundantly clear that thinking about a lens of collective moral responsibility should no longer be
relegated to remote confnes of graduate classes in moral philosophy or left in the hands of politicians.
The purpose of the review of SSI in the Handbook of Research on Science Education (Volume II) was
to provide nuanced details of the conceptual and empirical scholarship to build theory as it connected
to the formation of epistemological beliefs, habits of mind, and contextual reasoning and examine
the research to evaluate the merit of those conceptual building blocks (Zeidler, 2014). To avoid
redundancy, we have minimized our description of the conceptual framework that can be found
in prior works and include only that research that is seminal in the sense that it helps to provide a
springboard for current research. Accordingly, in this chapter, we seek to explore the research base
since that time, beginning with research from approximately 2013 (allowing for lag time in the writ-
ing and publishing articles found in the 2014 chapter) through 2021, and show how that research has
expanded the frontiers of SSI. Our comprehensive review using multiple databases for scholarship
on SSI identifed over 400 articles, 68 book chapters, and 42 dissertations directly connected to this
venture. We sought both empirical and conceptual studies, and the criteria for selection had to do
with our collective understanding of rigorous scholarship that we found to be empirically and/or
conceptually sound, as well as the degree to which the scholarship ft with four broad themes. The
themes themselves were also identifed because of prima facia contribution to the overall impact
SSI holds for curriculum development and pedagogical practices, epistemic considerations, science-
in-context work as it connects to sociocultural considerations, and issues related to socioscientifc
perspective taking, character development, and citizenship education. We make no claim that our
review provides an exhaustive account of all SSI literature, and there are certainly many excellent
studies connected to other areas of the SSI research program. We have merely sought to present good
exemplars congruent with advancing identifed themes. We fnd now that a good place to begin is
to examine how recent work has shaped four broad themes that seem to situate much of the current
and, presumably, near-future trends of scholarship in SSI research:
1. Socioscientifc issues as engagement of curriculum practice and teachers’ pedagogical beliefs –

presents research that impacts the pedagogical application of classroom practice. This research
focuses on how ethical frameworks are viewed and represented in relation to science teaching,
available curriculum materials, and perceived obstacles to implementation.
2. Socioscientifc issues and the cultivation of epistemic and sensemaking practices – investigates
research on how SSI teaching and learning relates to epistemic and sensemaking practices, that
is, practices associated with the development and validation of knowledge. This work includes
sensemaking practices and argumentation as it relates to the advancement of scientifc models,
concepts, and explanations.
3. Socioscientifc issues outside of conventional classrooms: informal, place-based, environmental,
and other sociocultural contexts – examines the contextualization of SSI, particularly in terms
of situating sociocultural factors that contribute to the activity of science. This research tends to
focus on how embedding SSI in specifc sociocultural conditions, such as informal science edu-
cation, place-based immersive experiences, and authentic investigations contribute to under-
standing the complexities of science.
4. Socioscientifc issues as character development, citizenship and socioscientifc perspective taking –
considers how SSI serves to promote the development of morality, perspective taking, civic
engagement, and responsibility.
Of course, these serve as provisional themes for exploring and expanding the frontiers of SSI schol-
arship. Arguments may be made for a diferent arrangement of topics. We also recognize that any
901
particular work may be a “best ft” for more than one category. If that is the case, then we typically
discuss aspects of that work in more than one theme. Studies that are more centrally located in terms
of its representation of a theme, good “exemplars” as it were, are discussed in more detail, while oth-
ers that add support to a given theme tend to be clustered together.
Situating SSI in Philosophical, Sociological, and Psychological Perspectives

It is of conceptual and pedagogical importance to make clear the underlying presuppositions of our
work and our approach to this chapter. There are three points to keep in mind. Firstly, the teaching
of scientifc content in the absence of SSI is certainly an option, and from our experiences tells us
that most science teachers have opted (consciously or not) to follow this format in traditional science
classrooms. This may be likened to, or maybe a derivative of, the classic fact-value distinction that
lies across the doorstep of traditional classrooms. It is easier to avoid the messiness of SSI by com-
partmentalizing scientifc facts about content areas (e.g., physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) from moral
discussions and ethical claims required from the SSI framework. Hence, when we refer to progressive
science education, we are most assuredly talking about situating SSI and socioscientifc reasoning
(SSR) in a tradition that acknowledges the importance of having a robust educational framework that
recognizes the need to situate science teaching in general, and SSI in particular, in a cross-discipline
manner that factors in philosophical, sociological, and psychological perspectives in an internally
consistent and complementary manner (see Roberts & Bybee, 2014; Zeidler, 2014; Zeidler & Sadler,
2011). So, our idea of progressive (science) education, consistent with the SSI framework, is not
entirely new. Dewey (1908) advanced ideas about progressive education that limited methods of
didactic instruction in contrast to favoring teaching methods that provided ample opportunities for
students to become active participants in the construction of their own knowledge and meaning.
Approaches conducive to that necessarily included the exercise of moral reasoning though socio-
cultural approaches that allowed for deep discussions, arguments, and debate so that children could
partake in activities conducive to democratic ideas and citizenship education.
Lapsley and Yeager (2013) summarize it well:
Dewey was critical of traditional pedagogies of exhortation, didactic instruction and drill,
practices that reduces moral instruction to teaching about virtues or instilling certain atti-
tudes in students. Instead what is required is an approach to moral education that links
school subjects to a social interest; that cultivates children’s ability to discern, observe, com-
prehend social situations; that uses methods that appeal to the “active constructive powers”
of intelligence; that organizes schools along the lines of a genuine community.
(p. 297)
Secondly, it is important to understand that the connections among character education, moral
developmental reasoning, and the sociocultural contexts under which the exercise of virtue may be
found in SSI-based instruction. One of our major goals within the SSI framework is in alignment
with Roberts’s (2007) Vision II of scientifc literacy and extends it to subsume Vision III as well
(Haglund & Hultén, 2017; Sjöström, 2015, Sjöström et al., 2017). Whereas Vision II makes a con-
certed efort to situate science in everyday sociocultural contexts, Vision III is aimed at problematiz-
ing the context of science to explicitly focus on sociopolitical problems, social justice and questions
of activism, and an ethic of care that allows one to build the architecture of a moral life. Certainly,
Visions II and III are in the SSI wheelhouse. We attend to both visions in the same way that we blur
the lines of the fact-value myth in science. While we can argue that we may well talk about facts and
values independently of one another on a conceptual level, in the practice of the human activity of
science, we cannot. The bifurcation of facts and values tends to lead us squarely into the realm of
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Vision I, where school science subjects remain separated from other school subjects and void of any
moral context. The danger here is that teaching and learning within a Vision I perspective allows for
the cavalier rejection of personal responsibility regarding how science, and the decisions we make
about science, need not face the messiness of the social and moral contexts of science.
Thirdly, there may be questions regarding the fuzziness of understanding in terms of what char-
acter or virtue look like, whether it can be taught, and how it fts into the SSI framework. A few
points are in order. It may be helpful here to remember the distinction between issues of macromo-
rality and micromorality. Issues that deal only in the realm of macromorality tend to be consistent
with a frst order of moral reasoning. That is, where we can talk about larger societal constructs
like law, duty, social contract, other formal societal norms, and the like. These can be argued in
rather dispassionate terms in accordance with doctrine and principles. We tend to think that issues
of micromorality typically occur in face-to-face sociocultural contexts. Such second-order experi-
ences may be found within the social fabric of our school settings, family, peers, workplace, intimate
relationships, and the like. In the context of classroom settings, personal moral growth can be found
in the exercise of moral judgments and shared perspective taking, while handling the application
of subject matter in compassionate ways. Those of us who practice SSI instruction dip our toes in
diferent waters from diferent streams. On the one hand, we draw from empirical psychology to
examine the nature and function of cognitive-moral development, where the content under study is
removed from its impact in the real world and focus on the underlying rationale arguments. In these
waters, living a moral life is guided by principles of utility, social contract, and a Kantian categori-
cal imperative. However, Flanagan and Oksenberg-Rorty (1993) remind us that normative ethics
plays a distinctive role in the formation of character by tempering one’s reasoning with questions
and analyses of situations where prescriptions of judgments include the exercise of compassion and
care. In this case, reasoning draws from the well of Rawlsian premises, where moral worth is built
on virtues that are normed over time, and where there is a requirement of refective and refexive
thinking. Further, it is noteworthy that Malmberg and Urbas (2021) profer a cautionary warning
about a potential undercurrent – that a myopic focus on individual virtues may have an unintended
deleterious efect of undermining citizenship education and democratic politics, without attention
to the participatory necessity of engaging in issues related to both social and ecological justice. In
this case, another condition to refective and refexive thinking to be fully realized would entail an
element of praxis. We fnd that diving into these currents leads us to invoke SSI in educationally
productive ways through the themes described next.
Theme I: Socioscientifc Issues as Engagement of

Curriculum Practice and Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs
It is clear that teachers’ pedagogical beliefs guide their practice both in terms of making decisions
about how to best engage their students with subject matter and making deliberate choices for cur-
riculum design that is congruent with those decisions. This research focuses on how ethical frame-
works are viewed and represented in relation to science teaching, available curriculum materials, and
perceived obstacles to implementation. It examines various aspects that make SSI interesting and
challenging in its delivery. Such aspects include an awareness of the contextualized nature of SSI rela-
tive to its scientifc content and ethical considerations. We fnd that SSI has been implemented within
conventional classroom settings and blended approaches both in and out of the formal classroom.
Such blended approaches subsume situational learning in an array of informal environments. The
implementation of such strategies depends on, as Fensham and Montana (2018, p. 147) point out,
a commitment to “revisionary boundary work”, where the science curriculum is viewed by teach-
ers and administrators as something that is situated within a broader sociocultural context, fostering
public engagement of science.
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One of the most consistent research programs aimed at improving curriculum and strategies to
immerse students in SSI-related environments is the STEPWISE work developed by Bencze and
colleagues (e.g., Bencze & Alsop, 2014; Bencze & Krstovic, 2017; Bencze et al., 2012). STEP-
WISE refers to Science & Technology Education Promoting Wellbeing for Individuals, Societies,
& Environments. Collectively, STEPWISE-informed approaches treat students as citizen-scientists
engaged in conducting primary research and having to negotiate sociopolitical actions where critical
discussions peppered with dissent and confict are part of a process refecting real-world issues. The
main focus of the approach centers on the myriad of sociopolitical aspects of SSI entailing possible
personal, social, and environmental harms linked to powerful individuals and groups. Expanding
on this work, Bencze et al. (2020) discuss the implementation of research-informed and negotiated
action (RiNA) projects involving research conducted by students on how connections between local
contexts that afect them personally relate to broader environmental contexts. Such approaches add
relevance to SSI education in general, and SSI citizenship education (discussed later in this chapter)
in particular. Interesting, the application of Foucauldian dispositif maps (see Rafnsøe et al., 2016)
makes it possible to outline and lay bare complex interrelationships inherent in the curriculum RiNA
project, as well as other related projects. The use of Foucault’s ideas may be best thought of as a type
of sociological inquiry that examines the linkages among administrative mechanisms, knowledge
structures, social and political power relationships, and other networks of sociological linkages in
which these mechanisms reside (Callewaert, 2007). Such work highlights the importance of disposi-
tifs in allowing teachers to enable students to take more initiative in self-directing and evaluating their
own research projects. (For a deeper understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of Foucault’s
work, see Frost, 2019.) There are broader implications of using dispositifs as a heuristic for examin-
ing power structures in our digital age – a relevant topic for science educators that has links to the
social ramifcations of the nature of technology (Herman, 2013; Lee & Lee, 2021). This research also
shows positive results across age groups, geographic locations, and social class illustrating a degree of
ubiquity for SSI work across multiple educational contexts.
Implementing SSI approaches is rewarding but not without its challenges. These challenges may
range from the tensions that arise regarding the shift from essentialist to progressive educational
approaches to how to best engage students with a plurality of perspectives and discourse strategies.
The research of Bossér and Lindahl (2019, 2020) and Bossér et al. (2015) highlights how teachers can
promote a progression of sophistication and complexity in students’ reasoning and decision-making
by recognizing and acting on the distinction between authoritative and dialogic classroom discourse.
In examining teacher-talk episodes with students, the researchers found that dialogic interaction all
play a role in laying out a foundation for students’ participation and decision-making on SSI. More
specifcally, teacher talk interactive episodes included: (1) general dialogic interactive – teachers and
students take turns with various voices represented; (2) dialogic noninteractive – the teacher and stu-
dents do not take turns, but various voices are ensured representation; (3) authoritative interactive –
teacher and students take turns but various voices are not taken into account; and (4) authoritative
noninteractive – teacher and students do not take turns and various voices not taken into account.
Dialogic noninteractive strategies tend to favor more teacher control over discussion and actually
help to ensure diferent perspectives are considered, thereby promoting student engagement by ensu-
ing all voices are heard. In contrast, dialogic-interactive may help to highlight the complexity of an
issue. Other permutations of pedagogical strategies are possible, but the important point made by the
authors is that in the context of SSI teaching, each communicative approach should be considered
in relation to particular teaching ends. A tacit awareness of dialogic interactions plays a role in laying
out a foundation for students’ participation and decision-making on SSI.
The previously cited work makes it clear that the students’ exploration of knowledge and values
in SSI student-centered classrooms means that novel relationships between teachers and students
arise in terms of expected roles. The tendency for teachers to unwittingly shift into traditional roles
904
of teaching, which if done unwittingly, shifts the goals of SSI instruction (e.g., students’ active par-
ticipation in learning activities, enhancing students’ independence as learners, etc.). The importance
of sociolinguistic factors in SSI discourse is further recognized by Lindahl and Folkesson (2016),
who point out that it is important for teachers to recognize students’ preferences for discussion are
related to structural factors, such as achievement level and cultural background, and that agitational
(confictual) talk, while fueling group discussion, may inhibit the further exploration of ideas thereby
hampering critical thinking without some degree of intervention by the instructor. This speaks to
the importance of teachers providing prompts (e.g., guiding questions) to provide a degree of struc-
ture, allowing students the opportunity to focus on the task that confronts them, while maintaining
ownership of the particular views and content they wish to advance.
There are pedagogical tensions that may arise as science teachers attempt to implement SSI strat-
egies. The cause of these tensions often is linked to difering expectations that exist between a
continuum of traditional and progressive subcultures of school science. At the root of this is the fact
that traditional school contexts tend to present science as a unifed front of positivistic knowledge
and unshakable truth, that are unafected by sociocultural or other contextual factors. In contrast,
progressive stances of science teaching through SSI are more nuanced, context-based, and socially
and culturally embedded. Lindahl et al. (2019) explored this issue and found that learning in an SSI
classroom requires students to make additional eforts to successfully navigate between these subcul-
tures of science. The expected norms located within these two educational contexts, if not clearly
signaled by the teacher, can create an array of academic and sociocultural tensions for students. Using
the lens of cultural historical activity theory, the authors identifed several mediating factors that cre-
ate tension(s) in the classroom between these two disparate subcultures of science, including intoler-
ance of uncertainty, scientism, adopting a sense of rivalry, and the tendency to secure an expedient
and easy (though not necessarily authentic) consensus to resolve the tensions. This is consistent with
other research (Chistenson et al., 2014), that revealed social science majors were able to generate
more justifcations of arguments during discourse over those of science majors on SSI issues, sug-
gesting that the inherent nature of the discipline background contributed to the students’ degree of
fexibility in discussing less structured types of issues. This is also consistent with the idea that strong
classifcation of traditional school discourse is more prevalent in cultures of traditional science class-
room learning, while weak classifcation tends to be more accessible to social science cultures where
border crossings of discipline silos may be exercised with greater ease (Bernstein, 2003; Lindahl et al.,
2019), and that science teachers, through pedagogical refection to restructure classroom dynamics
and culture, can indeed overcome such challenges and become efective in their SSI instructional
strategies (Lee & Yang, 2019; Zeidler et al., 2011).
Related to this research is the work derived from Christenson et al. (2014) and Chang Rundgren
and Rundgren (2010), is the development of an analytical framework called the SEE-SEP model,
representing abbreviations of six subject disciplines that underlie the model: sociology/culture,
economy, environmental/ecology, science, ethics/morality, and policy. Because SEE-SEP refects the
inherent interdisciplinary complexity of SSI, it provides a useful lens to examine students’ use of jus-
tifcations embedded in their arguments in a systematic and holistic manner. As an analytical frame-
work, it allows for the examination of multiple perspectives and quality of informal argumentation
over a plethora of SSI topics and has implications for how teachers frame and cultivate SSI instruc-
tion. Karisan and Cebesoy (2021) used the SEE-SEP model to examine preservice science teachers,
who will need to understand the intricacies among the components of SEE-SEP in order to make
pedagogically sound decisions about SSI in the future students they will teach. The assumption is
that understanding what their future students will grapple with, will enable preservice teachers, early
in their careers, to understand how the epistemological construction of SSI arguments, justifcations,
and the use of evidence-based reasoning develops positive attitudes about the central importance of
SSI in science education. While the authors report varying distributions that the preservice teachers
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used relative to the SEE-SEP components under two genetics-related contexts, the more important
point in this discussion is that this experience provides much potential for the opportunity, develop-
ment, and examination of preservice science teachers’ epistemic beliefs while being engaged in an
SSI curriculum. It should be noted that the SEE-SEP model has been used to examine students’
justifcation of SSI arguments relative to discipline background as well (Chistenson et al., 2014).
Further examination of exposing elementary preservice teachers to SSI instruction to improve
their scientifc literacy was the focus of Kinskey and Zeidler (2020). Acknowledging some of the
literature cited earlier that shows some reluctance to implement SSI instruction because of a lack of
confdence in both content knowledge and pedagogy, the researchers set out to expose the preservice
teachers to experiences in the feld that adapted instruction in SSI to existing curricula. The authors
present comparisons of teacher knowledge and pedagogical skills that are cross-linked to the planning
and selection of SSI, which constitute “foundational skills” that contribute to in-depth knowledge
of, and the ability to enhance the moral and ethical development of students. Additional time on
discourse, argumentation, empathy, and perspective taking, and understanding SSI as a context of
the nature of science were also covered using community of practice (CoP) meetings to help with
implementation and refection of SSI instruction. Using a case study approach allowed for in-depth
examination of how these teachers framed the instructional strategies and the concerns that factored
into their decisions. A thread of three themes representing concerns these teachers had were: (1)
concerns about students’ developmental abilities, (2) time constraints, and (3) fdelity in implement-
ing the SSI framework. It was noted that the use of CoP to provide professional development in
SSI attributed to the successful implementation of SSI instruction. The authors attributed that to
the CoP instructional strategies helping teachers to achieve a degree of epistemological congruity
between the implementation of idealized SSI theory and the constraints of everyday practice.
Additional research has been conducted on both secondary and elementary teachers with respect
to the design and enactment of SSI-based instruction, showing the importance of supporting teach-
ers in the design and enactment of SSI-based instruction. Friedrichsen et al. (2020) followed sugges-
tions for efective professional development (PD) programs, which includes, among key practices,
active participation and engagement of teachers in evaluating students’ work and allowing for the
appropriate duration refective practice after implementing SSI units. As with Kinskey and Zeidler
(2020), the importance of allowing time for the development of epistemological skills, in this case
metacognition, allowed for within PD or CoP experiences, with the caveat that higher degrees of
success were achieved when all participants were part of a PD ensuring mutual support, rather than
teachers bringing information back to their schools to share with nonparticipant teachers. It is worth
noting that elementary teachers found that navigating the challenges of grade-level appropriateness
of complex SSI and fnding useful ways to contextualize the issues was a familiar undertaking, as the
cross-curricular aspects of SSI is something familiar to them since teaching across subject domains
happens both deliberately and organically at the elementary level.
In a related review of empirical research, Nielsen (2020) identifed a need for more deliberate
exposure to SSI instruction in PST science education. Much of the work cited represents Turkish
scholars who identifed positive outcomes of SSI programs for PSTs that contributed to their forma-
tion of epistemological pedagogical beliefs relative to SSI-related instruction, such as recognizing
and identifying societal aspects of science-related issues, the value of dialogic teaching, and meshing
content knowledge with controversy (Kilinc et al., 2017; Kilinc et al., 2017; Ozturk & Yilmaz-
Tuzun, 2017). While the work that Nielsen summarizes shows promise that PSTs focus on dialogic
argumentation in teaching can make the epistemic shift to value and transfer this to the classroom, he
cautions that preservice teacher education programs need to have an explicit emphasis on SSI teaching
to ensure efective transfer to school settings. Doing so may help to alleviate the issue of new teachers
avoiding assessing anything beyond disciplinary content while engaging in SSI teaching (Christenson
et al., 2017; Tidemand & Nielsen, 2017). Other research shows that while PSTs may use SSI to launch
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a discussion, they lacked confdence in allowing for robust inquiry and discussions throughout a sus-
tained unit (Pitiporntapin et al., 2016), and indicated a desire to improve their teaching via professional
development opportunities. What is encouraging is that as science teachers gain experience in their
profession over several years, they become better able to identify opportunities and appropriate issues
connected to teaching SSI, suggesting that a good investment of time would be to form collaborative
opportunities with other teachers to refect and share their SSI experiences (Leden et al., 2017).
Other researchers have focused on the importance of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge
(PCK), stressing a focus on science content and SSI skills. For example, Bayram-Jacobs et al. (2019)
have found that recognizing potential difculties students may have with a novel SSI curriculum
made teachers more cognizant of their specifc teaching strategies, showing a link between the
development of PCK in teachers and their respective students’ understanding of science within the
SSI framework (Han-Tosunoglu & Lederman, 2021). Again, part of the problem is that SSI teaching
puts unfamiliar demands on teachers to tap topics and knowledge outside their immediate content
domain of expertise (e.g., ethical/moral, political, economic, sociocultural issues [Genel & Topçu,
2016; Tidemand & Nielsen, 2017; Yakob et al., 2015]). It is not surprising that teachers, particularly
those who may be newer to the profession, may struggle with the implementation of SSI (Pitiporn-
tapin et al., 2016; Pitiporntapin & Topcu, 2016). However, Bayram-Jacobs and colleagues, through
a systematic development of PCK using SSI materials developed in a manner that aligned with SSI
theoretical and practical foci (e.g., nature of context, role of teacher and students, discourse prac-
tices, critical thinking) as part of a European Commission project called ENGAGE, teachers devel-
oped strong, coherent interconnections between PCK components consistent with appropriate SSI
instructional strategies. This is encouraging in that it suggests how well-designed curriculum materi-
als can be used to support both pre- and in-service teacher education supportive of the enactment of
SSI in the classroom. Furthermore, the research suggests that the cross-cultural epistemological simi-
larities regarding SSI justifcations found among students (Zeidler et al., 2013) might be analogous to
the epistemological orientations of PCK among teachers from diferent countries.
Additional approaches (workshops, professional development seminars, preservice instruction,
etc.) have been found to be supportive SSI instructional development and have also shown encour-
aging results in terms of the SSI professional growth of teachers (Bossér, 2018; Carson & Dawson,
2016; Karahan, 2015; Karisan et al., 2018; Kinskey, 2020). Those research studies help to address
the concerns of Chen and Xiao (2020), who, in their comprehensive review of 25 recent empirical
studies related to the perceptions, challenges, and coping strategies of science teachers implementing
SSI, showed that collaboration among stakeholders is necessary to ensure efective practice. Chin and
Xiao further emphasize that the research demonstrates teachers can refectively shift their practice to
aford more deliberate opportunities for students to encounter complex SSI. It is also encouraging
that recent work shows promise in assessing teachers PCK for biological SSI, showing how it may
be developed over time (Han-Tosunoglu & Lederman, 2021). While questions of efective means
of assessment related to the implementation of SSI in classroom practice remain, SSI teaching does
involve a distinct change from traditional pedagogical practices, and the necessity of professional
development and support to align and develop PCK with SSI implementation show much potential
for teacher-empowerment in terms of the design of curriculum and the alignment of progressive
philosophy that is congruent with Vision II and III for scientifc literacy (Nielson et al., 2020).
Theme II: Socioscientifc Issues and the Cultivation

of Epistemic and Sensemaking Practices
In the past decade, scholars in the feld of science education and related disciplines have taken to
modifying constructs important for research and teaching with the term epistemic: epistemic prac-
tice, epistemic cognition, epistemic emotions, epistemic resources, epistemic dispositions, epistemic
907
criteria, and the list could go on. The adjective shares a common root with epistemology and is some-
times used interchangeably with epistemological. Whereas epistemology and its adjective form refer-
ences the study or theory of knowledge and the development of knowledge, epistemic is broader – it
signifes that the idea being modifed relates to knowledge. For example, epistemic cognition refer-
ences the thinking one does about knowledge and knowledge construction (Greene & Yu, 2016).
Much of the earliest research associated with socioscientifc issues could have been considered
as epistemic in nature because it explored linkages between learners’ consideration of SSI and their
understandings of the processes that underpin creation and justifcation of scientifc knowledge (e.g.,
Zeidler et al., 2002). This work tended to use nature of science (NOS) as a frame for studying
students’ understandings about science. In the SSI chapter as a part of the second volume of this
handbook (Zeidler, 2014), NOS represented one of the central themes of the reviewed literature.
Since the publication of that review, interest in the intersections of SSI and NOS as a research topic
has waned, although not completely. For example, Herman (2018) documents the ways in which a
place-based SSI experience helped secondary school learners develop more accurate and contextual-
ized ideas about NOS. The research also presents evidence of students’ NOS ideas being associated
with desired actions – in this case, more sophisticated NOS understandings are associated with pro-
environmental behaviors. Similarly, Khishfe and colleagues have explored ways in which SSI learning
environments support student learning about NOS (Khishfe, 2014) as well as how students can lever-
age NOS understandings as they engage in reasoning and discourse about SSI (Khishfe et al., 2017).
Explorations of how SSI contexts can improve understandings of ideas about how science works has
also been conducted with practicing science teachers (Kutluca & Aydin, 2017) and preservice teach-
ers (Cook & Buck, 2013; Irez et al., 2018).
As this brief summary of articles reveals, NOS-framed SSI research has continued, but NOS
has been a less important trend in SSI literature over the last decade as compared to the previous
decade (2000–2010), which marked the initial establishment and proliferation of the SSI research
agenda. Part of this shift in research emphasis can be explained by the infuence of contemporary
sociological practice theory, which ofers a perspective for understanding interrelated actions and
focuses on the constitutive nature of behaviors, actions, and practice, understood as working col-
lectively as one coherent structure in socially organized contexts (Cornut, 2015). This focus on
practice shares its roots with activity theory that frames actions as purposeful and transformative
between subjects and the context in which they operate (Engeström, 2001; Lee et al., 2019).
These infuences have led to the emergence of a so-called practice turn in several felds, including
science education (Berland et al., 2016; Schatzki et al., 2000). Focusing on practice directs atten-
tion to the ways in which learners engage in practices as they construct and apply knowledge,
enact disciplinary norms, and participate in related discourses. The science education community
has witnessed the impact of this practice turn on multiple dimensions of the feld. Attention to
“ambitious science teaching” practices (Windschitl et al., 2020) provides a diferent orientation
to science teacher education than previous frameworks dominated by knowledge structures, like
PCK. Science standards documents, most notably the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
from the United States (NGSS Lead States, 2013), prioritize student engagement in science and
engineering practices. The practice turn has also signifcantly infuenced SSI research and, in this
context, the practices most important for teaching and learning SSI relate to knowledge building
and revising, use, and evaluation.
Given comments made in the opening paragraph of this section, these practices associated with
SSI teaching and learning could be called epistemic practices. Kelly and his collaborators have
advanced important ideas about the nature of epistemic practice particularly for science and sci-
ence education. This work is grounded in science studies with emphasis on sociological analyses of
disciplinary communities and the practices in which they engage for constructing knowledge (Cun-
ningham & Kelly, 2017; Kelly & Licona, 2018). Epistemic practice, used in this sense, describes
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knowledge building from relevant social groups as opposed to individual knowers. As such, social
processes determine what counts as knowledge, and meaning is necessarily communal: “Social pro-
cesses can become routinized and patterned over time becoming epistemic practices. . . . Epistemic
practices are the socially organized and interactionally accomplished ways that members of a group
propose, communicate, evaluate, and legitimize knowledge claims” (Kelly & Licona, 2018, p. 140).
Based on this framing, science educators look toward science disciplinary communities to inform
the standards and criteria by which science knowledge is generated as a target for science teaching
and learning. This helps to explain the NGSS’s, and similarly oriented standards documents’, pri-
oritization of science practices such as argumentation, modeling, and data analysis. The standards
emphasize these practices because they are important dimensions of the knowledge-building work
of science disciplinary communities.
This perspective on epistemic practice presents a couple interesting tensions for SSI researchers.
First, the relevant communities that serve as referents for epistemic practice in traditional science
education settings are easily identifable. That is, science educators emphasize scientifc modeling
(and other prioritized practices) in science classes because modeling is a central practice among the
disciplinary communities that make up science (NRC, 2007). However, what are the appropriate
referent communities for constructing, evaluating, and using knowledge in SSI settings? Researchers
and theorists may ofer some suggestions in answer to this question (Kelly & Licona, 2018; Sadler,
2009), but the point is that this link between relevant communities and learning context, so impor-
tant for the sociological framing of epistemic practice, is not clear-cut in the case of SSI teaching.
The second tension relates to the communal dimension of epistemic practice. Knowledge building
is certainly a feature of social practice and cultural norms; however, individual cognition also plays
a role in knowledge creation (Dole & Sinatra, 1998; Cress & Kimmerle, 2017; NRC, 2000). Fram-
ing epistemic practice only in terms of social practices misses some of the important knowledge-
related work that happens in the context of SSI teaching and learning. Therefore, for considering
the knowledge-building practices associated with SSI, we suggest a broader frame that incorporates
epistemic practice, as social and interactional, in addition to individual meaning-making. Sensemaking
ofers this broader frame.
In considering how families generate knowledge based on experiences in informal science learn-
ing settings, Zimmerman and colleagues (2010) present sense-making as a “constructivist-related
view on learning that considers the mental and social efort people undertake to construct an indi-
vidual and shared understanding of new information” (p. 479). Scholars in diverse felds productively
use sense-making to characterize sociocultural and cognitive activity that leads to new understand-
ings as individuals and communities engage with complex tasks. For example, legal analysts use
sense-making to describe how judges render legal decisions (van Oorschot, 2020). Sense-making is
also used to analyze the complex network of social relationships, individual work, material artifacts,
and activities of archaeological dig sites (Olsson, 2016). To that end, teacher education scholars
use sense-making to characterize the ways in which teachers balance curriculum, teaching meth-
ods, ideas about students, policies, and expectations that emanate from their school communities
(Delaney, 2018). Like these research settings, SSI teaching and learning often involves the complex
coordination of group practices and norms, individual cognition and reasoning, and socially negoti-
ated meanings. We use the phrase sensemaking practices to reference this interaction of individual and
sociocultural processes for knowledge creation, critique, and application.
Argumentation and Modeling as Sensemaking Practices

There are multiple ways of categorizing and describing sensemaking practices relevant to SSI. Here,
we focus on two of these practices, argumentation and modeling, because of (1) their importance
to the broader science education community and (2) the growing prominence of these practices in
909
SSI teaching and research settings. The most commonly researched sensemaking practice associated
with SSI teaching and learning is argumentation. Given the controversial nature of SSI, argumenta-
tion, which involves the adjudication of ideas, aligns very well with SSI-based teaching and learning.
The fact that argumentation is also a fundamental disciplinary practice central to the generation of
knowledge in the sciences provides additional support for linking it with SSI teaching. One line
of inquiry in this area explores how epistemic knowledge (that is, ideas about how knowledge is
created) and science knowledge infuence argumentation. Baytelman and colleagues (2020) found
positive relationships among both epistemic and science knowledge with argumentation in a sample
of undergraduate learners considering multiple SSIs. In this case, students with more sophisticated
epistemic beliefs and more robust science knowledge generated more arguments with a greater diver-
sity of ideas, and the arguments were of higher quality. Similar fndings were documented in research
with preservice teachers (Isbilir et al., 2014).
Other researchers have looked carefully at discourse processes (both written and oral) as learners
engage in argumentation about SSI. For example, Dawson and Carson (2017) explored the ways in
which high school students construct written arguments about climate change. Students linked their
socioscientifc claims with scientifc evidence while balancing considerations such as economics and
human impacts. Rudsberg et al. (2017) focused on group discourse patterns and the co-constitutive
relationship between individual reasoning and group meaning-making in SSI argumentation epi-
sodes. In this in situ investigation of individual and group processes, the researchers showed how
individual content knowledge shaped group discourse and how the unfolding collective meaning-
making of the group infuenced how individuals employed various argument structures like rebuttals
and evidence. Evagorou and Osborne (2013) studied SSI-related discourse practices among younger
students (12–13 years old) working on collaborative argumentation in pairs. The detailed case studies
showed how groups can start with the same argumentation activity structures and yet demonstrate
very diferent patterns of discourse. The study also provided an important reminder that not all learn-
ers fnd particular SSI topics as engaging as others and that teachers and curriculum designers need
to work with students to inform issue selection for engaging SSI instruction (Hancock et al., 2019).
Another line of scholarship in this area has explored if and how argumentation competencies
can be improved through SSI-based teaching and learning. The work consistently has shown that
SSIs can serve as powerful contexts for the promotion of argumentation competencies, including
with sample populations of middle school students (Atabey & Topcu, 2018), high school students
(Akbas & Cetin, 2018; Dawson & Carson, 2017), undergraduates (Anwar & Ali, 2020), and pre-
service teachers (Iordanou & Constantinou, 2014). Whereas much of this research demonstrated
student improvements in argumentation at diferent time points in response to the same issue (e.g.,
pre-post SSI intervention scores on an assessment related to the intervention), Foong and Daniel
(2013) documented the ways in which students’ learning to argue in one SSI context transferred to
a diferent SSI context. Given the historic difculty to promote transfer of complex reasoning and
practice, this result is particularly encouraging. Within this line of work on SSI instructional contexts
for learning argumentation, researchers have also demonstrated afordances of various ways of sup-
porting argumentation competencies, including use of explicit instruction on argument structures
(Khishfe, 2014; Kutluca & Aydin, 2017) and both computer-based and teacher-delivered scafolds
(Belland et al., 2015).
Whereas argumentation fts naturally with the SSI approach, the linkage between the scientifc
practice of modeling requires some justifcation. Scientists use models to represent, explain, and
make sense of phenomena. Models come in many forms, from equations to computational simula-
tions to diagrams, and the process of modeling can be knowledge generating for both professional
scientists (and communities of scientists) and science learners (and communities of learners) (Nerses-
sian, 2008). The science education community has taken up modeling as one of the most frequently
researched themes at least since the release of the NGSS. Modeling in the context of SSI learning
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has received less attention; however, this is beginning to change. For example, Sorensen et al. (2016)
engage undergraduates with models of climate adaptation and mitigation for making sense of com-
plex socio-environmental issues. Sadler and colleagues (2019) describe the development of model-
oriented, issues-based teaching for high school learners (related to the issue of antibiotic resistance)
and elementary classrooms (related to ecological relationships and habitat loss). Ke and colleagues
(2021) provide a justifcation for the growing attention to the linkage between SSIs and modeling:
SSIs provide important and meaningful contexts relevant to learners’ lives for modeling practice, and
modeling can support deep understandings of the science embedded in and necessary for negotiating
SSIs.
Zangori et al. (2020) and their team have explored multiple dimensions of modeling and SSI
learning with diferent student and teacher populations. For example, in a high school biology class,
this team studied how a teacher implemented a three-week SSI unit related to climate change with
explicit attention to student opportunities to create and use scientifc models. The research tracked
how student modeling of carbon processes and cycling changed over the course of the unit. Analyses
of the models showed how student understanding of causal mechanisms for transfer and transforma-
tion of carbon was necessary in order for them to make substantive connections between carbon
cycling and climate change, which in turn, was necessary for the kinds of science-informed reasoning
about complex issues that serves as a primary goal for SSI teaching (Zangori et al., 2017). In related
research in the context of SSI-based instruction about the emergence of antibiotic resistance, the
research team demonstrated how student modeling of bacterial growth and response to antibiotics
supported student understandings of natural selection and an associated decrease in commonly held
misconceptions about evolution (Peel et al., 2019). In a project conducted in an elementary school
context, teachers developed and enacted an SSI unit focused on habitat destruction/preservation. As
a part of this learning experience, students created and revised models of ecosystems and ecologi-
cal relationships as well as written positions on how to respond to the issue of habitat destruction/
preservation. By analyzing the iterative learning products (multiple drafts of the students’ models and
position statements), the researchers were able to document ways in which the students’ modeling
experiences supported their sense-making about complex causal interactions, which helped improve
the quality of their socioscientifc position statements (Zangori et al., 2020). This linkage between
modeling practice and SSI learning is further supported by a study that demonstrated ways in which
high school learners appropriated modeling practice and tools for supporting this practice as a means
of making sense of and working toward a resolution for an SSI – in this case, related to the issue of
e-cigarettes and vaping (Ke et al., 2020).
Most of the modeling-SSI research focuses on learner development and use of mechanistic models;
that is, diagrammatic representations of a phenomenon that depict causal relationships among factors
associated with the phenomenon. However, scientifc models come in many forms and can provide
diferent afordances in terms of sense-making, and research with more diverse forms of models is
emerging in the feld. System models, which show directional relationships among components of
a complex system, seem a natural ft for SSI teaching and learning as SSI play out in these complex
systems. Eggert and colleagues (2017) demonstrated how learners can build system models as a means
of representing complexity of SSI and show the importance of multiple forms of knowledge integra-
tion. Nuhoğlu (2014) also engaged learners (at the middle school level) with system models related
to an SSI and studied student competencies. While students could use the model for connecting
individual components of the system, they struggled with the model as a means of conceptualizing
the overall system. However, students’ modeling activities were associated with increased interest in
the issue. This result, which hints at the potential for modeling to yield positive afective outcomes as
learners negotiate complex SSI, is consistent with Nicolaou and colleagues’ (2015) research in which
middle school learners reported positive emotions associated with their modeling experiences even
as many expressed more negative emotions based on the SSI alone.
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Making Sense of SSI in the Media

Argumentation and modeling are practices that stem from disciplinary science, and they can be pro-
ductively leveraged for the negotiation of SSI. However, we can consider other sensemaking practices
important for SSI learning that are not central to the practice of science. One such practice that has
received increasing attention in recent years because of the near unlimited access to information
resources provided by modern technology, is making sense of media accounts of SSI. Some of this
research frames learner interpretation of media and information simply as epistemic practice (Barzilai
& Chinn, 2018), but in the current chapter we refer to this as making sense of media in light of the
previous discussion of more sociological framing of epistemic practice. As social issues that are multi-
faceted, controversial, and unfolding in real time, SSI are often subjects of media accounts, including
formal journalistic reports and more informal outlets like social media. Ideally, learners would be
able to read media reports about various SSI and make informed judgments about the credibility and
utility of the information being shared (Klosterman et al., 2012).
Some research in this area has explored how competent students are in making sense of the
credibility and utility of media reports about SSI, including exploration of criteria for making these
determinations and for the processes employed. A study involving undergraduate learners reveals use
of criteria including authority of the source, richness of the arguments provided, and validity of the
evidence; however, the extent to which learners appropriately employed these criteria varied across
the sample (Yang et al., 2013). In contrast, research with middle school learners, without an inter-
vention, suggests that this younger group has far fewer strategies for sense-making around the validity
of reporting about SSI (Buckingham, 2017). Interestingly, Kinslow’s (2018) work with high school
students and teachers ofers evidence that providing explicit supports around media and information
literacy in the context of making sense of SSI can be efective. In this case, teachers provided students
with a framework for considering the credibility and utility of SSI-related media reports. The frame-
work helped students to ask questions about the source of information, the purpose of the reporting,
the aims and agenda of the authors, and potential biases that could have afected the underlying scien-
tifc investigations or reporting processes. Kinslow found that providing students with this framework
along with consistent opportunities to use it over the course of a semester led to signifcant impacts
on student understanding of the interactions between science and the media and improvements in
students’ media literacy practices, particularly in the context of SSI.
Leung (2020) studied SSI-related sensemaking practice with a sample of undergraduate students
participating in a semester-long SSI-themed course. In designing the course, instructors employed
the Apt-AIR framework (Barzilai & Chinn, 2018), which emphasizes apt performance with respect
to analyzing epistemic aims, epistemic ideals, and reliable epistemic processes. At the beginning
of the course, many participants were able to name strategies for interrogating media accounts of
SSI, but few showed any propensity to engage with these ideas in their actual practice of analyzing
media reports. By the end of the semester, learners were able to shift from expressing declarative
knowledge about making sense of media to knowledge-in-use. The research revealed the follow-
ing dimensions of the intervention as particularly important for supporting this shift: opportunities
to practice knowledge-in-use, application of ideas and processes in negotiation of multiple SSIs,
feedback from instructors, and opportunities to engage in the work in social settings – that is in
negotiation with peers.
Learner engagement in epistemic and sensemaking practices is central to SSI learning experiences.
Recent research has demonstrated reciprocal relationships between sensemaking practices and SSI
teaching and learning. On one hand, practices such as argumentation help learners to develop deep
understandings of an issue and the complex, causal relationships embedded within the issue. On the
other hand, learning experiences contextualized in the exploration of SSI can support development
of practice competencies among learners. These complementary relationships are evident in practices
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that are disciplinary in nature, such as the scientifc practice of modeling, as well as practices not spe-
cifcally associated with science but yet essential for negotiating SSI, like making sense of media. In
moving the SSI agenda forward, there are opportunities to expand the range of sensemaking practices
featured and studied within SSI learning experiences. For example, the feld could certainly beneft
from more detailed analyses of system thinking as a practice relative to SSI teaching and learning. In
addition, there remains important work to be done to better understand more complex repertoires
of practice within SSI learning. Currently, practice-oriented SSI curricula tend to prioritize a single
practice, but ideally, learners should have opportunities to coordinate practices for richer sensemak-
ing opportunities. Figuring out how to successfully accomplish this coordination of practices will
require new curriculum materials, teaching approaches, and associated research.
Theme III: Socioscientifc Issues Outside of Conventional Classrooms:

Informal, Place-based, Environmental, and Other Sociocultural Contexts
The omnibus of STEM-centric initiatives over the last decade have been so disconcerting that some
educators have warned that its impact represents a Trojan horse for unrequited neoliberal market-
place policies devoid of more liberating and balanced sociocultural approaches to science education
(Bencze et al., 2018; Ellison & Allen, 2018; Evagorou, Nielsen et al., 2020; Levinson, 2013; Zeidler,
2016, 2020, Zeidler et al., 2016). The SinC movements (Bencze et al., 2020) (described earlier), have
served as a counterpoint to alleviate some of the perceived criticisms associated with the infux of
STEM movements. Kahn (2015) explicitly argues for the addition of a second “M” in STEM, which
serves as a placeholder for moral considerations associated with SSI. Kahn further argues that the
Next Generation Science Standards (2013), and presumably any subsequent iterations of these US
standards or global science education standards, ought to provide a context for moral development
with an explicit focus on the kind of argumentation that facilitates moral reasoning and sociomoral
discourse embedded in the consequences of STEM decision-making. Kahn refers to this as “a moral
makeover”, which we rather like, which is aimed at: “the quest for meaningful, accessible yet rigor-
ous contextualized STEM curriculum taught in an inclusive and equitable environment” (p. 152).
In an impactful review of research, Alcaraz-Dominguez and Barajas (2021) have demonstrated clear
connections between the sociocultural elements that SSI has to ofer, such as citizenship education,
pedagogical strategies that engage students in discussions and dilemmas, with various curriculum
dimensions of STEM. Their work not only adds conceptual support to the kind of “moral make-
over” of STEM curricula suggested earlier, but also provides concrete suggestions for possible empiri-
cal research in terms of SSI and STEM practice.
Some researchers have tried to adopt a more integrated approach in blending elements of SSI
with STEM initiatives. Researchers such as Anker-Hansen and Andreé (2019) and Hallström and
Schönborn (2019), for example, argue the need for more authentic STEM education by designing
activities and inquiry investigations that are more personally and culturally relevant. Doing so could
lead to better supporting students in making sense of both the cultural contexts of scientifc practices
and their personal sense of identity in relation to STEM foci. In a sense, the authors are calling for the
kinds of experiences that are typically associated with the SSI framework. Such experiences allow for
the transfer of knowledge and skills derived from STEM to other non-STEM educational and per-
sonal contexts. It may also help to curb the problem of “STEM-switchers” (Song et al., 2020) – those
students who enter STEM felds as majors but become disillusioned with instruction and delivery.
Other examples of SSI-STEM integrative educational approaches include the examination of
water literacy issues in STEM education (Owens et al., 2020) where SSI considerations were used
to examine elements of socioscientifc reasoning (SSR), including understanding the complexity
of issues, the perspectives of stakeholders involved, the need for ongoing inquiry, skepticism about
information sources, and the afordances of science toward the resolution of the issue – in this case,
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natural resource problems connected to the nexus of food, energy, and water. The important point
here is that some issues do require more in-depth domain-specifc knowledge in order to develop
deeper literacy about the issue. Still, grounding the issues in an SSI approach that stresses situated
learning theory (Sadler, 2009) provided functional strategies for supporting students’ development of
both content knowledge and SSR abilities. The recognition of the interdisciplinary nature of STEM,
the importance of conceptualizing STEM learning beyond the strict disciplinary hegemony of sci-
ence shifting to an educational perspective of transdisciplinarity, and the need for more robust inte-
grative instructional approaches and epistemological discussions of STEM content with humanistic
values has been made clear in the literature (Park & Erduran, 2020; Kahn, 2015; McComas & Bur-
gin, 2020; Ortiz-Revilla et al., 2020; Steele, 2016; Takeuchi et al., 2020; Yip, 2020). Recognition
of the benefts of integrated STEM and SSI are made explicit by the work of Roehrig et al. (2021)
and Zeidler (2020), who critiqued current global STEM initiatives arguing for a focus on increased
STEM literacy and awareness that would lead to more equitable education and poverty reduction.
More specifcally, the authors argue, particular in the case of engineering, that the myopic focus on
technical education reinforces gender stereotypes and that the integration of SSI-based instruction
can shift the norms and identities in STEM felds in a manner to “make visible and to value the non-
scientifc thinking that is essential to solving real-world problems” (p. 264). Roehrig et al. provide
examples of how phases of SSI implementation can be mapped onto phases of engineering design
processes in order to develop an appreciation and understanding of the role ethics, empathy, and
moral reasoning play in responsible decisions about aspects of engineering design.
Kim et al. (2020) have made a concerted efort to wed the benefts of the contextual features that
SSI has to ofer into a community-based program that tapped into Korean middle school students’
sense of place (SOP). More specifcally, the researchers studied the efects of a community-based
socioscientifc issues program (SSI-COMM) on students’ SOP, while facilitating opportunities for
character development as citizens. The eight-week program focused on concerns that were closely
connected to the students’ local sensibilities, such as fne dust (an ongoing pollution dispute that
afects several Asian countries leading to potential cause for respiratory diseases and increases the
risk of cancer), abandoned pets, and recycling issues. Students were engaged in these issues both
in formal contexts (classroom discourse) as well as in informal contexts within the community fol-
lowing a four-part sequence of scafolded learning by (1) recognition of the issue by visiting sites in
the community, (2) exploration of the issue by visiting local organizations and talking with experts to
explore the issues, (3) sharing information and possible solutions with community members, and (4)
action-taking in the community. Overall, the results demonstrated that students’ SOP and character
assessments improved after participation in the SSI-COMM. The authors note that it is important
to stress that the linkages within a local community are not confned to utilizing physical resources
through simple feld trips, but by engaging and communicating with local experts and residents with
an aim to act. This approach helps to address some of the concerns about a lack of cultivating a SOP
in conventional settings pointed out by others (Herman et al., 2013; Tytler et al., 2017; Zeidler
et al., 2014) who stress the importance of connecting to others, as well as acting responsibly and
expressing compassion for humans and other living organisms on the planet. We assent to the claim
that SSI instruction with the context of community-based learning can be regarded as an exemplary
educational model.
Another initiative with a European focus to engage students in socioscientifc inquiry-based
learning with an eye on fnding solutions to questions and acting on issues is found in socioscien-
tifc inquiry-based learning (SSIBL) (Amos et al., 2020; Amos & Levinson, 2019; Levinson, 2018;
Rundgren & Chang Rundgren, 2018). SSIBL is an outgrowth of the Promoting Attainment of
Responsible Research and Innovation in Science Education (PARRISE) project consisting of a
consortium of 18 universities spread across 11 European Union participants. The focus is on combin-
ing responsible research and innovation, inquiry-based science education, the cultivation of critical
914
citizenship with respect to navigating developments in science and technology and working to sup-
port instructional decisions of preservice and in-service teachers. Researchers and participants within
this project, which situated these components within the SSI framework, provided an interdisciplin-
ary approach contributing to three main project goals that (1) allowed for authentic research-based
questions entailing SSI, (2) facilitated research-based inquiry related to questions that could enact
change in personal positions or inform policy, and (3) seeking solutions to efectively communicate
results based on evidence from research in convincing stakeholders of the necessity of change.
Extending the notion of solving real-world problems can also be found in studies that are situated
in informal and/or authentic learning contexts. In a series of integrated conceptual and empirical
research papers, researchers began to postulate that place-based contexts (i.e., informal environmental
education settings) would be a logical domain to cultivate students’ strong afective connections to
the interrelationships of environmental networks (Zeidler & Newton, 2017; Herman et al., 2018).
Place-based contexts, it was argued, would provide a natural conduit to develop functional scientifc
literacy and a sense of ecojustice in students as they may better envision themselves as an integral part
of nature with a desire to commit pro-environmental actions. For such actions to be realized, socio-
scientifc perspective taking, and an ethic of care and responsibility must frst be tapped, refected
upon, and discussed. This resulted in several important research studies.
In a study that examined the reintroduction of wolves into a national park, and its impact on the
ecosystem and various stakeholders whose livelihoods were impacted in diferent ways and to vari-
ous degrees by the issue, Herman et al. (2020) identifed four major categories of emotive reasoning
expressed by the students consisting of (1) apathy, (2) passive care, (3) moderated concern, and (4)
empathetic dissonance. A deeper analysis revealed that for the latter two major categories (3 and 4 in
the previous sentence), three subtypes describing the ways students moderated their concern were
coded as (1) value judgment, (2) helplessness, and (3) difusion of responsibility; and four subtypes
describing the ways students expressed empathetic dissonance were coded as (1) compassion, (2)
guilt, (3) anger, and (4) righteous indignation. While all these afective terms were operationalized
via inductive inquiry in the study, it is worth noting that empathetic dissonance features are rich
territory for educators to mine in order to engage students in cognitive and afective dissonance and
facilitate higher orders of reasoning on these kinds of SSI issues. For example, anger was identifed
as a feeling of empathy toward people and nature who sufer while demonstrating overt ire toward
an explicitly identifed cause, and righteous indignation was operationalized as a visceral emotive
response toward people and nature who sufer due to perceived inequities or injustices. These are
very powerful afective motivators that engage students to consider aspects of SSPT that serve as
precursors to act. The research also demonstrated notable shifts in all categories of emotive rea-
soning from pre- to post-immersive experiences, both in terms of ecocentric and anthropocentric
empathetic dissonance. The reason that this is indeed notable may be found in the observation that
while students tend to identify with anthropocentric environmental concerns, it is typically harder to
engage them in considerations of ecocentric factors in environmental education.
In a concerted efort to build upon the place-based SSI work cited earlier, Herman et al. (2021)
investigated the extent that students expressed socioscientifc orientations of ecological worldviews
(including interconnectedness and sustainable development), social and moral compassion (including moral and
ethical sensitivity, perspective taking, and empathetic concern), socioscientifc accountability (including feelings
of responsibility and willingness to act), and scientifc evidence views (including afordances and constraints
of scientifc evidence). A second purpose was to build a qualitative structured instrument and rubric
titled the Socioscientifc and Environmental Engagement Dimensions Survey (SEEDS) and semi-
structured follow-up interview that would inductively lead to the structured rubric. The SEEDS was
created through drawing from the Character and Values as Global Citizens Assessment (CVGCA)
developed by Lee et al. (2013). However, the SEEDS difered from the CVGCA in that it (1) was
modifed to be relevant to the GYA SSI context through focusing on natural resources management
915
and environmental issues, (2) measured scientifc evidence views through the dimension of afor-
dances and constraints of scientifc evidence, and (3) primed students through Likert items to qualita-
tively express the socioscientifc orientation dimensions with contextualizing examples. The authors
note the importance in SSI research to develop standardized measures determining students’ verbal
and written responses to such SSI interventions so empirical comparisons can be made across the SSI
feld (Zeidler et al., 2020).
The fndings yielded encouraging results as evidenced by the moderately large to large change
(efect sizes r = 0.42 to 0.58) in students’ expressions across all eight socioscientifc orientations
through the place-based SSI intervention implemented in this study. The magnitude of change,
when converted to Cohen’s d = 0.93 to 1.42, was considerable in comparison to other SSI interven-
tions, most of which have been implemented in conventional classroom environments. Of particular
importance was the construction of a set of standardized exemplar rubrics (found in the online
Appendix C for this article) based on each of these eight SSI orientations. For example, the rubric
for the socioscientifc orientations profling students’ expressions about the afordances and con-
straints of scientifc evidence, consisted of the following hierarchy succession: (1) lacks awareness of
science’s role or embraces scientism (e.g., science should be the only thing considered); (1.5) same as
1 but with qualifying SSI links; (2) tacit recognition of ways that nonscientifc considerations must
be weighed (e.g., minor emphasis on the importance of other things besides science, sometimes with
an apparent privilege toward science); (2.5) same as 2 but with qualifying SSI links; (3) inconsistently
states how nonscientifc considerations must be weighed (e.g., public opinion should be considered
but not used in resolution, may hedge with fragmented argument that morals and ethics should be
considered but tacitly still privilege science); (3.5) same as 3 but with qualifying SSI links; (4) consis-
tently states how scientifc evidence must be weighed and balanced with nonscientifc considerations
when proposing solutions; (4.5) same as 4 but with qualifying SSI links; (5) consistently and explicitly
states how scientifc evidence must be weighed with nonscientifc considerations when proposing
solutions with clear contextualized links to SSI. Detailed exemplars were also provided for each
level. Such qualitative multidimensional profling of students’ SSI orientations can aid in identifying
nuanced diferences and developmental growth of students’ reasoning structures contextualized in
varied place-based, as well as in conventional, settings. This work adds to the more recent burgeon-
ing scholarship (e.g., Bossér & Lindahl, 2019; Herman, 2018; Kinslow, 2018; Kinslow et al., 2019;
Sjöström & Rydberg, 2018) that seeks to determine the multidimensional nature of how people
engage SSI.
Some research has been focused on understanding the central role of sociocultural contexts and
its importance to environmental ethics, particularly in non-Western paradigms. Zidny et al. (2021)
explored how Indigenous science in an Indonesian community provides relevant contexts that can
enable students to learn scientifc concepts related to promoting sustainability. Themes meaningful
to the community included agriculture, medicine, natural dyes, household chemicals, renewable
energy, and astronomy. The authors point out that in many non-Western communities with diverse
cultural infuences, epistemological orientations to scientifc knowledge may be passed down through
oral traditions having more holistic perspectives than dominant Western views. Thus, any form of
science teaching must allow for both Indigenous and Western forms of understanding ideas about
sustainability relative to sociocultural, economic, and environmental knowledge systems (UNESCO,
2021). Zidny et al. (2021) point out that Indigenous and Western science sociocultural contextual-
ized themes are more likely to be synergistic and complementary if the community can maintain the
integrity of specifc and localized cultural traditions. For example, Zidny and Eilks (2018) have found
that this community follows the beliefs and norms passed down by their ancestors that the land, for-
ests, and related resources have a spirit and are sacred, and no harm should be allowed to the hallowed
environment. It is not difcult to understand how Western scientifc knowledge about promoting
aspects of sustainable practices could help to promote localized ways of living in harmony with one’s
916
environment. It is worth noting that others in the science education community have promoted the
idea of broader pluralistic notions of science and science education by border crossing into subcul-
tures and multiscience perspectives for decades (Aikenhead, 1996; Ogawa, 1995). The importance of
connectedness to nature and developing cross-contextual, cross-cultural, and ecological worldviews
has not been lost on contemporary researchers (Gkargkavouzi et al., 2018); Lee, 2017; Owens et al.,
2019; Mueller & Tippins, 2015).
Theme IV: Socioscientifc Issues as Character Development,

Citizenship, and Socioscientifc Perspective Taking
A key piece conceptualizing the SSI framework is recognizing that what it means to be scientifcally
literate is bound up in a sense of civic virtue that connects practical wisdom to moral intelligence.
It is in this space that the exploration of sociocultural approaches to the development of character,
conscience, and care are intricately tied to a sense of responsibility, civic obligation, and even human
and ecological activism. An important aspect of developing a sense of civic virtue is also linked to
the ability to take on various perspectives of those with competing interests. The question of how
features of prudence, conscience, perspective taking, and virtue can purposefully spread relative to
the SSI framework has been a focal point of interest in the current literature. Embracing this area of
scholarship also suggests a value-added approach to cultivating scientifc literacy in that students not
only become engaged in the activity of science but become normed into a democratic collective
consciousness (Durkheim, 1893) and collective moral responsibility (Isaacs, 2011).
Some researchers suggest explicit attention to citizenship preparation be paid to curriculum
design and teaching relative to citizenship science education. In Finnish science education work, for
example, Vesterinen et al. (2016) show that students consciously take a multitude of actions toward
making the world better and view those actions as a process of ongoing self-development. Done in an
informal context, the authors note that most existing questionnaire studies on environmental actions
focus on limited things like consumer choices or recycling but fail to measure actions that are more
aligned with being proactive participatory and humanitarian actions in the community. One ques-
tionnaire that has been developed and modifed to examine factors explicitly tied to SSI character
development is based on the work of Lee et al. (2012, 2013). Lee and colleagues have constructed
and used the Character and Values as Global Citizens Assessment (CVGCA) to measure the impact of
programs designed to promote character and values for global citizens. In their work, they identifed
three conceptual components of character and values within SSI contexts that included ecological
worldviews, social and moral compassion, and socioscientifc accountability. Factor analytic tech-
niques produced robust factors that included inter-connectedness, sustainable development, moral
and ethical sensitivity, perspective taking, empathic concerns, feeling of responsibility, and willingness
to act. Some of those factors do address, in part, the concerns raised by Vesterinen et al. (2016). It
is noteworthy that the CVGCA has also been translated to Turkish, showing a high degree of cross-
cultural validity and reliability for this instrument (Karisan & Yilmaz-Tuzun, 2017). Others echo the
sentiment of connecting science education through SSI for the cultivation of civic responsibility and
participatory action pointing to research and enacting practice on SSI that emphasizes the develop-
ment of character, particularly in preparing students for global citizenship (Evagorou, Nielsen et al.,
2020; Kahn, 2021; Powell et al., 2021; Zeidler & Kahn, 2014).
Yap (2014) has noted that the integration of science, ethics, and morality has been gaining impetus
as part of the Australian curriculum in the Science as a Human Endeavour strand. Yap argues that
SSI are, de facto, moral issues because of the prescriptive and generalizable standards that are tied
to decisions students must make that reside in conventional, personal, and/or moral domains. Yap’s
study drew on the work of Reiss’s (2008) ethical frameworks that included deontological perspectives
of rights and duties, utilitarian maximizing of good in the world, making personal decisions, leading
917
a virtuous life, and Christian (moral) ethics. Interestingly, she also integrated that with Sadler and
Zeidler’s (2005) informal reasoning patterns that subsumed combinations of rationalistic, emotive,
and intuitive reasoning approaches in the context of SSI. Using various biotechnology SSI over a ten-
week course, fndings showed that experimental groups showed marked diferences over comparison
groups toward shifts in using multiple reasoning approaches, greater fexibility and sophistication in
perspective taking, and evidence that having knowledge of ethical frameworks allowed students to
better scafold and integrate new knowledge. This work also cautions that allegiance to core (reli-
gious) belief systems can override one’s own sense of fairness in making decisions of moral rightness.
It also suggests a need to examine more closely the notion of socioscientifc perspective taking in SSI
research (examined in more detail next).
A key factor to the cultivation of character and associated citizenship character traits like respon-
sibility, empathy, care, sympathy, and the like, is the development and exercise of socioscientifc
reasoning (SSR) skills put forth by Sadler and colleagues (Sadler et al., 2007; Romine et al., 2017)
that subsume complexity, inquiry, perspective taking, skepticism, and afordances and limitations of
science (discussed elsewhere in this chapter). In a series of studies, Kahn and Zeidler (2016, 2017,
2019) have sought to unpack the elements of SSR and advance through conceptual and empirical
scholarship that the most primal element of SSR relative to character and citizenship is perspective
taking. The presupposition on which this is founded is that the ability to invoke elements of emotive
reasoning, such as righteous indignation, empathy, or moral sensitivity, is directly tied to the primacy
of perspective taking. That is, perspective taking is a necessary but not sufcient condition for the
exercise of mature moral judgment within the SSI enterprise. Kahn and Zeidler (2016), drawing
on the work of Martin et al. (2008) and Selman (1977), constructed a broad working defnition of
perspective taking as “one’s ability to recognize and consider the diverse cognitive and emotional
viewpoints of others within SSI” (p. 263). This defnition was not arbitrary in that it arose out of
that sociocultural and developmental literature having a focus on educational practice. Kahn and
Zeidler’s work led to the development of a novel construct called socioscientifc perspective taking
(SSPT), which has become an additional important piece of the SSI framework in that it has come to
represent the type of moral and contextualized reasoning intimately connected to the development
of virtue and character.
The main educational (and research) implications of SSPT are that in order to facilitate students’
multiple perspective taking, it is necessary to conceptually distinguish among their position (where
one stands on an SSI), orientation (how a student approaches an issue in relation to others), and
perspective (how a student perceives and interprets an issue). Hence, it is quite possible that in the
discussion of SSI, students may approach a topic through diferent orientation, yet still arrive at the
same position all while holding varying perspectives from one another. Yet, it is equally plausible that
students may hold diverse positions while tapping common orientations and/or perspectives. Kahn
and Zeidler (2019) demonstrated utilizing conceptual analysis, that there are three necessary and suf-
fcient conditions to invoke in the generation of SSPT.
The frst condition necessitates some degree of authentic engagement on the part of students,
requiring personal, community, or global signifcance that is relevant to the convictions students pos-
sess. The second condition must provide an opportunity, through experiential place-based learning,
argumentation or discussions, role-playing exercises, community meetings, and probing using scaf-
folded questioning techniques on the part of a teacher, to experience etic/emic shifts of perspectives
whereby the student can move from their outsider perspective to the perspective of other stakehold-
ers through the exercising of empathy. This is accomplished through the exercise of refexive and
refective judgment and the practice of empathic reasoning, which is fulflled by the ability to echo
the other’s perspective, while ideally, in their presence. The third requirement is the presence of a
moral context in which the issue is embedded, necessitating the consideration of ethical principles
and the exercise of moral reasoning. It is this third condition, the presence of a moral context, that
918
distinguishes perspective taking in general, which requires only a neutral psychological shift, to
one that is embedded within an ethical domain that requires the exercise of refexive and refective
thought to determine the best combination of factors in the choice of moral justice and fairness.
Further work connected to developing SSPT was undertaken by Newton and Zeidler (2020),
who empirically investigated how a modifed perspective reading and writing intervention embed-
ded within an environmental science course with explicit attention to the three underlying con-
ditions described earlier, would facilitate the ability of students to recognize and consider varied
points of views with respect to an SSI issue concerning the reintroduction of wolves in a national
park. Following a model (HARTSS) centered on the successful practices that promote perspective
taking in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, and then applied to SSI contexts, the authors
implemented perspective reading and writing strategies that required students to examine texts from
varied perspectives and respond to those texts from those particular perspectives. Students used that
experience to help prepare questions for actual guest speakers who represented diverse perspectives
on the wolf management issue (e.g., restorative ecologist, local sheep rancher). Finally, students wrote
a management plan from an assigned perspective to present, through argumentation and debate, in a
culminating town hall forum to other students who were selected to represent a town council tasked
with synthesizing policy for a fnal management plan. The scafolded experiences of the HARTSS
model, in conjunction with the three necessary and sufcient conditions of promoting SSPT, showed
that a little more than half of the students showed superfcial change in terms of identifed shifts in
perspective taking, while slightly less than half demonstrated deep structural changes. These results
suggest that when the division between emic and etic viewpoints become blurred, occasions for
open-mindedness relative to others’ perspectives manifests itself in the form of more informed socio-
moral judgment. This is certainly an important feature for the ofce of citizenship.
Guérin (2019) clearly recognizes this point in her discussion of moving theory to the classroom
with respect to SSI and citizenship education (CE). Interestingly, Guérin points out that while adults
can learn deliberately, and consider varied points of view, the task typically requires tremendous
efort. Therefore, it is prudent to provide younger students with a great deal of practice in many
contexts so schools can better prepare them for deliberative participation as they develop a more
refned personal epistemology related to SSI. Others put a fner touch on this point and advocate for
a more action-oriented science curriculum. For example, Hodson (2011, 2014) also stresses that in
addition to addressing the values and developing concern for the perspectives of others, students need
to learn about possible sociopolitical actions, enacting feasible actions, and evaluating those actions
in the context of SSI and CE. He stresses that students can learn from actions and through actions
and provides examples of teachers serving as a type of mentor as students apprentice in activism and
provides pedagogical models to illustrate how that might be accomplished through a kind of refec-
tive practice (as mentioned earlier in this review). Others fully endorse the aim of activism in both
SSI in particular and science education in general to aid in a transformation of science education
that is situated in the concept of “Bildung”, best thought of as a capacity for self-determination and
cultural and personal maturation through societal (and educational) participation (Alsop & Bencze,
2014; Malmberg & Urbas, 2019; Sjöström & Eilks, 2016; Sjöström et al., 2016).
Connected to taking steps in involving the public in a community-based SSI program, Kim and
Lee (2017) have focused on middle school students’ understanding of the issue of abandoned animals
and their responsibility with respect to their character and values as citizens. Their community-based
SSI (SSI-COMM) was focused in bridging the gap between school learning and connections to the
local community. SSI-COMM went beyond simply visiting sites in the community and entailed dis-
cussions with local professionals and residents. Explicit connections and linkages were made between
the school lessons and the community through recognition, exploration, sharing, and action-taking.
Many statistically signifcant outcomes were derived from this study, including practical and con-
ceptual understanding of the issues, as well as gains on all of the main factors (ecological worldview,
919
social and moral compassion, socioscientifc accountability), and their related subcomponents (see
previous discussion) on the CVGCA. Community-based approaches like this help to promote stu-
dents’ involvement and participation and actions on issues. This work is synergistic with the research
of Wang et al.’s (2018) research on the importance of refection, evaluation, argumentation, and
decision-making competencies to promote an informed and responsible citizenry capable of acting
on SSI related to environmental and sustainable education for Taiwanese high school students. What
is interesting here is the plethora of SSI topics examined over an entire semester. The authors point
to signifcant increases in students’ awareness of the issues, responsibility of sustainable development,
self-efcacy related to environmental issues, and environment-related activities (e.g., reading more
science, environmental, or ecology articles in newspapers; watching TV programs about ecological
issues; visiting websites of ecological organizations; participation in science or environmental clubs).
Wang et al.’s (2018) research also aligns with Gresch et al. (2017), who found that the transactional
perspective and participatory practices found in SSI and related approaches are benefcial to the
development of more robust cognitive structures used in reasoning about complex and contentious
environmental issues.
Crossroads and Serendipity in Socioscientifc

Issues Research and Practice
We suspect that those who have come across and supported the SSI framework, whether it be in the
research or the educational ends of praxis, have done so because in their quest to cultivate scientifc
literacy were asking the fundamental question of how to better educate students in the sciences in a
manner that developed their cognitive functions but also the moral faculties of each individual. This
is what we refer to as “functional scientifc literacy” entailing the facilitation of strategies that enable
students to make informed decisions, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate varied sources of data and
information, use moral reasoning to attend sensibly to ethical issues, and understand the complexity
of connections inherent within contextualized science learning.
We stress that any conceptualization of functional scientifc literacy will likely fall short of the
mark unless it necessarily attends to the facilitation of acts aimed at discovery that fosters epistemic
growth, and an understanding that science, ethics, and the human condition are pedagogically indis-
tinguishable from each other in terms of the spread of virtue. The SSI framework is, at its core, a
multidisciplinary approach to science teaching and learning. This is fundamentally signifcant not
because in its best arrangement it engages students in the activity of science, but because it is a more
liberating and just form of learning. As Saxena (2019) explains:
Science education without a pluralistic orientation cannot become liberating in a true sense
as neglecting the opinion and practices of marginal groups will not only limit the source
of our scientifc knowledge but will tend to promote western science that is narrower in
approach and intent as well as complete loss of our indigenous knowledge.
(p. 7)
The path to SSI inquiry is not a straight one. Rarely is it a matter of simply getting from point A to
point B. It has many bumps, slick spots, hidden curves, and detours. It is dotted with views of mul-
tiple peaks and valleys revealing dark secrets and wonderful surprises.
At the crossroads, both researchers and educators will fnd that the decisions they exercise about
a particular educational route enacted, while exploring and expanding the frontiers of socioscientifc
issues, is flled with instances of serendipity. Upon examining an array of English dictionaries, we
come to fnd defnitions of serendipity that tend to center around something like the happy knack
of making unexpected and delightful discoveries by accident. Hence, serendipity may be thought
920
of as the gift of fnding, by the combination of chance and wisdom, certain valuable or agreeable
things not sought while in pursuit of something else. “Accidental discovery” is not a synonym for
serendipity. Serendipity is, rather, a discovery made because the individual is mentally equipped not
to disregard or overlook something new or strange while on the quest for another goal. The fact that
such discoveries come with a sense of happiness and delight touches on and highlights the emotive
nature of the act. This, in turn, supports the formation of scientifc identities, which is promoted
when students connect a feature of personal meaningfulness to both the human condition, as well as
to the context of scientifc thought, inquiry, and discovery.
SSI, by its very nature, both in research and practice, encourages the nurturing and cultiva-
tion of a prepared mind – one that possesses a predisposition to inquiry in unfamiliar territory.
For our most important commodity, our students, SSI allows even laggardly souls to fnd interest
and purpose because their teachers have encouraged “accidental” discoveries that are not merely
fortuitous but destined to be unveiled in diferent ways by diferent students with diferent per-
spectives about how to construct meaning, relevance, and shared understandings. While we have
presented the “state of the art” in SSI research and practice and identifed potentially fruitful future
directions to move the feld forward, we recognize its pursuit is a journey that will likely take us
through unforeseen territory and down unmapped paths. This is the serendipity of socioscientifc
issues. Most importantly to science education, and most forms of human understanding, efective
scientifc literacy requires the enactment of a predisposition to wonder. SSI, both in the conceptual
and empirical scholarship, as well in its implementation in classrooms or place-based settings, pur-
posefully taps into, nurtures, and expands the predisposition to wonder.
Acknowledgments
We wish to acknowledge and thank Dr. Melanie Kinskey for her help in organizing and managing
the data base of references used for the production of this chapter.
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29
PROJECT EVALUATION
Its History, Importance, and Current Practice
Sarah Beth Woodruff and Qinghua Nian
Making the Case for Project Evaluation

Sweeping reform in science education has been conceptualized and undertaken in the United States
for nearly 70 years, since the launch of Sputnik threatened US world dominance in the felds of sci-
ence and technology. During this time, two signifcant, mutually reinforcing changes in the approach
to education reform were implemented. First, education reforms increasingly leveraged the “educa-
tion system” as the unit of change (Clune et al., 1999), and second, systemic change in science edu-
cation policy, largely, has been driven by the federal government. Both of these changes have posed
signifcant challenges to measuring the efects of educational change eforts due to their scale (i.e.,
system) and scope (i.e., national).
Other substantial challenges to documenting the impact of science education reform are posed by
the fact that education reform, catalyzed by federal policy mandates, largely, has been unfunded or
underfunded, resulting in uneven implementation and evaluation of impact across states. In his recent
historical review of science education in the United States, Rudolph (2019) argues that every science
education reform efort has essentially failed. That is, despite evidence supporting new pedagogical
approaches, innovative curricular initiatives, as well as policies aimed at standardization, accountabil-
ity, and equity, reform has had limited impact on teachers’ efectiveness in teaching science, students’
science achievement, and on the ability of the US education system to move more students, and a
more diverse group of students, into the scientifc and technological workforce. While Rudolph’s
assessment of science education reform may be overly harsh, we observe that much of the education
evaluation conducted to measure the impact of systemic reform does not tell a convincing story of
success.
The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, we describe how program and project evaluations
have informed science education reform in the United States and identify gaps in our learning from
systemic reform eforts. Second, we describe advantages and limitations of program and project
evaluations and make the case for greater investment in and attention to project evaluation as a means
of improving its quality in practice and its potential to guide science education reform. Evaluations
discussed in this chapter focus on three fundamental aspects of science education that have served as
frequent targets of reform: (1) teacher efectiveness for science instruction, (2) student achievement
in science, and (3) broadening participation in science education and careers. In sum, we will provide
support for the use of high-quality project evaluation to promote systematic study of science educa-
tion interventions as they are implemented in the feld in order to develop better understanding of
science education reform in the United States.
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-34 930

Project Evaluation
This chapter, frst, introduces a comprehensive example of similarities, diferences, and relation-
ships of program and project evaluations to frame and guide the subsequent discussion of how each
type of evaluation has informed the improvement of science education interventions. We then pro-
vide a historical overview of science education reform in the United States1 and perspectives on the
current policy environment as context for the discussion of evaluation that follows. The frst part
of this chapter continues to describe some limitations and advantages of evaluations in revealing the
impact of systemic science education reform. Contributions of evaluations to what is known about
science education reform are reviewed and compared for evidence of impact on key outcomes
using the aforementioned example. Next, the chapter describes some advantages of nontraditional
approaches to project evaluation that show how evaluators have engaged with project personnel and
participants to improve the practice of project evaluation. The next section describes how project
evaluations have been implemented to generate knowledge in three critical areas of science educa-
tion reform. Examples provided in this section demonstrate how project evaluations are uniquely
positioned to measure and describe a range of important outcomes of science education reform
simultaneously and to establish associations among outcomes. Finally, we provide recommendations
for the improvement of project evaluations.
Overview of Program and Project Evaluation

Before beginning our historical review of science education reform in the United States, it is useful
to defne and distinguish among diferent types of evaluation. Two general approaches to measur-
ing the impact of science education reform are program evaluation and project evaluation. Program
evaluation is most often initiated by a program funder, such as the National Science Foundation
(NFS) or the US Department of Education (USDOE), and collects information from and about a set
of related projects to measure if a program meets its goals. Program evaluations are large-scale eforts
that primarily provide quantitative information about outputs (e.g., number of participants served)
and outcomes2 (e.g., students’ achievement test scores) for accountability and program improvement
purposes. As an example, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has conducted program evalua-
tions for many programs in the Directorate of Education and Human Resources (EHR) since the
early 1990s (Clewell & Fortenberry, 2009). NSF program evaluations usually serve the dual purpose
of collecting data to respond to US Ofce of Management and Budget (OMB) requirements to jus-
tify program investments, often referred to as monitoring metrics, and to serve as indicators of the
efectiveness of programs to promote continuous improvement by the NSF.
Program evaluations also provide guidance to and intersect with project evaluations. While proj-
ect evaluations may be conducted in concert with and provide data to program evaluations, proj-
ect evaluations should be designed to address project-specifc purposes and information needs and
to respond to questions about implementation and impact of the project’s intervention(s). Project
evaluation must balance the development of relevant and appropriate evaluation approaches with
expectations for quality and rigor in order to generate fndings that can be used for improvement and
accountability purposes.
Throughout this chapter, we will use the US government’s Mathematics and Science Partner-
ship (MSP) program to illustrate similarities, diferences, and the intersection of program and project
evaluations, including how they have informed systemic science education reform. The MSP program
was co-administered by the USDOE and the NSF, using funds authorized by No Child Left Behind
(NCLB), to improve teacher quality and student achievement in science and mathematics and reduce
achievement gaps in the performance of diverse student populations (NSF, 2009). In the 2002 bien-
nial budget, the USDOE’s funding for its MSP program was increased signifcantly through federal
Title II Part B funds, while funding of NSF’s MSP program was substantially reduced.3 MSP programs
were administered diferently by the USDOE and by NSF. NSF funded large, long-term projects (e.g.,
$2.5 million, for up to fve years) directly through program solicitations, while the DOE provided
931
formula-based grants to states and required each state to conduct a competition to fund projects. Proj-
ects funded by states varied in their size and scope, with some states funding a single state-wide project
and others funding multiple smaller projects. Despite diferences in program administration, USDOE
and NSF MSP programs shared the same Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) mea-
sures with specifc annual targets.4 While the MSP program continues in spirit, in 2013 the NSF
consolidated its MSP and Computing Education for the 21st Century (CE21) programs, creating the
STEM-C Partnerships program.5 In 2015, states received their fnal year of USDOE funding, specif-
cally allocated for the MSP program, though states are still authorized to fund MSP eforts with Title
II monies at least through fscal year 2022.
Higher levels of funding for the MSP program facilitated implementation of more rigorous and
comprehensive program and project evaluations that were intended to monitor activities, report on
impacts, and ensure program and project credibility with policymakers and the public (Gullickson &
Hanssen, 2006). Both NSF and the USDOE conducted evaluations of their respective MSP pro-
grams and collaborated on initiatives to compile data from their respective projects for policy and
accountability purposes. Both agencies also required each funded project to conduct its own evalu-
ation to report on specifc project outcomes. The NSF MSP program contracted with a number of
evaluation providers and researchers to conduct a suite of evaluation activities that utilized quanti-
tative and qualitative approaches and data from a range of sources (U.S. House of Representatives,
2005; Wong et al., 2008). The NSF also provided technical assistance and support for MSP project
evaluations through eforts such as the MSP Research, Evaluation, and Technical Assistance (RETA)
program (NSF, 2012b).
The USDOE initially contracted evaluation of its MSP program to Abt Associates, Inc., which
provided technical assistance to the MSP program and conducted annual reviews of a subset of
projects’ evaluation reports. The USDOE also utilized its internal resources to collect quantitative
output and outcome data from states to meet GPRA reporting requirements (USDOE, 2008b). Like
the NSF, the USDOE provided guidance to and expectations for evaluation of its projects and also
provided guidance to states regarding strategies to solicit rigorous evaluations of their MSP projects
(Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, 2005). Due to the complexity of the USDOE MSP program,
several states funded statewide evaluations of their respective MSP programs (e.g., Illinois, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin). As an example, Ohio commissioned a comprehensive evaluation of its
MSP projects. The state evaluation of Ohio’s MSP program collected longitudinal data from 33 proj-
ects, funded between 2005 and 2015, which also conducted their own evaluations and provided data
to the statewide evaluation and to the USDOE (Woodruf et al., 2009, 2010).
While federal program evaluations, state program evaluations, and local project evaluations of
MSP initiatives served diferent purposes, utilized diferent measures and data sources, and produced
fndings for diferent audiences, MSP program requirements resulted in some uniformity in indicators
used to measure implementation and outcomes, enabling program funders to report on outcomes of
teachers and students. In the following section, we will recount what has been learned from decades
of systemic science education reform, as documented by program and project evaluations, as well
as describe how the landscape of science education reform has changed the practice of evaluation.
A Brief History of Science Education Reform

The defning characteristics of systemic education reform – its ambition to serve all students well,
comprehensively and simultaneously targeting many pieces of the system, and employing mutually
reinforcing practices and policies (Fuhrman, 1994) – have made it difcult to implement and to eval-
uate its impact at scale. According to the National Science Foundation (1993), systemic reform must
include fundamental, innovative, coordinated changes in fnancing, governance, management, con-
tent, and conduct of education (i.e., teacher preparation, curricula, instruction, assessments) focused
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Project Evaluation
on providing gains in the science and math learning of all students in a diverse educational system. As
explained by Clune (1998), the logic of systemic school reform is that “greater coherence (or align-
ment) of policies of instructional guidance (those afecting the content and quality of instruction in
school) is the only way to create large numbers of efective schools (schools producing high levels of
student achievement)” (p. 1). Historically, the components of systemic reform have involved curricu-
lum frameworks and associated curricula, instructional materials and pedagogical approaches, teacher
preparation and professional development, assessment-based accountability, restructuring (e.g., gov-
ernance, resources), and supportive services (e.g., leadership, partnerships) (Floden et al., 1995; NSF,
1993; Smith & O’Day, 1991). The most frequently used vehicle for aligning these key components
has been standards; therefore, systemic reform has become synonymous with standards-based reform
(Knapp, 1997). Regardless of how it is named, the end game of science education systemic reform is
improvement of student achievement.
Our historical review of large-scale reform eforts in US science education, from the end of
World War II to the present, demonstrates how key components of the education system have been
leveraged during four waves of reform. The frst wave from Sputnik through Man, A Course of Study
(Curriculum Associates Development Inc., 1971), addressed weaknesses in texts and in teacher con-
tent knowledge, while the second, from “A Nation at Risk” (National Commission on Excellence
in Education, 1983) through national standards, focused on the science courses required for gradu-
ation and on mandatory assessments of student knowledge. The third wave largely emphasized the
importance of improving student achievement to reach equity and excellence via the National Sci-
ence Foundation’s systemic initiative program through the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
legislation (Kahle, 2007). The fourth wave, initiated by NCLB in the late 1990s, was one of greater
standardization and performance accountability across multiple levels with a renewed focus on US
economic competitiveness (Woodruf & Kahle, 2014).
Wave 1
In the late 1950s, the United States responded to national and international challenges to its scientifc
and technological superiority with a major curriculum reform. This reform, which addressed not
only science texts and teaching, took a decade and lasted another decade beyond (Bybee, 2010). This
reform was national in scope and was driven by an urgent political need to educate a scientifc and
technical workforce, a recurring theme driving improvements in science education since that time.
Curricular and pedagogical reforms of the 1960s and 1970s substantively changed science educa-
tion, and the synergy between the two enhanced their separate efects. Curricular eforts focused on
updating and improving the curricular materials used by students, while professional development
for teachers was focused on improving teachers’ content knowledge and, to a lesser extent, enhanc-
ing their instructional skills (Ofce of Technology Assessment, 1988; Sahlberg, 2006). Measuring the
impact of new curricula was compromised by the lack of independent tests aligned with curricular
goals (Dow, 1999; Nelkin, 1977; OTA, 1988). However, these evaluation eforts identifed positive
impacts on the teaching profession (OTA, 1988; Sahlberg, 2006) and provided evidence that new
curricula improved both student attitudes toward and achievement in science in the short term (Dow,
1999; Kahle, 2004; Kahle & Woodruf, 2011).
Wave 2
During the decade of the 1980s, US schools embarked on one of the most comprehensive school
reform eforts in history (Finn, 2002; Schneider & Keesler, 2007; Toch, 1991). These reforms focused
on raising students’ achievement via tighter federal and state regulation of education, increasing high
school graduation requirements for science, and implementing standardized assessments. As a frst
933
step, states increased graduation requirements in math and science while simultaneously restricting
the types of courses that could be used to meet those requirements. Second, states began to institute
high-stakes tests of students’ skills and knowledge. States responded to federal mandates to strengthen
science graduation requirements by developing new science courses, which increased tracking of
students. Therefore, mandates of the 1980s did little “to change the content of instruction (especially
its focus on basic skills) . . . and provided little or no support for the type of professional learning
necessary” (Goertz et al., 1996, p. xi) to improve teachers’ science instruction. Similarly, research on
high-stakes testing has failed to identify positive impacts on students’ achievement in science (Ander-
son, 2011; Marchant et al., 2006), and some studies have correlated test-based accountability policies
with negative changes in science teacher instructional practice (Pringle & Martin, 2005).
Wave 3
At the end of the 1980s, publication of standards in science (American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, 1993; National Research Council, 1996) introduced the inclusive goal of “science
for all” (National Academies Press, 2019), which required reformers to balance the values of excel-
lence and equity. During the 1990s, the NSF supported systemic reform of science and mathematics
education by funding statewide systemic initiatives (SSIs), urban systemic initiatives (USIs) in large
city school systems, regional rural systemic initiatives (RSIs), and building-level local systemic change
(LSC) projects.6 This suite of reforms was designed to improve all parts of the education system
and enhance student achievement in science and mathematics (NSF, 2004; Weiss & Webb, 2003).
Published literature concerning the third wave of science education reform is mixed, concerning
achievement of the goals of excellence and equity. Extensive NSF evaluations and post-hoc research
studies of the systemic initiative programs suggest that the overall goal of excellence (as defned by
improved student achievement) largely was not reached at the program level (Laguarda, 1998; Zucker
& Shields, 1997). However, evaluations of selected systemic initiative projects indicated that the
reforms of the 1990s achieved excellence, incrementally, in some sectors of the educational system
(Kahle et al., 2000; Laguarda, 1998; Supovitz, 1996).
Wave 4
On the heels of NSF’s systemic reform eforts, the USDOE proposed the No Child Left Behind
Act of 2001 (NCLB, P. L. 107–110), which received bipartisan political support and focused on
parity among schools and student groups. NCLB held public schools accountable for ensuring that
all students met profciency levels and made adequate yearly progress toward standardized learning
goals (USDOE, 2002). The fourth wave of systemic reform extended performance accountability
by adding consequences for districts and schools not meeting standards (Hargreaves & Goodson,
2006) while shifting the associated rhetoric from arguments for equity to a renewed focus on
economic competitiveness (Bybee & Fuchs, 2006; Sahlberg & Oldroyd, 2010). NCLB assumed
that setting high standards, establishing measurable goals, and applying consequential accountabil-
ity would improve individual as well as national outcomes in education. While NCLB-initiated
reforms aimed to align state and federal education policies and standards, its implementation relied
nearly exclusively on local eforts to establish and achieve clear targets for improvement (Davidson
et al., 2015).
By the early 2000s, most states had developed and adopted learning standards in math and science
to specify what students should know and be able to do. Nearly a decade later, lack of rigor and stan-
dardization among states’ standards prompted the development of the Common Core State Standards
(CCSS). This state-led efort was launched in 2009 by the National Governors Association (NGA) &
Council of Chief State School Ofcers ([CCSSO], 2010). Though science was not included in the
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Project Evaluation
CCSS initiative, national eforts to develop updated, uniform learning standards for science were
undertaken concomitantly in 2009. The National Research Council, National Science Teachers
Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Achieve, Inc. completed
a two-step process to develop the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), frst developing the
Framework for K–12 Science Education (NRC, 2012a). The Framework, grounded in current research
on science and science learning, was released in July 2011 and identifed the science that all K–12
students should know upon completion of high school. The NGSS, based on the Framework, were
developed collaboratively with states and other stakeholders in science, science education, higher
education, and industry and published in April 2013 (NGSS Lead States, 2013). While most states
complied with NCLB mandates, the results of implementing NCLB provisions were not as positive
as expected (Davidson et al., 2015; Dee & Jacob, 2011; Kroger et al., 2007), which leads us to a
discussion of present-day policy.
Present Policy and Evidence of Impact on Science Education

Recently, some education commentators (Petrilli, 2018; Seelig, 2020; Wexler, 2019) have observed
that the standards-driven education reform movement has run its course. Top-down federal and state
education reforms have stalled in the absence of funds and diminished accountability for results. Since
2016, the USDOE has essentially dismantled eforts to hold states accountable for improving public
school systems (Schoales, 2019). Finn (2016) and Cunningham (2016) noted that the absence of
serious attention to education reform in both the Democratic and Republican party platforms prior
to the 2016 presidential election indicated that the federal government had become disinterested in
education reform. Consequently, by 2019, 42 states did not require a comprehensive set of examina-
tions for high school graduates, and only 21 states included end-of-course examinations in science,
primarily biology, as criteria for high school graduation (National Center for Education Statistics,
2017).
Arguments providing evidence for the end of the era of standards-driven education reform are
based, in part, on lack of measurable progress in student achievement on national and international
assessments. As an example, on average, US 15-year-olds scored 13 points lower than the average
of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in science on the
most recent administration of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).7 Of poten-
tially more concern, score diference in science between the 10% of students with the highest scores
and the 10% of students with the lowest scores was one of the largest among PISA-participating
countries (OECD, 2019a). The persistent performance gap among US students is particularly frus-
trating since raising the achievement of low-performing students has been the focus of decades of
education reform eforts (Goldstein, 2019).
While students’ performance on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
in science showed slight improvement in scores across all ethnic groups, NAEP results revealed sig-
nifcant racial and ethnic disparities, with large, persistent gaps between White and Hispanic students
and between White and Black students at grades 8 and 12 (National Center for Education Statis-
tics, 2016). Koretz (2019) and Goldstein (2019) attributed lack of gains in student achievement to
states’ inability to efectively carry out large-scale education reform initiatives, noting that curricular
changes associated with adoption of academic content standards and standardized assessments could
be made without improving the quality of science teaching.
While students’ performance on large-scale assessments remains an important indicator of the
impact of science education reform, education experts question the ability of broad assessments to
measure incremental change in students’ science achievement, arguing that raising achievement is a
complex process mediated by a range of variables (Dee & Jacob, 2011; Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006).
Though funders typically require projects to report on change in students’ achievement, researchers
935
have suggested the use of proxy measures or indirect indicators of improvement in students’ science
acumen, such as interest, attitudes, motivation, self-efcacy, identity, persistence, and post-secondary
or career aspirations, as potential mediators of improved achievement in science. Evidence suggests
that some intermediate outcomes are predictive of students’ science achievement; for example, sci-
ence identity, particularly for underserved and marginalized groups of students (Aschbacher et al.,
2010), has been associated with students’ improved performance on science assessments (Bybee &
McCrae, 2011; Ghosh et al., 2019; Newell et al., 2015; Weinburgh, 1995).
Evaluating Systemic Reform From the Ground Up

Despite inconsistent fndings regarding impact, lessons learned from decades of science education
reform have implications for the future of education program and project evaluations. We suggest
that gaps in the capacity of program evaluation to measure improvements in students’ science achieve-
ment may be flled by the implementation of a greater number of high-quality project evaluations.
Our argument is based upon evidence from project evaluations that have demonstrated greater ability
than program evaluations to (1) develop understanding of how programmatic theories of change8 are
operationalized by projects, (2) identify contextual features (i.e., leadership, scope, implementation
strategy; McLaughlin, 1990; environment, resources, opportunities, challenges; Kumar & Altschuld,
2003) and associate outcomes of large-scale initiatives with local context (Carpenter et al., 2004;
Goertz et al., 1996), and (3) capture relevant data to assess implementation and outcomes of science
education reform eforts in classrooms and schools. These key advantages of project evaluations are
discussed next.
One advantage of project evaluation is its ability to articulate connections between implicit or
under-described programmatic theories of change or program logic (Chen, 1990; W. K. Kellogg
Foundation, 1998; Weiss, 1995), regarding how reform eforts are intended to produce results and
how interventions will improve teacher and student outcomes. Throughout the history of systemic
reform, reformers have moved from problem identifcation to solution implementation, largely
neglecting to clearly articulate reasons why and how a proposed reform would achieve the desired
results. As Weiss (1995) pointed out, failure to make programmatic reasoning explicit denies imple-
menters the opportunity to identify assumptions that are not realistic. As an example, the NSF’s
MSP program solicitation (NSF, 2002) argued that improving students’ achievement in math and
science depended on well-prepared and well-supported teachers. The MSP program further required
projects to be implemented by partnerships of school districts and institutions of higher educa-
tion (IHEs). According to Connolly and Seymour (2015), the MSP program’s implicit theory of
change “made clear the programmatic means (school-university partnerships) for pursuing its desired
ends (wide-scale improvement of student achievement), [yet ofered] no explanation for why this
approach [would] attain these desired improvements” (p. 5). This is not to say that partnerships of
K–12 schools and higher-education entities are not a reasonable strategy to improve student achieve-
ment, but failure of the MSP program to clarify its assumptions about partnerships was not support-
ive of projects meeting the program’s goal to develop sustainable partnerships to improve students’
achievement (Strutchens & Martin, 2013).
The second signifcant advantage of project evaluation is its capacity to document the impact of
local context (i.e., leadership, environment, resources, opportunities, and challenges), which evi-
dence suggests signifcantly infuences the outcomes of reform eforts (Carpenter et al., 2004; Goertz
et al., 1996; Kumar & Altschuld, 2003). Local factors often explain a large amount of variance in the
outcomes of a large-scale initiative implemented across diferent sites. Programmatic fexibility, such
as that demonstrated by many NSF programs, results in projects determining their own priorities
(Katzenmeyer & Lawrenz, 2006) and diminishes the capacity of broad-scale program evaluation to
inform improvement of a program.
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Project Evaluation
A third advantage of project evaluation is its demonstrated ability to capture relevant data to assess
implementation and outcomes of science education reform eforts. Evidence suggests that systemic
reform must impact individual teachers in their classrooms in order to have a measurable and lasting
impact on students’ outcomes (Elmore, 1996). Sahlberg (2006) and Hershberg (2005) observe that
broad-scale education reforms, such as those promoted by NCLB, have not consistently produced
positive changes in what teachers and students do in schools. Similarly, Zohar (2013) points out that
large-scale reforms necessarily focus on structural and administrative characteristics of the reform and
often give insufcient attention to fundamental changes in instruction, resulting in limited, short-
term efects on teachers’ classrooms. Additionally, classroom- and school-level impacts of reforms
likely would not be measured by large-scale program evaluations, resulting in a failure to establish a
link between outcomes and reform eforts (Shavelson & Towne, 2002; Weiss, 2000).
The MSP program provides an excellent example of the value added by project evaluations in
clarifying projects’ theories of change, documenting contextual features of intervention implemen-
tation in diverse settings, and capturing relevant data in schools and classrooms. In describing the
purpose of the NSF’s MSP program evaluation, Wong and colleagues (2008) noted that the MSP
program was operationally defned by its awardees and the specifc context within which each project
was situated. Though the MSP program was a systematic efort to improve teacher efectiveness and
raise students’ achievement in science and mathematics, projects’ approaches and interventions varied
widely, as did their evaluations. To demonstrate how projects’ evaluations can serve programmatic
data collection and reporting needs, while also providing evidence of relationships among projects’
theories of change, strategies and outcomes, and the infuence of local context on outcomes, we
ofer two examples of projects funded by the NSF’s MSP program that were evaluated by the same
evaluation team.
In 2004, the NSF MSP program funded an Ivy League institution to improve the science con-
tent knowledge and teaching skills of high school and middle school science teachers. This project
designed and implemented two master’s degree programs (one for each group of teachers) as its strat-
egy to achieve outcomes. Teachers completed graduate-level content and pedagogical courses over
two summers and attended professional development (PD) sessions during the interim academic year.
This project’s evaluation measured changes in teachers’ content knowledge, using assessments aligned
with course content, and changes in teachers’ instructional practices, using teacher, student, and
principal self-reported survey data collected by parallel instruments and observations of a subsample
of participating teachers’ classrooms. Evaluation of this project also measured longer-term impacts of
teachers’ professional learning on their instructional practices and on their students’ science achieve-
ment as evidence of the partnership’s sustained impact.
Our second example of the NSF MSP project, funded in 2011, was led by a large university in
an urban center. This project’s strategies included placing middle school teachers in interdisciplinary
summer research internships, supporting classroom implementation of learning activities with STEM
graduate students, and establishing professional learning communities (PLCs) in schools. Teachers
typically participated in this project for two to fve years. This project shared the same goals regarding
improvement of teacher content knowledge and students’ science achievement as the previous one,
but additionally, it was purposefully designed to establish and sustain a comprehensive partnership
among education stakeholders in the community. The evaluation of this project also used content
assessments to measure change in teachers’ science knowledge and self-report surveys of teachers,
students, and principals to measure change in teachers’ instructional practices. Further, the evaluation
collected quantitative (e.g., survey) and qualitative (e.g., observational) data from multiple sources
to describe the partnership and measure change in the community’s capacity to provide engaging,
high-quality science instruction to all students.
Both projects reported similar positive outcomes for teachers and students in the short term, and
despite their diferent approaches, both also provided defensible evidence that: (1) quality professional
937
development leads to changes in teaching that result in enhanced student achievement and (2) con-
tinued support for teachers following professional development is necessary to sustain positive out-
comes. The evaluation found that teachers participating in the master’s degree project demonstrated
gains in their science content knowledge after the frst year of PD, change in their instructional
practices after the second year of PD, and produced gains in students’ achievement on state science
assessments by year three (after their participation in PD). Subsequent evaluation activities found
that teachers’ frequency of using engaging instructional practices declined between three and fve
years after PD participation and that this decline paralleled a decrease in their students’ scores on a
standardized science achievement test. These fndings suggested that changes in instructional practice
were made and sustained during the period of active professional development, but as teachers moved
beyond their participation period, the impact of the PD experience on students’ achievement became
negligible (Li et al., 2009).
The project providing teachers with research internships and support for classroom implementa-
tion produced similar outcomes with respect to improvement of teachers’ science content knowledge,
change in instructional practices, and improvement in students’ achievement. This project sustained
participation of its teachers by engaging them as leaders in their schools’ PLCs, co-presenters of PD,
as well as in curriculum development projects for the school district. Trajectories of teacher learn-
ing and student achievement were similar to those found in the master’s degree project. Teachers’
scores on assessments of content and pedagogical content knowledge and use of inquiry-based teach-
ing strategies increased following one or two years of project participation, while students’ content
knowledge assessment scores improved signifcantly during project years 4–6. Teachers’ PD participa-
tion also had a signifcantly positive causal impact on students’ self-efcacy and interest in learning
science, and in pursuing science-related careers following each year of teachers’ PD participation,
with no diminished efect (Woodruf et al., 2018).
Impact of the second project also was found in the school district that increased the percentage
of teachers teaching with an appropriate license/certifcate and those with advanced degrees, and
increased the percentage of core courses taught by highly qualifed teachers during the fve-year
project. Teachers reported that collaboration with university and other partners, including parents,
strengthened individual, organizational, and community relationships in support of students’ science
learning.
Evaluations of these two projects utilized similar measures to report on achievement of the MSP
program’s overarching goals, while also meeting each project’s information needs. The design and
implementation of their respective evaluations directed how outcomes were demonstrated by and
attributed to their interventions, as well as how outcomes were infuenced by each project’s goals,
context, and linkages of their strategies and theories of change. Rigorous evaluation methodologies
(i.e., use of comparison groups, pre-post testing, causal-comparative data analyses, validated instru-
ments, local data collection) resulted in each project being able to make defensible claims about
improving teacher science content knowledge and instruction and attribution of improvement in
students’ science achievement to each project’s interventions. Additionally, these evaluations provided
unique insights regarding the sustainable benefts of teacher professional development that were
important to the projects themselves and to NSF.
It is important to note that the quality and rigor of these evaluations was supported by high levels
of funding (up to 10% of the project’s total NSF funding), integration of evaluation planning dur-
ing project proposal development, support of and coordination with project personnel, relationship
building with project participants, and the use of culturally responsive methods of data collection.
Without such supports, the quality of project evaluations diminishes, making them less likely to
produce fndings that can be used for program and project improvement as well as for accountability
purposes.
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Summary
Changes in federal education policy since the 1950s have produced little evidence of impact on
science teachers’ and students’ outcomes when viewed from the programmatic level. Part 1 of this
chapter has described some limitations of program evaluations and advantages of project evaluations
in revealing the impact of systemic science education reform. Arguments in favor of measuring the
impact of systemic reform with project evaluations include their ability to link interventions to out-
comes using knowledge of project strategies and theories of change; understand and describe the
context; and collect the most relevant, frsthand data. As shown by the examples of two NSF MSP
projects, high-quality project evaluations can produce fndings that not only demonstrate the impact
of systemic science education reform on teachers and their students, but also provide insights that, if
widely disseminated, can inform the improvement of large-scale reform eforts. Part 2 of this chapter
will present descriptions and examples of approaches to project evaluation that align with changes in
approaches to science education.
Applying Current Approaches to Project Evaluation

As described in the frst part of this chapter, most approaches to science education reform have
positioned higher-education faculty or other knowledgeable professionals as developers and imple-
menters of initiatives to improve science teaching and learning. Partnership models utilized by some
program funders, unintentionally, further emphasized the hierarchical role of institutions of higher
education in directing improvement of students’ achievement either by working directly with K–12
students or by working with their teachers. Project evaluations conducted in conjunction with these
projects also were frequently designed and directed by education researchers and evaluators associated
with universities or professional organizations. While such expertise is critical to the improvement
of science education and to measuring the impact of such eforts, these models were not designed to
engage participants as partners in project development, implementation, or evaluation. Researchers
argue that science education reform needs to focus more directly on problems of practice and engage
all stakeholders of a science education program in improving students’ achievement (Donovan et al.,
2003; NRC, 2012b). As more projects use nontraditional approaches to improving science teaching
and learning, the evaluation of project eforts also must be transformed. Approaches that facilitate
collaboration among evaluators, project teams, and practitioners can promote the role of evaluation
in improving educational practice. This section will describe and discuss advantages of a few nontra-
ditional approaches to project evaluation.
Evaluation Capacity Building

Evaluation capacity building (Boyle et al., 1999; Labin et al., 2012; Preskill & Boyle, 2008; Stockdill
et al., 2002) has emerged as an approach to project evaluation during the last decade. As an activity
separate from actually conducting a project evaluation, evaluation capacity building (ECB) is typically
understood as an intentional process to enhance individuals’ and organizations’ ability to conduct or
use evaluation (Boyle et al., 1999; Preskill & Boyle, 2008; Stockdill et al., 2002). For individuals,
capacity building aims to increase motivation to engage in evaluation activities and to develop essen-
tial knowledge of and skills for evaluation practice (Boyle et al., 1999; Preskill & Boyle, 2008; Stock-
dill et al., 2002). For organizations, capacity building focuses on establishing organizational structures
and cultures that support and value the use of evaluation (Hufman et al., 2008; Preskill & Boyle,
2008). Several scholars (Boyle et al., 1999; Cousins et al., 2004; King, 2002) have proposed specifc
ECB frameworks and practices that are applicable to the evaluation of science education projects.
939
In the context of science education reform, factors driving schools and districts to participate in
ECB may be internal (e.g., desire to increase evaluation activities), external (e.g., funder require-
ments), or a combination of both (Milstein & Cotton, 2000; Preskill & Boyle, 2008). Education
reform policies have mandated that schools be more accountable for improving student achievement,
which requires ongoing data collection and analysis activities (Marsh & Farrell, 2015). While many
schools and districts begin conducting evaluation activities in order to fulfll state and federal report-
ing requirements, most recognize additional beneft from such activities (Bequette et al., 2019). As
a result, there is a growing demand for schools and school districts to develop their own capacity in
evaluation to facilitate improvement, accuracy in reporting, and accountability for student outcomes.
ECB involves both individuals and the organization in learning knowledge and skills for develop-
ing project theory, evaluation planning, data collection, analysis, and dissemination (Dufy & Wan-
dersman, 2007; Labin et al., 2012; Preskill & Boyle, 2008; Suarez-Balcazar et al., 2010; Taylor-Powell
& Boyd, 2008). At the individual level, ECB may involve teachers learning how to collect data and
use analysis results to diagnose students’ learning needs and measure students’ gains, while admin-
istrators may use ECB practices to lead discussions about using data to determine the efectiveness
of a science education program (Lawrenz et al., 2008). At the institutional and individual levels, an
important beneft of ECB is that it can enable a project to achieve greater investment by participants
because it facilitates the development of an organizational culture and individual perspectives that
value evaluation as routine practice (Hufman et al., 2008; Preskill & Torres, 1999; Robinson &
Cousins, 2004; Taylor-Powell & Boyd, 2008). A project and its evaluation are more likely to be efec-
tive when participants are invested in and actively contributing to an initiative’s success.
The Collaborative Evaluation Communities in Urban Schools (CEC) project, a collaborative
immersion approach funded by the NSF, provides an example of the beneft derived from ECB
during project development and implementation. In the CEC project, teachers, school and district
administrators, graduate students, and university evaluators worked as a team in the process of evalu-
ation (Hufman et al., 2008). Using a collaborative immersion approach, the team examined student
achievement data to explore challenges to and opportunities for mathematics and science educational
program improvement. Problems were defned and the project and its evaluation were developed
around specifc actions that could improve student achievement within the school. Though impact
on student outcomes was not the primary focus of the CEC project, participating schools developed
improved structures and processes for data collection, analyses, and dissemination, which provided
greater attention and opportunity to improve student outcomes.
It is important to note that while ECB is a collective approach to project evaluation, school,
district, and university politics can shape the ECB process (Abma & Widdershoven, 2008; Morris,
2015). Powerful institutional stakeholders often select measures, data sources, and timing of a proj-
ect, and control prioritization of needs. Subjectivity is introduced by these choices, which are often
shaped by a singular perspective of the context. As we discuss in the following section, transformative
evaluation approaches require the inclusion of multiple perspectives, including those of marginalized
groups, which can facilitate equity in science education reform (Altschuld & Watkins, 2014; Petersen
& Alexander, 2001).
Transformative Evaluation
Scientifc literacy for all students, especially students from groups underrepresented in STEM, is one
of the most widely accepted K–12 education goals in the United States (NRC, 2011). The NSF has
pioneered the federal government’s eforts to enhance the quality of STEM education for all students
via a variety of broadening participation (BP) initiatives. The NGSS also address equity in science
education for student groups that have traditionally been underserved in science classrooms. While
substantial funding has supported eforts to reduce disparities in access, opportunity, and outcomes
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Project Evaluation
among student groups, empirical evidence is needed to support the claim that attention to diversity
and equity will yield benefts for STEM education. Transformative evaluation approaches provide
examples of what such attention looks like in practice.
Transformative evaluation focuses on the experiences of marginalized communities and bringing
about social justice, incorporates analysis of inequities that have led to marginalization, and con-
nects fndings to actions aimed to mitigate disparities (Mertens, 2013). As an approach to project
evaluation, it directly addresses questions of equity and justice for marginalized students and their
communities. Compared with other evaluative frameworks, such as post-positivist or constructivist,
the transformative evaluation framework examines aspects of power and privilege (Mertens, 2013).
A transformative framework raises the evaluator’s awareness of a project’s ecological complexity and
foregrounds the voices of those who have historically been marginalized. A transformative approach
also requires that evaluators utilize strategies to diminish power diferences among themselves, project
personnel, and participants.
The application of transformative strategies in project evaluation promotes equity in science edu-
cation in several ways. First, it raises awareness of the culture of underrepresented and underserved
learners, which makes science education more accessible to these students. By honoring learners’
prior knowledge, experience (NGSS Lead States, 2013), and culture (Strange & Banning, 2015),
students are more likely to maintain their engagement in learning. Second, transformative evaluation
approaches encourage people from underserved communities, to participate more fully in a science
education project by including their voices during all phases of the evaluation process. The evaluator
must identify and investigate diferent perspectives to ensure inclusion of all voices in the fndings,
making them more relevant and applicable to the local context.
Third, transformative evaluation approaches add credibility to the evaluation of project imple-
mentation and impact and promote the use of evaluation fndings in the local community (Mertens,
2013). Evaluation strategies, such as engaging with stakeholders to identify norms, beliefs, and prac-
tices in the community and utilizing mixed methods that capture these contextual data help produce
credible evidence. One goal of a project funded by an NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for
Students and Teachers (ITEST) program grant was to increase participation of underrepresented
groups in science, engineering, and technology programs. The evaluation collected interview and
observational data, in addition to participant recruitment and application quantitative data, to explore
whether the project successfully engaged underrepresented groups in STEM education (Woodruf
et al., 2019). The evaluation found that the project used inclusive language and categories in recruit-
ment and application documents, which refected an intentional efort to acknowledge students from
groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM. Transformative evaluation provided evidence of the
project’s explicit attention to inclusive strategies, including preferred name in addition to given name
and open-response, rather than forced-choice, items for the collection of gender and race/ethnicity
demographic data.
Researcher–Practitioner Partnerships
Federal policy initiatives, such as those directed by NCLB, have all mandated or encouraged the use
of research-based approaches and have provided incentives for evidence-based decision making to
guide school improvement. However, educators often do not have the capacity or time to conduct
education research, and existing research may not be useful or timely to address schools’ specifc ques-
tions about improvement. Developing relationships between researchers and practitioners can address
these issues for not only research but also to meet a project’s evaluation needs.
Researcher–practitioner partnerships (RPPs) provide insights to make evaluation work more col-
laborative and practice focused. An RPP is a specifc form of partnership that is characterized as a
“long-term, mutualistic collaboration between practitioners and researchers intentionally organized
941
to investigate problems of practice and solutions for improving outcomes” (Coburn et al., 2013).
RPPs are rooted in schools’ pressing needs, focused on students’ performance, and consider local
conditions. In RPPs, evaluators and school staf commit to a working collaboration over multiple
projects to address school needs. RPPs encourage investment and increase the likelihood that project
leaders and participants fnd evaluation useful and apply it to their work (Donovan, 2013; Fishman
et al., 2013; Tseng, 2012).
RPPs’ methods are highly applicable to the evaluation of multiple interventions or projects within
a single school or school district. The long-term nature of RPPs contributes to developing trust
among evaluators and stakeholders and can provide stability and continuity in schools and districts
with high rates of staf or administrator turnover. The continuity provided by RPPs can efectively
support strategic improvement of projects to maximize impact on student outcomes, which is par-
ticularly critical in lower-resourced schools (Roderick et al., 2009). Intentional strategies utilized by
RPPs, such as validating data-collection tools with partners, forging data-sharing agreements, and
collaboratively designing data analyses, also provide insights to evaluation work (Brunner et al., 2005;
Penuel & Means, 2011).
As an example, evaluators from a university evaluation center partnered with a large urban school
district in a Midwestern state for fve years with support from the state’s Race to the Top program.
In partnership with project leaders, school staf, and stakeholders, evaluators provided technical assis-
tance, data aggregation and analysis, evidence reporting, and evaluative feedback for more than 25
district projects. The evaluators worked with district data personnel to develop a data profle tool to
improve interventions focused on student performance in mathematics, science, and English. Evalu-
ators used student-level longitudinal data to build a profle and applied inferential statistical methods
to conduct several analyses that were used for project improvement in the short term and provided
a model for using data to conduct similar analyses on demand (Nian & Cox, 2017). This long-term
partnership yielded fndings for improvement of the district’s projects during a time of high staf
turnover (Cox & Nian, 2018).
Developmental Evaluation
Developmental evaluation views programs, contexts, and environments as dynamic, which difer-
entiates it from more conventional evaluation approaches (Patton, 2011; Patton et al., 2016). Pat-
ton (1994) frst defned developmental evaluation as an evaluation process undertaken to support
program, project, staf, and/or organizational development. Developmental evaluation changes the
evaluators’ role to one of team member who collaborates to conceptualize, design, and test new
approaches in a long-term process of improvement, adaptation, and intentional change. The evalu-
ator’s primary function is to elucidate project team discussions with evaluative questions, data and
logic, and to facilitate data-based decision-making (Patton, 2008). While developmental evaluation
is appropriate for a range of projects, its methodology is especially useful when projects cannot be
clearly conceptualized at inception. For instance, highly innovative science education approaches are
often dynamic and difcult to describe in advance, and fdelity to the original project design cannot
be presumed. Developmental evaluation is an alternative to formative and summative evaluation (Pat-
ton, 2011) since it informs implementation and refnement of projects in real time, as the evaluation
continuously collects evidence of impact.
Developmental evaluation provides fexibility to projects when organizational and environmental
conditions change (Patton, 2008). Several NSF-funded projects have utilized developmental evalua-
tion methodology since it is well suited for assessing the adaptation of a program to diferent condi-
tions and for providing feedback on program design and development. For instance, evaluators used
a developmental approach for the evaluation of the Developing the Processes and Potential to Engage
Historically Underrepresented Communities in Public Participation in STEM Research Through
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Project Evaluation
Authentic and Impactful Collaboration (PPSR) project funded by the NSF under the Advancing
Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program (NSF, 2021a). PPSR was a community science proj-
ect, codesigned by local organizations, scientists, and educators, that sought to increase meaningful
engagement of diverse audiences in science. PPSR strategies aimed to connect underserved com-
munities with science and produced educational materials that directly benefted the participating
communities. This project utilized developmental evaluation to measure involvement of community
members and the impact of community-based eforts. Project evaluators provided the project team
with ongoing direct feedback with respect to the project’s processes and impact on informal STEM
learning. Furthermore, the evaluation emphasized equity by facilitating the inclusion of underrepre-
sented audiences in STEM.
Summary
This section has described and provided examples of how project evaluators have engaged in non-
traditional ways with project personnel and participants to improve the practice of evaluation. What
these models share is a commitment to partnership that provides opportunities for all stakeholders to
contribute to and beneft from the learning that emerges from project evaluation. These approaches
create greater investment of stakeholders in refecting on and implementing changes based on evalu-
ation fndings, thereby enhancing the role of evaluation in improving educational practice. The
following section will describe how nontraditional and traditional approaches to project evaluation
have been implemented to generate knowledge in three critical areas of science education reform.
Shifting the Focus of Project Evaluation to Achieve Greater Impact

Changes in the foci and scale of science education reform eforts, as described in the frst part of this
chapter, and changes in approaches to project evaluation, described in the second part, have impacted the
ways in which project evaluation is conceptualized and practiced. We begin this section with a discussion
of what has not changed regarding the practice of project evaluation. We then discuss how three inter-
related events of the 21st century have changed the context of project evaluation across three frequently
assessed reform targets and provide illustrative examples of knowledge generation in these critical areas.
What Has Not Changed

Regardless of the focus or methods applied, three conditions must be met in order to realize the full
potential of project evaluation to inform systemic science education reform. First, project evaluation
must be explicitly promoted and valued by funding agencies. Since the early 1990s, the NSF has
provided general guidance regarding project evaluation via publication of and periodic updates to its
User-Friendly Handbook for Project Evaluation: Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Educa-
tion (Fretchling et al., 1993). More recently, NSF has outlined fve key principles guiding its internal
and external evaluation activities. These include (1) relevance and utility, (2) high quality and rigor,
(3) independence and objectivity, (4) transparency and reproducibility, and (5) ethics (NSF, 2020).
Additional guidance regarding evaluation activities sponsored by NSF and other federal agencies is
provided by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (P. L. 115–435). Fed-
eral guidance requires that project evaluations balance ethical evaluation plans with expectations for
accountability and rigor to generate fndings that are fair and useful for informing policy and practice.
Second, project evaluation designs and approaches must demonstrate an understanding, not only
of what is being assessed, but also of the local context and needs of the project and its participants.
Of NSF’s fve principles guiding evaluation activities, two are most relevant to this discussion – ethics
and relevance and utility. NSF’s ethics principle states that evaluation must be equitable and provide
943
safeguards to evaluation participants that go beyond protections described by regulations governing

research involving human subjects (NSF, 2020). Ethical project evaluations consider the context that
could infuence evaluation fndings, their interpretation, and their application. Such considerations
require that evaluators strive for a complete understanding of a project’s characteristics and partici-
pants’ experiences in order to describe how fndings can be applied to the project and potentially
transferred to other settings.
Third, project evaluations must be designed and implemented rigorously and purposefully with
attention to project and programmatic goals and information needs. Most programs of the NSF’s
Directorate for Education and Human Resources provide specifc guidance regarding evaluation
of funded projects, with the expectation that project evaluations guide project progress formatively
and measure and report on the project’s achievement of intended outcomes (NSF, 2012a). The rel-
evance and utility principle of NSF evaluation policy argues that evaluators must collaborate with
stakeholders in diferent phases of their work, as appropriate, to serve the needs of the project and its
participants (NSF, 2020). The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and NSF (2013) jointly devel-
oped the Common Guidelines for Education Research and Development as a resource to guide project and
evaluation personnel in choosing a rigorous evaluation approach that addresses local needs and values.
What Has Changed

In addition to the waves of science education reform discussed earlier in this chapter, three interrelated
watershed events of the past 20 years have signifcantly changed the context of project evaluation and
the ways in which project evaluation may be approached by evaluators. These events were (1) the
emergence of STEM as a construct in education policy and practice, (2) the release and wide adop-
tion of the NGSS, and (3) the renewed focus on broadening participation in science education and
careers. In response to these events, project evaluation has become more central to revealing insights to
science education reform and its impact on students’ science achievement. STEM education, NGSS,
and broadening participation are linked to federal education policy and systemic reform initiatives that
have been assessed since the beginning of the century. These three reform focal areas are (1) students’
STEM literacy and preparedness for STEM careers; (2) teacher efectiveness in teaching science and
its relationship to students’ achievement; and (3) equity in science education access, opportunity, and
outcomes for learners. Each of these focal areas addresses the end game of systemic education reform –
improving students’ science achievement. In this section, we discuss the three events, their impact on
project evaluation, and provide examples of knowledge generation in these three areas.
Science, STEM, and the Development of a STEM-Literate Workforce

In the early 2000s, the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics were increas-
ingly integrated, largely, in response to the publication of reports, such as Rising Above the Gathering
Storm (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine,
2007), which concluded that the lack of US students’ achievement in STEM disciplines would result
in negative economic consequences for the United States. A report from a recent panel of Fortune
500 companies stated that US initiatives to address the lack of diversity in STEM felds have been
disappointing, resulting in not only a lack of diversity but also a decline in the number of engineering
and computing workers under the age of 25 since 2001 (Clark & Esters, 2018). Integration among the
subdisciplines of science and with technology, engineering, and mathematics was proposed as a viable
approach to educating a more scientifcally skilled workforce and a more scientifcally literate citizenry.
The acronym STEM was introduced in 2001 by NSF administrators, replacing the previously
used acronym SMET, when referring to career felds in science, technology, engineering, and math-
ematics or a curriculum that integrated knowledge and skills from those felds (Hallinen, 2020).
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Project Evaluation
Since that time, lack of a common defnition for STEM has contributed to confusion and contradic-
tory fndings regarding the condition of the US STEM workforce, labor supply, and student achieve-
ment (Granovskiy, 2018). The America COMPETES Act of 2010 (P. L. 111–358) defned STEM
as “academic and professional disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics” in
relationship to both workforce and education eforts, while in 2015 the STEM Education Act (P. L.
114–59) added computer science to the defnition of STEM education used by some federal agen-
cies, including NSF. Applied to education, defnitions of STEM education tend to focus on high
levels of disciplinary integration. One defnition suggests STEM is an “assemblage of practices and
processes that transcend disciplinary lines and from which knowledge and learning of a particular
kind emerge” (Moon & Rundell Singer, 2012, p. 32.)
While defnitions of STEM range from those that are feld-specifc to broader constructs, increas-
ing use of the term STEM during the past two decades has impacted the ability of large-scale evalu-
ation to measure the impact of science education reform as it has become entwined with STEM
education. Early eforts at integration and interdisciplinarity produced little confusion about the
assessment of students’ science learning, as science learning goals typically were the emphasis of
integrated curricula (i.e., Engineering is Elementary [EiE], Science and Technology for Children
[STC]). Wider use of STEM education approaches has added signifcantly to the confusion about the
goals and objectives of students’ learning of science content. Granovskiy (2018) observed that reports
on federal STEM education eforts have produced diferent estimates of its scope and scale, identify-
ing as many as 254 STEM education programs conducted by 15 federal agencies, with annual appro-
priations exceeding $3 billion. A number of federal programs that fund STEM education projects
conduct program evaluations and require project evaluations (Hannah, 1996). Program evaluations
generally are guided by Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA, P. L. 111–352) measures,
which collect quantitative program data that inform compliance and continued funding. However, as
noted in one report, federal agencies sponsoring STEM education programs “varied in their ability
to provide reliable information on the numbers of students, teachers, or institutions served by their
programs” (Government Accountability Ofce, 2012, p. 23).
As an example of how project evaluation has informed eforts to develop students’ preparedness
for STEM learning and careers, evaluators studied a high-quality after-school science program9 that
served primarily Hispanic and Black elementary school students in a large urban school system
(Newell et al., 2015). Evaluation of the project examined the relationships among aspects of students’
science content knowledge acquisition and changes in students’ attitudes toward science as measured
by a range of attitudinal constructs (i.e., student motivation, peer attitudes, classroom environment,
difculty of science, self-directed efort, family support; Osborne et al., 2003). Findings of this proj-
ect evaluation indicated that the three-month after-school intervention, which utilized active group
learning, increased students’ scores on a 25-item science content knowledge assessment aligned with
the content and objectives of project activities by 24.6% from pre- to post-test. Further, evaluators,
using multiple regression analyses, found that students’ scores on the “self-directed efort” subscale
of the revised Simpson-Troost Attitude Questionnaire (STAQ-R; Owen et al., 2008; Simpson &
Troost, 1982) were most closely associated with increases in students’ science content knowledge.
This project evaluation’s fndings suggested that out-of-school STEM programs can not only improve
students’ science content knowledge but can also result in attitudinal changes that might increase stu-
dents’ interest in pursuing science education pathways or STEM careers.
Next Generation Science Standards and Teacher Effectiveness

While development of the NGSS has been the most recent in a long history of science standards
development, the NGSS deviated substantively from former standards in at least two ways that chal-
lenged consensus thinking about science education and, therefore, the ways that science education
945
reform should be evaluated. First, NGSS shifted the focus of science education reform from pro-
moting scientifc inquiry to engaging students in three-dimensional science learning experiences or
science as practice (Furtak & Penuel, 2019). By formally uniting content and context, three-dimensional
science learning leverages students’ familiar contexts, regardless of the learners’ demographic char-
acteristics or prior experiences with science (Krajcik & Shin, 2014). Second, the Framework was the
frst national science standards document to explicitly include engineering and describe the integra-
tion of technology and engineering with science learning. The inclusion of engineering was sup-
ported by observations that engineering provides opportunities to deepen students’ understanding
of science concepts through applications to problem solving (NRC, 2012a). Both of these changes
reinforced the role of science education reform in attending to students’ personal and community
experiences, which could result in more inclusive science education (Furtak et al., 2012).
The release of the NGSS provided impetus for development of science education initiatives that
integrated engineering design and three-dimensional learning. Concomitantly, professional develop-
ment projects were funded to improve teachers’ knowledge and skills for incorporating engineering
design in their classrooms and for shifting from science as inquiry to science as practice models of
instruction. Since the release of the NGSS, the NSF has funded at least 225 projects to improve
teacher preparedness for implementation of the new standards (NSF, 2021b). This funding stream is
aligned with implicit theories of change that link improved student outcomes to teacher efective-
ness. Teachers who are judged to be more efective should produce better student outcomes, and
access to efective teachers is a frst step in providing an equitable science education to all students,
which also is a tenet of NGSS. Eforts to measure and improve teacher efectiveness have been sup-
ported by substantial federal and state funding even before the release of the NGSS, although fndings
of research are mixed with regard to the impact of teacher professional development on teacher efec-
tiveness and on student achievement (Blank & De Las Alas, 2009; Blomeke et al., 2016; Chingos &
Peterson, 2011; Clotfelter et al., 2006; Desimone et al., 2002; Metzler & Woessman, 2012; Rockof
et al., 2011). Two recent illustrative examples of the potential of evaluation to detect relationships
among teacher efectiveness, teacher professional development, and student achievement are pro-
vided by Burroughs et al. (2019) and Ghosh et al. (2019).
Burroughs et al. (2019) examined key teacher characteristics (i.e., experience, education, pre-
paredness to teach) and teacher behaviors (i.e., instructional time, instructional content) to assess how
these characteristics were related to student outcomes using grades 4 and 8 longitudinal Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data. This large-scale study also used national
curriculum data to assess instructional alignment and educational outcomes and controlled for socio-
economic status at the student and country level. Through a series of analyses using teacher quality,
instructional metrics, and their relationships with student achievement, Burroughs and colleagues
found no strong evidence for predictable relationships between typical indicators of teacher efective-
ness (i.e., experience, teaching credential, instructional behaviors) and student outcomes. Further,
the results of this study indicated that teachers with similar experience, credentials, and instructional
strategies often produced quite diferent results, indicating that other factors likely play a critical role
in determining student achievement outcomes.
As noted earlier in this chapter, project evaluation can fll gaps in the knowledge generated by
large-scale studies. As an example of how project evaluation has informed knowledge of teacher
efectiveness in implementing NGSS and subsequent impact on student achievement in science, we
ofer the evaluation of an NSF Discovery Research K-12 (DRK-12) project that provided middle
school STEM teachers with professional development to support them integrating robotics-based
lessons in middle school science and math classrooms (Ghosh et al., 2019). This evaluation utilized
multiple measures (i.e., surveys, content assessments, classroom observations) to identify and ana-
lyze teaching practices that supported efective integration of robotic-based lessons. The project
provided 20 middle school teachers with summer PD to learn about robotics and provided support
946
Project Evaluation
for teachers developing and implementing robotics-based mathematics or science lessons in their
classrooms. Teachers completed surveys about their experiences with and opinions about teaching
science and math with robotics and non-robotics activities; teachers were observed during lesson
implementation; and student learning was analyzed through pre- and post-tests of science content.
The project evaluation identifed a range of teaching practices that supported the efective integra-
tion of robotics-based activities in science and math lessons, including formative assessment, active
participation by students, discourse and inquiry, questioning and conjectures, cooperative learning,
unpacking misconceptions, and teacher as learning facilitator. The evaluation confrmed that strate-
gies for the efective teaching of robotics were similar to those identifed as reform-oriented teaching
practices by prior research (Toh et al., 2016), and the impact on students’ outcomes was enhanced by
using such strategies with robots. Overall, post-test results showed statistically signifcant diferences
in student learning of science with robotics versus non-robotics activities. Observations conducted
by project evaluators resulted in unique insights regarding robotics as an efective tool for learning
abstract science concepts, a contextual fnding that is highly applicable to other settings. The project
evaluation also produced knowledge about the impact of robotics lessons on diverse student popu-
lations, including those with special learning needs, and on enhancing student engagement in and
motivation for STEM learning.
Broadening Participation in Practice

Though ensuring equitable science education has been an enduring goal of education reform, ineq-
uities persist in students’ opportunities to learn science, student achievement, and participation in the
STEM workforce (NAP, 2019). Findings of large-scale assessments, such as the latest PISA results,
indicated that while scores for US students, in aggregate, have remained relatively stable compared to
their international peers, disaggregation of the data tell a more disappointing story. As the top quartile
of US students have improved their performance on PISA since 2012, students with the lowest scores
continue to lose ground (Seelig, 2020). In 2014, the percentage of students who identifed as indi-
viduals of color (i.e., Hispanic, African American, Asian/Pacifc Islander, American Indian/Alaska
Native) enrolled in US public schools was, for the frst time, higher than the percentage of students
who identifed as White (McFarland et al., 2017), indicating that inequities in access to high-quality
science education is a more pressing national concern than ever before. Though contemporary
goals for science education outlined in NGSS are more inclusive and responsive to current condi-
tions, they do not directly address lack of access and opportunity experienced by students in under-
resourced schools (Morgan & Amerikaner, 2018; Ushomirsky & Williams, 2015). For example, fully
certifed mathematics and science teachers were less prevalent in high-minority and high-poverty
schools when compared to schools with students from higher-income families (National Science
Board, 2018). While fndings from the 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education
(Banilower et al., 2013) indicated that reform-oriented instructional strategies were most likely to
be used in classes with high- compared to low-achieving students, NGSS recommends that teachers
utilize investigation and design to leverage assets that students bring to the classroom, in order for all
students to develop essential science knowledge, skills, and interests that can broaden their perspec-
tives on and preparedness for future STEM careers (NAP, 2019).
While the results of national and international assessments indicate a widening gap between dis-
advantaged students and others, project evaluations have indicated that it is possible to advance both
excellence and equity for underserved students. The evaluation of an NSF-funded project designed
to increase the engagement of grades 3–6 African American girls in science provides an example of
the contributions of project evaluation to learning about equitable access to high-quality science
education in a particular context (Buck et al., 2014). This project utilized a participatory action
approach to develop and implement the project and its evaluation. The project aimed to improve
947
students’ attitudes toward science in one urban elementary school whose student population was 99%
Black and 88% eligible for the free lunch program. The project provided professional development
for teachers to change science instructional practices, established a dedicated science laboratory with
a science resource teacher, and instituted a school-wide science fair. The evaluation utilized surveys
of teachers and students (i.e., Modifed Attitudes toward Science Inventory [mATSI]; Weinburgh &
Steele, 2000) and focus-group interviews of a sample of participating girls. Findings indicated that
the year-long project had positive impacts on the attitudes of girls who initially demonstrated low
self-effcacy and/or low interest in learning science, while maintaining positive attitudes of other
participating girls. Though not explicitly described as transformational, this project’s focus on gender
and cultural identity in both the intervention and evaluation designs contributed to broader learn-
ing than what may have occurred in the absence of such an approach. The evaluation’s approaches
included prioritizing the voices of participating girls, which resulted in deeper insights to improve
practice in this context and with this population. For example, through the collection of qualitative
data, the evaluation was able to identify specifc aspects of the project (i.e., hands-on experiments,
self-directed inquiry, peer collaboration, nonjudgmental environment) that were most impactful for
each group of participating girls, enabling teachers to tailor instruction and opportunities for students
based upon their unique needs, strengths, and perspectives.
Summary
In the previous discussion, we have used examples of three federally funded projects and their
evaluations to demonstrate the capacity of project evaluations to inform how students’ science
achievement can be improved. These representative projects addressed science achievement directly
by working with students and indirectly by working with their teachers, utilized measures that
demonstrated understanding of the mechanisms by which their projects would produce outcomes,
and considered and described local contexts that were likely to infuence outcomes. Though pro-
gram evaluations discussed in this section also provided information on reform initiatives, they
often failed to capture instances of positive impact. This is not unexpected since science education
researchers have argued that because large-scale reform eforts are both complex and integrated, it is
nearly impossible to tease apart the efects of their components and attribute causality to interven-
tions (Cobb et al., 2003).
While we have chosen to embed project evaluation examples within the three topical areas dis-
cussed in this section, it should be noted that each example also demonstrates how project evaluation
cuts across and informs associations among relevant areas of inquiry related to science education
reform, including teacher efectiveness, student achievement, student attitudes, broadening partici-
pation, and STEM literacy and careers. This additional advantage of project evaluations provides
further support for greater attention to and investment in project evaluations in order to understand
the impact of complex reform eforts.
Recommendations to Improve the Impact of Project Evaluation and Summary

We observe that project evaluations have demonstrated the ability to capture relevant data that assess
implementation and outcomes of science education reform eforts that were not evident in the
fndings of parallel program evaluations. In this chapter we have summarized features and practices
of efective project evaluations and provided examples of project evaluations that have contributed
important insights to current challenges in science education reform. We also have discussed issues
that have limited the potential of project evaluation to efectively inform improvement of science
education interventions. In this fnal section, we ofer recommendations for improving the quality
of project evaluation.
948
Project Evaluation
Provide Program-Level Support and Guidance for Project Evaluation

As suggested throughout this chapter, rigorous evaluations not only improve individual projects,
but they can also lead to higher-quality program evaluations, which contribute more broadly to the
knowledge base of science education reform. The usefulness of project evaluations is dependent upon
implementation of evaluation designs that provide credible evidence regarding project outcomes. As
more has been learned about the importance of quality evaluations, federal funders, most notably
the NSF, have incorporated detailed guidelines for project evaluations into their proposal solicita-
tions. Additionally, the NSF and USDOE have collaborated on guidance documents (i.e., Common
Guidelines, Companion to Common Guidelines) that promote rigorous evaluation designs, which
some projects fnd challenging or impossible to implement. What funders have not yet addressed
is the extent to which their requirements for evaluation are feasible for the range of projects that a
program might fund. Whether project evaluations can comply with funder requirements depends on
a number of factors, including (1) availability of valid and reliable instruments aligned with project
goals and content, (2) ability to recruit and maintain sufciently large participant and comparison
groups, and (3) expertise of available project evaluators.
In response to these concerns, funders should consider (1) supporting projects with a program-
level technical assistance team, (2) requiring project personnel to engage in training regarding eval-
uation, and (3) engaging evaluators in writing evaluation descriptions for proposal solicitations.
Further, funders should encourage the implementation of rigorous evaluation practices when rig-
orous evaluation designs cannot be fully implemented by projects. Funders’ support for improving
evaluation rigor could include funding the development and archival of valid and reliable instruments
to measure a range of relevant constructs. Even if such instruments require modifcation to ft proj-
ect content needs or participant populations, this is an easier task for projects and their evaluators to
undertake than is the development and psychometric testing of new instruments. Funders also should
encourage projects to think creatively about recruiting and retaining their participant and compari-
son groups in order to facilitate rigorous analyses of data that enable them to make causal claims
about their interventions. Creative approaches to securing a comparison group may include delayed
treatment of comparison group members, utilizing a buddy system in which participants recruit their
peers, and providing incentives for participation. Ultimately, the quality of each project evaluation
is driven by the expertise and experience of the evaluator or evaluation team. Since highly skilled
evaluation practitioners are not equally distributed across regions of the United States, funders should
consider promoting or recommending a network of skilled evaluators to project personnel prior to
proposal submission so that all potential projects could access the high-quality services they need.
Connect Project Research and Project Evaluation

Many NSF and USDOE programs require that projects have a research component in addition to
a project evaluation. Often, project personnel conduct research while the project’s evaluation is
conducted by an external entity. Though project research and evaluation generally pursue diferent
lines of inquiry and serve diferent purposes, projects can beneft from integrating evaluation and
research activities. Some benefts of such integration include opportunities to share data sources,
which results in greater efciency and less burden on participants, greater collaboration and improved
understanding among project and evaluation personnel, and increased likelihood of new insights to
the mechanisms of the project’s intervention. While there should be clear boundaries between the
work of the project research team and the work of the evaluator, cooperation across these boundaries
can maximize a project’s use of resources.
To capitalize on these opportunities, funders should be explicit about expectations for project
research and for evaluation in proposal solicitations and include descriptions of how project research
949
and evaluation can be integrated to provide synergy to the project. Funders also can guide funded
projects toward efective integration of research and evaluation by providing examples of successful
collaboration strategies of previously funded projects. As noted earlier, experienced evaluators often
have expertise working collaboratively with project researchers and are knowledgeable about the
development of project evaluation plans that maximize project learning from its research and evalu-
ation components. This is yet another beneft of project personnel engaging evaluators early in the
project design and proposal development phase.
Promote Equitable Evaluation Practices

The practice of project evaluation can be improved by using frameworks that promote broadening
participation in the project’s work and in the work of the evaluation. Program and project evalua-
tions should promote diversity, equity, and accessibility (Clewell & Fortenberry, 2009) by employ-
ing methodologies that not only acknowledge diversity but also demonstrate understanding of the
impact of historical context on the outcomes of marginalized groups. Equitable evaluation practices
described in this chapter include, most notably, transformative evaluation approaches but also include
partnership approaches that are authentically inclusive of all persons and perspectives involved in the
implementation and evaluation of an intervention. Such evaluation practices may not always align
with funders’ requirements for evaluation, and it is the evaluators’ responsibility to propose equitable
solutions to address funder requirements while upholding the highest ethical standards of practice. As
an example, funders typically require quantitative data about participant demographic characteristics
(i.e., gender, race, ethnicity) and evaluators often face ethical questions about how to collect these
data in a respectful, culturally responsive, and unobtrusive way. Further, quantitative data often are
not the most robust indicators of project success. As Clewell and Fortenberry (2009) observe, reli-
able data that describe student participation, experiences, and attitudes are necessary for determining
the success of initiatives aimed at improving equity. Collection of these types of data requires greater
investment of resources than does collecting quantitative metrics, so evaluators must balance funders’
information needs with those of the project.
Funders can support more equitable project evaluations by requiring proposals for funding to
explicitly describe how the project and its evaluation will implement equitable and culturally respon-
sive practices that are appropriate for its participants and their context. Federal funders should recon-
sider requirements of and provide guidance for the collection of participant demographic data using
strategies that are respectful of all persons. As a counterexample, federal government reporting cat-
egories for personal characteristics (i.e., race, ethnicity, gender, sex; USDOE, 2008a) do not allow for
all individuals to self-identify as they choose. Until federal defnitions are expanded to become more
inclusive, project evaluations should apply current guidance from professional organizations regarding
the collection and reporting of identifying information (Ford et al., 2021).
Invest Adequate Resources

Project evaluations often are underfunded, which restricts the types of evaluation activities that can be
conducted and the types and quantity of data that can be collected and analyzed. As noted by Clune
(1998), direct and precise data about classroom practice and student achievement makes it possible
to test causal links and make a more compelling case for the impacts of systemic science education
reform. Program evaluations that have relied on the collection of data in classrooms, though signif-
cantly more resource intensive, have been able to detect the impact of systemic reform, as well as
identify diferences in context that may explain variable outcomes. Clune argues that funding agen-
cies should recognize that implementing local measures of project outcomes is relatively inexpensive
compared to the cost of reforming systems. An example of this approach is the ten-year evaluation
950
Project Evaluation
of 88 projects funded by the NSF’s local systemic change (LSC) initiative. The LSC program evalua-
tion collected uniform data from projects to derive insights about the quality and impact of the LSC
initiative. Using teacher questionnaires and classroom observations, this evaluation was able to detect
positive impacts on science teaching and learning. These data also were instrumental in describing
local contexts, opportunities, and challenges that infuenced outcomes (Banilower et al., 2006).
Funders should consider balancing resource investments across program and project evaluations
in order to derive the greatest beneft from both. Some NSF programs have done so by conduct-
ing internal program evaluations rather than contracting with external evaluators. In these cases,
the NSF compiles and synthesizes project evaluation reports from its funded projects. Along with
this strategy, funders should indicate an appropriate set-aside for funding project evaluations so that
project personnel can have reasonable expectations for the cost of a high-quality evaluation. Some
proposal solicitations, for example, programs funded by the USDOE IES, indicate expectations not
only for the amount of the evaluation budget but also for the qualifcations of evaluators who should
be retained by funded projects.
Extend Time for Evaluation of Systemic Reform Efforts

While program evaluations often span long periods of time, project evaluations typically begin and
end with project funding. Generally, projects have very limited time in which to demonstrate their
interventions’ efectiveness in changing students’ outcomes. Whether science education projects
work directly with students or aim to improve student achievement by working with their teachers,
measurable changes in outcomes require signifcant time and resources and may not be observed
during the period of project funding (NRC, 2010). As shown in our discussion of two high-quality
NSF MSP teacher PD projects, several years of PD may be required before teachers fully integrate
new content and teaching techniques into their classrooms, resulting in improved student achieve-
ment. The NSF typically allows projects funded by the EHR Directorate to enter a no-cost exten-
sion (NCE) period to fnalize their initiatives after funding ends, but even when projects plan for an
NCE, they seldom plan for continuing evaluation activities. Without such planning, projects often
have insufcient funding to continue implementing a high-quality evaluation for an adequate period
of time to measure project impact.
To remedy this situation, the NSF and other funders should consider selectively providing supple-
mental funds beyond the end of the funding period for continued evaluation of projects that have
demonstrated progress toward their outcomes through a well-designed and rigorously implemented
project evaluation. As shown by the two NSF MSP projects discussed in this chapter, measuring
change in student achievement requires a longer-term efort than the typical project funding cycle
permits. In the case of these two MSP projects, the evaluation was able to collect and analyze mul-
tiple forms of data for six and eight years, respectively. The value-added by extending the evaluation
period for some projects could far exceed the investment of additional resources.
Facilitate Broad Dissemination of Project Evaluations

Project evaluations typically have limited impact on science education reform, as they are primar-
ily designed to provide information to specifc, local audiences. While this design is appropriate, it
does not facilitate broad improvement at the program level unless funders make concerted eforts
to engage other audiences in learning from projects’ evaluations. Many NSF programs routinely
host meetings of project, and sometimes evaluation, personnel that enable projects to learn from
one another. While this practice is helpful, it generally does not inform policymaking at the highest
levels and may not inform classroom practice. Presentations and publications of project processes and
fndings are another way to broaden dissemination, but options for dissemination (what to share and
951
with which audiences) are left to the discretion of each project. Practitioners have varying levels of
access to these resources, and often important insights from projects do not reach the audiences who
would most beneft from them.
In order for key learning from project evaluations to have broader impact, funders should pro-
vide more opportunities for dissemination of project-level insights to practitioner and policymaking
audiences. Though funders, including the NSF, make available project publications and reports, it
is unclear whether these products reach audiences who can use the information. Further, program
solicitations typically include a requirement for proposers to describe the project’s dissemination plan,
yet many projects do not give sufcient attention to this requirement, and often, proposal review
panels do not thoroughly critique this information either.
If dissemination of project learning is to be improved, a concerted efort will be required. Funders
can provide examples of efective approaches to dissemination; proposers can think more compre-
hensively about their dissemination eforts, potential audiences, and likely uses of their fndings; and
reviewers can thoughtfully critique and provide recommendations to proposals to improve their dis-
semination eforts. Additionally, more funders and programs could set clear expectations for projects’
dissemination eforts, which promotes greater attention to knowledge sharing from project inception
through completion.
In this chapter we have described how project evaluations are uniquely positioned to measure and
describe a range of important outcomes of science education reform simultaneously and to validate
associations among interventions and outcomes. We have generally limited our discussion to three
fundamental aspects of science education reform; that is, teacher efectiveness for science instruction,
student achievement in science, and broadening participation in science education and careers. We
have provided examples to demonstrate how project evaluations have identifed contextual issues that
infuenced the results of an intervention, ensured representation of marginalized groups in conversa-
tions about reform, and addressed the complexity of the teaching and learning processes, in ways that
program evaluations have not.
Though project evaluation has many advantages over program evaluation, the promise of project
evaluation is limited by a number of real barriers that can only be addressed by collaborative eforts of
funders, project personnel, evaluators, and education stakeholders. We have provided recommenda-
tions as a starting point for improvement of the practice of project evaluation and acknowledge that
broad and systematic improvement of evaluation will require reallocation of existing, or investment
of new, resources, though this investment should be small in comparison to past and current invest-
ments in science education reform. As we have observed in the last decade, we should not underesti-
mate the importance of a scientifcally literate citizenry and a diverse scientifc workforce, therefore,
improvement of science education remains a pressing national concern in the United States. We hope
to have made the case for the use of high-quality project evaluation to systematically study science
education interventions as they are implemented in the feld in order to better support efective sci-
ence education for all.
Notes
1 Due to page limitations, this chapter restricts its coverage to science education reform and evaluation in the
United States.
2 Outcomes refer to what is ultimately achieved by an activity; outputs are more direct or immediate objectives
(Glossary of Statistical Terms, n.d.).
3 NSF’s MSP funding was supplemented in 2009 by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (NSF, n.d.).
4 MSP program GPRA measures included percentage of (1) MSP teachers who increased content knowledge
on project pre/post assessments; (2) students of MSP teachers who scored at profcient or above on state
assessments; (3) students of MSP teachers who scored at basic or below on state assessments; (4) MSP projects
reporting using an experimental or quasi-experimental design for their evaluations; (5) MSP projects using an
experimental or quasi-experimental design whose evaluations yielded scientifcally valid results; and (6) State
952
Project Evaluation
Education Agencies submitting complete, accurate data on MSP performance measures on time (USDOE,
2001).
5 The STEM-C program was subsequently renamed the STEM+C program.
6 SSIs involved whole states; large cities received USI funds; large, usually interstate, rural areas with common
educational issues formed RSIs, while LSCs were funded later and involved smaller urban areas.
7 The most recent PISA test was given in 2018 to 600,000 15-year-olds in 79 education systems, in public and
private schools. A demographically representative sample of 4,800 students in 215 US schools took the test
(OECD, 2019b).
8 Weiss (1995) describes theory of change as the set of assumptions that explain the steps that lead to a longer-
term goal of interest and the connections between program activities and outcomes that occur at each step
along the way.
9 Funding for this program was primarily provided by the National Institutes of Health.
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30
PRECOLLEGE ENGINEERING
EDUCATION
Introduction
During the past two decades, engineering has steadily gained traction as an essential part of PreK–12
education. Many students now engage with engineering lessons during high school, middle school,
elementary school, and even preschool. Youth and families are also invited to participate in engineer-
ing activities at museums, after-school programs, and summer camps. The introduction of engineer-
ing as a new discipline in PreK–12 schooling has stemmed from a belief that youth can and should
study the human-made, designed world in addition to the natural world. This belief has been pro-
pelled by new frameworks and standards at both the national and state levels and a gradual acceptance
of the value of STEM for all students in place of an exclusive focus on science.
As engineering has entered precollege educational spaces, researchers have recognized a need
to learn more about the nature and process of engineering education as part of the larger educa-
tional system for all students. Consequently, there has been a proliferation of studies about engi-
neering education since the last Handbook of Research on Science Education (Lederman & Abell, 2014)
was published. These studies have illuminated promising approaches and practices, begun to docu-
ment the value of engineering across educational settings, and led to additional questions that merit
examination.
To provide a meaningful context for this review of research in engineering education, we begin
this introduction with a brief history, summarizing the shifts in educational thought that have
led to engineering’s current prominent role in today’s K–12 educational landscape in the United
States. Next, we turn to defnitions and boundaries, explaining how engineering is conceptual-
ized by today’s engineers and educators and its relationship to the other STEM felds. The third
section concerns epistemic practices of professional engineers and how these play out in K–12
educational settings across the world. Finally, we explain why engineering education is of prime
importance today.
History of Engineering and K–12 Education in the United States

The history of a discipline shapes how it came into being and illuminates why features are present
or overlooked. In this section, we briefy review some of the history of how engineering became
part of K–12 instruction in the United States, taking note of the historical forces that have elevated
engineering education to its current status.
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-35 960

Precollege Engineering Education
Early Tensions Between Science and Technology Education

For nearly 130 years, since the central role played by apprenticeship gradually gave way to school-
ing as the primary means of technical education, there has been a dynamic tension between science
and its application through engineering. During the 19th century and continuing into the early
20th in England and the United States, most eforts to establish secondary schools that taught the
technical arts came into confict with the competing interests of educational leaders who held “pure”
science in higher regard. The vast majority of eforts to inject technical skills into the curriculum
were eclipsed by the natural sciences, due in part to such ofcial documents as the “Report of the
Royal Commission on Technical Instruction” (Samuelson Commission, 1884) in England and the
“Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies” (National Education Association
of the United States, 1893) in the United States, and in part to political pressures and elitist attitudes
(Donnelly, 1989).
Starting in the 1940s, progressive educators gradually introduced topics that “related science to the
everyday concerns, problems, and interests of teenagers as a way to meet the needs of non-college-
bound students whose numbers in high schools had swelled during the previous two decades. After
Sputnik [in 1957], reformers advocated replacing the progressive curriculum with a “discipline-based
curriculum” (Donahue, 1993, p. 321). These curricula focused on the nature of the disciplines with
an emphasis on scientifc theories. Backlash against the rigorous discipline-driven curriculum of the
post-Sputnik era resulted in a wider variety of approaches to high school science in the 1970s and 80s
to address the aspirations of a wider variety of students, such as the multiple versions of BSCS Biol-
ogy and Chemistry in the Community (ChemCom) textbooks. Nonetheless, the curricular focus for
the great majority of students was primarily on the core science disciplines at all grade levels. Writing
in 1998, science education historian Paul DeHart Hurd concluded,
Since 1890 every curriculum reform movement in the sciences has had as a goal “meeting
the needs of students.” A close examination of each reform efort shows that the emphasis
was discipline bound and had little meaning for life beyond the laboratory door.
(Hurd, 1998, p. 330)
Evolution of technology education. During the last century, a movement in support of technical edu-
cation grew, driven by a need to maintain and improve our increasingly technological world. Manual
training, or “shop class”, gradually gave way to industrial arts, or “vocational education”, mostly for
students expected to enter the trades rather than attend college. Documents from this period primar-
ily use the term technological design rather than engineering. A survey of technology education in the
United States in 1994 found wide variations in program quality both between and within states and
little interest among educational leaders to elevate its status (Dyrenfurth, 1994). Nonetheless, in some
locations, “increasing attention is being paid to ways of developing problem-solving, design and
innovation skills. The industrial/manual arts tradition of emphasizing psychomotor skills is receding
quickly although some teachers feel that the pendulum has swung too far” (p. 69).
For nearly 100 years, the champion of technology education has been a professional association
whose changing name refects the evolution of the profession. Begun as the American Industrial Arts
Association in 1939, the organization changed its name to the International Technology Education
Association (ITEA) in 1980, refecting a shift from preparation for the trades to higher levels of tech-
nology education. In 2010 the organization became the International Technology and Engineering
Education Association (ITEEA), recognizing the importance of engineering as the driver of techno-
logical development.
In 2000, the ITEA published “Standards for Technological Literacy” (STL), which laid out 20
standards for what all students should know and be able to do in order to become technologically
961
literate. These included standards about the nature of technology, the relationship between tech-
nology and society, the processes of engineering design, and key technological systems, includ-
ing energy, transportation, medicine, communications, manufacturing, and construction. They also
referenced the importance of science and mathematics in the study of engineering and technology.
Recently, the ITEEA updated its standards to provide an up-to-date roadmap for promoting tech-
nology and engineering education and curriculum design from Pre-K through 12th grade (ITEEA,
2020). Although the STL has helped shape the curriculum for hundreds of thousands of students, in
the great majority of states technology courses are elective, so not all students have the opportunity
to learn about technology and engineering in depth.
Engineering enters the domain of science education. Even before state or national standards existed,
engineering and design-based science was making its way into classrooms. A few early research stud-
ies investigated the impacts of engineering on science understanding (Brophy et al., 2008; Fortus
et al., 2004; Kolodner et al., 2003; Roth, 1995a; Schauble et al., 1991; Silk et al., 2009). Early studies
also highlighted the social, collective natures of students’ engineering activities and practices (Roth,
1995b) and suggested that engineering as a discipline could help students situate science education
in the larger society (Carlsen, 1998). Such studies provided promising evidence of the value of engi-
neering education.
At the national level, awareness of the need to educate all children about the human-made world
in addition to the natural world was also surfacing. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
began to assemble committees of engineers and educators to develop a series of reports advocating
for the importance of technology and engineering education for all citizens, starting with Raising
Public Awareness of Engineering (Davis & Gibbin, 2002) and Technically Speaking: Why All Americans
Need to Know More about Technology (NAE & NRC, 2002). As illustrated by the following quote from
the latter report, the rationale for that argument revolved around the environmental and societal
impact of technologies amid a rapidly growing global population.
As far into the future as our imaginations take us, we will face challenges that depend
on the development and application of technology. Better health, more abundant food,
more humane living and working conditions, cleaner air and water, more efective edu-
cation, and scores of other improvements in the human condition are within our grasp.
But none of these improvements are guaranteed, and many problems will arise that we
cannot predict. To take full advantage of the benefts and to recognize, address, or even
avoid the pitfalls of technology, Americans must become better stewards of technologi-
cal change.
(NAE & NRC, 2002, p. 12)
Subsequent reports from the NAE included Engineering in K-12 Education: Understanding the Status
and Improving the Prospects (NAE & NRC, 2009), Standards for K-12 Engineering Education? (NRC,
2010), Messaging for Engineering: From Research to Action (NAE, 2013), and STEM Integration in K-12
Education: Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research (NAE & NRC, 2014). These eforts have been
highly infuential among educational leaders in the United States, helping to prepare the way to
integrate engineering into educational standards for all students.
Engineering becomes a part of science education standards for all students. The movement to establish
standards in science education was launched in the United States by the infuential book Science for All
Americans (Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1990), and the subsequent Benchmarks for Science Literacy (Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993), which described what students should learn
about science in diferent grades. Chapter 3 focused on the nature of technology, and Chapter 8 was
about the designed world. The National Science Educational Standards, developed by the National
Research Council (NRC) (1996) also included important sections on science and technology, and
962
another on science in personal and social perspectives. Although overwhelmingly focused on the sci-
ence disciplines, these documents pointed to the special role of engineering in society.
The component of technology most closely allied to scientifc inquiry and to mathematical
modeling is engineering. In its broadest sense, engineering consists of construing a problem
and designing a solution for it. . . . Much of what has been said about the nature of science
applies to engineering as well, particularly the use of mathematics, the interplay of creativ-
ity and logic, the eagerness to be original, the variety of people involved, the professional
specialties, public responsibility, and so on. Indeed, there are more people called engineers
than people called scientists,* and many scientists are doing work that could be described as
engineering as well as science. Similarly, many engineers are engaged in science.
(Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1990, p. 40)
Unlike most countries, in which a ministry of education sets educational standards (and in many
countries a national curriculum as well), the U.S. Constitution does not specify education as a
federal responsibility. Consequently, state leaders have a great deal of independence in determining
what students in their states should learn. Educational leaders in a few states recognized the value of
engineering for all students and began to integrate engineering into their science standards, which
are mandated for all students, along with math, English language arts, and social studies. A study of
high school science standards in 49 states found that 18 states, mostly in the northeast, included engi-
neering design skills, and the majority of states included standards related to technology and society
(Koehler et al., 2006). A survey of standards in all 50 states published in 2012 found that a dozen
states had included strong standards for engineering as part of their mandatory science standards (Carr
et al., 2012).
Despite early eforts in the United States, the pathway to adopting new science education stan-
dards nationwide (with or without engineering) was not smooth. A study of state standards commis-
sioned by the NRC in the early 2000s found they were wildly diferent from each other and very few
were exemplary (NRC, 2008). Beginning in 2008, the National Governor’s Association Center for
Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Ofcers and Achieve, Inc. joined forces to take
a fresh look at educational standards, eventually leading to A Framework for K–12 Science Education:
Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (NRC, 2012), and the derivative Next Generation Science
Standards: By States and for States (NRC, 2013a). One of the novel and, at the time, contentious ele-
ments of the NGSS was the prominent role of engineering.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) represent a commitment to integrate engi-
neering design into the structure of science education by raising engineering design to the
same level as scientifc inquiry when teaching science disciplines at all levels, from kinder-
garten to twelfth grade.
(NRC, 2013b, p. 103)
As of this writing, 20 states have adopted the NGSS, and another 24 states have revised their state
standards to be aligned with the structure and content in the Framework document (National Sci-
ence Teaching Association, 2020). As a result, teachers in at least 44 states (71% of K–12 students
in the United States) are expected to teach engineering as a part of science. Even states that have
not adopted the new models, such as Texas and Florida, include engineering design challenges in
their standards. Thus, one of the outcomes of the new standards is an attention to engineering at the
elementary, middle, and high school levels that was not previously present.
In addition to engineering in schools, it is important to acknowledge that children and youth also
have opportunities to engage in engineering activities through after-school and summer programs.
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Because such programs are not subject to the same testing requirements or oversight as schools, they
provide greater freedom for participants to engage in creative engineering activities. A recent review
of 263 research studies that provide data on what students are able to do or learn in engineering
found that nearly a third of engineering activities have taken place in out-of-school settings (Sneider
& Ravel, 2021).
Implementing engineering in the classroom. Although the NGSS was released in 2013, many states
took some years to adopt, and even among states that adopted early, progress has been slow. Accord-
ing to the most recent National Survey of Mathematics and Science Education, with input from
nearly 10,000 teachers and administrators, the percentage of science classes that incorporate engi-
neering rarely or never is 64% at the elementary level, 61% at the middle school level, and 70% at
the high school level (Banilower et al., 2018, p. 118). If engineering is to survive as a valued aspect of
science education, curriculum developers and teacher educators will need to greatly expand instruc-
tional resources and eforts to increase teachers’ knowledge, skills, and motivation to incorporate
engineering in all of their work with students.
What Is Engineering?
There are many defnitions of engineering. Here we draw from two sources because each provides dif-
ferent insights. The frst is from a panel of scientists, engineers, and educators convened by the NRC
(2012) to develop a consensus report about what all K–12 students in the country should be learning.
We use the term engineering in a very broad sense to mean any engagement in a systematic
practice of design to achieve solutions to particular human problems. Likewise, we broadly
use the term technology to include all types of human-made systems and processes – not in
the limited sense often used in schools that equates technology with modern computational
and communications devices. Technologies result when engineers apply their understanding
of the natural world and of human behavior to design ways to satisfy human needs and wants.
(pp. 11–12)
This defnition emphasizes four essential features of engineering: It is systematic, it is concerned

with solving problems that satisfy human needs and wants, it involves applying knowledge of the
natural world and human behavior, and it results in the development or improvement of technolo-
gies. The frst part of this defnition implies that students must concern themselves with who might
have a problem that needs a solution, usually referred to as the “client.” Defning the problem usually
involves identifying criteria – requirements for a successful solution – and constraints or limits.
As indicated in this defnition, the relationship between engineering and technology is worthy
of special mention. Children have limited and often inaccurate conceptions of technology (Lacha-
pelle et al., 2019; Liou, 2015; Solomonidou & Tassios, 2007; DiGironimo, 2011), believing it to be
primarily items that are powered by electricity, computers, or electronics. Such conceptions can be
changed through curricular materials that challenge these notions and help children understand that
simple and mechanical items are also technologies (Lachapelle et al., 2019). Helping children develop
a more nuanced understanding of technology is important. Citizens should understand the possible
societal, environmental, and health impacts of technology and understand how they come to be
through the processes of engineering design.
The second source of defnitions is from William Wulf, a past president of the National Academy
of Engineering (NAE):
My favorite operational defnition of engineering is “design under constraint.” Engineering

is creating, designing what can be, but it is constrained by nature, by cost, by concerns of
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safety, reliability, environmental impact, manufacturability, maintainability, and many other

such “ilities.” Engineering is not “applied science.” To be sure, our understanding of nature
is one of the constraints we work under, but it is far from the only one, it is seldom the
hardest one, and almost never the limiting one.
(Wulf, 1998)
Wulf ’s defnition emphasizes that engineering depends on knowledge and skills in a wide variety of
felds, including not only science and mathematics but also economics, psychology, business, art, and
other felds as well.
We conclude this set of defnitions with reference to two other pedagogical practices that have
a family resemblance to engineering: making and tinkering. Making involves designing and con-
structing a physical or digital product for one’s own purposes or uses. Tinkering involves a creative
approach to exploring, experimenting, playing with, and using stuf to understand how it works
and what it can or might be able to do. A number of researchers have highlighted the intercon-
nections among tinkering, making, and engineering (Honey & Kanter, 2013; Martinez & Stager,
2013). Vossoughi and Bevan (2014) examined research about tinkering and making in out-of-school
educational spaces. They documented how making can expand participants’ identities and sense of
belonging, how building on practices that are familiar to participants can create more powerful learn-
ing opportunities, and how making environments ofer participants increased agency and authorship.
They highlighted how making can situate abstract STEM concepts in meaningful activity, connect
interdisciplinary practices, and foster risk-taking and iteration. Although engineering may involve
tinkering and making activities, engineering distinguishes itself through the problem-solving con-
text, systematicity in analysis, and consideration of the audience or client. To be considered engi-
neering, an educational activity needs to:
• Be focused on solving a problem or meeting a need

• Enable students to identify the problem in terms of criteria and constraints
• Allow for a design process that is systematic and iterative
• Integrate science, math, and other felds relevant to the solution
• Result in the development or improvement of a product, process, or system
Epistemic Practices for K–12 Engineering

In addition to gaining knowledge and skills through science and engineering education, it is also
important for students to learn how knowledge is constructed through epistemic practices. Because
the goals of engineering are diferent from those in science, the epistemic practices of the disciplines
are related, but distinct (Kelly, 2008, 2011). Here again we fnd the NRC (2012) consensus panel
report to be useful.
The goal of science is to develop a set of coherent and mutually consistent theoretical
descriptions of the world that can provide explanations over a wide range of phenomena.
For engineering, however, success is measured by the extent to which a human need or
want has been addressed.
(p. 48)
In other words, the goal of science is to explain the natural world, while the goal of engineering
is to solve problems. The NGSS defned a set of eight science and engineering practices through
which these goals are realized. The Framework itself and the previous handbook chapter on engineer-
ing (Cunningham & Carlsen, 2014) examine how these practices manifest themselves diferently in
965
science and engineering. However, this list of eight practices does not include several important epis-
temic practices that are fundamental to engineering and that help distinguish it from science. A more
robust set of 16 epistemic practices of engineering was proposed by Cunningham and Kelly (2017a)
from an examination of empirical studies of engineering in professional and school settings. These
epistemic practices are socially organized and interactionally accomplished ways that members of a
group propose, justify, assess, and legitimize knowledge claims (Kelly, 2008). These practices call out
features of engineering that diferentiate its practice from that of science, for example, envisioning
multiple solutions, making trade-of between criteria and constraints, persisting and learning from
failure, and assessing the implications of solutions. The authors highlight that engineering practices
occur in social contexts – engineering work occurs in larger societal contexts and is usually accom-
plished through interactions within the team. The authors argue that these ways of knowing are
critical to students’ engineering experiences. A summary of fve of these epistemic practices, which
are frequently referenced in research on engineering education, follows.
Problem scoping. Defning the scope of the problem to be solved generally occurs early to help
focus the work. Problems are often poorly structured and/or complex. It also involves working with
stakeholders, users, and clients to identify criteria for a successful solution, and constraints or limits,
such as time, money, and materials. Engineering solutions are often connected to larger networks
and systems, whether technological or societal. Considering the problem in a larger context and from
multiple perspectives is often part of problem scoping. Some elements of the problem space can be
articulated early in the engineering process; however, others arise later in the process and the problem
scope may be broadened or narrowed throughout the process as new ideas or constraints surface and
design solutions are proposed.
Most engineering involves creating or improving a product, process, or system for a client. The
client could be an individual, company, or community. It could be the person who will pay for the
design, the people who will use it, or both. But no matter who pays for the design, the needs and
concerns of the end user, and others whom it may afect, should help shape the resulting techno-
logical changes (Anderson et al., 2010; Madhavan, 2015; McCormick & Hammer, 2016). It is also
important to identify the societal and cultural factors that might afect how a given innovation is
perceived by the target population and who might be disproportionately impacted (Cowan, 1997;
Petroski, 1996; Pool, 1997).
Generating multiple solutions. Crismond and Adams’s (2012) review of several hundred studies of
design education found that beginners often start solving a problem with the frst idea that comes to
mind, while more experienced designers brainstorm a large number of diverse ideas before converg-
ing on the most promising solution. One of the dangers of focusing too soon is that the designer
may miss opportunities to identify better design solutions or may become fxated on a single idea.
Designers need to understand that most problems can be solved in a number of ways. The purpose of
engineering design is to choose the best possible solution. That means frst generating many diferent
ideas. As they brainstorm, engineers defer a decision on which is the most promising until after they
have generated many possibilities. Furthermore, technologies evolve and change over time as new
materials are developed and societal values and norms change so that solutions that may be best at
one point in time can be superseded at a later time (Arthur, 2009).
Balancing criteria and meeting constraints. Part of defning and delimiting a problem is understanding
the criteria and constraints that govern it. Constraints are limits that must be met. A solution that
goes over budget or extends past the deadline is not viable. It is rare that criteria that describe the
features of successful solutions can all be met with a single design. Choosing the best design often
involves a process of trading of more of one criterion for less of another. For example, it may be nec-
essary to give up a material that is more attractive or durable for another that is lighter, less expensive,
or easier to ship. Managing the tension between competing criteria require designers to prioritize
which are most important. Otherwise, developing an optimal solution is impossible. Additional
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considerations are the impact a design may have on people, animals, or the environment. One way
of approaching this set of questions is through a life cycle analysis, which considers the impacts of a
technology from the mining of raw materials through manufacturing, transportation, use, and fnal
disposal (Nair, 1998).
Testing and optimizing. The process of engineering design is not over until a solution has been
tested and shown to solve the problem. Often this is done by constructing some sort of model,
perhaps a computer model, a physical model that shows key attributes of the design, or a prototype,
which is the frst working model of a design. Once it has been tested, designs generally reveal faws
that require improvements and retesting. That is the iterative cycle referred to earlier. The outcome
of this process is the development of the best possible, or optimal, design given the available resources
(Kelley, 2010).
Working through failure. Innovating solutions to problems is often challenging. Reaching a viable
solution may occur only after a number of unsuccessful attempts. Failure plays a prominent role
in engineering, operating in a number of ways. According to Petroski (2006), “Successful design,
whether of solid or intangible things, rests on anticipating how failure can or might occur. Failure
is thus a unifying principle in the design of things” (p. 5). Designs may fail by not meeting perfor-
mance expectations or required criteria. Analyzing and learning from failures is an essential part of
engineering work. Engineers also employ failure as they ascertain the upper limits of their designs.
They may test models or products under a number of extreme conditions until they understand how
the technology operates and ensure users’ safety.
To summarize, there are a number of epistemic practices unique to engineering, in addition to
the science and engineering practices emphasized by the NGSS. The previous discussion summarizes
fve of these, but there are others. Each of these epistemic practices needs to be understood at a deep
level for a student to be able to succeed in solving problems. A term sometimes used for this level of
understanding and skills is engineering mindset, which is a set of capabilities and predispositions for how
to approach and solve a problem, as well as an identity as an efective and confdent problem solver.
Purposes of K–12 Engineering Education

From the many arguments leading to the current prominent role of engineering education for all
students we have distilled the following list that we believe to be the most important (Cunningham,
2018, 2016; De Vries, 2016; Lachapelle & Cunningham, 2014). These four purposes have extensive
support from empirical studies, and they apply to learning either in school or during after-school and
summer programs (Sneider & Ravel, 2021).
Engineering helps children understand the human-made world. We live in an engineered world. Most
of the products we interact with were designed by engineers. Increasingly our societies rely heavily
on technologies and engineering, many of which are taken for granted: Water fows from the faucet
when it’s turned on; food that is safe to eat populates our grocery shelves; bridges that reliably sup-
port the weight of people and cars span our rivers; and electricity powers our lights, smartphones,
and appliances. To understand the world they live in, students need to know how technologies are
created. This includes not only common processes, practices, and tools but also important ethical
and societal questions that should be asked when considering new technologies. Citizens need to
be educated to make informed decisions by recognizing and weighing the impacts, both positive
and negative, of new technologies and the advisability of putting them into use. They also need
to consider how populations might be impacted by a technology in diferent ways. Engineering
encourages youth to envision new pathways and solutions to problems. They can come to under-
stand that engineering is one way that they can shape the world we inhabit, to advocate for alternate
solutions, to ask more informed questions, and to support initiatives or ballot measures with deeper
understanding.
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Engineering increases children’s learning of science, math, and other disciplines. Engaging in real-world,
hands-on engineering problems that ask children to use and manipulate knowledge, helps them learn
the concepts better. Engineering projects can also provide a motivational context – children are inter-
ested by the opportunity to generate original solutions to solve a problem. As they do so, they apply
science and mathematics and understand why and how these disciplines are helpful. Engineering
connects to more than STEM subjects. For example, students might practice their communication
and persuasive writing skills as they explain orally or in writing to clients why their design should
be selected. Norström (2016) argues school engineering is not engineering, nor should it be. Its aim
is not to develop products, but rather to develop attitudes, knowledge, and skills related to learning.
Engineering fosters problem-solving abilities, mindsets, and dispositions. Children delight in exploring
and shaping their world. Throughout life, they also encounter problems they need to solve. Class-
room engineering can nurture problem-solving tendencies and help children develop strategies and
approaches that enable them to address problems of increasing complexity. Engineering encourages
children to adopt multiple perspectives and break a problem into smaller parts. It also encourages
creative, out-of-the-box ideas; taking risks; and persistence through failure. These attributes foster
students’ identity as problems solvers and engineers and develop their agency to tackle problems of
the future.
Engineering can broaden career opportunities. By engaging students in meaningful and relevant engi-
neering activities that connect to the real world and referring to the work they do as “engineering”
and the students as “engineers”, teachers can encourage students to consider how they might shape
the world of the future and ponder possible futures for themselves through a career in engineering
or other STEM-related felds.
The remainder of this chapter summarizes a collection of key engineering research studies that
have been published since the last Handbook of Research on Science Education chapter by Cunningham
& Carlsen (2014) (approximately from 2013 to early 2021).
Contemporary Studies of Engineering Education

We view the results of recent research in K–12 engineering education as very encouraging. Research
studies have documented additional positive benefts of engineering, and we are learning about what
works and where some of the greatest challenges lie. This review of literature is organized in fve
sections:
• Learning to Use Epistemic Engineering Practices and Tools

• Learning Disciplinary Content
• Developing Interest and Identity
• Reconsidering the Purposes of Engineering Education
• Teachers, Teaching, and Teacher Education
We note that our survey of the feld is not complete. There are many additional studies that we did
not have the space to include, and still others that we may not have discovered through our search.
Nonetheless, we hope that readers will fnd the chapter helpful and generative of new questions for
study.
Learning to Use Epistemic Engineering Practices and Tools

The previous handbook’s engineering chapter explored practices described in the NGSS through
an engineering lens (Cunningham & Carlsen, 2014). However, as mentioned earlier, these are more
science-centric practices and do not highlight practices that are fundamental to engineering. Not
968
surprisingly, the central and distinct practices of engineering are also the focus of many classroom-
based studies of engineering. Most design-based engineering activities use a structured engineering
design process with multiple phases to guide students’ work. The articulation of phases helps to
focus students’ work for that day. Reviews focused on the engineering design process and its use in
classrooms have distilled a number of common characteristics of engineering challenges – they are
problem-based and relevant, open-ended, include modeling and optimization, and develop engi-
neering practices and habits of mind (Arık & Topçu, 2020; Lammi et al., 2018). In addition to
studies of the engineering design process, researchers have examined a number of other practices,
placing emphasis on problem scoping, exploring and considering materials, optimizing and iterating,
addressing ill-structured problems with multiple solutions, and persisting through failure. We provide
a short review of select studies with these emphases before turning to the ways that multiple practices
and epistemic tools have been combined to support learning and the need to develop appropriate
curricula and teacher professional learning to build capacity for engineering education.
Problem scoping. Determining the nature and boundaries of a problem begins early in the process of
engineering design but may be continually revisited. Watkins et al. (2014) focused on the importance
of robust problem scoping. Through detailed, descriptive discourse analysis in elementary classrooms,
where students are engaged in designing engineering solutions to ill-defned problems, the authors
described the complexity of students’ problem-scoping activity. Students considered and balanced
criteria as they began to defne a problem. They continued to revisit and redefne the problem
throughout the design process. Three research episodes demonstrated that beginning designers did
not treat design problems as well-defned, straightforward tasks as had been shown by other research-
ers. Rather, learners demonstrated promising beginnings of expert practice. The authors stressed
the benefts of their research methods – capturing the richness of the students’ design work required
moving beyond simple counts or periodic, timed glimpses at activity. Indeed, their analyses provide
a detailed, robust view of students’ emerging engineering practices.
McCormick and Hammer’s (2016) case study focused on students’ framing of the engineering
activity, based on the analysis of problems faced by characters in fctional stories. They argued that
students’ navigation of a complex problem also needs to consider more than technical solutions.
They demonstrated that students’ motivation and purposes for engaging in the engineering activity
are important and often drive their actions and decisions. Students in their study were motivated to
design optimal solutions for their fctional clients. The study also documented students’ engagement
in a number of engineering practices – negotiating criteria and constraints, considering the needs of
a client, generating multiple representations for analysis, and creating sketches and models.
Students’ abilities to defne criteria and constraints surfaced as well in Gale et al.’s (2018) design-
based research of a middle school robotics challenge that focused on designing brakes for a vehicle.
Using a rich complement of instruments, including design interviews, engineering recommenda-
tions, engineering notebooks, and pre/post assessments, the researchers investigated students’ use and
understanding of the three NGSS engineering disciplinary core ideas: identifying and delimiting the
engineering problem, developing solutions, and optimizing design solutions. They found that stu-
dents could work with the criteria and constraints and develop solutions, but optimization presented
greater challenges.
Exploring and considering materials. Many of the products of engineering are physical artifacts or
designs. The materiality of engineered products invites students to learn through hands-on explora-
tions and doing. It also highlights the importance of exploring materials and their properties, since
youth need to build these understandings through active manipulation and investigation of materials
(Cunningham, 2018).
In their literature review focused on engineering thinking in prekindergarten children, Lippard
et al. (2017) called out the importance of the materiality of engineering. To develop engineering
thinking, young children need opportunities to explore engineering concepts with materials. They
969
suggested that educators need to consider not only which materials are introduced but also how they
are introduced.
The importance of materials to engineering design thinking also surfaced in Worsley and Blik-
stein’s (2017) study of reasoning strategies in engineering design with high school and college stu-
dents. This clinical study asked participants to engage with a problem-based task using physical
materials and describe how they came up with their design ideas. One strategy students used was
materials-based reasoning. Participants indicated that properties of the provided building materials
sparked the basis for their idea. Other reasoning strategies included tapping ideas from a prior experi-
ence in their home, school, or community and principle-based reasoning, which stems from science
or engineering concepts. The study echoes the need to be intentional about materials selection and
use, since these can infuence design solutions and help youth construct understanding of the world
around them.
Addressing ill-structured problems with multiple solutions. Engineering design methods need to address
ill-structured problems that can result in an array of possible solutions. The underdetermined nature
of the tasks raises uncertainty, which students need to negotiate. In their insightful, rigorous study,
Jordan and McDaniel (2014) probed how ffth-grade students managed uncertainty during a collab-
orative engineering task. Their analysis of the discourse of student groups highlighted the collabora-
tive nature of engineering. Peer interaction, especially supportive social responses, were particularly
important in helping students manage, persist through, and learn from uncertainty. They noted that
when uncertainty is experienced and expressed in conjunction with peer support, then
uncertainty generates a platform for learning. This is because as these activities come
together in the same space, students fnd themselves engaged in complex patterns of social
interaction that facilitate learning: explaining, critiquing, elaborating, and generating mul-
tiple representations and methods.
(p. 521)
The authors also observed the close connection between uncertainty and iterating and persisting
through failure – other critical practices of engineering.
How do you scafold students’ engagement in disciplinary practices? Dasgupta (2019) focused on
this question in his study of improvable models – sample solutions that are suboptimal that can help
students begin engineering by focusing their attention on important design parameters and con-
straints. Analysis of student conversations, design work, and presentations evinced students’ engage-
ment with disciplinary practices, including decomposing the problem, considering the relationship
between design parameters, reasoning about and making trade-ofs between parameters, considering
multiple solutions, and ideating and optimizing. Dasgupta found that focusing students’ attention on
improvable models scafolded students’ design and sensemaking processes. Like Jordan and McDaniel
(2014) and Wendell et al. (2017), he called out how negotiation of uncertainty and collaborative
teamwork foster design thinking that includes productive iteration and systematic improvement.
Iteration and failure. Iterative cycles of design and failure are a hallmark of engineering. Marks and
Chase (2019) investigated whether teaching students explicitly about iteration prototyping and “fail-
ing forward” helped students learn the practices, created more positive reactions to failure, and led
to better-performing designs. Their study compared three middle school classes in New York City
that were randomly assigned to engage with engineering that either included explicit instruction
about iterative prototyping and failure or that focused students on using math and science concepts
in their designs (the control). Students in the iterative prototyping condition had more knowledge of
such iterative practices, reported a greater desire to iterate, and engaged in more iterative behaviors
than the control class. However, regardless of condition, students who iterated early designed more
successful solutions.
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Combining multiple practices and epistemic tools. The complex and interdisciplinary nature of solving
problems often requires multiple practices. Two studies by Wendell and her colleagues probed stu-
dents’ engagement in a range of engineering disciplinary practices that build engineering knowledge.
Wendell et al. (2017) identifed collaborative, refective decision-making (RDM) as a core endeavor
of engineering design and examined how students engage in this practice during the planning and
redesign phases of engineering lessons in urban school districts. Their analyses surfaced a number of
practices that students engaged with during RDM, including articulating multiple solutions, evaluat-
ing pros and cons of materials and prototypes with respect to criteria and constraints, intentionally
selecting solutions to pursue, retelling the performance of the solution(s), analyzing the solutions
with respect to specifc evidence, and purposefully choosing improvements. The sophisticated stu-
dent discourse that occurs during RDM provides detailed examples of how engineering design tasks
can invite students to engage in engineering practices as they construct knowledge and embrace fail-
ure. Such design tasks also encourage students to recognize their abilities as engineers and problems
solvers.
In a subsequent study of elementary engineering in two urban classrooms, Wendell et al. (2019)
explored how classroom supports can make students’ engineering thinking visible and thus foster
their knowledge growth. The researchers introduced a few epistemic tools: a digital notebooking
tool, whole-class design talks, and posters with design recommendations. Microethnographic analysis
of students’ interactions with these tools evinced three types of discourses that students employed as
they engaged in engineering design. The study highlighted the collective nature of students’ knowl-
edge construction and how the educational tools promoted students’ learning with and from each
other. It also demonstrated how students constructed knowledge by synthesizing information across a
number of design attempts and how including an external audience can prompt students to consider
their work from a diferent perspective.
The role of epistemic tools in guiding elementary students’ engineering learning was also explored
by Hertel et al. (2017), who examined how a paper-based engineering notebook scafolded student
activity, discourse, and practice. Discourse analysis revealed the importance of prompts to engage
students in efective uses of writing, the roles the notebook assumed in the students’ small groups, and
the ways design challenges motivated children to write and communicate. Kelly and Cunningham
(2019) echoed similar themes about the potential of epistemic tools to support student learning of
disciplinary concepts and practices in engineering design through sustained, collective action. They
demonstrated how the use of epistemic tools such as engineering prototypes, data tables, and sche-
matics can support and shape students’ engagement in disciplinary practices and in the construction
of knowledge during engineering design challenges. Important roles of such tools include helping
students adhere to common criteria as they assess solutions, share data across groups, argue with evi-
dence, and hold each other accountable. Epistemic tools make visible the importance of the social
basis for epistemic criteria for evaluating possible solutions.
Need for high-quality engineering curricula that support epistemic practices. Curricula and their asso-
ciated resources have the potential to scafold student learning of epistemic practices. Many of
the studies reviewed earlier investigated implementation of curricular materials developed by the
researchers and often accompanied by professional development. They focused on a subset of the
available materials and did not necessarily refect the larger state of engineering education cur-
ricula. Peterman et al. (2017) probed the quality of a random sample of 80 online high school
engineering lessons. They found that most existing lessons were not centered around best methods
of engineering instruction. For example, most lessons did not make explicit connections between
engineering and science, and fewer than a quarter were open-ended design challenges. This study
evinced the relevance and importance of educative curricular materials and the importance of
professional learning opportunities for teachers because engineering is a relatively new subject for
most teachers.
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Summary. In-depth research studies of classroom discourse have illuminated how students engage
and develop facility with epistemic practices of engineering over time and how these can be fostered
by educators through the intentional use of materials and epistemic tools, including careful design
or selection of curricula. To date, a few important practices that are unique to engineering have
been studied, including problem scoping, working through uncertainty, and iteration and persistence
despite failure. Current studies document important ways that intentionally designed resources can
scafold student work and interactions and help foster classroom cultures that value innovation, analy-
sis, and social deliberation around criteria for success.
Learning Disciplinary Content

Because engineering, science, and mathematics are closely intertwined in the world, a number of
studies have investigated disciplinary learning in, with, and through engineering. The focus on these
studies has been primarily on the learning of science with engineering, although a few studies have
also probed learning outcomes related to mathematics or reading.
Studies of disciplinary learning in, with, and through engineering. Wendell and Rogers (2013) examined
elementary engineering education to explore whether students’ understanding of science content
and their attitudes toward science might be impacted by engagement in design-based units that con-
nect to science topics. The authors anticipated that students’ science performance might increase
since the task of making something function (engineering) is more interesting and productive than
fnding answers to science questions. Pre- and post-test results indicated that using an engineering
curriculum did indeed result in signifcant science content gains in both life and physical sciences
compared with the districts’ status quo curriculum. However, the diferent treatments did not seem
to afect students’ motivation for or confdence in science, which were consistently positive. The
impact of engineering design tasks on students’ content knowledge of science and engineering was
also investigated by Capobianco et al. (2021). Using a pre-/post-assessment design, they found that
elementary students in four classrooms who engaged in two diferent design challenges developed
both science and engineering content knowledge. Gale et al. (2018) studied eighth-grade students
engaged in a physical science curriculum rooted in engineering design. Students focused on energy,
motion, friction, and forces as they designed automatic brakes. The fndings illustrated how students
applied their scientifc knowledge as they engaged with engineering design.
How engineering and science are experienced can afect what is learned and by whom. In a
large, randomized, efcacy study of over 600 classrooms and 14,000 students, Cunningham et al.
(2020) explored how a curriculum that incorporated equity-oriented components impacted student
learning. The study compared the outcomes of two groups of students who used the same materials
and studied the same topics, except one group engaged in the equity-oriented components and the
other group did not. Results showed that students engaged with the equity components had better
outcomes for both science and engineering content learning than those in the comparison group,
regardless of demographic characteristics. The fndings provide evidence that design activities that
explicitly connect the knowledge of science to the engineering activity result in better learning of
both disciplines. The study also examined student demographic variables and found that female stu-
dents had larger gains in engineering learning than males for both conditions, but that there were no
diferences in science content learning between males and females. There were also no diferences
in individual outcomes related to socioeconomic status for students who spoke English at home for
either condition. The authors posit that the hands-on engineering curriculum provided participation
through active engagement for all students.
A key epistemic practice of engineering is applying mathematics to solve problems. A number
of studies examined ways that engineering on its own or combined with science fostered learning
in and with mathematics. These studies identifed the efcacy of bringing disciplinary knowledge
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together around problems of interest. For example, at the high school level, Langman et al. (2019)
developed a high school module focused on an authentic engineering challenge related to tissue
engineering and investigated both the science and mathematical content that students learned. They
found that students learned science concepts and were able to use mathematics in their modeling.
However, they found it difcult to simplify the activities enough so that students could engage with
authentic content, given their prerequisite disciplinary knowledge. These are important questions
that nearly all developers of curricula struggle with.
Berland (2013) also studied engineering and its connections to science and mathematics learn-
ing in a high school course that she helped to develop. After identifying design principles that
underlay the course, the author articulated some challenges of learning science through engineer-
ing. For example, since science and engineering have diferent goals, teachers may have difculty
helping students connect the science to the engineering design. In a subsequent study related to
the same course (Berland et al., 2013), the researchers used pre- and post-test questions and student
interviews to probe students’ understanding of the engineering design process and their application
of science concepts. The study found that the students exhibited a general understanding of the
engineering design process but did not attend to specifc elements that relied on mathematics and
science, and their understanding of the content was inconsistently applied to the design challenges.
In a complementary study of the discourse of high school juniors and seniors, Valtorta and Berland
(2015) evinced that students successfully applied mathematics and science concepts to engineering
design work without teacher prompting when the concepts were familiar, but not if the concepts
were unfamiliar, even with explicit teacher prompting. In a subsequent study, Berland and Steingut
(2016) conducted surveys showing that students’ perceptions of the value and utility of both math
and science for an engineering challenge predicted how much efort they expended for the task.
The authors recommended that engineering activities should be carefully designed so that math and
science are required elements of an engineering challenge and that teachers draw attention to their
importance in completing the task.
In a study of mathematics applied to engineering, Glancy et al. (2017) investigated how integrated
STEM curricular units might engage ffth-grade students in data collection, analysis, and interpreta-
tion. They documented the difculties students had using measurement devices, and they observed
a mismatch between the data students collected and their conclusions. Like Berland and Steingut
(2016), the authors identifed the need for educational scafolds that helped students make meaning-
ful connections between their qualitative observations and the data they collect.
Oral and written communication are important for engineering. A couple of researchers have investigated
connections between reading and engineering. Wilson-Lopez et al.’s (2017) study of elementary
students found that reading comprehension strategies can co-occur with engagement in engineer-
ing design processes. Rouse and Rouse (2019) found that third graders’ engineering vocabulary and
number and depth of engineering concepts increased as a result of engaging in an engineering design
lesson. And in their study of how literacy-enriched engineering instruction can support engineering
learning and engagement of English learners, Aguirre-Muñoz and Pantoya (2016) found that com-
bining literacy and hands-on engineering supported students’ engagement.
The fndings of the empirical studies of disciplinary learning through engineering are consistent
with a recent report from the National Academies (NASEM, 2018) that calls for English learners
to develop language profciency as they engage in science and engineering practices. Consistent
with these recommendations, Cunningham et al. (2021) focused on features of the discipline of
engineering – such as the materiality of engineering, the potential for multimodal communication,
and the contextualization of knowledge in task-oriented activities – that also provided benefts for
English learners and other students who might beneft from additional linguistic supports. They
proposed a set of six afordances of engineering with English learners. The opportunity to engage in
engineering activity with peers, communicate their ideas, and draw from their life experience and
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backgrounds fosters students’ (including English learners’) success and agency and encourages them
to become members of the engineering learning community.
Summary. Taken together, these studies speak to the potential of engineering as a motivating
experience that can integrate disciplinary content from science, mathematics, and language arts.
Especially when lessons are carefully designed and scafolds are used to make explicit connects, stu-
dents can learn the disciplinary content, not only of engineering but also of science, mathematics,
and reading.
Developing Interest and Identity

Youths’ knowledge, interests, attitudes, perceptions, motivations, career aspirations, and performance
in academic disciplines are intertwined. Research studies of engineering education have investigated
these relationships in school and after-school settings, including several with youth from populations
that have been historically underrepresented in engineering. This section is organized by the age of
the students in the studies, as there are signifcant diferences in the types of engineering experiences,
as well as changes in interests, attitudes, and motivation, as students gain maturity, develop academic
skills, and build a more robust personal and academic identity.
Interests and identity in the elementary grades. Capobianco et al. (2017) studied 281 students in
upper elementary school who engaged in design-based engineering tasks during an academic year to
determine the impact of these activities on students’ engineering understanding, interest, and career
aspirations. Pre and post surveys showed that students became signifcantly more knowledgeable
about engineering professions and interested in engineering as a profession. They also revealed that
students’ frst engagement in engineering activities resulted in the biggest growth in their engineer-
ing identity. The research surfaced no diferences between males and females in engineering identity
formation.
Ozogul et al.’s (2017) study of elementary Latinx and Caucasian children also found that early
engineering activities fostered development of engineering interest. They identifed a strong posi-
tive correlation between knowledge of and interest in engineering and noted that upper elementary
students were more knowledgeable about and interested in engineering than primary students. Cau-
casian students reported greater interest and knowledge about engineering than Latinx students. The
authors suggested that outreach programs that teach students about what engineers do could impact
students’ interest in engineering and that such programming should start in early grades. Engaging
in engineering design, and learning what engineers do, may infuence students’ academic identity, as
they come to see themselves and classmates in new ways.
Kelly et al. (2017) provided a glimpse into how elementary students can engage in identity work
through engineering practices. Using discourse analysis to analyze videos of two classes working on
extensive engineering units, they documented how teachers helped students transform their image
of engineering and of themselves. Vivid details of classroom discourse illustrated successful teaching
strategies, including prompting students to connect to storybook characters who are doing engi-
neering and then engineer solutions to problems themselves. Detailed analyses illustrated how stu-
dents identifed criteria and constraints, built and tested prototypes, and made evidence-based design
decisions. The discourse also traced how the teacher helped the students recognize the relationship
between their work in the classroom and the work of professional engineers and made explicit the
idea that anyone, including them, could become an engineer. In this way, the students’ engineering
discourse and talk about the work of doing engineering showed how student identity was realized in
classroom discourse. Studies such as this one complement the examination of interests and attitudes
as measured by surveys.
Interests and identity in the middle grades. Middle grades are a time of physical, cognitive, and emo-
tional change for students. Previous research has identifed a growing disenchantment with science,
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mathematics, and engineering as students experience middle grade schooling. A number of studies
examined how students’ interests can be fostered. The role of the environment or particular situ-
ations in stimulating interest (situational interest), was examined by Dohn (2013) in two classes of
Danish sixth graders during an eight-week engineering design unit. His analysis of feld notes from
40 classroom observations and 81 interviews with students probed manifestations of students’ inter-
est (e.g., on-task behavior, focused, positive afect) and identifed four sources. These include design
inventions, trial and error experimentation, functionality of the inventions, and collaboration. Dohn
found that students appreciated the autonomy and opportunity to make something novel and felt
happy when their solution performed as intended. He also called out the social nature of engineering
as an important driver of interest – students enjoyed working with their peers. Much like the studies
of the elementary grades, the types of experience were linked to the changes seen in the students’
attitudes. This was found in Chu et al.’s (2019) investigation of middle school students who engaged
in three design tasks using argument-driven engineering discussions. Over the course of an aca-
demic year, the team administered three surveys that measured students’ recognition and interest (two
aspects of identity). They found that how the students viewed themselves and others viewed them
with respect to engineering remained constant over time. However, engineering interest decreased
from survey to survey. This was unexpected since the curriculum highlighted how engineers help
society and improve the world – an approach that has been identifed as a mechanism for increasing
student interest, particularly for girls (NAE, 2008). The authors suggested that teachers’ omission
of these areas, the difculty of the curricular units, or the teacher’s experience with engineering all
might have contributed to this decrease.
The importance of early science and engineering experiences similarly arose in Ing et al.’s (2014)
study of gender diferences in middle school students’ interest in engineering and science careers.
Their longitudinal study collected data from 482 students in seventh, eighth, and ninth grades.
They investigated a number of variables related to students’ interests. Females were more interested
in science than engineering, while the opposite was true for males. Both sexes were interested in
careers whose attributes included discovering new things that help health or the environment, ana-
lyzing data, and having work reviewed by others. However, females were less interested in designing
and inventing, solving problems, or using technology. Interestingly, females with a strong interest
in engineering difered from those with no interest on two variables – they expressed interest in
science by third grade, and by seventh grade they had participated in school science experiences,
such as summer science enrichment classes. Curiously, this association only held for science expe-
riences; engaging in early engineering experiences was not associated with engineering interest.
These fndings underscore the importance of early science experiences on students’ interests and
career aspirations.
Moote et al. (2020) found similar results in their examination of engineering and science aspira-
tions of more than 20,000 students from the ASPIRES project in England. They compared students’
responses between age 10 and 16, testing for the efects of gender, ethnicity, cultural capital, and
attitudinal factors. Their analysis evinced that student aspirations were generally stable. Echoing
Ing et al.’s results, they found that for engineering, gender was the main factor. By age ten, students
associated engineering with masculinity and were less likely than boys to aspire to it. The girls who
were considering an engineering career expressed exceptionally high science and mathematics self-
concept. Motivations for students to study engineering included making money and making a difer-
ence or creating things. However, the study found that females interested in engineering are less likely
than their male peers to be motivated by helping people. Student-level factors were more important
than school-level factors in the engineering models when compared to the science models. The
authors noted that in England most students do not engage in engineering in school and thus may
have limited understanding of the feld. They suggested integrating engineering into other school
curricular oferings.
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Interests and identity in high school education. A number of studies have explored the importance of
engaging in engineering experiences and coursework during high school. Miller et al. (2020) sur-
veyed 15,847 college students who participated in a STEM talent program and found that students
completing a pre-college engineering course were two times more likely to want to pursue an engi-
neering career than those without such a course, after controlling for a number of relevant variables.
By contrast, taking a pre-college engineering course was not associated with heightened interest in
other science, technology, or mathematics careers. These fndings suggested that high schools should
ofer engineering courses as an efective way to foster students’ career interest in engineering. This
efect applied similarly to all students, independent of gender, race/ethnicity, and other background
variables, including interest in engineering prior to high school. Gottfried and Plasman (2018) also
documented the efect of high school engineering and career and technical course taking. They
examined data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 for 8,940 students, following them
from high school into postsecondary education, and into their careers. A regression analysis found
that participation in such high school coursework is a signifcant predictor of completion of an engi-
neering degree. It also potentially narrowed the engineering gender gap as women benefted more
from high school engineering career and technical education (E-CTE) in connection to completion
of an engineering BA/BS than men.
Studies of interests in engineering found the contextual nature of students’ experience to be
decisive in their emergent attitudes. Variation may also be site-specifc and dependent on the local
culture. Matusovich et al. (2017) studied how interest among rural Appalachian youth was sparked
and sustained. The case study compared interest in engineering and health care felds among high
school and college students. High school students’ interest in engineering was often prompted by
organized experiences. However, they found that students’ intention to major in engineering was
often individual, not situational. Importantly, they highlighted the need to help students make
connections between their current lives and communities and possible careers in engineering,
stating that interventions should “explicitly teach . . . students about what engineering is in addi-
tion to having them ‘do’ engineering projects. At the same time, our fndings suggest that such
explicitness should link to local values” (p. 473). Much like the studies at the elementary and
middle grades, the experiences and discourses about engineering infuence the students’ attitudes
and identities.
Student identities may be at least partially solidifed by the time they enter high school. For
example, Verdín et al. (2018) interviewed 17 high school students to understand how the ways they
describe math, science, physics, and engineering people infuence whether they themselves can
take on these identities. They found that when talking about engineering, students mentioned the
goal of the endeavor – making things, designing, being efcient – instead of highlighting interest in
or knowledge of the discipline’s content. Students also associated engineering with creativity. The
authors concluded that students’ ontologies and identities related to these disciplines are pretty fxed
and that engineering was seen as the least accessible discipline. This suggests that more positive expe-
riences and discourses about engineering need to occur earlier in students’ lives when their percep-
tions of themselves and others are more malleable.
Interests and attitudes developed in out-of-school activities. Out-of-school educational settings, such as
after-school programs, can also play important roles in developing understanding about and interest
in engineering by youth and families. A robust study by Pattison et al. (2020) examined engineering
interest development by low-income families with preschoolers. The team worked closely for a year
with families who participated in the preschool Head Start program to engage them in a variety of
engineering experiences. Interviews, observations, and home visits fueled case studies that detailed
the families’ experiences throughout the program, how these shifted over time, and factors that
shaped family interests. As expected, family interest varied, but a number of families demonstrated
evidence of sustained interaction and interest in engineering that included seeing engineering in the
976
world around them, seeking out additional engineering activities, or taking on new roles related to
engineering, such as teaching families and friends.
Interest in engineering is only one factor related to students’ academic identity. Ways that students
come to experience themselves and their classmates and defne who and what they perceive they
can be, also contribute to identity development. McLean et al. (2020) studied identity development
among elementary students, particularly girls, in after-school programing. Their study examined how
collaborative design activities in which students worked in small groups and with undergraduate
engineers to design and program dancing robots impacted student identities. Although a number of
the students had parents who were engineers, most of them did not initially have confdence in their
engineering abilities. As the students engaged with projects and partners, they developed identities as
engineers. Girls noted the importance of the personal bonds that formed, while the boys were more
likely to highlight the technical skills they learned. However, all girls and a majority of the boys pre-
ferred a collaborative instead of competitive design project. The opportunity to experience success
during an engineering challenge also contributed to students’ identity: “as a result of their successful
engineering projects in collaboration with supportive peers and mentors, by the end of the program all
students closely identifed with engineering, feeling more capable and confdent in their skills” (p. 15).
Helping students become more interested in and knowledgeable about engineering and path-
ways to engineering careers was the focus of the after-school program for low-income, majority-
minority middle schoolers that Blanchard et al. (2015) researched. The intervention was designed
to address students’ understanding of STEM college and career options. Quantitative surveys found
that students in the program, which engaged participants with socially relevant, collaborative design
challenges, showed increased enjoyment in design-based activities and became more knowledgeable
about what engineers do and the steps involved in pursuing an engineering career. Qualitative data
surfaced the importance of coaches and mentors as sources of information about engineering. The
study situated students within the larger school climate, surveying nonparticipants as well as partici-
pants. It found that the success of the student design teams, which was shared publicly in the school
and community, possibly contributed to a rise in enthusiasm about STEM even among students who
did not participate in the design intervention. This study suggests that after-school programming may
be a way to expand the pool of students interested in engineering, and in doing so, increase oppor-
tunities for underserved populations.
A few studies have investigated why Latinx students are underrepresented in engineering felds
and what might be done to increase representation. Pattison et al. (2018) examined how six Latina
girls (age 9–11) negotiated their identities with their peer group during a variety of out-of-school
programs. Hands-on activities illustrated how engineering can be altruistic, personally relevant, and
social. Researchers observed the sessions and interviewed the girls who were leadership oriented.
They documented how some youth allowed space for identity negotiation with other youth while
others had more negative interactions. Similar to McLean et al. (2020), they emphasized the impor-
tance of collaborative activity.
When an activity frame of engineering as collaborative becomes established through iden-

tity negotiation, this can aford opportunities for more meaningful involvement across
participants and more successful and supported identity bids for youth as skilled, knowl-
edgeable, and involved. In contrast, when an activity frame of engineering as competitive
and focused on individual success comes to dominate, less assertive or more collaborative
oriented youth can become marginalized or choose to disengage from the experience.
Similarly, expectations about failure as positive not only reinforce messages from program
staf but also support more authentic engineering design processes, with cycles of planning,
testing, and improvement, as well as idea sharing among youth.
(p. 988)
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Martinez Ortiz et al. (2018) conducted a mixed-methods study exploring the impact of a pre-
engineering camp on middle school students in a Latino community. Pre-post tests measured students’
self-reported engineering-related self-efcacy, knowledge of engineering careers, and motivation to
pursue future engineering classes and careers. The pre-post test revealed no statistically signifcant
diferences. However, interviews with a subset of the participants showed that campers arrived with
high levels of these qualities and provided qualitative evidence that their experiences during camp
positively impacted their outlook toward engineering and other STEM careers.
Interests and career aspirations. As discussed in the earlier sections of this chapter, engineering
education has much to ofer in its own right by developing students’ problem-solving abilities,
technical knowledge, and communication skills. Recruitment into engineering felds is also an
educational goal and recognized as a national interest worldwide. Ozis et al. (2018) explored the
efect of youths’ participation in STEM clubs on their perception toward STEM felds and majors.
Data were collected through an online survey of 1,167 students across six charter schools in the
same system, serving grades K–12 and compared with students not enrolled in STEM clubs. The
data showed that extracurricular STEM club involvement was signifcantly correlated with par-
ticipants’ attitudes toward STEM. The analysis of the data also showed that STEM clubs have the
potential to close the gender and ethnicity gaps in STEM perception and provide a diverse student
population to the STEM pipeline. Bystydzienski et al.’s (2015) three-year after-school intervention
with high-achieving high school females demonstrates that interest can also be fostered in older
students. They engaged 131 students in engineering exploration, projects, and college mentoring.
When they began the program, 82% of the women knew little or nothing about engineering, had
never met an engineer, and were not considering pursuing engineering in college. By the end of
the second year, approximately half of the students still enrolled were considering engineering as a
possible career. Exposure to engineering and its role in society had piqued their interest. Godwin
et al. (2016) analyzed data from 15,847 college frst-year students who participated in the Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) and completed a
survey about their career intentions and prior experiences. Findings indicated that students’ par-
ticipation in out-of-school experiences increased the odds of choosing particular engineering dis-
ciplines. Experiences traditionally stereotyped as masculine and more often reported by men, such
as tinkering, increased the odds of choosing engineering disciplines with higher representation of
men. However, some experiences equally reported by men and women, such as mixing chemicals
or engaging with chemistry in the kitchen or talking with friends or family about science, predicted
higher odds of choosing engineering disciplines with higher representation of women (chemical,
biomedical, environmental).
Summary. The interconnected nature of youths’ experience, knowledge, interests, attitudes, per-
ceptions, motivations, career aspirations, and performance in academic disciplines, makes for a pleth-
ora of empirical studies across these topics and domains. The feld of engineering education has
identifed some key variables and patterns that are emerging regarding how students’ attitudes and
identities are infuenced by their local and contextualized experiences.
Reconsidering the Purposes of Engineering Education

Early eforts in engineering education tended to focus on engaging students’ interests, introducing
them to career possibilities, and/or improving their understanding of science and engineering. As
K–12 engineering education has evolved, a number of scholars have critiqued these purposes and
ofered a more expansive vision. Such critical reviews are often rooted in a desire to make engineer-
ing more equitable, consider divergent perspectives, de-couple K–12 engineering education from
college and careers, situate engineering in its larger societal context, and employ engineering as a
tool for social justice.
978
In an early article that argued for a more expansive view of engineering, Hynes and Swen-
son (2013) presented a construct for framing the humanistic side of engineering with illustrative
examples of what it could look like in a classroom setting. The construct considered engineering for
people and with people, taking into account a number of diferent domains, including psychology,
sociology, communications, law, philosophy, and ethics. Engineering for people included thinking
about the clients, users, and others who might be impacted by the technologies. Engineering with
people concerned engineers working in diverse teams with various perspectives about the project.
The paper emphasized that engineering is a social act and a collaborative endeavor that involves
negotiation, teamwork, and communication. The authors called for K–12 engineering experiences
to highlight these aspects not only because they more accurately convey the practices of engineering
but also because they invited more varied approaches and solutions to engineering problems.
Other articles in this category critiqued the NGSS standards, arguing that it is rooted in neolib-
eralism that prioritizes economic values. Hoeg and Bencze (2017) applied critical discourse analysis
to the NGSS to surface the educational values communicated by the documents. They suggested
its emphasis on “performance” implies that there is a correct, measurable way to conduct an activ-
ity. The authors argued that the NGSS is neoliberal because the prescribed performance standards
do not consider wider societal variables, and innovation and creativity are evoked primarily to drive
economic growth. They suggested that such educational values were not aligned with the need to
educate a diverse group of students who are prepared to address social issues rooted in communi-
ties and connected to the common good. A similar theme occurs in Gunckel and Tolbert’s (2018)
critique that portrays engineering in the Framework and NGSS from technocracy, utilitarianism, and
neoliberal perspectives. They urged the feld to situate engineering problems more broadly in society,
noting that the purpose of K–12 education is not only to educate the next generation of engineers
and scientists but to also create a public that can make critical, informed decisions. They call for the
feld to move from perspectives that focus narrowly on fxing problems, maximizing benefts for a
majority, and making decisions based on market forces to instead situate design problems in their
sociohistorical-political contexts. Furthermore, they propose that students should also learn about
the nontechnical dimensions of problems and consider issues of social empathy, care, and justice. In
this model, K–12 curricula should reframe engineering problems to ensure that students consider
the larger contexts in which they are working as they consider possible solutions and then determine
which are just.
Mildenhall et al. (2019) provide an example of learning engineering with a social justice approach
in an elementary classroom in Australia. They designed and implemented a STEM unit focused on
designing shoes for an inhabitant of a refugee camp using materials found at the camp. Aiming to
help students develop an awareness of how STEM concepts are connected with larger social issues,
they situated the unit in a larger context by having students consider poverty and civil war as factors
that infuence a rising number of refugees. The unit’s problem-scoping lessons focused on helping
children develop an intellectual and empathetic understanding of what it meant to be a refugee as
well as draw on concepts from science, math, and engineering as they proposed solutions. The study
found that the children’s emotional connection to the context was a strong motivator. Students were
able to empathize with the refugees and at the same time identify their use of STEM concepts in
their designs.
Tan et al. (2019) also grounded their engineering work in equity and social justice. Their case
studies of three classrooms explored how two types of epistemic tools were taken up and used by
teachers and students to cultivate new types of learning that broadened boundaries of traditional
engineering education by using engineering to address community-identifed issues. One set of tools
focused on helping teachers create learning environments that supported students in identifying engi-
neering problems that are relevant to their communities. The second set helped students understand
the problem through multiple perspectives as they considered and prioritized criteria and constraints.
979
They found that such tools helped students understand how to situate their problem within the larger
community and the importance of attending to the needs, knowledge, and priorities of various users
and stakeholders. In such ways, the toolsets encouraged students to make visible and connect the
disciplinary epistemologies of engineering and science to community epistemologies.
Connecting engineering design to youths’ communities and interests was also examined in a
longitudinal case study of an African American boy in an out-of-school setting (Nazar et al., 2019).
This youth chose to address the issue of bullying in his community by designing an app that identifed
where bullying was taking place. By anchoring his design in an epistemology of place and tapping
community knowledge, he created a safe and caring technology that could be used by his commu-
nity. This example demonstrates how engineering can empower youth to create technologies and
solutions that solve personal or local problems of concern and legitimize voices and wisdom from
the community.
McGowan and Bell (2020) argued that broadening participation in engineering to make it more
just and equitable should include creating opportunities that stem from diverse ways of knowing and
doing engineering. This robust study questioned not only the ethical stance of current engineering
education perspectives but also its epistemological commitments. In particular, they proposed that
K–12 education should develop learners’ critical sociotechnical literacy, which they defned as “a
place-based approach for critically engaging learners in understanding the impacts of engineering
and technology on their own communities and everyday lives in order to restore these spaces for a
more equitable and just future” (p. 981). They suggested that more equitable models of engineer-
ing build on learners’ interests and identities as they broaden the conception of what engineering
is and who can do it. The paper articulated fve elements of engineering that can ground equitable
approaches. Engineering is situated and place-based, synthetic, and part of a complex sociotechnical
system. Engineering knowledge is embodied and distributed as well as tacit, emergent, and expe-
riential. Similar to Gunckel and Tolbert (2018), the critical sociotechnical literacy framework that
McGowan and Bell proposed encourages learners to refect on engineering as they also situate it in
its larger social, political, and historical context that emphasizes connections to place. They argued
that critiquing the built environment can help people develop agency and direct change in their
world. Translating this framework to K–12 environments invites students to bring their knowledge,
including that from their home or communities, into the classroom. Building on students’ everyday
knowledge, connecting them to their communities and experts, and selecting appropriate engi-
neering challenges and phenomena, can provide the experiences that students need to explore the
impacts of engineering and technology.
This theme can also be found in insightful papers by Wilson-Lopez and her colleagues, who con-
sidered how students’ knowledge and social capital can be expressed and leveraged during engineer-
ing activities. Wilson-Lopez et al. (2016) ofered a thoughtful exploration of the cultural knowledge
and funds of knowledge that students brought to after-school engineering projects. Their ethno-
graphic research followed groups of Latino/a high schoolers, who also received English learner
services, as they solved self-selected problems in their local communities using an engineering design
process. Analysis identifed the types of everyday family, community, and recreational knowledge
that students drew upon and applied as they engaged in engineering practices. The study focused on
Latinas’/os’ funds of knowledge but noted that a number of other populations underrepresented in
STEM education also possess funds of knowledge that should be explicitly connected to engineering.
By drawing from engineering funds of knowledge and allowing youth to work to solve self-selected,
community-based projects, youth developed engineering interests and identities. To help reverse the
underrepresentation of Latinas/os and other populations, educators should recognize such funds of
knowledge and invite them into educational spaces.
In a related study of this same population, Wilson-Lopez et al. (2018) investigated the forms of
social capital that adolescents used during their engineering projects. Their analysis documented
980
youths’ mobilization of embodied, social, objectifed, and institutional capital. They highlighted
how the multilingual literacy practices of the youth became an asset because they allowed broader
connections, data gathering, and communication. Co-mobilizing science capital also surfaced when
one form of knowledge was sufcient and groups activated additional types. Finally, the study dem-
onstrated that underrepresented youth have experientially and culturally derived science knowledge
that they can use as assets. As they mobilized their existing forms of science capital, they developed
deeper knowledge related to the engineering project. The authors suggested that engineering proj-
ects may be one way for students to draw upon their science-related capital and have it recognized
and valued.
After reviewing studies of engineering as well as research from philosophy, history, and sociology
of engineering and science, Pleasants et al. (2019) proposed a nature of engineering (NOE) frame-
work that details nine features of what students should know about the discipline of engineering.
Analogous to the nature of science, NOE concerns itself with
issues relevant to the structure of the engineering discipline, what engineering is, how it
works, how engineers conduct their work, the relationship between engineering and other
fields of study such as science, and how engineering influences and is influenced by society.
The authors pointed out that what K–12 students need to learn about engineering as a discipline
should be diferent from what college students or practicing engineers need to learn. They argued
that K–12 students need to learn more than practices of design. They also need instruction in the
features of the engineering discipline.
Summary. This collection of studies claims that K–12 engineering education has a number of
purposes, most of which are not included in the NGSS. Youth should understand the impacts of
engineering on their daily lives and how it shapes and is shaped by society. They need to learn about
the interdisciplinary nature of engineering, including the application not just of science and math but
also the humanities and social sciences. They need to develop a variety of epistemological practices
beyond engineering design, and they need opportunities to further link or develop personal inter-
ests and identity as engineering-capable learners. For these purposes to be realized, youth need to
engage in meaningful projects that build disciplinary knowledge, skills, and practices of engineering,
as well science and mathematics. Engineering projects should be situated in larger societal settings to
help youth both appreciate and critically assess the role and impact of engineering in society. Finally,
students should also be encouraged to draw upon knowledge and experiences from their homes,
cultures, and communities as they engage in engineering work.
Teachers, Teaching, and Teacher Education

According to the 2018 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education (Banilower et al.,
2018), only 3% of elementary teachers, 10% of middle school teachers, and 13% of high school
teachers have had any college coursework in engineering. So, it is not surprising that similar small
percentages of teachers feel very well prepared to teach engineering concepts. The report con-
cludes that “K-12 teachers will likely need both high-quality curriculum and substantive profes-
sional development to be successful at integrating engineering into their science teaching” (p. 33).
For example, after Oklahoma adopted new science standards that included engineering, Hammack
and Ivey (2019) surveyed elementary teachers statewide about incorporating engineering in their
classrooms and barriers they encountered. Five hundred forty-two teachers responded, and a sub-
set of these were interviewed. They found that teachers supported incorporating engineering into
elementary classrooms. However, teachers reported that implementation was hindered by a lack of
teacher education about engineering at both the in-service and preservice level. They claimed a lack
981
of teacher knowledge about engineering, curricular and other materials, planning and instructional
time, and administrative support. Reform that includes efective engineering education needs to take
into account teacher knowledge and professional learning opportunities. In 2014, Cunningham and
Carlsen identifed the need to engage teachers in engineering practices and to support them to think
deeply about engineering pedagogy. The feld is beginning to take up this call and develop a research
base in this area for preservice and in-service teachers.
Professional development for preservice elementary teachers. Wendell (2014) studied elementary preser-
vice teachers’ design practices as they engaged in an engineering design challenge. She found that
they were able to frame their engineering activities as a design task, but they focused most of their
time on generating possible solutions and spent little efort on other aspects of engineering, such as
problem scoping, information gathering, modeling, or analysis and evaluation of possible solutions.
Thus, teachers may need additional supports to recognize the important role of other engineer-
ing practices. Wendell et al. (2019) also focused on preservice teacher education. Their case study
investigated how elementary preservice teachers’ personal epistemologies afected how they taught
the discipline. They identifed a need to help future teachers frame and shape their ideas about what
they want engineering to accomplish. These two studies support a need to engage future teachers in
activities and refections about engineering that can guide classroom instruction.
Pleasants and his colleagues worked with preservice elementary teachers, their cooperating
teacher, and an engineering graduate student to introduce engineering into elementary science
coursework. One study (Pleasants & Olson, 2019a) explored the types of activities teachers consid-
ered engineering and what they did not. They found that elementary teachers who participated in
the professional learning improved their understanding of the work of engineering. However, the
graduate student was no more knowledgeable about the scope of engineering than the teachers. In
a related study, Pleasants et al. (2020) used a modifed version of the Draw-An-Engineer Test as a
pre- and post-test measure to assess teachers’ and engineers’ knowledge of engineering. Analysis of
these drawings before and after a professional development project found that teachers became clearer
about the processes engineers used in their work. Finally, in another study of the same population,
Pleasants et al. (2019) interviewed the preservice and in-service teachers and the engineers to probe
what they thought their students learned from classroom engineering design experiences. Partici-
pants emphasized engineering practices, especially the engineering design process. They also raised
the nature of engineering, which had been addressed in their professional development. The teachers
rarely, however, mentioned engineering concepts. In each of these studies, the authors highlighted
the close reliance on engineering design processes and recommended that teacher educators need to
develop more nuanced views beyond engineering as problem solving.
Professional development for in-service elementary teachers. In addition to preservice education, there is
an urgent need to provide professional learning opportunities for many current teachers whose edu-
cation has not included engineering concepts, practices, or pedagogies. Porter et al. (2019) examined
how professional development afects current elementary teachers’ implementation of engineering.
Their study showed that teachers beneft from learning about engineering practices as well as instruc-
tional strategies. They also found that teachers are generally more willing to incorporate STEM into
their classroom if they are able to collaborate with other teachers. Finally, like Hammack and Ivey
(2019), they identifed the constraints that limited resources such as time, funding, materials, and
knowledge impose on engineering curricula implementation.
Case studies of individual teachers have been especially revealing. Cunningham and Kelly (2017b)
examined how an elementary teacher framed engineering practices for her students during an engi-
neering unit. Discourse analysis of the videotaped classroom implementation of the units revealed
how the teacher and students made sense of the engineering activity. The teacher modeled ways to
collect data, control variables, and deal with anomalies. Students were expected to work in social
groups to make sense of, share, and compare their data. They compared their results with others in
982
the classrooms; engaged in collective decision-making within their group; and shared, compared,
and analyzed data across groups in the class to inform redesign of solutions. Johnston et al. (2019)
also studied one middle school science teacher’s discourse as he framed an engineering design chal-
lenge and conveyed information to his students. They found that the teacher’s talk communicated
engineering practices, helped students integrate science, engineering, mathematics, and technology,
and highlighted the context of the problem.
Capobianco et al. (2018) applied tenets of ambitious teaching to describe how elementary teach-
ers taught science through engineering design. Working in fve teachers’ classrooms, they coded
observations of two engineering challenges. They found that teachers spent more time on some
design phases of the engineering design process than on others. The study’s detailed microanalyses
demonstrated a range of high-leverage practices, including eliciting students’ prior ideas during pro-
gram scoping and planning, encouraging students to engage in sense-making during construction
and testing, and supporting students as they shared and refected on their results and solutions.
Teaching new disciplines can be risky and challenging for teachers. Radlof et al. (2019) studied
risks that teachers encountered as they learned to teach science using engineering design. Classroom
observations, interviews, and teacher refections surfaced four types of risk: practical, pedagogical,
conceptual, and personal. The teachers’ length of engagement with engineering design and teaching
afected their concerns. Teachers new to engineering reported practical, pedagogical, and personal
risks. Teachers more familiar with engineering exhibited conceptual risk taking. Results suggest that
situating risk taking in a positive light and encouraging environments and collaborations that support
risk taking, can build teachers’ confdence and willingness to take risks related to engineering design.
In a detailed study, Capobianco et al. (2020) examined four elementary teachers’ sense-making
as they learned to integrate engineering design and science instruction. The teachers participated in
professional development that modeled high-leverage instructional strategies consistent with ambi-
tious teaching. The researchers observed teachers as they taught engineering design. They also con-
ducted pre- and post-content assessments for both science and engineering knowledge. They found
that all students’ scores increased, but students in classrooms whose teachers demonstrated high fdel-
ity of implementation performed particularly well on the assessment. The study also found that
teachers’ sense-making and instruction were infuenced by their experiences teaching engineering
design-based science, attentiveness to their students’ engagement during design, and their percep-
tions of the practices and strategies that are most relevant to the particular design tasks. The teachers’
instruction benefted from opportunities to refect and make sense of their practices as well as those
of their students.
Watkins et al. (2018) investigated elementary teachers’ responsive teaching – that is, when and
how they attended and meaningfully responded to students’ thinking. Their classroom observations,
interviews, and detailed video analysis in collaboration with teachers who had engaged in profes-
sional development surfaced a number of fndings. Teachers recognized the centrality of learners’ ideas
and reasoning in engineering design projects. They developed this understanding as learners during
engineering professional development sessions and applied it to their own students and classrooms by
expecting students to generate, pursue, and communicate their own ideas and designs. Students’ social
interactions prompted teachers to focus on students’ thinking and to hear and attend to the engineer-
ing in students’ discourse. Instructional contexts can shape how teachers engage with responsive teach-
ing. For example, various types of share-outs by students before, during, and after design encouraged
teachers to notice student thinking. Finally, they noted the role that the engineering design process can
play in either supporting or limiting what teachers notice about students’ thinking.
The open-ended nature of engineering problems means that students often generate new, unpre-
dictable ideas and solutions that place demands on teachers. Johnson et al. (2017) conducted clinical,
video-based interviews with six elementary teachers experienced in teaching engineering design
to explore what they noticed in their students’ thinking and how they responded. Overall, teachers
983
focused on how students understood and framed the problem and engaged in the engineering design
process. They also noticed the engineering work of their students and also how the students worked
and communicated with each other.
Lottero-Perdue and Parry (2017a, 2017b) conducted two in-depth explorations of elementary
teachers’ perceptions of failure, their messages to their students about failure, and their responses to
failure. Their two-year study concluded that the word “failure” continues to have negative connota-
tions in classrooms and showed that after two years of teaching engineering, teachers became more
comfortable supporting students through failure and using words associated with failure. Their inter-
views and surveys also surfaced an important fnding worthy of more exploration:
Teachers and some students were surprised when typically underperforming students per-
severed when faced with design failure and were able to devise smart designs. On the other
hand, teachers were sometimes surprised when usually high achieving students – perhaps
unaccustomed to truly being challenged when “the right answer” is neither apparent nor
exists – were frustrated or inclined to give up when design failure occurred. We fnd this
shift in the balance of power in the classroom to be interesting, and . . . a potentially fruitful
future research direction.
(p. 21)
Professional development for in-service high school teachers. Singer et al. (2016) explored the impacts of
a professional development institute on high school teachers’ integration of engineering. Researchers
coded classroom video and teacher logs to observe changes in teachers’ instruction. Before attending
the institute, video analysis indicated that teachers focused primarily on teaching steps of the design
process. A comparison of pre- and post-institute videos showed signifcant increases in multiple
RTOP scales (propositional and procedural knowledge and classroom culture). Qualitative fndings
showed that after the institute teachers were better able to
move classroom discourse from superfcial levels of the content to increased integration of
core scientifc ideas and engineering practice. . . . Teachers created an amicable climate that
encouraged students to posit their ideas and opinions. Thus, student communicative inter-
actions created a gateway for deeper scientifc acquisition and comprehension.
(p. 42)
In their focus group interview of a dozen teachers during a professional development seminar,
Sengupta-Irving and Mercado (2017) explored high school teachers’ conceptions of engineering.
They found that teachers recognized that the discipline of engineering regards failure as necessary
for success. Teachers also raised the possibility of engineering as a tool to challenge or expand class-
room norms. For example, they recognized that engineering could help link school learning and the
larger society. Teachers also identifed the possibilities of engineering design for disrupting procedural
learning in science, thus inverting which students were successful and why. They suggested that
teacher educators should help teachers connect cultural competencies and communities to engineer-
ing and challenge perceptions that engineering is an elite discipline.
Summary. Although a great majority of states now require that student learning opportunities
include engineering design alongside science inquiry, relatively few teachers feel confdent in teach-
ing students to develop engineering knowledge and practices, so there is a clear need for teacher
learning in this area. Research studies cited here have indicated that professional learning experiences
can have signifcant efects on teacher knowledge about engineering and pedagogical methods. Case
studies of individual teachers have been especially valuable in revealing changes in teaching behaviors.
Among important fndings are that professional learning has been efective at reducing a focus on
984
steps of the engineering design process, and increasing attention on student thinking and discourse,
application of scientifc concepts to design, persistence when faced by failure, and helping students
connect engineering activities with the needs of their communities and the larger society.
Future Directions
As engineering has made its way into standards and classrooms, research studies of K–12 engineering
education have proliferated and many studies have been published since the last Handbook of Research on
Science Education. Not surprisingly, the trajectory of K–12 engineering education has refected the pur-
poses for engineering education and helped to defne research terms and identify new methodologi-
cal approaches to instruction and measurement. A solid foundation of studies has demonstrated that
thoughtful integration of engineering and science instruction can improve student outcomes related
to both science and engineering knowledge and skills, as well as attitudes and identity. Such work
entails engaging students in epistemological practices that go beyond the eight practices of science and
engineering listed in the NGSS. Additionally, the feld is evolving, and prior assumptions about the
purposes of engineering education are being reconsidered. Meanwhile, professional development for
K–12 teachers is trying to catch up to the new standards, and research in this area is beginning to ramp
up as well. In each of these areas, we conclude with suggestions for future directions.
Teachers, teaching, and teacher education. Teachers are at the nexus of all eforts to improve engineer-
ing education. Whether in the classroom or in after-school or summer programs, successful learning
will only occur if youth are engaged in doing and thinking about engineering. Given the very low
levels of teacher confdence in their abilities to teach engineering, researchers need to prioritize stud-
ies that can identify the qualities of efective professional development that will help teachers develop
the knowledge and pedagogical skills needed for efective engineering education, as well as curricula,
assessment methods, and other essential supports.
Epistemic practices. Recent studies have revealed that a number of epistemic practices not articulated
in the NGSS are unique to engineering. Although some of these practices have provided the basis
for research studies, others have not yet been explored in educational settings. In our view, engineer-
ing education would beneft from a deep examination of the full range of epistemic practices. For
younger children, the interplay of knowledge about materials and their properties and how these
can guide design ideas deserve study. For older students, more needs to be learned about how to
encourage students to defne problems in terms of criteria and constraints, to generate and compare
potential solutions, and to apply the concept of tradeofs when balancing alternative criteria. More
knowledge is needed about how to help students, particularly middle and high school students, learn
to evaluate and critique design solutions and engage in iterative cycles of improvement.
Learning through social interactions. Existing research highlights the important role that social inter-
actions play in engineering design. More research is needed about how to help youth attend to
ideas from teammates and classmates as well as data from testing to optimize design solutions. Better
understanding of how to foster social interactions that are inclusive and that develop youth’s abilities
to consider alternative design ideas and perspectives have the potential to educate a more robust and
diverse next generation of collaborative problem solvers.
Cross-disciplinary integration. Several studies suggest that engineering is a motivating experience
that can help students integrate disciplinary content from a variety of felds. Especially when lessons
are carefully designed and scafolds are used to make connections explicit, engineering design and
analysis can be a unifying organizational tool for integrating not only science but also mathematics,
social studies, English language arts, and other disciplines. Well-planned research studies could pro-
vide guidelines for developing efective integrated curricula.
Meaningful contexts. More work is needed to understand how to help students situate their designs
in their local communities, as well as in larger social, economic, environmental, and political contexts.
985
Framing engineering challenges in appropriate ways can have a benefcial efect on student motiva-
tion. For example, girls are more likely to engage with technical knowledge when situated in mean-
ingful contexts.
Reconsidering the purposes of engineering education. We have found the collection of studies that are
reconsidering the purposes of engineering education to be refreshing. Youth should consider the
impacts, future and past, positive and negative, of engineering on their lives, communities, and soci-
ety. Situating engineering, as well as technology, more frmly in their societal contexts and learning
knowledge not only of engineering but also about engineering is important to advance equity and
issues of social justice. Early work related to engineering and social justice has begun in recent years.
Theoretical and empirical work call for a deeper examination of current conceptions of the reasons
for the recent reforms. Responses to the recent studies, and additional “outside the box” thinking
will help to enrich and renew the feld. Such work needs to be continued as part of eforts to create
more equitable STEM educational environments and a more just society.
Equity and inclusion. Engaging with epistemic practices, learning through social interactions,
exploring cross-disciplinary integration, situation work in meaningful contexts, and examining the
purposes for and impacts of engineering are all promising strategies for creating educational settings
where all students can belong, contribute, and learn. There is a dire need to engage more females and
youth from marginalized populations in the world of engineering. Their voices, talents, and perspec-
tives need to be represented in academia to improve educational methods and systems; in industry
and business to create better designs, processes, and systems; and in communities and government to
formulate public policy and establish funding priorities. Many of the studies reviewed in this chapter
have made attempts to address fundamental issues of equity and inclusion, but much more work is
needed. Next steps for the feld include how diferent kinds of experiences afect diferent popula-
tions of students and the ways that sociocultural views of identity intersect with the lived experiences
of students. As engineering education research continues, it needs to examine which features of
instruction are working and for whom and which may have deleterious impacts.
Conclusion
Recalling the historical perspective raised at the beginning of this chapter, it is perhaps worth asking
whether engineering will remain a critical component of the nation’s aspirations for universal science
education, or if science teaching will return, after a few more years, to business as usual. The answer to
that question will depend in part on how researchers choose to direct their energies. Engineering as a
part of science will deepen and grow if educational researchers fnd that there are signifcant benefts
to the new approach, discover which instructional methods are most efective, and how to reduce the
barriers faced by girls and children from underrepresented ethnic and racial groups and communities of
poverty to engage in engineering and the other STEM felds at all levels of our educational system, both
to expand their horizons as engaged and efective citizens, and to serve the needs of society at large.
Note
* According to the US Congressional Research Service, in 2016 there were 6.9 million scientists and engineers
employed in the United States; 57.6% of those were employed in computer operations, 23.6% in engineering
occupations, 8.4% in management positions, and 7.9% in science occupations (Sargent, 2017).
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31
REVIEW OF RESEARCH
ABOUT SCIENCE EDUCATION
PROGRAM EVALUATION
Introduction
This chapter provides an overview of science education program evaluation since 2014, when the
prior Handbook of Research on Science Education was published. It begins with an overview of current
trends in science education programming and in evaluation. This is followed by a review of the
research conducted on science education program evaluation. In other words, research specifcally
about how to improve evaluation approaches and techniques used in evaluating science education
programs. It does not consider evaluations of science education programs per se because research
on those topics is covered in other chapters. Hence, this chapter could be considered narrow in its
scope. Nevertheless, there is an exceptional amount of interest in science education evaluation at the
governmental level, and it plays a vital role in funding science education.
The prior chapter provided a strong background on evaluation for the science education com-
munity. This included discussion of evaluation defnitions, philosophies, and developments. Difer-
ent models and guidelines for conducting science education program evaluations were reviewed.
Additionally, the funding patterns and accountability standards for science education programs were
considered in light of their efects on science education programming. This chapter will update those
considerations where necessary and move on to present new research on evaluation as well as new
aspects of funding. The chapter also presents brief overviews of the trends in science education and
in evaluation so that the trends in science education evaluation can be understood in context. The
concluding discussion will raise questions for the future of science education evaluation practice and
theory.
Overview of Trends in Science Education

This overview presents brief comments outlining the several diferent trends in science education
because science education evaluation generally follows from what is being theorized and imple-
mented by the science education community. The notion of STEM (science, technology, engineer-
ing, and mathematics) has become ubiquitous, and prior discussion about what the integration might
mean has become less prominent. Engineering and computer science fgure much more prominently
in the science education rhetoric. A recent review by Martin-Paez et al. (2019) showed that the theo-
retical frameworks used normally focus more on the variables that are the object of the study than
on STEM education, and that there are multiple interpretations of what STEM education is, and
993 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-36

these interpretations do usually involve the integrated appearance of the four disciplines that make
up the acronym. Another recent review presents trends in Latin America (Medina-Jerez, 2018). This
showed that the history, philosophy, and nature of science was the most popular topic and empirical
qualitative studies were the most frequent research methodology. The study also suggested a relation-
ship between scholarly productivity and the amount of funding for research and development.
There has been emphasis in science education in several areas, including diversity and equity,
broadening participation of underrepresented groups, informal science education settings, argumen-
tation, and learning progressions, among other things. In particular, in terms of the frst two trends
is the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) INCLUDES initiative (Inclusion across the Nation of
Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science). NSF has
always been committed to broadening the participation in STEM of such underrepresented groups
as women, people of color, people with disabilities, and others from marginalized communities.
However, given prominence as one of NSF’s Ten Big Ideas (www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/big_
ideas/), and spanning the entire Foundation, INCLUDES seeks to make systemic change regarding
equity in STEM at a scale that has not been accomplished before. The initiative leverages the collec-
tive impact approach and encourages collaboration among various STEM education stakeholders in
order to infuence change – collaborations among institutions of higher education, K–12 education,
informal science institutions, community colleges, industry, local community groups, and more have
been funded to address the need for equity and inclusion in STEM.
Another trend is that there has been considerable emphasis on workforce and how STEM achieve-
ment would enhance future careers and fnancial gain. National movements include the expanded
implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards Framework (NGSS) (NRC, 2012) and
the revision of the Advanced Placement (AP) program of curriculum and examinations. An analysis
of the values incorporated in the NGSS (Hoeg & Bencze, 2017) showed that they were designed
to address poor science and math performance in US schools by inculcating globally competitive
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics literacies relevant to participation in future soci-
ety. The critical discourse analysis indicated that the NGSS prioritizes measurable and reproducible
performances. The standards appear to be based on a conception of accessibility closely aligned with
equality and self-investment, and innovation and creativity are discursively constituted as attributes
that can be developed through specifc, prescribed practices.
The redesigned AP science curriculum heavily promotes opportunities for students for scientifc
inquiry, reasoning, and depth of understanding in favor of rote learning, memorization, and algo-
rithmic procedures (Fischer et al., 2018). The AP program conceptualized numerous key discipline-
based concepts and content as “Big Ideas” and established a number of key “Science Practices” that
are of importance to students across all science disciplines. Science education is also continuing to
become more internationalized. Early reviews (Namdar & Shen, 2015; Taylor et al., 2016) of themes
in science education research showed that the themes included that many impact study designs were
not conducive to quantitative synthesis, reporting practices of studies were often insufcient for
inclusion in research synthesis, and very few replications were performed. This was a complement to
the more general discussion about replicability of research in the social science research community.
There has been emphasis on the international comparisons of TIMSS and PISA. The latest ver-
sion of TIMSS trends and PISA results are available from 2020 (https://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss-
landing.html) and 2018 (www.oecd.org/pisa/), respectively. The diferent analyses of these data show
that there was interest in inquiry skills, scientifc literacy, and epistemological dispositions. An analysis
in 2019 of performance of students in Taiwan was conducted using diferent analyses (She et al.,
2019). Cluster analysis results demonstrated the presence of four clusters of high, medium, low,
and inferior scientifc literacy/epistemology/afective dispositions. Specifcally, students in cluster
1 compared with other clusters showed that the higher the scientifc literacy scores are, the more
positive epistemic beliefs about science, achievement motivation, enjoyment of science, interests in
994
Review of Research About Science Education Program Evaluation
broad science, science self-efcacy, information and communications technology (ICT) interest, ICT
autonomy, more learning time, more teacher supports, and teacher-directed instructions are. Regres-
sion results indicated that the most robust predictor of students’ scientifc literacy performance is epis-
temic beliefs about science, followed by learning time, interest in broad science topics, achievement
motivation, inquiry-based science teaching and learning practice, and science self-efcacy.
Overview of Trends in Evaluation

This section presents brief descriptions of the various trends within evaluation overall not specif-
cally within science education. The feld of evaluation has been moving toward internationalization
as well. Professional evaluation societies cover the globe, and there is substantial interaction among
them. The International Organization for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE) endeavors to coordi-
nate work among evaluation associations, particularly with regard to ethical principles and standards,
professionalization, and infuence on international development funders. International development
agencies – like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank,
the Department for International Development (DFID) in the UK, and EuropeAid in the European
Union – that provide funding for developmental work throughout the world are more and more
interested in accountability and in improving their programming on all fronts. There has been a push
from the United Nations (UN) to have international development initiatives assess against the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). The interest is in evaluation writ
large not generally focused on science education per se, though, for example, there are SDGs that are
relevant to science education, such as the Quality Education and Gender Equality goals. Coryn et al.
(2017) published an older review of research, which found that the majority of research on evalua-
tion published in evaluation-focused journals consisted of descriptive studies and, to a lesser extent,
comparative studies of evaluation practices.
Impact evaluation has been particularly prominent in Europe and the UK and often attached
with the market for evaluation work. Vo and Christie (2018) discuss some of the tensions from an
international conference about the demand for meaningful data and evidence the need for analytic
capacity and measurement challenges. Suggested solutions included creating space for meaning-
ful discourse, representing diverse stakeholder perspectives, building intersectional communities of
practice, and leveraging evaluative thinking. The evaluation market in England over the past 20 years
was discussed by Davies et al. (2018) where they discuss barriers and required skills. They also point
out the growth of the development of various types of collaborations and emergence of small-scale
evaluation companies. Nielsen et al. (2018) discuss the market in the United States and the increase
in interest in the consumer perspective.
Evaluation as a feld has been interested in defning what should or should not be required of a
“professional evaluator.” Recent views of these discussions are presented by Donaldson (2019). His
results showed that American Evaluation Association (AEA) members view potential benefts of
professionalization to be stakeholder trust, evaluator reputation, and identity, while concerns about a
potential negative side efect known as the “narrowing efect” (i.e., some evaluators will be alienated
based on their background, competencies, etc.) were expressed by participants.
In 2018, AEA ratifed a revised version of the Ethical Guiding Principles for Evaluators, which
includes reworked principles that hone the focus on equity and the common good and clarify the
association’s commitment to evaluation that is culturally responsive, respectful of all participants, and
designed and implemented by competent evaluators systematically and with integrity (www.eval.
org/p/cm/ld/fd=51).
Also ratifed by the AEA membership in 2018 were the AEA Evaluator Competencies, validated
guidance on evaluator practices and the competencies that support those practices. Developed over
time with the input of multiple evaluation stakeholder groups, and validated through a thorough
995
research process, these competencies dovetail with the revised Ethical Guiding Principles for Evalua-
tors to ofer new and experienced evaluators a framework for ethical, competent evaluation practice
(www.eval.org/About/Guiding-Principles).
In the last few years, more publications, presentations, and conversations have focused on cultur-
ally responsive evaluation. A new and more focused framing of equitable evaluation (www.equitable-
eval.org/) has emerged, particularly among evaluators who work with philanthropies. The increases
in attendance at the Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation’s (CREA) bi-annual conference
(and more formal relationships with AEA and other evaluation and assessment associations) as well
as publications such as a special section in the American Journal of Evaluation titled “Race and Evalua-
tion” (Bledsoe, 2018) and recent New Directions in Evaluation issues, such as “Indigenous Evaluation”
(2018) and “Examining Issues Facing Communities of Color Today: The Role of Evaluation to
Incite Change” (2020). Rather than focusing on cultural issues that exist in the contextual landscape
of programs and projects, these recent publications focus on the ways in which the evaluation feld
and evaluators need to address issues of race, inclusion, and equity in evaluation practices in order
to both bring more equity to the evaluation feld and ensure stronger, more culturally responsive,
and thus more valid, evaluations. While these authors and infuencers are not specifcally focused on
STEM evaluation, more and more STEM education funders are looking for evaluators who under-
stand and address these issues.
Where culturally responsive and equitable evaluation meet the STEM education landscape is in
such programs as NSF’s INCLUDES, described earlier, and other longstanding investments in equity,
diversity, and broadening participation in STEM. These investments have demanded new evaluation
approaches, including shared measures systems across grantees, and the important understanding
that evaluations need to be responsive to the communities and contexts these projects are looking
to change. Advances in evaluation catalyzed by INCLUDES have infuenced evaluations applied
to other related NSF programs. And a federal agency working group to advance collaboration and
learning related to broadening participation has created a conduit for advancing evaluation research
and practice related to broadening participation as well.
Advances in the evaluation of informal STEM education experiences have been made in the last
fve years as well, including further articulation of the informal environment’s contributions to a
STEM “learning ecosystem” (Allen & Peterman, 2019), the advancement of what have been called
“unobtrusive” or “embedded” data-collection methods (Fu et al., 2019) – activities that double
as learning experiences and data-collection opportunities; more work on the conceptualization of
engagement, motivation, and what is now referred to as STEM identity development or “activa-
tion”; shared measures for informal STEM programs and projects that advance knowledge in the
feld (Grack Nelson et al., 2019); and a honed focus on equity within informal learning spaces
(Garibay & Teasdale, 2019). An expanded notion of evaluation capacity building, including not only
evaluators but other professionals within informal STEM institutions and associated with informal
STEM programs, supports advancement of not only evaluation approaches and methods but of
evaluation use (Bequette et al., 2019).
Review Methodology
An extensive review was conducted to locate material that might be relevant to this review. A variety
of methods were used to try and cover the diferent sources of information. Web searches played a
prominent role because that is the information most accessible to the educational community. Web-
sites also showcase information about governmental programming and the results of government-
funded programs (at least in the United States). List serves and online community posts were also
considered as sources of trends and discussions in the feld. Key search terms included “science cur-
riculum evaluation,” “evaluating science curriculum,” “research on science curriculum evaluation,”
996
“physics curriculum evaluation,” and “chemistry curriculum evaluation.” Furthermore, the term
“curriculum” was replaced with “education” for additional searches.
A check of the existing literature was also conducted by going through the titles of all the articles
published between 2015 and 2020 for several prominent evaluation and science education journals.
Evaluation journals included American Journal of Evaluation, Evaluation and Program Planning, Evalua-
tion, and New Directions in Evaluation. Science education journals included Science Education, Studies
in Science Education, International Journal of Science and Mathematics, Journal of Research in Science Teach-
ing, American Educational Research Journal, and Review of Educational Research. If the title suggested the
article might be related to research about science education evaluation, the article was obtained and
the abstract read to determine its appropriateness for inclusion. There was also a more traditional
literature search. In February 2020, a literature search was conducted in both ERIC (via EBSCO)
and Education Source to locate studies on this topic that have been published since 2015. This was
repeated in December 2020, as were the individual journal searches to obtain the most recent pub-
lications. The search was limited to only peer-reviewed publications and utilized relevant subject
headings (e.g., Science Education) to seek studies with a combination of the following terms in
either the titles or abstracts: Science OR STEM OR Physics OR Chemistry AND Evaluation OR
Assessment AND Model OR Instrument OR Validity Or “Observational Protocol”. As discussed,
there was limited information related directly to research about science program evaluation. The
literature search was restricted to sources in English and generally within the US context. The refer-
ences included in all sections are meant to be exemplary of the range of material available, not neces-
sarily exhaustive. All articles that addressed science education evaluation were included. The titles
and abstracts were read, and if the articles appeared to be relevant the article was read to determine if
the references were appropriate to include.
The literature on research about science education evaluation, including 150 articles, was clas-
sifed into several groups, as included in Table 31.1. The main group of research about evaluation
was the development, improvement, or validation of assessment instruments, or 87 articles. In addi-
tion to these studies, there were references on the history of research, which were used to write
the two sections on trends in science education and evaluation. These references are included at
the end of the chapter, not in the table. The remaining literature was classifed as being related to
political issues or the value of evaluation (3 articles), research about the improvement of evaluation
(26 articles), research about evaluations of programs or curricula (16 articles), and reactions to what
was learned through evaluation (18 articles). The research on assessment instruments in Table 31.1
was categorized into nine groups: general learning/inquiry (19 articles), attitudes or perceptions (11
articles), elementary school (8 articles), biology/life science (6 articles), chemistry (8 articles), physics
or physical science (7 articles), higher education (12 articles), engineering (6 articles), and teacher
skills (10 articles). There is overlap in these categories. Each reference was categorized into the area
that seemed most relevant and used only once.
Table 31.1 References Related to Science Education Program Evaluation
References Related to the Political or Values Nature of Science Education Program Evaluation (3)
Azzam, T., & Levine, B. (2015). Politics in evaluation: Politically responsive evaluation in high stakes
environments. Evaluation and Program Planning, 53, 44–56.
Coryn, C., Ozeki, S., Wilson, L., Greenman II, G., Schroter, D., Hobson, K., Azzam, T., & Vo, A. (2016).
Does research on evaluation matter? Findings from a survey of American Evaluation Association members
and prominent evaluation theorists and scholars. American Journal of Evaluation, 37(2), 159–173.
Şahin, M. G., & Öztürk, N. B. (2018). How classroom assessment afects science and mathematics achievement:
Findings from TIMSS 2015. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 10(5), 559–569.
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Table 31.1 (Continued)
References Related to Improving Evaluation, Diferent Methods of Assessment, and Comparison of Types of
Evaluation (26)
Cardozo-Gaibisso, L., Kim, S., Buxton, C., and Cohen, A. (2019). Thinking beyond the score:
Multidimensional analysis of student performance to inform the next generation of science assessments.
Journal of Research in Science Teaching. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21611
Chang, H.-Y., Lin, T.-J., Lee, M.-H., Lee, S. W.-Y., Lin, T.-C., Tan, A.-L., & Tsai, C.-C. (2020). A
systematic review of trends and fndings in research employing drawing assessment in science education.
Studies in Science Education, 56(1), 77–110. doi:10.1080/03057267.2020.1735822
Cohen, D., & Sasson, I. (2016). Online quizzes in a virtual learning environment as a tool for formative
assessment. Journal of Technology and Science Education, 6(3), 188–208.
Conoyer, S. J., Ford, J. W., Smith, R. A., Mason, E. N., Lembke, E. S., & Hosp, J. L. (2019). Examining
Curriculum-Based Measurement Screening Tools in Middle School Science: A Scaled Replication Study.
Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 37(7), 887–898.
Downes, A., Novicki, E., & Howard, J. (2018). Using the contribution analysis approach to evaluate science
impact: A case study of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. American Journal of
Evaluation, 40(2), 177–189.
Federer, M. R., Nehm, R. H., Opfer, J. E., & Pearl, D. (2015). Using a constructed-response instrument
to explore the efects of item position and item features on the assessment of students’ written scientifc
explanations. Research in Science Education, 45(4), 527–553.
Fina, A. D. (2020). Rater Agreement in Alignment Studies. Educational Measurement: Issues & Practice, 39(2),
36–37. doi:10.1111/emip.12338
Grack Nelson, A., King, J., Lawrenz, F., Reich, C., Bequette, M., Pattison, S., Kunz Kollmann, E., Illes,
M., Cohn, S., Iacovelli, S., Cardiel, C., Ostgaard, G., Goss, J., Beyer, M., Causey, L., Anne Sinkey, A., &
Francisco, M. (2018). Using a complex adaptive systems perspective to illuminate the concept of evaluation
capacity building in a network. American Journal of Evaluation, 40(2), 214–230.
Hartell, E., & Strimel, G. J. (2019). What Is It Called and How Does It Work: Examining Content Validity and
Item Design of Teacher-Made Tests. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 29(4), 781–802.
Harwell, M., Moreno, M., Phillips, A., Guzey, S., Moore, T., & Roehrig, G. (2015). A study of STEM
assessments in engineering, science, and mathematics for elementary and middle school students. School
Science & Mathematics, 115(2), 66–74.
Hild, P., Gut, C., & Brückmann, M. (2019). Validating performance assessments: measures that may help to
evaluate students’ expertise in ‘doing science’. Research in Science & Technological Education, 37(4), 419–445.
doi:10.1080/02635143.2018.1552851
Knell, J., Wilhoite, A., Fugate, J., & González-Espada, W. (2015). Using item response theory to improve
locally-constructed multiple choice tests: Measuring knowledge gains and curricular efectiveness. Electronic
Mack, M. R., Hensen, C., & Barbera, J. (2019). Metrics and methods used to compare student performance
data in chemistry education research articles. Journal of Chemical Education, 96(3), 401–413.
Maker, C. J. (2020). Culturally Responsive Assessments of Spatial Analytical Skills and Abilities: Development,
Field Testing, and Implementation. Journal of Advanced Academics, 31(3), 234–253
Martínez Abad, F., & Chaparro Caso López, A. (2017). Data-mining techniques in detecting factors linked to
academic achievement. School Efectiveness & School Improvement, 28(1), 39–55.
Planinic, M., Boone, W., Susac, A., & Ivanjek, L. (2019). Rasch analysis in physics education research: Why
measurement matters. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 15(2). http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/
login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid&db=eric&AN=EJ12211
88&site=ehost-live
Scalise, K., & Clarke-Midura, J. (2018). The many faces of scientifc inquiry: Efectively measuring what
students do and not only what they say. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 55(10), 1469–1496.
Smith, T. I., Louis, K. J., Ricci, B. J. I. V., & Bendjilali, N. (2020). Quantitatively Ranking Incorrect
Responses to Multiple-Choice Questions Using Item Response Theory. Physical Review Physics Education
Research, 16(1).
Spybrook, J., Zhang, Q., Kelcey, and Dong, N. (2020). Learning from Cluster Randomized Trials in
Education: An Assessment of the Capacity of Studies to Determine What Works, for Whom, and Under What
Conditions. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373720929018
Sussman, J., & Wilson, M. (2019). The use and validity of standardized achievement tests for evaluating new
curricular interventions in mathematics and science. American Journal of Evaluation, 40(2), 190–213.
998
Trochim, W., & McLinden, D. (2017). Introduction to a special issue on concept mapping. Evaluation and
Program Planning, 60, 166–175.
Westine, C. (2016). Finding efciency in the design of large multisite evaluations: Estimating variances for
science achievement studies. American Journal of Evaluation, 37(3), 311–325.
Wilcox, B., Zwickl, B, Hobbs, R., Aiken, J., Welch, N., & Lewandowski, H. J. (2016). Alternative Model
for Administration and Analysis of Research-Based Assessments. Physical Review Physics Education Research,
12(1), 010139.
Williams, T. O., Jr., Ernst, J. V., Kelly, D. P., & Clark, A. C. (2019). Confrmatory Factor Analyses of the
PSVT: R with Data from Engineering Design Graphics Students. Engineering Design Graphics Journal, 83,
27–34.
Xiao, Y., Fritchman, J. C., Bao, J. Y., Nie, Y., Han, J., Xiong, J., . . . Bao, L. (2019). Linking and Comparing
Short and Full-Length Concept Inventories of Electricity and Magnetism Using Item Response Theory.
Physical Review Physics Education Research, 15, (2).
Xiao, Y., Xu, G., Han, J., Xiao, H., Xiong, J., & Bao, L. (2020). Assessing the Longitudinal Measurement
Invariance of the Force Concept Inventory and the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism.
Physical Review Physics Education Research, 16, (2).
References Related to Evaluations of Science Education Programs and Curricula (16)
Alemdar, M., Cappelli, C., Criswell, B., & Rushton, G. (2018). Evaluation of a Noyce program: Development
of teach leaders in STEM education. Evaluation and Program Planning, 71, 1–11.
Aftska, O., & Heaton, T. (2019). Mitigating the efect of language in the assessment of science: A study of
English-language learners in primary classrooms in the United Kingdom. Science Education, 103(6), 1396–
1422.
Asghar, A., Huang, Y.-S., Elliott, K., & Skelling, Y. (2019). Exploring Secondary Students’ Alternative
Conceptions about Engineering Design Technology. Education Sciences, 9.
Boone, W., Townsend, J., & Staver, J. (2016). Utilizing multifaceted Rasch measurement through FACETS to
evaluate science education data sets composed of judges, respondents, and rating scale items: An exemplar
utilizing the Elementary Science Teaching Analysis Matrix instrument. Science Education, 100(2), 221–238.
Carnoy, M. Khavenson, T., & Loyalka, P. (2016). Revisiting the relationship between international assessment
outcomes and educational production: Evidence from a longitudinal PISA-TIMSS sample. American
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Curran, F., & Kitchin, J. (2019). Why are the early elementary race/ethnicity test score gaps in science larger
than those in reading or mathematics? National evidence on the importance of language and immigration
context in explaining the gap-in-gaps. Science Education, 103(3), 477–502. https://doi.org/10.1002/
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Falk, J., & Needham, M. (2015). Utilizing indicator-based methods: ‘Measuring the impact of a science center
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Furtak, M. (2017). Confronting dilemmas posed by three-dimensional classroom assessment: Introduction to a
virtual issue of Science Education. Science Education, 101(5), 854–867.
Gibbons, R., & Raker, J. (2019). Self-beliefs in organic chemistry: Evaluation of a reciprocal causation, cross-
lagged model. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 56(5), 598–618.
Green, A., Brand, B., & Glasson, G. (2018). Applying actor – network theory to identify factors contributing
to nonpersistence of African American students in STEM majors. Science Education, 103(2), 241–263.
Haesakul, P., Pasiphol, S., & Tuksino, P. (2016). A Quality Assessment of Science Educational Administration
in the ASEAN Community. International Journal of Assessment & Evaluation, 23(3), 11–22.
Jagannathan R., Camasso, M., & Delacalle, M. (2018). The efectiveness of a head-heart-hands model for
natural and environmental science learning in urban schools. Evaluation and Program Planning, 66, 53–62.
Kruit, P., Oostdam, R., van den Berg, E., & Schuitema, J. (2018). Assessing students’ ability in performing
scientifc inquiry: Instruments for measuring science skills in primary education. Research in Science &
Technological Education, 36(4), 413–439.
Lewis, K. M., & Worker, S. M. (2015). Examination of Attitude and Interest Measures for 4-H Science
Evaluation. Journal of Extension, 53(3). http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.
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Mutegi, J., Sorge, B., Fore, G., & Gibau, G. (2019). A tale of two camps: A mixed methods investigation into
racially disparate outcomes in a nanotechnology research experience. Science Education, 103(6), 1456–1477.
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Pascua, L., & Chang, C. (2015). Using intervention-oriented evaluation to diagnose and correct students’
persistent climate change misconceptions: A Singapore case study. Evaluation and Program Planning, 52,
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Boyce, A. (2017). Lessons learned using a values-engaged approach to attend to culture, diversity, and equity
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C., Iacovelli, S., Eliou, G., Causey, L., Sinkey, A., Beyer, M., & Francisco, M. (2018). Promoting evaluation
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INSTRUMENTS
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1315. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21328
Summers, R., Wang, S., Abd-El-Khalick, F., & Said, Z. (2019). Comparing Likert scale functionality across
culturally and linguistically diverse groups in science education research: An illustration using Qatari
students’ responses to an attitude toward science survey. International Journal of Science and Mathematics
Education, 17(5), 885–903.
Staus, N., Lesseig, K., Lamb, R., Falk, J., and Dierking, L. (2020). Validation of a measure of STEM interest
for adolescents. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 18, 279–293.
Summers, R., & Abd-El-Khalick, F. (2017). Development and validation of an instrument to assess student
attitudes toward science across grades 5 through 10. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 55(2), 172–205.
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Douglas, K., & Strobel, J. (2015). Hopes and goals survey for use in STEM elementary education. International
Journal of Technology & Design Education, 25(2), 245–259.
Erdimez, O., Tan, S., & Zimmerman, R. (2017). The use of concept maps as a tool to measure higher level
thinking skills in elementary school science classes. Journal for the Education of Gifted Young Scientists, 5(2), 1–20.
Koul, R., Fraser, B., Maynard, N., & Tade, M. (2018). Evaluation of engineering and technology activities
in primary schools in terms of learning environment, attitudes and understanding. Learning Environments
Research, 21(2), 285–300.
Lin, S., Liu, Y., Chen, S., Wang, J., & Kao, H. (2016). Elementary School Students’ Science Talk Ability
in Inquiry-Oriented Settings in Taiwan: Test Development, Verifcation, and Performance Benchmarks.
International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 14(7), 1199–1214.
Osterhaus, C., Koerber, S., & Sodian, B. (2020). The Science-P Reasoning Inventory (SPR-I): Measuring
Emerging Scientifc-Reasoning Skills in Primary School. International Journal of Science Education, 42(7),
1087–1107.
Sánchez-Rivas, E., Ruiz-Palmero, J., & Sánchez-Rodríguez, J. (2019). Gamifcation of assessments in the
natural sciences subject in primary education. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 19(1), 95–111.
Tas, Y. Sungur, S., & Oztekin, C. (2016). Development and validation of science homework scale for middle-
school students. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 14(3), 417–444.
Yang, Y., He, P., & Liu, X. (2018). Validation of an instrument for measuring students’ understanding of
interdisciplinary science in grades 4–8 over multiple semesters: A Rasch measurement study. International
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Couch, B. A., Wright, C. D., Freeman, S., Knight, J. K., Semsar, K., Smith, M. K., . . . Brownell, S. E.
(2019). GenBio-MAPS: A Programmatic Assessment to Measure Student Understanding of “Vision and
Change” Core Concepts across General Biology Programs. CBE – Life Sciences Education, 18(1).
Hernandez-Matias, L., Llerandi-Román, P. A., Pérez-Donato, L., Calzada-Jorge, N., Mendoza, S., Laureano-
Torre, F., . . . Borrero, M. (2019). Spanish-Language Version of the Science Identity Survey (SISE):
Translation, Cultural Adaptation, and Evaluation. Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 45(3), 3–13.
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interest in the health sciences: Development and validation of a new measurement tool. CBE – Life Sciences
Education, 15(2). http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct
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Scherer, R. (2017). Quest for the holy grail of validity in science assessments: A comment on Kampa and
Köller (2016) “German national profciency scales in biology: Internal structure, relations to general
cognitive abilities and verbal skills.” Science Education, 101(5), 845–853. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21278
Todd, A., Romine, W., & Whitt, C. (2016). Development and validation of the Learning Progression – Based
Assessment of Modern Genetics in a high school context. Science Education, 101(1), 32–65. https://doi.
org/10.1002/sce.21252
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Breakall, J., Randles, C., & Tasker, R. (2019). Development and Use of a Multiple-Choice Item Writing
Flaws Evaluation Instrument in the Context of General Chemistry. Chemistry Education Research and Practice,
20(2), 369–382.
Danczak, S. M., Thompson, C. D., & Overton, T. L. (2020). Development and Validation of an Instrument
to Measure Undergraduate Chemistry Students’ Critical Thinking Skills. Chemistry Education Research and
Practice, 21(1), 62–78.
Harsh, J. (2016). Designing performance-based measures to assess the scientifc thinking skills of chemistry
undergraduate researchers. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 17(4), 808–817.
Liu, Y., Ferrell, B., Barbera, J., & Lewis, J. E. (2017). Development and evaluation of a chemistry-specifc
version of the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS-Chemistry). Chemistry Education Research and Practice,
18(1), 191–213.
Özalp, D., & Kahveci, A. (2015). Diagnostic Assessment of Student Misconceptions about the Particulate
Nature of Matter from Ontological Perspective. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 16(3), 619–639.
Raker, J., Gibbons, R., & Cruz-Ramierez de Arellano, D. (2018). Development and evaluation of the organic
chemistry-specifc achievement emotions questionnaire (AEQ-OCHEM). Journal of Research in Science
Sadhu, S., & Laksono, E. (2018). Development and validation of an integrated assessment for measuring
critical thinking and chemical literacy in chemical equilibrium. International Journal of Instruction, 11(3),
557–572.
Stephenson, N. S., Dufy, E. M., Day, E. L., Padilla, K., Herrington, D. G., Cooper, M. M., & Carmel, J. H.
(2020). Development and Validation of Scientifc Practices Assessment Tasks for the General Chemistry
Laboratory. Journal of Chemical Education, 97(4), 884–893.
Tan, K. C. D., Taber, K. S., Liew, Y. Q., & Teo, K. L. A. (2019). A Web-Based Ionisation Energy Diagnostic
Instrument: Exploiting the Afordances of Technology. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 20(2),
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Alfaiz, F. S., Pease, R., & Maker, C. J. (2020). Culturally Responsive Assessment of Physical Science Skills and
Abilities: Development, Field Testing, Implementation, and Results. Journal of Advanced Academics, 31(3),
298–328.
Haeruddin, Prasetyo, Z. K., & Supahar. (2020). The Development of a Metacognition Instrument for College
Students to Solve Physics Problems. International Journal of Instruction, 13(1), 767–782.
Haeruddin, Prasetyo, Z. K., Supahar, Sesa, E., & Lembah, G. (2020). Psychometric and Structural Evaluation
of the Physics Metacognition Inventory Instrument. European Journal of Educational Research, 9(1), 215–225.
Hofer, S. I., Schumacher, R., & Rubin, H. (2017). The Test of Basic Mechanics Conceptual Understanding
(BMCU): Using Rasch analysis to develop and evaluate an efcient multiple choice test on Newton’s
mechanics. International Journal of STEM Education, 4. http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid&db=eric&AN=EJ1181899&site=
ehost-live
(Continued)
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Tiruneh, D., De Cock, M., Weldeslassie, A., Elen, J., & Janssen, R. (2017). Measuring critical thinking in
physics: Development and validation of a critical thinking test in electricity and magnetism. International
Wilcox, B. R., & Pollock, S. J. (2015). Validation and Analysis of the Coupled Multiple Response Colorado
Upper-Division Electrostatics Diagnostic. Physical Review Special Topics – Physics Education Research, 11(2),
020130–020131.
Wind, S., & Gale, J. (2015). Diagnostic opportunities using Rasch measurement in the context of a
misconceptions-based physical science assessment. Science Education, 99(4), 721–741. https://doi.
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Aciksoz, A., Ozkan, Y., & Dokme, I. (2020). Adaptation of the STEM Value-Expectancy Assessment Scale to
Turkish Culture. International Journal of Assessment Tools in Education, 7(2), 177–190.
Barrie, S., Bucat, R., Buntine, M., Burke da Silva, K., Crisp, G., George, A., Jamie, I., Kable, S., Lim,
K., Pyke, S., Read, J., Sharma, M., & Yeung, A. (2015). Development, evaluation and use of a student
experience survey in undergraduate science laboratories: The Advancing Science by Enhancing Learning
in the Laboratory Student Laboratory Learning Experience Survey. International Journal of Science Education,
37(11), 1795–1814.
Benjamin, T., Marks, B., Demetrikopoulos, M., Rose, J., Pollard, E., Thomas, A., & Muldrow, L. (2017).
Development and validation of scientifc literacy scale for college preparedness in STEM with freshmen
from diverse institutions. International Journal of Science & Mathematics Education, 15(4), 607–623.
Gray, J., Brown, M., & Connolly, J. (2017). Examining construct validity of the Quantitative Literacy VALUE
Rubric in college-level STEM assignments. Research & Practice in Assessment, 12, 20–31.
Hora, M. (2015). Toward a descriptive science of teaching: How the TDOP illuminates the multidimensional
nature of active learning in postsecondary classrooms. Science Education, 99(5), 783–818. https://doi.
org/10.1002/sce.21175
Kalinowski, S., & Willoughby, S. (2019). Development and validation of a scientifc (formal) reasoning test for
college students. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 56(9), 1269–1284. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21555
Kang, J., Keinonen, T., Simon, S., Rannikmäe, M., Soobard, R., & Direito, I. (2019). Scenario Evaluation
with Relevance and Interest (SERI): Development and validation of a scenario measurement tool for
context-based learning. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 17(7), 1317–1338.
Liu, J., St. John, K., & Courtier, A. (2017). Development and validation of an assessment instrument for
course experience in a general education integrated science course. Journal of Geoscience Education, 65(4),
435–454.
Lu, H., Jiang, Y., & Bi, H. (2020). Development of a Measurement Instrument to Assess Students’ Profciency
Levels Regarding Galvanic Cells. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 21(2), 655–667.
Summers, M., Couch, B., Knight, J., Brownell, S., Crowe, A., Semsar, K., Wright, C., & Smith, M. (2018).
EcoEvo-MAPS: An ecology and evolution assessment for introductory through advanced undergraduates.
CBE – Life Sciences Education, 17(2). http://login.ezproxy.lib.umn.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.
com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid&db=eric&AN=EJ1179312&site=ehost-live
Zhuang, T., Cheung, A., Lau, W., & Tang, Y. (2019). Development and validation of an instrument to
measure STEM undergraduate students’ comprehensive educational process. Frontiers of Education in China,
14(4), 575–611.
Zhuang, T., Cheung, A. C. K., Lau, W. W. F., & Tang, Y. (2019). Development and Validation of an
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DeMonbrun, M., Finelli, C., Prince, M., Borrego, M., Shekhar, P., Henderson, C., & Waters, C. (2017).
Creating an instrument to measure student response to instructional practices. Journal of Engineering
Education, 106(2), 273–298.
Koskey, K. L. K., Makki, N., Ahmed, W., Garafolo, N. G., & Visco, D. P., Jr. (2020). Modifcation and
Validation of the Mixed-Format Engineering Concept Assessment for Middle School Students Using
Many-Facet Rasch Measurement. School Science and Mathematics, 120(5), 245–257.
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Ozden, C., Tezer, M., & Atasoy, R. (2019). Developing Technology and Design Course Self-Efcacy Scale: A
Validity and Reliability Study. World Journal on Educational Technology: Current Issues, 11(3), 186–197.
Wheeler, L., Navy, W., Maeng, J., & Whitworth, B. (2019). Development and validation of the Classroom
Observation Protocol for Engineering Design (COPED). Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 56(9), 1285–
1305. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21557
Wind, S., Alemdar, M., Lingle, J., Gale, J., & Moore, R. (2017). Developing an engineering design process
assessment using mixed methods. Journal of Applied Measurement, 18(2), 100–121.
Yoon, S. Y., & Sorby, S. A. (2020). Rescaling the Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efcacy V3.0
for Undergraduate Engineering Students. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 38(2), 209–221.
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Askar, M. (2019). Faculty Target-Based Engagement Assessment Statistical Model for Enhancing Performance
and Education Quality. IAFOR Journal of Education, 7(2), 27–49.
Grobschedl, J., Welter, V., & Harms, U. (2018). A new instrument for measuring pre-service biology teachers’
pedagogical content knowledge: The PCK-IBI. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 56(4), 402–439.
Handtke, K., & Bögeholz, S. (2019). Self-Efcacy Beliefs of Interdisciplinary Science Teaching (SElf-ST)
Instrument: Drafting a Theory-Based Measurement. Education Sciences, 9.
Kara, Y., & Bakirci, H. (2018). A Scale to Assess Science Activity Videos (SASAV): The Study of validity and
reliability. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 6(1), 43–51.
Maerten-Rivera, J., Huggins-Manley, A., Adamson, K., Lee, O., & Llosa, L. (2015). Development and
validation of a measure of elementary teachers’ science content knowledge in two multiyear teacher
professional development intervention projects. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(3), 371–396.
Moslemi, N., & Mousavi, A. (2019). A Psychometric Re-Examination of the Science Teaching Efcacy
and Beliefs Instrument (STEBI) in a Canadian Context. Education Sciences, 9(1), 17–17. doi:10.3390/
educsci9010017
Nollmeyer, G., & Bangert, A. (2017). Measuring elementary teachers’ understanding of the NGSS
Framework: An instrument for planning and assessing professional development. Electronic Journal of Science
Education, 21(8), 20–45.
Wang, J., Sneed, S., & Wang, Y. (2020). Validating a 3E Rubric Assessing Pre-Service Science Teachers’
Practical Knowledge of Inquiry Teaching. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education,
16(2).
White, C., Marshall, J., & Alston, D. (2019). Empirically supporting school STEM culture – The creation
and validation of the STEM Culture Assessment Tool (STEM-CAT). School Science & Mathematics, 119(6),
299–311.
Yang, W., & Liu, E. (2016). Development and validation of an instrument for evaluating inquiry-based tasks in
science textbooks. International Journal of Science Education, 38(18), 2688–2711.
A second method for locating relevant references was a search of websites that provided resources
for science education evaluation. These sites are provided later in the discussion about support for
science education program evaluation.
Trends in Science Education Program Evaluation
The most prominent trend in research is the development of assessment instruments. The wide
variety speaks to the uniqueness of goals for many science education programs. Often evaluators are
expected to assess very explicit outcomes for which there are no standardized instruments, hence
assessments are developed and validated for each situation. This is evident in the large number of
instruments and the number of detailed instruments for diferent areas of science. As can be seen in
Table 31.1, each science discipline has its own set of goals that instruments have been developed to
assess. In addition to the disciplinary diferences, there are goal diferences and unique instruments in
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terms of both the beginning (elementary education) and the culmination (higher education) of the
science education process. As shown in Table 31.1, more assessment instrument research has been
taking place in higher education than other areas. For US-based research, this is most likely due to
the interest of NSF in undergraduate education and the subsequent awarding of grants to study this
area. This uniqueness by disciplinary area makes it difcult to aggregate the fndings from diferent
evaluation eforts slowing progress in overall improvement of science education. Complicating the
specifcity has been the emphasis on workforce development with the engagement of business and
industry, with their unique goals and desired outcomes.
In contrast, the interest in STEM as an integrated entity has led some evaluations to investigate
more complex and generalizable outcomes. This integration has helped to raise understanding of
the complex nature of science education and encourage the study of science program evaluation as a
complex system. These more general concepts are also represented by the large number of research
studies on instruments to assess inquiry and attitudes. Further, the international comparison assess-
ments that attempt to cover the broad spectrum of science goals have heightened awareness of the
diferent philosophies of science education in the various countries with subsequent attention to
improving curricular systems in lower-scoring countries (Şahin & Öztürk, 2018). Many countries
also have national testing programs that complement the international testing. In the United States,
in addition to consideration of international testing results, there are national and state testing pro-
grams that are used to develop curricular changes. Often the results of this testing are used in program
evaluations.
Three other important areas of research highlighted in Table 31.1 are insights gained from con-
ducting science program evaluations, research about science education programs and curricula, and
research related to improving evaluation, diferent methods of assessment, and comparison of types
of evaluation. These articles speak directly to improving the feld of science education program
evaluation. These show a continuing interest in expanding professionalism in the evaluation feld
and how evaluations can be improved through theoretical and methodological improvements as well
as competency building. For example, the work by Grack Nelson et al. (2018) and Lawrenz et al.
(2018) suggest that developing evaluation of informal science education programs necessitates the
consideration of the programs as complex systems, which requires explicit capacity building both
within the individuals and the system. Also, national standards and curricular revisions, such as for
advanced placement in the United States (Fischer et al. 2018), have resulted in new frameworks and
variables being included in evaluations of these programs.
There is global interest in improving science education. The rhetoric is that to have successful
futures students should be studying STEM. Therefore, as discussed earlier, there is attention to devel-
oping science education programs that enhance student understanding of and interest in science that
will encourage them to continue to study science and lead to an enhanced workforce. This leads to
an increase in evaluation of these programs to optimize and legitimize the results. The emphasis on
increasing and maintaining interest in science education has led to substantial growth in informal sci-
ence education evaluation. A review of this by Fu et al. (2019) showed four themes: validity, context,
technology, and evaluation capacity building. They also suggested the following topics for future dis-
cussions: ethical responsibilities of evaluators, theory-based approaches to evaluation, formal training
and professional development pathways for evaluators, and funding opportunities and the structural
landscape of the feld.
Both science education and evaluation have continued to emphasize diversity and inclusion, an
emphasis mirrored in science program evaluation especially through culturally responsive evaluation
(Thomas & Campbell, 2020). This has encouraged new approaches to evaluation that emphasize
the needs and desires of diverse communities and the efects of science education on them in light
of these (Garibay & Teasdale, 2019). As mentioned earlier, impact evaluation has been popular in
the European Union. Also, evaluators from or connected to the EU conduct many evaluations of
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programs in developing countries with guidance from local evaluators. Although these evaluations
are generally focused on impact, they are also very culturally responsive. These cross-cultural evalu-
ations expand the understanding of the model of culturally relevant evaluations even when working
within a country.
Support for Evaluations

Funding is critical to conducting program evaluation. Most of the science education programs and
their evaluations are funded by governments and their agencies. Often the funders of educational
programs require evaluation as part of the program. In the United States, the two main funding agen-
cies for science education are NSF and the Department of Education. The Department of Education
directly funds education through block grants, student funding, and through discretionary funding
from the Institute for Education Sciences (IES). IES includes the What Works Clearinghouse, which
reviews the existing research on diferent programs, products, practices, and policies in education
with the goal of providing educators with the information they need to make evidence-based deci-
sions. The NSF Education Directorate requires evaluations as part of almost all of their programs
(Goodyear et al., 2019).
More recent investments in science education evaluation infrastructure are represented on web-
sites rather than in publications. In the United States, the federal agencies are governed by the Ofce
of Management and Budget (OMB). Recently, OMB has been particularly interested in evaluation
at the agency level. It has mandated that every agency conduct internal evaluations of itself and its
programming, making use of existing data. It has also required the agencies to have a designated per-
son in charge of evaluation. There has been extensive education available to facilitate this emphasis
on evaluation. This has certainly heightened the interest in evaluation at the federal level, with many
of the agencies using the individual evaluations of their funded projects to inform the evaluation of
the agency as a whole.
Against this background of interest in evaluation, NSF has provided funding for several educative
projects and websites that provide resources for local project evaluators as well as the opportunity
for the evaluators to form a community of practice (Goodyear et al., 2019). This coordination has
resulted in improving the evaluations conducted of the programs that are supported in this way. The
evaluators share evaluation processes and assessment instruments, which helps to move everyone for-
ward. Additionally, in some instances the individually collected data can be shared and combined to
understand program-level outcomes.
The last few years have also brought the proliferation of resource centers that support NSF-
funded STEM education programs and evaluations. In support of the INCLUDES initiative, the
INCLUDES Coordination Hub (www.includesnetwork.org/home) provides capacity-building and
network-engagement activities that support the network of grantees, as well as specifc events and
activities that support STEM education evaluators. Similarly, the EvaluATE center supports the
evaluators within the NSF ATE program. And other resource centers, such as CAISE (www.infor-
malscience.org/) and STELAR (http://stelar.edc.org/), provide resources to support evaluators who
work with grantees of the AISL and ITEST programs. A recent landscape study of NSF-funded
evaluation resources (see Goodyear et al., 2019) suggests that across 12 NSF-funded resource cen-
ters, there are at least 387 resources (reports, briefs, blogs, webinars, publications, guides, work-
shops, etc.) that support high-quality STEM education evaluation. In addition, there are at least
seven NSF-funded databases that support evaluators in accessing reports, instruments, items, and
other capacity-building publications and products. Other databases specifcally focused on STEM
education evaluation instruments include the AEA STEM Education and Training Topical Interest
Group’s repository (http://comm.eval.org/stemeducationandtraining/resources/helpful-links); the
Partnerships in Education and Resilience instrument database (which includes their Dimensions of
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Success Observation Guide and Common Instrument; www.pearinc.org/); the instrument database
developed by the CSEd Research community of practice (https://csedresearch.org/); the Learning
Activation Lab’s database of tools and instruments (http://activationlab.org/tools/); and more gener-
ally, the Better Evaluation website, hosted in Australia (www.betterevaluation.org/).
Implications and Future Directions

This review of the research about science education program evaluation raises several implications for
the future. It is clear that for progress to be made in science education program evaluation funding
is a major necessity. In the United States, there are many independent sources for evaluation funding
from the many groups that are involved in science education. This also includes the federal govern-
ment, especially NSF, which requires evaluations of the programs and projects it funds. In Europe,
more of the funding comes from government sources, especially through government involvement
in development programs in less-developed countries. This funding is generally to actually con-
duct evaluations of implemented programs. There is very little funding for research about science
education evaluation itself. Much of the existing research is connected to these evaluations through
refective retrospective considerations. Another common area is instrument development, but it is
often very situation specifc, except for the international comparisons. Making more funding avail-
able for research about science education evaluation would increase the rate of evaluation improve-
ment. The emerging feld of implementation science holds some promise for improving the rigor of
process evaluation. Wikipedia defnes implementation science as the scientifc study of barriers to,
and methods of, promoting the systematic application of research fndings in practice, including in
public policy. As a rule, scientifc eforts are directed at discovery of knowledge or proofs of concept
employing pilot studies or laboratory-based experiments to achieve these goals. Such studies gener-
ally do not address questions of whether fndings can be generalized or applied in a practice-based
domain. Implementation research is the efort to understand the pathway from scientifc fndings to
practical beneft.
Another implication is that science education evaluation would beneft from more coordination.
Perhaps because of the funding mechanisms in the United States, evaluation is composed of many
discrete eforts without much cohesion. Even though there are several national websites supporting
science education evaluation, these sites operate independently, and therefore the coherence of the
support is lost. Recent research has shown that many of the evaluation capacity-building resources
featured on these websites include common information and guidance, with little tailoring done to
ft the funder or program (Goodyear et al., 2019). A stronger focus on coordinated guidance, with
information about design challenges and science education fndings, would better support the sci-
ence education program evaluation feld moving forward.
Complicating the work of science education program evaluation is the complexity and lack of
coherence on what the goals of science education should be. Every program has its own sets of goals
and even when broad goals are agreed upon, the evidence of what would constitute achievement
of these goals is not. For example, inquiry is generally an acceptable goal, but what would indicate
accomplishment of inquiry skills varies quite a bit. The proliferation of tests included in the refer-
ences ofers evidence of this lack of consensus. The movements toward more involvement in STEM
by diverse groups and culturally responsive evaluation ofer the possibility for even more diverse
goals. Along with the proliferation of worthy goals is the attention that must be paid to measurement
considerations. There are diferent approaches to measuring even agreed-upon goals and diferent
ways to determine “success”. Certainly, the recent discussions in the social sciences about the irrel-
evance of p-values and the lack of replications of studies raises important questions for the future of
science education evaluation. In addition, recent discussions focused on systems and culture change
among those looking to make the science education and STEM felds more inclusive, suggest that
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measurement may need to move from focusing on individual students’ progress to a stronger focus
on the institutional elements that support or hinder diverse students’ success in STEM education
and careers. With this in mind, evaluation approaches that include a systems focus will be critical for
understanding large initiatives that aim to achieve collective impact and employ collaborative infra-
structure to achieve lasting change at the systemic or institutional level. As noted here, and in Table
31.1, there are plenty of instruments to measure individual students’ changes in knowledge, attitudes,
and learning. However, to contribute to knowledge about how the STEM felds can better support
diverse students’ progression, the STEM education evaluation feld will need to grapple with what
it means to shift focus from measuring individuals to measuring and accounting for organizational
change.
In summary, review of the research about science education evaluation has shown that progress
continues to be made in enhancing the tools and processes that are available to be used. This progress
could be enhanced by more funding directly for evaluation research and for more attention to refec-
tive study. The future holds much promise for increasing the numbers of people from more diverse
groups, and science education evaluation needs to play a role in helping to achieve this future.
References
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32
AN AI-BASED TEACHER
DASHBOARD TO SUPPORT
STUDENTS’ INQUIRY
Design Principles, Features,
and Technological Specifcations
Janice D. Gobert, Michael A. Sao Pedro,
and Cameron G. Betts
Introduction
About 50 years ago, the pedagogical content and assessments used in the classroom became a
national discussion in the United States (Atkin, 1980), and since then decisions about the quality of
teachers’ instruction have been made on the basis of their respective students’ scores on mandatory
summative assessments. Committees selected by governing authorities both led and oversaw the
development of frameworks, which, in turn, were used to develop assessments. Since the 1980s,
the science frameworks for the United States have been developed by committees of the National
Research Council (NRC, 2011). In order to measure achievement in countries other than the
United States, achievement tests were (and continue to be) based on similar frameworks outlining
the knowledge and competencies students should develop and be able to demonstrate (Schleicher,
2019). The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) is a more current exam-
ple of widely adopted frameworks in the United States, though some states use other standards
for science, such as Florida, which has the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards for Science
(Florida Department of Education, 2008), and Texas, which has the Texas Essential Knowledge and
Skills (TEKS) (Texas Education Agency, 2017).
Though an initial common goal of assessments was to rank the quality of schools locally, nationally,
and internationally, this also led unintentionally to comparing schools, which ultimately impacted
the curricular decisions that school districts made. Poor rankings typically lead to educational reform
eforts in their respective state and/or country. Thus, the results of high-stakes tests had (and continue
to have) consequences for both students and teachers. It is believed by some that the accountability
purpose has damaging efects on students’ learning (Mansell et al., 2009), rather than its intended
purpose of leading to improvement of students’ knowledge and skills. An important question raised
by Black and Atkin (2014) is whether these negative efects are an inevitable result of assessment in all
its various forms. Here we seek to address this question.
1011 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-37

Poor Performance by American Students on Science

American students continue to underperform in science compared to other developed countries.
For example, in 2018, the most recent international data analyzed, American students ranked 18th
on science (Schleicher, 2019). Further, in the Nation’s Report Card, the National Assessment of
Educational Progress reported that grade 4 scores in science have dropped since 2017 (NAEP, 2019).
Many have noted some key reasons contributing to American students’ poor performance (cf. Gob-
ert & Sao Pedro, 2017). One of the main reasons cited is that the American public school system
was modeled on a “one-size fts all” approach to instruction (Christensen et al., 2008), which cannot
address students’ individual diferences that are known to be critical to science performance. These
principally include (but are not limited to) prior content knowledge (cf., Johnson & Lawson, 1998),
written and spoken language profciency (Dickler et al., 2018; Gobert, 2016; Li et al., 2018, 2019;
Quellmalz et al., 2020), and engagement in and/or motivation for science (Gobert et al., 2015;
Schmidt et al., 2018). Important to the present chapter is the additional issue that students exhibit
many difculties with inquiry (Kuhn, 2005) and demonstrate a wide range of profciencies at inquiry
tasks (described later), which are thought of as critical to developing deep science content knowledge
(NGSS, 2013).
Students’ Diffculties With Inquiry

As stated, students have many difculties with inquiry and exhibit a wide range of competencies
across all science inquiry tasks (cf., Kuhn, 2005), which in part contribute to the scores noted ear-
lier. For example, regarding question formation (NGSS Practice 1), students have difculties forming
testable hypotheses and choosing which variables to work with (Chinn & Brewer, 1993; Klahr &
Dunbar, 1988; Kuhn et al., 1995), may not know what a hypothesis should look like (Njoo & de
Jong, 1993), and avoid stating hypotheses that could be rejected (Van Joolingen & de Jong, 1993;
Klayman & Ha, 1987). Regarding, developing and using models (NGSS Practice 2), students struggle
making predictions (van Lehn, 2013), comparing models to real-world phenomena (Wilensky &
Reisman, 2006; Wilkerson et al., 2017), using mathematical or computational models to defend
explanations (Basu et al., 2015; van Lehn, 2013), explaining models’ underlying mathematical
assumptions (Nixon et al., 2016), and revising models to better align with real-world data (Schwarz
et al., 2009; van Lehn, 2013). Regarding, planning and carrying out investigations (NGSS Practice 3),
students may not test their articulated hypotheses (Van Joolingen & de Jong, 1991, 1993; Kuhn
et al., 1992; Schauble et al., 1991), may not gather sufcient evidence to test hypotheses by running
only one trial (Kuhn et al., 1992), may run the same trial repeatedly (Kuhn et al., 1992; Buckley
et al., 2006), may change too many variables within trials (Glaser et al., 1992; Shute & Glaser, 1990;
Kuhn, 2005; McElhaney & Linn, 2008, 2010), and may run experiments that are enjoyable to
watch as opposed to those that can test their hypotheses (White, 1993; Schauble et al., 1991; Njoo
& de Jong, 1993). Regarding analyzing and data interpretation (NGSS practice 4), students may draw
conclusions based on confounded data (Klahr & Dunbar, 1988; Kuhn et al., 1992), may change
ideas about causality (Kuhn et al., 1992), may not relate outcomes of experiments to theories being
tested (Schunn & Anderson, 1999), and may engage in confrmation bias during inquiry (Klayman
& Ha, 1987; Dunbar, 1993; Quinn & Alessi, 1994; Klahr & Dunbar, 1988; Dunbar, 1993). Regard-
ing engaging in argumentation (NGSS Practice 7) and evaluating and communicating information (NGSS
Practice 8), students may use inappropriate and insufcient data when reasoning about their claims
(McNeill & Krajcik, 2011; Sadler, 2004), may have trouble linking their data to their hypotheses
(Chinn & Brewer, 1993; Klahr & Dunbar, 1988) or to their claims (Schunn & Anderson, 1999),
and may rely on theoretical arguments rather than experimental evidence (Kuhn, 1991; Schunn &
Anderson, 1999).
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An AI-Based Teacher Dashboard to Support Students’ Inquiry
The Need for Reform

The poor performance of American students on science and the difculties outlined earlier have led
to the development of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013), which
are focused on developing students’ authentic science practices as well as disciplinary core ideas and
cross-cutting concepts. The principle belief is that a focus on authentic inquiry will foster students’
competencies to apply and transfer their knowledge in fexible ways so that they can reason critically;
this aligns with the goals of 21st-century skills frameworks (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2019)
as well. In brief, the NGSS practices, which are the main focus of this chapter, are:
1. Asking questions (for science) and defning problems (for engineering)

2. Developing and using models
3. Planning and carrying out investigations
4. Analyzing and interpreting data
5. Using mathematics and computational thinking
6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
7. Engaging in argument from evidence
8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
These practices (NGSS, 2013), referred to by some as skills, also echo or align with numerous other
21st-century skill frameworks, which speaks to their importance. Some 21st-century frameworks
include: Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2019), Common Core (National Governors Associa-
tion, 2010), SCANS (1991), enGauge 21st Century Skills (North Central Regional Educational
Laboratory, 2003), the American Association of College and Universities’ VALUE rubrics (Aleven
et al., 2010), ISTE/NETS performance standards (International Society for Technology in Educa-
tion, n.d.), ICT Literacy Panel digital literacy standards (Educational Testing Service, 2002), Dede’s
Neomillennial Learning Styles (Dede, 2005), the World Economic Forum’s 21st Century Skills
(World Economic Forum, 2015), and the National Research Council’s 21st Century Skills (NRC,
2012). In particular, the NGSS practices “asking questions and defning problems” (practice 1) and
“obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information” (practice 8) have the greatest alignment
with other frameworks, though all eight practices have some degree of compatibility with the NGSS
(2013). Again, this alignment highlights the acknowledgment of these competencies as important;
thus, the assessment and formative assessment of them is also of central importance.
At the time of this writing, the NGSS (2013) has been adopted by 44 states and Washington, DC,
and despite the rich theoretical frameworks from the learning sciences and vast amount of fndings
on how people learn science, the development of resources to assess science is lagging behind (Pel-
legrino et al., 2018), though the NGSS sets the expectation that teachers be able to do instruction
and assessment of students’ competencies on these, and of course, that students should become prof-
cient at these. Given these expectations and the widespread adoption of the NGSS across the United
States, assessments for the NGSS practices are critical if the standards and, in turn, the performance
expectations of the NGSS are to be realized. More specifcally, the move away from rote knowledge
to NGSS’s authentic practices necessitates a change in assessments in order to rigorously and validly
measure students’ competencies.
In this chapter we respond to Black and Atkin’s (2014) question by addressing how the reform
envisioned in frameworks such as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013;
described later) and other 21st-century frameworks can be realized. We elaborate on design frame-
works and computational techniques that we (Gobert et al., 2012, 2013, 2017) and others (Mislevy
et al., 2020) argue can realize the assessment and instructional needs of the NGSS and 21st-century
frameworks. In doing so, we address the factors and variables, etc., that need to be taken into account
1013
in the design and development process and which data are most useful in order to provide the forma-
tive assessment data needed by teachers for science practices. Lastly, the chapter describes Inq-ITS
(Inquiry-Intelligent Tutoring System; Gobert et al., 2012, 2013; Gobert & Sao Pedro, 2017; Mislevy
et al., 2020; inqits.com) and its accompanying teacher dashboard, Inq-Blotter (Sao Pedro, 2015,
2016; Gobert & Sao Pedro, 2016; Gobert, 2019; Dickler, 2021; Dickler, Adair et al., 2021; Dickler,
Gobert et al., 2021), which are technology-based systems designed expressly to support, respectively,
students’ learning of and teachers’ formative assessment and instruction of science with a focus on
science practices.
Lack of Assessments and Other Resources for

Assessing Students’ Science Competencies
As previously mentioned, the “one-size fts all” approach to instruction (Christensen et al., 2008) is
one of the reasons cited for students’ poor performance. Another reason for American students’ poor
performance is that traditional standardized tests, ostensibly designed to provide instructional guid-
ance to teachers, cannot meet the needs of all students (Black & Atkin, 2014) given the wide range
in students’ science competencies (cf. Kuhn, 2005). This downfall of traditional standardized tests is,
in part, due to the coarse-grained nature of the multiple-choice items that these tests utilize. Further-
more, these multiple-choice items tap rote science “facts” that refect a simplifed conceptualization
of how science understanding was defned when these tests were designed and developed (DiCerbo
& Behrens, 2012). As such, these tests are antithetical in philosophy and pedagogy to the newer
frameworks (e.g., NGSS, 2013) that were expressly conceived to refect the practices of science more
authentically; the lack of alignment between authentic practices and multiple-choice assessments that
target rote science “facts” has been well acknowledged (Mislevy et al., 2012).
An additional issue that has led to students’ poor performance is that typical assessments are not
well suited to formative assessment purposes, i.e., to guide teachers’ instruction based on students’
needs in real time, when remediation is most benefcial for deep learning (Sao Pedro 2015, 2016;
Gobert & Sao Pedro, 2016; Gobert, 2019). These assessment types include the aforementioned
multiple-choice tests and lab reports. As mentioned, multiple-choice items cannot refect students’
competencies on the practices. Lab reports that are typically written in conjunction with a hands-
on experiment are also not a good refection of students’ competencies because students are often
unable to complete labs independently, and thus assessment on the basis of a hands-on lab has valid-
ity issues. Additionally, assessment of the full range of practices expected by the NGSS on the basis
of a lab report is difcult, and the grading is very laborious for teachers (up to 15 minutes per lab
report) and subject to both fatigue and bias (Myford & Wolfe, 2009). Lastly, students’ competencies
at describing what they know in written form, a key NGSS practice (NGSS practice 8) vary greatly
(Lee et al., 2019; Quellmalz et al., 2020), which means that lab reports can yield invalid assessment
data. Specifcally, we have shown that between 30% and 60% of students are mis-assessed if teachers
rely on students’ writing to assess their science competencies (Dickler et al., 2018; Gobert, 2016; Li
et al., 2018, 2019). Students who are typically difcult to assess are referred to as being in “the messy
middle” (Gotwals & Songer, 2010). In our work, we have shown that these students can be false nega-
tives, i.e., those who are good are doing science but cannot describe what they know in words, or
false positives, i.e., those who are simply parroting what they’ve read or heard but are not profcient
at other practice. This is problematic for both sets of students and our economy. Students who fall
into the false negative category will not gain entry to advanced AP high school science and STEM
classes or STEM majors in college, which is problematic because the growing number of STEM jobs
in the United States outpaces the number of skilled people needed to fll them (McDonald & Waite,
2019; National Science Board, 2016; White & Shakibnia, 2019). Students who are false positives
(i.e., those simply parroting what they’ve read or heard) will get passed to the next level in science
1014
until they eventually “hit a wall”. This is problematic for the student, of course, but also for teachers
and other stakeholders who are passing along students who are not competent in science, who will
not be capable of doing STEM jobs.
Setting the Stage for Formative Assessment

of Practices to Support Teachers’ Instruction
The poor performance of American students in science and the plethora of difculties they exhibit
in doing inquiry, described earlier, have led to suggestions for many improvements to assessments so
as to better inform instruction and, in turn, improve students’ science learning. These include assess-
ments that are more detailed and nuanced so as to assess students’ beginning and partial competencies
as they are developing (Songer et al., 2009), including students in the “messy middle” (Gotwals &
Songer, 2010), and assessments that can inform teachers’ pedagogical decisions and permit targeted feedback
to students (Black & Wiliam, 1998a; Wiliam, 2007a, 2007b; Sao Pedro, 2015, 2016; Gobert & Sao
Pedro, 2016; Gobert, 2019) more quickly (Havnes et al., 2012; Shute et al., 2016; Sadler, 1989), ide-
ally in the moment (Boston, 2002), when it is most benefcial for learning (Koedinger & Corbett,
2006). This feedback, referred here to as formative feedback, can inform learners about the gap that
exists between their current level of performance and the desired goal (Ramaprasad, 1983). Forma-
tive feedback has demonstrable positive efects on students’ learning (Lee et al., 2020) and can raise
academic standards (Black & Wiliam, 1998a, 1998b), and students acknowledge this feedback as
motivating and improving in their own understanding and learning (McCallum & Milner, 2021).
Given the plethora of difculties students have with inquiry and the lack of resources to measure
inquiry competencies rigorously, monitoring students’ progress and providing feedback as students
work can be onerously time consuming (Pruitt, 2014) and nearly impossible for teachers because
students are all working at their own pace, and even may be working on diferent experiments (Sao
Pedro, 2015, 2016; Gobert & Sao Pedro, 2016; Gobert, 2019). This brings us to the underlying ratio-
nale for the two key phases of our development work. First, we describe an approach to assessment
design for performance assessment of science competencies, then we describe how these assessments
can support teachers’ instruction of inquiry, namely, by undergirding an alerting dashboard for sci-
ence with rigorous, fne-grained, real-time assessment data.
Assessment Design Needed to Undergird Teachers’ Instruction

Due to the poor performance by American students on science, in 2001 researchers and other stake-
holders sought to improve the design of assessments (NRC, 2001) in order to better inform instruc-
tion and, in turn, improve students’ science competencies. Pellegrino et al. (2001) laid out design
principles for science assessment, emphasizing that they be designed to capture and refect students’
performance, rather than rote knowledge (as M/C items typically are). They also stated that assess-
ments need to be framed by current theories and fndings about student cognition and learning, prior
knowledge, learning progressions, and the types of knowledge and reasoning students use in execut-
ing science tasks. Framed in the context of inquiry, this means understanding deeply where and how
students founder when engaging in inquiry; some key inquiry difculties were outlined previously
(cf., Kuhn, 2005). And as alluded to earlier, assessments need to be aligned with curricular/instruc-
tional needs and be formative in nature (Pellegrino et al., 2001) so that they can be used to “educate
and improve student performance, rather than merely to audit it” (Wiggins, 1998).
Pellegrino et al. (2001) specifed these assessment design needs in the assessment triangle with
three key corners (to be described later). Then, evidence-centered design (henceforth ECD; Mis-
levy et al., 2009, 2012, 2020) followed from Pellegrino et al.’s assessment triangle, further unpacking
the specifcations needed for the design of tasks and items that would elicit students’ competencies
1015
and the mechanics needed to provide valid measures of students’ profciencies at inquiry practices.
In brief, taken together, these two frameworks provide a way to understand end-to-end assessment
design that can inform fne-grained assessments needed for teachers’ needs for formative assessment
and instruction of science practices refected in reform documents (NGSS, 2013). Because Inq-ITS
and Inq-Blotter (the technologies described later) were informed by both the assessment triangle and
ECD (Mislevy et al., 2009, 2012, 2020), we briefy describe each framework in turn.
The three corners of the assessment triangle (Pellegrino et al., 2001) are cognition, observation,
and interpretation. Cognition refers to making explicit the underlying conceptions of how people
learn and the knowledge and skills that are associated with the targeted knowledge/competencies
(Songer et al., 2009; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2008). This includes both the observable knowledge
and (hidden) cognitive processes that are proposed as associated with those processes, then opera-
tionalizing all processes in the targeted performance/skill/conceptual knowledge within its respec-
tive domain. The second corner of the assessment triangle (Pellegrino et al., 2001) is observation,
which refers to the means by which a student’s knowledge or competencies are observed for a target
conception or skill/practice. The third corner of the assessment triangle (Pellegrino et al., 2001)
is interpretation, which refers to how researchers, etc., infer students’ internal knowledge, cognitive
processes, and mental states (i.e., representations) from their observable behavior(s)/actions. The
knowledge, processes, and mental states to be interpreted are those that have been made explicit in
the cognition corner of the assessment triangle.
ECD has been used as an assessment design framework for both simulation-based assessments and
ITSs (e.g., Clarke-Midura et al., 2012; Shute, 2011), and as such it served as an ideal assessment frame-
work for Inq-ITS and Inq-Blotter. Specifcally, ECD was used to operationalize the specifcations
needed for the design of inquiry tasks and items that would elicit data (i.e., observations in Pellegrino
et al.’s terms) that would serve as valid measures of students’ profciencies at inquiry practices (via our
assessment algorithms Gobert et al., 2016, 2019; Mislevy et al., 2012, 2020). Drilling down, ECD goes
beyond the original assessment triangle (Pellegrino et al., 2001) in that it specifes the computational
objects and the computational processes, including data aggregation (key to interpretation processes
in Pellegrino et al.’s terms, 2001), that are to be carried out in the assessment system so that it has the
capacity to generate fne-grained, rigorous assessment data on students’ competencies. ECD is critical
to unpack and specify all aspects of the assessment process from start to fnish (e.g., how the data will
be analyzed as part of the early part of the assessment design), particularly for the assessment of science
inquiry, because of its ill-defned nature (cf., Kuhn, 2005); otherwise, one runs the risk of not being
able to make strong validity claims about students’ knowledge and competencies (Mislevy et al., 2020).
Toward Alerting Dashboards for Formative Assessment

One recent innovation that has the potential to provide a solution to teachers’ formative assess-
ment needs are teacher alerting dashboards. A number of innovative dashboards have been devel-
oped to accompany mathematics learning environments for students, including Lumilo (Holstein
et al., 2018a, 2018b, 2019), Snappet (Molenaar & Knoop-van Campen, 2017, 2018), MTDashboard
(Martinez-Maldonado et al., 2012, 2013, 2015), SAGLET (Segal et al., 2017), and TOrch (Van
Leeuwen & Rummel, 2018).
Early research on dashboards showed that they enable teachers to better monitor computer use in
large classes (Chounta & Avouris, 2016), important in states such as Oregon, where teachers have 50+
students in a class. Progress bars, commonly used in dashboards, allow teachers to quickly evaluate
which students require immediate assistance and can increase the number of interactions teachers have
with students (van Leeuwen et al., 2015; van Leeuwen et al., 2017; van Leeuwen & Rummel, 2018).
Important to our work, there are very few teacher dashboards for science (Verbert et al., 2014),
and those that do exist enable teachers to monitor only low-level indicators of student progress, such
1016
as use of pedagogical resources, time spent on activities (e.g., Sosnovsky et al., 2012; Macfadyen &
Dawson, 2010), and when students complete an activity (e.g., Tissenbaum & Slotta, 2019). Most
dashboards provide data to teachers based on multiple-choice items, pre-post tests (Kahoot!; Strange
Loop games; play.eco) or a combination of multiple-choice and fll-in-the-blank items (SABLE;
Ducrest, 2014). Some dashboards don’t provide alerts to teachers (Matuk et al., 2017; Acosta &
Slotta, 2018); thus, teachers need to do a lot of preprocessing of the coarse-grained data so they know
what and who to prioritize during instruction; this greatly limits their usage for real-time pedagogi-
cal decisions needed to support students as they work.
There are some dashboards that are somewhat richer and were designed to align with intelligent
tutoring systems (Aleven et al., 2010) or rich learning environments, including the WISE dashboard
Vitale et al., 2016), the CK Biology curriculum dashboard (Acosta & Slotta, 2018), and SAIL Smart
Space’s corresponding tablet tool (Tissenbaum & Slotta, 2019). All of these inform teachers of student
progress, but not on inquiry practices. In sum, existing science alerting systems are not based on fne-
grained rigorous assessment data scored by real-time algorithms, nor are they actionable to inform
teachers about the specifcs regarding how their students are struggling or how to address students’
learning difculties, both of which are needed for real-time instruction (Sao Pedro, 2015, 2016; Gob-
ert & Sao Pedro, 2016; Gobert, 2019). Also, without fne-grained, contextual information about stu-
dents’ inquiry performances, teachers must try to gauge students’ competencies and progress on their
own, in real time as students work. Given this, what is needed to support teachers’ formative instruc-
tion for science inquiry are dashboards that can provide real-time alerts on individual student inquiry
competencies and difculties (Abel & Evans, 2013) for dynamic instruction (Roschelle et al., 2017).
Inq-Blotter Paired With Inq-ITS

Responding to teachers’ and students’ needs as well as policymakers’ vision statements (cf., NGSS,
2013; Roschelle et al., 2017), we developed a teacher alerting tool called Inq-Blotter (Sao Pedro,
2015; Gobert et al., 2017). Inq-Blotter (Figure 32.1) is an educators’ alerting dashboard that provides
real-time alerts to teachers as students conduct authentic inquiry with Inq-ITS’s virtual labs.
Inq-ITS was explicitly designed to prioritize the assessment of inquiry rather than the learning
of science, which many other curriculum-focused inquiry systems emphasize (cf., Linn & Hsi,
2000). Conducting assessment in real time within a simulation environment provides a desirable
Figure 32.1 Real-time formative feedback loop. As students conduct inquiry with Inq-ITS, their inquiry is
automatically assessed by underlying algorithms. Teachers receive alerts on Inq-Blotter on their
students’ difculties in order to change whole-class instruction on the fy or have targeted conversa-
tions with individual students or small groups of students to support their learning in the moment.
1017
context to assess students’ competencies in the context in which they are developing (Mislevy
et al., 2012); hence this is authentic performance assessment of students’ competencies at doing
science. Thus, we are assessing the competencies that science learning environments like Inq-ITS
were designed to foster (Gobert et al., 2013). So, as students engage in virtual inquiry by forming
questions, collecting data with a simulation of a scientifc phenomenon, analyzing the resulting
data (including doing the relevant mathematics), warranting their claims with data, and commu-
nicating fndings in a claim-evidence-reasoning format (McNeill et al., 2006), rich, high-fdelity
log fles are collected, which include every mouse click, setting within a simulation, setting chosen
on a widget, etc. (Gobert et al., 2012, 2016) that are used for performance assessment of students’
competencies at conducting science. Inq-ITS’s algorithms automatically assess students’ inquiry
from their log fles (i.e., mouse clicks) based on knowledge-engineered and data-mined algorithms
(Gobert et al., 2013; Gobert et al., 2016, 2019; Gobert & Sao Pedro, 2017; Mislevy et al., 2020).
And as argued elsewhere (Baker & Siemens, 2014), there are great advantages for using com-
putational techniques (i.e., knowledge-engineering and data mining) on students’ log fles, as is
done in Inq-ITS. In brief, these advantages are referred to as the 4Vs (Laney, 2001), namely, these
computational techniques can handle multiple aspects of log data, including: the large volume of
log data generated as students work, the velocity at which it is generated, the veracity in fne-grained
log fles, and the variability in students’ log fles since there are many ways in which inquiry can be
done, both productively and unproductively (Kuhn, 2005). The system and its algorithms allow
the system to rigorously capture and assess what kinds of difculties students have with inquiry,
and communicate those difculties to the teacher in real time with Inq-Blotter’s succinct and
actionable alerts as to which students need help and on which inquiry practices and their respective
subcomponents (Gobert & Sao Pedro, 2017; Mislevy et al., 2020). The alerts give the educator a
“diagnosis” of what specifc difculties that student is having, permitting the teacher to intervene
with formative support (See Figure 32.2).
Figure 32.2 The Inq-Blotter Teacher Alerting Dashboard notifes teachers when students struggle as they
conduct inquiry. When a teacher selects an alert (e.g., John Marcone’s alert for hypothesizing),
contextual information appears that includes a diagnosis of exactly how John is struggling.
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Pilot Studies of Inq-Blotter

Given the lack of research on dashboards like ours (Verbert et al., 2014) it was imperative to under-
stand whether the dashboard was implemented with fdelity (O’Donnell, 2008), i.e., were the dash-
board and its alerts used as they were intended when we designed Inq-Blotter? More specifcally,
we sought to address (1) whether our dashboard provided the necessary information to teachers in
order to act in real time within real classrooms, (2) whether and how alerts improved teachers’ capacity to
provide targeted help as students conducted inquiry in Inq-ITS (Crawford et al., 2008), and (3) how
we could make this technology both easier to adopt and use by teachers. Our research addresses the
usability, fdelity of implementation, and the promise (efcacy) of our initial version of Inq-Blotter
used with Inq-ITS. Our expectation is that by facilitating how quickly and frequently teachers can
give targeted scafolding/feedback to students as they conduct investigations using the Inq-Blotter
dashboard will drive students’ learning of the NGSS practices. We expect this for two reasons. First,
immediate scafolding has been shown to improve students’ inquiry and conceptual understanding.
Providing this scafolding proactively, as would be done by the teacher, is also important, because
students may lack the metacognitive skills to realize they are struggling (Aleven et al., 2010). Second,
dashboards enable teachers to quickly evaluate which students need assistance and can increase the
number of interactions teachers have with students (van Leeuwen, van Wermeskerken et al., 2017;
Sao Pedro et al., 2018). Thus, giving teachers immediate and actionable information when students
struggle and how they struggle should enable them to help more students more quickly and provide
targeted feedback, which will drive learning. In addition, we also aim to determine what students’
perceptions are about teachers’ awareness of their challenges with inquiry. This is particularly impor-
tant because for formative assessment technology to be transformative in the classroom, students must
also see the value of real-time alerts and feedback.
We address three research questions regarding Inq-Blotter’s impact on teachers and four research
questions regarding students. We address these research questions over a series of studies shown in
Table 32.1 and present the methodologies and results of each next. We will then summarize our
conclusions by amalgamating the results from all the studies.
Study 1a: Testing Our Initial (Alpha) Version in Classrooms

Given the lack of research on dashboards like ours (Verbert et al., 2014), it was imperative to under-
stand how alerts improve teachers’ capacity to provide targeted help as students are working (Craw-
ford et al., 2008) and how to make this technology both easier to adopt by teachers and seamless to
use. It should be usable in the way that we intended in our design of Inq-Blotter and provide the
Table 32.1 Overview of Studies and Research Questions Addressed

Study 1a: Testing alpha RQ T.1 Usability and fdelity of implementation
version in classroom RQ T.2 Feasibility and fdelity of implementation
RQ T.3 Promise of the product for teachers and fdelity of implementation
RQ T.4 Adoption hurdles or barriers
Study 1b: Student RQ S.1 Overall experience
perspective RQ S.2 Perception
RQ S.3 Usefulness
Study 2: Testing beta RQ T.1 Usability and fdelity of implementation
version in classroom RQ T.2 Feasibility and fdelity of implementation
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necessary information to teachers in order to support them in real time in real classrooms. At the end of
Phase I, it was imperative to gather these initial data on usability, feasibility, and fdelity of implemen-
tation with our alpha version of Inq-Blotter in order to determine if any major design changes were
needed so that a tool like Inq-Blotter could be taken up to ft into a “credible educational ecology”
(Laurillard, 2008) in order to have an impact on learning (Kali et al., 2011). We addressed the fol-
lowing research questions in this study:
• RQ T.1 Regarding usability and fdelity of implementation, does Inq-Blotter help teachers
identify which students are having difculties with inquiry as students use Inq-ITS?
• RQ T.2 Regarding feasibility and fdelity of implementation, do teachers think that Inq-Blotter:
(1) increases their awareness on which skills students are having difculties and (2) promotes
communication and collaboration with their students (Verbert et al., 2014)?
• RQ T.3 Regarding promise of the product for teachers and fidelity of implementa-
tion, does Inq-Blotter facilitate how quickly teachers can reach students who need help
(Crawford et al., 2008)? Does Inq-Blotter influence how many students are helped by the
teacher?
• RQ T.4 Regarding adoption, what are the key adoption hurdles or barriers that may be present
that would prohibit or prevent a teacher from using Inq-Blotter and Inq-ITS?
Sample and Settings

We tested Inq-ITS + Inq-Blotter with six teachers’ public middle school science classes in one
Boston, Massachusetts, suburb, two central Massachusetts towns, and two towns in Oregon.
Some teachers had used Inq-ITS with their students in the past, and for others the experience for
both students and teachers was entirely new. Inq-Blotter was used in nine diferent class periods
amongst the six teachers. Classes had diverse student demographics, and diverse skill levels at
science. There were between 17 and 32 students per class, for a total of 196 students who par-
ticipated in the study.
Table 32.2 Inq-Blotter Features Available in Initial (Alpha) Version
Feature Alpha Version
Labs supported Physical science

Kinds of alerts Individual student
Skills alerted on Hypothesizing
Data collection
Alert ordering Recency
Alert details Diagnosis
Overall performance
Prior alerts
Alert resolution Teacher marks as resolved
Student resolves on own
Student list Student names
Student details Overall performance
Prior alerts
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Teacher Measures
• System Usability Scale (SUS; Brooke, 1996) Survey (Table 32.3): This fve-scale Likert survey,
used to evaluate other educational dashboards (e.g., Govaerts et al., 2012), was used to quanti-
tatively measure the usability of Inq-Blotter. Example items on this survey include “I think that
I would like to use this system frequently”, “I found the system unnecessarily complex”, and
“I would imagine that most people would learn to use this system very quickly”. To determine
usability, the survey values are tallied, generating a value between 0 and 100, where 100 is maxi-
mum usability.
• System Usefulness Survey (Table 32.4): We adapted a fve-scale Likert survey presented in Gov-
aerts et al. (2012) to gather quantitative data on teachers’ perceived usefulness of the Inq-Blotter.
The survey items, shown in Table 32.4, were tailored to better understand what teachers need
in order to be aware in real time of their students’ inquiry difculties; the survey also includes a
measure about the degree to which Inq-Blotter met those needs. Unlike the SUS, the survey is
Table 32.3 System Usability Scale Survey, Adapted From Brooke (1996)
1. Part 1: System Usability. Please select a response for each question below.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree
1. I think that I would like

to use this system
frequently
2. I found the system

unnecessarily complex
3. I thought the system

was easy to use
4. I think that l would

need the support of a
technical person to be
able to use this system
5. I found the various

functions in this system
were well integrated
6. l thought there was

too much inconsistency
in this system
7. I would imagine that

most people would learn
to use this system
8. I found the system

very cumbersome to use
9. I felt very confident

using the system
10. I needed to learn a

lot of things before I
could get going with this
system
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Table 32.4 Means and Standard Deviations for Teachers’ Responses (N=3) to Each Item on the System Use-
fulness Survey, Adapted From a Survey Developed by Govaerts et al. (2012) for Initial Version of
Inq-Blotter
Issue Addressed by
Inq-Blotter
Educator’s need (1 = Impossible/Not
(1 = Not Relevant, at All,
5 = Very Important) 5 = Defnitely)
Issue/Feature M SD M SD
1. Provide feedback to students as quickly as possible (directly 5.00 0.00 4.67 0.58
supported in this version)
2. Be aware of what students are working on and where they 4.33 0.58 3.33 1.16
are in their work during class
3. Communicate with students about their progress (directly 4.33 0.58 4.00 0.00
4. Be aware of students’ frustrations, boredom, confusion, etc. 4.33 0.58 3.33 0.58
during class
5. Find students who are not doing well or are having difculty 5.00 0.00 4.67 0.58
(directly supported in this version)
6. Find the best students 3.00 1.00 2.33 0.58
7. Find skills and concepts on which the class as a whole is 4.67 0.58 3.33 1.16
struggling
8. Find skills and concepts the class has mastered 3.67 1.53 3.00 1.00
9. Know how much time students spent 3.00 0.00 3.00 0.00
10. Know when students are of task 4.33 0.58 4.00 1.73
not tallied. Rather, like Govaerts et al., descriptive statistics (we use means and standard devia-
tions in particular) are used to determine which features are most important and if the system
(in this case Inq-Blotter) successfully provided those features.
• Structured interviews (Table 32.5): One-on-one interviews with structured questions shown in
Table 32.5 were conducted after teachers used Inq-Blotter in their classroom. These interviews
were geared at helping us better understand the usefulness of Inq-Blotter, if Inq-Blotter sped up
how quickly teachers were made aware of students’ difculties, and if Inq-Blotter improved the
frequency of helping students. In addition, we also asked teachers what they thought the key
barriers to adopting this technology would be. This approach is common for gathering nuanced
details about dashboards (e.g., Arnold & Pistilli, 2012; Govaerts et al., 2012).
• Classroom observations: During Inq-Blotter pilot testing, a classroom observer documented
how the teacher interacted with Inq-Blotter. For example, the observer counted how many
times the teacher used Inq-Blotter to help a student resulting from an alert, how the teacher
reacted to alerts, and roughly how long interactions lasted between students and teachers.
Procedure
Prior to using the system, the classroom observer frst ensured teachers could log into the system and
view their student list. The observer then gave a brief introduction to Inq-Blotter and its functions.
As part of this introduction, the observer instructed the teacher to use the Inq-Blotter in whatever
way felt natural. Once students arrived in the class (or computer lab), teachers had their students log
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Table 32.5 Structured Interview Questions Asked to Teacher After Inq-Blotter Was Used Within the Classroom
Usefulness How well does Inq-Blotter increase your awareness as to which students in your class are having
difculties with inquiry (compared to your usual method)?
How well does Inq-Blotter help you identify which skills individual students are having difculties
with (compared to your usual method)? Please explain.
How well does Inq-Blotter identify which skills the class is having difculties with as a whole
(compared to your usual method)? Please explain.
How well does Inq-Blotter promote communication and collaboration with your students one-on-one
How well does Inq-Blotter promote communication and collaboration with your class as a group
Timeliness How does Inq-Blotter facilitate the timeliness with which you can help your students with
inquiry (compared to your usual method)?
Frequency How does Inq-Blotter infuence the frequency with which you can help your students with
inquiry (compared to your usual method)?
Integration What do you perceive to be key adoption barriers to using a technology like Inq-Blotter?
Do you think you can integrate Inq-Blotter into your practice when your students are doing virtual labs?
into Inq-ITS and let the students know they were piloting Inq-Blotter. The students were explicitly
told that the teacher could see their work and would come over to them and help as necessary. As stu-
dents conducted inquiry with Inq-ITS labs and the teacher used Inq-Blotter, the classroom observer
documented student and teacher interactions and addressed any technology or usability issues that
arose. As students completed their inquiry activities for the day, they completed the student survey
using SurveyMonkey. At the end of the day’s sessions, the classroom observer conducted the struc-
tured interview with the teacher to glean insights about their experiences using Inq-Blotter. Finally,
the observer administered the teacher survey (if time permitted) through SurveyMonkey.
Our survey was extended specifcally to address the functions Inq-Blotter currently serves (fea-
tures 1, 3, and 5), and possibly could serve (remaining features) in the future. Note that each question
has two scales: importance to the educator and degree to which it was addressed by Inq-Blotter. As
shown, there is high overlap between the educator’s needs and the features that were supported in
this version of Inq-Blotter.
Results
We report here on our research questions for students and teachers, triangulating the various mea-
sures across the questions. We note that some students who did not participate in an Inq-Blotter-
enabled class may have accidentally taken the student survey due to another study being conducted.
We decided to keep these data because students’ perceptions (and actual help received from teachers)
are still useful in understanding their perceptions and experience, even if Inq-Blotter was not used.
We address each research question in turn next.
RQ T.1 (Usability and Fidelity of Implementation):

Does Inq-Blotter Help Teachers Identify Which Students
Are Having Diffculties With Inquiry as Students Use Inq-ITS?
We examine the quantitative results of the System Usability Survey (SUS) and the qualitative results
gleaned from the structured interviews with the teacher. Unfortunately, only three of the six teach-
ers fully completed the SUS, but from those data, the mean rating of Inq-Blotter was M = 75 out
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of 100 (SD = 0.00), indicating that the system was viewed as highly and consistently usable across
those three teachers. Classroom observers also did not mention teachers having any particular dif-
fculties using Inq-Blotter, except for challenges when the school’s network connection failed to
work momentarily.
The structured interviews from all six teachers revealed a similar pattern; most of the teachers
were very enthusiastic and readily wanted to use Inq-Blotter again. However, it was reported by
one teacher that the order of the alerts on the queue was a bit confusing. In addition, two teachers
raised concerns about feeling somewhat overwhelmed with the number of alerts they received. For
example, when students were raising their hands, one teacher reported that they “felt ‘torn’ between
hands-up and alerts”. As such, we may need to determine alternative ordering of alerts to make them
more salient or consider pacing the alerts diferently. As an example, one teacher made decisions on
the fy whether to go help a student right away or give them a chance to self-correct: “It worked
well – I could see when a student was changing too many variables. Sometimes I would see that and
decide to allow them to work through it for a while – see how they do”. As a result, we explored
alternate options to ease the alert pacing in our later Inq-Blotter versions.
RQ T.2 Usefulness: Do Teachers Think That Inq-Blotter Increases

Their Awareness on the Specifc Skills Students Are Having Diffculties
With and Promotes Communication and Collaboration With Their
Students (Verbert et al., 2014)?
We frst analyze the results of the System Usability Scale (Table 32.3) to determine the overlap
between educators’ needs and whether Inq-Blotter met them. Unfortunately, only three out of the
six teachers fully completed the System Usability Scale and as such we report only those results.
This survey served two purposes. First, we used it to evaluate the specifc needs it was designed to
address: (Feature 1 – providing feedback as quickly as possible, Feature 3 – increasing one-on-one
communication, and Feature 5 – fnding students who were having difculty). As shown in Table
32.3, there was a large amount of overlap between teachers’ needs and fulfllment of those needs by
Inq-Blotter. We emphasize that these particular features already addressed by Inq-Blotter were rated
among the highest of all the features shown in Table 32.4.
We also used the survey to identify other important features that could potentially increase class-
room awareness that are currently not supported by Inq-Blotter. Four features that were not in our
survey that teachers reported as important include being aware of what students were working on
(Q2); being aware of students’ afect, like frustration, boredom, and confusion (Q4); fnding overall
class struggles (Q7); and knowing which students were of task (Q10).
The structured interviews conducted with all six teachers also revealed a similar pattern. In terms
of increasing awareness on which students were having difculties, all teachers reported that Inq-
Blotter was very helpful. One teacher said, “Defnitely was the usual kids that I knew that would
have issues. But there were other people that I wouldn’t have given attention to that did need help.
And I did end up helping them!” Another teacher said,
Without [Inq-Blotter], I have to go to the score report at the end of class after they finish
all activities. It was often difficult to understand what happened. [Inq-Blotter] made it clear
to pinpoint who is having trouble. It tells me, “what areas” they are having issues with and
made it much faster to respond. I like having [Inq-Blotter] as it allows me to give them
formative feedback.
Some suggestions were also raised that could also help increase awareness about which students
were being unproductive. For example, one teacher suggested that “I am spending my time helping
1024
the alerting students and not as much time searching for kids that are messing around, so an alert for
inactivity would be very helpful”. Similarly, other teachers reported that having Inq-Blotter show
real-time progress through a set of lab activities would also be helpful.
In terms of increasing awareness on which practices/skills a particular student was having difculties with, all
teachers reported that the alerts were extremely helpful.
To elaborate, one teacher said that they “LOVE the alerts, and it is immediate, so I can help the
kids immediately to help them right now, instead of waiting until the end. And it tells me what they
are struggling with so I can target the students and how they need help”.
In terms of determining which practices/skills the class as a whole was having difculty with, the results were
more mixed. One teacher reported that “It will help me later to look at the whole class”, and another
stated “The tickets add up and it’s easy to see, but everyone’s at a diferent pace”. Since this initial
version of Inq-Blotter was not designed for class-level awareness but was indicated in the usefulness
survey, we changed this in our next iteration of Inq-Blotter.
Finally, in terms of promoting collaboration and communication with individual students, all teachers
reported that Inq-Blotter was very helpful. For example, one teacher said that the communica-
tion helped “Very much and very directed. It would’ve been anyways though. It forces me to
fnd who is having the problems whereas I would otherwise peruse – it sends me directly to the
person”.
RQ T.3 (Promise of the Product for Teachers and Fidelity of

Implementation): Does Inq-Blotter Facilitate How Quickly Teachers
Can Reach Students Who Need Help (Crawford et al., 2008)?
Does Inq-Blotter Infuence How Many Students Are Helped by the Teacher?
Classroom observations revealed that the number of times alerts were addressed by teachers ranged
from 3 to 37 across the six teachers (nine total classes) over the span of a normal class period of
about 45 minutes each. When responding to alerts, teachers would spend between fve seconds and
two minutes with an individual student. Unfortunately, data as to how many alerts were actually
generated were not available for analysis, and similarly no control study was performed without Inq-
Blotter to compare timeliness and frequency without using Inq-Blotter.
In terms of feedback from the structured interviews, all teachers felt that Inq-Blotter
improved the timeliness and frequency with which they could help their students. For example,
one teacher stated that “It really helped. It is hard to see what is on a student’s screen, and this
helps so that I don’t have to lean over and read over their shoulder”. Another commented it
“increased the frequency of responses. Many students wouldn’t ask questions, and now I know
they are struggling”.
However, the notion of being torn between helping those who had hands raised as opposed to the
alerts again was raised. A teacher questioned: “How do I prioritize which one to go to? Do I go to
the ones raising hands? I felt like I was running around in circles a little bit” despite claiming increased
timeliness and frequency of helping students. A second teacher commented:
I don’t know. I took a glance at it, but it can be overwhelming. I wanted to help kids who
raise hands-up, but it was helpful to identify kids who are silently suffering. I would prefer
to help kids with hands-up over the alert but I found Blotter helpful to identify kids who
are shy.
Thus, though Inq-Blotter does appear to be increasing the timeliness and frequency with which
students receive help, more design and development work was needed in our next iteration of Inq-
Blotter to help teachers from feeling overwhelmed.
1025
RQ T.4 Adoption Hurdles and Barriers: What Are the

Key Adoption Barriers That May Be Present That Would
Prohibit or Prevent a Teacher From Using
Inq-Blotter and Inq-ITS?
As part of the structured interview with teachers, we examined what the key barriers to others using
Inq-Blotter might be. More than half of the teachers cited working technology/network connectiv-
ity issues as a challenge. Another also commented that some teachers may be uncomfortable with
technology and would require teacher training. Similarly, one teacher commented “I think I just
need more time with it, to learn how to include it in my instruction”. Thus, as part of our imple-
mentation of Inq-Blotter, we include teacher professional development and appropriate onboarding
strategies to ensure Inq-Blotter is useful for teachers.
Our frst pilot test of our initial Inq-Blotter prototype was positive. The teachers overall found
the system to be both usable and useful, indicating that it helped them increase the frequency
with which they helped students and the timeliness of helping their students. The students per-
ceived Inq-ITS to be useful and also are receptive to receiving help from the teacher, even if they
do not ask for the help. When teachers do help their students, the students fnd it useful. In our
second iteration of Inq-Blotter, we addressed concerns raised by teachers feeling torn between
helping students from receiving an alert as opposed to them raising their hands. We also devel-
oped alternative ways of ordering/pacing alerts and improve teachers’ ability to monitor class
progress during inquiry tasks.
Study 1b: Students’ Perspective on Inq-ITS and Inq-Blotter

Given the novelty of the technology, we also wanted to explore students’ perceptions of the teacher
being made aware of challenges they are having with inquiry. To that end, we addressed the following
research questions pertaining to both teachers and students:
• RQ S.1 Regarding students’ experience, was the overall experience positive for them using Inq-
ITS while the teacher used Inq-Blotter?
• RQ S.2 Regarding students’ perception, how did they react to knowing their teacher was
immediately made aware of their struggles with inquiry?
• RQ S.3 Regarding usefulness, for those students helped via an alert, was the help given by the
teacher helpful to them?
Sample and Settings: Same as Study 1a.
Inq-Blotter Version: Alpha version (see Study 1a for description).
Student Measures
• Student survey (Table 32.6): The student survey, administered after students completed their
inquiry activities, was adapted in part from the Inquiry science processes 15-item survey used by
Ketelhut (2011). The questions ask about students’ opinions of the usefulness of help received
from the teacher, their perceptions about receiving help in general (in particular, when they
know that the teacher is made immediately aware of their challenges via Inq-Blotter), and their
overall experience with Inq-ITS.
• Classroom observations: The classroom observer also noted how students reacted to alerts and
if students asked for help on their own (and consequently how the teacher chooses between
attending to an alert and responding to a student’s raised hand).
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Table 32.6 Student Survey Evaluating Students’ Perceptions of Receiving Help From the Teacher and Overall
Inq-ITS Experience. Items Are Either Likert Scale, Ranging From 1 to 5 (1 = Strongly Disagree, 3
= Neutral, 5 = Strongly Agree), or Branching Yes/No Questions
Help on specifc 1. It was difcult for me to use Inq-ITS to form my hypothesis for my experiment. (Likert 1–5)
practices/skills • My teacher came over to help me with this task. (Y/N)
• (If yes) My teacher’s help was useful to this task. (Likert 1–5)
2. Using Inq-ITS, I was able to design an experiment with the virtual lab to test my
hypothesis. (Likert 1–5)
• My teacher came over to help me with this task. (Y/N)
• (If yes) My teacher’s help was useful to this task. (Likert 1–5)
Overall 3. I like using Inq-ITS virtual labs to conduct inquiry. (Likert 1–5)
experience 4. I learned something new using Inq-ITS. (Likert 1–5)
Students’ 5. My teacher helped me today without me asking for help. (Y/N)
perceptions of • (If yes) I didn’t mind that my teacher helped me. (Likert 1–5)
help from Inq- • (If yes) I felt bad when my teacher came over to help me. (Likert 1–5)
Blotter • (If yes) I learned better when the teacher came and helped me. (Likert 1–5)
Students’ 6. I don’t mind if my teacher thinks I’m having difculty with inquiry. (Likert 1–5)
perceptions of 7. It’s important that I get help from my teacher when I need it. (Likert 1–5)
receiving help 8. I’d rather work on my own than get help from my teacher. (Likert 1–5)
9. I worry the teacher will notice if I make a mistake with inquiry. (Likert 1–5)
RQ S.1 Overall Experience: Was the Overall Experience for Students

Using Inq-ITS While the Teacher Used Inq-Blotter Positive?
We analyzed questions 3 and 4 in the student survey (Table 32.6) to address this research question by
normalizing the results to be between [−1, 1] such that 0 refected a “neutral” rating. This was done
to make statistical analysis clearer. Of the 185 students who completed these questions, overall, stu-
dents reported the experience as positive, reporting that they liked using Inq-ITS to conduct inquiry
(M = 0.22, SD = 0.57) signifcantly above the zero neutral rating, t(184) = 5.26, p < .001, 95% CI =
[0.14, 0.31] with a moderate efect size, Cohen’s d = 0.39. They also reported learning something
from the experience (M = 0.22, SD = 0.55) signifcantly above the zero neutral rating, t(184) = 5.44,
p < .001, 95% CI = [0.14, 0.30] also with a moderate efect size, Cohen’s d = 0.40. These data suggest
that the students’ experience was positive and that they feel they learned from it.
RQ S.2 Perception: How Did Students React to Knowing Their Teacher

Was Immediately Made Aware of Their Struggles With Inquiry?
We analyzed this research question in two phases. First, we looked at students’ perceptions of receiv-
ing help overall (questions 6–9 in the Student survey; Table 32.6). Responses to these Likert items
were tallied and normalized to be between [−1, 1] such that 0 refected a “neutral” rating. Overall,
the 178 students who completed this portion of the survey were receptive to the idea of receiving
help from their teacher while conducting inquiry, M = 0.24, SD = 0.30. This fnding was signif-
cantly above neutral, t(177) = 10.73, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.20, 0.29] with a large efect size, Cohen’s
d = 0.80. Next, we focused on those students who said they received help without being asked (ques-
tion 5). Again, survey responses were tallied and normalized such that 0 was a “neutral” rating. Of
the 55 students who reported receiving help without asking, the response overall was very favorable
to this proactive help from teachers, M = 0.43, SD = 0.31, and was again signifcantly above neutral,
1027
t(55) = 10.32, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.34, 0.51] again with a large efect size, Cohen’s d = 1.39. Thus,
from the student’s point of view, receiving more timely help is welcomed, even if students are not
asking explicitly for it. In our view, this is critical with this age group at which students are very
sensitive to having their peers aware that they need help.
RQ S.3 Usefulness: For Those Students Helped Via an Alert,

Was the Help Given by the Teacher Helpful to Them?
Here, we analyzed students’ responses regarding the teacher’s help on specifc practices/skills (questions
1 and 2 in Table 32.6) targeted by the Inq-Blotter, namely, formulating hypotheses and collecting
data. As before, student responses were normalized between [−1, 1]. Of the 55 students reporting
they received help from the teacher on hypothesizing, on average they claimed the help was useful,
M = 0.46, SD = 0.51, signifcantly above neutral rating t(54) = 6.77, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.33,
0.60] with a large efect size, Cohen’s d = 0.90. Similarly, of the 25 students reporting they received
help on collecting data, on average they again claimed the help was useful, M = 0.48, SD = 0.39,
signifcantly above neutral rating t(24) = 6.08, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.32, 0.64] with a large efect
size, Cohen’s d = 1.23. These results suggest that the students perceived the teacher’s help on these
specifc skills to be useful.
In summary, our surveys with students indicated, particularly with Inq-Blotter, that receiving
more timely help is welcomed, even if students are not asking explicitly for it. Furthermore, students
view this help as useful. In our view, this is critical with this age group at which students are very
sensitive to having their peers aware that they need help.
Study 2 Testing Beta Version in Classroom

After adding additional features to Inq-Blotter as per teachers’ needs (Study 1a), we again ran the
same study as study 1 and addressed the same research questions (RQ T.1 through RQ T.4). The
aim was to understand how alerts improve teachers’ capacity to provide targeted help as students are
working (Crawford et al., 2008), and how to make this technology both easier to adopt by teachers
and seamless to use. It should be usable in the way that we intend and provide the necessary infor-
mation to teachers in order to act in real time within real classrooms. We added features that teachers
reported as needed from our pilot test of our initial version of Inq-Blotter.
Sample and Settings

We tested Inq-ITS + Inq-Blotter with six teachers’ science classes. These teachers come from the
following schools:
• One public rural high school (lower-level ninth-grade students) in the Northeast United States
• One public suburban middle school in the Northeast United States
• One public urban middle school in the Northeast United States
• One rural public middle school in the Northeast United States
• One urban parochial middle school in the Northwest United States
• One suburban middle school taught by a substitute teacher in the Northeast United States
Some teachers had used Inq-ITS with their students in the past, and for others the experience for
both students and teachers was entirely new. Classes had diverse student demographics and difering
numbers of students in each class. Some had additional aides available for support, whereas others
did not.
1028
Table 32.7 Inq-Blotter Features Available in Beta Version
Feature Alpha Version Beta Version

Kinds of alerts Individual student Individual student
Classwide
Skills alerted on Hypothesizing Hypothesizing
Data collection Data collection
Analysis
Alert ordering Recency Recency
Practice/skill
Alert details Diagnosis Diagnosis
Overall performance Overall performance
Prior alerts Prior alerts
Activity progress
Amount of Rex feedback
Alert resolution Teacher marks as resolved Teacher marks as resolved
Student resolves on own Student resolves on own
Student list Student names Student names
Active vs. inactive students
Student details Overall performance Overall performance
Prior alerts Prior alerts
Connection loss notifcation N/A Available
Confgurable settings N/A Alert decay rate
Slow progress alert sensitivity by skill
Classwide alert sensitivity and scope
Table 32.8 Means and Standard Deviations for Teachers’ Responses (N=5 Who Completed the Survey) to Each
Item on the System Usefulness Survey, adapted from a survey developed by Govaerts et al. (2012) for
the second version of Inq-Blotter. The survey was extended specifcally to address the functions Inq-
Blotter currently serves (e.g., Features 1, 3, and 5), and possibly could serve that might be valuable to
teachers in the future. Note that each question has two scales: importance to the educator and degree
to which it was addressed by Inq-Blotter.
Issue Addressed by
Educator’s Need Inq-Blotter
(1 = Not Relevant, (1 = Impossible/Not
5 = Very Important) at All, 5 = Defnitely)
Issue/Feature M SD M SD
1. Provide feedback to students as quickly as possible 4.80 0.45 5.00 0.00
2. Be aware of what students are working on and where they are 5.00 0.00 4.00 1.73
in their work during class
3. Communicate with students about their progress 5.00 0.00 4.80 0.45
4. Be aware of students’ frustrations, boredom, confusion, etc. 4.60 0.55 4.20 0.84
during class (not directly supported in this version)
5. Find students who are not doing well or are having difculty 5.00 0.00 5.00 0.00
6. Find the best students (not directly supported in this version) 3.40 0.55 2.40 0.89
7. Find skills and concepts on which the class as a whole is struggling 5.00 0.00 5.00 0.00
8. Find skills and concepts the class has mastered (not directly 5.00 0.00 4.40 1.34
9. Know how much time students spent (not directly supported 3.80 0.45 3.60 1.14
in this version)
10. Know when students are of task (not directly supported in 4.80 0.45 3.80 1.64
this version)
1029
Procedure: Same as study 1a.

Results
RQ T.1 Usability: Can Teachers Use Inq-Blotter to Identify

and Address Students’ Diffculties With Inquiry as Students
Conduct Virtual Experiments With Inq-ITS?
To determine usability, we examine the quantitative results of the SUS and the qualitative results
gleaned from the structured interviews. For the fve teachers who completed the survey, the mean
rating of Inq-Blotter was M = 88.75 (SD = 6.85) out of 100, which is higher than our Phase I Inq-
Blotter rating of M = 75 out of 100 (SD = 0.00). This indicates that the system was viewed as very
highly and consistently usable across those three teachers. No teachers reported feeling overwhelmed
nor confused by the interface during our structured interviews.
RQ T.2 Usefulness: Do Teachers Think That Inq-Blotter Increases

Their Awareness on the Specifc Skills Students Are Having
Diffculties With and Promotes Communication and
Collaboration With Their Students (Verbert et al., 2014)?
We analyzed the usefulness of the system by integrating the results of the System Usability Scale
(Table 32.3) with the structured interview data. The survey provides an initial “lens” with which to
explore specifc usability aspects. In particular, we use it to evaluate the specifc needs it was designed
to address (e.g., Feature 1 – providing feedback to students as quickly as possible). We also use the
survey to identify other important features that may also increase classroom awareness that are cur-
rently not supported by Inq-Blotter (e.g., Feature 6 – fnding the best students). The structured
interviews allowed us to probe deeper into the experience.
Regarding supported features, as shown in Table 32.4, there was a large amount of overlap
between teachers’ needs and fulfllment of those needs by Inq-Blotter on these features. We empha-
size that these particular features already addressed by Inq-Blotter were rated among the highest of
all the features shown in Table 32.4.
The structured interviews from all six teachers also refected these fndings. For example, regard-
ing how Inq-Blotter increases awareness, one teacher said, “a lot higher. Students used to struggle.
. . . They’d sit for 10 minutes, and I wouldn’t know they were stuck because they wouldn’t raise their
hands”. Another said, “If it wasn’t for Blotter I wouldn’t have known that [my student] was doing
the whole lab without remembering what the word velocity meant”. In addition, the classwide alerts
enabled another teacher to stop her class and “go over hypothesizing [with them]”. In regard to
increasing communication, one teacher said,
It helps me to know, even when the student says “I’m good”, I can see where their mistakes
are. Inq-Blotter came with the information; I didn’t need to pry it out of the student. I
could interrupt where I knew they were going to struggle. I’m watching to see where they
click so much when collecting data. I didn’t need to get the student verbalize or watch
intently.
The exception was the second feature, being aware of what students are working on and where
they are in their work during class. Though this feature had a reasonable overlap between its need
(M = 5.00, SD = 0.00) and Inq-Blotter addressing the need (M = 4.00, SD = 1.73), the standard
deviation for addressing the need was relatively high, indicating that at least one teacher did not feel
1030
Inq-Blotter helped them do this. This fnding was somewhat surprising because Inq-Blotter does
feature a “progress” meter in the alert details, showing how far a student has progressed in their lab
activities. In the structured interviews, teachers did suggest some design improvements that may
improve this feature:
1. Providing teachers with a single view that lets them know when students are active versus inac-
tive, and how long they spend on a part of a lab (i.e., hypothesizing)
2. Increasing the saliency on alert details what the goal of the lab activity is associated with the alert
(i.e., the independent and dependent variables)
We also used the survey to identify other important features that could also improve Inq-Blotter
that were not supported in this version of Inq-Blotter. Of these features, the overlap between need
and addressing the need was generally consistent. In fact, some features not directly supported by
Inq-Blotter were still rated as meeting teachers’ needs (e.g., Feature 4 – being aware of students’
frustrations, boredom, confusion, etc. during class). The exception was Feature 10, knowing which
students were of task (Q10), in which the need was very high and Inq-Blotter supporting that need
was lower. We expect this need to be met once we integrate slowness alerts and the progress updates
described previously.
Finally, our structured interviews revealed a potential new feature to implement: a tighter integra-
tion between Inq-Blotter and our reporting functionality. To elaborate, one teacher said: “While the
class is going on, I spoke to 18 students in the timeframe we were working. I was in the middle of a
maelstrom. I [want] to be able to go back and refect on what I did”. Another teacher said,
I’d love to be able to go back at the end of the day and look at a summary of the alerts. I
know that looking at the results of the lab will tell me what students are struggling with as
well but seeing a summary of all the alerts in time order, or being able to quickly see a list
of students by type of alert would be great.
Going forward, we will explore integrating Inq-Blotter with our reports.
RQ T.3 Timeliness and Frequency: How Does Inq-Blotter

Facilitate How Quickly and How Frequently Teachers Can
Intervene and Help Their Students (Crawford et al., 2008)?
Classroom observations for all six teachers revealed that the number of times alerts were addressed
for six teachers ranged between 1 and 17 alerts. One teacher, who was a substitute, resolved few
alerts (one alert in the frst class, four alerts in the second class), frequently monitored Inq-Blotter,
and opted to let students try to resolve problems on their own frst before intervening. As such, there
was no clear indicator of how many alerts this teacher was responding to from observation alone.
However, this same teacher did respond to a classwide alert, stopping the class and having a brief
discussion. When responding to alerts, teachers would spend between fve seconds and four minutes
with an individual student.
All teachers reported that Inq-Blotter improved the timeliness and frequency with which they
could help their students in the structured interviews. For example, one teacher said that Inq-Blotter
“[was] defnitely helpful. I feel like there’s a lot of time squeaky wheel gets the grease. Quieter kids
I might miss. I can see with Inq-Blotter who has been struggling for a longer time and help priori-
tize”. Another teacher emphasized that Inq-Blotter “especially [helped her give] productive feedback
because I could hone [sic] in on what was wrong”. At times, however, teachers may struggle to decide
when, or if, to help their students. As described previously, one teacher was relatively hands of with
1031
students. Another stated, “I was defnitely helping kids more than I would have been otherwise.
Then there was another part of me that wrestles with how much to help them and how much to let
them do on their own”. No teachers reported feeling overwhelmed by Inq-Blotter.
RQ T.4 Adoption Barriers: What Are the Key Adoption Barriers

That May Be Present That Would Prohibit or Prevent a
Teacher From Using Inq-Blotter and Inq-ITS?
As part of the structured interview with teachers, we examined what the key barriers to others using
Inq-Blotter might be. Teachers cited cost (i.e., payment for software and/or computing equipment)
and the availability of a tablet or computer for them.
Our second pilot test revealed that our revised version of Inq-Blotter was very positive, and an
improvement over our alpha version (Study 1). The teachers overall found the system to be both
usable and useful, indicating it helped them increase the frequency with which they helped students
and the timeliness of helping their students. In our fnal version, we addressed concerns raised by
teachers, particularly regarding helping them to be better aware of on what students are working.
Inq-Blotter Features and Usage

Inq-Blotter has the following features, enabling formative assessment and instruction of the practices
(NGSS, 2013):
• Fully integrated, secure, cloud-based platform, usable without any software installation: Educa-
tors access Inq-Blotter from our web-based “self-service” platform, which also allows them to
handle student accounts, view reports of students’ work and assessments, and assign/preview
labs. Inq-Blotter is usable within the web browser and does not require any additional software
or browser plugins to be installed. Teachers can start (and restart) Inq-Blotter at any point in
their class and be able to get accurate information about their class progress.
• Mobile device support: Inq-Blotter supports the smaller screen dimensions for mobile phones
and other devices. When Inq-Blotter is launched, the system detects the size of the screen and
will change its look and feel accordingly.
• Actionable alerts for inquiry practices across all 150+ Inq-ITS activities: Alerts are generated
for NGSS practices assessed by every Inq-ITS online lab activity. Each alert provides a “diag-
nosis” of how students are struggling, based on Inq-ITS automatic assessment capability. For
example, a teacher may get a specifc alert when a student is analyzing data and they do not
have controlled data to match the independent variable in their claim. They will get a diferent
alert when another student who is analyzing data has a claim that does not match the trends in
their data. In addition, if students are moving too slowly through a certain part of the inquiry
process (e.g., forming questions), a slow progress alert will notify the teacher that a particular
student is not making progress. The amount of time to signal a slow alert is confgurable by the
teacher.
• Alert contextual information: By clicking on an alert, teachers see information about students’
challenges on a particular practice and its subcomponents or skills (see right side, Figure 32.2).
They use to this to tailor the feedback for their students. This includes:
• A “diagnosis” based on how the student’s inquiry competencies were assessed.
• Information about their overall performance on inquiry practices; scores are computed
based on students’ use with Inq-ITS over a 24-hour period and is reset nightly.
• Prior alerts the student has received that day. All alerts that were received over the past 24
hours are presented; these are reset nightly.
1032
Figure 32.3 Class-wide alerts appear when a certain percentage of students are struggling on a particular
practice/skill (hypothesizing, data collection, and analyzing data). By clicking the alert, the teacher
can see overall class performance and which students are struggling the most.
• Progress through activities: We indicate students’ progress through lab activities using a
progress bar. As seen on the top right of Figure 32.2, solid blue lines represent completion
in a single stage of a lab (e.g., hypothesizing, data collection, data analysis). Light blue indi-
cates the inquiry task on which they are currently working.
• Amount of Rex feedback, our virtual tutor, given to students: Though not discussed in this
chapter, an indicator under the progress bar shows how much help the student was given by
Rex (if he is selected by the teacher for the activity). An orange circle represents the number
of times Rex provided help in a single lab activity. Thus, the teacher can quickly see if Rex
has been helping students less over time, indicating learning. This is very useful for students
on IEPs or who are in special education since their learning trajectories are typically longer.
(For more information on our virtual tutor, see Gobert et al., in press; Li et al., 2019.)
• Continually updated alerts: New alerts will appear automatically when students struggle during
their investigations. Alerts get resolved when the teacher marks them as such (see Figure 32.2)
after helping a student, or automatically if the student’s skill level in question improves without
teacher help.
• Multiple ways to order alerts: Teachers have two options for receiving and ordering alerts: (1)
by recency or (2) by practice type (See Figure 32.2). Ordering by practice type gives teachers a
bird’s-eye view if multiple students are having difculty with the same practice; when this is the
case, s/he can do diferentiated instruction for these students. If a large percentage of the class is
struggling with this practice, indicated by a whole-class alert (thresholds can be by the teacher),
s/he may decide to stop the class and address all students’ challenges. Doing whole-class instruc-
tion is a very efcient use of teachers’ time. Whole-class alerts are an efcient use of teachers’
time.
• Class-wide alerts: As shown in Figure 32.3, class-wide alerts fre when a majority of students
are having difculty with a particular aspect of inquiry (e.g., hypothesizing, collecting data, or
analyzing data). The frequency of these alerts can be confgured by the teacher from a settings
menu. Once such an alert is fred, a detailed alert screen is presented to the teacher that contains:
(1) a visualization and text description of how many students are struggling and (2) a sorted list
of students having the most difculty.
1033
• Student list and history: The student list shows a class roster and how their students are perform-
ing on the day’s inquiry activities. A student’s overall performance and triggered alerts for the day
appear when clicking on their name. We provide teachers with an indicator of whether students
have been inactive for a long period of time within the students list. This feature was imple-
mented so that teachers could keep Inq-Blotter open between classes without having students’
alerts/overall class data from the previous class intermixed with the current class.
• Confgurable settings: Inq-Blotter has settings that are confgurable by the teacher (Figure 32.4).
These control how long alerts are visible and active, when slow progress alerts should be fred,
and thresholds for generating class-wide alerts. These settings allow the teacher to custom tailor
Inq-Blotter to the specifc classroom needs, for example, if a class performs at a higher or lower
level. A fuller depiction of our alerts can be seen in Figure 32.5.
• Teacher inquiry practice supports (TIPS): Recently, Inq-Blotter’s functionality has been
extended to provide TIPS (see Figure 32.6; Gobert, 2019; Dickler, 2021; Dickler et al., 2021b;
Adair et al., 2020). TIPS are instructional supports that provide teachers with conversation
starters once they have received an alert about a student or a set of students. Within each alert,
teachers can click through four levels of increasingly targeted suggestions for how to guide stu-
dents on the practices, including orienting TIPS (i.e., helping direct student attention toward
the practice of difculty), conceptual TIPS (i.e., explaining key components of the practice of
difculty), procedural TIPS (i.e., outlining the steps involved in the practice of difculty), and
Figure 32.4 Inq-Blotter settings that can be confgured by the teacher.
1034
Figure 32.5 Explanation of Inq-Blotter’s alert details.
instrumental TIPS (i.e., telling the student the exact steps needed to move forward). These
TIPS were designed by assessing the needs of teachers as well as examples of teacher discourse
that were found to be correlated with student improvement in Inq-ITS on their next inquiry
task (Gobert, 2019; Dickler et al., 2019, Dickler, Adair et al., 2021a). Inq-Blotter is unique
in both its alerting of science practices and in its instructional TIPS to guide instruction, and
thus has the potential to greatly support and transform teachers’ formative assessment of sci-
ence practices via its detailed, immediate, and actionable information on how their students
struggle with inquiry, i.e., broken down to the respective subcomponents for each practice.
Inq-Blotter’s alerts and TIPS provide real-time technological support for assessment conversa-
tions (Duschl & Gitomer, 1997; Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2007), closes the formative assessment
loop, and can orchestrate learning (Prieto et al., 2011) both on a whole-class level when the
teacher gets an alert that many students are struggling with the same practice, for diferentiated
instruction to small groups of students who are struggling with the same practice, or to an indi-
vidual student who is at risk for falling behind their peers. To quote one teacher “Inq-Blotter
provides a crystal ball” (Foote, personal communication, 2016) for the teacher to know exactly
when and how each student is struggling as they work. Later, we provide a vignette as to how
Inq-Blotter works as a formative tool.
• Usage. Inq-ITS and Inq-Blotter are being used for a variety of pedagogical purposes in
addition to that for which it was designed, i.e., formative assessment of students’ competen-
cies on the practices of science. Other pedagogical uses by teachers include summative data
on competencies on practices, as review before semester or fnal exams, as a remediation
strategy for struggling students, as an acceleration strategy for students who need to be chal-
lenged, and as a baseline for incoming new students. As of this writing, Inq-ITS has been
used in ~12,000 schools in ~5,500 school districts by 13,000 teachers and their 145,000
students; over 1.5 million labs have been completed. Inq-Blotter, which was developed later
than Inq-ITS, has been used in concert with Inq-ITS by ~500 teachers with their ~5,300
students.
1035
1036
Figure 32.6 Teacher inquiry practice supports (TIPS) shown in red with the Orienting TIP selected.
Vignette
To illustrate how the Inq-Blotter system works, we present a small vignette. Mrs. Donahue is having
her seventh-grade class conduct inquiry with Inq-ITS’s Natural Selection Life Science lab addressing
the NGSS Life Science DCIs of LS4.B Natural Selection and LS4.C Adaptation. Students conduct
inquiry to determine the efects of the independent variables (e.g., fur color mutation, fur length
mutation, foliage, temperature) on the dependent variables (e.g., fnal number of Slinquettes (made-
up creatures in the Inq-ITS environment) with red-long, red-short, green-long, or green-short fur)
by forming a question, carrying out an investigation, analyzing and interpreting their data, warrant-
ing their claims using evidence, and communicating their fndings in a claim-evidence-reasoning
framework (McNeill et al., 2006; Gotwals & Songer, 2010). A student, George, has carried out an
investigation with this lab analyzed and interpreted his data, constructed a claim, and is now selecting
evidence from the data he collected to support his claim. Though he collected appropriate data dur-
ing his investigation, he is not selecting enough evidence to warrant his claim, a well-documented
inquiry difculty (Bell & Linn, 2000; Sandoval & Millwood, 2005). The Inq-ITS’s assessment algo-
rithms detect this difculty and cause an alert to be sent immediately to Mrs. Donahue’s Inq-Blotter
(e.g., see Figure 32.7) that says, “George is having difculty selecting sufcient data to support his
claim”. She goes to him and begins a conversation to help him understand why multiple, controlled
trials are needed to support a claim (TIPS permit four diferent instructional supports, which teach-
ers can use and/or choose from; Inq-Blotter provides some additional contextual information about
the students’ inquiry in that respective lab to aid teachers in their choice of which TIP to use). After
Figure 32.7 George’s alert (lower left), actionable details on right (top), progress on other inquiry practices
(middle), and today’s alerts for George (bottom).
1037
helping him, she clicks on “Mark as resolved” and moves to the next student shown on Inq-Blotter;
the alert turns green and displays a green checkmark to indicate it is resolved then fades from the
“Recent Alerts” list.
Summary
In the former chapter on formative assessment in the second edition of this handbook, Black and
Atkin (2014) posed a question as to whether assessment in all its forms has an unintended conse-
quence of comparing students across schools and, in turn, resulting in negative efects on students’
learning. In our chapter, we address this by outlining how coarse-grained multiple-choice assess-
ments can be replaced by performance assessment of science practices capable of measuring all stu-
dents’ developing competencies (Songer et al., 2009) given their range of competencies and in the
context in which they are developing (Mislevy et al., 2012).
Specifcally, we specify how assessment of students’ competencies at doing authentic science, as
per needs specifed by the NGSS (2013), can be accomplished by using assessment design frame-
works, including the assessment triangle (Pellegrino et al., 2001) and ECD (Mislevy et al., 2012,
2020), and further how computational techniques, such as knowledge engineering and educational
data mining (Baker & Siemens, 2014), can be used to do real-time assessment and, in turn, drive
alerts to teachers for their instruction of science practices. The result of this is instantiated in our
dashboard, Inq-Blotter, used in tandem with our student platform, Inq-ITS, so that teachers’ can
realize NGSS (2013) via real-time formative assessment and alerting for science inquiry to inform
both class-wide instruction, small groups, or 1:1 support. As described, the entire system (Inq-ITS +
Inq-Blotter): (1) assesses students’ inquiry competencies on the practices, (2) makes teachers aware of
when and in what way(s) their students are struggling, and (3) provides them with actionable TIPS
as to how to help their students (described later). As such, the system is transformative in two ways.
First, the virtual labs enable real-time assessment of authentic inquiry competencies. Teachers are
able to get measures of students’ competencies in authentic contexts (simulations) without needing
to purchase expensive apparatus, and they no longer need to “watch over the students’ shoulders”.
Second, real-time assessment data is used to provide real-time alerts and TIPS, permitting teachers
with data and practice supports (TIPS) to guide students in the moment, which is critical to deep
learning (Pellegrino et al., 2001), not days or weeks later like traditional assessments when remedia-
tion is no longer possible.
This system builds on the inquiry, assessment, and alerting work of others and forges new ground
for inquiry assessment and alerting of science with its application of computational analytics, includ-
ing educational data mining, and knowledge engineering (Gobert et al., 2013; Gobert et al., 2016,
2017, 2019), allowing the system to better capture what kinds of difculties students have with
inquiry and then communicate those difculties to the teacher with Inq-Blotter’s succinct, forma-
tive, and actionable alerts (Gobert & Sao Pedro, 2017). Taken together, this approach can inform the
design of future scalable assessment and intelligent tutoring systems for science inquiry (Mislevy et al.,
2012; Mislevy et al., 2020), important to schools, states, etc., seeking rigorous performance assess-
ment and instruction of inquiry as outlined by NGSS (2013) and other 21st-century skill frameworks.
Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF-IIS-1629045, NSF-DRL-1252477,
NSF-IIS- 1902647) and the US Department of Education (R305A210432, R305A120778, ED-IES-
15-C-0018, ED-IES-16-C-0014). Any opinions, fndings, etc. expressed are those of the authors and
do not necessarily refect those of the funding agencies.
1038
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33
LARGE-SCALE ASSESSMENT
IN SCIENCE EDUCATION
Science education across the globe has experienced a number of signifcant changes in this century.
In addition to advances in science education research, many of the changes in science education have
been driven by global trends in economics, science, and technology, as well as science and technology
policy as related to issues of workforce development. An important component of the science education
research agenda has been developments in the use and interpretation of large-scale assessments designed
to monitor student achievement in science. Large-scale science assessment programs, such as the Trends
in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) from the International Association for the Evalu-
ation of Educational Achievement (IEA), and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)
from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), have become especially
prominent over the last two decades. In part, this can be attributed to the periodic re-administration
of both the TIMSS and PISA assessments to help countries monitor trends in performance over time.
The assessment results have either surprised (e.g., Finland), shocked (e.g., Germany), and/or promoted
(e.g., UK) various countries, with profound impacts on their education system (Grek, 2009; Teltemann
& Klieme, 2016). TIMSS, for example, has claimed that the results could be used to not only inform
educational policy but also monitor the impact of new or revised policies (Mullis & Martin, 2017).
As described by Braun and Singer (2019), large-scale assessments have come to play a major role
in education, and the results from an international assessment administration such as TIMSS or PISA
or a national science assessment administration such as the US National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) can often play a role in education policy debates. Countries use international large-
scale assessments to benchmark their performance against peers and to glean policy insights from
countries that consistently achieve high rankings or have shown rapid improvements in rankings.
Education policymakers have also been shown to be increasingly receptive to advice and prescrip-
tions ofered by analysts who ofer policy recommendations based on their own interpretations of
international large-scale assessment data (Denoël et al., 2017; McKinsey & McKinsey, 2007; National
Center on Education and the Economy, 2021; Ng, 2011) irrespective of whether such interpreta-
tions are justifable or not (Ercikan et al., 2015).
Results from large-scale science assessments have motivated participating countries to refect on
their curriculum standards and make revisions, and even in some cases, rebuild their curriculum stan-
dards entirely. Neumann et al. (2010) described how PISA results contributed to a nationwide science
curriculum reform in Germany early in this century. The result was their National Education Stan-
dards for biology, chemistry, and physics, which refected a profound paradigm shift from the German
notion of Bildung (e.g., philosophy of self-formulation of individuals) to the Anglo-American notion
1045 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-38

of literacy. These new developments nationwide in Germany are evidence of the profound impact of
large-scale assessments on educational standards and policy.
A common interest among countries participating in science assessment programs like TIMSS and
PISA is to use the test results and other contextual data collected in the periodic surveys to explore
factors that may be contributing to students’ performance outcomes. Both the TIMSS and PISA
programs have administered multiple surveys for students, teachers, parents, and principals to obtain
information about factors that may be associated with variation in students’ learning outcomes. Among
those factors are curriculum content or design, aspects of science pedagogy, and teacher background
knowledge, any of which may infuence children’s learning environments and their performance on
a given science assessment. For example, scientifc inquiry activities are often regarded as a valuable
teaching pedagogy. Large-scale science assessments provide the possibility of obtaining correlational
evidence about such practices to help evaluate such a claim. By analyzing PISA 2015 data from China,
Chi et al. (2018) found a positive relationship between inquiry activities and student outcomes for
those with low socioeconomic status. In contrast, Oliver et al. (2019) found a negative relationship
between the frequency of inquiry-based learning experiences and students’ assessment scores on PISA
2015 in six other countries. Oliver et al.’s (2019) results tend to align with results observed in the ten
top-performing regions in PISA 2015 (Lau & Lam, 2017). By disaggregating inquiry-based teaching
as defned in PISA into components, Oliver et al. (2019) found that some components have a positive
association with students’ assessment scores while others do not. This is but one example of the use
of large-scale science assessment programs to conduct research designed to help understand trends in
assessment scores together with trends and variation in a host of relevant background variables related
to the conditions of science education. Most large-scale assessments, by design, support investigation
of correlations between students’ achievement scores and contextual factors (e.g., quality of teaching,
socioeconomic status) at various levels. That said, there are severe limitations on supporting causal
inferences from correlational data derived from such large-scale survey data (Singer & Braun, 2018).
Large-scale science assessments have also stimulated research designed to advance knowledge
while also supporting the needs of policymakers in their quest to improve science education systems.
For example, PISA has specifed a set of profciency levels to characterize performance on their sci-
ence assessment. This has stimulated researchers to focus on developing and validating competence
models that conceptualize levels of science profciency on large-scale assessments, such as PISA and
NAEP. Research on developing competence models and measuring students’ science profciency in
light of such models has drawn substantial positive attention in the research and measurement com-
munity over the last two decades (Kauertz et al., 2012; Neumann et al., 2010).
There is a vast literature related to large-scale science assessment covering topics such as those
mentioned earlier, as well as many others. In this chapter on large-scale science assessment, we have
chosen to carry forward and elaborate on assessment programs and themes discussed in the prior ver-
sion of this handbook’s chapter on large-scale science assessment (Britton & Schneider, 2014). Like
the prior chapter, we have not attempted to discuss the vast array of work that has been published
on the technical details of specifc assessment programs, such as sampling designs, test administration
conditions, or measurement and psychometric analyses. Nor have we attempted to summarize the
vast array of secondary research conducted using the results of those assessments as related to popula-
tion and subgroup diferences or background contextual variables.
Like Britton and Schneider (2014), yet from a diferent perspective, we have organized this chap-
ter in terms of reporting on the most recent administrations of the two major international assess-
ment programs – TIMSS and PISA – as well as the most recent administrations of the NAEP Science
and NAEP TEL (Technology and Engineering Literacy) assessments. For all four large-scale assess-
ments, we focus on what these assessment programs have been attempting to measure and how they
have evolved over the last few decades in terms of their frameworks, purposes, item characteristics,
and methods of reporting. Recent results showing performance trends are also reported. The frst
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Large-Scale Assessment in Science Education
section is focused on the two major international assessments: the TIMSS program followed by the
PISA program. The second section is focused on NAEP Science, followed by NAEP TEL. The last
section of the chapter discusses six important trends that we believe will have a major impact on
large-scale assessments of science over the next decade and consider some of the implications for how
the information derived from these assessment programs could contribute to a better understanding
of student achievement and the improvement of science and technology education across the globe.
International Science Assessments

In this section, we introduce the two major international science assessment programs: the IEA stud-
ies and OECD’s PISA study. The participating countries for both programs from the mid- 1990s to
the present are shown in Table 33.1. It can be seen that a growing number of countries are participat-
ing in these large-scale assessments. Some countries have participated in both assessments. Since the
start of the 21st century, both assessments have happened regularly across the world. TIMSS typically
takes place every four years, while PISA takes place every three years (exceptions can be seen in Table
33.1). The regularly administered tests provide comparable information for participating countries to
monitor trends in education.
IEA Science Studies

Before OECD organized the PISA program in 2000, the International Association for the Evalua-
tion of Educational Achievement (IEA) was the principal organization for large-scale international
assessments. IEA, headquartered in Amsterdam, represents an independent research organization
composed of many governmental research institutions. IEA aims to assess students’ opportunities
to learn through the curricula provided in their respective countries. Beginning in the 1950s, IEA
started piloting cross-national studies to evaluate student achievements in areas of science, mathemat-
ics, reading comprehension, geography, and nonverbal abilities. Since then, IEA has organized ten
international assessments, and approximately 70 countries participated in their 2019 test. Given the
evolution of the IEA assessment program for science with respect to purpose, framework, and assess-
ment item formats, we segment the discussion into three stages.
Assessment Prior to TIMSS: Curriculum-Aligned Assessments

Drawing upon results from pilot studies, IEA’s frst formal test, the First International Science Study
(FISS), was launched in 1970/1971 as part of a larger study that included six subject surveys. FISS
used a two-dimensional framework (i.e., content vs. cognitive behavior) to conceptualize assessment
goals, with a table of specifcations for item development. This framework was impacted by Bloom
et al.’s (1956) learning goal taxonomy. The content dimension specifed the subject knowledge to
be assessed in four domains: earth sciences, biology, chemistry, and physics. The orthogonal dimension
of behavior used a hierarchy to articulate four levels of cognitive behaviors in problem solving: func-
tional information, comprehension, application, and higher processes. To better approach the assessment
goals, IEA employed the curriculum as a major thread in considering the learning opportunities that
students were provided and how students performed given those opportunities. The IEA developed
a curriculum model (see Figure 33.1; Travers & Westbury, 1988) that included three components:
intended curriculum, implemented curriculum, and attained curriculum. This model described the
expected learning depicted in educational policy documents and standards, how the curriculum was
implemented in classrooms, and what students obtained from the curriculum after instruction and
learning. Using this model, IEA expected to examine outcomes given the opportunities for learning
provided via curriculum and teaching.
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Table 33.1 Countries Participating in International Science Assessments
TIMSS TIMSS-R TIMSS TIMSS TIMMS TIMSS TIMSS TIMSS PISA (15-yearr-olds)
1995 1999 2003 2007 2008 2011 2015 2019
Country 4th 8th ES1 8th 4th 8th 4th 8th ES1 4th 8th 4th 8th ES1 4th 8th 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015 2018 2022*
Albania x x x x x x x x
Algeria x x x
Argentina x x x x x x x x x x
Armenia x x x x x x x x x x
Australia x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Austria x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Azerbaijan x x x x x x

Bahrain x x x x x x x x
Belarus x x
Belgium (Flemish)-BEL x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Belgium (French)-BEL x
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Bosnia and Herzegovina x x x x

Botswana x x x x x
Brazil x x x x x x x x
Brunei Darussalam x x
Bulgaria x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Cambodia x
Canada x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Chile x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
China x x x x x
Chinese Taipei x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Colombia x x x x x x x x x
Costa Rica x x x x x
Croatia x x x x x x x x x
Cyprus x x x x x x x x x x
Czech Republic x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Denmark x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
1995 1999 2003 2007 2008 2011 2015 2019
Dominican Republic x x x
Egypt x x x x
El Salvador x x x
England-GBR x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Estonia x x x x x x x
Finland x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
France x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Georgia x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Germany x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Ghana x x x
Greece x x x x x x x x x x x
Guatemala x
Honduras x x
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Hong Kong-CHN x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Hungary x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Iceland x x x x x x x x x x
India x x
Indonesia x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Iran, Islamic Republic of x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Ireland x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Israel x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Italy x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Jamaica x
Japan x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Jordan x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Kazakhstan x x x x x x x x x x x x
Korea, Republic of x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Kosovo x x x x
Kuwait x x x x x x x x x
(Continued)
1995 1999 2003 2007 2008 2011 2015 2019
Kyrgyzstan x x
Latvia x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Lebanon x x x x x x x x x x x
Lithuania x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Luxembourg x x x x x x x
Macao (China) x x x x x x x
Malaysia x x x x x x x x x x x

Malta x x x x x x x x
Mauritius x
Mexico x x x x x x x x x x
Moldova, Republic of x x x x x x x
Mongolia x x x
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Montenegro x x x x x x x x
Morocco x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Netherlands x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
New Zealand x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
North Macedonia x x x x x x x x
Northern Ireland-GBR x x x
Norway x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Oman x x x x x x x
Pakistan x
Palestinian Nat’l Auth. x x x x
Panama x x x
Paraguay x
Peru x x x x x x
Philippines x x x x x x x x x
Poland x x x x x x x x x x x
Portugal x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
1995 1999 2003 2007 2008 2011 2015 2019
Qatar x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Romania x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Russian Federation x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Saudi Arabia x x x x x x x x x x
Scotland-GBR x x x x x x
Serbia x x x x x x x x x x x
Singapore x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Slovak Republic x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Slovenia x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
South Africa x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Spain x x x x x x x x x x x x
Sweden x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Switzerland x x x x x x x x x x
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Syrian Arab Republic x x

Thailand x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Trinidad and Tobago x x
Tunisia x x x x x x x x x x x x
Turkey x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Ukraine x x x x x
United Arab Emirates2 x x x x x x x x x x x
United Kingdom3 x x x x x x x x
United States x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Uruguay x x x x x x x
Uzbekistan x
Vietnam x x x x
Yemen x x x
Totals 29 46 19 38 26 47 37 50 10 50 42 49 38 9 58 39 41 41 56 73 63 71 78 86
1 End of Secondary, which is an additional test to the regular TIMSS focusing on students in their last year of secondary studies.
2 Dubai participated in 2009, the rest of the country began in the following administrations.
3 TIMSS Lists N. Ireland, England, and Scotland separately; PISA reports these as the United Kingdom.
* Due to COVID-19, OECD decided to postpone the PISA test one year to 2022. Countries listed in this column are those who have agreed to participate in the 2022
PISA as of June 2021.
Figure 33.1 IEA curriculum model.
The FISS targeted three populations, 10-year-olds, 14-year-olds, and students in their last year of
secondary education. IEA allowed countries to selectively participate in the tests. Seventeen coun-
tries participated in the test for 10-year-olds, and 19 countries participated in the tests for the two
older groups. The FISS results were informative, and IEA spent multiple years studying the fndings
and engaging in activities such as adjusting their test framework and revising assessment items.
The Second International Science Study (SISS) was conducted more than ten years later, in
1984/1985. In this version, IEA relabeled their two-dimensional framework as content vs. objective
dimensions. Essentially, the new objective dimension came from the old cognitive behavior dimension,
and the components were redefned as processes, applications, etc.
TIMSS: Assessing Trends in Science Learning

The third IEA test was conducted in 1995, incorporating both science and mathematics contents, and
thus was named the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Since then, TIMSS
has established a stable assessment schedule with four years in a cycle, focusing on grades four and
eight in mathematics and science learning in participating countries. This design allows for examin-
ing cohort data over time as the fourth-grade student cohort would participate in the next TIMSS
when they are in grade eight. The frst TIMSS explicitly aimed to both monitor the trends of student
learning globally and delve into problems in the education system, and thus correlational information
became much more important and informative. This is also one reason TIMSS combined science and
mathematics tests to gauge students’ learning in both disciplines, as this might provide correlational
information to infer potential efects. To better refect the epistemology of science learning, TIMSS
1995 further revised their framework by splitting the objective dimension into two coherent dimen-
sions: performance expectations and perspectives (including attitudes and orientation).
To further delve into issues in education systems, TIMSS also obtained additional learning con-
text information through surveys for students, teachers, parents, and principals. TIMSS established a
framework for learning context questionnaires, including fve levels: national and community contexts,
home contexts, school contexts, classroom contexts, and student characteristics and attitudes toward learning. As
asserted by test designers, the information obtained from such surveys is highly relevant and expected
to provide possible causal insights into outcomes based on multivariate analyses. The framework pro-
vides a lens to correlate learning outcomes with the specifc learning contexts in a multidimensional
analysis to better interpret test scores.
Since 2003, IEA has conducted further assessments of math and science and formally changed the
name to Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, using the same acronym TIMSS. Since
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then, TIMSS has been regularly conducted fve times on a cycle of every four years. TIMSS 2003 frst
revised the framework by removing the perspective dimension with both attitudes and orientation and moved
scientifc inquiry out of performance expectation to be an individual dimension. Moreover, TIMSS 2003 rela-
beled performance expectation as cognitive domain (i.e., factual knowledge, conceptual understanding, and
reasoning and analysis). As one of the primary goals to measure “trends”, TIMSS commits to a premise
for designing assessments following the adage “If you want to measure change [trends], do not change
the measure” (ascribed to John Tukey and Albert Beaton; Martin et al., 2020, p. 1.3). This is the reason
that IEA has been extremely cautious about making signifcant changes to TIMSS since 2003, though it
evolves across cycles. To maintain a relatively stable measurement scale, IEA developed a three-cycle pro-
cedure for item development and rotation: developing “new items”, maintaining “trending items” from
the prior cycle, which are kept secure for re-administering, and remaining “items”from two cycles before.
TIMSS 2007 relabeled the cognitive dimension as knowing, applying, and reasoning, inspired by the
revised Bloom Taxonomy (Anderson et al., 2001). Since then, TIMSS constantly applied this cognitive
dimension in their subsequent tests in 2011, 2015, and 2019 with minor changes in the content domain.
Besides the regular tests targeting grades four and eight, TIMSS also administers TIMSS Advanced,
targeting students in their last year of secondary school, to collect information about how well stu-
dents are prepared for STEM careers. The TIMSS Advanced has been administered three times,
including 1995, 2008, and 2015.
eTIMSS: Transforming to Digital and Virtual Tests

With the growing accessibility and availability of technology in assessments, TIMSS 2019 marked
a milestone as TIMMS transformed the traditional paper-pencil test format to a digital test named
eTIMSS. eTIMSS has many unique and advanced features intended to be more engaging and inter-
active, including visualization, with the goal of making eTIMSS more equitable and inclusive in its
assessment of students from diverse backgrounds. Besides assessing the three cognitive domains (i.e.,
knowing, applying, and reasoning), eTIMSS also assessed fve science practices as a means to assess
students’ knowledge-in-use ability (Harris et al., 2019; National Research Council, 2012b). The
fve science practices include asking questions based on observations, generating evidence, working with data,
answering the research question, and making an argument from evidence. The practices were assessed in one
or more content domains. To better assess science practices, eTIMSS 2019 also included extended
problem solving and inquiry (PSI) tasks at both the fourth- and eighth-grade levels. Each PSI includes
a cluster of 4–16 questions under the same context. The digital PSI provides a unique opportunity
to emerge students in simulated real-world or laboratory environments to solve authentic problems.
Accompanying the digital assessment tasks, IEA created a digital platform for the eAssessment System
to administer the test. The eAssessment utilized colorful graphics and simulation features to engage stu-
dents in the test. However, not all TIMSS countries were prepared for digital testing, and the transition
to eTIMSS is thus intended to be implemented over the TIMSS 2019 and TIMSS 2023 administrations.
The IEA eAssessment System possesses components that are critical to this success (Martin et al., 2020):
• Task development module. This module includes embedded tools for interactive test task devel-
opment. Specifcally, the system includes a designer module to create non-PSI tasks.
• Item group module. This module is used to group items into item blocks and then group item
blocks into item block combinations (test booklets).
• Translation and adaption module. Since the assessments need to be translated into many diferent
languages, the system provides this module to assist in the translation processes.
• Delivery module. The digital items developed can be displayed on both mobile devices and computers.
• Monitor module. This module is used to track data collection.
• Scoring module. The system includes a scoring module for human experts to grade students’
constructed responses and for checking interrater reliability.
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Figure 33.2 shows an example PSI item, Pepper Plants, for grade eight. The item aims to assess
students’ problem-solving ability by asking them to design an experiment and analyze the data to
examine the efectiveness of fertilizer. The item is composited of 13 screens, and each screen asks one
or two questions, which include constructed responses, multiple-choice, etc. Students need to use
biology knowledge and experimental design principles to set up the experiment, collect and analyze
data, evaluate the design, and make conclusions. Each question targets an individual content domain,
topic area, and cognitive area. For example, question 3 targets the biology content domain, the
ecosystems topic area, and the reasoning cognitive domain by asking students to generate evidence.
Though computer-based assessments have many advantages, concerns are drawn regarding mode
efects. Especially for large-scale assessments that focus on identifying trends across years, mode efects
could potentially contaminate conclusions made based on scores if occurring. To examine and moni-
tor mode efects for eTIMSS 2019, Fishbein et al. (2018) conducted an item equivalence study on
Figures 33.2–1 to 14 An example of problem solving and inquiry (PSI) task in eTIMSS 2019 (Mullis et al., 2021).
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Figures 33.2–1 to 14 (Continued)
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feld trials by using a within-subjects design to infer the efects of digitalization on students’ per-
formance, as compared to paper-pencil tests. This research documented an overall mode efect of
digitalization – items delivered digitally are more difcult than their paper-and-pencil counterparts.
They further suggest modifcations to item calibration for eTIMSS 2019 to maintain the equivalence
between digital and paper-and-pencil versions. Further investigations into mode efects in various
large-scale assessment programs are needed, and the fndings may provide valuable information for
considering the results of digital tests. Another concern is about the dependency of questions in the
PSIs. Given that in each PSI task all the questions share the same context, it is possible that students’
responses to one item might depend on another. For example, an incorrect response to a prior ques-
tion might indicate that their responses to the following questions would also fail. To overcome this
dependency issue, the designers provide some clues for the answers to the prior questions so that
students’ replies to the latter would not be dependent on their answers to the prior questions. This
option inevitably caused some students to go back to prior questions and change their answers, but
IEA only counted their initial responses. Moreover, the eAssessment system provides process data so
that researchers and educators can check students’ timing in completing the tasks.
Recent Administrations and Findings in TIMSS 2019

Since eTIMSS is technologically demanding, slightly more than half of the 64 TIMSS countries
participated in the eTIMSS 2019. Among the participating countries, Singapore and South Korea
signifcantly outperformed other countries, followed by the Russian Federation, Japan, and Chi-
nese Taipei. To diferentiate students’ performance, TIMSS 2019 classifes students according to
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four international benchmarks: low, intermediate, high, and advanced. The average performance of
participants is shown in Table 33.2. For grade 4, the majority of students (92%) met the low inter-
national benchmark, but only 6% of students met the advanced international benchmark. In the two
highest-performing countries (i.e., Singapore and South Korea), however, 38% and 29% of students
reached the advanced international benchmark, respectively, indicating a signifcant gap between
participating countries. Comparable results were shown for eighth grade, though only 85% of par-
ticipating students met the low international benchmark (see Table 33.2).
TIMSS 2019 was designed to provide valuable information regarding both short-term (2015–
2019) and long-term (1995–2019) trends. Over diferent rounds of TIMSS, there were always coun-
tries that improved or inclined. That is, short-term trends indicate a slightly positive increase for
fourth graders in the participating countries, with 10 countries improving, 10 declining, and 24
staying the same. Long-term trends indicate a stronger increase, as compared to short-term trends,
with 11 countries improving, 2 declining, and 3 with no change. Eighth graders also showed posi-
tive changes in both short-term (11 improved, 5 declined, and 17 were stable) and long-term trends
(8 improved, 4 declined, and 6 were stable). Specifc interpretations of the results should examine
information about the participating countries’ backgrounds (Mullis et al., 2020). TIMSS 2019 con-
sistently revealed that in both grades 4 and 8, though the majority of participating countries showed
gender equity, more countries (i.e., 18 countries in grade 4 and 15 in grade 8) showed that girls
outperformed boys than the reverse (i.e., seven countries in grade 4 and six in grade 8). More impor-
tantly, the 24 years of trend data consistently suggest that since the TIMSS 2007, female students
consistently outperform male students in both grades 4 and 8 in recent testing cycles (see Figures
33.3 and 33.4).
Table 33.2 Grades 4 and 8 Student Performances on TIMSS 2019
International Benchmark Performance
Advanced Students communicate their understanding of life, physical, and earth sciences
(Grade 4 = 6%; and demonstrate some knowledge of the process of scientifc inquiry. Students
Grade 8 = 7%) demonstrate knowledge of the characteristics and life processes of a variety of
organisms. They can communicate the understanding of relationships in ecosystems
and interactions between organisms and their environment. They communicate
understanding of properties and states of matter and physical and chemical changes.
Students communicate understanding of Earth’s physical characteristics, processes,
and history and show knowledge of Earth’s revolution and rotation.
High Students communicate and apply knowledge of life, physical, and earth sciences.
(Grade 4 = 32%; Students communicate knowledge of characteristics of plants, animals, and their
Grade 8 = 29%) life cycles, and apply knowledge of ecosystems and of humans’ and organisms’
interactions with their environment. Students demonstrate knowledge of states and
properties of matter and of energy transfer in practical contexts, and show some
understanding of forces and motion. Students know various facts about Earth’s
physical characteristics and show basic understanding of the Earth–Moon–Sun
system.
Intermediate Students show knowledge and understanding of some aspects of science. Students
(Grade 4 = 71%; demonstrate some basic knowledge of plants and animals. They demonstrate
Grade 8 = 61%) knowledge about some properties of matter and some facts related to electricity,
and can apply elementary knowledge of forces and motion. They show some
understanding of Earth’s physical characteristics.
Low (Grade 4 = 92%; Students show limited understanding of scientifc concepts and limited knowledge
Grade 8 = 85%) of foundational science facts.
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Figure 33.3 Fourth-grade performance by gender on TIMSS since 1995.
Figure 33.4 Eighth-grade performance by gender on TIMSS since 1995.
TIMSS reported factors that might be associated with students’ performance on the tests, includ-
ing home educational resources, early start in school, school resources, school emphasis on academic
success, students’ sense of school belonging, school discipline and safety, student bullying, attitudes
toward science, and instructional clarity. TIMSS 2019 results suggest that better-prepared home
educational resources indicate a higher average performance for both fourth and eighth graders. For
example, 17% of fourth-grade participants that rated as possessing “Many Resources” achieved an
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average score of 557, which was 69 points higher than those rated as “Some Resources” (75%) and
143 points higher than those rated as “Few Resources” (8%). A similar pattern was found for eighth
graders: The gaps between “Many Resources” and the other two named groups were 60 and 111
points, respectively. TIMSS 2019 also found that fourth-grade students who participated in literacy
and numeracy activities during early childhood had signifcantly better performance on the science
test than those who were not involved in such activities. More importantly, there was a signifcant
positive relationship between the years of early childhood education and test scores. Results also
suggest that students in each grade who studied in schools where instruction was not afected by sci-
ence resource shortages performed better than those afected, with achievement gaps of 36 (fourth
graders) and 38 (eighth graders) between “Not Afected” and “Afected a Lot”. Whether schools
emphasize academic success also matters. Results suggest that schools that emphasized academic suc-
cess usually had better-prepared and higher-skilled teachers, more supportive parents, and students
who desired to accomplish more in terms of academic goals. Consequently, students in these schools
performed signifcantly better than those in other schools. This trend was particularly true for eighth-
grade students. In addition, higher-performing students on TIMSS were found to be related to fewer
school discipline problems, safer school environments, and less experience of school bullying. TIMSS
2019 further found positive relations between student performance and students’ attitudes toward
science and teachers’ instructional clarity (e.g., whether teachers have clear answers to their ques-
tions), respectively. These and other fndings provide rich information for participating countries to
contextualize and interpret their students’ performance on the tests.
OECD-PISA
In 1997, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) launched their
international large-scale assessment program known as PISA – Program for International Student
Assessment – seeking to answer the question of what citizens should know and be able to do to
survive in their personal, social, and professional lives. After seven cycles of triennial testing starting
in 2000, PISA has evolved as an international assessment program covering three primary subject-
matter domains: science, reading, and mathematics. One of the three major subject-matter domains
is the major focus in each test and takes up nearly two-thirds of the testing time to gauge students’
competence, while the other subject domains occupy the rest of the testing time. PISA also assesses
fnancial literacy and has Innovative Domain assessments that have included separate and non-
repeating assessments of problem solving, collaborative problem solving, and global competence
with assessments of creativity scheduled for 2022 and learning in the digital world for 2025. PISA
aims to provide policy-oriented indicators, particularly to OECD member countries, to support
the improvement of their education systems regarding perceived literacy needs and challenges of
the 21st century.
As a critical domain, science was assessed as a major subject in 2006 and 2015 and will be assessed
again in 2025. Diferent from prior arguments that emphasized goals for science education as for
training future scientists vs. educating future citizens (Osborne, 2007), PISA is specifcally aimed at assess-
ing literacy for preparing future citizens. This focus diferentiates PISA from other large-scale science
assessments such as TIMSS and NAEP by stepping away from subject matter–oriented tests toward
competence-oriented tests that assess what students need to survive in real-world situations using
domain-relevant knowledge and skills. PISA’s focus and scope are aligned with a contemporary view
of science education from a competence perspective with respect to preparing students to survive
and meet future challenges (Douglas et al., 2020; Pellegrino, 2013). PISA provided a framework in
2006 specifying scientifc literacy encompassing goals of science education that have been proposed
for decades, as the overarching assessment goals (Bybee et al., 2009). The framework was revised in
PISA 2015 and is currently under revision for PISA 2025.
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PISA 2006
In their frst version of the report, OECD defned scientifc literacy as “the capacity to use scientifc
knowledge, to identify questions, and to draw evidence-based conclusions in order to understand
and help make decisions about the natural world and the changes made to it through human activity”
(OECD, 2001, p. 20, 2003, p. 14). To organize and assess scientifc literacy, OECD further speci-
fed scientifc literacy in three aspects: scientifc processes, scientifc concepts, and situations. The scientifc
processes incorporate fve critical components: recognizing scientifcally investigable questions, identifying
evidence needed in a scientifc investigation, drawing or evaluating conclusions, communicating valid conclusions,
and demonstrating understanding of scientifc concepts. Each of the processes is to be assessed with one or
more scientifc concepts. Of note, even though OECD identifes scientifc concepts as one aspect of
scientifc literacy, they do not adhere to specifc concepts documented in the curricula used in the
participating countries. Instead, they focus on scientifc concepts that are relevant to students’ real-
world experiences (e.g., food and energy use). They focus on how students use scientifc concepts to
solve problems rather than memorization of factual scientifc information. The last aspect, situations,
emphasizes that the problems that PISA develops are intended to refect real-world situations (also
called context or scenarios).
Given developments in knowledge about how to assess scientifc literacy in the frst two PISA test
cycles of 2000 and 2003, scientifc literacy was further specifed with four components to articulate
what a 15-year-old student should know and be able to do to solve problems in appropriate personal,
social, and global contexts (Bybee et al., 2009; OECD, 2006):
• Scientifc knowledge and use of that knowledge to identify questions, to acquire new knowl-
edge, to explain the scientifc phenomenon, to draw evidence-based conclusions about science-
related issues
• Understanding of the characteristic features of science as a form of human knowledge and
inquiry
• Awareness of how science and technology shape our material, intellectual, and cultural
environments
• Willingness to engage in science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a constructive,
concerned, and refective citizen
To adequately assess students’ scientifc literacy, PISA 2006 developed a framework to situate the
assessment goals within specifc assessment tasks (see Figure 33.5). This framework embraces four
components: scientifc contexts that the assessment tasks involve, the scientifc competencies needed to
solve contextualized problems, the domain knowledge used to conceptualize the problems, and the
attitudes toward science that motivate students to continue engaging in science. Scientifc context fea-
tures three levels (i.e., personal, social, and global) of real-world problems in areas of health, natural
resources, environment, hazards, and the frontiers of science and technology. These contextual areas
are highly associated with students’ interests and lives. Given that these contexts vary signifcantly
across countries due to cultural diversity, PISA’s approach highlights cultural diferences and varia-
tion in assessment development. Scientifc competencies are further specifed as identifying scientifc
issues, explaining phenomena scientifcally, and using scientifc evidence. Students are expected to
use scientifc evidence to draw conclusions on scientifc issues. As an essential component, scientifc
knowledge is needed to ensure the evidence is interpreted and used scientifcally in the reasoning
processes for valid conclusions. PISA 2006 emphasizes two aspects of scientifc knowledge: knowledge
of science (e.g., living systems, physical systems) and knowledge about science (e.g., nature of science
and inquiry). The knowledge of science is a body of scientifc concepts incorporating fundamental
ideas about the natural world developed for students to critically analyze phenomena, make relevant
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Figure 33.5 Framework for PISA 2006 science assessment (OECD, 2006).
inferences, and construct explanations (Zhai & Li, 2021). Knowledge about science is the epistemic
knowledge of the rationale and nature of the scientifc inquiry, as well as the essential processes of
knowledge building. Since one’s attitude is critical to their interest and persistence in science, PISA
2006 also includes attitudes toward science as an essential component of scientifc literacy. Attitudes
toward science include interest in science, support for scientifc inquiry, and responsibility toward
resources and environments, and are critical to one’s career selection. Attitudes toward science is a new
component of scientifc literacy compared to the prior versions in both 2000 and 2003.
The PISA 2006 framework was applied in the two subsequent assessment cycles of 2009 and 2012
before a substantially revised framework was adopted in 2015, when science again became PISA’s
major focus of assessments.
PISA 2015
The PISA 2015 framework refected recent developments in science education documented in other
major frameworks and standards. While preparations were underway for PISA 2015, the US National
Research Council released the Framework for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council,
2012b), the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013), and Developing Assess-
ments for the Next Generation Science Standards (Pellegrino et al., 2014). These three documents
have had a major infuence on science education by introducing a vision of knowledge-in-use,
embedding science content knowledge learning in critical science and engineering practices. Some
of the experts in the PISA scientifc literacy expert group (e.g., Osborne) were also involved in
developing one or more of these three science education documents. Unsurprisingly, the PISA 2015
framework was revised relative to the earlier versions and included attention to major points from the
aforementioned NRC reports.
The scientifc literacy group led the revisions to the PISA framework based on the 2006 version,
including redefning scientifc literacy to include three components: explain phenomena scientifcally,
evaluate and design scientifc inquiry, and interpret data and evidence scientifcally. These align well with
the three major activities of investigating, evaluating, and developing explanations and solutions
as described in the Framework for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012b) as
the major activities of scientists and engineers. While 15-year-olds are not necessarily expected to
be profcient as scientists and engineers, it is reasonable to expect that scientifcally literate students
are able to successfully engage in practices of the three types of activities (OECD, 2017a). In the
sphere of investigating, students are expected to design and implement investigations, aiming to
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collect data and employ practices such as observation, measurement, experiments, etc. Once data are
collected, it is essential to interpret data scientifcally to identify patterns or discover causal relations
as evidence to support conclusions made. Students are expected to employ tools or technologies for
data analyses. To account for natural phenomena or solutions to particular problems, scientifcally lit-
erate students are also expected to evaluate the scientifc investigation, the sufciency of the evidence
and the validity of the conclusions, appraise scientifc investigations, and propose ways of addressing
questions scientifcally.
Specifying the “knowledge about science” as “procedural knowledge and epistemic knowledge.” This change
in PISA 2015 came along with the increasing emphasis on “doing science” instead of “understanding
science” in the feld. Procedural knowledge is about scientifc practices with regard to what hap-
pens, how it happens, and why it happens. The science community has established well-documented
knowledge about the procedures of scientifc investigation that lead to novel discoveries. This knowl-
edge is critical for students to understand how science happens and the nature of science, as well as
the technology developed to deal with problems in science. Not surprisingly, this knowledge is also
critical for students to learn science. For example, in the inquiry processes, students are expected to
understand that repeated measurement is employed to reduce uncertainty and errors, how it operates,
and why it is needed. Knowledge like this would enable students to consciously engage in scientifc
practices so that they are able to appreciate science at the individual level. Epistemic knowledge refers
to the awareness and understanding of the knowledge acquisition and building processes, particularly
with regard to how human cognition involves question raising, observation, argumentation, model-
ing, etc. Literature suggests that six-year-olds might already be aware of how prior knowledge plays a
role in knowledge development (Duschl et al., 2007). As students grow in educational settings, they
tend to have a better understanding of the nature of science and technology, as well as the scientifc
knowledge-building processes (Osborne et al., 2003).
Changing the “supporting for scientifc inquiry” to “valuing scientifc approaches to inquiry.” PISA 2015
made this change to one of three aspects of the attitudinal component of scientifc literacy to spec-
ify what was assessed in the test. The other two aspects, “interest in science” and “environmental
awareness”, remain the same. One diference of measurement of note is that the attitudinal aspects
were assessed only with student questionnaires in 2015, while they were previously assessed through
embedded questions in 2006. This change saved testing time so that students could focus on other
aspects of the test.
Changing the “personal, social, and global” context to “personal, local/national, and global.” Though
contexts are not the assessment goal of PISA, they are essential components to assess students’ com-
petencies and knowledge that are needed for future lives. PISA 2015 developed items with contexts
not only within school science contexts but also relevant to their family, peer groups (personal), com-
munity (local and national), and to development across the world (global). As an international test,
PISA has valued cultural diversity since the very beginning. This can be found in how PISA items
have been scrutinized with regard to sensitivity to linguistic and cultural diferences. This view entails
diferentiating personal and local contexts from international contexts.
Another signifcant development of the PISA 2015 framework is that it adopted the concept of
cognitive demand to quantify assessment items within the assessment of scientifc literacy and across
all three competencies of the framework. As item response theory modeling is ubiquitously applied
in most large-scale assessment programs such as TIMSS and PISA, item difculty often serves as the
guideline for item development and selection for use on the operational assessment. However, a
difcult item could be simply due to either familiarity with the knowledge required or the cogni-
tive eforts demanded to complete the task (Zhai et al., 2021a). In this sense, cognitive demand is
critical to identify as one dimension so that the assessment items can aford information about what
students know and are able to do using their knowledge. PISA 2015 developed a set of verbs to dif-
ferentiate the cognitive efort needed in problem solving, such as recognize, interpret, analyze, evaluate.
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The expert committee then specifed the items in three levels in terms of the depth of knowledge,
adopting Webb’s Depth of Knowledge scheme. Using this new dimension, along with the knowledge
and competencies dimensions, experts were able to design assessment items with desired performance
characteristics.
Recent Administrations and Findings in PISA 2015

PISA 2015 Innovations. Besides revisions to the framework, PISA 2015 made a series of technical
innovations. Following pilot testing in other subject domains in prior test cycles, the PISA com-
mittee determined to use computer-based testing as the main mode for the 2015 test, signifying a
transformation from paper-pencil test to e-test. Similar to other transmissions of eTIMSS, ePISA
provided more opportunities to test complex constructs by using simulated scientifc inquiry, etc.
More importantly, these computer-based assessments allowed students to interactively engage in
scientifc inquiry activities, which was much more authentic than paper-pencil assessments. Also,
researchers could track students’ performance using log fle data, which provide an opportunity to
evaluate students’ cognitive processing activities. To demonstrate the features of the computer-based
assessment, we present a question of a released feld trial example item, Running in Hot Weather. This
item includes six questions targeting thermoregulation, and Figure 33.6 is question 1. This ques-
tion assesses students’ competency to interpret data and evidence scientifcally, the procedural knowledge
of system, within the context of health and disease, with a low cognitive demand. Students are allowed
to manipulate the air temperature and humidity levels experienced by a runner. They can also
Figure 33.6 PISA 2015 released feld trial cognitive item – Running in Hot Weather (PISA, 2015).
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manipulate whether the runner drinks water. Other variables, such as the runner’s sweat volume,
water loss, and body temperature, would be demonstrated on the screen after running the simula-
tion. If the conditions trigger dehydration or heat stroke, the system will indicate health dangers. By
running the simulated inquiry, students are asked to determine whether the person is in danger of
either dehydration or heat stroke under the described conditions, as well as specify whether this is
shown by the runner’s seat volume, water loss, or body temperature. The other fve questions varied
in terms of competency, knowledge, and cognitive demand. Item format includes multiple choice,
open response-computer scored, and open response-human coded.
Similar to eTIMSS, the ePISA also encounters mode efect issues. To monitor mode efects, PISA
2015 developed a study in their feld trials by including a within-school random sample of students
taking paper-pencil forms of items while the others took computer-based items that are identical.
This feld trial mode efect study included 25 schools in each country who determined to adopt
the computer-based tests. Results suggest that within a mode, the item parameters are consistent
across countries and over time. High correlations were found between item parameters across modes
for all domains (r = 0.94), indicating assessing the same construct of interest. Further analysis using
extended item response models suggests that the results of paper-pencil and computer-based tests are
comparable and can be reported on the same scale of 2015 PISA.
To better administer the computer-based assessment, PISA 2015 developed an interactive portal,
which enhanced the communication between test administrations at diferent levels. An onscreen
marking function for scoring constructed responses was also enabled so that marking activities could
be monitored to provide real-time reliability parameters.
Another innovation made by PISA 2015 is the adoption of the integrated design assessment
approach. The new approach aims to (OECD, 2017b):
• Improve the measurement of trends over time across the three core PISA domains
• Minimize respondent burden while maximizing the range of information obtained for each
domain assessed
• Accurately describe the profciencies of nationally representative samples of 15-year-olds in each
country, including relevant subpopulations
• Associate these profciencies with a range of indicators in policy-relevant areas
To accomplish these goals, TIMSS 2015 made a series of changes, including increasing the construct
coverage and numbers of items for minor domains, conducting feld trial studies to evaluate the mode
efects between paper-pencil tests and the computer-based assessments, and adjusting the assessment
delivery for all core domains. Furthermore, equating methods were also updated by incorporating all
available data from previous cycles up to the last major domain test. For the calculations, PISA 2015
moved away from the traditional IRT model to a new hybrid model that combined both Rasch and
other IRT models with a two-parameter logistic model and a generalized partial credit model. These
changes signifcantly improved PISA.
Major fndings. In 2015, OECD administered the sixth PISA in 72 countries to approximately
540,000 15-year-olds. Interestingly, Singapore scored highest on the PISA 2015 science test as they
did in the eTIMSS 2019, even though signifcant diferences existed between the two assessments.
They were followed by Japan, Estonia, Finland, and Canada. PISA developed a six-level profciency
rubric to evaluate students’ performance. PISA 2015 found that only 8% of participants met the
profcient levels of 5 and 6. Students at levels 5 and 6 “are sufciently skilled in and knowledgeable
about science to creatively and autonomously apply their knowledge and skills to a wide variety of
situations, including unfamiliar ones” (Gurria, 2016, p. 4). This number is close to the lowest level
students in TIMSS 2019. Top performing countries like Singapore had more than 24% of students
meeting level 5 or above, indicating signifcant diferences across OECD countries. The PISA 2015
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results also show that around 20% of students performed below level 2, indicating that they could
not use basic scientifc knowledge to explain phenomena, interpret data, or identify questions being
addressed in simple settings. More importantly, PISA 2015 found that students with socioeconomical
disadvantages were almost three times more likely than advantaged students to not meet the baseline
level (i.e., level 2) of scientifc literacy. It was also found that students from immigrant families were
two times more likely compared to their nonimmigrant peers to perform below the baseline level.
Therefore, it was suggested that,
At a time when science literacy is increasingly linked to economic growth and is necessary for
fnding solutions to complex social and environmental problems, all citizens, not just future
scientists and engineers, need to be willing and able to confront science-related dilemmas.
(Gurria, 2016, p. 6)
PISA 2015 also shed light on gender diferences with regard to both students’ scientifc literacy and
their career intentions. Thirty-three participating countries and economies showed that boys consti-
tuted a greater share of top performers than girls. This fnding difers from TIMSS 2019 and might
be due to the nature and purposes of the two international assessments – one focuses on curricular
knowledge, while the other targets scientifc literacy. PISA 2015 found that a similar percentage of
both boys and girls share positive career interests in science-related occupations. That is, 25% of boys,
as compared to 24% of girls, indicated that they would like to work in a science-related occupation.
However, girls mostly reported working in public health–related professions, while boys tended to
emphasize becoming scientists and engineers, with a particular interest in information and commu-
nication technologies. The PISA 2015 results suggest that “Parents and teachers can challenge gender
stereotypes about science-related activities and occupations to allow girls and boys to achieve their
potential” (Gurria, 2016, p. 6).
PISA 2015 found that many factors were highly associated with students’ performance on the
literacy tests, including the provision of regular science lessons, provision of science competitions
and clubs, time spent on science learning, teaching pedagogy, etc. It is interesting to fnd that 6% of
students were not provided regular science lessons. Consequently, these students underperform the
other students by an average of 25 score points, after controlling for students’ socioeconomic status.
Economically advantaged schools are more likely to ofer science competitions and science clubs than
socioeconomically disadvantaged schools. The students who spend more time on science learning
are more likely to perform better and have a stronger career interest in science. An increase of one
hour per week spent on regular science lessons, after controlling for socioeconomic status, results in
fve additional score points. Students reported that teachers in advanced schools more frequently used
teacher-directed instruction than those in disadvantaged schools.
Comparison of the TIMSS and PISA Science Assessments

Though performance on both the TIMSS and PISA science assessments can have global-scale impacts
for the participating countries, they are nonetheless diferent from each other in multiple facets that often
go unrecognized when interpreting the meaning and implications of the reported results. In the prior
version of this handbook chapter, Britton and Schneider (2014) summarized various contrasts between
TIMSS and PISA in terms of their contents and administration, several of which can be seen in our prior
description of the most recent versions of each assessment. Next we contrast these two major large-scale
assessments of science primarily based on their most recent administration – TIMSS 2019 and PISA
2015.1 In doing so, we highlight four important diferences between these assessment programs.
Purpose. TIMSS is content based and develops assessment items based on science education cur-
ricula as they are implemented in many countries. TIMSS seeks to examine how the curriculum
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used in schools is associated with students’ achievement in terms of subject-matter knowledge and
cognitive ability. TIMSS surveys concentrate on learning outcomes that are linked to that part of the
curriculum, referred to as declarative knowledge (Li et al., 2006), that is deemed to be essentially
common across the participating countries. Therefore, TIMSS results are intended to refect on the
quality of education and schools at state or national levels with respect to that curriculum. To achieve
this goal, TIMSS follows the curriculum model (see Figure 33.1) in design of the assessments. In
contrast, PISA has been designed to assess scientifc literacy and thus relies on no specifc curriculum.
PISA specifcally focuses on societal needs, especially the essential skills that future economic markets
are perceived to need, seeking to assess the competence of young adults in meeting literacy chal-
lenges of the future, including being able to analyze, reason, and communicate science-related ideas
efectively and to continue learning throughout life.
TIMSS focuses on assessing students’ subject-matter knowledge and cognitive ability. The fndings
are strongly associated with a common set of curriculum topics and thus can provide information
for curriculum and instructional development. PISA focuses on scientifc literacy, seeking to under-
stand what knowledge students have and how students can apply such knowledge to solve real-world
problems. Though PISA does not exclude curriculum-based subject-matter knowledge, it is more
interested in the use of the knowledge and skills acquired in diverse, complex situations. Therefore,
PISA may be better able than TIMSS to inform countries as to how to prepare future citizens at a
critical point in time when they may either be going on to further education or entering the work-
force as compared to how to develop the curriculum and conditions of instruction and learning that
may have led them to where they are now as 15- or16-year-olds.
Assessment development. Since PISA is designed to assess students’ capability for knowledge-in-
use, it relies heavily on authentic scenario items. Such items are usually embedded under a general
description of the assessment context followed by several specifc questions. Therefore, PISA typi-
cally requires more reading to understand the context of the items compared to TIMSS. PISA’s frst
criterion of item development is relevance to real-life contexts. The second criterion is the repre-
sentativeness of the knowledge needed to solve problems. TIMSS tends to primarily focus on the
latter when developing assessment items. Recent research has examined how the contexts were used
in PISA and the impact on students’ performance. For example, Ruiz-Primo and Li (2015) found
that general contexts (e.g., pictures, drawings) and specifc contexts such as abstractness are associated
with students’ performance on assessments.
Sampling and administration. TIMSS is curriculum oriented, so IEA’s sampling approach is directly
associated with grade levels in school. Thus, they sample students in grades 4 and 8. In contrast, PISA
randomly samples 15–16-year-olds from the participating countries without specifying information
at the classroom level. This sampling approach mixed students in diferent grades and has been criti-
cized for lacking critical classroom-level and school-level information, such as teachers, preventing
researchers from inferring how students’ progress is associated with classroom and school factors. In
PISA 2015, an optional teacher questionnaire and a parent questionnaire were developed and admin-
istered for the frst time. Though this aligns with the broader purpose of PISA, which is literacy-
oriented without close attention to curriculum and how students are taught, such mixed-grades
sampling approaches inevitably pose challenges for research that attempts to infer the classroom-level
impact on students’ scientifc literacy (Carnoy et al., 2016). In addition, TIMSS is administered every
four years with the same subject domains, while PISA covers multiple subject domains every three
years with one subject domain rotated as the major focus domain.
US National Assessment of Educational Progress

For more than four decades, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has provided
information integral to reporting on the condition and progress of education at grades 4, 8, and 12
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for the United States for multiple school subject areas, including science. The NAEP assessment
program is overseen by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which has legislative
authority for the entire assessment program, including the selection of content areas to be assessed,
the development of content area frameworks, the design and timing of the assessments, the setting
of achievement levels, and the reporting of results. Science is one of the primary content areas in the
NAEP assessment program and has been for many years.
Legislation concerning NAEP states that its purpose is to provide, in a timely manner, a fair and
accurate measurement of student academic achievement and reporting of trends in such achieve-
ment in subject-matter areas, such as reading, mathematics, science, and other subjects. (Public Law
107–279). In the 1990s, NAGB instituted a separate reporting of NAEP assessment results in certain
subject areas, including science, for all individual states, in addition to reporting results for the nation
as a whole. More recently, reporting has included results for a set of large, urban school districts.
Because of its rigorous design and methodology, NAEP reports are increasingly used for monitor-
ing the state of education in the subjects that are assessed, as models for designing other large-scale
assessments, and for secondary research purposes. We return to a brief discussion of the uses of
NAEP assessments at the end of the material that follows on specifcs of the NAEP science assess-
ment program.
NAEP Science
NAEP Science Frameworks

The current NAEP science assessment is based on a framework originally developed for the 2009
assessment administration at grades 4, 8, and 12. That framework was also used for the 2011 admin-
istration at grade 8 and the 2015 and 2019 administrations at grades 4, 8, and 12. The framework
will be used once more for the 2023 administration for eighth grade only. The scheduled 2028
operational administration of science for grades 4 and 8 is supposed to be based on an updated sci-
ence framework.
The current NAEP science framework (NAGB, 2008) was developed approximately two years
before the 2009 administration and incorporated ideas from contemporary theory and research on
science learning and assessment, including synthesis volumes from the National Research Council:
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School (NRC, 2000); Knowing What Students Know: The
Science and Design of Educational Assessment (NRC, 2001); and Taking Science to School (NRC, 2007).
The framework included important ideas about the learning and knowing of both science content
and science practices, with a particular emphasis on their integration, as discussed next.
Science content. The science content for NAEP is defned by a series of statements that describe
key facts, concepts, principles, laws, and theories in three broad areas: physical science, life science,
and earth and space sciences. Table 33.3 shows the major topics and subtopics included within each
of the three major science domains. The nature of the specifc content knowledge changes in both
scope and sophistication across the three grade levels.
Science practices. The second dimension of the framework is defned by four science practices:
identifying science principles, using science principles, using scientifc inquiry, and using techno-
logical design. Table 33.4 provides a high-level description of the nature of each specifc practice
in terms of the types of cognitive demands placed on students as they engage in a given practice as
applied to a topic from a specifc science content area. A double dashed line distinguishes identifying
science principles and using science principles from using scientifc inquiry and using technological
design. In the NAEP science framework, the frst two practices are generally considered as “knowing
science”, and the last two practices are considered as the application of that knowledge to “doing
science” and “using science to solve real-world problems”.
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Table 33.3 NAEP Science Content Areas and Topics
Physical Science Life Science Earth and Space Sciences
Matter Structures and functions of living Earth in space and time

• Properties of matter systems • Objects in the universe
• Changes in matter • Organization and development • History of Earth
Energy • Matter and energy Earth structures
• Forms of energy transformations • Properties of Earth materials
• Energy transfer and conservation • Interdependence • Tectonics
Motion Changes in living systems Earth systems
• Motion at the macroscopic level • Heredity and reproduction • Energy in Earth systems
• Forces afecting motion • Evolution and diversity • Climate and weather
• Biogeochemical cycles
Table 33.4 NAEP Science Practices and Performance Expectations
Practices Performance Expectations
Identifying science Describe, State or Demonstrate Demonstrate

principles measure, recognize relationships relationships
or classify correct science among closely among diferent
observations principles related science representations of
< – Communicate accurately and efectively – >
principles principles
Using science Explain Predict Suggest examples Propose, analyze,
principles observations of observations of of observations and/or evaluate
phenomena phenomena that illustrate a alternative
science principle explanations or
predictions
Using scientifc Design or Conduct Identify patterns in Use empirical
inquiry critique aspects scientifc data and/or relate evidence to
of scientifc investigations patterns in data to validate or criticize
investigations using appropriate theoretical models conclusions about
tools and explanations and
techniques predictions
Using Propose Identify Apply science
technological or critique scientifc trade- principles or data
design solutions to ofs in design to anticipate efects
problems given decisions and of technological
criteria and choose among design decisions
scientifc alternative
constraints solutions
Performance expectations – combining content and practices. The design of the NAEP science assessment
is guided by the framework’s descriptions of both the science content and science practices to be
assessed but with the key assumption that the practices are to be combined with a science content
statement to generate specifc student performance expectations that serve as the target for assess-
ment. Assessment items can then be developed based on the description of each specifc performance
expectation.
Based on the logic of specifc performance expectations as a guide for item development pro-
cesses, items are then designed to vary the cognitive demands of tasks, which in turn infuences the
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Figure 33.7 NAEP assessment item development model.
conclusions to be made about student performance. Such a process of item development can be
represented schematically by Figure 33.7.
Composition of the Assessment

The design and administration of the NAEP assessment is complex and makes use of a matrix sam-
pling approach in which multiple item blocks are created, varying both content and item types as
described next. The general rule is that any individual student is only tested for 50 minutes and is
presented with selected item blocks that fall within that time limit. Students vary in the item blocks
they respond to using a balanced incomplete block design. Details of the sampling procedures and
block design can be found in technical documents from the National Center for Educational Statis-
tics and are beyond the current presentation.
Distribution of items. The distribution of items by content area is supposed to be as follows: approx-
imately equal across physical science, life science, and earth and space sciences at grade 4; more
emphasis on earth and space sciences at grade 8; and a shift to more emphasis on physical science
and life science at grade 12. With respect to science practices, at all grades the greatest emphasis is
supposed to be on identifying and using science principles and slightly less than a third of the time
should be spent on items related to using scientifc inquiry.
Item types. Item types for the NAEP science assessment fall into two broad categories: selected-
response items (such as multiple choice) and constructed-response items (such as short answers).
With respect to student response time, 50% of the assessment items at each grade level are sup-
posed to be selected response and 50% should be constructed response. To further probe students’
abilities to combine their understanding with the investigative skills that refect practices, a subset
of the students sampled receive an additional 30 minutes to complete hands-on performance or
interactive computer tasks. At each grade, at least four of these tasks are included. Of these four
tasks, there is supposed to be at least one hands-on performance task and one interactive com-
puter task; the number of interactive computer tasks should not exceed the number of hands-on
performance tasks.
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In hands-on performance tasks, students manipulate selected physical objects and try to solve a
scientifc problem involving the objects. NAEP hands-on performance tasks are designed to provide
students with a concrete task (problem) along with equipment and materials. Students are given
the opportunity to determine scientifcally justifable procedures for arriving at a solution. Stu-
dents’ scores are to be based on both the solution and the procedures created for carrying out the
investigation.
There are four types of interactive computer tasks: (1) information search and analysis, (2) empiri-
cal investigation, (3) simulation, and (4) concept maps. Information search and analysis items pose
a scientifc problem and ask students to query an information database and analyze relevant data to
address the problem. Empirical investigation items place hands-on performance tasks on the com-
puter and invite students to design and conduct a study to draw conclusions about a problem. Simu-
lation items model systems (e.g., food webs) and ask students to manipulate variables and predict
and explain resulting changes in the system. Concept map items probe aspects of the structure or
organization of students’ scientifc knowledge by providing concept terms and having students create
a logical graphic organizer.
Recent Science Administrations and Results

In 2015, NAEP was administered as primarily a paper-and-pencil test using the item types described
earlier. In 2019, a major shift occurred and NAEP science was administered for the frst time as an
entirely digitally based assessment (DBA). The NAEP DBA consisted of stand-alone and discrete
questions that were adapted from the prior paper-and-pencil test format, and scenario-based tasks
comprising a connected sequence of questions. Scenario-based tasks were designed to engage stu-
dents in scientifc inquiry through hands-on activities and computer simulations set in real-world
contexts. The tasks provided students opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in
each of the three science content areas and four science practices. The science assessment included
two types of scenario-based tasks.
Interactive computer tasks (ICTs). ICTs use real-world simulations to engage students in scientifc
investigations that require the use of science inquiry skills and the application of scientifc knowledge
to solve problems.
Hybrid hands-on tasks (HHOTs). Students perform hands-on scientifc investigations using materi-
als in kits provided by NCES. The “hybrid” in HHOTs denotes that these tasks combine hands-on
investigations with digital activities. Students use supplied tablets to view kit instructions, record
results and data, and answer assessment questions.
Representative samples of students from across the nation participated in the 2019 assessment
including: 30,400 4th graders from 1,090 schools; 31,400 8th graders from 1,070 schools; and 26,400
12th graders from 1,760 schools. The student samples were carefully constructed to ensure adequate
representation of various demographic groups for purposes of subgroup reporting of results.
As noted earlier, NAEP science results are reported in two ways: (1) on a 0–300 psychometrically
determined scale and (2) in terms of the percentages of students whose performance is classifed as
below basic, basic, profcient, and advanced achievement based on preestablished cut scores on the
performance scale. The 2019 scale score results are shown in Figure 33.8 for each of the grade levels
in comparison to prior administrations back to 2009. As can be seen in Figure 33.8, the average sci-
ence score for the nation at grade 4 was lower by two points compared to 2015, whereas average scale
scores at grades 8 and 12 did not signifcantly difer from 2015. At grades 4 and 8, average scale scores
were higher when compared to 2009, while the average scale score at grade 12 was not signifcantly
diferent across years.
While the absolute levels of the scale scores and the trends in those scores are important indicators
of student performance, of particular signifcance is the reporting of results in terms of achievement
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Figure 33.8 NAEP 2019 scale scores in contrast to NAEP 2009 for grades 4, 8, and 12.
* Signifcant diferent (p < .05) from 2019
levels. This form of interpretive reporting for NAEP assessments was begun in the 1990s and has
been followed by several critical evaluations of both the process of setting these standards and their
validity, which go well beyond the present discussion (National Assessment Governing Board, 2019).
As shown in Figures 33.9, 33.10, and 33.11, the rates by which students were classifed into
the achievement levels varied across the grades, with the highest rate of profcient classifcations
occurring in grade 4, slightly lower levels of profciency at grade 8, and substantially lower student
profciency classifcations at grade 12. Note that at all three grade levels, there is a very low level of
classifcation of student performance at the Advanced level and this holds across years.
Achievement level interpretation. To provide some context for the interpretation of performance
at grade 8 as shown in Figure 33.10, Table 33.5 shows both the scale cut score for assignment of
student performance to each achievement level, as well as a description of what each performance
level implies in terms of what students are supposed to know and are able to do in science at that
achievement level. As can be seen in the descriptions, the levels vary in both the knowledge and skills
expected of students and their integration in terms of problem solving and application of science
content knowledge in the context of the practices.
NAEP Technology and Engineering Literacy
NAEP TEL Framework

One important development in the NAEP assessment program is the inclusion of technology and
engineering literacy (TEL) as an addition to its established assessment agenda. A TEL framework was
developed for the frst TEL assessment in 2014 at grade 8 and was used again for the 2018 TEL at
grade 8. It is currently scheduled to be used once more for the 2028 TEL administrations for grade 8.
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Figure 33.9 Grade 4 achievement level performance.

* Signifcantly diferent (p < .05) from 2019


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Understanding how technology is developed, how it afects our society and environments, and being
able to design technological solutions to solve problems is critical for students to function in the rapidly
changing world. In the science education community, there has long been a call for preparing students
with technology and engineering literacy. The Science for All Americans report (American Association for the
Advancement of Science, 1990) explicitly suggested that science education should incorporate technology
and engineering as a form of scientifc inquiry. Bybee (2010) proposed an advance to STEM education by
integrating technology and engineering with science and mathematics education. He argued that “there are
very few other things that infuence our everyday existence more [than technology] and about which citi-
zens know less” (Bybee, 2010, p. 30). For example, technology was among the most salient factors causing
polarization in current labor markets, requiring critical skills and competencies (Goos et al., 2009). Bybee
suggested extending the traditional information communication technology (ICT) education by integrat-
ing ICT with other subjects. He further pointed out that involving students in engineering activities could
promote their abilities for both problem solving and innovation. He also acknowledged that engineering as
typically presented in schools was inconsistent with its careers and contributions to society, and thus authen-
tic scenarios needed to be developed for both learning and assessment (Bybee et al., 2009).
Table 33.5 Eighth Grade NAEP Achievement Levels
Levels Achievement Description

(Cut Scores)
NAEP Students performing at the NAEP Basic level should be able to state or recognize correct
Basic (141) science principles. They should be able to explain and predict observations of natural
phenomena at multiple scales, from microscopic to global. They should be able to describe
properties and common physical and chemical changes in materials; describe changes in
potential and kinetic energy of moving objects; describe levels of organization of living
systems – cells, multicellular organisms, and ecosystems; identify related organisms based on
hereditary traits; describe a model of the solar system; and describe the processes of the water
cycle. They should be able to design observational and experimental investigations employing
appropriate tools for measuring variables. They should be able to propose and critique the
scientifc validity of alternative individual and local community responses to design problems.
NAEP Students performing at the NAEP Profcient level should be able to demonstrate
Profcient relationships among closely related science principles. They should be able to identify
(170) evidence of chemical changes; explain and predict motions of objects using position time
graphs; explain metabolism, growth, and reproduction in cells, organisms, and ecosystems;
use observations of the sun, earth, and moon to explain visible motions in the sky; and
predict surface and ground water movements in diferent regions of the world. They
should be able to explain and predict observations of phenomena at multiple scales, from
microscopic to macroscopic and local to global, and to suggest examples of observations
that illustrate a science principle. They should be able to use evidence from investigations
in arguments that accept, revise, or reject scientifc models. They should be able to use
scientifc criteria to propose and critique alternative individual and local community
responses to design problems.
NAEP Students performing at the NAEP Advanced level should be able to develop alternative
Advanced representations of science principles and explanations of observations. They should be able
(215) to use information from the periodic table to compare families of elements; explain changes
of state in terms of energy fow; trace matter and energy through living systems at multiple
scales; predict changes in populations through natural selection and reproduction; use
lithospheric plate movement to explain geological phenomena; and identify relationships
among regional weather and atmospheric and ocean circulation patterns. They should be
able to design and critique investigations involving sampling processes, data quality review
processes, and control of variables. They should be able to propose and critique alternative
solutions that refect science-based trade-ofs for addressing local and regional problems.
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The 2012 NRC report (National Research Council, 2012a) Education for Life and Work:
Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century identified information literacy
and ICT literacy as two of the most frequently mentioned critical competencies for students
to succeed in the 21st century. That report discussed various foundations for education and
STEM education in particular, including preparing future entrants to the labor market with
the ability to adapt to technological changes of the society rather than simply acquiring
static bits of knowledge (Nelson & Phelps, 1966). Similarly, another 2012 NRC report, the
Framework for K–12 Science Education (NRC, 2012b), framed one of the overarching goals
of science education as the development of students who “are careful consumers of scien-
tific and technological information related to their everyday lives” (p. 1). The Framework
explicitly includes “Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science” as one of four
disciplinary core ideas and describes “defining problems, design solutions, and using com-
putational thinking” as critical components of science and engineering practices. These and
other trends related to technology and engineering literacy spurred the National Assessment
Governing Board (NAGB) to develop a TEL framework and include the TEL assessment as
part of the NAEP program to obtain information about students’ understanding of technol-
ogy and its effect on our society and environments, as well as students’ ability to design solu-
tions to solve real-world problems.
The TEL framework denotes TEL as the “capability to use, understand, and evaluate technol-
ogy as well as to understand technological principles and strategies needed to develop solutions and
achieve goals” (p. xi). Specifcally, the framework identifed three interconnected areas to be assessed
(National Assessment Governing Board, 2018):
Technology and society deals with the efects that technology has on society and the natural world
and with the sorts of ethical questions that arise from those efects. Knowledge and capabilities in
this area are crucial for understanding the issues surrounding the development and use of various
technologies and for participating in decisions regarding their use.
Design and systems covers the nature of technology, the engineering design process by which
technologies are developed, and basic principles of dealing with everyday technologies, including
maintenance and troubleshooting. An understanding of the design process is particularly valuable in
assessing technologies, and it can also be applied in areas outside technology, since the design is a
broadly applicable skill.
Information and communication technology includes computers and software learning tools, networking
systems and protocols, hand-held digital devices, and other technologies for accessing, creating, and
communicating information and for facilitating creative expression. Although it is just one among sev-
eral types of technologies, it has achieved special prominence in technology and engineering literacy
because familiarity and facility with it are essential in virtually every profession in modern society.
Students with TEL are expected to succeed in three types of practices, being able to think and
reason in problem solving:
• Understanding technological principles, which focuses on students’ knowledge and understanding of

technology and their capacity to think and reason with that knowledge
• Developing solutions and achieving goals, which relates to students’ systematic application of techno-
logical knowledge, tools, and skills to address problems and achieve goals presented in societal,
design, curriculum, and realistic contexts
• Communicating and collaborating, which relates to students’ capabilities to use contemporary tech-
nologies to communicate for a variety of purposes and in a variety of ways, individually or in
teams (generated virtually)
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NAEP TEL Assessment Tasks

The TEL assessment focused on developing scenario-based tasks to engage students in multime-
dia environments to gauge students’ understanding of technological and engineering principles
and the ability to apply the principles to determine design solutions. Most of TEL’s assessment
tasks are computer simulation problems associated with scenarios of technology and engineering,
with a few exception questions that are not part of a concrete scenario. TEL’s assessment tasks
are similar to those NGSS-aligned assessments, as they both underscore the necessity to assess
practices. However, a comparison between the TEL framework and NGSS suggests that TEL
difers from NGSS-aligned assessments by not requiring students to apply specifc knowledge of
science to complete the tasks (Neidorf et al., 2016). This could be seen that some TEL assessment
tasks measure student performance in more than one content area or practice. The practice-based
assessment tasks required a relatively long time to complete, with long tasks for 30 minutes and
short tasks for 10–20 minutes. Next we introduce one example item from the TEL 2014, recre-
ation center task (see Figure 33.11).
This task creates a scenario where a company ofered to build a new recreation center for the
teenagers in the town. Students are required to engage in six activities to create digital products that
will promote the benefts of building the recreation center, to convince some business owners who
are opposed to the idea. This task aims to elicit multiple facets of students’ TEL competency using
the six activities. By administering the task in TEL 2014, it was observed that students were able to
identify relevant design elements for presenting ideas while less able to organize design elements and
provide constructive feedback. Details are presented in Table 33.6.
Assessing TEL faces many challenges, one of which is the validity of the inferences that can
be drawn from assessment performance due to preexisting variation in students’ familiarity with
computer-based tests. TEL assesses students in computerized environments, but not all students are
equally familiar with computers given their diverse backgrounds. Familiarity with computers and
computer-based testing thus may function as construct irrelevant variance in students’ scores. To
examine this issue, Zhang et al. (2016) conducted a TEL pilot study and found that students’ every-
day frequency of use of computers and technology devices was associated with their TEL scores. Stu-
dents with medium frequency levels achieved the highest TEL scores. They also found that students’
self-efcacy regarding computer use and variations in home access to computers was positively asso-
ciated with students’ TEL scores. These fndings indicate that researchers and policymakers should
exercise caution when interpreting TEL scores.
Recent TEL Administrations and Results

TEL has been administered at grade 8 in 2014 and 2018, respectively. The three practices
are the primary assessment goals of TEL, with approximately the same percentages of assess-
ment time for each practice. Specifically, in the 2014 TEL assessment 30% of the total time
was devoted to the assessment of understanding technological principles, 40% for developing
solutions and achieving goals, and 30% for communicating and collaborating. The 2014 TEL
assessment was the first in the NAEP program to be entirely digitally based. The two TEL tests
at grade 8 provided insights into students’ TEL competency and helped to identify relevant
trends.
On average, students scored two points higher in TEL 2018 than those who took part in TEL
2014 (see Figure 33.12). Overall, 46% of eighth graders performed at or above the NAEP Profcient
level in the TEL 2018, in comparison to 43% in 2014. NAEP also reported results for fve selected
percentiles (i.e., 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 90%) of students’ performances in 2018, three of which
were higher than 2014 (50th, 75th, and 90th). These fndings might be partially due to the fact that
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in 2018 more participating students (57%) had a chance to take at least one course related to technol-
ogy or engineering compared to 2014 (52%).
NAEP also reported a gender diference on TEL. Overall, female eighth-grade students consis-
tently outperformed male eighth-grade students on both the 2014 and 2018 TEL tests. Specifcally,
Table 33.6 Activities, Skills Measured, Student Performance, and 2014 Outcomes of Recreation Center Task
Activities Skills Measured Student Performance Outcomes
Choosing a Tempering communication In the frst part of the task, students 87% of students were
podcast idea with a knowledge of record a podcast to convince opponents able to identify an idea
the audience and the of the recreation center that building for the podcast that best
communicative purpose. it is a good idea. They must select an supported the intended
idea for the podcast that best supports message about recreation
their message and is appropriate for the centers.
target audience.
Selecting Creating presentations, Students need to create an 24% of students correctly
a podcast visualizations, and other introduction to the podcast interview. selected and organized
introduction products that support their They listen to six audio clips and must audio clips in a way that
communicative purpose, select the three clips that together supported the intended
adhering to appropriate form the best introduction. The clips message.
visual conventions, and must be placed in the proper order.
acknowledging sources of
data and ideas.
Attracting Tempering communicative Students are informed that they need 69% of students chose
podcast content with a knowledge to attract listeners to the podcast an interview quote
listeners of the audience and the by including a quotation from the that would most likely
communicative purpose. interview on the recreation center encourage people to
website. To accomplish this, students listen to the podcast.
must choose a quotation that would
most likely encourage people to listen.
Planning the Tempering communicative In this part of the task, students help 88% of students selected
video content with a knowledge create a video for the recreation center the storyboard image that
of the audience and the website to convince local business best supported the video’s
communicative purpose. leaders to support the recreation center. purpose. 72% of students
Students frst create a storyboard of the correctly chose statements
video. They need to select a picture that supported the video’s
and statements about recreation centers message about the benefts
to include in the storyboard. of recreation centers.
Picking Tempering communicative In this section, students are shown 69% of students selected
background content with a knowledge several statements to be included as video background music
music of the audience and the text in the video. The students need that was most appropriate
communicative purpose. to select background music to be for the intended message
played along with the statements. The and target audience.
music should be appropriate for the
message and the target audience of
local businesspeople.
Evaluating Recognizing various Students review a recreation center 41% of all students could
the video forms of collaboration video created by a peer who has asked provide constructive and
and supporting forms of for feedback. The students need to balanced feedback about
collaborative technologies. provide constructive feedback in an a video created by a peer.
Functioning efectively email to the peer. The feedback needs
as part of a team, such as to include things that are good about
by providing constructive the video as well as parts that could be
feedback to team members. improved.
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female students scored three points higher than male students in 2014, while the gap increased to fve
points in 2018. The gender diferences were demonstrated in many of the TEL content and practices
areas (see Figure 33.13).
Uses of the NAEP Assessments

Because the information it generates is available to policymakers, educators, and the public, NAEP
is often used as a tool for monitoring student achievement in subjects such as science at the national,
state, and selected school district levels. For example, NAEP reports (known as The Nation’s Report
Card) compare student performance in a given subject across states, within the subject over time, and
among groups of students within the same grade. To the extent that individual state standards refect
the knowledge and skills specifed in the framework for a given subject area such as science, state
comparisons can legitimately be made.
As shown earlier, NAEP data include achievement results, reported as both scale scores and
achievement levels, at aggregate levels and for various subgroups. Based on questionnaires also admin-
istered with the assessment, NAEP reports include important background information about schools,
teachers, and students at the subgroup level (e.g., course-taking patterns of various subgroups of stu-
dents); and publicly released assessment questions, student responses, and scoring guides. The NAEP
website (http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard) contains user-friendly data analysis software to enable
policymakers, researchers, and others to examine all aspects of NAEP data, perform signifcance tests,
and create customized graphic displays of NAEP results. These data and software tools can be used to
inform policymaking and for secondary analyses and other research purposes.
NAEP assessment frameworks and specifcations documents, as well as examples of tasks and scor-
ing procedures, are also used as resources for considerations of international, state, and local curricula
and assessments. This is attributable in part to the broad-based process used in the development of
the frameworks and task specifcations that attempts to capture current thinking and research about
Figure 33.12 Example TEL item – recreation center task.
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what students should know and be able to do in a given subject area like science. In addition, NAEP
uses a rigorous and carefully designed process in developing the assessment instruments, which can
serve as a model for other assessment developers.
A New Era for Large-Scale Assessment in Science Education

As indicated earlier and in the previous edition of this handbook’s chapter on large-scale science
assessment (Britton & Schneider, 2014), much has happened and continues to happen in the con-
ceptualization, implementation, reporting, and interpretation of large-scale science assessments at
both the international and national levels. We expect that such assessments will continue playing a
critical role in monitoring the progress and outcomes of science education systems and in support
of the development of a 21st-century STEM-literate workforce. Regularly occurring large-scale
science and technology assessments not only provide informative policy-oriented indicators but also
push participating countries to consider reform agendas in light of trends in the periodically released
assessment outcomes. Evidence from international assessments has motivated various countries (e.g.,
China, Germany) to initiate implementation of national and/or local large-scale assessments of sci-
ence and technology meant to serve specifc goals and needs of their own education systems, taking
into consideration the cultural, economic, political, and historical issues in science and technology
education and assessment unique to their nation.
Eforts to develop and implement science assessments for large-scale deployment have deepened
our understanding of what to assess, how to assess, and how to make use of the results to guide
policy and practice at both national and international scales. It is clear from the evidence to date
that large-scale science assessments will continue to evolve over the next decade. This will be driven
by continuing developments in conceptualizing frameworks for science assessment, which will be
combined with advances in practices of assessment design and development and further enhanced by
technology-based delivery, data capture, and analytic tools. We can see these trends in the assessment
programs discussed in this chapter over the past two decades. The importance of large-scale science
assessments for international and national use will certainly not decrease and will, in all likelihood,
increase as policymakers seek to understand the knowledge and skills of their populace relative to
the demands of a globalized and technologically sophisticated society and workforce. Given rapid
changes in society, in scientifc and technological knowledge, including epistemological and con-
ceptual perspectives on the nature of the knowing and learning of science, it is very likely that even
greater demands will be made on large-scale assessments of science to provide valid, reliable, and use-
ful information about the state of science education and student achievement across the globe. We
foresee a number of challenges and opportunities that will therefore need to be met by large-scale
assessments of science and technology over the next decade, signifying a new era of large-scale assess-
ments. Each of these is briefy touched on next.
Continued movement toward multidimensional science frameworks to refect future challenges and opportu-
nities. The world is facing unprecedented social, scientifc, and technological challenges, including
environmental change, global pandemics, cyberattacks, food production, and pollution, among
others. Future citizens must be educated in ways that develop the range of competencies needed to
meet these challenges individually and collaboratively. Large-scale assessments of science and tech-
nology will need to provide evidence in terms of whether and to what degree education systems are
preparing future citizens with the knowledge and reasoning skills sufcient to meet these challenges.
Thus, change is underway across the globe in the conceptualization of science competency. A prime
example is the vision of science competency described in the Framework for K–12 Science Education
(National Research Council, 2012b) with its articulation of three dimensions of science knowledge
and skill: disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts and
the argument that competency is expressed in terms of performance expectations that refect the
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Figure 33.13 Student performance on TEL 2014 and 2018.

Figure 33.14 Students’ performance on TEL 2014 and 2018 by gender.
intersection of all three dimensions simultaneously. Students are expected to use scientifc knowl-
edge to fgure out solutions for authentic problems in their lives. This idea was further articulated in
the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) for grades K–12. The implica-
tions for science assessments and the associated challenges in design and validation of assessments for
multidimensional performance expectations have been articulated in Developing Assessments for Next
Generation Science Standards (Pellegrino et al., 2014). Given that more than 40 states in the United
States have adopted science standards aligned with the vision of the Framework (NRC, 2012b) and
the NGSS (NGSS Lead States, 2013), it is highly likely that the NAEP science framework and the
NAEP science and TEL assessments will undergo revisions to better align with this contemporary
view of science and technology. This is especially the case since analyses of alignment between the
current NAEP science and TEL frameworks and NGSS show signifcant diferences in both con-
tent and performance demands (Neidorf et al., 2016). OECD’s PISA framework is also undergoing
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reconsideration. For example, the PISA 2025 steering science expert group (SEG) is seeking to
reform PISA from a “science literacy framework” toward a “science framework” (OECD, 2023).
Specifcally, the SEG is working to redefne the competency components to better refect the sus-
tainability and socio-environmental needs of future citizens. Inspired by the diverse attitudes toward
COVID-19, the SEG is considering extending the attitudes to science component to a broader and
more inclusive concept, science identity (e.g., critical science disposition, valuing scientifc per-
spectives and approaches to equity, attitudes, and aspirations to science) (OECD, 2020). How these
changes will be manifest in the 2025 PISA assessment when science is the focal assessment area is
yet to be fully determined.
Similarly, TIMSS 2023 is moving toward a comprehensive framework to better refect the nature
of science learning. The committee is making a signifcant efort to better understand how science
learning is associated with learning contexts, including school, family, policies, etc. TIMSS 2023 will
continue working with participating countries to analyze the contextual factors to better understand
the nature of science learning, and the fndings will be documented in the TIMSS Encyclopedia.
Simultaneously, powerful and cutting-edge technologies, such as artifcial intelligence (AI), bring
unprecedented opportunities as well as challenges for many facets of life (National Artifcial Intel-
ligence Initiative Ofce, 2020). AI will dramatically change the future structure of work, the needs
of the labor market, and the competencies needed for future citizens to accommodate the chang-
ing workforce. McKinsey Global Institution (Manyika et al., 2017) suggests that in the coming ten
years, more than 60% of STEM occupations could be leveraged and changed by new innovative
technologies such as AI. Consequently, future citizens will face challenges that demand multidimen-
sional competencies to be productive in future society. Such competencies include being able to use
scientifc knowledge to creatively solve unpredictable problems and fgure out solutions in complex
situations. This poses a major challenge to current education systems across the globe. Large-scale
assessments will need to advance to continue providing information regarding what students know
and can do in areas of scientifc and technological thinking. Assessment outcomes from new and
innovative multidimensional assessments could help participating countries modify their education
systems to produce sufcient numbers of STEM-capable graduates with the multidimensional com-
petencies needed for the global society of the future.
Leveraging technology in and for assessment. As already indicated in this chapter, technology has had
a profound efect on large-scale assessments of science and technology. PISA 2015 and 2018, TIMSS
2019, NAEP 2019, and TEL 2014 and 2018 have all been delivered via technology using various
types of devices. Not only has technology changed assessment delivery but also the scoring. It has
had a signifcant efect on assessment design, including the types of tasks and situations that can be
presented to students that tap into various forms of scientifc thinking and reasoning aligned with the
practices of science. Digital assessment environments allow for the creation of scenario-based tasks
using simulations, videos, pictures, and other media resources that previous conventional assessments
could not achieve. The involvement of these multimedia resources provides an opportunity for stu-
dents to use scientifc knowledge and reasoning to solve real-world problems, a substantial goal of the
Framework for K–12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012b).
While technology afords the enhancement of many aspects of large-scale assessment (Gane et al.,
2018; Pellegrino & Quellmalz, 2010), concerns also arise about the equity and fairness of computer-
ized assessments. Of concern is evidence regarding the comparability of results and validity of inferences
derived from performance obtained across diferent modes of assessment, especially for varying groups
of students (Berman et al., 2020). As the digital assessment world advances, a signifcant issue for future
large-scale science and technology assessment is determining how student background characteristics,
including familiarity with computers, language, culture, and educational experience, infuence perfor-
mance on diferent types of tasks and innovative assessment designs that leverage the power of technology.
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Though multiple studies have collected empirical evidence for mode efects of large-scale assessments,
more research is needed to ensure the equity and fairness of these tests (Way & Strain-Seymour, 2021).
Digital data capture and enhanced opportunities for scoring and interpretation. One of the greatest benefts
of digital assessment is the capacity to capture a wider range of data about student performance than
simply correct fnal choices on selected-response tasks. Fortunately, most of the large-scale assessment
data (e.g., PISA, TIMSS, NAEP) are publicly accessible or partially accessible to researchers for fur-
ther analyses. Some tools developed for data analyses, such as IEA’s IDB Analyzer, are also available to
researchers. Much has recently been written about student response process data and the opportunities
it provides for capturing what students are doing when they solve problems and answer questions related
to science and technology (see the chapters in Ercikan & Pellegrino, 2017). Such data include the time
taken to perform various actions, the actual activities chosen, and their sequence and organization.
The potential exists for examining the global and local strategies students use while solving assessment
problems and the implications, including how such strategies relate to the accuracy or appropriateness
of fnal responses. While capturing such data in a digital environment is “easy”, making sense of it is far
more complicated. The same can be said for capturing data to constructed-response questions where
students may be expressing in written form an argument or explanation about some scientifc problem
or phenomenon or describing the design of a scientifc investigation (Zhai et al., 2021b).
The data capture contexts described earlier are challenging in many ways, not the least of which
is scoring and interpretation. It is here that AI and machine learning can play a signifcant role in
future science assessments. Machine learning mimics human scoring processes by frst “learning”
from scoring by human experts to develop algorithmic models and then applying those models
to new student responses (Zhai et al., 2020b). This approach is especially helpful for constructed
responses that require students to write their responses. Developments in machine learning may also
allow researchers to analyze complex response process data of the type described earlier (Zhai, 2021).
Such data are complex, and traditional statistical methods are often difcult or inappropriate to apply.
Machine learning, however, might assist in analyzing the data to reveal patterns that provide impor-
tant insights into students’ cognitive processes in problem solving (Zhai et al., 2020a). Such data may
prove to be especially informative about student thinking and reasoning and thus add greatly to the
knowledge we can gain about student competence from large-scale assessments above and beyond
the performance accuracy data they now provide.
Evidentiary inferences accounting for personal behaviors, context, and multiculturalism. Though large-scale
assessment programs such as TIMMS and PISA make signifcant eforts to take into account various
factors in performance, including behavioral, contextual, and cultural diferences, the interpretation
of results from international as well as national large-scale assessments has much still to do in consid-
ering these impacts. Issues of comparability abound (see Berman et al., 2020). They are challenging
and need to be attended to in the design of assessments used with students from diferent countries
or jurisdictions to ensure fairness and comparability of the constructs being measured and the inter-
pretations of scores. Evidentiary inference toward valid conclusions in assessment has to consider
personal behaviors, which might challenge validity if appropriate care is not provided. An interesting
example was provided in a study reported by Pohl et al. (2021). They revealed that diferences in
student response processes of the type described earlier, when combined with scoring methods, sig-
nifcantly change the rankings of countries on an assessment such as PISA. They showed that current
reporting practices confound diferences in test-taking behavior with diferences in competencies,
and they can do so in a diferent way for diferent examinees, threatening the fairness of comparisons,
such as country rankings. They went on to show that test-taking behavior is not a nuisance factor that
may confound measurement but an aspect that provides important information on how examinees
approach tasks, which can be relevant for real-life outcomes. Disentangling and reporting all of these
factors as part of a portfolio of performance could be a method to result in fairer comparisons across
1093
groups and also allow for a better understanding and valid assessment of competencies, as well as for
more tailored interventions, targeting possible causes of low performance.
It is not uncommon that the interpretation of TIMSS, PISA, and NAEP results is made in
isolation of other important contextual and cultural factors related to family, school, curricular,
country, and other diferences that the assessment participants have experienced, as well as cultural
diferences in responding that may be contributing to the results (He et al., 2019). Inappropriate
interpretation, whereby invalid causal conclusions are drawn about the meaning and implications
of performance diferences between countries, is not uncommon when it comes to international
assessment results, such as TIMMS or PISA scores (Bennett, 2018). As Carnoy et al. (2016) argued,
language has become an inextricable part of the construct in large-scale assessments. Particularly
during cross-country comparisons, cultural diversity along with linguistic diversity has been found
to potentially contaminate the interpretations and uses of large-scale assessments (Solano-Flores &
Milbourn, 2016). These factors need to be addressed in future large-scale assessments to better serve
the purposes of these assessments, as well as the participating countries.
Appropriate use of large-scale assessment results as policy indications. Though large-scale assessment
results can provide valuable information for policymakers with regard to their educational systems,
appropriate use of the assessment outcomes in terms of educational policy is of signifcant concern.
Many researchers warn that policy inferences and decisions made from scores on large-scale interna-
tional assessments should be made with great caution (Braun, 2018; Braun & Singer, 2019). Ercikan
et al. (2015) raised two signifcant concerns about inference and uses of jurisdiction rankings to
inform policy adoption and practices. They suggest that there is a variegated and complex picture
of the relations between achievement rankings, and crucial factors to be considered before one can
relate the rankings with specifc policies in a nation. Second, they suggest that using correlations of
achievements in high-performing countries to inform other countries’ education reform policies
should be done with caution. Diverse cultures, economics, demographics, curriculum coverage,
and geography should not be ignored when interpreting relations among scores. For example,
Huang et al. (2016) found that curriculum coverage played a signifcant role in diferential item
functioning, which may impact the interpretation of the scores. The organization of a nation’s edu-
cational system could signifcantly impact curriculum development and coverage. In some highly
centralized educational systems (e.g., China) where policies and relevant implementations are uni-
form, variations could be smaller than in some decentralized systems (e.g., the United States) where
schools and teachers have considerable input in curriculum selection and implementation (Hooper
et al., 2015).
Concluding Remarks
Two decades ago, the National Research Council report Knowing What Students Know: The Science and
Design of Educational Assessment (Pellegrino et al., 2001) stated, “assessment practices need to move beyond
a focus on component skills and discrete bits of knowledge to encompass the more complex aspects of stu-
dent achievement” (p. 3). The last two decades have continued to reveal that student achievement is indeed
complex and multifaceted and that society increasingly needs students to demonstrate complex forms of
competence appropriate to the global challenges facing society. During that time when large-scale science
assessments have continued to evolve in an attempt to reveal facets of student achievement in science and
technology that are relevant and critical to the educational research, practice, and policy communities. Only
if the “complex aspects of student achievement” are included in our assessment frameworks, task designs,
and interpretive methods can we make valid conclusions to inform those stakeholder communities.
PISA, TIMMS, and NAEP have accomplished much in moving the feld of science assessment for-
ward, and they have impacted international and national science education policies. They are, however,
by no means identical and continue to evolve in multiple ways, including their assessment purpose, focus,
item characteristics, delivery mechanisms, scoring and reporting procedures, and intended audiences and
1094
interpretive uses. They are also not without their critics with respect to many of those characteristics
(Zhao, 2020). Future versions no doubt will show changes and improvements taking into account both
relevant criticisms as well as contemporary thinking about the learning and knowing of science with the
goal of producing fndings that are reliable and conclusions that are valid and informative. Technologies,
including AI and machine learning, are signifcantly changing the world we live in and will no doubt
prove valuable in expanding the complex constructs we can target and the evidence-based inference
processes we can apply in large-scale science assessments to make them more efcient, robust, and valid.
In conclusion, we believe that large-scale science and technology assessments will continue to
serve as some of the most important and infuential sources of evidence for informing and reform-
ing educational practices and policies thus supporting the improvement of 21st-century educational
systems and the scientifc and technological literacy of our youth.
Note
1 PISA 2018 assessed science as a minor domain, so we have focused on the prior PISA 2015, which included
science as the major domain.
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SECTION VI
Science Teacher Education

Section Editor: Saouma Boujaoude
34
SCIENCE TEACHER
ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS
Reforming Practice
Introduction
There is increasing evidence that science teachers’ attitudes and beliefs are key to improving science
education. Previous research has clearly shown that the success of innovative professional develop-
ment programs, new science curricula and standards, and changes in teaching practices rest frmly on
teachers’ attitudes and beliefs (c.f., Bryan, 2012; Jones & Carter, 2006; Jones & Legon, 2014; Wallace,
2014). In this chapter, we examine the research on science teachers’ attitudes and beliefs through
the lens of science education reform. In the sections that follow, we review the research on science
teacher attitudes and beliefs that has been published since the 2014 Handbook of Research on Science
Education (Volume II). The review includes an examination of the defnitions of teacher attitudes and
belief constructs, descriptions of the functions and stability of science teachers’ beliefs (in and out of
the classroom), theoretical frameworks related to science teachers’ attitudes and beliefs (with a focus
on expectancy-value and self-efcacy), studies related to science teachers’ epistemological beliefs
and beliefs about reform-oriented science teaching and science, strategies to measure attitudes and
beliefs, and a discussion of future research needed in science teacher education.
Most of the previous research on teachers’ attitudes and beliefs focused on correlational studies
that documented relationships that might exist between a set of beliefs or attitudes and instructional
behaviors (e.g., Jones & Legon, 2014). In this review of research, we extend this correlational view of
attitudes and beliefs to examining theoretical models that researchers apply in their studies as well as
models that have explanatory and predictive capacities for understanding teachers’ practices in reform
environments from the lens of teacher attitudes and beliefs.
Scope of the Review

The review of research began with an identifcation of the constructs that are used by researchers to
defne attitudes and beliefs related to science teachers and science teaching in science education as
well as general teacher education studies that were relevant for defning teacher attitudes and beliefs
more broadly. In this review, we selected only peer-reviewed, scholarly articles that were published in
educational journals. The articles were found by searching the databases of ERIC, EBSCOhost, and
APA PsycINFO for peer-reviewed science education research papers relevant to teacher beliefs and
attitudes. The scope of the review focused on science education research that has taken place over
the last six years. In the frst phase of the review, we located all studies that were identifed with the
1101 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-40

search terms of “science teacher beliefs” and “science teacher attitudes”. These two terms were also
examined along with secondary terms that indicate particular aspects of teacher attitudes and beliefs
such as “identity”, “controversial issues”, “worldview”, “self-efcacy”, “gender”, “religious beliefs”,
“climate change”, “values”, “culture”, “science disciplines”, “self-concept”, “science practices”,
“inquiry”, “assessment”, “evolution”, “technology”, “metacognition”, “professional development”,
“epistemology”, and “epistemic beliefs”.
The search included studies at all levels and contexts of science education (K–12, higher educa-
tion, and informal education) as well as papers that described theoretical positions. As each paper
was reviewed, we closely examined additional studies that were cited to extend the search to studies
that may have been missed in the initial search using databases. Within each study, we examined the
context, the methodology applied, the assessments utilized, the results, implications, and the recom-
mendations for future research.
Attitude and Belief-Related Constructs

One of the signifcant challenges that face researchers who examine science teacher attitudes and
beliefs is the lack of clear and concise defnitions for these constructs. Without a consensus defni-
tion, it is difcult for researchers to validate and replicate fndings or build new theoretical models.
As shown in Table 34.1, teachers’ beliefs and attitudes are defned in relation to an array of constructs
Table 34.1 Defnitions of Attitude and Belief-Related Constructs
Related Constructs Authors
Views, conceptions, mental representations Caleon et al. (2018)

Unconscious guides; individually held conceptions that are in constant relation Fives and Buehl (2012)
to the context and teachers’ experiences; flters used in the evaluation of
information entering the cognitive system
Beliefs and emotions, though distinct conceptually, are nevertheless completely Gill and Hardin (2014)
intertwined; beliefs are paradigms through which situations are interpreted
Goldin et al. (2016)
Beliefs are often defned relative to other mental constructs such as knowledge, Hutner and Markman (2016)
dispositions, or attitudes; mental representation . . . active in cognition; a
representation held in long-term memory
Beliefs, self-efcacy, and attitude are interrelated Kazempour and Sadler (2015)
Assumptions felt to be true Kleickmann et al. (2016)
Filters for experiences, frames for addressing problems, and guides for action Levin (2015)
Beliefs, like attitudes but in contrast to emotions, are relatively stable and are McLeod (1992)
less intense . . . than both attitudes and emotions
A functionally integrated cognitive system Rokeach (1968)
Dispositions about phenomena Schraw and Olafson (2015)
Values, worldviews; mental constructions Skott (2015)
Motivational constructs that infuence (or guide) the goals teachers set, their Tschannen-Moran et al. (1998)
efort toward meeting those goals, their perseverance in the face of challenges,
and how they feel while engaged in the task
Multidimensional; overlap with opinions, drives, motivations; thoughts, beliefs, van Aalderen-Smeets and van
feelings toward teaching; afective states; anxiety, enjoyment, self-efcacy, perceptions der Molen (2013)
Convictions Watt and Richardson (2015)
Beliefs frame a person’s decisions, actions, and overall view of the world Wong and Luft (2015)
1102
Science Teacher Attitudes and Beliefs
that include conceptions, representations, mental constructs, dispositions, afective states, cognitive
factors, frames, and paradigms. As researchers have continued to document the infuence of beliefs
and attitudes on educational reform, there is a growing consensus that beliefs are associated with
motivation, interpretation of information, and prior experiences (e.g., Eccles & Wigfeld, 2020).
Attitudes, unlike beliefs, have traditionally been defned as constructs associated with an evaluation
of being favorable or unfavorable (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). In early studies, researchers argued that
beliefs were cognitive constructs and attitudes were afective constructs (Fishbein, 1967). As can be
seen in the studies that are highlighted in this chapter, it is now recognized that beliefs and attitudes
have cognitive as well as experiential dimensions (e.g., experiences situated in a context; Fives &
Buehl, 2012).
Functions of Beliefs
In this chapter, we frame the review around the roles that beliefs play in teacher practice and pro-
fessional growth. These roles include flters, frames, and guides (Fives & Buehl, 2012), as shown
in Figure 34.1. First, teachers’ interpretations of teaching experiences (prior and current) and new
information are fltered through their beliefs both implicitly and explicitly. These beliefs can be
about teaching roles, epistemology, instructional practices, or broader beliefs such as worldview.
Beliefs can serve as interpretive frames for problems, teaching contexts, tasks, and new knowledge
and skills such as beliefs about the likelihood of success for a new instructional practice or reform
efort. Additionally, beliefs can serve as active guides that have predictive value in shaping how new
knowledge or skills may be incorporated into preexisting schemas or how new knowledge is related
to teachers’ expectancies for success. This later role of beliefs is refected in teachers’ self-efcacy and
task value for new pedagogical approaches or strategies. Through those three major roles, science
teachers’ beliefs greatly infuence their teaching practices that are in turn infuencing their beliefs.
Science Teacher Experiences

˜ Experiences as a student ˜ Experiences in teacher education ˜ Experiences with instruction
˜ Experiences in professional development ˜ Experiences with students
Beliefs as Filters Beliefs as Frames Beliefs as Guides

Interpreting: Defining: Shaping:
• New knowledge • Experiences • Instructional
• New instructional • Knowledge decisions and
practices • Skills actions
• Curricular reforms • Problems • Intentions to
• Epistemology • Tasks implement
• Contexts reformed practices
Science Teacher Practice (in and out of the Classroom)

Planning, Teaching, & Reflection
Figure 34.1 The roles of science teachers’ beliefs as flters, frames, and guides (modifed from Fives & Buehl,
2012).
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Stability of Science Teachers’ Beliefs

Just as there is a myriad of defnitions of beliefs, researchers have recognized that the stability and
malleability of beliefs vary across types of beliefs and contexts (e.g., Watt & Richardson, 2015). Rec-
ognizing that beliefs are highly related to instructional practices and the efectiveness of educational
reform, some researchers are examining change in beliefs over time and strategies that promote these
changes.
Fives and Buehl (2012) have clarifed the meaning of teachers’ beliefs and report that content-
related beliefs, such as beliefs about the nature of science, are more malleable than general beliefs
(e.g., general teaching efcacy). Liljedahl (2010) noted that teachers often experience rapid and
profound changes in beliefs. After examining 42 cases of these changes in beliefs in mathematics
teachers, Liljedahl made the argument that changes in beliefs are the result of diferent processes
that include “(1) conceptual change, (2) accommodating outliers, (3) reifcation, (4) leading belief
change, and (5) push-pull rhythm of change” (p. 412). In later work, Liljedahl (2011) applied
conceptual change theory to investigate the impact of cognitive confict as a driver for changes in
mathematics teachers’ beliefs about the nature of mathematics, mathematics teaching, assessment,
student knowledge, student learning, and student motivation. Liljedahl found that conceptual
change as an intervention was a valid and efective way to support change in teachers’ initial
beliefs.
Hofman and Seidel (2015) also examined changes in beliefs and argued that teachers’ beliefs exist
across a continuum (e.g., Fives & Buehl, 2012), with some beliefs subject to rapid change while other
beliefs, such as those related to epistemology, are much more stable. For example, in an examina-
tion of secondary science teachers’ practices and beliefs, Boesdorfer et al. (2019) reported that beliefs
about how students learn were particularly stable and shaped teachers’ instructional practices. Con-
versely, teaching experience and professional development experiences were not infuential in chang-
ing teachers’ beliefs. Wong and Luft (2015) as well as Martin et al. (2019) have also found that beliefs
about how students learn infuence science instructional practices more than teachers’ beliefs about
teaching. Across these studies, the research suggests that conceptual change approaches are emerging
as an efective way to modify beliefs, but the studies also note that changing beliefs is related to the
types of beliefs held by teachers. In the sections that follow, theoretical frameworks that explain fac-
tors infuencing science teachers’ changes in beliefs are reviewed.
Theoretical Frameworks for Teachers’ Attitudes and Beliefs
Expectancy Value Theory: Beliefs and Motivation

Across studies, researchers have found that developing science teachers’ professional competencies
involves taking teachers’ attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs into account. Eccles and Wigfeld (2020)
have argued that motivations and behavioral choices (e.g., teachers’ instructional decisions) are
embedded in a complex model that includes the cultural milieu, personal characteristics (e.g., apti-
tude, sex, ethnic group membership), prior experiences, perceptions of social roles, goals, social and
personal identities, self-concept and self-efcacy, afective memories, expectations of success, and
subjective task value (e.g., utility and costs).
Eccles and Wigfeld’s (2020) expectancy value theory model is adapted and applied here (see
Figure 34.2) as a framework for examining the motivational components of science teachers’ beliefs
and attitudes. This model allows researchers to integrate many of the attitude- and belief-related
constructs that arise in studies of science teachers’ development and practices. Within this framework,
teachers are situated in a cultural context, have personal characteristics that infuence their attitudes
and beliefs, have had prior relevant experiences, and hold perceptions of other teachers’ beliefs
1104
Cultural Milieu Percepõn of… Instrucõnal Goals and
1. Gender and other social 1. Other science Self-Schemata for Teaching
role systems teachers’ beliefs and 1. Teaching self-concept Expectaõn of Success
2. Stereotypes of teaching behaviors 2. Teaching self-schemata
and the nature of 2. Gender and other 3. Teacher identy
abilies for teaching social roles 4. Short-term goals
3. Family demographics 3. Ed context 5. Long-term goals
characteriscs and
demands
4. Possible acvies

Science Teacher
Competencies
Other Science Educators’ 1. A˝tudes
Beliefs and Behaviors 2. Behaviors
3. Beliefs
1105
Personal Characteris˜cs
1. Aptudes
2. Temperaments
3. Sex
4. Ethnic group
A°ec˜ve
Reacõns
and Subjec˜ve Task Value
Memories 1. Science teaching-related
Previous Science interest-enjoyment
Teaching-Related 2. Science teaching ulity
Experiences Interpretaõn of value
Experience 3. Relave costs
Figure 34.2 The expectancy value theory model (modifed from Eccles & Wigfeld, 2020).
and attitudes, social roles, and contextual characteristics and demands. These contextual and back-
ground factors infuence teachers’ instructional goals and science teaching–related self-schemata (self-
concept, self-efcacy, identity, and goals). Within the model, instructional goals and self-schemata
contribute to teachers’ afective reactions and memories, expectations of success, evaluations of the
task value (attainment, interest, utility, and costs). Ultimately, these factors shape the attitudes, beliefs,
and behaviors of science teachers.
Previous studies have shown that eforts to reform instruction, curricula, and science teachers’
professional development are likely to fail if teachers do not believe the reform eforts are useful
and ft in their instructional contexts (e.g., Czerniak & Lumpe, 1996; Feldman, 2002). Eccles and
Wigfeld (2020) argue that unless individuals fnd that a task is congruent with their self-schema
and identity such that they can see themselves as being successful with the task, the individual is
not likely to adopt that behavior. The congruence of reform goals with teachers’ self-schema can
be predictive of whether teachers will be successful in implementing reform-based science educa-
tion initiatives.
The expectancy value theoretical model outlined here can inform the “long-term ontogeny of
the beliefs and memories underlying individuals’ motivated achievement-related choices’ (Eccles &
Wigfeld, 2020, p. 1). Eccles and Wigfeld (2020) argue that the model is hierarchical and that an
individual’s choices and behaviors are dependent on the other factors that mediate these outcomes.
The mediating factors include science teachers’ self-concepts, work-related task perceptions, and
teaching-related identities. The Eccles and Wigfeld model accounts for the individual complexities
“developmental processes, situational processes, individual diferences, and individual context pro-
cesses” (Eccles & Wigfeld, 2020, p. 3) that infuence teachers’ beliefs and, ultimately, behavior. The
model is a useful tool that allows researchers to examine the intrinsically motivated factors such as
interest and persistence, as well as extrinsically motivated factors such as perceptions of teachers’ roles,
other teachers’ beliefs, and stereotypes of teaching and teachers.
A less studied component of expectancy value theory is the cost factor. Costs, according to Eccles
and Wigfeld (2020), include efort costs, emotional costs, and opportunity costs, or “the extent to
which doing one task takes away from one’s ability or time to do other valued tasks” (3.2.1, para. 1).
The cost factor is particularly salient for science teachers who face the ongoing challenges of updat-
ing their knowledge of advancements in science as well as integrating inquiry and laboratory experi-
ences into their instruction. If science teachers perceive the costs of a new reform efort as higher
than the perceived benefts of the reform, the reform is not likely to succeed. Some of the costs of
educational reform can potentially be negated with professional development that addresses aspects
of emotional costs (e.g., addressing anxiety or stress; Perez et al., 2014) as well as opportunity costs
(e.g., providing teachers with time away from students to learn and practice new instructional skills).
As shown in this section, science teachers’ beliefs are associated with an array of factors that ultimately
infuence instructional attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
Science Teachers’ Self-Effcacy

In recent years, science education researchers have increasingly applied expectancy value theory in
studies of science teachers. Most often, teachers’ self-efcacy is measured as an outcome of a profes-
sional development experience. Self-efcacy is typically defned as a belief about the extent to which
one can complete a task in the future (e.g., Bandura, 1977). Bandura (1977) argues that self-efcacy
beliefs infuence choices an individual makes, the amount of efort individuals will expend on an
activity, and the amount of time that individuals will expend if they face obstacles while performing
an activity. In the studies described in this chapter, researchers have examined the relationships of
science teaching self-efcacy to other variables that are associated with science teachers’ beliefs and
attitudes (see Figure 34.2).
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Science Teaching Self-Effcacy and Preservice Teacher Education

One study on 112 preservice elementary teachers’ science teaching efcacy by Deehan et al. (2019)
examined the impact of taking science courses over a four-year teacher education program. The
study found that science teaching efcacy increased after taking science courses, and the level of
efcacy remained stable even after the courses ended. The researchers noted that efcacy scores fol-
lowing the completion of a course were the highest when the course included embedded practical
science teaching experiences.
The impact of teacher preparation on preservice teachers was also studied by Velthuis et al. (2014),
who compared the self-efcacy of 292 primary teachers in the Netherlands who had completed
science classes to those who had completed science methods classes. The results showed that self-
efcacy for teaching science was correlated with higher levels of self-rated science knowledge and
science teaching experience. In addition, preservice teachers who had taken science classes had
higher self-efcacy than preservice teachers who had taken science methods classes. When the teach-
ers were followed into their second year of teacher training, there were no longer diferences in self-
efcacy based on completed coursework.
The impact of teacher education courses was also examined by Menon and Sadler (2016), who
examined changes in preservice elementary teachers’ self-efcacy as a result of taking a science con-
tent course. The results of this study found that preservice teachers’ science self-efcacy beliefs
and conceptual understandings of science improved. They also found there were moderate gains in
personal science teaching efcacy beliefs as a result of taking the course as well as improved science
teacher self-image.
Other studies have also reported changes in elementary preservice teachers’ attitudes and self-
efcacy toward science and science teaching as a result of taking a science methods course. Kazem-
pour and Sadler (2015) found participating in a science methods class increased positive attitudes
toward science and science teaching as well as increased science teaching self-efcacy. These research-
ers found diferences in the infuence of the class depending on the degree of self-efcacy students
held at the beginning of the course.
Using a diferent approach to examining preservice science education, Buldur (2017) studied
preservice teachers’ beliefs about science teaching over a four-year teacher education program and
reported that in the beginning teachers held conventional views of teaching (teacher-centered), but
by the end of the teacher ed program students’ beliefs shifted to a student-centered orientation. This
shift in views of teaching started as early as the frst science methods course taken in the teacher
education program.
Science Teaching Self-Effcacy Beliefs and In-Service Teacher Education

Recognizing the importance of science teaching self-efcacy as an indicator of teachers’ beliefs,
researchers have increasingly measured changes in science teaching self-efcacy related to professional
development initiatives. Sandholtz and Ringstaf (2014) examined K–2 teachers’ beliefs, science
instruction, and self-efcacy after participating in a three-year professional development program that
focused on developing teachers’ content knowledge and use of research-based instructional strategies.
This study found teachers’ overall self-efcacy for teaching science, personal efcacy, and outcome
expectancy efcacy increased signifcantly. The researchers also found that changes in self-efcacy
were not correlated with changes in instructional time spent on science, but the study did fnd that
as a result of participating in the professional development, teachers were more likely to engage in
hands-on science activities with their students.
Elementary science teachers’ self-efcacy was also examined in a study by Mintzes et al. (2013).
These researchers examined how self-efcacy changed as a result of participating in a sustained science
1107
professional learning community. The study found that there were signifcant gains in self-efcacy
and the changes were attributed to having had a variety of mastery experiences along with emotional
and social support (encouragement and opportunities to share ideas with others). Emotion and self-
efcacy beliefs were also examined in a study by Brígido et al. (2013), who examined the relationship
between self-efcacy beliefs and preservice teachers’ emotions about teaching. The researchers found
that self-efcacy was correlated with positive emotions about teaching physics and chemistry.
Similar to the positive impact of the social support reported by Mintzes et al. (2013), Kleickmann
et al. (2016) reported that providing scafolding during professional development was instrumental in
changing beliefs. In this study, the researchers examined the infuence of pedagogical and pedagogi-
cal content knowledge scafolding on elementary teachers’ professional development. Teachers who
received scafolding experienced more positive changes in beliefs related to motivation increased
instructional quality, and their students had higher achievement.
To unpack some of the factors that infuence the development of science teaching self-efcacy,
Wang et al. (2015) examined 233 Taiwanese elementary teachers’ sources of science teaching self-
efcacy. This study utilized a mediational model approach and examined science teaching self-efcacy,
teaching and learning conceptions, technological-pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), as well
as attitudes toward internet-based instruction. The study found that TPACK and attitudes mediated
the relationship between science teaching efcacy and concepts of teaching and learning. Wang et al.
suggested that the knowledge and attitudes toward internet-based instruction may have mediated the
relationship between constructivist teaching conceptions and outcome expectancy. This study is one
of the few studies that included both attitudes toward teaching science as well as science teaching
self-efcacy.
Enderle et al. (2014) conducted a study that examined the infuence of a science research expe-
rience on elementary, middle, and high school teachers’ beliefs about reform-based teaching (e.g.,
inquiry). The authors found that the teachers’ beliefs changed as a result of participating in the
research program. Self-efcacy was measured in relation to teacher beliefs, gender, and school type
in a study conducted by Lin and Chao (2014). This study found that female teachers had more posi-
tive teaching beliefs than male teachers about teacher–student relationships overall, but there were no
diferences in self-efcacy by gender.
There is an increased interest in examining changes in teacher beliefs over extended periods of
time, as seen in a study by DeCoito and Myszkal (2018), who examined the infuence of a longitu-
dinal STEM professional development program on middle grades science teachers’ personal teaching
self-efcacy and beliefs. The authors reported that although teachers had confdence that they could
teach STEM topics, there was a disconnect between their self-efcacy and the extent to which they
implemented inquiry-based instruction.
Teachers’ Collective Effcacy

A seldomly applied efcacy-related construct is that of collective efcacy. Bandura (2000) defned
collective efcacy as the shared beliefs that individuals have about their collective capacity to produce
results. Collective efcacy may be particularly relevant in the social structure of science professional
learning communities (e.g., Voelkel & Chrispeels, 2017), science departments and schools (e.g.,
Donohoo et al., 2018), and through the teachers’ use of common science standards and curricula.
Jugert et al. (2016) examined collective agency in the context of pro-environmental intentions (e.g.,
climate change) and found that collective efcacy was efective when it also worked to raise self-
efcacy. Jugert et al. noted that pro-environmental actions have limited impact when they are kept as
personal actions. The author argues, “It is only when personal actions are part of an efcacious col-
lective movement and are perceived as collective behavior that people may conceive of their actions
as afecting environmental crises” (pp. 36–37).
1108
Science Teachers’ Epistemological Beliefs

Epistemological beliefs refer to one’s beliefs about knowledge and knowing in terms of nature, limits,
source, and justifcation, which is often called personal epistemology (Elby, 2009; Hofer & Bendixen,
2012; Schommer, 1990). In literature, epistemological beliefs and epistemic beliefs are often used
interchangeably. Kitchener (1983) asserted that epistemic is the accurate modifer for the beliefs in
that epistemic refers to knowledge and thus it denotes beliefs about knowledge rather than beliefs
about epistemology that the modifer, epistemological, denotes. However, researchers whose work is
reviewed in this section dominantly used the term epistemological beliefs.
Research on science teachers’ epistemological beliefs addresses three focal areas: (1) how pre-
service and in-service science teachers’ epistemological beliefs are characterized, (2) how they are
related to teaching practices and student learning, and (3) what factors infuence their development.
Concerning the frst focal area, some studies center on disciplinary domain-general epistemologi-
cal beliefs (i.e., beliefs about the structure of knowledge and how people come to know), whereas
others center on epistemological beliefs in the discipline of science specifcally (i.e., what it means
to know in science). For example, in an international comparison study of preservice and in-service
chemistry teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning chemistry in Jordan, Turkey, and Germany,
Al-Amoush et al. (2014) conceptualized general epistemological beliefs (i.e., knowledge transmission
view vs. constructivist view) as one of the three dimensions of beliefs about teaching and learning
chemistry. This conception is aligned with the idea that people have domain-general epistemological
belief systems and that these beliefs are specifed to disciplinary domains when they are measured at
task-specifc levels (Buehl et al., 2002).
In contrast, adopting the domain-specifc perspective on epistemological beliefs, Ding and Zhang
(2016) explored a progression trend in Chinese preservice and in-service teachers’ epistemological
beliefs about physics and learning physics across diferent stages of their teacher education programs
and beyond, using a disciplinary domain-specifc measure, the Colorado Learning Attitudes about
Science Survey (CLASS) (Adams et al., 2006). Regardless of discipline-general or discipline-specifc
approaches, this line of research has suggested that epistemological beliefs are central to teachers’
learning to teach, especially preservice teachers during teacher education programs. Specifcally,
preservice teachers’ epistemological beliefs are closely related to their constructivist conception of
teaching and learning (Güneş & Bahçivan, 2018), their goal orientations (Kaya, 2017), their evalua-
tion of the usefulness of educational research in teaching practices (Guilfoyle et al., 2020), and their
value of general pedagogical knowledge they learn during teacher education programs (Merk et al.,
2017). In this regard, the calls for teacher educators to focus on the epistemological development of
preservice science teachers have grown.
Epistemological Beliefs and Teaching Practices in Science Education Reform

Several research studies on the second focal area have shed light on empirical associations between
teacher epistemological beliefs and teaching practices. For example, Sengul et al. (2020) investi-
gated the relationship between three urban science teachers’ epistemological beliefs, pedagogical
content knowledge (PCK) of argumentation, and classroom practices after they participated in a
one-year professional development program focusing on argument-driven inquiry (ADI). Their
fndings demonstrated close links between a teacher’s epistemological beliefs and PCK of argu-
mentation, and subsequently, implementation of the ADI model. Specifcally, one teacher with an
evaluativist view that considered knowledge as the product of a continuing process of examination,
comparison, evaluation, and judgment of diferent explanations and perspectives (Kuhn, 1991)
exhibited high-quality PCK of argumentation, which was refected in teaching practices aligned
with key features of the ADI model. However, the other teachers, who were inclined toward a
1109
multiplist view that considered knowledge as subjective, uncertain, and dependent on personal
experience without a need for reason and expertise (Kuhn, 1991), modifed the ADI model failing
to acknowledge the value of argumentation instruction involving the generation and critique of
multiple perspectives. Similarly, Rinehart and colleagues (2020) conducted a study with 77 K–8
teachers in the United States to examine the relationship between the teachers’ epistemic cogni-
tion focusing on epistemic aims, reliable processes, and epistemic ideals and their dialogic practices
in an argument-based inquiry science classroom. Epistemic aims are the goals one sets for achiev-
ing epistemic ends (e.g., creating high-quality arguments or developing evidence-based explana-
tions). Reliable processes are a series of actions that one takes to obtain those ends, and epistemic
ideals are the evaluative criteria used to determine if the targeted ends have been achieved (Chinn
& Rinehart, 2016). Based on the analysis of recorded science lessons and interviews, Rinehart
et al. (2020) found that teachers’ epistemic aims and ideals were connected to their dialogic feed-
back practices as well as the quality of their implementation of evidence-based argumentation in
the classroom.
The link between teacher epistemological beliefs and teaching practices is also evident for preser-
vice science teachers. Tarmo’s (2016) study with six preservice science teachers in Tanzania found
that the preservice teachers viewed science knowledge to be simple, unchanging, and handed down
by authorities such as textbooks and scientists. Their epistemological beliefs were manifested in their
practices in which they asked factual questions, sought predetermined textbook-based answers from
students, and adopted transmissive teaching strategies.
Although a growing number of studies highlight the importance of epistemological beliefs to
the process of learning to teach and to the act of teaching, few studies published for the inclusion
period of this review directly examine their impact on student outcomes. Only one study loosely
related to student outcomes is Lin et al.’s (2014) study that investigated 1,048 Taiwanese high-school
students’ and their 59 science teachers’ conceptions of learning science (COLS) and conceptions of
science assessment (COSA). Their fndings revealed discrepancies between students’ and teachers’
COLS and COSA, which failed to support the assertion that teachers’ epistemological beliefs are
critical to the development of their students’ epistemological beliefs as previous studies had suggested
(Mansour, 2009). Fenstermacher and Richardson (2005) argued that the presumption of a simplistic
causal relation between teaching practices and student learning is naïve because teaching and learn-
ing are related to each other in highly complex ways. Clearly, more research is needed to unpack
the complexity of the connections among teacher epistemological beliefs, teaching practices, and
student learning.
With the close link between teachers’ epistemological beliefs and teaching approaches (e.g.,
Brownlee et al., 2011; Tsai, 2003; Yadav & Koehler, 2007), epistemological beliefs have become
a crucial strand of research on teacher beliefs. However, epistemological beliefs have recently
received growing attention in the feld of science education as reform movements (e.g., a frame-
work for K–12 science education [NRC, 2012], and the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence
[Wallace & Priestley, 2017]) have called for a shift away from a heavy emphasis on cognitive
learning toward a balanced focus among the conceptual, epistemic, and social practices that sci-
ence involves (Duschl, 2008; Kelly, 2008; OECD, 2019). This shift requires science teachers to
implement teaching practices to support students’ dialogic knowledge-building, critiquing, and
sense-making beyond knowledge acquisition (Ford, 2015; Furtak & Penuel, 2019; Nussbaum
et al., 2008). However, creating such learning opportunities requires changes to teachers’ epis-
temological beliefs to be compatible with those reform-oriented teaching practices (Jiménez-
Aleixandre & Crujeiras, 2017; Wallace & Priestley, 2017). In this regard, to realize the vision of
any science education reform that involves changing teaching practices, teacher educators should
support the development of science teachers’ epistemological beliefs that undergird reform-based
pedagogical approaches.
1110
Factors Infuencing Science Teachers’ Epistemological Beliefs

Multiple factors afect science teachers’epistemological beliefs, including prior experience as a learner,
education background, teacher education program, and science research courses. Al-Amoush et al.’s
(2014) international comparison study found that Jordanian chemistry preservice and in-service
teachers held the most traditional, teacher-centered, and transmission-oriented beliefs, while Ger-
man teachers held the most modern, student-centered, and constructivist beliefs. Turkish teachers’
beliefs lay in a middle ground in between. The authors attributed the diferences in epistemological
beliefs to the diferences in teacher education programs and education systems as well as cultural
contexts between the countries, suggesting less exposure to traditional teaching practices, as a stu-
dent in secondary science classrooms would likely result in the student retaining more constructivist
beliefs. The impact of prior experience in science classrooms on teachers’ epistemological beliefs and
conceptions of teaching and learning are also supported by other researchers (e.g., Bahçivan & Aydin,
2020; Güneş & Bahçivan, 2018).
With 484 Turkish preservice science teachers, Kaya (2017) investigated their scientifc episte-
mological beliefs, i.e., domain-specifc views of the nature of scientifc knowledge and how it is
produced, shared, and validated, in relation to their goal orientations. In addition to the positive rela-
tion between them, Kaya (2017) found that the participants who successfully completed a scientifc
research methods course had less traditional scientifc epistemological beliefs than the participants
who had not taken such a course previously. In a similar vein, Guilfoyle and colleagues (2020) pro-
posed that scientifc research experiences need to be included as activities for teachers’ epistemologi-
cal development.
A cluster of studies highlights the potential of teacher education programs to promote sophisti-
cated epistemological beliefs in preservice teachers. Taylor and Booth’s (2015) phenomenological
study examined eight South African secondary physical science teachers’ conceptions of science
teaching who were schooled in an education system emphasizing knowledge transmission but
were prepared in their initial teacher education programs focusing on learner-centered science
teaching approaches. They found that the teachers’ conceptions of science teaching were com-
patible with learner-centered views, especially in terms of the nature of scientifc knowledge,
teacher roles, and student roles. Based on this fnding, the authors suggested that a purpose-
fully designed teacher education program could develop underlying epistemological beliefs for
constructivist science teaching practices and such infuence could last some years after teachers
graduated from their initial teacher education (the teachers’ years of teaching ranged from 1.9 to
6.4 years). Similarly, Kirmizigul and Bektas (2019) asserted that a course focusing on the nature
of science during a teacher education program contributed to preservice teachers’ sophisticated
epistemological beliefs.
Considering that epistemological beliefs are subject to change and can be developed, researchers
have suggested interventions and strategies for the development of teacher epistemological beliefs,
such as engaging in argumentative practices (Güneş & Bahçivan, 2018), authentic science research
(Kite et al., 2020), and discussion centering on the epistemology of science (Wendell et al., 2019).
However, little research has been conducted to examine the impact of an intervention aiming at the
development of teacher epistemological beliefs on teaching practices, and the mechanisms of the
change in epistemological beliefs in the context of the intervention.
Teachers’ Beliefs About Reform-Oriented Science Teaching Practices

Assuming that teachers’ classroom practices are infuenced by their beliefs, researchers have examined
science teachers’ beliefs about reform-oriented teaching approaches as a means to obtain insights into
how to support teacher implementation of those practices. This strand of research has particularly
1111
centered on core practices of science, such as inquiry, argumentation, integration of computational

thinking, modeling, scientifc explanation, and technology integration.
Teacher Beliefs About Reform-Oriented Science Teaching Approaches

Recent research fndings regarding the relationship between teacher beliefs about an innovative
science teaching approach and classroom practices are inconclusive. Some studies report a strong
correlation between the two. In concert with previous research suggesting teacher beliefs about argu-
mentation can impact teachers’ instructional choices related to argumentation (Sampson & Blanchard,
2012), Lin et al.’s (2017) study, conducted in a nursing high school in southwestern Taiwan, demon-
strated a strong link between teacher beliefs about argumentation and instructional approaches with
detailed descriptions of one novice and one experienced teacher. Specifcally, the novice teacher,
who believed that the learning of argumentation should occur in a more student-centered manner
than in a traditional lecture-based environment, spent a substantial amount of time engaging students
with their peers’ ideas through discussion and collaboration. On the other hand, the experienced
teacher believed that most students were capable of generating arguments, but few knew how to
argue based on evidence. Aligned with her beliefs, to improve students’ ability to incorporate their
understanding of scientifc knowledge into scientifc argumentation, she created opportunities for
students to collect data from various resources and to construct their own knowledge framework.
Similarly, using the concurrent mixed-methods research design, Zangori and Forbes (2014) exam-
ined how third-grade students (n = 59) and their teachers (n = 3) engaged in constructing scientifc
explanations during enactment of the eight-week Full Option Science System (FOSS) unit on plant
growth and development. Their fndings suggest a robust link between the teachers’ beliefs about sci-
entifc explanations and their instructional support and scafolding for students’ scientifc explanation
construction. As an illustration, two teachers who believed that there was a single correct explanation
that they needed to help their students to learn throughout a lesson rarely provided opportunities for
their students to construct scientifc explanations either through discourse or writing. In contrast, the
other teacher, Grace, who believed that there was more than one explanation that could lead to an
understanding of the science concept, more frequently supported students to engage in formulating
scientifc explanations. Furthermore, Grace’s classroom had a statistically signifcant outcome for the
increased presence of written explanations as compared to the other two classrooms, and her students’
explanations were more frequently grounded in evidence.
Consistent with those two studies, Avraamidou’s (2017) single case study with one exemplary
beginning elementary teacher, Sofa, in Cyprus, documented how Sofa’s beliefs about scientifc
inquiry aligned with science education reforms were translated into practice in her ffth-grade class-
room. Sofa believed that inquiry-based science is a means for supporting students’ engagement,
science learning, and positive attitudes toward science. She perceived student engagement in scien-
tifc investigations with authentic data and construction of scientifc claims from evidence as central
aspects of inquiry-based science teaching. In accordance with her beliefs, she provided students with
opportunities to work with data to respond to a posed question and to construct evidence-based
explanations. Correia and Harrison’s (2020) case study of two secondary science teachers also showed
that the teachers’ espoused beliefs about inquiry-based learning were congruent with not only their
teaching approaches promoting student autonomy but also their formative assessment practices in
the classroom.
In contrast, some studies report inconsistencies between teacher beliefs and classroom practices
related to reform-oriented science teaching practices. An example is Hundal et al.’s (2014) study
that examined teachers’ beliefs about argumentation in the context of their co-designing a curricu-
lum focusing on argumentation for an after-school environmental health science club. They found
that the teachers perceived the importance of argumentation in both science and students’ science
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learning, but their implementation of argumentative practices was relegated due to their perceived
constraints, such as the need to retain a high level of students’ interest, desire to cover classroom-
related content, and time pressure.
The disparity between teacher beliefs and classroom practices is also reported in relation to
inquiry-based science teaching. Ramnarain and Hlatswayo’s (2018) sequential explanatory mixed-
methods study investigated the interaction between tenth-grade physical sciences teachers’ beliefs
about inquiry-based learning and their practice of inquiry in their classrooms in under-resourced
rural schools in South Africa. They found that participating teachers believed the benefts of inquiry,
such as promoting students’ motivation to learn science and understanding of abstract concepts
in physical sciences. Despite this positive belief toward inquiry-based learning, teachers were less
inclined to enact inquiry-based learning in their lessons, with barriers including the lack of labora-
tory facilities and teaching materials, curriculum to cover, time constraints, and large classes.
Blanchard and colleagues (2016) investigated the efects of the technology-enhanced profes-
sional development (TPD) designed to support reform-based teaching on 20 middle school science,
mathematics, and technology teachers’ beliefs, practices, and student learning outcomes in rural,
high-poverty school districts in the United States. Their quantitative analyses indicated a statistically
signifcant shift in teacher beliefs about teaching toward more student-centered views and in their
comfort using new technologies over the three years of the TPD. However, there was no statistically
signifcant diference in teachers’ practices over the TPD, in terms of student-centered and inquiry-
based aspects as measured by the RTOP (Sawada et al., 2002). Particularly, the majority of the teach-
ers adopted technology in ways that improved efciency and efectiveness without any substantial
changes in their instruction rather than using technology in ways that transformed their roles and
classroom practices. Similarly, Constantine et al. (2017) qualitatively described a disparity between
teacher beliefs and practices in relation to technology integration and concluded: “teachers’ beliefs
about technology integration in STEM were more ambitious than their actual practice” (p. 348).
Mixed fndings regarding the association between teacher beliefs and reform-oriented teaching
practices suggest that the translation of teacher beliefs into practice involves complex processes that
are intervened by various internal and external factors, such as teacher knowledge of those practices
(Windschitl, 2002) and perceived and experienced contextual hindrances (Fives & Buehl, 2012;
Ramnarain & Hlatswayo, 2018). In addition, it implies that teacher beliefs exist like a system in
which individual beliefs link to one another, and some beliefs are more central than others in guid-
ing teacher instructional decision-making and actions (Fives & Buehl, 2012; Wallace, 2014). This is
supported by Lebak’s (2015) single case study of one science teacher, Jerry, teaching in a high-poverty
urban school that revealed that some beliefs emerged as stronger than others for infuencing practice,
which resulted in the disconnect between the teacher’s espoused beliefs and enacted practice. In par-
ticular, Jerry’s defcit perspective of his urban students’ capabilities led to teacher-centered approaches
despite his beliefs of the role of the teacher and students consistent with an inquiry-based approach
to science instruction.
Factors Infuencing Science Teachers’ Beliefs About

Reform-Oriented Teaching Approaches
Research that sheds light on changes in teachers’ beliefs about a particular science teaching approach
identifed teachers’ experience of enacting the teaching approach, educative curriculum materials,
teacher preparation programs, and professional development (PD) programs as major triggers for
the changes in the beliefs. The majority of studies reviewed for this section included an interven-
tion purposefully designed to improve implementations of a reform-oriented teaching approach and
examined the efectiveness of the intervention in terms of changes in teacher practices and teacher
beliefs associated with the approach. For instance, in the context of a PD focusing on argumentation,
1113
Knigh-Bardsley and McNeill (2016) examined the impact of the development of fve teachers’ beliefs
and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) through the PD on their instructional design and imple-
mentation of argumentation. The authors found that teachers who ofoaded their design of argu-
mentation lessons onto resources and strategies presented during the PD, tried out argumentation
lessons, and refected on argumentation instruction exhibited the largest change in their belief about
argumentation, classroom practice, and PCK of student conceptions. In comparison, teachers who
adapted the argumentation framework that the PD utilized to align with their current instruction and
instructional goals, relied to a greater extent on their preexisting beliefs and PCK and did not show
desirable changes in beliefs about argumentation as well as PCK. With in-depth qualitative analyses
of the teachers’ instructional design and implementations, the authors concluded that the experience
of trying out argumentation lessons and refecting on them changed their beliefs about the purposes
and value of argumentation.
In accordance with this, Loper and colleagues (2019) also found that enacting a curriculum focus-
ing on argumentation was associated with positive changes in teachers’ beliefs about this practice.
Specifcally, they conducted a randomized experimental study with 90 middle school science teach-
ers in the United States to examine how teachers’ use of multimedia educative curriculum materials
(MECMs) impact their beliefs related to teaching argumentation. Both control and experimental
groups taught the same curriculum, using a web-based teacher’s guide, but experimental teachers
received MECMs, including 24 videos and 17 interactive refective prompts. Results suggest that
enacting the curriculum infuenced teachers’ beliefs about the importance of argumentation, con-
fdence about teaching argumentation, and beliefs about how capable students with diverse back-
grounds are in engaging in this science practice.
The potential of an educative curriculum to improve teacher beliefs to be in support of reform-
oriented classroom practice is evident in McNeill et al. (2016). The authors surveyed 42 middle
school science teachers and conducted follow-up interviews with 25 who enacted educative earth
and space science curricular units designed to support teachers as well as students’ learning of argu-
mentation to examine their beliefs concerning their implementation of argumentation. All teachers
indicated that argumentation was an important learning goal for their students regardless of students’
backgrounds and abilities. Interestingly, teachers responded that both their own science learning
goals and broader academic goals had the greatest impact on their argumentation instruction, while
context, policy, and assessment had the least impact. This is inconsistent with other studies reviewed
earlier that highlight the great infuence of high-stake assessments and contextual hindrances on
teachers’ reform-oriented practices (e.g., Hundal et al., 2014; Ramnarain & Hlatswayo, 2018). The
authors interpreted that this group of teachers might have diferent views from other teachers in that
they opted-in to enacting the reform-oriented curriculum with motivation and interest in the new
pedagogical approach. In addition, the majority of the teachers explained that argumentation was not
a focus for their state, which made them believe that high-stakes testing or policy had the least impact
on their implementation of argumentation.
A number of studies indicated that well-designed PDs can contribute to changes in teacher
beliefs to be congruent with reform-oriented teaching practices. Both Lee et al. (2017) and
Blanchard et al. (2016) suggest that teacher beliefs can change to become more student-centered
and inquiry-oriented over time through longitudinal technology professional development (TPD).
However, in Lee and colleagues’ study, changes in teacher beliefs were not signifcant until after the
second year of TPD. This implies that changes in teacher beliefs require prolonged time, and thus
sustained professional support is necessary. Concerning critical components of PDs that infuence
teacher beliefs and possibly subsequent classroom practices, research identifes refections on instruc-
tion (e.g., Knigh-Bardsley et al., 2016), collaboration with peers or researchers (e.g., Hundal et al.,
2014; Lebak, 2015), and use of educative curriculum (e.g., Lee et al., 2017; McNeill et al., 2016)
as being infuential.
1114
On the other hand, a cluster of studies describe eforts to facilitate changes in preservice teachers’
beliefs about reform-oriented teaching practices. Herranen et al. (2019) conducted a case study with
fve Finnish preservice science teachers enrolled in an inquiry-based chemistry education course
with a focus on the context-dependent nature of inquiry. Over 14 weeks of the course, the authors
examined preservice science teachers’ beliefs about inquiry and their implementation of inquiry in
planning inquiry teaching sequences for their chosen contexts. At the end of the course, the authors
identifed several prevalent features of inquiry that the preservice teachers were most frequently able
to implement in their planned inquiry teaching sequences: Inquiry (1) includes a context, (2) is a way
to act, (3) is a way to think, and (4) includes search and evaluation of information and argumenta-
tion. With these fndings, Herranen et al. (2019) suggested that a context-based inquiry teaching
methods course emphasizing the context-dependent nature of inquiry are efective to promote pre-
service teachers’ implementations of inquiry that require situational knowledge as well as declarative
knowledge from science.
McGinnis et al. (2020) designed and implemented a curricular module on computational
thinking (CT) within an elementary science methods course and investigated preservice science
teachers’ (n=39) beliefs about CT integration in elementary science education, its feasibility, and
its value for their own teaching practice. After participating in the curricular module, preservice
teachers highly valued CT integration with perceived benefts for student engagement, supported
the pedagogical innovation of integrating CT in their science teaching, and generally believed that
CT integration supported the implementation of what they understood as good science teaching
practice.
Taken together, changing teachers’ beliefs to be aligned with reform-oriented science teaching
practices is shown to be difcult but possible with appropriate support and scafolding. Teacher
beliefs provide a useful framework to understand why teachers enact reform-oriented science teach-
ing approaches in varied ways in their classrooms even when they are ofered the same resources,
including curricula, technology, and PD support (McNeill et al., 2016). In this regard, more research
is necessary to unpack the complexity of the translation of teacher beliefs into classroom prac-
tices. This understanding will provide important insights into interventions and strategies to change
teacher beliefs that stimulate changes in teaching practices.
Attitudes and Beliefs About Science

As the research on beliefs has evolved, it is apparent that teachers can hold diferent beliefs (including
self-efcacy) for science disciplines, science topics, the nature of science, as well as for the diferent
components of science teaching. These varying and complex hierarchies of beliefs and belief systems
make predicting and changing teachers’ beliefs challenging. A teacher can report feeling high efcacy
for teaching biology and low efcacy for teaching another subject, such as physics.
Research on topics such as climate change education has highlighted the complexity and dif-
fculties that teacher educators face in changing attitudes and beliefs. Higde et al. (2017) surveyed
1,277 preservice science teachers to predict their uncertainty beliefs, values, and behaviors related to
climate change. The researchers investigated uncertainty beliefs about the reality of climate change,
value orientations related to climate change, awareness of climate change, and climate change–related
behaviors using a survey. The researchers found that the preservice teachers held at least some level of
knowledge of climate change, reported some pro-climate behaviors, and over half reported that they
were interested in climate change and found it relevant to them personally. However, the reported
beliefs about the role of humans in climate change were complex. Most preservice teachers reported
that climate change is happening and is a problem, but on the other hand, almost 77% did not believe
the consequences of climate change would be catastrophic. The researchers examined relationships
among the value-related factors and found that ecocentrism (concern for living organisms) was a
1115
signifcant predictor of positive climate change–related behaviors and anthropocentrism (concerns

for humans) was negatively correlated with climate change–related behaviors.
Although researchers often examine teachers’ attitudes and beliefs, few studies take the next step
to examine both teachers’ beliefs and their students’ beliefs about a scientifc phenomenon. Stevenson
et al. (2016) took on this challenge and examined middle school science teachers’ beliefs about cli-
mate change as well as the beliefs of the teachers’ students. These researchers reported that teachers’
beliefs that global warming is happening, and students’ knowledge of climate change predicted stu-
dents’ belief that humans have an impact on global warming and that global warming does exist. The
authors concluded that “as long as climate change information is presented in classrooms, students
deduce anthropogenic causes” (p. 1). This study suggests a possible link between teachers’ beliefs and
students’ beliefs about a socioscientifc issue, climate change in the study, that may be mediated by
instructional practices guided by teachers’ beliefs. Further research is needed to test hypothetical rela-
tionships between teachers’ beliefs, teaching practices, and students’ beliefs as a learning outcome in
the context of various (controversial) socioscientifc issues, including evolution, genetically modifed
organisms, animal testing, etc. with larger sample sizes.
Assessing Beliefs and Attitudes

Just as we noted in the last edition of the Handbook of Research in Science Education (Jones & Legon,
2014) there are signifcant problems in validly and reliably measuring beliefs and attitudes. The lack
of valid assessment instruments limits researchers’ ability to determine the constructs being measured
as well as compare results from one study to the next. Similar to the fndings from Jones and Legon’s
(2014) review, studies selected for this review used a variety of quantitative and qualitative approaches
to assess beliefs and attitudes, including surveys, questionnaires, interviews, written refections, and
observations. One example of quantitative measures used in the reviewed studies is the Draw-A-
Science-Teacher-Test Checklist (DASTTC [Thomas et al., 2001]).
Buldur (2017) used DASTTC with preservice science teachers across four years to measure changes
in the student- or teacher-centeredness of teacher beliefs. Another example is Colorado Learning
Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS), utilized in Ding and Zhang’s (2016) study. CLASS was
frst developed and validated by Adams and colleagues in 2006 to measure learners’ beliefs about a
specifc science discipline (i.e., physics, chemistry, or biology) and about learning the science dis-
cipline. It consists of 42 Likert-scale items that measure 8 subscales: learners’ views on (1) personal
interest, (2) real-world connection, (3) problem-solving general, (4) problem-solving confdence, (5)
problem-solving sophistication, (6) sense-making and efort, (7) conceptual understanding, and (8)
applied conceptual understanding. Although the original CLASS was validated in the United States
and written in English, Ding and Zhang (2016) translated it for the Chinese version and validated
it in China, van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen (2015) utilized the Dimensions of
Attitude toward Science (DAS) questionnaire to investigate the impact of an attitude-focused pro-
fessional development program on primary teachers’ personal attitudes toward science and attitudes
toward teaching science using a quasi-experimental pre-post test control group design. The DAS
questionnaire was designed to assess preservice and in-service primary teachers’ attitudes toward
teaching science and validated with over 500 pre- and in-service teachers in the Netherlands (van
Aalderen-Smeets & Walma van der Molen, 2013). Since then, Turkish, Spanish, and English versions
of the DAS have been validated (Korur et al., 2016, Wendt & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2018). The DAS
questionnaire is developed based on the theoretical framework for the construct of primary teach-
ers’ attitudes toward teaching science that consists of three dimensions, i.e., cognition, afect, and
perceived control (van Aalderen-Smeets & Walma van der Molen, 2013). The DAS questionnaire
utilizes Likert-scale items to measure seven subcomponents of the three dimensions that represent
diferent thoughts, beliefs, and/or feelings toward teaching science.
1116
To assess teacher beliefs and attitudes with qualitative data such as interviews and observations,
researchers usually quantify the qualitative data using scoring scales drawn from a set of categoriza-
tions or a pre-established coding scheme. For example, to examine the efects of microteaching with
lesson study approach on preservice science teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning, Yakar and
Turgut (2017) conducted interviews with 58 preservice science teachers using the Teacher Beliefs
Interview (TBI; Luft & Roehrig, 2007). The TBI consists of seven open-ended questions focusing
on teacher epistemologies. Yakar and Turgut categorized teacher responses to each question with the
fve categories of the TBI maps developed by Luft and Roehrig (2007). They quantifed a teacher’s
response coded with each category by assigning a numerical value for statistical analyses: a traditional
response −1 point; an instructive response −2 points; a transitional response −3 points; a responsive
response −4 points; and a reform-based response −5 points.
A notable trend in methods to assess teacher beliefs and attitudes is the increasing use of multiple
methods. That is, a signifcant number of studies have employed quantitative instruments to directly
measure a belief- or attitude-related construct under study in combination with qualitative data, such
as interviews and observations, that require researchers to indirectly infer the construct based on what
teachers say and what they do. This may be because of researchers’ growing awareness that beliefs and
attitudes are too complex to be assessed with a single instrument.
Future Research Needed on Science Teachers’ Beliefs and Attitudes

Studies over the past 5–10 years have documented the critical role that beliefs and attitudes play in
shaping teachers’ instructional practices. Many of the studies examined beliefs and attitudes before
and after a teacher education intervention. These studies have led to new questions about beliefs and
attitudes that have yet to be fully understood. For example, the degree to which beliefs about specifc
science topics and subtopics difer has not been fully explored. Al-Amoush et al. (2014) argued that
we need more research on whether teachers hold diferent beliefs about teaching diferent subtopics
within a domain.
Fives and Buehl (2012) shared that, “(d)espite the widespread agreement that teachers’ beliefs exist
in a system, few empirical investigations have examined beliefs as complex systems” (p. 477). As we
noted earlier, few studies investigated the relationships and infuence of teachers’ beliefs on their stu-
dents’ beliefs and achievement. More research is needed to examine this relationship. The conceptual
framework of teacher beliefs as flters, frames, and guides introduced earlier in this chapter can ofer
a useful lens to unfold the complex associations between teacher beliefs and other teacher-level and
student-level variables.
It is not clear if there are underlying developmental patterns in the development of teachers’
attitudes and beliefs. For example, as beginning teachers gain content knowledge, do they also gain
self-efcacy related to teaching about that content? If we can identify and predict changes in beliefs,
we may be better able to develop efective professional supports that promote desirable changes in
teachers’ beliefs and subsequently in their practices. Fives and Buehl (2012) argue that identifying
changes in beliefs across teachers may enable us to better understand and identify more malleable
belief structures as well as those that are resistant to change.
Another promising area of research is the study of the contexts that support and promote positive
changes in attitudes and beliefs. Researchers have studied changes in individual teachers’ beliefs, but
there are very few studies of beliefs and attitudes held by groups of teachers. With the increased use
of professional learning communities, this focus on the collective development of beliefs may shed
insight into how reform is enacted at the institutional level.
We need more longitudinal research that documents changes in beliefs over longer periods of
time because, as Levin (2015) noted, “changes in teachers’ beliefs may be temporary” p. 49) and may
be continuously infuenced by experiences over time. In addition to longitudinal studies, we need
1117
studies that examine attitudes and beliefs in the moment-to-moment teaching environment to docu-
ment whether there are critical events that promote or change beliefs. Understanding critical events
and instances can shed insight on how reform-based eforts are perceived and interpreted by teachers.
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35
RESEARCH ON SCIENCE
TEACHER KNOWLEDGE
AND ITS DEVELOPMENT
Over the past 60 years, research on teachers and teaching has focused on diferent aspects to under-
stand the role of teachers in educational processes, specifcally their impact on student learning.
These aspects include teachers’ personality traits, their classroom behaviors (e.g., teachers’ ability to
create a positive learning environment), and the knowledge and beliefs that inform teachers’ instruc-
tional decisions.
This chapter focuses on science teacher knowledge and its development, both in the context of
initial teacher education and of in-service teachers’ professional learning activities. It begins with an
overview of teacher knowledge research, briefy discussing some of the diferent strands in this feld
of research and some of the models that are used to frame this research. In the next part, fndings
of recent empirical research on science teacher knowledge and its development are discussed. The
chapter ends with a discussion of the progress that has been made in this feld since the publication of
the second edition of this handbook and implications for practice and future research.
Situating This Review
The Nature of Teacher Knowledge

In this chapter, we adopt a broad view of teacher knowledge as the total knowledge a teacher has
at their disposal to inform decision-making about teaching actions, and enable those actions, dur-
ing a particular teaching and learning instance (Carter, 1990). This view recognizes that teachers’
knowledge includes elements that are more or less immediately linked with their actions and that
not all the knowledge a teacher has plays a role in their actions. Teachers are selective in given
teaching situations and can refrain, either consciously or not, from using certain insights during
their teaching. Over time and through classroom experience, many of these teaching decisions
underpinning actions can become intuitive and tacit in nature and exert strong infuences on a
teacher’s pedagogical moves. Therefore, to understand teachers’ instructional actions, a compre-
hensive approach to investigating teacher knowledge and its development is required (Verloop
et al., 2001).
Teacher knowledge may have a variety of origins (Shulman, 1987), such as formal education, that
is, initial disciplinary training and teacher education, or continued professional learning (cf. Calde-
rhead, 1996), access to educational materials and structures (such as curricula and exam prescrip-
tions), and practical experiences that occur in day-to-day teaching practice, including interactions
1123 DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-41

with peers. In this sense, teacher knowledge is not opposed to theoretical or academic knowledge,
but rather it incorporates elements of that knowledge in ways that make it more suited to meeting
pedagogical goals. Obviously, individual teachers difer enormously in the extent to which they have
merged, integrated, or transformed knowledge from diferent sources into conceptual frameworks
that guide their actions in practice.
One of the criteria for teaching to qualify as a profession is the existence of a common or shared
knowledge base of teaching, conceived as all profession-related insights that are potentially relevant
to a teacher’s activities. Therefore, research on teacher knowledge aimed to produce such a knowl-
edge base (Reynolds, 1989). Initially it was conceived in a rather static and prescriptive way (cf.
“knowledge for teachers”, Fenstermacher, 1994), however, since the 1980s the emphasis shifted to
investigating and appreciating the knowledge that teachers develop1 in the course of their education
and professional practice (cf. “knowledge of teachers”, Fenstermacher, 1994) and the mechanisms
underlying this development. To avoid research on teacher knowledge being limited to idiosyncratic
descriptions (Tom & Valli, 1990), many scholars agreed that one should search for the shared com-
ponents of teacher knowledge from teachers in their classroom practice, and attempt to fnd “certain
overarching generalizable features which are common across teachers” (Brown & McIntyre, 1993,
p. 19).
Underlying this discussion are questions about the aim of research on teacher knowledge: Should
this research result in sets of rules that specify a direct connection between knowledge and practice
that can be used as prescriptions for teachers (e.g., in teacher education programs), or should the
resulting knowledge be seen as a resource that can enlighten and enhance teachers’ pedagogical rea-
soning and decision-making (cf. “practical arguments”, Fenstermacher, 1986), and, subsequently,
their options for action? Given that teacher knowledge, by defnition, is shaped by teachers’ personal
and professional contexts, and those contexts are highly varied, the latter aim seems the more realistic
and desirable option. It also makes sense to focus the search for shared teacher knowledge on groups
of teachers that are in similar situations with respect to variables such as subject matter, level of edu-
cation, and age of students.
In the context of these discussions, Lee Shulman began a research program on teacher knowledge
in the late 1980s that studied teachers from diferent disciplines, aiming to identify the knowledge
that is essential for teaching. Importantly, this research program focused on identifying what teachers
know about teaching specifc subject matter to certain student groups, thus considering the teacher
as a “knower” (Fenstermacher, 1994). The approach adopted in the Shulman program has had a very
substantial and worldwide infuence on research on science teacher knowledge over the last 35 years.
Models of Teacher Knowledge

In two highly infuential publications, Shulman (1986, 1987) outlined what he termed, “the knowl-
edge base for teaching”. His goal was to identify the knowledge that distinguishes teachers from
disciplinary peers on the one hand and from teachers of other disciplines on the other hand. He
argued that
the key to distinguishing the knowledge base of teaching lies at the intersection of content
and pedagogy, in the capacity of a teacher to transform the content knowledge he or she
possesses into forms that are pedagogically powerful and yet adaptive to the variations in
ability and background presented by the students.
(Shulman, 1987, p. 15)
This premise led Shulman to defne a new category of teacher knowledge he termed pedagogi-
cal content knowledge (PCK). Shulman identifed PCK as “[t]hat special amalgam of content and
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Research on Science Teacher Knowledge and Its Development
pedagogy that is uniquely the province of teachers, their own special form of professional understand-
ing” (Shulman, 1987, p. 8), which refected and promoted the idea of the teacher as “knower”. He
conceptualized PCK as a knowledge form shaped by elements of teachers’ pedagogical knowledge
(e.g., about classroom management, instructional principles, learning theories) and by their knowl-
edge of content or subject matter (substantive and syntactic). When discussing the shaping role of
content knowledge, which he described as “the knowledge, understanding, skill, and disposition that
are to be learned by school children” (Shulman, 1987, pp. 8–9), Shulman emphasized the importance
of teachers having a deep understanding of the structures of the subject matter they are teaching.2
At the heart of PCK lies what teachers know about how their students learn specifc subject
matter (e.g., concepts, principles) and the difculties or misconceptions students may have regard-
ing this subject matter, and how this knowledge relates to the varied representations (e.g., models,
metaphors) and instructional activities (e.g., explications, experiments) teachers know to teach this
specifc topic. These two components of PCK, that is, knowledge of students and knowledge of
instructional strategies, are mutually related: the better teachers understand their students’ learning
difculties with respect to a certain topic and the more representations and activities they have at
their disposal, the more efectively they can teach this topic.
As reported in our chapter in the second edition of this volume (Van Driel et al., 2014), the
construct of PCK has had a profound and far-reaching impact on research into teachers’ knowledge
in science education. As with any new construct, various scholars elaborated on Shulman’s work,
proposing diferent defnitions and conceptualizations of PCK in terms of the features included or
integrated (for example, see Van Driel et al., 1998). These refnements often arose in response to
perceived limitations of the original PCK construct and sought to highlight the importance and con-
tribution of certain aspects of teacher knowledge to the development and nature of PCK, particularly
the infuence of contextual factors (see Van Dijk & Kattman, 2007). One PCK model introduced
by Magnusson et al. (1999) has proved to be particularly infuential in research on science teacher
knowledge (Friedrichsen et al., 2011) since the early 2000s. This model (commonly referred to as the
Magnusson model) presented a strong case for the existence of PCK as a separate and unique knowl-
edge category, related to teaching of specifc topics. These authors conceptualized PCK as consisting
of fve components, summarized as: (1) orientations to teaching science, (2) knowledge of science
curricula, (3) knowledge of assessment of scientifc literacy, (4) knowledge of students’ understanding
of science, and (5) knowledge of instructional strategies (Figure 35.1).
While various scholars have proposed diferent adaptations of this model (e.g., Park & Oliver,
2008, who extended the model with teacher efcacy), the Magnusson model continues to be a con-
ceptual framework for many empirical studies that seek to understand the nature and development
of PCK. The lack of a shared defnition and the existence of multiple conceptualizations of PCK
inspired a group of US scholars (i.e., Julie Gess-Newsome, Janet Carlson, and April Gardner) to orga-
nize a PCK Summit. The aims of this summit were to form “a professional learning community to
explore the potential of a consensus model of PCK” and identify specifc next steps that would move
science education research in this feld forward (Carlson et al., 2015, p. 15). The summit resulted in
a consensus defnition of PCK and a comprehensive model of teacher professional knowledge and
skill (TPK&S) that includes PCK. Both were published in a book edited by Berry et al. (2015). In
this book, PCK is defned as “the knowledge of, reasoning behind, and enactment of the teaching
of particular topics in a particular way with particular students for particular reasons for enhanced
student outcomes” (Carlson et al., 2015, p. 24). This defnition expands upon earlier portrayals of
PCK by acknowledging the dynamic aspects of PCK, notably the pedagogical reasoning and deci-
sion-making skills that link teacher thinking and actions in the teaching cycle, and the all-important
place of students in the teaching cycle. In one of the book chapters, Gess-Newsome explained how
the new model of teacher professional knowledge and skill, also termed the consensus model (CM),
aimed to address the weaknesses in PCK research, some of which were raised by Lee Shulman in his
1125
PCK
includes
Orientations to
Science Teaching
which shapes which shapes
Knowledge of which shapes

Knowledge of
Science Curricula Assessment of
which shapes
Scientific Literacy
Knowledge of Students’ Knowledge of

Understanding of Science Instructional Strategies
Figure 35.1 Magnusson model of PCK.

(simplifed version; from Friedrichsen et al., 2011, p. 361, copyright © 2011. Reprinted by Permission of Wiley)
opening address to the summit: The absence of emotional and afective considerations, the need for
more emphasis on teacher actions, the broader social setting and the relation between teacher knowl-
edge and student learning (Shulman, 2015, pp. 9–10). In response, the CM of TPK&S introduced
a number of signifcant considerations. First, it distinguished topic-specifc professional knowledge,
as a form of public and canonical knowledge, from personal PCK and PCK&S (PCK and skill).
The latter indicated the personal knowledge and skills teachers draw on in the context of classroom
practice. Second, teacher orientations and beliefs were positioned as a flter or amplifer between
topic-specifc professional knowledge and personal PCK/PCK&S. Lastly, student outcomes were
seen to be impacted by teachers’ personal PCK/PCK&S and mediated by student variables, such as
prior knowledge and student beliefs (Gess-Newsome, 2015).
However, a review of empirical investigations (n=99) into science teachers’ PCK published several
years later (Chan & Hume, 2019) highlighted the diferent conceptualizations and operationaliza-
tions of PCK, even in studies that were published after the introduction of the CM. The continued
use of many variants and components of PCK meant diverse approaches to its identifcation and
measurement in empirical investigations remained the norm. Chan and Hume (2019) also found
the rhetoric around the PCK construct in the reviewed work typically featured idiosyncratic termi-
nology, suggesting researchers in the science education feld risked talking at cross-purposes. This
ongoing absence of conceptual clarity about PCK made the building of a common understanding of
research agendas and outcomes problematic (Chan & Hume, 2019).
In the introduction to a special issue of the International Journal of Science Education, Neumann et al.
(2019) proposed acting on these concerns “in an attempt to help raise the profle of PCK as a major
contributor to teacher education policy and practice” (p. 848) by testing the viability of the CM as an
explanation of PCK and its development. The special issue sought to return to and probe Shulman’s
original construct of PCK as an amalgam of content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical knowledge
(PK) (since most researchers could agree that these were the foundations of PCK) by examining
1126
the collective empirical fndings of fve studies featuring investigations into PCK development and
outcomes. The intent was to use insights from this post-hoc examination of fndings to evaluate the
CM. (Note these studies will be reviewed later in this chapter.)
Neumann et al. (2019) provide a thorough and useful literature review of PCK’s research history
in their introduction to the special issue, as background to a detailed critique of the CM that reviews
its afordances and limitations. In the concluding paper of the special issue, Kind and Chan (2019)
take on the complex and difcult task of drawing conclusions from the many and varied fndings of
the fve papers in relation to models of PCK. In their interpretation of the fndings, Kind and Chan
confrm Shulman’s amalgam view of PCK as a useful construct on which to build understanding of
teachers’ knowledge for classroom teaching and how it is developed. Their conclusions concerning
the CM highlight aspects of PCK and its development that are missing or underspecifed. Among
others, they argue that the model does not contribute to understanding of teachers’ developmental
trajectories and how these are infuenced by contextual and collaborative factors.
To address the limitations of the CM, a second PCK summit was organized to “reach consensus
on a model of PCK that is strongly connected with empirical data of varying nature and can be used
as a framework for the design of future PCK studies” (Cooper & Van Driel, 2019, p. 308). In a book
that resulted from this summit, Carlson et al. (2019) illustrated how the lack of detail and specifc-
ity in the CM could cause confusion about the placement of certain knowledge aspects within the
model. Using knowledge of instructional strategies as an example of a well-established and recog-
nized component of PCK, Carlson et al. pointed out that this component only appeared as part of
the (public) topic-specifc professional knowledge of the CM. Thus, it could be inferred that knowl-
edge of instructional strategies was not considered part of a teacher’s personal PCK when clearly it is.
The participants of the second PCK summit jointly wrote a chapter in which they propose a Refned
Consensus Model (RCM) of PCK for teaching science (Carlson et al., 2019).
The RCM’s central focus is on teaching practice, which is enveloped by the “complex layers of
knowledge and experiences that shape and inform teachers’ science practice throughout their profes-
sional journey and, in turn, mediate student outcomes” (Carlson et al., 2019, p. 82). The outermost
layer retains long-held views that teacher’s broader professional knowledge bases (i.e., content knowl-
edge, pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of students, curricular knowledge, and assessment knowl-
edge) underlie and inform their professional knowledge for teaching (Figure 35.2). As inner layers,
the RCM discerns three interrelated realms of PCK: collective, personal, and enacted. This distinction
recognizes that shared forms of PCK exist along with highly individual forms that are connected via
processes of two-way knowledge exchange resulting in knowledge transformation.
Personal PCK (pPCK) refers to a teacher’s unique and specialized knowledge for teaching sci-
ence, which they can access when planning and teaching. This knowledge (previously sometimes
termed static or declarative PCK) develops over time and is infuenced and shaped through multiple
experiences, amongst which classroom teaching is considered foremost. In the teaching cycle at
the heart of the RCM, knowledge exchange (see double-headed arrows in Figure 35.2) occurs as
teachers draw upon their pPCK and engage in the acts of planning, teaching, and refecting. Using
responsive pedagogical reasoning to make “in-the-moment” instructional decisions, a teacher trans-
forms elements of their existing pPCK into a fexible and tacit subset of PCK that exists only in that
teaching moment (Alonzo et al., 2019). This new “in-action” dynamic form of PCK, called enacted
PCK (ePCK), is highly specifc to a particular situation since it involves teaching one or several par-
ticular students a particular concept in a particular learning context. ePCK only becomes visible (or
more accurately, inferable) when examining teachers’ actions, for example, their use of instructional
strategies, how they engage with students’ ideas, and how they express ideas to ensure development
of conceptual understanding. In return, knowledge gained from these teaching experiences over
time are transformed into a teacher’s pPCK (Alonzo et al., 2019; see also Alonzo & Kim, 2016,
whose pioneering research utilized a novel video-based methodology to distinguish between these
1127
Figure 35.2 Refned consensus model of PCK for teaching science.

(from Carlson et al., 2019, p. 83, copyright © 2019. Reprinted by Permission of Springer)
diferent forms of personal and enacted PCK and the relationship between them). While pPCK and
ePCK are unique to individual teachers, when teachers share their knowledge with others, their
personal PCK can be transformed into collective PCK (cPCK). This type of knowledge can be found
in documented best practice information for teachers, such as curriculum guidelines and teach-
ing resources, where it can be thought of as authenticated or canonical PCK. It is this collective
knowledge that has typically been the focus of much previous PCK research (Carlson et al., 2019).
cPCK can also be contextually bound shared knowledge, such as that generated by teachers within
a science department.
The RCM proposes pedagogical reasoning (Shulman, 1987) as the mechanism underpinning and
driving teachers’ knowledge transformations. Specifcally, the development of PCK is indicated by
the knowledge exchanges between layers in the RCM, which signal how one type of knowledge
infuences another (cf., Gess-Newsome, 2015; Magnusson et al., 1999). These exchanges predict
that as a teacher is exposed to new ideas and information, such as might occur during a professional
learning intervention or in a classroom interaction, their pedagogical reasoning and decision-making
come into play. The degree of transformation resulting from these exchanges is mediated through
amplifying and fltering factors. For example, teachers’ personal beliefs about teaching science will
mediate the infuence of cPCK on their pPCK (Carlson et al., 2019; Gess-Newsome, 2015). The
mediating infuence of the wider context, outside classroom teaching, is acknowledged in the RCM
by the insertion of a learning context layer (between those of pPCK and cPCK; see Figure 35.2) to
“symbolically situate science teaching and learning in time and space” (Carlson et al., 2019, p. 87).
This component expects features of learning contexts (like curriculum guidelines, exam prescrip-
tions, or a school’s special character) to have both fltering and amplifying efects as teachers decide
what aspects of cPCK to transform into their pPCK.
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The Focus of This Chapter

This chapter builds on the one that we wrote for the second edition of this volume (Van Driel et al.,
2014), which followed up on the chapter written by Sandra Abell in the frst edition (Abell, 2007).
When it came out, the Abell chapter was the most comprehensive review of research on science
teacher knowledge ever published, and it continues to be a valuable resource for anyone who is
interested in this area.3 Our chapter in the second edition highlighted Abell’s recommendations for
future research, which included:
We need more studies that take place within a teaching context to examine how SMK
[subject-matter knowledge] develops, how it plays out in teaching, and how it is related to
other kinds of teacher knowledge. . . . More studies need to focus on the essence of PCK-
how teachers transform SMK of specifc science topics into viable instruction . . . we know
little about how teacher knowledge afects students.
(Abell, 2007, p. 1134)
In our chapter in the second edition, we concluded that although the research between 2005 and
2012 had made considerable progress in response to these calls, more research was still needed in the
areas identifed by Abell (2007). Specifcally, we advocated for:
• Studies focusing on the relationships between teachers’ content knowledge, pedagogical knowl-
edge, and PCK and how these develop in a classroom teaching context
• Qualitative and quantitative studies that relate science teacher knowledge to student learning
• Research on the expertise of science teacher educators and facilitators and their infuence on the
development of science teacher knowledge
For our selection of studies to be included in the present chapter, we considered research on science
teacher knowledge of in-service and preservice teachers at all levels of education. For this purpose,
we searched the volumes between 2012 and 2020 of the major science education journals and some
of the major teacher education journals.4 From this corpus, we initially selected articles that met at
least one of the following criteria: they present or apply a novel or innovative (1) conceptualization
or model of science teacher knowledge, or (2) research design or methodology, or (3) present fnd-
ings about the content or structure of science teacher knowledge and its development, that make a
substantial contribution to what was included in our chapter in the second edition.
Other criteria also infuenced our fnal selection. For example, given the close relationship between
teacher knowledge, thinking, and beliefs, we included studies on science teacher thinking and beliefs
only when these were investigated in combination with teacher knowledge. However, studies focusing
on science teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, or dispositions were excluded, as these constitute the focus of
Chapter 34. Conversely, while other chapters in this volume feature teacher learning and development
in broader terms, in the context of preservice science teacher education programs (Chapter 36) or in-
service science teachers’ professional development (Chapter 37) we did include studies in this chapter
where the development of science teacher knowledge was the central focus of attention.
We also excluded studies in which teachers were asked to assess or rate their own knowledge. An
example concerns a study by Irmak and Yilmaz (2019), who developed a questionnaire to investigate
science teachers’ perceived content knowledge (example item: “I am comfortable responding to
questions about topics in genetics”), pedagogical knowledge (“I can adapt the pace of my teaching
to meet students’ needs”) and PCK (“I can select teaching strategies that efectively support student
learning in genetics”). In our view, instruments like these are investigating teachers’ beliefs or conf-
dence and are not valid measures of teacher knowledge.
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Outcomes of Empirical Studies on Science

Teacher Knowledge and Its Development
In this section, we review empirical studies published since 2012 that meet the criteria outlined ear-
lier. First, we discuss studies on science teachers’ content knowledge and its development, followed
by a review of research on science teachers’ PCK. Next, we address studies that explored relationships
between diferent categories of science teacher knowledge, in particular, content knowledge, peda-
gogical knowledge, and PCK, before reviewing research that investigated relationships between sci-
ence teacher knowledge and student variables (i.e., learning outcomes). Finally, we give an overview
of research on science teacher educators’ expertise related to fostering the development of science
teacher knowledge.
Research on Science Teacher Content Knowledge

In her chapter in the frst edition of this volume, Abell (2007) revealed that science teacher content
knowledge (CK) had been investigated since the 1980s with increasingly sophisticated methods and
for diferent purposes. Whereas some studies focused on describing the CK of specifc groups of
teachers (e.g., elementary or preservice), either in general or regarding specifc topics, other studies
attempted to relate teachers’ CK to other teacher characteristics or to teaching practice. Summarizing
the research fndings on science teachers’ CK up until 2005, Abell concluded that science teachers
often demonstrate very similar misunderstandings and misconceptions of science as their students.
Some studies found that CK improves through teaching; however, studies that compared teaching
in and out of one’s certifcation area discovered that teachers with low content knowledge tend to
rely heavily on textbooks, talk a lot, ask few questions, and avoid cognitively challenging activities.
These fndings led Abell to conclude that a positive relationship exists between teachers’ CK and
their teaching.
In our chapter in the second edition, we concluded that the research on science teachers’ CK
between 2005 and 2012 was still consistent with Abell’s observation that many teachers had limited
knowledge of, or misconceptions about, the science topics under consideration. Also, the research
between 2005 and 2012 seemed to confrm her conclusion that teachers’ CK increases with teach-
ing experience, and that a higher level of CK is typically associated with more confdence and more
interactive and adventurous ways of teaching.
The remainder of this section concentrates on research on science teachers’ CK from 2012
onwards, focusing on studies that further contribute to this feld of study, either by challenging or
adding depth to what has been found earlier. Based on emerging themes, the recent research is sum-
marized next.
The Construct of Teachers’ Science CK Needs Further Elucidation

Diamond et al. (2014) raised issues around the nature of CK and its measurement. The authors
argued that teachers’ science CK needed a number of measures to fully capture and elucidate its
nature, given the recognized limitations of various single measures. Thus, to determine CK gains as
a consequence of an intervention, the study (involving 223 elementary teachers) utilized a range of
measures, including a science knowledge test (comprising selected items from standardized national
and international student achievement tests at levels equal to and just above those expected of their
students); a questionnaire (self-reporting CK gains); classroom observations (using a protocol to
determine the extent to which the teacher has an accurate and comprehensive grasp of the science
content of the lesson); and number of college science courses taken. Student achievement was mea-
sured using a “high-stakes science test”. The fndings revealed that the intervention had a signifcant
1130
efect on the treatment group teachers’ science knowledge test scores and questionnaire responses
compared to the control group, but not on the classroom observation ratings. This latter fnding was
surprising and raised questions about the trustworthiness of this measure, particularly when fnd-
ings also showed that “[t]eachers’ scores on the science knowledge test were found to be the largest
signifcant teacher-level predictor of student achievement outcomes regardless of participation in the
intervention” (p. 635).
Disciplinary Education Makes a Difference

but Doesn’t Guarantee Strong CK
Several studies investigated the subject-matter knowledge (SMK) of science teachers in relation to
their disciplinary background. Kind (2014) surveyed 256 preservice teachers (PSTs) from the UK,
who graduated in diferent scientifc disciplines (i.e., chemistry, biology, or physics), to explore their
understandings and misconceptions about fve selected chemistry concepts using 28 short diagnostic
probes. PSTs with a chemistry degree outperformed biology and physics graduates in chemical bond-
ing and combustion reactions, leading the author to conclude “that non-chemists’ CK is insufcient
for teaching these chemistry concepts in high schools” (p. 1313). Similarly, in a small-scale qualitative
study involving six novice science teachers in the United States, Nixon et al. (2016) reported that the
three who held a degree in chemistry demonstrated stronger knowledge of the content of particular
chemistry topics, that is, produced more chemistry-focused and more sophisticated and coherent
explanations compared to those with a biology degree. Glaze and Goldston (2019) surveyed advance
placement (AP) biology teachers (n=71) in the United States on their knowledge and acceptance of
evolution and understandings of the nature of science. Participants had low to moderate mean scores
in each of the three measures, which the authors considered to be worrying since AP biology courses
are held in high regard for their rigor, depth, and breadth of content. The authors also found that
some teachers accepted evolution, although their actual comprehension of it was low, whereas others
demonstrated strong understanding of evolution yet actively rejected those parts of the theory that
were not in alignment with their worldview.
Experience With Teaching Specifc Subject

Matter Seems to Enhance Teachers’ CK
To investigate the impact of teaching experience on teachers’ SMK, Nixon et al. (2017) conducted
a longitudinal study involving 15 beginning secondary science teachers in the United States across
their frst fve years of teaching. Participants constructed a concept map in their frst year of teach-
ing and another in their ffth year of teaching. Comparing these concept maps showed that partici-
pants did not provide more sophisticated connections between concepts, nor did they demonstrate
more complex knowledge structures in their second map. The authors concluded that the SMK of
these teachers hadn’t changed signifcantly, despite having taught the subject matter for fve years.
In another study, Nixon et al. (2019) focused on the SMK of elementary teachers relative to career
stage. The authors found that teachers’ SMK was stronger for topics in the grade level they taught and
increased with teaching experience, except for the most senior teachers (18+ years). The lower scores
of the latter could be attributed to their attention having shifted to areas other than teaching science
(e.g., leadership). The authors concluded that the association of stronger SMK with years of experi-
ence teaching specifc science topics could be attributed to teachers’ self-directed learning as part
of their daily practice. The contrasting fndings of these two studies may be related to the diferent
ways in which content knowledge was measured, that is, with concept maps (Nixon et al., 2017) or
with the items that were selected in each study from the Misconceptions-Oriented Standards-Based
Assessment Resources for Teachers (MOSART) test bank (Sadler et al., 2010; Nixon et al., 2019).
1131
Specifc Interventions Can Contribute to Improving Teachers’ CK

Whereas Nixon et al. (2019) reported that the amount of professional development (PD) teachers
undertake is not associated with the quality or strength of their content knowledge, other studies
have demonstrated that specifc interventions can positively impact science teachers’ CK. Donna and
Hick (2017) conducted an experimental study with educative curriculum materials (ECM) designed
to build preservice elementary teachers’ CK in an area of known difculties and misconceptions (i.e.,
convection as a thermal energy process). The authors found that the PSTs credited participating in
the ECM lessons with building their content knowledge and their confdence. Also, participants
who used the ECM to teach within a feld experience had signifcant gains in CK of the topic com-
pared to those who did not use the materials in their teaching. Batiza et al. (2013) investigated the
impact of an intervention about biology energy transfer on biology teachers’ CK and self-efcacy.
The intervention consisted of a two-week workshop, followed up with regional meetings, a yearly
classroom visit, and bimonthly online reporting. The authors applied a randomized control experi-
mental design and found signifcant gains and large efect sizes in CK and self-efcacy, not only
post-workshop but also one year later. These last two studies seem to demonstrate that providing
teachers with carefully designed materials, which focus on understanding science content, can help
to improve their understanding of that content and, in turn, their confdence or self-efcacy. As such,
this is not a novel nor surprising conclusion.
In summary, recent studies on science teachers’ content knowledge appear to confrm what was
reported in the frst and second editions of this handbook. Research reveals shortcomings in CK,
even among teachers with a degree in the respective discipline. These shortcomings can be addressed
by specifc interventions focused on the teaching of the subject matter at hand. There is evidence that
suggests teachers’ knowledge of particular content improves through teaching this content repeatedly;
however, the evidence is not conclusive.
Research on Science Teacher Pedagogical Content Knowledge

In her review, Abell (2007) observed that compared with research on teacher content knowledge in
science, research on PCK was still very much in its infancy. Abell sign-posted several pressing needs
in relation to future PCK studies: the need to understand the interaction of PCK with other knowl-
edge categories, the need to make conceptual frameworks using PCK more explicit, and the need
for more studies that focus on the essence of PCK, that is, how teachers transform their knowledge
of specifc science topics into viable instruction.
In our chapter in the second edition, we reported that studies investigating specifc components
of science teachers’ PCK had continued to accumulate between 2005 and 2012, mostly focusing
on science teaching orientations and knowledge of student understanding of science. Similar to the
fndings Abell (2007) reported, these studies demonstrated that science teachers often have limited
knowledge of how their students understand and learn science content; however, this knowledge
tends to improve with teaching experience or as a result of specifc interventions in teacher educa-
tion programs. Another conclusion was that these studies typically did not investigate PCK in the
context of teaching practice, although some used artifacts from practice to elicit components of
teachers’ PCK.
We also reported that studies investigating the development of science teachers’ PCK were begin-
ning to accumulate, with researchers identifying relationships resulting from the interaction and
growth of diferent PCK components and further empirical evidence of the important role refection
plays in the process of PCK development. Some studies between 2005 and 2012 showed how CK
could act as a source or basis for the development of PCK, suggesting that a thorough understanding
of subject matter is necessary, but not sufcient, as a requisite for the formation of PCK. However,
1132
other studies reported that CK and PCK can develop simultaneously, implying that PCK develop-
ment doesn’t have to “wait” for SMK to be developed (Kind, 2009), but the mechanisms by which
CK and PK infuence the development of PCK remained mostly unclear.
In this section, we review research on science teachers’ PCK since 2012. In recent years, several
publications collating and reviewing research in this area have been published, notably, a special issue
of the International Journal of Science Education (Neumann et al., 2019), and two books based on the
aforementioned PCK summits. These publications raise important considerations and help inform
our review as we report on developments in the feld from 2012 to 2020. We begin the review by
discussing studies that are focused on the structure and nature of PCK. These studies aim to identify
and capture the components that constitute PCK and determine how these components are related.
Next, we review studies on the development of PCK through small-scale, classroom-based investiga-
tions. These studies center on how PCK develops in relation to its sources (i.e., content knowledge
and pedagogical knowledge) and how this development is infuenced by specifc interventions in
programs of initial teacher education or professional development.
Studies on the Structure of PCK and Relationships

Between Its Components
Adopting the Magnusson model (Figure 35.1), a group of studies explored relationships between
components of PCK. This strand of research follows up on the work of Park and Chen (2012),
reviewed in the second edition, where PCK maps for individual teachers on specifc topics were
constructed that visualized connections between diferent PCK components and the relative strength
of these connections. Soysal (2018) conducted a case study based on a 150-minute interview with
one experienced Turkish elementary teacher that focused on her teaching of energy. The author
applied a variation of the Park and Chen mapping approach and found that knowledge of student
understanding was the most central component of PCK and was most often connected to knowledge
of science curriculum. The author explained this fnding by referring to a longitudinal study (Arzi &
White, 2007) that shows that the school science curriculum is “the single most powerful determinant
of teacher knowledge, serving as both its organiser and source” (p. 221).
The mapping approach was applied in a number of studies on PSTs in Turkey. Aydin et al.
(2015) investigated how interactions among PCK components of three PSTs developed through-
out a 14-week practicum course using data collected from pre- and post-course content repre-
sentations (CoRe; Loughran et al., 2004) and semi-structured interviews to prepare PCK maps.
Comparing these maps pre- and post-course demonstrated that the interplay among PCK compo-
nents was fragmented initially but integrated at the end of the course, while the development of
the interplay was idiosyncratic to each teacher. Specifcally, the most signifcant development was
seen in the connection of knowledge of science curriculum with other components, which the
authors suggest could be a result of asking the PSTs to prepare a CoRe. Demirdöğen et al. (2016;
see also Demirdöğen & Uzuntiryaki-Kondakci, 2016) investigated the impact of a two-semester
elective course on the PCK of 30 chemistry PSTs related to the nature of science (NOS). The
authors analyzed data from interviews and lesson plans using the PCK mapping approach to moni-
tor the degree of integration and coherence among components of the PSTs’ developing PCK.
This analysis revealed that PSTs’ development of PCK for NOS progressed from knowledge to
application (in lesson plans) during the course, and they aligned their NOS-related science teach-
ing orientations with their instructional strategy at the application level in their planning. All but
three PSTs developed knowledge of instructional strategies for teaching NOS and to a greater
extent than any other components. In contrast, the level of integration of PCK components dif-
fered amongst the PSTs, but those with more integrated PCK developed better lesson plans for
teaching NOS.
1133
In an attempt to relate PCK to the performance of PSTs, Reynolds and Park (2021) applied the
PCK mapping approach to portfolios that are commonly used in the United States for performance
assessment (i.e., edTPA). Via this method, the PCK levels of 36 PSTs were determined from their
portfolios, and the authors reported a strong correlation between the participants’ edTPA scores and
their PCK levels (r=0.949, p < 0.0001). Confrming fndings of previous research, the study found
knowledge of student understanding and knowledge of instructional strategies to be the most devel-
oped and most frequently integrated components of PCK. However, compared to other studies,
knowledge of assessments was more often integrated in PSTs’ PCK, which the authors suggest may
have been due to the requirements of the edTPA portfolio. Compared to studies of in-service teach-
ers, the PSTs did not frequently integrate science teaching orientations in their PCK.
Hanuscin et al. (2020) investigated the PCK about (properties of and changes in) matter in a
cohort (n=37) of ffth-grade teachers, consisting of experienced, novice, and “reassigned” teachers.
The last group consisted of teachers with more than fve years’ teaching experience but fewer than
fve years at ffth grade. The authors used a standard test to measure teachers’ CK and explored their
PCK using a lesson preparation task in combination with a CoRe, followed by an interview. A rubric
was used to calculate scores for four PCK components of the Magnusson model and diagrams were
developed to represent outcomes for groups of teachers with diferent levels of CK and teaching
experience. Among other fndings, it appeared that reassigned teachers had weaker CK compared
to novice teachers and those with more experience in ffth grade; however, reassigned teachers dis-
played higher levels of some PCK components than novice teachers. Their methodology allowed the
authors to reveal interesting and sometimes unanticipated relationships between teachers’ CK, PCK
components, and teaching experience.
By analyzing and visualizing the relationships between PCK components as per the Magnusson
model (see Figure 35.1), these studies go beyond older studies that investigated these components in
isolation (cf. Friedrichsen et al., 2011). PCK maps are based on counting the co-occurrence of PCK
components in units of analysis in the data (e.g., “PCK episodes” in a portfolio), which implies that
inferences about the nature or the quality of the relationships between components cannot be drawn
from these maps. To address these limitations of PCK mapping, Park et al. (2018) proposed two
additional types of PCK measures – a survey and a rubric. Their survey asked respondents to identify
student misconceptions about the topic of photosynthesis that were revealed in a given scenario and
then suggest instructional strategies, plus a justifcation, to address the identifed misconceptions. The
method of principal component analysis revealed a strong association between knowledge of student
understanding and knowledge of instructional strategies and representations. The PCK rubric was
applied to pre- and post-teaching interviews and video clips of classroom teaching, and it was discov-
ered that scoring necessitated a considerable amount of time, even for well-trained and experienced
scorers. The authors concluded that “[a]lthough a set of substantial evidence has been collected to
support the validity of the PCK measures, further validation eforts are necessary to make them more
useful and operational for future research on PCK” (p. 566).
In summary, recent studies on relationships between components of PCK tend to confrm the
central association between knowledge of student understanding and knowledge of instructional
strategies related to a particular topic. Other linkages identifed with the PCK mapping approach
appear to result from contextual infuences, such as the requirements of a school curriculum or those
of national assessment, or methodological diferences between studies.
Studies on the Development of PCK in the Context of Classroom Practice

This section reviews recent empirical studies on the development of PCK. Most researchers in
these studies regard PCK as the knowledge teachers draw on and enact in their classroom teaching.
These studies seek to determine in a qualitative manner what PCK comprises, how it is developed
1134
in relation to CK and PK as its sources, and how to support that development. First, we will review
research on PCK development of PSTs in the context of initial teacher education and then turn to
studies of in-service teachers of science in the context of curriculum development or professional
learning programs. Finally, we cover a study featuring tertiary science teachers that resulted in sig-
nifcant PCK gains.
PCK Development of Preservice Science Teachers

A set of South African studies focused on the development of preservice teachers’ PCK related
to specifc science topics (topic-specifc PCK or TSPCK) by comparing PCK before and after an
intervention that included classroom teaching. In a longitudinal qualitative case study involving
seven chemistry PSTs, Miheso and Mavhunga (2020) introduced the participants to TSPCK through
lesson planning for organic chemistry or stoichiometry. Teacher tests specifcally designed to assess
TSPCK for these two topics when planning lessons were administered before and after the introduc-
tion of TSPCK in the last year of their teacher education program and for a third time two years
later into their practice as beginning teachers. Findings revealed growth and retention of TSPCK
over the two years and supported the claim that PSTs’ early introduction to TSPCK expedites the
development of PCK for teaching science in the beginning years of their professional teaching career.
In a similar study involving 14 novice, uncertifed science teachers, Pitjeng-Mosabala and Rollnick
(2018) tracked the TSPCK development of four participants as case studies during a ten-month-long
intervention. This program comprised an initial two weeks of induction training, featuring an intro-
duction to TSPCK and construction of CoRes by the participants on the topic “particle nature of
matter”; followed by classroom teaching experience in schools; and concluded by the construction
of fnal CoRes on the same topic after teaching. In addition to PCK tests, data sources included the
CoRes constructed before and after teaching, video-recorded lessons, feld notes, and interviews.
Findings showed that all 14 participants had developed their TSPCK after the initial two-week
induction. However, for the four case-study teachers, the only participants who had the opportunity
to directly teach the particle nature of matter topic to classes, there was evidence of further TSPCK
development emerging from their teaching. These four teachers showed greater improvement in
TSPCK than others in the study, which the authors attributed to the importance of the feedback
loop between classroom practice and TSPCK in the consensus model (considering TSPCK equiva-
lent to TSPK in this model; Gess-Newsome, 2015).
In the third TSPCK study of this set Coetzee et al. (2020) used a similar methodology to the
previous two but introduced the RCM (Figure 35.2) into their overall conceptual framework to
interpret how three PSTs enacted TSPCK about electromagnetism when teaching the topic for the
frst time. The study aimed to fnd out the extent to which the PSTs applied the knowledge taught
during a preceding physical science method course and focused on their enacted PCK (ePCK) as
they taught electromagnetism in classrooms. Data were captured for each part of the teaching cycle
by CoRes during the training period (plan), video-taped lesson observations during teaching in
schools (teach), and video-stimulated recall interviews after teaching the topic (refect). A rubric was
used to assess the quality of enacted PCK teaching as restricted, adequate, or rich. The interviews
aforded the opportunity to elicit PSTs’ pedagogical reasoning for certain classroom actions. Findings
indicated that the PSTs enacted certain components of the PCK taught during the method course
and were able to reason pedagogically about their teaching, though not at the same level for all main
ideas of the topic electromagnetism. PSTs’ confdence about SMK appeared to be linked to the qual-
ity of their ePCK.
Two other studies involving PSTs closely examined their development of PCK for teaching the
NOS. Hanuscin (2013) focused on the transition of one PST over a two-year period from her
elementary science methods course, through her early teaching experiences in an informal science
1135
setting, and fnally student teaching. Through construction of critical incident vignettes, narrative
inquiry was employed to illustrate the changes in her PCK about NOS over time, and the experi-
ences that facilitated these changes. The study shed light on potential sources of PCK within the
PST’s teacher preparation, the interplay between the various knowledge components comprising
PCK, and barriers and supports that impacted the development of her PCK. Findings supported the
assertion that teacher knowledge builds from more generalized pedagogical knowledge and isolated
bits of PCK to more integrated PCK. This frst study highlighted the importance of mentoring to
bridge the gap between a methods course, feld experiences, and student teaching. The second study
(Mesci et al., 2020) explored the factors infuencing PSTs’ PCK for targeted aspects of NOS and
nature of scientifc inquiry (NOSI) in a 13-month teacher education program in the United States.
Data collection included lesson plans, interviews, and observations, and analysis targeted evidence
for CK, PK, self-efcacy, and the PCK components of the Magnusson model. Focusing on a pair
of PSTs, the study described how PSTs can develop and enact PCK for NOS/NOSI over time in
their teaching of science topics. Specifcally, the two PSTs successfully used their knowledge for
teaching NOS and NOSI aspects, including CK and PCK components (i.e., knowledge of student
difculties and misconceptions, of representations and instructional strategies, and of assessment) to
engage students and support their construction of a conceptual framework for NOS and NOSI. The
authors conclude: “This integrated perspective, with additional infuences such as self-efcacy and
goals, exemplifes the complexity of PCK as a construct. In other words, it is messy, making research
on PCK likewise messy” (p. 285).
In summary, these studies highlight the complex interplay of elements within teacher education
programs (e.g., method courses, mentors, feld experiences) that occurs throughout the emergence
of PSTs’ PCK from their core content and pedagogical knowledge forms.
PCK Development of In-Service Science Teachers

The implementation of new curriculum and curricular materials and professional development
interventions are frequently the context of studies on PCK development. Often, these studies were
with experienced teachers to gauge how and in what ways they accommodated new educational
resources and pedagogical approaches. For example, in their classroom-based study, Bayram-Jacobs
et al. (2019) investigated the PCK development of 30 science teachers from four European coun-
tries as they taught a specially designed socioscientifc issues (SSI) curriculum module as part of a
European Commission project. In their analysis of data collected through a lesson preparation form
(PCK-before), a lesson refection form (PCK-after), and a lesson observation table (PCK-in-action),
the researchers asserted that both the richness of the respective PCK components and their alignment
with the goals of the lesson indicate the strength of PCK and therefore its transference to classroom
practice. The fndings revealed that by using the curriculum module most of the teachers developed
their knowledge about students’ understanding of science and instructional strategies. Recognition
of student difculties prompted teachers to consider specifc teaching strategies in line with the
learning objectives to improve student understanding. The authors concluded that when professional
development programs and curriculum materials for teaching SSI target the development of strong
interconnections between the PCK components understanding of students’ difculties in SSI learn-
ing and knowledge of appropriate instructional strategies, and equally focus on science content and
SSI skills, they contribute to and foster PCK for SSI teaching.
In another setting, this time a large-scale national implementation of curriculum materials to
accompany a new science curriculum in China, Chen and Wei (2015) investigated how fve experi-
enced middle school chemistry teachers used and enacted these materials in their classroom teaching.
They observed the teachers’ existing PCK had a strong infuence on how they interpreted and imple-
mented the materials. From interviews with the teachers before, during, and after their teaching of
1136
selected chemistry topics, and observations of their teaching, the researchers discovered teachers
made decisions to omit or refne aspects of the intended curriculum in their teaching. These deci-
sions and actions drew on components of the teachers’ PCK, especially their knowledge of students’
understanding of science and knowledge of assessment in science and were infuenced strongly by
national examinations. The authors recommended that future development of curriculum materials
would beneft from more involvement of experienced teachers in their design. Barendsen and Henze
(2019) also revealed dissonance between the intent of curriculum reforms and their enactment in the
classroom through an in-depth case study of a chemistry teacher as he planned and taught a context-
based lesson module on (Poly) Lactic Acid to his grade 9 science class in the Netherlands. The
teacher’s PCK was captured before and during teaching with a CoRe form (Loughran et al., 2004)
and an observation table to monitor classroom interactions. The study revealed that the teacher’s
previously espoused beliefs in the context-based instructional paradigm of the national curriculum
were not refected in his teaching practice, that is, his PCK pre-teaching lacked topic specifcity, and
there was little alignment with the context-based approach to teaching science in the PCK that was
inferred from his teaching. The authors discuss the teacher’s pedagogical reasoning and decision-
making whilst in action to explain the relationship between his knowledge and his teaching moves.
Chan and Yung (2015) sought to capture how the enacted PCK of four experienced Hong Kong
science teachers developed during their classroom teaching, as they frst attempted to teach a new
topic (i.e., polymerase chain reaction). The authors explored the veterans’ planning, teaching, and
refecting on the new curricular content using data sources that included classroom observations,
feld notes, classroom artifacts, semi-structured interviews, and video-stimulated recall interviews.
The fndings were presented as classroom vignettes featuring a detailed description of the class-
room interaction, the instructional strategies and representations used, and the teachers’ thought pro-
cesses, notably their pedagogical reasoning and refection. The teachers were observed inventing new
instructional strategies and representations on the spot during the lesson, referred to as onsite PCK
development. To explain this type of PCK development, the authors advanced a model that depicts
a three-step inventive process comprising a stimulus for PCK development, an integration process, and
a response. Factors facilitating onsite PCK development in the case studies included teachers’ strong
knowledge of the topic, strong PK, and knowledge of students to do with their prior learning expe-
rience and their potential learning difculties related to the topic. In another paper emerging from
this same study, Chan and Yung (2018) identifed that an experienced teacher who had the habit
of mind to carry out content analysis in initial lesson planning for a new topic and to plan forma-
tive assessment opportunities was more able to capitalize on his existing SMK to develop new PCK
than teachers in the study without this disposition. The combination of pedagogical strategies (i.e.,
content analysis and formative assessment) that guided the teacher’s refective thinking and pedagogi-
cal reasoning as he undertook the task of planning new teaching topics was termed a “generalized
mental framework” by the authors. The authors identifed the CoRe template as another example of
a mental framework that directs teachers to analyze and consider the content knowledge of the topic
in relation to several important aspects of teaching (e.g., student thinking, their learning difculties,
and ways of assessing the ideas). They recommend that supporting teachers to acquire the disposition
of structuring their refections purposefully in the planning phase of a new topic should be a focus
for teacher professional learning, given continuous curriculum changes.
A study by Rollnick (2017) also investigated experienced teachers teaching a new science topic
in the senior secondary curriculum (semiconductors), this time in the context of action research as
seven South African high school teachers participated and collaborated with colleagues and uni-
versity researchers. The study reports on the role the teachers’ developing CK played in relation to
developing their TSPCK for the new topic. In the collective case study approach, data was gathered
as the teachers engaged in collaborative CoRe design, concept mapping, lesson planning and teach-
ing, and ongoing refection. Findings showed how teachers’ learning of content took place alongside
1137
PCK development, that is, the extent and type of CK the teachers developed informed their choice
of teaching approaches. Teachers increased their understanding of how to teach the topic in almost all
cases, as evidenced by their increased ability to design teaching strategies and their use of representa-
tions and suitable assessment tasks for their lessons.
The following group of studies in this section did not involve interventions or curriculum imple-
mentation per se; rather, they investigated how the PCK of in-service teachers might be enhanced by
classroom enactment accompanied by refection, either personal or provided as feedback by observ-
ers. For example, the study by Schultze and Nilsson (2018) revealed how an experienced Swedish
chemistry teacher gained and refned her PCK through cooperation with two grade 12 students (age
18) as co-teachers. In a grade 10 class, the teacher and senior students co-planned, co-taught, and
co-evaluated lessons in chemical bonding, while the researchers observed and looked for evidence
of transformations in components of the teacher’s PCK (as per the Magnusson model) as a measure
of PCK development. The study found that the teacher’s decision-making and actions in class were
mediated by the observations of her two co-teachers, who helped the teacher to identify the content
the students fnd difcult to learn and how to develop instructional strategies to address these learn-
ing difculties. As a result, the teacher’s PCK was refned. In a similar collaborative inquiry (Nilsson
& Vikström, 2015), six experienced secondary science teachers in Sweden sought to improve their
classroom teaching of content they identifed as problematic when it comes to student learning.
Using learning cycles informed by variation theory, the teachers worked collaboratively and itera-
tively in teams of three with a researcher to: explore their own teaching activities; identify what was
critical for their students’ learning; and implement those insights into their teaching practice. Data
from interviews and video-recorded lessons were analyzed to reveal instances where diferent PCK
components interacted in a dynamic way to develop new knowledge. Using vignettes to give a more
holistic view of the PCK development that was occurring, four of the six teachers were shown to
actively change their teaching of the specifc content in a way that provided new possibilities for
students to grasp the object of learning. These vignettes included how the object of learning was
defned and focused, how the examples that were presented to the students were chosen, how the
lessons were structured, and how the nature of student learning changed.
Wongsopawiro et al. (2017) also explored processes of PCK development as 12 in-service teachers
addressed problems they were experiencing in their own science teaching as part of a yearlong action
research program in the United States Using the Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional
Growth (IMTPG; Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) as an analytical tool, the authors examined the
teachers’ action research reports, electronic refective journals, and responses from semi-structured
interviews (conducted at the end of the project) to understand how the design features of the action
research program impacted changes in the teachers’ PCK. This analysis of teacher-reported data
enabled the researchers to identify specifc pathways of change in the teachers’ PCK as they researched
solutions to their practice dilemmas. Pictograms (pictorial representations) were produced to show
these change pathways for each component of a teacher’s PCK (using four components from the
Magnusson model), which appeared an efective way of tracing the pedagogical reasoning and action
that occur in individual learning pathways. Wongsopawiro et al. concluded that the IMTPG proved
useful in monitoring long-term PCK development by making it possible to describe the changes and
reveal the underlying processes of enactment and refection for research purposes, showing difer-
ences between teachers’ PCK development processes, acknowledging PCK as personal and context
bound, and illustrating that professional development is a complex network of processes sometimes
occurring simultaneously.
The fnal study in this section represents an interesting adaptation of an existing approach to
study PCK development to suit teaching in the tertiary science teaching context. In an Australian
investigation into the characteristics of the PCK of chemistry lecturers, Schultz et al. (2018) piloted,
refned, and applied the CoRe tool for collating the collective TSPK (cf., cPCK) of over 80 tertiary
1138
chemistry teachers with a range of levels of teaching experience. Analysis of the CoRe responses
provided insights into the participants’ cPCK, and in an innovative move Shultz et al. built a website
to share and maintain the large collection of teaching strategies that was generated through the study.
In addition, the researchers observed that participation in the CoRe design workshops led to a sig-
nifcant gain in pPCK for some individuals, and they recommend their modifed CoRe as a useful
tool for the PCK development of tertiary teachers.
In summary, many of the studies in this section refect Shulman’s (1986, 1987) original concep-
tion of PCK as a specialized form of teacher knowledge for classroom teaching that is transformed
from PK and CK through teachers’ processes of pedagogical reasoning and action. By using quali-
tative methodologies, often featuring case-study approaches and data-gathering methods, such as
classroom observations (video-recorded in some instances), interviews, and journaling, these stud-
ies have built rich databases that allow researchers to explore individual teachers’ decision-making
processes and teaching actions in authentic classroom situations. The studies included in this section
reported insights from the analysis and interpretation of these data to better understand the nature
and development of PCK (including its components and their interplay), typically in the context of
programs for teacher professional learning, as it plays out in classroom teaching. Some of the studies
used new conceptual or theoretical frameworks and novel tools or existing ones in innovative ways
to conceptualize and represent the development of PCK. Some studies addressed the role of CK and
PK in the development of PCK, and the relationship between these knowledge categories is the
focus of the next section.
Research on Relations Between Categories of Science Teacher Knowledge

Based on our review of studies between 2005 and 2012 in the previous edition, we concluded that
research from that period supported the claim that PCK and CK are separate categories of science
teacher knowledge that can be empirically distinguished. This conclusion was in line with fnd-
ings from research on mathematics teacher knowledge (Baumert et al., 2010). Since 2013 there has
been an increasing occurrence of studies that investigated relationships between categories of science
teachers’ knowledge, most frequently CK, PCK, and PK. These tend to be large-scale, quantitative
studies that use surveys and paper-and-pencil tests to explore associations between these knowledge
categories. These studies are reviewed in this section.
First, however, we review a qualitative study by Andrews et al. (2019) that described how under-
graduate biology instructors (n=13) from fve universities in the United States use components of
PCK and PK to design and implement opportunities for students to generate their own under-
standings in large classes (>150 students). Teacher knowledge was elicited in the context of the
instructors’ own teaching using a pre-instruction interview, flming of a “target class” session, and
a post-instruction stimulated recall interview. The authors found that instructors who engaged stu-
dents in generative instruction integrated topic-specifc knowledge about student learning (i.e.,
PCK) and more generalizable knowledge about how people learn (i.e., PK) to plan lessons to target
student difculties. Specifcally, they demonstrated how these instructors drew on their PK to design
lessons featuring a focus on students generating reasoning with instructional strategies that made this
reasoning explicit, which in turn created opportunities to develop new PCK.
A number of studies from Germany explored relationships between CK, PK, and PCK with
paper-and-pencil tests. Following up on a previous study discussed in the second edition of this
handbook (Kirschner et al., 2011), Kirschner et al. (2016) described a model of professional knowl-
edge consisting of CK, PK, and PCK where PCK was conceptualized in terms of three knowledge
areas: declarative (what), procedural (how), and conditional (why). The PCK test consisted of open-
ended items that asked teachers to respond to vignettes that contain a realistic description of a teach-
ing sequence or teaching material. Diferent approaches to evaluating the PCK test are reported,
1139
including the analysis of construct validity by testing teachers across diferent school subjects, teachers
from diferent school types, preservice teachers, and physicists. Findings demonstrated that the PCK
test distinguished physics teachers from the other groups. Multidimensional Rasch analysis showed
physics teachers’ CK, PCK, and PK are distinct categories of teacher professional knowledge that are
moderately (PCK-CK: 0.5) to weakly (PK-CK and PK-PCK both around 0.2) correlated. These
fndings were consistent with the authors’ earlier study (Kirschner et al., 2011).
Following up on their previous work, as discussed in the second edition of this handbook
(i.e., Schmelzing et al., 2013; Jüttner & Neuhaus, 2012), Jüttner et al. (2013) described the step-
wise development of an instrument to test the CK and PCK for four biological topics. As in the
Kirschner et al. (2016) study, the authors distinguished between declarative (what), procedural
(how), and conditional (why) PCK. Short-answer, open-ended, and ranking items were developed,
for instance, asking how teachers would handle a particular model in a lesson. A random sample of
158 in-service biology teachers completed the two tests. Based on their analyses, the authors claim
that the instruments measured teachers’ CK and PCK in an objective, valid, and reliable way. A
statistically low but signifcant correlation (r=0.22, p=0.006) was found when CK measures of all
respondents were compared to PCK measures. This result is lower than the correlation reported
in other studies; however, it confrms that CK and PCK are interacting but distinct categories of
teacher knowledge.
Applying a similar design, Großschedl et al. (2019) developed a PCK instrument with open and
true/false items and evaluated it in three studies with biology PSTs. On the basis of their analysis
of the responses, the authors concluded that the fnal 34-item version of the instrument, focusing
on knowledge of the students’ understanding (13 items) and instructional strategies for teaching (21
items), is “unidimensional, provides objective test scores and enables reliable and valid registration of
pre-service biology teachers’ PCK” (p. 402). In one of the three studies they explored relationships
between the PCK, CK, and PK of biology PSTs, fnding correlations between PCK and CK (0.82),
PCK and PK (0.78), and CK and PK (0.51) that were substantially higher compared to those identi-
fed in the studies of Jüttner et al. (2013) and Kirschner et al. (2016). In another study, Großschedl
et al. (2015) applied a similar approach to measuring CK, PCK, and PK that showed they are three
unique and separable but correlated constructs. Correlations varied between 0.68 (CK-PCK), 0.35
(PK-PCK), and 0.11 (PK-CK). Moreover, and confrming fndings from previous research, results
indicated that CK and teaching experience are relevant for PCK development.
In a study by Paulick et al. (2016), the relations between PSTs’ academic self-concept and their
professional knowledge were central. Self-concept was measured by asking preservice teachers to
apply the same fve items (e.g., “I can give an overview of the topic of . . .”) to three categories of
professional knowledge, namely, CK, PCK, and PK, using a four-point scale. For PCK, CK, and
PK, instruments with open-ended, short-answer, and multiple-choice items were used that were
based on existing instruments. From the correlations found between self-concept scales and knowl-
edge categories, the authors concluded that academic self-concept is empirically separable into CK,
PCK, and PK and that self-concept measures provide an alternative means to assess PSTs’ professional
knowledge in comparison with traditional performance measures.
Sorge et al. (2019) also examined quantitative relationships among CK, PCK, and PK. The
study involved physics PSTs (n=200) enrolled in diferent years of teacher education at 12 major
teacher education universities in Germany, dividing the sample into groups of beginning (n=91) and
advanced (n=109) PSTs. Using structural equation modeling, the authors confrmed the conclusions
from studies mentioned earlier that CK, PCK, and PK represent distinct types of knowledge. Cor-
relations between these three categories were high and very similar to those found by Großschedl
et al. (2019). Interestingly, this study indicated that for beginning PSTs, PCK is more closely related
with general PK, while for the advanced PSTs, PCK is more closely associated with CK, “suggesting
that [PCK] develops from a general knowledge about teaching and learning into knowledge about
1140
the teaching and learning of specifc content” (p. 862). Finally, informal learning opportunities, such
as observing expert teachers, were identifed as contributing to the development of PCK.
In a project conducted in the United States, Jin et al. (2015) explored the CK and PCK of teach-
ers after they participated in a professional development program focused on a teaching unit about
plant growth. The authors developed a CK test and a PCK test for this topic based on a learning pro-
gression framework from a previous study. CK was measured with a student assessment test; in other
words, teachers’ content knowledge refected what students were expected to learn (cf. Shulman,
1987). The PCK test focused on two PCK components: knowledge of student thinking and knowl-
edge of instructional strategies. Open-ended items were developed, which asked teachers to react to
contexts that are commonly encountered when teaching photosynthesis and cellular respiration. A
rubric was constructed to score teachers’ responses. One hundred ninety-four middle school teachers
participated in the study. Overall, teachers’ performance on CK was slightly higher than PCK, but
not signifcantly diferent. As for CK, 61.5% of responses were at the highest level, suggesting the
majority of teachers were able to use scientifc reasoning to explain phenomena about plant growth
and functioning. Regarding PCK, most teachers were able to recognize incorrect content in students’
responses, but they struggled with identifying students’ intuitive ideas. In a follow-up study with a
subgroup of 25 teachers who taught the plant growth unit and assessed their students, a statistically
signifcant relationship was found between teacher knowledge (i.e., a combined score on the CK and
PCK tests) and student learning gains.
Finally, three studies investigated CK in relation to PCK, where PCK was limited to teachers’
knowledge of student learning difculties or (alternative) conceptions. Lucero et al. (2017) con-
ducted a small-scale study with four biology teachers in the United States from the same high school
focusing on the teaching of evolution through natural selection. Main data sources were teacher
thinking aloud responses to questions about specifc subject matter (i.e., from the concept inventory
natural selection [CINS]) and predictions of what their students’ most common alternative con-
ceptions to these questions would be. Teachers’ predictions, when compared with actual students’
responses to the CINS, were considered evidence (or not) of the PCK component under investiga-
tion. Participating teachers exhibited rather high ability to predict student conceptions; however,
they were unsure how to modify their instructional practices so that student ideas could be used for
productive learning. The authors concluded that their own knowledge of evolution through natural
selection and knowledge of students’ conceptions of this topic were not strongly connected, and on
this basis argued the need for teachers to reach a minimum threshold of SMK to be able to recognize
student alternative conceptions. In a similar study from Turkey, Kaya et al. (2021) also explored the
relationship between CK and PCK, the latter operationalized as the knowledge of student learning
difculties (KSLD) component of PCK. The authors used open-ended surveys and vignette-based
individual interviews to measure CK and KSLD, respectively, for the topics acid rain and the pro-
cesses of photosynthesis and cellular respiration. A sample of science PSTs (n=73) participated. The
results indicated that CK and KSLD were signifcantly correlated; however, the average scores on
both knowledge categories were low. The authors suggested a model that posits KSLD as a plausible
pathway connecting CK and PCK. A similar focus is apparent in Lin (2017), who compared the pro-
fessional knowledge of experienced and preservice Taiwanese science teachers in terms of their CK
and a component of PCK, that is, the ability to predict student conceptions about physics concepts
(i.e., electric circuits). The author used an existing knowledge test with multiple-choice and two-tier
items and found that experienced teachers (n=76) demonstrated higher levels of CK and confdence
than the PSTs (n=85). However, both groups’ predictions of students’ conceptions about electric
circuits were not signifcantly diferent for two-thirds of the test items.
In summary, quantitative studies on the relationships between categories of science teachers’
knowledge confrms the conclusion from previous research that CK, PCK, and PK are distinct cat-
egories of knowledge. Most studies report connections between these categories, usually in the form
1141
of quantitative measures (e.g., correlation coefcients). Some authors speculate about the nature of
the relationships, for instance, how one category may develop in relation to another. Some stud-
ies (e.g., Sorge et al., 2019) looked at the correlational structure of knowledge categories to obtain
information on how knowledge structures difer between beginning and advanced PSTs. Others
(Andrews et al., 2019) revealed qualitative relationships between PCK and PK. We think that these
studies are helpful in modeling science teacher knowledge and understanding how the diferent
categories relate to each other. In addition, they provide insights into the knowledge structures of
diferent groups of science teachers, for example, novice or experienced teachers.
Research on Science Teacher Knowledge in Relation to Student Variables

In the frst edition of this handbook, Abell (2007) concluded her chapter by stating, “The ultimate
goal of science teacher knowledge research must be not only to understand teacher knowledge, but
also to improve practice, thereby improving student learning” (p. 1134). Five years later, in their
handbook chapter, Fischer et al. (2012) concluded, “Most of the research on CK and PCK . . . still
remains on a descriptive level” (p. 443). In the second edition of this handbook, we observed that
research that relates science teacher knowledge to student variables was still sparse. Most of the stud-
ies between 2005 and 2012 in this area adopted a statistical approach, that is, measures of teacher
knowledge were somehow quantifed and correlated to student variables, such as achievement or
interest. One of these studies showed that gains in teachers’ CK (as a result of participating in a cer-
tain intervention) were associated with gains in student learning of science content (Gess-Newsome
et al., 2011, 2019). However, studies that aimed to relate PCK to student variables had mixed results.
We rationalized this inability to reach clarity by pointing at methodological issues, such as misalign-
ments between measures of teachers’ PCK and student variables. Our conclusion advocated for more
studies, both qualitative and quantitative, that relate science teacher knowledge to student learning.
We now turn to the studies that have been reported in recent years on relationships between
teacher knowledge and student variables in the feld of science education. Despite the aforemen-
tioned calls for research in this area, relatively few studies have been published since 2012. Most of
these studies were conducted either in the United States or in Germany. Several aspects of teacher
knowledge were included in these studies, including CK, PCK (or its components), and curricular
knowledge. Student variables were typically focused on cognitive achievement but also included
student motivation for science.
Roth et al. (2019) compared the impact of two diferent professional learning programs on teach-
ers’ CK, PCK, classroom practice, and student learning. Two cohorts of elementary teachers partici-
pated in the STeLLA analysis-of-practice program (n=71) or a content deepening program (n=66).
Student and teacher CK was measured using a series of assessments matched to the topics imple-
mented by the teachers during the study. A rubric was used to score teacher analyses of video clips
as a measure of their PCK. Video recordings of the participating teachers were coded and scored as a
measure of classroom practice. The STeLLA program focused on analysis of lesson videos and student
work and spent less time on activities designed specifcally for deepening teacher CK compared to the
other program. Nevertheless, teachers in STeLLA developed stronger CK than their counterparts in
the other program, and so did their students. Whereas the STeLLA program had sizable efects on all
three teacher outcomes, only teacher practice had a positive relationship with student achievement.
Sadler et al. (2013) aimed to determine which category of science teachers’ content-related pro-
fessional knowledge most heavily impacts students’ science performance. Teachers’ SMK and their
knowledge of student misconceptions about selected science topics (matter, forces and motion,
energy) were assessed with a multiple-choice instrument based on the National Science Education
Standards from the United States. The instrument was administered twice during a school year to
physical science teachers (n=181) and to their middle school students (n= 9,556). Teachers’ SMK
1142
emerged as an important predictor of student learning. Some items included a popular student
misconception as an answer option and teachers who could identify this misconception had larger
classroom gains than teachers who knew only the correct answer. These fndings suggest that a
teacher’s SMK in combination with their ability to identify students’ most common wrong answer on
multiple-choice items related to a specifc science concept (a form of PCK) is associated with student
learning of that concept. A smaller follow-up study by the same group (Chen et al., 2020) replicated
these fndings. This study focused on other science content (i.e., life science) and involved 79 biology
teachers from the United States and their 2,749 high school students. The authors found an associa-
tion between students’ correct answers to an item on the post-test and their teachers’ correct answers
to the same item. Teachers’ ability to predict students’ most common wrong answer for an item was
associated with even better student performance. The authors conclude that “it is not enough for
teachers to only understand the science concepts that they teach, but they also must have a working
knowledge of the ideas that students have when entering their classrooms” (p. 11).
In another study from the United States, Gunckel et al. (2018) explored the impact of specifc
resources for teachers (i.e., curriculum materials and a weeklong professional learning workshop
in support of teaching about water in environmental systems) on teachers’ CK and PCK and their
student achievement. PCK was broken down into knowledge of learning goals, knowledge of stu-
dent thinking, and knowledge of instruction. CK and PCK were measured at two moments in
time (one year apart) with three and nine items, respectively, and a rubric was developed to score
items at three levels. Fifty teachers participated, and 29 reported that they had used the curriculum
materials. Twenty of the 29 teachers who used the curriculum materials also administered pre- and
post-assessments to their students. Teacher gains were strongest for those who had used the materials;
however, even for these teachers they were modest for both CK and PCK. Of the PCK components,
teachers with the highest scores on knowledge of instruction produced better learning gains com-
pared to teachers who scored lowly. The authors pointed at the mismatch between traditional school
science approaches and their innovative curriculum materials to account for the modest improve-
ments of teachers’ CK and PCK.
A similar design was applied in two related studies by Yang et al. (2018, 2020), who investigated
the impact of a professional development (PD) program on science teachers’ PCK, their practice and
the learning gains of their students. Over 200 primary and secondary teachers from the United States
joined a PD program on interdisciplinary science inquiry, which included a placement to engage in
interdisciplinary science research, workshops, and participation in a professional learning commu-
nity. A large number of variables (school, teacher, and student) were included in the study. PCK was
measured with existing tests, focused on one of the science disciplines rather than on interdisciplinary
science, and teaching practice was explored through surveys among teachers and students. Student
understanding of crosscutting concepts was assessed with a test consisting of 20 multiple-choice
items. The authors found signifcant associations between PD participation on interdisciplinary sci-
ence, teacher characteristics, school characteristics, and teacher PCK. However, PCK test scores were
found to be unrelated to students’ understanding of crosscutting concepts, which could be due to the
fact that a disciplinary PCK test was used.
A set of studies from Germany investigated the relationships between science teachers’ professional
knowledge, classroom practice, and student performance. Keller et al. (2017) also included afective
variables in the research design, when exploring relationships between teachers’ PCK and motiva-
tion to teach physics and student achievement and interest in learning physics. Seventy-seven physics
teachers from Switzerland and Germany and their 1,614 students participated in the study. Teach-
ers’ PCK (about electricity) and motivation to teach physics were measured with two tests, prior
to each teacher delivering a lesson of 90 minutes on electrical energy, and video recordings of the
lessons were coded for cognitively activating instruction. Student achievement (related to electric-
ity) and interest in learning physics were tested prior to and after the lesson. Findings showed PCK
1143
was positively associated with students’ achievement and this relationship was facilitated through
cognitively activating instruction. Also, teachers’ motivation predicted students’ interest, which was
mediated by enthusiastic teaching as perceived by students. However, PCK was not associated with
students’ interest, nor was teacher motivation with student achievement. The authors concluded that
teacher knowledge (i.e., PCK) and motivation are both important but independent qualities that
have distinct efects on students’ cognitive and afective outcomes. Other studies omitted afective
variables and examined relationships between secondary teachers’ CK, PCK, teacher practice, and
student learning outcomes. A study by Förtsch et al. (2016) included 39 German biology teachers
and about 800 students. Teachers’ PCK and CK were assessed by a shortened version of the profes-
sional knowledge test developed by Jüttner et al. (2013). Analysis of video recordings of teachers’
lessons about neurobiology revealed a rather low level of cognitive activation across the sample.
Multilevel path analysis results showed a positive signifcant efect of cognitive activation on students’
learning. Consistent with Keller et al. (2017), the authors found an indirect efect of teachers’ PCK
on students’ learning outcomes that was mediated through cognitive activation. Teachers’ CK did not
seem to afect the level of cognitive activation nor student achievement.
Applying a similar design, Mahler et al. (2017) explored the relationship between teachers’
content-related professional knowledge and students’ performance, where content-related profes-
sional knowledge was conceptualized as CK, PCK, and curricular knowledge. Forty-eight Ger-
man biology teachers and their students (13–14-year-olds; n=1,036) participated in this study. The
teachers were asked to complete a paper-and-pencil test measuring their CK, PCK, and curricular
knowledge prior to planning a unit of four lessons about a certain ecosystem (i.e., the Wadden Sea).
Subscales for CK and PCK both referred specifcally to the topic of the unit, whereas the subscale
for curricular knowledge addressed the entire school subject of biology. Students’ performance was
measured with a paper-and-pencil test and a concept map before and after the unit was taught to
them. The authors found a signifcant positive relationship between biology teachers’ PCK and their
students’ performance; however, neither CK nor curricular knowledge was associated with students’
performance. The authors attributed the unexpected lack of a relationship between CK and student
achievement to diferent ways of operationalizing the subject matter in the teacher and student assess-
ments. They concluded that PCK seems to be the driving force for improvement of students’ science
performance and that CK and curricular knowledge impact student learning indirectly through their
associations with PCK. In the last study in this set, Liepertz and Borowski (2019) explored relation-
ships between science teachers’ professional knowledge, classroom practice, and students’ perfor-
mance, related to the teaching of a specifcally designed lesson about mechanics. In this study, teacher
knowledge comprised CK, PCK, and PK. Thirty-fve physics teachers and their grade 8 or 9 classes
(n=907 students) participated. The frst lesson of a unit on mechanics, focusing on the topic of force,
was taught by each of the teachers and videotaped. CK and PCK were measured with a test devel-
oped by Kirschner et al. (2016), and PK was measured using text vignettes. Student achievement was
assessed with a test that was taken by the students before and after the teaching of the unit. The results
revealed an association between teachers’ CK and PCK, but not between PK and PCK. Multilevel
analyses revealed a small negative regression coefcient for PCK in relation to students’ post-test
scores. The authors concluded that measuring professional knowledge with paper-and-pencil tests
might not be sufcient: “To measure PCK or professional knowledge, which has a real impact on
teachers’ in-class actions, their pedagogical reasoning has to be taken into account” (p. 906).
In summary, research focusing on relations between science teachers’ knowledge (especially CK
and PCK) and student outcomes has increased in recent years, typically employing paper-and-pencil
tests to measure teacher knowledge and student outcomes and exploring statistical relationships
between these variables. Outcomes vary between studies; however, across the board it seems that
both CK and PCK are positively related to student achievement. Some studies found that only PCK
was associated with student learning gains, whereas others reported no relationship or even a negative
1144
one between PCK and student outcomes. These diferences may arise because the instruments in
these studies are related to knowledge categories that are located in the outer circles of the refned
consensus model (RCM; Figure 35.2), that is, CK and cPCK, which are not immediately or directly
linked to teaching practice. We will elaborate on this argument in the discussion section. In the
absence of studies that connect CK and cPCK, through pPCK and cPCK, with classroom practice,
our understanding of teacher knowledge on student learning remains very limited.
Research on Science Teacher Educators

In our chapter in the previous edition of this handbook, we noted the limited research attention that
has been paid to the role and expertise of science teacher educators. Since the publication of that chap-
ter, this feld has remained relatively small, although it is growing. A recently published special issue of
the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education on “Science and Mathematics teacher edu-
cators and their professional growth” (Park Rogers et al., 2021) marks recognition of the body of work
that is accumulating in this feld. However, the editors of the special issue note that to date, much more
research has been published about mathematics teacher educators than science teacher educators.
We recognize that the term “teacher educator” can refer to those who work in university settings
teaching pre- and in-service teachers, those who work in professional development settings but who
are not university academics, school-based mentors of preservice teachers, and those who lead the
learning of colleagues in schools or across a school district (e.g., professional learning leaders). In
this chapter, we use the term “science teacher educator” (STE) to include all these diferent groups;
however, we recognize that the nature of the expertise and its sources may difer across these groups.
Within the small number of studies focusing on STEs, there is general agreement that STEs
need specialist knowledge that is diferent from that needed by science teachers: “there seems to be
a consensus that there is a specialized knowledge base that is needed for teaching science teachers
that is distinct from the knowledge needed by a K-12 classroom science teacher” (Bradbury et al.,
2018, p. 1389). Yet, what that knowledge base actually comprises, and how it is developed, is still
far from settled. It could be argued that science teacher educators need at least well-developed PCK
for teaching specifc school subject matter in science, as well as knowledge of how to teach teach-
ers about that SMK so that they are able to teach it efectively to their students. Abell et al. (2009)
captured this latter idea as “a parallel form of PCK” for teacher educators that includes “knowledge
about curriculum, instruction, and assessment for teaching science methods courses and supervising
feld experiences, as well as . . . knowledge about preservice teachers and orientations to teaching
science teachers” (p. 79).
There appear to be two main strands of research emerging in the feld of STE expertise: (1)
research focusing on STEs’ conceptualization and development of PCK and (2) research on other
components of STEs’ expertise.
Studies on the PCK of Science Teacher Educators and Its Development

Abell et al. (2009) proposed that a distinct PCK exists for teaching science teachers. Their concep-
tion, based on the Magnusson model, includes orientations to science teaching as a lens through
which other aspects of PCK are fltered, and includes: “knowledge about curriculum, instruction,
and assessment for teaching science methods courses and supervising feld experiences, as well as his/
her knowledge about preservice teachers and orientations to teaching science teachers” (p. 79). In
terms of their knowledge of teaching about science teaching, Abell et al. (2009) argued that
The science teacher educator should understand the points of resistance that prospective
teachers might experience when learning about science teaching. Furthermore, the science
1145
teacher educator should know strategies for helping future teachers confront their naïve
conceptions of science teaching and learning and fnd suitable alternative views.
(p. 79)
Further, they proposed that just as the PCK of classroom teachers can change over time, so too does
the PCK of STEs, resulting in a professional learning continuum for teacher educators that changes
with experience.
The amount of research on PCK of STEs is limited: “Though PCK has been posited as a frame-
work for the knowledge needed by science teacher educators, there are few studies that directly
investigate the development of PCK for teaching science teachers” (Bradbury et al., 2018, p. 1390).
These authors also observed that most of the published studies in this feld are conducted in the form
of self-studies, and by novice STEs. Empirical studies on STEs’ PCK and its development are limited
to university-based STEs working with both primary and secondary PSTs.
Several STEs conducted self-studies, which led them to further conceptualize the construct of
PCK for STEs. Faikhamta, a beginning STE, investigated his own PCK alongside how he supported
secondary science PSTs to develop their PCK (Faikhamta & Clarke 2013). In their conceptualization
of PCK of STEs, Faikhamta and Clarke (2013) echoed the ideas of Abell et al. (2009) that STEs need
two kinds of PCK: “strong PCK for teaching science, but also PCK for teaching science teachers”
(p. 960) and emphasized the important role of beliefs that “are refected in the ways they [STEs] teach
student teachers in a classroom and [that] are closely intertwined with PCK components” (p. 960).
They further distinguished two kinds of SMK required by STEs as “science content and knowledge
for teaching science” (p. 960). The authors defned STEs’ PCK as
a teacher educator’s understanding of how to help science teachers develop PCK for teach-
ing science which includes (a) orientations towards teaching about teaching science, (b)
knowledge of science teachers’ conceptions and learning, (c) knowledge of a science meth-
ods course curriculum, (d) knowledge of instructional strategies for teaching the course,
and (e) knowledge of assessment for science teachers’ learning.
(p. 964)
Using a self-study approach to the research design, the researchers collected and analyzed a range of
qualitative data in the form of journal entries, student assignments, and course syllabi to understand
more about how he sought to develop PSTs’ PCK. An important insight from his study was that
although Faikhamta’s own PCK for teaching science was strong, his PCK of teaching science teachers
was limited, especially in terms of knowledge of instructional strategies and knowledge of assessment
of science teachers’ learning.
Hume (2016) studied the growth and sources of her own PCK as a beginning STE in her tran-
sition from classroom chemistry teacher to science teacher educator. Using a self-study approach,
she applied the Magnusson model as an analytical framework. Her study outcomes emphasized the
importance of engaging in forms of scholarship to support the transformation of her knowledge of
classroom teaching to knowledge required for educating prospective science teachers. Engagement
in scholarship occurred through science education research, a university professional development
course that included an action research component, and collaboration and co-planning of her teach-
ing with a trusted colleague. Refecting on a collection of action research projects of her teaching
of both primary and secondary PSTs, Hume’s fndings diferentiate between the PCK STEs need
to support primary or secondary PSTs. Through the study she proposed a modifed version of the
Magnusson model for the PCK of STEs, including orientations toward science education teaching,
knowledge of science education curriculum, knowledge of PSTs’ understanding of science teaching,
knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of assessment.
1146
Bradbury et al. (2018) investigated the PCK development of two STEs in the United States,
using a self-study methodology. The STEs partnered with two experienced elementary teachers
to plan, implement, and refect on a unit taught in second-grade classrooms that integrated science
and language arts as a means to enhance the STEs’ PCK for teaching elementary science teaching.
Data included transcripts of planning meetings, oral refections about their experiences, and videos
of the unit being enacted. Using Park and Oliver’s (2008) model of PCK, which incorporates self-
efcacy as their analytic tool, the STEs sought to fnd out which aspects of their PCK they developed
through their collaborative planning and teaching. Findings showed that working in the second-
grade classrooms strengthened their sense of self-efcacy through experiencing successful teaching
episodes and reinforced their reform-based orientations to science teaching. Additionally, their PCK
was enhanced in the areas of knowledge of science curriculum, knowledge of instructional strategies,
and knowledge of students’ understanding in science.
Demirdöğen et al. (2015) also conducted a self-study of their PCK development as they rede-
signed and taught a practicum course for teaching secondary science teachers in Turkey. As in the
previous studies, the authors used Abell et al.’s (2009) PCK model to analyze the development of
diferent PCK components, for each of them, over one year. Data was collected in the form of jour-
nal entries, CoRes, refection papers, observations of PSTs’ teaching and meetings with PSTs, that
were subsequently developed by each author into vignettes for each PCK component. The authors
reported development in all components of their PCK for teaching science teachers as a result of
their experiences. Their PCK development was further supported by engaging with research litera-
ture and working with colleagues.
Cite et al. (2017) investigated their PCK development for teaching specifc science content (i.e.,
light and shadows) to in-service elementary teachers in a professional development program in the
United States. This study is the only one that investigates STEs’ PCK for a specifc science topic.
The authors developed CoRes and pedagogical and professional experience repertoires (PaP-eRs;
Loughran et al., 2006) based on data collected during the program to document growth in their
PCK. They identifed critical incidents from the data that led to new insights about teaching science
to teachers. Through this process of analysis, they came to recognize gaps in their own PCK for
teaching this content area, for example, having a sufcient “repertoire of representations on which
to draw” (p. 286). Writing short vignettes of their experiences in the form of PaP-eRs was found
to be helpful by the authors in articulating theory-practice links, and alignment between their STE
beliefs and practices.
Studies Focusing on Other Components of

Science Teacher Educators’ Expertise
Several studies focused on STEs’ knowledge of pedagogy as a component of their expertise. Coo-
per (2013) investigated the role of critical experiences in the development of STEs’ pedagogical
knowledge (PK), as well as the ways that STEs’ notions of PK develop and change over their careers,
and the dispositions necessary to developing an understanding of PK for science teacher education.
Drawing on interview data from a small sample of highly experienced Australian science teacher
educators, Cooper applied Morine-Dershimer and Kent’s (1999) model of PK to analyze shifts and
changes in the STEs’ thinking and teaching practice, as revealed through their critical experiences.
Study outcomes highlighted how STEs’ personal backgrounds, beliefs, and dispositions played out
quite diferently in their career trajectories and in shaping the development of their PK for science
teacher education.
Davis et al. (2017) investigated how a group of three university-based STEs in the United States
understood and utilized a particular pedagogical approach of “rehearsals” to facilitate PSTs’ learn-
ing to support students’ sensemaking discussions in science. Rehearsals are similar to microteaching
1147
sessions where PSTs present a lesson to peers who assume the role of school students. However, an
important feature of “rehearsals” is the ability to “pause” a lesson at any time to focus on what is hap-
pening in a particular moment and ofer (and potentially use) alternative courses of action. While the
use of rehearsals is increasingly common in US teacher education courses, the knowledge required
of STEs to efectively facilitate this practice is not well understood. Through collaborative analysis of
their pedagogies of rehearsal, and in particular their use of pauses, the STEs in this study “expanded
their knowledge base” (p. 289) of rehearsal pedagogy about sensemaking discussions in science and
became more explicit and purposeful in their approach by identifying conceptual tools to support
PSTs, developing a protocol for supporting planning for rehearsals, and introducing a new practice
of analyzing video of the actual enacted lesson in a later science methods class.
In another study that focused on STEs’ pedagogical expertise, Underwood and Moore Mensah
(2018) investigated the perceptions and practices of a group of 11 university-based science teacher
educators in the United States, related to culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP). Given that “teaching
to and for diversity” (p. 58) is considered important for increasing scientifc literacy for all, CRP is
one approach that has been found to usefully serve this purpose. Study fndings revealed that while
the STEs were able to articulate the need for ideological change in science education to empower all
students, they were unable to describe how CRP or other substantial pedagogical changes could be
used to address the needs of historically underserved or marginalized students in science classrooms.
Implications of this study relate to the need for STEs to build their understandings of personal bias
and how it plays out in their own teaching and to explicitly model social justice approaches to teach-
ing with their science PSTs.
Finally, Hanuscin et al. (2021) studied STE expertise more broadly in a group of nine university-
based STEs in the United States, to understand how a particular professional learning approach of
shadowing supported the development of the STEs’ “specialized knowledge-in-practice”. Each of
the STEs shadowed a colleague through observation of their method classes, followed by collabora-
tive refection and debriefng on their learnings. Findings from the study showed that shadowing was
helpful in supporting several diferent aspects of STE expertise development, including deepening dis-
ciplinary and subject-matter knowledge and expanding STEs’ knowledge base both within and across
their respective science disciplinary felds, enhancing practical knowledge in ways of thinking about
and practicing science teacher education, and building relational knowledge through diferent kinds
of social interactions and identity work as teacher educators. The shadowing experiences aforded
unique opportunities for the faculty members, who held a joint appointment between a teacher edu-
cation program and a science department, to learn about other science disciplinary perspectives and
to refect on the nature of their professional knowledge and practice, and its development.
In summary, research on STEs’ expertise is still fairly sparse, but it is growing. The majority of this
work appears to focus on STEs in university initial teacher education programs, is small scale, quali-
tative, and tends to be conducted by STEs themselves, primarily through self-study. Various PCK
models have been adapted for use by STEs to investigate their own knowledge and its development.
Most authors reference Abell et al. (2009). Those that draw on the Magnusson model tend to look
for parallel forms of its components, for example, knowledge of student understanding (Magnusson
model) becoming knowledge of science teachers’ conceptions and learning (Faikhamta & Clarke,
2013).
Discussion
Since the second edition of this handbook appeared in 2014, research on science teacher knowledge
has continued to attract attention from scholars around the globe. Many of these studies take place
in the context of preparing new science teachers (i.e., in an initial teacher education program). Also,
much research on science teacher knowledge is done in the context of science education reform,
1148
which is ongoing across the globe, and is typically accompanied by programs to support teachers.
Usually, these studies are informed by an interest to monitor what teachers know, or need to know, to
teach science efectively and to explore how science teachers can be supported to enhance or expand
their knowledge and improve their practice. In this fnal section, we will frst evaluate the progress
that has been made in research on science teacher knowledge since the publication of the second
edition of this handbook, particularly in relation to the areas that were identifed in previous reviews
as needing further research, that is, (1) studies on the relationships between teachers’ CK, PK, and
PCK, and how these develop in a classroom teaching context; (2) studies that relate science teacher
knowledge to student learning; and (3) research on the expertise of STEs related to supporting the
development of science teacher knowledge. We conclude this chapter with recommendations for
science teacher education and professional development and suggestions for future research.
Progress in Research on Science Teacher Knowledge and Its Development
Research on Science Teachers’ CK, PK, and PCK and Their Development
In our 2014 handbook chapter, we identifed that research on science teachers’ CK was predomi-
nantly inspired by concerns about teachers having a sound understanding of science content,
especially beginning and elementary teachers. Recent studies in this domain continue to reveal
shortcomings in teachers’ CK, even among teachers with a degree in the respective discipline. Some
studies concluded that teachers’ knowledge of particular science content improves through teaching
this content repeatedly; however, the evidence is not conclusive. Other studies demonstrated how
teachers’ knowledge of specifc science content can be improved by interventions, provided these are
focused on the teaching of this content.
However, some researchers report CK remains an under-researched construct (e.g., Diamond
et al., 2014), and we argue this knowledge gap is refected in the ongoing ambiguity surrounding
what constitutes a teacher’s CK and the issues this uncertainty presents for investigations into sci-
ence teacher knowledge that call for measurements of CK. In some instances, CK refers to wider
and deeper disciplinary knowledge, while in others, to selected discipline content contained in cur-
riculum (e.g., mandated guidelines/standards, text, school plans), or to the specifc science concepts
and skills that a teacher draws on and enacts in classroom teaching. These diferent parameters for
CK have the potential to raise methodological issues of validity and reliability around measures of
CK, which can in turn make comparisons between studies problematic. For example, in some stud-
ies teachers’ science content knowledge was measured with tests that were initially developed to test
students’ understanding of the same content (e.g., Sadler et al., 2013). This measure suggests that the
researchers see teachers’ CK as limited to what is taught to students, or what is included in the cur-
riculum, whereas others would maintain that teachers need a much more comprehensive and deeper
understanding of the content they are teaching, including the syntactic and substantive structures
of the disciplinary subject matter of science (cf. Shulman, 1987). It also infers that the boundaries
between CK and knowledge of science curricula, one of the PCK components in the often-used
Magnusson model, may be somewhat blurred. To further confuse matters, while most authors refer
to content knowledge, or CK, some prefer the term subject-matter knowledge (SMK). This practice
raises the question of whether these terms can be used interchangeably, and again, what content or
subject matter is actually being referred to?
In some PCK studies, the content is defned broadly, such as, socioscientifc issues (e.g., Bayram-
Jacobs et al., 2019) or nature of science (e.g., Hanuscin, 2013). In others, the content is narrowed or
limited to particular topics within a certain discipline, such as stoichiometry (Miheso & Mavhunga,
2020) or semiconductors (Rollnick, 2017) in chemistry. These authors often refer to topic-specifc
PCK, or TSPCK, to highlight their focus on specifc content. In studies on STEs, the meaning of
1149
subject matter or content may be considered diferently, for instance, Faikhamta and Clarke (2013)
argued that STEs need two types of SMK, that is, knowledge of science content and “knowledge
for teaching science”. This lack of clarity or blurriness around what constitutes CK has the potential
for confusion among researchers and calls for more careful articulation of exactly what CK refers to
in a given study.
In our chapter in the second edition of this handbook, we observed a shift from descriptive stud-
ies of certain aspects or components of the PCK of a small number of science teachers at a particular
moment in time, to studies that explored the impact of specifc interventions (either in preservice
teacher education or professional development programs) on the development of science teachers’
PCK. Since 2013, research on science teachers’ PCK and its development has shown an increased
focus on the structure and nature of PCK, and how it is developed in a classroom teaching context.
Studies that have chosen to explore relationships between components of PCK using the mapping
approach introduced by Park and Chen (2012) have shed further light on the connections between
these components and how these may be shaped by contextual factors. These studies, typically
adopting the Magnusson model or a variation of it, tend to confrm the central association between
knowledge of student understanding and knowledge of instructional strategies related to a particular
topic. As these two components were central in Shulman’s original conceptualization of PCK, this
fnding raises the question of whether other knowledge components, such as those included in the
Magnusson model, should be seen as part of PCK or rather as foundations, or infuences? It could
be argued the latter stance is refected in the refned consensus model (RCM), where assessment
knowledge and curricular knowledge are represented as separate knowledge categories that underlie
and inform teachers’ collective PCK (cPCK) and, mediated through the learning context, feed into
teachers’ personal (pPCK) and enacted PCK (ePCK).
Recent research on the development of science teachers’ PCK also refects Shulman’s original
view of PCK as a specialized form of teacher knowledge for teaching particular content that is built
through iterative processes of pedagogical reasoning and refection on classroom practice (Shulman,
1987). Studies using observations or video recordings of classroom teaching, interviews, and journal-
ing have built rich databases that provide insights into individual teachers’ decision-making processes
and teaching actions in authentic classroom situations. In the context of programs for teacher profes-
sional learning, such studies help us to better understand the nature and the development of PCK as
it plays out in classroom teaching. Similarly, recent studies on the PCK development of preservice
science teachers have paid more attention to the role of classroom feld experiences and mentors
and have contributed to a better understanding of the complex interplay between school-based and
university-based elements of teacher education programs (e.g., method courses) that occurs during
the early stages of PCK development of prospective science teachers.
This increased attention to PCK development in authentic science classroom contexts aligns with
the design of the RCM, which places the cycle of planning, teaching, and refection at its core (Fig-
ure 35.2). Although this model was published very recently (Carlson et al., 2019), it is rapidly gaining
traction as evidenced by the number of citations (over 150 in Google Scholar to date). We note that
the RCM is beginning to be used in published research on science teachers’ PCK, for instance, by
Coetzee et al. (2020), who explored how preservice teachers were adopting elements of a physical
science method course into their classroom practice. The study fndings highlight the importance of
actual classroom teaching combined with critical refection on these teaching experiences and the
infuence of cPCK introduced in the method course on preservice teachers’ pPCK and/or ePCK.
Preservice teachers’ feelings of confdence about their SMK also appeared to be connected with the
quality of their ePCK. Viewed through the perspective of the RCM, Coetzee et al.’s (2020) study
helps to shed light on ways in which knowledge exchanges occur between the layers of the RCM
and how these exchanges are mediated through various amplifying and fltering factors (in this case,
confdence to teach particular subject matter) and teachers’ pedagogical reasoning.
1150
Research reviewed in our 2014 handbook chapter demonstrated that CK and PCK are separate
categories of science teacher knowledge that each exists in their own right. Studies on the relation-
ships between CK and PCK revealed diferent mechanisms of how CK and PCK may impact each
other. Specifcally, teachers who have a thorough understanding of the science content before they
start to teach this content, appear to develop PCK on the basis of their CK. Moreover, strong CK
tends to be associated with strong confdence to teach. However, some studies showed how, without
strong CK, teachers’ general PK can play a supportive role in the simultaneous development of PCK
and CK. Recent research again confrms that CK, PCK, and PK are distinct but related categories of
knowledge. Most of these studies have focused on quantitative measures to represent the relationships
between these knowledge categories; however, they have not provided empirical evidence about the
processes or mechanisms that explain how these knowledge categories interact and develop in rela-
tion to each other.
Research on Relationships Between Science Teacher

Knowledge and Student Learning
In our recommendations for future research (Van Driel et al., 2014), we advocated studies that aimed
to relate science teacher knowledge to student learning to incorporate
a combination of instruments that capture not only what is in a teacher’s mind (CK and
“declarative PCK”; cf. Schmelzing et al., 2013), but also how teachers enact their under-
standing in classroom situations, [and] to align measures of teacher knowledge, in particular
PCK, with measures of student learning
(p. 866)
We also argued that these measures should be consistent with the learning objectives that teachers aim
to achieve among their students. Although we have observed an increase in research focusing on the
relationships between science teachers’ knowledge (especially CK and PCK) and student outcomes in
recent years, it appears to be limited to studies that employ paper-and-pencil tests to measure teacher
knowledge and student outcomes. Such studies focused on determining statistical relationships and,
across the board, reported positive impacts of both CK and PCK on student achievement. However,
some scholars found that only PCK was associated with student learning gains, and others reported
no or a slightly negative relationship between PCK and student outcomes. Some studies (e.g., Keller
et al., 2017; Förtsch et al., 2016) highlighted the mediating role of classroom teaching and showed
how teachers’ PCK was associated with the use of cognitively activating teaching strategies, which in
turn had a positive efect on student learning.
From the perspective of the RCM, we could say that studies that employ paper-and-pencil
tests to investigate PCK are focused on collective PCK. According to the RCM, the relationship
between cPCK and student learning is mediated by teachers’ processes of pedagogical reasoning frst
through the learning context, which acts as a flter and/or amplifer to inform teachers’ personal
PCK, which in turn plays a part in their ePCK through cycles of planning, teaching, and refect-
ing. Therefore, attending to pedagogical reasoning is essential to gain insight into teachers’ complex
decision-making processes that draw on their rich knowledge of and sensitivity to context. Student
learning, according to this model, is infuenced by teachers’ pPCK and ePCK rather than their
cPCK, which in our view are important assumptions that warrant further investigation if the RCM
is to continue as a viable model for PCK research and development. Specifcally, we need to bet-
ter understand the conditions that support the development of pPCK and ePCK from cPCK that
contributes to student learning. This understanding would beneft the design of teacher education
programs.
1151
In our 2014 chapter, we distinguished between studies that regarded PCK as “knowledge of teach-
ers” and studies based on PCK as “knowledge for teachers” (Fenstermacher, 1994). Viewed through
the perspective of the RCM, the former types of studies tend to align with the notion of pPCK and
ePCK, whereas the latter studies align with the notion of cPCK. In this respect, we consider the
distinctions between diferent types of PCK in the RCM to be helpful for researchers in locating
the specifc emphasis of their investigations and recognizing the complex and multifaceted nature of
PCK. Further, distinguishing between types of PCK may help to diferentiate those aspects that are
shared or common across a larger or smaller community of teachers (cPCK) and thus measurable,
compared with those that are situational and personal (pPCK, ePCK). Custom-designed tests and
exemplars of topic-specifc cPCK are useful for measuring cPCK. In the area of pPCK and ePCK,
researchers have an emerging repertoire of potentially useful strategies for capturing the essence of
these unique knowledge forms, including PaP-eRs, PCK mapping, and rubrics. Assessing pPCK and
ePCK validly requires approaches that acknowledge the core characteristics of high-quality, idiosyn-
cratic PCK. This includes knowing when to apply a certain strategy in recognition of students’ actual
learning needs and understanding why a certain teaching approach may be useful in some situations
(i.e., a particular class of students at a certain moment) but not in others and ways of enacting this
knowledge. The challenge for researchers assessing the PCK of an individual teacher is how to do
justice to the situational and personal aspects that are inherently part of a teacher’s PCK, as they
engage in classroom-based pedagogical reasoning and action while at the same time being able to
clearly distinguish more or less sophisticated levels of PCK.
Research on the Expertise of Science Teacher Educators

In our 2014 handbook chapter, we noted that few studies focused on science teacher educators
(STEs). Since then, research on STEs’ expertise has remained fairly sparse, although it is growing.
Most of this work appears to focus on university-based STEs in initial teacher education programs,
is small-scale, qualitative, and tends to be conducted by STEs themselves, primarily through forms of
self-study. Various PCK models have been adapted for use by STEs to investigate their own knowl-
edge and its development. Most authors base their studies on the model of PCK for teaching science
teachers developed by Abell et al. (2009) or the Magnusson model. (As we noted earlier, Abell et al.’s
model is adapted from Magnusson et al., 1999). Those studies that draw on the Magnusson model
tend to look for parallel forms of its components in teacher education, for example, knowledge of
student understanding (Magnusson model) becoming knowledge of science teachers’ conceptions
and learning (Faikhamta & Clarke, 2013). This trend suggests that research on STEs might still be
considered in its “pre-science” phase, as Abell (2007) characterized research in PCK at that time, that
can be ascribed to ongoing diferences in PCK conceptualizations amongst researchers and subse-
quent approaches to studying it.
In their epilogue to a recent special issue on “Science and Mathematics teacher educators
and their professional growth”, Park Rogers et al. (2021) identify three areas requiring further
research:
• What and how teacher educators’ knowledge continues to grow throughout a career
• The role of subject-matter or disciplinary knowledge in establishing a specialized knowledge of
teaching teachers
• The development of a shared language to describe the processes of professional growth for
science and mathematics teacher educators working across diferent contexts that can help to
defne their expertise and development
These suggestions will be elaborated next.
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Implications for Science Teacher Education

and Professional Development
In our chapter in the second edition, we concluded that programs for science teacher education
and professional development, rather than targeting specifc aspects of science teacher knowledge,
whether content knowledge or (components) of PCK, should aim at the development of this knowl-
edge in relation to the practice of teaching, or learning to teach, science. We discussed specifc fea-
tures that could be incorporated in the design of such programs, such as including opportunities to
plan and design ways to teach certain science content and trying these out in classroom situations.
Ultimately, such programs should contribute to establishing science teaching practices that promote
students’ understanding of, and interest in, science.
The studies in this review revealed that efective teacher education embraces a range of consider-
ations in its design and employs multiple strategies to accommodate for the diversity that exists within
cohorts of teachers (e.g., prospective or early career teachers versus experienced teachers, out-of-
feld teachers, and career changers) and across school contexts in which teachers operate. For teacher
educators, the task of addressing this breadth of needs and considerations in teacher education can
be almost insurmountable at frst glance, especially in contexts where change is the norm (e.g., cur-
riculum reform, introduction of teacher standards and entry qualifcations, changing teacher roles).
Fortunately, the studies in this review have provided very useful pointers for efecting rich and mean-
ingful professional learning for diverse learners (teachers) in diverse learning situations. For example,
providing a classroom-based professional development program in combination with curriculum
support materials, where both components actively promote strong linkages between understand-
ing of students’ difculties in learning science and knowledge of appropriate instructional strategies
(Bayram-Jacobs et al., 2019). Or the use of CoRes in a preservice teacher education program to col-
laboratively develop TSPCK for PSTs from diferent disciplinary backgrounds before they plan and
teach lessons on that topic during feld experience (e.g., Coetzee et al., 2020).
Perhaps most importantly, these studies reinforce understanding of the iterative processes (e.g.,
noticing, refecting, reasoning, planning, decision-making, and classroom teaching) by which
teachers build professional knowledge for classroom teaching, specifcally PCK, and the condi-
tions that prompt and nurture this growth. The studies provide exemplars of how to structure and
support opportunities for teachers to participate in these processes, often collaboratively with peers
and/or mentors. Experiencing knowledge building as they work through pedagogical problems
in their own practice, teach new content curriculum, or introduce new teaching resources proved
to be essential. Initiating and embedding habits of mind in teachers that underpin self-directed
professional learning, through the use of general mental representations (e.g., content analysis and
CoRes) as recommended by Chan and Yung (2018), makes a very valuable contribution to our
thinking around sustainable PCK development in the context of ongoing educational change and
diversity.
Recommendations for Future Research

In our 2014 chapter, we concluded that researchers between 2007 and 2012 had made progress in
response to the repeated call to do more empirical research on the relations between professional
knowledge of science teachers (which includes CK, PK, and PCK), classroom practice, and student
learning outcomes. Despite this, we recommended more research in these areas, in particular, studies
with a classroom teaching component that investigate how teachers enact and develop their knowl-
edge (CK, PK, and PCK) in interaction with students, and how these practices impact on student
learning and appreciation of science. Such studies would contribute to our understanding of how the
processes of teaching and learning of science interact and lead to outcomes for teachers and students.
1153
Refecting on the progress in this area in published research since 2013, we recommend that
rather than more studies that focus on CK or PCK as such, we would like to see future studies
on the development of these knowledge categories in relation to each other and to other knowl-
edge categories, such as PK. Specifcally, we would welcome studies that contribute to a better
understanding of the mechanisms and processes underlying the development of these knowledge
categories.
We also recommend qualitative studies to further our understanding of the relationships between
teacher knowledge and student variables. Applying the RCM means that we need to focus on teach-
ers’ pPCK and ePCK if we want to understand the impact of science teacher knowledge on student
learning. Chan et al. (2021) argued that ePCK is conceptually similar to the construct of teacher
noticing, and therefore recommended future studies of ePCK be explicitly connected with teacher
noticing “to better understand the situational and dynamic teaching expertise crucial to promoting
students’ understanding of specifc science subject matter” (p. 36). Wilson et al. (2019) proposed a
framework for future research related to the RCM, which included suggestions for research on the
structure and development of PCK. Among other recommendations, they advocated for longitudinal
studies that explore the pathways or learning progressions from novice to expert science teacher. In
a refection on the outcomes of the second PCK summit, and the RCM in particular, Tepner and
Sumfeth (2019) called for future research on science teacher knowledge to pay more explicit atten-
tion to the roles of teachers’ perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs as flters and amplifers that signif-
cantly infuence teachers’ classroom practice and, subsequently, student learning of science. Finally,
we noticed that very few studies on science teacher knowledge to date have been conducted in early
childhood settings (Nilsson & Elm, 2017; Leuchter et al., 2020). Also, studies on the PCK of tertiary
science educators are just beginning to emerge (Fraser, 2016). More research in these sectors would
be welcome. In summary, we recommend that future studies on science teacher knowledge adopt
more holistic and comprehensive designs.
The assessment or measurement of science teachers’ PCK remains an area that is in need of fur-
ther research. While paper-and-pencil tests can be useful to investigate how much teachers know
about the collective PCK of a particular topic or discipline, they usually don’t take into account how
personal and contextual factors shape the PCK that expert teachers enact to serve the learning needs
of a particular group of students in a particular situation. This lack of sensitivity could result in such
teachers not choosing what is considered by the researchers as the correct or best answer to an item in
a PCK test. In some tests, rather than scoring answers as either correct or wrong, teachers’ justifca-
tions are assessed (Keller et al., 2017). As diferent types of knowledge require diferent assessments, a
combination of (qualitative and quantitative) instruments is needed to give a comprehensive picture
of teachers’ knowledge.
Recently, and partly related to the two PCK summits, a number of instruments have been pro-
posed to address these issues. Specifcally, several authors have focused on the use of rubrics to assess
science teachers’ PCK. Chan et al. (2019) proposed a “grand rubric template” for this purpose, while
Carpendale and Hume (2019) developed a detailed rubric to analyze changes in the ePCK of sci-
ence teachers who participated in an intervention focused on collaborative CoRe design. Finally,
Kind (2019) developed a combined CK/PCK rubric based on responses of a cohort of PSTs to
vignettes, which were analyzed in terms of relevant, relevant but incomplete, irrelevant, or (for CK
only) incorrect. These approaches to assessing PCK have in common that they distinguish between
types of PCK (such as cPCK and pPCK; Chan et al., 2019) and that they consider the quality of
PCK to vary on a spectrum from lower to higher levels. Kind’s (2019) rubric also gives insights into
teachers’ underlying thinking. We believe that the increased use of data-gathering tools like video
recording, journaling, and refective interviews, in combination with analytical tools like PCK map-
ping, rubrics, and learning pathways and representations such as CoRes and PaP-eRs and vignettes,
is key for researchers to understanding and representing the processes of knowledge transformation
1154
that are at the heart of science teacher knowledge development and we recommend their use in
future research.
Areas for further research on the expertise of science teacher educators (STEs) include:
• Studies to determine how the PCK of STEs is diferent from the PCK of science teachers. For
instance, how do conceptualizations of STEs’ PCK (i.e., variations of Magnusson and Abell)
compare to those of science teachers, such as the RCM?
• Studies of pedagogical reasoning of STEs.
• Studies relating general and discipline specifc aspects of STEs’ PCK (cf. Faikhamta & Clarke,
2013).
• Since we found no studies about school-based STEs or facilitators of professional development,
there is a need for research that looks at the nature and development of knowledge of these non-
university-based STEs.
Given increasing recognition of teacher educators as a specifc professional group with distinct exper-
tise, responsibilities, and commitments (Kelchtermans et al., 2018) and their important role in the
preparation of future teachers of science, we encourage research that can increase our understanding
of this important, but rather neglected, group.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge Knut Neumann and Kennedy Kam Ho Chan for their
review of a draft version of this chapter.
Notes
1 Throughout this chapter we use the phrase “knowledge development” instead of “learning”. Science teacher
learning and the process of learning to teach science are the focus of Chapters 37 and 40, respectively. Our
use of the phrase “knowledge development” typically refers to studies that compare data at diferent points in
time and make inferences from the diferences. We considered “knowledge growth” or “knowledge change”
as alternatives but chose “knowledge development”, as this phrase is most commonly used in the studies we
reviewed.
2 In research on science teacher knowledge, the terms “content knowledge” and “subject-matter knowledge”
are used interchangeably. In this chapter, and following Shulman, we will refer to content knowledge (CK),
except when reviewing publications in which the term subject-matter knowledge (SMK) is used.
3 Abell’s chapter in the frst edition of this handbook (2007) has been cited nearly 1,200 times on Google
Scholar (700 times since 2014), whereas our chapter in the second edition of the handbook (2014) has accu-
mulated just over 150 citations to date.
4 The following science education journals were included in our search: Journal of Research in Science Teach-
ing, Science Education, Science & Education, International Journal of Science Education, Research in Science Educa-
tion, Studies in Science Education, and Journal of Science Teacher Education. In addition, the following education
journals were included: American Educational Research Journal, Teaching and Teacher Education, Journal of Teacher
Education, and Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice. Due to the scarcity of articles focusing on science
teacher educator knowledge, we broadened our search to include any peer-reviewed published research that
met at least one of our criteria, related to science teacher educators.
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36
LEARNING TO TEACH SCIENCE
We begin this exploration and analysis of learning to teach science with a quotation more than 90
years old as a reminder that eforts to improve the quality of science teaching go back to the early
years of compulsory schooling:
Remember the inevitable danger of lectures. A preacher is supposed to be a teacher, but

sermons are proverbially narcotic. . . . Above all things let your method be such as to com-
pel your pupils to think and to reason. Let your method be logical. Let the facts and the
hypotheses which link them be set and seen in a clear picture. . . .
Beware of the pseudo method of discovery. “Pour H2SO4 on granulated zinc, and you
will discover that hydrogen is given of”!
Beware of verifcation methods. “Show that ferrous ammonium sulphate contains one-
seventh of its own weight of iron.” This is simply asking for the evidence to be cooked.
When a boy [sic] works an experiment, keep him [sic] just enough in the dark as to the
probable outcome of the experiment, just enough in the attitude of a discoverer, to leave
him [sic] unprejudiced in his [sic] observations.
Do not adopt the heuristic extremist’s principle that a pupil must not be permitted to
take anything second hand. Life is too short.
(Westaway, 1929, p. 39)
Not surprisingly, it has been well noted over the years that science teachers often feel caught between
the teaching of facts and theories on the one hand and the ultimate impact of their teaching methods
on the other. Similarly, science teacher educators may well feel the tension between the teaching of
educational theories and ways to improve teaching and the overall impact of their teaching methods
on those learning to teach science.
Chapters in research handbooks often provide comprehensive surveys of published research.
While we are attentive to such research, our major goal in this chapter is to build on earlier research
to stimulate fresh perspectives for thinking about the assumptions and beliefs embedded in preservice
programs for those learning to teach science. Challenging those assumptions can stimulate changes in
beliefs that inspire changes in actions. We summarize the overall argument in the following points:
1. Calls for change to how science is taught in schools and universities are longstanding. For
example, Dewey’s (1938) contrast between traditional and progressive education shows just how
DOI: 10.4324/9780367855758-42 1162

Learning to Teach Science
little the fundamentals of school culture (Sarason, 1996) have changed. Willingham’s (2009)
study posing the question “Why don’t students like school?” reminds us that calls for change
have persisted for decades.
2. A dominant theme in the science education research literature has been teaching for conceptual
development and change. Ironically, only a small fraction of that research considers how indi-
viduals learn to teach science in preservice programs (Fitzgerald et al., 2021).
3. As Sarason (1996) argues by seeing the school having a unique culture, teaching practices are
quite stable, more so than those who call for change often realize (see Handelsman et al., 2004).
Logic and reason alone do not change teaching practices that were initially learned indirectly
and unintentionally from one’s own teachers (Lortie, 1975).
4. Learning from experience (Munby & Russell, 1994; Munby et al., 2001) is an undervalued
and neglected aspect of science teaching and learning that is similarly undervalued in programs
where individuals learn to teach science. This undervaluation is rooted in the ultimate value that
the university assigns to rigorous argument and positivist epistemology (Schön, 1995). It is also
rooted in Franklin’s (1994) insight that science separates knowledge from experience.
5. Research on conceptual change ofers many suggestions for teaching that supports inquiry
learning, deeper learning, and metacognition (Carpendale & Cooper, 2021; Linn, 2006). Con-
ceptual change research indicates that achieving more complete conceptual understanding does
not necessarily achieve the signifcant epistemological change that must accompany that under-
standing (Elby, 2001).
6. Learning to teach science requires attention to conceptual change approaches, not only for
teaching fundamental concepts of science but also for teaching fundamental concepts of teach-
ing and learning (Linn, 2006).
7. The range of metaphors apparent in each individual’s thinking about teaching and learning
science require explicit attention in a teacher education program as they contribute to probing
belief systems (Loughran, 2006; Buaraphan, 2011).
8. There is a profoundly important distinction between what is taught (curriculum content) and
how it is taught (pedagogy), and this applies to how one learns to teach science just as much as
to how one learns science.
9. Metacognitive teaching strategies are essential elements of teaching science and also of analyzing
the impact of what and how we teach and learn (Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Willingham, 2016).
This chapter highlights the need for explicit attention to epistemological issues associated with teach-
ing science and learning to teach science. If the dominant epistemology of the university continues
to be essentially positivistic and closely linked to how we know in the various disciplines of science,
then the long-sought breakthroughs in how science is taught and learned will not be achieved.
For most future science teachers, learning to teach science begins on entrance to a teacher edu-
cation program. Many teacher candidates fail to recognize that many years in science classes have
acted as models for how science is and should be taught. Lortie (1975) made this point clearly for
all teachers, and it applies equally to teacher educators. We proceed from an assumption that most
science teacher education programs fall short as models of productive teaching and learning due to
a lack of attention to creating conditions for quality in teaching and learning. Northfeld’s (1998,
p. 698) insights identifed the issue:
Consider the proposition that teacher educators could overestimate what they can teach
new teachers, while also underestimating their ability to provide appropriate conditions for
them to learn about teaching. Such a proposition serves to shift the teacher education task
(at both preservice and inservice levels) from one of delivering what has to be known by
teachers to one of providing better conditions for learning about teaching.
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As this quotation clearly suggests, this chapter is constructed less with a focus on what knowledge
can be taught to teacher candidates in propositional form and more on how science teacher educa-
tors might create better learning conditions by modeling productive teaching strategies that include
fostering metacognition. Science curriculum content and evidence-based theories defnitely have
their place; we argue here that productive teaching must be learned by experiencing it as well as by
reading about it and discussing it. Doubts about the impact of formal knowledge “distributed” in
teacher education programs are longstanding:
There is a wealth of evidence from the research literature in education and the broader
learning sciences that the absorption model is antiquated and insufcient.
(Linn & Eylon, 2011, p. 6)
With regard to the infuence of the formal knowledge distributed in education courses on
teacher development, there is much evidence that the pedagogical methods and content
knowledge introduced to students in campus courses has little infuence on the subsequent
actions of students even during initial training.
(Zeichner et al., 1987, p. 26)
At various points we present Narrative Boxes to report former students’ comments that provide
relevant perspectives from individuals who were learning to teach science or have recently begun to
teach science. Narrative Box 36.1 continues the theme of how teacher education courses are taught.
Narrative Box 36.1 Teacher Education Courses Lacked Practical Experience

In my B.Ed. year, I had a naïve view of what teaching entailed. Unsure of what else to do, I fell back
onto teaching the way that I was taught when I was a student. This was the case on my practicum, but it
persisted into my frst and even second year of teaching.
B.Ed. classes varied in their usefulness in practice: Some were at too high a level to be useful, while
the subject-specifc courses were helpful, but I didn’t have the practical experience to get as much out of
them as I would have liked. The practicums were just enough to give me a taste of what the job would
be like. Learning to teach is a much slower process than there is time for in a one- or two-year program.
It’s just the reality that much of our learning about how to teach comes from on-the-job experience and
trial and error. How we teach is so individual and connected to our personalities that I don’t see how
it could be otherwise.
(S. Dinicol, personal communication, December 1, 2020)
More than three decades ago, McIntyre (1988) described three insights into how people learn
to teach, and we fnd them particularly relevant to the challenges associated with learning to teach
science:
What I conclude then from our limited knowledge about how people learn to teach is, frst,
that they have their own extensive repertoires and their own agendas; and that we as teacher educa-
tors, if we are realistic, need to accept that we can only help them in their eforts, not defne
the enterprise in which they are engaged. Second, I conclude that even if we did believe that
we had “the answers”, reliable knowledge about how best to teach, student-teachers would
not accept it but would want to test it for themselves in various ways; we can probably exert more
infuence by encouraging this process of testing than by pretending it is not necessary. And
third, we can have some confdence that if we do not put student-teachers into situations
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which overwhelm or seriously threaten them, we have good reason to believe that they will
explore the problems of teaching with a big degree of objectivity about their own performances and
rationality in their investigations.
(McIntyre, 1988, pp. 104–105, emphasis added)
McIntyre’s three insights suggest the following questions for teacher educators seeking to better sup-
port their students in learning to teach science, or as Northfeld (1998) described, create conditions
for quality teaching and learning in teacher education programs:
• How can we help those learning to teach science recognize and identify “their own extensive
repertoires and their own agendas”?
• Are we as teacher educators trying to “defne the enterprise in which they are engaged”?
• How often do we as teacher educators teach in ways that suggest that we have “the answers”?
• How can we support those learning to teach science in developing ways to test reliable knowl-
edge for themselves?
• Does our program structure suggest that testing reliable knowledge is not necessary or beyond
their skills?
• Are we ready to trust those learning to teach science that they can be objective about their own
teaching and rational in their study of their own teaching? How can we best prepare and support
them in that process?
It may be helpful for readers to keep these questions in mind as they continue through the chapter.
As additional background for readers, it is important to introduce the concept of craft knowledge,
which we contrast with the propositional or book knowledge that is commonly and perhaps predomi-
nantly taught in teacher education classes. Here we turn to the extensive review of “craft knowledge
and the education of teachers” by Grimmett and Mackinnon (1992), who provide this defnition of
craft knowledge:
As a form of professional expertise, craft knowledge is neither technical skill, the applica-
tion of theory or general principles to practice, nor critical analysis; rather, it represents
the construction of situated, learner-focused, procedural and content-related pedagogical
knowledge through “deliberate action”.
(p. 393)
In the following passage, they identify the signifcance of craft knowledge for teacher education
programs:
That craft knowledge exists as a powerful determinant of teachers’ practice is neither new
nor controversial. What is new is the possibility that such knowledge could become an inte-
gral part of teacher education; what is controversial is the debate over whether this would
be a productive direction to take. We argue here that, in addition to codifed knowledge
bases framed around university-based research, teacher education could beneft from the
contribution that craft knowledge can make to the formation of skillful, refective, and
empowered teachers.
(p. 388, emphasis in original)
Although the concept of craft knowledge does not appear frequently in the teacher education litera-
ture, our own learning from experience indicates that it is essential to include the concept of craft
knowledge in our understanding of how individuals learn to teach science. Book knowledge and
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research are critical, but alone they do not address what every teacher learns from personal teaching
experience.
Learning From Experience and the Authority of Experience

In our culture, we speak easily of “learning from experience” in everyday life, yet we also hear many
stories in which people seem not to have learned from experience. Just as propositional knowledge
claims are easily forgotten and links are not always made from one context to another, so it is with
learning from experience, which seems to be a marginal feature of many classrooms in the formal
learning contexts of schools and universities. Science teachers are often credited with an advantage
of being able to work with everyday materials, yet laboratory experiences are rarely described by stu-
dents as major contributing activities in their learning of concepts. Because learning from experience
is not a signifcant feature of many classrooms, when those learning to teach science begin a profes-
sional preparation program, the role of learning from experience may never have been considered.
Quite universally, student teachers report that the practicum is the most signifcant element of their
preparation for teaching, yet this does not mean that new science teachers understand how they learn
from experience or that they are profcient in learning from experience. Munby and Russell (1994)
addressed this issue when they introduced the term “authority of experience”.
Listening to one’s own experience is not the same as listening to the experience of oth-
ers, and the [physics method] students seem to indicate that they still place much more
authority with those who have experience and with those who speak with confdence
about how teaching should be done. They seem reluctant to listen to or to trust their own
experiences as an authoritative source of knowledge about teaching. We wonder how and
to what extent they will begin to hear the voice of their own experiences as they begin
their teaching careers.
The basic tension in teacher education derives for us from preservice students wanting
to move from being under authority to being in authority, without appreciating the poten-
tial that the authority of experience can give to their learning to teach. The challenge for
teacher education is to help new teachers recognize and identify the place and function of
the authority of experience. If this is not done, the authority of experience can fall victim
to the danger that accompanies all versions of authority: mere possession is not enough
because authority can be abused.
(Munby & Russell, 1994, pp. 93–94)
Narrative Box 36.2 Learning to Trust Learning from Experience

The time between my frst and second feld placements gave me ample opportunity to refect on my
experiences and determine exactly what I had learned, if anything at all. I believe it was during this time
that I began to develop a more sophisticated understanding of what it is to teach. . . . The result was
ultimately a radical shift in my thinking about teaching and learning by putting the needs of learners front
and centre. . . .
My professional development did not really commence until I understood that no one was going to tell me how
to teach, and for that matter, it was not even possible to do so . . . . One avenue for improving practice is for
teachers to monitor their own experiences and to use them as a source of knowledge about teaching.
Munby and Russell (1994) point out that this “authority of experience” is something beginning teachers
must learn to trust in order to develop as professionals. (Harrison, 2014, pp. 3–5, emphasis added)
1166
Dewey maintained that familiar educational patterns persist as tradition, not on the basis of their
rationale (Dewey, 1938, pp. 28–29). Bringing the authority of experience into programs for learn-
ing to teach science involves all the challenges of learning from experience that are very familiar to
experienced teachers. Beginning teachers need not only to know who Dewey was but also what he
had to teach them, which is as relevant today as it was when he wrote:
There is no discipline in the world so severe as the discipline of experience subjected to

the tests of intelligent development and direction. . . . The road of the new education is
not an easier one to follow than the old road but a more strenuous and difcult one. . . .
The greatest danger that attends its future is, I believe, the idea that it is an easy way to
follow.
(Dewey, 1938, p. 90)
We fnd it interesting that learning from experience and the associated epistemological issues tend
not to be raised in the conceptual change literature. Here we call attention to the issue of learning
from experience because it represents an important, even essential, perspective for helping individuals
learn to teach science.
A strong case for recognizing the authority of experience in the science classroom appears in the
fndings and recommendations reported in a book intended for those who teach frst-year under-
graduate courses in physics. Knight (2004) summarizes 25 years of physics education research on
students’ concepts and problem-solving strategies with three conclusions that have direct implications
not only for teaching science but also for learning to teach science:
• Students enter our classroom not as ‘blank slates,’ tabula rasa, but flled with many prior
concepts.
• Students’ prior concepts are remarkably resistant to change.
• Students’ knowledge is not organized in any coherent framework.
(Knight, 2004, p. 25)
These statements remind us that, in contrast to what is learned from textbooks, that which is learned
from experience can be very powerful without being coherently organized. Knight closes his analysis
with the report that “the results of physics education research can be sliced and rearranged in many
patterns, but I see Five Lessons for teachers”.
1. Keep students actively engaged and provide rapid feedback (p. 42).
2. Focus on phenomena rather than abstractions (p. 42).
3. Deal explicitly with students’ alternative conceptions (p. 43).
4. Teach and use explicit problem-solving skills and strategies (p. 44).
5. Write homework and exam problems that go beyond symbol manipulation to engage students
in the qualitative and conceptual analysis of physical phenomena (p. 44).
The frst four lessons can be translated directly from teaching science to learning to teach science.
The ffth lesson could easily be reshaped to “engage students in the qualitative and conceptual analy-
sis of educational phenomena”. In traditional preservice teacher education programs, one might view
these as research fndings to include in a “knowledge base” to be transmitted to preservice science
teachers. Our analysis of the research literature confrms that it is entirely counter-productive to simply
transmit such lessons to teachers as content. Rather, preservice science teacher education programs
must explore the implications of these lessons through all the learning experiences created in teacher
education classrooms.
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Refection by Those Learning to Teach

Bryan and Abell (1999) provided a case study of a student teacher named “Barbara”. Early in their
argument, the authors declare their perspectives on the role of experience in learning to teach:
The heart of knowing how to teach cannot be learned from coursework alone. The con-
struction of professional knowledge requires experience. . . . Experience infuences the
frames that teachers employ in identifying problems of practice, in approaching those prob-
lems and implementing solutions, and in making sense of the outcomes of their actions.
(pp. 121–122)
The case of Barbara begins with an account of what Barbara believed about science teaching and learn-
ing and moves on to describe her vision for teaching elementary science as well as the tensions within
her thinking about her professional responsibilities. Of particular interest is Barbara’s initial premise that a
teacher should continue to teach a scientifc concept until all children show that they understand it. Once
the process of refection became apparent, “Barbara began to shift her perspective and reframe the tension
between her vision and practice. Her professional experience provided feedback that forced her to con-
front the idea that in teaching science, teachers need to consider more than students getting it” (p. 131).
This case study of Barbara is one that could help new science teachers anticipate the challenges and
prospects of student teaching, although the real help would probably be realized during rather than before
the student teacher assignment. The implications for further study of learning from experience are clear:
Barbara’s case implicitly underscores the fallacy of certain assumptions underlying traditional
teacher education programs: (a) that propositional knowledge from course readings and
lectures can be translated directly into practice, and (b) that prospective teachers develop
professional knowledge before experience rather than in conjunction with experience. . . .
Teacher educators are challenged to coach prospective teachers to purposefully and system-
atically inquire into their own practices, encouraging them to make such inquiry a habit.
(p. 136)
Just as a conceptual change approach to teaching science begins with students’ experiences, so Bryan
and Abell conclude that “the genesis of the process of developing professional knowledge should be
seen as inherent in experience” (p. 136). “A preeminent goal of science teacher education should be
to help prospective teachers challenge and refne their ideas about teaching and learning science and
learn how to learn from experience” (p. 137).
Narrative Box 36.3 Learning to Teach Requires Experience

“How can we replicate the success that self-directed learning has in other subjects in subjects like math and
physics?” Upon my return to classes, this question led me to complete an assignment on self-directed learning,
specifcally in physics. In my fnal weeks of classes in this program, I’ve surprisingly more enjoyed completing
assignments than going to class. With all the experiences I’ve had through this year, I feel that it has gotten
harder to learn about teaching through listening to a professor. Listening in class can bring up interesting topics
to think about, but I am not sure I am learning anything until I experience it, either through the completion
of an assignment or through physically trying things. (A. Chan, personal communication, April 24, 2018)
Zembal-Saul et al. (2002) build on the conclusion by Bryan and Abell (1999, p. 121) that “expe-
rience plays a signifcant role in developing professional knowledge”. To this they add their own
1168
conclusion that “what we do know . . . is that experience alone is not enough. It needs to be coupled
with thoughtful refection on action” (p. 460). Their overall conclusions make important points that
remind science teacher educators yet again of the importance of the cooperating teacher in support-
ing the student teacher’s professional learning.
There is evidence that cooperating teachers who facilitate students’ meaningful learning in
general and support student teachers in their eforts to continue to emphasize science con-
tent representation can positively infuence the territory student teachers attempt to master.
Conversely, cooperating teachers who fail to support student teachers in continuing the
process of planning, teaching, and refection on substantive issues of content representation
are likely to reroute the entire process of learning to teach.
(p. 460)
They also remind us that our collective understanding of how experience contributes to learning to
teach still requires attention and development:
There is an urgent need to understand better the role of experience in learning to teach, in
particular the aspects of teaching experiences that support or hinder new teachers’ continuing
development in the often-fragile domain of science content knowledge and its representations.
(p. 461)
We turn next to the extensive and ever-growing literature of research on conceptual change.
The Complex Challenge of Conceptual Change

Conceptual change is central both to learning science and to teaching science. Learning science
requires conceptual change if the concepts acquired from everyday experience are to be modifed and
developed. Learning to teach science requires conceptual change to develop the concepts acquired
by years of watching teachers.
Duschl and Hamilton (1998) describe science learning as a process of conceptual change that is
concerned with issues about the development of scientifc knowledge. This entails understanding
how learners decide among competing or alternative views, models, or theories of the natural world.
Because students build conceptions from their everyday experiences and carry these with them into
the classroom, they often confict with science conceptions presented in school.
Learning science is especially difcult in felds in which students’ preinstructional concep-

tions are deeply rooted in daily life experiences. Conceptions that are based on empirical
evidence through sense experiences (like the process of seeing, thermal phenomena, and
conceptions of forces and motions) fall into this category as do everyday ways of speaking
about natural and technical phenomena.
(Duit & Treagust, 1998, p. 15)
As Duschl and Hamilton (1998) point out, conceptual change involves the restructuring of both
declarative and procedural knowledge. They contend that too often science education research is
focused on the nature and organization of relevant declarative knowledge and the necessary changes
that take place, or need to take place, in that knowledge or its organization. More attention and
study need to be directed toward the changes in, or attempts to change, the strategic use of restruc-
tured knowledge. Prospective teachers need to reframe their understanding of science learning to
recognize the inherent challenges attached when prevailing concepts are subjected to scrutiny and
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validation. Unless and until new science teachers understand why conceptual change is so complex,
they are unlikely to be able to efect changes and grasp why those changes are so challenging.
Teaching Conceptual Change

The extensive work of Novak (1987, 1989, 1993) provides a useful framework both for understand-
ing why conceptual change is so critical if students are to learn how to learn in science and for under-
standing why instruction often fails. Novak builds on Ausubel’s (1968) hypothesis that the single
most important factor infuencing learning is prior knowledge and Kelly’s (1995) personal construct
theory that emphasizes the view that knowledge is constructed and is highly personal, idiosyncratic,
and socially negotiated. Novak and Gowin (1984) have advanced a set of three knowledge claims
about students’ preconceptions that are carried into their science classes, with subsequent efects on
their learning (Wandersee et al., 1994).
• The frst claim suggests that learners are not “empty vessels” but bring with them a fnite but
diverse set of ideas about natural objects and events. These notions are often inconsistent with
scientists’ and science teachers’ explanations.
• The second claim proposes that students’ alternative conceptions cut across age, ability, gender,
and cultural boundaries, and these ideas are tenacious and resistant to extinction by conventional
teaching strategies.
• The third claim is broad-based and engages the sociocultural context, viewing alternative con-
ceptions as the product of a diverse set of personal experiences that include direct observation of
natural objects and events, peer culture, everyday language, the mass media, as well as teachers’
explanations and instructional materials.
Furthermore, the authors also report that teachers often subscribe to the same alternative concep-
tions as their students (Mintzes et al., 1997).
Additionally, Novak and his group have made three claims regarding successful science learners:
1. The process of constructing meanings relies on the development of elaborate, strongly hierarchi-
cal, well-diferentiated, and highly integrated frameworks of related concepts.
2. Conceptual change requires that knowledge is restructured by making and breaking intercon-
nections between concepts and replacing or substituting one concept with another.
3. Successful science learners regularly use strategies that enable them to plan, monitor, control,
and regulate their own learning.
(Mintzes et al., 1997)
Here again, the complex challenges of conceptual change are quite evident.
Duit and Treagust (1998) describe Posner et al.’s (1982) theory of conceptual change as the most
infuential theory on conceptual change in science education, with wide-ranging applications in
other felds as well. Posner et al. (1982) propose that conceptual change will not occur unless learners
experience some level of dissatisfaction with their current beliefs or understandings. As long as an
existing conception has a successful explanatory track record, learners will hold fast to their initial
conception and be satisfed with it. Further complicating matters is the impact of prior knowledge.
Insufcient prior knowledge means that a new concept may be incompletely understood. Thus,
prior knowledge is a necessary but not sufcient condition for conceptual change.
If a new idea is to be accepted, three conditions must be met: intelligibility (understandable), plau-
sibility (reasonable), and fruitfulness (useful). Intelligibility matters because learners need to understand
an idea’s meaning and its potential or actual utility, as well as why scientists are concerned with its
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coherence and internal consistency. Plausibility requires that learners make sense of an idea and rec-
oncile it with their own beliefs. “Making sense” in scientifc terms poses complex challenges to one’s
commonsense views (Hodson, 1998). Fruitfulness requires that learners gain something of value as a
result of their eforts; this may include assistance in problem solving, predicting, or arriving at new
insights, as well as direction toward new areas for further study and inquiry.
Kagan (1992) summarizes the recommendations by Posner et al. (1982) for steps teachers can take
to promote students’ conceptual change. Teachers must help students to make their implicit beliefs
explicit, confront students with the inadequacies and inconsistencies of their beliefs, and provide
extended opportunities for integrating and diferentiating old and new knowledge.
Discussions of conceptual change should also include consideration of Piagetian ideas, specifcally
assimilation, accommodation, disequilibrium, and equilibration (Duit & Treagust, 1998). When new events
do not ft with existing schemes, then a state of disequilibrium or “mental discomfort” exists, and this
can stimulate eforts to make sense of observations and puzzling events (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2002).
Through accommodation – replacing, reorganizing, or more efectively integrating their perspectives –
learners can resolve discordances and achieve a new state of equilibrium. Equilibration necessitates active
involvement of learners and is premised on learners’ developing increasingly complex understandings.
These understandings do not occur in isolation but require interaction with one’s environment.
In light of its impact on conceptual change and the development of constructivist ideas as well as
its contrast to Piagetian theory, Vygotsky’s work must also be acknowledged. Central to Vygotsky-
ian theory is the infuence of sociocultural factors on cognitive development. Where Piaget saw the
social environment as another source of information or experience that generated confict and adap-
tation for the child, Vygotsky saw the sociocultural environment as not just the trigger but the source
of the child’s higher cognitive processes (Duschl & Hamilton, 1998). Thus, knowledge acquisition,
use, and change are contingent upon children’s social activities and interactions (e.g., conversations,
disagreements, etc.), as well as on the merging of thought and language during their early years, and
the acculturation provided by parents, other adults, and formal schooling (McDevitt & Ormrod,
2002). The dialogical relationship of teacher and student that should be fostered while negotiating
the zone of proximal development is embedded in Vygotskian theory. The familiar metaphor of scaf-
folding to capture the teacher–child interaction tends to obscure the fact that the more competent,
as well as the less competent, individual can proft from the interaction (Tudge & Scrimsher, 2003).
Duschl and Hamilton (1998) credit Vygotsky’s work for stimulating research on the social context
of cognition and learning. This includes work in the areas of reciprocal teaching, collaborative learn-
ing, guided participation, and authentic approaches to teaching, learning, and assessment. In addition,
constructs such as situated cognition, cognitive apprenticeships, and the social construction of meaning
can be linked to Vygotskyian theory. Each involves the contextual nature of learning and the interrela-
tion of individual, interpersonal, and cultural-historical factors in development (Tudge & Scrimsher,
2003). Overall, we must recognize the confuence of factors infuencing conceptual change and the
importance of considering the range of experiences students bring into the classroom, the dynamics
and discourse of the classroom context, and the cultural-historical imprint on schooling itself.
Teaching for Conceptual Change

A few cautionary notes are in order: misconceptions are persistent and highly resistant to change
(Duit & Treagust, 1998; Guzetti et al., 1993; Mintzes et al., 1997). During the late 1970s and into the
1980s, the predominant assumption was that students’ misconceptions had to be extinguished before
they could be replaced by the correct scientifc view; however, there appears to be no study that
confrms that a particular student’s conception could be totally extinguished and then replaced (Duit &
Treagust, 1998). Rather, most studies reveal that the preexisting idea stays “alive” in particular con-
texts (Duit & Treagust, 1998), what diSessa (1993) describes as refnement, rather than replacement,
1171
of concepts. Similarly, Chinn and Brewer (1998) address the question of the fate of the old knowl-
edge and the new information after knowledge change takes place. They suggest that there are
signifcant instructional implications. If a teacher believes that the old knowledge is simply replaced
by the new, then there is no cause for concern about the old interfering with subsequent learning.
However, if the old knowledge coexists with and infuences understanding of new knowledge, then
instruction must be designed to gradually reduce the potency of the old knowledge.
The essence of teaching for conceptual change is restructuring of knowledge (Mintzes et al.,
1997). Of course, this is far easier said than done when the range and variability of students’ responses
to cognitive restructuring are reviewed. Hodson (1998) provides a helpful overview of students’
resistant responses. If an idea(s) has been useful in the past, then there will be little, if any, need to
replace it. Therefore, rather than replacement, students may hold on to their views by denying the
efcacy or accuracy of the new data, or they may rework the data so that it meshes with their exist-
ing beliefs. A variation of this is to distort the new idea until it is compatible with the old. Some
students look for evidence to confrm their ideas rather than disconfrm. In this case, their original
notion prevails, rather like selective perception where one sees only what one chooses to see. Hodson
(1998) also points to variations in personality traits that may make some students more receptive to
new ideas. Others, however, may adopt a more cavalier attitude and disengage from eforts to resolve
discordances, essentially the “I don’t care and can’t be bothered” stance. And some students may be
reluctant to pursue alternatives because what they know (or think that they know) is consistent with
their own cognitive schema. Therefore, if they hold on to what they know, they do not have the
anxiety and stress that can accompany what is unknown, uncertain, or unfamiliar. We are quick to
point out that these “resistant responses” can also be employed by future science teachers who are
being taught how to teach science; the challenges to teacher educators continue.
The work of the Children’s Learning in Science (CLIS) group at the University of Leeds (e.g.,
Driver, 1989; Scott et al., 1992; Scott & Driver, 1998) is seminal when considering constructivist
approaches to conceptual change. They suggest that there are certain commonalities that extend
across scientifc disciplines and that support reconceptualization. These can be characterized as
instructional activities/sequences that involve a teaching approach designed to address a particular
learning demand (Scott et al., 1992; Scott & Driver, 1998). These are sequenced as follows: (1)
orientation or “messing about”, which uses students’ prior knowledge and existing conceptions as a
starting point that can then be extended when working toward developing a scientifc point of view;
(2) an externalizing or elicitation phase where conceptions that are global and ill-defned are difer-
entiated (e.g., heat and temperature, weight and mass); (3) modifcation or restructuring where expe-
riential bridges are built to a new conception; and (4) the construction of new conceptions through
practice or application. At this point, students’ preconceptions may be incommensurate with scien-
tifc conceptions. If so, Scott and Driver’s (1998) recommendation is for the teacher to acknowledge
and discuss the students’ ideas and then indicate that scientists hold an alternate view and present that
model. The students can subsequently revisit the scientifc model in relation to their own prior ideas.
Creating conditions for cognitive confict where teachers challenge students to look for limita-
tions in their views or deliberately provide examples of discrepant or surprising events, often through
hands-on demonstrations or activities, can spur reconceptualization (Hodson, 1998). We question
the extent to which preservice teacher education anchors science courses within a conceptual change
framework, explores conceptual change theory, probes the concepts that teacher candidates hold
about science and learning science, provokes cognitive confict, and exposes candidates to instruc-
tional approaches and strategies to support conceptual change. Richardson (1996) has suggested that
preservice teachers’ beliefs may be so strong that they cannot be changed within teacher education
programs. Unless prospective teachers are directly challenged to confront their own alternative con-
ceptions and to work through the process of conceptual change, it is highly unlikely that they will be
able to support their own students in doing so.
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Teaching for Conceptual Change in Preservice Science Teacher Education

In this section of the argument, we turn specifcally to conceptual change in the context of learning
to teach science. An article by Elby (2001) signals the potential signifcance of epistemological issues
when teaching for conceptual change in physics, and we extend Elby’s insights to the signifcance
of epistemological issues associated with concepts of teaching and learning. The following excerpts
suggest a way forward, and the crucial feature is the view that attention to epistemological develop-
ment must be explicit.
Many of the best research-based reformed physics curricula, ones that help students obtain a
measurably deeper conceptual understanding, generally fail to spur signifcant epistemologi-
cal development. Apparently, students can participate in activities that help them learn more
efectively without refecting upon and changing their beliefs about how to learn efectively.
These students may revert to their old learning strategies in subsequent courses.
(Elby, 2001, p. S54, emphasis in original)
In concluding his paper, Elby summarizes his reasoning as follows:
First, the fact that so many excellent physics courses fail to foster signifcant epistemologi-
cal change . . . suggests that isolated pieces of epistemologically focused curriculum aren’t
enough. Instead, the epistemological focus must sufuse every aspect of the course.
Second, the classroom atmosphere created by the instructor, and the way he/she interacts
with individual students, undoubtedly plays a large role in fostering refection about learning.
(Elby, 2001, p. S63)
Students’ epistemological beliefs – their views about the nature of knowledge and learning –
afect their mindset, metacognitive practices, and study habits in a physics course. Even the
best reform curricula, however, have not been very successful at helping students develop
more sophisticated epistemological beliefs.
(Elby, 2001, p. S64)
This conclusion must be connected immediately and explicitly to the context of learning to teach sci-
ence, for it indicates that deliberate attention must be given to the epistemological beliefs of both students
in schools and prospective science teachers. Redish (2021) makes this point explicitly in the context of
teaching physics, and it seems natural to extend it to the context of teaching how to teach science:
It helps to think about students’ expectations about the nature of the knowledge they are
learning. These are internal stimuli that guide and constrain how students respond to learn-
ing in our classes. These expectations may include ideas like, “I know this class is about
memorizing equations. I just have to fnd which equation has the right symbol in it” or “I
know I have bad intuition about physics so I have to trust my math even if the result looks
crazy.” I refer to this kind of expectation as epistemology – knowledge about knowledge.
Students’ epistemological expectations can have profound efects on what they hear and
how they think about what they’re learning.
(p. 316)
Thus, we submit that this perspective of epistemological expectations is relevant not only to the
learning of science concepts but particularly to the learning of educational concepts in terms of
beliefs that future science teachers bring to a preservice program.
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To provide credibility to this extension, we turn to an argument by McGoey and Ross (1999),
both secondary science teachers, in which they provide a vivid account of student resistance to con-
ceptual change and the complex teaching skills needed to negotiate it.
We suspect that almost every teacher who has used a [conceptual change] model in the classroom
has borne the brunt of student anger, frustration, and criticism. Students do not like having
their ideas elicited in a nonjudgmental manner, only to have those ideas revealed as inadequate
(whether it be mere seconds or days later). Some students eventually just stop giving their ideas.
“Don’t express your thoughts, wait until someone else does, wait for the right answer to be
transmitted and memorize it.” Dealing with this without disafecting students emotionally and
intellectually requires delicate, precise, and theoretically sound skills of the teacher.
(p. 118)
The challenges continue when students respond in ways that indicate that they do hold signifcant
epistemological beliefs:
The really messy stuf appears when the teacher gets a range of diferent (though adequate)
models from the students. Now the fat is really in the fre. If the teacher refuses to give a
single answer, positivist-minded students demand the right answer. Give a single answer and
you may promote positivism. Give them a few rules (beware logical empiricism!) and the
students interpret it as carte blanche for relativism or conventionalism. Another response
of students is to challenge the teacher’s practice outright. These attacks assert that since
everybody knows that science is simply a universal body of facts and methods, just give us
the recipe and tell us the answer so we can study for the test.
(McGoey & Ross, 1999, pp. 118–119)
These two teachers then extend their discussion to teacher education and to the stress that future
teachers experience when cognitive confict arises from relying extensively on content knowledge.
Again, we see that epistemological assumptions about teaching and learning are implicit.
Teacher interns are often deeply troubled to have their content knowledge questioned.
They are already nervous enough about whether they can get in front of 30 adolescents for
80 minutes. . . . Content knowledge is often their major life-saving device. When student
teachers engage in action research activities that undermine overreliance upon content
knowledge, they experience considerable distress. The experience is extremely unsettling.
(McGoey & Ross, 1999, p. 119)
To confront these challenging circumstances, science teacher educators must move well beyond
transmission-style teaching practices. When we shared these quotations with a former student, the
phrase “considerable distress” attracted the following comment:
It brings back so many thoughts and feelings about teaching and learning [from my frst
two years of teaching]. The section about the “considerable distress” experienced by stu-
dent teachers when they confront the research which “undermines overreliance upon
content knowledge” was particularly evocative. . . . There was maybe some additional
context missing from that quote – I remember that it wasn’t just the cognitive dissonance
that was distressing, but also all of the external pressures that push teachers towards less efective
teaching techniques.
(L. Brown, personal communication, June 19, 2021)
1174
Here we are reminded that both science teachers and science teacher educators continue to face mul-
tiple pressures that impede or limit any eforts to encourage metacognition and other transformative
teaching procedures in science and science teacher education classrooms.
Windschitl (2002) has provided a powerful and practical list of constructivist teaching strategies
that ofer excellent ways to begin to improve the quality of learning in their classrooms. When used
by science teacher educators in teacher education programs, the efects of these strategies can be
experienced personally and directly by those learning to teach science. When the efects are then
identifed explicitly and explored metacognitively, future science teachers could gain access to both theo-
retical and practical bases for using them in classrooms of their own.
• Teachers elicit students’ ideas and experiences in relation to key topics, then fashion learning
situations that help students elaborate on or restructure their current knowledge.
• Students are given frequent opportunities to engage in complex, meaningful, problem-based
activities.
• Teachers provide students with a variety of information resources as well as the tools (techno-
logical and conceptual) necessary to mediate learning.
• Students work collaboratively and are given support to engage in task-oriented dialogue with
one another.
• Teachers make their own thinking processes explicit to learners and encourage students to do
the same through dialogue, writing, drawings, or other representations.
• Students are routinely asked to apply knowledge in diverse and authentic contexts, to explain
ideas, interpret texts, predict phenomena, and construct arguments based on evidence, rather
than to focus exclusively on the acquisition of predetermined “right answers”.
• Teachers encourage students’ refective and autonomous thinking in conjunction with the con-
ditions listed previously.
• Teachers employ a variety of assessment strategies to understand how students’ ideas are evolving
and to give feedback on the processes as well as the products of their thinking.
(p. 137)
Here we suggest that readers compare Windschitl’s list to the list (in Narrative Box 36.4) of lessons
learned from experience by one beginning science teacher.
Narrative Box 36.4 Lessons Learned in the First Two Years of Teaching
1. You will never be able to solve all of your students’ problems; however, you can give them 75
minutes every day where they feel comfortable and safe.
2. Students learn to problem solve by understanding the problem and making connections to previ-
ous knowledge/experiences/skills.
3. It is possible to talk to every student in the class every day.
4. The content of your class is not the most important thing in the student’s life, nor should you
pretend that it is.
5. Students are afraid to take risks and make mistakes. They should be given this opportunity regu-
larly in a safe environment, so they get comfortable taking risks, making mistakes, and learning
from them.
6. If you fnd an activity boring, the students will as well. If you are excited to try something, the
students will be as well. Easy tends to be boring.
7. School community is as important as classroom community.
8. Be your students’ number one fan. They may not get the praise or acknowledgment from anyone
else. (D. Kernaghan, personal communication, May 26, 2020)
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This extended discussion of conceptual change in the context of learning to teach science has
provided an overview of major arguments with respect to conceptual change in science teaching as
well as an indication of practical challenges and ways to address them. We believe that Elby’s (2001)
attention to epistemological beliefs is essential for progress beyond frequent but largely inefective
calls for changes to how science is taught in schools and in teacher education programs. We turn next
to consideration of research that proposes a knowledge integration framework to guide the learning
of science and learning to teach science.
Conceptual Change in a Knowledge Integration Framework

Linn and colleagues (Linn, 2006; Linn & Eylon, 2006; Linn, 2008; Linn et al., 2008; Linn & Eylon,
2011) have synthesized a great deal of research on conceptual change by building a knowledge inte-
gration framework that yields important recommendations both for the teaching of science and for
learning to teach science. Linn (2008) introduces knowledge integration in the following way:
An emerging group of researchers advocates a “knowledge in pieces” or “knowledge inte-

gration” view. This group suggests that students build individual ideas in various ways and
that these ideas may exist alongside each other in a repertoire. . . . This group generally
respects the intellectual work that produced the ideas and argues that the goal of instruction
is to introduce more powerful ideas, as well as to encourage students to inspect, distinguish,
and evaluate the ideas in a way that leads to some form of reconciliation or coherence.
(p. 695)
The knowledge integration framework calls for capitalizing on students’ ability to make
sense of scientifc phenomena by empowering them to distinguish among ideas, consider
new ideas, and promote the most promising ones.
(p. 702)
Linn and Eylon (2006) describe ten “design patterns”, each of which is based on “four inter-
related processes of knowledge integration. . . . Instruction typically interleaves the four processes,
moving among them rather than following a linear sequence” (p. 523). The four processes are “elicit
or generate ideas from repertoire of ideas, add new ideas to help distinguish or link ideas, evaluate
ideas and identify criteria, [and] sort out ideas by promoting, demoting, merging, and reorganiz-
ing” (p. 526). They then proceed to list ten design patterns “that best represent current research
on instruction” (p. 525). The ten patterns for instruction are “orient, diagnose, and guide; predict,
observe, explain; illustrate ideas; experiment; explore a simulation; create an artifact; construct an
argument; critique; collaborate; refect” (pp. 525–534).
Research points to four main processes that work together to promote knowledge integra-
tion: eliciting ideas, adding ideas, developing criteria, and sorting out ideas. Instruction
often neglects the processes of developing criteria and sorting out ideas. . . . The activity
sequences making up the design patterns represent essential elements in successful instruc-
tion. Design patterns transcend disciplinary knowledge, but raise questions about which
design patterns are successful for which disciplinary topics.
(p. 536)
When the four processes and ten design patterns are set out in a table (p. 526) that makes explicit
how each of the four knowledge integration processes contributes to each of the ten design patterns,
teachers are provided with a robust guide to the knowledge integration approach.
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Linn and Eylon (2011) also list four principles that promote knowledge integration: “make science
accessible, make thinking visible, help students learn from others, [and] promote autonomy” (p. 109)
The knowledge integration perspective connects conceptual change and efective instruc-
tion. . . . Variability in student ideas is [seen as] fundamentally a valuable feature and . . .
instruction designed to capitalize on the variability and the creativity of student ideas has
potential for facilitating conceptual change. The knowledge integration framework does
not advocate unguided discovery or radical constructivism, but rather argues that under-
standing that students generate new ideas to make sense of science leads to important and
essential design decisions.
(Linn, 2008, p. 715)
In our interpretation of the work of Linn and her colleagues, principles and patterns for learning to
teach science can also serve as principles for learning to teach people how to teach. The knowledge integra-
tion framework can guide science teacher education just as powerfully as it can guide the teaching of
science. Given Northfeld’s (1998, p. 698) focus on “appropriate conditions for [new teachers] to learn
about teaching”, we see the four processes and ten patterns of the knowledge integration framework as
a sound basis for providing appropriate conditions for learning about teaching and learning.
Recurring Themes in Research on Learning to Teach Science

Anderson and Mitchener’s (1996) extensive review of research on science teacher education provides
a strong foundation for the issues of learning to teach science that are explored and developed in this
chapter. They describe a “traditional model” of preservice science teacher education that has three
elements – educational foundations, methods courses, and feld experiences and student teaching.
Anderson and Mitchener conclude their review with these powerful statements:
Looking back, this three-pronged traditional model of preservice teacher education has sur-
vived relatively intact since its birth in the normal school. . . . The challenge facing science
teacher educators today is this: how will you address in a coherent, comprehensive manner
such emerging issues as new views of content knowledge, constructivist approaches to teaching and
learning, and a refective disposition to educating teachers. In addition, thoughtful science teacher
educators need to attend to the theoretical orientation of their programs and how important
professional issues are addressed within these orientations.
(Anderson & Mitchener, 1996, p. 19, emphasis added)
These reviewers went on to identify six dominant themes in research on the preservice curriculum
in the 20th century: an “established preservice model”, “inadequate subject matter preparation”,
“haphazard education preparation”, the “importance of inquiry”, “reliance on the laboratory”, and
“valued educational technologies” (pp. 21–22). We fnd little to indicate that these dominant themes
have changed since publication. Anderson and Mitchener describe criticisms directed at the tradi-
tional model and then ofer important conclusions:
One would expect a review of preservice science teacher education programs to portray a
rich landscape, complete with diverse views, cohesive images, and defned detail. Research
on these programs, however, is neither accessible nor diverse.
Indeed, there is a dearth of literature describing preservice science teacher education
programs. . . . Actual portrayals of comprehensive programs – including conceptual and
structural components – are rare.
1177
Diferences that do exist among programs are most often found at the course level.
Innovative eforts in reforming science teacher preparation usually are directed at changing
one or two isolated components within a program, as opposed to the program as a whole.
(p. 23)
Our review of literature available since Anderson and Mitchener’s review leads us to the conclusion
that the six dominant themes they identifed continue to appear in research related to learning to
teach science, despite many subsequent arguments for change and reform in science education and
in preservice teacher education. We turn now to a little-known but powerful example of research
that has changed how science is taught in a range of Australian classrooms. Here we do fnd a “rich
landscape”, “cohesive images”, and “defned detail” of the work of teachers striving to improve the
quality of student learning.
The Project for Enhancing Effective Learning

The Project for Enhancing Efective Learning (PEEL) is a unique example of a teacher-directed,
teacher-sustained collaborative action research. PEEL is a comprehensive school-based program for
improving the quality of teaching in schools. With supportive links to nearby universities, PEEL
began in 1985 in one school in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The key issues were
deceptively simple:
The major aim of PEEL is to improve the quality of school learning and teaching. Training
for this improvement is centred on having students become more willing and able to accept
responsibility and control for their own learning. Training has three aspects: increasing
students’ knowledge of what learning is and how it works; enhancing students’ awareness
of learning progress and outcome; improving students’ control of learning through more
purposeful decision making.
(Baird & Mitchell, 1986, p. iii)
Overtly, PEEL aims to improve the quality of both learning and teaching. Thus, it is a comprehensive
program of in-service professional development for teachers as well as a project for enhancing efec-
tive student learning.
Rather than criticize students for their poor learning tendencies, teachers can reward students for
good learning behaviors, and thus help students develop from being passive to being metacognitive in
their stance toward their own learning. One example involves the contrast between the poor learn-
ing tendency, “Staying stuck”, in which a student sees no alternative but to ask for and wait for help
from the teacher, and the good learning behavior, “Refers to earlier work before asking for help”.
How many students use “waiting for the teacher’s help” as an excuse to do nothing but wait? The
shift in perspective for both teacher and student is positive when students are taught that there are
constructive alternatives to “staying stuck”.
In this interpretation of PEEL, a central element involves reframing the activities of teachers and the
activities of students within the classroom context. Most teachers are aware of numerous reform eforts
that seek to change how teachers and students interact. The power of PEEL resides in its recognition
of the fact that much learning in schools is passive. PEEL challenged teachers to develop teaching
procedures that promoted metacognition. The result of several decades of such development is an
extensive and thoughtfully organized array of specifc and practical procedures for the various small
steps that are inevitably involved in working to a larger goal. The following list of Principles of Teach-
ing for Quality Learning developed within PEEL illustrates many of the larger goals to which science
teachers (and all teachers) should aspire. We see these principles as summaries of the craft knowledge
1178
developed by teachers who participated in the project. Interestingly, these principles address many
of the concerns about learning explored by Willingham (2009 from a cognitive science perspective).
1. Share intellectual control with students.

2. Look for occasions when students can work out part (or all) of the content or instructions.
3. Provide opportunities for choice and independent decision-making.
4. Provide a diverse range of ways of experiencing success.
5. Promote talk that is exploratory, tentative, and hypothetical.
6. Encourage students to learn from other students’ questions and comments.
7. Build a classroom environment that supports risk-taking.
8. Use a wide variety of intellectually challenging teaching procedures.
9. Use teaching procedures that are designed to promote specifc aspects of quality learning.
10. Develop students’ awareness of the big picture: how the various activities ft together and link to
the big ideas.
11. Regularly raise students’ awareness of the nature of diferent aspects of quality learning.
12. Promote assessment as part of the learning process.
(Mitchell et al., 2004)
As attractive as these principles might appear to the professional eye of the experienced teacher, they are
broad principles that emerged within PEEL after years of work developing and sharing collections of spe-
cifc teaching procedures. To present such a list to a beginning science teacher with no teaching experi-
ence would accomplish little in terms of changing beliefs and actions. Using such a list to help beginning
teachers interpret their early teaching experiences could contribute to promoting conceptual change.
When teacher educators model PEEL principles in their classrooms, then future science teachers can
experience their efects directly. We maintain that, as powerful as modeling new practices can be, it also
requires the metacognitive step of engaging in explicit discussion to complete the contribution to con-
ceptual change. Narrative Box 36.5 illustrates the impact of modeling in a science education classroom,
as revealed in blogging with a frst-year science teacher. Notice the metacognitive stance in the dialogue.
Narrative Box 36.5 The Impact of Explicit Modeling and Encouraging a

Metacognitive Stance
[After completing his teacher education program, Liam Brown taught at a school in Mexico for two
years. He wrote in a blog almost daily and Tom responded regularly. His analysis of that experience reveals
the value of a teacher educator listening actively to a frst-year teacher.]
Our blog posts reveal some distinctive patterns. I used the blog to articulate my thoughts, clarify my think-
ing and track my progress. Tom’s open ear and experienced-based advice provided much-needed emotional
support; in looking over our posts, it is clear that he was efective in helping me keep my own professional
goals in mind as I battled through the day-to-day challenges of teaching. Although classroom management
was a constant struggle for me, and although [students] consistently performed below my expectations, I
learned important lessons about forging positive and respectful relationships. . . . My struggle to teach students
who presented so many obstacles to their own learning reinforced my pedagogical ideas and challenged me
to fnd many new strategies to encourage active learning in a physics classroom.
The most important realization I arrived at during my time in Mexico involves a deep understand-
ing about what I wanted people to take from my class. [We] often discussed the idea of focusing on what
students will remember 5 years later. In [Tom’s] words, it is not what you teach but how you teach that is most
likely to be remembered. In his education class, that meant modeling the kind of teaching and learning he
hoped we would try to achieve in our classrooms. In my physics class, that meant modelling the kind of
respectful relationships, intellectual curiosity and active learning that I hoped my students would continue
to pursue throughout their lives. (Brown & Russell, 2012, p. 27, emphasis added)
1179
We recommend White and Mitchell’s (1994) article as a practical account of the links between
PEEL, metacognition, and improving the quality of learning. We turn next to the topics of knowl-
edge acquisition and construction in learning to teach. White and Gunstone (2008) have contributed
to the conceptual change literature from the perspective of the teaching of science. Their analysis of
the development of research on alternative conceptions and conceptual change indicates that some
research “implies that it is inevitable that, for many phenomena, people will acquire a primitive
model, which is not totally discarded on later learning of the scientifc explanation” (p. 627). We
maintain that much the same is true of beginning teachers, who enter an initial teacher education
program with a primitive model of how teaching and learning occur and relate to each other. “One
approach to alternative conceptions and conceptual change would be to get learners to be refective,
open to new beliefs, and able to recognize contradictions between beliefs and resolve them” (p. 627).
Schön (1983) gave considerable impetus to the “teacher as refective practitioner” perspective
with his distinction between problem solving and problem setting (pp. 39–42). His point is that we
often focus solely on problem solving without taking time to analyze a situation in terms of problem
setting – how we are conceptualizing the problem we wish to solve. Reframing problems to develop
and enact new approaches became an attractive image for teachers thinking about their work. The
argument has intrinsic appeal in the context of teacher education and learning to teach, and it readily
extends to the conceptual change approaches so often advocated in the science education commu-
nity. We suggest that it is the context in which an individual confronts a problem that will determine
whether a primitive model or a more complex and robust model will be used to guide problem set-
ting and problem solving.
Linn (2008, pp. 694–695) has also drawn a contrast between “extinguishing” and “distinguishing”
students’ beliefs, pointing out that some researchers suggest that students can replace one set of beliefs
with another, thereby “extinguishing” the primitive beliefs, while other researchers (herself included)
prefer to assume that the introduction of new ideas can enable students to analyze conficting ideas,
“distinguishing” them from one another with a view to achieving coherence. The knowledge inte-
gration framework clearly focuses on the richer and more metacognitive task of teaching students
how to identify, evaluate, and distinguish beliefs.
While Linn and colleagues do not address explicitly the place of laboratory or practical work
in science teaching, Abrahams and Millar (2008, p. 1967) explored the issue of the efectiveness of
practical work and drew conclusions that are consistent with a knowledge integration perspective:
Given the clear import

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HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH

Judith S. Lederman is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics and Science

Edited by Norman G. Lederman,

1 Paradigms in Science Education Research 3

2 Quantitative Research Designs and Approaches 28

3 Qualitative Research as Culture and Practice 60

5 Student Conceptions, Conceptual Change, and Learning Progressions 121

6 Student Attitudes, Identity, and Aspirations Toward Science 158

7 Learning Environments 193

8 Unpacking and Critically Synthesizing the Literature on Race and

9 Gender Matters: Building on the Past, Recognizing the Present, and

10 Multilingual Learners in Science Education 291

11 Special Needs and Talents in Science Learning 325

12 Science Education in Urban and Rural Contexts: Expanding on

13 Culturally Responsive Science Education for Indigenous and Ethnic

14 Discourse Practices in Science Learning 413

15 Synergies Between Learning Technologies and Learning Sciences:

16 Science Education During the Early Childhood Years: Research

17 Elementary Science Teaching: Toward the Goal of Scientifc Literacy 528

18 Interdisciplinary Approaches and Integrated STEM in Science Teaching 559

19 Teaching Biology: What Research Says 586

20 Teaching Physics 619

21 Chemistry Education Research: Recent Trends and the Onset of the

22 Earth Science Education 692

23 Environmental Education 717

24 Scientifc Inquiry Literacy: The Missing Link on the Continuum

25 Science, Scientifc Literacy, and Science Education 785

27 Research on Teaching, Learning, and Assessment of Nature of Science 850

28 Exploring and Expanding the Frontiers of Socioscientifc Issues 899

29 Project Evaluation: Its History, Importance, and Current Practice 930

30 Precollege Engineering Education 960

31 Review of Research About Science Education Program Evaluation 993

32 An AI-Based Teacher Dashboard to Support Students’ Inquiry:

33 Large-Scale Assessment in Science Education 1045

34 Science Teacher Attitudes and Beliefs: Reforming Practice 1101

35 Research on Science Teacher Knowledge and Its Development 1123

36 Learning to Teach Science 1162

37 Research on Teacher Professional Development Programs in Science 1197

Section I. Theory and Methods of Science Education Research

Section II. Science Learning

Section III. Diversity and Equity in Science Learning

Section IV. Science Teaching

Section V. Curriculum and Assessment in Science

Section VI. Science Teacher Education

Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

María Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Theory and Methods of Science

Why Discuss Research Paradigms?

Post-Positivist Research Paradigm

Philosophical Backgrounds and Theoretical Frameworks

Examples of Post-Positivist Research Studies

Common Features of Post-Positivist Research

Interpretivist/Constructivist Research Paradigm

Philosophical Background and Theoretical Frameworks of

Examples of Interpretivist/Constructivist Research Studies

Common Features of Interpretivist Research Studies

Critical Theory1 Research Paradigm

Philosophical Backgrounds and Theoretical Frameworks

Examples of Critical Theory Research Studies

Common Features of Critical Theory Research Studies

Mixed-Methods Research Paradigm

Common Features Post-Positivist Interpretivist/ Critical Theory Mixed Methods

Research Topics Evaluation of Lived experiences of Political and historical Evaluation of