Hans E. Fischer

Framework for Empirical Research on Science Teaching and Learning

In view of the research on education—and subject-related education in particular—that has been conducted in recent years, it would seem useful to describe the current state and future trends of research on science teaching and learning. In the present article, research findings are described, the deficits of science education are analyzed, and medium- and long-term research goals are specified from the perspective of an interdisciplinary cooperative effort between specialists in the fields of empirical educational research; the psychology of learning and instruction; and biology, chemistry, and physics education.

Professional Knowledge of Science Teachers

Which knowledge should a teacher have to give good lessons? To answer this question Shulman divided the knowledge base of teaching into seven categories. He established the concept of pedagogical content knowledge as a specific amalgam of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. We will give an overview of some theories of professional knowledge relevant for science education and of related actual attempts of teacher education and further education. Results of empirical research on professional knowledge of science teachers will be taken into account. The advantages of Shulman’s and Bromme’s classification of professional knowledge for its systematic analysis will be emphasized.

The Potential of Video Studies in Research on Teaching and Learning Science

Video technology has played a substantial role in research on teaching and learning in actual practice and in teacher professional development since the 1970s. However, the more recent advances of digital video technology and video analysis facilitate much deeper insight into the interplay of teaching and learning processes than the analog video technology available so far. It turned out that the new technology not only allows much more fine-grained coding than has been possible until now, it also enables investigating patterns of instructional scripts in rather large samples of classes and numbers of lessons Three projects on investigating key patterns of lower secondary physics instruction in two countries (Germany and the German speaking part of Switzerland) closely cooperate. Major emphases are video-based analyses of dominating instructional patterns by employing common coding schemes and drawing consequences for improving actual instructional practices e.g. by teacher professional development. The following issues are the focus of the studies presented: (1) Standard basic coding of surface structures of instruction; (2) a coding scheme for investigating the practice of using experiments in science classes; (3) methods to investigate linkages of teaching and learning processes in instruction

Quality of Instruction in Science Education

Instructional quality has been a central issue in educational research for a long time now. Models of school learning were proposed, a vast number of correlational studies were carried out, and lately large-scale video studies were undertaken in order to discern the factors that render one type of instruction superior to another. Although no single explanatory variable emerged, a suite of relevant factors can be identified. This chapter provides an overview of the research undertaken and specifically establishes five dimensions of characteristics that collectively define high quality instruction.

Video Analysis As A Tool For Understanding Science Instruction

Research on science instruction has revealed complex and nontrivial relations between instructional variables – including school system characteristics, teacher cognition and beliefs, teachers’ and students’ activities during instruction and last but not least, learning outcomes. To further investigate these relations, the development of respective models as well as appropriate research designs and methodologies are required. This will allow for tracing effects to the instructional level, shedding light on the well-known gap between teachers’ demands and students’ efforts as well as for the creation of interventions to overcome this gap. To this end, variables of teaching and learning have to be investigated using low- and high-inferent video analyses. Students’ and teachers’ behaviour holds valuable information for identifying cause-effect relations between what happens in the classroom and targeted outcomes.

Developing and evaluating a paper-and-pencil test to assess components of physics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge

ABSTRACT Teachers’ professional knowledge is assumed to be a key variable for effective teaching. As teacher education has the goal to enhance professional knowledge of current and future teachers, this knowledge should be described and assessed. Nevertheless, only a limited number of studies quantitatively measures physics teachers’ professional knowledge. The study reported in this paper was part of a bigger project with the broader goal of understanding teacher professional knowledge. We designed a test instrument to assess the professional knowledge of physics teachers (N = 186) in the dimensions of content knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and pedagogical knowledge (PK). A model describing the relationships between these three dimensions of professional knowledge was created to inform the design of the tests used to measure CK, PCK, and PK. In this paper, we describe the model with particular emphasis on the PCK part, and the subsequent PCK test development and its implementation in detail. We report different approaches to evaluate the PCK test, including the description of content validity, the examination of the internal structure of professional knowledge, and the analysis of construct validity by testing teachers across different school subjects, teachers from different school types, pre-service teachers, and physicists. Our findings demonstrate that our PCK test results could distinguish physics teachers from the other groups tested. The PCK test results could not be explained by teachers’ CK or PK, cognitive abilities, computational skills, or science knowledge.

Students’ Perceptions of their Teachers’ Classroom Management in Elementary and Secondary Science Lessons and the Impact on Student Achievement

Research investigating teacher effects on student outcomes indicates that “effective teaching demands the orchestration of a wide array of skills that must be adapted to specific contexts” (Brophy, 1986, p. 1069). One of these skills is teachers’ classroom management (CM) ability, which not only influences teacher-student interactions (Brophy, 2006), but also the amount of academic learning time. This is particularly so in well-organized classrooms, “where activities run smoothly, transitions are brief and orderly, and little time is spent getting organized or dealing with misconduct” (Brophy, 1986, p. 1070).

Professionswissen in den Naturwissenschaften (ProwiN)

Im Rahmen des vom BMBF-geforderten Verbundprojekts ProwiN wird das Professionswissen von Lehrkraften der Naturwissenschaften in den Dimensionen Fachwissen (CK), fachdidaktisches Wissen (PCK) und padagogisches Wissen (PK) untersucht. Im folgenden Kapitel wird zunachst auf den theoretischen Hintergrund zum Professionswissen in den Naturwissenschaften und die Entwicklung eines gemeinsamen Modells zur Testentwicklung eingegangen (vgl. Tepner, Borowski, Dollny, Fischer, Juttner, Kirschner, Leutner, Neuhaus, Sandmann, Sumfleth, Thillmann und Wirth 2012). Anschliesend wird die Testentwicklung in den Disziplinen Biologie, Chemie, Physik und Psychologie, die Sicherstellung der Testgute und die Studiendurchfuhrung in der ersten Projektphase dargestellt. Daraufhin werden wesentliche Ergebnisse zum Zusammenhang der Dimensionen des Professionswissens sowie zum Einfluss der Berufserfahrung und der Schulform auf CK, PCK und PK berichtet. Das Kapitel wird mit einem Ausblick auf die zweite Projektphase abgeschlossen, in der die Testinstrumente im Rahmen einer videobasierten Unterrichtsanalyse genutzt werden, um Zusammenhange zwischen den verschiedenen Dimensionen des Professionswissens, dem Lehrerhandeln im Unterricht und dem Lernzuwachs bei Schulerinnen und Schulern zu testen.

Video-based studies on investigating deficiencies of school science teaching

Video based research has become a powerful tool to investigate teaching and learning processes in science education. These studies have been employed to reveal the microstructure of teaching and learning processes and to investigate the interplay of instructional scripts and various variables of the particular learning environments. In the following synopsis of a poster symposium at the ESERA Conference in Thessaloniki we present four studies that employ video-analysis of science instruction in various ways. All studies were initiated by the rather disappointing results German students achieved in TIMSS. It is the aim of these studies to investigate means of improving science teaching and learning.

The Development of Students’ Physics Competence in Middle School

The German National Education Standards (NES) for biology, chemistry and physics define the level of competence students are expected to have developed in these subjects by the end of middle school. In order to help students meet these goals, models are needed that describe how students develop competence in the respective subjects. This chapter details our efforts in developing such a model for physics. More specifically, we focused on how students develop an understanding of energy — a concept central to physics. Based on a model derived from previous research, a set of 118 energy tasks were authored and utilized to investigate students’ progression in understanding the concept of energy in (1) a cross-sectional study with students from Grades 6, 8, and 10 of middle school, and (2) a longitudinal study following students from Grade 6 through middle school. The results indicate that students progress in understanding energy by successively developing an understanding of four key ideas about energy. Results from the longitudinal study suggest moreover that students’ progression depends on the (school) curriculum. These results provide important information for further improving the teaching and learning of energy in middle school physics.