Jim Donnelly

Sources of differential participation rates in school science: the impact of curriculum reform

School science courses have widely varying participation rates across a range of student characteristics. One of the stated aims of the 2006 Key Stage 4 science curriculum reforms in England was to improve social mobility and inclusion. To encourage students to study more science, this reform was followed by the introduction in 2008 of an entitlement to study the three separate sciences at Key Stage 4 for the more highly attaining students. This paper uses longitudinal national data over a five year period to investigate the extent and change of participation across science courses at KS4, focussing on student gender and socio-economic status. It finds that whilst there is some evidence of a move towards a more equitable gender balance for some courses, there is as yet little evidence of substantial change in differential participation rates by socio-economic status.

Policy networks and boundary objects: Enacting curriculum reform in the absence of consensus

This article uses the concept of ‘boundary object’, first developed within science studies by Star and Griesemer, to analyse curriculum policy implementation. It employs as a vehicle a significant but contested reform of the science curriculum in schools in England from 2006 onwards, drawing empirically on an extended study of the reform, using public documentation and fieldwork in schools. The focus of the article is on the processes of mediation which are invoked during the implementation process. Star and Griesemer characterized boundary objects as entities which are shared across institutional and other social boundaries, but are sufficiently flexible and indeterminate to satisfy diverse agendas. In this study a curricular element called How Science Works is constituted as a boundary object. Its implementation is set within a network of institutions with different imperatives. The overall effect is to distribute the implementation process, and localize the meaning of the reform. This in turn enables what Star called ‘co-operative action in the absence of consensus’. Complementing and sometimes working against this are mechanisms of accountability dependent on public information. These create pressures for standardization of practices, and thus of meanings, which can both undermine the working of the network and lead to reification of professional practices. The article concludes with some reflections on the implications of this analysis for curriculum developers.

The pursuit of humanity: curriculum change in English school science

This paper is concerned with the recent history of science curriculum reform in England, though it traces these developments back to the mid‐nineteenth century. It first reviews approaches to science in the curriculum until the mid‐1960s, identifying the curricular settlement of the postwar years and the beginning of the so‐called ‘swing from science’. It then examines structural shifts which undermined this settlement, including the introduction of comprehensive schooling, and the declining relative recruitment to physical science in post‐compulsory education. It goes on to explore subsequent attempts at reform, setting them in the context of increasingly centralised control of the curriculum and changing patterns of professional representation. Three reform themes are identified: a reconstruction of the notion of discovery learning around student investigation; increasing attention to social and ethical issues; and a growing emphasis on vocationalism. It argues that these themes have been merged into a new flexible curricular settlement, which imitates important characteristics of the humanities.

A Cross-Sectional Study of the Understanding of the Relationships Between Concentration and Reaction Rate among Turkish Secondary and Undergraduate Students

This research describes a cross-sectional study, which will give insights into the development of students’ understanding of chemical kinetics (at key points, in relation to relevant teaching) from secondary to university level, in Turkey. The study is based mainly on the written responses given by school and undergraduate students to a series of written tasks involving concepts and phenomena in chemical kinetics. A small-scale interview study was also carried out with a number of students to obtain further information regarding students’ ideas about chemical kinetics and to check for appropriate interpretation of the written responses. In this paper, our focus is on the students’ understanding of the relationships between the concentrations of reactants/products and reaction rate. Analysis of students’ responses on written probes and in interviews indicates that, after instruction, many students use conceptions not consistent with scientific perspectives, and have conceptual difficulties in understanding the relationships between concentration and reaction rate. Furthermore, the results show that students did not frequently use “particulate” and “mathematical” modelling, and in most cases such modelling was not used as intended by the curriculum. The results indicate a need to review curricula, and instructional practices, in the light of the students’ difficulties in understanding chemical kinetics.

Assessing pupils’ ability to generalize∗

The paper presents findings from the British national science monitoring programme operated by the Assessment of Performance Unit. It focuses on 15‐year‐old pupils’ interpretation of presented data and self‐generated observations and, in particular, on their ability to arrive at generalized conclusions when requested so to do. The responses of a national sample of pupils are analysed for the effects of gender, question type, question and ‘ability’ (using the surrogate of likely examination entry). Significant differences are found between responses based on practical situations, as opposed to pencil‐and‐paper questions, and some interaction with ‘ability’ is noted. Data are presented in relation to individual questions, in order to explore the variations observed within questions of the same type. The least able pupils were found to have difficulty with the basic phenomenal reference of even simple data. The difficulties of able pupils tended rather to be associated with the elimination of potential relat...

The use of national data sets to baseline science education reform: exploring value-added approaches

This paper uses data from the National Pupil Database to investigate the differences in ‘performance’ across the range of science courses available following the 2006 Key Stage 4 (KS4) science reforms in England. This is a value-added exploration (from Key Stage 3 [KS3] to KS4) aimed not at the student or the school level, but rather at that of the course. Different methodological approaches to carrying out such an analysis, ranging from simple non-contextualized techniques, to more complex fully contextualized multilevel models, are investigated and their limitations and benefits are evaluated. Important differences between courses are found in terms of the typical ‘value’ they add to the students studying them with particular applied science courses producing higher mean KS4 outcomes for the same KS3 level compared with other courses. The implications of the emergence of such differences, in a context where schools are judged to a great extent on their value-added performance, are discussed. The relative importance of a variety of student characteristics in determining KS4 outcomes are also investigated. Substantive findings are that across all types of course, science prior attainment at KS3, rather than that of mathematics or English, is the most important predictor of KS4 performance in science, and that students of lower socio-economic status consistently make less progress over KS4 than might be expected, despite prior attainment being accounted for in the modelling.

A Vocationalized School Science Curriculum

This article is concerned with the meaning and legitimacy of the view that the secondary science curriculum can be given a vocational emphasis, and with a current attempt to create such a curriculum. Although this perspective on the science curriculum has a long history, in recent decades it has received little attention. This article examines recent research into the vocational and work‐related aspects of secondary school science, and the historical and policy background. Its empirical focus is a late secondary course with the title “Applied Science”, which was introduced into schools in England and Wales in 2002. It draws on the preliminary findings of a research study focusing on the origins and implementation of this course. Overall, the article provides an overview of the major issues and research agenda associated with the notion of a vocational or applied school science curriculum, focusing ultimately on the key issues of educational purpose, pedagogy, and status.

An assessment‐led approach to processes in the science curriculum

General conditions which should be met in the development of the idea of science processes and the potential benefits which would result are suggested. An approach to the definition of science processes based on variables and variable handling is outlined. It is argued that this should occur specifically in the context of educational practice. The processes should be elucidated within a taxonomy of tasks, the ultimate components of which should be interpretable and transferable skills. The development and utilization of such a taxonomy can most obviously occur in the context of assessment. The techniques of item banking and domain definition in domain‐referenced tests are then discussed in relation to the above issues. Multi‐dimensional labelling of an item bank is considered to be appropriate, and suggestive of a research programme for investigating the requirements of transferability and interpretability. The labelling scheme resulting from an attempt to identify the significant dimensions of the age 15...