Journal of Baltic Science Education

4

Authors: Aarne Tõldsepp

The effectiveness of any R&D work depends on research methodology used by studying nature, regularities and peculiarities related to the researched field of knowledge. How often have we heard that educational researches belong to ‘soft studies’ because all social sciences including science education belong to the soft field of knowledge. A quilty person in this case is not at all science education but educators – researchers working in the field of science education and using only soft methodology and strategies. Any educational research has the same attributes as fundamental (‘strong’) sciences and embraces formulating topics and a tittle, planning theoretical and experimental study, collecting empirical data, statistically treating the results of research etc. There is a single exception between ’soft’ and ‘strong’ studies: in social sciences including science education, we cannot repeat experiments under the same circumstances. During the time between two parallel studies, our kids, pupils, students or currently, our respondents have changed cognitively, emotionally, communicatively etc. A number of changes in their knowledge, skills, values and even in characters can be noticed. In addition to the above mentioned changes, we fail to understand the kind of changes taking place during experimental study.

15-21

Authors: Frackson Mumba, Jeffrey Carver, Vivien M. Chabalengula, William J. F. Hunter

The purpose of this study was to assess five chemistry teaching fellows’ understanding of the characteristics and functions of scientific theories and laws, as well as the relationships between them before and after an intervention. The chemistry teaching fellows were participating in a University-School partnership project funded by the National Science Foundation in USA. Data were collected through pre-and post-test questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed by coding the responses to identify recurring themes. Results show that before instruction most fellows held un-informed views on the characteristics of scientific theories and laws, their functions and relationships. However, after the intervention most participants developed better understanding of these concepts. Four types of relationships between scientific laws and theories emerged from participants’ responses: discrete, intertwined, concentric, and cyclical. The findings have significant implications for teacher education, science teaching and learning, and training of graduate teaching assistants at the university level.

35-43

Authors: Eyvind Elstad, Are Turmo

In Norway, the curriculum reform known as ‘Knowledge Promotion’ emphasizes that teachers should have high ambitions for their students and provide more so-called ‘learning pressure’ (or academic pressure) in the classroom. This school reform initiated in 2006 puts particular focus on schools’ responsibilities for fostering strategies that benefit student learning. This paper reports an empirical study of Norwegian high school students’ motivation, learning strategy use and self-regulation in science. It focuses on how students respond to teachers’ regulating approaches. The results show that in science classes the goal of teacher mastery seems to have a more positive effect on boys, while girls respond more positively to teachers’ academic pressure. Furthermore, ethnic majority students respond more positively to the mastery approach, while the academic pressure approach seems to be more important for ethnic minority students in the science classroom. In conclusion, we argue against the assumption in theoretical literature that academic pressure gives a somewhat one-sided negative effect. This assumption about academic pressure needs to be more nuanced.