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International Geoscience Educators' Perceptions of Approaches to K- 12 Science Education for the 21st Century

Posted on: Tuesday, 12 April 2005, 03:01 CDT

ABSTRACT

Several different approaches to formal science education have been advocated by professionals in science education in the United States. Their efforts, ideas, and research have influenced the directions of global science education. The purpose of this study was to explore international geoscience education professionals' priorities for science education for the new millennium. A survey was conducted to determine the perceptions of seven literature- based approaches to science education among 51 professionals (15 different countries) who participated in the third International Geoscience Education Conference. Results indicated that the 'Integration' approach was the top choice, followed by a choice emphasizing 'Conceptual Change.' Years of teaching were not significantly related to participants' perceived importance of each approach, but national origin was related. Among the three major participant countries, Australia, U.S.A., and Japan, Japanese participants rated two approaches (Education Technology and Internet Based Teaching & Learning) as less important than did Australian and U.S. participants. For the other five approaches respondents' opinions were not significantly different at α = .05.

BACKGROUND

Trends and issues of science education have been affected by social, industrial, economic, and international situations, resulting in a history of repeated requests for reform. For example, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, U.S. science education developed an approach focused on the logical structure of the disciplines and on the processes of science (DeBoer, 1991). As McCormack (1992) described, learning through hands-on investigations became the emphasis of science teaching and learning for nearly two decades. Under the National Science Foundation's (NSF) support, many new programs and curriculum projects were developed in the U.S. during the 1960s (e.g., the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS), Science-A Process Approach (SAPA), the Earth Science Curriculum Project (ESCP), the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC), the Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS)). However, "by the end of the 1960s, largely out of a recognition of the curriculum projects' failure to achieve some of the more important social goals of science teaching, a new theme [scientific literacy] began to emerge in the discussions of science educators." There was a new movement toward "the development of scientific literacy and a revitalized emphasis on the relationship between science and society that had been interrupted by the disciplinary studies of the 1960s and late 1950s" (DeBoer, 1991, p. 172).

In the 1970s and '80s, the importance of the relationship between science and society aligned with the phrase STS (Science-Technology- Society) (Bybee and DeBoer, 1994). Science education content was filled with discussions of STS themes in an approach that was humanistic, value oriented and relevant to a wide range of personal, societal, and environmental concerns.

During the 1990s, concerns about the quality and effectiveness of science education resulted in several major efforts directed toward restructuring the science curriculum, including Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 1989, 1993, 1998) and the Scope, Sequence, and Coordination project of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA, 1992). In addition, the National Science Education Standards, which are designed to foster science literacy for all in the 21st centurv, were established by the National Research Council (1996).

Historically, the ideas, opinions, and research of U.S. professionals have had a great impact on the direction of science education globally. U.S. institutions train new international professionals, and U.S. scholars serve as visiting experts abroad, influencing various issues and approaches to the teaching of science through their prestige and support. While U.S. science educators have seen these approaches as a continuum responding to internal needs of the nation, it is unlikely that other countries following U.S. examples have advocated the same approaches. The strength of science education leaders in those countries, as well as their political and social environments, have surely structured approaches to science education that are unique to national situations. Within geoscience education, awareness of the preferred approaches internationally may assist researchers and practitioners to serve the discipline more effectively with needed publications and global activities.

OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study was to explore the priorities of international geoscience educators regarding future directions for the field of science education at the elementary, middle, and high- school levels. All the educators surveyed attended the same international conference, the 3rd International Geoscience Education Conference (GeoSciEd III). While we cannot assume that this population of educators is representative of geoscience educators around the world, the exploratory and descriptive nature of the study reveals valuable information about how international geoscience educators who are professionally active perceive some approaches to K-12 science education.

The study was designed to address four research questions:

1. Which approaches are perceived by the international professionals of geoscience education as the most appropriate for science education in the 21st century?

2. Which school level do professionals feel is the most appropriate for the selected approach?

3. To what extent are the favored curricular approaches related to respondents' amount of teaching experience?

4. How different are opinions of curricular approaches among representatives of major participant countries?

METHODOLOGY

Subjects - The third International Geoscience Education Conference (GeoSciEd III) was held January 17-20, 2000, in Sydney, Australia. Of 121 participants, 51 responded to this survey, a response rate of 42%. Thirty were males (65%) and 18 were females (35%). Most respondents indicated their employment was as college/ university professors (n = 29, 57%). The sample also included four geoscientists (8%), three science teachers (6%), three students (6%), three informal educators (6%), two government agents, two educational program managers, and five others (e.g., curriculum developer, teacher consultant, industry professional, assistant lecturer, geological technician). The highest degree held by most respondents was the doctorate (n = 34,67%), followed by Master's degree (n = 12,23%), and Bachelor's degree (n = 5,10%).

The largest group of respondents reported teaching more than 20 years (n = 19, 37%), with another 28% having 11-20 years' experience and the remainder less. Only one respondent had no teaching experience. Our population consisted of professionals of fifteen different nationalities from six continents (see Table 1). While respondents may not represent the range of all geoscience educators, we assumed that with their level of education and experience they represented an international expert group in geoscience education.

Instrument - A careful review of recent literature and the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) strand categories (NARST, 1999) resulted in a list of potential approaches to science education to be included on the survey. NARST is the premier science education research organization in the world. The organization's set of research strands has been developed over the years to represent the primary areas of active research in science education. Additional major and minor topic areas of science education research put forth in the mid and late 1990s are included in several Educational Research Information Clearinghouse (ERIC) documents (Haury & McCann, 1998; Ridgway & Lee, 2000). Based on topic areas that have been major emphases of science education research, we identified the following seven curricular emphases and/ or instructional approaches in science education (listed alphabetically):

* Conceptual Change: Conceptual change in learners and teachers; methods for investigating student understanding; instructional approaches.

* Educational Technology: Systematic identification, development, organization, or utilization of educational resources and/or the management of these processes-occasionally used in a more limited sense to describe the use of equipment-oriented techniques or audiovisual aids in educational settings (ERIC 2001, p. 103).

* Family Involvement Approaches: Family participation related to teaching ana learning of science in K-12 education (ERIC, 2001; Renkas, 1998).

* Informal Teaching and Learning: Casual and continuous learning from life experiences outside organized formal or nonformal education (ERIC, 2001). Science learning in informal contexts (e.g., museums, outdoor settings, etc.).

* Integration (Interdisciplinary) Approaches: With relation to curriculum, some individuals use the term interdisciplinary as a synonym for integrated. The term integration (interdisciplinary) is used for a course that brings together content from more widely separated discipline areas, such as science and social studies or science, langua\ge arts, and geography (AAAS, 1993; Biological Science Curriculum Study, 2000). Participation or cooperation of two or more disciplines (ERIC, 2001).

* Internet-Based Teaching & Learning: Science learning and teaching involving the use of internet, World Wide Web, and other internet-based resources (Rossner, 1998; Wiesenmayer & Koul, 1998,1999).

* Multicultural (Socio-cultural) Issues: Multicultural and ethnic issues; gender equity; issues of diversity related to science teaching and learning.

The survey contained the list of seven approaches to science education, with every item on the list further described by a parenthetical statement to clarify it for the international audience. For instance, the item "Informal Teaching & Learning Approaches" was described as "science learning in informal contexts, e.g. museums, state parks, etc."!Respondents were asked to

* rate the importance of each approach with a 4-point scale where 1 meant 'Not Important' and 4 meant Very Important'.

* choose one approach they felt was the most important.

* select the most appropriate school level for implementing the approach they chose.

In addition to the science education approach items, seven items were related to demographics and background information.

The survey was distributed to all conference participants present during a poster viewing session. Participation was voluntary. Completed surveys were not collected until the end of conference (49 returns). Two additional responses were received by mail in the four weeks after the conference.

Analysis - The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS Ver.10.0 for MS Windows) was utilized for statistical analyses. Descriptive statistics (e.g, frequency) were used to answer research Questions 1 and 2. For Question 3, cross-tabulation was considered as the best method to determine the relationship between variables because the importance of each curricular approach and teaching experience are ordinal scales. Statistical analysis was performed using Kendall's tau-c method which indicates the amount of correlation between the respective variables. The results can range from a strongly positive relationship (1.00) to a strong negative correlation (-1.00), with a value of zero indicating no correlation at all. Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVA) was applied for research Question 4. If MANOVA was significant at a 90% confidence level, follow-up ANOVAs and post-hoc analyses were conducted to determine the differences in perceived importance of curricular approaches among representatives of major participant countries.

Table 1. Survey respondents' countries of origin.

Table 2. Geoscience education professionals' perceptions of the most appropriate approaches to science education.

RESULTS

Questions One and Two - Most appropriate approach and school level perceived by the sample of international professionals of geoscience education.

Based on all responses, the total frequency score was calculated (Table 2). The table indicates strong support for the most appropriate approaches to science education for the new millennium. 'Integration Approaches' was the primary choice, drawing twice as many respondents as any other approach. 'Conceptual Change Approaches' was ranked second among the seven possible choices.

In addition, 38 respondents (74.6%) answered that their selected approach was appropriate for all three school levels (see Table 3). In other words, the majority of professionals believed that both integration and conceptual change approaches were applicable for elementary-, middle-, and high school science education. Informal education was also seen as appropriate, and was nearly as popular as conceptual change.

Question Three - Association between participants' years of teaching experience and self-perceived importance of each approach.

Kendall's tau-c was used to examine the relationship between years of teaching experience and the perceived importance of each approach. A value of +1.0 would show a strong correlation between increased teaching experience and the perceived importance of each approach, whereas a value of -1.0 would show strong correlation between little experience ahd the importance of the approach. Kendall's tau-c scores range from -0.16 to 0.02, indicating very weak to nonexistent relationships between the variables.

Question Four - Opinions of curricular approaches among representatives from major participant countries.

Responses to this question were analyzed from countries with more than three respondents: U.S.A. (n = 12), Australia (n = 9), and Japan (n = 8). The MANOVA was statistically significant (Wilks' lambda = 0.57, F^sub 2,26^ = 1.853, p = 0.064) at the p < 0.1 level and calculation of eta-squared revealed that group differences accounted for 39% of the variance in the dependent variables. Means, standard deviations and F ratios for the follow-up ANOVA analyses for opinions of curricular approaches among representatives from the three countries are presented in Table 4.

Among the science education approaches examined, Australian participants reported that "Internet-based teaching and learning" was the one they felt was most important (M = 3.56 of 4, SD = 0.53) compared to the other approaches. U.S. participants perceived 'Educational Technology' as most important (M = 3.56 of 4, SD = 0.53). Japanese participants selected three approaches, 'Informal Teaching and Learning' (M = 3.25, SD = 0.71), 'Integration1 (M = 3.13, SD = 0.99) and 'Multicultural approach' (M = 3.13, SD = 0.99) as more important than other themes. The results of the follow-up ANOVA indicated that the ratings of both 'Educational Technology' and 'Internet Based Teaching & Learning' were significantly different among the three countries at α = .05. However, the three countries' opinions are not significantly different for the other five approaches.

Table 3. Geoscience education professionals' perceptions of the most appropriate school level for implementation of their selected science education approach. * 4 cases not responding.

Table 4. Means, standard deviations and F ratios for ANOVA comparison of three most represented countries by favored science education approaches. Scores were measured with a 4-point scale where 1 means "Not Important' and 4 means 'Very Important' *p < .05

Additional post hoc analyses were conducted using the Tukey test to evaluate significant differences between all possible pairs of means. Results confirmed that Japanese respondents' opinions of the two approaches were significantly different from Australia and the U.S. (Table 5). However, there are no significant mean differences between Australian and the U.S. participants. More precisely, Japanese participants feft that both 'Educational Technology' and 'Internet Based Teaching & Learning Approaches' were less important than did Australian and U.S. participants.

DISCUSSION

While the authors recognize that the small, self-selected sample is a limitation of the study, some important points can be made about the results. First, it is clear that there is a significant agreement about approaches to science education among some geoscience educators from 15 different countries. Professionals in geoscience education believed that 'Integration Approaches' are the most important for this new century's curriculum, and integration seems appropriate for all three school levels.

Integrated approaches to curriculum are not new ideas. Curriculum integration is recommended by several national organizations and institutes (AAAS, 1993, 1998; NRC, 1996; NSTA, 1992). The benefits of integration have been recognized in several disciplines. Integration can help students to achieve understanding about disciplines, experience concepts and processes of the real world, and apply the principles to real world settings (Huntley, 1998; Hurley, 2001; LaPorte & Sanders, 1993; Mayer & Fortner, 1995; Miller & Davison, 1998; Ross & Hogaboam-Gray, 1998; Wicklein & Schell, 1995). In K-12 Earth science education, integration of the disciplines of geology, astronomy, meteorology and oceanography has been a curriculum standard, and that may be the source of the respondents' perception of the importance of such an approach. One of the principal understandings of Earth Systems Education (ESE), a grassroots curriculum reform effort, is the interactions of subsystems (Mayer & Fortner, 1995) advocating incorporation of biology with traditional Earth sciences (Fortner, 1992; Fortner, et al., 1992). The group of active professionals in this study may see broader integration of Earth systems, to include other sciences, such as biology, chemistry and physics, as a goal. While such integration is becoming more widespread at post-secondary levels, it is still rare at K-12. A growing movement in the field at all levels is to seek paths to achieving global science literacy by blurring the boundaries among disciplines and focusing on relationships rather than disciplinary distinctions (Mayer, 2002).

Table 5. Post hoc analysis of opinions of two curricular approaches by the three major countries (Tukey test). Table shows mean differences. * p < .05

Second, teaching experience does not seem to be related to these expert educators' choice of approaches. If the survey is repeated with future samples, modifications should be considered to allow for combinations of approaches rather than a forced choice of a single one. It should also include choice of a didactic approach, or "none of the above."

Third, comparison of the three most represented countries for the seven approaches indicated that Japanese geoscience educators favored all seven approaches at lower levels than the U.S. and Australia, perhaps retaining commitment to didactic approaches traditionally associated with Asian education (NIER, 1996). However, a larger sample might show a different result.

Japanese respondents felt that 'Educational Technology\' and 'Internet Based Teaching and Learning Approaches' were less important than did Australia ana the U.S. This result was not expected because Japan is one of the most advanced science and technology-based countries in the world. Instead of technology, it appeared that Japanese respondents favored informal approaches, and assigned equal ratings for integration and socio/multicultural approaches.

As for cultural approaches, Lee and Fortner (in review), in research on environmental decision making, have noted that Asian cultures act more in collectivist than individual ways in making choices. That is, the importance of a personal decision may be subsumed by what other people think about a choice. It would be important to analyze the choices that have been made in structuring the Japanese science curriculum to determine if the origins are based more in the research literature or on the perspectives of leaders.

Finally, because of the conference research setting, most subjects in this study were active professionals in geoscience education. Over 80% of subjects had more than 6 years teaching experience, and 63% of subjects were currently college/university professors and science teachers. While we acknowledge the bias of the sample, it appears from the concurrence of this group that integrated approaches and conceptual change emphases are likely to receive support from the geoscience education community, ana programs fostering these approaches can proceed with greater confidence. More definitive studies with larger samples are needed; nevertheless this study contributes to understanding how an expert group of international geoscience educators perceive approaches to K- 12 science education and how they order their priorities regarding future directions for the field at the elementary, middle, and high- school levels. Future research may build upon this study and illuminate curriculum preferences for Europe, Africa and South America, while expanding the explanation for Japanese choices of instructional approach. Overall, the results can also provide preliminary guidance in geoscience curriculum planning and instructional materials development to meet respective national priorities and at the same time foster global science literacy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors thank all participants in this survey. The authors also sincerely thank Dr. Gary Lewis and conference committee for allowing us to distribute our survey during the 3rd International Geoscience Education Conference in Sydney, Australia. Comments of JGE reviewers and editor were very helpful in manuscript revision.

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Hyonyong Lee Department of Earth Science Education, College of Education, Kyungpook National University, 1370 Sangyeok-dong Buk- gu, Daegu 702-701 Korea, hlee@knu.ac.kr

Rosanne White Fortner Earth Systems Education, School of Natural Resources, The Ohio State University, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, Ohio 43210, fortner.2@osu.edu

Copyright National Association of Geoscience Teachers Mar 2005

Source: Journal of Geoscience Education

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