| 1. |
- Anker-Hansen, Jens, 1974-
(författare)
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Assessing Scientific Literacy as Participation in Civic Practices : Affordances and constraints for developing a practice for authentic classroom assessment of argumentation, source critique and decision-making
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis takes a departure from a view of scientific literacy as situated in participation in civic practices. From such a view, it becomes problematic to assess scientific literacy through decontextualised test items only dealing with single aspects of participation in contexts concerned with science. Due to the complexity of transferring knowledge, it is problematic to assume that people who can explain scientific theories will automatically apply those theories in life or that knowledge will influence those people’s behaviour. A common way to more fully include the complexity of using science in different practices is to focus participation around issues and study how students use multiple sources to reflect critically and ethically on that issue. However, participation is situated in practices and thus becomes something specific within those practices. For instance, shopping for groceries for the family goes beyond reflecting critically and ethically on health and environment since it involves considering the family economy and the personal tastes of the family members. I have consequently chosen to focus my studies on how to assess scientific literacy as participation in civic practices. The thesis describes a praxis development research study where I, in cooperation with teachers, have designed interventions of assessments in lower secondary science classrooms. In the research study I use the theory of Community of Practice and Expansive Learning to study affordances and constraints for assessing communication, source critique and decision-making in the science classroom. The affordances and constraints for students’ participation in assessments are studied through using a socio-political debate as an assessment tool. The affordances and constraints for communicating assessment are studied through peer assessments of experimental design. The affordances and constraints for teachers to expand their assessment repertoire are studied through assessment moderation meetings. Finally, the affordances and constraints for designing authentic assessments of scientific literacy are studied through a review of different research studies’ use of authenticity in science education. The studies show that tensions emerge between purposes of practices outside the classroom and practices inside the classroom that students negotiated when participating in the assessments. Discussion groups were influential on students’ decisions on how to use feedback. Feedback that was not used to amend the designs was still used to discuss what should count as quality of experiments. Teachers used the moderation meetings to refine their assessments and teaching. However, conflicting views of scientific literacy as either propositional or procedural knowledge were challenging to overcome. Different publications in science education research emphasised personal or cultural aspects of authenticity. The different uses of authenticity have implications for authentic assessments, regarding the affordances and constraints for how to reify quality from external practices and through students’ engagement in practices. The results of the studies point to gains of focussing the assessment on how students negotiate participation in different civic practices. However, this approach to assessment puts different demands on assessment design than assessments in which students’ participation is compared with predefined ideals for performance.
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| 2. |
- Caiman, Cecilia, 1972-
(författare)
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Naturvetenskap i tillblivelse : Barns meningsskapande kring biologisk mångfald och en hållbar framtid
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The objective of this thesis is to analyze children’s meaning making processes in science related to environment and sustainability at the pre-school level. This thesis examines an approach to early childhood education which is conceptualized by an explorative as well as a listening approach that specifically addresses children’s questions. The purpose is to create knowledge on how the processes develop and what specific science related content that emerges. All studies are based on a Deweyan pragmatic perspective. Study 1 “logs in” to the debate on children’s possibilities to become “agents for change” and contributing to positive changes for the environment. The results reveal that the children’s positive and negative aesthetic utterances have significance for how the process develops and is being fulfilled. The contextual aspects are imperative both for the content and for the choices the children make along the course of actions. Study 2 examines children exploring animals in a pre-school project concerning biodiversity. Initially, the results reveal that the organisms’ appearances and movements received morphological and physiological explanations. Further on, knowledge was gained in a manner which has similarities to ecological and evolutionary ways of explaining biological phenomena. Study 3 takes departure from the discussion on the fact that sustainability related problems often are unstructured, multifaceted and conceptualized as “wicked”. The study examines how the process of imagination comes into play when children explore a sustainability related problem that is important to them. The results reveal that creative solutions come into existence when blending various experiences. Study 4 investigates how children raise and answer science related questions by non-verbal actions. The results expose that non-verbal actions serve as inquiry, comparative systematics, visualization, question-generators as well as a public and self-reflective communication.
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| 3. |
- Ünsal, Zeynep, 1983-
(författare)
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Bilingual students' learning in science : Language, gestures and phyiscal artefacts
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The objective of this thesis is to examine how language, gestures and physical artefacts are used in science classes with emergent bilingual students who do not share the same minority language as their classmates or teachers. The purpose is to contribute to findings that can enhance emergent bilingual students’ learning in science. The data consist of classroom observations in one 3rd grade (9–10 years old) and one 7th grade (13–14 years old) science class. In addition, the students in the 7th grade were interviewed. Whole-class instruction was carried out monolingually in Swedish. The students typically made meaning of the activities without any language limitations during conversations following an initiation, response and evaluation pattern (IRE). However, during longer conversations the students’ language repertoire in Swedish frequently limited their possibilities to express themselves. During group-work activities, students with the same minority language worked together and used both of their languages. One strategy used among the students to overcome language limitations was translating unfamiliar words into their minority language. In general, this supported the students’ learning in science. Occasionally, the students made incorrect translations of scientific concepts. The interviews with the students demonstrated how monolingual exams may limit emergent bilingual students’ achievements in science. When students’ language proficiency limited their possibility to express themselves, the students showed what they meant by using gestures. This resulted in the continuation of the lessons as both other students and teachers drew on the used gestures to talk about the science content. The physical artefacts implied that the students experienced the science content by actually seeing it, which the teacher then drew on to introduce how the phenomena or process in question could be expressed in scientific language. When students’ proficiency in the language of instruction limited their possibilities to make meaning, using physical artefacts enabled them to experience unfamiliar words being related to the science content and learn what they mean.
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| 4. |
- Flodin, Veronica S., 1960-
(författare)
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En didaktisk studie av kunskapsinnehåll i biologi på universitetet : Med genbegreppet som exempel
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is about knowing in biology in higher education and research. The gene concept is used as an example of knowledge content that is common to both biological research and education. The purpose is to study how knowing about the gene is expressed in different forms of knowledge contexts at the university. This is important to study in order to understand documented learning problems regarding the gene concept but also to better understand the relation between knowledge in research and teaching. Knowledge has to be transformed to become an educational content, a process that is of special interest within the field of Didaktik. The thesis is based on three qualitative case studies. Study I is an analysis of a textbook in biology. The purpose is to examine the content as presented to the students to see how its structure may contribute to the problems students have. How does the gene concept function as a scientific representation and at the same time as an object for learning in a biology college textbook? A phenomenographic approach is used to study implicit variation in gene concept use when the textbook treats different sub disciplines. The results show conceptual differences between them. The different categories of the gene found–as a trait, an information structure, an actor in the cell, a regulator in embryonic development or as a marker for evolutionary change–mean that we deal with different phenomena. The gene as an object is ascribed different functions and furthermore these functions are intermingled in the textbook. Since, in the textbook, these conceptual differences are not articulated, they likely are a source of confusion when learning about genes. Study II examines the gene concept use in a scientific context, as exemplified by five research articles from a scientific journal. Using an adaptation of Hirst’s criteria for forms of knowledge, the study characterizes how the scientific contexts for the gene concept use vary. What kinds of different gene concept use in these contexts can be discerned? When comparing the articles, it becomes evident that the gene concept is used to answer different kinds of questions. The meanings of the gene concept are connected to various knowledge projects, their purposes and the methods used. Shifts of methodologies and questions entail a concept that escapes single definitions and “slides around” in meanings. These contextual transformations and associated content leaps are here referred to as epistemic drift. Study III follows an integrative research project in biology. What are the characteristic content conditions for knowledge development? What different ways in using the gene concept can be distinguished? By using the analytic methodology developed in study II, the scientific contexts are categorized according to their knowledge project, methods used and conceptual contexts. The results show that the gene concept meanings and the content vary in focus, are more or less explicitly formulated, or possible to formulate, and consist of different skills. One didactic conclusion is that by being more overt about the conditions for problem solving within a specific subdisciplin (i.e. fruitful questions to ask, knowledge needed to answer them, and methods available), students may be given opportunities to get a broader perspective on what it means to know biology.
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