Narratives of Doctoral Studies in Science Education Making the Transition from Educational Practitioner to Researcher

This book explores the ways in which small scale research studies arise from issues of practice, and how they are conceptualised, theorised and implemented using a variety of methodological approaches and frameworks. The narratives written by thirteen doctoral students tell real stories of projects and challenges that researchers face when making the transition from educational practitioner to researcher. Considering case studies from the UK, Sweden and Germany, chapters seek to investigate and inform others about how doctoral students solved individual and typical problems linking practice and research. Each methodological journey highlights and illustrates the iterative and cyclic nature of research, and the normality of the process of going back and forth between data and theory, making changes of direction as research proceeds. The book includes frameworks for combining research, theory and practice, drawing from the methodological decisions and conclusions each contributor made to develop their own practice oriented research. Narratives of Doctoral Studies in Science Education will be key reading for researchers and academics in the fields of educational research, science education, research methods and higher education, as well as masters and doctoral students undertaking their own research projects

Context based and conventional approaches to teaching chemistry: Comparing teachers' views

The study explores teachers' experiences of teaching a context-based chemistry course, Salters Advanced Chemistry, as compared with teachers of a conventional course. Second, main factors that appear to influence decisions over whether or not to adopt context-based courses are investigated. Two hundred and twenty-two teachers' views of a context-based and a conventional school advanced chemistry course were obtained from a questionnaire. Responses were analysed in six dimensions: motivation, chemical knowledge and development of concepts, learning activities, assessment, challenge to teachers and students, and teacher support. Both sets of teachers agreed that the context-based course is more motivating to study and teach, that students would be more interested in chemistry and more likely to go to university to study chemistry, that students would be better able to study independently but that it is more demanding to teach and study. The groups differed principally about concept development and teaching strategy. The context-based teachers believed that their course gave as good a foundation for further study as a traditional course and that the spiral curriculum was advantageous. Conventional course teachers disagreed with both statements. One significant implication to emerge from the study is the crucial role played by in-service support in influencing the impact of a curriculum innovation