Identifying research foci to progress chemistry education as a field

© 2016 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Química.Chemistry education is now increasingly seen as an academic field of scholarship in its own right. This article suggests two important principles to be taken into account when considering the question 'What should be the key foci for chemistry education research (CER)?'. The first of these applies a typology that divides research into chemistry classrooms as inherent ('essential'), embedded ('entangled') or collateral ('incidental'), according to the extent to which the research is conceptualised in terms of issues that arise in teaching and learning the specific subject matter of chemistry. It is important for the development of the field that inherent CER is particularly encouraged. The second principle relates to what makes a field scientific. Here it is suggested that research needs to have a programmatic nature so that the field does not just accumulate more studies, but is seen to progress by allowing new researchers to effectively be inducted and then build upon existing work

Is CER best considered a discipline or a field of study? Reply to Hannah Sevian's comment

Dear Editor, Thank you for inviting me to respond to Hannah Sevian's (2017) comments on my opinion piece in Educación Química (Taber, 2017). Dialogue on the nature of our work in chemistry education research (CER) is healthy, and a wider conversation is to be encouraged. There are two aspects to Hannah Sevian's letter, which perhaps can most helpfully be considered separately. She asks (a) about the extent to which chemistry education research could be considered a discipline, and in doing so refers to Good's (2000) notion of disciplines (“ever-changing frameworks within which scientific activity is organised”, p. 260) forming through processes of assembly; and she also argues (b) against overly restricting the developing field (in her terms, discipline) of CER. The article she comments on was based around two recommendations, both of which could potentially be seen as restrictive: (i) that progress in CER should be achieved by focusing enquiry around the development of specific research programmes (RP) and (ii) that work carried out within chemistry teaching and learning contexts should not automatically be accepted as falling within CER

Scholarly publishing: A partnership with mutual benefits and individual responsibilities

After more than seven years as editor of Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP), I am standing down from this role, and this will be the last editorial of my tenure. Indeed, by the time this editorial appears in the first issue of the 2019 volume, I will have handed over to Michael Seery, who has been one of the Associate Editors, leaving the editorship in very good hands. It was suggested to me that this might be a good opportunity for reflecting back on my time as Editor. One of the most obvious themes that came to mind was how academic publishing involves a partnership among a diverse ‘team’ of people (see figure 1) - each with their own roles and responsibilities

The challenge to educational reforms during a global emergency: The case of progressive science education

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; This article argues that what is most at risk in schooling during a global pandemic, or other similar broad challenges to normal functioning, are those elements that might be considered the less traditional and so the most progressive. After setting out some general background common to the challenge faced by schools and school teachers, this argument is exemplified through the case of school science education. Two particular aspects are considered: one related to pedagogy (responding to learners’ alternative conceptions or ‘misconceptions’) and one related to curriculum (teaching about the nature of science). These are considered ‘progressive’ features in the sense that they have widely been championed as ways of improving and reforming science education across a wide range of national contexts but can be understood to have faced resistance both in the sense of being opposed by ‘reactionary’ stakeholders and in terms of the level of support for teacher adoption. It is argued that at a time when the education system is placed under extreme stress, such progressive elements are at particular risk as teachers and administrators may view them as ‘extras’ rather than ‘core’ features of practice and/or as reflecting more ‘difficult’ educational objectives that may need to be de-prioritised (and so neglected) for the time being. In that sense, they are fragile aspects of practice that lack the resilience of more established, and thus robust, features. It is concluded that where progressive elements are especially valued, they need to become sufficiently embedded in custom and practice to no longer be viewed as luxuries but rather to be recognised as core elements of good teaching to be protected and maintained during a period of emergency.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; </jats:p

Experimental research into teaching innovations: responding to methodological and ethical challenges

Experimental studies are often employed to test the effectiveness of teaching innovations such as new pedagogy, curriculum, or learning resources.This article offers guidance on good practice in developing research designs, and in drawing conclusions from published reports. Random control trials potentially support the use of statistical inference, but face a number of potential threats to validity. Research in educational contexts often employs quasi-experiments or natural experiments rather than true experiments, and these types of designs raise additional questions about the equivalence between experimental and control groups and the potential influence of confounding variables.Where it is impractical for experimental studies to employ samples that fully reflect diverse populations, generalisation is limited. Series of small-scale replication studies may be useful here, especially if these are conceptualised as being akin to multiple case studies, and complemented by qualitative studies. Control conditions for experimental studies need to be carefully selected to provide the most appropriate test for a particular intervention, and considering the interests of all participants. Control groups in studies that replicate innovations that have been widely shown to be effective in other settings should experience teaching conditions that reflect good practice and meet expected teaching standards in the research context.Non

Building a library of chemistry education volumes

There are a number of markers of research fields (Good, 2000; Fensham, 2004). In particular, a research field requires a body of researchers who are working in what is recognised as a distinct area of enquiry, and who themselves associate their work with that field. These scholars should be spread across more than one institution, and major research fields tend to involve an international group of scholars. Other markers include journals and conferences dedicated, and designated, to the field – which tend to appear once there is a sufficient cadre of researchers who recognise that there is a field, and chose to locate their work within that field

Researching moving targets: Studying learning progressions and teaching sequences

The 2018 theme issue of Chemistry Education Research and Practice will focus on ‘Learning progressions and teaching sequences in chemistry education’. The call for papers, may be found at http://www.rsc.org/globalassets/05-journals-books-databases/ourjournals/chemistry-education-research-andpractice/cerp-call-for-papers-2018.pdf. This is both a fascinating and challenging area for researchers, as well as being of central importance to education. Two of the particular challenges of research in education relate to the nature and complexity of its core foci of learning and teaching. These factors feature largely in research aimed at exploring learning over time, and in developing teaching schemes to support desired learning progression. Learning and teaching are both processes, so that what is being investigated in such research is shifting as we undertake our investigations

The end of academic standards? A lament on the erosion of scholarly values in the post-truth world

I have recently been in correspondence with the staff of the Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice, something which has brought home to me the extent to which academic standards and scholarly values are under threat. I should point out, just in case it is not obvious, that the Journal of Chemistry: Education Research and Practice has absolutely nothing to do with this journal, Chemistry Education Research and Practice. This other journal is just one of countless new journals and conferences appearing in a marketplace selling the opportunity for academics to present their work, or allowing scholars to acquire credentials by being named as members of conference organising committees, editorial boards, or even editors, without requiring any conference organising, strategic oversight of journal policy, or editorial work.The work of these journals and conference series seems to be undertaken by clerical staff with no knowledge of the relevant academic field. Indeed, any direct engagement by scholars having actual expertise would probably amount to a distraction from the core commercial activity of generating revenue streams by selling academic credit. Having a purely technical role, the administrators are often able to work across a suite of journals or conferences on a diverse range of foci without being hampered by the inconvenience of needing to know anything about the disciplinary fields within their remit

Analysing symbolic expressions in secondary school chemistry: Their functions and implications for pedagogy

Symbolic expressions are essential resources for producing knowledge, yet they are a source of learning difficulties in chemistry education. This study aims to employ social semiotics to analyse the symbolic representation of chemistry from two complementary perspectives, referred to here as contextual (i.e., historical) and functional. First, the contextual account demonstrates that symbolism was introduced to represent compounds according to their elemental composition, to quantify chemistry, and to explain reactivity. Further to this, the functional analysis shows that symbolic expressions entail a range of unique grammatical resources to create specialised forms of knowledge, which cannot be made by natural language alone. It is found that historically the symbolic representation was not originally directly related to the submicroscopic domain, nor did it develop sufficient means to offer particulate explanations, although an indirect link could be set up between Berzelian formulae and the submicroscopic theoretical models. It is also found that understanding the quantitative aspects is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effective engagement with the symbolic representation of chemistry. Finally the present study discusses the pedagogic implications stemming from the social semiotic account of chemical symbolism.This study was undertaken whilst the first author was an academic visitor at University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, during a period of study leave granted by Sichuan International Studies University. This study has been funded by China Scholarship Council (File Number: 201500520002)This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Royal Society of Chemistry via http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C6RP00013

The application of the microgenetic method to studies of learning in science education: characteristics of published studies, methodological issues and recommendations for future research

This paper examines the role of the microgenetic method in science education. The microgenetic method is a technique for exploring the progression of learning in detail through repeated, high-frequency observations of a learner’s ‘performance’ in some activity. Existing microgenetic studies in science education are analysed. This leads to an examination of five significant methodological issues in microgenetic research. Firstly, qualitative and/or quantitative approaches to data collection and analysis within the microgenetic approach are considered and a case is made for the appropriateness of qualitative microgenetic research. Secondly, it is argued that researchers may define static intervals, periods within which (for methodological purposes) change is assumed not to occur, when reporting microgenetic studies. Thirdly, researchers should consider providing justifications for their choice of sampling rate with reference to the rate of change of the phenomenon they are studying. Fourthly, the difficulty of distinguishing conceptual change from the existence of multiple understandings is highlighted. Finally, the nature of sequences of repeated measures in microgenetic studies is considered. It is argued that different methodological approaches are suitable for microgenetic studies of different phenomena and a list of guidelines for the use of the microgenetic method in small-scale, qualitatively analysed studies in science education is proposed