From Short- to Long-Term: Studying Science Education Longitudinally

Arzi, Hanna J.

doi:10.1080/03057268808559947

Cited by 45 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…There are reasons for the paucity of research on teacher development over long periods, starting with difficulties involved in any long-term longitudinal study due to research maintenance issues of sample attrition or continued funding (challenges of longitudinal studies are discussed in Arzi, 1988aArzi, , 2004White & Arzi, 2005). In the case of teacher content knowledge, a further concern is the sensitivity of teachers who can find repetitive probing threatening, reflecting disrespect for their professional credentials, particularly so for experienced secondary teachers who are expected to be subject experts.…”

Section: Arzi and Whitementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, the first research encounters included collection of data on high school and university courses taken. Data on these issues were also obtained in later waves.Retrospective data are considered inferior to real-time longitudinal data, yet the term "retrospective" is not sharply defined and can be attached to research strategies that yield data of different types and qualities (Arzi, 1988a). Relevant to the present paper is our differentiation between two types of retrospective data that we label "constrained" versus "free."…”

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Change in teachers' knowledge of subject matter: A 17‐year longitudinal study

Arzi¹,

White

2007

Science Education

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This longitudinal study explored change in teachers' knowledge of subjects they teach from preservice training through 17 years of professional experience. It followed secondary school science teachers in Australia, through sequences of individual interviews in which change in content knowledge (mainly energy-related) was probed primarily via concept profiles-a word-association method. Change was found to be multifaceted, with details of unused content fading from memory, alongside growth that results from improved understanding and reorganization of structure more than from accretion of new material. Across personal and professional life tracks that produce variation between individuals, development is facilitated by "critical mass" of teachers' knowledge and interest in their chosen disciplines of study and certification, whereas deficiencies tend to persist in the other subjects they are asked to teach. The required curriculum is the single most powerful determinant of teacher knowledge, serving as both its organizer and source. Based on the study, a three-phase model of teacher content-knowledge development is proposed, and the discussion highlights the need for career-long support for growth, even in teachers' major subjects where expertise is taken for granted.C 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 92: 221 -251, 2008 How does teachers' knowledge of subject matter change over their professional careers? Research into this question is not abundant. Most studies on science teachers' content knowledge are limited to the preservice period, more often done with elementary rather than secondary student-teachers, and few continue through the early career years (Cochran & Jones, 1998;Davis, Petish, & Smithey, 2006;Gess-Newsome & Lederman, 1999).An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA, April 2004.Hanna J. Arzi was at the Faculty of Education, Monash University, during the first stage of the reported longitudinal study, 1985 -1987. Correspondence to: Hanna J. Arzi; e-mail: arzi hj@netvision.net.il C 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. ARZI AND WHITEIn the absence of longitudinal data, inferences on later years rely on questionable extrapolation of early data and comparisons between preservice students and experienced teachers.There are reasons for the paucity of research on teacher development over long periods, starting with difficulties involved in any long-term longitudinal study due to research maintenance issues of sample attrition or continued funding (challenges of longitudinal studies are discussed in Arzi, 1988aArzi, , 2004White & Arzi, 2005). In the case of teacher content knowledge, a further concern is the sensitivity of teachers who can find repetitive probing threatening, reflecting disrespect for their professional credentials, particularly so for experienced secondary teachers who are expected to be subject experts. Consequently, teacher cooperation beyond their preservice courses is not easy to obtain a...

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Section: Arzi and Whitementioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 96%

Change in teachers' knowledge of subject matter: A 17‐year longitudinal study

Arzi¹,

White

2007

Science Education

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“…There were calls for longitudinal studies. However, in a review of the field, Arzi (1988) noted "a mismatch between the consensus regarding the importance of longitudinal studies and the actual number of such studies in science education" (p. 17). In particular, Arzi argued the need for studies that "followed students' ideas in parallel with instruction and beyond it" (p. 42).…”

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confidence: 96%

The Development of Children’s Concept of a Substance: A Longitudinal Study of Interaction Between Curriculum and Learning

Johnson

2005

Res Sci Educ

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This paper is a reflection on a three-year longitudinal study that explored the development of children's concept of a substance, for which detailed results concerning children's understandings have been reported elsewhere. The attention in this paper is on the methodological features related to the longitudinal nature of the study and the insights into pupils' learning that were afforded by its design. There is, of course, an extensive literature on children's understandings of scientific ideas, and the nature of conceptual change involved in learning is a contested area. I argue in the paper that longitudinal studies are uniquely placed to inform the debate, and by focusing on this particular study the aim is to demonstrate the kind of contribution that can be made.

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“…This differs from the more usual cross age-studies by making it possible to follow changes which may be sudden or gradual, and explanations which are either idiosyncratic or social, and hence derive either from incidents in personal history or from talking with peers and teaching methods. Arzi (1988) has also commented on the need to stretch the duration of research projects in order to make claims about students' long-term conceptual development. This picks up on earlier research into students' modelling (e.g.…”

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The persistence of personal and social themes in context: Long‐ and short‐term studies of students' scientific ideas

Helldén

Solomon

2004

Science Education

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In this paper we will examine the persistence of "misconceptions." We used data from a longitudinal study of personal ideas in 24 students' thinking about ecological processes. The results show students often speaking about personal experiences dating from an early age, to which they had also referred in similar interviews conducted years before. These data are compared with results from a different study of middle school physics students' thinking about energy and steam engines. After the new learning had been "successfully" completed and assessed, old ideas returned. These findings are used to set up a theoretical basis for understanding the longitudinal results. Findings from memory studies are shown to explicate the long-term effects of the passage of time and prompts for the recall of scientific concepts. LONG-LIVED MISCONCEPTIONSIt has been very well known for at least two decades that students' mistaken ideas about scientific matters, or "misconceptions," do not easily go away (e.g., Champayne et al., 1980;Smith & Lott, 1983). In the face of this unanimity about their persistence it is perhaps surprising how little research has gone into exploring this obstinate continuity over time. The last two decades have witnessed an enormous amount of research which has tried to change these misconceptions in the minds of students, replacing them with new and more orthodox scientific explanations, far too many studies to detail here. Some of this research was purely theoretical (e.g., Hewson, 1981;Strike & Posner, 1982), much was practical and analytical (e.g., Andersson & Karquist, 1983;Shipstone, 1984) and some was practical classroom action research (e.g., Driver & Oldham, 1986) HELLDÉN AND SOLOMONthe students' understanding by showing them that the orthodox science explanations were more satisfactory, logical, and fruitful. The work in the final category, which was based on theoretical work from the first category, simply failed to produce the desired change (Johnston, 1990;Lijnse, 2000) even though the students clearly much enjoyed the experience. Their previous misconceptions changed no more than did those in a control group who had undergone no special conceptual change programme. Recently we have also seen research which described a large-scale science teacher education programme based on this same rather uncertain idea of conceptual change (Hewson et al., 1999). This unsubstantiated optimism about conceptual change is at least partially the result of a paucity of longitudinal research into the memory of early ideas over time.It is important to separate the notion of "constructivism" as a learning principle, from "conceptual change" as the desired outcome of a teaching and learning process. As explained some years ago (Solomon, 1994) constructivism can be used in several different ways in both philosophy and education. But its most valuable function for science education is to delineate a contrast between the old transmission view of teaching and learning, and active negotiation between students. ...

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From Short- to Long-Term: Studying Science Education Longitudinally

Cited by 45 publications

References 91 publications

Change in teachers' knowledge of subject matter: A 17‐year longitudinal study

Change in teachers' knowledge of subject matter: A 17‐year longitudinal study

The Development of Children’s Concept of a Substance: A Longitudinal Study of Interaction Between Curriculum and Learning

The persistence of personal and social themes in context: Long‐ and short‐term studies of students' scientific ideas

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