Instruction Addressing the Components of Scientific Literacy and Its Relation to Student Outcomes

Abstract

The instruction of 11 seventh-grade life science teachers was observed to determine the extent to which they made linkages between science content and its societal, reasoning, historical, or attitudinal implications. Such linkages were hypothesized to facilitate students’ scientific literacy. Data on students’ perceptions of teacher instruction and scientific literacy outcomes were also gathered. Results showed that (a) teachers rarely or never addressed the noncontent components of science in their presentations and academic work assignments; (b) students perceived content as the prominent focus of their teachers’ instruction; and (c) teachers’ references to the noncontent components were unrelated to growth on all but one student outcome, where the association was negative. Altogether, the results indicate a large gap between scientific literacy as a normative goal of science instruction and current teaching practice. Furthermore, natural levels of reference to the noncontent components may be of such low frequency and quality as to preclude empirical tests of their effectiveness.

Controlling Variables: A Meta-Analysis of Training Studies

“…The Mitman et al (1987) study also reported that teachers who spent more time making content references that were enriched with references to loftier objectives had significantly lower student gains in scientific reasoning than teachers who merely "covered" the content. Examination of specific instructional procedures indicated that the unexpected finding could be attributed to the weakness of the techniques used.…”

“…Brandwein (1981) found that experiments undertaken by American students merely documented what teacher and text had described. Mitman, Mergendoller, Marchman, and Packer (1987) found that almost all teacher talks and student assignments focused on content acquisition; attention to the reasoning processes in science was extremely rare.…”

The Interaction of Reading Skills and Science Content Knowledge When Teaching Struggling Secondary Students

“…Research has repeatedly documented that students who demonstrate successful learning of a scientific principle or concept on a daily assignment often fail to use it to solve problems on another occasion (Bransford et al, 1986(Bransford et al, , 1989(Bransford et al, , 1991Reys et al, 1982;Schoenfeld, 1987;Smith & Good, 1984;Whitehead, 1929). Students often revert to inappropriate pre-instructional conceptual frameworks in real life problem solving (Mitman et al, 1987;Tobin et al, 1988).…”

Enseigner les sciences de la nature au primaire : perspective de l’enseignant

“…Cela dit -et malgré l'appui de conseillers pédagogiques crédibles (Shrigley, 1980;Perrine, 1984) et de manuels scolaires généralement adéquats (Meyer, Crummey et Gréer, 1988)--, l'enseignant doit assumer la responsabilité ultime de cet enseignement renouvelé des sciences. Il arrive souvent qu'il soit désarmé devant cette tâche au point qu'il se rabat sur des stratégies d'enseignement qui révèlent une conception plus traditionnelle des sciences, conception qui les réduit à une simple accumulation de connaissances (Oison et Reid, 1982;Mitman, Mergendoller, Marchman et Packer, 1987).…”