determining the conceptions of teaching science held by experienced high school science teachers

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 32, NO. 5, PP. 503-520 (1995)

Determining the Conceptions of Teaching Science Held by Experienced High School Science Teachers

Peter W. Hewson, Holly Walter Kerby, and Perry A. Cook

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, 1025 W. Johnson St., Madison, Wisconsin 53706

Abstract

The article describes the process of analysis for determining a teacher’s conception of teaching science using an available interview task. The analytical process provides a transparent link between teachers’ spoken words and the different representations of their conceptions of teaching science. Repre- sentations of a teacher’s conception of teaching science include a grid for analyzing different themes in a teacher’s conception, a brief summary of the themes, and a longer written interpretive summary. Because these representations are based on the fundamental components of teaching science, they allow the uniqueness of both specific and structural aspects of teachers’ views to emerge, and they facilitate comparisons between teachers. The analysis and its outcomes are exemplified using interviews with several experienced high school science teachers.

The thoughts that teachers have about the content and students they are to teach influence the way in which they will teach. This idea, which accords with common sense and common experience and is also supported by a growing body of research, is the foundation of the research reported in this article. Our argument is as follows: If we want to improve science teaching (and national reports are calling for just that) and science teaching depends on teacher thinking, then research on experienced science teachers’ thinking is needed to inform the goals and practices of science teacher certification and professional development programs.

In this article we first consider the literature on teacher thinking with particular reference to recent work in science education to provide a framework in which to situate our research. Then we describe the methods underlying one component of this research: the determination of the conceptions of teaching science held by experienced high school biology, chemistry, and physics teachers. Next we illustrate the analytic process in some detail using the interview of one teacher. Finally, we discuss the analytical determination of teachers’ conceptions of teaching science in terms of its trustworthiness, value, limitations, and implications for further research.

Theoretical Framework

Teaching is a complex cognitive process in which an individual draws on knowledge from multiple domains in order to teach (Leinhardt & Greeno, 1986). What a teacher needs to know and how that knowledge should be learned and used to teach effectively has been a central theme

0 1995 by the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0022-4308/95/050503-18

504 HEWSON, KERBY, AND COOK

for many educational researchers and philosophers since the time of John Dewey nearly a century ago.

Constructivism

A way of thinking about teaching that, in our view, readily incorporates these issues of teaching complexity and teacher learning is a variation of a constructivist perspective (Magoon, 1977; Resnick, 1983; von Glasersfeld, 1989; Wheatley, 199 1). This perspective assumes that humans construct their own knowledge, using their existing knowledge in order to do so. This construction of knowledge takes place within a context of social interaction and agreement. In the process of construction, people develop relatively stable patterns of belief, constructing knowledge in ways that to them are coherent and useful. Because the construction process is influenced by a variety of social experiences, the knowledge constructed by each individual tends not to be completely personal and idiosyncratic. Thus, existing knowledge and social agreements about meaning not only limit how new experiences are interpreted but also determine what is perceived in any situation. In addition, two individuals exposed to the same events may perceive and interpret them in very different ways, depending on their personal underlying knowledge and beliefs.

Research on Teacher Thinking

In recent years there has been a huge upsurge of interest in how teachers think and what they know. A major catalyst of this increased interest was a report of the National lnstitute of Education that proposed an image of the teacher as a professional whose thought processes were worthy of study (Clark & Peterson, 1986). This report has led to many studies that have illuminated different and frequently overlapping aspects of teacher thinking. Wilson, Shulman, and Richert (1987), for example, have offered a detailed view of what makes up a teacher’s knowledge by presenting a model of the components of the professional knowledge base for teaching. These components are knowledge of subject matter, pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of other content, knowledge of curriculum, knowledge of learners, knowledge of educational aims, and general pedagogical knowledge. They suggested that these are not iso- lated blocks of knowledge but are related to each other in different ways. Further, they sought to describe these ways in a model of pedagogical reasoning that draws at different times and in different ways on these components of a teacher’s knowledge. The picture of teacher knowledge that has emerged from this and other studies is a complex one. Some major features of this picture are that teachers’ knowledge draws from many different sources, it is used for a variety of purposes, and it is fluid and contextualized.

Different methods have been used to identify and evaluate teacher thinking. In a recent review, Kagan (1990) identified five different types of method. The first was direct and nonin- ferential ways of assessing teacher belief, a common example of this type being the use of Likert-type self-report scales, Second were methods relying on analyses of teachers’ descriptive language that identify, for example, the metaphors embedded in this language. Another type used taxonomies to evaluate teachers’ metacognition and self-reflection as provided in a written test, an interview transcript, a rcflective journal, etc. A fourth type used multimethod evalua- tions of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge such as questionnaires, structured interviews, and experimental tasks. The final type involved teachers constructing some form of a concept map of their knowledge.

In science education, different bodies of research have informed the study of the concep-

CONCEPTIONS OF TEACHING SCIENCE 505

tions that science teachers hold about teaching in general and about specific aspects of teaching such as science, learning, instruction, and curriculum. One of these is the research on teacher thinking briefly mentioned above. A second has focused on science teachers’ beliefs about the nature of science (Lederman, 1992). Hewson and Hewson (1987) considered research on teacher thinking in conjunction with a third body of research: that into students’ conceptions of natural phenomena. They presented arguments that led to a definition of the conception of teaching science and the initial development of an interview task to determine conceptions of teaching science (Hewson & Hewson, 1989). They also used an analogy with teaching designed to help students acquire conceptions of natural phenomena, suggesting that certification programs should focus on helping preservice teachers acquire appropriate conceptions of teaching science. The analogy also suggests that both beginning and experienced teachers might hold a variety of different conceptions of teaching science, some of which might result in limited professional knowledge development and ineffective teaching practices.

Evidence that teachers hold different conceptions has come from Aguirre, Haggerty, and Linder (1990), who used an open-ended questionnaire to elicit preservice science teachers’ conceptions of teaching science. They found students entering preservice education programs possessed a variety of views about science, teaching, and learning. For example, almost half of 74 prospective science teachers believed that teaching is a matter of knowledge transfer from teacher “to the ‘empty’ minds of children” (p. 388) in contrast to about a third who believed that “for learning to occur, new information should be related to existing understanding.”

Evidence that changes can occur in a science teacher’s conception of teaching and learning has been presented by Hollon, Roth, and Anderson (1991) in the case of Dave, a preservice teacher. They discussed some of the changes in his conception of teaching science that occurred during his preservice courses. For example, Dave initially expressed a great deal of confidence in his conceptual understanding of subject matter. He viewed biology as “the ideal thing to teach because it’s so related to their [students’] everyday world and things they might wonder about” (p. 169). At the end of his methods program Dave’s expressed confidence was judged to be far more justified because he had developed a set of beliefs and conceptual tools that prepared him to reflect on and learn from his experience as a teacher. Another finding was Dave’s new-found belief in the importance of students’ prior knowledge and the active role this plays in the learning process.

These findings show that teachers do hold different conceptions and that these conceptions can change as a consequence of a teacher education program. The significance of these findings derives from the assumption with which this article began, viz., the thoughts that teachers have about the content and students they are to teach influence the way in which they will teach. Recent studies have sought to test this assumption by combining analyses of teachers’ thinking with observations of their classroom practice (e.g., Brickhouse, 1990; Duschl & Wright, 1989; Gess-Newsome & Lederman, 1992; Lederman & Zeidler, 1987). Results obtained using the task discussed in this article have been combined with classroom observations in studies that have also addressed this assumption (Freitag, Hollon, Hewson, Lyons, & Olsen, 1993; Hollon & Hewson, 1993; Lyons & Freitag, 1993).

Conceptions of Teaching Science

From a constructivist point of view we can argue that teachers build conceptual structures in which they incorporate classroom events, instructional concepts, socially approved behaviors, and explanatory patterns. Following Hewson and Hewson (1989) we refer to a structure such as this as a conception of teaching science, including


the set of ideas, understandings, and interpretations of experience concerning the teacher and teaching, the nature and content of science, and the learners and learning that the teacher uses in making decisions about teaching, both in planning and execution. These include curricular decisions (the nature and form of the content) and instructional decisions (how the content relates to the learners in the instructional sctting). The structure of a conception may vary considerably from a relatively amorphous collection of ideas with no strong connections to one which is interrelated and possesses a large measure of internal consistency. (p. 194)

The notion of a conception of teaching science has much in common with the picture of teacher knowledge briefly sketched above: It recognizes that the knowledge used in teaching draws from knowledge of the subject, the learner, and instruction; and it is sensitive to the particular context in which a teacher uses it. The method used to elicit teachers’ conceptions in this study, the conceptions of teaching science task (Hewson & Hewson, 1989), was included in the group of methods evaluating teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge by Kagan (1990), who commented that the task “yields a purely descriptive measure of a teacher’s pedagogical content beliefs and does not address the relative value of those beliefs” (pp. 439-441).

Development of a solid base of knowledge about students’ conceptions has been instrumen- tal in providing a framework for considering the learning processes involved in changing their conceptions, as well as providing a framework for designing instruction that facilitated those changes. Although it is clear that researchers have recognized the importance of teachers’ underlying conceptions of teaching science and how these conceptions might influence their teaching practices, a comparably detailed base of knowledge about high school science teachers’ knowledge and beliefs does not exist. Yet such knowledge is fundamental to efforts to design preservice and inservice models that will be successful in helping individuals acquire more appropriate conceptions of science teaching. Thus, the methods reported here aim to provide an important link in the chain of knowledge needed to move beyond description of existing practice and toward more effective models of developing effective practitioners by focusing on the description of their conceptions of teaching science.

Design and Procedures

In this section we detail the methods used to determine a teacher’s conception of teaching science: methods based on an interview task developed by Hewson and Hewson (1989). After describing the task we outline the process of analyzing interview transcripts-a process that develops and extends that described by the task authors-and illustrate the analytic process in some detail using the interview of one teacher.

Selection of Teachers

The teachers whose interviews are used below to exemplify the process of analysis were recruited as part of a larger project (Hewson & Hollon, 1989). The two criteria for inclusion in the project were that teachers should have a minimum of 5 years’ teaching experience and a willingness to contribute to the profession. Twelve high school teachers-4 each in biology, chemistry, and physics-from 10 high schools participated in the project, These teachers were interviewed in May 1991 using the Conceptions of Teaching Science Interview.


The Conceptions of Teaching Science (or CTS) Interview

The interview task was designed to enable respondents to consider the components of an appropriate conception of teaching science (Hewson & Hewson, 1988), at the same time providing an environment in which a variety of views could be expressed without bias from the task structure. It was developed to allow subjects to respond to particular events while encourag- ing them to link the events to larger conceptual issues.

The interview consists of 10 events that include instances and noninstances of science teaching and learning both in and out of classroom contexts. In the interview each respondent is shown, in the same sequence, a written description of each event. Four examples are given below:

a. Two students working together in the library, doing calculations on problems concern-

b. A college professor lecturing on Darwin’s theory of natural selection to a group of first

c. Teacher in front of ninth-grade biology class describing the steps in using the Punnett

d. A student at home following a recipe for blueberry muffins.

ing calorie values for different foods.

graders.

Square method of figuring genetic offspring ratios.

For each event, the respondent is asked the following questions:

1 . In your view, is there science teaching happening here? 2. If you cannot tell, what else would you need to know in order to be able to tell? Please

3. If you answered “yes” or “no,” what tells you that this is the case? Please give reasons give reasons for your answer.

for your answer.

The interviewer introduces no other terms into the interview, but does follow up on ideas, e.g., learning, introduced by the respondent.

Analysis of the CTS Interview

The analysis of a transcript obtained from the Conceptions of Teaching Science Interview is consistent with its design, because it focuses on the components of an appropriate conception of teaching science. Thus, each transcript is examined for statements that included references to the following six categories: nature of science, learning, learner characteristics, rationale for instruction, preferred instructional technique, and teaching.

The analysis proceeds through the following stages, which are represented schematically in Figure 1. The analytic stages are illustrated with extracts from the analysis of Mr. Jenner, a biology teacher.

Stage I : The analyst reads the transcript, identifies segments of the transcript, and codes them in terms of the six CTS analysis categories. Table 1 includes the transcript of Mr. Jenner’s reply to instance 9, “baking muffins.”

Stage 11: The analyst enters the codes in a computer program, “Ethnograph,” that produces a full contextual listing of all segments in each category.

Stage III; The analyst sorts transcript segments in each category into separate piles, each representing a relatively homogeneous thought, and writes a statement summa-


Transcript of CTS Interview

SCI as process

1’-

Coded for categories: SCI, LNG, LNR. INS/RAT. TCG t

Codes entered in Ethnograph; quotes printed out by category

Quotes reread. grouped by issuek)

/

Stack of quotes pertaining to SCI

-\ Grounded in observation ,

entered on Theme Analysis Grid; themes, tensions identified w

In Grandview: Summary statements written for each issuetgroup

Excerpts of quotes entered in support of summaw

Interpretive summary written

I Figure 1. Schcmatic of CTS analysis.

rizing each of these thoughts. Table 2 contains one of these summary statements on “Science” with all supporting transcript scgmcnts for Mr. Jenner. As indicated, two supporting segments come from his “baking muffins” transcript; the remaining four come from other instances. Table 3 contains all summary statements for Mr. Jenner for all six CTS Categories. Because of their overlap, the two instruction categories have been combined.

Stage IV: The analyst enters all individual summary statements in a Theme Analysis Grid (discussed below) and, by inspecting the complete grid, identifies any themes that run through the interview. Figure 2 contains Mr. Jenner’s completed grid, with themes identified by different symbols.


Table 1 Partial Transcript of CTS Interview between Interviewer ( I ) and Respondent (R)-Mr. Jenner: Instance 9 , Baking Mufins

I: OK. All right, here’s question Number Nine. It says, a student at home following a recipe for bluebeny muffins. I’ll let you look at that. [Pause] OK, now we’re back and we’re talking about question Number Nine, which is a student at home baking blueberry muffins. Any science teaching going on there?

course, you don’t need a teacher to have teaching of science. No, I don’t really think so. However, an experiment’s about to take place that is science as I perceive it, at least in the teaching sense. Now a student at home follows a recipe; when I follow a recipe, ah, I can be on automatic pilot. I can be watching TV and not paying any attention other than two teaspoons of this, you know, and I just put it in there and I’m not internalizing it, I won’t remember it in five minutes so, no, I, I just don’t see any science going on there, besides when I cook it can be a disaster anyways. Ah, but, on the other hand there’s a whole, this could lead, this is leading to an experiment potentially and that is somebody’s going to try to make some blueberry muffins here and as I pointed out to many students over the years, true, we all know what blueberry muffins are like but this individual does not know how their muffins are going to turn out. This may be successful and it may not be successful. And the next step, I mean this is the beginning of this, but if this goes beyond and to the actual creation of these things you’re going to eat, I see an experiment going on there and I see some pretty classic science taking place. Ah.

R: Um, first of all I don’t know if the teacher gave them the recipe, and in terms of science, of

I: They would do what, now what would they have to do to make this classic science?

R: They have to go all the way from putting the recipe together which, you know, they’re just following somebody else’s directions, to creating these muffins and serving them to people and having them eat them. I think more classically though it would be when a person takes a recipe and changes it. Creates their own home-grown recipe. That’s pretty classic science to me. You’re taking some information, you’re taking a known, a known entity, you add your own ingredients, you change your procedures a little bit, and you come up with something new. And, ah, that’s about as classic science, I think, as it gets. Sure you’re not venturing where no person has ventured before, but at least you’re doing a variation on that theme. My mom’s chocolate cake is a great example of that. [Both laugh]

I: Is it evolving over time?

R: Oh it’s good, oh yeah, and I hope it continues to do so, it keeps getting better.

I: Well, moms always make good cakes.

Stage V: The analyst writes an interpretive summary of these themes. Table 4 contains the interpretive summary written for Mr. Jenner.

The examples show that each summary statement may draw from a number of different instances; also, each instance may contribute to different summary statements. In other words, the pattern of linkages between instances and final summary is a complex one.

Theme Analysis A theme, referred to in Stage IV above, is an idea a person uses when talking about

different instances. It is the same thought applied in various contexts that seems to influence the teacher in responding to different events. The Theme Analysis Grid (or TAG) is a matrix whose columns are formed by four main categories derived from the design structure of the CTS- Science, Learning, Instruction, and Teaching. (CTS categories for Learning and Learner, and for Rationale and Preferred Instruction, were combined.) Each one of the column categories is


Table 2 Collected Transcript Segments and Summary Statement-Mr. Jenner: The Nature of Science

Summary Statement

Classic science also occurs when students do an experiment or even just repeat an experiment with mi- nor variations. They may not discover thing that haven’t been discovered before, but they will discover things that are new to them. This might be called individual true science as opposed to true science or pure research.

Sorted Transcript Statements

a. Though I’m looking at the last one, the one about the students working in the library, there’s a student-based evolution going on there where they’re running to complete a calculation and hopefully through their research and their discovery process developing some of their own ideas and concepts. At least they’re deriving those ideas and concepts from their work. Now that I see more as science (#4).

b. They’re taking this grid and they’rejlling in some information, they’re taking that information then, this isn’t science in the sense that you’re discovering anything that hasn’t been discovered before. But they are discovering things they didn’t know before (#5).

c. There might be another question that could be asked here and that is, is it true science or is there something different between true science and true science for the individual? In other words, i f a person, through research, through an experiment, discovers something they didn’t know, is that true science? Because that would really change some of my answers, and I don’t [know] the answer to that (#5).

d. This is leading to an experiment potentially and that is somebody’s going to try to make some blueberry mufins here. . . . True, we all know what blueberry mufins are like but this individual does not know how their mufins are going to turn out. This may be successful and it may not be successful . . . i f this goes beyond and to the actual creation of these things you’re going to eat, I see an experiment going on there and I see some pretty classic science taking place (#9) X2.

e. That’s pretty classic science to me. You’re taking a known entity, you add your own ingredients, you change your procedures a little bit, and you come up with something new. And that’s about as classic science, I think, as it gets. Sure you’re not venturing where no person has ventured before, but at least you’re doing a variation on that theme (#9).

f . You don’t always have to re-invent the wheel to do true science (#lo).

divided into a few large subcategories that emerged by combining and grouping the summary statements of all teachers from each category (Science, Instruction, etc.). For example, Science statements were categorized into Goals, Science is. . . , Science requires. . . , and Content. Because the order in which these subcategories occur is not significant, the rows in the TAG have no substantive meaning.

To carry out a theme analysis, the analyst places a teacher’s summary statements (from Stage 111 above) in appropriate cells in the TAG. Operationally, a theme is identified as an idea that recurs in two or more columns of a Theme Analysis Grid. Then the analyst identifies the summary statements that comprise the theme and labels them with a symbol for clarity of display. Finally, the analyst writes an abstract of the content of each theme to form a “theme statement,” using the teacher’s own words if possible, and cross-references it with its symbolic label. Tensions between and within themes are represented as -. Figure 2 contains an example of a completed TAG.


Table 3 Complete Summary Statements for Mr. Jenner

~ ~ ~ ~-

Nature of Science I think of pure science as research, an investigative process aimed at discovering what was hitherto unknown. Classic science also occurs when students do an experiment or even just repeat an experiment with minor variations. They may not discover things that haven’t been discovered before, but they will discover things that are new to them. This might be called individual true science as opposed to true science or pure research. In order to pursue or understand a field of science, one needs a knowledge base of the information, concepts, and language agreed upon by scientists in that field. This knowledge base is the foundation of scientific research; the more you know about science, the more you can discover on your own.

Learning The best and most exciting sort of science learning involves having students develop their own ideas and concepts through a discovery-type process. There is an important place for learning by rote memory. It’s not very fun or exciting, but the information gained by it is essential for understanding science concepts and lays the foundation for discovery-type learning.

The Learner Learning is driven by an individual’s motivation, interest, enthusiasm, and curiosity.

Preferred Instructional Techniques and Rationale for Instruction I am an advocate of having students doing their own “research,” i.e., give them some information, let them develop a hypothesis, let them develop and execute an experiment. Such investigative activities are fun and generate great enthusiasm among the students. Unfortunately, the large number of students in each class and the lack of facilities limit my ability to do this more often. I encourage my students to look for research opportunities outside of the classroom. If you can get the students tuned into the subject in an introduction, your teaching will be more effective. This might involve having them observe something closely or asking a question to get them thinking and asking their own questions. This also allows the teacher to find out what the students know prior to the lesson. If I’m entertaining and create an atmosphere where the students laugh and enjoy themselves, the effectiveness of my teaching increases. I favor a teacher-led conversational type of classroom discussion. This allows students to ask and answer their own questions. When teaching students how to do problems, 1 think it best to talk about it, show them how it’s done, then reinforce the information/concept by having them do a number of the problems. I want students to be able to apply the things they learn, especially to their own lives. Tests and quizzes can be a teaching/leaming tool. ”pically, my tests contain “situation questions” in which I describe an experiment, give them information, and ask the student to analyze it within a structure. There is also a place for giving students the chance to demonstrate they have learned something by rote memory, i.e., in a lab practical.

In my mind being a science teacher and a scientist are two different things. A scientist does research. A science teacher teaches about science, a multifaceted task which may or may not include doing and directing research. Perhaps the primary goal of my science teaching is to give students an appreciation and consequent understanding of the interdependemce of organisms in the ecosystem that they will then use when making life decisions. A second goal of mine is to involve students in the research process by providing the opportunity to develop and do their own experiments.

Teaching

(continued)


THEME 1

THEME 2

Table 3 (Continued)

My third major goal in science teaching is to impart a certain knowledge base to the student. Much of a teacher's effectiveness depends on his ability to communicate with and motivate his students. You don't need a teacher present to have science teaching, although it is generally a teacher who initiates the activity. Students can teach themselves or each other. On the other hand, you can't have science teaching without students.

"Pure science" ie research aimed et discovering the unknown; "classic science" has students discovering things that are new to them. Mr. Jenner wants to involve students in research end believes the bast learning occurs when students discover things for themselves. This is in tension I<------>) with theme 2. below.

[Science depends on e body of knowledge. much of which must be learned by rote memory.

THEME ANALYSIS FOR MR. JENNER : BIOLOGY TEACHER

THEME 3

NATURE OF SCIENCE

4 Loarninp IS driven by students' intarest and motivation. It is the teacher's task to nurture these drives

QOALS

Discovering the unknown.

SCIENCE 18 - An invostipativo procoss.

-Pure sci': roaeorch.

'Classic sci': 5s diocover thinps new to them.

SCIENCE REOUUIES ~

upon information, concepts, lonpuage.

[ Knowlodge base of agreed-

CONTENT

LEARNING/WRNER

WRNINQ IS llS NOT1 ~

Best when Ss develop ideas for themselves in discovery process.

Some leerning by rote memory is essential.

LEARNING AS OUTCOME

Ss should be able to epply what they've learned t o their everyday lives. (from RAT/INS)

COQNITNE FACTORS INFLUENCINQ LO

AFFECTNE FACTORS INFLUENCINQ LO

4 LQ driven by Ss' motivation, interest. enthusiasm, curiosity. -

RATIONALE and INSTRUCTION

CURRlCULUMlCONTENT

INTERACTION 4 Get Ss tuned in through observing. questioning.

Favor teecher-led discussion to ellow Sa participation.

4 Create entertaining, joyful stmosohera.

ACTRIITIESTTASKS Let Ss do own research

within limits of closs.

Encourage Ss to do research outside cless.

Instruct Se in problem solving.

[ Tssts and quizzes can be a teachinp tool.

TEACHING

GOALS 4 Give Ss an appreciation of interdependence of orpanisms in ecosystem

Involve SE in research process

[Impart knowledge base

DEFINITION. CONDITIONS

Tg does not raquire a teacher

TASKS, FACTORS INFLUENCING EFFECTIVENESS T toaches about science. doesn't necesserily do it.

+ Effectiveness depends on Communlcstlon. mctlvatlon.

OTHER


Table 4 Interpretive Summary for Mr. Jenner

There seem to be three themes that characterize Mr. Jenner’s conception of teaching science. The first two are strongly related to his views on the nature of science. On one hand, he sees it is necessary to have a knowledge base of the information, concepts, and language agreed upon by scientists in the field. On the other, he sees science as a creative process of research and discovery. He regards the former as an essential precursor for the latter. The third theme is the importance of students having motivation, interest, enthusiasm, and curiosity to drive their learning.

The first theme-science as a body of knowledge-is not seen by Mr. Jenner as exciting, but for him it is essential as a basis for understanding science concepts and performing discovery-type learning. The information needs to be acquired, and this is best accomplished by means of rote memory. When the knowledge is procedural, such as doing problems, practice and reinforcement are necessary. Mr. Jenner believes it is also necessary that students be able to demonstrate on tests and quizzes what they have learned by rote memory.

The second theme-science as research-occurs in Mr. Jenner’s conception in various guises. It is how science progresses into the unknown. While he recognizes that students won’t be able to discover something never found before, they will discover things that are new to them. This is what it means to learn by discovery. Thus an important goal of this is to involve students in the research process by providing the opportunity to develop and do their own experiments. Although he advocates this, he finds that lack of space and other resources limits the ability to do this more often. To com- pensate, perhaps, he encourages his students to look for research opportunities outside the classroom.

The third theme-motivation-is an important component of Mr. Jenner’s teaching. If he can provide an entertaining atmosphere in class, or get the students tuned into the introduction of a subject, his effectiveness increases. His ability to communicate with his students is important to him. His primary goal in teaching science is to give students an appreciation, and consequent understanding, of the interdependence of organisms in the ecosystem that they will then use when making life decisions.

It appears that there is an essential tension for Mr. Jenner between the two aspects of science. Discovery is exciting, but it needs a knowledge base. He want students to do their own research, but he also advocates rote memory. The third theme appears to keep this tension from becoming unproduc- tive. If students find what they are doing intrinsically exciting, well and good. If not, the teacher needs to create an atmosphere in which students can have fun while doing what needs to be done.

Comparison of Theme Analysis Grids

A Comparison of the Theme Analysis Grids of different teachers reveals various kinds of information. These include differences in:

theme patterns linking grid cells; empty grid cells; detailed content of each grid cell.

We assume that these differences represent differences in the conceptions of teaching science held by these teachers.

Discussion

The central focus of this article is the process for determining the conceptions of teaching science held by experienced high school science teachers. This entails a systematic analysis of structured interviews conducted using the Conceptions of Teaching Science task. A significant aspect of the analysis scheme outlined above is the identification in Stage IV of themes that run through teachers’ summary statements produced in Stage 111 of the analysis. Although theme


identification was not a part of the analysis scheme as originally published (Hewson & Hewson, 1989), its inclusion seems to be both warranted and valuable.

Several characteristics of the analytic process are worth discussing further: trustworthiness, value, limitations, and implications for further research. These characteristics are illustrated with outcomes of the analyses of Mr. Jenner, Mr. Fielder and Mr. Jonas (chemistry teachers), and Ms. Sorenson (a physics teacher).

Trustworthiness

Theme analysis is warranted to the extent that there is agreement of different kinds: between analyses of different analysts working with the same transcript and between an analyst and the teacher on the substance of the theme analysis. We have sought agreements of both kinds; in this article only agreements of the first kind are reported.

Agreements between different analyses of the same transcript were sought in two stages. First, after an extensive time of training to establish common meanings between us for the analysis categories, one of us (HWK) analyzed the transcripts for most teachers, and a second person (PWH) read the summary statements and supporting transcript segments. We found that in each case it was possible to clarify ambiguities and resolve differences in order to reach consensus. Because of the time spent training and the time-consuming nature of the analysis, we did not perform and compare independent analyses for the same teacher.

Second, the summary statements were given to four other science educators who derived themes independently. The sets of themes for a given teacher were compared and any differences were noted, discussed, and, where possible, reconciled. A majority of a teacher’s summary statements were included in the derived themes. Across the whole group, about 65% of summary statements were included in themes, varying between 50% and 75%.

Substantial agreement existed between independent analyses of each teacher. In all cases, different analysts concurred that the similarities between their analyses were without doubt more significant than were the differences. Individual comparisons varied over a range of positions. On one hand, for Mr. Jenner there was complete agreement over the substance of the three identified themes with the only differences occurring in emphasis within themes. For example, one analyst’s theme was:

Science depends on a body of knowledge, much of which must be learned by rote memory.

The other analyst’s corresponding theme was:

Students need to have a foundation of basic information and concepts. Some of this is imparted through rote learning.

On the other hand, the agreement between analyses was substantial but incomplete for Mr. Fielder. There was agreement with respect to one theme (on the importance of critical thinking). But in constructing other themes, the analysts went in different ways; when they compared analyses, they could see the sense in each other’s themes. For example, one analyst’s theme was oriented toward the nature of science:

Science is a cognitive activity involving critical thinking skills that are valuable regardless of context. There is also a body of abstract knowledge associated with science.


The second analysts’s related theme was, however, oriented more toward issues of teaching and learning:

Science involves theories and concepts. It is critical to consider the students’ background knowledge when explaining these theories. Occasional demonstrations, models, and spec- imens also help.

Thus, there is ambiguity present when different people conduct analyses, because each analyst’s particular background influences his or her interpretations. Most of this ambiguity could be resolved in discussion and by going to a teacher’s verbatim quotes rather than the summary statements. But what perhaps was surprising was that, where differences remained, they had to do with boundaries rather than substance, e.g. , there was disagreement about the way in which a given set of summary statements might be formed into separate themes. In other words, we found that in all cases the agreements between analysts were much more substantial than the disagreements.

Value

The CTS interview and its associated process of analysis is valuable for a number of reasons.

Summary. It produces a succinct summary of a lengthy interview that retains the links in the chain between a teacher’s discourse and the final outcome. Being able to identify the basis on which summary interpretations are made is an essential key in providing confidence that the products of the analysis are trustworthy.

Commonality and Uniqueness. The CTS interview analysis allows teachers to talk about the commonalities of science teaching-science, learning, instruction-without imposing re- strictions on capturing the uniqueness and individuality of each teacher; this is because the theme statements incorporate the teacher’s own words wherever possible. In exemplification of these differences, on one hand, Mr. Jenner spends a considerable amount of time talking about the nature of science, the goals of science, and the implications these have for the teaching of science. More specifically, he talks about the tension he sees between science as a body of knowledge and science as a process of research and about the ways these two aspects play out in his classroom. On the other hand, Mr. Jonas’s summary statements about science are peripheral, viz., “science is important to our everyday lives” and “doing science requires math and reading skills.” In other words, he says nothing substantive about the nature of science.

Another example concerns the concept of learning. Mr. Jonas is much concerned about factors that influence learning. These factors, in his view, include the organization and structure of the instructional materials used by the teacher and the skills, background information, interest, and curiosity of students. Unlike Mr. Jonas, Ms. Sorenson focuses heavily on what is (and isn’t) the task of learning. To learn science, in her view, students need to go through the processes of science, discover, and do hands-on experiments; they need to “ingest” useful information, incorporating it with other information and making it their own.

A virtue of the analysis process is that it identifies important similarities and contrasts in a natural and self-evident way. For example, even when teachers talk about the same thing, they


might interpret its usefulness in very different ways. Mr. Jenner, Mr. Jonas, and Ms. Sorenson all advocate the use of questioning as an important part of instruction. Yet Mr. Jenner uses it as a means of getting students tuned in and assisting a teacher-led discussion; Mr. Jonas asks questions to provide him with feedback from the class; and Ms. Sorenson uses questioning as a key that leads into student discussion and discovery learning. Another particular example over which these teachers differ dramatically is the value of rote memorization. Mr. Jenner says that some learning by rote is essential because of the knowledge base of science he needs to impart to his students. In contrast, Mr. Jonas bluntly states he wants no memorization work, and Ms. Sorenson says that memorization is a poor type of learning that doesn’t last long, can’t be applied, and is only useful in preparing for tests.

Relationship. The CTS interview analysis is valuable, not only because it gets at specific aspects of teaching-questioning and rote memorization in the previous paragraph are two cases in point-but also because it considers the relationships between different components of a teacher’s conception of teaching science, expressed in the form of themes. The presence of themes in a teacher’s conceptions is understandable for they represent the teacher’s attempts to produce a measure of coherence in the tremendous complexity of the classroom. This point is exemplified in the analysis of Mr. Jenner (as presented above in Tables 1-4). The analysis demonstrates the relationships among science, learning, and instruction that characterize each of the three identified themes running through his interview. Another example comes from Ms. Sorenson, one of whose themes is:

Science is a process that is learned by discovery.

Science, for her, involves making measurements, asking questions, coming up with and testing theories. These, for her, are what students need to do in order to learn; this they do by discovery. Thus, in instruction she plans to use questioning, hands-on activities, and silent demonstrations that involve students actively because, in her view, they initiate discovery learning. In other words, this theme ties together all aspects of science teaching for her.

Tension. Another valuable aspect of being able to consider the relationships between components shows clearly in the finding that, for some experienced science teachers, there are noticeable tensions within or between themes. Even though teachers search for coherence in the tremendous complexity of their classrooms, it is also the case that they experience competing and at times contradictory demands. If neither can be ignored and one cannot be subordinated to the other, a tension arises between them. For example, a tension between themes occurred for Mr. Jenner, one of whose themes-science as a body of knowledge-is in tension with another-science as research. This tension carries through to his views of learning and teaching. For him, learning by discovery is exciting, but some learning by rote memory is essential. He wants students to do their own research, but he also sees a need to instruct them directly.

Another example of a tension occurred for Mr. Jonas, who sees a need for organization and structure; he believes that students benefit greatly from it. Even following a recipe or algorithm has value in the proper situations. Yet there is a tension within this theme because, although he sees a need for structure, he says he does not like to “cookbook” and recognizes a need for students to be spontaneous.

It is not surprising that tensions such as those exemplified above occur within a teacher’s conception of teaching science. Because of the complexity of classrooms, even if a teacher


makes a major attempt to reconcile the many different aspects of teaching science in high school, there are always likely to be competing demands that cannot be ignored. What is perhaps surprising is that, for some teachers, no tensions were apparent in their conceptions of teaching science. Whether this is the case only within a relatively ideal thinking world without being reflected in their classroom practice becomes an important question for further research.

Limitations

There are several limitations to the research reported in this article. Some relate directly to the research technique itself. The detailed analytic process is time-consuming: This restricts its use to research projects. Also, at each stage of the process, interpretation is necessary in identifying and grouping similar statements and in writing statements that summarize and represent a teacher’s conception of teaching science. The interpretive variability introduced is well demonstrated above.

Another limitation is the degree of applicability of these analyses to other teachers in other contexts. Because of the nonrandom self-selection process involved and the small number of teachers studied, we cannot make generalizations about them.

Another type of limitation is imposed by the structure of the task itself. The 10 instances that constitute the interview are brief and ambiguous. It is the respondent who chooses what to focus on, what context to provide. This is a strength of the interview because it requires teachers to supply their own context, contributing to the uniqueness of the outcome for each teacher. On the other hand, it is a weakness in that the analysis does not necessarily reflect how a teacher might think and act in a particular classroom, i.e., it doesn’t pin down the teacher. For us, the lack of tensions within some teachers’ conceptions of teaching science referred to above exemplify this point.

Implications for Further Research

Preliminary outcomes of the CTS task analysis suggest that, when experienced science teachers consider a variety of examples both in and out of the classroom, they bring to bear a structured, relatively coherent body of knowledge (Hewson & Kerby, 1993). This has a number of implications for research in science education.

The first of these is that it suggests a way of explaining how a teacher handles the complexity of his or her job. Consider a teacher and 30 students working on, perhaps, any of 20 different topics over the course of a school year, within a particular school and community. Any view of teaching must be able to accommodate this degree of complexity. There is an apparent contra- diction between this complexity and the simplicity of a few relatively coherent, interrelated themes held by a teacher. We would, however, argue that it is only because teachers find ways of reducing the complexity by constructing coherent, integrated ways of handling the complexity that they can cope and even prosper in the unceasing flow of information in the classroom. Our hypothesis, then, is that their themes serve to interpret the information flow in ways that influence what they notice and what they ignore and form the basis on which they decide what their next teaching moves will be. When we seek to understand why a teacher’s practice is as it is, these themes form an important part of the explanation. Research to test this hypothesis is needed.

A second implication is that the availability of explicit representations of teachers’ conceptions of teaching science provides an opportunity for examining the assumption with which we began this article, i.e., that there is a significant link between a teacher’s thoughts and actions.


Although we expect there to be such a relationship, we do not believe it is simple. We know that teachers do not act in their classes in a mechanically predictable fashion. There are many specific factors in a classroom that a teacher responds to in a range of different ways. Thus, the relationship between a teacher’s themes and actions cannot be simply one-to-one: It must, in our view, be both complex and structured. It must be complex to accommodate the large number of factors and the huge number of possible teacher actions, and it must be structured for a teacher to use it effectively and quickly. Even though we expect themes to influence actions, that influence may only be detected over many actions and an extended time rather than being apparent in the detail of a particular instance.

A third implication of the CTS analysis technique for research in science education is that, by using it extensively with both preservice and inservice teachers drawn from different disci- plines and different school environments, we will add to the body of knowledge about science teachers and teaching. First, we will acquire an extensive, detailed, and richly textured account of how teachers interconnect their views of science, learning, and instruction within their understanding of science teaching. Second, by combining the analysis with research on teachers’ practice, as outlined in the previous paragraph, we will augment the body of knowledge of the range of ways in which teachers connect their thoughts with their practice.

A fourth implication is that the outcomes of CTS analyses of teachers referred to above can be used to make valuable contributions to science teacher education. One possibility would be to conduct research on how conceptions of teaching science are influenced by teacher certification programs. Another possibility would be to focus on these analyses as case study materials for use in a teacher education program. They can be used to bring a variety of perspectives to the attention of pre- and inservice teachers that will stimulate discussion and facilitate their reflection on their own conceptions of teaching science. Allied to this latter point, the availability of a task to identify conceptions of teaching science means that i t becomes more feasible to set, for a teacher education program, the goal of helping teachers change-add to, elaborate upon, reinterpret, supersede-their present conceptions to more appropriate conceptions (Hewson & Hewson, 1988). All of these curricular changes can themselves be the focus of further research activity.

Conclusion

In this article we have outlined in some detail the process of analysis of an interview task for determining a teacher’s conception of teaching science, and we exemplified it using interviews conducted with several experienced high school science teachers. The process provides a transparent link between teachers’ spoken words and the representations of their conceptions of teaching science. In particular, these representations are based on the fundamental components of teaching science; they allow the uniqueness of both specific and structural aspects of teachers’ views to emerge, and they facilitate comparisons between teachers.

As we stated at the outset, we subscribe to a constructivist perspective that views teachers as building conceptual structures in which they incorporate classroom events, instructional concepts, socially approved behaviors, and explanatory patterns in ways that make sense to them. In our view, the themes that are the outcomes of the analytic process described in this article are consistent with and fully supportive of this perspective.

Our ultimate intention in investigating teachers’ conceptions of teaching science is to improve science teaching. To do so it is critical, in our view, to understand what science teachers do and why they do it, i.e., to understand the thinking that informs their actions. This seems an essential precursor to helping science teachers reflect on their practice, consider alternative ways

CONCEPTIONS OF TEACHING SCIENCE 5 19

of teaching, and develop more effective ways of helping students learn science. In other words, we believe that the analytical process for determining teachers’ conceptions of teaching science developed in this article has considerable implications for research and practice in teacher thinking, science teacher education, and science teaching and learning.

The research reported in this article was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. MDR-8954668) and by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, School of Education, Univer- sity of Wisconsin-Madison. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the supporting agencies.

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477-478.

Manuscript accepted June 14, 1993.

determining the conceptions of teaching science held by experienced high school science teachers

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