Research on Science Education

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Slide 30

Type of Research

Speaker's notes explaining graph:

This slide represents the number of articles that focus on student learning or teacher knowledge from leading journals that include content on science education. Such articles were coded as descriptive or experimental. There is more descriptive work and more research on science education in high school than at other levels.

Much of the experimental work is poor quality quasi-experimental research in which information about comparison students is minimal (that is, often not enough evidence is presented to allow reader to determine if the comparison group is comparable to the intervention group). In addition, information about the instruction given to the comparison group is minimal or missing. Most of the experimental research is presented as "proof-of-concept" work demonstrating pre-post differences for a single group of students.

Science education articles published in the following journals were reviewed:

Journal of Research in Science Teaching 2001, 2002, 2003 (12 issues per yr)
International Journal of Science Education 2001, 2002, 2003 (12 issues per year)
Journal of the Learning Sciences 1998-2003 (4 issues per year)
Cognition and Instruction 2000-2003 (4 issues per year)