Article pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Advocating Science for All: An Interview with Peter J. Fensham Liberato Cardellini* Dipartimento SIMAU, Università Politecnica della Marche, Ancona 60131, Italy ABSTRACT: After providing some glimpses of his private life, Peter Fensham, a leading figure of the prestigious Faculty of Education, Monash University (and now emeritus professor at Queensland University, Brisbane, Australia), gives some suggestions about the conditions that help students to learn meaningfully. He began his career in the field of physical chemistry and then became an international authority in science education. His dedication to students and commitment to teaching a learner-centered science is palpable in many of his comments. This interview touches on many of the themes he addressed in numerous studies and research: the curriculum, the qualities of the expert teacher, and the decline of standards in schools. Although he is a supporter of a constructivist approach to teaching chemistry, he criticizes the extreme views of constructivism and explains the origin of his inner strength that made him a champion of “science for all”.
KEYWORDS: General Public, First-Year Undergraduate/General, Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary, Public Understanding/Outreach, Problem Solving/Decision Making, Constructivism
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A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Emeritus Professor Peter J. Fensham is presently an adjunct professor in the School of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Peter James Fensham was born in Melbourne, Australia in October 1927, in the same year the first person, Charles Lindbergh, flew solo across the Atlantic. At that time, secondary education was not for all, yet Peter, as a gifted student, found his way to higher education by gaining a scholarship to Melbourne Grammar School, a high-status private school. At the age of 17, he matriculated to study science at the university. After receiving the Bachelor’s degree, he completed a research Master’s degree. In 1949, he was awarded the prestigious Exhibition 1851 Research Scholarship, which enabled him to go to the University of Bristol, U.K., to work for a Ph.D. in solid-state chemistry. In Bristol, Fensham met Christine Fairweather and they married three years later in 1954. In 1952, he went to work as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Hugh Stott Taylor, a physical chemist at Princeton University, in the United States. While at Princeton, through Professor Hadley Cantrill, he met Sir Frederic C. Bartlett, a psychologist from Cambridge, U.K. Encouraged by him, Fensham applied for and was awarded a Nuffield Scholarship at Cambridge to undertake study and research in social psychology. In 1956, he completed his second Ph.D. in this area of the social sciences. Exploring opportunities to return to Australia, he was offered a position in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne in the field of solid-state chemistry. His research in physical chemistry together with some minor studies in education led to his promotion to reader in physical chemistry. In 1967, he was appointed to a chair in science education, the first ever such appointment in Australia. In September of that © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
year, Fensham moved to Monash University where he began to develop research studies in the area of science education, and rapidly built a strong research group that soon gained an international reputation for his university. He led this research team for 25 years during which his own interests ranged from equity in education in general to conceptual learning in science and science curriculum policy. Internationally, Monash University became synonymous with science education; with Richard White, Paul Gardner, and Richard Gunstone also in the group, many prestigious colleagues from around the world were attracted to spend time there. In 1971, Fensham became the first national president of the Australian Science Teachers’ Association, and soon after began what became a long association of working with UNESCO in developing countries. The ICASE (International Council of Associations for Science Education) recognized his contributions to science teachers, locally and internationally, by awarding him its Distinguished Service Award in 1988. Fensham has been a visiting professor in a number of leading universities around the world, as his name became associated with the necessity for reform in science education and for change in the curriculum in the direction of his seminal paper, Science for All.1 Science for all is a plea for access to science for all students, in contrast with solely or primarily for the minority of students who are potential future scientists. The content of science education should have useful meaning for the majority of students, and build in them a lifelong interest and appreciation of science findings. In the 1990s, he served on the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) Advisory
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Group for Science, and has been a member of the Science Expert Group of the OECD’s PISA (Programme for International Student Achievement) project from its foundation until 2009. In this way he has remained in touch with the cutting edge of issues in world science education. Through his membership of the advisory groups for TIMSS and PISA, he has developed expertise in assessment of science learning in various settings. In 1998, he was awarded the Distinguished Researcher Award of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST). In 2010, in honor of Peter J. Fensham, the RACI (Royal Australian Chemical Institute) has introduced the Fensham Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Chemical Education to recognize members who have made such contributions to the teaching of chemistry and science over an extended period. It has been said (ref 2, p 37): Peter Fensham’s life and work has been characterized by two features: an enduring sense of inner commitment to the notion that science education matters; and a grave dissatisfaction with existing provision. In 1970, Fensham edited a book, Rights and Inequalities in Australian Education,3 that took on seminal urgency when a new Australian government embarked on major reforms of the education system, as well as making university education free. In 1982, Fensham became Dean of the Faculty of Education at Monash, a position he held for seven years before resuming his role as professor of science education. While dean, he played a major role in the developments of the curriculum reforms recommended to the state government of Victoria in the Blackburn Report, which, in 1985, led to the Victorian Certificate of Education, an expanded sense of what secondary education is for. In 1986, he was awarded his AM (Member of the Order of Australia, the highest Australian honor) in recognition of service to the community and to education. Since then, he has published many papers and several wellknown books of science education, including The Content of Science (with Gunstone and White),4 Def ining an Identity,5 and Developments and Dilemmas in Science Education, published in 1988.6
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FROM SCIENTIST TO SCIENCE EDUCATOR
Liberato Cardellini: You were a reader in physical chemistry, and then, in 1967, you became the first professor of science education at Monash University. How did that happen?
I had applied earlier in 1967 for the Chair of Chemistry in the new University of Papua New Guinea, and was interviewed for that post by a committee acting for that university, chaired by the Vice Chancellor of Monash University. Because of my research record in solid-state chemistry and because I expressed an interest in the teaching and learning of chemistry, I was offered the position. When some terms I asked for were not forthcoming, this opportunity lapsed. A few weeks later, I was invited to lunch by the Dean of Education at Monash and he suggested I consider joining his quite young faculty (three years old) as Professor of Science Education (incidentally the first such appointment in Australia) with the specific mandate to develop it as a research field as quickly as possible. This was a great opportunity to combine my two earlier backgrounds [see below], so I accepted. You worked in the laboratory for many years: could you mention some results you obtained?
I began with a study of the self-diffusion of tin using radioactive Sn (an interesting study because it was an early example of such isotopes being imported to Australia).8 For a number of years in the 1960s, my group worked on NiO and other semiconductors with various degrees of doping as heterogeneous catalysts.9−15 In the case of NiO, we showed that in the finely divided statewe wanted to maximize its surface area the compound ceased to be paramagnetic. This was, in fact, an early finding at the nano level and in the use of ESR to detect the smallness of the particle size. For what reasons did you switch to science education? Where did you find the energy for working in this new field?
After my (research-based) Master’s degree at Melbourne University, I undertook a doctorate in solid-state chemistry at Bristol University, U.K. During a postdoctoral year at Princeton in the chemistry department, I chose to attend master’s-level courses in social psychology to add some breadth to what had until then been an education in physical sciences and mathematics. Soon after, the Nuffield Foundation in the U.K. announced a new series of scholarships to attract fully qualified physical science persons (with Ph.D.s) into the social sciences. This followed a successful scheme to get physical scientists to move into biological sciences. I was keen to get back to England for personal reasons, and it seemed an exciting thing to do, so I applied even though I was not a British national and was unavailable for the planned interviews. Somehow, I was awarded one of the scholarships to study psychology at Cambridge University, where there was flexibility to do undergraduate studies at the same time as preparing a doctoral research study. Despite some considerable anxiety about this dramatic move, I was buoyed by Cambridge’s flexible approach and the personal support of Professor Oliver Zangwill. In my first Cambridge year I married my wife Christine and she was a great support as I explored the new field, and seemed to have turned my back on eight years of chemistry. It was a very fortuitous and exciting time, as plenty of money was available in the U.K. to study human aspects of industrial modernization. We were able to gain access to some of these
THE INTERVIEW
Peter Fensham is famous for his work on education. He is one of the two scholars (the other was Alex Johnstone of Glasgow University7) who made an impact in the way chemistry is taught and learned. Because of his new vision, Monash University became a magnet for many prestigious colleagues involved in education from around the world. This interview offers insights into his life, limning his journey as a distinguished researcher in physical chemistry in the field of semiconductors to become a passionate advocate of “science for all”. It is difficult to reconcile the desire to improve education with the financial restrictions. Nevertheless, during the time he was Dean of the Faculty at Monash University, Peter Fensham has found a way to bring many of the best educators found in the world to Melbourne, Australia. B
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invented to generalize about and to explain natural phenomena. Humans have engaged in these inventive activities because they find natural phenomena fascinating and because they can ask questions about them and explore possible answers to these questions. The most important aspect of these processes to include in the early years of schooling is the opportunity to enjoy, be fascinated by, and engage with an ever-widening array of natural wonders and “technological problems”. The aim is to increase a child’s ability and confidence to ask questions, and wonder whether and how they might be investigated. These early years are not the time to superimpose on a child’s view of these phenomena the scientific conceptual way of thinking. There will be time later to begin to do this and it will be the more welcomed if more students are eager about natural things, are confident in asking questions, and have begun to see that there are a variety of ways to answer their own questions, some of which will be by simple investigations involving scientific processes. One example: The six-year-olds in grade 1 of a school in a small town were exploring how to move heavy objects. Their playground had a number of these objects lying around. The class visited the local baker, the local car mechanic, and the super market, specifically to see how heavy objects were moved in each case. Thus, the baker was not visited to learn about bread making at this time but to see how heavy objects were moved. They soon solved the problem of moving a heavy tire and of using long sticks to move other heavy objects, and of setting up a pulley to lift others. They knew the laws of the levers without hearing a word about it, and were fully equipped to understand that formalism when it came in their lessons a few years later.
funds, which expanded what I could have done alone. During my three years at Cambridge, the university was also exploring the field of sociology by inviting in each of these years a very distinguished U.S. sociologist with whom I was able to make quite close contact. My Ph.D. at Cambridge was a study of a factory community undergoing very rapid technological change in its weaving industry. At the end of this period, academic jobs were still quite hard to get, so I applied in both chemistry and psychology, and was appointed to a lectureship in chemistry at Melbourne University. While primarily involved in teaching and research in physical chemistry, I did carry out two pieces of research in education to keep my psychological hand in: one in universitylevel teaching and assessment, and one in the field of educational equity. As it turned out, 10 years later the position at Monash enabled me to continue working in both fields. I continued to lecture in first-year chemistry at Monash for a decade until I became Dean of Education. You were Dean of the Faculty at Monash University for seven years. How hard was it to reconcile ideal educational practice with the “limitations” of financial and administrative restrictions?
The conditions (financial, organizational, and structural) at Monash University when I was dean were very different from what pertains now, and so how I managed is no recipe for a contemporary dean. The basic funding for the faculty from the government to the university covered 90+% of each year’s total cost, with a slow loss of about 1−2% per year. So we could still manage, with some creative initiatives, to do good and interesting things, such as a twinned arrangement for four years between Monash and University of Alberta, and the Gothenburg University. This enabled staff who had only had experience of one university to spend time visiting a different university learning about its organization and teaching. Monash had a generous leave arrangement for research experiences, so this expanding of the teaching sense was useful. Then we agreed to use the funds for one lecturing position to bring overseas academics to the faculty at Monash for a month or so. Each year we had two or three and those visits then led to continuing research links for many Monash staff after the visitors had returned home. Monash’s list of distinguished visitors under this scheme is a very impressive roll call of educational greats. The Monash tradition of giving deans the budgeted funds for a year ahead, and the power to spend them on anything once essential staff costs were covered, was an organizational help for continuing to do “good” education and research. So, if a staff member left, his or her funds stayed with the dean, whereas in most universities at that time staffing was handled centrally, and all a dean could do was to plead for a quick replacement. It is always hard, but I believe there are always quite different ways to operate the same budget.
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The decline of standards in schools made headlines.16 What are possible solutions for reversing this decline?
The sciences came into schooling in the early 20th century in the upper years as a preparation for the few students going on to university studies in science−related faculties. Despite many efforts and the total changing of the demography of secondary schooling, the school science curriculum still very strongly has this introductory and preparatory sense. We are slowly learning that that curriculum neither attracts most students, nor equips them well scientifically for the lives they live when they enter society beyond school. A mainstream science for all students to become scientifically literate is now well conceived but still languishing in recognition. In the final years of schooling, a science course for those wishing to consider future science studies should become an optional additional science course of study rather than continue to dominate the curriculum in the primary and secondary years. Because fewer students are attracted by science, maybe we as teachers scare them. What advice could you give about a suitable curriculum and a proper approach to teach it?
STANDARDS AND CURRICULUM
Some colleagues argue about introducing chemistry in primary school. Is not it better to let the children play?
At the school level the reformation of the science curriculum into units that reflect real-world science and technology and students’ sense of interest and relevance. This is Roberts’s vision II of scientific literacy,17 compared with most current curricula that focus on his vision I scientific literacy, which is driven by the nature of the science disciplines themselves regardless of their reality.
The two positions in your question are not the only alternatives. As they stand, they conjure up some sort of formal introduction of chemistry into the early years of schooling or a play-based set of experiences that excludes the exciting view of the world we call science. I have long argued that science is a set of human inventions that have been C
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What should be the characteristics of a chemistry curriculum? Who determines the science curriculum?
arrow rather than an equal sign (as in algebra) is not mentioned. The use of “amount of substance” needs a more clarified introduction than the merely formulaic way it is often taught. This concept and its unit, “the mole”, are chemistry’s gift to the SI system of measurement of quantity of substance in an atomic world, standing alongside the kilogram and the liter as quantitative units of substance in the continuous world.
The characteristics of a chemistry curriculum (like any curriculum) are these: (i) future-oriented aims that link this subject’s strengths to the lives of the learners; (ii) content chosen to assist the achievement of these aims; (iii) pedagogical approaches that optimize students’ learning; and (iv) modes of assessment that reinforce the aims about learning chemical content and those about the application of this content in everyday science and technology (S&T) situations. Chemists are the obvious validators of the former, but chemical educators with a wider knowledge of different assessment modes are needed for the latter. What I am saying here is that school chemistry has to serve the needs and interests of future chemists (and hence the role of “chemists” in the assessment as content validators), yet it also has to serve the needs of the majority of students who will need chemistry learning that is useful to them in the real-world S&T situations that arise for citizens, and “chemists” are not the best persons to validate this aspect of the assessment.
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ASSESSMENT
Although you worked on this effort, you are a bit critical of the TIMSS tests. Why?
TIMSS19 is essentially a project concerned with comparing students internationally on a curriculum-based test that is basically a test of recall. Because it has to be about the taught curriculum, it can only use science from the common bits of the many countries’ curricula, and this means no innovative aspects of school science can be included. Its focus is on traditional science learning, and it uses a conservative set of item types. Accordingly, its contribution to developing new dimensions in science education is virtually zero.
Science curricula have failed to foster interest in chemistry. Could you indicate some possibilities that could lead to a solution to this problem?
What is your assessment of the PISA study?
Chemists are essentially persons who create new substances that have chemical and physical properties that make them useful for citizens. Synthetic chemistry is often an absent aspect of school chemistry. I know that many traditional syntheses are no longer considered safe or suitable for school-level students. So a few years ago I asked a list of research chemists to come up with simple syntheses of newer chemical substances that could be done in school, and they provided me with quite a long list. Unfortunately, the dominance of physical chemistry on what is now taught in school does not encourage attention being given to these substances and their properties. The other promising approach to making chemistry more interesting is to teach it in context. A number of recent moves have tried to make context-based chemistry operational, but too often the context becomes just a motivational excuse to teach the same old chemistry. Good context-based chemistry must be faithful to the chemistry the context defines (even it is not usual in school chemistry), and it should expand the students’ interest and awareness of the context that was chosen because of its interest. Assessing both the chemistry learned and its meaning for the context is essential. The frontier edge for interest is to teach students about the many S&T situations that confront citizens, yet require science knowledge (often incomplete, and hence probabilistic) and moral judgments. Many groups are now tackling this challenge, but it needs to penetrate school chemistry at its different levels as mainstream and not as optional for a few adventurous teachers.
The PISA20 project came on the international educational scene as a breath of fresh air. Unlike the already existing TIMSS, this study was not about what students could remember from the science learning in school. PISA was about how well 15-year-old students could apply their science knowledge from whatever source to quite new situations from the real world that involved science and technology. This was quite a new view of what science education in school could be developing in students and the project also was prepared to use quite novel forms of assessing the students’ responses, albeit still constrained to paper-and-pencil testing. I had the chance to play a key part in the shape of the project and its testing.21 Fewer and fewer students are attracted by science. Are there cultural reasons or errors of our community that explain the decline in interest for science subjects?
I have been impressed by the consistency of studies in the last few years from several countries that indicated students found school science (i) an experience of passive information transmission in which their opinions were unnecessary and largely unsought; (ii) not relevant to their interests and needs; and (iii) abstract in a manner that fails to engage. TIMSS and PISA provide ample evidence of even high-achieving students lacking interest. This demonstrates how little we, as science educators, have succeeded in making the exciting approaches to science we research about into the mainstream of science teaching. Then there is the competitive nature of working in science now. Recently, Queensland University of Technology had a special intake for teacher education consisting of scientists who got tired of living on short-term contracts as so much science consists of. Finally, the distrust of science and scientists among politicians, the media, and the public, that has so strongly reared its head since the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 does not create a positive cultural climate for young persons to see science as a course to pursue.
Many students approach stoichiometric calculations by relying on formulas for the solution. What can we do to make this important aspect of education meaningful? How can analysis, representation, and qualitative reasoning be improved?
I have written quite a lot about this problem and I would start with the macroscopic level of substances involved in a reaction before moving to the symbolic and microscopic levels.18 Too often all three get confused. The symbolic can represent both levels and indeed is very macroscopic when calculating yields, and so on. Many textbooks we found don’t explicitly link “chemical equation” to conservation of matter, and why an D
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Your eyes convey your enthusiasm. Are there reasons to be optimistic in education?
students engaged in formative assessments that showed them they were learning.
Education is the one universal experience there is for influencing future generations to gain the values, visions, and strategies to make our precious planet a continuing livable environment and our societies more tolerant, compassionate, and socially just. Of course, no country has yet been wholly successful at educating well all sections of its population, and we, as educators, know we are often not effective. Nevertheless, education remains the key to the hope we all share for a better future.
As a proponent of the constructivist approach, you give good suggestions for an introductory study of chemistry from a constructivist approach.25 Taking seriously the arguments from some critics,26,27 what is wrong with constructivism?
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An extreme view of constructivism would be that learners need to develop their own meaning for everything, and this is unhelpful when it comes to learning an established body of knowledge and procedures such as chemistry. The use of ways to engage students with the phenomena, concepts, and principles of chemistry was informed by the extensive research that was carried out in the 1980s into how students had constructed meaning for these phenomena and concepts. Constructivist ideas led to teaching strategies for changing the unhelpful ways many students had thought about these chemical ideas into personal learning that hewed closer to canonical chemistry.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND TEACHERS
What relevant qualities do teachers need to have for good teaching?
First and foremost is a strong desire to assist others to learn. Next, a sound background and a real interest in the science subject to be taught are needed. Thirdly, effective teachers have a set of pedagogical strategies that enable a wide variety of learners to be engaged with the science subject, and to learn the different aspects of it.
In “Beginning To Teach Chemistry” you suggest that states of matter are a central topic in chemistry.4 What are the most important chemistry concepts that every citizen needs to know?
Reflection is an important aspect in improving teaching and learning. What instruments or practices can you suggest?
I have been very critical of the way states of matter have been taught, and schematized. The usual distinctive features just don’t hold and a more complex and interesting view of solids, liquids, gases, plasma, and so on needs to be allowed to develop. Some solids can’t be poured but many powdered solids can be. The nano state has added yet more variety to what we mean by states of matter. The gaseous state needs more emphasis than we usually give it, and historically it was the latest one to be recognized. I like Frank Halliwell’s dictum that Chemistry is about making something f rom something else, and that you can’t make nothing f rom something. This recognizes chemistry’s uniquely special understanding of the conservation of matter (namely, the rearranging of the atoms making up substances), and that almost always when we make a desired product substance we also make an undesirable “waste” substance that needs dealing with.
There are many ways to reflect on what we are learning. One is to try to “teach” it to someone else. Another is to compare the same topic in several authors’ textbooks. Another is to draw a concept map that has key words at corners and you try to write short sentences about how two corners are related to each other on the connecting lines.22 Another is to create subheadings for every few lines in a textbook long paragraph. Don’t cover too much ground before trying these reflective practices.23 Some students at the tertiary level, even if they try to be serious in studying, encounter great difficulties and often give up. How much is prior knowledge important, and what can we do to help these students?
One thing that the change from yearlong to semester-long organization of university courses has enabled is for students to take less than the full load of study expected. I have always been skeptical of “support classes” for weaker students if they mean yet another set of classes to attend in addition to the full load. Much better is for students to take three rather than four semester units and in this way find they can cope better with the demand, even though now they may have one semester more to complete their degree. If lack of assumed prior knowledge is the problem, then don’t try to learn that in parallel with a course of study that you don’t understand. Get one thing learned well before taking on a course that assumes this prior knowledge.
How can research in chemical education be more effectively transformed into improved teaching and learning?
In a number of European countries, the structure and learning of say, chemistry, is a regular part of the undergraduate course of study in that subject. This has not been the case in the Anglo-American tradition, where there is a divorce between the subject as science and as a body of knowledge for learning. This European tradition lends itself to achieving a better balance between chemical content to be learned and its role in chemistry as a way of knowing about the physical world. Ways to encourage the sharing of ideas and new methods of teaching and learning between teachers and between chemical educators and teachers are the injections we all need if the education we provide is to improve. Professional education that focuses on one common issue or problem has proved to be more effective than the broad approach of canvassing issues that is often offered. Finally, the use of a wider range of ways of assessing learning needs to be implemented if all the hopes for chemical education are to be achieved. Using a variety of assessment approaches also becomes a powerful driver for changing teacher behavior.
You have taught the Bridging Chemistry course24 with great success. Was “working consistently hard” a way to learn more? How much do you consider the teacher’s enthusiasm important for being a successful teacher?
Yes, in Bridging Chemistry the students did work hard and they had enthusiastic teachers. But the students had a strong sense of wanting to learn and they recognized that here was teaching via a range of “constructivist” strategies that was different from most other teaching they had experienced. Each week the E
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You are a world-renowned authority in education. How has your research affected science education in Australia?
(5) Fensham, P. J. Defining an Identity: The Evolution of Science Education as a Field of Research; Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2004. (6) Developments and Dilemmas in Science Education; Fensham, P. J., Ed.; The Falmer Press: London, 1988. (7) Cardellini, L. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 1571−1573. (8) Boas, W.; Fensham, P. J. Nature 1949, 164, 1127−1128. (9) Fensham, P. J. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1954, 76 (4), 969−971. (10) Fensham, P. J. Q. Rev. Chem. Soc. 1957, 11, 227−245. (11) Cotton, J. D.; Fensham, P. J. Trans. Faraday Soc. 1963, 59, 1444−1457. (12) Larkins, F. P.; Fensham, P. J. Nature 1967, 215, 1268−1269. (13) Howe, A. T.; Fensham, P. J. Q. Rev. Chem. Soc. 1967, 21, 507− 524. (14) Larkins, F. P.; Fensham, P. J.; Sanders, J. V. Trans. Faraday Soc. 1970, 66, 1748−1754. (15) Larkins, F. P.; Fensham, P. J. Trans. Faraday Soc. 1970, 66, 1755−1772. (16) Europe Failing Schools. Newsweek, 2006, 34, June 12 (Cover). (17) Roberts, D. A. Scientific Literacy/Science Literacy. In Handbook of Research on Science Education; Abell, S. K., Lederman, N. G., Eds.; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ, 2007; pp 729−780. (18) Lee, K. W. L.; Fensham, P. J. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 1996, 18, 543−555. (19) Web page for TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study). http://timss.bc.edu/ (accessed Apr 2013). (20) Web page for the OECD Programme for International Students’ Assessment (PISA) 2000 International Database. http://pisa2000.acer. edu.au/ (accessed Apr 2013). (21) Fensham, P. J. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 2009, 46, 884−896. (22) Cardellini, L. J. Chem. Educ. 2004, 81, 1303−1308. (23) Baird, J. R.; Fensham, P. J.; Gunstone, R. F.; White, R. T. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 1991, 28 (2), 163−182. (24) Fensham, P. J. Chem13 News 1993, 225, 1−3. (25) Fensham, P. J. Beginning To Teach Chemistry. In The Content of Science: A Constructivist Approach to Its Teaching and Learning; Fensham, P. J., Gunstone, R. F., White, R. T., Eds.; The Falmer Press: London, 1994; pp 14−28. (26) Matthews, M. R. Science Teaching: The Role of History and Philosophy of Science; Routledge: London, 1994; Chapter 7. (27) Scerri, E. R. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 468−474. (28) Fensham, P. J. The Genesis of Science Education Research in Australasia. In The World of Science Education: Handbook of Research in Australasia; Ritchie, S. M., Ed.; Sense Publishers: Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2009; pp 9−15.
There is evidence that the curriculum for school science at every level is now thought about in ways that stem from research the groups at Monash University, at Waikato University in New Zealand, and at many other smaller groups in Australia have carried out.28 The meaning of science for schooling has shifted to be much more related to real-world contexts, and to a greater emphasis on the nature of science. The role of the “human” in science, and the impact of this on society, have reappeared after a 50-year absence. Other examples particularly relate to how learning should and can be assessed. You claimed that research in science education does have an identity.5 What are its relevant dimensions?
I have listed the dimensions of science education as a research field in my book about its identity. 5 They are an epistemological critique of science or the sciences as bodies of human knowledge and endeavor, a theoretical perspective that will relate and extend research studies, methodologies that provide answers to good questions, and the structures that enable positive findings to be shared and disseminated. This final question is a personal one. Has your religious upbringing and outlook affected your efforts and subsequent great achievements in education?
Social justice is central to my religious understanding. Education systems in almost all countries are renowned for being inequitable, and this, to me, is something that is contrary to my understanding of the religious intention for society. This widespread inequity is the big field of my endeavors in education. More specifically, scientific knowledge is a major source of human empowerment, and this empowerment has too often been confined to a few and not shared more widely in society. My interest in education has often been characterized by others in the phrase “science for all”, and I happily accept that categorization. When I reflected on the fact that I was the only one out of 50 students in my primary classes who went on to study and practice chemistry, I realized that I had to find ways quite different from my own to engage and empower these other 49 in science. This, to me, is an urgent social need and is the ongoing challenge that I have had the opportunity to try to change so that we have the more equitable and peaceful world that my religious view holds out as not only intended but possible.
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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REFERENCES
(1) Fensham, P. J. J. Curric. Stud. 1985, 17 (4), 415−435. (2) Osborne, J. Making Science Matter. In A Vision for Science Education: Responding to the Work of Peter Fensham; Cross, R., Ed.; RoutledgeFalmer: New York, 2003; pp 37−50. (3) Rights and Inequalities in Australian Education; Fensham, P. J., Ed.; Cheshire: Melbourne, 1970. (4) The Content of Science: A Constructivist Approach to Its Teaching and Learning; Fensham, P. J., Gunstone, R. F., White, R. T., Eds.; The Falmer Press: London, 1994. F
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