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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 13, Issue 1, Article 1 (Jun., 2012) |
Teachers’ Perspectives of Scientific Literacy
Sabina’s perspectives of scientific literacy involved having the students understand the links between the science they are learning in school and their everyday life. In her words, scientific literacy is
... something like using science in your life. … Science can provide students with the knowledge about their health and environment. They often make decisions about food, nutrition, environmental pollution and so on. This knowledge can help them to make a decision about these everyday issues. (SI1)
Acknowledging the linkage between school science and students’ everyday life, Sabina believed that school science should have more emphasis on the science knowledge that has relevance with students’ everyday life and that provides students with opportunities to become scientifically literate (SI1). This view, however, does not reflect how students’ everyday life could provide contexts for science learning or dictate the content to be learned in school. Rather her perspective of scientific literacy started with learning the science content in school but with an emphasis on the content that is useful in students’ everyday life. Such an emphasis, as noted previously, is considered in a Vision I-II scientific literacy (Aikenhead, 2008).
In a similar vein, Bibhash claimed that he considered teaching students about “basic cleanliness, hygiene, sanitation, and such kind of health and environment related issues” whether or not they were in the syllabus (BI1). Discussion on such health and environment related issues in science classes could provide students with knowledge to be used to make decisions about their own health and that of others, as well as about environmental matters. As noted in the OECD (2006) report, health and environment are two of the application areas of science that people encounter in their lives; therefore, such health and environment related knowledge could help students see the relevance of science with life beyond school. In addition, Bibhash also perceived the preparation of science professionals as another purpose of school science education:
No country can run without scientists and science professionals. Look, development level of a country is associated with the number of science professionals, such as, doctors and engineers. So, science is the key to the development of our country and thus we should encourage students to take up science related career. (BI1)
It therefore seems that Bibhash viewed the importance of satisfying both of the major purposes of school science education (i.e., prepare scientifically literate citizenry and prepare science professionals) (Bybee & DeBoer, 1994). As discussed previously, in Bangladesh, at the junior secondary level, a single General Science curriculum caters for both of these groups of students with the expectation that the curriculum would provide all students with science knowledge to use in everyday life and encourage more students to take further studies in science, eventually leading to a science-related profession (NCTB, 1995). However, as noted previously, this balance is often violated in Bangladesh, with teachers often emphasising the need for a good foundation for the future science profession more than catering to the scientifically literate group. Such an emphasis could be considered as aligned closely with Vision I, which was observed in Alam’s perspectives on scientific literacy as below.
Alam perceived that, “when a person is able to work as a science professional, I’ll call him/ her a scientifically literate person” (AI1). Alam, therefore, encouraged students to consider science related professions for their career aspirations (AO1). Like many people in developing countries (Sjøberg & Schreiner, 2005), Alam perceived science as a vehicle of social and economic mobility where science professionals play the key role for this mobility. Such perceptions may persuade Alam to take more care of the minority of students who wish to pursue further studies in science, and take less care of the large majority who need a good foundation in science for being effective citizens. This notion of scientific literacy is in line with the Vision I perspective, which is somewhat at odds with the currently accepted perspective to promote scientific literacy among the science education community (Rennie, 2011).
Translation of Teachers’ Perspectives into Classroom Teaching
It was apparent that irrespective of the perspectives, teachers reported in this paper had Vision I oriented teaching practice, which is argued to be failing in promoting scientific literacy (Rennie, 2011). For example, in her teaching about acids, Sabina discussed the use of acids in personal life and life beyond the personal level, such as in industries. She also discussed a global issue (acid rain) that she thought would help students to follow the media reports on acid rain (SO2). However, she did not consider a particular situation, for example, acid rain, as a context for learning about acids. As was observed, she presented acid-related content (for example, properties of acids, chemical reactions of acids with alkalis) to students and then exemplified situations or contexts (acid rain, for example) in which the content may have a role (SO2). In this manner, she used contexts as add-ons to the traditional academic content, and eventually, her teaching in action remained like Vision I practice. A reflection of this Vision I practice was also evident in her students’ views, where many of them found difficulty in seeing the use in everyday life of learning about properties of acids, and the chemical reactions of acids with alkalis (SFG). Rather, students’ consideration of the importance of learning about such content for their future science study and examination purpose (SFG) could be seen as an indication of Vision I practice in Sabina’s science class.
In a similar vein, Bibhash’s Vision I-II perspectives were translated into a Vision I practice. Most of Bibhash’s discussion on salts was devoted to explaining the chemical properties of salts and associated chemical reactions and equations (BO2, BO3); such discussion on academic content would be more useful for the students wishing to study science at the upper level. His students also articulated limited use of such academic discussion in everyday life (BFG). Moreover, viewing science professionals as the key to the development of the country, he constantly encouraged students to consider science related professions for their career aspirations, and as a way of encouragement he presented students with a story of a scientist who studied in this school (BO1). Such constant encouragement could also be viewed as his emphasis on producing future science professionals.
With no exception, Alam taught science in a Vision I oriented manner. Perceiving scientific literacy as synonymous to being able to work as science professionals, Alam constantly encouraged students to consider the “prestigious” science-related professions for their career aspirations (AO1). Such encouragement was also recognised by the students in the focus group interview in that many of them recognised the science-related professions as “prestigious” and expressed their wishes to take up such professions (AFG). However, they found difficulty in articulating the use of their science learning in everyday life (AFG). This could be seen as a reflection of the lack of emphasis on the use of science in everyday life and the greater emphasis on preparing future science professionals through ascription to traditional canonical science knowledge as observed in Alam’s classroom teaching practice. This Vision I practice is argued to fail to promote scientific literacy (Aikenhead, 2008; Rennie, 2011; Roberts, 2007).
Values Teachers Consider in Relation to Scientific Literacy
It was apparent that all three teachers perceived curiosity and rational thinking as the most important values for scientific literacy, but there were some differences in their perceived importance and respective teaching approach as will be discussed in the following sections. Moreover, there was evidence that teachers (Sabina and Alam) also considered open-mindedness and respect for others’ opinions in science classes, but with varying notions. Teachers’ cases also revealed that the least emphasis was placed on the value of intellectual honesty in science classes.
Teachers perceived curiosity as important for science learning. For example, Bibhash made the case for curiosity in science learning as it prompts students to find the questions about the natural world around them that lead them to finding actions to answer the questions (BI1). With this point, Sabina added that for answering questions students would explore different resources (e.g. science books, magazines, newspapers) and extend their science knowledge, which would potentially be useful in their everyday life (SI1).
Sabina’s teaching approach, however, may not promote students’ curiosity. As an approach to promote this value Sabina considered asking students questions and encouraging them to ask questions as well (SI1). It seems she considered role modelling for asking questions as important if students are to perceive this as a good thing to do. However, she asked students only verification-type questions (SO1, SO3), which prompted students to answer the questions, but failed to encourage their wondering from their experiences. It may, therefore, be reasonable to consider that whilst Sabina made an attempt to promote curiosity in her students through questioning, she was not knowledgeable about the questioning that could promote students’ curiosity.
Similarly, whilst Alam perceived his students as very curious (AI1) and focus group interviews with students also confirmed their curious nature, Alam’s teaching approach may fail to promote students’ curiosity. Alam felt that he could do so through providing thought provoking questions or statements at the beginning of a lesson and presenting stories on scientific discoveries that embrace scientists’ curiosity (AI1). As observed in his teaching of gravity, he presented the famous “Newton and apple” story to represent how an incident could trigger people to wonder the reason behind the incident (AO1). When presenting the story he asked students questions; he did not, however, leave any time for students to think for themselves, and he did not give any space to them to present their thoughts and experiences (AO1) that could be useful in promoting their curiosity. It seems he asked students questions that could provoke their thinking, but was not very interested in listening to what his students thought about. Rather he took the view that just asking such questions would stimulate curiosity (AI2). This view could be considered as naive because it does not encourage students to raise questions from their experiences; this encouragement is argued to be useful for promoting curiosity. This naive view may be seen as failing to promote students’ curiosity.
Whilst Bibhash perceived the importance of curiosity, he could not articulate how he considered curiosity in his teaching (BI1). Moreover, there is evidence that he did not consider students’ questions in his class; even on some occasions, he stopped students from asking questions (BO2) because he viewed students’ questions as responsible in creating “noise in the class” (BI2). Classroom quietness often in a form of pin-drop silence is a traditionally expected norm in Bangladesh classrooms as it is in the nearest developing country, India (Rampal, 1994). It seems that Bibhash also was concerned with maintaining classroom quietness by preventing students asking questions. His students also expressed their discomfort in asking him questions (BFG). This practice would reasonably discourage students’ curiosity.
It seems that all the three teachers perceived rational thinking as an important value of science education and scientific literacy because they believed this value could help students in making justifications and rejecting unjustified things. In particular, Sabina and Bibhash extended the importance of rational thinking to challenge superstitions that are embedded in Bangladeshi society as in other developing countries (e.g., Asian Development Bank [ADB], 1998). Sabina exemplified a superstition: “if one does not say Bismillah1 before eating something, the God produces acids [in the stomach] and the person will suffer from acidity pain” (SI1).
She made the point that science learning in school could help students form a scientific explanation of acidity. Such an explanation would challenge the superstition and it is rational thinking that would help students decide which explanation (scientific explanation or the superstition) is more plausible and fruitful to adopt. The point here is that the causes of acidity may be explained in various superstitious ways (ignoring thanks to God may be one of them) and they may vary in different local contexts. However, the power of scientific explanations (e.g., explaining acidity in scientific way) is that they are relatively universal and hence usable in different contexts. Sabina seems to have expected that rational thinking would help students to understand the power of scientific explanations in explaining phenomena.
Whilst all the teachers in this research perceived the importance of rational thinking for science learning, there was evidence that Bibhash could not articulate how he considered this value in his teaching practice. Rather he took the view that “there is no scope for any irrational thing in science; so, rational thinking will grow [automatically] with studying science” (BI1). This view may be seen as an indication of how little this value framed his teaching. A corroboration of this lack of emphasis may also be seen in his students’ voice as none of them could provide any examples of how they could use rational thinking in life (BFG).
Since Alam viewed that “scientists follow [universal] systematic steps for scientific investigations”, he perceived that involving students in scientific experiments would develop their rational thinking (AI1). Belief in such a myth of a single universal scientific method (Lederman, 2004), however, could lead Alam to adopt a teaching approach comprising cookbook or recipe-like hands-on activities that is very common in Bangladesh (Siddique & Rahman, 2007). In addition, Alam perceived that encouraging students to be involved in making arguments would also be useful to develop rational thinking (AI1); however, observation of three of his teaching lessons did not provide any instance of how he involved students in making arguments or how he involved students in any hands-on activity. None of his students, eventually, could provide any examples of how they could use rational thinking in life (AFG). This may also be seen as an indication of how little the value of rational thinking framed his teaching.
On the other hand, Sabina perceived that she could promote rational thinking by encouraging students to emphasise justification in making arguments and communicating ideas and thoughts (SI1). There were a number of instances in her classroom teaching reflecting her explicit encouragement of students for emphasising justification in making arguments and communicating their ideas and thoughts (SO1, SO2). Moreover, there was evidence that she encourages students to question every idea for a justification, even if the idea was provided by her (SO1). Students also expressed admiration of their teacher’s constant emphasis on making justifications:
Benu: Madam (Sabina) always encourages us to talk rationally. When I go to say something, she will ask me to justify it. (FGS)
These practices could be viewed as a notion of rational thinking (Corrigan & Gunstone, 2007) and may also encourage students to pose and evaluate arguments that may be seen useful for scientific literacy (NRC, 1996).
Whilst Bibhash regarded open-mindedness and respect for others’ opinions as two “good human qualities”, he believed that his science class did not have the scope to promote these two values (BI1). He viewed scientific ideas as “proven facts” and objective in nature (BI1). This view is at odds with the subjectivity in science, suggesting that the background factors (e.g. scientists’ knowledge, beliefs, commitments) influence scientific investigations in terms of choice of problems, methods of investigations, observations and interpretations of the observations (Lederman, 2007). Considering this subjectivity in science, it is argued that a portrayal of subjectivity in science might inform students that they need to be open in considering a new knowledge claim, which may, in turn, be helpful in being respectful to people’s right to hold and express opinions whether they are different/ similar to their own. It may, therefore, be reasonable to consider that Bibhash’s disregard about the subjectivity in science may oppose the promotion of the values of open-mindedness and respect for others’ opinions in science class. This disregard may further impact on how students engage in social conversation about science related issues, and therefore, on scientific literacy.
On the other hand, Sabina and Alam perceived open-mindedness and respect for others’ opinions as two important values in science education, but they have different notions of these values. Sabina perceived the value of respect for others’ opinions as “very important” for Bangladeshi society, as she thought it was not very common in Bangladesh (SI1). She expected that in the long run her students would respect their counterparts’ right to express views in group activities (SI1). A reflection of this expectation was found in the focus group interview with her students that they acknowledged their colleagues’ right to express ideas different from them.
Whilst Alam made a case for the value of respect for others’ opinions in his approach to creating mixed ability student groups, his practice built confusion among his students. In a mixed ability group, “brighter students” are involved in helping the “less able” ones, and he believed, “the weaker student may also have some distinctive things that others can learn” (AI1). This approach could be seen to be developing mutual respect among students. Students, however, raised a point that Alam was not respectful to students’ alternative ideas and this may inhibit students from presenting their alternative views in the classroom. This may also build confusion among students about whether they should show respect for the right of younger and less experienced people to hold and express their views (as they are younger and less experienced than their teacher).
There was no evidence supporting the consideration of the value of intellectual honesty in any of these three teacher’s science classes. For example, in the interviews, Sabina could not articulate her notion of intellectual honesty in science education, nor did observation of three of her classroom lessons provide any instance of her consideration of intellectual honesty. For instance, she did not explicitly (or even implicitly) encourage students to report an experiment honestly or to communicate a conclusion consistent with the data. Therefore, it would be reasonable to argue that there had been no consideration of intellectual honesty in Sabina’s science classes.
Challenges to Teach for Scientific Literacy
Teachers identified issues they perceived as challenging in their teaching for scientific literacy, however, in most cases, they could not articulate how the issues affected their teaching to promote scientific literacy. Also, in many cases, they expressed their limited capacity to meet the challenges. The issues teachers perceived as challenging can be clustered into issues relating to curriculum, school, and assessment as discussed below.
Both Sabina and Alam perceived the General Science course as overloaded with a huge amount of content to cover, and considered this as a challenge to their teaching. For example, Sabina made the point that this “overloaded” course, coupled with the exigencies of “limited time”, forced her to rush through the syllabus and left little time to reflect on her teaching, resulting in lack of monitoring of students’ learning (SI2). Alam extended the point that rushing through the syllabus in “35 minute” class packages restricts students’ “good discussion” in groups (AI2), which he perceived to be useful in promoting students’ open-mindedness and respect for others’ opinions. However, neither Sabina nor Alam articulated how they could be engaged in making a decision about what is worth learning in science, to what extent students’ understanding of topics needs to be scaffolded and what the students can learn on their own or may already know. Consideration of these aspects could be useful in maximising the time available for learning in science classes, rather than placing the responsibility only on the size of the syllabus and the limited time to complete it. Rather, for example, Alam’s comment in this respect, “what can I do?” (AI2), reflects his incapacity to meet the challenge.
Content is mostly academic and irrelevant to students’ lives.
Sabina and Bibhash observed that school science textbooks have little emphasis on content that is relevant to students’ lives (SI2, BI2). This observation concurs with what is explored as the representation of scientific literacy in the science textbooks in Bangladesh (Sarkar, 2012). This overly academic nature of the content as in line with Vision I scientific literacy, may result in a reduced capacity for students to see the relevance of their school science learning in assisting them to function effectively in society (Aikenhead, 2008). This academic course may fail to meet the needs for all students as they strive to become effective citizens, and eventually, may raise the question of suitability of a common academic course for all students. This question is vital in a context like Bangladesh, as only 25% of students go on to study specialised science courses after the junior secondary level (BANBEIS, 2006).
In order to respond to this issue, wherever possible, Sabina and Bibhash discussed the possible applications of the content that they felt important for students to draw on, and explain the links between the content and the world around them (SI2 and BI2). However, the academically oriented General Science course challenged them to find the possible applications of many science contents that could help students to draw on their science knowledge and explain these links between their knowledge and its application. For example, Sabina was not confident with her content knowledge of physical sciences since this was not her academic background, and was challenged to find the applications of much of the physical sciences content (SI2). When this is the case, it raises a further question – “how do the teachers without science degrees teach this content-dominated course?”. It may be reasonable to assume that they would just present the content to students in the way it is presented in the recommended textbook, which is what Sabina did for much of the physical sciences content (SI2).
In addition to the lack of relevancy of science content to students’ lives, Bibhash made the point that “much of the content in science textbooks has no application in current real life issues” (BI2). For example, while perceiving the importance of contemporary IT-related knowledge for scientific literacy, he could not find any scope for teaching students about IT because there is no IT-related content in the textbooks (BI2). A centralised curriculum and prescribed textbooks guide the teaching-learning activities in Bangladesh; and therefore, the curriculum does not provide teachers with flexibility to make their own changes to it. Textbooks generally fail to embrace contemporary content and advances in science. In a textbook-dominated teaching-learning situation, this further may deter students from developing a life-long interest in science, which is also important for scientific literacy (Solomon, 2001).
All three teachers expressed that their classes accommodated students with diverse academic abilities, and they found it difficult to meet the needs of all students. For example, Alam claimed that some of his students needed to revisit earlier content, but others “get bored with this and they are not willing to go through this again” (AI2). This resulted in a tension among students with different abilities.
Whilst all of the teachers perceived their mixed ability classes as a challenge to their teaching, they were not equipped to respond to this issue. Among the teachers, Sabina expressed her incapacity to respond (SI2); Bibhash proposed splitting the class into different sections based on students’ ability (BI2), an approach that is at odds with the philosophy of inclusive education that Bangladesh is trying to endorse in schools (Ministry of Education, 2010).
Alam, on the other hand, took an approach to get the benefit from a mixed ability class. He categorised students based on their academic achievement and made groups with students from different categories. These mixed ability groups worked in a way that more able students acted as peer tutors for the weaker students, and weaker students showed if they have any distinctive things that others could learn (AI2). This approach to maximising the benefit of a mixed ability class may help students in developing support, mutual respect, understanding and tolerance in working in mixed ability groups.
Since the classes of Sabina and Alam accommodated a reasonable number of students (53 and 50 students respectively), comparing this with the existing practice in Bangladesh, they did not perceive the class size as a challenge to their teaching. Bibhash, on the other hand, had about 100 students in his class; he therefore perceived this large class as a challenge to his teaching for scientific literacy (BI2). Perceiving that scientific literacy requires less emphasis on lecturing as with previous research (Goodrum, 2004), Bibhash claimed his large class forced his reliance upon lecturing, which poses a challenge to his teaching for scientific literacy (BI2).
In responding to this issue, Bibhash tried the small group approach, but the large number of students resulted in large numbers of small groups and this seemed to him unmanageable (BI2). Given the situation, he continued to rely upon lecturing and consequently the issue remained unresolved. Similarly, Bibhash expressed his incapacity to address the issue of his workload, Bibhash, on average, had a commitment of six classes per day and needed to spend time in addition to this preparing for these classes (BI2). But he perceived that he did not have sufficient “time to get prepared” as he had to run from one class to another (BI2). However, he could not articulate whether he had made an effort to maximise his time in ways that allowed for some preparation time, but rather avoided some of his responsibility with thinking that he had a heavy workload and therefore there was insufficient time for preparation.Among the teachers, Sabina and Alam viewed the existing assessment practice as a challenge in their teaching of science. They made a common point that as practical activities were not assessed in the junior secondary education in Bangladesh, students at this level did not have access to the lab; this failure of providing lab access to students may hamper their learning and decrease their interest in science (SI2 and AI2).
In order to respond to this issue, Sabina involved students in activities that could be organised without a lab support, for example, testing acidity of household items using hand-made litmus (SO1). Alam, in contrast, viewed that “when you are learning science, it is obvious you are doing some experiments in the lab” (AI2). This view may reflect that science activities only happen in labs; this naive view may restrict him to think about activities that could be organised without a lab support.
Sabina also raised an assessment issue about using examinations prepared by an external local board as a challenge for promoting scientific literacy. These “traditional exams” did not count scientific literacy as an outcome to assess, rather these exams required rote “memorisation of a large amount of factual content” (SI2). As students’ performances in these exams are used as an indicator of her teaching, she could not overlook the power of these exams. This reduced autonomy to assess one’s own students, in an examination driven education system (Holbrook, 2005), made Sabina feel that this issue was beyond her capacity to address.
