Describing and supporting effective science teaching and learning in Australian schools

Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 2, Issue 2, Article 2 (Dec., 2001)
Russell TYTLER
Describing and supporting effective science teaching and learning in Australian schools - validation issues

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Practicalities and politics
Both the time frame within which the project has worked, and the political background to the project, has created issues with the framing and validation of the SiS Components. For instance:

The need to act often requires decisions to be made, advice given to schools, or documents and monitoring instruments produced before we can carry out the full analysis which would normally be expected of such research.

The speed with which instrumentation is required, and the scale on which testing is carried out, has impacted considerably on the nature of the tests and the method of delivery. The type of testing we are carrying out is also influenced by the concerns about TIMSS results that led to the project, and prevailing public views of knowledge and learning that are not necessarily completely aligned with the project vision. Thus, there is an acknowledged tension between the breadth of vision represented by the SiS Components, and the rather narrower view of 'effectiveness' represented by the tests.

In a large scale public project such as this, it is difficult to achieve the coherence between aims and research design that would be expected of smaller scale, more deliberately planned research projects. The research aspects of the project are in a continual state of working towards coherence, and this includes the need to work with teachers, researchers, and government to develop an agreed, and a more refined understanding of the real issues.