Idea Memo

Erin Peters

EDRS 812 – Qualitative Methods in Educational Research

George Mason University

Spring 2005

In 1985 a group of scientists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science composed a book that described what they thought a scientifically literate high school graduate should know, called Science for all Americans. The first part of this book describes the nature of science, the characteristics of the discipline of science that makes it unique and rigorous. This book was written so that teachers in America could be informed about how to teach science. I have been a public school science teacher for fourteen years, and have rarely experienced teachers talk about the nature of science, the book Science for all Americans, or the companion book, Benchmarks for Science Literacy. I have also noticed that the resource materials given to teachers do not address the nature of science explicitly.

As I attend profession conferences and read practitioner-oriented books, I have noticed in the past five years that the ability to teach using an inquiry style is a sought after skill. National science teacher conferences are often structured to facilitate ways to incorporate inquiry into the classroom. Since inquiry in the classroom uses science process skills such as observing, collecting data and making conclusions, it occurred to me that teachers who understand the nature of science would be more adept in addressing process skills. I would like to investigate the influence teachers’ knowledge of the nature of science has on classroom inquiry activities.

I have selected this topic because I am very interested in inquiry in the classroom. When I have been to professional development workshops I have observed the masses of teachers clamoring for any information about inquiry. Inquiry is an amorphous idea, but it is an important one. My discussions with other teachers from around the country reveal that teachers’ understand of inquiry is important because it is an authentic way to teach science, but teachers are having a difficult time pinning down an exact definition for inquiry. On the other hand, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has spent a great deal of effort in compiling ideas about the habits of mind of science for teachers, but this publication has been largely ignored. I feel that the combination of inquiry as an indefinite concept and the lack of information teachers receive regarding the habits of mind of science make for a rich area for investigation.

I have looked into the research that has been published in the Journal for Research in Science Teaching and in the journal, Science Education, and have found some related articles, but nothing that directly addresses the link between the nature of science and inquiry activities. Because I have not done an exhaustive study, there may be some research available on the topic, but I have not found the influence of the habits of mind of science on inquiry classroom activities in the major works in the journals mentioned. An important finding I have inferred from the articles I located is that there is little agreement among researchers about the definition of the nature of science and about the definition of inquiry. Since qualitative research helps to describe poorly understood phenomena (Merriam, 2002), the proposed study will help give me a more complete description of the nature of science and of inquiry. When I build a deeper understanding of the topics of the study, I can then pursue further research with new questions that arise from the study.

An interpretive study seems to be the most appropriate type of qualitative research for the information I hope to gain. Since the literature does not define specific qualities of inquiry based activities, it is important to understand the story of how teachers implement inquiry and how they think about the habits of mind of science. Developing an extensive description of the habits of mind of science and inquiry processes in the classroom will help me define inquiry in the context I am planning on studying for my dissertation. I am hoping that this study will help me to think more clearly about my future research options.

I am the Lead Science Teacher at Williamsburg Middle School in Arlington, Virginia and would like to pursue a basic interpretive study with one science teacher at my school. I have two seventh grade teachers in mind, so if one teacher feels uncomfortable being a participant in the study, I can find another participant. I am familiar with their general style of teaching and understand that they incorporate inquiry into their lessons. The proposed participants also teachers who have less than five years experience, so their teacher preparation is still relevant. I may find some significant information through interview questions probing knowledge from their teacher preparation courses. Using seventh grade teachers is also important because they teach a scheduled class when I have my planning period, so I am frequently available to observe classes.

I was planning on using several data sources in my investigation: teacher interviews, student interviews, classroom observation notes, and resource material documents. I plan to conduct a pre-observation interview with the teacher, observe several identified inquiry lessons, conduct several student interviews, and conduct a post-observation interview with the teacher. I would review teacher resource materials in order to gather information about the availability of teacher planning material about inquiry and the nature of science.

In order to develop coherent questions to address the topics, I listed questions that I had until I could no longer think of any more relevant questions. I then looked through the questions for any intersections. The following questions were the most significant and interesting. How do science teachers think about the habits of mind of science? Do teachers see a connection between the habits of mind of science and classroom inquiry activities? Have teachers learned about the habits of mind in teacher preparation programs and/or in professional development programs? Do teachers explicitly teach habits of mind of science to their students? What role do resource materials play in developing habits of mind of science in the classroom? In my questions, I use “habits of mind” instead of the nature of science because I feel that the term, “the nature of science” is too large a term to focus the ideas of teachers and students during interviews. I would like to investigate teachers’ true feelings about the discipline of science and feel that this would be the most appropriate term.

The potential difficulties of this project may be scheduling, teacher reluctance, and assumptions the researcher makes about teacher knowledge. Since I work full time, have responsibilities as Lead Teacher, Team Leader and a teacher mentor, I may have difficulty scheduling interviews. To reduce the possibility of this, I have chosen teachers from a different grade level, so that my planning period falls on a time when they are teaching. I also see a possible difficulty if the teacher I choose has no background knowledge regarding the habits of mind of science. Would this be truly a difficulty, or does the teachers’ potential lack of knowledge help me learn more about the topic? I am also concerned with the comfort level of the participant teacher due to my role as Lead Teacher, even though I have no supervisory authority. The teacher could change her behavior due to our prior relationship. Once the study is underway, there could be a difficulty with the researcher’s conceptual framework. I believe that I have a different conceptual framework than many teachers in my school. I feel that teachers have a large responsibility to continue to improve, but many of the teachers in the building do not agree with me. I will work diligently to continue to check my role as researcher and will strive to not put on my “teacher hat” during this process.

I have started thinking about possible alternate settings and participants. If the two teachers I have in mind to research at my school decline, I know of two other seventh grade teachers in a different school who may agree to be a participant in the study. One teacher was my mentor, and when I entered the Ph.D. program, she suggested we study her school. She thought a study of her class would be interesting and is very open-minded about having people enter her classroom. The alternate teachers have more than ten years of experience, so my plan to investigate teacher preparation programs would have to change.

Overall, I believe that it would be useful to conduct a basic interpretive study which investigates the connection between a teacher’s knowledge of the habits of mind of science with inquiry classroom activities. A qualitative design would help define some amorphous variables within the study. Related issues that take place during the study may give me some ideas for formulating further studies and help define my research ideas.