The role of teachers' pedagogical and subject-matter knowledge in planning and enacting science-inquiry instruction and in assessing students' science-inquiry learning
Institution: | McGill University |
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Department: | Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology |
Degree: | PhD |
Year: | 2012 |
Keywords: | Education - Curriculum and Instruction |
Record ID: | 1986189 |
Full text PDF: | http://digitool.library.mcgill.ca/thesisfile106249.pdf |
This study explored the relation between pedagogical knowledge and subject-matter knowledge, in the context of inquiry-driven science instruction, and their relation to instructors' performance in the instructional process. This multiple case study focused on three distinct categories of teachers – Novice in Inquiry and in Science, Novice in Inquiry and Expert in Science, and Expert in Inquiry and in Science – and examined the commonalities and differences among them by exploring the cognitive processes these teachers used when planning and enacting an inquiry instructional situation, as well as when assessing students' learning resulting from this specific instructional event. Inquiry instruction varied across cases from largely structured to largely open. The Novice-Novice's science instruction, predominantly traditional in the approach, differed greatly from that of the Expert-Expert and of the Novice-Expert. The latter two emphasized – to various extents structured, guided, and open – inquiry strategy as part of their ongoing instruction. The open inquiry was an approach embraced solely by the Expert-Expert teacher throughout the Advanced Science Research instruction, emphasizing the creative aspect of problem generation. Edward teacher also distinguished himself from the other two participants in his view of planning and terminology used to describe it, both of which emphasized the dynamic and flexible feature of this instructional process. The Expert-Expert identified occasional planning, planning of specific skills and content critical to students' learning process during their independent inquiry. The observed teaching performance of the three participants partly reflected their planning; the alignment was least frequent for the Novice-Novice.The assessment of inquiry-based projects varied greatly across participants. Each teacher participant evaluated a set of three inquiry-based science projects that differed in their quality, and this variation increased when the inquiry-based projects were compared across participants. The inquiry-based science projects varied in their degree of complexity, sophistication, originality of the topic, and method of investigation. The projects originating from Edward teacher's instruction were qualitatively superior to those assessed by the Novice-Expert and Novice-Novice teachers. In addition, these inquiry-based projects were the only projects that addressed the criterion of originality. The instructional model depicted within the Expert-Expert teacher's case provide the beginning of a model of instructional alignment in which planning, teaching, and assessing are examined as three interconnected processes that mutually informed and continuously enhance each other. Cette étude a exploré la relation entre les connaissances pédagogiques et disciplinaires, dans le contexte de l'approche par investigation du processus d'enseignement des sciences et leur relation avec la performance des enseignants dans le processus d'enseignement.Cette recherche s'est concentrée sur…