Science Education and Pedagogy

Science education research examines how people come to understand scientific ideas, how teachers can structure learning to make that understanding deeper and more durable, and what it means to be scientifically literate in a world where evidence is constantly contested. Researchers draw on cognitive science, linguistics, and sociology to study practices like classroom argumentation, model-based reasoning, and inquiry-driven investigation, asking not just whether students learn facts but whether they grasp how scientific knowledge is constructed and revised. A central open question is how to design learning progressions—coherent sequences of instruction that build genuine conceptual change rather than surface familiarity—especially across the uneven institutional realities of K–12 and undergraduate settings. There is also growing attention to socioscientific issues, such as climate change or vaccine policy, where the goal is to prepare students to reason carefully about problems that are simultaneously scientific, ethical, and political.

Works

87,219

Total citations

1,043,566

Keywords

Inquiry-Based TeachingScientific LiteracyArgumentation DiscourseNature of ScienceConceptual ChangeSTEM Education