Four decades of research in science education - from curriculum development to quality improvement

This volume gives an overview of research in science education with the focus on physics education from 1970 to the present. Different approaches to improve physics instruction in schools will be discussed. The first part of this book is dedicated to the curriculum research work and its further development up to the standards in science education we deal with today. School books as a teaching and learning tool are a further focus of the first part. The second part of this book deals with questions concerning students’ understanding and interest as well as research on conceptual change, constructivism, analogies used in physics education and the model of educational reconstruction. In the third part of the book, we will change to the teachers' perspective. In the last decade, teachers' professional development has been seen as one of the most important factors of quality development in schools. Selected aspects of the following programmes will be presented: a Videotape Classroom Study in Germany, the IMST programme (Innovations in Mathematics and Science Teaching) in Austria, the German project „Physics in Context“, and the German programme SINUS (programme for increasing the efficiency of teaching mathematics and the sciences). This book pays tribute to Professor Dr. Reinders Duit, whose professional life has been dedicated to research in science education. He will retire from the Leibniz Institute for Science Education (IPN) at the University of Kiel in autumn 2008. The IPN is a German research center for science education with a nationwide function. The institute’s mission is to develop and promote science education through research. The research deals with the full scope of issues concerning teaching and learning in the sciences inside and outside schools.