Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Robert E. Yager
The University of Iowa
The major advantage of STS is the kind of teaching it allows and demands. Twelve middle school
teachers who were enthused with STS teaching
selected two sections for a research study. One section was the experimental STS section; the other followed the course syllabus and textbook closely. The
major findings indicate the advantages for STS as a
teaching approach.
Students at the STS approach learned as many
science concepts as students who were taught such
concepts directly. But the students in the STS sections
were superior in all other aspects, including understanding and use of 14 process skills, use of creative
thinking skills, development of more positive attitudes, better ability to apply and connect ideas and
skills to other situations, and developing a better
understanding of the nature and history of science.
Keywords: goals; science and technology; creating;
process skills; attitudes; philosophy; history of science
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society Vol. 27, No. 5, October 2007, 386-390
DOI: 10.1177/0270467607305737
Copyright 2007 Sage Publications
more emphasis on nine facets of teaching. The standards clearly negate what generally occurs in many
classrooms and laboratories both in schools as well as
colleges and universities. More emphasis is recommended in the following areas: (a) understanding and
responding to individual students interests, strengths,
experiences, and needs; (b) selecting and adapting
the curriculum; (c) focusing on student understanding
and use of scientific knowledge, ideas, and inquiry
processes; (d) guiding students in active and extended
scientific inquiries; (e) providing opportunities for
scientific discussions and debates among students;
(f) continuously assessing student understanding; (g)
sharing responsibility for learning with students; (h)
supporting a classroom community with cooperation,
shared responsibility, and respect; and (i) working
with other teachers to enhance the science program.
(National Research Council, 1996, p. 52)
Most science courses are devoid of any of the features which characterize real science. These features
include: (a) curiosity about the objects and events
encountered in the natural world, (b) offering possible
explanations for them, (c) collecting evidence to establish the validity of the personally advanced explanations, (d) communicating the explanations for which
evidence has been collected, and (e) responding to criticisms and counter-explanations from scientists. Most
science courses in K-12 schools no longer focus on
technology since the 1960 reforms which boldly proclaimed that science for schools should exemplify pure
science (what is known by scientists about the natural
world) and not the human-made world. Reform efforts
(like STS) now openly include the design-world and
furthermore see it to be a way of studying the natural
world in terms of better instrumentation as well as a
meaningful way of using processes. The techniques
characterizing technology are like those of science.
The major difference is that the answers to real questions about the natural world have no initial answers.
(Scientists start with the unknown!) In the case of technology, the persons involved know from the start what
answers they hope/plan to attain. Current efforts in
science educationespecially the STSgive equal
(or even primary) emphasis to the design world over
the natural world.
Questions are where science and technology both
begin. Too often it is assumed that all must know what
previous scientists have produced before they can experience real science. Students in schools spend 13 years
trying to learn what others report about the natural
world without formulating and/or dealing with their
own questions. Technologists manipulate nature to get
387
desired products. Hence, they learn more about the natural world so they can use the knowledge to produce
new designs to experience living.
Yager and McCormack (1989) have conceived of six
domains to be used to promote science and technology
learning and to establish the degree of success. These
six domains are: (a) concept: mastering basic content
constructs, (b) process: learning the skills scientists use
in sciencing, (c) creativity: improving in quantity and
quality of questions, possible explanations, and predicted consequences, (d) attitude: developing more
positive feelings concerning the usefulness of science,
science study, science teachers, and science careers, (e)
application and connections: using concepts and
processes in new situations, and (f) world view: helping
students to understand the processes used in gaining
better understanding of the natural world and how these
understandings have changed over time.
Typically science courses concentrate only on the
concept and process dimensions. This focus would be
called traditional teaching or a textbook approach. In
such an environment there would be little focus on
creativity and attitudes which are sometimes called
the enabling domains. Applications and connections
provide real evidence of learning. If students can
apply and use the concepts and skills on their own in
new contexts, this is real evidence of learning. The
world view domain includes philosophy, history, and
sociology of the human endeavors called science and
technology.
Iowa has been a leader in STS education with several national leaders and their students involved.
Several funded projects such as the Iowa Chautauqua
Program (Yager, Liu, & Blunck, 1993) and the Iowa
Scope, Sequence, and Coordination Project (Yager,
Liu, & Varrella, 1993) have focused on science research
illustrating the different successes of students in class
sections taught from an STS perspective compared with
those where a set curriculum and textbook dictated the
classroom activities. This article is a report of one of
these efforts.
The Experiment
Twelve middle school teachers in Iowa who had
been leaders in STS efforts agreed to be involved
with an experiment where each would teach a section
in a traditional mode and another as an STS effort.
All agreed to report data with both pretests and
posttests in the six assessment domains indicated earlier. The results attained over the course of two 9week grading periods are the outcomes of the study.
388
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Skill
STS
Traditional
Using space/
time relations
Observing
Classifying
Interpreting data
Inferring
Communicating
Controlling variables
Drawing conclusions
Predicting
Using numbers
Measuring
Comparing &
differentiating
Hypothesizing
Selecting best
experimental
procedures
51
12
84
87
88
74
88
63
82
71
89
91
84
30
26
31
19
38
21
24
19
40
33
31
63
52
18
24
1
2
3
4
5
Skill
STS
Traditional
94
87
75
6
13
25
83
67
17
33
terms of demonstrating the use of the skills used by scientists as they explore the natural world. They are also
much used by technologists as they design new structures for the betterment of mankind.
The differences reported in Table 1 illustrate striking differences in student abilities to use the skills on
their own in new contexts. Perhaps this result could
be expected because STS teaching demands that the
students actually use ideas, concepts, and skills in
new situations as a more valid indicator of learning.
Too often identifying a text or teacher given directions is assumed an adequate indication of learning.
In the case of ability to use the skills scientists use,
the STS students were 2 to 3 times more successful.
Table 2 focuses on five examples of creative thinking skills. Torrance (1963) indicates that the major
component of creativity is wondermentsomething
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Attitude
STS
Traditional
6
22
81
19
11
69
74
22
88
63
48
31
71
14
81
24
31
40
1
2
3
4
5
Ability
STS
Traditional
81
25
66
83
91
89
18
17
26
35
389
STS
Traditional
46
65
40
44
80
19
12
24
16
8
20
66
12
22
enrolled. Some STS college efforts provide some information that attitudes do improve when STS strategies
are employed.
Table 4 focuses on student abilities to apply science
(information and process skills) to new situations. As in
the previous cases, students in the STS sections were far
more able to apply their learning in new situations.
Students in the traditional section could remember what
they were told and learnedbut were often at a loss
to apply the concepts or process skills to new situations
or in new contexts.
The application and connection domain may be the
most important one. What good is any science instruction if information and skills can be demonstrated
after direct instructioneven though they cannot be
used elsewhere. It is difficult to assess in this domain
with traditional instruments. When teachers devise such
tests, they do not differ much from concept-driven
ones. The simple solution in STS classes is to invite
all students to propose applications and connections
and to involve all class members in the discussion of
the validity of such efforts coming from the students
themselves.
Table 5 focuses on student understanding of the
philosophy and history of science. Once more in this
domain the students in STS sections were superior to
390
Discussion
It should be emphasized that the 12 teachers
involved in the study were not typical; furthermore,
they had been involved with staff development efforts
for at least 10 years. They were familiar with the
assessment strategies and had to assist students in the
traditional sections in special waysoften the assessment used and reported in this study.
Teachers new to STS teaching do not excel as did
these 12 experienced teachers. Learning pedagogy is
like learning science and technology; it does not occur
without effort and practice. The 12 teachers enjoyed
sharing their experiences with teaching and assessment and proved most effective in getting more new
teachers to try and to succeed. Education like science
itself needs to be a more collective effort.
It is hoped that the results reported will be used by
others in promoting more STS teachingperhaps
even with the direct teaching about STS that occurs
far too often in colleges.
Conclusions
Few differences were found between the basic
science concepts that were learned (perhaps recalled)
by students in the four sections. It is not possible with
standard testing to assert that STS classes result in
students who learn more basic concepts which provide the primary focus for most science classrooms K
through 12 (and college classes as well!).
References
Bransford, J., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people
learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC:
National Research Council, National Academy Press.
National Assessment of Educational Progress. (1978, June). Three
national assessments of science: Changes in achievement, 196977 (Report No. 08-S-08). Denver, CO: Education Commission of
the States.
National Research Council. (1996). National science education
standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Torrance, E. P. (1963). Toward the more humane education of
gifted children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 7, 135-145.
Yager, R. E., Liu, C., & Blunck, S. M. (1993). The Iowa Chautauqua
program annual assessment report 1992-93. Iowa City, IA:
University of Iowa, Science Education Center.
Yager, R. E., Liu, C., & Varrella, G. F. (1993). The Iowa scope,
sequence, and coordination (SS&C) project assessment report
1990-93. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa, Science Education
Center.
Yager, R. E. & McCormack, A. J. (1989) Assessing teaching/
learning successes in multiple domains of science and science
education. Science Education, 73, 45-58.