Introduction
Preamble
The goal of promoting student-initiated science and technology projects, became a cornerstone of my 11-year career as a teacher and subsequent 4-year career as a science consultant for my school district. Throughout that fifteen year period, I implemented revised versions of the unit I had prepared in teacherâs college â frequently spurred on by the wonderful projects students were able to complete. I was particularly enamoured with the observation that students who often did not receive high grades in their work in other aspects of science education often thrived when allowed to self-determine their study topics and methods and to self-determine conclusions based, along with theory, on data they had collected during their science inquiry and/or technology design projects.
Especially in my work as a secondary school teacher and consultant, I noticed that many teachers resisted encouraging students to conduct SD/OE science inquiry and/or technology design projects. It seemed more common for teachers to engage students in teacher-guided empirical activities â often called âlabsâ â that provided students with support for well-established claims about the world (e.g., âopposite magnetic charges attractâ) from fields of science. Indeed, others have suggested that school science focuses âalmost exclusively on the well-established products of science [e.g., laws & theories] and cookbook approaches to laboratory exercises, using authoritarian teaching modesâ (Bell, 2006, p. 430). In these experiences, emphases appear to be on teacher-directed and closed-ended activities (Figure 10.1) â antithetical to the kinds of projects I was promoting.
In this chapter, my purpose is to review progress in my career surrounding work to help students take actions of their own to learnâand more specifically, my developing thought and actions to help students engage in research to build projects that contribute new knowledge that may address social/environmental issues and concerns associated with fields of science and technology.
Empirical Inquiries Supporting Pre-Specified Knowledge Claims
I was puzzled by many school science teachersâ resistance to encourage students to conduct science inquiry/technology design projects, prompting me to develop a PhD research project in Science Education to address this concern. Through my secondary research (e.g., reading of published works), it became apparent that there has been a long tradition, with some exceptions, of teacher control of studentsâ decision-making in science education. For the most part, empirical
While students may gain some sense of âbeing scientistsâ through inquiry-based empirical activities, as elaborated in Bencze and Alsop (2009), there appear to be at least three major problems associated with them:
Exclusion: Expecting students to discover pre-determined (closed-ended) conclusions from âactions of their own to learnâ has long been known to be discriminatory â mainly because students lacking cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) often struggle to âdiscoverâ abstractions expected of them from inquiry experiences (Welch et al., 1981). Consequently, teachers commonly support (or âscaffoldâ) such actions of their own to learn. In principle, this could reduce the discriminatory effects of being left on their own to learn pre-specified knowledge claims. However, it seems that largely because of the great âmassâ of knowledge claims in curricula, students must make their âdiscoveriesâ very quickly (Hodson, 1986), making it difficult for some students to develop expected conclusions. Consequently, discovery activities may largely represent a kind of âsurvival of the richestââapparently perpetuating inequities in student learning.
- Subjectification: As suggested above, it seems that inquiry-based activities often, if not always, are teacher-guided and closed-ended. This practice is described by prominent science educators who promote inquiry-based learning in the USA:
Within a classroom, scientific inquiry involves student-centered projects, with students actively engaged in inquiry processes and meaning construction, with teacher guidance, to achieve meaningful understanding of scientifically accepted ideas targeted by the curriculum. (Schwartz, Lederman, & Crawford, 2004, p. 612)
Although such guidance may enable more students to learn science products, it also may contribute to a sense of dependency among them. With teachers ultimately controlling tasks and conclusions, studentsâ development of inquiry skills can be significantly compromised (Hodson, 1993). Moreover, prescriptiveness of teacher guidance for both procedures and conclusions (Figure 10.1) can subjectify them. It can, in other words, condition them, to varying degrees, into accepting pre-determined science perspectives and practices. Idealization: By guiding students through appropriate methods to reach widely-accepted conclusions, teachers may be making progress in the sciences seem much more logical and systematic than is apparent by studies of scientists in action (Hodson, 2008). Perhaps science is practised, to a great extent, instead, somewhere within in the Naturalist-Antirealist quadrant of Lovingâs (1991) Scientific Theory Profile2 (see Figure 10.2). School science, meanwhile, tends to portray science as being practised somewhere within the Rationalist-Realist quadrantâimplying, instead, that scientists are unaffected by non-logical factors, such as, psychological (e.g., stress, theoretical biases), sociological (e.g., preferences of prestigious scientists), political (e.g., priorities of elected officials) and/or economic (e.g., corporate priorities) influences. Congruent with this claim, Carter (2005) notes that school science tends to omit reference to government-sanctioned business-science partnerships, which may sometimes compromise the integrity of knowledge generation and dissemination practices in the sciences (Mirowski, 2011). References to problematic business-science partnerships may be avoided to keep from casting fields of science in a bad light. But this practice may leave students/citizens poorly prepared to judge the merits of companiesâ products and services.
Overall, if teachers want students to develop deep understanding and commitments to âproductsâ (e.g., laws, theories & innovations) of science and technology, then a main focus on inductive, inquiry-based, empirical activities may not be the best choice. In these cases, studentsâ actions of their own to learn may be inappropriate. If guided discovery activities are as problematic as suggested above, then it would be natural to wonder what kinds of empirical activities, if any, might be used to help support widely-accepted claims in the major fields of science and technology. An alternative might be to engage students in more deductive empirical activities; that is, those in which students conduct empirical tests to confirm âproductsâ from the sciences previously taught by the teacher, rather than those needing âdiscoveryâ by students. Such tests could be conceived as either deductive science investigations or evaluations of technology designs, which are considered quite comparable (Lewis, 2006). A simple example of the former would be for students to be taught the law of reflection for plane mirrors and then asked to evaluate this law by using it to predict angles of resultant rays from different angles of incidence. Regarding tests of invention or innovation, after being taught various principles of heat transfer, students could design a model home that would
On the one hand, use of guided deductive inquiries might help alleviate problems with exclusion of some learners, as discussed above, since more direct teaching of âproductsâ of science and technology would minimize risks of students not âdiscoveringâ the expected results/conclusions. On the other hand, problems of subjectification and idealization may remain with deductivist approaches. Inevitably, some studentsâ results will not match their predictions or those of accepted science. Rather than making them âclosed-endedâ (Figure 10.1) and insisting on a particular set of results and conclusions, the teacher could allow for more open-ended conclusions, using these situations to teach students about the nature of science. This process would help students to see that scientists often get unexpected results, as well as results that differ from those of other scientists performing similar tests (Hodson, 2008). Depending on ages and developmental stages of students, the teacher might also present and discuss aspects of sociology of science, pointing out that decisions about data meaning among scientists may be based on their participation in particular research paradigms (Kuhn, 1970). Discussions along these lines can bring some authenticity to studentsâ deductive activities. To enhance such experiences, the teacher can urge students to make choices about methods and conclusions in groups. Group work simulates decision-making by teams of scientists. Such simulations of scientistsâ work could also be extended to include considerations of competition within and among research groups. An example that might be used is an instance
Student-Directed and Open-Ended Empirical Science Inquiry
Although teachers can use various strategies to address problems of exclusion, subjectification and idealization associated with guided empirical activities intended to teach âproductsâ of science and technology, these three concerns might be best addressed using student-directed and open-ended science inquiries and technology design projects (Figure 10.1). Through opportunities that help students learn to plan and conduct actions of their own to learn, students may be subjected to less judgment and exclusion from success based on their social/economic backgrounds and linguistic abilities. As students are offered greater freedom of choice, they may resist subjectification through opportunities for greater self-determination in learning. When students identify their own research questions, they may become situated in contexts that have greater meaning for them. Experiences of identifying variables and procedures needed to collect information may provide them with more authentic (less idealized) conceptions of the nature of science. When students design their own questions and research approaches, they experience complexities and uncertainties that promote authentic understanding of the nature of science (Shapiro, 1996). With such perspectives in mind, for my doctoral thesis primary research, I set out to explore the extent to which and factors affecting secondary school science teachersâ successes in enabling and motivating students to self-direct open-ended science inquiry and technology design projects (Bencze, 1995). Working with two teachers over two school years, we developed âapprenticeshipâ lessons and activities that appeared to be successful in this regard (Bencze, 2000). Studentsâ successes with and enjoyment of such investigations continually impressed me, serving as further motivation to promote them as I progressed throughout my career and to this day.
I found through my experiences as a teacher, and teachers I worked with also noted that such project work seemed more inclusive. Some students who otherwise had struggled in their science education experienced successes with SD/OE projects. Much of this success seemed attributable to self-determination associated with such projects. Students often chose research topics unfamiliar to teachers, for instance, frequently relating them to their personal experiences. Examples of topics selected by students reported in my thesis include:
âThe effects of age on the occurrence of the common cold. Thirty people between the ages of 5 and 76 were asked how often they get a cold in a year. The results suggested that it occurs in the very young (ages 0â10) and the progressively older (ages 30â80) [Louisâ student, 12Mar94]â. âThe effect of temperature on the mass of melted snow. One hundred measurements of the temperature and mass of varying quantities of melted snow collected by a class of students was sampled. The student concluded that there was no relationship between the two variables, based on her widely-scattered plot [Michaelâs student, 7Mar94]â (Bencze, 1995, p. 190).
Students noted their appreciation of the opportunity for self-determination during project work, as indicated by comments like: âItâs a lot more interesting than reading the textbook, and doing questions [from the book], and him having that hour lectureâ (Louisâ student, 29Apr93) and âWorking it out yourself is better than book learning; you can find out things that are not in the bookâ (Louisâ student, 4May93)â (Bencze, 1995, p. 197).
Finally, there was evidence that students developed more authentic conceptions of the nature of science: âI always thought [scientists] wore pocket protectors with glasses, and were bald with lab coats. [Now] ⦠if you look at [my teacher], they are not like that. They are just regular people who know a lot about scienceâ (Michaelâs student, 14May93)â and âI will listen to everyone elseâs point, and I will take it into consideration, but I really like my ideas! ⦠To a degree, some scientists, if they come up with something and they really like the way it sounds, they tend to want to work on their ownâ (Louisâ student, 11May93)â (Bencze, 1995, p. 194).
It was a joy to witness studentsâ learning and enthusiasm for learning when it was under their control. On the other hand, in the âdiscoveryâ of laws and theories approach, students may not be able to discover all aspects of the nature of science, such as government and business-science partnerships through actions of their own to learn. As a colleague and I later found in research with teachers who were learning about science in âauthenticâ contexts, one approach is to teach themâusing more teacher-directed and closed-ended approachesâaspects of the nature of science that they may or may not âdiscoverâ and then encourage them to evaluate such claims in the contexts of their student-led investigations with no pre-set conclusions (Bencze & Elshof, 2004).
Although many teachers with whom I have worked over the years have had successes like those above in encouraging and enabling young people to self-direct open-ended science inquiry and technology design projects, promoting such project work with secondary school teachers of science, especially, continued to be difficult after my doctoral work and on into my professorial career. Teachers often exclaim, for instance, that âwith all of the âcontentâ (laws, theories & inventions) to teach, there is little time to allow students to self-direct open-ended projects.â This continues to be highly frustrating for me. I believe strongly in studentsâ actions of their own to learn and to arrive at open-ended conclusions, but it seems as though there has been
Students Acting on Their Own to Learn and Give
Neoliberal Capitalism and Science and Technology
Although there are likely numerous factors affecting human thoughts and actions, not the least of which are religious, cultural and gender-related, chief among them in many places in the world are economic considerations. More specifically, the world seems under the grip of a network of mutually-supporting entities (âactantsâ) promoting neoliberal capitalism (Harvey, 2010; McMurtry, 2013). Briefly, although definitions are debated, neoliberal capitalism appears to be an ideology encouraging orchestration of a vast (global) network of living (e.g., financiers, think tanks & corporations), non-living entities (e.g., computer and transportation networks) and symbolic actants (competitiveness, entrepreneurialism & growth). Such entities seem largely facilitated by interventions in markets and in the broader society by governments and transnational actants, like the World Trade Organization, in ways that favour private sector gains over public goods.
Particularly important to for-profit activities of this capitalist network are fields of science and technology. Since about the 1980s, companies have not only hired their own scientists and engineers, but they also have been allowed to enter into financial agreements with university-based âacademicâ scientists and engineers (Ziman, 2000). Although it does not appear to be a universal problem, some evidence suggests that the integrity of topic choice, methods and dissemination of findings within fields of commercial and academic science and engineering funded by private sector interests have sometimes been compromised (Krimsky, 2003; Mirowski, 2011). Such compromises have, in turn, been associated with numerous realized and/or potential problems for the wellbeing of individuals, societies and environments. The power of companies to direct the nature of science and technology inquiry raises concerns about relatively immediate health and social justice risks linked to various commercial products and services. These include fast foods and other processed foods (e.g., Weber, 2009), pharmaceuticals (e.g., Angell, 2004), biotechnologies (e.g., Krimsky, 2003), toxic chemicals in everyday things (e.g., Vasil, 2007) and agricultural research and practices (e.g., Kleinman, 2003). Perhaps most worrisome, however, is climate change, that is often associated with âgreenhouse gasâ emissions from factories, modes of transportation, energy generation stations and other sources. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, Earth is on course for catastrophic loss of life, unless immediate significant actions are taken to reduce emissions (Klein, 2014). There is an urgent need to include these topics in work that helps learners identify and address issues through their own science learning.
STSE/SSI Education
Altruistic Science and Technology Education
Acknowledging calls for more activism in science education, in 2006, I developed the âSTEPWISEâ5 curricular and pedagogical framework. This framework arranges teaching/learning domains, such as âProducts Educationâ (i.e., learning of products
Schema for RiNA projects.
Copyright Springer 2017. From L. Bencze (2017), Science & technology education promoting wellbeing for individuals, societies & environments (p. 27), Springer, Dordrecht. Reproduced here with permission of Springer
The nature of such RiNA projects to address problematic STSE relationships can be conceived in terms of the schema in Figure 10.3.6 This schema depicts reciprocal translations between the âWorldâ (e.g., objects and events) and âSignsâ (e.g. symbols) representing them. Translations7 from World (e.g., âshoweringâ) to Sign (e.g., graphs of showering), commonly considered a major focus of âscience,â may be considered the research in RiNA; while translations from Sign (e.g., brochure) to World (e.g., water-conserving shower head), commonly-associated with technology design (engineering), would be the actions in RiNA to bring about a better world.
The schema in Figure 10.3 also seems to have important implications for concepts surrounding the purpose of this book; that is, studentsâ actions of their own to learn. Because World ââ Sign relationships are reciprocal, it follows that âWorldâ and âSignâ would have some of each other in them.8 For example, making a drawing (Sign) of a cell (World) will affect future drawings of cells (new Signs) and, perhaps, engineering changes to cells (new World). Consequently, while âscienceâ (World â Sign) often is considered related to âlearning,â we can say
When people are driving through, they are not going to have a lot of time to read all the stuff that we need to get across to them. So, we just grabbed their attention with the money claim, but then they go to our website [taken off-line] and see all the information that we put there. We also give them an idling calculator, which allows them to calculate how much money they would save with each minute of less idling. (STSE Action Fair interview, January 14, 2013).
With students developing and conducting research to inform decisions about appropriate actions regarding perceived problems in STSE relationships, societies may be moving along a trajectory from more representative to more participatory forms of democracy. In Levinsonâs (2010) schema, their self-led research aligns with his âPraxisâ (reflective practice) level of citizenship â which he suggests would help
Apprenticeships for Student-Led RiNA Projects
While studentsâ actions of their own to learn through self-directed and open-ended RiNA projects can engender numerous benefits to students and, indeed, the wellbeing of individuals, societies and environments, students often struggle with such projects without teacher support. Often, this appears to be the case because of the extent to which science education systems often prioritize, as noted above, more
Students express STSE issues & RiNA. Because learners often have pre-conceived attitudes, skills and knowledge (âASKâ) relating to those teachers intend to address, and because many of these are subconscious, it can be helpful to encourage students to âexpressâ them in various ways (e.g., through speech, writing, drawing) prior to teacher instruction. A simple approach we have used for encouraging students to express pre-instructional conceptions of STSE issues, research and actions is to ask them to evaluate a range of for-profit commodities associated with fields of science and technology in terms of possible harms for the wellbeing of individuals, societies and environments (WISE). In doing so, students are commonly asked to name various individuals and/or groups who would defend opposing positions about the commodityâs effects on WISE. They often also are asked to propose actions they might take to address any problems they perceive, including âpreparationâ (e.g., research) they might conduct prior to taking actions. Regarding cell phones, for instance, students might suggest that groups like Greenpeace⢠would advise people of environmental hazards of chemicals in old phones, while companies making the phones might deny such effects. Students might suggest that people need to be educated, perhaps through Facebook⢠posts, of environmental problems with cell phones â perhaps adding that they feel they need to do more research, perhaps via the Internet, to make the best recommendations about cell phones. As with many school science activities, there is considerable variation in studentsâ reactions and, perhaps more importantly, details of their analyses of and recommendations for actions regarding purchase and uses of commodities. Teachers could take advantage of such variation by encouraging students to share their perspectives and recommended practices, acknowledging that such differences of opinion are characteristic of STSE issues.
- Teachers teach about STSE & RiNA projects. Although some students may have relatively sophisticated views about STSE relationships and RiNA projects, my work suggests that many students can benefit9 from relatively teacher-led lessons and activities aimed at providing them with additional relevant ASK. Although there are many possible approaches in this regard, case methods have been very successful. These involve providing students with descriptions (âcasesâ), in varying detail, of STSE issues, research and actions. These can be given to students in different forms, including as descriptions on paper or as multimedia documentaries. The activist videos from The Story of Stuff project,
such as The Story of Bottled Water,10 are excellent; but, there are numerous others available through YouTubeâ¢. During or after studentsâ reading/viewing of cases, they can be asked to complete various assignmentsâincluding to discuss their current positions on the issues, to conduct some secondary research (e.g., Internet searches) to learn more about the issues and to answer questions about them. After reading a brief description of controversies surrounding snack food, for instance, a 10th-grade student searched the Internet and wrote the following: Advertisements for snack foods are usually advertised with famous and powerful people that will influence young teenagers. It is all done for profit and tricks teenagers thinking that if my favourite actor or my idol eats all these snack food I should eat them to [sic]. Sports people that play soccer, for example, David Beckham are shown in commercials for Burger King). (Excerpt from studentâs secondary research report, June 22, 2012).
Although students can learn a great deal about STSE issues, research and actions through such teacher-managed case methods, students often are limited in their conceptions of issues, research and actions without significant further teacher input. Pierce (2013), for example, suggests students can broaden their perspectives of STSE issues (and research and actions) through instruction in and use of actor networksâwhich can expose them to perhaps a more realistic range of living, non-living and semiotic (symbolic) actants. After such instruction and their secondary research on hairspray, students produced, for example, the actor network drawing reproduced in Figure 10.5. Enlightened by harms associated with often-hidden actants, such as workers in poor contexts, these students then designed an environmentally-sound hairspray that also would be manufactured using fair labour practices (Bencze & Krstovic, 2017b).
Teachers guide studentsâ mini-RiNA projects about STSE problems. Although students can learn much about STSE issues, research and actions from teachersâ lessons, as described above, including with some teacher-guided secondary research, it seems clear that deep, committed, learning best occurs when students have increasing control over decisions about research and actions on issues. Accordingly, in this third phase of the apprenticeship (see Figure 10.4), students would be given control over both types of translation processes in RiNA projects (see Figure 10.3); that is, for âresearchâ (e.g., cigarette smoking â graphs of cigarette smoking) and for âactionsâ (e.g., anti-smoking posters, videos, letters to government, etc. â reduced cigarette smoking).
STEPWISE pedagogical approach.
Copyright Springer 2017. From L. Bencze (2017), Science & technology education promoting wellbeing for individuals, societies & environments (pp. 27 & 664), Springer, Dordrecht. Reproduced here with permission of Springer
Studentâs actor network drawing about hairspray.
Copyright Springer 2017. From L. Bencze (2017), Science & technology education promoting wellbeing for individuals, societies & environments (p. 242), Springer, Dordrecht. Reproduced here with permission of Springer
Depending on studentsâ background experiences, the teacher may have to provide supplementary lessons and activities regarding various skills for RiNA projects to address problematic STSE relationships. An aspect of research that
To help students develop expertise, confidence and motivation for conducting studies that may generate findings that could inform decisions about socio-political actions, teachers may choose a range of apprenticeship activities. So that the teacher does not interfere with methods and conclusions for studies students would use for their actual RiNA project topics, however, teachers may choose to provide students with lessons and activities on relatively simple, perhaps unrelated, topics to help them become familiar and proficient with studies (Bencze, 2000). With reference to the excerpt from such an activity illustrated in Figure 10.6, for example, students may gain familiarity with distinctions between studies with experiments.
Excerpt from student activity about correlational studies
By the end of one three-phase cycle of apprenticeship lessons and activities (see Figure 10.4), teachers may, depending on their judgements of studentsâ expertise, confidence and motivation for self-directing RiNA projects, engage students in one or more of the RiNA apprenticeship activities described in the above three sub-sections. When they feel it is appropriate, teachers can then ask students to take actions of their own to learn about STSE issues that may lead to socio-political actions promoting a better world.
Summary and Conclusions
In this chapter, I have suggested that, if it is the educational intention to have students learn particular pre-determined science âproductsâ (e.g., laws, theories & inventions) of science and technology through their engagement in empirical activities, it seems that it is best not to require students to act on their own to learn. This form of learning seems associated, to varying degrees, with such problems as: exclusion, subjectification and idealization. To overcome problems like these, it may be that student-directed and open-ended science inquiry and/or technology design projects â supplemented with directed instruction in the nature of science â are appropriate for helping students take âactions of their own to learn.â While actions of oneâs own to learn for its own sake is, clearly, a worthy goal, it seems that an essential goal of student-led learning must be to serve as a source of information and motivation to address personal, social and environmental harms associated with fields of science and technology. Particularly in light of adverse effects of neoliberal capitalism on fields of science and technology and many other entities, it seems clear that we need more citizens ready and willing to investigate potential problems faced by all humanity and to act on them for the benefit of all. I suggest that educators recognizing this need may turn to perspectives and practices based on the âSTEPWISEâ educational framework. I have learned, through many years of working with the framework, that through use of its apprenticeships, students have been able to take actions of their to learn more about problematic STSE relationships and actions of their own to learn what actions may be appropriate and feasible to address such problems.
Although students can act on their own to learn more about STSE problems concerning them and use findings to enact socio-political actions that may contribute to positive personal, social and environmental changes. My work suggests characteristics of such student-led activities are largely antithetical to current perspectives and practices in many science education contexts. School science systems, comprised, for example, of governments, international comparative tests, transnational organizations like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, textbook publishers, testing agencies, school district officials, parents, teachers, news agencies, etc., tend to prioritize teacher or text controlled celebratory instruction of âproductsâ (e.g., laws & theories) of science and technology. This
As Naomi Klein (2014) suggests with regards to predicted crises for much of the globeâs people and living and non-living environments, due to dramatic and devastating climate change, little will change in the apparent trajectory of destruction without fundamental transformation of our global economic system â changes that essentially, would prioritize social justice and environmental sustainability. While she offers hope in achievements of various large-scale social movements, like enlightenment about âThe 1%â from the Occupy Wall Street movement, she acknowledges that capitalists have traditionally survived well under a range of threats and crises. Consequently, it is difficult to know exactly what course of action education must take to address problems stemming from neoliberal capitalism in light of âitsâ success in rallying a great range of living, non-living and symbolic entities to its causes. However, perhaps those wanting greater social justice and environmental sustainability can learn from capitalistsâ uses of networks and, accordingly, work to rally many and varied actants to support each other. Among the rallying âcriesâ may be calls for coordinated efforts to promote actions of their own to critically learn about the world and, where potential harms are perceived, actions of their own to altruistically bring about a better world for all individuals, societies and environments.
Acknowledgements
Much of the research reported here was funded by a generous grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I would also like to thank Mr.
Notes
There is the argument that pure induction is impossible, in the sense that we can only make sense of observations based on our existing cognitive conceptions. Thus, development of generalizations from specific observations may best be thought of in terms of abduction; that is, finding best conceptions to fit specific observations (Lawson, 2005).
The horizontal axis spans a continuum regarding the nature of theory negotiation in the sciences. Rationalists tend to believe in highly systematic methods of science, including rational judgments about theory. Naturalists, by contrast, assume that the conduct of science is highly situational and idiosyncratic, depending on various factors, including psychological, social, cultural and political influences. The vertical axis, meanwhile, depicts a continuum reflecting the truth-value of knowledge. Realists believe that scientific knowledge corresponds to reality, while (extreme) Antirealists claim that each personâs constructions are valid. These continua have âordinalâ scales. On the horizontal axis, for example, placing a mark close to the âRationalistâ end indicates a âstrongâ Naturalist view about science. A mark about mid-way between the two poles, by contrast, indicates that science has moderately Rationalist and Naturalist features.
This term is one of several used to describe controversies regarding potential problems associated with fields of science and technology. In Canada, the site of this research, such issues are addressed in terms of âSTSEâ (Science, Technology, Society & Environment) relationships.
Forms of action students might take include: educating others (e.g., via posters and pamphlets), lobbying power-brokers (e.g., via petitions and letters to politicians), developing potentially-improved products and systems (e.g., a cell phone with recyclable components) and/or making personal improvements (e.g., using a travel mug) (Bencze et al., 2012).
âSTEPWISEâ is the acronym for Science & Technology Education Promoting Wellbeing for Individuals, Societies & Environments. Details of the STEPWISE framework and related resources are available at: www.stepwiser.ca
Elaboration of this schema is provided in Bencze and Carter (2015). Briefly, it is adapted from a schema provided by Roth (2001), who used semiotics (study of signs & symbols) to discuss relationships between conduct of science and technology.
Translations in both directions may have âontologicalâ gapsâ i.e., inconsistencies in translating from one kind of thing (e.g., cell) into another kind of thing (e.g., drawing of cell) due to differences in forms of representation between the two entities. âIdeologicalâ gaps may be considered purposeful inconsistencies in such translationsâsuch as intentional mis-representations of commodities (e.g., manufactured food) and advertisements for them (e.g., âorganicâ).
Because of the reciprocal nature of these translations, we can think of âscienceâ and âtechnologyâ as co-affecting each other and, thus, having some of the other in themâleading some scholars to consider the two processes as one entity, perhaps called âtechnoscienceâ (Sismondo, 2008).
Reasons for such needs are, undoubtedly, complex; but, it seems that a major factor is school science systemsâ tendencies â as discussed above â to emphasize teacher-directed and closed-ended instruction in products of science and technology (Hodson, 2011).
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