“Research” can refer to a wide body of activities: It can describe when students in science classes may investigate a topic, gather evidence, and analyze data to develop their own ideas and present them to others. Or it might refer to investigations conducted by scientists. The NSTA Research Division focuses on another kind of research: the systematic study of how people learn science, including investigations into teaching methods, curriculum design, student understanding of scientific concepts, and factors that influence science learning, with the goal of improving science education practices and student outcomes across various levels of learning. 

Research studies can provide teachers with evidence-based strategies to improve student learning outcomes, allowing them to make informed decisions about teaching methods, curriculum design, and classroom management, ultimately leading to more effective and targeted instruction for their students. Research can also help teachers identify ineffective practices and encourage critical reflection on their own teaching methods. Yet we recognize three important barriers teachers face when locating relevant research and translating it into their practice. First, teachers may lack access to peer-reviewed research journals, which—while available freely to academics through university libraries—often require payment to access. Second, research articles often include jargon and focus on information more important to researchers than to practitioners. Finally, we acknowledge that teachers are already pressed for time —and sifting through the available research can be time intensive. 

Through our quarterly blog, the Research Committee hopes to address some of those challenges. This winter, we share the following studies, which have been hand-picked by our Research Committee members as examples of research that has impacted, inspired, and influenced our own work. You’ll notice these studies span a wide range of topics and include some relatively “old” research. While more recent research is often considered better because it reflects the current state of knowledge in a field, this new research is built upon landmark or foundational studies that should not be considered “outdated.”

Nestojko, J. F., D. C. Bui, N. Kornell, and E. L. Bjork. 2014. Expecting to teach enhances learning and organization of knowledge in free recall of text passages. Memory and Cognition 42: 1038–1048. DOI https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13421-014-0416-z.

Highlighted by Alison Seymour, NSTA Research Committee Member

“If you really want to master something, teach it” is a quote attributed to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. As teachers, we have this experience many times during the year. I discover a new depth of knowledge each time I prepare to teach a topic to my students.

Hormones, planets, and mitosis—what do they have in common? For me, these are three topics that I have students prepare to teach to the class or to another person. This was originally based on my experiences in secondary school, teacher training, and observing coworkers. But was this really the best use of student time, or merely adding variety to their learning tasks?

My understanding of why to have students teach has been substantially informed by Nestojko et al. (2014), in which two experiments were designed to compare groups of students, with one preparing to take an exam and the other to teach the same material. The group who prepared to teach did not teach, but were given the same exam. Spoiler alert —The students who thought they would teach performed better on the exam. But why? As we know, teaching involves mental activities such as summarizing the critical points, identifying key concepts, looking for connections, and mentally organizing facts and concepts. When students know they will be the teacher, they use more of these skills, thus increasing their learning. “These teaching preparation techniques are parallel to encoding strategies that are known to be powerful learning or mnemonic processes—namely, relational (organizational) and item-specific processing strategies” (Nestojko et al. 2014).

The paper points out that “students do not necessarily employ activities that best foster learning” (Nestojko et al. 2014) and can benefit from being guided to use strategies such as organizing, weighing importance of key concepts, focusing on main points, and knowing how information fits together to increase their learning. One way to guide them to use these strategies is to have them teach.
Having students teach is a simple and cost-free intervention that has the potential to benefit students’ learning. Though it is not practical for every unit, picking one with discrete topics, such as hormones or planets, makes the task easier to divide among students or student groups, giving each ownership of specific content. I have done this with student groups teaching the entire class. I have also created teams consisting of three students preparing the same lesson, explaining mitosis, and had volunteer staff members come in as “students” for 1:1 (team:adult) tutoring. The experience was very positive for both the students and volunteers. Nestojko et al. also suggests having the class prepare to teach the same material with the understanding that a randomly selected student would be teaching. Regardless of the format, giving your students an opportunity to teach improves their learning.

Mastropieri, M.A. and T. E. Scruggs. 2001. Promoting inclusion in secondary classrooms. Learning Disability Quarterly 24 (4): 265 –274. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2307/1511115.

Highlighted by Carey Hancey-Shier, NSTA Research Committee Member

The primary objective in creating inclusion classrooms is to ensure accessible and equitable learning opportunities for all students, including those with disabilities.  Allowing students with disabilities to participate in an inclusive environment has its benefits. Aside from increasing the scope of social interactions, the inclusion classroom provides access to the same curriculum experienced by students in general education.  Despite these benefits, the inclusion classroom does have its challenges, such as adjusting instructional pace, recognizing the implicit bias of teachers regarding the abilities of students with disabilities, and understanding how to differentiate lesson plans to enable equitable learning.

Based on their research, the authors state that there are seven criteria for creating a successful inclusive classroom: consistent administrative support, assistance from the special education personnel, acceptance that produces a positive classroom environment, selection of an appropriate curriculum, effective instructional delivery, productive peer discourse, and targeted teaching skills geared toward maximizing the academic outcome of disabled students. Given the amount of success criteria, it is no wonder that the general education teacher becomes overwhelmed when instructing an inclusion classroom.

This feeling of being overwhelmed as a science teacher in an inclusion classroom resonated with me. Prior to changing school districts, I exclusively taught gifted students who were selected to participate in an integrated math and science program.  However, when I transitioned to a new district, my science classes were assigned to me, including an inclusion class. The struggle for effective instructional delivery within the inclusive environment was apparent, so I sought research-based teaching strategies that could improve my pedagogy.

Upon extensive research, I decided to incorporate choice boards into lesson plans, which enable the student to select how they would demonstrate content mastery. Much to my delight, this strategy decreased work avoidance and increased student engagement within the inclusion classroom.  Additionally, a brief survey of the class suggests that students prefer choice in how they learn and show their knowledge. As a result, other strategies that offer student choice have been researched and will certainly be employed to help ensure an accessible science education for all students in the inclusion classroom.

Sanders, L. R., H. Borko, and J. D. Lockard. 1993. Secondary science teachers' knowledge base when teaching science courses in and out of their area of certification. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 30 (7): 723 –736. 
https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.3660300710

Highlighted by Debi Hanuscin, Chair of the NSTA Research Division

Can you remember what it was like to be a novice teacher? Do you still have moments, even after years of teaching, when you feel like a novice again? If you’re like me, changes to curriculum materials, standards, and grade levels/courses throughout my career have meant I am sometimes teaching new or unfamiliar content for the first time. Because of this, I was especially intrigued when I read a study conducted in the 1990s by Linda Sanders, Hilda Borko, and David Lockard that examined teachers’ experiences teaching outside of their areas of expertise.

Not surprisingly, the researchers pointed out that when teaching unfamiliar content, experienced teachers sometimes resembled novice teachers. Yet there were also important ways that these teachers differed from novices in other studies, even though they were teaching new content for the first time. The researchers described how teachers were able to draw upon their pedagogical knowledge to provide a framework for their teaching in both science areas.

“Their wealth of pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge for general science topics, seemed to sustain them in whatever content they were teaching.”

That is, the teachers had a general framework for what to do and how to do it in a science lesson.

This idea has stuck with me in my own teaching and influenced the ways I now prepare future teachers to teach science. Keeping in mind general principles of effective science pedagogy, such as starting from students’ ideas, providing exploration before explanation, and ensuring students make connections between content ideas and to their everyday lives, have helped me cope whenever I encounter unfamiliar teaching territory. My future elementary teachers, who are prepared as generalists, are also likely to encounter a variety of science topics for which they may not have expertise. By focusing on helping them develop a strong framework to guide their teaching, I can help ensure they feel well-prepared, whatever content they encounter!

Fredricks, J. A., T. Hofkens, M-T Wang, E. Mortenson, and P. Scott. 2018. Supporting girls’ and boys’ engagement in math and science learning: A mixed methods study. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 55 (2): 271–298. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21419.

Highlighted by Nicole M. Wack, NSTA Research Committee Member

Recent educational news headlines highlight a continued decline in students’ math and science scores. Our secondary schools continue to struggle with student attendance. Teachers, ever cognizant of the need to get through the curriculum, are increasingly challenged by student disengagement in their classrooms. Shortages have been reported in the STEM workforce. What can we, as secondary educators, do to engage our science and math students, to encourage them to develop a love for math and science, and to inspire them to pursue careers in STEM?

This 2018 study by Fredricks, Hofkens, Wang, Mortenson, and Scott provides strategies for increasing student engagement and interest in science and math. In this mixed-methods study, the researchers examined motivational and contextual factors of student engagement in math and science classrooms. They determined that student-centered classrooms that implement hands-on activities, group work, and problem-solving showed a strong relationship to students’ identification of being engaged in their math and science classrooms. Additionally, girls identified greater engagement in classrooms where authentic instruction was evident. Students identified disengagement in classrooms with traditional teacher-directed instruction and passive learning.

The study points out practical strategies that classroom teachers can use to engage their math and science students. Classrooms that are active, with hands-on learning, labs, real-world connections, and discourse, increase student engagement. Engagement is greater with teachers who create challenging learning environments for their students and encourage problem solving. Students, particularly girls, evidenced greater engagement in classrooms where the teacher, and peers, support, provide encouragement, scaffold, model, question, and develop strong relationships. The researchers also identify specific strategies that impact genders differently, urging educators to "work to validate the voices and experiences of all students, but especially their female students; challenge the idea that math and science are masculine domains; and empower students to recognize the role that these disciplines can play in their lives." By implementing these recommendations, secondary educators can foster greater engagement in their science and math classrooms.

Pols, C. F. J., P. J. J. M. Dekkers, and M. J. De Vries. 2021. What do they know? Investigating students’ ability to analyse experimental data in secondary physics education. International Journal of Science Education 43 (2): 274 –297. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2020.1865588.

Highlighted by Eric Walters, NSTA Research Committee Member

As a key part of the learning experience in the high school physics curriculum, students often engage in practical work in which they collect data to either verify an existing relationship learned in class (i.e., collect voltage and current data in a circuit to verify Ohm’s Law) or uncover a new relationship not learned in class (i.e., launch projectiles to determine at which angle the projectile achieves maximum range). However, “competence in data analysis is rarely the central objective of practical work” (Pols et al. 2021). As a result, this lack of competence in data analysis “potentially contributes to limited learning outcomes of practical work” (Pols et al. 2021).

Weaving competence in data analysis in student practical work is the central theme of a 2021 study by researchers at the Delft University of Technology in which they examine the competence of Dutch secondary school students in analyzing and interpreting experimental data during practical physics tasks. The study notes that while students can perform basic data collection and graphing during practical tasks, they struggle to interpret data at higher levels. Current approaches to practical work, which are often heavily teacher-directed, may not sufficiently develop students’ higher-order data analysis skills, such as recognizing trends, justifying conclusions, and identifying sources of error.

To better build data competency in physics education, the researchers suggest a shift from closed, guided inquiry tasks to more open-ended, student-driven investigations. A shift also needs to be made from a pedagogical model in which students collect data through practical lab experiences in school, then complete data analysis at home. More direct instruction is needed on both basic and advanced data analysis competencies, including evidence-based reasoning, in the curriculum. As a result, all physics students will be better prepared to independently conduct meaningful scientific investigations in higher levels of education.

Note: The NSTA Research Committee is here to help you stay informed about the latest research in science education. Watch for our quarterly Research Worth Reading blog posts, or subscribe to NSTA’s research listserv. 

The mission of NSTA is to transform science education to benefit all through professional learning, partnerships, and advocacy.