Many researchers, practitioners, and policymakers share the view that science education research should play a role in improving practice. It is, for example, often claimed that theoretical and empirical research insights (“evidence”) have been drawn upon to inform the design and evaluation of curricula, teaching sequences, and activities in science education, as well as the sequencing of content in science curricula and programs (“practice”). In discussing the relationship between research and practice, it is useful to draw a distinction between the contribution of research to the design of instruction and the role of research in the evaluation of instruction (and hence in providing a warrant for recommending an action or approach). The term evidence-informed practice, or research evidence-informed practice, refers to educational practices where research evidence has been used explicitly to justify decisions. Educational practices include the design of curricula, textbooks,...
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References
Educational Researcher (2003), 32(1). This edition of the journal includes several articles on design-based research. Although the focus is mainly on mathematics education, when taken together the papers give a comprehensive account of methodological and substantive issues in design-based research that is directly relevant to science education.
Kelly AE, Lesh RA, Baek JY (eds) (2008) Handbook of design research methods in education. Routledge, London, This book presents a recent collection of design-based research, originating mainly from the learning sciences in N. America
Leach J, Scott P (2008) Teaching for conceptual understanding: an appropach drawing on individual and sociocultural perspectives. In: Vosniadou S (ed) International handbook of research on conceptual change. Routledge, London. This chapter gives an account of the history of using theoretical and empirical insights on science learning in the design of teaching
Ruthven K, Laborde C, Leach J, Tiberghien A (2009) Design tools in didactical research: instrumenting the epistemological and cognitive aspects of the design of teaching sequences. Edu Res 38(5):329–342. This article includes references to European and American work on designing pedagogical approaches at a fine grain size
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Leach, J. (2014). Evidence-Informed Practice in Science Education. In: Gunstone, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Science Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6165-0_490-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6165-0_490-2
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