Upper Secondary School Science Teachers’ Values in Sweden : What Decides What is Taught?

Linköpings universitet, Tema Miljöförändring Linköpings universitet, Filosofiska fakulteten University of Gothenburg, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences SPRINGER 2023

There is a substantial literature in science education research showing that many students experience a lack of relevance in science education. For this reason, science teachers’ selection ofcontent and the way content is treated when exposed to students for learning purposes is animportant part of the problem. In this connection, research show that science teachers’ valuesstrongly infuence several aspects of teaching and learning science. Therefore, science teachers’values are important to investigate, to be empirically informed and to be able to develop scienceeducation. Accordingly, there is an increased volume of research studies about teachers’ values in science education and their efects. The study presented here is part of a larger nationalexploration of biotechnology education in upper secondary schools in Sweden and contributesby showing variation in teachers’ values and relations with practice. Theoretically, the studyis rooted in a philosophy of science recognizing the potential importance of teachers’ nonepistemic values. Empirically, it is based on surveyed upper secondary school biology teachers’ views of the importance of including value-laden topics in their science teaching. Theirresponses were analyzed by latent profle analysis and non-parametric testing, to assess the variation in their views and explore associations with several explanatory factors. The results showthat the surveyed teachers could be divided into two distinct groups: one favoring inclusion ofvalue-laden topics in their teaching and another (smaller group) opposed to it. The result alsoshows a variation in teachers’ selection of topics to teach and their teaching approach, as theformer group were more inclined than the latter to include value-laden aspects in their teaching which contributes to the research literature. Furthermore, experienced science teachers wereoverrepresented in the group holding more negative views, a result not reported elsewhere inthe research literature. T

Didactics; Didaktik; Article in journal; info:eu-repo/semantics/article; text

10.1007.s11191-023-00446-3

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info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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UPE oai:DiVA.org:liu-194125
0000-0001-8587-8100
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doi:10.1007/s11191-023-00446-3
ISI:000993936800001
1428020125

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