New Perspectives in Science Education

Making use of out-of-school settings for learning is currently a topic of discussion. On the one hand, there is the desire for opening the school to new learning experiences that promote student learning. Arguably, such experiences may enhance students’ motivation for the subject. On the other hand, it is questionable whether out-of-school places of learning are worthwhile given the pressure that educational policy guidelines and requirements place on both teachers and students.

In particular, school laboratories for natural sciences organized by institutions or companies other than schools seem to be especially promising with regard to the promotion of young researchers, as they provide the opportunity for students to conduct experiments that are relevant to current scientific issues and to do so in an authentic environment. This, in turn, is meant to foster students’ interest and motivation for the sciences and for technology.

Due to the efforts made to improve scientific education, the discussion about out-of-school places of learning has increased dramatically in recent years [1,2].

The research on the effects taking place in school laboratories is largely heterogeneous. There are four larger studies which explicitly analyse the effectiveness of school laboratories for natural sciences in Germany [3]. The results of those impact studies suggest that making use of school laboratories has positive short-term and middle-term effects on students’ interest in the natural sciences as well as on their ability to assess their learning process. The research results indicate that integrating out-of-school places of learning at least helps to stabilize students’ interest. On the other hand, students who visited school laboratories and conducted experiments there did not learn as efficiently as students who worked on the same topic without visiting a school laboratory.

The contribution deals with German teachers’ and principals’ perceptions of the impact seen with science education in out-of-school contexts, their expectations of this form of learning and their corresponding personal experiences. In order to learn more about such expectations and experiences, a questionnaire study and an interview were carried out. Of special interest were all those locations, which are didactically and methodically prepared, especially school laboratories organized by institutions or companies other than schools.

References

[1]  Rennie, L. J. (2007), Learning Science Outside of School, In Abell, S. K., Ledermann, N. G. (eds.) Handbook of Research on Science Education. – New York, Routledge, 125-167.

[2]  Reiss, M (2012), Learning out of the classroom, In Oversby, J. (ed.) ASE Guide to Research in Science Education. – Hatfield, The Association for Science Education, 91-97

[3]  Guderian, P. & Priemer, B. (2008). Interessenförderung durch Schülerlaborbesuche – eine Zusammenfassung der Forschung in Deutschland. Physik und Didaktik in Schule und Hochschule, 2/7, 27-36.