Context in chemistry education: Analysis of pre-service secondary science teacher's teaching and learning sequences.

Abstract

The research presented aims at identifying the difficulties pre-service secondary science teachers have in designing context-based chemistry teaching and learning sequences (TLS). The question guiding this study is the following: What function do contexts perform within chemistry TLS designed by pre-service secondary science teachers? A content analysis of five chemistry TLS written in 2015-16 by five pre-service secondary science teachers from the master program offered by the five public universities in the community of Catalonia, Spain was conducted. The focus of the analysis dealt with the characteristics of contexts used in TLS using the Rubric of Context Indicators (RIC) created for this purpose. Three TLS contextual profiles have been identified using the 5 RIC context indicators such as authenticity, relevance, persistence, inquiry and construction. All preservice secondary science teachers from the three contextual profiles have written chemistry TSL showing difficulties in the use of contexts that are persistent along the TLS and promote scientific inquiry.