Discourse Analysis of Science Teachers Talk as a Self-reflective Tool for Promoting Effective NOS Teaching

Abstract

Teaching the Nature of Science (NOS) in elementary schools and in higher education institutions has become thefocus of the science education research community because there is a need to redefine teaching methods andpractices. Studies have shown that elementary teachers’ views and attitudes towards teaching the NOS are not alwayscompatible with the current acceptable theoretical framework identified by the research community. Researchers andscholars have proposed a variety of approaches in pre-service and in-service teacher training so that teachers changetheir beliefs, views and attitudes towards teaching the NOS. Amongst these there are two major trends, the implicitand explicit training approaches. Literature review has shown that the later is relatively more effective. Our proposalconcerns the use of an explicit strategy to enable teachers analyse their own discourses in cooperation withresearchers and reflect on their own views on aspects concerning teaching the NOS. The proposal is based on theassumption that the critical reflection on the ways people construct meanings may enable the exploration ofalternative ways to communicate actions during science lessons. An empirical example of this discourse analysisoriented in explicit approach is presented and a proposal of possible series of discourse analysis oriented in actionsfor promoting more effective NOS teaching is discussed.