Verbal explanations given by science teachers: Their nature and implications

Zoubeida R. Dagher · George W. Cossman

83 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Research in Science Teaching

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Science Education and Pedagogy Philosophy and History of Science Evolution and Science Education

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of explanations used by science teachers in junior high school classrooms. Studies on explanation in education, philosophy of science, and everyday discourse were consulted. Twenty public school teachers participated in the study. The analysis was based on observations of 40 class periods during which the classroom discourse was audiotaped and later transcribed. Using the constant comparative method in analyzing the transcripts, 10 types of explanations were generated. These explanations were labeled analogical, anthropomorphic, functional, genetic, mechanical, metaphysical, practical, rational, tautological, and teleological. These 10 types were conceptually related to one another by subsuming them under more encompassing literature‐based categories.

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References

2017The Discovery of Grounded Theory 1987Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists 1973Review of research in education 1961The Structure of Science 1948Studies in the Logic of Explanation 1982Problems of Reliability and Validity in Ethnographic Research 1965Models and Analogies in Science 1983Designing Evaluations of Educational and Social Programs.

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2000In search of explanatory frameworks: an analysis of Richard Feynman's lecture 'Atoms in motion'1993The evolution of an approach for using analogies in teaching and learning science 2012Reasoning Through Instructional Analogies 2001Evaluating the language of different types of explanations in junior high school science texts 2001The Nature of Science and Science Education: A Bibliography 2007Investigating the Relationship between Subject Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Practice through the Analysis of Classroom Discourse

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