Molecular Education - Research questions

Molecular Education - Research

3. Proposal

3.1 A Hasselblad PhD programme

Many researchers at the science departments at Chalmers and at Göteborg and Karlstad universities share the devotion to make a difference to the Public Learning and Understanding of Science. For the Graduate School to have maximum impact, it is important to involve a number of these senior scientists also in the formulation and discussions about the research questions, and to develop a structure where graduate students are part of a larger environment, rather than left isolated in islands with one or two supervisors. It is also important to establish a platform of communication between researchers in molecular and educational sciences. In order to build this platform, we will run a seminar series with invited speakers presenting relevant parts of educational research, and examples of this type of interdisciplinary research area. We would like this platform to be open to interested participants from other environments, including science centre educators and in-service teachers.

3.1.2 Research Issues

It is of crucial importance that the outcome of the Hasselblad graduate programme can can have an effect on teaching and learning in the Swedish school system and be appreciated by educators in various forms of informal learning environments. In the introductory discussions we have identified a few questions of common interest, including, but not limited to;

the understanding of a molecular world view of students, teachers, researchers and the general public,
evaluation of various efforts to improve understanding of molecular science
analysis of curricula, textbooks and tests, both on a national and international level
the impact of ICT, including computer visualizations of molecular phenomena and computer-based games,, on molecular education and public understanding
the development, implementation and evaluation of lesson sequences
does understanding of molecular concepts correlate positively with attitudes and personal sense of empowerment in regard to societal concerns, e.g., global climate change?

This type of questions could be applied to different molecular science contents. During the discussions a few topics came up which could serve as examples of potential PhD projects. Four more content-specific examples are

Photo-synthesis – how do we teach, learn and understand it? The idea is to study some fundamentally important concept (it could also be “the chemical bond” or “the circle of water in nature”) with respect to how it is taught today and to what extent the didactic methods as well as presentation context (in biology, chemistry or physics? and how is the content connected to students interests and lives) and conceptual depth are important.
Molecular computer modelling and simulation as a playground for hands-on learning. By making modelling tools easy accessible, and associated with suitable attractive instructions, children could be stimulated to navigate in an unknown landscape of molecules to make discoveries about new molecules, new shapes of molecules and various drastic forms of collective behaviour when having many molecules, depending on rather simple properties (like charge on atoms).
How chemistry is taught in school leading to conclusions on how to structure tomorrows textbooks. Observations by chemistry teachers in collaboration with scientists are used as basis for conclusions about how important concepts are founded, developed and exploited, and how misconceptions arise, and how deploying alternative structures could make teaching more efficient
“Molecular Frontiers” best inquiry network log book – what can be learnt about curiosity and learning from interactive internet activity? Recordings from the communication between children and their somewhat older peers (PhD students in an answering network) can form the basis of a PhD thesis on evolution of curiosity meeting knowledge.

These types of questions require an understanding of both molecular and educational science, and thesis advisors should be chosen with complementary backgrounds. Platform discussions are essential to form a ground of common understanding and mutual respect for the different types of difficulties involved in these types of research. During these discussions, the research questions will be formulated in more detail during the first part of 2007, and then continue to further refinement in collaboration with the new PhD students.