Conducting Talk in Secondary Science Classrooms: Investigating Instructional Moves and Teachers’ Beliefs

ScienceEducation

Conducting Talk in SecondaryScience Classrooms: InvestigatingInstructional Moves and Teachers’Beliefs

DIANE SILVA PIMENTEL, KATHERINE L. McNEILLLynch School of Education, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA

Received 26 October 2011; accepted 7 February 2013DOI 10.1002/sce.21061Published online 15 April 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

ABSTRACT: Whole-class discussion is a common instructional approach used by sec-ondary science teachers. When orchestrated well, such an approach can provide studentswith opportunities to engage in extensive science talk with the benefit of teacher guidanceand feedback. Our study investigated teachers’ approaches to discussion during the pilotingof an urban ecology curriculum designed to support student participation in science dis-course as well as teachers’ beliefs about science talk. Participants included five secondaryscience teachers and their students (n = 116). Our analysis focused on transcripts of whole-class discussions and interviews with teachers about their beliefs regarding talk. We foundthat the students’ contributions during discussions were typically limited to simple phrasesor short sentence responses that did not voluntarily include reasoning. The teachers’ framingof the lessons and the moves the teachers made during the discussions seemed to reinforcethe limited nature of the students’ responses. Furthermore, we found that teachers rarelyused probing questions or tossed back students’ ideas. The beliefs teachers expressed abouttheir students, themselves, and external factors provided insight into why teachers contin-ued to take an authoritative stance even though they believed teacher-driven discussion wasnot the ideal. C© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 97:367–394, 2013

Correspondence to: Diane Silva Pimentel; e-mail: [email protected]

C© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

368 PIMENTEL AND MCNEILL

INTRODUCTION

Whole-class discussion is a significant element of science instruction. The recentlyreleased Frameworks for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council [NRC],2011) makes frequent references to discussion and discourse as important components ofscience instruction. The proposed reasons for engaging students in discussion include arange of goals such as supporting students in developing a deeper understanding of sciencecontent (McNeill, Pimentel, & Strauss, in press), participating in scientific practices suchas argumentation (Berland & Reiser, 2011), and changing their views of science (McNeill,2011). Student discussions are essential for the view of science as a practice in whichstudents actively participate and use the language of science (Duschl, Schweingruber, &Shouse, 2007; Lehrer & Schauble, 2006). References to discussion conjure visions ofstudents engaged in dynamic exchanges, grappling with ideas and concepts (McNeill &Pimentel, 2010). In its best form, there is an excitement and energy that is felt by thoseparticipating in these verbal exchanges to help support students in achieving a variety ofscience objectives. Although the field of science education research has a vision for whatdiscussion in the secondary classroom should be, research suggests that this vision manytimes is not a reality.

Understanding the sources of why teacher-centered, authoritative discussions remain thenorm is significant because learning to effectively communicate in science is a difficult taskfor many students (Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000; Sadler, 2004). Given the distinctnature of scientific language that utilizes generalizations, abstractions, and metaphors toestablish arguments (Halliday, 1998/2006), opportunities to engage in science talk forsome students may only occur in the classroom. In an authoritative form, however, sciencediscussions can be alienating and discouraging, especially for students in the urban scienceclassroom (Edmin, 2011) and girls (Juuti, Lavonen, Uitto, Byman, & Meisalo, 2010).

The call for students to participate more actively in scientific discourse is not recent.Past science standard movements (American Association for the Advancement of Science,1993/2008; NRC, 1996) also allude to classroom discussions as a means of learning scienceconcepts and practices. Research suggests, however, that the focus of dialogue in scienceclassrooms revolves around the retention of facts with limited attention given to the devel-opment of the students’ abilities to engage in meaningful scientific discourse (Crawford,2005; Jimenez-Aleixandre, Rodrıguez, & Duschl, 2000; Lemke, 1990). Teachers seem tohave difficulty shifting from traditional forms of discussions even when using curriculummaterials designed to support more student-centered talk (Alozie, Moje, & Krajcik, 2010;McNeill & Pimentel, 2010; Puntambekar, Stylianou, & Goldstein, 2007).

It is naıve to believe that the new call for dialogic, argumentative discourse by the newscience education reform movement (NRC, 2011) and the development of new curricu-lum materials will have a significant impact in the classroom alone. While research hascontinuously shown that teacher-centered talk prevails, our research set forth to better un-derstand factors that may be impeding a change in the way teachers conduct discussions inthe secondary science classrooms. One area we chose to explore was the role of teachers’beliefs and perceptions as a possible explanation for the persistence of teacher-centereddiscussions. If teachers’ beliefs do influence the practices they choose to use during scienceinstruction (Jones & Carter, 2007), understanding the possible relationship between beliefsand practice relative to discussion may provide insights into ways in which teachers can besupported more concretely in shifting toward more meaningful discussions. It is importantto consider that teachers’ own prior experiences as students in the science classroom influ-ence their approach to talk (Mansour, 2009). Teachers tend to teach in the way they weretaught (Lortie, 1975; Tobin, Tippins, & Gallard, 1994). Because of the predominance of

Science Education, Vol. 97, No. 3, pp. 367–394 (2013)

CONDUCTING TALK IN SECONDARY SCIENCE CLASSROOMS 369

authoritative discourse in science classes (Lemke, 1990), science teachers are most familiarwith that model of instruction. In order for a shift in dialogue to occur from simply authori-tative discourse to one that is more student centered and dialogic, not only do teachers needto participate in professional development exploring alternative forms of discourse, but theirbeliefs associated with the teaching of science must also shift (Bartholomew, Osborne, &Ratcliffe, 2004). Although research has focused on teachers’ beliefs about inquiry (Brown& Melear, 2006; Wallace & Kang, 2004), little research has focused specifically on teach-ers’ beliefs about the role of discourse in science classrooms at the secondary level. Mercerand Littleton (2007) suggest that given the power and predominance of talk as a teachingtool, there should be a stronger focus on this aspect of class instruction, because secondaryscience teachers seem to struggle with their role in orchestrating student-centered discoursewith students. This study, therefore, set out to understand the possible relationship betweenteachers’ beliefs about discourse and the science talk that occurs in their classrooms byinvestigating the following questions: How do teachers’ approaches to whole-class dis-cussions provide some explanation for the type of science talk that is prevalent? How doteachers’ beliefs help to explain their approach to talk during whole-class discussions?

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Dialogue in Science Classrooms

We framed this study using a sociocultural perspective with the understanding that lin-guistic interactions occurring among individuals are influenced by context and individualunderstandings of that context (Carlsen, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978). We therefore were in-terested in exploring not only the patterns of interactions that took place within lessonsthat had been designed to encourage student-centered talk but subsequently the underlyingelements that might have contributed to those patterns.

Science talk can be conceptualized as occurring in two dimensions during science lessons:organizational and thematic (Lemke, 1990). The organizational pattern focuses on the man-ner in which individuals in the classroom are interacting (e.g., who is asking the questions,when do students speak). In whole-class discussions, this pattern is most often character-ized by some variation of the triadic dialogue: teacher initiates (usually with a question),the student responds (with an answer), and the teacher evaluates or gives feedback. Morecommonly referred to as the initiate–response–evaluate (IRE) pattern (Mehan, 1979), thisstructure for dialogue serves to maintain the authority of the teacher and establishes an ef-ficient means by which the content of the lesson can be related to students (Lemke, 1990).The ubiquitous nature of this pattern during instruction (Cazden, 1988) suggests that itmay act as a cultural tool for learning science, but the limitations it imposes on students’responses requires that other approaches be used to encourage more skillful practice ofscience talk by students (Polman & Pea, 2000).

The meaning of the lesson or content is built within the thematic pattern, and it is theactive construction of meaning by combining and structuring words in scientific ways thatconstitutes science talk (Lemke, 1990). In this case, the focus is not only on what words arebeing said but how they are being joined to make meanings in a way that is consistent withthe scientific domain. Learning to talk science therefore requires that students are taught“how to put together workable science sentences and paragraphs, how to combine termsand meanings, how to speak, argue, analyze or write science” (p. 22). This type of talkconsequently requires students to contribute more than one word or simple phrase answers.In triadic dialogue, themes are constructed through teacher questioning and guidance, butthe meaning of the theme is many times implicit (Lemke, 1990). Students who are more



able to decipher the complete meaning from the piecemeal question–answer interactionsbetween teacher and students are more likely to succeed. This can be especially problematicfor urban students who are not accustomed to this type of verbal interaction outside of school(Edmin, 2011).

The patterns that emerge in any science lesson are the result of a complex interplayamong several factors. The purpose and content of the lesson plays a key role in what typeof approach is chosen by the teacher during instruction and therefore influences the orga-nizational patterns and teacher contributions to the dialogue (Scott, Mortimer, & Aguiar,2006). Considering the analytical framework set forth by Mortimer and Scott (2003), thefocus of the lesson, which includes both the purpose and content, determines what typesof interactions and viewpoints are allowed during the science talk. The teacher’s approachto the talk, referred to as their communicative approach, consists of two dimensions thatcan be conceptualized as existing on continua. One dimension focuses on the level of ver-bal interaction between teacher and students. Noninteractive discussions are typified bylecturing in which the teacher takes on full responsibility of the talk that occurs, whereasinteractive lessons include student participation (Mortimer & Scott, 2003). The other di-mension focuses on the viewpoints that are allowed into discussion. If the teacher acceptsonly scientific explanations, this is considered an authoritative approach. If, however, morethan one viewpoint is allowed into the discussion, it is considered to be dialogic. In thistype of talk, students’ answers are seen as jumping off points for further discussion andresponses are connected to build cohesion as opposed to the IRE pattern, which is structuredby questions followed by abrupt answers that do not necessarily flow naturally from oneanother (Alexander, 2004).

While the first dimension captures the extent to which students are given opportunities tospeak, the second dimension considers the type of contributions they are allowed to make.Lessons that are meant to explore students’ conceptions about a topic can be approachedin an interactive-dialogic way; however, there are other instances when a non–interactive-authoritative approach is more conducive to the purpose of the lesson (Scott et al., 2006).For example, the science perspective explaining the mechanism of climate change may needto be presented to students in order for more student-centered discussions about the impactof various factors to be debated. In stating this, however, we suggest that a noninteractive,authoritative approach serves as a support for future dialogic talk and should not be theonly or predominant discourse approach utilized by secondary science teachers.

The Role of the Teacher in Discussion

The role of the teacher in fostering various forms of discussion is an essential componentof science talk. The teacher essentially establishes how students are allowed to interactduring the lesson (Hutchinson & Hammer, 2010; Lemke, 1990; Mortimer & Scott, 2003).The teachers’ actions, including the patterns of discourse they establish as well as theinterventions or moves they employ, greatly influence discussions (Mortimer & Scott, 2003).A study investigating middle school science students’ responses to teacher prompts foundthat students were more likely to express diverse ideas and share their thinking in writing asopposed to whole-class discussion (Furtak & Ruiz-Primo, 2008). The authors attributed thisdifference to the perception that teachers focus on assessing students’ answers as opposed tounderstanding their thinking during class discussions. Research suggests that teachers maynot be aware of how they constrain dialogue to limit the amount of participation by students(Scott et al., 2006). Furthermore, teachers may lack the skills needed to transition from thetraditional IRE discourse in the classroom to one which is more dialogic, even when suchan approach is called for by the curriculum (Alozie et al., 2010; Driver et al., 2000). Both



the types of questions teachers use and the other comments and moves they incorporate intotheir classrooms impact the nature of the science talk (van Zee, Iwasyk, Kurose, Simpson,& Wild, 2001; van Zee & Minstrell, 1997). Extensive professional development aimed atincreasing teacher awareness of specific questioning strategies that included participationin video-based discourse analysis was shown to positively shift discussions to be morestudent focused (Oliveira, 2010).

Mercer and Littleton (2007) suggest many strategies that teachers can use to disruptthe IRE organizational pattern, such as (1) encouraging students’ ideas, (2) referring backto students’ responses, (3) asking open questions, and (4) encouraging other students torespond before giving evaluative feedback to responses. Various studies have shown thatteachers who shifted their discussions to include more open questions and nontriadic dia-logue patterns increased the quality of students’ talk in their classes (Alpert, 1987; Jadallahet al., 2011; Martin & Hand, 2009; McNeill & Pimentel, 2010). Open questions, whichask students to infer, justify, or judge (Blosser, 1973), invite students to explain their ideasand reasoning, thereby giving insight into students’ understandings of the concept underdiscussion. The use of open questions by a teacher assumes an interest in the meaningthat students are making of the science. Closed questions, which focus on factual recall orinvolve the use of specific data (Blosser, 1973), place the teacher in an authoritative, eval-uative role due to the small number of responses that are deemed acceptable. Furthermore,when teachers choose to toss back other students’ responses for discussion, more dialogicinteractions appear to take place (McNeill & Pimentel, 2010; van Zee & Minstrell, 1997).

The approach that the teacher takes toward the purpose of discussion dictates the extentto which students are able to participate in science talk. We find that the concept offraming, as set forth by Hammer, Elby, Scherr, and Reddish (2005), is useful in definingthe teacher’s intentions for and resulting approach to science discussions. Like Hammerand his colleagues, we define a frame as “as a set of expectations an individual has aboutthe situation in which she finds herself that affects what she notices and how she thinks toact” (p. 9). Both the teacher and the student play an active role in the framing of classroomnorms. In terms of the teacher, we are interested in how she perceives the purpose of thediscussions and how she communicates her expectations for acceptable participation inthe discussion. In terms of the students, we are also interested in how they react to theteacher’s framing and how it may influence the organizational patterns that are evident inthe discussions.

Framing can occur at various levels, but for this study we focus on the social and epis-temological levels which we believe are most pertinent to science talk considering itsorganizational and thematic patterns. The social level is defined by how the members ofthe class are expected to interact, and the epistemological level is defined by what type ofknowledge is accepted in the discussion (Hammer et al., 2005). In a typical IRE pattern inwhich a teacher is trying to assess content knowledge, the implied frame for social interac-tions is that interactions flow to and from the teacher and the epistemological level focuseson the scientific cannon of knowledge. We believe that by exploring teachers’ framingof lessons within the context of the Mortimer and Scott (2003) analytical framework, wecan better understand how teachers establish the communicative approach or interactivepatterns that occur during class discussions.

Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices

Teachers’ beliefs have been characterized as being both stable (Pajares, 1992) and con-text dependent (Bandura, 1986; Mansour, 2009). The complex nature of beliefs makesthem hard to quantify (Pajares, 1992). Considering them in relation to teachers’ approaches



toward discussions is important, however, because teachers’ beliefs seem to play a signifi-cant role in teachers’ framing of instructional activities (Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992; Torff& Warburton, 2005). Louca, Elby, Hammer, and Kagey (2004) suggest that because beliefsare so dependent on context, science teachers’ approaches to instruction may differ signif-icantly from those they vocalize. Similar inconsistencies were apparent in another studyby Simmons et al. (1999), suggesting that the relationship between beliefs and practicesis complex. Adding to this complexity is the suggestion that teachers may not be awarethat their stated beliefs are inconsistent with their actual instruction (Tobin & McRobbie,1997).

In this study, we are concerned with teachers’ beliefs about the type of instruction theyengage in, as well as the factors that influence their approach. We draw on work from Chinnand Samarapungavan (2009), defining a belief as a conceptual structure that is perceivedto be true or correct. In this study, we focus on these perceptions relative to teachers’beliefs about themselves, their students, and other external factors that they suggest maybe influencing their approach to class discussions. While we acknowledge that certainbeliefs may be stable, we believe that they act within a beliefs system that includes otherbeliefs about contextual factors. While discrepancies in teachers’ beliefs about instructionalpractices and their use of these practices may exist at times, we refer to Munby’s (1982)notion that “different and weightier” (p. 216) beliefs may be the explanation. Cross (2009)took on a similar approach, suggesting, following Green’s conceptualization of beliefsystems, that math teachers’ beliefs about instruction existed on more than one dimension.He suggested that while teachers may hold “core” beliefs in one dimension, they areindependent from the “peripheral” beliefs that are more context dependent (p. 327). Thesebeliefs are separate and may be inconsistent with each other. They work together withina system to explain the behaviors that teachers practice. In this study, Cross found thatteachers’ beliefs were actually good predictors of the teachers’ instructional practices.

While we are interested in teachers’ core beliefs about student-centered discussion andits role in science instruction, we are also interested in teachers’ beliefs about the context inwhich they are teaching to better understand the role of beliefs in explaining the approachteachers take to discussions. The approach teachers choose to take is a result of the interplayamong beliefs, experiences, and context (Jones & Carter, 2007; Roehler, Duffy, Herrman,Conley, & Johnson, 1988). Given that science teachers’ beliefs have been demonstratedto play a role in how teachers implement curriculum, Cronin-Jones (1991) showed that itis important to consider teachers’ enactments of reform-based curricula as being filteredthrough the beliefs teachers have about the their instructional role, their students abilities,and the importance of the topic being taught.

Pajares (1992) suggests that beliefs are not likely to change “unless they are challengedand one is unable to assimilate them into existing conceptions” (p. 321). To challengeteachers’ beliefs about student-centered and dialogic science talk, it is important to knowwhat those beliefs are and consider how we can better help teachers question their presentperceptions.

METHOD

Context of Investigation

This study occurred during the piloting year of a high school standards–based urbanecology curriculum that was intended to actively engage underrepresented students in thestudy of science by having them focus on relevant ecological issues and reflect on their rolein improving ecological sustainability (Strauss, McNeill, Barnett, & Reece, 2011). Teachers



TABLE 1Teacher, School, and Class Characteristics of Study Participants

Teacher

TeachingExperience

(Years)School

Location

School Size(StudentNumber)

StudentGrade

ClassSize

Mr. Harris 2 Urban 1,174 11th, 12th 24Ms. Moran 10 Suburban 1,039 11th, 12th 21Mr. Rubenstein 6 Urban 319 12th 28Ms. Smith 9 Urban 323 10–12th 22Ms. Wilkerson 13 Urban 355 11th, 12th 21

involved in the piloting of this curriculum were volunteers who responded to a solicitationfor their participation that was sent to different listservs at both the state and school districtlevel. All teachers in the program participated in a summer workshop lasting 3 days andfour professional development days, which occurred bimonthly throughout the school year.The professional development focused on both strengthening teachers’ understanding ofcontent knowledge relative to urban ecology as well as presenting various pedagogicalstrategies that could be used to support the inquiry approach outlined by the curriculum.Owing to limited resources, the videotaping of the enactment of one selected lesson fromeach module was conducted for only six teachers of 15 in the New England area to serve asa source of data for this study. These six teachers were chosen based on their willingnessto participate as well as the alignment of their teaching schedules with the ability of theresearchers to visit the classrooms. Of the six teachers who were videotaped, only five wereincluded in the final analysis because video for one of the teacher’s lessons lacked audioand therefore could not be used. Pseudonyms have been used for all participants referencedin this study.

All teachers participating in this study received bachelor of science degrees in a scientificdiscipline. All but Mr. Rubenstein, also received a master’s degree in education. Someadditional teaching, school and class characteristics relative to each teacher are representedin Table 1.

Four teachers in the study taught in different high schools from the same urban district inNew England, whereas Ms. Moran taught in a suburban high school in a different district.The overall school demographics associated with each teacher are depicted in Figure 1. Thefour schools in the same district had similar demographics in that over 70% of the studentsin those schools identified themselves as either African-American or Hispanic. Each schoolhowever had a unique culture with Mr. Harris teaching in a very large comprehensive highschool, whereas Mr. Rubenstien, Ms. Smith, and Ms. Wilkerson were teaching in smallschools each of which had a distinct focus in terms of their learning communities. Ms.Moran’s school was distinctly different in terms of student demographics with 93% of itsstudents identifying themselves as White as well as in terms of school norms.

Study Design

Because this study set out to investigate both the patterns of science talk that occurredduring whole-class discussions and the teachers’ beliefs about science talk in this set-ting, the two primary forms of data used for analysis were video recordings of lessons,which focused on whole-class talk and teacher interviews about their beliefs regardingtalk.



Figure 1. School ethnicity demographics associated with each teacher participating in the study.

As mentioned previously, the context of the study was a high school urban ecologycurriculum. Of the lessons that were recorded, two lessons were chosen for analysis becauseof their specific focus on whole-class discussion as the activity structure: (1) developingresearchable questions and (2) arguing about global climate change. Both of these activitieswere designed to be interactive thereby creating lessons in which the teacher solicitsstudents’ ideas.

Developing Researchable Questions Lesson. The purpose of this lesson was to havestudents learn about the characteristics of a researchable question to be able to create themfor future field studies throughout the year. The main teaching strategy suggested in thelesson plan was to have students critique one or more research questions, either teacher orstudent generated, explaining what characteristics were present or lacking. As a contentobjective, teachers were asked to stress three characteristics of research questions whenconnecting back to students’ responses: testability, measurability of outcome variable, andthe specificity of the variables. A key aspect of this lesson was for students to discussand share their ideas with the teacher and the class. Consequently, the lesson suggestedthat the students develop their own research questions that would serve as a focus forclass discussion. Prior to this lesson, no professional development about teaching strategiesdirected toward improving students’ participation in discussion had been offered. The lessonwas taught in mid September–early October for all teachers and took approximately twoclass periods to complete.

Arguing About Climate Change Lesson. The purpose of this introductory lesson was tohave students discuss their views about global climate change before beginning the module.The curriculum suggested that two video clips depicting different perspectives on this issuebe shown, and then students be given time to write an argument about whether they believedclimate change was occurring using evidence from the video or from previous knowledge.Students would then share their thoughts in a class discussion and critically analyze thevideos. The lesson plan included a statement explaining that the purpose of the videos waspurely to “stimulate discussion” and that they were “not intended to be viewed as sourcesof factual information that students should memorize.”



In October, prior to enacting this climate change lesson, teachers participated togetherin professional development centered around the idea that the goal of this lesson was toexplore students’ understandings of the topic. Furthermore, the professional developmentprovided the teachers with specific strategies to enhance students’ classroom discussionsas outlined by Mercer and Littleton (2007). The professional development session focusingon this specific lesson lasted approximately 45 minutes and took place during a daylongworkshop. It included a presentation of strategies to encourage extended talk by studentsfollowed by the viewing of video depicting the use of these strategies by a pilot teacherwho had taught the same lesson the previous year. Throughout the session, teachers talkedto each other and one of the authors about their understandings of the strategies andtheir perceptions of how the strategies were used in the videotaped lesson. The teachersin this study then taught the lesson in mid November–early December. This lesson tookapproximately one class period to complete.

Interview. Approximately 3 months after the enactment of the second lesson, we inter-viewed the teachers using a semistructured interview protocol that focused on the teachers’beliefs about science talk in their classrooms. Teachers were asked to describe the purposesthey attributed to talk, describe their role in fostering talk in the classroom, and their per-ceptions about their students’ role during class discussions. In addition, the teachers readtwo short vignettes depicting science talk about developing researchable questions andthen we asked them questions about their perceptions of that talk. Vignette A depicted nodirect dialogue between students and an authoritative role of the teacher, whereas vignetteB depicted a more interactive student dialogue and less authoritative role of the teacher.

Data Analyses

Video Recordings of Lessons. Using written transcripts of all video recordings, we ana-lyzed the science talk in each lesson at three levels: students’ responses, teacher’s approach,and teacher’s moves. We coded students’ responses to identify patterns across lessons andteachers. The roles established by the teachers during lessons were characterized within thecommunicative approach (Mortimer & Scott, 2003) and teacher framing (Hammer et al.,2005). Finally, teacher moves were coded to identify possible approaches that influencedstudents’ response patterns.

Initial coding schemes for the students’ responses were developed following an iterativeanalysis of the transcripts (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The coding scheme focused onstudents’ contributions to the class discussions. The intention was to distinguish thoseaspects of the students’ science talk that elucidated the students’ reasoning or meaningmaking from those that showed a less elaborate joining of words to formulate scientificunderstandings. Each student’s contribution to class discussion was coded into one of fourcategories depending on the level of depth associated with the response: Code 3—thoughtand reasoning consisted of a complete statement that included some student elaborationexplaining the thinking behind the statement, Code 2—complete thought consisted of acomplete sentence that included at least a noun and a verb, but lacked an explanationor elaboration explicitly stating reasoning behind the statement, Code 1—word or phraseresponse, and Code 0—no student response (see Table 2 for further descriptions of thesecodes and examples of students’ responses). While variation in the Code 1, word/phrase,responses could have produced additional subcategories, a more nuanced analysis of theseresponses was not undertaken because the focus of this study was to understand the movesteachers were making that might be related to the reasoned student responses rather than



TABLE 2Coding Scheme for Students’ Contributions to the Discussion

Code Category Name Description Example

3 Thought andreasoning

The student’s contribution includesa complete thought whichresembles a sentence andincludes an explanation his/herthinking.

“Doesn’t that school likethe wetlands becausethey’re a scienceschool so they studymore of the outside?”

2 Complete thought The student’s contribution includesa complete thought whichresembles a sentence but noexplanation is included.

“Birds aren’t around inthe winter.”

1 Word/phrase The student’s contribution consistsof a word or phrase only.

“Yeah” “The ecosystem”

0 No response There is no significant contributionto the discussion.

“I don’t know”

the types of short responses students were providing. Additional examples of all typesof student responses are illustrated and discussed in the Results section in the classroomtranscripts.

Inaudible responses were not coded. Two raters coded one lesson for Mrs. Smith jointlyto establish a common understanding of the coding. The two raters proceeded by codingall subsequent transcripts independently. Interrater reliability was calculated by percentagreement, which was 95%. All disagreements were resolved through discussion.

We characterized the discourse patterns associated with teacher and students’ contribu-tions to determine the extent to which teachers were driving the discourse. We coded theteacher–student exchanges focusing on the number of students who responded to a teacherinitiation prior to teacher feedback. Exchanges that resembled the traditional IRE patternwere coded as teacher-student (T-S). Alternative patterns of dialogue were characterizedby noting the number of students who contributed an utterance prior to teacher commentary(i.e., teacher–student–student–student–teacher [TSSS]).

Given the interrelatedness between the communicative approaches and framing taken onby teachers, both were characterized to understand the role of the teacher in establishing theexpectations for the discussion. The teacher’s approach in each lesson was categorized asinteractive or noninteractive and authoritative or dialogic as defined by Mortimer and Scott(2003). The extent to which classes were characterized as authoritative or dialogic wasdefined by the extent to which teachers allowed diverse ideas to enter the discussions. Thisplane was closely related to how the discussion was framed. Framing for each lesson wasdescribed at two levels: social and epistemological (Hammer et al., 2005). Social framingfocused on statements or moves teachers made which established the types of acceptableverbal interactions among the members of the class, whereas the epistemological framingfocused on statements or moves teachers made which defined the type of knowledgestudents could use during the discussion. Teacher utterances and discourse patterns wereused to determine the overall expectations the teacher had for the class. Descriptions ofboth framing levels were created separately by each author and then discussed to producea final description of the framing that occurred throughout the talk.

Particular attention was given to teacher moves that either supported or discouragedextended students’ responses. Using Chin’s questions framework (2007) and Mortimer andScott’s teaching interventions framework (2003) as a starting point, we used four adapted



TABLE 3Coding Scheme for Teacher Moves

Category Name Description Example

Elaboration Occurs after a student’sresponse in which the teachergives a specific, extendedmeaning or application to astudent’s brief response

Teacher: “But what is missing?”Student: “It’s not specific.”Teacher: “It’s not specific. So we

can add, does something makegrass grow?”

Cutoff Teacher interrupts a studentbefore he/she can finishhis/her response

Student: “Yeah it’s like”Teacher: “okay you could also take

some dirt and some wormsinside”

Probe Teacher asks student to expandon his/her response eitherasking for further explanationor a clarification of student’sresponse

Teacher: “So you’re taking dogs offa leash as a public health issue?”

Student: “Because they can attacka person”

Toss Back In place of an evaluation,teacher asks for students tocomment on a student’sresponse

Teacher: “What does someone elsethink?”

categories of teacher moves to code the discourse: teacher elaboration, cutoff, probing,and toss back (see Table 3). The authors coded the teacher moves independently. Codeswere then compared, and all disagreements were resolved through discussion. Interraterreliability was not calculated for this analysis.

Interview. Teacher responses to the interview questions were transcribed and then ana-lyzed following thematic analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) by one of the authors. Opencoding of statements relating to the purpose of science talk, factors influencing science talk,the role of the teacher in science talk, and the beliefs about students engaged in science talkoccurred. Codes were then compared across teachers. Categories were developed iterativelyto reflect the themes that were common among the participants’ responses.

RESULTS

The purpose of this study was to investigate how teachers support scientific talk thatprioritizes active and extended students’ participation. The following section summarizesthe interrelated themes that emerged after analyzing the interactions that occurred duringthe whole-class discussions as well as the teacher interviews. Analysis of the students’responses showed that it was not the norm for students to voluntarily include their reasoningwhen contributing to a discussion. The approaches to framing and moves that teacherstook toward the whole-class discussions seemed to reinforce the limited nature of thestudents’ responses. Finally, the beliefs that teachers expressed during their interviewsabout their students, themselves, and external factors provided some insight into whyteachers approached the lessons the way they did. A summary of our findings can be foundin Table 4. The following section provides further details to illustrate the different patternsthat were evident.



TABLE 4Summary of Teacher Approaches to Whole-Class portion of Lessons

Teacher LessonOrganizational

Pattern

Social Framing(Approach toInteractions)

Epistemological Framing(Approach to Knowledge)

Harris RQ T-S 98% Teacher focused Listing of characteristicsCC T-S 90% Teacher focused Stating evidence to

support a claimMoran RQ T-S 97% Teacher focused Listing of characteristics

CC T-S 89% Teacher focused Explaining evidence tosupport claim

Rubenstein RQ T-S 91% Teacher focused Importance ofquantification

CC T-S 82% Teacher focused Stating evidence tosupport claim fromvideo only

Smith RQ T-S 84% Teacher focused Listing of characteristicsCC T-S 76% Mostly teacher

focused with somestudent–studentinteractions

Stating evidence tosupport a claim

Wilkerson RQ T-S 84% Mostly teacherfocused with somestudent–studentinteractions

Listing of characteristics

CC T-S 72% Mostly teacherfocused with somestudent–studentinteractions

Stating evidence tosupport a claim fromvideo only

Limited Extended Reasoned Responses by Students

The talk in the teachers’ science lessons was characterized by student’s responses, whichwere predominantly single words/short phrases (Code 1) or statements that did not includereasoning (Code 2) unless solicited further by the teacher. During the researchable questionslesson, the percentage of students’ responses including extended reasoning (Code 3) wasless than 5% in all classes (see Figure 2). The highest incidence of such extended responseswas seen in Mr. Rubenstein’s class, but even in this instance, the number of student’sreasoned responses was only 6 of a total of 149 students’ responses. No extended responsesappeared in Mr. Harris’ lesson. Furthermore, in two classes 50% or more of the students’responses were classified as single words or short phrases (Code 1).

Similarly, relatively low percentages of extended responses were observed in the climatechange lesson (see Figure 3). This result is notable given that we provided teachers withprofessional development specifically highlighting strategies and approaches teachers couldtake during this lesson to support students’ responses, which exposed their thinking. Mr.Harris’ class continued to show a similar pattern of talk with approximately 50% of thestudents’ responses being single words or short phrases and no extended responses. Hislessons were also characterized by the fewest total number of students’ responses. Thegreatest increase in extended responses came in Ms. Moran’s class with 12 of 103 students’



Figure 2. Percentages of student responses by code level in the researchable questions lesson.

responses including explicit reasoning. In her previous lesson, only a single extendedresponse occurred.

Teacher’s Approaches to Talk Reinforce Limited Student Responses

We identified common features that provide insight into the types of students’ responsesthat we observed. All teachers took an interactive approach to the whole-class discussionsin that students participated in the discussion with responses, and the teacher was notthe only source of talk. Teachers, however, positioned themselves as the main directors,evaluators, and feedback providers during the discussions. In all lessons, most verbalexchanges were between teacher and individual students with few examples of studentsinteracting directly with each other. The use of triadic discourse was evident in all lessonswith T-S exchanges making up 72%–98% of the organizational patterns we observed (seeTable 4). This percentage, however, underestimates the extent to which the discussion wasteacher focused because even when TSS or TSSS exchanges were observed, students wereusually addressing the teacher and not each other.

Social Framing. As mentioned previously, social framing refers to the expectations par-ticipants have about how they should interact during the discussion. In line with the T-Sexchange patterns, we observed in the researchable questions lesson, the social frameplaced the teacher as the center of the discussion. Mr. Harris’ lesson exemplified a rigidIRE structure with the organizational pattern showing 98% T-S exchanges. During theclass discussion, Mr. Harris asked students a question, a student responded with a shortresponse and Mr. Harris would then evaluate, provide feedback to or elaborate on the stu-dent’s response. This pattern then reoccurred cyclically throughout the entire period. Thesocial frame of Ms. Moran’s class was similar with 97% T-S exchanges. Her approach was



Figure 3. Percentages of student responses by code level in the climate change lesson.

interactive in that she questioned students about what they thought were the requirementsfor a good researchable question; however, when students provided short answers to herquestions, she then elaborated on the answers, providing extended meaning to student’sresponses. In Mr. Rubenstein’s case, he took a similar authoritative role and it was rein-forced by his assertion during the lesson that “everyone one was working by themselves.”This statement served to limit the interactions between students thereby positioning theteacher as the person with whom questions and ideas would be exchanged. During thislesson, as students developed their questions, they routinely came to him for assistance andfeedback. Although Ms. Smith’s T-S exchange percentage was lower (84%) suggestingthat there were more continuous student exchanges, most TSS or TSSS exchanges weredirected toward answering closed questions with short one word responses as opposed tostudents responding to each other. This is supported by the fact that Ms. Smith’s class hadthe greatest number of single word or short phrase responses of all the teachers in this les-son. Ms. Wilkerson had the lowest percentage of T-S exchanges (84%), suggesting that shewas more likely to allow several students to speak before providing evaluation or feedback.Students were rarely observed directing their comments directly toward another student orevaluating a question except in Ms. Wilkerson’s class. Although her lesson followed a lessrigid IRE pattern and she was less likely to elaborate on students’ responses than the otherteachers, she used questions to strongly guide the discussion thereby maintaining her cen-tral role. In summary, although the questioning strategies and moves that the teachers madein the first lesson varied, the overall social framing included a teacher-focused approach toclassroom interactions.

The social framing of the lesson on climate change lesson remained predominantlyteacher focused in all classes. Mr. Harris’ and Mr. Rubenstein’s classes were consistentwith what had been observed in the previous lesson. Ms. Moran encouraged her studentsto “give your classmates the respect and listen to them” as they shared their arguments.However, she was the predominant source of feedback for any responses students gave and



students’ responses were directed toward her. In contrast, Ms. Smith and Ms. Wilkersondid have instances during their class discussion in which students responded directly to oneanother. Ms. Smith’s approach to the social framing was inconsistent in that she allowedthe student–student interactions sometimes, yet at others would respond with “Raise yourhands. Too many people voices.” Ms. Wilkerson had a similar inconsistent approach. Atseveral points during the lesson, she cut off students’ responses and reestablished orderby asking “Did you raise your hand?” Yet at other times, she encouraged student–studentinteractions by tossing back student’s statements to the class and allowing students to speakdirectly to one another. Overall, however, the IRE pattern for the climate change lessonwas predominant with 72%–90% T-S exchanges observed in this lesson with the teacheras the driver in the classroom interactions. A summary of the social framing for the lessonsis provided in Table 4.

Epistemological Framing. In this part of the analysis, we were interested in the expec-tations that the teachers established for what type of knowledge would be accepted duringthe discussion. In most cases, the teachers’ approaches to the first lesson focused on listingcharacteristics associated with good researchable questions. In these lessons, teachers pro-vided the reasoning for why each characteristic was important to consider when developingquestions. The framing of Ms. Moran’s class was best exemplified by her statement, “It’sokay if you don’t know because that is what I am going to teach you.” Students in mostclasses were given opportunities to develop questions suggesting that teachers expectedstudents to use the information that had been presented to them. However, the teachersdid not focus on students’ thinking about their understanding of the characteristics as theyrelated to the questions, which limited the discourse and types of knowledge accepted in theclassroom. We rarely observed students responding to teacher prompts beyond a referenceto one of previously listed characteristics. Ms. Smith was the only teacher who asked stu-dents to use the characteristics to critique their peer’s questions in class. Similarly to otherclasses, however, most students would refer to the researchable question characteristicswithout volunteering modifications that could be made to improve the question. This sug-gested that students believed being able to reference the listed characteristics establishedby Ms. Smith was the prioritized knowledge while explaining the use of the characteristicswas not necessary unless probed further by the teacher.

While Ms. Wilkerson did not have students develop questions in the class we observed,she did have students critique sample questions she had developed herself. While studentsdid interact socially in her class more so than the others, most responses were specificquotes to the characteristics without elaboration on how they applied to the questionunder discussion. Mr. Rubenstein’s class had distinct features because the lesson wasconducted outside while students developed researchable questions individually. Duringthat time, Mr. Rubenstein did suggest that answers could be found in the park; however, herepeatedly asked students to remember the importance of quantification and measurementin developing the question. In this individualized form of interactions, students were ableto voice their ideas about the questions they were asking allowing for their points of viewto come out more frequently than in other classes; however, the incidence of extendedresponses was still infrequent. In all cases, the characteristics of researchable questionshighlighted by the teachers were those that had been included in the teacher lesson planand the teacher evaluated the students’ use of those characteristics.

The epistemological framing of the climate change lesson varied among the teachers. Themajority of the teachers focused on having students just list information or evidence both forand against climate change. The students did not have to explain why the evidence supported



a particular claim, rather they just needed to state the evidence. Furthermore, Mr. Rubensteinand Ms. Wilkerson focused the class discussion solely on the evidence presented in thevideo. The students were discouraged from using other information they learned outside ofthe videos. This was done even though both the lesson plan and professional developmentstressed that the videos were used just as sources to stimulate conversation.

The other three teachers encouraged students to use anecdotal knowledge of evidencefor or against climate change as well as evidence they learned in school or the videos indeveloping their arguments. Ms. Moran was the only teacher to highlight the importance ofincluding reasoning in developing an argument. She encouraged her students to highlight thereasoning in their written arguments with markers. This focus on reasoning may explainthe higher incidence of extended students’ responses in discussion observed during herlesson. In all classes, teacher questioning moved the discussion forward with most teachersfocusing on having students take notes on which evidence supported global climate changeand which opposed it. This stress on knowing the evidence was explicitly stated by Ms.Moran when she said, “Let’s get some more factual information since you guys have allthese great ideas.” This focus on evidence may also have been the reason for commentsabout assessments from Mr. Rubenstein’s student, “you should have a test with this andhave us study.”

In the end, the epistemological framing in both lessons seemed to stress the students’need to know factual information either as it pertained to the characteristics of researchablescience questions or the evidence associated with climate change. The knowledge of factstherefore ultimately seemed to take precedence over the students’ abilities to evaluate theresearch questions themselves or to construct an argument explaining their reasoning aboutclimate change. A summary of the teachers’ epistemological approaches for each lesson isprovided in Table 4.

Teacher Moves. Teacher moves were observed as playing a role in stifling or encouragingstudents’ extended responses during the lessons. The tendency of some teachers to elaborateon or cutoff students’ responses seemed to play a significant role in limiting the extendedresponses. Teacher elaborations, especially in the first lesson, frequently provided theextended reasoning for a student’s short response. The following is an excerpt taken fromMr. Harris’ researchable questions lesson that was typical throughout the discussion:

Mr. H: How does the presence of trees affect daytime temperatures in a city? Whatmakes that a good question even if you’re not interested in daytime temper-atures of trees? Why is that phrased in a good way? Lily?

Lily: Specific.Mr. H: It’s very specific. I can give you a thermometer and point to some trees and

you can go through the city and measure this. You could find out the answerif you sit their long enough. Right? Sit there in the shade. Sit there in the sunand just figure it out. It’s doable.

In this case, Mr. Harris provided the meaning to Lily’s response. Although she providedthe correct answer as it related to the list of characteristics Mr. Harris wanted studentsto know, her understanding of that answer was not clear. Although this type of movewas most notable in Mr. Harris’ first lesson, similar examples of elaborations appearedto some extent in all of the classes. In the case of teacher elaboration moves, there islittle motivation for students to explain themselves if the expectation is that the teacherwill make meaning of the short responses that are given. This move reinforces the socialframe, positioning the teacher as the focus of responses in the discussion as well as the



epistemological frame by positioning the teacher as the source of knowledge of the sciencepoint of view.

Cutoffs also appeared in several lessons, but were predominant in the researchablequestions lesson. The following excerpt depicts a cutoff during Mr. Rubenstein’s climatechange lesson. The teacher in this instance engaged students in a brainstorming activityabout words that came to mind when they thought of the phrase “global warming” prior toviewing the videos.

Akeem: The polar ice caps are melting because of global warming which is becausethe air

Mr. R: Let’s not. I don’t want to discuss any of these items right now. Let’s just putthem out there.

With this response, the teacher reinforced the expectation that students provide short re-sponses that were words or phrases associated with climate change. Akeem began to explainhis understanding of why the polar ice caps were melting, but was not permitted to completehis response. Because this cutoff occurred at the beginning of the class, it may have setthe stage for less extended responses by students for the rest of the discussion. Such a cut-off established the epistemological frame for what type of knowledge would be acceptedduring the discussion. In this case, extended reasoning was not welcome. Furthermore,cutoffs were used to maintain the teacher-focused social frame. Students were sometimesinterrupted and asked to raise their hand in order for teachers to maintain control over thediscussion.

Teachers’ use of probing questions that asked students to elaborate on their answers wasrelated to some of the students’ extended responses. The use of probing questions variedgreatly between lessons and among teachers, but in most cases was notably infrequent. Oneexample is found in Ms. Moran’s climate change lesson when the discussion focused onwho made the video clips.

Ms. M: So who would want us to think that carbon dioxide is a natural gas,which it is?

Niko: Oil Companies.Ms. M: Oil Companies. Why?Niko: Because burning fossil fuels emits carbon dioxide.

Unlike the elaboration move in which the teacher would provide the reasoning for whythe oil companies might have subsidized a video depicting carbon dioxide as harmlessgas, the student provides the reasoning. The probing question led to the student’s extendedresponse. Across all of the teachers, eight of the 10 lessons contained fewer than seveninstances of such probing questions. Although some probing questions did elicit extendedstudents’ responses, other times the teachers used probing questions to request another fact.For example, the teacher might ask which video the student was referring to. In either case,probing questions continue to reinforce a social frame in which the teacher is the directorof classroom interactions. However, the use of probing questions could support a differentepistemological frame in which knowledge construction includes students explaining orproviding their reasoning behind their ideas and not just stating facts. Probing questionscan be used in multiple ways.

The least common move in the lessons was the toss back even though sample questionsteachers could use to encourage discussion across students were suggested in the climatechange lesson. Teachers rarely asked for students to comment on other student responses,



thereby taking on the main role of evaluator within the social frame of the discussion. Anexample of the use of this teacher move can be noted in the following excerpt taken fromMs. Wilkerson’s class on researchable questions.

Jay: A question has to have more than one answer.Ms. W: A question has to have more than one answer?Mary: No it’ll be confusing.Wakim: It’ll be a good question if it has more than one answer.Mary: Not really. Then you’ll be confused. Then you’ll be confused.Lamont: No, if it has more than one answer you won’t get inaudible.Mary: If it has an experiment to go with it.Lamont: Then you’d be confused. I said like, I saidMs. W: If it has what? A thesis statement?Albert: What happened to raising our hand? What happened to raising our hand? I’m

going to raise my hand.

In this exchange, Ms. Wilkerson tossed back a student’s comment instead of evaluatingit herself and allowed several students to comment on it before eventually guiding thediscussion more rigidly. Students voiced conflicting positions and tried to argue for theirposition. This type of talk that shifted the teacher’s role away from that of evaluator andinstead placed the prime focus on students’ responses was rare. As evidenced from Albert’sresponse, it was also not necessarily welcomed by all students. After this extensive student-focused exchange, Albert called for the teacher to once again take a more active rolein moderating the participant structure in the discussion. In this case, Albert reinforcedthe teacher-focused social frame. This type of interaction did not occur again during thelesson with the overall structure becoming more similar to that of the other teachers’lessons even though Ms. Wilkerson did continue to toss back students’ responses to theclass.

The teacher moves described above were not used equally between lessons andamong teachers. Elaborations were significantly more pervasive in the researchable ques-tions lesson. Although elaborations alone cannot account for the low incidence of stu-dents’ extended responses, the tendency of teachers to take short students’ statementsand construct enhanced meanings for the class appeared to be an important aspect ofthe discussion which established the teacher not only as the main focus in the socialframe but also the main producer of knowledge in the epistemological frame. The useof cutoffs was mainly observed in Mr. Rubenstein’s and Ms. Wilkerson’s classes. Ineach case, examples of potential extended students’ responses were cut short either forthe purpose of regulating the discussion or in order for the teacher to respond withfeedback.

While we initially hypothesized that more probing questions might be related to thenumber of extended responses we observed in a lesson, that was not the case. Our analysissuggested that probing questions took many forms and although some asked for studentsto elaborate on their thinking, many others instead focused on probing for more facts orspecifics like what video the student was referring to. Given that most teachers took on therole of evaluator, these probing questions did not necessarily encourage students to initiateextended responses. The consistent role of teachers as questioner and feedback providerwas consistent with the low numbers of toss backs that occurred in any lesson. Overall, theteacher moves supported their dominant role in both the social and epistemological framingof the discussion even in the climate change lesson, which was specifically an introductorylesson meant to explore students’ thinking about the subject.



Teachers’ Beliefs Alignment With the Approach Taken Towardthe Discussion

Most teachers conceded that the science talk in their classrooms was less ideal thanthey would like, with Ms. Smith being the exception. All teachers identified their classdiscussions as being more like the teacher-directed vignette to some extent. In so doing,they gave reasons for why there was a disconnect between a more ideal student-centeredwhole-class discussion and what actually occurred in their classrooms. We categorized thereasons into three groups of constraining factors: student, teacher, and time.

Student Constraining Factors. Teachers attributed the limited science talk that occurredin the classroom in part to limitations they perceived in their students. A lack of experiencewith science talk was one of the main difficulties all teachers cited with regard to thestudents’ abilities to participate in this approach to learning. Mr. Harris, for example, said,“a lot of students I teach don’t have experience with this.” Ms. Moran suggested howeverthat the talk would become more ideal “as the year progresses.” In Ms. Moran’s case,there was a noticeable increase in the percentage of students’ responses with thought andreasoning (Code 3) in the second lesson, thereby suggesting that her beliefs toward sciencetalk may have contributed to her ability to gain more from the professional developmentprovided before the climate change lesson.

Ms. Wilkerson’s belief that “dialogue depends on the knowledge the student brings tothe table,” suggests that a lack of content knowledge on the part of the student is anotherfactor that teachers believe limits students’ contributions to discussions. In both cases, theselessons were designed to explore students’ thinking about the topics; however, unlike theintended purpose of the lessons, most teachers approached these lessons as means by whichto disseminate and assess students’ knowledge of content or “right answers” as opposed toexploring students’ thinking in a more general sense.

This approach toward discussions may explain why, according to the teachers, moststudents are not comfortable contributing responses to whole-class discussions. Ms. Moranstated that students are afraid to be wrong “especially my very top of the class students.” Allteachers echoed this belief that students were not comfortable participating in discussionsbecause of this fear. Ms. Wilkerson stated that “sometimes students don’t feel free to shareknowledge in classes and they feel like they’re going to be shot down by their peers.”Therefore, the social aspect of talk and a tolerant classroom culture is one that cannot betaken for granted by the teacher.

The last student factor that teachers believed seriously limited the science talk in classwas the lack of student motivation to participate in a type of instruction that they believedrequired more effort. For example, Ms. Smith stated, “school is more manageable for them[students] if it’s less reflective, less writing, less critical thinking and more easily respondingto questions on a page where there’s a right answer and the teacher will provide the correctanswer.” Ms. Wilkerson echoed this idea by stating that students “depend on the teacher tolead the conversation.” Ms. Moran agreed stating that she believed students “like to listenand be told” the answers.

These teacher-perceived student factors influencing science talk are challenges that insome cases reinforce reliance on triadic forms of classroom discourse. Some teachersstated that they chose to avoid whole-class discussions at times, opting for alternativeslike pair-shares or individual work, because they felt that it was more manageable eventhough, in the case of Mr. Harris, he questioned the extent to which students in groupswere actually focusing on the topic at hand. This suggests that the students’ willingnessand abilities to actively participate in science talk contribute to teachers’ beliefs about more



interactive, student-driven discussion and the extent to which it is worth pursuing throughoutthe year.

Teacher Constraints. Teachers were equally critical of themselves, citing factors thatthey had control over. One such factor was the lack of structures in the class that supportactive discussion. Mr. Rubenstein stated, “maybe if there were better structures in placeon how to have a discussion from the beginning of the year” the science talk in his classwould more likely resemble his ideal. Mr. Harris shared this belief suggesting that if hehad established stronger accountability structures in his class for the students, more activestudent engagement might have occurred.

Furthermore, many teachers questioned their ability to guide more student-driven talk.For example, Ms. Wilkerson believed that “facilitating discussions is an art. I mean, I justdon’t have it.” Ms. Smith had a similar belief suggesting that it was a skill she needed todevelop. Although teachers may want the talk in their classes to include more chances forstudents to express their understanding of science, they may not feel prepared to supportthis type of active discourse. Ms. Moran made the point that it is the norm for teachers todo most of the talking and that “one of the ways to get kids to talk more is teachers talkless.” Mr. Harris shared this awareness stating that “it [science talk] tends to be centeredaround me and I’m trying to remove myself from that situation” but he was not sure howthat could happen besides moving whole-class discussions into small group work.

The teachers did not feel that they actively and explicitly prepared students for engagingin discussions. Although there were some reflections suggesting that the establishment ofstructures may have been beneficial, teachers did not appear to know how to go aboutshifting the talk away from themselves.

Time Constraints. Perhaps the most pressing factor discussed by teachers was the lackof time that they perceived. This lack of time established a clear tension between theextent to which talk could focus on students’ meaning making versus focusing on contentcoverage or assessment. Although every teacher stated that one main purpose of talk wasto understand students’ thinking and meaning making, they more often referred to classdiscussions as a way to assess students’ content knowledge (see Table 5). While there werestatements suggesting that the teachers were committed to having students engage in moreelaborate science talk, the structure of discussions during the observed lessons prioritizedthe dissemination of content. The high school science teachers may have had difficultiesshifting to a more student-centered approach of discussion because of the pressure theyfelt to cover content. This may be due in part to their perceived lack of skill as mentionedpreviously, but it may also be the result of an engrained belief that as teachers their job isto focus on assessing student content knowledge.

In the interviews, many teachers described the issue of time as a constraint on the typeof talk that could happen in the classroom. Referring to the vignette of a lesson in whichthe teacher asked many closed and guiding questions with short student responses, theteachers suggested that time was probably the primary reason for this type of questioningstrategy. Ms. Wilkerson stated, “She gave the specificity instead of letting the kids, but thathappens because she might have run out of time.” In this case, Ms. Wilkerson referred tothe example of a teacher elaboration move following a student one-word response in theteacher-centered vignette. Ms. Moran stated that “these things [science talk] are influencedby how much content or how many parts of an activity should be completed by the endof class.” The pressure to cover content is real for high school science teachers. Exposingstudents to the content in a lesson therefore may be the priority and the talking that occursin the lesson must fit within the time parameters established for that lesson.



TABLE 5Teacher Beliefs about the Purpose of Science Talk

Teacher Science Talk = Meaning Making Science Talk = Content Assessment

Mr. Harris –“through process, that’s howthey develop their answers”

–“sometimes I’m looking for thecorrect answer”

–“looking for students to makeconnections”

Ms. Moran –“to get at what kids are thinking” –“to find out what the backgroundknowledge is”

–“making connections to priorscience learning”

–“other times we talk to specificallyrepeat and reinforce knowledge”

Mr. Rubenstein –a space for students to “pusheach other for clarity”

–“to guide students toward an answeror to guide something out of themthat I think they have or they know”

Ms. Smith – a way to “hash out differentideas”

–“talking is one form of assessingknowledge”

Ms. Wilkerson –means to “get students to thinkdeeper to make more sense”

–“you try to think of questions to bringout the information that you wantthem to learn or to tell you”

Summary

In all the class discussions, 87%–100% of the students’ contributions were either singlewords, phrases, or short sentences. Most of the students’ responses did not include reason-ing or justification for their statement. In the researchable questions lesson, teachers tendedto focus on the characteristics of a researchable question elaborating themselves on shortresponses. For most teachers, the climate change lesson focused on listing evidence asso-ciated with the phenomenon with little focus on the significance of the evidence. Teacherframing of the classes typically focused on the factual information associated with the les-son and placed the teacher as the main knowledge provider and evaluator of the discussion(see Table 4). Although the teachers participated in professional development focusing oninstructional strategies to support more student-centered science talk prior to the climatechange lesson, there was little difference in the overall incidence of extended students’responses or the communicative approach teachers took to their lessons. All teachers tookon an authoritative approach to both lessons although the extent to which they divergedfrom that approach did vary. Teachers suggested that limited talk in their classes was due tolack of knowledge and experience on the part of the students as well as students’ resistance.Furthermore, they noted that they did not always feel capable of effectively engaging stu-dents in whole-class discussions. Finally, the time pressure they felt to cover content was afactor which greatly influenced the opportunities they could give students to explore ideasthrough discussion.

DISCUSSION

Results from this study reinforce previous research which describe whole-class dis-cussions as predominantly teacher centered and authoritative (Crawford, 2005; Jimenez-Aleixandre et al., 2000; Lemke, 1990). Extended responses by students in all lessons wasthe exception, not the rule. The predominance of short responses by students should beof great concern because it gives evidence for the limited opportunities students haveto engage in the more intricate use of scientific language. Most teachers in this study,



however, were aware of the discrepancy between their ideal vision of whole-class discus-sions and the actual form it took. Even after stating the importance of talk in meaningmaking, high school teachers seemed more focused during instruction with transmittingfacts about developing researchable questions and listing evidence for global climate changerather than students’ active application of the information associated with these topics. Be-sides the typical reference to time pressures associated with teaching a large amount ofcontent (Kennedy, 2005; Scott et al., 2006), teachers expressed serious concerns abouttheir students’ previous experience, knowledge, and motivation to participate in dialogic,extended science talk, as well as their own ability to orchestrate this type of talk.

Teacher Moves and Lesson Framing

Although most teachers in our study were aware that the talk could be different, theyreferred to lacking the skills needed to bring about a shift in their approach. This sentimentis supported by previous research that suggests that science teachers need to become moreaware of strategies that can be used to shift talk away from the traditional IRE patterntoward developing students’ thinking (Harris, Phillips & Penuel, 2012; Jiminez-Aleixandreet al., 2000; Mercer & Littleton, 2007; Oliveira, 2010).

The majority of teachers valued talk for its role in allowing students to make meaningof the science being taught; however, the patterns of discourse associated with the lessonshighlighted the dissemination of content. It may be that teachers’ core beliefs about student-centered talk plays less of a role in the final decision making than the peripheral beliefsabout productivity of that talk within specific contexts. Aguiar, Mortimer, and Scott (2010)recognized that there are tensions involved in teaching science, an inherently authoritativedomain, in a dialogic way. The teachers that participated in this study clearly felt thesetensions. Given the extensive amount of content that high school teachers are typicallyrequired to teach, this tension easily sways toward the efficiency of authoritative talk(Lemke, 1990).

Teacher elaboration moves following student’s responses are a case in point. Goingbeyond paraphrasing, many teachers in this study tended to give meaning to student’s shortresponses. From the students’ point of view, if it is the norm for the teacher to transformshort responses into more complicated and meaningful concepts, what motivation exists torisk elaborating on an answer themselves and being wrong? The authoritative positioningof the teacher within the discussion establishes the purpose of student talk as a means ofassessing the knowledge of facts as opposed to the meaning students are making from thediscussion.

Interrupting student’s responses is also a move that served to set expectations for boththe social and epistemological frame. It is clear that sometimes overlooking or cutting-off a student’s response is necessary to keep the class discussion in line with the learningobjectives of the class and controlled (Mortimer & Scott, 2003). However, one must considerwhat types of responses are being overlooked or cutoff and how they serve to establishthe epistemological and social framing in the discussion. If students are not allowed orencouraged to speak to each other or they are prevented from explaining themselves, theseteacher moves prioritize correctness and implicitly discourage students from exposing theirthinking during discussions (Hutchinson & Hammer, 2010). Although these strategies mayserve to increase the efficiency of content coverage, they do not necessarily result in greaterstudents’ learning. Our previous research suggests that secondary teachers who reported ahigher frequency of students engaging in argument and sharing ideas and smaller percentageof time lecturing had greater students’ learning of science concepts and scientific inquirypractices (McNeill et al., in press).



Teachers may not be aware of how their role in the classroom impacts students’ partici-pation in discussion (Scott et al., 2006). In our study, although the teachers expressed thattheir lack of knowledge and experience impacted their ability to facilitate student-centereddiscussion, it is not clear that they were aware of specific moves they were using in theirclassroom, such as teacher elaborations and interruptions, which limited this discourse.Previous research suggests the importance of increasing teacher awareness (Oliviera, 2010)or use (Martin & Hand, 2009; McNeill & Pimentel, 2010) of specific questioning strategiesto promote a more student-centered discussion. Our work extends this finding to suggestthat there are other types of teacher moves, in addition to questions, which impact classroomparticipation norms (i.e., the social framing) as well as what type of knowledge is acceptedin the discussion (i.e., epistemological framing). Furthermore, while teacher moves canimpact both the social and epistemological framing of lessons teachers may not be awareof these two distinct outcomes. Using these two different lenses may offer the researchcommunity and teachers a stronger understanding of why teacher-centered, authoritativediscussions are often the norm in secondary science classrooms as well as tools to shift thenorms of classroom discourse.

The Role of the Student and Framing

Teachers cited deficits in students’ science talk experience, content knowledge, andmotivation as factors limiting science talk. The literature supports the assertion that studentsare not getting the opportunities they need to practice elaborate science talk regardless ofgrade level (Duschl et al., 2007). Learning to effectively communicate in this scientificgenre is a difficult task for students of all backgrounds (Driver et al., 2000; Sadler, 2004).Science students need support in how to use language and how to talk for learning andunderstanding (Mercer, Dawes, Wegerif, & Sams, 2004). The fact that secondary teachersseem to shy away from engaging in science talk when they feel students are unpreparedperpetuates the problem. Such an approach is a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the cycleof teacher-directed discussion can only be broken by providing students with guidelinesand practice of science talk.

In respect to limited student content knowledge, the purpose of the lesson impacts therequirements for background knowledge in class discussions (Mortimer & Scott, 2003).Exploring students’ thinking and reasoning is a valuable part of instruction to better addressstudents’ needs in learning content as well as to support them in developing reasoning skills.If the purpose of a lesson aligns with one of these goals, students do not need extensivecontent knowledge to successfully engage in discussion. Such discourse, if open to thinking,should appear more dialogic and include extended explanations by students. The resultsfrom this study suggest that teachers need greater support as well as examples of classroompractice to help them see that strong science content knowledge is not a requirement forstudent-centered, dialogic discussions.

The teachers’ concern that students are not motivated to participate in science talk maybe valid. But by reflecting on and questioning the manner in which the teachers approachtalk in their classrooms, they may find that their present approach gives students littleincentive to take the risk of being wrong. Students’ understanding of what is going onin a science classroom (i.e., the framing) may be that their role is to listen, memorizescience facts, and only speak when they know the right answer. This framing does not offermotivation to engage in a dialogic debate. Furthermore, the dynamics of framing in theclassroom are impacted not only by the role of the teacher but also the role of the student(Berland & Hammer, 2012). For example, we observed that the students played a role inmaintaining the social frame in the class in that students were not likely to talk directly to



other students. In Ms. Wilkerson’s class, when students did start shifting the social frameto talk directly to each other, Albert called for a return to a teacher-centered frame. In termsof the epistemological framing, the students also appeared to be more comfortable with anauthoritative perspective focusing on knowledge as facts measured on an assessment. Forexample in Mr. Rubenstein’s class, students mentioned that the facts in the climate changelesson could be used to construct a future assessment thereby reinforcing an authoritativeepistemological frame. This suggests that the role of the student is important to considernot only in terms of the teachers’ perceptions of students’ abilities to engage in science talkbut also in terms of students’ perceptions of what it means to engage in talk in a scienceclassroom. Consequently, it may be important to encourage teachers to not only considertheir role in classroom discussions but also the role of the individual students. Teachers mayneed to broaden their perspective to consider the classroom as a community or complexsystem with implicit social and epistemological norms.

Implications

The extent to which teachers are able to engage students in more dialogic and student-centered forms of talk is an important consideration for future teacher education andresearch. Hopefully, the new science education frameworks (NRC, 2011) and correspondingscience standards will impact classroom discourse. Recent research suggests that morereform-oriented instruction focusing on scientific inquiry (Geier et al., 2008) as well asargumentation and discourse (McNeill et al., in press) supports students’ learning of sciencecontent. Greater research in this area could help address some of the teachers’ concernsabout time. However, other factors teachers identified as limiting talk in their classroom—their own knowledge and ability as well as students’ lack of experience, content knowledge,and motivation—must still be addressed. Future professional development and teacherpreparation programs need to include a focus on making science talk a feasible strategyfor teachers. Our work provides potential recommendations for the design and research ofsuch programs.

While the current study was limited to only five teachers and therefore provides only someinsights into the possible reasons for why teachers continue to struggle with orchestratingtalk in their secondary classes, we believe that a number of key ideas worthy of considerationemerged from our study. In terms of supporting teachers’ development of greater knowledge,our work extends the findings of previous research on the importance of using specificquestioning strategies (Martin & Hand, 2009; McNeill & Pimentel, 2010; Oliveira, 2010)suggesting that there are other moves teachers should learn to identify which impactclassroom discourse, such as teacher elaborations and interruptions. Teachers may notbe aware of how these moves unfold in their classroom and impact discussion norms.Grounding teachers’ learning experiences in authentic classroom practice such as analyzingvideotapes (Borko, 2004; Roth et al., 2011) focusing on these particular instructional movesmay support the development of teacher knowledge. In addition, analyzing videotapes ortranscripts to identify different frames and distinguish among techniques that can be usedby teachers to establish different social and epistemological frames may help teachers betterunderstand how norms are established in classroom settings. This analysis should includenot only a focus on the teacher but also careful consideration of students’ comments andinteractions (Sherin, 2000) to understand the students’ perceptions and role in this complexclassroom setting.

Future research should examine whether these type of learning experiences, such asprofessional development, can help teachers develop an understanding of their role, butalso a more nuanced understanding of their students’ roles. We are concerned that teachers’



current views about their students’ limitations around science talk experience, contentknowledge, and motivation serve as a barrier and at times an excuse for not alteringclassroom discourse norms. Altering the framing of a lesson can support students in drawingon other nascent resources and experiences from outside the science classroom enablingthem to successfully engage in dialogic discussions (Berland & Hammer, 2012). As wasdescribed by Hutchinson and Hammer (2010), the framing of a discussion is also theresult of how the students interpret the teacher’s expectations. Given that students havebeen taught to frame science discussions in a certain way, teachers who want to shiftthe talk must not only be clear in their expectations (Berland & Hammer, 2012), but wewould suggest teachers must be persistent throughout the year in order for students tobetter understand their role in the different frames that may be used by the teacher duringinstruction. We suggest that attention to issues of framing may be one productive approachto concerns about students’ motivation to participate in class discussions. Altering the socialand epistemological framing of the discussions may support greater student motivation toengage in classroom discussions. Further research regarding students’ understanding oftheir role during science talk is necessary to better understand this dynamic.

Finally, our work supports previous research that suggests that this type of teacherlearning requires considerable time and continued support once the teacher returns to theclassroom. Brief exposure to professional development about strategies toward dialogic talkis not enough to change a teacher’s approach to talk (Roth, 1996). In our own professionaldevelopment with the teachers, we only spent 45 minutes specifically focused on supportingdialogic, student-centered discussion. Of the many hours we dedicated to professionaldevelopment, the majority of time was spent focused on learning content and perhapssuch a focus on our part served to reinforce an overall authoritative epistemological frame.As such, we suggest that future professional development focused on shifting discourseshould include not only more time focused to this topic but also consider the social andepistemological framing of the professional development itself and how that serves as amodel for the teachers as learners.

While these recommendations serve to provide a new perspective on factors that mayhelp teachers shift their talk, we acknowledge that all teachers are based in their uniqueschool contexts. While all of the teachers in this study were motivated to pilot reform–based curriculum materials, after professional development, once they returned to theirclassrooms, they were individuals taking part in a well-established school and scienceeducation culture without continued school-based interactions with colleagues engaging inthe same type of pursuit. While we would like to think that effecting change in one teacherwithin a school may support larger reform, consistent and persistent change in secondaryscience teachers’ approaches to discussions may also require the collaborative support ofschool-based learning communities that allow the teacher to reflect more dynamically withtheir colleagues about their instruction. Science education researchers should thereforeconsider not only the role of curriculum materials and off-site professional developmentbut also how teacher learning can be supported and nurtured once the teacher returns to hisor her school.

This research was conducted as part of the Urban EcoLab project, supported in part by the NationalScience Foundation grant ESI 0607010. Any opinions expressed in this work are those of the authorsand do not necessarily represent either those of the funding agency or Boston College. We wouldlike to thank our colleagues at Boston College and the Urban Ecology Institute for their work on thisproject.



REFERENCES

Aguiar, O. G., Mortimer, E. F., & Scott, P. (2010). Learning from and responding to students’ questions: Theauthoritative and dialogic tension. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 47, 174 – 193.

Alexander, R. (2004) Towards dialogic teaching: Rethinking classroom talk. Cambridge, MA: Dialogos.Alozie, N. M, Moje, E. B., & Krajcik, J. S. (2010). An analysis of the supports and constraints for scientific

discussion in high school project-based science. Science Education, 94, 395 – 427.Alpert, B. R. (1987). Active, silent and controlled discussions: Explaining variations in classroom conversation.

Teaching and Teacher Education, 3, 29 – 40.American Association for the Advancement of Science. (2008). Benchmarks online: Project 2061. Retrieved De-

cember 8, 2008, from http://www.project2061.org/publications/bsl/online/index.php. (Original work published1993).

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englwood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall.

Bartholomew, H., Osborne, J., & Ratcliffe, M. (2004). Teaching students “ideas-about science”: Five dimensionsof effective practice. Science Education, 88, 655 – 682.

Berland, L. K., & Hammer, D. (2012). Framing in scientific argumentation. Journal of Research in ScienceTeaching, 49(1), 68 – 94.

Berland, L. K., & Reiser, B. J. (2011). Classroom communities’ adaptations of the practice of scientific argumen-tation. Science Education, 95, 191 – 216.

Blosser, P. E. (1973). Handbook of effective questioning techniques. Worthington, OH: Education Associates.Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher,

33(8), 3 – 15.Brown, S. L., & Melear, C. T. (2006). Investigation of secondary science teachers’ beliefs and practices after

authentic inquiry-based experiences. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 43, 938 – 962.Carlsen, W. S. (1991). Questioning in classrooms: A sociolinguistic perspective. Review of Educational Research,

61, 157 – 178.Cazden, C. B. (1988). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Chin, C. (2007). Teacher questioning in science classrooms: Approaches that stimulate productive thinking.

Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 44, 815 – 843.Chinn, C. A., & Samarapungavan, A. (2009). Conceptual change—Multiple routes, mechanisms: A commentary

on Ohlsson. Educational Psychologist, 44(1), 48 – 57.Crawford, T. (2005). Embracing the essence of inquiry: New roles for science teachers. Journal of Research in

Science Teaching, 42, 139 – 165.Cronin-Jones, L. L. (1991). Science teacher beliefs and their influence on curriculum implementation: Two case

studies. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 28(3), 235 – 250.Cross, D. I. (2009). Alignment, cohesions and change: Examining mathematics teachers’ belief structures and

their influence on instructional practices. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 12, 325 – 346.Driver, R., Newton, P., & Osborne, J. (2000). Establishing the norms of scientific argumentation in classrooms.

Science Education, 84, 287 – 312.Duschl, R. A., Schweingruber, H. A., & Shouse, A. W. (Eds), (2007). Taking science to school: Learning and

teaching science in grades K-8. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Edmin, C. (2011). Dimensions of communication in urban science education: Interactions and transactions.

Science Education, 95, 1 – 20.Furtak, E. M., & Ruiz-Primo, M. A. (2008). Making students’ thinking explicit in writing and discussion: An

analysis of formative assessment prompts. Science Education, 92, 799 – 824.Geier, R., Blumenfeld, P. C., Marx, R. W., Krajcik, J. S., Fishman, B., Soloway, E., et al. (2008). Standardized test

outcomes for students engaged in inquiry-based curricula in the context of urban reform. Journal of Researchin Science Teaching, 45(8), 922 – 939.

Halliday, M. A. (2006). Things and relations: regrammaticizing experience as teaching knowledge. In J. J. Webster(Ed.), The language of science (pp. 49 – 101). New York: Continuum. (Original work published 1998).

Hammer, D., Elby, A., Scherr, R. E., & Redish, E. F. (2005). Resources, framing, and transfer. In J. Mestre (Ed.),Transfer of learning from a modern multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 89 – 120). Greenwich, CT: InformationAge.

Harris, C. J., Phillips, R. S., & Penuel, W. R. (2012). Examining teachers’ instructional moves aimed at developingstudents’ ideas and questions in learner-centered science classrooms. Journal of Science Teacher Education,23(7), 769 – 788.

Hutchinson, P. & Hammer, D. (2010). Attending to student epistemological framing in a science classroom.Science Education, 94, 506 – 524.



Jadallah, M., Anderson, R. C., Nguyen-Jahiel, K., Miller, B. W., Kim, I-H., Kuo, L-J., et al. (2011). Teacher’sscaffolding moves during child-led small-group discussions. American Educational Research Journal, 48(1),194 – 230.

Jimenez-Aleixandre, M. P., Rodrıguez, A. B., & Duschl, R. A. (2000). “Doing the lesson” or “doing science”:Argument in high school genetics. Science Education, 84, 757 – 792.

Jones, M. G., & Carter, G. (2007). Science teacher attitudes and beliefs. In S. Abell & N. Lederman (Eds.),Handbook of research on science education (pp. 1067 – 1104). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Juuti, K., Lavonen, J., Uitto, A., Byman, R., & Meisalo, V. (2010). Science teaching methods preferred by grade9 students in Finland. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 8, 611 – 632.

Kennedy, M. M. (2005). Inside teaching: How classroom life undermines reform. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.

Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2006). Scientific thinking and science literacy: Supporting development in learningin contexts. In W. Damon, R. M. Lerner, K. A. Renninger, & I. E. Sigel (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology,6th ed. (Vol. 4, pp. 153 – 196). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Lemke, J. (1990). Talking science: Language, learning, and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Lortie, D. C. (1975). School-teacher: A sociologic study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Louca, L., Elby, A., Hammer, D., & Kagey, T. (2004). Epistemological resources: Applying a new epistemological

framework to science instruction. Educational Psychologist, 39, 57 – 68.Mansour, N. (2009). Science teachers’ beliefs and practices: Issues, implications and research agenda. International

Journal of Environmental & Science Education, 4(1), 25 – 48.Martin, A. M., & Hand, B. (2009). Factors affecting the implementation of argument in the elementary science

classroom. A longitudinal case study. Research in Science Education. 39, 17 – 38.McNeill, K. L. (2011). Elementary students’ views of explanation, argumentation and evidence and abilities to

construct arguments over the school year. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48(7), 793 – 823.McNeill, K. L., & Pimentel, D. S. (2010). Scientific discourse in the urban classrooms: The role of the teacher in

engaging high school students in argumentation. Science Education, 94, 203 – 229.McNeill, K. L., Pimentel, D. S., & Strauss, E. (in press). The impact of high school teachers’ beliefs, curricular

enactments and experience on learning during an inquiry-based urban ecology curriculum. International Journalof Science Education.

Mehan, H. (1979). Learning lessons: Social organization in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.

Mercer, N., Dawes, L, Wegerif, R., & Sams, C. (2004). Reasoning as a scientist: Ways of helping children to uselanguage to learn science. British Educational Research Journal, 30, 359 – 377.

Mercer, N., & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the development of children’s thinking: A sociocultural approach.New York: Routledge.

Miles, M., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd ed.). ThousandOaks, CA: Sage.

Mortimer, E. F., & Scott, P. H. (2003). Meaning making in secondary science classrooms. Maidenhead, England:Open University Press.

Munby, H. (1982). The place of teachers’ beliefs in research on teacher thinking and decision making, and analternative methodology. Instructional Science, 11, 201 – 225.

National Research Council. (1996). National Science Education Standards. Washington, DC: National AcademyPress.

National Research Council. (2011). A framework for K-12 science education: Practices, crosscutting conceptsand core ideas. Committee on a Conceptual Framework for New K-12 Science Education Standards. Board onScience Education, Division of behavioral and Social Science and Education. Washington, DC: The NationalAcademies Press.

Nespor, J. (1987). The role of beliefs in the practice of teaching. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 19(4), 317 – 328.Oliveira, A. W. (2010). Improving teacher questioning in science inquiry discussions through professional devel-

opment. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 47, 422 – 453.Pajares, M. F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of

Educational Research, 62, 307 – 332.Polman, J. L., & Pea, R. D. (2000). Transformative communication as a cultural tool for guiding inquiry science.

Science Education, 85, 223 – 238.Puntambekar, S., Stylianou, A., & Goldstein, J. (2007). Comparing classroom enactments of an inquiry curriculum:

Lessons learned from two teachers. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 16, 81 – 130.Roehler, L. R., Duffy, G. G., Herrmann, B. A., Conley, M., & Johnson, J. (1988). Knowledge structures as

evidence of the “personal”: Bridging the gap from thought to practice. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 20,159 – 165.



Roth, W.-M. (1996). Teacher questioning in an open-inquiry learning environment: Interactions of context, content,and student responses. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 33, 709 – 736.

Roth, K. J., Garnier, H. E., Chen, C., Lemmens, M., Schwille, K., & Wickler, N. I. Z. (2011). Videobased lessonanalysis: Effective science PD for teacher and student learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48(2),117 – 148.

Sadler, T. D. (2004). Informal reasoning regarding socioscientific issues: A critical review of research. Journal ofResearch in Science Teaching, 41(5), 513 – 536.

Scott, P. H., Mortimer, E. F., & Aguiar, O. G. (2006). The tension between authoritative and dialogic discourse: Afundamental characteristic of meaning making interactions in high school science lessons. Science Education,90, 605 – 631.

Sherin, M. G. (2000). Viewing teaching on videotape. Educational Leadership, 57(8), 36 – 38.Simmons, P. E., Emory, A., Carter, T., Coker, T., Finnegan, B., Crockett, D., et al. (1999). Beginning teachers:

Beliefs and classroom action. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 36(8), 930 – 954.Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded

theory. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Strauss, E. G., McNeill, K. L., Barnett, M., & Reece, F. (2011). Urban EcoLab: How do we develop

healthy and sustainable cities? Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College. Retrieved June 15, 2011, fromhttp://urbanecolabcurriculum.com/.

Tobin, K., & McRobbie, C. J. (1997). Beliefs about the nature of science and the enacted science curriculum.Science & Education, 6, 355 – 371.

Tobin, K., Tippins, D., & Gallard, A. J. (1994). Research on instructional strategies for teaching science. In D.Gabel (Ed.), Handbook of research on science teaching and learning (pp. 3 – 44). New York: MacMillan.

Torff B., & Warburton, E. C. (2005). Assessment of teachers’ beliefs and classroom use of critical-thinkingactivities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 65, 155 – 179.

van Zee, E. H., Iwasyk, M., Kurose, A., Simpson, D., & Wild, J. (2001). Student and teacher questioning duringconversations about science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38(2), 159 – 190.

van Zee, E. H., and Minstrell, J. (1997). Using questioning to guide student thinking. Journal of the LearningSciences, 6(2), 227 – 269.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.Wallace, C. S., & Kang, N. H. (2004). An investigation of experienced secondary science teachers’ beliefs about

inquiry: An examination of competing belief sets. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 41, 936 – 960.


Documents

Conducting Talk in Secondary Science Classrooms: Investigating Instructional Moves and Teachers’ Beliefs