JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 20, NO. 3, PP. 261-262 (1983)

EDITORIAL

DEFINING SCIENCE EDUCATION AS A DISCIPLINE

ROBERT E. YAGER

President, National Science Teachers Association, Science Education Center The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242

Paul Hurd recently proclaimed, “The Crisis in Science Education lies in the pressures to establish the legitimacy of the discipline and to provide evidence of the worthiness and useful- ness of the research produced.” Part of this legitimacy lies in a more precise description of the domain for science education. Such a description must not only give meaning to research and practice; it must also establish relationships with other human enterprises and other disciplines.

Although science education is a young discipline-just over 50 years old-it does exist as an area for advanced study and research at 65 US universities. Unfortunately, however, a third of the professionals at these centers are not active researchers (have published no more than one research report) and another third are primarily involved in training and development activities only. Nearly two-thirds of the science educators at major research centers view their careers as one of service through preparation of teachers for elementary and secondary schools, service in organizations and in schools, and the conduct of inservice programs for teachers.

Many teachers, supervisors, and college faculty members view themselves as science educators; however, they do not view science education as a discipline. Science education con- tent for these persons is governed by tradition, certain dogmas proclaimed as appropriate, and the personal experiences of those involved for an extended period of time in such professional pursuits. For such persons, science education is an area where the major concern is developing new skills and techniques for teaching science and/or for teaching teachers of science. Such persons are more concerned with problems of money, enrollment, teacher supply, and curriculum improvement.

Many of our current problems are associated with splits within the profession, i.e., researchers versus practioners, teachers versus supervisors/administrators, school science versus real-world science, science versus technology, tentativeness versus certahty in science, scientist versus educator, teacher trainee versus college science instructor, teacher versus learner objec- tives. The major problem in offering solutions is our failure to have a definition, a framework, and a rationale for the discipline of science education. Without such a framework, we can only respond to our problems at a trivial level. We are content with temporary solutions that merely extend current practices with the assumption that they are appropriate. For too long we have attempted to add new data to old problems; we have failed to develop new approaches within a new framework or to pose new problems.

@ 1983 by the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0022-4308/83/030261-02$01.20

26 2 YAGER

Several recent studies have suggested the appropriate setting for science education is the interdependence of science and society. Some have gone so far as to suggest that science educa- tion is the study of the interface of science and society. It is concerned with interpreting the re- sults of scientific investigations to society at large, assisting with the identification and prepara- tion of new persons for scientific pursuits, studying the use of science/technology in the daily lives for the benefit of society, interpreting the affects of society upon the advance of science, and preparing and sustaining a society that understands the importance of science and technol- ogy in daily life and for future generations.

Science education as a discipline can be compared with membrane physiology. Many bio- logists view the membrane to be among the most significant and productive substances in a study of life. Materials must enter and leave the living system and finer structures within the cell-the basic unit of life. The dynamic nature of the membrane offers important views into the nature of life itself. The interface between science and society may be no less dynamic.

What does such a view of science education do for the discipline? It gives general meaning for the research efforts. It provides a reason for academic science-practitioners involved with transmitting the information, procedures, attitudes, and thinking that is known to scientists and society at large. It provides a basis for helping the scientific community understand the general society of which it is a part and on which it is dependent. It gives meaning to the involvement of science education with the curriculum and practice of science teaching. It gives reason for the science educator to understand the changing nature of the scientific enterprise and the teaching and learning processes. It illustrates the importance of the history, philosophy, and sociology of science. It provides a scholarly context for our efforts.

Viewing science education as the discipline concerned with studying the interface of science and society, i.e., the mutual dependence of one or the other for the advancement of the human species, enables us to solve some aspects of our current crisis. There is now room for a variety of research efforts and styles; there is reason for using research findings for the advance- ment of our discipline. It raises our sights from school programs, from school age students, and from teacher education activities in the traditional sense. It provides a model for explaining our domain to the scientific community; surely our interests are much broader than providing a better “training farm” for future scientists and engineers.

To be sure, there are no easy solutions to our current problems in science education. How- ever, a most important first step is the recognition of their causes, magnitude, complexities, seriousness, and meaning. These can aJl be accomplished if our discipline is viewed in some more comprehensible manner. Does the view of science education as a discipline concerned with studying and affecting the science/society interface give us a new domain definition that can be useful during the critical years left in this century? Can such a view provide a better framework for the significant research that must be accomplished? Does it give us a unifying theme, the beginning of a rationale? Does it provide the necessary matrix for establishing mean- ing to science, education, history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and other disciplines con- cerned with the improvement of human life? Does it give us the ingredients required for “dis- cipline” status?

Manuscript accepted September 23, 1982