Introduction: Theorizing Future Research for the Science Classroom

Abstract

Why compile a book on how possible futures in science education research can or should be theorized? After so much intensive research over decades into what, how, and why students learn (or fail to learn) in school science, what remains to be speculated upon, investigated, tested, understood, and justified? We think there are many reasons why such a book is timely. They all relate to the current state of play around multiple theoretical accounts of how this learning is explained and promoted. These accounts draw variously on cognitivist, sociocultural, socio-semiotic, neuroscientific, cultural materialist, and pragmatist theories to justify reputed high-gains approaches to science learning. As noted by Tainter (2006), human efforts at problem-solving (in this case, enhancing science education) tend to generate increasingly complex explanations and solutions in the face of the partial success of past approaches.