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Beyond Constructivism

JONATHAN F. OSBORNE

Kings Colleg e University of London Cornwall

House

Waterloo Road London SE1

8WA U K ; e-rnail: J.Osborne@ kcl.ac.uk

This article offers a critique of constructivism in science education which is an at-

tempt to define and identify not only the weaknesses, but the successes of construc-

tivism. Its success has been to generate a significant body of empirical data which

has contributed to our knowledge and understanding

of

difficulties in the learning of

science. That knowledge has

also

enabled the development of some innovative

methodology for the pedagogy of science and a greater awareness of the learner.

However, as a theoretical referent, it suffers from a flawed instrumental epistemol-

ogy w hich is a misrepresentation of the views and practice of science and scientists.

Further it has confused the manner in which new knowledge is made with the man-

ner in which old knowledge is learned, assuming that the two are one and the same

thing. The result of these failings is that it offers no guidance on adjudication be-

tween theories, the organization and sequencing of content within the science cur-

riculum and rejects any value for didacticism. The failure of constructivism to

recognize its own limitations has lead to it enjoying a hegemony in the research

comm unity wh ich is undeserved. Instead, it is proposed that an alternative of modest

realism offers, not only a better representation

of

the practice

of

science, but addi-

tionally some value in determining issues of pedagogy.

1996

John Wiley Sons,

Inc.

INTRODUCTION

Constructivism in science education has its roots in a reaction against two fea-

tures dominating science curriculum reforms in the 1960s and 1970s-an episte-

mology based on naive empiricism (Harris Taylor, 1983) and a developmental

stage model of cognitive growth which was interpreted as implying deterministic

limitations to childrens capabilities. Driver and Easley (1978) initiated the reaction

to these schools of thought when they argued that achievement in science depends

to a greater extent upon specific abilities and

prior

experience than general levels

of

cognitive functioning. From here, research based on this premise developed

rapidly, as did attempts to evolve a theoretical base for the empirical findings, to

the point where the growth of publications in this field has become almost expo-

nential (Duit, 1993). Such is the dominance of this school of thought that it has

been contended that it offers a new paradigm for science education (Tobin et al.,

Science Education

80(1): 53-82 (1996)

1996

John W iley

Sons,

Inc.

CCC 0036-8326/96/010053-30

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5

OSBORNE

1994) and it has acquired implicitly the status of a meta- or grand theory

(Lyotard, 1984).

In developing its case, constructivism has focused very strongly on the re-

silience of the learners beliefs and the social construction of reality. When such

features are in focus, there are other features which are blurred and out of focus, if

not out of the picture altogether, and the consequence of the concentration on

these issues has led to serious epistemological flaws in these constructivists con-

ceptions of science, that is, the manner in which new knowledge is made.

Furthermore, to the extent that the personal and social has been given priority

over the obdurateness of the natural world, it is contended that it fails to distin-

guish between real and theoretical entities. The result is an instrumentalist episte-

mology and a misrepresentation of the nature of science through an overemphasis

of the construction of the concepts, either personally or through discourse, and a

failure to elaborate any methodology of theory adjudication. Notions of truth have

simply been replaced by the concept of viability, and the failure to examine how

one idea could be considered to be more viable than another is at heart a denial

of objectivity and the rationality of science. Additionally, constructivist pedagogy

often makes a fallacious connection between the manner in which new scientific

knowledge is created and the manner in which existing scientific knowledge is

learned.

At heart, there is a failure by constructivism to recognize its limits, that is, to

identify it strengths and its weaknesses. As a method it has had considerable suc-

cess in its critique of didacticism. Moreover, the types of alternative learning

strategies it offers, and has generated, have made an important contribution to our

understanding of the learner and learning (Solomon, 1994). The large body of em-

pirical data that has been generated by work in this research paradigm has been

seminal in improving teachers knowledge and understanding of childrens scien-

tific thinking, its origins and its development. However, as a referent (Tobin

Tippins, 1993), it suffers from flaws which will always restrict its potential and any

claims to universality.

WHY EPISTEMOLOGY MATTERS

Science earns its place on the curriculum because there is a cultural commitment

to the value of the knowledge and the practices by which this body of ideas has been

derived. Hence, any consideration of the theoretical base of science education and its

practical implementation must start by attempting to resolve the aims and intentions

of this cultural practice. A variety of useful attempts have been offered. For instance,

Ogborn (1988) has proposed that science offers the answers to five distinct questions

which are all important aspects of science education:

What do we know? (The ontological question.)

How do we know? (The epistemological question.)

Why does it happen? (The causal question.)

What we can do with our knowledge? (The technological question.)

How we can communicate these ideas? (The communicative questions.)

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BEYOND CONSTRUCTIVISM 55

From a different perspective, Hodson (1990) distinguishes three dimensions to an ed-

ucation

in

science- learning science, learning to do science, and learning about sci-

ence. Millar (1995) argues that the aims of science education are to learn something

about the body of scientific knowledge, something about the processes by which that

knowledge is generated, and something about the manner in which knowledge is

so-

cially constructed. All of these perspectives have one fundamental issue in com-

mon-that knowledge and understanding of the epistemology of science is an

essential aspect of any education in science, and any approach which neglects a con-

sideration of it is incomplete and epistemologically thin. Courses that fail to consider

how scientists come to know are running the risk of developing students who do not

acknowledge the scientists views as rational (Duschl, 1990). Some evidence of this

happening comes from the increasing prevalence of antiscientific beliefs and attitudes

accompanying the rise in post-material political values in modem youth (Inglehart,

1990).

Thus,

a central thesis of the argument presented here is that epistemology does

rnatter-because the answer to the question how we know is an important aspect

of the account of science and the evidence that we present for our ontological com-

mitments. Science without a serious consideration of this question would leave the

learner in the position portrayed by Horton in his seminal discussion of the nature of

African traditional beliefs where he concludes that:

Th e ground for accepting the m odels proposed by the scientist is often no different

from the young African villagers ground for accepting the models propounded by

one of his elders. In both cases the propounders are deferred to as the accredited

agents of tradition.

.

For all the apparent up-to-dateness

of

the content

of

his

world-view, the modem Western layman is rarely more open or scientific in his

outlook than is the traditional African villager.

Horton, 197

1 p.

262

To transcend that position, an explicit treatment of the procedural basis of Western

scientific knowledge is essential in science education. This point is also empha-

sized by Duschl 1990), who contends that to paint a complete picture of science,

a science curriculum should address not only what is known by science, but also

how science has come to arrive at such knowledge. Thus, the emphasis on declara-

tive and propositional knowledge at the expense of the procedural aspect of sci-

ence, of which the British National Curriculum is a typical example, needs to be

challenged.

Furthermore, such a view requires that teachers have some understanding of the

epistemology of science-that is, the nature of the subject that they present to

children (Koulaidis Ogborn, 1995; Shulman, 1986). While any treatment of the

nature of science is problematic, as the writings of Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, and

Lakatos show that there is no agreement that there is one methodological base to

science (Laudan et al., 1986), this does not mean it is correct to assume that it is

an irrational practice that has

no

methods. Science has a range and variety of

methods and it is important that science education generates some understanding

of how the practices of science legitimizes its knowledge claims. For, if one of the

aspirations of science education is to develop critical thinkers able to understand

and examine the myriad claims made on a scientific or pseudo-scientific basis,

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56 OSBORNE

children will need to acquire a good set of intellectual tools. One of these is an un-

derstanding of how the processes deployed by scientists to ensure their reliability

and validity of their knowledge. Thus, concepts of fair testing, the identification

and control of variables, the generation of sound hypotheses, the recognition and

measurement of sources of error, the criteria by which one theory is distinguished

from another, repetition of experimental determination, and the use of averaging

are all essential ideas that enable scientific knowledge to be distinguished from

pseudo-science.

A

science education that omits discussion of these aspects or pre-

sents a flawed epistemology, is the intellectual equivalent of giving a child a ham-

mer without the nails.

The view that an understanding of the epistemology of science is an important

component of science education is based firmly in the belief that:

Science effects styles of thinking and reasoning in society;

it

influences the accept-

able modes of rational and reasonable debate; it contributes to public intelligence by

insti lling a concern for evidence and its rational and open appraisal. For all its faults,

the scientific tradition has promoted rationality, critical thinking and objectivity. It

instil ls a concern for evidence , and for having ideas judged not by personal or social

interest, but by how the world is. Matthews,

1995,

p. 2)

Put simply, the justification of the place and time for science education on the cur-

riculum lies in the claim that the methods of science and scientists produce reliable

knowledge, that is, that its epistemology is superior to that of astrologers and even

sociologists. Thus, any account of science requires a clear and well-defined under-

standing of the nature of the knowledge claims that science makes.

CONSTRUCTIVIST EPISTEMOLOGY

What then can be said of constructivist epistemology? The two most clearly

elaborated epistemological positions of constructivism are those of the radical con-

structivist and the social constructivist, both of which will be examined. Their

ideas need to be contrasted with those of traditional epistemology, which is based

on the view that knowledge is a success term. Successful in the sense that A is able

to make a claim

p

about the world because (a) p is a true statement about the

world; (b) A believes

p;

and (c) A has a tethering reason for believing in p. In this

manner, knowledge is

to

be distinguished from opinion and the requirement for

reason as the path from evidence to knowledge is the foundation of the rationality

of science.

Radical constructivism is a deliberate and public attempt to move away from such

an epistemological base. For instance, Glaserfeld (1993)argues that radical construc-

tivism is postepistemological and an attempt to cut loose from the philosophical tra-

dition that knowledge has to be a representation of reality. Instead, truth is replaced

by the notion of viability. Rightly, Glaserfeld recognizes that this is a stark step.

Essentially for him, knowledge is always the result of a constructive activity, and

therefore cannot be transferred to a passive receiver. Thus knowledge exists only in

the mind of cognizing beings, where it is construed, and is not to be found, for in-

stance, in books, texts, or other traditional repositories of human knowledge which

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57

simply represent symbols open to a range of interpretation. Hence there is no knowl-

edge without a knower.

This is not to say that radical constructivist are solipsists. For, as Tobin argues:

Constructivism is a set of beliefs about knowledge that begins with the assumption

that reality exists but cannot be known as a set of truths. Tobin et al., 1994,p. 47)

At the heart of many radical constructivist writings seems to be a desire to escape no-

tions of absolute truth, which are accurate or even partial representations of the real

world. For instance, Tobin suggests that:

We construct a model of gravity that is viable in that the model fits experience, but

no matter how elegant, that model cannot claim to

be an

absolute truth. Tobin

Tippins,

1993,

p.

2)

Furthermore, he continues that we cannot tell whether our model for gravity gets

closer to an absolute reality. Instead these authors epistemology requires only that

knowledge is viable because of its coherence with other understandings and it fits

with experience. Thus truth becomes an act of faith, and knowledge has pragmatic

validity in that truth is what works. The only requirements should be that it fits with

experience and is coherent and subject to empirical verification both personally and

in the wider society.

There are a number of epistemological problems with this position. First, it at-

taches itself to the bivalence principle, knowledge is either true or false, and since

we can never know absolute truth, all knowledge is only subjective, provisional

and uncertain. For the radical constructivist, there is no halfway house, no asymp-

totic approach to any zenith of human understanding and no admission that what

we know improves and increases. Thus the unattainable best is used to drive out

the attainable better (Ogborn, 1994), and instead, we are simply abandoned on the

ocean of experience condemned to search for knowledge that is viable. Better

ideas may be developed in the sense that they are more viable, and fit with expe-

rience, but we are not necessarily nearer an objective representation of the physical

world.

The position of the radical constructivist is essentially that of the instrumentalist.

Like the latter, theories are merely portrayed as convenient devices for describing

phenomena and connecting one set of events with another. They are best understood

as useful fictions which bear no necessary relationship with reality and one idea is

only considered better than another only if it is a more useful calculating and predic-

tive device. Such a position is most aptly summarized by Osianders comment in the

17th century on the theories of Copernicus:

For

these hypotheses need not be true or even probable; if they provide a calculus

consistent with the observations that alone is sufficient. Rosen, 1962,p. 125)

However, the problem for the instrumentalist is that these theoretical fictions have an

unfortunate habit of predicting objects, which due to the advances in technology and

instrumentation can increasingly be seen or sensed. Thus, KekulCs benzene ring

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58 OSBORNE

structures are revealed by the electron microscope, Maxwells dynamical field struc-

tures are made tangible by Hertz, Einsteins predictions of the stimulated emission of

radiation lead to the development of a technological artifact which is a daily, com-

monplace occurrence.

The constructivist position is essentially similar to that of philosophers like Rorty

1989),

an influential postmodernist, who argues that reality is indifferent to our de-

scriptions of it and sees language not merely as a tool for expression and representa-

tion but the means by which the human self is created. For Rorty, arguments about

truth and realism are irrelevant as there is no metaphysical position which transcends

the limitation of our own vocabulary and would allow us to adjudicate between com-

peting knowledge claims. Therefore, the interesting question becomes not How do

you know? but Why do you talk that way? Rorty is correct in stating that reality is

indifferent to our description of it and there are often multiple interpretations for the

same event

or

observation, but in science, our language is

bound by

reality. For sci-

ence does have a well established methodology and acts of reference for deciding be-

tween competing theoretical descriptions and rejecting those which are clearly

fallible, incomplete, or simply false. Furthermore, the content of the scientific knowl-

edge that forms the substance of science education is not some transient, uncertain

representation, where one theory is replaced by another that is incommensurable, for:

If scien ce is all that ephem eral, if Newtons second law must be classed as a tempo-

rary codex, it is somewhat surprising that science has been as useful as it has in hu-

man understanding. Weinberg, 1968, p. 74)

But how is the child to judge that the scientists description is more viable? How is

the child to know that there are entities for which we have well-established argu-

ments for their existence and reliable theories that have superior explanatory power

than those of common-sense reasoning? Constructivism singularly fails to elaborate

any mechanism by which one theory can be considered more viable than another.

Glaserfeld (1991) asks merely that we try to develop a theory which offers a rela-

tively coherent explanation and that such theories are tested in the experiential

world where they either do or do not do what they are claimed to do. The problem

is that many theories, including Ptolemaic astronomy, would meet such criteria.

Tobin, at least, implicitly (see previous quotation) recognizes that some theories are

more elegant than others but fails to elaborate any criteria by which such judg-

ments could, or should, be made. In defending the notion of viability, he argues:

.

that knowledge must be viable not on ly personally, but also in the social con-

texts in which actions do occur. Viability is therefore determined with respect to

those actions which facilitate the attainment

of

goals in the social contexts

of

action.

Tobin Tippins,

1993,

p.

3)

However, all this argument does is extend the notion that ideas must be personally

viable to the idea that they must be viable within a social context. Yet again, it fails to

elaborate any criteria that determine the concept of viability.

A

full consideration of how we adjudicate between theories would require an ac-

knowledgment that our language and our ideas are constrained by reality, to real re-

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59

ferents that do exist, and thus, while there may be no ultimate check that any con-

struction is right, there are checks that one construction is better than another. The

failure to recognize this important practice of science leads implicitly toward a rela-

tivist ontology where viability is equated with validity so that any viable theory is

considered worthy of consideration.

Consequently, a fundamental epistemic problem for constructivism is a failure to

consider the issue of theory adjudication and articulate a mechanism to establish how

one theory may be considered to be better than another. Science becomes a set of

meanings and concepts which evolve from socially negotiated understandings and

not from a process of examining whether such inventions are supported when tested

against the real world. Thus, the childs common conception that the sun moves

round the earth clearly satisfies the radical constructivists epistemological criteria

that it is both viable and fits with experience. Moreover, such understanding may be a

socially negotiated product of the classroom or playground but on what basis is it to

be found wanting? For the scientist, theories are successful because they offer a

range of explanation, non- ad hocness, consistency with empirical evidence, and log-

ical consistency which gives them explanatory force that inductive generalizations

lack (Samarapungvan,

1992).

Theories that offer parsimony and that accrue the epis-

temological status acquired by earlier theories are also preferred. The point here is

not to elaborate all the criteria by which theories are judged but simply to show that

such explicit criteria

do exist

and are deployed by scientists in making judgments

about their knowledge claims.

Such authors seem unaware of the interest and debate in the philosophy of science

which has given much prominence to the criteria for theory selection and the impor-

tance of this issue to the epistemology of science (Giere,

1984;

Laudan et al.,

1986).

In part, the failure to explicate the methods and criteria of science may be because of

the attack from the sociologists of science who argue that:

the conviction that a body of practices widely regarded by outsiders as well or-

ganised , logical and coherent, in fact consists of a disordered array of observations

with which scientist struggle to produce order. Latour Woolgar, 1986, p. 36)

Thus, scientific activity is not about nature, but is a fierce fight to construct reality,

and consequently:

science is a form of fiction

or

discourse like any other, one effect of which is

the truth effect, which like all literary effects ) arises from textual characteristics,

such as the tense o f verbs, the structure of enunciation, modalities and

so

on. Latour

Woolgar, 1986, p. 184

Clearly, the view projected here is that science is a cultural product, distinguishable

only by its form and not its methods. These interpretations of science (Collins,

1985;

Latour,

1985;

Pickering,

1984)

would deny that scientists deploy a set of criteria in a

rational and consistent manner to evaluate their ideas. In essence, their argument is

that the claims of science to follow explicit prespecified procedural rules, to possess

explicit criteria for correctly recognizing cases, to have complete justifications at

each step, and to have clear predetermined goals are simply not tenable. Anything

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more than a superficial examination of scientific practices shows that all of these fea-

tures are never present, thus the knowledge claims associated with science lack the

rationality and the truth they seek to assert. Science thus creates the illusion of cer-

tainty.

However, a closer examination of their argument shows that it lacks credibility.

Scientists clearly do

h ve

criteria for judging specific evidence for and against any

given theoretical position. The fact that all criteria are not always applied or used in a

consistent manner is not a justification for questioning the whole edifice of science.

Such an action is rather like a composer discarding a whole symphony because of a

few bad notes. Scientific thinking is a social construct and scientists do work in com-

munities of practice with established norms. Radical ideas are never easily accepted

and occasionally can result in a collapse of the moral order that constitutes the prac-

tice of science. But the lack of consistency in the application of rules to its epistemic

practices does not mean that the scientists epistemology lacks any rules. There are

clear rational arguments why general relativity is a better description of nature than

Newtons cosmos or why Mendelian genetics is to be preferred as an explanation of

inherited characteristics compared to Lamarkian theory. Unfortunately, constructivist

epistemology fails to acknowledge these claims and, in

so

doing, undermines the

very core of what makes scientific knowledge different from other forms of knowl-

edge. For, if the epistemology it argues for is a fallacious representation of science, a

form of discourse like any other, why should the knowledge and products of scien-

tific discourse be given any authority? Science leaves itself with no defense against

the argument that it is a self-sustained delusion vehemently mounted by the historian

Bernard in Stoppards play Arcadia:

A great philosopher is an urgent need. Theres no rush for Isaac N ewton. We were

quite happy with Aristotles cosmos. Personally, I preferred it. Fifty-five crystal

spheres geared to Gods crankshaft is my idea of satisfying universe.

I

cant think o f

anything more trivial than the speed

of

light. Quarks, quasars-big bangs, black

holes-who give s a damn? How did you people con

us

out of all that status? All that

money? And why are you

so

pleased with yourselves? Stoppard, 1993)

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

The social constructivist perspective portrays science education as a process of en-

culturation in which the aspirant members of a culture learn from their tutors and

that novices are introduced to a community of knowledge through discourse in the

context of relevant task (Driver et al.,

1994).

What might be termed the strong form

of this position argues that learning is a form of cultural apprenticeship and that cog-

nition is situated in specific contexts (Lave, 1988; Brown et al. 1989); that is, that

learning cannot be separated from the context of learning. Now in that learning to be

a scientist, or to understand what a scientist does, is a process of cognitive appren-

ticeship there is no quarrel. If as Harrk (1986) argues, science represents the epit-

omy of rational cooperation set within a strict moral order this is best appreciated

from working within the discipline or a context that replicates it as near as possible.

That schools often fail to do this is accepted and the consequence is, as Brown et al.

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BEYOND CONSTRUCTIVISM 61

(1989) argue, that science education has become a set of ersatz activities which are

not those of scientists. What is missing from their account is any understanding of the

rules and practices that guide the scientific community. They present an opaque epis-

temology where knowledge indexes the situation in which it arises and is used

which becomes coded by and connected to the activity and environment in which it is

developed. Epistemological considerations of how it is coded or connected to the

activity are never discussed.

Driver et al. (1994a) do at least define what they see as the core ontological com-

mitments associated with the practice of science. For them:

scientific knowledge is sym bolic in nature and socially negotiated. Th e objects

of science are not the phenomena of nature but constructs that are advanced by the

scientific community to interpret nature. Driver et al., 1994a, p. 5

Thus, the things of science are no longer entities that populate a real world but the

inventions of a scientific discourse which are imposed on the phenomena. Hence it

is not nature which limits the scientific imagination but simply human capabilities

and their cultural and conceptual tools which reflect the cumulative wisdom of the

culture. Basically the confusion that occurs here is to conflate ideas and objects, that

is, to fail to discriminate between the objects of the discourse with the statements of

the discourse. The two are not the same, one exists and can be experienced, often

with the aid of instrumentation, the other is a socially negotiated construct.

The result is that the social constructivist would portray the world as being full of

peculiar symbolic entities such as atoms, electrons, ions, fields, genes, and chromo-

somes. These are organized by such ideas as evolution or the nuclear model of the

atom, but essentially there is nothing special about the truth of science. Science is

compared to learning a foreign language so that

If some foreign languages are more difficult for you to learn than others, that is

mainly because they are less like the language you already know,

or

the experiences

they represent are less familiar. Science has its own distinctive genres, its thematic

formations, its practical skills. In their forms they are no mo re intellectually complex

or difficult than those of any other subject. They

are

less familiar, less like what we

already used to. Lemke, 1990, p. 139)

Lemke extends this position further to argue that every statement of fact is a state-

ment that is useful for some purposes to act as if something were true. Theories and

hypotheses are just that, statements useful for some purposes. Once again, this is

the instrumentalist vision of science, and again the mistake made here is not the rep-

resentation of science as a human product which is socially constructed, but to con-

fuse the manner in which knowledge is made with the objects of knowledge

themselves. They are not one and the same thing. Lemkes argument would appear to

be that learning science is no different from the problems faced in learning English or

history, and is distinguishable only by the form and content of the discourse and not

by the manner in which that knowledge is produced. Thus, learning science is simply

a matter of learning to talk the right language. Furthermore, the hallmark that distin-

guishes these two forms of knowledge is not what they describe, but how they

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62 OSBORNE

describe the world. Essentially for the social constructivist, scientific theory does not

describe the world, but on the contrary, constitutes it.

Close examination of some of the sample scripts offered by Driver et al. (1994a) as

exemplars of the construction

of

scientific knowledge shows the nature of this prob-

lem. The authors use these to argue that they illustrate the discursive nature of scien-

tific knowledge from which children have to make personal sense. The teacher is

presented as a guide mediating and negotiating between the childrens everyday

world and that of science. Yet never once within the several dialogues does the

teacher address important epistemological issues and ask of the student How do you

know?; How would you justify that view?;

or

Why do you believe you are

right? That is, the issue of evidence and the act of reference are omitted, and in-

stead, the function of the teacher is to negotiate with, and persuade the student

toward a scientific way of seeing through discourse. Yet

in

what way is such practice

to be distinguished epistemically from Hortons African child who is imbued with his

forms of thought through the oral culture of his tribe?

For the realist, even the modest realist, such a position is unacceptable.

Scientists act on the world, they intervene, manipulate, and measure. Their lan-

guage and discourse acts are limited, not by their imaginations or cultural condi-

tioning, but by the evidence they gather from such actions on the world. For we

may think what we like, but we cannot do what we like. Thus, nature always cons-

trains our discourse:

The world contains natural substances with peculiar properties. These

obey

laws

which fix the infinite) range

of

possible ways in which the natural substances be-

have in given circumstances. Some of the possible ways in which these substances

behave are revealed in the quite contingent course of the actual history

of

the world

without any.human intervention. Other possible ways are revealed when humans in-

tervene contingently in natural processes, for examp le, in the laboratory. Th e human

intervention

is

such that, with the growth of theory constructed by hum ans), we are

able to manu facture, in the laboratory, new m aterials that would not have emerged in

the history of the world without hum an intervention. We might say that natures sub-

stances have underlying dispositions, or powers, some of which will be exhibited

while others may not be triggered at all. This is a quite traditional metaphysi-

cal picture which I think accommodates much of what constructivists wish to say

about science without indulging in radical worldmaking. Nola, 1995 a)

The social constructivist stands in sharp contrast to this position. For instance

Latours third rule of method (Latour, 1985) argues that since the settlement of a

controversy is the cause of Natures representation, not the consequence, we can

never use the outcome-Nature-to explain how and why a controversy has been

settled (Latour, 1985). Thus, science is portrayed as a way of world-making rather

than being made by the world.

Ultimately, the social constructivist who sees knowledge as primarily fashioned

and made by human discourse has no defense to the contention that science is an irra-

tional enterprise where persuasion and force of argument are the main criteria by

which theories are to be judged. The realists defense of such accusations lies in the

fact that their discourse acts refer and their veracity can be checked by careful repli-

cation of the knowledge claims.

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63

CONSTRUCTIVIST PEDAGOGY

How is constructivist theory applied to the process of teaching and learning?

Tobin and Tippins (1993) make a useful distinction when they ask whether con-

structivism is a method or a referent.

A s

a method, its value is for the production of

effective pedagogic practices; as a referent, it offers a general and wide-ranging

theory of learning. Tobin and Tippins see the former as a devaluation of the power

of constructivism. However, it is perhaps as a method that constructivism has had

the most value in education. The strong message of this body of research has been

to expose the difficulty large numbers of children experience in internalizing the

explanatory models of science and applying them correctly. Such data has in-

evitably raised the dilemma of how to respond to this research evidence. The con-

structivist response has been twofold. First, there has been an attack on the notion

that children are atheoretical (Carey, 1985) and the notion that teaching is a process

of filling empty minds or tabula rasa (Driver, 1989; Driver Oldham, 1985;

Gilbert et al., 1982; Hewson, 1981). Solomon (1994) has identified the greatest

success of constructivism when she argues that redescribing a network of related

things by a new vocabulary creates a pattern of language which itself constituted a

new theory. The shift in describing pupil errors from mistakes, of no theoretical

interest, to misconceptions, or more often alternative frameworks, changed the

commonplace and unremarkable to something significant. Much of the initial ap-

peal of this research lies in the way its findings give significance to the everyday

experience of the teacher. Therefore, constructivism has encouraged teachers and

curriculum developers to alter their perceptions of children from individuals who

are irrational and unknowing to cognizant beings who have well-developed theo-

ries. Formal elicitation of this knowledge as proposed by Driver and Oldham

(1985) now becomes important for two purposes-to encourage the child to clarify

and articulate their own understanding; and as a process of formative assessment

by the teacher to ascertain the teaching and learning needs of their students.

Teaching becomes a process where understanding and knowledge are no longer

transmitted but negotiated (Sainsbury, 1992) through a process of cognitive appren-

ticeship (Brown et al., 1989).

Constructivists then rightly turned their attention to the learner arguing cor-

rectly that he or she is responsible for their own learning (Osborne Wittrock,

1985; Novak Gowin, 1984; Pope, 1985; White, 1988). Here, after all, in the

learners mind, was where new meanings had to be formulated and understood.

This could only be achieved if he or she was an active participant in the learning

process. Hence, their pedagogy has concerned itself with a program of activities

from which knowledge can be generated or acquired. These tasks focus on the in-

dividual subject asking them to articulate and use their reasoning in a set of struc-

tured exercises often making use of groups. Many of the earlier schemes made

good use of group discussion and poster-making for such purposes (Nussbaum

Novak, 1981; Cosgrove et al., 1984;

CLIS

Project, 1987) and such processes en-

able the social construction of meaning which is an essential aspect of science ed-

ucation. Further work by many researchers in the field has led to the production of

a wide range of structured techniques that require the active participation of the

student, and one recent book (Baird Northfield, 1992) gives details of more

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64 OSBORNE

than 80 such techniques. Notable among these structured strategies are predict-

observe-explain sequences (White, 1988; White Gunstone, 1992); discussion

of instances of physical phenomena (White Gunstone, 1992); concept mapping

(Novak Gowin, 1984); word association (Shavelson, 1974); and active reading

techniques commonly called DARTS (directed activities related to text) (Davies

Greene, 1984). However, it should be noted that neither of the latter two strategies

were the product of an explicitly constructivist approach to pedagogy, and cur-

rently, there is only limited research evidence for the value of any of these ap-

proaches. One notable exception is Hortons (1992) recent meta-analysis of 18

studies of concept mapping that met strict criteria of well-defined experimental

models with controls for which he found 16 that produced positive learning gains

for the experimental groups. For the sake of establishing their case, more empiri-

cal studies of this nature are essential to justify the value of constructivist ap-

proaches to teaching and learning.

Moreover, the other great contribution of empirical research conducted from this

paradigm has been the provision of a very broad and detailed knowledge of chil-

drens thinking and the problems that they encounter with scientific ideas.

Making

Sense

of

Secondary Science

by Driver et al. (1994b), is an excellent summary of

work that has provided useful insights into the common-sense origins of childrens

thinking and the stages of its development within a domain which have guided both

curriculum developers and teachers.

For Tobin, however, the appeal of constructivism is not as a method, nor in the em-

pirical research findings, but its wider potential as a referent:

To be a viable theory of knowing, constructivism m ust have explanatory power in all

situations in which knowledge is constructed.

.

Thus constructivism can be used

as a referent to analyse the learning potential of any situation. Tobin et al., 1994,

P

47)

Such claims are tinged with the view that constructivism is a grand theory, applic-

able to all instances and not simply a view of learning that has partial value.

However, as a referent, the limitations of constructivism are indicated by a num-

ber of omissions. First, there is the failure to use the theory, as opposed to the em-

pirical research findings, to predict or discuss what it might imply for the content

and process of science education, and to derive any detailed propositions which

could in principle be empirically tested. For instance, the term metacognition is

used to describe the thinking generated by active learning. Yet the lack of any the-

oretical treatment that adequately describes such activity inevitably leads to more

unanswered questions. Are all pupils capable of metacognitive activity or just

some?

Is

there a critical age below which children cannot be metacognitive?

Is

all

such activity beneficial? Most published work on the topic (White Mitchell,

1994; Gunstone, 1991) very much takes the pragmatic view that metacognition is

inherently a good thing and fails to make Browns (1987) important distinction

between knowledge of cognition and the regulation of cognition, or to note

her point that most workers in the field have found little evidence of the former

before adolescence. So, while the interest in metacognition and the notion that the

pupil should be active is laudable, such omissions make it questionable whether

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65

constructivist theory is sufficiently comprehensive to be adopted as a universal

referent.

Second, the question of content inevitably re-emerges. The question that needs

to be asked is: Metacognitive about what? To the teacher and the curriculum de-

veloper such decisions are the bread and butter of their daily lives as they attempt

to order content to form a coherent introduction to science, and to select material

which stimulates but is not overdemanding. As a referent, constructivist accounts

of science education have nothing to say other than the familiar Ausubelian re-

frain. The problem of the determination of content is compounded by the fact that

the theoretical base in Ausubelian psychology and that of Kelly 1955) has never

been developed into a model which would enable predictions to be made of what

material will or will not be accessible to learners. The much quoted statement of

Ausubel

1968)

on the significance of educational psychology is essentially noth-

ing more than a statement of good common sense, and the success of construc-

tivism has come from reminding teachers that children do have ideas and theories

and that their thinking is the foundation on which new meanings must be formu-

lated.

A more serious criticism of the constructivist theory is that it provides no well-

defined mechanism by which the individual can develop new constructs with which

to see the world. From whence come the ideas with which the individual is to inter-

pret their sensory perceptions? Where, for instance, is the role of analogy and

metaphor which are the vehicles for extending our thinking and ideas and reorganiz-

ing our internal symbolic representations? For example, to observe Brownian motion

in a smoke cell, a student has to be provided by a teacher with a construct that will

enable them to make sense of their perceptions prior to observation. This can only be

done through the use of a taught analogy or comparison. Without this, the common

experience is that the students attention is needlessly focused on other elements in

the microscope. Moreover, reformulation of sensation will only occur by reflection

and reorganization of the representations, something which Cosgrove et al. acknowl-

edge when they state:

We are increasingly aware that conceptual change takes tim e and that it is important

that counterintuitive ideas are considered at regular intervals over a period

of

time.

Cosgrove et al., 1984,p. 254)

What is omitted from the constructivist writings in science education is comprehen-

sive account of those processes which would help the individual to generate new

ideas and concepts, for reinterpreting experience, and transcending common-sense

reasoning. Intervention studies have predominantly focused on conceptual conflict

(Cosgrove et al., 1984; Gunstone White, 1981; Hewson Hewson, 1984; Stavy

Berkovitz,

1980;

Thorley Treagust,

1986)

which have shown has only limited ef-

fectiveness (Cosgrove et al., 1984; Rowel1 Dawson, 1983). In addition, school

practical apparatus is notoriously unreliable as a method of providing direct experi-

ence of phenomena and is not a good vehicle for developing theory (Osborne, 1990;

Woolnough Allsop,

1986).

Driver herself does in fact come near to confronting

this very issue when she states:

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66 OSBORNE

The theoreticalmodels and scientific

conventions

will not be

discovered

by chil-

dren through their practical work. They need to

be

presented.

Guidance is

then

needed to help children assimilate their practical experiences into what is possibly

a

new way

of

thinking about them. (Driver, 1983,p. 9)

But, in her later seminal study on a constructivist view toward curriculum develop-

ment (Driver Oldham, 1985), this matter is avoided as we are told that we can

specify the experiences which students should be exposed to but are given no prin-

ciples on which to make such judgments other than knowing where students are

starting from and a reliance on the teachers intuitive knowledge of classroom reali-

ties. The curriculum process itself contains an evaluation phase where pupils test a

range of ideas including the scientific one if they have suggested it. But what if

they have not? (On this issue the authors remain silent.) In a more recent position pa-

per from the Leeds constructivists (Driver et al., 1994a), only once in all the exem-

plars used to illustrate their conception of the process of learning does the teacher

assert some scientific knowledge and, even then, without justification. Therefore,

constructivists, and science educators in general, must recognize that there is a role

for telling, showing, and seeing as methods which enable the construction of new

knowledge.

Faced with the theoretical problem of the determining content, one can only con-

clude that constructivism has eschewed the issue. Instead, workers in the field have

resorted to an individualistic approach, arguing that opportunities must be provided

for the learner to externalize their understanding and this must then be challenged

by

critical incidents which generate conceptual conflict (Driver Oldham, 1985), in

such a manner that the new ideas are plausible, intelligible and fruitful (Hewson

Hewson, 1984). -While such strategies are a valuable contribution to the teachers

repertoire, they are not a complete account of the teaching process.

For instance, as a comprehensive referent, any perspective requires a considera-

tion of whether the student has the cognitive tools to undertake the manipulation of

symbols and whether there is age-related development in such facilities. For some

science educators (Adey Shayer, 1994; Shayer Adey,

1981),

sequencing of

content is possibly the most important issue. However, the instrumental epistemol-

ogy of the radical or social constructivist fails to recognize any distinctions in the

complexity and difficulty of theoretical descriptions of real objects, or that some of

the idealizations of science describe concepts which are

not

accessible to sensa-

tion or experience, for example, energy, but have to be formulated through a

process of reflective abstraction. While the notion that knowledge is personally

constructed is at one level a trivial truism, the operational processes required for

the construction of knowledge are complex, poorly understood, and nontrivial. The

whole issue of conceptual complexity and whether there are developmental limita-

tions on childrens capacity to undertake such reasoning is an issue that a construc-

tivist theory ignores.

Finally, constructivist theory suffers from another confusion that questions its va-

lidity as a referent. The metaphor consistently underpinning constructivism is that of

knowledge as made, produced, generated by the individual (e.g., making sense).

For instance, Glaserfeld (1987) argues that

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BEYOND CONSTRUCTIVISM 67

The cognitive organism tries to make sense of experience in order to better avoid

clashing with the worlds constrain ts. Basica lly to have learned means to

have drawn conclusions from experience and act accordingly. Glaserfeld, 1987,

p. 8)

Yet the emphasis on experience as the manner in which the individual learns is

strongly associated with a second metaphor of knowledge as found, lying around

out there to be discovered by the curious. The first metaphor is what the individual

has to do to learn and acquire new knowledge. Any individual when confronted

with a new phenomenon has to construct and internalize a meaningful representa-

tion for themselves-in such a manner is knowledge made by the individual.

The latter metaphor, which is ironically that of inductivism, is one perception of

how new scientific knowledge is produced but is rarely the manner in which old

knowledge is learned in the classroom. The lack of clarity and precision has re-

sulted in a mixing of metaphors and the running together of two quite distinct

matters-the nature of scientific knowledge and the nature of learning (Ogborn,

1994). A s

Ogborn points out, there is no necessary connection between the episte-

mology of science and the methods by which it is learned, for it is like arguing

that the way to learn poetry is by writing poetry, a relationship which at best may

have only partial justification. This point has also been made by Hodson

1988),

Margetson

1982),

and others.

However, Dana and Davis

1993)

maintain a different view, arguing that the tradi-

tional objective view of knowledge leads to the belief that the process of teaching is

one of telling and the process of learning one of memorization and recall. Now while

this may be a true account of what has happened, and still happens in many societies,

it is not a necessary or logical connection.

As

one author has pointed out:

From the definition of objectivism as the search for truth, nothing follows about

learning discovered truths as the m ere passive absorption of facts and their regurgita-

tion. . It is quite possible to m aintain objectivism, . and reject the view that

the teaching or learning of already discovered truths has to be conducted in such a

crudely didactic manner. Nola, 199 5b, p. 4)

Thus, the nature of science has no necessary bearing on the nature of teaching and

learning science, for the former is a philosophical issue to do with the nature of sci-

ence while the latter is an educational issue to do with the best way of educating non-

scientists about science.

Moreover, just as traditional, objective teachers have often failed to recognize the

need to structure learning so that it is active, the advocates of constructivist methods

of teaching have failed to recognize that there is a role for telling, showing and

demonstrating. Teachers, we are told, should negotiate, facilitate, coconstruct,

mediate, socialize, provide experiences, introduce, and make the cultural

tools of science available, but never ever will they tell. Clearly what is needed here

is the intellectual recognition that the commitment to a particular view of science

says nothing about the manner in which it is taught. Just as it is fallacious to infer

that objectivism implies didacticism, it is false to assume that a belief in construc-

tivism implies that all knowledge must be negotiated. The rejection of the role of

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8 OSBORNE

telling in pedagogy only confirms the suspicion that constructivists have difficulty

with the notion of objective knowledge-and that what each student constructs

needs only to make sense or be viable. That is, it is the act of constructing that is

important and not the product of construction for constraints on what constitutes sci-

entific knowledge are not recognized.

Some evidence for the role and value of direct instruction can be found in the work

of Muthukrishna et

al. (1993). They point to the fact that, in a number of studies that

address alternative frameworks directly, the success rate in changing childrens

ideas, which ranges from 28 to

69 ,

s limited, and argue that their research, using

an approach based on explicit instruction with a laser videodisc, which eliminated

over 90 of common alternative frameworks shows that the common hypothesis

that meaningful learning cannot result from explicit instruction may possibly be an

overstatement. While their work can be criticized on the basis that the domain of

earth sciences, in which this study took place, has little possibility of generating

many strongly held intuitive ideas, it does show that not all science education re-

quires a singular approach.

In short, it would appear that there are significant problems for a paradigm which

seeks to be a referent for pedagogic practice. By emphasizing its successes and con-

veniently ignoring its weaknesses, constructivism has acquired the umbrella of an all-

embracing theory, when it is at its best, a partial contribution to science education.

This is not to argue that the process of education should be one

of

transmission, but

simply that it must enable children to acquire and understand the powerful constructs

and ideas of modem science and that any comprehensive theory of science education

should address the issues of content, concepts, sequencing, cognitive demand, and

the adjudication of competing theories.

What constructivism does have to offer is a useful focus on the learner as an active

participant in the learning process, a range of pedagogic practices which encourage

the child to be active, and a body of empirical research findings which are invaluable

for sensitizing teachers to the forms of scientific thought that children hold and their

possible stages of development. The latter is particularly important, for if teachers are

to change childrens understandings, it is important to be receptive to, and aware of,

the manner and origins of childrens thought. Put simply, to teach a child about sci-

ence, not only does it help to know something about science, it helps to know some-

thing about the child. Research conducted from a constructivist paradigm in the past

decade has made a major contribution to the latter.

WHAT DO

SCIENTISTS DO?

The position taken here is that science education should attempt to communicate

not only the practice of science, but also the beliefs that are widely held in the scien-

tific community, and one of the basic tenets is that scientific knowledge is different

Scientists establish their knowledge claims through a program of experimentation,

verification, and peer review

so

that there exists a consensus which becomes their

touchstone of reliability. Therefore, the position of constructivist authors does not

represent the stance of most scientists whose views are more akin to that of Ziman

who argues that:

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69

The objectivity of a well established science is thus comparable to that of a well-

made map drawn

by

a great company of surveyors who have worked

over

the same

ground

along many different routes. (Ziman,1979,p. 108)

And just as the child derives his or her well-founded confidence in the reality of

everyday things from the sensorimotor bodily experience of childhood, by acting and

intervening on the world,

so

does the scientist gain their confidence in the reality of

scientific entities which are initially theoretical speculations.

As

cells are regularly

manipulated under the microscope, or particles produced and detected in accelerators

and bubble chambers, our belief in the reality of these entities and our knowledge of

them grows.

However, scientists thoughts and ideas

are

constrained by the way the world

chooses to behave so that the methodological component of scientific epistemology

is one in which maps are created to store and represent scientific information, Such

maps are constructed by people who have worked over the same ground using many

different routes. Scientists confidence in the objectivity of their descriptions is

founded on the consensus of practice and ideas that emerges as the fruits of their

work and actions on the world. It is this link which distinguishes science from other

forms of knowledge. This is not to argue that science offers a moral exemplar to

other disciplines, but simply to state that it provides knowledge of an objective and

real world. Such knowledge is incomplete, curtailed, and limited but it grows through

the creative efforts of individuals who continually strive to formulate new hypotheses

about its nature and test these ideas experimentally. The ideas and theoretical entities

they derive are initially human constructions, often the product of a contingent cul-

tural event in history and extremely tentative. Through experimentation, knowledge

of the adequacy and detail of these maps emerges, not always as in the case of

wave-particle duality, but often, as in the case of the electron, the AIDS virus, etc.

Just as the cartographers maps do not correspond with the terrain itself,

so

are the

scientists maps separate and distinct from the real entities that they describe.

However, in the same way that the former describe real features of the ground such

as its elevation, land use, and vegetation,

so

do the maps of the scientist describe real

features of the physical world. And just as the cartographer constructs new represen-

tations that more closely approximate to the physical terrain,

so

does the scientists

increasingly detailed descriptions give us a better knowledge of extant phenomena.

REALISM

REVISITED

The practice of science, outlined above, concurs both with the predominant beliefs

of individual scientists and an epistemology of modest realism. Furthermore, such a

view does have pedagogic implications. The case for realism developed here is based

on the arguments advanced by Harrk

(1986)

in

Varieties of Realism.

Harrk sensibly

recognizes that maximal realism, the position of any individual who believes that

theoretical statements are true or false by virtue of the way the world is, is far too

strong and easily vulnerable to attack. Ptolemaic astronomy and continental drift are

just two of many examples which demonstrate that there can be no place in science

for a sure catalog of facts of the matter fixed by the way the world is (Hads

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70 OSBORNE

emphasis). Instead, basing his approach on material practice, that is, what scientists

do and say, he recognizes that neither the slogan reference determines sense, or

sense determines reference, which contrast the role of ideas and sensation, will do

as a basis for a theory of meaning. His important contribution is to recognize that:

Sense determines the possibility of reference-that is, it directs a programm e of re-

search- while reference, when achieved, brings about refinement of the sense.

There is, over time, a dynamic, dialectic interaction between these two aspects

of

meaning.

Harr6, 1986,p.

33)

This position shifts the locus of the argument about realism from the truth or falsity

of statements to the question of the existence or nonexistence of the entities dis-

cussed by science. Scientists are not asking Are statements of this theory true or

false? and doing their best to answer but instead ask the question

Do

things, prop-

erties, processes of this sort exist? and do their best within human limitations to find

exemplars. This realist position is epistemically modest and does not make incorri-

gible existential claims about reality. Rather it bases its knowledge claims on the

fact that it is possible to secure reference to a referent, what

Harr6

terms referential

realism.

To

establish the latter, Harr6 bases his argument on Gibsons theory of per-

ception (Gibson,

1979 ,

which sees the object and the observer as part of an ambient

array or energy flux, shaped by both the presence of the perceiver and the perceived.

This array or flux provides information which is specific to the object, and it is the

structures within the array caused by the object, what Ham6 terms the higher order

invariants, that the organism perceives with its perceptual system. Such sensations

are coarse-grained, but acceptance of a Gibsonian theory of perception explains how

it is possible to perceive something generic-a thing, an event

or

a spatial relation.

Only then does the cognitive operation enter into the process to interpret and define

the information afforded by the object in the ambient array. If necessary, the organ-

ism will use additional sensory organs to establish the nature of the higher order in-

variants through an interactive process of exploration and feedback.

The important point about the Gibsonian theory of perception is that it avoids the

trap of making representations prior to sensations. For if categories and concepts are

to be determined a priori-from what are they to be constructed? A Gibsonian ver-

sion of perception shifts the point at which cognitive influences enter the act of per-

ception to

after

rather than

before

a subtle but significant distinction which avoids

the commitment to the transcendental necessity of categories a priori. Thus, a

Gibsonian theory of perception is similarly modest. What is says is that things ex-

ist e can perceive them and they are ontologically stable, but our description and

beliefs about them can be revised.

In arguing for a referential realism, Harr6 states that our interaction with, and sen-

sory

feedback from macroscopic objects allows us to know what the attributes of

such entities are. Their ontological status is not in question but the notion that we ul-

timately can know the truth about such objects is sensibly dismissed as a fruitless

search. All that it attempts to show is that the objects of scientific investigation are

relatively stable as opposed to the cluster of beliefs that we may hold about it.

Consequently, what Lister observes as loose cells in an infected wound and Pasteur

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BEYOND

CONSTRUCTIVISM

71

describes as external agents of infection exist and can be referred to through mate-

rial practice. Referential relations and our descriptive vocabulary can be revised but

the basic ontological sketch is not in question. For instance, the heart and the circula-

tory system existed before Harvey first described them in 1628.

Having established this carefully constructed epistemic position based on suc-

cessful and unsuccessful acts of reference in which a real physical relation is estab-

lished between the perceiver and an exemplary thing, HarrCs next significant step

is to argue that there are three types of entities that we experience in the world

which require not a singular theory of science but a triadic one. Realm 1 theories

enable the classification and predictions about macroscopic objects which are tan-

gible and accessible to sensorimotor experiences; thus, a typical realm 1 theory is

classical kinematics-an area of common experience. The moon, the eye, a chair,

a spring are all typical referents belonging to realm 1. Thus, for such objects,

meaning in scientific cognition and discourse is typically provided by reference to

samples which fix the meaning of descriptive terms, and hence is essentially ex-

tralinguistic.

Realm 2 theories are iconic in the sense that they represent unobservable entities

which are only accessible to our senses through instrumentation such as bacteria and

viruses. However, such entities and their behaviors are always observable, or poten-

tially

so, through the aid and assistance of technical artifacts. All such entities are the

products of

a representation

of a physical system and its modes of behavior, which

when first formulated, have not been observed. In realm 2 discourse, the objects of

realm 1 serve as a basic ontology, but such discussion is much more dependent on in-

tralinguistic meaning creation through the use of metaphor and simile.

Harrk

follows

Soskice (1985) in arguing that:

Metaphor is a trope through which new vocabulary is created. By means of it our

conceptual grasp of a subject matter referent) is enhanced by the use of a term with

a well-established context

of

use, and thus an existing deep gramm ar and set of

asso-

ciated comm onplaces. In this way, through metaphor, new vocabulary can be

created within the existing structure

of

language,

so

securing the intelligibility

.of

the

term in the context of use. Harri, 1986,p. 77)

Hence, metaphor is not simply a useful adjunct for scientific thinking but an essential

component of theory itself which leads to the discovery of hidden causes, or the pos-

tulation of new theoretical entities. The vast majority of scientific theories are de-

scriptions and hypotheses of realm 2 objects.

Finally, realm

3

theories describe theoretical objects for which there is no direct

evidence of their existence, such as quarks and black holes, whose descriptions are

often mathematical. Such objects are beyond all possible experience but advances in

technology may enable these objects to be observed and thus make an ontological

shift into realm 2. For instance, prior to the invention of the electron microscope,

viruses were unobservable and at the time would have typified the speculative realm

3

entity which the Higgs Boson currently does for particle physicists. Once again,

our knowledge of these objects is dependent on the use of metaphor, but also the lan-

guage of mathematics.

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72 OSBORNE

Hacking (1983) also offers a realist interpretation of science that does make the

important distinction between real and theoretical entities. Entities become real when

they are manipulated by the experimenter who intervenes on the world. Using elec-

trons as an example he argues that because we regularly set out to build, and often

enough succeed in building new kinds of devices that use various well-understood

causal properties of electrons such entities do exist. The essence of his argument is

that the existence of electrons is not a hypothesis tested by the successful construc-

tion of some artifact but the reverse-that the effective functioning of the newly

built instrument is dependent on a modest number of home truths about electrons

which are confirmed time and time again. For theories, Hacking advances a prag-

matic modest realism following the arguments of Putnam (1975) that theories and

their representations attempt to refer to some reality and science progresses because

these theories improve and our descriptions are enhanced. Although we can never be

certain that they are accurate representations, Hackings realist would argue that the

phrase as certain as we can possibly be summarizes his or her views about the

claims made about reality by theories.

Hacking and Hm6 both present a clear argument for a realist epistemology based

on an objective ontology. This position stands in contrast to those of philosophers

like Rorty (1989) for whom there is nothing to be said about truth save that each of

us will commend as

true

those beliefs which he or she finds good to believe. Rortys

work i s a serious attempt to dethrone science from a pedestal where it offers a stan-

dard of objectivity and rationality to which all other forms of enquiry must be com-

pared. Thus the only way science can be seen as exemplary is that it offers a standard

of practice for the provision of free and open encounter which provides suggestions

about how the rest of culture might organize itself.

As Matthews (1994) argues, modest realism is enough to go on with, and it is in-

compatible with constructivism. Its limited theses are that there is an ontological re-

ality; that scientific theories are human attempts to refer to this reality; that theories

are confirmable by evidence (or falsifiable); and that there is a progression in scien-

tific theories which produce increasingly accurate approximations and descriptions of

that reality. Such a perspective does have limited pedagogic implications which are

markedly different from those of constructivism.

REALIST PEDAGOGY

HarrCs interpretation of scientific theory accounts for two of the current problems

within science education. First, since much of modem science is concerned with po-

tential realm

3

entities, there is a natural inclination to forget the grounds on which

such objects are formulated-our understanding of realm 1 and 2 objects. The spec-

ulative nature of the discussion about black holes or the demise of the dinosaurs leads

some to imagining that all science is simply a way of talking about the world with no

substantive basis for its knowledge claims. The two most well-known attacks on sci-

ence by the sociologists of science are both studies of scientists working in Cealm

3-in one case on the development of our understanding of quarks (Pickering, 1984)

and the other on the determination of the molecular structure of TRF hormone

(Latour Woolgar; 1986). Consequently, the view arises that all science is an activ-

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BEYOND

CONSTRUCTIVISM

73

ity requiring the construction of theoretical entities where the relation to any reality is

at best tenuous or unjustifiable. But this is because the activity of research scientists

working at the frontiers of our understanding with realm

3

entities has been portrayed

as the activity of normative science.

Second, in science education, we have attempted to ontologically shift some enti-

ties, such as energy, from realm

3

to realm

1

with a failure to address the inevitable

problems that arise out of attempting to make the intangible concrete and self-evi-

dent. The debate about the teaching of energy that has occurred over the past decade

is a good example of the pedagogic problems raised with, on the one hand, the argu-

ment that the topic is too difficult and abstract for anybody younger than 18 (Warren,

1983)

and, on the other hand, the arguments of others (Carr Kirkwood,

1988)

that

the topic should be included in the primary curriculum.

More importantly, for the science educator, Harrks ideas provide a coherent ac-

count of scientific epistemology which is more akin to that of practicing scientist and

some tentative theoretical basis for the construction of a curriculum. Experiences of

realm 1 macroscopic objects are those which the child uses to construct explanatory

schemas of physical and biological phenomena, albeit fragmented and lacking any

theoretical description other than an intuitive mechanics (Mariani Ogborn, 1991;

Bliss et al.,

1989;

di Sessa,

1988)

and an intuitive biology (Carey,

1985).

If

so,

an

early science education should attempt to build on and extend childrens experiences

of macroscopic phenomena, introducing the child to the descriptive language of the

scientist and the theoretical frameworks, the ideas of realm 2 and 3, which enable

them to generalize from such experiences and to interpret their acts of perception

with the scientists spectacles.

Such an approach would encourage observational activities of a wide range of

common macroscopic phenomena. For instance, the fact that all liquids can be made

to disappear and reappear and that such properties are what scientists call evap-

oration and condensation; that all animals have a mechanism for taking in oxygen

and exhaling carbon dioxide; that springs and rubber bands stretch and that they all

share a common pattern in the way in which they stretch. Thus, the sole purpose of

such an education at this stage would be to enhance childrens discourse and to show

that, with such a language, all phenomena are not uniquely contextualized but share

universal properties. Moreover, such an approach would place a greater emphasis on

introducing the theoretical description

prior

to observation and experience rather

than a vain hope that the child might spontaneously discover the scientific explana-

tion from an interpretation of their empirical data.

From here, science education would move to examine the theoretical entities of

science for which there is instrumental evidence-Harrks realm 2 entities.

Typically, this would require an exploration of the particle model and the evidence to

support it; the evidence of microscopy for the internal structure of plants; the evi-

dence of dissection or models for the internal mechanisms of the body; the evidence

for charged nature of matter; the nature of the Solar System, etc. All are entities

whose ontological existence is inferred from the evidence of instrumentation.

However, their existence can be related to realm 1 macroscopic objects, the entities

of possible experience for children, through the use of direct reference and metaphor

to construct models and representations.

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OSBORNE

Realm

3

entities are the abstractions of the human mind for which there is no in-

strumental evidence. As such these entities are inferred to explain certain experimen-

tal results-neutrinos and quarks are both classic examples. However, at a more

mundane level, quantities such as speed, acceleration, current, charge, energy, the

mole, and molecular biological mechanisms are such abstractions. These concepts

can only be constructed on a sound scientific understanding of realm 1 and 2 entities.

Hence, the idea of speed is constructed out of the pupils experiences of motion and

the measurement of time and distance, both realm 1 entities and the idea of current

constructed from observations of the brightness of bulbs and simple causal relation-

ships. Cognitively such ideas are more demanding because they require the ability to

envisage and manipulate imagined entities and their symbols for which there is no di-

rect referent.

In this way, HarrCs account of science provides a form and logic for the curricu-

lum that bears a clear and transparent relationship to the structure and practice of sci-

ence itself.

n

epistemology of modest realism insists that knowledge claims are

checked against reality itself and thus avoids the relativist pitfall of the radical con-

structivist who would ascribe validity to any viable theory that encapsulated per-

sonal experience. More importantly,

it

would enable the curriculum developer to

make decisions about content, a matter on which a constructivist epistemology says

nothing. Yet, quite plainly, we choose not to teach children about special relativity,

quantum mechanics, molecular biology, and the electronic configuration of chemical

bonds because we know that such knowledge is not accessible to them until they

have understood a wide body of other factual and theoretical information.

Constructivism singularly fails to provide any reason why this should, or should not,

be done.

STYLES

OF

LEARNING

Finally, there is one other issue that merits consideration which is the nature of the

individual reaction to the style of learning offered by constructivist pedagogy. In re-

acting against didacticism, constructivists in science education have chosen to place

their emphasis on cooperative, discussion-based activities for the production

of

knowledge and ignore the fact that there may be a role for demonstrating, showing,

or telling. For instance, Tobin (1990) argues for a learning model based on coopera-

tive learning and social collaboration; the curriculum development work undertaken

by Driver (1989) uses small groups of about four students which

form

the struc-

tural unit around the scheme of activities; and Nussbaum and Novak (1981) advo-

cate the use of brainstorming in the classroom as a pedagogic strategy. Others

place an emphasis on interpretive discussion or listening discussion (Baird

Northfield, 1992) and group activities such as games, role playing, and simulations

(Bentley Watts, 1989). But the evidence of research would indicate that the ap-

proach to learning offered by a constructivist pedagogy is preferred by some, but not

all students, and likewise, is effective for some but not all.

The literature on learning styles is extensive. Brophy and Good (1974) explored

the effects of diverse cognitive styles and personality characteristics, while Good and

Power

(

1976) examined the effect of affective characteristics (e.g., attitudes, interest,

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75

and motivation). However, some of the most interesting work has been undertaken by

Pask (1976) and Entwistle (1981). Pask identified two main types of learning strategy

used by different individuals: the serialist, who deployed a step-by-step strategy

which examined one hypothesis and then the next in a simple linear progression; and,

in contrast, the holist, who took a more global approach to problem solving, con-

sidering multiple hypotheses simultaneously, and used a more individualistic ap-

proach to learning. Pask found that both groups of students were capable of reaching

the same level of understanding, but that their ways of attaining that understanding

were

very

difSeerent. Holists prefer to start by forming an overall picture of what is be-

ing learned while serialists attempt to integrate separate topics in a piecemeal form.

Hence, while the holist is concerned with comprehension learning, constructing de-

scriptions of what is known, the serialist takes an operational approach, attempting

to master procedural details.

One of the most important experiments conducted by Pask, which those who

wholeheartedly advocate a constructivist pedagogy should note, was to match and

mismatch sets

of

learning materials with students learning styles. The students in the

matched conditions were able to answer most of the questions about what they had

learned, whereas the mismatched students generally achieved below half marks.

Entwistles work explored the personality factors that correlated with academic

success in undergraduates. He identified three distinct personality types, whose ap-

proaches to learning were all significantly different and who achieved success. The

first group consisted of motivated students who were emotionally stable and were

spurred by competition to demonstrations of intellectual mastery. The second group

were the antithesis in that they were unrealistically pessimistic about their ability and

haunted by the fear of failure. Driven by anxiety, these students had unconventional,

though effective, approaches to studying. The final group were predominantly arts-

based students and combined high verbal aptitude with good study methods and long

hours of study.

The important conclusion to be drawn from this kind of research is that students

vary in their motivation and preferred learning styles, and that a teaching scheme

based on a single perspective will only meet the needs of a subset of any group of

children. Within science education itself, there are studies which support such an in-

terpretation.

For instance, in a study of 390 Spanish 15-year-olds learning styles, Kempa and

Martin-Diaz (1990a, 1990b) identified four types of motivational patterns, driven out

of a desire to either: (a) achieve; (b) satisfy their curiosity; (c) fulfill or discharge a

duty; or (d) affiliate and interact with other people. These they call respectively the

achievers, the curious, the conscientious, and the social. Using an 80-item

Likert-type preference inventory, they then examined the relationships that existed

between these motivational patterns and their liking for different instructional proce-

dures. Only the social learners showed a strong preference for group activity and

the opportunity to pursue ones own inquiry. In contrast, conscientious learners ac-

tually exhibited a preference for didactic teaching and experimental work with in-

structions. Curious learners preferred learning from books, discovery learning, and

doing practical work. Achievers had no strong preferences for any mode of learn-

ing. The clear point is that individuals vary in their preferred learning style and no

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7 OSBORNE

one model will meet the diverse needs of different children. Further evidence that

this is so can be found in the report of the PEEL Project where a pupil comments:

Its about us learning about, and comprehending the work that teachers set.

helping students learn better

by

revising the days work, and writing down in your

diary what

you

have done. I didnt like doing it-I stopped about the second

week we did it-it wasn t interesting . Baird North field, 1992 , p.

57)

That not all pupils find such an approach to their liking is important as this implies

that there is no one strategy that will achieve success with all pupils. Kempa and

Martin-Diaz argue that the only practicable solution to this problem is for teachers

to use as wide a range [emphasis added] of instructional procedures as possible, in-

stead of limiting themselves to one or two. Yet the danger in constructivist peda-

gogy is an assumption that it offers an improved learning strategy for all pupils,

whereas its major strength lies in offering an alternative-challenging teachers wed-

ded to a didactic model of transmission by offering variety and diversity.

Therefore, the evidence from research on learning styles would suggest that there

is no single effective method for teaching and learning as students differ in their pref-

erences. From a psychological perspective and a careful examination of the aims of

teaching science, Claxton

(1993)

argues convincingly that a single-minded emphasis

on conceptual development in science is inappropriate for all children. Instead, sci-

ence education should be developing a wide repertoire of teaching methods that are

custom-built for different aims and different cliente