Albert Zeyer

• Dr. med. et dipl. math.
• Professor at University of Teacher Education Lucerne

This paper explores the integration of holistic knowledge systems with Western scientific perspectives through the concept of Two-Eyed Seeing (TES). By examining philosophical underpinnings of TES, particularly through the lens of Wilfrid Sellars' synoptic view, the paper highlights the potential for creating a more comprehensive understanding thro...

The core of this essay is a review of Alexander Bogner's book “The Epistemization of Politics” (2021). It fits into the ongoing discussion about the role of scientism in science education. Bogner makes the provocative case that science denialism inadvertently points to contemporary scientism in the public sphere, and he observes that many science d...

Recent research on motivation to learn science shows that science teaching usually supports students’ systemising, but not their empathising cognition. In this paper we argue that empathy, with due caution, should be emphasised in science learning more seriously and consistently, particularly in a Science|Environment|Health pedagogy that aims at fo...

The environment and contested notions of sustainability are increasingly topics of public interest, political debate, and legislation across the world. Environmental education journals now publish research from a wide variety of methodological traditions that show linkages between the environment, health, development, and education. The growth in s...

The present study is based on the empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory of cognitive science. It was hypothesized that the influence of students' gender on their motivation to learn science is often overestimated in the research literature and that cognitive style is more important formotivation than students' gender. By using structural equation mo...

Medizinische Themen werden als Socioscientific Issues im naturwissenschaftli-chen Unterricht immer noch unterschätzt. Sie spielen im Leben der zukünftigen Bürger innen eine wichtige Rolle und erhöhen gleichzeitig die Motivation für das naturwissenschaftliche Lernen für viele Schülerinnen, insbesondere auch für Mäd-chen. In diesem Artikel wird ein d...

Healthcare organisations worldwide are affected by the shortage of health professionals due to work-related stress and health professional leaders play an important role by implementing effective strategies. Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether the STRAIN intervention program (using evidence-based training for health professional leade...

Health-related discussions in society and the media—specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic—showed that individuals are confronted with Alternative Medicine and Evidence-Based Medicine. When making reflective decisions about these treatments, both knowledge and beliefs are important. Previous research with preservice biology teachers has shown th...

This paper presents a synoptic (“Two-Eyed Seeing”) approach to science transfer in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), based on an ontological framework inspired by two related concepts from Western philosophy (Sellars’ synoptic view) and indigenous wisdom (Two-Eyed Seeing). It was tested and further developed in a participatory research p...

Menschen interessieren sich einerseits für Dinge (things-orientation), und möchten deren Zusammenspiel voraussagen und beeinflussen (systemizing). Andererseits interessieren sie sich auch für Menschen (people-orientation) und möchten deren Gefühle und Gedanken verstehen (empathizing). Da sich eine Mehrheit der Frauen und eine recht große Minderheit...

Das Buch «Gendersensibilisierung in der Ausbildung von Natur- und Techniklehrpersonen» ist im Rahmen des gleichnamigen, vom Eidgenössischen Büro für die Gleichstellung von Frau und Mann geförderten Projekts entstanden. Die 16 Beiträge präsentieren einerseits Erkenntnisse aus Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprojekten und andererseits innovative Beispiel...

Zusammenfassung: Medizinische Themen werden als Socio-Scientific Issues im naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht immer noch unterschätzt. Sie spielen im Leben der zukünftigen Bürgerinnen und Bürger eine wichtige Rolle und erhöhen gleichzeitig die Motivation für das naturwissenschaftliche Lernen für viele Schülerinnen und Schüler, insbesondere auch für...

This paper presents a pedagogical heuristic of Two-Eyed Seeing for science education. It is based on an ontological model of Two-Eyed Seeing inspired by two related concepts in Western philosophy (Sellars' stereoscopic vision) and indigenous wisdom (Two-Eyed Seeing). The pedagogical heuristic was tested and developed through a participatory researc...

Science|Environment|Health (S|E|H) is a new science pedagogy that aims at promoting the mutual benefit between the three educational fields of science education, environmental education, and health education. Holism and its conceptualisation have become an important topic in recent S|E|H work. In this paper, featuring the invited symposium of the E...

In this paper, we explore Science|Environment|Health, One Health, Planetary Health, and Sustainability/Education for Sustainable Development in the context of the 2030 Agenda as four major frameworks that take a step toward investigating health from different angles to tackle the grand challenges that lie ahead of humanity. In most of these framewo...

In this paper, we explore Science|Environment|Health, One Health, Planetary Health, and Sustainability/Education for Sustainable Development in the context of Agenda 2030 as four major frameworks that take a step toward investigating health from different angles to tackle the grand challenges that lie ahead of humanity. In most of these frameworks,...

This conceptual paper starts by outlining six important concerns of Science|Environment|Health (S|E|H), a new pedagogy of science that has been developed during the last decade by a Special Interest Group of the ESERA community. The paper points out that the importance of these six concerns even increased during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. They play a...

Science|Environment|Health (S|E|H) is a new science pedagogy that aims at promoting the mutual benefit between the three educational fields of science education, environmental education, and health education. Holism and its conceptualisation has become an important topic in recent S|E|H work. In this paper, featuring the invited symposium of the ES...

Not much is known about the role of scientific knowledge in vaccination decision making. This study is based on previous findings that the concern about the human papillomavirus (HPV) agent mutating back to a virulent HPV was common among Swiss student teachers and turned out to be one factor of vaccine hesitancy. The study investigate the impact o...

We describe a pre-service teacher workshop about sustainable health decisions in school. This one-week workshop had two goals: to improve the ability of students to cope with health and illness as teachers in daily school life, and to improve scientific literacy in health contexts. In this way, the workshop aimed at creating a situation of mutual b...

In recent years, complexity theory has turned out to be an important conceptual approach to Science|Environment|Health. Though complex systems, in principle, can be understood by scientific method, prediction is uncertain, and control is limited. In living systems, this uncertainty is structural, i.e. it cannot be fully reduced by improving scienti...

The basic vision of Science|Environment|Health (S|E|H) is to foster a win-win situation between the three educational fields of science education, environmental education and health education. This vision finds growing interest among the science education community. The theory of complex living systems provides a compelling background for working w...

The term Science|Environment|Health (S|E|H) stands for a pedagogy of mutual benefit between science education, environmental education, and health education. Complexity is an important aspect of most S|E|H issues. In the natural sciences, and thus in science education, prediction plays a central role. Yet, complex systems usually do not allow for f...

This book provides a fascinating insight into the on-going process of self- reflection in the Science|Environment|Health (S|E|H) community. The basic vision of a new S|E|H pedagogy is to establish a transdisciplinary dialogue between the three educational fields of science education, environmental education, and health education. This approach find...

Vaccination is an explicit topic of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The present article explores a new way of involving student teachers into the vaccination debate. To this aim, 273 students at a Swiss university for teacher education were invited to read a debate between a vaccination proponent and a vaccination oppon...

Science|Environment|Health (S|E|H) is an emerging science pedagogy for complex living systems. The name highlights a situation of mutual benefit between science education, environmental education and health education. The paper discusses a range of topics from the curriculum-focused origin of the S|E|H movement to the issues that concern S|E|H rese...

This paper aims to discuss complexity as a key feature for understanding the role of science knowledge in environmental and health contexts—a central issue in Science|Environment|Health pedagogy. Complex systems are, in principle, not predictable. In different contexts, ephemeral mechanisms produce different, sometimes completely unexpected results...

This paper presents a new and burgeoning field of science pedagogy, labelled as Science|Environment|Health (S|E|H). The label highlights a situation of mutual benefit between science education, environmental education and health education. We span a wide arc from the curriculum-focused origin of the S|E|H movement to the present topics that concern...

This paper summarizes presentations and discussion from Science|Environment|Health SIG 4 ESERA 2017 symposium about the role that health and medicine education can play in science education. The presentations focus on teachers' readiness to embrace these topics and students' knowledge and ability to benefit from the relevant content. For example, H...

The present study is based on a large cross-cultural study, which showed that a systemizing cognition type has a high impact on motivation to learn science, while the impact of gender is only indirect thorough systemizing. The present study uses the same structural equation model as in the cross-cultural study and separately tests it for physics, c...

In this chapter, the authors argue that the school science classroom should help students deal with complex real-life information about health and disease. They also discuss means by which curriculum and instruction in science education can be tied to these issues. The chapter reviews opportunities and challenges presented to individuals by the exp...

In medicine, there is growing awareness about the crucial role health literacy can play in the health system. Generally, the focus lies on functional health literacy, which is closely linked to the common understanding of literacy as being able to read and write. Useful rules of communication are available for fostering patients' literacy. However,...

Health and the environment are important learning areas in science education and their significance is growing. Not only do they have high social relevance, but they are also close to students' interests and needs. They provide many opportunities to unlock science with questions that are personally relevant to boys and girls and that inspire them t...

Hintergrund In der Schweiz wurde die HPV- (humane Papillomavirus-)Impfung im Jahr 2007 eingeführt. In einem offiziellen Informationsbrief wurden junge Frauen im Alter zwischen 15 und 26 Jahren über die Möglichkeit einer kostenlosen Impfung gegen HPV orientiert. Ziel Die Studie wollte ermitteln, wie junge Frauen die Informationen aus dem Brief aufne...

This article analyses the discourse of 15- to16-year-old Swiss junior high school students in order to understand public discourse on the environment and environmental protection. Discourse analysis reveals four interpretive repertoires as the building blocks for the so-called post-ecological discourse, which can be used to describe important aspec...

Hintergrund 2007 wurde die HPV- („human papilloma virus-“)Impfung in der Schweiz eingeführt und in der Stadt Zürich mittels einer Impfaktion des Schulärztlichen Dienstes 2008 allen Schülerinnen zwischen 11 und 16 Jahren gratis angeboten. Danach impft der Schulärztliche Dienst im Rahmen einer Schulärztlichen Untersuchung in der 6. Und 8. Klasse. Die...

Gesundheit ist ein Megatrend unserer Gesellschaft und Gesundheitskompetenz das Zauberwort, das man mit den Herausforderungen verbindet, die sich im „Jahrhundert des Patienten“ stellen. Entsprechend viel wird darüber nachdacht, diskutiert und geschrieben. Dabei geht es meist um die Definition von Gesundheitskompetenz, um deren Messung, und um das Zu...

Health is a “megatrend.” Nevertheless, the role of health and health education in science education has been less important than the role of environmental education. This is a reflection of a cultural-historical constellation in health and health promotion, as will be discussed in this chapter. The emergence of the concept of health literacy offers...

This final chapter is intended to bring together and discuss the contents of this book, which contain a variety of perspectives, styles, attitudes, and intentions of the authors. All the contributions are strongly framed by conceptual standards, which reflect the state-of-the-art in the field. As a result, the authors, who sometimes offer quite con...

Environment and health are increasingly important contexts for science education. Not only are they integral dimensions of scientific literacy and sustainable develop�ment discourses, but they are also close to students’ interests and needs and can help to open up science education to personally relevant questions (Zeyer & Kyburz-Graber, 2012). Nev...

Sex is considered to be one of the most significant factors influencing attitudes towards science. However, the so-called brain type approach from cognitive science suggests that the difference in motivation to learn science does not primarily differentiate the girls from the boys, but rather the so-called systemisers from the empathizers. The pres...

Das Projekt basiert auf dem Konzept des Cultural Border Crossing (CBC) und wendet es auf die Untersuchung von Einstellungen gegenüber dem naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht bei Lernenden der Sekundarstufe II an. Dabei werden Einflussgrössen auf die Einstellung von Schülerinnen und Schülern (SuS) an Schweizer Gymnasien gegenüber dem naturwissenschaf...

Whilst sex is considered to be one of the most significant factors influencing attitudes towards science, previous research seems to suggest that, at least in non‐science classes, there is no correlation between sex and motivation to learn science. The present study investigates a mixed group of science and non‐science students of upper secondary l...

This article investigates the relation between cognitive style and motivation to learn science. The concept of cognitive style proposes the interplay of two core psychological dimensions, empathizing and systemizing. The cognitive style is defined as the interplay between the two abilities. We used the so-called EQ score (empathy quotient) and the...

Gesundheitsbildung und naturwissenschaftlicher Unterricht werden in der Schule auf allen Stufen noch wenig in Zusammenhang gebracht. Das Konzept der Gesundheitskompetenz (Health Literacy) schafft einen starken Bezug zum naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht und eröffnet so die Chance, die in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten kulturell und historisch gewachs...

This article investigates the relation between cognitive style and motivation to learn science. The concept of cognitive style proposes the interplay of two core psychological dimensions, empathizing and systemizing. The cognitive style is defined as the interplay between the two abilities. We used the so-called EQ score (empathy quotient) and the...

We asked 408 eleven- to 13-year-old Swiss children to draw a picture of their choice about “the environment.” We were especially interested in how these children presented the role of science and technology in an environmental context. The qualitative content analysis of the pictures was complemented by the results of a survey that consisted of 15...

In der Antike galt die Epilepsie als «heilige Krankheit», doch bereits die Hippokratiker erkannten ihren Ursprung im Körper. Im Mittelalter wurde die Epilepsie als dämonische Besessenheit gesehen. Erst in der Neuzeit setzte sich allmählich die Erkenntnis durch, dass sie eine natürliche Ursache hat – freilich ohne dass man zunächst etwas dagegen tun...

Environment and environmental protection are on the forefront of political concerns globally. But how are the media and political discourses concerning these issues mirrored in the public more generally and in the discourses of school science students more specifically? In this study, we analyze the discourse mobilized in whole-class conversations...

Hintergrund. Seit Jahren tobt eine heftige gesellschaftliche Debatte um die Nützlichkeit bzw. Schädlichkeit von Impfungen. Das Ergebnis ist eine zunehmende Impfmüdigkeit in der Bevölkerung, die in der Medizin mit Besorgnis gesehen wird. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht, ob die Vermittlung von konzeptionellem biomedizinischem Wissen junge Erwachsen...

Gesundheitskompetenz (Health Literacy) wird in der Gesellschaft des 21. Jahrhunderts immer wichtiger. Durch ihre Nähe zur Scientific Literacy schafft sie einen starken Bezug zum naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht und eröffnet so die Chance, eine in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten kulturell und historisch gewachsene Kluft zur Gesundheitsförderung zu sch...

This is a comment on the article “An Essay for Educators: Epistemological Realism Really is Common Sense” written by Cobern and Loving in Science & Education. The skillful analysis of the two authors concerning the problematic role of scientism in school science is fully appreciated, as is their diagnosis that it is scientism not universal scientif...

In Central Switzerland, pre-service teacher education is intended to reflect the integrated concept of science education in school. The project presented in this chapter assists the development of a research-based unit on integrated science for first-year students. The theoretical background underpinning the research process is provided by the mode...

Kurzfassung Im vorliegenden Artikel wird das Konzept der didaktischen Miniatur (educational miniature) vor- gestellt. Es handelt sich dabei grundsätzlich um kleine Unterrichtseinheiten, die durch die Schü- ler/Studierenden entwickelt und umgesetzt werden. Sie unterscheiden sich von einem Schülervor- trag im traditionellen Sinn dadurch, dass nicht w...

Early in the eighties Antonovsky stipulated a changeover from the pathogenetic to the salutogenetic paradigm in prevention. This article is meant to show that the necessity of such a changeover may also be derived from present-day physics. The pathogenetic paradigm is the characteristic of a time that bears the distinctive marks of the classical th...

Early in the eighties Antonovsky stipulated a changeover from the pathogenetitto the salutogenetic paradigm in prevention. This article is meant to show that the necessity of such a changeover may also be derived from present-day physics. The pathogenetic paradigm is the characteristic of a time that bears the distinctive marks of the classical the...

The presented study is based on a STSE curriculum (science, techniques, society, and environment), and has involved 23 so-called cooperation schools with 47 science teachers and 956 students of age 16. The aim of the study was to find out what role environmental issues partook in the science curriculum of the participating schools, in the classroom...

The Swiss project HarmoS (Harmonisierung der obligatorischen Schule = Harmonization of the Compulsory School) intends to harmonize and monitor the educational landscape in Switzerland, which is currently segregated into 26 separate educational systems governed independently by the 26 cantons or "states". It is to be conducted during the time period...