P. James Gaskell’s research while affiliated with University of British Columbia and other places

This study explores changes to students' conceptions about solution chemistry in the context of instruction based on collaboration between a researcher and an experienced teacher attempting to implement strategies from the literature on conceptual change. Conceptual change for students and teachers is viewed not just as a process of replacement of old concepts but also as a process of learning to relate ideas to appropriate contexts. The process of instruction and collaboration was influenced by institutional limits on time, the press to cover the curriculum, and the teacher's prior beliefs and practices. The study uses “phenomenography” to conceptualize students' understandings of solubility. Six categories of description were constructed: (a) physical transformation from solid to liquid; (b) chemical transformation of solute; (c) density of solute; (d) amount of space available in solution; (e) properties of solute; and (f) size of solute. After instruction students showed evidence of two additional ways of talking about solubility: (a) chemical structure of components; and (b) solution equilibrium. The new language, however, did not necessarily replace initial ideas about what happens in particular instances of solution chemistry. A careful analysis of the students' conceptions of solubility revealed important factors influencing the nature of student learning in this area of chemistry. These factors include: (a) ambiguities of chemical theories about dissolving: (b) explanations of the observable; and (c) students' chemical language. It is argued, in conclusion, that the goals for instruction are to assist students to appreciate contexts where everyday conceptions of chemical phenomenon are appropriate and contexts where particular conceptions from the community of chemists are more appropriate. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons. Inc.

Citizens are often required to make decisions about socioscientific issues in a climate characterized by conflict within both the scientific community and the larger society. Central to the process of decisionmaking is a critical examination of the relevant scientific knowledge involved. Individuals capable of performing this task can be considered scientifically literate in a decisionmaking sense. In this article we explore two ways of critically examining scientific knowledge in the context of a current socioscientific dispute: NASA's Galileo Mission to Jupiter. The two approaches we outline, termed the positivist and social constructivist positions, are examined in terms of their inherent views concerning the nature of scientific knowledge, in particular their use of constitutive and contextual values when evaluating knowledge claims. Because the social constructivist position acknowledges the importance of contextual values, it provides citizens with accessible standards for evaluating scientific knowledge claims. The positivist position, on the other hand, relies on constitutive values which we show are normally inaccessible to ordinary citizens. The positivist position, however, is most closely associated with the predominant social issues approach to science-technology-society (STS) education. Implications little consensus about which statements are fact (i.e., will remain stable when challenged) and which opinion, (i.e., will be modified when challenged). All knowledge is potentially unreliable when one is dealing with a socioscientific dispute.

Current concerns about inappropriate views that students have about science and suggested remedies such as more philosophy of science courses for science teachers are similar to those advanced during the 1960s curriculum reform movement. However, evidence from the ‘60s and the ‘80s is that additional courses in the philosophy of science have little effect on science teachers’ classroom behaviour or on their students’ views of science. This is understandable if school science is seen as a social construction. Suggestions for a more philosophically valid school science compete with suggestions to encourage students to see the utility and benefits of science and technology and their importance in increasing economic productivity in an internationally competitive marketplace. Science teachers as a profession have interests in maintaining the status, resources and territory of school science. An understanding of these interests helps to explain the reaction of physics teachers in British Columbia to an attempt to incorporate the social context of physics into the curriculum. Attempts to change school science, to make it more ‘authentic’, must take into account the social and political construction of school science and its need to satisfy a variety of stakeholders.