Chapter 2: Evaluating Pedagogy Through Experimental Studies of Teaching
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Published:20 Dec 2024
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Special Collection: 2024 eBook Collection
Chemical Pedagogy
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This chapter provides an introduction to the nature of the empirical research into teaching. There is much chemistry education research (CER) that can potentially inform the chemistry teacher seeking to engage in what has been termed ‘evidence-based practice’. A good deal of this research is experimental research where pedagogies and specific techniques have been tested to find which are effective. Yet, there are some very good reasons why research does not always readily close down debates about pedagogy. This chapter (i) provides the background to help readers of research spot such limitations; (ii) explains why such limitations are likely (indeed, often unavoidable) even in high-quality research and (iii) explores how educational research can best inform teaching despite these challenges. This chapter describes the nature of doing research in educational settings and explains why this is inherently more problematic and ‘noisy’ than chemical research undertaken in the laboratory. A major difference between CER and laboratory chemistry is the inability to automatically generalise from one classroom to another in the way we expect to from one laboratory to another. This chapter therefore stresses the importance of investigating pedagogy in different contexts and through complementary approaches and offers guidance to the research community on how to plan programmes of research most informative to teachers. This chapter also raises issues about the ethics of research into teaching, especially related to the choice of informative experimental control conditions which do not deliberately subject participants to forms of teaching widely believed to be ineffective at supporting learning.