The Promise of Science Education Research

This chapter proposes and considers some directions for future science education research, how we engage students with science, scientists, and communities in ways that enthuse and excite them to develop a restless curiosity and fascination with the world and how it works, as well as to see science as a way of generating new ideas and knowledge that can contribute to the quality of life . While much research on science education assumes that teachers are able to make changes to their teaching to enhance student outcomes, the research on learning environments has recently highlighted the social inequities related to access of information in many urban/rural schools around the world and how other conditions often have to be redressed before the reform agenda in science education can be advanced. While I acknowledge the importance of informal learning situations, I have restricted the discussion here to formal “schooling” as we currently recognize it, rather than presuppose alternative forms of learning environments such as those proposed by the contributions in Rodrigues (2010). No doubt the emphases presented here will be contested. So, the purpose of this chapter is to provide points for further discussion about the directions of research in science education that can be pursued.