Metaphors as global markers for teachers' beliefs about the nature of science

In this paper, we report an analysis of metaphors used by three science teachers in their classroom discourse and consider the implications of this research for the image of science that students are likely to construct. Teacher beliefs about the nature of science are implicit and entrenched and may be contrary to both contemporary philosophies of science and constructivist theory. We argue that the presence of metaphors such ateaching as a journey, knowledge as object andteacher as pathfinder in teachers' classroom discourse signify the implicit existence of a powerful objectivist epistemology that governs teachers' pedagogies. If students are to construct contemporary views of the nature of science and if constuctivist pedagogy is to develop in the science classroom then science teachers need to reflect on their use of these role-determining objectivist metaphors.

[1]  Joan Solomon.  Messy, Contradictory and Obstinately Persistent: A Study of Children's Out-of-School Ideas about Energy. , 1983 .

[2]  Marie Larochelle,et al.  "Of course, it's just obvious" : Adolescents' ideas of scientific knowledge , 1991 .

[3]  R. Duit.  On the role of analogies and metaphors in learning science. , 1991 .

[4]  William W. Cobern,et al.  Contextual Constructivism: The Impact of Culture on the Learning and Teaching of Science. , 1993 .

[5]  G. Lakoff,et al.  Metaphors We Live By , 1980 .

[6]  William R. Shadish,et al.  Psychology of science : contributions to metascience , 1989 .

[7]  P. Gardner.  Circular motion: Some post-instructional alternative frameworks , 1984 .

[8]  E. Glasersfeld.  Cognition, Construction of Knowledge, and Teaching , 1989 .

[9]  Joan Solomon,et al.  Social Influences on the Construction of Pupils' Understanding of Science , 1987 .

[10]  Michael J. Reddy.  Metaphor and Thought: The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language , 1993 .

[11]  R. Burian.  Scientific Realism and Incommensurability: Some Criticisms of Kuhn and Feyerabend , 1984 .

[12]  Michael J. Mahoney.  Psychology of science: Participatory epistemology and psychology of science , 1989 .

[13]  M. Black.  Models and metaphors : studies in language and philosophy , 1962 .

[14]  M. Trow.  American Higher Education , 1988 .

[15]  Mark L. Johnson.  The body in the mind: the bodily basis of meaning , 1987 .

[16]  R. Linn,et al.  Qualitative methods in research on teaching , 1985 .

[17]  John P. Keeves,et al.  Educational research, methodology and measurement : an international handbook , 1988 .

[18]  K. Popper.  Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach , 1972 .

[19]  P. Hewson,et al.  Accommodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change , 1982 .

[20]  Beverley Bell,et al.  Students' Thinking and the Learning of Science: A Constructivist View. , 1986 .

[21]  K. Tobin.  Referents for making sense of science teaching , 1993 .

[22]  E. Glasersfeld.  An Introduction to Radical Constructivism , 1981 .

[23]  T. Kuhn,et al.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. , 1964 .

[24]  Annette Karmiloff-Smith,et al.  The Child is a Theoretician, Not an Inductivist* , 1988 .

[25]  The Social Scientist's Bestiary: A Guide to Fabled Threats to, and Defences of, Naturalistic Social Science , 1992 .