Sketching Some Postmodern Alternatives: Beyond Paradigms and Research Programs as Referents for Science Education

Abstract

Conceptual change pedagogy has been one of the most influential research and teaching programs in science education in the past two decades. This paper argues that Kuhn's and Lakatos' schemes for the philosophy of science have been pervasive metaphors for conceptual change approaches to the learning and teaching of science, and have been used both implicitly and explicitly to provide an organising framework and justification matrix for those perspectives. It is suggested that Lakatos' model of competing 'scientific research programs' may provide a more flexible and powerful metaphor for student learning than does Kuhn's scheme of 'scientific revolutions'. The value of this metaphorical connection between the sociological processes of scientific research and the psychological processes of student learning - between the contexts in which science is conducted and those in which it is learned - is critically discussed with reference to classroom teaching practices. Finally, four alternative perspectives, based in Kelly's 'psychology of personal constructs', Van Manen's 'pedagogical thoughtfulness', Whitehead's 'living educational theory' and Polkinghorne's 'postmodern epistemology of practice' respectively, are described as a set of postmodern referents for science education.