Part 1: What is the Issue? 1. Research and Practice in Science Education Part 2: What Does Research Tell Us? 2. Using Research to Clarify Curriculum Objectives 3. Issues in Designing Evidence-Informed Teaching 4. Drawing on Research to Focus Teaching and Monitor Progress 5. Issues in Implementing and Evaluating Evidence-Informed Teaching 6. Teaching 'Ideas-About-Science' 7. Outcome Measures - A Necessary Precondition for Evidence-Based Practice Part 3: Research into Practice 8. Practitioners' Views of Research and its Impact on Practice 9. Evidence-Based Science Education: Is it Possible, Desirable, Essential?

Robin Millar is Professor of Science Education, University of York, UK. John Leach is Professor of Science Education, University of Leeds, UK. Jonathan Osborne is Professor of Science Education, King's College London, UK. Mary Ratcliffe is Professor of Science Education, University of Southampton, UK.

In many countries, questions are being raised about the quality and value of educational research. This book explores the relationship between research and practice in education. It looks at the extent to which current practice could be said to be informed by knowledge or ideas generated by research and at the extent to which the use of current practices or the adoption of new ones are, or could be, supported by research evidence. Science education is used as a case study but the issues considered apply to the teaching and learning of any curriculum subject.

The book draws on the findings of four inter-related research studies and considers:
how research might be used to establish greater consensus about curriculum;


how research can inform the design of assessment tools and teaching interventions;


teachers' and other science educators' perceptions of the influence of research on their teaching practices and their students' learning;


the extent to which evidence can show that an educational practice 'works'.