MALS

What factors influence educators’ practices and students’ learning in the natural sciences? What role do discipline-specific characteristics of the natural sciences play? These are some of the questions investigated through discipline-based education research (DBER), which integrates disciplinary STEM knowledge and skills (e.g., from chemistry, biology, etc.) with social science research methods to study teaching and learning in STEM fields. In this course, we will examine how science education knowledge is generated and discuss insights about science teaching and learning. In this course, students will develop their ability to assess the alignment between research questions, theoretical frameworks, methods of data collection, and the analysis and interpretation of data. Through this process, students will evaluate scholarly claims about science education by considering the strengths and limitations of the evidence and reasoning associated with the claim.