The ECLIPSE Project:
Exploring Conceptual Learning, Integration and Progression in Science Education
This project seeks to develop a better understanding of how conceptual learning occurs in science, with a particular focus on how well the learner's conceptions are integrated, and how conceptual frameworks develop over time. The project is underpinned by a constructivist position on learning - that the nature of all learning is highly contingent (upon prior learning, learning context, features of language...)
This project is intended to develop theory about learning science that will be of practical use to teachers, learners and those responsible for determining the science curriculum. ECLIPSE is an umbrella for a series of smaller sub-projects:
- Understanding Science project - looking at secondary age students' developing understandings of topics in school science, and the links between them;
- Physical Science project - looking at how A level students relate their learning in chemistry and physics; this includes a collaborative project with colleagues at the National Institute of Education in Singapore, exploring learning about the topic of Ionisation Energy (Tan, D., Goh N. K. and Chia L. S. and Taber, K. S. (2005) Development of a Two-Tier Multiple Choice Diagnostic Instrument to Determine A-Level Students' Understanding of Ionisation Energy, Singapore: National Institute of Education - may be accessed from this link Tan et al (2005) Ionisation Energy.pdf (764k).
- Challenging Chemical Conceptions project - exploring students' understanding of chemical concepts (based on a Royal Society of Chemistry teacher fellowship Project - see http://www.chemsoc.org/networks/learnnet/miscon2.htm)
- Scaffolding Learning in Physical Science project - exploring the nature of teaching materials that support conceptual learning
Dr. Keith Taber
[kst24@cam.ac.uk]