Discusses the nature and impact of three competing paradigms for science education: agricultural-scientific, anthropological, and philosophical. Illustrates the paradigms with papers presented at recent national conferences on science education research. (MLH)

Provides an orientation to the special journal issue on research methods in science education and lists four questions to which the contributing authors were asked to respond. (PEB)

Examines, in some detail, the process of evaluation and describes methods that have been used in evaluation applied to precollege education. (PEB)

Discusses formative evaluation (those evaluation activities carried out while a curriculum is still being developed) and relates this to the development of the Individualized Science (IS) program at the University of Pittsburgh. (PEB)

Traces the development of one line of research in the training of science teachers, using social learning theory as the superstructure, and identifies the related basic research forming the building blocks of subsequent research, development, and practice. (Author/PEB)

Discusses research on kinetic structure, a microstructure concept (concerned with sequential organization of individual verbal statements or individual behavior acts). (PEB)

Presents a progress report on some methodological advances made on certain facets of the problem of the learning of a structure of a subject matter. (PEB)

Describes research studies stimulated by the concern for facilitation of logical operations in elementary school and junior high school children and based on the assumption that the level of reasoning used for inquiry and concept acquisition by every individual is substantially below his capacity. (PEB)

Presents some considerations about the variable of "wait time," a pause after a teacher question so that students can think or a pause after a student statement. (PEB)

Points out the fact that Piaget's objections to tests as ways of identifying cognitive structures and processes have been largely ignored in most of the replication studies conducted by English and American psychologists. (PEB)

Effects of external reinforcement and cognitive conflict-based treatments on students' acquisition of ability to control variables at an early age were studied. Smedslund's finding was confirmed. Nearly half of trained students with a mean age of 11.8 years could be classified in late formal operations. (CC)

Discusses sources of science teachers' and educators' misconceptions about scientific endeavors and describes poor practices in science teaching. Identifies three styles of research reports appearing in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching'' as results of these romantic views of science. (CC)

Studied the effectiveness of using checklist-structured observations as a self-improvement technique for modifying teachers' verbal behaviors in the classroom. Concluded that significant changes were found in analyzing pre- and post-treatment audiotape recordings of participating teachers' regular classes. (CC)

Discusses the number of observations necessary to obtain a trustworthy sample of classroom transactions by reanalyzing existing data. Eleven to twenty observations appear necessary for teachers' questions which require students to hypothesize. The reliability of a single observation was zero for four other questioning types. (CC)

Discusses reasons for failure of traditional science programs in contrast with current improvements in science teaching. Indicates that the difficulty of justifying science study will be removed if the use of science by nonspecialists can be proved interpretive rather than replicative or applicative through research studies. (CC)