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Quality Teaching in Primary Science Education

Cross-cultural Perspectives

  • Provides new insights into the characteristics of quality primary science teaching through the analysis of video

  • Showcases a model for conducting classroom research across cultural contexts

  • Gives important evidence-based implications for enhancing primary science teaching, and pre- and in-service teacher education

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xix
  2. Introduction to the Research Project

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
  3. Case Study Analyses

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 49-49
    2. Variation in Whole Class, Small Group and Individual Student Work Within and Across Cultures

      • Mark W. Hackling, George Aranda, Ines Freitag-Amtmann
      Pages 79-91
    3. Teachers from Diverse Cultural Settings Orchestrating Classroom Discourse

      • Russell Tytler, George Aranda, Ines Freitag-Amtmann
      Pages 123-148
    4. Reasoning Through Representations

      • Russell Tytler, Karen Murcia, Chao-Ti Hsiung, Jörg Ramseger
      Pages 149-179
    5. Embodied Strategies in the Teaching and Learning of Science

      • Khadeeja Ibrahim-Didi, Mark W. Hackling, Jörg Ramseger, Barbara Sherriff
      Pages 181-221
  4. Meta-reflections on Teaching and Learning, and Cross-Cultural Classroom Research

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 223-223
    2. Reflections on Reasoning

      • Russell Tytler
      Pages 225-243
    3. Reflections on Quality Teaching in Primary Science Classrooms in Diverse Cultural Settings

      • Gail Chittleborough, Jörg Ramseger, Chao-Ti Hsiung, Peter Hubber, Russell Tytler
      Pages 245-265
    4. Reflections on Video-Based, Cross-Cultural Classroom Research Methodologies

      • Mark W. Hackling, Gisela Romain, George Aranda
      Pages 267-289
  5. Implications

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 291-291
    2. Implications for Practice and Teacher Education

      • Russell Tytler, Jörg Ramseger, Peter Hubber, Ines Freitag-Amtmann
      Pages 293-308
    3. Implications for Cross-Cultural Comparative Studies of Teaching and Learning

      • Hsiao-Lan Sharon Chen, Pei-Tseng Jenny Hsieh
      Pages 309-321
  6. Back Matter

    Pages 323-327

About this book

​This edited volume explores how primary school teachers create rich opportunities for science learning, higher order thinking and reasoning, and how the teaching of science in Australia, Germany and Taiwan is culturally framed. It draws from the international and cross-cultural science education study EQUALPRIME: Exploring quality primary education in different cultures: A cross-national study of teaching and learning in primary science classrooms. Video cases of Year 4 science teaching were gathered by research teams based at Edith Cowan University, Deakin University, the Freie Universität Berlin, the National Taiwan Normal University and the National Taipei University of Education. Meetings of these research teams over a five year period at which data were shared, analysed and interpreted have revealed significant new insights into the social and cultural framing of primary science teaching, the complexities of conducting cross-cultural video-based research studies, and the strategies and semiotic resources employed by teachers to engage students in reasoning and meaning making. The book’s purpose is to disseminate the new insights into quality science teaching and how it is framed in different cultures; methodological advancements in the field of video-based classroom research in cross-cultural settings; and, implications for practice, teacher education and research.




“The chapters (of this book) address issues of contemporary relevance and theoretical significance: embodiment, discursive moves, the social unit of learning and instruction, inquiry, and reasoning through representations. Through all of these, the EQUALPRIME team manages to connect the multiple cultural perspectives that characterise this research study. The ‘meta-reflection’ chapters offer a different form of connection, linking cultural and theoretical perspectives on reasoning, quality teaching and video-based research methodologies. The final two chapters offer connective links to implications for practice in teacher education and in cross-cultural comparative research into teaching and learning. These multiple and extensive connections constitute one of the books most significant accomplishments.

The EQUALPRIME project, as reported in this book, provides an important empirical base that must be considered by any system seeking to promote sophisticated science learning and instructional practices in primary school classrooms. By exploring the classroom realisation of aspirational science pedagogies, the EQUALPRIME project also speaks to those involved in teacher education and to teachers. I commend this book to the reader. It offers important insights, together with a model of effective, collegial, collaborative inter-cultural research. It will help us to move forward in important ways”.

Professor David Clarke, Melbourne University


Editors and Affiliations

  • School of Education, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia

    Mark W. Hackling

  • Center for Research in Primary Education (Arbeitsstelle Bildungsforschung Primarstufe), Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Jörg Ramseger

  • Department of Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Hsiao-Lan Sharon Chen

About the editors

Dr Mark W Hackling is Emeritus Professor in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia.Dr Jörg Ramseger is Professor of Primary Education and Head of the Center for Research in Primary Education (Arbeitsstelle Bildungsforschung Primarstufe) at the Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Dr Hsiao-Lan Sharon Chen is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in the Department of Education at the National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Quality Teaching in Primary Science Education

  • Book Subtitle: Cross-cultural Perspectives

  • Editors: Mark W. Hackling, Jörg Ramseger, Hsiao-Lan Sharon Chen

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44383-6

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-44381-2Published: 01 November 2016

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-83044-5Published: 11 July 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-44383-6Published: 24 October 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIX, 327

  • Number of Illustrations: 87 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Science Education, International and Comparative Education, Learning & Instruction, Teaching and Teacher Education

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access