JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 28, NO. 1, P. 1 (1991)

EDITORIAL

A recent defense of prospectus by a Ph.D. student in my department spurred me to write this brief editorial. During that defense the student presented a carefully prepared document (loo+ pages) that described a pilot study, with many details and citations that supported the proposed dissertation research. The proposed study would involve a number of secondary science teachers in experimental research, each teaching an experimental class and a control class. It became apparent that plans for monitoring the classes were sketchy, leaving the operational definitions of experimental and control to the teachers. Although there were plans to prepare the teachers for the study and to use special curriculum materials, actual classroom observations were not planned.

This brings me to my main point. Good experimental research is highly valuable, but rare. Because of the many factors likely to be involved in good experimental research, treatment integrity is very difficult to achieve. So many things are involved with helping students learn science in a real (i.e., complex) classroom setting. Often, the experimental treatment is described in reasonable detail but the control treatment is merely referred to as traditional or conventional, as if that had a carefully defined meaning. When both treatments are defined in reasonable detail, they are not monitored carefully enough to ensure treatment integrity. When treatment integrity is ensured (not a common occurrence) we find that the study is so brief that high-level cognitive and affective changes are improbable.

Learning science in real classroom settings is complex and experimental research designs should reflect that complexity. Without the proper safeguards, however, treatment integrity will not be assured resulting in research that has little chance of replication.

Now, I must confess that “a Ph.D. student in my department” is my student. In spite of many meetings and discussions with that student, I had not communicated effectively enough the importance of treatment integrity. It was a good lesson for me and I hope it stirs interest among those who still see value in doing experimental classroom research in science education. One can never be sure how words are interpreted inside or outside science classrooms. As researchers we must make every reasonable effort to check on the constructed meanings that people make in order to increase our confidence that our interpretations are shared by others.

RON GOOD Editor