Science Teaching Method as a Means of Professional Learning in

Home Economics Teachers’ In-service Training

Pertti Väisänen

Anna-Liisa Rauma

Savonlinna Department of Education,

University of Joensuu, P.O. Box 55 FIN-57101 Savonlinna, Finland

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Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Hamburg, 17-20 September 2003

Introduction

In the science of home economics various phenomena, observations, and incidents are explained on the basis of both behavioural and natural sciences (Davis, 1993). Due to the wide extent of the sciences on which it is based, the scope of the home economics curriculum (POPS, 1994) in secondary school is also wide. In the Finnish home economics curriculum, practical everyday management is emphasised and is an important part of the lesson’s pedagogical content; but in addition to this, the broad basis of home economics provides the teacher with opportunities also to orient pupils to science education.

There are no reported data on the extent to which teachers generally integrate science into home economics in their teaching. Since the amount of natural sciences in the curriculum of home economics teacher education in Finland is minimal, we can expect that this kind of approach is not common in teachers’ pedagogical practices.

This intervention study, which was implemented in an in-service training course for home economics teachers, aimed at fostering their competence in integrating science into home economics teaching. The course was part of a project administered by the Finnish Board of Education in which the aims were to increase the teachers’ knowledge of natural sciences and mathematics. The course was based on the principles of andragogy (Knowles, 1984) and social constructivism (Brown et al., 1996; Ernest 1995) in which problem-based learning (Gibbs, 1992), experiential learning (Miller & Boud, 1996) and collaborative learning (Light et al., 1994; Panitz & Panitz, 1998; van Boxtel et al., 2000) are emphasised in an attempt to produce high quality learning (Simons, 1999).

Science Education and Home Economics

The working methods of science education, such as project-type studying, experimentation and explaining phenomena by using models, are also suitable for application in home economics lessons, where traditionally learning has already been strongly bound to practical action (Haverinen, 1996). During a home economics lesson, scientific information can thus be integrated naturally, and at its best learning is both comprehensive and experiential (Barkman, 1996). In addition, in the home economics curriculum problem solving, critical thinking and perception of entities are emphasised (POPS, 1994). Kivilehto (1999) presents a special approach to science education in the home economics context. While teaching baking, she has been studying the development of scientific thinking and deductive skills in pupils.

In Finnish secondary schools, food preparation is nearly always included in home economics lessons. Food preparation is a project, a theme entity, that is planned, carried out and evaluated together. When making food, the pupils have to measure, mix and usually also heat substances. Changing conditions allow pupils to follow reactions and make observations. A deeper understanding of reactions and phenomena require, however, that pupils master the basics of chemistry, biology and physics. Therefore, it is also necessary that the teacher first masters the basics of these sciences and knows how to integrate the elements of these subjects into home economics teaching. Consequently, this sets requirements for the pre-service and in-service education of home economics teachers.

High Quality Learning and University Teaching

Although there is much research on higher education pedagogy emphasising a need of reform in teaching (e.g., Biggs, 2000; Ramsden & Martin, 1996), traditional teaching and assessment methods have even recently been prevalent in universities (Entwistle et al., 1993; Rautopuro & Väisänen, 2001; Trigwell et al., 1994). This research suggest the need of fostering active and high quality learning in students. High quality learning has frequently been referred to as outcomes of learning that are durable, flexible, functional, meaningful, transferable and application-oriented (Simons, 1999). These outcomes can be achieved only by understanding the teaching-learning situation as a process where learners are active in construction of their own knowledge. The role of the teacher is to provide the subject expertise, the course design and management, teaching support and assessment in such a way that students are encouraged to develop skills and values that will foster independent learning and intellectual independence (Candy et al., 1994).

The problem often cited in university teachingis the inertness of knowledge (Vermunt & Verloop, 1999). This means that knowledge domains acquired through education are often studied in isolation from one another and from the context of knowledge use and are therefore difficult to access (Gallagher, 2000). Inertness of knowledge refers to a problem also known in working practice. Students have acquired considerable knowledge but may not be capable of solving problems in practice.

In order to avoid this, Biggs (2000, 40–43) suggests that university teaching should facilitate learning of functioning knowledge that requires a solid foundation of declarative knowledge (‘knowing-what’), but it should also involve knowing how to do things (‘procedural’ or ‘knowing-how’ knowledge) and knowing when to do these things (‘conditional’ or ‘knowing-why’ knowledge). In the same meaning Leinhardt and others (1995) differentiate between professional knowledge and university knowledge. By the term professional knowledge they mean procedural, specific, pragmatic and applicable knowledge and by the term university knowledge declarative, abstract and conceptual knowledge. Mintzes and others (2001) and Hammer (1999) stress the need to help students assimilate well-integrated, strongly cohesive frameworks of interrelated concepts as a way of encouraging real understanding of phenomena.

Furthermore, one of the most demanding challenges for higher education is to create learning environments that encourage students to become active learners and develop their professional competence and generic skills. As a good method for this, Greeno and others (1996) suggest using meaningful learning tasks that correspond to real life problems, and Biggs (2000, 220–221) suggests the use of problem-based learning and learning portfolios, both of which require high levels of cognitive and metacognitive skills on the part of the learner. Because home economics is a skill subject, in university teaching there should also be emphasised the importance of functioning knowledge.

Portfolio Work and Learning

Portfolios can be used for many purposes and in a variety of educational settings, from universities to primary schools (Niikko, 2000). Portfolios are used in evaluations of instruction and students’ learning (Wiggins, 1993) and in program evaluation (Johnson et al., 2000) as well as in documentation of the pre-service and in-service professional development of teachers (Meyer & Tusin, 1999).

According to Duffy and others (1999), portfolios are designed not only to be evaluation tools but also as exercises through which learners explore their understanding of a topic and apply knowledge. There is also some evidence that portfolio assessment, among other new assessment strategies, encourage meaningful learning and conceptual understanding, for example, in science education (Mintzes et al., 2001).

Although teacher portfolios have been tested by various groups as tools for assessment, portfolios have not until recently been studied as a vehicle for teacher reaming and growth (Wolf et al., 1995). However, theoretical support for portfolios as a reflective tool in the teaching profession is strong (Wolf et al., 1995). Blake (1995) believes that the use of this process encourages more self-assessment and evaluation. He also believes that portfolio assessment encourages a more holistic view of the teaching process, as teachers reflect upon, for example, their knowledge of subject-matter, curriculum and learners. Our study is interested in using portfolios in all above mentioned purposes.

Implementation of the Course and its Theoretical Foundations

The one-semester three-credit course ”Chemistry and Biotechnology in Food Preparation” was given by experts in food chemistry and nutrition (another author of the present paper, professor Rauma, one of them). The course was announced in the magazines Opettaja (Teacher 26–31/1999) and Kotitalous (Home Economcis 7–8/1999). A total of eighteen teachers answered the announcement and participated in the course. The announcement comprised for example the following questions, which were purposed to lead the reader of the announcement to the content areas of the course:

  • ”Home economics teacher, do you want to show your pupils the kitchen’s events from a new perspective?
  • Why are popcorns popping?
  • Why does sherbet feel colder than ice cream?
  • Why does whipped cream stay like it is, whereas foam on the lemonade does not?
  • What is the enzyme required for preparation of sweetened potato casserole?
  • What happens during souring?
  • Bacteria in the kitchen can be friends or enemies – how to tell a friend from an enemy?”

Active and enthusiastic learners, proficient, questioning and generalising tutoring as well as collaborative working methods were set as objectives of the teaching and learning situations. The learning tasks and settings were planned to be meaningful, problem-oriented and contextual in such a way that they respond to real-life problems (e.g., Bilimoria & Wheeler, 1995; Gibbs, 1992; Greeno et al., 1996; Simons, 1999) in the setting of home economics.

The course comprised four days of contact instruction, of which three treated chemistry and one microbiology. The share of exercises was approximately a half of the contact instruction entity. The instruction was organised in the manner that first the tutor gave a lecture on the day’s theme, after which group work was done in pairs or in groups of four persons. At the end of the day, the exercises were discussed and analysed together with the tutors. Contact instruction was implemented mainly in the education kitchen at the Savonlinna campus of the Joensuu University.

Exercises included kitchen chemistry experiments such as making popcorn and ice cream in order to study the evaporation and freezing properties of water molecules, cheese-making to demonstrate how casein can be isolated from milk, and bread-making to demonstrate the formation of the gluten structure, and enzyme activities. Traditional Finnish foods, such as yogurt and a special dish made from rye flour ("mämmi"), were made in order to follow the activities of lactobacilli and natural enzymes. The purpose was that the teachers would do the same exercises with their own pupils before the next contact education day.

The general and detailed objectives of the course, which were set by the trainers (Table 1 in Appendices), were discussed together at the beginning of the course. In addition to this, each participant wrote down in a portfolio her own personal objectives of the course and learning. Portfolio work was used to evoke participants’ prior knowledge and experiences and to encourage them to engage in self-directed learning and self-reflection (Barickman, 1993; Duffy et al., 1999; Simon & Forgette-Giroux, 2000).

The group met at minimum intervals of one month. During the first meeting all participants joined the common learning forum through the information network (Active Forum 2.0 (c) 1998–1999, Intra Active Software Corporation).

Research Problems

The aims of the study were to determine:

1)How well the teachers think they master the basics of chemistry and microbiology and whether the course fostered the growth of their knowledge and understanding of these subjects.

2)How often the teachers consciously integrate their knowledge of chemistry and microbiology into home economics teaching.

3)How the teachers experience and perceive the course both on cognitive and affective spheres of learning.

Methods and Procedures

Participants

All participants (N = 18) were women; seventeen were home economics teachers and one was a teacher of chemistry. Most of them (f = 16) were 30–40 years old. Nearly all participants were teaching in secondary school, but one was teaching in a vocational institute. Participation in the study was voluntary. The group was very heterogeneous with regard to the background of studies in chemistry and microbiology. During their pre-service education seven teachers had studied 8–10 credits and five had studied 3–5 credits of chemistry. Five teachers had studied only the basics (less than 3 credits) and one had taken a more advanced level (35 credits) of chemistry studies. Eleven teachers had studied two credits of microbiology, five had studied only the basics, and two had not studied microbiology at all. The majority (n = 14) of the teachers had not familiarized themselves with the literature of chemistry or microbiology after their studies or taken any continuing professional education courses in these subjects.

Questionnaires, Portfolios and Data Analysis

The effectiveness of the training intervention in fostering participants’ learning was evaluated by a five-point scaled questionnaire administered before and after the course. The experimental design was a one group pretest–posttest quasi-experimentation (Cohen & Manion 1994). To determine out the benefits of the training program, portfolio assessment and discussions in the net were evaluated qualitatively.

Quantitative data were subjected to statistical analyses by the SPSS for Windows V10.0 program. Wilcoxon Signed-Ranks Test was used to measure the differences between pretest and posttest scores on the quasi-interval scale (1–5) variables (remembering the basics of chemistry and microbiology and their level of integration) and the McNemar test for significance of changes with the dichotomous variables, ie., ability to explain the following concepts: enzyme, flavonoid, microbe, fermentation, oxidation, yeast, glucose and apple (Siegel, 1956, 61–67, 75–83).

Results

Revision of Knowledge

According to the teachers’ self-ratings, they mastered the basics of chemistry (z = -3.487, p = 0.000) and microbiology (z = -3.448, p = 0.001) significantly and remarkably better after the course (Figures 1 and 2 in Appendices).

The portfolios revealed that teachers had experienced their studies in pre-service teacher education as being too theoretical, with a lack of links to the practice of teaching and learning (cf. Biggs, 2000; Leinhardt et al., 1995; Vermunt & Verloop, 1999). The reasons for not remembering the basics of these sciences well at the beginning of the course was explained by the teachers as follows:

”The problem with the chemistry courses related to the Master’s degree was that teaching did not proceed from the atom and molecule level to the level of practical life, and the points of connection with reality were not explained. The ability and skills to do this seem to be lacking in most chemistry teachers”.

”The four credits’ course of chemistry during my studies nearly ten years ago was very limited. As a matter of fact, the course consisted only of an exam of a thick package of books, and comprised almost not at all practical chemistry exercises. During the course I want also to get tips of how to use chemistry and microbiology in connection with examples in home economics teaching.”

”Though it is true that we were not supposed to become chemists in the teacher education in the beginning of the 1990’s, I would still have hoped for a better starting point also for this course. Poor knowledge of chemistry has partly contributed also to the fact, that I do not dare to use examples related to chemistry in my teaching any longer. That is a pity, because home economics are a form of creative chemistry studies at their best. That is why I borrowed a textbook of basic chemistry this week in order to see what pupils really are taught in their chemistry lessons at comprehensive school.”

”During my own studies, studying of chemistry and biotechnology remained on a distant level. Perhaps our chemistry teachers were not able to justify their subject and its relation with the reality and practice. I have understood the significance of chemical phenomena only later, and after that I have started to include that kind of deliberation also in my own teaching. I still remember a comment of one teacher during my studies stating that food preparation is to a great extent chemistry and art, and not only visible work such as whipping, mixing or frying. Presently I am ready to completely sign that statement.”

As to the second sub-problem, the growth of knowledge was measured by asking teachers to evaluate whether they could explain the chemical or microbiological background of the concepts or phenomena what are important in home economics teaching, namely enzyme, flavonoid, microbe, fermentation, oxidation, yeast, glucose, and apple. This question showed particularly well the teachers’ uncertainty and, on the other hand, their initial lack of knowledge. However, the course helped the teachers significantly (McNemar test with 1-tailed exact significance) in explaining the concepts enzyme (p = 0.016), flavonoid (p = 0.004), microbe (p = 0.016)), fermentation (p = 0.001), glucose (p = 0.031) and apple (p = 0.031), whereas their ability to explain the concepts oxidation (p = 0.063) and yeast (p = 0.125) did not improve significantly (Figure 3).

Related to the specific words, two teachers mentioned the following in their portfolios:

”I have noticed already after the fist time, that I have terrible gaps already in the basic vocabulary of chemistry alone. Sometimes I felt a subject surpassed my comprehension totally, when I started to think of a term I did not understand.”

”To my satisfaction I can state that the words and phenomena such as enzyme, flavonoid, fermentation etc. do not sound strange any longer and I can give them some kind of a ”scientific” explanation.”

Integrating Chemistry and Microbiology into Home Economics

When answering the second research problem we could found that after the course, teachers level of integration was significantly higher in both chemistry (z = -2.980, p = 0.003) and microbiology (z = -3.017, p = 0.003). The mean differences between the posttest and pretest values were rather high. This was attributed to the fact that the teachers were able to recall the basics of the subjects and that they did the same exercises with their own pupils. Two teachers wrote about integration as follows suggesting that it is not easy to choose the perspective of instruction because home economics as a discipline is wide and interdisciplinary in nature.

”In co-operation with my home economics colleagues I have noticed that, in particular, use of the perspective of chemistry in the observation of the subjects taught is very limited. The teacher herself chooses the observation perspective: for example, whether to observe baking of buns from the standpoint of economics or food preparation technique, from the perspective of role division within a family or of human relations, or from the perspective of the chemical reactions taking place in the dough. I have often also offered the latter aspect and integrated chemistry into home economics lessons.”