Project leader: Ingrid Eikeland

Project period: august 2013 – august 2017

Participants: INSPIRIA Science Center

This PhD-project is a participatory design-based research study focusing on science center educators’ reflective practice in the context of controversial socio-scientific issues (SSI). There has not been done much research on educators’ reflective practice neither in museums nor in science centers. Further studies have documented that museums and science centers mainly present science in a product-oriented and unproblematic way . It is therefore recommended to move towards wider learning goals in science centers. I want to approach these gaps by investigate how science center educators develop their professional knowledge and practice during design and testing of a new school program that focus on controversial SSI. The overall aim of the study is to investigate how this approach may affect educators’ reflection on science center pedagogy and how this could contribute to the development of how they view learning in science centers. The study will be conducted in close collaboration with science center educators in Norway.