Min forskning handlar om att utveckla empiriskt grundade didaktiska modeller och andra verktyg som lärare i naturvetenskap kan använda sig av i sin dagliga verksamhet. Jag är intresserad både av hur didaktiska modeller kan utvecklas i nära samarbete med professionen, och att ta fram faktiska modeller. Modellerna kan vara allt ifrån beskrivningar av vilka erfarenheter elever eller universitetsstudenter behöver göra för att lära sig ett visst innehåll, via begreppsliga ramverk för att planera, genomföra och utvärdera undervisning, till hypoteser om hur olika syften med undervisningen kan nås genom olika sätt att organisera den på.

Att modellerna och verktygen är empiriskt grundade innebär

(1) att de bygger på detaljerade analyser av undervisning samt

(2) att de testas och förfinas i nära samarbete med verksamma lärare.

I RiskEdu-projektet (2018-2021), som finansierades av Skolforskningsinstitutet (och tidigare av Marcus och Amalia Wallenbergs minnesfond, 2014-2018), försökte forskare och gymnasielärare tillsammans generera kunskap om hur gymnasiets naturvetenskapliga undervisning kan stärka elevers förmåga till riskbedömning och ställningstaganden i kontroversiella samhällsfrågor med ett naturvetenskapligt innehåll, som strålning och bioteknik. Vi utvecklade såväl konkreta verktyg sommer övergripande modeller och principer för undervisning om risk och riskbedömning inom gymnasiets biologi-, fysik-, kemi- och naturkunskapsämnen.

Tillsammans med Prof. Jonas Almqvist (Uppsala) och Prof. Anette Olin Almqvist (Göteborg) har jag under flera år utvecklat en metodologi för att tillsammans med lärare utveckla såväl deras praktik som ny kunskap om praktiken - så kallad Didaktisk UtvecklingsDialog (DUD). Detta samarbeta har resulterat i två publicerade böcker med inriktning mot grund- och gymnasieskolan. Under 2024 publiceras på motsvarande sätt en bok där DUD använts i förskolan. 

Utöver dessa projekt, vilka är inriktade mot grundskolans och gymnasiets naturvetenskapsundervisning, bedriver jag tillsammans med doktoranden Matti Karlström ett projekt som riktar sig mot undervisning på universitetet. Matti studerar hur lärarstudenter resonerar om planering av undervisning samt hur de successivt lär sig att reflektera över dessa och andra delar av sin praktik. Jag är också biträdande handledare för doktoranden Maria Weiland inom forskarskolan RelMaS I. Marias intresse är att generera och utveckla (mangla) en didaktisk modell för att reflektera över undervisning i naturvetenskap i grundskolans tidigare år, samt hur man kan skapa goda förutsättningar för att genomföra manglingen gemensamt mellan forskare och lärare.

 

I urval från Stockholms universitets publikationsdatabas

• Nature of science in students' discussions on disagreement between scientists following a narrative about health effects of the Fukushima Daiichi accident

  2023. Karim Mikael Hamza (et al.). International Journal of Science Education 45 (1), 22-42

  Artikel

  We explored the potential for addressing nature of science through a historic narrative about disagreement between researchers concerning a socio-scientific issue, incidence of juvenile thyroid cancer following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. The narrative was developed from authentic sources and tested in two cycles. Eight groups of three to four high-school students were audio recorded. Transcripts were analyzed regarding what nature of science emerged in the discussions and what understanding about NOS could be discerned, using three complementary NOS-frameworks (Consensus-NOS, Whole Science-NOS, FRA-NOS). Together, the student groups touched upon 19 different NOS-themes as they tried to make sense of the disagreement related in the narrative. All groups addressed a common core of NOS-themes, most of which were central to the narrative itself, although some themes that were not part of the narrative also emerged. Students displayed a basic understanding of the tentative, empirical, and subjective nature of science together with the role of evidential relevance and completeness of evidence related to the choice of scientific methods. On the other hand, students did not reckon with peer review as a means for establishing knowledge and resolving disagreement. Moreover, although students readily accepted disagreement as a basic property of science, they had difficulty handling this disagreement when coping with the SSI in the narrative. We discuss how the combination of history of science-in-the-making and SSI in narrative form offers opportunities to teach NOS without risking simplified messages of how scientific knowledge develops or how science can be used to address socio-scientific issues.

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• Modeling preservice middle school science teachers’ reflective practice

  2023. Matti Karlström, Karim Hamza. Cogent Education 10 (1)

  Artikel

  We present an empirically based model for modeling the quality of pre-service teacher reflection. Conversations from twelve groups of a total of 47 pre-service teachers were video recorded and transcribed verbatim. First, we analyzed their conversations through practical epistemology analysis and an operationalization of Dewey’s definition of reflection to identify the moments of reflection that appeared in the pre-service teachers’ talk. Thereafter, we employed Dewey’s reflective attitudes, responsibility, open-mindedness and whole-heartedness, with the aim of understanding their roles in moments of reflection and how they relate to the quality of reflection. Our results show that the reflective attitudes played different roles and based on these roles and on particular patterns of the attitudes in our data it was possible to use them for modeling the quality of the pre-service teachers’ reflection. We suggest that presence of all of the attitudes corresponds to higher quality than absence of any of them. Moreover, identifying absence of one or more attitudes in PSTs’ reflection makes it possible to explicitly talk about what aspects of the reflection that should be improved, and why. Our results contribute with a first tentative model which may support teacher educators work with the development of pre-service teachers’ reflective practice. 

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• To recognize oneself and others in teacher-researcher collaboration

  2023. Anette Olin, Jonas Almqvist, Karim Hamza. Educational action research 31 (2), 248-264

  Artikel

  Research is needed to explain in more depth what happens and why in teacher-researcher collaboration. Previous research on collaboration points out issues such as asymmetric power relations and cultural differences between professions that can potentially cause problems. This paper examines a Swedish action research project in which teachers and researchers worked together to write a textbook for pre-service teacher education. To study the collaboration, theory on recognition was used to interpret how teachers and, to some extent, researchers understand and value themselves and each other's participation and contribution. Data was collected from a two-day dialogue meeting in the middle of the process where teachers and researchers met to discuss their on-going writing. The result shows that, through well-structured dialogues, the participants transformed their understanding and valuing of both themselves and others in relation to the task of producing new didactical knowledge. This is interpreted as transformed self-recognition for the teachers, who started to acknowledge themselves as knowledge producers. This transformation was crucial for developing the mutual recognition through which new didactical knowledge emerged as a result of the collaboration.

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• Facts and values in students’ reasoning about gene technology in the frame of risk–a thick comprehension

  2022. Iann Lundegård (et al.). Environmental Education Research 28 (9), 1283-1296

  Artikel

  In the current debate, there is no consensus on the relationship between knowledge and values in students’ reasoning and argumentation in socio-scientific and sustainability issues, i.e. if these should be addressed as separate entities or rather treated as a whole. In this study, we address this question empirically, with students engaging in two language games–aesthetic and epistemological–as they deliberate on ethical issues associated with genetic engineering. The study reports on a course unit that includes lectures, group work and student-led value-clarification exercises. The ways in which the language games interact were analysed using the established methods of Practical Epistemology Analysis (PEA) and analysis of Deliberative Educational Questions (DEQ). Our results show that aesthetic and epistemological language games were intricately intertwined in the students’ reasoning. Given this close entanglement, each language game was conducive to the development of the other and in so doing, deepened the understanding of the content as a whole.

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• Gymnasielärares lågintensiva utvecklingsarbete: Att koppla undervisningserfarenheter till det systematiska kvalitetsarbetet

  2021. Karim Hamza, Per Anderhag. Skolutveckling i teori och prakti, 201-210

  Kapitel

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• Didactics and didactic models in science education

  2020. Per-Olof Wickman, Karim Hamza, Iann Lundegård. Methodological approaches to STEM education research, 34-49

  Kapitel

  In continental Europe didactics is identified as the professional science of teachers. A central concern of didactics is not only to deliver teaching methods for teachers and teacher education, but also to develop analytical units, analytical methods and design principles that are useful for teachers in making decisions on planning, carrying out and assessing teaching and learning. Didactic research provides rationales and conceptual schemata for choosing certain content and for choosing appropriate methods to teach that content with specific groups of students. We give a methodological account of a central field in didactics, namely didactic modelling, analysis and design. We review what didactic models are and how they can be produced. We describe the methodologies of modelling, namely (1) how models can be extracted from classroom data in conjunction with theory, (2) how extracted models need to be mangled with teachers, that is adapting models to make them more useful practically, and (3) procedures of collecting exemplars to illustrate how models can be used with various content and students. We also explain how extracted and mangled didactic models can be used for analysing teaching and learning, and for educational designs.

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• Teaching and discussing about risk: seven elements of potential significance for science education

  2019. Linda Schenk (et al.). International Journal of Science Education 41 (9), 1271-1286

  Artikel

  The present paper takes its point of departure in risk being a relevant content for science education, and that there are many different approaches to how to incorporate it. By reviewing the academic literature on the use and definitions of risk from fields such as engineering, linguistics and philosophy, we identified key elements of the risk concept relevant for science education. Risk is a phenomenon of the future that may be conveyed by our activity, it is something that may or may not take place. Hence, at the core of risk we find uncertainty and consequence. Furthermore, the elements of probability and severity are relevant modifiers of the consequence, as well as both subject to uncertainty. Additionally, in framing, understanding and decision-making on risk, as individuals or society, we need to acknowledge that risk has both objective and subjective components, lying in the interface between knowledge and values. In this paper, we describe how these key elements were derived from the literature and derive a schematic model of the risk concept for the purpose of science education. We further discuss how this model may assist in planning, execution and evaluation of teaching activities explicitly or implicitly involving risk issues.

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• Who Owns the Content and Who Runs the Risk? Dynamics of Teacher Change in Teacher-Researcher Collaboration

  2018. Karim Hamza (et al.). Research in science education 48 (5), 963-987

  Artikel

  We present analyses of teacher professional growth during collaboration between science teachers and science education researchers, with special focus on how the differential assumption of responsibility between teachers and researchers affected the growth processes. The collaboration centered on a new conceptual framework introduced by the researchers, which aimed at empowering teachers to plan teaching in accordance with perceived purposes. Seven joint planning meetings between teachers and researchers were analyzed, both quantitatively concerning the extent to which the introduced framework became part of the discussions and qualitatively through the interconnected model of teacher professional growth. The collaboration went through three distinct phases characterized by how and the extent to which the teachers made use of the new framework. The change sequences identified in relation to each phase show that teacher recognition of salient outcomes from the framework was important for professional growth to occur. Moreover, our data suggest that this recognition may have been facilitated because the researchers, in initial phases of the collaboration, took increased responsibility for the implementation of the new framework. We conclude that although this differential assumption of responsibility may result in unequal distribution of power between teachers and researchers, it may at the same time mean more equal distribution of concrete work required as well as the inevitable risks associated with pedagogical innovation and introduction of research-based knowledge into science teachers' practice.

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• Hybridization of practices in teacher-researcher collaboration

  2018. Karim Hamza (et al.). European Educational Research Journal (online) 17 (1), 170-186

  Artikel

  In this paper we present experiences from a joint collaborative research project which may be described as an encounter between a school science teaching practice and a university science didactics research practice. We provide narratives which demonstrate how the encounter between these two communities of practice interacted to produce hybridization between the two in terms of mutual influences, resulting in the conceptual and practical development of both communities of practice. We argue that what happened in the project suggests one way of reducing the gap between educational research and teaching through the emergence of practices where the roles of teachers and researchers become blurred.

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• Transformation of Professional Identities From Scientist to Teacher in a Short-Track Science Teacher Education Program

  2018. Bengt-Olov Molander, Karim Hamza. Journal of Science Teacher Education 29 (6), 504-526

  Artikel

  The development of professional identity during a short-track teacher education program is studied. This article presents how individuals with a strong background in natural sciences describe the teacher education in which they participate. Individual interviews were conducted with 6 student teachers with a doctorate in natural sciences and extensive work experience in science-related professions on 5 occasions during their teacher education. We suggest that shared ways of talking about education and teaching practice can be described as phases summed up as cautiously positive, rejection, acceptance, and complexity. It is argued that problems of development of professional identities can be understood in relation to the design of the teacher education under study, and failure to acknowledge the development of a professional identity as a science teacher among these student teachers is a question of a not unproblematic transformation of professional identities. Implications for teacher education are that the design of teacher education needs to consider a joint frame for the entire education, in particular the relation between practice and theoretical courses.

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• Developing an approach for teaching and learning about Lewis structures

  2017. Ilana Kaufmann (et al.). International Journal of Science Education 39 (12), 1601-1624

  Artikel

  This study explores first-year university students' reasoning as they learn to draw Lewis structures. We also present a theoretical account of the formal procedure commonly taught for drawing these structures. Students' discussions during problem-solving activities were video recorded and detailed analyses of the discussions were made through the use of practical epistemology analysis (PEA). Our results show that the formal procedure was central for drawing Lewis structures, but its use varied depending on situational aspects. Commonly, the use of individual steps of the formal procedure was contingent on experiences of chemical structures, and other information such as the characteristics of the problem given. The analysis revealed a number of patterns in how students constructed, checked and modified the structure in relation to the formal procedure and the situational aspects. We suggest that explicitly teaching the formal procedure as a process of constructing, checking and modifying might be helpful for students learning to draw Lewis structures. By doing so, the students may learn to check the accuracy of the generated structure not only in relation to the octet rule and formal charge, but also to other experiences that are not explicitly included in the formal procedure.

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