Projects in short LISMA

Adults' and Undergraduates' Learning

Teachers' Views of Nature of Science and the Teaching of Nature of Science in Grades 4-9

Lotta Leden, Lena Hansson and Andreas Redfors with Malin Ideland MaH
How is scientific knowledge developed? How do scientists work? How do science and society interact? These are some examples of questions that could be included in discussions about "nature of science" (NOS). The inclusion of NOS in science education has for a long time been regarded as an important component in the science classroom. This study investigates teachers' views of the teaching about NOS in compulsory school. Two groups of teachers are studied during three years both during their teaching and during focus-group discussions. During the focus-group meetings both different aspects of NOS and the teaching of NOS is discussed.

Watching the sky – new realizations, meanings and aspects in university level astronomy

Urban Eriksson and Andreas Redfors
This project studies, in cooperation with Cedric Linder and John Airey at Uppsala University, the meanings that students construct from the disciplinary representations used to get a holistic understanding of the basic building-blocks of the universe and how they functionally work together. The study explores the awareness that experts (teachers) and novices (students) experience when engaging with the disciplinary representations e.g. simulation videos illustrating the structural components and characteristics of the Milky Way Galaxy or HR-diagrams.

Pre-service teachers’ development to become mathematics teachers

Kristina Juter
The project started in 2016 together with Catarina Wästerlid. Groups of pre-service year 4-6 teachers participate in a longitudinal study about their development to become mathematics teachers. Questionnaires and interviews were used to gather data during the four years of education to reveal the students’ development in terms of beliefs about and knowledge in mathematics as well as learning and teaching mathematics.

A study of student teachers' views on the concept of function

Örjan Hansson
The study concerns student teachers' conceptions of the function concept. Various perspectives of the student teachers' views and use of functions are considered, which, includes their conceptions of the significance of functions in mathematics and school mathematics. Moreover, student teachers' conceptions of different properties of functions and how these properties are related to other concepts are considered in the study.

The development of special education teachers’ relational competency

Anders Jönsson with Jonas Aspelin, Barbro Bruce and Daniel Östlund
Research has demonstrated that a supportive relationship between teacher and student is essential for educational progress, especially for students with disabilities. However, there is a dearth of research regarding how relational competence is developed in special education teacher preparation (SET), as well as in teacher education more generally. This project aims to fill the gap by exploring preservice special educators’ (PSE) relational competence. The overall design is an intervention study characterized by the use of digital video and virtual reality-technique. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Biodiversity and species identification

Christel Persson med Irmeli Palmberg, Åbo akademi, Vasa
The research project includes an extensive empirical material from the Nordic countries and Lithuania, where the informants are student teachers. The aim of this study is to investigate student teachers' knowledge of species, their interest in and ideas about species identification, and the importance of species identification for biodiversity and sustainable development. Student teachers from primary schools were tested using an identification test and a questionnaire consisting of fixed and open questions. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used to get a more holistic view of students' level of knowledge.

Media and environment

Christel Persson in a Nordic Baltic project
Environmental information most frequently comes from media sources. The most popular media has been newspapers, TV and Internet. This study aims to find students' perceptions about the environmental issues in media and how they use media in relation to environmental issues. The quantitative study includes a questionnaire to get the answers to the research task and administered to students in Finland, Lithuania and Sweden.

Sustainable development in preschool

Christel Persson, Lennart Mårtensson and Jaromir Korostenski
The project aims to identify the situation of how education for sustainable development (ESD) and sustainable development is addressed in pre-school education in Sweden today. The further aim is to develop the collaborative process between pre-school education and active preschools.

Student preschool teachers’ practice with science teaching scaffolded by tablets

Marie Fridberg, Andreas Redfors and Susanne Thulin
The project investigates student preschool teachers’ work with science teaching scaffolded by tablets during a period of practice teaching. The project methodology is analysis of written student reports.

Students' learning

The Role of Mathematics for Teaching and Learning in Physics, VR-UV

Andreas Redfors, Lena Hansson, Örjan Hansson and Kristina Juter
A project where physics teaching in upper-secondary is studied, through observations and interviews, to find the role of mathematics in physics learning. Mathematics is an inherent part of science theories and makes powerful predictions of natural phenomena from theoretical calculations possible. Students have been described to have their knowledge in science and mathematics fragmented, which means that they have difficulties in generalising, and in using theoretical knowledge in new contexts. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Worldviews, students and science

Lena Hansson
This project builds on Lena's thesis which handles questions about students' worldviews, the kinds of worldviews students associate with science, and what consequences this can have for the teaching and learning of science. A worldview perspective can shed new light on issues concerning students' interest/lack of interest in science, as well as on many students' difficulties in understanding the science taught in science class.

Recruitment to Science Education: Actors, Initiatives, Messages

Lena Hansson and Maria Andrée (SU)
The project aims to contribute to an understanding of the functioning of recruitment campaigns and other STEM initiatives by scrutinizing what messages are conveyed by different actors to young students on why they should choose a STEM-line of study. So far we have published two case studies where initiatives initiated by government and academia are analyzed. We are currently working on a third study where industrial actors' engagement in different kinds of STEM initiatives are in focus. An overall question is to what extent these initiatives and campaigns communicate messages that makes science relevant for more young people.

Students’ views of infinity and related mathematics concepts

Kristina Juter
The project was designed to reveal students’ different ways to view concepts related to infinity, e.g. the denseness of the number line, comparisons of infinite sets and division by zero. Students at different programs at university level and students at corresponding programs at upper secondary schools filled out a questionnaire anonymously. Interviews were used to give further details about the students’ views. The results show differences in views according to program at university level so far. The gathering of data and analysis is ongoing.

Borderline students

Anders Jönsson, Alli Klapp, Magnus Hultén & Christian Lundahl
This project is conducted in cooperation with Linköping and Örebro Universities. The main aim is to investigate the effects of boundaries for passing grades on teachers’ epistemological beliefs and students’ performance in a school managed by objectives and results. The analyses focus on how the boundary for a passing performance has been evaluated, treated and discussed in different contexts and at different points in time. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Analytic or holistic?

Anders Jönsson
It has been shown that teachers use different strategies when grading student work, such as an arithmetic strategy, an analytic strategy, an intuitive strategy, and a holistic strategy. Of these, only the analytic and the holistic strategies are in line with the intentions of the grading system. The aim of this study is to investigate differences between the analytic and the holistic strategies with regard to (a) variance and (b) teachers’ motives for arriving at a certain decision (judgment theory). The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Landscape study: Finnish and Swedish students´ drawings of the landscape

Christel Persson and Eija Yli-Panula, Åbo, Finland
A research project in collaboration with the University of Turku, Finland. It is a qualitative study with phenomenographical features, while the focus is to study students' conceptions of a landscape and environment worth preserving as a phenomenon. The aim is to analyze the drawings of a group of Finnish and Swedish students in age of 7-15 years old and to identify the landscape they would like to conserve and also to find out students' conceptions of the environment. The project was expanded in 2013 to also include student teachers as the target group.

Reading Nature – developing ecological literacy through teaching

Ola Magntorn
Reading nature has its focus on ecology and the context is outdoors. This literacy has to do with an ability to recognise organisms and relate them to cycling of matter and flow of energy in the specific habitat to be read. It has to do with authenticity where the natural world that we face outside is the book to be read and the tools we have are our experiences from previous learning situations both in and out-of-doors. The research focus is on student's developing ability and their ability to generalise it between different habitats and to recognise the human impact on ecosystems.

Formative assessment in primary school

Jenny Green, Kristina Juter and Anders Jönsson med Camilla Björklund GU
The purpose of the study is to examine primary students’ feedback practice, with a particular focus on mathematical reasoning, and what beliefs of mathematics and mathematics learning they have. We also intend to examine what happens with their beliefs if another form of feedback is introduced. 

Children's learning

roBOTics and STEM education for children and primary schools - botSTEM, ERASMUS+

Marie Fridberg, Björn Cronquist and Andreas Redfors
An ERASMUS+ project aiming to raising the utilisation of inquiry-based collaborative earning and robots-enhanced education. BOTSTEM implements robot-based approaches, including  code-learning, for enhancing the education in Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM). The project outputs are specifically aimed to provide in- and pre-service teachers in Childhood and Primary Education, children aged between 4 and 8, with research-based materials and best practices. 

Chemistry and Physics in Preschool - Teaching and Learning Related to Sustainability and Socio-Scientific Issues, FpLiS

Marie Fridberg, Susanne Thulin and Andreas Redfors
This project, together with preschools in Kristianstad, studies model-based teaching and collaborative inquiry learning of chemical processes and physical phenomena related to socio-scientific issues (SSI). A special focus is children's learning in connection to intended and enacted teaching, and the research contrasts teaching and learning processes with and without scaffolding by contemporary information technologies. Furthermore, is the above contrasted to teachers' knowledge of explanatory models in science and didactic.

Physics and Communication in preschool

Lina Hellberg, Andreas Redfors and Susanne Thulin
The project investigates the communication between children and teachers during work work everyday phenomena related to explanatory models in physics. The teachers' planning of the intended and the enacted object of learning are investigated. The empirical data is from a preschool and a team of teachers working with the youngest children (ages 1-2 years).

Sustainable development in a Preschool perspective

Marie Fridberg and Susanne Thulin with Laila Gustavsson 

The overarching interest of this thesis is to generate knowledge about how preschool-teachers, try to promote children's learning in various domains of knowledge with special focus on natural science and how children (2 to 6 years old) respond to these opportunities.

The forming of arithmetic competence in formal and informal situations

Ingemar Holgersson and Torgny Ottosson
The development of arithmetic competence in 5-7 year old children is studied in cooperation with colleagues at University of Gothenburg. In accordance with a "Design Based Research" rationale, young children's mathematising in their interaction with a "number game" is documented and analysed in a series of iterative cycles. What role does tactile and visually based resources play in this development, and to what extent can children bring competence from one situation into another.

Starting from questions and everyday situations in preschool: What kind of science content could that lead to?

Lena Hansson and Lena Löfgren
This project builds on an earlier study published together with Ann-Marie Pendrill (LU). In that study we analysed questions and situations in preschool everyday life that have been noticed by preschool teachers and according to them have to do with science. We have then, in a second study, performed focus group interviews with preschool teachers with point of departure in the questions/situations collected in the first study. What factors influence which questions/situations that are seized by the teachers? What consequences can be seen for the possibilities given for science learning? In the project we want to contribute to a problematization of the notion of "working with science in preschool by catching everyday questions and situations" as a taken for granted good.

Environment and sustainability in a future perspective

Christel Persson 
The purpose of the study is to investigate preschool teachers´ approach to the concept of sustainable development. A further aspect is to find out how their environmental views are consistent with their teaching methods. How does teaching conform with municipal strategies for sustainable development and national environmental quality goals? The study is funded in collaboration with the Gyllenstiernska Krapperups Foundation and Kristianstad University.

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Examples of earlier projects

The relationship between formative assessment and self-regulated learning

Anders Jönsson & Ernesto Panadero
There is a strong theoretical connection between formative assessment and self-regulated learning, but the empirical support is limited. In this project we explore the connection between peer- and self-assessment on the one hand and self-regulated learning on the other. The project is funded by Kristianstad University and the Autonomous University in Madrid.

Students' conceptions of calculus; derivatives and continuity

Kristina Juter
Students' concept images of the mathematics concepts derivatives and continuity are studied in a project in collaboration with Lund University. The students are enrolled in a basic university calculus course either within a program or separately. Interviews and questionnaires are used as complementing methods to gather data to answer questions about students' perceptions of concepts in mathematics.

SAILS – Strategies for Assessment of Inquiry Learning in Science
Anders Jönsson and Maria Rosberg
The SAILS project has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research and development. The project aims to prepare science teachers not only to be able to teach science through inquiry, but also to be confident and competent in the assessment of their students' learning through inquiry. SAILS is represented in Sweden by Kristianstad University and Malmö University.

CoReflect.org – EC project

Andreas Redfors, Lena Hansson and Maria Rosberg
In this project we have, together with groups in six other countries developed, implemented and evaluated digital learning environments (LEs) focusing different socio-scientific issues. The group at HKR designed an LE in the area of astrobiology. The socio-scientific issues were: Should we search for, and try to contact extraterrestrial life? and Should we transform Mars into a planet where we could live in the future? We are continuing the analysis of students' argumentation concerning these issues before, during and in the end of their work with the LE Life in the Universe.

Science for life?

Britt Lindahl and Maria Rosberg
The overall aim of this evidence-based project is to understand more about how and why students in secondary school develop interest, knowledge and self-efficacy when they are working with socio-scientific issues in science lessons. Another aim is to gain more detailed knowledge about teachers' experiences with teaching socio-scientific issues. See also www.sisc.se.

Learning environments and affective experiences and learning outcomes

Maria Rosberg
The project focuses on how students´ prior knowledge and epistemological beliefs interacts with factors in the learning environment in forming affective experiences during learning.

Teaching Science through Inquiry – Professional Development of In-Service-Teachers

Ingrid Lundh, Andreas Redfors and Maria Rosberg
This study examines what it takes to change teachers' beliefs about using inquiry as a method for science teaching. Of particular interest is the role of the teachers' beliefs of the nature of science. Two teachers are studied during participating in a professional development program. The teachers discuss, implement and review the same inquiry-material. The teaching is discussed in focus groups coordinated by the researcher. Results from the study will give indications on aspects to be taken into account when designing programs for teacher education and professional development, especially concerning inquiry teaching.

Influences of mother tongue when Communicating Science in National Tests

Maria Eriksson, Anders Jönsson and Britt Lindahl
The purpose of this study is to investigate how students with Swedish as a second language perform on the national test in science, with a particular focus on the tasks that are supposed to assess students' communication skills. Interviews with students in sixth grade have been done in Arabic and/or in Swedish after the national test in Science. The study will investigate whether, and if this is the case, how these students may be disadvantaged by the test.

On formative assessment in upper-secondary school

Jenny Green, Kristina Juter and Anders Jönsson
The aim of this study is to examine how upper secondary students experience high quality feedback, how they react to the feedback and how they use it. We also intend to examine potential progress resulting from the feedback. This is conducted through an intervention test, high quality feedback, regular teachers' test and in-depth interviews.

Assessing argumentation and communication skills in science education

Anders Jönsson
Anders is in charge of the development of national tests in biology, chemistry, and physics for year 6 in compulsory school, which is done in collaboration with Göteborg and Malmö University. At Kristianstad University, items are constructed that assess students' ability to use their scientific knowledge in order to review information, communicate, and take sides in questions with a scientific content. In relation to this, Anders carries out research about both summative and formative assessment of argumentation and communication skills in science education.

Authentic assessment of professional competency

Anders Jönsson
The aim of this project is to investigate "authentic assessments" of professional competency in a number of higher education vocational programs. Investigations made will concern both the reliability of the assessments, as well as the possibility to support student professional development through formative assessment practices. The research is performed in collaboration with university teachers. The project is placed at the Centre for Profession Studies (CPS), Malmö University.

Assessing Young Students' Abilities in Science

Lena Löfgren and Britt Lindahl
During some years we have been working in two projects concerning assessment in science in earlier years of school, "Diagnoses in science subjects", a formative assessment material for school years 1-6 and "National tests in biology, physics and chemistry in school year 6". We will go on examining prerequisites in creating exercises, in different kinds of tests, which assess the abilities asked for in the science syllabi and we will also follow how the different materials influence teaching.

Cooperation between the spheres investigated through the education system

Christel Persson
The starting point for this project is the children's development of concepts in environment for sustainable development. One aim of the study is to develop the analysis instrument: the Earth System Science model (the ESS model) and the research groups are pupils aged 9-18 as well as students in different programs at university level

Student teachers' planning of their teaching

Inger Holmberg
This is a study of how student teachers' plan their lessons. In groups the students discuss content, concepts and teaching strategies. The study is inspired by Loughrans concept PaP-eRs (Pedagogical and Professional- Experience- Repertoires).

Student teachers' ontological views on the world of models in physics

Andreas Redfors and Ingemar Holgersson
A project where student teachers' ontological views on the world of models in physics are investigated. A special focus of this study is how students view the link between model/theory and reality. The project has a combination of cross section and longitudinal design. Written questionnaires are used, in combination with follow up interviews. The subject matter focus is both within matter and transformation of matter.

Student teachers' conceptual development in mathematics

Barbro Grevholm
A longitudinal study of how mathematics subject theory and educational theory influence the development of concepts of student teachers, how they perceive attitudes to mathematics and how their own attitudes are influenced. Questionnaires, clinical interviews, tests and observations are carried out on a group of student teachers that started their training to become compulsory school teachers for year 4-9 in 1996. The study continues to follow the students in their professional role.

Pupils' responses to school science and technology?

Britt Lindahl
This project is about how science teaching influence pupils' attitudes and learning in science and technology. Data comes from a longitudinal study where 80 pupils from grade 5 (12 y) to grade 9 (16 y) were followed, a follow-up study with the same group 3 years later, and experience from work in the projects NTA (www.nta.nu), SciencEduc (www.xplora.org), POLLEN (obelix.inrp.fr/pollen/pollen_dev) and PUPPETS (www.puppetsproject.com/).

Students learn science – use of new words and early experiences

Lena Löfgren
In this longitudinal study 23 students are followed from the age of 7 to 16. They are asked to reason about three everyday situations in which different transformations of matter occur. Data mostly consist of interviews, individual and in group. How individual students' descriptions and explanations change and develop during compulsory school are analysed from different aspects. The aim is that the gained knowledge could contribute to an improvement of teaching about transformations of matter.

The development of students' understanding of physical phenomena

Ann-Charlotte Lindner
The study is based on a longitudinal study of the conceptual development in science, which was started in spring 1997. The individual development of ten students through school is followed longitudinally, from age 7 to 16. Their understanding of physical phenomena is in focus, i.e. evaporation and condensation. Data is gathered through interviews and classroom observations. Short teaching episodes have been developed. Interviews with a meta-cognitive perspective were done in 2009, during the last year of upper-secondary school.

Students' relations to science – a worldview perspective

Lena Hansson and Britt Lindahl
This project focuses on the relationship between students' relations to science and how equal/different students' own worldviews are from the ones they associate with science. In a pilot study students (19y), from an existing longitudinal sample (12y to 19y), were asked questions about worldview, interest, choices, and their feelings in relation to the views they associate with science. Results indicate that students who embrace a worldview very different from the one they associate with science tend to exclude themselves from science programs in upper secondary school.

Landscape perceptions as a framework for environmental education

Birgitta Olsson, Ola Magntorn and Torgny Ottosson
The overall aim of my study is investigating how to use nature and culture dimensions of authentic, outdoor landscapes together with students' own experiences of everyday environments as converging and tangible points of reference in geography and environmental education. In order to find out what young people actually perceive and focus on in their surroundings, I have interviewed folk high school students in rural and urban outdoor landscapes. The next step involves identifying categories of variation in their perceptions and experiences and develop these into methods to concretize environmental studies.

Students' ideas about the human body and health in Sweden and South Africa

Pernilla Granklint Enochson (lnu) and Andreas Redfors
This research project studies how students in the school year nine understands basic functions in the human body regarding digestive- and excretion system and in what way students are arguing in the current health issues associated with these systems. The empirical data collected in Sweden and South Africa consists of; templates (descriptive drawings) with related open questions, multiple-choice questions and interviews. The study aims to identify and contrast the different ideas that students hold in the two groups.

Science education in the school – design and content

Olle Eskilsson and Gustav Helldén
This project focusing social interaction and communication is carried out in collaboration with the University of Linköping. The aims of the study are to answer the following research questions: What is the role of interaction between teacher and students and between students during lab-work? How does communication during lab-work contribute to science learning? What are the teacher's and the students' view of the interaction? In this sub-project we are summing up the results and conclusions from the whole project and from all subprojects in primary and secondary school.

Personal context and continuity in development of students' thoughts

Gustav Helldén
This research project is studying the role of personal context and continuity in individual students' understanding of natural phenomena. Individual students have been interviewed about natural phenomena over several years. During the analysis of these interviews, it has been possible to identify personal features in the students' understanding which are consistent over several years. These features can have a structural nature, but also concern the content. Some students could identify these features while listening to earlier interviews of themselves.

Border-crossing Mathematics Education

Ingemar Holgersson
In this project teachers from pre-school to upper secondary in Svedala will work together with personal from teacher training and math institutions. The teachers get the opportunity to develop their math instruction by making and testing their own activities in the classrooms. Group discussions are based on the teachers' ability to notice and make accounts-of events that arise during their practice. The project is a cooperation with Jonas Månsson (LTH), Pesach Laksman, Ulla Öberg, Birgitta Lansheim (Mah) and Annika Palmgren (Svedala).

Problem solving activities and mathematical abilities

Thomas Dahl and Ingemar Holgersson
A project, in cooperation with Thomas Biro and Inger Wistedt (Växjö), about finding and categorization mathematical abilities that reveal in students work with challenging mathematical problems. We study both the outcome from student's individually work and the taped conversation from observation of small groups working together.