Does Practical Work Really Motivate? A study of the affective value of practical work in secondary school science
By I. Abrahams. 2009
191 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The present paper reports on a study that examined whether practical work can be said to have affective outcomes, and if so in what sense. The term ‘affective’ is used here to refer to the emotions, or feelings, engendered amongst pupils towards school science in general, or one of the sciences in particular. The study is based on 25 multi‐site case studies that employed a condensed fieldwork strategy. Data were collected, using tape‐recorded interviews and observational field notes, in a sample of practical lessons undertaken in English comprehensive (non‐selective) schools during Key Stages 3 and 4 (ages 11–14 years and 15–16 years, respectively). The findings suggest that whilst practical work generates short‐term engagement, it is relatively ineffective in generating motivation to study science post compulsion or longer‐term personal interest in the subject, although it is often claimed to do so. This suggests that those involved with science education need to develop a more realistic understanding of the limitations of practical work in the affective domain.
Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/42681e50160a23ffb922e2da2b6de9367c581cb8
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In Developmental and Educational Psychology
In Education
In Social Psychology
Citations in the corpus
- Science Teaching and Learning Activities and Students' Engagement in Science (2013, background): “Research by Abrahams (2009) examined whether practical work in science resulted in affective outcomes.”
- Upper Secondary Students’ Situational Interest: A case study of the role of a zoo visit in a biology class (2013, background): “While students in general do like practical work, Abrahams ( 2009 ) has recently shown that their reasons for doing so might appear to be primarily that they see it as preferable to non-practical teaching techniques, such as more writing or teacher talk (Hodson, 1990 ).”