We welcome you to the November discussion held online on 25th November, 4.30pm-6pm.
Discussion 1: Initial Teacher Education (ITE) students’ evidentiary practices when evaluating scientific claims in the media – Sarah Digan, Mirjam Schmid, Louise Puslednik, and Vince Geiger
The spread of science-related information on digital platforms, ranging from credible research to misinformation and disinformation, necessitates that citizens critically evaluate evidence quality and claims. Evidentiary practices (EPs), the systematic evaluation of scientific evidence, are fundamental to scientific practice and central to education curricula. However, limited research examines initial teacher education (ITE) students’ EPs necessary to effectively teach evidence evaluation. Using Duncan et al.’s (2018) Grasp of Evidence Framework (GoEF), this study investigates ITE students’ conceptual understanding and evidentiary practices when evaluating media-based scientific claims. A cross-sectional survey was administered to 201 primary ITE students at an Australian university during 2024 and 2025, incorporating Likert scale items and performance tasks (open-ended responses). Quantitative and thematic analyses revealed varied EPs across GoEF dimensions, providing empirical validation of the framework while revealing practices beyond its scope. Findings indicate that teacher preparation programs require systematic approaches to developing evidentiary practices, essential for preparing teachers to foster evidence evaluation capabilities in primary science education.
Sarah (pronounced Zara) Digan is a Senior Lecturer in Science Education at the University of Wollongong. Originally from Germany, she came to Australia to complete her PhD in Earth Science at UNSW, dating coastal sediments as indicators of palaeoclimate change. During her PhD, she discovered her love for teaching. She then worked as a secondary science teacher in the ACT and lecturer at ANU until starting a career in Science Education in 2022, combining her two passions: science and education. Sarah’s research interests lie in data literacy, climate change education and fostering students’ critical thinking and evidentiary practices when addressing contemporary global challenges.
Discussion 2: Why should students explore? The Science of Learning and implications for teacher education – Russell Tytler, Vaughan Prain and Saeed Salimpour
The last decade has seen a narrowing of conceptions of pedagogy in science and mathematics government policy around what is claimed as a ‘Science of Learning’. This centres around a particular framing of cognitive load theory that claims to have a resolved view of how memory and learning are subject to a brain architecture characterised by restrictions in working memory capacity. This view has been championed by the Australian Education Research Organisation which promotes ‘evidence-based practice’ around a narrow interpretation both of evidence and of its appropriate relation to practice.
These views are being enforced in Victoria by a teaching and learning model built around CLT that drives resource development and school instructional practices, policies relating to research in schools, and also teacher education through course accreditation procedures that specify a particular pedagogy aligned with CLT, activities that re-enforce these interpretations, and literature advocating direct explicit teaching. The issue has implications for relations between teacher education institutions and education departments, and profound implications for the critical role of the academy. In this session we will briefly canvas these issues and how they play out in practice before arguing the narrowness of the procedural learning that is a major focus for CLT research, and that deeper learning in science and mathematics and other disciplines involves induction into multimodal sign systems that involve ontological shifts. Two examples of introductory learning sequences will be used to suggest a wider version of ‘explicit teaching’ that involves a complex interleaving of ‘explore’ and ‘explain’ teacher moves. This raises the question of the value of exploration for novice learning and we articulate distinct reasons why student exploration should be central to wider framings of learning.
Discussion will centre around the implications for teacher education of this narrowing view of the purposes of education and practical ways to respond to this.
Russell Tytler is Deakin Distinguished Professor and Chair of Science Education with a history of research into student reasoning and learning and of engagement with curriculum policy at state and international levels.
Vaughan Prain is adjunct Research Professor at Deakin. His distinguished history of education research has centred on writing to learn and multimodal representation construction in science education.
Saeed Salimpour is a post doctoral research fellow at Deakin with an international reputation in Astronomy Education, with research interests in semiotics and science-art interactions.
Posted Aug 10, 2026
Online