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Why is science hard to learn?
Author(s) -
Millar R.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of computer assisted learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.583
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1365-2729
pISSN - 0266-4909
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2729.1991.tb00229.x
Subject(s) - science education , abstraction , meaning (existential) , reputation , subject (documents) , science communication , learning sciences , science, technology, society and environment education , social science education , mathematics education , epistemology , psychology , computer science , sociology , educational technology , social science , philosophy , library science
This paper argues that science's reputation as a ‘hard’ subject can be attributed to four intrinsic features of science and/or learners: that science knowledge provides, for many learners, insufficient ‘pay off’ for the effort involved in understanding; that learning science involves reconstructions of meaning; that the tension between science as consensually agreed knowledge and science as enquiry is confusing and eventually alienating for many learners; and because science is abstract. The reasons for a link between abstraction and difficulty are briefly explored. It is suggested that certain extrinsic features of science education, resulting from choices by science educators, exacerbate these intrinsic difficulties.