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This study arises from an optimistic view of young children's learning and in a gradual move away from the `deficit model', focuses on what young children can do. A significant amount of research, within a constructivist framework, has elicited older children's ideas about science concepts, including the area of materials, the focus of this project, which extends such work to focus on the voices of children aged three to five years. A number of tasks were developed to encourage talk about materials. Pilot Phase investigations refined key task criteria as markers of task design. These prioritise familiarity of task, ownership and control, social collaboration, and the integral role of adults in interaction. In the subsequent stages of action research, the research tasks were implemented with children aged 3-4 years in a nursery, and evaluated by practitioners in a range of early years' settings. Transcript data was analysed to explore the ways in which the children communicated ideas in their early explorations. The substantive findings provide evidence of the ability of young children in materials science and suggest implications for science learning and teaching in the early years. The children's use of a range of modalities to communicate their understanding highlights the need for practitioners to be aware of the importance of such child adult interactions. Bloom's framework (1992) is evaluated and extended to analyse children's actions and talk, and a model of interaction is proposed which both explains the data from this study and summarises a theoretical approach to science learning in the early years. In this model, elicitation tasks are learning experiences for children and opportunities for adults to hear children's voices with integrity and authenticity. Trust is a methodological imperative in research interaction. Integral to the report is reflection on relationships, serendipitous moments and personal learning and development.

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This study investigates how teachers in a rural Kenyan primary school use code-switching to help pupils to understand scientific concepts. The study takes place in a teaching and learning environment where English is the 'official' language of teaching beyond year three but where it is accepted by the education ministry that the English proficiency of most of the pupils may not be sufficient for them to fully access the science curriculum. It is, therefore, also accepted that teachers may use three languages, English, Kiswahili and Kigiryama, in the classroom, to explain scientific ideas. The study begins by considering some of the barriers to learning science concepts experienced by those who are taught in a second language. There is then an exploration of code-switching strategies as observed by other researchers many of which have been recorded within science lessons in other Kenyan primary schools. This study then uses observational and interview methods to investigate the actual use of code-switching within the lessons of standard four and five pupils at the target school. These observations, combined with those of other researchers are then used to produce a typology of codeswitching interventions commonly used by teachers during science lessons at the school at Mida Primary School. Following this a second literature review outlines a framework of the key features of explanation, clarifying how teachers use language to explain scientific concepts. The code-switching typology and this framework are then utilised to enable the analysis of six transcripts of science lessons at the target school. The analysis is carried out with the purpose of examining the contribution that each code-switching intervention makes to the meaning-making process. Some implications for teacher training are presented concerning how actual teacher behaviour, with respect of their use of code-switching, compares with what might be expected if trained for a planned use of code-switching when explaining scientific concepts. Also included in the study is a brief examination of other contextual factors that might affect the use of code-switching by teachers in science lessons and the implications that these might have on teacher training for the effective use of codeswitching. Finally, some suggestions for further research and an evaluation of the approach taken in this study are presented.

This research used quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine the experience, intentions and practice of pre-service primary students in order to determine the nature of student teachers’ paradigms of science. The research identified a dissonance between the students’ aspirational rhetoric and the actuality of the experiences they provide for learners. This research framed the discourse of teaching and learning in terms of objectivist and constructivist paradigms. It was argued that the objectivist paradigm of science teaching has historically been dominant in science classrooms; however, it is the constructivist paradigm which is linked to an effective pedagogy in science education. This research examined the students’ school qualifications in science, stated confidence levels in teaching the 5-14 science curriculum and the students’ views on how best to take forward teaching and learning in primary science. The students were fond to be poorly qualified in science; however, it was shown that this has not had any adverse effect upon the pre-service students’ self-rated confidence levels in teaching primary science. Confidence indices were found to be consistently high, albeit slightly lower with respect to Physics. This research has also shown that there is a consistent pattern of increasing confidence with progression through the BEd course, and consistently low levels of confidence with respect to the PGCE students. This study identified a dissonance between the pre-service students’ experience of science and how they propose to teach science. It was shown that the pre-service students’ experience was negatively orientated, and firmly rooted within the objectivist paradigm. However, it was found that the students’ stated intentions are framed in terms of the constructivist paradigm. The research also determined that the students are confident that they possess the professional skills necessary to take forward teaching and learning in primary science.

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