Teacher-student communication in the classroom is crucial for effective student learning and a teacher can play different roles by asking related questions. Teachers use of the right questions at the right moment stimulates and invites the students to have a closer look, reinvestigate or revisit the problem. The teachers play various roles while asking the questions to continue the classroom discourse. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate various roles of a high school teacher in a science classroom discourse. The study also pursued how these roles are related to the types of questions asked by the teacher during classroom communication. A framework, constructed by Chen and his colleagues, has been used to categorize types of teachers’ roles to find the relationship between the roles of the teachers and the types of questions asked in a science class.  A case study has been presented in this report with observations from two high school level biology lessons.  Both audio and video recording were deployed to capture the lessons as well as a notebook was maintained. These recordings have been transcribed for a qualitative data analysis. In this study, five types of questions have been observed in two biology lessons: concept, confirmation, remembering, challenging and encouraging. Furthermore, based on Chen and his colleagues Framework, only three roles of the teacher was found: dispenser, coach, and participant. The findings revealed that the concept, confirmation and remembering types of questions are related to the teacher role as dispenser, the challenging types of questions are related to the role as coach and encouraging type of questions are related to the teacher’s participant role. The teacher acted mostly as a dispenser in the classroom discourses. There were some rooms where the teacher might exercise more as a coach and participant to improve the classroom interaction. No connection between the content of the questions and the role of the teachers was found from the observations. Therefore, this study suggests that further research should be continued with a broader scope to analyze the teachers’ questioning roles, its relationship with the content of the questions and its impact to promote student learning.

Syftet med undersökningen var att undersöka klassrumsinteraktionen i två sjundeklasser med elever med blandade språkbakgrunder. Undersökningen innehåller ett undervisningsförsök där eleverna i smågrupper skulle omsätta innehållet i en faktatext till en bild. Genom observationer, bandinspelningar och intervjuer undersöktes kommunikationen i smågrupperna. Bilder samlades in och analyserades.Det visade sig att klassruminteraktionen mestadels var monologisk men med en strävan från lärarens sida att få eleverna mer delaktiga. Kommunikationsmönstret skilde sig åt mellan grupperna, några diskuterade mycket medan andra ritade under tystnad. Bilderna föreställde oftast gubbar som utförde aktiviteter i naturen.Mina slutsatser var att man borde fostra eleverna in i ett dialogiskt förhållningssätt till den naturvetenskapliga diskursen och andra elevers yttringar. Det är också viktigt hur man utformar gruppuppgifterna så att eleverna måste kommunicera med varandra för att lösa uppgiften. Bildskapandet ger eleverna ytterligare ett sätt att uttrycka sig på och kan fungera som ett stöd när de ska förklara saker för varandra. / The purpose of the study was to investigate the interaction and communication in two seventh grade classrooms. The pupils had different linguistic backgrounds and the study had a focus on the development of Swedish as a second language.During a biology lesson the pupils where formed in mixed groups. They where given a text about the legal right of access to private land and open country. Together they should draw a picture that would explain to tourists what the law was about.In the study different methods where used; observations of the classroom and of the small groups, tape recording of small group talk and interviews with the teacher and the pupils as well as picture analysis.The study showed that the interaction in the classroom was dominated by the teachers voice. This had an effect on the communication in some of the small groups were the pupils did not listen to each other. But in other groups the pupils had a more democratic communication. It is of great importance how the teacher forms the tasks in order to get the pupils to communicate and listen to each other.

The learning environment has been the focus of considerable educational research over a long period of time. The study reported in this thesis utilises the perceptions of 208 junior science students from a North Queensland state secondary school to inform classroom environment improvement plans developed and implemented by their teachers' in an attempt to improve the cognitive and attitudinal outcomes of the students. The five stage process on which the study is based combines theory and practice in providing the participating teachers with a structured means of bringing about change in their classrooms. Students' perceptions of actual and preferred teacher interpersonal behaviour and the laboratory learning environment are measured using the QTI and SLEI respectively. Particular aspects of teacher interpersonal behaviour and the laboratory learning environment are targeted for change through the classroom environment improvement plans. The study identified which aspects of the learning environment had changed after a period of intervention. It also identified associations between students' perceptions of aspects of their laboratory learning environment and attitudinal outcomes as well as associations between teacher interpersonal behaviours and attitudinal outcomes. While no direct associations were found between aspects of the laboratory learning environment or teacher interpersonal behaviours and cognitive outcomes, students' cognitive outcomes did improve over the duration of the study thus supporting a previously established link between student attitudes and cognitive outcomes.

This thesis concerns processes of power relations in and about the science classroom. It draws on action research involving science and mathematics teachers in the Swedish upper secondary school (for students between 16 and 19 years). For the analysis, feminist post-structuralism, gender, and discourse theories (e.g. Butler and Foucault) are combined with critical action research methodology (e.g. Carr and Kemmis) and discourse analysis (e.g. Wetherell and Hall). The aim of the study is to make visible processes of inequality and to investigate how these are constructed in ‘talk’ or discourse about teaching and learning. The study grew out of teachers’ actions/small-scale projects in their own classrooms and so the study also investigates if and how action research can contribute to making visible, challenging and changing unequal practices and discourses of dominance. The first part of the thesis deals with this process and the analysis suggests that post-structural critiques of language and discourse are helpful in enabling actions to challenge inequities in the science classroom that currently exist. Five different articles constitute the second part of the thesis, two of which explore and survey research literature and argue for a need for more studies which investigate critically how science is shaped by specific social, cultural and historical contexts. Additionally, it is argued that it is important to focus not only on measuring differences among students but also on investigating how difference is constructed and how inequities can be challenged. The experiences and bodily feelings of what ‘race’ can do to gender (and vice versa) in a specific situation are recounted and examined in the third article which also invites different positions and complexity into the research field. The next two articles investigate how power and knowledge are produced, resisted and challenged in teacher and student talk within the action research project. The analysis draws on different discourses in contemporary Swedish society; for example a science discourse which produces school science (and its teachers and students) as high status, a gender equality discourse, a gender difference discourse, and an immigrant discourse which produces ‘immigrant students’ as problematic. Analysis of teacher talk reveals, for example, that long-established hierarchies and taken-for-granted values of school subjects in relation to gender reproduce advantage for some teachers but not for others, that teachers participate in the gendering of science subjects, and that changes in the teaching of science are resisted. Also students are located inside and outside the discourses they draw on, which qualifies or disqualifies them as ‘proper’ science students. Different borders are highlighted to show how students attach meaning to gender, social class, and ethnicity in different situations. Sometimes borders are produced inside bodies (the notion of the gendered brain, for example) and sometimes between cultures or according to family background. Resistance to dominant discourses is also visible in students’ talk and the ways in which teachers and students reproduce borders and exclusion in the science classroom through their practices. The analysis points out the need to initiate new research which can deconstruct among others, discourses of femininity and masculinity, the ‘immigrant student’ and school science.

This diploma thesis aims to find out satisfaction of lower secondary school pupils with science lessons, science classroom equipment, environment and topics in science that are missed by the pupils. Their requests regarding improvement and variegation of science education are also determined, which could contribute to increasing their motivation and interest in science. This diploma thesis maps, which topics of science or tools are mostly lacked by pupils. Their opinions are determined using questionnaires, which were filled by 221 pupils of Elementary school in Uhlířské Janovice in Central Bohemian Region. The results show that pupils would like to include more field work, science outings, excursions, group work, laboratory work, science documentaries, work with a microscope and they would also like to include some real animals. Some of the respondents wouldn't change anything regarding the science lessons. With respect to the results of the research, a daylong project with environmental studies, field work, collection of natural products and their processing was suggested for the particular elementary school.

This qualitative action research study looked at my collaboration with a science teacher as we combined a Television Production class with an Advanced Placement Environmental Science class. This cross-curricular case study explored the implementation of the principles of media literacy, defined by the National Association for Media Literacy Education, into the science classroom where media literacy has traditionally been a non-factor. The impact of media and technology on everyone's daily lives is making it necessary for us to become media literate. The use of media literacy tools and strategies in a combined media production class and an AP science class created opportunities to explore cross-curricular understandings of media literacy education that would not have existed otherwise.

Laboratory work is considered important for student achievements in science education. This thesis will contribute with increased knowledge about lab work in science education in Swedish secondary school. The main purposes are to describe secondary school science teachers’ objectives for lab work and to describe how these objectives are implemented during laboratory exercises. The thesis shows and discusses, from a teacher perspective, the complexity involved in lab work.The thesis is comprised of four papers based on empirical analysis of teacher interviews, laboratory manuals and laboratory exercises. Two interview studies identified which objectives the teachers consider important and compared these to international studies. Two case studies identified how the teachers’ objectives are put forward during lab work and what factors are important for the implementation of objectives.The results from the interview studies show that Swedish secondary school science teachers express general objectives including the development of students’ understanding of concepts and phenomena, of their interest in science and ability to think and reflect upon labwork. This is to a large extent in accordance with objectives identified in international studies. However, when the teachers describe specific laboratory exercises they emphasize the activity and the laboratory skills. Some of the teachers describe lab work that includes scientific inquiry but not specifically, knowledge about the nature of science. Scientific inquiry was mostly used to develop interest in science and not to develop knowledge about how to systematically investigate phenomena in nature. The teachers express their objectives differently in different contexts. The laboratory manuals mostly put forward objectives to help students identify objects and phenomena and to learn facts, which is not always in accordance with the teachers objectives. Results from the case studies show that the teachers’ objectives do not always correspond to the students’ views of important things to learn. It is not obvious that lab work in itself make students understand a certain scientific content, they need help to “see what is intended to be seen”. Interactions between the teacher and the students are important to help students perceive the teacher’s objectives. Many interactions have a starting point in the laboratory manuals, and if the objectives in the manual correspond to the teacher’s objectives it makes it easier for both the students and the teacher to reach the intentions for the laboratory exercise. Implications for science teaching are discussed. / Att laborationer har en naturlig och central plats i naturvetenskaplig undervisning håller de flesta med om men hur stor vikt svenska grundskollärare lägger på det laborativa arbetet och dess betydelse för elevers lärande i naturvetenskap är inte klarlagt. Denna avhandling ska ge ytterligare kunskap om det laborativa arbetet i svensk grundskola. Avhandlingen har två huvudsyften. Det ena är att ge en beskrivning av de mål för laborativt arbete som lärare i den svenska grundskolans senare år anser viktiga. Det andra är att beskriva hur laborationer som genomförs i skolpraktiken förverkligar de uppsatta målen. Avhandlingen uppmärksammar och diskuterar det laborativa arbetets komplexitet utifrån ett lärarperspektiv.De fyra delstudierna bygger på empiriska undersökningar av intervjuer med lärare, deras laborationsinstruktioner och av det laborativa arbetets genomförande. I två intervjustudier analyseras vilka mål som anses viktiga och hur dessa förhåller sig till internationell forskning om mål med laborationer. I två fallstudier analyseras hur lärarens mål framträder under det laborativa arbetet och vilka faktorer som har betydelse för hur målen implementeras.Resultaten från intervjustudierna visar bland annat att lärare i den svenskagrundskolan uttrycker generella mål för laborativt arbete som att eleverna skautveckla sin förståelse av naturvetenskapliga begrepp och fenomen, sitt intresse för naturvetenskap, och sitt reflekterande över laborativt arbete. Detta överensstämmer i stor utsträckning med mål som framträder i internationella undersökningar. När lärarna talar om specifika laborationer betonar de istället själva aktiviteten och de laborativa färdigheterna. Lärarna uttrycker således sina mål olika i olika sammanhang. Lärarna erbjuder laborationer där undersökande arbete förekommer men de utnyttjar inte laborationerna till att skapa förståelse av naturvetenskapens karaktär. Det undersökande arbetet utnyttjas främst för att öka intresset för naturvetenskap och inte för att ge kunskap om metoder för naturvetenskapliga undersökningar. Laborationsinstruktionerna innehåller i stor utsträckning mål för att hjälpa elever att identifiera objekt och att lära sig fakta. Instruktionernas mål stämmer inte alltid överens med lärarnas mål med laborationerna. Resultaten från fallstudierna visar att lärarna ofta har fler mål med laborationerna än de som kommer fram under genomförandet och att lärarnas mål inte alltid överensstämmer med vad eleverna uppfattar som viktigt. Det är inte självklart att det laborativa arbetet i sig medför att eleverna förstår ett visst naturvetenskapligt innehåll, eleverna behöver hjälp att ”se vad som är avsett att se”. Interaktionerna mellan lärare och elever och mellan elever och elever är mycket viktiga för att eleverna ska uppfatta målen. Mycket av interaktionerna tar sin utgångspunkt i laborationsinstruktionen. Om målen i denna överensstämmer med de mål läraren vill eftersträva underlättar det både för läraren och för eleverna. I avhandlingen diskuteras konsekvenser för undervisningen.

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