Conference Agenda

In today’s world, scientifically literate people are needed to solve problems and make responsible decisions in science, medicine, and other areas important for society (OECD, 2019). This suggests that learning in science subjects needs to equip students not only with the necessary knowledge, but to promote the application of knowledge, plus the gaining of 21st-century skills and associated values (Cipková et al., 2020). A worldwide concern in science education is perceiving learning as a series of disconnected knowledge acquisitions, which impacts students’ interest in science (Author 1 et al., 2019). In such a learning environment, students have difficulty in perceiving how to apply knowledge, to solve real-life global challenges, as well as lack the ability to make links between knowledge from multiple subjects (Cipková et al., 2020). For learning to be meaningful, Ausubel et al. (1968) indicate information needs to be completely conceptualized and used to make connections with other previously known knowledge, thus aiding further learning. As indicated in previous research, applying meaningful learning methods (e.g. mind mapping tasks), has a positive influence on students’ self-efficacy (Baltaoğlu & Güven, 2019). DCIs and ICIs form a unified scientific framework for various topics of the curriculum, as set out in the curriculum and are forming a necessary core for conceptualizing science (NRC, 2012; Author 1 et al., 2019). These are important in everyday life and in the future, currently agreed upon by science and society (Author 1 et al., 2019). DCIs and ICIs can support a perception of interdisciplinarity between science subjects and in so doing, support the development of conceptualizations, which, in turn, makes the learning process more meaningful (NRC, 2012). The goal of this research is to identify students’ ability to use DCIs and ICIs to form maps to support meaningful learning across science subjects. The following research questions are put forward:

RQ1 How effective are students in expanding DCI and ICI maps as a tool for promoting self-efficacy in science?

RQ2 What differences occur in students’ self-efficacy between an experimental group that expand DCI and ICI maps and a control group not utilizing such maps?

RQ3 What are students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the developed teaching/learning method, within the experimental group, for supporting students’ self-efficacy?

In both Swedish and international research there is a significant gap of knowledge about pupils' experiences of Physical Education [PE]. According to the Swedish National Agency for Education, the grading system implemented in Sweden in 2011 was intended to be more equitable. But rarely has a grading system been more criticised by pupils. Grades don´t work the same for all pupils, younger pupils are more affected by grades than older and high-performing pupils (Vetenskapsrådet, 2015). Pupils have emphasised that they experience problems with assessment and grading, as well as lack of clarity about the PE teacher role (Redelius & Hay, 2012). It´s also important that students know when the assessment happens and what´s being assessed (Redelius & Hay, 2009).

PE teaching should create better conditions for all pupils to participate in activities according to their own abilities. Different conditions and challenges apply to a diversity of pupils, depending on their ethnicity, gender, culture, socio-economic background, to participate in physical activities in PE on equal terms. It´s necessary to recognise all forms of diversity in teaching and different learning contexts but this needs to agree with changes in curricula, pedagogical strategies and the teaching style of the PE teacher. Diversity generates heterogeneous systems, and thus can have a positive impact on teaching with greater inclusiveness in assessing pupil performance and creating fair and equal opportunities for each individual pupil. A school for all is a school where all pupils, regardless of their differences, are equally valued and teaching is adapted to each pupil's different abilities (Skolverket, 2017). Simultaneously, teachers should promote variety and diversity as something positive, which creates an understanding that everyone has the right to develop their abilities at their own pace, integrated with others (Hammar & Johansson, 2013).

In PE, there are several aspects of diversity that need to be reviewed. This study is based on a Swedish context, but is also applicable to provide knowledge and understanding for other European countries. The study also presents the pupils' own suggestions for improving PE, which is an important societal investment. The purpose of this study is to contribute to increased knowledge and a deeper understanding of PE, based on the pupils' perspectives on assessment and the grading system in PE.

The study takes a socio-cultural approach and a dialogical perspective on the theory of Social Representation [SR] (Markova, 2003). SR is characterised by sentences, values, similarities, ideas and practices shared by groups of people in societies and is used as a tool to describe and analyse the creation of common social representations. SR is used to analyse pupils’ common knowledge about PE; how they understand each other and the topic, and how they are socialised into, and develop social representations of, grading system.

From a socio-cultural perspective, individual learning is tied to social interaction (Säljö, 2014). We influence the group and the group affects us. The context is constantly changing both unconsciously and consciously (Linell, 2009). In PE, it´s relevant for pupils and teachers to interact in teaching and to link activities to real and meaningful contexts. These contexts are important for pupils’ motivation and meaningful teaching. Different representations are shared within the group of pupils and determine how the group members perceive, act and think together. SR provided a useful way of finding out what PE was in the social context (Moscovici, 2001,2008). The study focuses on what pupils talk about in connection to PE, and is based on a dynamic constructivist approach – and thus how the pupils construct content in PE.

Over recent years, several countries in Europe and elsewhere have seen a resurgent interest in the concept of learning progression and what it means to progress in learning. Learning progressions, or ‘progression frameworks’, are typically thought about as optimised pathways along which pupils might be expected to progress towards greater sophistication in knowledge and skills. They can be informed by or be the product of research and classroom evidence, and can be used to support effective teaching, learning and formative assessment. They have also been critiqued for imposing a sense of linearity and predictability in learning as well as artificial ceilings that can be narrowing and reductive. While many studies of learning progression are concerned with single concepts or ideas (e.g., progression in understanding the concept of matter), the notion that learning becomes more sophisticated is variously reflected in different country’s curricula.

In recent years, some countries and jurisdictions have chosen to foreground ideas of learning progression as part of curriculum development and/or enactment. One such country is Wales which, following the publication of Successful Futures (2015), has embarked upon an ambitious programme of curricular reform in which the curriculum is structured around 6 areas of learning experience, each with its own set of progression frameworks. Foregrounding progression in curricula opens up questions about the relationships between high-level curricular frameworks of progression, and how pupils actually learn over time in and across different subjects or curricular areas. Does pupil learning develop as curricular progressions suggest? We see these relationships as multifaceted, reified within processes of translation and enactment and variously influenced by complex factors.

Here, we present a study funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (RIG009335) that was undertaken to design a methodological approach for developing a rich understanding pupils’ progression in learning. It is set within the context of Welsh Educational reform and is designed to form part of a future and larger-scale longitudinal study that will follow individual pupils through several years and stages of a national education system in which learning progression is foregrounded. We positioned this study by first exploring, challenging and making explicit our own understandings and assumptions about the nature of learning, its acquisitional and participatory natures and the socio-cultural context of classrooms. Making progress in learning was seen as different to making progress in performance and we distinguish between ‘learning progressions’ as symbolic representations of possible ways learning might evolve, and the substantive learning of pupils which may or may not reflect these. We considered the method in relation to three characteristically different areas of learning: Maths & Numeracy, Humanities, and Science & Technology.

Rather than testing the extent to which pupil learning reflects smaller-scale intervention type progression frameworks as explored in the review, or the extent to which assessed performances meet pre-determined outcomes, learning is viewed more holistically. Here, it is seen as non-linear, mutable, involving misconceptions, confusion, gaps, connections, divergencies, emotion, realisation, and insight. Rather than successive performances, progress in learning is seen as an epistemic process of meaning making. While socially and culturally mediated, learning is seen as that which takes place in pupil’s heads. The approach does not prescribe or preclude any particular assessment or pedagogical approaches but accommodates these as part of curriculum is translated through practice. We noted that almost all symbolic learning progressions rest upon a conventional empirical model of fixed time, but that this may not reflect the experience of pupils as they make meaning. We therefor incorporate both fixed and fluid models of time (Neale, 2019).