Studies in Science Education

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The meaning of ‘relevance’ in science

education and its implications for the
science curriculum
a b b
Marc Stuckey , Avi Hofstein , Rachel Mamlok-Naaman & Ingo
a
Eilks
a
Institute of Science Education (IDN) – Didactics of Chemistry ,
University of Bremen , Bremen , Germany
b
Department of Science Teaching – Chemistry Education , The
Weizmann Institute of Science , Rehovot , Israel
Published online: 14 Jun 2013.
To cite this article: Marc Stuckey , Avi Hofstein , Rachel Mamlok-Naaman & Ingo Eilks (2013) The
meaning of ‘relevance’ in science education and its implications for the science curriculum, Studies
in Science Education, 49:1, 1-34, DOI: 10.1080/03057267.2013.802463
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Studies in Science Education, 2013
Vol. 49, No. 1, 1–34, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057267.2013.802463
The meaning of ‘relevance’ in science education and its

implications for the science curriculum
Marc Stuckeya*, Avi Hofsteinb, Rachel Mamlok-Naamanb and Ingo Eilksa
a
Institute of Science Education (IDN) – Didactics of Chemistry, University of Bremen,
Bremen, Germany; bDepartment of Science Teaching – Chemistry Education, The Weizmann
Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
‘Relevance’ is one of the key terms related to reforms in the teaching and
learning of science. It is often used by policy-makers, curriculum developers,
science education researchers and science teachers. In recent years, many policy
documents based on international surveys have claimed that science education is
often seen (especially at the secondary school level) as being irrelevant for and
by the learners. The literature suggests that making science learning relevant
both to the learner personally and to the society in which he or she lives should
be one of the key goals of science education. However, what ‘relevant’ means
is usually inadequately conceptualised. This review of the literature clearly
reveals that the term relevance is used with widely variant meanings. From our
analysis of the literature, we will suggest an advanced organisational scheme for
the term ‘relevance’ and provide helpful suggestions for its use in the field of
the science curriculum.
Keywords: relevance; scientific literacy; interest; motivation; curriculum;
curriculum emphasis; educational reform
Introduction
In recent years, many studies have been conducted and related articles are published
which clearly present a gloomy picture with respect to the learning of science,
especially at the secondary school level. A key claim is that science education –
particularly in Physics and Chemistry – remains unpopular among students
(Hofstein, Eilks, & Bybee, 2011; Holbrook, 2008; Osborne & Dillon, 2008). Many
of these articles infer that students are insufficiently interested in science learning
and/or not motivated by science subjects (Jenkins, 2005; Osborne, Simon, &
Collins, 2003). One reason mentioned quite frequently is that learners perceive
science and science education as ‘irrelevant’ both for themselves and for the society
in which they live and operate (Dillon, 2009; Gilbert, 2006; Holbrook, 2008). As a
result, science teachers are required to make education ‘more relevant’ in order to
better motivate their students and interest them in science subjects (Holbrook, 2003,
2005; Newton, 1988a, 1988b). However, it sometimes remains unclear what exactly
is meant by ‘making science learning relevant’, including both how to attain this
goal and which connections (or differences) exist between the following terms:
relevance, interest and motivation.
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

2 M. Stuckey et al.
There is no doubt that science is very important for our World and the society
in which we live (Bradley, 2005). Many publications emphasise the importance of
science in maintaining the economic wealth of modern societies, thereby justifying
both the learning of science as essential for sustainable development in the future
(Burmeister, Rauch, & Eilks, 2012) and for active participation in society and socie-
tal issues (Roth & Lee, 2004). Based on this, it is automatically assumed that all
students need a certain level of scientific knowledge in order to become literate
citizens and, thus, to be able to participate in socio-scientific discussions. This is
especially important in our increasingly technological world (Hofstein et al., 2011).
Many people agree that modern societies need to actively invest a sufficient amount
of their educational resources in learners who will eventually embark on careers in
science and technology (EC High Level Group, 2004). Today, every country needs
scientists to achieve further scientific and technological developments and maintain

future economic standards of living (EC High Level Group on Science Education,
2007). However, the question remains: Can we equate the word ‘relevance’ used to
justify science education with the true importance of science in a techno-scientific
world, including its related applications with regards to ecological, economical and
societal development as described in the rhetoric of most educational policy papers?
Debate in science education uses the term ‘relevance’ quite often and in various
ways. It seems that explicit and generally accepted definitions and models of what
is meant by ‘relevance’ are still lacking in science education at both the research
and curriculum development levels.
However, it is not only the educational research and practice using the term
‘relevance’. It should be noted that very often, education development and imple-
mentation are influenced by many different stakeholders from inside and outside the
educational arena. These includes: education policy-makers, managers and decision-
makers in industry (and other employment places), and scientists in the academia.
Clearly, these stakeholders differ in their goals and objectives for influencing teach-
ing and learning science. In addition, the target population (primary or secondary
school students who study science), the society (with its needs, socio-economic con-
ditions and culture) in which the students live and operate and the subject matter
(for example, disciplinary or interdisciplinary approaches) might influence decision
about science curricula. It is suggested that each of the above mentioned groups of
stakeholders will try to influence science teaching and each of them with a different
understanding of what it means to make science education more ‘relevant’.
In addition, it is clear that the shift to relevance-oriented science curricula is fre-
quently based on economic constraints, namely, availability of funds for reforms
and its related curriculum development. For example, Eijkelhof and Kortland
(1988) in the Netherlands describe a reform in the teaching of Physics: The PLON
(a Dutch acronym for Physics Curriculum Development Project) project. The pro-
ject was funded over a period of almost 15 years. This long-term curricular cycle
provided continuous feedback to stakeholders (government and science educators)
to broaden the goals of physics education towards a more relevance-oriented
Science–Technology–Society (STS) curricular approach. However, funds do not
only come from the government. In the case of chemistry, quite often future
employers such as industry involve themselves in the development of new curricula
(e.g. industrial chemistry by Hofstein and Kesner (2006) in Israel and the SALT-
ERS projects in the UK as described in Bennett and Lubben (2006). The funds are
coming from the industries with the goal in mind to ensure that in the future, there
Studies in Science Education 3
will be enough employees in their fields. In other words, the involvement in science
education and curricular reform is considered by industry to be relevant for
convincing students to embark in the future on careers in industry.
This paper is not an attempt to criticise papers in which authors use the term
‘relevance’ in non-uniform ways. Instead, it intends to clarify the use of this term
since this word is frequently used in science education with widely differing
meanings and in different contexts. About 25 years ago, Newton (1988a) wrote the
following about these situations:
Science teachers are increasingly exhorted to make their teaching relevant but, in gen-
eral, the notion of relevance in science education seems fraught with inconsistency,
obscurity and ambiguity. (p. 7)
and:
The notion of relevance is not a simple one. It seems at the least unhelpful and at the
worst counterproductive to urge a teacher to be relevant in terms which are abstract
and diffuse. It might be useful if some aspects of the notion of relevance were to be
clarified. (p. 8)
This paper will evaluate whether the claim made by Newton 25 years ago is still
valid. The paper does not intend to give a final answer to what needs to be done to
achieve the goal of relevant science education since this would require a joint
understanding of what is meant by ‘relevance’ in science education, and how the
term might be operationalised. This paper will give a critical analysis of how the
‘abstract and diffuse’ term, as stated by Newton, is used and operationalised, where
we will find parallels and differences, and finally how different curricula try to
approach their understanding of ‘relevant’ science education. From this analysis, we
will attempt to present an advanced organising scheme for the term in order to
avoid further ambiguity. This article’s main goal is to provide insight into the ques-
tion: ‘What kind of meaning can or should ‘relevance’ take in science education?’
Based on a broad review of the literature, this paper will develop a step-by-step
definition of the term ‘relevance’ with regard to science education by summarising
ideas and concepts taken from different sources. This definition will be illustrated
by connecting the different dimensions of relevance within science education, com-
bining them into one single model of relevance, which will then be connected to
different teaching practices in the science curriculum.
‘Relevance’ in science education: some historical reflections

This review is focusing on the issue of relevance in the context of teaching and
learning science. However, this issue has a quite long tradition already beyond the
field of science education. It can be at least tracked back to the reform movements
in education in the early twentieth century. By that time, one focus of educational
reform was the question: what makes the learning in school relevant to the students’
life and future. Among many others, the idea of connecting school learning with
the learner’s out-of-school experiences was introduced by many scholars who tried
to influence the way content in schools should be taught in general and how science
education should be operated in particular. One example is the philosophical work
by John Dewey (1956) in the USA. In an essay about school and life, he wrote:
4 M. Stuckey et al.
From the standpoint of the child, the great waste in the school comes from his inabil-
ity to utilize the experiences he gets outside the school in any complete and free way
within the school itself; while on the other hand, he is unable to apply in daily life
what he is learning in school. That is the isolation of the school–its isolation from life.
When the child gets into the schoolroom he has to put out of his mind a large part of
the ideas, interests and activities that predominate in his home and neighbourhood. So
the school being unable to utilize this everyday experiences, sets painfully to work on
another tack and by a variety of [artificial] means, to arouse in the child an interest in
school studies … [Thus there remains a] gap existing between the everyday experi-
ences of the child and the isolated material supplied in such large measure in the
school. (Dewey, 1956, pp. 75–76)
Coming from the reform movement in the first-half of the twentieth century, after
World War II, one can identify four periods how the issue of relevance was taken
into focus in science education: the 1950s to early 1960s, the late 1960s and the
1970s, the 1980s and finally, from the 1990s until to today.
The late 1950s and early 1960s

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the ‘Sputnik Era’, science education
reforms were initiated in the USA, which were then echoed in many countries
(e.g. the UK, Israel, and Germany). This period was fondly called the ‘Golden
Age’ of curriculum reform (see Bybee, 1997b). During this period, many curricular
projects were developed and implemented in all the sciences for all age range
groups. Examples include the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (1963), the
Physics Science Study Committee (Finlay, 1962) and CHEMStudy (Merril & Ridge-
way, 1969) for upper secondary schools. In the primary schools: Science – A pro-
cess approach (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS],
1963), the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (Karplus, 1964) and the Elemen-
tary Science Study project (Morrison & Walcott, 1963).
The main focus of this curriculum movement was to enhance student achieve-
ment when learning scientific knowledge with the greater aim of recruiting and
training more scientists, medical doctors and engineers (De Boer, 2000). These cur-
ricula mirrored (in many cases) the point of view of scientists regarding the learning
of science. The curricula mainly followed a model using a ‘structure-of-the-
discipline’ approach in order to promote a more effective learning of science facts,
concepts and theories (Eilks, Rauch, Ralle, & Hofstein, 2013). In the context of this
approach, basic concepts and the structure of each discipline were chosen as the
focal points of the curriculum. The main idea was to prepare more scientists so that
a given society could react more competitively in science and technology. On the
political level, improving science education was considered to be relevant for
the competiveness of Western societies against the Communist threat during the
Cold War.
The central arguments of these curricula are seen in the AAAS guidelines and
its goals for science curricula published in 1962 which influenced parallel
approaches in many other Western countries:
• Science education should present learners with a real picture of science,

including theories and models;
• Science education should present an authentic picture of scientists and their
method of research;
• Science education should present the nature of science (NOS);

• Science education should be structured and developed using the discipline
approach (key concepts in each of the subjects).
Clearly, the target population of the above goals was a group of students which
were assumed to represent future scientists, medical doctors and engineers. This is,
however, a rather small percentage of the overall learner population in realistic
terms. This still remains a large problem in the European Union and other Western
countries, since only a minority of the younger generation wants to study science
subjects (Jones & Young, 1995; Osborne & Dillon, 2008).
The late 1960s and 1970s

In the late 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of papers were published which discussed
the fact that such an approach was only relevant for a small portion of the student
population, namely the few students pursuing further education in the sciences and
engineering (Osborne et al., 2003). One result was the idea of ‘Scientific Literacy
for All’, which became a leading component in reform debates for science educa-
tion in general and science curricula in particular (Hofstein & Yager, 1982; Hurd,
1970; Pella, 1967). Pella (1967) claimed that the science curricula developed
throughout the Golden Age failed to include ideas and issues related to technology,
social applications and interrelations between the sciences and humanities. In the
words of Bybee and De Boer (1994), science education had to change so that:
Science knowledge was to be used to answer important questions that people

encountered in their everyday lives, not just to provide answers about theoretical
sciences. (p. 378)
This movement emphasised the relevance of learning science for the vast majority
of students who would never embark on future careers in either science or engineer-
ing. The focus shifted towards helping all pupils cope with their life worlds through
an understanding of the role that science and technology plays, both in their per-
sonal lives and in society. Hurd (1970) also claimed that science needed to be
taught in a context broader than the mere processes of which it is formed. He called
for a greater recognition of social and personal goals, which should also be included
in science teaching and learning. This interpretation of the relevance of science edu-
cation for understanding the World (already mentioned in the early twentieth cen-
tury by John Dewey in the USA) and the applications of science and technology
remains a prime element in many curricula, especially within the context-based sci-
ence curricula movement (Gilbert, 2006; King, 2012). In context-based learning,
educational topics adopted from everyday life and society are used not just to pro-
voke the situated learning of science, but also to allow students to recognise the
importance of science for understanding scientific phenomena and technological
issues (Gilbert, 2006). However, Fensham (1976) wrote that many of these
programmes led to insufficient consideration of the societal implications and
consequences of science within the resulting curricula. This is still the case today in
some context-based science curricula, where the contexts of science teaching
sometimes remain largely detached from their societal, ecological, and economic
implications (Gilbert, 2006).
6 M. Stuckey et al.
The 1980s
The 1980s were declared by many (mainly in the USA) to be ‘years of crisis in sci-
ence education’ (Hofstein & Yager, 1982; The National Commission on Excellence
in Education, 1983). The nature of the crisis was clearly visible in low levels of stu-
dent interest in the sciences, which resulted in a decline in student enrolment in
optional science courses, reduced the volume of practical work performed and led
to vast dissatisfaction with the programmes developed from the 1950s to the 1970s.
This was in fact a call for a rethinking of the goals of teaching (and learning)
science (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983).
In their paper entitled: Feature of Quality Curriculum for School Science,
Hofstein and Yager (1986) described the goals of school science, based on the
publication of Harms and Yager (1981). That science education should:
• Emphasise science as a path to a future career;

• Include major concerns regarding science as a means for resolving current
societal problems;
• Provide a means to attend to the personal needs of students; and
• Provide greater awareness of potential careers in science, technology, and
related fields, including suggesting goals which are more important than those
traditionally used to academically prepare for future science courses.
This set of goals reaches beyond curricula which use contexts only as a vehicle
for learning science. Apart from preparing students for potential careers and helping
them understand phenomena or use technology in their personal environments, the
societal perspective of science education now became a new dimension for creating
relevance. The resulting curricula suggested that science needs to be taught not just
to prepare students for academic careers in the sciences, pupils also needed to learn
how to become effective citizens in a society largely dependent on techno-scientific
manifestations and applications.
In his essay, ‘What counts as science education?’ Roberts (1988) suggested that
the objectives of secondary school science are (among others):
• To promote an understanding of the role of science in the development of

societies;
• To promote awareness of the humanistic implications of science;
• To develop a critical understanding of current social problems which have a
significant scientific component in terms of their cause and/or their solution
(e.g. air pollution, overpopulation, improper use of chemicals); and
• To promote understanding of and development of skills in the scientific method.
The above arguments were formulated from a school policy disseminated in

Alberta, Canada in the late 1970s. In addition, Kempa (1983) outlined modern chem-
istry education goals, which included many more facets than a simple learning of
Chemistry facts and principles. He suggested that future approaches of teaching and
learning the subject (as well as the development of learning materials) should include
six interrelated dimensions, including a societal and technological perspective.
It has been suggested (Byrne & Johnstone, 1988; Hofstein & Walberg, 1995)
that achieving scientific literacy through science curricula needs to focus on the
direct relevance of science for students’ personal lives and the societies in which
they live. This was the first approach which understood the word ‘relevance’ in the
sense of real-life consequences resulting for the learner. One of the manifestations
of such consequences is the acceptance or refusal of science and engineering as a
career choice. Another is giving individual learners the chance to contribute respon-
sibly to societal decision-making processes. In 1982, the National Science Teachers’
Association (NSTA) in the USA adopted the following new position statement for
the 1980s. They declared (based on Bybee & De Boer, 1994) that:
Many of the problems we face today can be solved only by persons educated in the
ideas and processes of science and technology. A scientific literacy is basic for living,
working, and decision-making in the 1980s and beyond. (p. 377)
This statement became an essential component of the modern understanding of the

objectives of science education and scientific literacy in many position papers (see
for example: AAAS, 1993; Fensham, 2004; Osborne & Dillon, 2008; Ware, 2001).
It has been implemented in several new syllabi, e.g. Project 2061 (Rutherford &
Ahlgren, 1991), and the US Science Education Standards (National Research Coun-
cil, 1996).
Many science curricula based on societal backgrounds and issues have been
developed in the 1980s under the following keywords and acronyms: STS
(Solomon & Aikenhead, 1994; Yager, 1993), Science and Technology in Society
(Holman, 1986) and Scientific and Technological Literacy for All (Holbrook, 1998).
The major goal of the STS curricular movement is that science education becomes
relevant for developing students’ scientific and conceptual understanding, critical
thinking and problem-solving skills. In the Netherlands, for example, the PLON
project (Eijkelhof & Kortland, 1988) shift the emphasis of the content from a con-
ceptual-oriented to a more STS-oriented approach. The aim was to find a balance
between:
• Preparing students for coping with their future life roles as consumers and
future citizens in a technologically developing, democratic society and
• Preparing students for future careers
Such skills are important for learner’s individual lives and represent essential
prerequisites for societal participation when it comes to decisions about science-
and technology-related world issues and problems (Ben-Chaim & Zoller, 1991; Dori
& Herscoviz, 2005; Hofstein & Yager, 1982). In addition, Keeves and Aikenhead
(1995) stated in their review titled Science curricula in a changing world that:
The relevance of science should be emphasised through greater consideration of the

application of scientific principles to everyday life, technology, the production of food,
and the conservation of the environment. (p. 43)
From the 1990s to date

During the 1990s, the curricular approach continued the movements of the 1980s
but added a more radical focus on development and implementation. Large projects
were established to connect curriculum development with bottom-up (as opposed to
top-down) strategies in which high school teachers were intensively involved in the
8 M. Stuckey et al.
design of curriculum and its implementation (for example in Germany, The Nether-
lands and the UK).
Two central approaches can be identified. One is implementing context-based
science education in several countries in the western world at the end of the 1990s
and the beginning of 2000 ‘in an attempt to make the learning of science more
meaningful for students’ (King & Ritchie, 2012):
These curricular developments generally strive to achieve an in-depth understanding of

few key ideas instead of conventional coverage of scientific content, and attempt to
enhance learning, improve the relevance of the science being taught and the engage-
ment of students, as-well-as increase personal satisfaction for participating students.
(pp. 69–70)
The second movement is a more radical development and implementation of a soci-

etal-oriented approach to science education that emerged in parallel. This approach
intends to foster the relevance of science education by curricula which use socio-
scientific issues in the classroom to teach about the current and future implications
of science and technology on society (Marks & Eilks, 2009; Sadler, 2011). This
approach is strongly connected with an opinion that achieving general skills for
societal participation through science is one of the most relevant components of
science education and that students should develop skills promoted by science
education in order to achieve the goals of Education for Sustainable Development
(ESD) (De Haan, 2006). The philosophical framework of ESD seeks to promote
learning which includes reflections on the interaction of the societal, economic and
ecological implications of science (Burmeister et al., 2012; De Haan, 2006;
Wheeler, 2000). The common goal of both curriculum approaches is education
through science for societal participation (Holbrook & Rannikmäe, 2007; Roth &
Lee, 2004), instead of the rote learning of scientific facts and principles as it
occurred in the 1950s and 1960s – a method which is, coincidentally, still com-
monly used in many countries of the World today (Hofstein et al., 2011).
Based on this historical perspective, we see that the question of relevance in sci-
ence education – and the use of the term – has different dimensions and that its
emphasis can change over time. There are at least three clear dimensions suggested
for making science education ‘relevant’, which can also be combined in many vari-
ous ways:
(1) Relevance for preparing students for potential careers in science and engi-
neering;
(2) Relevance for understanding scientific phenomena and coping with the chal-
lenges in a learner’s life; and
(3) Relevance for students becoming effective future citizens in the society in
which they live.
‘Relevance’ and its alignment with interest, meaningfulness and worth

As mentioned above, for over 40 years, the term ‘relevance’ often used within the
scope of science education and curriculum reform is still popular in debates about
science education (Fensham, 2004). If one searches the Internet for a combination
of the terms ‘relevance’ and ‘science education’, several of the foremost hits refer
to the Relevance of Science Education survey (ROSE) by Schreiner and Sjøberg

(2004). Although called a relevance survey, the ROSE study essentially focused on
student interests. The authors of the ROSE study themselves admit that they used
the term ‘relevance’ in the sense of contextual relevance when choosing potential
topics to be covered by pupils. In ROSE, the authors state that they gave no clear
definition and used the word interchangeably with other terms:
The term relevance was chosen … We could have chosen other words, like meaning-
ful, motivating, interesting, engaging, important, etc. Relevance should therefore not
be interpreted in a narrow or precise sense, and we will not try to provide any opera-
tional definition of the term. It should rather be understood as an indication of an
important dimension that underlies the project. Besides, we found that ROSE was nice
and suitable acronym and that it calls up metaphors, analogies and mental images.
(Schreiner & Sjøberg, 2004, p. 21)
Other authors also tend to interpret ‘relevance’ as more or less a synonym for inter-
est (e.g. Childs, 2006; Levitt, 2001; Ramsden, 1998). As in ROSE, these authors
provide examples of other synonyms which might be used. This is also mirrored by
our Internet search. For the first ten hits, the search engine also provides links for
‘science education’ and ‘importance’ even though the search term was relevance.
According to the results, ‘importance’ and ‘relevance’ seem to have the same mean-
ing whenever they are associated with science teaching and learning.
Several contributions from the relevant literature take the view that relevance in
science education is mainly related to the question of whether science education
content accurately matches the students’ real or perceived interests (e.g. Schreiner
& Sjøberg, 2004). But there are also good reasons to consider ‘relevance’ and
‘interest’ as consisting of overlapping but non-identical ideas. Krapp and Prenzel
(2011) describe the meaning of ‘interest’ and research on ‘interest in science’. They
separate interest from other terms like enjoyment. This is comparable to the differ-
entiation between interest and relevance:
[…] it is important to note that interest cannot be equated with ‘enjoyment while
learning’. Enjoyment can occur for many reasons, and interest is only one of these.
(Krapp & Prenzel, 2011, p. 30)
Indeed, some aspects of science education can be relevant without the students
being interested in them (and vice versa). This claim can be seen for example in
mathematics. Much of the mathematics teaching is highly relevant for the learner’s
future, e.g. for a later understanding of Physics and/or Chemistry or for coping with
issues related to many business areas. However, many topics in the mathematics
curriculum will not fall into most students’ real and perceived interest categories
at the time they are being taught and learned. The same might be true for science,
e.g. lessons dealing with atomic structure or bonding theory. On the other hand,
magic shows in which someone demonstrates experiments generally prove to be
interesting, even though most pupils will never repeat the scientific experiments
themselves or obtain the necessary chemicals to do so. Such magic shows can
hardly be considered to be relevant simply for their entertainment value, unless
raising curiosity and motivational levels among learners is considered a part of rele-
vance. To sum up, many scientific phenomena can be enjoyable to the learner but
not necessary relevant.
10 M. Stuckey et al.
Meaningfulness as aligned to relevance was discussed by leading scholars from

the field of general education, e.g. by Dewey, Freire, Schwab, Novak and Bruner.
According to Dewey (1973), the school in the past was often unable to utilise
meaningfulness in the sense of an understandable connection of the science learning
with students’ everyday life. He suggested that teaching should begin more
thoroughly from the everyday experience of the child. Dewey claimed that unless
the initial connection is made between school activities and the life experiences
of the child, genuine learning and growth would be impossible. Bruner (1996)
stressed the impact of culture on meaningful learning. He placed his work within a
thorough appreciation of culture, which provides the children with a toolkit by
which they construct not only their worlds but also the perceptions and understand-
ing of themselves and of what they learn. Similarly, for Freire (1998), education
should raise the awareness of the students so that they become subjects, rather than
objects, of the world and the society they live in. This should be done by teaching
the students to think democratically and continually make meaning from everything
they learn, based on their culture:
… our relationship with the learners demands that we respect them and demands
equally that we be aware of the concrete conditions of their world, the conditions that
shape them. To try to know the reality that our students live is a task that the educa-
tional practice imposes on us: Without this, we have no access to the way they think,
so only with great difficulty can we perceive what and how they know. (p. 58)
We can find the question of meaningful learning with reference to society and cul-
ture also in the work of Schwab (1973), who suggested that any educational event
involves the learner, the teacher, the subject matter and the context or the social
environment. Only by taking into account these components can we develop well-
organised and relevant knowledge structures with the potential for applicable
knowledge in the sense of everyday coping and critical behaviour in society (Novak
& Gowin, 1984).
Westbroek, Klaassen, Bulte and Pilot (2005, 2010) discussed the issue of ‘mean-
ingfulness’ when trying to justify context-based Chemistry education. They suggest
that making science education more meaningful has three characteristics: contextua-
lised learning, a need-to-know approach and attention to student input. They argue
that science education will become relevant to pupils, and thus motivating, if the
content is embedded in a meaningful context as seen from the students’ point of
view. The learners must feel a need to know and have a chance to actively partici-
pate in the issue at stake.
Gilbert (2006) links the issue of relevance to the question of context-based
learning and meaningfulness. He claims that the main problem with science educa-
tion is that the vast majority of students do not want to study science subjects after
leaving school. He suggests that this is partially based on their gloomy experiences
with scientific content and contexts in their school science curricula. He also states
that the perceived ‘lack of relevance’ among students is mainly caused by inappro-
priate contexts and structures chosen by most curricula. Gilbert does not differenti-
ate between relevance in the sense of the context not fitting pupils’ interests and the
inability of science education to present material as worthy of being learned. He
does, however, clearly refer to students’ interests, thus suggesting that higher levels
of the perception of relevance among students need to be better aligned with
contexts and topics fitting the learners’ needs. He also makes it clear that both pres-
ent and future interests must be taken into account. Regarding Chemistry education,
he wrote that:
For all students, the collection of contexts used must make chemistry more relevant
and enable the development of a sense of ownership of that which is to be learnt. The
structure of the curriculum must be such that it, at best, resonates with students’
present and anticipated interests, and, at worst, is capable of engendering interest and
commitment. (Gilbert, 2006, p. 959)
The connection between relevance and interest is obviously tied to various motiva-
tional models based on learning environments. Motivational theory differentiates
not only between interest and relevance but adds further components as well. For
example, Keller (1983) outlined four components of successful motivation with

respect to learning environments: interest, relevance, expectancy and satisfaction.
Based on these four components, Keller (1987) and Keller and Kopp (1987) sug-
gested a model of motivational design. In their model, it is important to raise the
levels of attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction (ARCS) among the learn-
ers to promote motivation.
The ARCS model sums up potential instructional techniques in the four
domains that can be mixed and matched to promote and sustain motivational lev-
els in teaching and learning (Feng & Tuan, 2005). Within this model, the percep-
tion of relevance should be promoted through strategies which include informing
the learners exactly how new material will be of use in developing already-exist-
ing skills. It should be made clear why a given topic matters for current learning
and how it will eventually match the learners’ future needs. The learner should
also understand what can be accomplished with the new knowledge, e.g. allowing
‘learning by teaching’. Pupils should also be given the option of organising their
work load based on their personal interests and prior skills. Relevance in Keller’s
model means much more than just satisfying students’ present interests and curios-
ity or explaining the meaningfulness of specific knowledge. Keller (1983) defined
six components of relevance with regard to learning environments: experience,
present worth, future usefulness, and needs matching, modelling and choice. The
points of future usefulness and matching learner needs shows that there can be
future relevance which may (or may not) be in the pupils’ present and perceived
interest.
Other models based on motivation express the same thoughts but use different
terminology. In their Six C’s Model of Motivation, Turner and Paris (1995)
described the components that can motivate students: choice, challenge, control,
collaboration, construction of meaning and consequences. In this model, the last C
(Consequences) leads our discussion one step further because consequences can be
interpreted beyond the influence of learning as a change in cognitive abilities.
Turner and Paris suggested that connecting learning to positive consequences
can motivate the learner even more, e.g. rewards, praise, successfully completed
experiments or highly-desired end products. Such consequences suggest that there
might be more than an intrinsic component in the term relevance, as suggested for
example by Holbrook (2008), and that this intrinsic component can be understood
as more than an interest in a subject area or context. Rewards and praise form an
extrinsic part of motivation in the sense of positive reinforcement. It has been
suggested that extrinsically motivated components existing beyond students’ imme-

diate range of perception can also play an important role. For example, parents and
educators purposely try to keep pupils’ career chances open by fostering them to
complete all necessary courses or achieving high enough grades to later be allowed
entering specific academic programmes.
The idea of connecting worth (or positive consequences) to the idea of relevance
beyond the basic idea of meaningfulness is also presented, among other places, in
the outline of the PARSEL project (EU, FP7 programmes) by Holbrook (2008).
This project also makes it clear that the term relevance can have different meanings,
both intrinsic (felt by the student) and extrinsic (provided by the curriculum, par-
ents, teachers and examinations).
So far, relevance in the sense of consequences has been mainly aligned with
affecting student cognition. Such a definition was given in the relevance theory of
Sperber and Wilson (2004):
[…] any external stimulus or internal representation which provides an input to cogni-
tive processes may be relevant to an individual at some time. […] According to rele-
vance theory, an input is relevant to an individual when it’s processing in a context of
available assumptions yields a positive cognitive effect. A positive cognitive effect is
a worthwhile difference to the individual’s representation of the world: a true conclu-
sion, for example. False conclusions are not worth having […] (p. 608)
However, beyond Sperber and Wilson (2004), ‘consequences’ can also be inter-
preted as real effects on the conditions of students’ life and beyond.
With respect to developing countries, Knamiller (1984) discussed the relevance
of science education for economic development of a society. His interpretation of
the idea of the relevance of science education is directly connected to real-life
effects, e.g. increases in economic growth and societal wealth. This is an idea which
– under the inclusion of an ecological component – is central to the current ESD
movement (Burmeister et al., 2012; De Haan, 2006).
Thus far, it appears that any definition or meaning applied to the term relevance
remains quite diffuse when used in the rhetoric of science education and curriculum
reform. Twenty-five years ago, Newton (1988a) described England’s school curricu-
lum suggesting that teachers are required to teach ‘relevant’ science. His concern
was that the curriculum descriptors did not really define what this meant. According
to Newton (1988b), relevance means reflecting upon the trio of concerns related to
products, processes and people. Knamiller (1984) connected his perceptions regard-
ing relevance to the question of consequences and fulfilling of personal needs.
Together with the more recent literature discussed so far, the use of the term rele-
vance and its connection to other socio-psychological terms in the science
education literature can be grouped in five main categories, even though distinctions
between them is not always clear and very often different papers overlap the
different meanings of the term:
(1) Relevance used as a synonym for student interest (Childs, 2006; Ramsden,
1998; ROSE, 2004)
(2) Relevance used as students’ perception of meaningfulness for understanding
contexts connected to their lives (Gilbert, 2006; King, 2012; Lyons, 2006;
Mandler, Mamlok-Naaman, Blonder, Yayon, & Hofstein, 2012).
(3) Relevance connected to student needs, which is used as a synonym for

importance, usefulness or needs-matching (Keller, 1983; Simon & Amos,
2011).
(4) Relevance viewed in the sense of real-life effects for individuals and society,
e.g. in terms of growing prosperity and sustainable development by the
application of science and technology to societal, economic, environmental,
and political issues (De Haan, 2006; Hofstein & Kesner, 2006; Knamiller,
1984).
(5) Relevance viewed multi-dimensionanally and applied as a combination of
selected elements borrowed from categories I–IV (Aikenhead, 2003; Kahl &
Harms, 1981; Newton, 1988a, 1988b; Rannikmäe, Teppo, & Holbrook, 2010).
Based on this analytical approach, we suggest applying the idea of relevance to

science education with more thorough attention to the idea of consequences. These
consequences of ‘relevance’ can be much broader than simply meeting the per-
ceived interests or desires of the learner or to influence the learners’ cognitive
development. Consequences also encompass real impacts in a socio-economic
means, on the students’ physical and material life (today and in the future). Also,
these consequences need to be taken into account when the question of relevance
of science education is raised. This more open view, coming from the idea of con-
sidering consequences, suggests potential dimensions that the question of relevance
of science education might encompass. Based on the historical reflections discussed
above, we have already seen that there can be different fields of consequences
where science education or a lack thereof will be of relevance, e.g. skills for acting
in society or abilities to get a well-paid job in the workplace. However, it is not
clear at this point whether this list is comprehensible or what a coherent model
including the different dimensions might look alike. Therefore, the question of the
dimensions of relevance of science education will be discussed in the next section.
Dimensions of ‘relevance’ in science education

Based on a comprehensive review of the literature, we can identify various
dimensions and interpretations for the use of the term relevance in science educa-
tion. Different organising factors are also suggested, e.g. what is considered to be
relevant, to whom, at what time and/or who decides this. Theoretical answers can
be obtained from two areas: the area defining the general aims and orientation of
education and the area of science education itself.
Two theories seem specifically important for clarifying the dimensions of the
term ‘relevance’ when it comes to a general justification of education. One is the
central European tradition of Allgemeinbildung (Klafki, 2000a) which has achieved
increased levels of recognition in the international educational literature in recent
years (Elmose & Roth, 2005; Fensham, 2004; Hofstein et al., 2011; Sjöström,
2011). The second is Activity Theory and its reflections on the definition of general
objectives for education (Holbrook & Rannikmäe, 2007; Roth & Lee, 2004; Van
Aalsvoort, 2004).
The idea of Bildung and Allgemeinbildung is a unique, 200-year-old, Central
European tradition of defining the overall aims of education. The basic idea is
achieving an understanding of the overarching aims of education, thereby making
education personally valuable to the learner and dovetailing with the learner’s needs
for today and the future. Within Allgemeinbildung, the word ‘Allgemein’ (which
can be translated as ‘general’) has two dimensions. The first means achieving
Bildung for everyone. The second dimension aims at Bildung in all areas of human
endeavour (Klafki, 2000a). A more difficult term to explain is the concept of
Bildung. Our contemporary understanding stems from the 1950s to the 1970s where
Allgemeinbildung was described as an ability to recognise and follow one’s own
needs in society and to be able to behave as a responsible citizen within society.
Klafki (2000a) operationalised the latter into an understanding of students’ capacity
for self-determination, participation and solidarity within the society. From the idea
of Allgemeinbildung, Klafki and others developed a tool called Didactical Analysis
to decide whether a topic or issue should be taught in compulsory formal education
(Klafki, 2000b). Didactical Analysis consists of a set of questions. According to
Klafki, the most important questions reflect on whether learning a topic actually has
meaning for the learner at present or in the future. This includes possessing the
potential for raising learners’ capacity for self-determination, participation in society
and solidarity with others.
By using the Allgemeinbildung approach, we can see that relevance of (science)
education can be defined as a matrix split into the dimensions of time and goal.
Education can be relevant if it is meaningful and has positive consequences for the
learner – be it today or in the future. Meaningfulness and consequences can arise
from individual interests and needs, but they can also be created at the societal
level. Education should prepare the young generation to become critical and respon-
sible citizens being able to behave well in society and contribute to society’s devel-
opment. That also means that justifications for relevant education can be given
which do not lie in the actual and perceived interest of the students but might be
defined by educational theory or a consensus within society about what a student
should know and which skills and abilities are expected from him or her when
graduating from formal school education.
Part of the latter justification from Allgemeinbildung, the preparation of students
to find their place in society and develop the necessary skills to act responsibly in
society (today and in future), is also at the heart of applying Activity Theory to
reflect on the relevance of science education (Holbrook & Rannikmäe, 2007; Roth
& Lee, 2004; Van Aalsvoort, 2004). Activity Theory tries to operate in the area
between knowledge and social practices. This is done by:
[…] interlinking of knowledge and social practice through establishing a need

(relevant in the eyes of students), identifying the motives (wanting to solve scientific
problems and make socio-scientific decisions) leading to activity constituted by actions
(learning in school towards becoming a scientifically literate, responsible citizen).
(Holbrook & Rannikmäe, 2007, p. 1353)
Based on the philosophical work of Leont’ev (1978) regarding Activity Theory, van
Aalsvoort (2004) derived her understanding of relevance of science education from
societal and thus cultural historical perspectives. This means that learners should be
able to apply relevant practices in society in order to behave as educated citizens.
The learners, from a personal perspective, need to understand the behaviour of expert
persons in society that the students can identify themselves with actors in society
and thus become able to develop own motives for action. Similar ideas can also be
found in the works of Roth and Lee (2004). They added the idea of autonomy: a
critical and responsible citizen can only contribute to society if he or she develops
the necessary skills to act autonomously and self-directed. This has not only conse-
quences for the science curriculum but also for the related pedagogies.
Conceptualising the two dimensions of individual learning and preparation for
societal participation in science education can also be derived from the idea of
Scientific Literacy (Bybee, 1997a). This notion is currently more than 40 years old
(De Boer, 2000; Holbrook & Rannikmäe, 2009). Although the idea of scientific
literacy is not unanimously agreed upon (Shamos, 1995), the concept has become a
leading goal of science education policies worldwide. The Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 1998) has defined scientific
literacy as the common basis for the Programme for International Student Assess-
ment (PISA; Bybee, Fensham, & Laurie, 2009). The OECD (1998) provided the
following definition:
Scientific literacy is the capacity to use scientific knowledge, to identify questions and
to draw evidence-based conclusions in order to understand and help make decisions
about the natural world and the changes made to it through human activity. (p. 5)
Roberts (2007) and Holbrook and Rannikmäe (2009) made clear that scientific liter-
acy in the terms of PISA goes beyond the original concept of ‘science literacy’.
According to Roberts (2007), science literacy means having sufficient scientific
knowledge to be able to understand scientific texts and/or literature. Holbrook
(2005) made an even more radical claim when he wrote that the understanding of
‘science literacy’ as knowledge base in science might not be the most important
component within scientific literacy:
The stress on conceptual understanding and the appreciation of the NOS tends not to
be relevant for functionality in our lives, i.e. relevant to the home, the environment,
future employment and most definitely for future changes and developments within
the society. (p. 1)
Holbrook (2005) suggested that scientific literacy needs to be built upon more
aspects than merely scientific knowledge. Extensive literature exists on the broader
meaning of scientific literacy (Eilks, Nielsen, & Hofstein, in press; Holbrook &
Rannikmäe, 2009). The NSTA (1991) in the USA defined four dimensions of scien-
tific literacy: an intellectual, attitudinal, societal and interdisciplinary dimension.
Nearly every contribution to the debate on the meaning of scientific literacy – and
thus relevant science education – emphasises the need for a societal component in
addition to the personal domain of knowledge and skills development (Hofstein
et al., 2011). This societal component encompasses all of those skills necessary for
dealing with both science- and technology-related interests and societal debates
(Holbrook & Rannikmäe, 2009).
A more concrete example was presented by Shwartz, Ben-Zvi, and Hofstein
(2006), who attempted to define ‘chemical literacy’. They identified four areas
related to this concept. Chemistry education can be considered relevant if it pro-
motes a balanced contribution of individual skills development. It must also aid
learners in coping with their individual life. Education must also foster the individ-
ual’s skills in dealing with any aspects related to the appearance and use of science,
including related applications in society as a whole.
Thus, altogether, individual interests, needs, and worth can generate relevance
for an individual to participate in any learning activity. However, there is also a
range of external justifications (or factors) which demand that pupils learn specific
subject matter content or enrol in specific coursework.
Thus far, the discussion has been based mainly on the assumption that relevance
in the context of science education should be approached from the perspective of
the learner. The question of relevance might also be approached quite differently.
Are learners the only ones who should decide what is relevant in science education?
Ratcliffe and Grace (2003) suggested that society should consider science education
in terms of both a future skills-based society and effective, responsible citizens. As
already discussed in the introduction, there are many stakeholders in the educational
arena having interest and influence on the topics and objectives science education
should follow. The stakeholders who control the economy, for example, will tend to
emphasise the relevance of science education with regard to enhancing young peo-
ples’ interest in entering into careers in science and technology. One problem
remains, however: young people generally do not see any ‘sense’ in science
subjects and drop science courses as quickly as they can in school. Young and
Glanfield (1998) described it like this:
The most frequently [reasons] referred to are that studying science no longer leads to
a clear range of future careers and that the sciences are not sufficiently concerned with
human and social issues. However, the natural sciences are no less ‘humanities’ – they
are the product of human actions and purposes – than literature or the social sciences.
The problem is that in the subject form in which they make up the existing curricu-
lum, their original sense of human purpose is often lost, at any rate from the point of
view of students. (p. 16)
In addition, science should prepare pupils for further training and later employment.
The above discussion begun by Knamiller (1984) has already raised this point from
the perspective of developing economies. Sustainable development for the future
and a prosperous economy are also considered relevant by many parents, since their
common priority is in helping their children to achieve successful careers and
futures. Newton and Newton (1991) have already suggested that:
Science teaching needs to include in its domain not just a concern for immediate
needs and motivation but also the relevance of science for adult life. (p. 44)
The question of future value is directly connected to a question posed by Aikenhead

(2003) based on Fensham (2000) namely: ‘Who decides what is relevant?’ He gives
seven different heuristic categories of experts (that might overlap to varying
degrees) for making decisions about what should be considered relevant (Table 1).
These categories also show the different intrinsic and extrinsic components of
relevance. Intrinsic relevance is represented by personal curiosity (or interest) of
students, while extrinsic relevance is defined by all other stakeholders. ‘External’
experts (such as science educators, policy-makers, etc.) can exert a large amount of
influence on an upcoming curriculum. Considering these heuristic categories in con-
nection with the above outlined understanding of relevance of science education
might allow us to better reflect upon and plan exactly how curricula are developed.
Contemplating curriculum development from this viewpoint might allow us to
understand why coursework is often perceived by students as being totally
Table 1. Heuristic categories of different experts who decide what is relevant? (Aikenhead,
2003; based on Fensham, 2000).
Heuristic category Who decides what is relevant?

Wish-they-knew science Academic scientists
Need-to-know science Curriculum policy-makers and researchers
Functional science Science-based industries and professions
Enticed-to-know science Mass media and internet
Have-cause-to-know Economics, public health experts (those who deal with real life
science matters)
Science-as-culture Experts in the area of cultural aspects
Personal curiosity Students
science
irrelevant (Holbrook, 2008). It has been suggested that the current curriculum
approach has also contributed to the fact that science teaching is often viewed as
inappropriate and lacking in job focus by future employers.
These general thoughts on (science) education fit several concrete organisational
schemes for understanding the dimensions of relevance as suggested in the
literature which has appeared since the early 1980s. Schollum and Osborne (1985),
Newton (1988a, 1988b) and Harms and Yager (1981) all made attempts to
characterise the relevance of science education by suggesting different dimensions.
Schollum and Osborne (1985), for example, suggested three aspects of relevance:
relevance for everyday events, relevance for pupils’ existing ideas and relevance for
human relationships. These considerations are quite similar to the ideas of scientific
literacy discussed above. Newton (1988a) and Kahl and Harms (1981) presented a
new aspect of the term relevance, which is not always present (or even very expli-
cit) in common, definitions of scientific literacy: A vocational dimension (see also
Hurd, 1998). Kahl and Harms (1981) suggested four clusters of goals for justifying
the relevance of science education. These include relevance not only for personal
needs and societal issues, but also for career education/awareness and academic
preparation. This broad field covers both intrinsic and extrinsic components. The
intrinsic dimensions encompass students’ interest in specific topics and also their
interest in being rewarded and praised as successful learners by their teachers or
parents. The latter aspect can also belong to extrinsically motivated relevance. The
extrinsic dimension includes outside expectations regarding the personal environ-
ment of the learner, e.g. by parents, future employers or social institutions which
might have influence on the student’s career.
As mentioned earlier in this paper, relevance can also mean the importance of
scientific learning for economic growth as a prerequisite for societal wealth. Regard-
ing this point of view, Knamiller (1984) made it clear that justifying education
using ‘relevance’ as an argument will remain difficult as long as no universal defini-
tion is available. He suggested that developing countries should differentiate
between ‘outside observers’ and ‘inside consumers’. This is an important contribu-
tion, since it makes it clear that the relevance of science education is always con-
nected to the socio-economic circumstances in which the learner lives. Knamiller
wrote:
For the ‘outside observer’, those who do not have children in the common Third
World community school, educational relevance is a direct assault on the basic needs
issue and even unemployment. […] To the ‘inside consumer’, the children, parents
and teachers who inhabit local community school, however, educational relevance is
viewed as an indirect path to improving life. Success in the traditional academic cur-
riculum leads to a modern sector wage-paying job with money flowing back to enable
the family to improve its lot. (p. 61)
Eilks et al. (in press) integrated all these approaches by suggesting the following
three dimensions for relevance in science education: An individual, a societal and a
vocational. These same three dimensions were found in the analysis of the history
of curriculum reform in science education as described above. Van Aalsvoort
(2004) has similar views on relevance. He summarised these in three dimensions:
personal relevance, professional relevance and societal relevance. Additionally, as

we have already seen in the previous section, many interpretations of relevance
cover both intrinsic and extrinsic components, as well as the aspects of present and
future meaning. Bringing all these arguments together, we suggest three basic
dimensions of relevance of science education, with each having a spectrum from
present to future worth, and from intrinsic to extrinsic points of view:
• The individual dimension: the relevance of science education for the individ-
ual encompasses matching the learners’ curiosity and interests, providing stu-
dents with necessary and useful skills for coping with their everyday lives
today and in the future, and contributing to the development of intellectual
skills.
• The societal dimension: the relevance of science education from the societal
viewpoint focuses on preparation of pupils for self-determination and a
responsibly led life in society by understanding the interdependence and inter-
action of science and society, developing skills for societal participation and
competencies for contributing to society’s sustainable development.
• The vocational dimension: the relevance of science education in the voca-
tional dimension is composed of offering orientation for future professions
and careers, preparation for further academic or vocational training and open-
ing up formal career chances (e.g. by having sufficient coursework and
achievements to enter into any given higher education programme of study).
These dimensions are not necessarily independent; they are interrelated and
partially overlap each other. For example, career orientation can either match per-
sonal curiosity or it can provide an answer for a demand for more scientists and
engineers in the future. The latter is directly linked to the idea of the prosperous,
sustainable development of society. Additionally, it is also clear that the different
dimension have a different emphasis at varying school levels. Where the individ-
ual dimension might be the most important on primary level, the societal dimen-
sion may be very important at lower secondary level before compulsory school
education ends. But even within the dimensions there might be a shift in emphasis
(Newton, 1988b). Wherein the vocational dimension the preparation for further
learning might be important at every level, career orientation might have the big-
gest emphasis in the age of 12–16 years where students really have to decide
which career pathway they intend to enter. This aspect will be discussed in further
details below.
Suggestions for modelling the term ‘relevance’ in science education

From the analysis of the literature, we tried to make clear the different meanings
and also where the meaning in the use of ‘relevance’ in science education is
broader than the meaning of other terms like ‘interest’ or ‘meaningfulness’. We also
found different dimensions (individual, societal, vocational) as well as present–
future and intrinsic–extrinsic components. Bringing all these issues together, a
common model can be derived that covers most of the issues posed in the science
education literature. Such a model offers more clarity in the debate on reform in
science education since it articulates the parallels and distinctions with other con-
structs, like interest or meaningfulness. It also provides a basis for modelling the
different dimensions of relevance in science education. Such a model would be of
benefit for analysing different curricula to whether they support the different dimen-
sions in a balanced way, but also for deciding about new curricular developments
concerning their focus or balance between the varying aspects of relevance of sci-
ence education. From the discussion above, we suggest that relevance with respect
to science education should be defined as follows and illustrated in Figure 1:
• Science learning becomes relevant education whenever learning will have

(positive) consequences for the student’s life.
• Positive consequences can include:
○ Fulfilling actual needs related to a student’s personal interest or educa-

tional demands (of which learners are aware), as well as
Figure 1. A model of the three dimensions of relevance with examples of aspects allocated
in the span of both the present–future and the intrinsic–extrinsic-range.
○ The anticipation of future needs (of which students are not necessarily
aware).
• Relevance in science education covers both intrinsic and extrinsic compo-

nents. The intrinsic dimensions encompass student’s interests and motives; the
extrinsic dimension covers ethically justified expectations of one’s personal
environment and the by the society in which they operate and live.
• Relevance can be considered to consist of three different dimensions:
individual, societal and vocational. For science teaching, this means that
relevant education must contribute to pupils’ intellectual skill development,
promote learner competency for current and future societal participation and
address learners’ vocational awareness and understanding of career chances.
Each of the three dimensions encompasses a spectrum of present and future

aspects.
It is suggested that it is vital to make the idea of ‘relevance’ more manageable

for both the science curriculum developers, the science teacher and for classroom
teaching practices (Newton, 1988a). It can be helpful for teachers to actively
analyse their lesson plans and curricula with respect to the different dimensions of
relevance. The model given in Figure 1 can act as tool for science education.
Educational research needs to encompass such questions as ‘How do teachers
personally view relevance?’ We also need to reflect upon students’ perception
regarding the notion of relevance (e.g. learning materials). In addition, it is also
possible to focus on other aspects when using this model. For example, it can be
used as a tool for analysing the topics and contexts found in science curricula to
determine their educational effectiveness.
The authors of this manuscript have used the definition and model in seminars
in initial and in-service teacher training. The ideas presented in this section were
used for both reflecting on the objectives of relevant science education and also on
analysing different curriculum approaches and models such as: conceptual approach
(structure-of-the-discipline), history-and-philosophy-of-science lessons, context-
based science education and/or socio-scientific issues-based science teaching. Using
the model that is presented in Figure 1 for the purpose of analysing different
science curricula (and their related textbooks) enables identifying (and highlighting)
the strengths and weaknesses of the different curriculum approaches related to
various components and levels of relevance.
Different approaches to science curricula and the issue of relevance: applying

the model
It is reasonable to assume that every curriculum is based on a specific understand-
ing of what makes science learning relevant. This is close to the idea of the
curriculum emphasis explored and described by Roberts (1988). Roberts reviewed
North American science curricula covering a time span of almost one hundred
years. Apart from the specific content addressed, he found that every curriculum
contained a set of hidden messages about science itself – a message the curriculum
designers seem to consider being ‘relevant’ to be transmitted to the students. He
(Roberts, 1982) called this the ‘curriculum emphasis’ and described it as:
… a coherent set of messages about science (rather than within science). Such
messages constitute objectives which go beyond learning the facts, principles, laws
and theories of the subject matter itself - objectives which provide answers to the
student question: Why am I learning this? (p. 245).
This emphasis points to the type of relevance which the learning of science
suggests within a given curriculum. Examples included an emphasis on everyday
coping (which focuses on part of the individual dimension of relevance), science
and technology decisions (focusing on part of the societal dimension) and providing
a solid career foundation (part of vocational relevance).
Roberts (1988) wrote that the different curriculum emphases do not exist in a
vacuum. They often change with time and can be combined in new permutations
which encompass completely new meanings. Nevertheless, such factors allow us to
reflect upon the issue of relevance in differing science curricula. Van Berkel (2005)
updated Roberts’ study (1982) and examined the idea of curriculum emphases in
more recent curricula. Focusing on Chemistry curricula, van Berkel refined the ori-
ginal seven emphases described by Roberts and melded them into three more gen-
eral ones: fundamental Chemistry, knowledge development in Chemistry and
Chemistry–Technology–Society. This distinction has parallels in the teaching
domains of Biology and Physics. Van Berkel’s study made it clear how curriculum
emphasis directly influences science learning with respect to the different dimen-
sions and domains of the relevance presented above.
De Jong (2006) presented a similar approach characterising different domains
which offer textual approaches towards science learning in chemistry education:
• The personal domain: connecting chemistry with the student’s personal life.
• The professional practice domain: providing information and background for
future employment.
• The professional and technological domain: enhancing the learners’ under-
standing of science and technological applications.
• The social and society domain: preparing the pupil to become a responsible
citizen in the future.
• Understanding of career opportunities
The approach presented by De Jong solidifies the idea that the starting points
selected for teaching science will automatically focus the lesson plan on a specific
area (or at least emphasise specific areas) when it comes to relevance.
The ideas based on Roberts, Van Berkel and De Jong can be connected with the
above described model on relevance with the goal in mind to reflect on the question
of relevance of different basic types of science curricula. Eilks et al. (2013) (based
on Van Berkel (2005) and De Jong (2006)) described different basic orientations/
approaches that can be found in science curricula. Several of these were partially
discussed in the section related to the historical developments of relevance in sci-
ence education in this review paper. The paper outlined the following orientations:
(I) the structure of the discipline, (II) the history and philosophy of science, (III)
context-based science education and STS, (IV) socio-scientific issues-based science
education and (V) interdisciplinary and ESD-type curricula. All of these basic cur-
riculum approaches encompass an extremely broad range of interpretations in their
underlying theories, in the example materials provided and, of course, the transla-
tion of topics into concrete teaching practices in the different countries. However,
the basic justifications of the various curricula fall closely in line with the different
dimensions of relevance suggested by the model presented in Figure 1.
Curricula organised along the ‘structure of the discipline’ approach
(e.g. CHEMStudy; Merril & Ridgeway, 1969) focus primarily on learning scientific
facts and theories, including how the different academic science domains are struc-
tured and presented to learners. Approaches of this type of curricula attempt to
achieve relevance by offering learners a promising basis for future learning in the
field of science. They also express a desire to prepare the student for further aca-
demic studies in the respective scientific discipline. Within the individual dimen-
sion, such curricula will fulfil the interests and curiosity of pupils who are
intrinsically motivated in the particular science domain. Regarding the vocational
dimension, this approach might present the best option for demonstrating to school
students what they can expect, if they plan to embark on future academic careers in
an area of science. However, this approach largely neglects the societal relevance of
science and the broad spectrum of possible science careers beyond academic
research. Often, this aspect is relegated to the fringes of the curriculum without
directly being related to the assessment of students’ achievement and progress (Eil-
ks et al., 2013).
Science curricula that use the history and philosophy of science generally focus
on learning the most essential theories of science (see Matthews, 1994) (focusing
on stories) like the historical development of the model of atomic structure. This
approach attempts to contribute to an understanding of how science functions as an
intellectual endeavour (the NOS). The approach is relevant for a vocational orienta-
tion of the students since it can influence whether or not science might be a poten-
tial field for future academic studies. However, using the history of science as an
integral part of the science curriculum is often justified as a support for problem-
based, meta-cognitive learning (Teixeira, Greca, & Freire, 2012). In other words, it
is intended to be relevant for the individual in the development of higher-order
learning skills such as problem-solving capabilities. It has been suggested, however,
that this approach is insufficient. It often lacks sufficient consideration of the
contemporary and future societal relevance of science, contains no broad vocational
orientation, and neglects the most important vocational preparation relevant for the
majority of the learners.
Context-based (and STS-type) curricula operate in a wide range of contexts in
order to provide meaningful situations to support the learning of science, e.g. the
SALTERS curricula in the UK or ‘Chemie im Kontext’ in Germany (King, 2012).
Such curricula try to contribute to relevant science education by clarifying the role
of science and its related applications in the everyday lives of the pupils. With
respect to the selected contexts, context-based education has potential for contribut-
ing to vocational orientation and promoting learning in the societal dimension of
science. It is assumed that this approach provides learners with opportunities to
learn structured scientific knowledge, thus giving them a starting platform for more
advanced scientific learning. Therefore, context-based curricula contribute to all
three relevance dimensions. However, the overall contributions to each dimension
and their respective weighting can vary significantly regarding the chosen contexts
and their aligned pedagogies (Gilbert, 2006).
Hofstein and Kesner (2006) suggested a specific approach for widening context-
based science teaching. They recommend connecting science teaching with
businesses and industry applications. This would highlight the interconnectedness of

science, the economy and society, thereby offering students valuable insights into
possible career chances in science and technology. This extension of context-based
science education falls in line with the theoretical foundations of the so-called
‘socio-scientific issues-based’ science curricula (see Sadler, 2011). This approach to
teaching clearly expresses a wish to make the social dimension of science and its
applications a central aspect of classroom teaching. Authentic and controversial
issues and debates derived directly from current social affairs should be employed
to promote interest among pupils. These topics, however, should not only represent
starting points for learning, but should also be the focus for the subject-matter con-
tent of the lessons. This approach not only broadens the contents and objectives
selected, but also widens the spectrum of pedagogies implemented (Eilks et al., in
press; Hofstein & Kempa, 1985). It is necessary to discuss and develop skills for
handling these debates in society – all within the scope of teaching science (Marks
& Eilks, 2009, 2010; Sadler, 2011). This type of curriculum is most effective in
achieving the goals of discipline-oriented ESD (Burmeister et al., 2012). ESD cur-
ricula consciously aim at providing students with skills necessary for participation
in social debates and decision-making for sustainability (De Haan, 2006). In this
view, this is the essential component which makes science education or any other
domain of education relevant to individuals and the society in which they live. The
example from Hofstein and Kesner (2006) quoted above can also be viewed as a
socio-scientific issues-based curricular approach, because it connects science related
context and societal issues related to technical applications in industry and busi-
nesses, while simultaneously allowing a vocational orientation.
Finally, a more radical approach regarding socio-scientific issues-based science
education, Marks and Eilks (2009) and Eilks et al. (in press) recently readdressed
the question of relevance. They posed the question of what exactly turns such soci-
etal contexts into ‘relevant’ socio-scientific issues in the student’s opinion. Follow-
ing the ideas in Sadler (2004), Marks and Eilks (2009) found that the most fruitful
topics for teaching and learning about science in society consist of authentic societal
debates having personal relevance to the student and possessing controversial char-
acteristics. Marks and Eilks (2009) suggested a more thorough consideration of the
respective contexts as an initial point for relevant science teaching. This can take
place by using authentic societal debates which have varied and contradictory
standpoints actively reported by the press. Criteria for topic selection and suitability
testing include: (1) authenticity, (2) relevance, (3) an outcome yet undetermined by
social consensus, (4) topics allowing open discussion, and (5) issues dealing with
questions based on science and technology (Eilks et al., in press). Concerning rele-
vance, the authors suggested defining the relevance of socio-scientific issues via the
resulting consequences. A topic is therefore relevant if ‘any societal decision on it
will directly impact the lives of the students, either today or in the future’. They
suggested the following for proving potential contexts: ‘Scenarios must be outlined
where societal decisions on the different alternatives for action will impact students’
lives today or in future, e.g. concerning restrictions on personal consumption or
options for action’.
The choice of a particular approach or the emphasis placed on a specific part of
the science curriculum needs to be carefully reflected upon with a view towards the
students, their interests, needs and potential future career opportunities. This should
take into account not just the personality of the student, but the students’ age group
Figure 2. Emphasis on different dimensions of relevance in the science curriculum (based

on Newton, 1988b).
as well. Newton (1988b) has already suggested that the relative balance between
individual relevance and societal relevance in the curriculum needs to change over
time. The individual dimension might be more important for younger children, but
this importance will shift towards societal relevance as the child grows and matures
(Figure 2). However, exactly how such change needs to happen will differ in the
sub-domains which each of the relevant dimensions possesses. Newton argues that
science curricula for younger children should be more balanced along the line AA’
shown in Figure 2, whereas more mature students might require science curricula
located along line BB’.
Additionally, the sub-dimensions for vocational relevance will also undergo
change over time. Solid preparation for further learning is equally important over
the entire range of schooling. However, its overall meaning and importance will
increase, especially at junctions where the learner transitions from one educational
level to another. Relevance can also decrease once a student has consciously
decided not to choose a career in the sciences. Learning science to keep formal
career chances open will grow with time since transition mechanisms and knowl-
edge requirements become more selective with increasing educational levels.
Finally, vocational orientation may not play an important part in primary education.
It is important in lower secondary school because students have to decide about
their job future. At higher levels of education, it will again fade into the back-
ground details.
Inhibitors for effective implementation of relevance in teaching science

There are several factors that inhibit the effective implementation of teaching and
learning materials which contain a balanced presentation of the different relevance
dimensions. The societal dimension is particularly neglected by many curricula in
different countries (Hofstein et al., 2011; Hughes, 2000). It is beyond the scope of
this manuscript to elaborate on all these factors, but it is worthwhile to briefly men-
tion them in order to obtain an objective and comprehensive picture regarding the
issue of relevance.
One of the most central factors inhibiting effective implementation is a teacher’s
personal beliefs. Teacher beliefs are thought to be the most influential factor
regarding why and how educators behave and make decisions in the classroom
(Bandura, 1986). However, these beliefs are usually not developed systematically
based on empirical evidence. They can, however, become barriers to the effective
implementation of different content, instructional techniques and pedagogical inter-
ventions. They may also result in the perpetuation of traditional teaching practices
(Goodman, 1988; Lumpe, Honey, & Czerniak, 2000; Pederson & Totten, 2001).
A recent survey conducted in the USA (Luft, Ortegaz, & Wong-Kavas, 2009)
showed that a high percentage of science teachers strongly support the incorporation
of more real-world issues into the classroom in order to increase the relevance of
science education. However, this does not automatically lead to the situation where
the societal dimension of socio-scientific issues becomes an equally recognised part-
ner in the science curriculum orientation. The teachers’ positive response does not
receive enough support from their immediate professional community. Approaches
like socio-scientific issues-based science education, context-based science education
and opening broader, more comprehensive career orientation and preparation aspects
remain scarce. Such approaches are unfamiliar to the traditional academically-
oriented teacher of physics, chemistry, biology or engineering (Hofstein et al.,
2011). Although some teachers already possess positive attitudes towards a stronger
inclusion of societal-oriented science education, they often fail to implement such
issues in their own teaching due to lack of imagination, support and scaffolding
(Pederson & Totten, 2001).
Another inhibitor is student assessment regarding their achievement and progress
in the sciences (Holbrook, 2005; Sadler & Zeidler, 2009). Even if science is taught
through context or socio-scientific issues with genuine attempts to cover broad com-
ponents relevance of science education, students often continue to be assessed by
their teachers using traditional, concept-oriented, paper-and-pencil tests. Hughes
(2000) wrote (based on the SALTERS curriculum in the UK) that students often
marginalise the socio-scientific dimension of learning if the structures and language
of texts and classroom practices are not aligned with a context-based approach. This
factor is necessarily aligned with traditions and practices concerning external exam-
inations, in which the systems often neglect the societal and vocational dimensions
in favour of pure science content. Thus, unique and authentic assessment methods
aligned with the goals, pedagogical approaches and contents of respective
approaches are also necessary to make such approaches successful (Holbrook,
2005). The literature contains many valuable strategies for effective implementation
of socio-scientific issues in the science classroom (e.g. role-playing, drama, business
games, debates, or simulating political decision-making (Eilks et al., in press;
Feierabend & Eilks, 2011; Marks & Eilks, 2010). However, the picture is rather
gloomy with regard to the development of assessment tools aligned with the
philosophical features described here (Hofstein, Mamlok-Naaman, & Rosenberg,
2006).
Assessment is also influenced by universities and central examination boards.
Both are very influential regarding the issue of how science is taught (regarding
content and methods) and how students are assessed (Fensham, 1993). As a result,
teachers quite often teach purely scientific concepts using a content-structure-driven,
teacher-centred approach while tending to omit or diminish any student-centred
strategies for teaching the relevant societal aspects. We need to be aware that teach-
ers themselves are products of the same system. They often never had the opportu-
nity to experience open, social or vocationally-oriented curricula aligned with
alternative forms of assessment for themselves, either in school or as university stu-
dents and as teacher trainees. Their previous experiences with the traditional
approach operate as a filter and inhibitor for their present teaching and learning
practices (Goodman, 1988).
Summary and conclusions

In this paper, we have shown that the use of the term ‘relevance’ in science educa-
tion is widespread and multi-faceted. We can say that it is unclearly defined. In
other words, ‘relevance’ in science education is used in various ways and is often
used synonymously with other educational concepts.
We have already made several suggestions for conceptualising and operationalis-
ing the term relevance in science education. These suggestions intend to differenti-
ate between a perception of relevance which merely overlaps students’ interests and
a perspective which contains other areas of relevance, e.g. those justified by eco-
nomical needs and/or defined by societal interests. We propose that without such
distinctions (and definitions) usage of the functions and descriptions associated with
the term relevance will remain confusing and subjective. The definition of ‘rele-
vance’ we have chosen to employ possesses a multi-dimensional character (not just
the perspective of learner needs and interests). It was demonstrated and described
above why exactly there is a need to differentiate between intrinsically (or inter-
nally) motivated perceptions of relevance and extrinsically (or externally) justified
perceptions. Clearly, relevance contains different major dimensions, namely those
stemming from the individual, societal and vocational realms. All of these dimen-
sions are part of a broader field covering both intrinsic and extrinsic components
which have value for both the present and the future.
Reflection upon the issue of relevance and its different implications for various
learners needs to have an impact on science curricula and teaching practices.
Diverse curriculum-related orientations are available in the literature and can be eas-
ily implemented with different objectives in mind. These curriculum-related orienta-
tions, however, do have different strengths and weaknesses in terms of the
contribution they can make to the dimensions of ‘relevance’ stipulated above. Struc-
ture-of-the-discipline-based curricula are strictly aligned with the guided acquisition
of knowledge in order to prepare learners for further science studies. Historically-
oriented approaches are possibly more strongly linked to intellectual challenges,
whereas everyday life-oriented approaches can perhaps better instil practical appre-
ciation of knowledge for use in pupils’ everyday environments.
Context-based curricula attempt to combine these three foci. They evidence par-
ticular potential for acquiring applicable, subject-related knowledge in situations
encountered in everyday life and in society (Gilbert, 2006). It has been suggested
that inclusion of real-world problems emphasises the interdisciplinary nature of the
sciences and their relevance to students (Mandler et al., 2012). However, one must
be aware that not every context viewed as interesting by the teacher is automatically
considered interesting (or learning about it relevant) by students (Hofstein et al.
2011). Comparing a given context to its inherent potential for producing relevant
science education can be performed in the foreground of our proposed model of rel-
evance. This idea is in line with Aikenhead’s contemplations (2003), which claim
that achieving higher levels of attention in science education requires more than
simply choosing ‘relevant’ contexts:
Relevant contexts alone did not necessarily nurture greater canonical science attain-
ment (although nothing of significance is lost on this count, as well). Values and self-
identity necessarily play a large role in focusing students’ attention on both humanistic
and science content: the more emotional the context of instruction or the more uncer-
tain the relevant scientific information, the more important values become, and thus,
the less attention paid to content. (Aikenhead, 2003, p. 75)
Socio-scientific issues-based science education approaches present the most promis-

ing approach for addressing value-centred learning and a humanistic perspective in
science education (Marks & Eilks, 2009; Sadler, 2011). This form of science educa-
tion has been suggested as helpful for students to learn about the interrelationship
of science and society, while simultaneously developing skills for participating in
societal debates and decision-making processes. In other words, socio-scientific
issues within science teaching are highly relevant in the sense that the societal
dimension broadly influences science education. Nevertheless, learning about
socio-scientific issues assumes that students will also learn basic scientific facts and
concepts underlying these issues. Many of these issues, including societal discourse
itself, are quite intellectually challenging, especially for younger or inexperienced
learners. In addition, socio-scientific issues-based science education may contribute
to the individual’s understanding of the relevant aspects of science education. It can
also add to perceived vocational relevance, since the socio-scientific issues selected
will often highlight various career paths and possibilities. We can illustrate this with
a concrete example. Marks, Otten and Eilks (2010) developed a lesson plan based
on the problems of artificial musk fragrances in cosmetics. This case study asked
the students to mimic the work of journalists to examine this topic. Learners were
supposed to write short news clips for either TV or a newspaper. This pedagogy
was chosen to highlight the role of the science-related knowledge necessary for a
reporting career in the media. In addition, many general skills were incorporated
which developed skills that could serve the learner as a future citizen. An example
of this was a teaching unit forcing reflection on the way which science-related
information is produced, propagated and selectively used by individuals, interest
groups, consumer protection agencies, governments and the press (Eilks et al., in
press).
It should be noted that in socio-scientific issues-based science curricula, many
of the above-mentioned pedagogical thoughts are closely related to the specific
socio-scientific issue (topic) chosen and its related pedagogies. They are also
influenced by the teacher’s personal beliefs, behaviour and practices. The same is
true for interdisciplinary science curricula in general and curricula orienting them-
selves by ESD pedagogy in particular. For socio-scientific issues-based curricula
and interdisciplinary curricula, claims have also been made that the structured
acquisition of knowledge, i.e. learning about the structure of a given scientific
discipline, is really not the major focus. The same seems to be true for an orienta-
tion on traditional careers in science and engineering. This aim is more common to
discipline-oriented curricula and some context-based examples which operate using
industrial, technological and scientifically-oriented topics (for example, industrial
case studies; Hofstein & Kesner, 2006).
We must constantly be aware that not every student has the same interests or
pays attention to the same consequences. Many learners are not intrinsically moti-
vated by science. Careers in science and technology might therefore benefit more
from science teaching being oriented on the societal dimension. This may even hold
true for the majority of students (Hofstein et al., 2011; Ogborn, 2004). On the other
hand, students who are interested in and intrinsically motivated by science from the
beginning might equally benefit from the individual and vocational dimensions. In
addition, the societal dimension is important for them, too.
It should be noted that not only individual skills and interests are important.
The weighting of the different dimensions may also include a time- or age-based
dimension. The individual domain might be most important for younger students
when learning about orientations for their individual lives and personal surround-
ings. The societal domain can dominate in more mature students (Newton, 1988b).
These ideas guided Fensham (2004) as he attempted to develop an overall structure
for 12 years of basic schooling. He eventually suggested learning contexts which
have different foci for different age groups. In the first years of schooling, the focus
should be around wonder and creativity. In the following years, context should
increasingly move in the direction of science for responsible citizenship stressing
self-awareness and decision-making. In our opinion, the vocational dimension also
needs to be integrated into this intellectual framework. Contributions to vocational
orientation remain important as long learners still have not fully committed them-
selves to a career choice and as long as their possible choices remain open, e.g.
whether or not to continue enrolling in non-compulsory science courses in school.
The emphasis of keeping formal career chances open might be ultimately connected
with a final decision for the techno-sciences somewhere down the line, if the learner
is given enough time, support and information during the process. Concrete prepara-
tion for further, tertiary education at the university level might thus be achieved in
upper secondary school science lessons. Such a chronological approach within the
science curriculum might possibly connect the needs and interests of all prospective
students. In addition, such an approach can potentially contribute to reducing the
perception of irrelevance which currently prevails in science education programmes
worldwide.
Notes on contributors
Marc Stuckey is a scientific co-worker in the Chemistry Education group at the Institute for
Science Education, University of Bremen, Germany. His research focuses on societal-
oriented science education and a multi-method approach of grasping into the question of
making science education more relevant.
Avi Hofstein is an Emeritus professor at the department of Science Teaching, The Weizmann
Institute of Science in Israel. He was head of the chemistry group and head of department.
Among his research interest are: learning in science laboratories, making chemistry more
relevant and curriculum development.
Rachel Mamlok-Naaman (PhD) is a senior research associate at the Department of Science

teaching, The Weizmann Institute of Science, In Israel. She is the head of the national center
for chemistry teachers. Among her research interest are: science teachers’ professional
development, action research and chemistry curriculum development.
Ingo Eilks is a professor of Chemistry Education at the Institute for Science Education,
University of Bremen, Germany. His research focuses on societal-oriented science education,
cooperative learning, participatory action research, innovating higher chemistry teaching, or
the particulate nature of matter in science education. He is a member of the editorial board
of several national and international journals. He just recently edited (jointly with Avi
Hofstein) the book ‘Chemistry education – A study book’ (Sense, Rotterdam). i Hofstein.
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Studies in Science Education

The meaning of ‘relevance’ in science

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The meaning of ‘relevance’ in science education and its

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

scientists to achieve further scientiﬁc and technological developments and maintain

‘Relevance’ in science education: some historical reﬂections

The late 1950s and early 1960s

• Science education should present learners with a real picture of science,

• Science education should present the nature of science (NOS);

The late 1960s and 1970s

Science knowledge was to be used to answer important questions that people

• Emphasise science as a path to a future career;

• To promote an understanding of the role of science in the development of

The above arguments were formulated from a school policy disseminated in

This statement became an essential component of the modern understanding of the

The relevance of science should be emphasised through greater consideration of the

From the 1990s to date

These curricular developments generally strive to achieve an in-depth understanding of

The second movement is a more radical development and implementation of a soci-

‘Relevance’ and its alignment with interest, meaningfulness and worth

to the Relevance of Science Education survey (ROSE) by Schreiner and Sjøberg

(Schreiner & Sjøberg, 2004, p. 21)

Meaningfulness as aligned to relevance was discussed by leading scholars from

example, Keller (1983) outlined four components of successful motivation with

suggested that extrinsically motivated components existing beyond students’ imme-

(3) Relevance connected to student needs, which is used as a synonym for

Based on this analytical approach, we suggest applying the idea of relevance to

Dimensions of ‘relevance’ in science education

[…] interlinking of knowledge and social practice through establishing a need

The question of future value is directly connected to a question posed by Aikenhead

Heuristic category Who decides what is relevant?

personal relevance, professional relevance and societal relevance. Additionally, as

Suggestions for modelling the term ‘relevance’ in science education

• Science learning becomes relevant education whenever learning will have

○ Fulﬁlling actual needs related to a student’s personal interest or educa-

• Relevance in science education covers both intrinsic and extrinsic compo-

Each of the three dimensions encompasses a spectrum of present and future

It is suggested that it is vital to make the idea of ‘relevance’ more manageable

Different approaches to science curricula and the issue of relevance: applying

businesses and industry applications. This would highlight the interconnectedness of

Figure 2. Emphasis on different dimensions of relevance in the science curriculum (based

Inhibitors for effective implementation of relevance in teaching science

Summary and conclusions

Socio-scientiﬁc issues-based science education approaches present the most promis-

Rachel Mamlok-Naaman (PhD) is a senior research associate at the Department of Science

York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Leont’ev, A. N. (1978). Activity, consciousness, and personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:

tional Journal of Environmental & Science Education, 4, 231–245.

York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Wheeler, K. (2000). Sustainability from ﬁve perspectives. In K. A. Wheeler & A. P. Bijur

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