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Studies in Science Education

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A Constructivist Approach to
Curriculum Development in
Science
a a
Rosalind Driver & Valerie Oldham
a
Centre for Studies in Science and Mathematics
Education , University of Leeds
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Approach to Curriculum Development in Science, Studies in Science Education, 13:1,
105-122, DOI: 10.1080/03057268608559933

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 Studies in Science Education, 13 (1986), 105-122 105
A CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH TO CURRICULUM
DEVELOPMENT IN SCIENCE

ROSALIND DRIVER AND VALERIE OLDHAM

Centre for Studies in Science and Mathematics Education, University of Leeds
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PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL CONTEXTS FOR THE WORK OF THE PROJECT

Over the last decade the teaching of science in secondary schools in the UK has
been under scrutiny. Surveys undertaken on behalf of the Assessment of Perfor-
mance Unit (DES 1981, 1982a, 1982b) report the levels of performance attained
by a national sample of pupils in a range of measures and point out, among other
things, some of the difficulties that secondary school pupils have in understanding
certain scientific ideas. In addition studies of secondary science classrooms including
the survey undertaken by HMI (DES 1979) suggest that didactic teaching methods
still tend to predominate especially in upper secondary classes.
When the Secondary Science Curriculum Review was instigated to address a
number of issues in the teaching of science in secondary schools (SSCR 1983) the
Children's Learning in Science Project was set up to work in collaboration with
the Review. The intention was to develop revised teaching approaches which would
be informed by research on children's thinking in science and current theoretical
developments in cognition.
In particular we identify three potentially fruitful theoretical developments which
suggest the need for rethinking our approach to teaching and learning science. These
are described below:

7. Children's ideas
Considerable international interest has been shown by science educators over the
last few years in studying children's ideas about natural phenomena. A wealth of
individual pieces of research have been carried out, and there are now also available
a number of documents which review the findings (Bell, Watts and Ellington 1985;
Driver and Erickson 1983; Driver, Guesne and Tiberghien 1985; Gilbert and Watts
1983; Helm and Novak 1984; Pfundt and Duit 1985). It has become widely accepted
that children develop ideas and beliefs about the natural world long before they
are formally taught, and the importance of these conceptions for learning has been
recognised by many researchers. The views and ideas that pupils hold have been
given a number of names including alternative frameworks, children's science, alter-
native conceptions and mini-theories.
Certain characteristics of children's conceptions have been identified. Their ideas
may be linked in ways that appear coherent to them though frequently not so to
 106 R. Driver and V. Oldham

adults; their use of language is imprecise; children of different ages and backgrounds
may hold similar conceptions; the ideas are not used consistently across what may
appear to scientists as similar contexts. The nature of what they consider counts
as an explanation also differs from a scientific view (Solomon 1984).
One significant finding is that some of the ideas used by children about the natural
world are firmly held and often persist despite science teaching. Thus although for
some children, taught scientific ideas may be applied in stereotyped school con-
texts, for example in examination questions, such ideas are not applied outside the
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formal school setting to explain everyday phenomena. Solomon (1983) distinguishes

the symbolic and life-world domains of knowledge and documents the difficulties
pupils have in relating the two.
A further research finding about children's ideas is that sometimes when learn-
ing science at school pupils make inappropirate links to their prior knowledge, and
hence the meanings they construct are not those intended by the teacher (Bell 1985,
Tasker 1981).

2. Constructivist view of learning

This approach to learning has its roots in the long-standing epistemology of the
interpretive or Verstehen tradition (Weber 1949), which has at its centre the impor-
tance of meaning as constructed by individuals in their attempt to make sense of
the world. Thus the sense made of any event is seen to be dependent not only on
the situation itself but also on the individual's purposes and active construction of
meaning. The constructions are seen as tentative models which are continually tested
against experience and if necessary modified. This tradition is concerned with the
intents, beliefs and emotions of individuals as well as their conceptualisations, and
recognises the influence that prior experience has on the way phenomena are perceiv-
ed and interpreted.
The constructivist or interpretive tradition has been evident in educational research
in a variety of ways; for example it provides the rationale for qualitative research;
approaches such as ethnography, case study and participant observation (Magoon
1977). Constructivist approaches to cognition have a long history. Piaget could be
described as a constructivist since he was concerned with the way children construct
knowledge and recognised the importance of the 'self-regulation' process in in-
dividual learning. More recently the personal construct psychology of Kelly (1955)
has been related to education in general (Pope and Keen 1981) and science educa-
tion in particular (Pope and Gilbert 1983).
The way children develop their own mini-theories or personal constructs based
on direct experience with the physical world and informal social interactions has
been described by Claxton (1983), who suggests the importance of acknowledging
and building on these in science classes. Another contribution to the development
of a constructivist approach to learning science has been made by Osborne and Witt-
rock (1983), being based on Wittrock's earlier work (1974) on the generative learn-
 A constructivist approach to curriculum development 107
ing model initially applied to reading. It stresses the importance of what learners
bring with them to the learning situation and recognises the active contruction of
meaning which goes on constantly as individuals interact with their environment.
The brain is not a passive consumer of information. Instead it actively con-
structs its own interpretations of information, and draws inferences from them.
The brain ignores some information and selectively attends to other infor-
mation . . . much more than a 'blank slate' that passively learns and records
incoming information' (Osborne and Wittrock 1983, p.492).
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Driver and Bell (1986) present a constructivist view of learning and teaching science
which emphasises that since effort is required to construct meaning ultimately the
learner is responsible for her/his own learning.

3. Learning as conceptual change

A major shift has taken place in the dominant views on learning among
psychologists over the last two decades toward a cognitive perspective. Put simply
this perspective acknowledges that individuals construct 'models' or 'schemes' which
are used to interpret their experiences. Research in a number of areas of complex
human cognitive functioning are premised on this view including research by schema
theorists on reading (Anderson 1984; Schank 1981), problem solving and informa-
tion processing in complex knowledge domains (Newell and Simon 1972; Greeno
1978; Larkin and Rainard 1984) and alternative conceptions research in science
(Driver 1983; Gentner and Stevens 1983; West and Pines 1985).
These 'models' or 'schemes' are seen to be structured entities (of varying com-
plexity). An individual's knowledge, therefore, is not considered as a set of discrete
'bits' but as a series of structures and learning involves the development and change
of such structures. A central question for educators becomes how to elucidate the
processes by which such changes occur.
Ausubel's (1968) theory of meaningful learning was a forerunner in this field.
He suggested that if a new piece of information or concept can be integrated or
subsumed into an existing cognitive structure it is more likely to be accepted. Hence,
Ausubel argued the case for the provision of suitable advance organisers onto which
new ideas can be fitted. If, on the other hand, few links can be made to prior
knowledge and if the quality of these links is not high, there will be less chance
of the new idea being transferred into long term memory, and hence being retained
and becoming useful.
Rumelhart and Norman (1981) suggest three ways in which cognitive structures
may change: through accretion — the addition of parts to an existing structure,
tuning — involving small modifications to an existing structure and through restruc-
turing involving major changes in the structuring of knowledge. The dynamics by
which such changes take place are a current focus of research interest in cognitive
psychology and are central to the concerns of science educators who see learning
as conceptual change. Strike, Posner, Hewson and Gertzog (1982) suggest that a
 108 R. Driver and V. Oldham
number of conditions need to be met if conceptual change is to take place. Firstly,
there needs to be dissatisfaction with existing conceptions, and, then, the new con-
ception must appear intelligible, plausible and fruitful in offering new interpreta-
tions. Others (Claxton 1984) have suggested that conceptual change can be poten-
tially threatening to the individual and that restructuring conceptions requires a sup-
portive environment where individuals' ideas are valued.
We view learning, therefore, as the way conceptions change, and one important
way of encouraging this change may be through the use of exploratory language.
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In the words of Barnes (1976, p.31): Talk and writing provide means by which
children are able to reflect upon the bases upon which they are interpreting reality,
and thereby change them.'
Pope and Gilbert (1983) suggest four possible outcomes which may occur as a
result of a learning programme. Individuals may: retain their own perspectives and
reject all others (although their understanding of those alternatives will have im-
proved); hold onto the original idea but adopt another temporarily i.e. hold two
simultaneously; view their personal models as invalid and discard them, or they
may reject both their original perspectives and the ideas put forward by others, sug-
gesting instead an alternative which goes beyond any of them.

THE AIMS OF THE PROJECT

We suggest that the changes which have taken place in our views of learning have
implications for the curriculum and for teaching. In particular we argue that what
is required is a reconsideration of our perspective on teaching and learning
a) which takes account of the prior ideas, or alternative conceptions, that learners
have constructed to interpret their experience;
b) which acknowledges that learning involves the active construction of mean-
ing on the part of the learner; and
c) that views learning as the reorganisation and development of students' con-
ceptions i.e. adopts a conceptual change view of learning.
It is the purpose of the Children's Learning in Science Project to attempt to under-
take such a reconsideration of the teaching of science in secondary schools.
Specifically the central aim of the research programme is to:
devise, implement and evaluate teaching materials and strategies which at-
tempt to promote conceptual change in selected topic areas.
Such a research programme involves:
i) devising learning materials which take account of students' prior ideas;
ii) developing ways of working in classrooms which encourage students both in-
dividually and collectively to become active in the learning process;
iii) making explicit the implications of adopting a constructivist perspective for
classroom practice.
Implementing such changes requires collaboration with teachers who think about
the teaching/learning process in a way which may differ from traditional views.
 A constructivist approach to curriculum development 109
For this reason the project's policy is to involve teachers as collaborators in an ac-
tion research programme in the development, trialling and evaluation of the revised
teaching approaches.

ASSUMPTIONS UNDERLYING THE WORK OF THE PROJECT

The project is based on a number of assumptions which were made explicit in
inviting participation in the project.
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1. Views about science

Current national policy statements suggest that science in secondary schools should
have a number of types of outcome (DES 1985; SSCR 1983) including the develop-
ment in pupils of practical skills, processes of thinking, knowledge of scientific con-
cepts as well as the development of more general attitudes to knowledge and the
environment. This project is placing its focus on one central outcome — that of
the development of pupils' scientific ideas and concepts — though it recognises that
through this other aims may be achieved.
The basic constructivist perspective outlined earlier applies not only to a view
of the development of individual or personal knowledge but also to science as public
knowledge. Most recent philosophers of science reject the notion of the existence
of an 'objective' base of observations against which theory about the world can
be checked. Instead, the current dominant view of science acknowledges that
although we may assume the existence of an external world we do not have direct
access to it; science as public knowledge is not so much a discovery as a carefully
checked construction; 'Epistemologically, there can be nothing known to which our
ideas can correspond. But . . . it is the task of science to invent theories that aim
to represent the world. Thus . . . the practices of science generate their own ra-
tional criteria in terms of which theory is accepted or rejected. The crucial point
is that it is possible for these criteria to be rational precisely because on realist terms,
there is a world that exists independently of cognizing experience. Since our theories
are constitutive of the known world but not of the world, we may always be wrong.
Thus . . . one must be a realist ontologically to be a fallibilist epistemologically.'
(Manicas and Secord, p. 401).
In our attempts to represent the world we construct theoretical entities (magnetic
fields, genes, electron orbitals . . .) which in turn take on a 'reality'. Rather than
viewing observations as the base on which we build our knowledge, there is a sense
in which it is our constructions of the world which are 'real' and it is through these
that we interpret and re-interpret our experience.
It is not the purpose of this paper to outline systematically what the implications
of this view might be for science education. However it does follow that science
in secondary schools involves not just knowledge about events and phenomena
in the natural world, but an appreciation of theories as imaginative human con-
structions. In addition, however, we cannot assume that pupils will naturally con-
 110 R. Driver and V. Oldham

struct through their imagination the 'ways of seeing' adopted and found useful by
the scientific community (such conceptual structures are partly social constructions
and are often far from intuitively obvious). Indeed, pupils need to be helped and
guided to adopt the scientists' 'spectacles' and the challenge to curriculum developers
is to do this in a way that neither undermines pupils' confidence in their own abilities
to make sense of learning experiences, nor grossly misrepresents scientific ideas.
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2. Views about learning

The view of learning being adopted derives in general from current developments
within cognitive science and specifically from a constructivist perspective. The impli-
cations, which are outlined below, are described in more detail elsewhere (Driver
and Bell, 1985).
a. Individuals are purposive.
This assumption, which, as has been argued previously, is at the heart of construc-
tivism, asserts that the locus of control of behaviour is with the individual. Rather
than learning in a passive way by responding to the environment, the individual
is seen as actively interacting with the environment to make sense of it.
b. Knowledge is constructed by individuals through social interaction and experiences
with the physical environment.
We cannot 'check' our knowledge against an external reality. Our only check is
the extent to which our constructions fit with our experience in a coherent and con-
sistent way (von Glaserfeld, 1982).
c. Individuals' knowledge and belief structures influence the meanings they con-
struct in a given situation.
The acknowledgement of the importance of the learner's knowledge structure in
constructing meaning is recognised in a number of areas of cognition as outlined
previously. What is learned in a given situation therefore depends as much on the
learner's present knowledge structure and beliefs as on the characteristics of the
learning environment. Both therefore need to be taken into account in designing
learning programmes.
d. Constructing meaning is an active process.
To construct meaning in a situation, whether the situation involves listening, talk-
ing, reading or interacting with a physical phenomenon involves active participa-
tion by the learner in making connections between aspects of that situation and
his/her prior knowledge. This is seen as taking place through a dynamic process
in which a learner generates possible hypothetical meanings and checks these for
'fit' in the situation. This process of checking for fit may involve testing hypotheses
against evidence available from sense experience and its coherence with the learner's
knowledge structure.
e. Understanding is not the same as believing.
It is possible to construct a meaning to generate a 'way of seeing' something yet
 A constructivist approach to curriculum development 111
not believe it (Bell 1984). For example it is possible to understand phlogiston theory
without necessarily accepting it.
f. Learning scientific ideas involves conceptual change.
This may simply require the extension of pupils' conceptions in order to interpret
new phenomena or, alternatively, it may involve a more basic restructuring of ideas.
We recognise the importance of talk and other informal modes of communication
in enabling pupils to make their ideas explicit and hence available for reflection
and change.
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3. Views about the level of focus of the project

Current research in cognition suggests that human learning and retrieval of
knowledge tends to be context dependent. For this reason it was decided to focus
attention on teaching and learning in specific content domains, each with its own
characteristics, rather than purporting to investigate general features of conceptual
change. Although it is hoped that the work of the project will illuminate the general
process of conceptual change in classroom settings the primary focus is on the
development and evaluation of teaching and learning materials within specific
domains.

4. Views about curriculum development

It is assumed that the long term effectiveness of the project will be enhanced if
teachers are involved as research collaborators in the development, implementa-
tion and evaluation of learning materials and approaches. Just as the project assumes
that children undergo conceptual change in their ideas about the natural world so
it is assumed that those involved in implementing new approaches in the classroom
may undergo a change in their underlying views about teaching and learning. In-
deed, current research on teacher thinking and planning highlights the need for such
a change if the revised approaches are to be implemented successfully (Munro, 1985).

5. Views about the communication of expertise

By adopting an action research approach, in which teachers and researchers in
the curriculum development exercise make explicit what they learn about the im-
plementation of revised curriculum materials, it is hoped that the results can be
communicated more effectively to other teachers. In other words the project aspires
to find ways of communicating the often tacit craft knowledge of teaching to others
in the profession.

THE MODEL FOR CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Adopting a constructivist view of learning also has implications for our view of
the curriculum (Posner, 1982). A traditional view of learning puts the learner in
a passive role as absorber of information; the teacher is the active transmitter and
the curriculum is that which is taught or transmitted to someone else. From a con-
 112 R. Driver and V. Oldham

structivist perspective, however, the learner constructs his or her knowledge and
what is constructed, the meanings that are made, depend on what the learner brings
as well as the learning situations provided. What do we therefore mean by curri-
culum when viewed from this perspective? We suggest that it is the set of learning
experiences which enable the learners to develop their understanding.
There are a number of important differences between this view of curriculum
and a more 'traditional' one. First, the curriculum is seen not as a body of knowledge
or skills but the programme of activities from which such knowledge or skills can
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possibly be acquired or constructed, though we would acknowledge that the selec-

tion of possible learning experiences is guided by the knowledge of experts. It is
important to note the difference in the role of the teacher in these two positions.
In the first the teacher is the detached transmitter of the knowledge or skills; im-
plicit in this position is the view that if the teacher has a coherent grasp of the sub-
ject this will be transmitted in an effective way to the learner, (the implications for
teacher education and selection must be obvious). A second difference, which has
important implications for the process of curriculum development, lies in the shift
of status of the curriculum from that which is determined prior to teaching (though
negotiable between adults), to something with a problematic status.
By accepting that the curriculum is the programme of activities from which
knowledge or skills can possibly be constructed and acknowledging that what is
constructed by any individual depends to some extent on what they bring to the
situation, in the last analysis the suitability and effectiveness of selected learning
activities is an empirical problem. We only sense whether individuals are making
sense of the experiences they are given 'in situ'. For this reason curriculum develop-
ment from a constructivist perspective has to incorporate an empirical reflexive
approach.
The general model for the development of new curriculum materials being
followed by the project is given in Figure 1. As this figure indicates the actual cur-
riculum design draws on four main types of input. The first and most conventional
one is the decision on 'content'. Here we can specify those experiences which students
should be exposed to and we can suggest what ideas they may construct from these
experiences but we cannot be tightly prescriptive about the ideas they will acquire.
If we adopt a view of learning as conceptual change in its broadest sense then
we need to have information about the ideas that students may bring to the learn-
ing situation. This is the second type of input shown in the figure. In our project
this information was obtained through the analysis of a national sample of students'
responses to open-ended written questions in the topic area, through individual inter-
views and through an analysis of the research literature. In analysing students' ideas
it was apparent that these ideas are often context dependent and what is being
documented is a general prevalence for individuals or groups to think about a class
of phenomena in certain ways. In most topics it would be misleading to suggest
that students have clearly defined alternative schemes, rather they tend to use a range
 A constructivist approach to curriculum development 113
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Figure 1: A constructivist model for curriculum development.

 114 R. Driver and V. Oldham

of ways of explaining and predicting. To know what ideas students are likely to
use, however, is useful. In some cases it enables contradictory and hence surprising
and stimulating experiences to be designed. It also provides a basis for analysing
the main areas of difficulty where students may need particular experiences to
develop or change their understanding.
Knowing where students are starting from by itself is not enough to plan curri-
cular activities. We need to know both where to go (involving decisions about 'con-
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tent') and to have some principles to guide us on the journey. We see two kinds
of guiding principles here. The first involves a perspective on the learning process.
Here the project's assumptions about learning as involving conceptual change and
coming about through the active construction of meaning by the learner, as out-
lined earlier in the paper, is guiding the selection of activities. (The general prin-
ciples behind this selection of revised teaching strategies are outlined in a later
section.)
The second set of guiding principles comes from practical knowledge of students
in school and classroom settings: how to organise a group of about 30 people to
do something in about one hour; how to present a problem to be of interest to a
group of 14-year-olds; how to deal with the usual constraints of time, resources,
furniture, space. If these types of issues are not addressed in the curriculum design
then we recognise that the possibilities of long term implementation are very slim.
The curriculum materials and strategies developed from these inputs are seen as
objects of investigation at this stage. As was argued earlier the crucial question of
their effectiveness in terms of what students can learn from them is an open ques-
tion still requiring investigation through the implementation and evaluation of the
materials. The evaluation of such implementation may not only lead to modifica-
tions in the materials but might also call for a review, refinement or change in our
theoretical perspectives and assumptions.

OUTLINE OF THE CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

The curriculum development phase of the project, which, as indicated earlier,
is being undertaken in collaboration with the Secondary Science Curriculum Review,
is currently based on a two-year programme of work. Three topic areas have been
selected for attention; 'the particle theory of matter', 'energy', and 'plant nutri-
tion'. These are topics which span the traditional sciences and tend to be required
for an understanding of other science areas. They are also topics where there is
evidence of particular learning difficulties.
A working group of between 11 and 16 teachers and a member of the research
team was set up for each of the three topics. (Overall 40 teachers in the Yorkshire
area are involved.) Each group is following a programme of work which includes
the following:
 A constructivist approach to curriculum development 115

7. Documentation of current practice

Teachers in the working group taught the selected topic (usually involving 4 to
5 weeks of teaching) in their usual way. They monitored the learning of one class
of pupils aged 13-14 years using diagnostic tests and kept diaries of their lessons.
In addition the lesson sequence of two teachers in the working group was documented
by a researcher who observed and audiotaped all the lessons and held discussions
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with pupils and the teacher during the lesson sequence. Case studies of these lesson
sequences have been written as working documents for the groups (Bell, 1985); Brook
and Driver, 1986; Wightman, 1986).

2. Review of background issues

Throughout the first year, meetings were held within each working group in order
to focus on each of the four 'input' components in the curriculum development
model shown in Figure 1. Specifically this involved:
a. agreeing a minimum 'content' for the teaching in terms of the ideas and ex-
periences students might be exposed to;
b. reviewing the findings of research on children's ideas in the selected topic areas
including reviewing the results of pre and post diagnostic tests used with teachers'
own classes;
c. discussing the project's view of learning and its implications for practice; and
d. reviewing the findings from the case studies on current practice and their im-
plications for possible revised strategies.

3. The development of revised strategies

Outline plans for revised teaching programmes for each of the three topics were
worked out during a 'writing week' when teachers from each group worked full
time with members of the project team.

4. Implementation of revised strategies

Initial trials of these revised schemes in whole or part have been undertaken. The
complete schemes are being taught during the year 1985-86. The lesson sequences
will be monitored in the same way as was undertaken for the documentation of
current practice.
Figure 2 gives an outline of the scheme for data collection used by the project,
spanning both the documentation of current and revised practice. By adopting this
design, in which comparable classes are taught by the same teacher in two consecutive
years, a number of comparisons, relating to classroom activities and diagnostic tests,
may be made between the two phases.
 116 R. Driver and V. Oldham
GENERAL FEATURES OF A CONSTRUCTIVIST PEDAGOGY TO LEARNING AS
CONCEPTUAL CHANGE
The project has explicitly attempted to develop teaching and learning strategies
aimed at encouraging children to change their ideas in useful and intended ways.
In order to achieve this we believe that pupils need to engage in activities which
encourage them to construct scientific ideas for themselves. A number of sugges-
tions have been put forward by various research groups over the last few years about
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what this may involve (Driver and Erickson 1983; Gilbert and Watts 1983; Osborne,
Bell and Gilbert 1982; Rowell and Dawson 1985). In addition a number of schemes
have been suggested to guide the planning of sequences of activities aimed at pro-
moting conceptual change in science classrooms (see Cosgrove and Osborne 1985).
The Children's Learning in Science Project has found it both necessary and useful
to have developed a model for a constructivist teaching sequence. This model, which
reflects some of the features of other such schemes, is illustrated in Figure 3. Since
the demands of different conceptual areas and the time available for teaching will
vary, the model needs to be viewed as no more than a flexible outline. It has,
however, provided a basis for the development of detailed teaching/learning schemes
for topics as varied as energy, plant nutrition and particles. The sequence which
itself takes various forms aims to encourage the active construction of meaning by
starting from pupils' own ideas and providing opportunities for building on and
modifying these towards the scientific theory.
One important condition for the successful implementation of such a sequence
is sufficient time for pupils to share, reflect on, evaluate and restructure their ideas.
The approach, therefore, requires the teacher to be sensitive to and value the ideas
that pupils bring with them to the classroom as well as the meanings, sometimes
unintended by the teacher, that pupils constantly construct from activities and obser-
vations. This necessitates the provision of a supportive and accepting learning en-
vironment where both pupils and teacher respect the views of others. Unlike the
dominant conception of a teacher's role, s/he is viewed not as a transmitter of
knowledge but as someone who facilitates conceptual change by encouraging pupils
to engage actively in the personal construction of meaning; and in order to do this
there need to be frequent opportunities for pupils to make their ideas explicit and
to communicate them. Feedback of pupils' ideas to the teacher is also important
in order that appropriate activities can be selected for subsequent lessons. As shown
in the model for curriculum development, reflexivity is a very important feature
of a constructivist approach.
As Figure 3 illustrates, the sequence comprises five phases: orientation, elicita-
tion, restructuring, application and review. In practice, these may overlap to some
extent.
The sequence begins with an orientation phase designed to give pupils the oppor-
tunity to develop a sense of purpose and motivation for learning the topic. It then
 A constructivist approach to curriculum development 117
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Figure 2. The scheme for data collection being used by the project.
 118 R. Driver and V. Oldham
moves into the elicitation phase when pupils make their ideas explicit, hence bring-
ing them to conscious awareness. This can be achieved by a variety of activities
such as group discussion, designing posters, or writing, and may involve the presence
of physical phenomena designed to focus thinking.
This is followed by a restructuring phase which includes a number of different
aspects. Once the pupils' ideas are 'out in the open' clarification and exchange oc-
curs through discussion (Gall and Gall 1976; Hornsey and Horsfield 1982). In this
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way the meanings pupils have constructed and the language they use may be
'sharpened up' in comparison with the alternative, possibly conflicting, views of
others (Nussbaum and Novick 1982; Rowell and Dawson 1983; Stavy and Berkovitz
1980), and inadequacies may be pointed out (Strike and Posner 1982). Thus the
exchange of views may lead to spontaneous disagreement among pupils and the
challenging of particular perspectives. Alternatively, an explicit attempt may be made
by the teacher to promote conceptual conflict through the use of a disconfirming
or 'surprise' demonstration. A further result of pupils exchanging their ideas in
this way is that they are given the chance to develop an appreciation that there can
be a range of different notions to explain or describe the same phenomenon.
From here pupils move into the evaluation of alternative ideas, possibly including
the scientific one if they have suggested it. These may be tested against experience,
either experimentally or by thinking through their implications. If suitable, pupils
can be given the chance to be imaginative in devising ways of testing these ideas
(Nussbaum and Novick 1982; Osborne 1981), and carrying this out. Different groups
of children may test different ideas and report their findings to the whole class.
As a result of this, pupils may feel dissatisfied with their existing conceptions and
hence open to change (Posner, Strike, Hewson and Gertzog 1982).
Some pupils may have constructed the scientific view from prior experiences; hence
it may have been presented and tested along with a range of alternative concep-
tions. Whether or not this has happened, the teacher will present and explain it
at some point, providing opportunities for pupils to construct meanings for it by
empirical tests, and language activities. This input of the scientific view and the
chance for pupils to begin to make sense of it takes place at various points in the
restructuring phase.
In the application phase pupils are given the opportunity to use their developed
ideas in a variety of situations, both familiar and novel. Thus the new conceptions
are consolidated and reinforced by extending the contexts within which they are
seen to be useful.
In the final review phase of the sequence, pupils are invited to reflect back on
how their ideas have changed by drawing comparisons between their thinking now
and at the start of the unit. They may also have been given the chance throughout
the unit to monitor their own learning through the use of journals (Writing Across
the Curriculum 1975). Both these methods will enable them to reflect on the change
 A constructivist approach to curriculum development 119
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Figure 3. A constructivist teaching sequence.

 120 R. Driver and V. Oldham

in their ideas and encourage them to develop metacognitive strategies, that is learn-
ing about learning (Novak and Gowin 1984).
The foregoing section has concerned the possible structure of a teaching sequence
designed to help science pupils change their conceptions. The project is aware that
the constructivist approach has implications for broader curriculum issues beyond
specific teaching/learning strategies as detailed here and these will be described
elsewhere.
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CONCLUDING REMARKS ON EVALUATION

As indicated earlier in the paper, the main purpose of the project is to evaluate
the effectiveness of adopting a constructivist approach to learning in order to pro-
mote conceptual change in secondary science classrooms.
A central question which we are asking is, therefore:
— To what extent do pupils change their conceptions as a result of the teaching
sequence?
For an evaluation of such a complex programme to be informative we envisage
that it will be necessary to document and evaluate a number of components in the
programme. Questions which we are asking in the project include for example:
— To what extent do the revised teaching approaches take account of students'
prior ideas?
— Do they offer opportunities for students to construct their own meanings and
if so how do students make use of those opportunities?
— How do students respond to the revised strategies — are they comfortable with
them or do they find them strange and threatening?
— How do teachers feel about the revised approaches? How workable are they?
What are the problems involved in implementing them?
— What has been learned about the effectiveness of the strategies adopted and how
might this be communicated to other teachers?
As was indicated earlier in the paper the evaluation of these strategies will pro-
vide feedback which may result in the modification of the schemes. It may also
lead to a review, refinement or change in some of the factors which were taken
into account in the development of the curriculum materials. In this way, we see
that by adopting a reflexive approach, practice may inform theory as well as theory
guiding practice.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Beverley Bell, who as the pro-
ject co-ordinator until March 1985 was involved in the initial formulation and
development of ideas in this paper.
We are also grateful to the following people for helpful comments on an earlier
draft of the paper: Douglas Barnes, Wynne Harlen, Sidney Strauss, Mike Newman.
 A constructivist approach to curriculum development 121

The project is supported by grants from the Department of Education and Science
and the School Curriculum Development Committee through the Secondary Science
Curriculum Review.

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