Insights into student learning in science: the contribution of longitudinal studies

This contribution will present longitudinal studies of student learning in science to show the particular strengths of longitudinal study designs to generate insights into student learning that are opaque in studies with a cross-sectional design. The studies presented here were carried out in different educational systems with varied time spans and ages. The studies have in common a careful gathering of data about the development of students' understanding of scientific phenomena mostly through interviews. In some cases the students have been interviewed about the development of their own understandings and of themselves as learners using previous interviews as stimulus data. The studies illustrate that the development of students' understanding should not be seen in strictly conceptual terms but are best understood as involving broader elements of beliefs, memory, mental models, epistemological reasoning, experiences from everyday life, and students’ sense of themselves as learners and knowers. The particular strength of studies with a long-term design is the possibility they offer to develop a richer and more complete description of students’ learning in science through the tracing of continuities in these personal contextual factors during the process of change. Such studies will contribute to a more complete description of students’ learning in science. We will also explore methodological issues associated with the realisation and analysis of such longitudinal design studies.