EQUALPRIME: Exploring quality primary education in different cultures:
A cross-national study of teaching and learning in primary science classrooms

Scientific argumentation of children in scientific teaching - a qualitative study of video sustainable learning in science teaching elementary school in Germany, Australia and Taiwan.

Science teaching is steadily gaining in importance in the primary school curriculum – hence the many studies devoted to different aspects of science learning and teaching. These studies tend to focus on competency acquisition and its measurement, and on the improvement of lesson quality.

However, they are rarely conducted in field settings. By contrast, EQUALPRIME will study primary school children's scientific reasoning in everyday science classroom practice.

EQUALPRIME is a cross-national comparative research project that will use qualitative methods to study science teaching practices in Australia, Taiwan, and Germany. The aim of the study is to identify the conditions and contexts that facilitate scientific reasoning on the part of primary school children. The focus of interest is not so much competency acquisition in the sense of output but rather the actual learning process that generates scientific argument.

Further details, including literature references can be found on the international homepage of the project: http://tinyurl.com/equalprime

German Project Team:

Prof. Dr. Joerg Ramseger (chair), Gisela Romain, M.A., Dipl.-Paed. Ines Freitag-Amtmann, Center for Research in Primary Education at Freie Universitaet Berlin.

Partners:

• Deakin University, Melbourne: Prof. Russell Tytler, Prof. Peter Hubber, Dr. Gail Chittleborough
• Edith Cowan University, Perth: Prof. Mark Hackling, Prof. Karen Murica, Dr. Khadeeja Ibrahim-Didi
• National Taipei University of Education, Taipei: Prof. Chao-Ti Hsiung and team.
• National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei: Prof. Hsiao-Lan Sharon Chen and team.