The Gatsby "Good Practical Science" report (Gatsby, 2017) identified opportunities to carry out open-ended investigative projects as one of ten benchmarks for good practical science. However, there is currently no requirement for post-16 students in England to have access to such opportunities as this is not required by A-level…

In England, GCSE and AS/A-level practical assessment has been reformed, with controlled assessments replaced with practical assessment in written exams and direct assessment at A-level. The awarding body OCR surveyed science teacher attitudes to the reform during its introduction. Teachers considered post-reform qualifications better in that they…

The ability to draw visual representations such as diagrams and graphs is considered fundamental to science learning. Science exams therefore often include questions which require students to draw a visual representation, or to augment a partially provided one. The design features of such questions (e.g., layout of diagrams, amount of answer…

Teachers, examiners and assessment experts know from experience that some candidates annotate exam questions. "Annotation" includes anything the candidate writes or draws outside of the designated response space, such as underlining, jotting, circling, sketching and calculating. Annotations are of interest because they may evidence…

There are international concerns about decreasing rates of chemistry degree enrolment. This article seeks to understand students' reasons for not/choosing to pursue a chemistry degree, drawing on (i) open-ended survey responses from a sample of 506 students in England aged 21-22 who had studied advanced level ("A level") chemistry at age…

Background: In England, there is a growing need to improve the lives of secondary school students who are defined as disadvantaged and to support these students in their attainment and attitudes to secondary school science. Purpose: This paper reports on a project designed to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds by pairing them with…

This research used a survey to investigate how Chemistry, English Literature and Psychology teachers go about the process of estimating their students' A level grades. There are a variety of different sources of information available to help teachers, including statistically based predictions (e.g., ALIS), performance in previous assessments…

STEM outreach programmes in secondary schools are mediated by STEM teachers who are responsible for organising, implementing and evaluating the activities with a view to promoting STEM subjects. However, research investigating teachers' STEM roles and professional development through participation in outreach activities is limited. This paper…

This article reports on an ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) doctoral study which investigated how teachers consulted pupils about teaching and learning in classrooms. Interest in consulting pupils has increased over the last decade; existing research suggests pupils have valuable perspectives on teaching and learning which teachers can…

The author summarises findings from the Royal Society's "state of the nation" report on 5-14 science and mathematics education in the UK. This is the Society's third report on aspects of science and mathematics education in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the first where the focus has included primary practice, policy,…

This paper is concerned with a specific example of an emerging international tendency within secondary education: the process of "vocationalization". It begins with an account of the wider international and historical context and then focuses on an empirical study of a recent reform of the late-secondary curriculum in England: the…

This paper reports on a study exploring teacher learning of subject content knowledge (SCK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in four subject departments of secondary schools in England. The research design employed interview and observation. This paper focuses on characterising the cultures of the subject departments from the participants'…

'Increasing Pupil Motivation' was designed to improve attainment of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) by providing incentives to increase pupil effort in Year 11. Two schemes for incentivising pupil effort were implemented. The first provided a financial incentive, where pupils were told they had £80 ($110.66) at the beginning…

This paper, presented at the conference on the role of the laboratory in physics education which was held in Oxford, England in July 1978, discusses whether physics laboratories are essential or merely desirable for secondary schools and universities. (HM)

This paper, presented at the conference on the role of the laboratory in physics education which was held in Oxford, England in July 1978, describes the role of the laboratory in school and university physics in Eastern Europe. (HM)