DEAR READERS AND WRITERS

Two different professions are engaged in science education: ‘subject-specific (physics/chemistry/biology) educators' (i.e. people who do it) and ‘science education researchers' (people who study it). Many subject-specific educators at the university and school levels often analyse physics/chemistry/biology education in general or particular concepts and areas of their specific discipline. The selection of the content for the curriculum, as well as the level and depth at which concepts should be taught feature in such discussions. Science educators are engaged in educational research – advancing pedagogical knowledge in science. They started about thirty years ago to see science education from a different perspective, that of the process of learning. Their attention was focused not on the curriculum but on the student. Another change was the fact that such studies are not theoretical but are carried out by means of experimental (empirical) investigations. As with research in science, characteristics of educational research are that it is theory based, it is data based, and it produces generalisable results.