%0 Journal Article
%T Learning Science from Experiences in Informal Contexts: The Next Generation of Research
%A David ANDERSON
%A Gregory P. THOMAS
%A Kirsten M. ELLENBOGEN
%J Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching
%D 2003
%I Hong Kong Institute of Education
%X Changes have occurred in the ways science educators and researchers view the learning that occurs in, and emerges from, experiences in informal contexts such as museums, science centres, botanic gardens, and aquariumsi. Prior to the 1980s, there was a search for evidence and a wide spread lack of acceptance that "real learning" occurred in such contexts. Rather, "real learning" was the seen as the sole domain of the classroom and teacher. There are several reasons for this view. First, prior to the 1980s there was not a body of systematic research on informal learning comparable to the body of research on school-based learning. Second, many of the studies conducted in informal contexts merely or considered how learning was effected by differential interventions (such as a change in exhibit format), rather than defining the nature of such learning. The studies characteristically used multiple choice tests and comparative research designs to demonstrate statistically significant effects, rather than the more qualitative measures of learning employed in investigations today. Third, studies of that time naturally adopted perspectives on learning different from those broadly held today. In many of the studies prior to the 1990s, researchers saw learning as the acquisition of facts and information, rather than the gradual, incremental, and assimilative growth in knowledge interpreted in the light of prior knowledge and understanding, that typifies contemporary constructivist views of learning.
%U http://www.ied.edu.hk/apfslt/v4_issue1/foreword/index.htm