Alignment between teachers' practices and political intentions in the CONTEXT of a reformed modelling-oriented science curriculum in danish lower secondary school

Danish lower secondary science education was reformed with a new curriculum commencing in the school year 2015-2016. The theoretical and political intentions behind the new curriculum include substantial changes to how teachers should address models and modelling (MoMo) in their practice. The purpose of this study is to analyse the alignment between the intentions and arguments for integrating MoMo into science education, on the one hand, and teachers’ practices and rationales for integrating MoMo into their teaching practice, on the other. Data were generated by means of semi-structured interviews (n=6; among three pairs of teachers). Our findings suggest that: (1) teachers’ practices and rationales for integrating MoMo into their teaching were characterized by a product-oriented approach focusing on MoMo as a mean to facilitate learning of subject-specific knowledge; (2) teachers prioritize engaging students in MoMo activities for descriptive rather than predictive purposes; (3) the dynamic process of designing, evaluating and revising models based on students’ own inquiry only plays a minor role; and (4) a content-heavy curriculum and multiple-choice exam are counterproductive to teachers’ efforts to undertake a more competence-oriented approach to MoMo. Finally, based on the results, we make a number of suggestions for how to enhance teachers’ possibilities of teaching for modelling-competence.