Constructivist ideas have had a major influence on science educators over the last decade. In this report a model describing possible student responses during science lessons is outlined, and a rationale for it is provided on the basis of both constructivist theory and tests of the model in middle school science classes. The study therefore explores a way to analyze and describe learning derived from both constructivist theoretical considerations and classroom practice. The model was tested in a series of science lessons, resulting in several revisions. The final version explained in this report is therefore consistent with the science lesson contexts explored and the theoretical constructs which underlie it. The lessons were conducted in three classes of 11- to 13-year-olds in provincial cities in Queensland, Australia. Students were mostly of Caucasian extraction, in mixed-ability and mixed-gender classes. Three students from each class were interviewed individually immediately following each of the three lessons, for a total of 27 interviews. The interviews, videotapes of lessons, and field notes were used as data sources. The final version of the model proved to be fairly robust in describing students’ cognitive progress through the lessons. This study has resulted in a model for science lessons which allows the identification and description of students’ cognitive progress through the lessons. By using this focus on the learner, it provides preknowledge for teachers about how students might arrive at solutions to science problems during lessons, and therefore potentially provides indications about appropriate teaching strategies.

While cognitive and social constructivism have at times been portrayed as competing paradigms, some authors such as Cobb (1994) have suggested that they are different ways of looking at the same thing. In an earlier paper, aspects of both cognitive and social constructivism were incorporated into a model used to analyse and describe student learning in science classrooms (Appleton, 1997). The model has subsequently been revised and has been used to draw implications for the teaching of science. In this paper, key elements of the model are explained, and how each may be used to inform and shape science teaching is explored.

For some years, there have been in‐service efforts to help teachers become familiar with constructivist ideas about learning, and to apply them in their science teaching. This study is a vignette of one teacher’s science teaching some time after such an in‐service activity. It explores the ways in which the teacher implemented his perceptions of constructivist ideas about learning in his teaching of a topic. The extent to which the teacher used teaching principles based on constructivism was influenced by his views of science and of learning, how he usually planned his teaching, and his confidence in his own understanding of the topic. Features of the teaching which reflect a constructivist view of learning are discussed and some problems are identified. We conclude with some reflections about in‐service programs within a constructivist framework.