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• Published: 01 April 2024

Science teacher identity research: a scoping literature review

• Yanfang Zhai   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8090-2252 1 , 2 ,
• Jennifer Tripp   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9925-6927 2 &
• Xiufeng Liu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-9882 2  

International Journal of STEM Education volume  11 , Article number:  20 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Science teacher identity significantly influences teacher professional development, practices, and attitudes, which in turn impacts student learning outcomes. With an increased number of studies on science teacher identity over the past two decades, there is a need for a scoping literature review that holistically maps the current state of science teacher identity research and identifies future research directions. This scoping literature review identified 48 empirical articles on science teacher identity, published from 2000 to 2023, in peer-reviewed journals and examined the studies’ (a) characteristics; (b) theoretical frameworks on identity; (c) definitions of science teacher identity; and (d) major findings. Specifically, there is a need for precise conceptualizations and definitions of science teacher identity; this clarity will facilitate valid, reliable, and fair instruments to capture the relatively stable facets of science teacher identity at a given moment in a given context in order to longitudinally track science teacher identity development. This scoping review identifies both progress and gaps in the current literature and future directions for synergistic, cross-cultural international research on science teacher identity.

Introduction

Teacher education research has evolved over the years from a focus on curriculum (1920–1950) to training (1960s–1980s) to teacher learning (1980s–2000s) (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2008 ). In science education, since the 2000s, there has been increased attention towards the relationship among teacher learning, student learning, and context, including education policies and their roles in teacher learning (Wallace & Loughran, 2012 ). There is a large body of literature on the development of teacher professional knowledge, particularly science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) (Loughran et al., 2012 ; van Driel et al., 2014 ). There is also considerable research on science teachers’ understanding of practices and learning to teach (Loughran, 2014 ; Russell & Martin, 2014 ), teachers’ attitudes and beliefs of science reform practices (Jones & Leagon, 2014 ), and in-service science teacher professional development programs (Luft & Hewson, 2014 ).

Within this context of science teacher education research, over the past two decades there has also been increased international interest and subsequent publications in science teacher identity (e.g., Holmegaard & Archer, 2022 ; Lee, 2007 ). This global trend resembles that of teacher identity in general, which has been a mainstay in teacher education research since the 1990s (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009 ; Bullough, 1997 ). Apart from other research on teacher learning, science teacher identity research considers teacher learning as a holistic process and outcome. Specifically, by using science teacher identity as a lens, researchers have examined how teachers view themselves, are recognized by others, and how teachers’ other identities (e.g., race and gender), personal histories, and prior experiences with science and education shape who they are as science teachers (Avraamidou, 2014a , 2016a ; Varelas, 2012 ).

In a literature review of research on science teacher identity, Avraamidou ( 2014a ) identified 29 empirical studies published in leading science education journals as well as in Journal of Learning Sciences and Journal of Teacher Education from 2001 to 2013. Aside from two studies that focused on science identities of women of color in science, as opposed to identities of science teachers, that were also included in the review, all studies in Avraamidou ( 2014a ) recognized science teacher identity as a valuable lens to frame and examine science teacher learning and development; they also acknowledged that science teacher identity is complex, multidimensional, and comprised of various components that are situated within and shaped by multiple contexts across time and scale.

Avraamidou’s ( 2014a ) review offered a foundational overview of science teacher identity research and made notable recommendations for future research. These recommendations include: (a) studying teacher identity as a process, (b) connecting science teacher identity research and reform recommendations, (c) conducting large-scale, longitudinal, and life-history studies, (d) examining science teacher identity enactment in school classrooms, and (e) understanding the role of various contexts on science teachers’ identity development. However, by broadening eligibility criteria and searching only in specific journals, Avraamidou ( 2014a ) did not follow systematic literature review conventions, as defined by the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) 2009 (Page et al., 2021 ). Moreover, Avraamidou ( 2014a ) focused the review in two areas: (1) how science teacher identity was used in science education research and (2) approaches used to support science teacher identity development. Thus, as Avraamidou ( 2014a ) noted, it is “probable that other significant findings of the studies reviewed have not been examined” and that “work that has been published in journals not included in [the] search” were overlooked (p. 151).

Given that it has been ten years since Avraamidou’s ( 2014a ) review was published, an updated, systematic literature review on science teacher identity research would help the science education community understand the current state of science teacher identity research and identify gaps and desirable future research directions in this evolving field. In the past several years, several systematic literature reviews have made progress towards this goal while also establishing the growing global significance of science teacher identity. For example, Rushton and Reiss’s ( 2021 ) systematic review of empirical journal articles, doctoral dissertations, theoretical studies, conference proceedings, and book chapters published from 2000 to 2019, used a social identity approach (SIA) to examine how identity is used to explore the experiences of middle and high school science teachers. Using the SIA lens, they noted the important role of shared identity or group membership in developing one’s sense of self or individual identity as science teachers, as well as social context. Due to their focus, research that attends to science teacher identity of elementary teachers was excluded as well as a synthesis of findings using other lenses. Consistent with Avraamidou ( 2014a ), Rushton and Reiss ( 2021 ) note the range of theoretical and conceptual frameworks in exploring science teacher identity development, though they leave more to be unpacked in terms of how these various frameworks relate and diverge from each other, along with their affordances and constraints.

Feser and Haak ( 2023 ) conducted a systematic review of 24 reviews published from 2004 to 2021 (i.e., a meta-review of research on teacher identity), that attended to literature published before 2020 with a focus on identifying significant features of teacher identity, which span across theoretical frameworks of personal, social, collective, positional, and narrative identity, and consider identity change and maintenance. Some teacher identity features were more prevalent in teachers of science and related subjects, such as nursing and mathematics, than other features. Notably, this review’s results strongly indicated that the identity of science teachers significantly differs from the identity of other subject area teachers or generalist teachers and that “science teachers do not constitute a homogenous group in terms of their teacher identity” (Feser & Haak, 2023 , p. 310). Namely, science teacher identity differs depending on whether one is a beginning or experienced science teacher, or teaches in primary, secondary, or higher education. Altogether, the Feser and Haak ( 2023 ) review underscores the importance of further research into science teacher identity, given its unique, complex nature, the potential for identifying new features of science teacher identity in future studies, and further exploring how it develops and differs depending on science teaching experience and the grade level(s) taught.

Another recent review of research methods and methodologies of 198 empirical peer-reviewed journal articles, published between 1998 and 2018, was conducted by Danielsson and colleagues ( 2023 ). This review, which focused on science identity among science learners , not science teacher identity among science teachers , found that micro-studies within an interpretative tradition were most prevalent, although psychological macro-studies and sociological macro-studies were, albeit comparatively less common approaches. Despite the rapid growth of science identity research over the last 20 years, Danielsson et al. ( 2023 ) argued for more precision in defining and conceptualizing science identity and for more interaction across studies and approaches. As this review focused on science identities of science learners, there is a need to take stock of the methodological approaches used in science teacher identity research and the variation and clarity with which science teacher identity is defined and conceptualized.

Accordingly, our scoping review builds upon and extends this foundation of the above recent reviews to map out the trends in science teacher identity research and to gauge the field holistically, to inform future research and practice areas. Apart from these other reviews, our review centers solely on science teacher identity of elementary through high school teachers, across career stages, and includes empirical peer-reviewed journal articles published from 2000 to 2023, which captures science teacher identity research published in the past 5 years, that have not been included in previous reviews. Specifically, the following research questions guided our scoping review:

What were the characteristics of empirical science teacher identity research studies?

What theoretical frameworks of identity were utilized in empirical science teacher identity research studies?

How was science teacher identity defined in empirical science teacher identity research studies?

What were the major findings in empirical science teacher identity research studies?

Thus, our review examines characteristics of science teacher identity studies, which include the distribution of publications from 2000 to 2023, methodological approaches used, country contexts and classification of study areas as rural, urban, or suburban, and science teacher participants’ racial/gender identities, science teaching subjects, and career stages. Since science teacher identity is examined from multiple theoretical perspectives (Rushton & Reiss, 2021 ), it is important to unpack the theoretical frameworks and definitions of science teacher identity used in these studies, to explore any similarities and differences, along with strengths and limitations of these lenses. Such clarity will assist in the development of valid, reliable, and fair instruments for use in large-scale, longitudinal quantitative and mixed-methods studies that have been recommended (Avraamidou, 2014a ; Rushton & Reiss, 2021 ). We also document major findings obtained in these studies according to the type of research questions asked. Our scoping literature review’s focus therefore differs from and extends beyond those from previous literature reviews.

Answers to these research questions can provide an overall picture of science teacher identity research by identifying major components of science teacher identity; factors affecting its formation and development; and the extent, scope, and nature of theories and findings on science teacher identity. Teacher professional identity plays a fundamental role in quality of teaching, professional development, and a successful long-term career in the teaching profession (Suarez & McGrath, 2022 ). Given global efforts to bolster teacher recruitment and retention, particularly in science fields (Rushton & Reiss, 2021 ), and the unique nature of science teacher identity as compared with teacher identity in general or that of other subjects (Feser & Haak, 2023 ), through studying science teacher identity, we can better train and support science teachers for long-term retention. Moreover, since science teacher identity influences teacher practices and attitudes, which in turn impact student learning outcomes, studying science teacher identity can better inform science teacher education policies and practices.

Conceptual framework

Our scoping literature review is informed by the Teacher Professional Identity (TPI) development and outcome model, represented in Fig.  1 ; this conceptual framework is developed from international reviews of the literature and secondary Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data from around the world, which makes it useful for understanding TPI from a global perspective (Suarez & McGrath, 2022 ). Different from a theoretical framework, a conceptual framework is a “description of the way a researcher understands the factors and/or variables that are involved in the study and their relationships to one another” (Luft et al., 2022 , p. 6). As such, this TPI conceptual framework allowed us to articulate concepts and clarify connections among the concepts that are central to our scoping review; it served as a starting point and guide as we developed our research questions, literature search, coding scheme, and understanding of science teacher identity conceptualizations, definitions, and research findings.

Teacher professional identity (TPI) development and outcome model (Suarez & McGrath, 2022 )

This conceptual framework demonstrates the dynamic, evolving, and constructed nature of TPI formation and development. The model indicates that various institutional and sociocultural contexts (e.g., classroom, science department, school, educational systems, and policies); interpersonal relationships, group affinities, and colleague collaboration influence teacher identity (Davey, 2013 ); and that teacher identity influences teacher attitudes, behaviors, and student learning outcomes (Suarez & McGrath, 2022 ).

Therefore, teachers’ personal and professional experiences are mediated by contexts, including the level of support they receive, which informs how they view their roles, and their commitment to the profession, and continuous improvement (Rodrigues & Mogarro, 2019 ). These actions and student outcomes provoke personal and collective teacher reflection, which allows teachers to better understand themselves and their practices, which spurs reconfiguration of their professional identities (Day et al., 2006 ). It is important to note that reflection is a recursive process, and the relationships among model elements are not linear.

From different perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, and education, TPI refers to the perceptions, views, beliefs, emotions, motivations, and attitudes that teachers have about their roles, and can comprise the purpose and central qualities of an individual teacher, framed in subject knowledge, competence, performance, life stories, professional development, and context (Davey, 2013 ; Day et al., 2006 ; Rodrigues & Mogarro, 2019 ). TPI can be regarded as the “core of the teaching profession,” which allows teachers to “construct their own ideas of ‘how to be’, ‘how to act’ and ‘how to understand’ their work and their place in society” (Sachs, 2005 , p. 15). Thus, TPI can be defined by personal attributes (e.g., science teacher competence) and social attributes (e.g., belonging to a science teacher community).

Given our focus on science teacher identity for this scoping review, TPI is a reasonable framing. TPI is helpful for understanding teacher learning and development, and likewise, science teacher support and training for long-term retention (Avraamidou, 2014a ). As Suarez and McGrath ( 2022 ) note, “existing international evidence shows that these positive outcomes of TPI persist across different countries and economies” (p. 14). Teachers who are more aware of their professional identities are more likely to manage varied expectations and changes in evolving, challenging teaching contexts, engage in high-quality teaching, and remain in the profession (Rushton & Reiss, 2021 ). This framework recognizes that teachers’ commitment to teaching and their self-efficacy—especially amongst diverse, shifting priorities, expectations, and levels of support—are important parts of their professional identities that critically affect students’ performance and attitudes (Suarez & McGrath, 2022 ).

Overall, this conceptual framework offers a comprehensive, holistic image of TPI, connecting the educational system and school context, structures and support, teacher behaviors and attitudes, and student outcomes. It is important to understand how these parts of the system interact to impact teacher practice and ultimately outcomes. This framing of TPI aligns with important considerations outlined in previous reviews, from the key features and theoretical frameworks of teacher identity by Feser and Haak ( 2023 ) to the role of context (Avraamidou, 2014a ) across multiple scales (Danielsson et al., 2023 ) and group level processes in identity formation and development (Rushton & Reiss, 2021 ).

Methodology

We chose to conduct a scoping review of science teacher identity research to (1) clarify key concepts or definitions in the literature and (2) identify key characteristics or factors related to science teacher identity, which are two characteristics of scoping reviews (Peters et al., 2020 ). Our approach to the scoping literature review was systematic and shared many characteristics of systematic literature reviews (Munn et al., 2018 ). One key difference between a scoping literature review and a systematic literature review is the nature of the research questions. Rather than testing specific hypotheses or identifying relationships between specific constructs, a scoping review focuses on the magnitude and scope of the available research literature in a research field. Specifically, it seeks to describe and establish the extent, range, and nature of research evidence in a topic area (Grant & Booth, 2009 ; Pham et al., 2014 ). This focus is appropriate given that science teacher identity is a still relatively new, yet rapidly growing field, with diverse lenses and conceptualizations (Feser & Haak, 2023 ; Rushton & Reiss, 2021 ).

This scoping review followed Arksey and O’Malley’s ( 2005 ) five-stage framework and the recommendations and guidance proposed by Levac et al. ( 2010 ) and Peters et al. ( 2020 ) for scoping literature reviews. The five stages are: (1) stating research questions; (2) identifying relevant studies; (3) selecting studies; (4) charting the data; and (5) collating, summarizing, and reporting results.

Stating research questions

As noted in our introduction, this scoping review seeks to understand the field of science teacher identity research and identify areas of future research. It is guided by four research questions:

What were the characteristics of these research studies?

What theoretical frameworks of identity were utilized?

How was science teacher identity defined?

What were the major findings?

Altogether, these research questions offer a holistic view of science teacher identity research by identifying science teacher identity components, factors impacting its development, and the extent, scope, and nature of science teacher identity research.

Identifying relevant studies

Search terms were developed using the PCC (P—Population or participants; C—Concept; C—Context) framework, derived from our research questions, to narrow the search within the field of science teacher identity. Pollock et al. ( 2023 ) recommends the PCC framework as a guide to develop clear, meaningful objectives and eligibility criteria for a scoping review. In this scoping review, P (Population) was teachers, C (Concept) was identity, and C (Context) were science subjects.

The Boolean operators OR and AND were used to combine search terms, as shown in Table  1 . We designed the Boolean search strategy as follows: TI (teache* OR educato* OR schoolteache*) AND TI (identity OR identities OR identification OR “professional identity”) AND AB (physics OR science OR earth science OR chemistry OR biology). Therefore, some form of teacher and identity had to be in the title of the article, and some form of science subject in the study’s abstract.

For inclusion and exclusion of literature, we used several criteria to narrow the scope of the review (see Table  2 ). Selected publications had to focus on K-12 science subject schoolteachers in preservice or in-service stages and their science teacher identity. Other criteria included publication time periods from 2000 to 2023 and full-text empirical research studies published in English and in peer-reviewed journals. Two online databases were searched: Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) and EBSCO Academic Search Complete (ASC), from January 2000 to April 2023.

We chose 2000 as our starting year for the literature search, consistent with Rushton and Reiss ( 2021 ). While Avraamidou ( 2014a ) reviewed literature from 2001 to 2013, she conducted her search in nine leading journals and did not address the same questions as our scoping review. Avraamidou ( 2014a ) noted that there were “minimal findings” prior to this date (p. 150). Our search of literature from 2000 to 2023 therefore extend beyond that of these previous reviews.

Given our focus on science teacher identity, ERIC and ASC, which both offer access to full-text peer-reviewed journals, were suitable databases for our scoping review. ERIC is the world’s most widely used and comprehensive education literature indexing system; it is an online library of education research, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. It is a highly respected database in the field of education, used in both systematic reviews conducted by Rushton and Reiss ( 2021 ) and Feser and Haak ( 2023 ); it includes a vast collection of journal articles, reports, and other educational materials. EBSCO’s ASC is a leading resource for scholarly research, and it provides indexes, abstracts, and full-texts from a wide array of humanities, arts, sciences and social sciences disciplines, including science education, with global geospatial coverage that is updated daily.

Selecting studies

We selected published studies to review in a multistep search and screening process. Figure  2 represents the selection process based on the PRISMA–ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) statement (Tricco et al., 2018 ). All yielded articles were collected using Zotero electronic reference management software. The initial search identified 165 articles, including 117 from ERIC and 48 from ASC, among which 37 were duplicates. After removing duplicates, potentially relevant papers were subjected to a two-step screening procedure. During the first step, irrelevant articles were filtered out by reviewing their titles and abstracts. Then, we browsed the titles and abstracts of all search results. The process excluded 68 articles, because they were not the desired publication type (i.e., journal articles), empirical research, related to science teacher identity, or science teachers at K-12 levels. During the second step, after reading the full text, 12 articles were removed, primarily due to the research focus, such as focusing on students and out-of-school educators and preservice educators of out-of-school programs; aspects other than science teacher identity; and non-science subjects. Finally, 48 articles remained for analysis in this scoping review.

PRISMA–ScR flowchart for science teacher identity research

Compared to previous literature reviews on the topic, our above literature search resulted in 26, or 54% of the 48, reviewed articles that were not included in the Avraamidou ( 2014a ), Rushton and Reiss ( 2021 ), and Feser and Haak ( 2023 ) literature reviews (i.e., Avraamidou 2016a , b , 2019 ; Badia & Iglesias, 2019 ; Blackmore et al., 2018 ; Carrier et al., 2017 ; Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Coddington & Swanson, 2019 ; Hathcock et al., 2020 ; Ibourk, 2021 ; Katz et al., 2013 ; Khoza, 2022 ; Luehmann, 2008a ; Luehmann & Tinelli, 2008 ; Madden & Wiebe, 2015 ; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020 ; Munfaridah et al., 2022 ; Olitsky, 2020 , 2021 ; Pérez Gracia et al., 2019 ; Purwaningsih et al., 2020 ; Shwartz & Dori, 2020 ; Silva et al., 2021 ; Varelas et al., 2023 ; Wei et al., 2021 ; Wilson et al. 2015 ). Of these 26 studies, 14 were conducted in the U.S., 3 have been in an unidentified southern European country, 2 in Indonesia, and other countries represented include one study each in China, Chile, Israel, Spain, South Africa, and the U.K., reflecting more international representation.

Charting data

A data-charting form in Excel was jointly developed by two of the authors to determine which variables to extract. The data-charting form captured the following relevant information of published studies: (a) basic information of study, such as authors, year of publication, country where the study was conducted, school location, and discipline; (b) characteristics of participants, such as teachers’ grade level, career stage, race/ethnicity, and gender; (c) theoretical framework of the study (explicit or implicit, and if explicit, what framework); (d) definition of identity (explicit or implicit, and if explicit, what category of identity definition); (e) the study’s research problems and questions; and (f) key research findings. In the subsections that follow, we offer an overview of the coding definitions and processes for the codes that require more interpretation, such as coding of theoretical frameworks, definition of identity, and research problems and questions, before discussing ways in which we sought to enhance reliability of our coding processes.

Coding of theoretical frameworks

Theoretical frameworks of studies were first coded as either having an explicit or implicit theoretical framework. An article was coded as having an explicit theoretical framework if it contained a clear statement of a theoretical framework specifically about identity. If an article did not have a theoretical framework section; the discussion within the study did not clearly subscribe to, delineate, elaborate, and connect to a specific theoretical framework; or the study referred to several theoretical framings and conceptual frameworks in ways that were unclear as to what theoretical tenets were adopted, they were coded as having an implicit framework. To be clear, studies classified as implicit might have had multiple conceptual framings and theoretical influences. Other articles coded as having implicit frameworks might have explicitly stated the theories they drew from, but often, these studies cited previous literature in making general statements about or defining identity and other constructs pertinent to their study, while the theoretical framework and its use were nonexistent or implicit (e.g., Forbes & Davis, 2008 ; Silva et al., 2021 ). Studies were also coded according to theoretical frameworks cited, such as Gee ( 2000 ), Holland et al. ( 1998 ), Lave and Wenger ( 1991 ), Stryker and Burke ( 2000 ), and Wenger ( 1998 ).

Coding of identity definitions

Studies were coded as having explicit or implicit definitions of science teacher identity. For studies with implicit definitions, some authors mentioned teacher identity definitions provided by others, but they did not specify which of them they adopted in their study of science teacher identity. Moreover, some of the authors did not provide a definition of teacher identity, whether it be by others or their own definition.

Identity can be defined in different ways. According to Darragh ( 2016 ), the definitions of identity can be divided into five categories: participative, narrative, discursive, psychoanalytic, and performative. Psychoanalytic identity is based on psychoanalysis in psychology to make meaning from unconsciousness; no published studies used this definition explicitly or implicitly. Thus, the following discussion excludes psychoanalytic identity, and coding of identity definitions relied on participative, narrative, discursive, and performative categories.

Participative identity refers to the ways in which identity is constructed through participation and engagement in a social group (Darragh, 2016 ). Authors who explicitly or implicitly adopted this definition typically cited Lave and Wenger’s ( 1991 ) and Wenger’s ( 1998 ) notion of “communities of practice” and view identity as “a layering of events of participation and reification by which our experience and its social interpretation inform each other” (p. 151).

Narrative identity refers to the stories which people tell and relate. In this view, identities are narratives about who we are, to whom we adhere, and what positions we hold. Individuals primarily make meaning of their experiences through narrative (Riessman, 1993 ). In the telling of their personal stories, individuals create meaning, define values in relation to this meaning, and incorporate beliefs into the process of becoming a particular type of person. This personal construction of stories and significant life events is the process of situating and identifying oneself in a specific social world (Sfard & Prusak, 2005 ).

Discursive identity refers to an understanding of identity as constructed and negotiated through language and discourse. It emphasizes the role of discourse and language practices in shaping how individuals understand and present their identities. Relatedly, identity as subjectivity is the construction of positioning oneself in discourse and of being positioned by discourse, both as subject and object, and is associated with recognition. This definition is influenced by Gee’s ( 2000 ) theory on “the spoken and written words, semiotic systems, representations, and gestures of participants as they use language to communicate, interact, and act” (Bishop, 2012 , p. 44). Therefore, discursive identity is connected to the ways people treat, talk about, and interact with one another, which is also influenced by institutions.

Performative identity is derived from Butler ( 1988 , 1997 ), who explored the concept of “performativity” and its influence on identity formation. She argued that gender, as well as other aspects of identity, are not fixed but rather performed and constructed through repeated actions and behaviors. Butler’s work expands the understanding of performative identity beyond achievement-based domains. This definition is also related to Goffman ( 1969 , 2023 ), which proposed the concepts of “impression management” and “dramaturgy” in arguing that individuals actively present themselves in certain ways to others, employing various performances and strategies to shape how they are perceived. Goffman’s ideas also shed light on the performative nature of identity and the role of self-presentation in constructing a performative identity. Positional identity, which refers to the social roles, statuses, and positions an individual occupies within a particular context or society, is consistent with this definition. It is impacted by external factors such as job titles, educational qualifications, social roles (e.g., parent, teacher), and other identifiers that give individuals a sense of their position or place in society. Positional identity is often conferred by external recognition or formal designations.

Coding of research problems and questions

The research questions in the 48 studies were classified into three categories: identity process or development, identity factors, and identity nature. Specifically, studies on identity process are concerned primarily with the process or development of identity, although factors impacting the process may also be studied. This category of studies typically involved data collection at multiple time points to document the changes in teacher identity development or transformation. Studies in the category of impact factors are concerned with identifying specific factors or contexts that influence teacher identity development. This category of studies typically uses quantitative cross-sectional surveys or multiple case studies at one time point. Finally, studies in the category of identity nature are concerned with the clarification (e.g., characteristics) of the science teacher identity construct.

Coding reliability

Two authors participated in the coding process. Cohen’s weighted Kappa was used to evaluate inter-rater reliability. Initially, the two authors independently extracted data from the same 10 randomly selected articles, and Cohen’s Weighted Kappa was calculated (Fleiss & Cohen, 1973 ; Fleiss et al., 2013 ). The coefficients of Cohen’s Weighted Kappa for all coding categories were 1.0, with the exception of the research questions category (0.348) and the race or ethnicity of teachers’ category (0.568). The two coders discussed inconsistencies on these two coding categories, and a revised definition and coding scheme for these two categories were created. Using the revised coding scheme, the two coders independently coded another 10 randomly selected articles and then calculated the inter-rater reliability again. The coefficients of Cohen’s Weighted Kappa for all coding categories were 1.0.

Collating, summarizing, and reporting findings

Descriptive statistical (e.g., frequency distribution) analysis was conducted to answer research question 1; to answer research questions 2–4, related codes were grouped into thematic categories as described in the previous section. Studies coded within the same category were revisited, and related information was collated, read, and summarized to develop thematic categories. Details from articles exemplifying particular thematic categories, or divergences, were noted. Checks were made within and across these categories, and narrative descriptions were combined to report findings. Discussions among the authors helped to resolve questions and discrepancies in interpretation through consensus coding.

Limitations

Due to our methodological approach, our scoping literature review has several limitations that should be considered. First, we recognize that there are pros and cons for any database used; we might have missed important studies that are not indexed by ERIC and ASC, are not peer-reviewed journal articles, and/or published in languages other than English. As with Rushton and Reiss ( 2021 ), our review does not contend with educators who teach individuals beyond high school.

Our review also focuses on science schoolteachers and preservice teachers, who teach in formal school settings, and therefore empirical research focused on out-of-school science teachers and preservice teachers of informal science educator preparation programs have been excluded (e.g., Adams & Gupta, 2017 ). Although this criterion allowed for the inclusion of studies that explore the role of informal science education contexts, such as after school and summer programs, on the development of participants’ science teacher identities (e.g., Katz et al., 2011 ; Silva et al., 2021 ), we recognize this exclusion criteria decision might limit our understanding of informal science teachers’ identities more broadly. Finally, we acknowledge that our search criteria might have missed other studies without some form of “teacher” and “identity” in the title or science subject in the abstract, though the decision to search for these terms in the title and abstract was made to ensure that science teacher identity was core to the articles reviewed.

This section presents the findings of our scoping review, organized according to research questions.

Research question 1: characteristics of science teacher identity studies

As shown in Fig.  3 , the number of empirical articles on science teacher identity has steadily increased since 2008 after a period of flattening, indicating the increased attention science teacher identity research has garnered. In particular, 30 articles, or 63% of the 48 included studies, were published after 2013, the end year of Avraamidou’s ( 2014a ) literature search, and 13 articles or 27% were published in or after 2020, which extend past the end years of the Rushton and Reiss ( 2021 ) and Feser and Haak ( 2023 ) systematic reviews. This distribution signifies the rapid growth of the science teacher identity field within the last ten years.

Number of science teacher identity articles distributed across publication year from 2000 to 2023

Figure  4 reveals that most studies on science teacher identity were conducted in the United States (U.S., 64.6%). Following the U.S., the distribution of studies includes the United Kingdom (8.3%), an unidentified Southern European country (8.3%), Indonesia (4.2%), and South Africa, as well as Brazil, Chile, China, Israel, New Zealand, and Spain (2.1% each). The country distribution indicates a relatively widespread international research interest in science teacher identity. Except for studies in the U.S., China, and Indonesia, studies from other countries did not provide information about school settings. U.S. studies were conducted in mostly northeastern and southeastern contexts. Among the research studies in the U.S., where settings were identified, 64.5% were conducted in school settings, with 13 studies in urban schools, 1 in suburban schools, 4 in both urban and suburban schools, and 2 in rural schools. The one study conducted in China, Wei et al. ( 2021 ), occurred in a suburban area of a provincial capital city in a western province. The context of the Purwaningsih et al. ( 2020 ) study was a public university physics teacher preparation program, with the preservice teacher’s placement in a public high school in Malang, Indonesia.

Science teacher identity research distribution by country

The research studies encompassed a wide range of disciplines. The general science subject accounted for a majority of studies (64.6%), while specific science subjects such as physics, chemistry, and biology or environmental science, made up 6.3%, 4.2%, and 2.1%, respectively. In addition, 22.9% of the studies were multidisciplinary, i.e., involving two or more of the abovementioned disciplines. Regarding the distribution of grade levels, the published studies exhibited a relatively balanced representation, with 39.6% focused on elementary school and 43.8% on secondary school, which includes middle and high school contexts.

In terms of research methodology, the majority of studies were qualitative (85.4%), while three articles (6.3%) were solely quantitative, and four (8.3%) were mixed-methods. Qualitative studies were predominantly case studies following interpretivist traditions, including ethnographic, narrative, and phenomenological case studies, and relied on semi-structured interviews, observations, and artifacts such as blog posts, e-mail exchanges, journal entries, and lesson plans, among others (e.g., Dominguez et al., 2015 ; Luehmann, 2008b ; Silva et al., 2021 ; Upadhyay, 2009 ). Quantitative studies employed instruments with Likert, multiple-choice, and open-ended response formats (Badia & Iglesias, 2019 ; Munfaridah et al., 2022 ; Pérez Gracia et al., 2019 ). Mixed-methods studies used surveys and questionnaires with close-ended and open-ended response formats, focus groups, semi-structured individual interviews, journal entries, and observations (Blackmore et al., 2018 ; Forbes & Davis, 2008 ; Shwartz & Dori, 2020 ; Woolhouse & Cochrane, 2015 ).

There were 39 (81%) of studies that utilized interviews; only 6 (13%) included interviews with other stakeholders besides science teachers. It is important to note that compared to interviews, observations were less commonly used research methods. There were 18 (38%) of studies that utilized observations; most studies relied on 1 to 10 observations, such as the 2, 15-min lessons taught to preservice science teacher peers in a methods course (Rivera Maulucci, 2013 ), except for 26 lessons observed in Wei et al. ( 2021 ) and 49 h of observation in Naidoo ( 2017 ).

Reviewed quantitative and mixed-methods studies reveal a need for instruments dedicated to science teacher identity, with enhanced psychometric properties that attend to validity, reliability, and fairness. For example, in their 2019 study, Pérez Gracia et al. developed an instrument for measuring the beliefs of future science and technology teachers regarding their understanding of teacher professional identity (TPI). The S-TPI instrument encompasses four dimensions: elements defining TPI, its development at different educational stages, the contrast in identity construction between teachers and other professionals, and factors contributing to TPI development. However, the article could benefit from providing a clear theoretical framework for the instrument and integrating these four dimensions effectively with the framework.

Munfaridah et al. ( 2022 ) adopted an adapted version of a physics identity questionnaire to measure the development of three identity components: interest, performance, and recognition based on a combined framework of physics identity proposed by Carlone and Johnson’s ( 2007 ) and Hazari et al.’s ( 2010 ) frameworks. However, the target sample of the measurement instrument was university students, and the reliability of the performance sub-scale was not as strong, with the Cronbach’s α rather unsatisfactory at 0.56. Badia and Iglesias ( 2019 ) described three clusters of science teacher identities using indicators about teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning, which contribute to science teacher identity. However, this study did not provide a valid and reliable instrument to measure science teacher identity.

Besides these quantitative studies, there were four mixed-methods studies. Three of them used surveys to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data, and none included an instrument for measuring science teacher identity (i.e., Blackmore et al., 2018 ; Shwartz & Dori, 2020 ; Woolhouse & Cochrane, 2015 ). Forbes and Davis ( 2008 ) used a survey instrument to measure preservice teachers’ developing curricular role identity for science teaching to obtain a gross measure of role identification, but they did not provide any reliability and validity information about the instrument.

The studies examined teachers at various stages of their careers, with 50.0% focusing on preservice teachers, 37.5% on in-service teachers, and 12.5% on both preservice and in-service teachers. The gender distribution of participants revealed that 54.2% involved both male and female teachers, 37.5% exclusively involved female teachers, and 8.3% solely male teachers; no studies reported non-binary science teacher participants. Thus, the science teacher identity research in our scoping review predominantly centered on female and preservice science teachers. The majority of studies, or 72.9%, focused on racially heterogenous groups of science teacher participants, or teachers of multiracial or unreported racial backgrounds, while 10.4% comprised White, 6.3% Black, 6.3% Native, and 4.2% Asian or Pacific Islander teacher participants only.

Research question 2: theoretical frameworks of science teacher identity studies

Analysis of the theoretical frameworks of the 48 publications found that 22 (46%) of the articles had an explicit theoretical framework of identity, and 26 (54%) did not have an explicit theoretical framework of identity. Among the articles that had an explicit theoretical framework of identity, 12 relied on Gee’s ( 2000 , 2003 ) sociocultural identity theory (Akerson et al., 2014 ; Avraamidou, 2014b ; Carrier et al., 2017 ; Katz et al., 2011 ; Luehmann, 2008a ; Madden & Wiebe, 2015 ; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020 ; Purwaningsih et al., 2020 ; Saka et al., 2013 ; Upadhyay, 2009 ; Varelas, 2005 ; Wei et al., 2021 ); 5 utilized Wenger ( 1998 ), Lave and Wenger ( 1991 ), and Lave ( 1996 ), drawing upon situated learning theory and communities of practice (Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Coddington & Swanson, 2019 ; Naidoo, 2017 ; Wilson et al., 2015 ; Woolhouse & Cochrane, 2015 ); 2 used social psychology theories of identity with sociological underpinnings (Hathcock et al., 2020 ; Olitsky, 2020 ); and 1 referenced Holland et al.’s ( 1998 ) figured worlds (Moore, 2008b ). Moreover, Avraamidou ( 2016b ) explicitly stated that she drew from Connelly and Clandinin’s ( 1999 ) conceptualization of the professional identity of teachers, while Munfaridah et al. ( 2022 ) explicitly cited Carlone and Johnson ( 2007 ) and Hazari et al. ( 2010 ) for their theoretical framework on physics identity.

In the sections that follow, we delve more deeply into the explicitly identified theoretical frameworks in order of prevalence in our scoping literature review: (1) Gee’s sociocultural identity theory, (2) Lave and Wenger’s situated learning theory and communities of practice, (3) social psychology theories of identity; and (4) Holland and colleagues’ theory of figured worlds. We begin each of these subsections with a brief introduction to these frameworks and then note studies that utilize these theoretical frameworks for studying science teacher identity.

Gee’s ( 2000 ) sociocultural theory of identity

According to Gee ( 2000 ), identity is being “recognized as a certain ‘kind of person’ in a given context” (p. 99). In this sense, a person’s multiple identities are tied to their performances in society rather than their internal states. A person’s identity can change through interaction, across context, and “be ambiguous or unstable” (p. 99). Gee ( 2000 ) proposed four perspectives to view identity: Nature-Identities, Institution-Identities, Discourse-Identities, and Affinity-Identities. Specifically, Nature-Identities refers to a state developed from forces in nature; Institution-Identities refers to a position entitled by authorities within institutions; Discourse-Identities refers to an individual trait recognized in the discourse or dialogue with others; and Affinity-Identities refers to the experiences shared in the practice of affinity groups. Throughout his work, Gee ( 2000 ) emphasized the role of recognition in generating identity, as “human beings must see each other in certain ways and not others if there are to be identities of any sort” (p. 109). Like situated learning and CoP, Gee’s ( 2000 ) identity theory is sociocultural; it emphasizes the close relationship between identity and historical, institutional, and sociocultural forces.

The predominant focus of research employing Gee’s ( 2000 ) theoretical framework of identity was on the formation, development, and incorporation of science teacher identity. These studies emphasized the diverse perspectives of identity and the various personal and contextual factors that influenced an individual’s identity. For instance, Marco-Bujosa et al. ( 2020 ) stated that the utilization of Gee’s theory of identity provided insights into the experiences of an in-service bilingual classroom teacher at a school for children who are Deaf in the U.S. Through adopting this theoretical framework, researchers conducted a thorough examination of a White female elementary teacher’s science teacher identity development, as she navigated the process of learning to teach science, against the backdrop of pressures to prioritize literacy and American Sign Language, which were viewed as disconnected from science learning. Meanwhile, this framework also recognized the wide range of personal and contextual factors that contributed to her identity development. Akerson et al. ( 2014 ) utilized Gee’s Institution-Identities and Discourse-Identities for their analysis of a science education methods professor who returned to the elementary classroom to teach science through a NOS perspective.

Lave and Wenger’s ( 1991 ) situated learning theory and Wenger’s ( 1998 ) communities of practice (CoP)

Lave and Wenger’s ( 1991 ) situated learning theory provides a theoretical framework for understanding identity formation as a learning process. Situated learning theory places significant emphasis on the following key principles: (a) Legitimate peripheral participation: Novices initially engage in legitimate peripheral participation, where they observe and gradually become more involved in the community’s activities. Through this process, individuals transition from being newcomers to active members, shaping their identities along the way; (b) the inseparability of identity and learning: identity is formed through individuals engaged in learning within CoP; (c) the role of social interaction: through social interactions, individuals negotiate their roles, gain a sense of belonging, and construct their identities as they become more integrated into the community; (d) Identity Negotiation: as individuals engage in various activities and interactions, they negotiate their roles and identities. Negotiation is a continuous process that involves adapting to new challenges, redefining one’s sense of self, and evolving within the CoP. In essence, Lave and Wenger’s ( 1991 ) situated learning theory and Wenger’s ( 1998 ) CoP suggest that individuals dynamically form identities within specific social contexts and CoP. Learning involves a transformation of identity as individuals engage in activities through ongoing participation and interaction. Through participation in joint activities, interacting with others, and contributing to knowledge in communities, individuals develop identities that are intertwined with the collective identities of communities (Wenger, 1998 ).

For example, Naidoo ( 2017 ) adopted situated learning theory as a theoretical framework and proposed that learning contributed to the development of an elementary science teacher candidate’s identity. Naidoo approached the process of identity formation as a dialogical process that occurred between individuals rather than being limited solely within individuals. The utilization of this theoretical framework allowed the author to capture the dynamic nature of identity formation within a science methods course designed for preservice science teacher candidates. Chen and Mensah ( 2022 ) incorporated the theoretical frameworks proposed by Lave and Wenger ( 1991 ) as well as Wenger ( 1998 ). The authors assumed that learning to teach science involved not only an accumulation of knowledge and skills but also a process of becoming a certain kind of person within a CoP. In this way, legitimate peripheral participation for elementary teachers can be understood as a way of learning that involves both absorbing and becoming fully engaged in a culture of practice. As their practices and participation evolved, preservice science teachers moved towards becoming part of the science teaching community and developed an increased sense of identity as science teachers.

Social psychology and sociological theories of identity

Theories of social psychology, underpinned by sociological framings, were also cited in several reviewed studies. One theory proposed by Stryker and Burke ( 2000 ) conceptualizes identity as the self-composed meaning that individuals attach to the multiple roles they commonly assume in highly differentiated, contemporary societies. Stryker and Burke identified two processes of identity formation, one being the internal process of self-verification and the other being social structures. They argued that social structures influence the internal process of self-verification, whereas the internal process of self-verification creates and sustains these social structures. During the internal process of identity formation, identity is understood as cognitive schemas, or internally stored information and meanings serving as frameworks for interpreting experience (Stryker & Serpe, 1994 ). Identities are self-meanings, and self-meanings develop in the context of the meanings of roles and counter-roles (Burke, 1980 ; Burke & Tully, 1977 ).

Behavior is commonly understood as a function of the relationship between what a person perceives in situations and the self-meanings held by individuals (Burke, 1997 ; Heise, 1979 ; Stets, 1997 ). In the context of social structures, identity is viewed as the quest of individuals to seek validation by actively seeking or constructing situations that allow for the expression of their true selves. Both processes consider identities as linked to roles and behaviors through the attribution of meaning. It is possible for individuals to obtain stable and constant psychological centrality (Stryker & Burke, 2000 ).

Olitsky ( 2020 ) employed identity theory (Stryker & Burke, 2000 ) to highlight the significance of consistency between an African American science teacher’s self-perceptions and external feedback from others in facilitating the process of identity development. Working in a particular institution can be viewed as an act of identification with a professional community, and lack of alignment can be a factor in a person’s decision to leave their position as a science teacher. In addition, Hathcock et al. ( 2020 ) used the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) by Kaplan and Garner ( 2017 ). The DSMRI depicts role identity as a complex, dynamic system in which a teacher acts, comprising four interdependent components: (a) self-perceptions and self-definitions; (b) ontological and epistemological beliefs; (c) purpose and goals; and (d) perceived action possibilities (Kaplan & Garner, 2017 ; Maehr & Braskamp, 1986 ). With this framework, Hathcock and colleagues were able to explore both the teacher and context, their sub-identities, and the agentic pursuit of learning goals, which could differ and be in tension with reform-oriented professional development goals.

Holland et al.’s ( 1998 ) identity and agency in cultural, figured worlds

Holland et al.’s ( 1998 ) framework focuses on the processes through which individuals construct their identities in cultural worlds. It provides a perspective for comprehending how individuals navigate their social surroundings, utilizing cultural models to construct identities and exercise agency, which is the capacity of individuals to take actions, make choices, and shape identities. Individuals actively participate in the process of engaging with figured worlds, or socially constructed frames of reference that recognize certain types of people, acts, and outcomes as celebrated and meaningful. Figured worlds are constructed through interaction and guide individuals to act in certain ways, among certain possibilities that are afforded to them, governed by cultural norms, social structures, and power dynamics within the figured worlds.

Moore ( 2008b ) utilized Holland et al. ( 1998 ) to conceptualize the construction of three African American science teachers’ identities in relation to others and within multiple social structures. Moore ( 2008b ) used this framework for positional identity, which was essential, because it provided a framework for understanding teachers on an individual level based on their life experiences in culturally constructed worlds (e.g., race, gender, class, ethnicity, age, and religion), their classroom practices, and their professional development. It allowed for insights into how they negotiated power and their roles as science teachers.

Summary of theoretical frameworks

Research studies on science teacher identity mostly had implicit theoretical frameworks and mostly employed several similar theoretical frameworks. These frameworks include sociocultural perspectives, which encompass the theories of Gee ( 2000 ), Wenger ( 1998 ), Lave and Wenger ( 1991 ), and Lave ( 1996 ). To a lesser extent, studies employ social psychology and sociological perspectives, such as those represented by Kaplan and Garner ( 2017 ), Stryker and Burke ( 2000 ), and Stryker and Serpe ( 1994 ), as well as Holland et al. ( 1998 ), which takes on social anthropology and cultural psychology lenses.

These perspectives share the understanding of the social, contextualized nature of identity and emphasize the significance of social interactions in identity development. However, these perspectives differ in their focus, level of analysis, and emphasis on cultural factors. The sociocultural perspectives are informed by sociocultural theories and highlight the impact of cultural and social contexts, including practices, norms, and values, on identity development. In addition to acknowledging the role of culture, social psychology perspectives also place emphasis on individual-level psychological processes, giving significance to both cognitive and social aspects of identity formation and meaning, while also attending to the impact of structures.

Regardless of whether studies had explicit or implicit theoretical frameworks, they recognized that science teacher identity is historically and socially constructed, multifaceted, complex, and influenced by context, although the focus primarily was on teachers’ immediate school contexts. Given the overlap and similarity of these theories, often studies (e.g., Forbes & Davis, 2008 ; Ibourk, 2021 ; Luehmann, 2008a ; Moore, 2008a ; Varelas et al., 2023 ) cited several of these frameworks, although the extent to which they elaborated on the main tenets and drew on these frameworks varied. As such, the theoretical frameworks that are frequently cited share many similarities. First, they highlight connections among the past, present, and future of identity, establishing a temporal dimension. As Wenger ( 1998 ) states, identity “has a coherence through time that connects the past, the present, and the future” (p. 154), which is similar to Sfard and Prusak ( 2005 ), which distinguishes actual (current) from designated (future) identities in stories. Holland et al. ( 1998 ) similarly discuss reinterpreting the past and imagining future figured worlds. Gee ( 2000 ) speaks to history and future as well. In social psychology theories, such as Kaplan and Garner ( 2017 ), past, present, and future role identities are recognized. In these ways, the frameworks in science teacher identity studies attend to temporal dimensions of identity and regard it as changing through experience and practice, while embedded in social contexts with certain norms, rules, expectations, and degrees of recognition.

Gee’s ( 2000 ) theory places particular emphasis on the significance of language, discourse, and social practices in the process of constructing one’s identity. This theory draws extensively from the fields of sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. Wenger ( 1998 ), Lave and Wenger ( 1991 ), and Lave ( 1996 ) highlight the significance of participation in social practice communities for the development of learning, meaning, and identity. The importance of social interactions, shared practices, and the development of a sense of belonging is emphasized. Holland et al. ( 1998 ) draw most heavily from sociocultural theories of Bakhtin, Vygotsky, and Wertsch, while also acknowledging similarities and influences from the work of Bourdieu regarding capital, fields, and habitus; Davies, Harré, and van Langenhove with positioning theory; and intersections with Lave and Wenger in terms of CoP, among others. Overall, there is considerable overlap with other theories and theorists within Holland et al. ( 1998 ). The primary emphasis of Holland et al. ( 1998 ) revolves around the field of cultural psychology and social anthropology and its exploration of the impact of cultural environments on the development of identity and agency.

There is also great emphasis across the sociocultural frameworks on identity as a process—as tentative and an ever-changing action—to the exclusion of recognizing identity as an attribute, or the stability of identity that thickens over time, instead of recognizing that such core facets are representative of moments in time. For example, Wenger ( 1998 ) refers to identity as “not an object, but a constant becoming” (pp. 153–154) and focuses on identities-in-practice. In speaking about identity formation and development, Holland et al. ( 1998 ) discuss “identity-making processes” (p. 3), and Gee ( 2000 ) emphasizes interactions, including processes to be recognized as a certain kind of person. All frameworks acknowledge limits of structures in furthering recognition, performance, and authoring of identities to some extent, although the social psychology theories more prominently and explicitly make these connections. The sociocultural and social anthropology theoretical frameworks primarily emphasize individual agency in constructing identities, albeit situated in social contexts and in relation to others.

Research question 3: definition of science teacher identity

Twenty-two of the articles (46%) had explicit definitions of teacher identity, while 26 (54%) did not have explicit definitions of teacher identity. In what follows, we present a table of results and further elaboration on examples of studies according to the definition categories: participative, narrative, discursive, and performative. Table 3 details the results from categorizing the definitions of teacher identity in the 48 articles included in this review.

Participative identity

Studies that define identities as participative may concentrate on two levels of identity: individual identity and collective identity. The relationship between these two identities is crucial to the formation and development of teacher identity. For instance, Coddington and Swanson ( 2019 ) explicitly drew on Wenger’s ( 1998 ) CoP and Cobb et al.’s, ( 2009 ) conceptualization of normative and personal identities. Normative identity is the collectively perceived set of expectations for how individuals are perceived to be competent in a given context, whereas personal identity represents how individuals develop as they engage in the practices within a specific context. In this study, the negotiation of the two identities was highlighted. When normative identity expectations and an individual’s abilities for their anticipated future are not negotiated well, the development of a science teacher’s identity can present difficulties or obstacles. Even within similar or identical contexts, science teachers’ identity development trajectories were not identical due to the distinct ways in which they negotiated their normative and personal identities.

Studies that define identities as participative may also emphasize the ongoing negotiation process during identity formation. In the negotiation process, the significance of an individual’s life experiences may also be highlighted (e.g., Eick & Reed, 2002 ; Forbes & Davis, 2008 ; Pérez Gracia et al., 2019 ; Woolhouse & Cochrane, 2015 ). For example, Pérez Gracia et al. ( 2019 ), with an implicit definition of teacher identity, emphasized that the construction of a teacher’s professional identity could be considered a process of negotiating various teaching concepts, which are enriched through interacting with other teachers. Likewise, the study by Woolhouse and Cochrane ( 2015 ), though it did not provide an explicit definition, viewed trainees’ abilities to negotiate policy demands in order to develop a professional identity as an essential factor in the formation of teacher identities. Negotiation in the process involved dealing with gaps between teachers’ desired identities and their classroom experiences as preservice science teachers.

Despite the lack of a precise definition of teacher identity, Eick and Reed’s ( 2002 ) description of science teacher identity was consistent with the view that a new teacher’s role identity is formed by experiences as young students, previous teaching experiences, teacher role models, and other significant people (Cole, 1990 ; Knowles, 1992 ). According to the authors, a preservice teacher’s personal history in education and ensuing belief systems serve as a foundation for early career teacher identity. Personal history impacts the strength of the initial role identity (Knowles, 1992 ).

Furthermore, studies that define identity as participative may emphasize the role of attitudes, beliefs, and values within teachers’ practices and learning processes (e.g., Blackmore et al., 2018 ; Pérez Gracia et al., 2019 ; Shwartz & Dori, 2020 ). For instance, Shwartz and Dori ( 2020 ) explicitly conceptualized TPI as a process of reconciling the personal and professional sides of becoming a teacher and emphasized that professional identity is influenced not only by teachers’ personal characteristics but also by professional contexts, such as their education program, knowledge, skills, prior experiences, and educational attitudes. In another study by Pérez Gracia et al. ( 2019 ), professional identity referred to the specific roles, objectives, and teaching styles that preservice science and technology teachers aspire to assume as part of their professional development. Teachers’ beliefs, values, and attitudes regarding the teaching and learning processes in their respective subject areas were emphasized as conceptual connotations of TPI. Similarly, in spite of the absence of an explicit definition, Blackmore et al. ( 2018 ) identified trainees’ attitudes towards science teaching as significant aspects of their TPIs. Notably, studies that define identity as participative study the processes of preservice and novice teachers becoming teachers (e.g., Blackmore et al., 2018 ; Coddington & Swanson, 2019 ; Eick & Reed, 2002 ; Forbes & Davis, 2008 ; Pérez Gracia et al., 2019 ), and that of career changers, or individuals who transition to teaching from other professions (e.g., Akerson et al., 2014 ; Shwartz & Dori, 2020 ).

Narrative identity

In studies implicitly or explicitly defining science teacher identity as narrative identity, there is a premise that individuals give meaning to their daily lives as stories that are shaped by and unfold in their natural surroundings. Teacher identity emerges from an individual’s interpretation and reinterpretation of experience in multiple contexts, which is the individual’s process of giving the events meaning. At this level, the primary way for individuals to comprehend experience is through narrative presentation (Riessman, 1993 ), and it is also through this process that individuals create meaning, which is integrated into the process of someone acquiring a particular identity, e.g., becoming a science teacher.

Studies with narrative identity definitions underscored that one’s identity construction is an ongoing, evolving process. Individuals actively shape their identities through the narratives they create and revise as they grow and encounter new experiences (e.g., Avraamidou, 2016b , c ; Edwards & Edwards, 2017 ; Moore, 2008a ; Siry & Lara, 2012 ). Avraamidou ( 2016c ), with an explicit definition, conceptualized identity as a tentatively shaped and socially situated construct, which is under development and subject to change. Siry and Lara ( 2012 ), with an implicit definition, also viewed identity as fluid, as one engages in activity and makes sense of these experiences. Similarly, although Edwards and Edwards ( 2017 ) did not provide an explicit definition, they viewed teacher identity and its development as a complex construction process that occurs over time, in a range of contexts, and embedded in an array of life experiences, interactions, thinking, and responses of individual teachers over time.

Narrative identity involves the process of meaning-making, where individuals assign significance and interpret their experiences within the context of their personal narratives. It allows individuals to derive a sense of purpose, values, and personal meaning from their life events and choices (e.g., Dominguez et al., 2015 ; Luehmann, 2008a ; Olitsky, 2021 ; Proweller & Mitchener, 2004 ; Silva et al., 2021 ; Varelas et al., 2023 ; Wilson & Deaney, 2010 ). For example, Varelas et al. ( 2023 ) described the construction of teacher identity as a process of learning to teach. The authors opted for a transcendental phenomenological analysis of the phenomenon as it was experienced by teachers to focus on the ways in which teachers experience and construct meaning for the phenomenon of interest, implying that the construction of science teacher identity for teachers is reliant on the meaning they assign to their experiences.

Luehmann ( 2008a ) acknowledged the viewpoint that an individual’s series of significant stories constitutes a trajectory through time of becoming a certain kind of person. With this definition, identities are considered constructed, creatively authored, rhetorical, replete with assumptions, and interpretive. Moreover, Dominguez et al. ( 2015 ) defined the formation of a science teacher’s identity as a socialization process marked by the individual construction (or reconstruction) of symbolic systems, while Wilson and Deaney ( 2010 ) defined teacher role identity as the meaning teachers give to the characteristics and expectations that simultaneously create a teacher’s daily routine.

Narrative identity also emphasizes the significance and centrality of the self through the process of narrating and interpreting significant life events, personal experiences, and relationships; it encompasses the telling and retelling of one’s life story, highlighting key moments, turning points, and themes that shape an individual’s identity (e.g., Avraamidou, 2016c ; Ibourk, 2021 ; Katz et al., 2011 ; Olitsky, 2020 ; Varelas et al., 2005 ). For instance, Ibourk ( 2021 ) provided an explicit definition of storied identities as the identities of teacher candidates shaped by the salient stories of learning science, deciding to become a science teacher, and becoming a science teacher. Other studies that did not provide an explicit definition also emphasized the significance of the self in their descriptions of teacher identity. For example, Katz et al. ( 2011 ) demonstrated that identity can be defined as collections of stories about people, as those narratives about individuals are reifying, endorsable, and significant; this study explored science teacher identity by allowing teachers to tell their stories of themselves as teachers of science. Olitsky ( 2020 ) also constructed descriptions of identity as parts of the self-composed meanings that individuals attach to the multiple roles they typically play in highly complex, contemporary societies. As narrators, teachers tell their stories, where their identities manifest. As teachers narrate their stories, they negotiate and renegotiate a fluid self in order to understand and define who they are.

Discursive identity

Researchers using a discursive identity definition adopt a multidimensional, holistic perspective of science teacher identity (e.g., Khoza, 2022 ; Luehmann, 2008b ; Luehmann & Tinelli, 2008 ; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020 ; Naidoo, 2017 ; Purwaningsih et al., 2020 ). For example, Marco-Bujosa et al. ( 2020 ), utilizing Gee’s ( 2000 ) sociocultural framework, clearly defined teacher identity as consisting of four interrelated dimensions, including Institution-Identity, Discourse-Identity, Affinity-Identity, and Nature-Identity. The authors tracked the emergence and evolution of a science teaching identity while also acknowledging the numerous personal and contextual aspects that shaped the teacher’s identity.

Studies with explicit or implicit discursive identity definitions may incorporate aspects of other identity definition categories (e.g., Carrier et al., 2017 ; Madden & Wiebe, 2015 ). For example, with an implicit definition of teacher identity, Carrier et al. ( 2017 ) adopted Avraamidou’s ( 2014b ) identity trajectory model, which combined elements from Gee’s ( 2000 ) views of identity with Clandinin and Connelly’s ( 2000 ) three-dimensional narrative inquiry space model, including interaction–continuity–situation, so as to capture time and space in the three distinct but continuous stages from student to teacher and to examine identity constructs within each stage. Similarly, Madden and Wiebe ( 2015 ) deemed that Gee’s ( 2000 ) framework is focused on ‘who a teacher is’ rather than ‘what a teacher does.’ To address the importance of understanding how identity translated into practice, they incorporated a fifth dimension: expertise, which can strengthen their descriptions of identity by highlighting the integration of who one is with what one does.

Recognition by others and the significance of key narrators are repeatedly emphasized in studies with a discursive identity definition (e.g., Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Danielsson & Warwick, 2014 ; Madden & Wiebe, 2015 ; Saka et al., 2013 ). For instance, Danielsson and Warwick ( 2014 ), without an explicit definition of teacher identity, highlighted that an individual’s identity can be defined both internally and externally by a group’s inclusive or exclusive attitude towards that individual (Paechter, 2003 ). The authors further elaborated:

If language, action, interaction, values, beliefs, symbols, objects, tools, and places are put together in such a way that others recognize a person as a particular type of ‘who’ engaged in a particular type of ‘what,’ then they can be seen to be both enacting a particular Discourse and representing a particular facet of their professional identity. (Danielsson & Warwick, 2014 , p. 291)

In this way, the authors underscored that recognition is a crucial link between discourse and identity.

With discursive identity, significant individuals ascribing this recognition are emphasized. For example, professors, peers, supervisors, cooperating teachers, and colleagues have a major role to play in the identity building that goes with participation in the experiences that student teachers encounter. Danielsson and Warwick ( 2014 ) noted that these significant individuals had influence on the Discourses in which the student teachers engaged and their eventual qualification (or lack of qualification) as a teacher. Chen and Mensah ( 2022 ) pointed out that for Teachers of Color, an integral part of one’s identity lies in how and by whom they are recognized as science teachers. Consequently, affirmative recognition as a science teacher by significant narrators, such as members of the CoP with the most influential voices (Sfard & Prusak, 2005 ), has a substantial impact on the development of one’s science teacher identity.

Finally, studies with discursive identity definitions typically involve examining the development, transformation, and multiple dimensions of science teacher identity (e.g., Avraamidou, 2014b ; Carrier et al., 2017 ; Madden & Wiebe, 2015 ; Naidoo, 2017 ; Purwaningsih et al., 2020 ). They also explore contextual factors contributing to identity development (e.g., Khoza, 2022 ; Luehmann, 2008b ; Luehmann & Tinelli, 2008 ; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020 ; Saka et al., 2013 ; Wei et al., 2021 ).

Performative identity

Studies utilizing the performative identity definition concentrate on the positional identity of science teachers on the one hand, which relates to the social roles and positions an individual occupies, and the abilities displayed by teachers on the other. These studies show that science teacher identity is influenced by personal achievements and competence within a specific domain. Only three articles in our review explicitly employed this type of definition. Both Rivera Maulucci ( 2013 ) and Moore ( 2008b ) used positional identity to represent science teacher identity. The operational definition of positional identity was derived from the relative positionalities of the teachers, such as their race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, and religion, among many others, allowing individuals to acquire knowledge of science and themselves and to define themselves in unique ways. The concept foregrounds the ways larger structures, such as social constructions of race, gender, and class, frame the ways individuals position themselves and are positioned within particular social contexts, such as the school or family (Moore, 2008b ). The two articles stressed that individuals performed as teachers with combined multiple identities, and the idea of positional identity is important in understanding the role of agency and passivity in the development of science teacher identity.

Summary of findings

In summary, studies with different categories of definitions emphasized different aspects of science teacher identity and identity development. Performative identity emphasizes the active performance and enactment of identity, whereas narrative identity concentrates on the construction of identity through narration and life narratives. Discursive identity emphasizes the function of language and discourse in identity construction, while participative identity emphasizes identity within a particular context or activity. Discursive identity definitions emphasize the influence of power, ideology, and dominant discourses on identity construction, whereas narrative identity emphasizes the importance of coherence and continuity in constructing one’s life story. Participative identity emphasizes the role, membership, and involvement in a particular context, whereas other concepts emphasize identity construction and negotiation more broadly.

However, studies employing different categories of definition also share common characteristics. All studies acknowledge that science teacher identity is not static but is constructed and shaped through various processes. They also acknowledge that science teacher identity formation and development are shaped in part by their sociocultural and contextual experiences. They all highlight the active role of individuals in the construction, negotiation, and presentation of their identities while recognizing the importance of social interactions, relationships, and the meaning-making process in shaping identity.

Research question 4: major research findings on science teacher identity

In this section, we present the major findings on science teacher identity. First, we present a table that represents the categories of science teacher identity research questions: identity process or development, identity factors, and identity nature. In the sections that follow, we discuss the major study findings according to themes within these categories of research studies.

Table 4 presents the classification of 48 studies, among which 31 are in the category of identity process or development, 15 are in the category of identity factors, and 2 are in the category of identity nature (see Table  4 ).

Identity process or development

Studies on science teacher identity development or process covered different teaching stages of the teacher’s career, including 16 studies with preservice teachers, 9 studies with in-service teachers, and 7 studies with both preservice and in-service teachers. Four major themes characterized findings from these studies: (1) significance of experiences or stories for science teacher identity formation; (2) development of social justice and equity-oriented science teacher identity; (3) science teacher identity development in specific contexts; and (4) transitions and tensions among science teachers’ multiple identities.

Theme 1: Significance of experiences or stories for science teacher identity formation

Avraamidou’s series of studies and other studies influenced by these studies had findings situated within this theme (Avraamidou, 2014b , 2016b , c , 2019 ; Carrier et al., 2017 ; Ibourk, 2021 ). Each of these studies focused on preservice science teachers, particularly elementary preservice science teachers. The main aims of these studies were to trace or describe the sequential events and experiences that teacher candidates had over time in a variety of contexts, and to examine how these stories or experiences shaped the preservice science teachers’ identities. These studies collected stories of teachers at different time points, including from their childhood outside of school, as a science learner at school, and during their teacher preparation programs as prospective teachers, which were nestled within different contexts, such as the home, school, and university. Various qualitative analytical frameworks were used to analyze the prominent experiences and stories, resulting in the following major findings on science teacher identity formation:

Teachers’ life histories or experiences in relation to science shape their identities.

Teacher preparation programs are critical in shaping preservice science teachers’ identities.

Emotional factors or affective domains associated with science experiences are also important for science teachers’ identity development and redevelopment.

When teachers encounter negative experiences, their agency also plays a critical role in constructing their identities.

The above findings on science teacher identity development or process suggest that the nature of science teacher identity is situated, historical, relational, multi-dimensional, social, and contextual (Avraamidou, 2019 ; Ibourk, 2021 ). Some limiting factors such as traditional schooling and stereotypical images of scientists (Carrier et al., 2017 ), as well as driving factors, like exposure to reform-minded strategies and understandings about science teaching (Avraamidou, 2014b ), were also identified.

Studies focusing on identity development or process also examined how specific or certain experiences contribute to the development of science teacher identity. For instance, Naidoo ( 2017 ) explored the ways science teacher identity was influenced by experiences in a science methods course. Hathcock et al. ( 2020 ) focused on science teacher experiences during a professional development project, whereas Siry and Lara ( 2012 ) did so during a collaborative field-based course. In addition, Moore ( 2008b ) highlighted the roles of reflection and positionality in the identity formation process. These studies reached the following main conclusions:

Science teacher identity development is an ongoing process of producing, reproducing, and transforming.

The frictions or tensions between teachers’ existing identities and new identity components are opportunities for their identity change or transformation.

Social practice—such as participation in professional development projects, field work, and reflection—leads to identity transformation.

Prior beliefs and epistemological perspectives are important resources for science teachers to develop their science teacher identities.

Theme 2: Development of social justice and equity-oriented science teacher identity

Studies in this theme involved a specific group of science teachers, such as Teachers of Color, in a specific context, such as urban schools. The focus was on how science teachers developed identity and agency with social justice orientations to challenge and transform the constraining structures within their contexts. For example, Chen and Mensah ( 2022 ) examined the ways two elementary science Teachers of Color developed their identities as they participated in science professional development and how they individually and collectively engaged their agency to prioritize science within and against the structural constraints that marginalized science in their schools. Varelas et al. ( 2023 ) explored how new science Teachers of Color in urban schools embraced equity and excellence in various ways as their science teacher identities were shaped and reshaped while learning to teach. Both Olitsky ( 2020 ) and Rivera Maulucci ( 2013 ) examined the role of emotions in forming science teacher identities, with a commitment to social justice and equity. Olitsky ( 2021 ) highlighted the important mediating role of internal conversations by which science and math teachers in high-needs urban schools developed a sense of professional identity, agency, and group membership in the context of instructional reform. The major findings of studies in this theme were:

Science teachers’ multiple identities and histories of larger institutions and structures (e.g., science, schooling, and society) are intertwined, providing the background for science teacher identity development with social justice and equity orientations towards science and science teaching.

In seeking social justice and equity orientations towards science and science teaching, science teachers may experience identity conflicts.

The dialectical relationship between structure and agency is an integral part of science teacher identity construction.

Some strategies, such as legitimate science knowledge production and the design of science professional development, are effective in enabling teachers to enact their agency to develop their science teacher identities.

Emotions and self-talk play integral roles in science teacher identity for social justice and equity.

Theme 3: Science teacher identity development in specific contexts

Studies within this third theme examined science teacher identity development in specific contexts. For example, Munfaridah et al. ( 2022 ) examined the development of preservice physics teachers’ physics identities through a specially designed course that incorporated multiple representations, such as pictures, diagrams, equations, and verbal reasoning, during problem-based lessons in Indonesia. Wei et al. ( 2021 ) explored how the constraints of the school context and one’s personal dispositions, such as approach to practical work, influenced a beginning physics teacher’s identity development during the first 2 years of his teaching career in China. In the U.S., Coddington and Swanson ( 2019 ) explored the influence of various classroom contexts and early field experiences on preservice teachers’ identity development and future career decisions. Also in the U.S., Katz et al. ( 2011 ) investigated whether an experience in an out-of-school context, an afterschool science education program, could develop teacher candidates’ professional identities in ways that complement and enhance their identity development from experiences in formal school settings. The major findings of studies in this theme are:

Context impacts science teacher identity formation.

Practical experience is integral to the formation of a science teacher’s identity.

Prior experiences impact science teacher identity.

Learning in various internship placements is a process of constructing science teacher identity.

Interaction with others, such as teacher colleagues, students, and curriculum materials, is an important means to develop science teacher identity.

Self-reflection is also essential for identity development.

Internship programs, whether in- or out-of-school, afford preservice science teachers the opportunity and space to compare their personal identities to standard, model, or ideal identities.

Theme 4: Transitions and tensions among science teachers’ multiple identities

Studies within the fourth theme had two distinct foci: the transformation of science teacher identity and the negotiation of multiple identities. Studies identified various ways to promote the transformation of other identities into a science teacher identity (Akerson et al., 2014 ; Proweller & Mitchener, 2004 ; Shwartz & Dori, 2020 ; Wilson & Deaney, 2010 ). For example, in Israel, Shwartz and Dori ( 2020 ) showed which identity resources could be perceived as supportive in the identity transformation process from chemistry scientists to chemistry teachers. In the U.S., Akerson et al. ( 2014 ) explored the development of professional identity as a teacher of the nature of science (NOS) from a university science methods course professor to an elementary science teacher. Wilson and Deaney ( 2010 ) focused on how a science teacher in the United Kingdom stepped away from a previous career as a biochemical engineering program manager to be a science teacher and ultimately resigned from her first teaching post. The major findings of these studies were:

The development of science teacher identity is influenced both by personal and contextual factors.

The transformation of science teacher identity is an ongoing interpretation and reinterpretation process that involves agency to drive identity changes.

The social construction of role identity in work contexts is about acting out an expected science teacher role, including self-verification, and being recognized by others as a professional teacher.

Identity transformation requires supportive resources and contexts, such as science coursework and field experiences.

A previous career is an essential part of TPI. There are competing identities, and teachers resolve identity conflicts through prioritizing different identities.

The desire to contribute to society and future visions as science teachers foster TPI transitions.

Studies in this fourth theme also examined the negotiation of multiple identities. For example, Marco-Bujosa et al. ( 2020 ) explored how the context of a bilingual elementary school for students who are Deaf in the U.S. influenced the science teaching identity of one elementary classroom teacher as she transitioned to the role of science specialist. In New Zealand, Edwards and Edwards ( 2017 ) explored the identity formation of a science teacher who was embedded in two cultures simultaneously, that of indigenous Māori and English. Varelas et al. ( 2005 ) explored how beginning teachers, in the U.S., are immersed in science as both scientists and science teachers. The major findings of these studies are:

Teachers may experience conflict among different identities, and these various identities need to be reconciled or negotiated.

Collaboration and social interaction influence teacher identity formation.

Personal histories contribute to science teacher identity formation.

Identity factors

Among the 15 studies with an emphasis on identity factors, 8 involved preservice teachers, and 7 involved in-service teachers. For preservice science teacher identity, the following were major study findings:

Subject matter knowledge and subject-specific pedagogy knowledge benefit preservice science teacher identity development.

The nature or characteristics of teaching preparation programs, including formal and informal contexts, are important factors impacting science teacher identity.

Preservice science teachers’ identity development is furthered through engaged working and learning with peers, network formation, interpersonal relationships, and participation in reflexive discussions.

Impact factors include belonging in a community and valuing science as a subject, along with teachers’ affinities related to science and their gender identities.

For in-service teachers, Luehmann ( 2008a , b ) and Luehmann and Tinelli ( 2008 ) found that science teacher identity was impacted by teachers’ self-narratives and confirmation of these narratives by others. The multiple identities of racially and culturally minoritized in-service teachers (Allaire, 2013 ; Upadhyay, 2009 ) and external tensions, such as high-stakes testing environments (Upadhyay, 2009 ) in the U.S., also impacted identity development.

Identity nature

Two studies focused on the nature of identity. In Chile, Silva et al. ( 2021 ) analyzed the continuing education experiences of teachers participating in a summer camp and the effects of this experience on TPI. The study identified two dimensions of TPI, personal and contextual, in teachers’ reflective journal narratives. Specifically, the personal dimension of TPI had more categories than the contextual dimension of TPI and included self-perception (which can play both negative and positive roles), self-definition as a teacher, and the significance of their role in the education community. The contextual dimension included professional teaching performance and the difficulties of working in adverse political or institutional settings.

The Badia and Iglesias ( 2019 ) study had two aims: to understand the relationship among different components of identity, and to describe types of science teacher identities. Based on a survey conducted with 104 high school science teachers in Utah, U.S., there were strong correlations among teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning, conceptions of NOS, feelings about technology, competency in using technology, and frequency of classroom technology use. Specifically, through a hierarchical cluster analysis, three clusters of teacher identity were identified: agreeing with constructivism-disagreeing with instructivism, strongly agreeing with constructivism-strongly disagreeing with instructivism, and strongly agreeing with constructivism-undecided about instructivism. Badia and Iglesias concluded that studying science teacher identity using various interrelated components is a more powerful way of understanding science teachers and their science teaching than focusing solely on one component.

In Avraamidou’s ( 2014a ) review of research on science teacher identity, several areas for future research were identified. In the following discussion, we reflect on the progress made in these areas and the questions that remain open.

Studying science teacher identity as a process

As Avraamidou ( 2014a ) pointed out, it is important to view teacher identity as a dynamic, evolving construct and focus on teacher identity formation and development. Over the past two decades, many studies have focused on the development of science teacher identity. Among the 48 articles reviewed in this study, 31 were concerned with the identity development process, with 20 of them published after 2013. With the goal of establishing a common understanding about the process, studies have examined factors, variables, contexts, and experiences that impact science teacher identity development.

The findings of these studies shed light on several key aspects: first, teachers’ experiences or stories, such as those of their teacher preparation programs, practical experiences, previous careers, life histories in relation to science, and affective domains associated with science experiences, are critical in shaping science teachers’ identities. That is, they should be viewed as important assets to be leveraged in opportunities for science teacher identity development. Second, learning, participation, and interactions with others in communities are part of the process of constructing science teacher identity. Third, the formation of science teacher identity is a process of agency; it is an ongoing interpretation and reinterpretation process.

Theoretical frameworks of identity

In this section, we respond to Avraamidou’s ( 2014a ) critical inquiry: “ What theoretical frameworks and what theories of identity are most appropriate in educational research, and specifically in science education ?” (pp. 166–167, emphasis in original), but in relation to theoretical frameworks used in the science teacher identity studies reviewed. Studies with explicit theoretical frameworks have referenced Lave and Wenger’s ( 1991 ) situated learning and Wenger’s ( 1998 ) CoP theories, Gee’s ( 2000 ) sociocultural theory, Holland et al.’s ( 1998 ) identity and agency in cultural, figured worlds theory, and social psychology theories of identity that have sociological underpinnings (e.g., Kagan, 1992 ; Stryker & Burke, 2000 ; Stryker & Serpe, 1994 ). By considering the interplay among contexts, environments, personal values, behaviors, beliefs, social interactions, these frameworks are useful for understanding the complexities of identity formation.

Nevertheless, our review reveals the need for clarity in theoretical frameworks, which entails explicit mention and precise descriptions of these frameworks, constructs, and relationships among the constructs, in studies of science teacher identity. Although science teacher identity is unique from general teacher identity or teacher identity of other subjects (Feser & Haak, 2023 ), there is a need for theoretical frameworks of science teacher identity to make these distinctions, particularly regarding which aspects align with or diverge from general TPI. Currently, science teacher identity studies build from theories of identity in general or TPI. There is a need for studies to consider what aspects are unique to theories of science teacher identity and to use their empirical findings to contribute towards elaborations of the theoretical frameworks in more nuanced ways. Thus, we wonder, what intricacies might emerge from theorizing and studying disciplinary or interdisciplinary science teacher identities, including biology or STEM teacher identities, as well as the relationships of science teachers’ science identities or math identities in relation to their general science teacher identities or disciplinary science teacher identities, as in biology or physics? Suarez and McGrath ( 2022 ) argue that there is a gap in how collective TPI can be developed and strengthened, to allow certain communities to have greater identification and feelings of belonging, and in this sense, future theoretical framings should also consider how personal identities are related to a collective science teacher identity.

Though we agree that science teacher identity should be viewed as a process, we also push back against dichotomous lenses that see science teacher identity as only a process or only an attribute, and that only one of the two can be true. As with Wenger ( 1998 ), we recognize that identity is “not merely a category, a personality trait, a role, or a label” (p. 163). Yet, we believe science teacher identity can be conceptualized as both a process and can also be considered as an outcome in a particular moment in time, much like Darragh ( 2016 ) who frames this interpretation as putting on a bifocal lens as she asks, “Can we combine the action and acquisition views of identity?” (p. 28). In these ways, process and product views of science teacher identity do not need to be in contradiction.

Moreover, the overarching focus in the theoretical frameworks in science teacher identity studies remains on the individual science teacher and their agency, which are important. However, we believe that more attention can be paid to the interplay of agency in relation to these structures, without neglecting structure. This emphasis, which is also common in studies of students’ science identities (Danielsson et al., 2023 ; Shanahan, 2009 ), speaks in part to other arguments on the need to attend to group level processes, memberships, and affinities and their roles in relation to the individual identities of science teachers (Rushton & Reiss, 2021 ). Yet, it is important to go beyond only social groupings and affinities to explore the historical, political, economic, and sociocultural contexts, and for theoretical frameworks to attend to micro-, meso-, and macro-levels and the relations among them.

Currently, frameworks emphasize the micro-level, with less attention towards their relationships with the meso- and macro-levels. More exploration is needed to explain how these macro-structures are formed and develop over time, recognizing that society and what it means to teach will also shift across time scales and places. As Burke and Stets ( 2023 ) state, future studies “can utilize the full integration of the theory to better understand the nature of the links between society and the individual, and between the social structure and the self, including all its contained identities” (p. 238). Frameworks should consider how person identities are related to role and group identities, which in turn are “nested within broader social structures such as the structural divisions in society, for example, gender and racial/ethnic divisions,” and these frameworks should attend to “prestige, power, and resources,” which contribute to the stratification of society (Burke & Stets, 2023 , p. 242).

Such lenses are important to move beyond only teachers responding to and navigating various tensions as they manifest at the individual and local levels, to exploring how individual teacher actions and performances, in connection with other educational system stakeholders, either transform or reproduce these structures at different levels, including norms, expectations, and policies for the science teaching profession. As Shanahan ( 2009 ) remarks, “There is yet to be broad attention to the actions of students, teachers, parents, and administrators that create and make these real norms. We understand that these norms exist but have not thoroughly explored how and why they emerge” (p. 61). With renewed attention to articulating each of these levels in theoretical frameworks, onus is not solely centered on science teachers. Instead, responsibility is distributed across the education system to not only create supportive mechanisms that promote science teacher agency and autonomy but to also redesign more just, equitable education systems and societies that allow science teachers to authentically enact reform-oriented beliefs without conflict.

Reflecting on the theoretical frameworks of the reviewed studies underscored for us how imperative it is for researchers to revisit the original texts of the theoretical frameworks, which they cite and use in their studies. As Stets et al., ( 2020 ) remark, to apply the “tools and techniques” of identity theory or any theory “requires a full understanding of the whole theory—its background, its development, and what it is attempting to explain”, because a theory “has a perspective” and is “more than just a set of definitions, propositions, and scope conditions” (pp. 209–210). In essence, when the “whole of a theory is not examined, it makes interpretations even more precarious. This halts scientific progress for the research community” (Stets et al., 2020 , p. 210).

Researchers need to revisit these theories in full to recognize how some aspects are underutilized or misunderstood. For example, Gee ( 2000 ) recognized the socially constructed nature of race and gender, such that they should not be considered in essentialist or reductionist ways as they sometimes are when interpreted as static, genetic categories of Nature-Identities; the social construction framing has potential for exploring the nuances of science teacher identities of Teachers of Color and gender-minoritized teachers in various contexts. For studying identities and positioning, researchers can move beyond Holland et al. ( 1998 ), to reviewing some of the positioning theory work, whom they cite, of Harré, Davies, and Van Langenhove; doing so will reveal more complexities in structures shaping positioning and more types of positioning that can be useful for conceptualizing science teacher identity. Wenger ( 1998 ) offers different learning and identity trajectories, such as peripheral, inbound, insider, and boundary, considers the “nexus of multimembership” and “reconciliation” (p. 158), and the local–global interplay, yet these aspects of CoP are underexplored in the extant science teacher identity literature. While mentioning cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), which like Shanahan ( 2009 ), we view is a fruitful theoretical framework for use in future studies due to its ability to connect multiple levels of analysis, Naidoo ( 2017 ) did not reference Cole, Engeström, Leontiev, and Vygotsky, whose work contributed to CHAT, nor attend to the subject, object, rules, community, and division of labor components of the theory. Overall, researchers should more fully explore the theoretical frameworks they cite to recognize and utilize their full affordances, and should explore identity theories in other disciplinary traditions, which might also reveal new insights.

Connecting science teacher identity research and reform recommendations

Some of the reviewed studies have addressed the intersection between science teacher identity and reform recommendations. For example, scientific inquiry emerged as a central component of science teacher identity (Avraamidou, 2014b ). Research has identified various factors that contribute to reform-oriented practices and the construction of science teacher identity, such as cultural context, social support, the relationship between personal and institutional identities, exposure to reform strategies in action, engagement in structured inquiry during teacher preparation programs, participation in science content courses and science practices, diverse teaching and work experiences, PCK development, learning orientations, past school experiences, social networks, and information technology (Carrier et al., 2017 ; Eick & Reed, 2002 ; Luehmann & Tinelli, 2008 ; Saka et al., 2013 ).

Beginning science teachers face challenges in the process of constructing their identities, including the close relationship between practical work and science inquiry, the accountability policies of educational institutions or governments, constraints imposed by textbooks and testing structures, as well as limited teaching time. They also experience tensions, such as conflicts between existing and desired professional selves, embracing elements of a “scientist identity,” integrating reform-oriented teaching practices into their identities, conflicting perceptions of science teaching, and the complexity of the teaching profession (Carrier et al., 2017 ; Danielowich, 2012 ; Katz et al., 2011 ; Wei et al., 2021 ). For in-service science teachers, Olitsky ( 2021 ) suggested that promoting teacher autonomy and providing support can help foster their reform-minded identities in practice.

Several reviewed studies focused on social justice and equity-oriented reform agendas. Notably, significant attention is devoted to the experiences of racially/ethnically and gender minoritized teachers in this category of research, acknowledging the distinctive challenges and opportunities they encounter throughout their professional journeys. This body of research explores the experiences of Teachers of Color, in teaching contexts rife with tensions and contradictions, and their navigation of the complex interplay between structures and agency. These studies have examined the multifaceted processes by which Teachers of Color construct their science teacher identities and strive for social justice and equity (Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Moore, 2008a ; Olitsky, 2020 ; Varelas et al., 2023 ), thereby revealing the complex interaction of personal experiences, social interactions, and systemic factors that influence science teacher identity formation.

Despite the progress made, there is still a significant need for further research on the construction of science teacher identity associated with more recent reforms, such as the implementation of the Next Generation of Science Standards (NRC, 2013 ) in the U.S. and the rise of global STEM education reform movements (Liu & Wang, 2023 ; NRC, 2014 ), while recognizing that these reform contexts have changed and will continue to change over time. What it means to be a “reform-minded science teacher” will vary across and within cultures and countries, over time, space, and place, and these nuances must also be considered. Thus, it is necessary to not only address the challenges faced by preservice and in-service teachers in constructing their identities within the contexts of these recent science education reforms but also to examine the dynamics and resolutions in developing their science teacher identities over time, throughout waves of reform, that might carry different meanings across stakeholders and education systems with various priorities. Notably, science teacher identity of veteran science teachers, in relation to these reforms in particular, is an area in need of further exploration. These studies will offer insights into effective strategies for retaining science teachers and facilitating the cultivation of their reform-oriented identities across longitudinal trajectories.

Conducting large-scale, longitudinal, and life-history studies

Several studies used longitudinal, ethnographic methods to investigate science teacher identity trajectories (Avraamidou, 2014b , 2016b , c , 2019 ; Munfaridah et al., 2022 ; Wei et al., 2021 ). These studies identified key factors, such as teachers’ life histories in relation to science; engagement in scientific inquiry teaching or fieldwork; relationships with family members, instructors, and fellow teachers; and considerations of gender, desires, and emotions related to science. In addition, teacher preparation programs, classroom environments, and pre-existing identities play crucial roles in shaping science teacher identity development (Avraamidou, 2014b , 2016b , c , 2019 ). These studies affirm the situated, historical, relational, and multidimensional nature of science teacher identity and discuss how various sub-identities influence it. The relationships between science teacher identity and other identities, such as teachers’ science, personal, and collective identities, deserve more research as well.

Several studies collected longitudinal data to capture the process of science teacher identity development and formation (Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Ibourk, 2021 ; Olitsky, 2020 , 2021 ; Proweller & Mitchener, 2004 ; Saka et al., 2013 ; Varelas et al., 2005 ). These studies tracked participants through interviews, written reflections, field notes, questionnaires, and other means. Collectively, these studies provide valuable insights into the complex process of science teacher identity development and highlight the significance of various factors and contexts in this process. Future longitudinal studies can follow science teachers throughout their preservice teacher education, induction, and remainder of their careers, to extend beyond these previous longitudinal studies, which span no more than 4 years.

The majority of longitudinal and life-history studies involved qualitative research designs with relatively small samples. There is still a scarcity of large-scale, quantitative research studies that track the long-term development and shifts in science teacher identity as well as the factors that influence this process. More research is needed to address this gap. For example, it is necessary to conduct large-scale, longitudinal studies that measure the sustained effects of initiatives aimed at promoting and sustaining science teacher identity development. In order to do this, valid, reliable, and fair measurement instruments are needed. Prior to the development of such instruments, clear conceptualizations and definitions of science teacher identity are necessary, which currently remain unavailable. As our scoping review demonstrated, there remains much ambiguity in studies of science teacher identity, with implicit theoretical frameworks and definitions of science teacher identity. While science teacher identity is indubitably a complex construct, our review results usher a clarion call for identity researchers to be explicit in stating their theoretical frameworks and definitions of science teacher identity and to ensure more coherence and consistency in employment of these lenses and terms throughout their studies. Future research should help define and map the domains and characteristics of science teacher identity and how they relate to each other.

Examining teacher identity enactment in school classrooms

Studies have examined science teacher identity enactment in school classrooms, such as from NOS (Akerson et al., 2014 ), curriculum (Forbes & Davis, 2008 ), and the dual roles of science teacher and scientist (Varelas et al., 2005 ) perspectives. Furthermore, researchers have identified factors influencing science teachers’ entry into teaching, particularly for preservice teachers (Madden & Wiebe, 2015 ; Munfaridah et al., 2022 ). With a focus on novice teachers, these studies add to the existing literature on the interplay between the construction of science teacher identity and its connection to practice, as highlighted by Avraamidou ( 2014a ). In addition, attention has been given to the constraints encountered during the process of science teacher identity development and transformation in the classroom (Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Saka et al., 2013 ; Upadhyay, 2009 ).

Studies have suggested that conceptions, personal philosophies, and strategies of science teaching should be considered components of science teacher identity (Akerson et al., 2014 ; Avraamidou, 2019 ; Badia & Iglesias, 2019 ). By examining the interaction between science teacher identity and science teaching, these studies revealed multiple factors at the individual level contributing to the construction and transformation of science teacher identity in practical contexts, such as a teacher’s other identities and personal characteristics, prior experiences, ongoing interpretation of practical work experiences, sense of agency, collaboration with others, group affiliations, and accompanying emotions (Akerson et al., 2014 ; Allaire, 2013 ; Avraamidou, 2016b ; Carrier et al., 2017 ; Coddington & Swanson, 2019 ; Hathcock et al., 2020 ; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020 ; Munfaridah et al., 2022 ; Saka et al., 2013 ; Siry & Lara, 2012 ; Wei et al., 2021 ; Wilson et al., 2015 ).

Simultaneously, science teacher identity also affects science teaching. Teachers’ identities as science teachers influence how and why they teach science and shape the relationships they develop with students (Madden & Wiebe, 2015 ; Moore, 2008b ). In enacting science teacher identity, negative factors have been identified, including conflicting images of imagined and actual science teaching; dissonance between normative identity and personal identity; and ineffective, marginalizing experiences contributing to professional dissatisfaction, emotional exhaustion, and identity isolation (Carrier et al., 2017 ; Coddington & Swanson, 2019 ; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020 ; Saka et al., 2013 ).

Significant institutional or contextual factors, that either facilitate or impede the construction and transformation of science teacher identity in practical contexts, include recognition from others and institutions, discourses from other key individuals, and the cultural context and contextual constraints surrounding science instruction (Carrier et al., 2017 ; Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Proweller & Mitchener, 2004 ; Saka et al., 2013 ; Siry & Lara, 2012 ; Upadhyay, 2009 ; Wei et al., 2021 ). Factors that impose constraints on science teacher identity construction and transformation include schools prioritizing high-stakes testing as the predominant measure of teacher and student success, the devaluation of activity-based and participatory science teaching approaches, and the challenges faced by science teachers working in schooling systems that marginalize high quality science teaching for students of color by catering to high-stakes accountability and testing pressures (Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Saka et al., 2013 ; Upadhyay, 2009 ).

Factors facilitating the formation and evolution of science teacher identity include engaging in effective self-talk, actively participating in reflexive practices within the classroom context, cultivating a cultural identity and acquiring relevant school-based knowledge, fostering a critical lens highlighting social justice, the presence of social support systems, and expanded agency and autonomy of science teachers (Olitsky, 2021 ; Proweller & Mitchener, 2004 ; Saka et al., 2013 ; Siry & Lara, 2012 ; Wei et al., 2021 ). These factors collectively portray the complex, multifaceted process of science teacher identity development and transformation. It is within this dynamic ecosystem of teaching practice, where macro-, meso-, and micro-level factors interact and influence each other, that the construction and transformation of science teacher identity occur.

Much progress has been made in examining the enactment of science teacher identity within school classrooms. However, further investigations and expansion of this research focus are still warranted. While we found that more studies utilized observations in addition to interviews, these studies were in the minority, and often relied only on several planned observations of science instruction. Though these observations are important towards understanding science teaching enactment, they mainly offer snapshots of science teacher identity in process; there is a need for more ethnographic, extended observations and job shadowing that follow teachers throughout the academic year and across years and contexts. For example, we still need to know more about how science teachers embody their identities when they engage with different students in different learning contexts, such as teaching different science and STEM courses and after school science clubs, across their teaching careers. This examination can help elucidate the intricate dynamics of science teacher identity development, as well as similarities and differences of these dynamics across various classroom contexts. Similarly, the influence of various forms of science educator practice—such as coaching, advising, tutoring, mentorship, and teacher leadership—on shaping and transforming science teacher identity also necessitates further examination. Collectively, these studies would surface day-to-day nuances and complexities that are largely missing from the extant science teacher identity research base.

Understanding the role of various contexts on identity development

Extensive research has been conducted to explore the influence of specific contexts and their affordances and constraints on the development of science teacher identity. Studies have examined various contexts and science teacher identity development, including the formal school system (Blackmore et al., 2018 ; Coddington & Swanson, 2019 ; Danielsson & Warwick, 2014 ), teacher preparation and training programs, discipline courses, internship programs (Blackmore et al., 2018 ; Carrier et al., 2017 ; Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Woolhouse & Cochrane, 2015 ), different cultural contexts (Edwards & Edwards, 2017 ), urban schools in the U.S. (Varelas et al., 2023 ), and high-stakes testing environments (Upadhyay, 2009 ). These studies have produced valuable insights into the influence of different contexts on the development of science teacher identity.

The personal experiences of individuals as learners within the school system have a significant impact on their science teacher identity development (Blackmore et al., 2018 ; Danielsson & Warwick, 2014 ; Marco-Bujosa et al., 2020 ). Various training programs and courses provide opportunities for science teachers to explore and develop their identities. Essential factors fostering the development of science teacher identity include enhancing subject area knowledge and pedagogy, developing professional reflective practices, cultivating a sense of belonging with peers in a professional community, encouraging discussion, negotiating new policies, adopting professional language and practices, and observing other teachers (Blackmore et al., 2018 ; Carrier et al., 2017 ; Chen & Mensah, 2022 ; Danielsson & Warwick, 2014 ; Munfaridah et al., 2022 ; Proweller & Mitchener, 2004 ; Siry & Lara, 2012 ; Varelas et al., 2005 ; Wilson et al., 2015 ; Woolhouse & Cochrane, 2015 ).

Identities develop and manifest to different extents in different contexts. The interplay of multiple identities within individuals can potentially lead to conflicts or mutual reinforcement, and the prominence of a particular identity is influenced by the sociocultural contexts in which they are embedded (Allaire, 2013 ; Edwards & Edwards, 2017 ). In addition, specific contexts, such as urban schools serving predominantly minoritized students in the U.S. often introduce additional tensions in the construction of science teacher identities, as teachers try to enact their reform-oriented, moral visions of science teaching amidst the realities of testing and accountability pressures that counteract and narrow these ambitions and efforts (Saka et al., 2013 ). The interaction of personal agency, values, and beliefs are integral components of science teacher identity construction (Upadhyay, 2009 ; Varelas et al., 2023 ). While we advocate for efforts to support science teacher agency, through supportive buffers from marginalizing experiences, we recognize that this attention neither absolves us from a simultaneous, related responsibility to change inequitable systemic conditions under which science teachers teach, that create the need for these support systems to help teachers navigate the challenging contexts to remain in the profession. Thus, future designed-based research–practice partnerships should attend to designing supportive systems for science teachers that recognize their personal histories, characteristics, and identities as assets and opportunities for their science teacher identity formation and development.

Furthermore, several studies have investigated the role of informal science education, like afterschool informal science education internships (Katz et al., 2011 , 2013 ), as well as science camps (Silva et al., 2021 ), in facilitating the development of schoolteachers’ science teacher identities. Research has identified the significance of these experiences and relationships with families in shaping science teacher identity (Avraamidou, 2014b ; Carrier et al., 2017 ). Juxtaposed against formal education contexts, however, there is a scarcity of studies investigating the impacts of museums, family, and everyday life on science teacher identity development; more work can be done in this area (Adams & Gupta, 2017 ).

The objective of this scoping literature review was to identify pertinent empirical studies on science teacher identity to map out our current knowledge on this important research topic. Over the past two decades, there have been new insights into science teacher identity, related to the process of science teacher identity development, factors affecting science teacher identity formation and development, and the nature of science teacher identity. Although there are variations in the objectives, lenses, and methodologies employed across different studies, there is a strong consensus on the dynamic, complex, contextual, and process-oriented characteristics of science teacher identity, with various factors operating at different levels and influencing it.

However, our review’s findings reveal the ambiguity and implicit approaches that dominate conceptualizations of science teacher identity, and the need for more precise, explicit theoretical frameworks and definitions in these studies. This work is a prerequisite for developing valid, reliable, and fair instruments for science teacher identity, which is a related gap. Given the continuously evolving nature of science teacher identity, developing valid, reliable, and fair instruments to capture the relatively stable facets of science teacher identity at a given moment in a given context would greatly facilitate large-scale, longitudinal studies of science teacher identity development. Our scoping review revealed a dearth of such instruments and studies that can use representative samples to make causal inferences, arguments, and conclusions about cross-country educational systems, to better support the development of education policies (Suarez & McGrath, 2022 ). Through this essential work to address these gaps, we envision more mixed-methods studies and cross-cultural, international collaborations that dovetail synergistically to strengthen and build from a rapidly growing reservoir of foundational science teacher identity research.

Availability of data and materials

All supporting data generated or analyzed for this study are available upon request.

Abbreviations

Academic Search Complete

Communities of Practice

Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity

Elton B. Stephens Company

Education Resources Information Center

Nature of Science

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews

Social Identity Approach

Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine

Teacher Professional Identity

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Zhai, Y., Tripp, J. & Liu, X. Science teacher identity research: a scoping literature review. IJ STEM Ed 11 , 20 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-024-00481-8

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• Science teacher identity
• Preservice teacher education
• In-service teacher education
• Teacher learning and development
• Systematic literature review
• Scoping literature review

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Science and inquiry-based teaching and learning: a systematic review.

• Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa – Perú, Arequipa, Peru

The use of the inquiry-based instructional approach allows the development of research skills and construction of scientific knowledge. When coupled with effective teaching strategies, this approach allows for the modeling of the world's laws and theories with reality, thereby making science more accessible. The objective is to analyze the instructional models, subject areas, and developmental areas implemented by secondary school teachers in science education. After a systematic review of Web of Science, Scopus, and ERIC databases from 2013 to 2022, 51 articles were selected, which include qualitative, experimental, and descriptive works. The results indicate that teaching science has a tendency to achieve learning using scientific reasoning, with high expectations based on evidence, and a predisposition to the use of constructivism instructional models. The need for continuous teacher training to understand scientific knowledge and to master strategies for implementing open inquiry is emphasized. It is concluded that all studies focus on IBL, which encourages new ways of conducting science while considering the cyclic application processes. Similarly, the trend toward technology-based serious games, such as video, audio, and digital platforms, is becoming increasingly evident in current education, as is the drive to develop STEM methodologies.

1. Introduction

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) evaluates scientific competence carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) through assessments in the areas of reading, mathematics, and science competencies of adolescents aged 12 to 15 ( Amini and Sinaga, 2021 ). In this perspective, educational institutions in countries have made efforts to improve the quality of education, especially in the scientific literacy of students, creating tools and strategies for students to assume positive attitudes toward science ( Simamora et al., 2020 ). In this sense, scientific activities in the classroom should be dynamic, but teachers have not yet reached a consensus on what level of inquiry to use in teaching ( Berie et al., 2022 ). In this regard, we aim to analyze the models, competencies of scientific inquiry, and didactic applications in studies that implement and allow for the dynamization of the knowledge and scientific reasoning used in classroom processes ( Simamora et al., 2020 ). In this perspective, we need to expand our study to determine which instructional learning models in science are familiar to teachers, the thematic fields developed in classrooms, and the thematic development perspectives of practices, technology, and didactics in praxis.

Based on the results of PISA, in 2018 in the Peruvian context, only 404 points were achieved in relation to scientific competence, placing us at level 1a, demonstrating mastery of basic knowledge, simple explanations, identification of minimal causal relationships, which leads to low cognitive demand ( Perú Aprendizajes et al., 2022 ). Based on these findings, it is necessary to analyze teachers' experiences in relation to science teaching, to find a balance point to improve classroom practices that lead to efficient and sustainable research and understanding of phenomena. Only one Peruvian student, representing 0.8%, reached level 6, demonstrating the management of scientific ideas with evidence of mastery of conceptual, procedural, and epistemic content for decision-making ( Perú Aprendizajes et al., 2022 ). Just as they are transferring the information they learned in school to daily life ( Kinyota, 2020 ; Tuna and Seckin-Kapucu, 2022 ). Given this need, it is necessary to analyze other contexts in the use of approaches, strategies, and forms of intervention in the science classroom, which allow for the reconceptualization of teachers' practices.

In the systematic review of literature, an analysis of the academic performance of scientific literacy of Indonesian students was found, between 2012 and 2015 with a low level and much lower between 2015 and 2018, meaning that they did not manage to achieve the skills: (a) Explain phenomena, (b) evaluate and design investigations, and (c) interpret data based on scientific evidence ( Amini and Sinaga, 2021 ). Also, the analysis of the trend in the use of structured and confirmatory inquiries used by teachers to develop critical thinking and attitudes in the classroom ( Berie et al., 2022 ). The importance of didactic strategies and the use of the school laboratory in the development of sciences were found, where the implementation of technology is highly beneficial carried out from a playful perspective, making a differentiation of use between electronic, virtual, and remote laboratories ( Canchola-magdaleno and Suárez-medellín, 2022 ). Other studies include in their proposals the integration of digital technology through mobile phones to develop guided inquiry and open up a new scenario to the open one ( Liu et al., 2021 ), as an alternative for autonomous thinking. It was also confirmed in the documentary review that the most used instruction by teachers and students was that of inquiry in sciences ( Teig, 2021 ).

Within the gaps found, there is no evolution of inquiry-based learning with the capacity to generate scientific education in the classroom ( Liu et al., 2021 ), which allows capturing the interactions of students together with teachers to analyze the actions, didactic sequences, and observable strategic behaviors in the inquiry process used ( Teig, 2021 ). As well as approaching the analysis of scientific teaching in schools and its relationship with curricula ( Kinyota, 2020 ).

This study is relevant because it opens up new scenarios for science teaching and the scientific, didactic, and technological impact that the world is assuming for achieving learning from its internal and external measurements; that make it possible to apply strategies that allow the internalization of curricular contents, in a real way to face and solve science-based problems.

1.1. Scientific literacy in the PISA framework

Scientific literacy is related to science in daily activities, to build a logical framework that enhances scientific thinking and knowledge ( Alatli, 2020 ). This will be possible if the principles of: (1) Knowledge of the concepts and ideas of science; (2) understanding of the research process and the nature of how knowledge is obtained; and (3) awareness of the influence of scientific activities in the social context in which they are carried out and their effects are mobilized ( Simamora et al., 2020 ).

Scientific knowledge, scientific thinking, and attitudes toward science together form scientific literacy ( Miller, 1983 ). Therefore, the first one is centered on knowledge and understanding of scientific constructs to identify physical phenomena in the world; the second applies methods and principles of scientific inquiry, and the third verifies, respects logic, and considers assumptions and consequences ( Lieskovský and Sunyík, 2022 ). For its assessment of scientific competence in PISA, it is framed in the following dimensions: context, competencies, attitudes, and knowledge. In the case of the first dimension, it is important to start from the local, regional or national context, which requires some scientific knowledge. The second dimension requires explaining, designing, and interpreting, the third creating awareness and scientific utility, and the fourth requires an understanding of content, process, and epistemic knowledge ( Alatli, 2020 ). Its dynamicity depends directly on the model assumed by the teacher in basic education teaching.

1.2. Inquiry based instructional model of learning

The instructional model refers to the attitudes of students that they assume when solving a task with high cognitive participation ( Lee et al., 2015 ), which allows them to explain, predict, experiment, and make decisions with opportunities to investigate their own questions about science-based topics and problems ( Panjaitan and Siagian, 2020 ). The tendency in the analyzed literature is the use of the Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) model, with a student-centered and constructivist instructional approach ( Kaçar et al., 2021 ; Teig, 2021 ). This model allows for interpreting data, constructing models, or developing scientific explanations through a set of integrated activities that include experiments, integrating scientific knowledge and reasoning ( Kaçar et al., 2021 ; Teig, 2021 ).

Studies based on IBL, based on TIMSS and PISA assessments, classify three lines of research: (1) inquiry as an instructional approach that examines different types of inquiry information, such as student or teacher characteristics, to explain perceived classroom implementation, (2) inquiry as an instructional outcome that focuses on explaining differences in student inquiry outcomes, either as overall science performance or specific scientific inquiry skills, and (3) inquiry as both an instructional approach and outcome that focuses on the relationships between inquiry input, process, and output ( Teig, 2021 , p. 12).

Therefore, IBL develops science through the following phases: (1) initiating the inquiry process; (2) improving dialogue with students; (3) forming discussion groups; (4) clarifying misconceptions students have about materials, scientific research procedures, and attitudes; and (5) using student experiences to form new knowledge ( Odegaard et al., 2015 ). The inquiry activities involve planning, carrying out experimental steps, and proposing results ( Sutiani et al., 2021 ). These stages open up the development of thematic fields in science education, generating scientific competence, scientific reasoning, communicative focus, scientific practices, attitudes, and skills ( Martínez-Suárez, 2022 ).

Therefore, scientific competence relates to levels of abilities, knowledge, and attitudes; scientific practices allow for building school scientific models through modeling and argumentation, generating a positive and critical attitude toward science ( Alcalá and Maqueda, 2022 ); scientific reasoning depends on three specific forms of knowledge: knowledge of concepts, procedures, and epistemic knowledge to justify scientific claims ( Occelli and Valeiras, 2019 ).

The use of different constructivist-based learning methods, starting with a problem and emphasizing the process of creating information by students, using project-based learning, problem-based learning, cooperative learning, 5E and 7E models, among others ( Bogar, 2019 ), is important to evidence their use in the classroom. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the approaches, methods used by teachers, as well as the thematic fields of application developed to explain natural phenomena, scientific representations, didactics, and technologies that allow for communicating scientific concepts.

Given this openness of IBL in the educational field, it allows us to ask the following research questions:

RQ1: What are the instructional models of inquiry-based learning used in science teaching in secondary education?

RQ2: What are the thematic fields from the didactic and pedagogical perspective developed in the science classroom in secondary education that complement the IBL pedagogical approach in science used by teachers in secondary education?

RQ3: What are the educational contents modeled with constructivist methods in inquiry with practical, technological and didactic applications in secondary education?

2. Methods and resources

The study uses a systematic review research approach, utilizing the databases of Web of Science, Scopus, and ERIC for article search. The search for studies included in the analysis was conducted from July 4 to July 11, 2022, based on the defined protocol keywords. Articles were downloaded based on their title, abstract, and keywords from the databases and transferred to a matrix, where inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied. Once 51 documents were selected, the researchers conducted a reading phase to determine science models/methods, instructional design characteristics, educational content, technological and didactic applications based on science for high school students. Any disagreements were resolved through consensus.

The research process involved five stages: (1) establishing the criteria for selecting articles with a maximum publication date of 10 years, from 2013 to 2022, (2) determining the sources of information used in the study through online searches with Web of Science, Scopus, and ERIC, (3) selecting literature for review through keyword searches, (4) collecting data through EndNote X7 and Earlier and Publish or Perish, which were exported to Excel tables containing data on year, title, author name, and inquiry-based learning outcomes in secondary education, and (5) selecting data based on the article's information according to the experiences of inquiry-based learning in high school students. See Table 1 for a list of keywords and see Table 2 for validated search strings and see Figure 1 PRISMA method.

Table 1 . Descriptores.

Table 2 . Search strings in the databases.

Figure 1 . Flow diagram according to the PRISMA statement.

In this sense, the following criteria were delimited.

2.1. Inclusion criteria

Original scientific articles of open access published between 2013 and 2022, in English and Spanish, peer-reviewed, empirical, experimental, descriptive and qualitative articles, studies conducted in secondary education, inquiry-based learning, research developed in school environments where the participants were teachers or students, inquiry-based teaching, and science.

2.2. Exclusion criteria

Articles about students with learning difficulties, syndromes or disorders, studies on primary education, articles not published in education journals, doctoral theses.

To determine the scientific significance of the sample, some bibliometric parameters or indicators were analyzed, such as year of publication and country, obtaining the following results.

Regarding the year of publication, the sample ranges from 2014 to 2022, with 2019 and 2020 being the years of highest production, with 10 and 16 articles, respectively. That is to say, it is in the last 4 years where the majority of the articles on this topic are concentrated, which allows us to infer a growing interest in it. Figure 2 shows the distribution of articles over time.

Figure 2 . Publications by year.

The distribution of these studies by country is shown in Figure 3 . The variety of countries in which the research was carried out (33 countries) stands out in relation to the limited sample obtained, with the United States being the country with the highest number of publications found (7 articles), followed by the Netherlands (6 articles) and Indonesia (5 articles).

Figure 3 . Publications by country.

Based on the indicators proposed in the methodology, the results of the analyzed literature are presented:

RQ1: What are the thematic fields from the didactic and pedagogical perspective developed in the science classroom in secondary education that complement the IBL pedagogical approach in science used by teachers in secondary education?

The principles of constructivism are energized through hands-on learning, active and collaborative construction of knowledge, the relationship of learning with prior knowledge, and applicability in everyday life ( Rutten et al., 2015 ; Dagys, 2017 ; Rahmat and Chanunan, 2018 ), which are reflected in the classroom through different teaching models that the teacher only guides or accompanies the student. Upon examining the studies, all of them used IBL centered on the constructivist model, with the use of different types of structured, guided, and open inquiry, with the latter two being a trend in science education. Group models are found to a lesser extent. Finally, there is a growing demand for the game-based learning model, where STEM and virtual, electronic, and remote laboratories are used in teaching, and experiential learning ( Peters-Burton et al., 2015 ). It aims to generate scientific practices ( Musavi et al., 2018 ; Natale et al., 2021 ) by addressing environmental problems with responsible, reflexive citizenship, becoming agents of change ( Forbes et al., 2020 ). See Table 3 for more details.

Table 3 . Models of inquiry used in science teaching in secondary education.

From a pedagogical-didactic perspective, for the development of scientific thinking, the thematic field most addressed in studies refers to scientific reasoning, which opens up modeled educational practices that favor the affirmation and justification of what is learned. There is also a tendency toward scientific competencies that allow for modeling and understanding of processes to achieve knowledge and skills. Some studies prioritize scientific practices, attitudes, and skills that open up spaces for inquiry processes in science, where the student has a leading role. These pedagogical-didactic trends call for interest in the teaching and learning process not only from self-informed methods but also in the discursive aspect in classrooms ( Martínez-Suárez, 2022 , p. 17) (see Table 4 ).

Table 4 . Thematic fields in the science classroom in secondary education, from a pedagogical didactic perspective.

In the examined studies, the science area addresses various contents of the secondary school curriculum; but the greatest impact is grouped in the area of earth science and environment, which allows for the development of the thematic fields of competence and scientific reasoning, grouping 36 studies. Only 11 cover contents that address technological applications with authentic learning based on the use of laboratories, augmented reality, virtual reality, problem-solving, projects, experiments, and the use of platforms concentrated in the area of Science and Technology, which allow for reasoned reasoning, motivation, and cooperation in interactions. Finally, to a lesser extent, health science studies are located, which strengthen physical care and conservation of nature (see Table 5 ).

Table 5 . Modeling of educational contents based on inquiry with didactic and technological application in secondary education.

4. Discussion

The pedagogical approach in IBL is present in all studies of science education in secondary education, supported more frequently by the constructivism approach, which allows for the design of learning and active participation situations, with the student as the protagonist, where knowledge is constructed and sustained over time, in contrast to reality. Consistent with this statement, studies have found a level of appropriation of IBL approach by teachers, allowing for the development of skills to learn and solve problems autonomously and cooperatively ( Chairam et al., 2015 ; Dagys, 2017 ; Cairns, 2019 ; Kaçar et al., 2021 ), which allows for knowledge transfer ( Chen et al., 2019 ). Similarly, activism and game-based learning are evolving as potential instructional models. STEM methodology presents an interdisciplinary approach in areas of engineering, mathematics, science, art, and technology, to implement problem-based pedagogical actions that enable a high motivational, communicative, argumentative, and reflective critical positioning experience, seeking to change attitudes and commitment to the environment ( Musavi et al., 2018 ; Attard et al., 2021 ; Natale et al., 2021 ; Arztmann et al., 2022 ). Additionally, the use of laboratories allows for obtaining cognitive results, making learning more experiential in its execution. However, it is argued that there is a demand for appropriate and effective scaffolding techniques for inquiry processes ( Kinyota, 2020 ).

From a pedagogical and didactic perspective in teaching, thematic fields show a trend toward scientific reasoning, which is similarly reflected in the analysis of understanding scientific processes and the development of higher-order cognitive skills ( Cairns, 2019 ), with some efforts to achieve open inquiry that reflects the authenticity of science and encourages students to be active learners, resulting in effective implementation ( Rahmat and Chanunan, 2018 ; Lameras et al., 2021 ). Likewise, it is detected that teachers are aware that the student is the protagonist of learning, under the guidance of the teacher. Consistent with this perspective, an analysis of the curriculum is required to establish how knowledge, skills, and attitudes are promoted in science and how teachers integrate technological devices in the classroom ( Canchola-magdaleno and Suárez-medellín, 2022 ).

Regarding the content, it focuses on the area of earth science and the environment with an emphasis on scientific reasoning and competencies. Physics, biology, and chemistry are subjects that deal with the reactions and properties of substances, which require direct experiences, the use of laboratories, or virtual environments to understand the natural phenomena of the physical world, sustained with a focus on sciences. In this perspective, cognitive learning seeks to solve real problems within the framework of authentic learning to achieve the understanding of acquired knowledge ( Chairam et al., 2015 ; Putica and Trivic, 2016 ). Therefore, teachers face challenges and dilemmas when implementing scientific inquiry teaching in their classrooms ( Chen et al., 2019 ), but due to the lack of time and the handling of materials, methodologies, conceptual understanding of content, competencies, and motivation by teachers, this teaching can lead to routine and mechanical activities ( Correia and Harrison, 2019 ; Fitzgerald et al., 2019 ).

The findings of this systematic review highlight, firstly, the learning activities used that address different themes with a tendency toward the dominance of scientific reasoning and competency, emphasizing modeling as a scientific practice that manifests didactic intentionality to understand and explain natural phenomena. Consistent with the findings, it is argued that the design of different didactic materials and instructional procedures promotes motivation, interest, and commitment by effectively involving students in practice ( Chen et al., 2019 ; Kaçar et al., 2021 ). The second finding reports that it is timely to examine current models of professional development for science teachers, as the inquiry model requires time, preparation, and experience. In different studies, it has been found that teachers struggle to apply the instructional model or are unaware of the meaning of a deep understanding of the IBL model using any form or strategy ( Lee et al., 2015 ; Dagys, 2017 ; Fitzgerald et al., 2019 ) due to a lack of disciplinary and didactic mastery ( Alston et al., 2017 ). The third finding shows that scientific inquiry developed in most of the studies is structured and guided, with a tendency to migrate toward open inquiry. It focuses on promoting critical thinking, argumentation, and modeling for the development of scientific competency. Therefore, the use of game-based learning is recommended to enhance the use of laboratory ( Chairam et al., 2015 ; Romero-Ariza, 2017 ; Becker et al., 2020 ).

The contribution of this work revolves around the argument that teachers' practices in implementing school science are effective in their development and that the results are optimal for improving student performance. These practices are based on the IBL instructional model, which, together with different methodologies of the constructivist approach, allows for the mobilization of learning to authentic scenarios to activate motivation and interest in the sciences, with high commitment, creativity, and critical thinking. In this perspective, digital and intelligent technologies allow enhancing science education in the school curriculum, enabling motivation, engagement and effective learning results from the analysis of the literature on the use of games in science education, their potential and their connection with learning, highlighting the growing integration of digital and intelligent technologies in education to improve learning ( Kalogiannakis et al., 2021 ).

Finally, it is necessary to rethink teacher preparation for these new educational scenarios based on inquiry, with support for task preparation, appropriate methodology for the context, and the selection of content to bring them closer to reality ( Dagys, 2017 ). To this end, it is argued that it is necessary to continue exploring the impact of teachers' professional development, along with students' learning outcomes ( Chen et al., 2019 ).

Within the limitations, this study does not report an analysis of the types of inquiry, work, or inquiry strategies most commonly used, as this would be important to establish for future research. It would be important to conduct a qualitative cohort study that uses the methods that teachers in the classroom use to work on science, and to address the efforts and gaps that exist to face current challenges and trends in science teaching.

5. Conclusions

This study presents a qualitative summary of the results of 51 research studies on inquiry-based learning (IBL) in science education at the secondary level. In general, it can be concluded that the studies report that the IBL approach is worked from a constructivist perspective, and that teachers in their instructional interventions also show an increase toward approaches to learning based on games and activism. There is high heterogeneity in the models and interventions in science and technology education, which requires rigorous planning of the technological and physical tools to be used, and appropriate didactic intervention that denotes a high prevalence of scientific reasoning, as well as curricular interventions in earth science and environmental science content. Therefore, more empirical research is needed that reports on the observation of experiences in the classroom, the types of inquiry being developed, the modeling and scaffolding practices used by teachers in the classroom, as well as the approach and strategies they develop to teach science and detect strengths and weaknesses in their professional development. This is because the inquiry model requires time, preparation, and experience, and can open up ethnographic or narrative studies. The growing demand for education has driven the development of STEM methodologies and the use of games as educational tools. The trend toward technology-based serious games, such as video, audio, and digital platforms, is increasingly evident in current education.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

Study conception and design: FT-M, FR, KC, and DU. Data collection, analysis, and interpretation: DU and FR. Elaboration of the draft (first version): RM, FT-M, and FR. Critical revision of the article with important contributions to its intellectual content: FR, FT-M, RM, and DU. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research was funded by Universidad Nacional de San Agustín de Arequipa, UNSA - INVESTIGA, Faculty of Education Sciences within the framework of the project Serious Games to Promote Scientific Inquiry in Secondary School Students, grant number PI-007-2023-UNSA.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: inquiry-based learning, science, inquiry-based teaching, secondary education, systematic review

Citation: Urdanivia Alarcon DA, Talavera-Mendoza F, Rucano Paucar FH, Cayani Caceres KS and Machaca Viza R (2023) Science and inquiry-based teaching and learning: a systematic review. Front. Educ. 8:1170487. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2023.1170487

Received: 23 February 2023; Accepted: 13 April 2023; Published: 05 May 2023.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2023 Urdanivia Alarcon, Talavera-Mendoza, Rucano Paucar, Cayani Caceres and Machaca Viza. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Diego Antonio Urdanivia Alarcon, durdanivia@unsa.edu.pe

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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• v.21(3); Fall 2022

Literature Reviews, Theoretical Frameworks, and Conceptual Frameworks: An Introduction for New Biology Education Researchers

Julie a. luft.

† Department of Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science Education, Mary Frances Early College of Education, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-7124

Sophia Jeong

‡ Department of Teaching & Learning, College of Education & Human Ecology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210

Robert Idsardi

§ Department of Biology, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA 99004

Grant Gardner

∥ Department of Biology, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37132

Associated Data

To frame their work, biology education researchers need to consider the role of literature reviews, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual frameworks as critical elements of the research and writing process. However, these elements can be confusing for scholars new to education research. This Research Methods article is designed to provide an overview of each of these elements and delineate the purpose of each in the educational research process. We describe what biology education researchers should consider as they conduct literature reviews, identify theoretical frameworks, and construct conceptual frameworks. Clarifying these different components of educational research studies can be helpful to new biology education researchers and the biology education research community at large in situating their work in the broader scholarly literature.

INTRODUCTION

Discipline-based education research (DBER) involves the purposeful and situated study of teaching and learning in specific disciplinary areas ( Singer et al. , 2012 ). Studies in DBER are guided by research questions that reflect disciplines’ priorities and worldviews. Researchers can use quantitative data, qualitative data, or both to answer these research questions through a variety of methodological traditions. Across all methodologies, there are different methods associated with planning and conducting educational research studies that include the use of surveys, interviews, observations, artifacts, or instruments. Ensuring the coherence of these elements to the discipline’s perspective also involves situating the work in the broader scholarly literature. The tools for doing this include literature reviews, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual frameworks. However, the purpose and function of each of these elements is often confusing to new education researchers. The goal of this article is to introduce new biology education researchers to these three important elements important in DBER scholarship and the broader educational literature.

The first element we discuss is a review of research (literature reviews), which highlights the need for a specific research question, study problem, or topic of investigation. Literature reviews situate the relevance of the study within a topic and a field. The process may seem familiar to science researchers entering DBER fields, but new researchers may still struggle in conducting the review. Booth et al. (2016b) highlight some of the challenges novice education researchers face when conducting a review of literature. They point out that novice researchers struggle in deciding how to focus the review, determining the scope of articles needed in the review, and knowing how to be critical of the articles in the review. Overcoming these challenges (and others) can help novice researchers construct a sound literature review that can inform the design of the study and help ensure the work makes a contribution to the field.

The second and third highlighted elements are theoretical and conceptual frameworks. These guide biology education research (BER) studies, and may be less familiar to science researchers. These elements are important in shaping the construction of new knowledge. Theoretical frameworks offer a way to explain and interpret the studied phenomenon, while conceptual frameworks clarify assumptions about the studied phenomenon. Despite the importance of these constructs in educational research, biology educational researchers have noted the limited use of theoretical or conceptual frameworks in published work ( DeHaan, 2011 ; Dirks, 2011 ; Lo et al. , 2019 ). In reviewing articles published in CBE—Life Sciences Education ( LSE ) between 2015 and 2019, we found that fewer than 25% of the research articles had a theoretical or conceptual framework (see the Supplemental Information), and at times there was an inconsistent use of theoretical and conceptual frameworks. Clearly, these frameworks are challenging for published biology education researchers, which suggests the importance of providing some initial guidance to new biology education researchers.

Fortunately, educational researchers have increased their explicit use of these frameworks over time, and this is influencing educational research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. For instance, a quick search for theoretical or conceptual frameworks in the abstracts of articles in Educational Research Complete (a common database for educational research) in STEM fields demonstrates a dramatic change over the last 20 years: from only 778 articles published between 2000 and 2010 to 5703 articles published between 2010 and 2020, a more than sevenfold increase. Greater recognition of the importance of these frameworks is contributing to DBER authors being more explicit about such frameworks in their studies.

Collectively, literature reviews, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual frameworks work to guide methodological decisions and the elucidation of important findings. Each offers a different perspective on the problem of study and is an essential element in all forms of educational research. As new researchers seek to learn about these elements, they will find different resources, a variety of perspectives, and many suggestions about the construction and use of these elements. The wide range of available information can overwhelm the new researcher who just wants to learn the distinction between these elements or how to craft them adequately.

Our goal in writing this paper is not to offer specific advice about how to write these sections in scholarly work. Instead, we wanted to introduce these elements to those who are new to BER and who are interested in better distinguishing one from the other. In this paper, we share the purpose of each element in BER scholarship, along with important points on its construction. We also provide references for additional resources that may be beneficial to better understanding each element. Table 1 summarizes the key distinctions among these elements.

Comparison of literature reviews, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual reviews

This article is written for the new biology education researcher who is just learning about these different elements or for scientists looking to become more involved in BER. It is a result of our own work as science education and biology education researchers, whether as graduate students and postdoctoral scholars or newly hired and established faculty members. This is the article we wish had been available as we started to learn about these elements or discussed them with new educational researchers in biology.

LITERATURE REVIEWS

Purpose of a literature review.

A literature review is foundational to any research study in education or science. In education, a well-conceptualized and well-executed review provides a summary of the research that has already been done on a specific topic and identifies questions that remain to be answered, thus illustrating the current research project’s potential contribution to the field and the reasoning behind the methodological approach selected for the study ( Maxwell, 2012 ). BER is an evolving disciplinary area that is redefining areas of conceptual emphasis as well as orientations toward teaching and learning (e.g., Labov et al. , 2010 ; American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011 ; Nehm, 2019 ). As a result, building comprehensive, critical, purposeful, and concise literature reviews can be a challenge for new biology education researchers.

Building Literature Reviews

There are different ways to approach and construct a literature review. Booth et al. (2016a) provide an overview that includes, for example, scoping reviews, which are focused only on notable studies and use a basic method of analysis, and integrative reviews, which are the result of exhaustive literature searches across different genres. Underlying each of these different review processes are attention to the s earch process, a ppraisa l of articles, s ynthesis of the literature, and a nalysis: SALSA ( Booth et al. , 2016a ). This useful acronym can help the researcher focus on the process while building a specific type of review.

However, new educational researchers often have questions about literature reviews that are foundational to SALSA or other approaches. Common questions concern determining which literature pertains to the topic of study or the role of the literature review in the design of the study. This section addresses such questions broadly while providing general guidance for writing a narrative literature review that evaluates the most pertinent studies.

The literature review process should begin before the research is conducted. As Boote and Beile (2005 , p. 3) suggested, researchers should be “scholars before researchers.” They point out that having a good working knowledge of the proposed topic helps illuminate avenues of study. Some subject areas have a deep body of work to read and reflect upon, providing a strong foundation for developing the research question(s). For instance, the teaching and learning of evolution is an area of long-standing interest in the BER community, generating many studies (e.g., Perry et al. , 2008 ; Barnes and Brownell, 2016 ) and reviews of research (e.g., Sickel and Friedrichsen, 2013 ; Ziadie and Andrews, 2018 ). Emerging areas of BER include the affective domain, issues of transfer, and metacognition ( Singer et al. , 2012 ). Many studies in these areas are transdisciplinary and not always specific to biology education (e.g., Rodrigo-Peiris et al. , 2018 ; Kolpikova et al. , 2019 ). These newer areas may require reading outside BER; fortunately, summaries of some of these topics can be found in the Current Insights section of the LSE website.

In focusing on a specific problem within a broader research strand, a new researcher will likely need to examine research outside BER. Depending upon the area of study, the expanded reading list might involve a mix of BER, DBER, and educational research studies. Determining the scope of the reading is not always straightforward. A simple way to focus one’s reading is to create a “summary phrase” or “research nugget,” which is a very brief descriptive statement about the study. It should focus on the essence of the study, for example, “first-year nonmajor students’ understanding of evolution,” “metacognitive prompts to enhance learning during biochemistry,” or “instructors’ inquiry-based instructional practices after professional development programming.” This type of phrase should help a new researcher identify two or more areas to review that pertain to the study. Focusing on recent research in the last 5 years is a good first step. Additional studies can be identified by reading relevant works referenced in those articles. It is also important to read seminal studies that are more than 5 years old. Reading a range of studies should give the researcher the necessary command of the subject in order to suggest a research question.

Given that the research question(s) arise from the literature review, the review should also substantiate the selected methodological approach. The review and research question(s) guide the researcher in determining how to collect and analyze data. Often the methodological approach used in a study is selected to contribute knowledge that expands upon what has been published previously about the topic (see Institute of Education Sciences and National Science Foundation, 2013 ). An emerging topic of study may need an exploratory approach that allows for a description of the phenomenon and development of a potential theory. This could, but not necessarily, require a methodological approach that uses interviews, observations, surveys, or other instruments. An extensively studied topic may call for the additional understanding of specific factors or variables; this type of study would be well suited to a verification or a causal research design. These could entail a methodological approach that uses valid and reliable instruments, observations, or interviews to determine an effect in the studied event. In either of these examples, the researcher(s) may use a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods methodological approach.

Even with a good research question, there is still more reading to be done. The complexity and focus of the research question dictates the depth and breadth of the literature to be examined. Questions that connect multiple topics can require broad literature reviews. For instance, a study that explores the impact of a biology faculty learning community on the inquiry instruction of faculty could have the following review areas: learning communities among biology faculty, inquiry instruction among biology faculty, and inquiry instruction among biology faculty as a result of professional learning. Biology education researchers need to consider whether their literature review requires studies from different disciplines within or outside DBER. For the example given, it would be fruitful to look at research focused on learning communities with faculty in STEM fields or in general education fields that result in instructional change. It is important not to be too narrow or too broad when reading. When the conclusions of articles start to sound similar or no new insights are gained, the researcher likely has a good foundation for a literature review. This level of reading should allow the researcher to demonstrate a mastery in understanding the researched topic, explain the suitability of the proposed research approach, and point to the need for the refined research question(s).

The literature review should include the researcher’s evaluation and critique of the selected studies. A researcher may have a large collection of studies, but not all of the studies will follow standards important in the reporting of empirical work in the social sciences. The American Educational Research Association ( Duran et al. , 2006 ), for example, offers a general discussion about standards for such work: an adequate review of research informing the study, the existence of sound and appropriate data collection and analysis methods, and appropriate conclusions that do not overstep or underexplore the analyzed data. The Institute of Education Sciences and National Science Foundation (2013) also offer Common Guidelines for Education Research and Development that can be used to evaluate collected studies.

Because not all journals adhere to such standards, it is important that a researcher review each study to determine the quality of published research, per the guidelines suggested earlier. In some instances, the research may be fatally flawed. Examples of such flaws include data that do not pertain to the question, a lack of discussion about the data collection, poorly constructed instruments, or an inadequate analysis. These types of errors result in studies that are incomplete, error-laden, or inaccurate and should be excluded from the review. Most studies have limitations, and the author(s) often make them explicit. For instance, there may be an instructor effect, recognized bias in the analysis, or issues with the sample population. Limitations are usually addressed by the research team in some way to ensure a sound and acceptable research process. Occasionally, the limitations associated with the study can be significant and not addressed adequately, which leaves a consequential decision in the hands of the researcher. Providing critiques of studies in the literature review process gives the reader confidence that the researcher has carefully examined relevant work in preparation for the study and, ultimately, the manuscript.

A solid literature review clearly anchors the proposed study in the field and connects the research question(s), the methodological approach, and the discussion. Reviewing extant research leads to research questions that will contribute to what is known in the field. By summarizing what is known, the literature review points to what needs to be known, which in turn guides decisions about methodology. Finally, notable findings of the new study are discussed in reference to those described in the literature review.

Within published BER studies, literature reviews can be placed in different locations in an article. When included in the introductory section of the study, the first few paragraphs of the manuscript set the stage, with the literature review following the opening paragraphs. Cooper et al. (2019) illustrate this approach in their study of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). An introduction discussing the potential of CURES is followed by an analysis of the existing literature relevant to the design of CUREs that allows for novel student discoveries. Within this review, the authors point out contradictory findings among research on novel student discoveries. This clarifies the need for their study, which is described and highlighted through specific research aims.

A literature reviews can also make up a separate section in a paper. For example, the introduction to Todd et al. (2019) illustrates the need for their research topic by highlighting the potential of learning progressions (LPs) and suggesting that LPs may help mitigate learning loss in genetics. At the end of the introduction, the authors state their specific research questions. The review of literature following this opening section comprises two subsections. One focuses on learning loss in general and examines a variety of studies and meta-analyses from the disciplines of medical education, mathematics, and reading. The second section focuses specifically on LPs in genetics and highlights student learning in the midst of LPs. These separate reviews provide insights into the stated research question.

Suggestions and Advice

A well-conceptualized, comprehensive, and critical literature review reveals the understanding of the topic that the researcher brings to the study. Literature reviews should not be so big that there is no clear area of focus; nor should they be so narrow that no real research question arises. The task for a researcher is to craft an efficient literature review that offers a critical analysis of published work, articulates the need for the study, guides the methodological approach to the topic of study, and provides an adequate foundation for the discussion of the findings.

In our own writing of literature reviews, there are often many drafts. An early draft may seem well suited to the study because the need for and approach to the study are well described. However, as the results of the study are analyzed and findings begin to emerge, the existing literature review may be inadequate and need revision. The need for an expanded discussion about the research area can result in the inclusion of new studies that support the explanation of a potential finding. The literature review may also prove to be too broad. Refocusing on a specific area allows for more contemplation of a finding.

It should be noted that there are different types of literature reviews, and many books and articles have been written about the different ways to embark on these types of reviews. Among these different resources, the following may be helpful in considering how to refine the review process for scholarly journals:

• Booth, A., Sutton, A., & Papaioannou, D. (2016a). Systemic approaches to a successful literature review (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. This book addresses different types of literature reviews and offers important suggestions pertaining to defining the scope of the literature review and assessing extant studies.
• Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., Williams, J. M., Bizup, J., & Fitzgerald, W. T. (2016b). The craft of research (4th ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. This book can help the novice consider how to make the case for an area of study. While this book is not specifically about literature reviews, it offers suggestions about making the case for your study.
• Galvan, J. L., & Galvan, M. C. (2017). Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and behavioral sciences (7th ed.). Routledge. This book offers guidance on writing different types of literature reviews. For the novice researcher, there are useful suggestions for creating coherent literature reviews.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS

Purpose of theoretical frameworks.

As new education researchers may be less familiar with theoretical frameworks than with literature reviews, this discussion begins with an analogy. Envision a biologist, chemist, and physicist examining together the dramatic effect of a fog tsunami over the ocean. A biologist gazing at this phenomenon may be concerned with the effect of fog on various species. A chemist may be interested in the chemical composition of the fog as water vapor condenses around bits of salt. A physicist may be focused on the refraction of light to make fog appear to be “sitting” above the ocean. While observing the same “objective event,” the scientists are operating under different theoretical frameworks that provide a particular perspective or “lens” for the interpretation of the phenomenon. Each of these scientists brings specialized knowledge, experiences, and values to this phenomenon, and these influence the interpretation of the phenomenon. The scientists’ theoretical frameworks influence how they design and carry out their studies and interpret their data.

Within an educational study, a theoretical framework helps to explain a phenomenon through a particular lens and challenges and extends existing knowledge within the limitations of that lens. Theoretical frameworks are explicitly stated by an educational researcher in the paper’s framework, theory, or relevant literature section. The framework shapes the types of questions asked, guides the method by which data are collected and analyzed, and informs the discussion of the results of the study. It also reveals the researcher’s subjectivities, for example, values, social experience, and viewpoint ( Allen, 2017 ). It is essential that a novice researcher learn to explicitly state a theoretical framework, because all research questions are being asked from the researcher’s implicit or explicit assumptions of a phenomenon of interest ( Schwandt, 2000 ).

Selecting Theoretical Frameworks

Theoretical frameworks are one of the most contemplated elements in our work in educational research. In this section, we share three important considerations for new scholars selecting a theoretical framework.

The first step in identifying a theoretical framework involves reflecting on the phenomenon within the study and the assumptions aligned with the phenomenon. The phenomenon involves the studied event. There are many possibilities, for example, student learning, instructional approach, or group organization. A researcher holds assumptions about how the phenomenon will be effected, influenced, changed, or portrayed. It is ultimately the researcher’s assumption(s) about the phenomenon that aligns with a theoretical framework. An example can help illustrate how a researcher’s reflection on the phenomenon and acknowledgment of assumptions can result in the identification of a theoretical framework.

In our example, a biology education researcher may be interested in exploring how students’ learning of difficult biological concepts can be supported by the interactions of group members. The phenomenon of interest is the interactions among the peers, and the researcher assumes that more knowledgeable students are important in supporting the learning of the group. As a result, the researcher may draw on Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory of learning and development that is focused on the phenomenon of student learning in a social setting. This theory posits the critical nature of interactions among students and between students and teachers in the process of building knowledge. A researcher drawing upon this framework holds the assumption that learning is a dynamic social process involving questions and explanations among students in the classroom and that more knowledgeable peers play an important part in the process of building conceptual knowledge.

It is important to state at this point that there are many different theoretical frameworks. Some frameworks focus on learning and knowing, while other theoretical frameworks focus on equity, empowerment, or discourse. Some frameworks are well articulated, and others are still being refined. For a new researcher, it can be challenging to find a theoretical framework. Two of the best ways to look for theoretical frameworks is through published works that highlight different frameworks.

When a theoretical framework is selected, it should clearly connect to all parts of the study. The framework should augment the study by adding a perspective that provides greater insights into the phenomenon. It should clearly align with the studies described in the literature review. For instance, a framework focused on learning would correspond to research that reported different learning outcomes for similar studies. The methods for data collection and analysis should also correspond to the framework. For instance, a study about instructional interventions could use a theoretical framework concerned with learning and could collect data about the effect of the intervention on what is learned. When the data are analyzed, the theoretical framework should provide added meaning to the findings, and the findings should align with the theoretical framework.

A study by Jensen and Lawson (2011) provides an example of how a theoretical framework connects different parts of the study. They compared undergraduate biology students in heterogeneous and homogeneous groups over the course of a semester. Jensen and Lawson (2011) assumed that learning involved collaboration and more knowledgeable peers, which made Vygotsky’s (1978) theory a good fit for their study. They predicted that students in heterogeneous groups would experience greater improvement in their reasoning abilities and science achievements with much of the learning guided by the more knowledgeable peers.

In the enactment of the study, they collected data about the instruction in traditional and inquiry-oriented classes, while the students worked in homogeneous or heterogeneous groups. To determine the effect of working in groups, the authors also measured students’ reasoning abilities and achievement. Each data-collection and analysis decision connected to understanding the influence of collaborative work.

Their findings highlighted aspects of Vygotsky’s (1978) theory of learning. One finding, for instance, posited that inquiry instruction, as a whole, resulted in reasoning and achievement gains. This links to Vygotsky (1978) , because inquiry instruction involves interactions among group members. A more nuanced finding was that group composition had a conditional effect. Heterogeneous groups performed better with more traditional and didactic instruction, regardless of the reasoning ability of the group members. Homogeneous groups worked better during interaction-rich activities for students with low reasoning ability. The authors attributed the variation to the different types of helping behaviors of students. High-performing students provided the answers, while students with low reasoning ability had to work collectively through the material. In terms of Vygotsky (1978) , this finding provided new insights into the learning context in which productive interactions can occur for students.

Another consideration in the selection and use of a theoretical framework pertains to its orientation to the study. This can result in the theoretical framework prioritizing individuals, institutions, and/or policies ( Anfara and Mertz, 2014 ). Frameworks that connect to individuals, for instance, could contribute to understanding their actions, learning, or knowledge. Institutional frameworks, on the other hand, offer insights into how institutions, organizations, or groups can influence individuals or materials. Policy theories provide ways to understand how national or local policies can dictate an emphasis on outcomes or instructional design. These different types of frameworks highlight different aspects in an educational setting, which influences the design of the study and the collection of data. In addition, these different frameworks offer a way to make sense of the data. Aligning the data collection and analysis with the framework ensures that a study is coherent and can contribute to the field.

New understandings emerge when different theoretical frameworks are used. For instance, Ebert-May et al. (2015) prioritized the individual level within conceptual change theory (see Posner et al. , 1982 ). In this theory, an individual’s knowledge changes when it no longer fits the phenomenon. Ebert-May et al. (2015) designed a professional development program challenging biology postdoctoral scholars’ existing conceptions of teaching. The authors reported that the biology postdoctoral scholars’ teaching practices became more student-centered as they were challenged to explain their instructional decision making. According to the theory, the biology postdoctoral scholars’ dissatisfaction in their descriptions of teaching and learning initiated change in their knowledge and instruction. These results reveal how conceptual change theory can explain the learning of participants and guide the design of professional development programming.

The communities of practice (CoP) theoretical framework ( Lave, 1988 ; Wenger, 1998 ) prioritizes the institutional level , suggesting that learning occurs when individuals learn from and contribute to the communities in which they reside. Grounded in the assumption of community learning, the literature on CoP suggests that, as individuals interact regularly with the other members of their group, they learn about the rules, roles, and goals of the community ( Allee, 2000 ). A study conducted by Gehrke and Kezar (2017) used the CoP framework to understand organizational change by examining the involvement of individual faculty engaged in a cross-institutional CoP focused on changing the instructional practice of faculty at each institution. In the CoP, faculty members were involved in enhancing instructional materials within their department, which aligned with an overarching goal of instituting instruction that embraced active learning. Not surprisingly, Gehrke and Kezar (2017) revealed that faculty who perceived the community culture as important in their work cultivated institutional change. Furthermore, they found that institutional change was sustained when key leaders served as mentors and provided support for faculty, and as faculty themselves developed into leaders. This study reveals the complexity of individual roles in a COP in order to support institutional instructional change.

It is important to explicitly state the theoretical framework used in a study, but elucidating a theoretical framework can be challenging for a new educational researcher. The literature review can help to identify an applicable theoretical framework. Focal areas of the review or central terms often connect to assumptions and assertions associated with the framework that pertain to the phenomenon of interest. Another way to identify a theoretical framework is self-reflection by the researcher on personal beliefs and understandings about the nature of knowledge the researcher brings to the study ( Lysaght, 2011 ). In stating one’s beliefs and understandings related to the study (e.g., students construct their knowledge, instructional materials support learning), an orientation becomes evident that will suggest a particular theoretical framework. Theoretical frameworks are not arbitrary , but purposefully selected.

With experience, a researcher may find expanded roles for theoretical frameworks. Researchers may revise an existing framework that has limited explanatory power, or they may decide there is a need to develop a new theoretical framework. These frameworks can emerge from a current study or the need to explain a phenomenon in a new way. Researchers may also find that multiple theoretical frameworks are necessary to frame and explore a problem, as different frameworks can provide different insights into a problem.

Finally, it is important to recognize that choosing “x” theoretical framework does not necessarily mean a researcher chooses “y” methodology and so on, nor is there a clear-cut, linear process in selecting a theoretical framework for one’s study. In part, the nonlinear process of identifying a theoretical framework is what makes understanding and using theoretical frameworks challenging. For the novice scholar, contemplating and understanding theoretical frameworks is essential. Fortunately, there are articles and books that can help:

• Creswell, J. W. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. This book provides an overview of theoretical frameworks in general educational research.
• Ding, L. (2019). Theoretical perspectives of quantitative physics education research. Physical Review Physics Education Research , 15 (2), 020101-1–020101-13. This paper illustrates how a DBER field can use theoretical frameworks.
• Nehm, R. (2019). Biology education research: Building integrative frameworks for teaching and learning about living systems. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research , 1 , ar15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s43031-019-0017-6 . This paper articulates the need for studies in BER to explicitly state theoretical frameworks and provides examples of potential studies.
• Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research & evaluation methods: Integrating theory and practice . Sage. This book also provides an overview of theoretical frameworks, but for both research and evaluation.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

Purpose of a conceptual framework.

A conceptual framework is a description of the way a researcher understands the factors and/or variables that are involved in the study and their relationships to one another. The purpose of a conceptual framework is to articulate the concepts under study using relevant literature ( Rocco and Plakhotnik, 2009 ) and to clarify the presumed relationships among those concepts ( Rocco and Plakhotnik, 2009 ; Anfara and Mertz, 2014 ). Conceptual frameworks are different from theoretical frameworks in both their breadth and grounding in established findings. Whereas a theoretical framework articulates the lens through which a researcher views the work, the conceptual framework is often more mechanistic and malleable.

Conceptual frameworks are broader, encompassing both established theories (i.e., theoretical frameworks) and the researchers’ own emergent ideas. Emergent ideas, for example, may be rooted in informal and/or unpublished observations from experience. These emergent ideas would not be considered a “theory” if they are not yet tested, supported by systematically collected evidence, and peer reviewed. However, they do still play an important role in the way researchers approach their studies. The conceptual framework allows authors to clearly describe their emergent ideas so that connections among ideas in the study and the significance of the study are apparent to readers.

Constructing Conceptual Frameworks

Including a conceptual framework in a research study is important, but researchers often opt to include either a conceptual or a theoretical framework. Either may be adequate, but both provide greater insight into the research approach. For instance, a research team plans to test a novel component of an existing theory. In their study, they describe the existing theoretical framework that informs their work and then present their own conceptual framework. Within this conceptual framework, specific topics portray emergent ideas that are related to the theory. Describing both frameworks allows readers to better understand the researchers’ assumptions, orientations, and understanding of concepts being investigated. For example, Connolly et al. (2018) included a conceptual framework that described how they applied a theoretical framework of social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to their study on teaching programs for doctoral students. In their conceptual framework, the authors described SCCT, explained how it applied to the investigation, and drew upon results from previous studies to justify the proposed connections between the theory and their emergent ideas.

In some cases, authors may be able to sufficiently describe their conceptualization of the phenomenon under study in an introduction alone, without a separate conceptual framework section. However, incomplete descriptions of how the researchers conceptualize the components of the study may limit the significance of the study by making the research less intelligible to readers. This is especially problematic when studying topics in which researchers use the same terms for different constructs or different terms for similar and overlapping constructs (e.g., inquiry, teacher beliefs, pedagogical content knowledge, or active learning). Authors must describe their conceptualization of a construct if the research is to be understandable and useful.

There are some key areas to consider regarding the inclusion of a conceptual framework in a study. To begin with, it is important to recognize that conceptual frameworks are constructed by the researchers conducting the study ( Rocco and Plakhotnik, 2009 ; Maxwell, 2012 ). This is different from theoretical frameworks that are often taken from established literature. Researchers should bring together ideas from the literature, but they may be influenced by their own experiences as a student and/or instructor, the shared experiences of others, or thought experiments as they construct a description, model, or representation of their understanding of the phenomenon under study. This is an exercise in intellectual organization and clarity that often considers what is learned, known, and experienced. The conceptual framework makes these constructs explicitly visible to readers, who may have different understandings of the phenomenon based on their prior knowledge and experience. There is no single method to go about this intellectual work.

Reeves et al. (2016) is an example of an article that proposed a conceptual framework about graduate teaching assistant professional development evaluation and research. The authors used existing literature to create a novel framework that filled a gap in current research and practice related to the training of graduate teaching assistants. This conceptual framework can guide the systematic collection of data by other researchers because the framework describes the relationships among various factors that influence teaching and learning. The Reeves et al. (2016) conceptual framework may be modified as additional data are collected and analyzed by other researchers. This is not uncommon, as conceptual frameworks can serve as catalysts for concerted research efforts that systematically explore a phenomenon (e.g., Reynolds et al. , 2012 ; Brownell and Kloser, 2015 ).

Sabel et al. (2017) used a conceptual framework in their exploration of how scaffolds, an external factor, interact with internal factors to support student learning. Their conceptual framework integrated principles from two theoretical frameworks, self-regulated learning and metacognition, to illustrate how the research team conceptualized students’ use of scaffolds in their learning ( Figure 1 ). Sabel et al. (2017) created this model using their interpretations of these two frameworks in the context of their teaching.

Conceptual framework from Sabel et al. (2017) .

A conceptual framework should describe the relationship among components of the investigation ( Anfara and Mertz, 2014 ). These relationships should guide the researcher’s methods of approaching the study ( Miles et al. , 2014 ) and inform both the data to be collected and how those data should be analyzed. Explicitly describing the connections among the ideas allows the researcher to justify the importance of the study and the rigor of the research design. Just as importantly, these frameworks help readers understand why certain components of a system were not explored in the study. This is a challenge in education research, which is rooted in complex environments with many variables that are difficult to control.

For example, Sabel et al. (2017) stated: “Scaffolds, such as enhanced answer keys and reflection questions, can help students and instructors bridge the external and internal factors and support learning” (p. 3). They connected the scaffolds in the study to the three dimensions of metacognition and the eventual transformation of existing ideas into new or revised ideas. Their framework provides a rationale for focusing on how students use two different scaffolds, and not on other factors that may influence a student’s success (self-efficacy, use of active learning, exam format, etc.).

In constructing conceptual frameworks, researchers should address needed areas of study and/or contradictions discovered in literature reviews. By attending to these areas, researchers can strengthen their arguments for the importance of a study. For instance, conceptual frameworks can address how the current study will fill gaps in the research, resolve contradictions in existing literature, or suggest a new area of study. While a literature review describes what is known and not known about the phenomenon, the conceptual framework leverages these gaps in describing the current study ( Maxwell, 2012 ). In the example of Sabel et al. (2017) , the authors indicated there was a gap in the literature regarding how scaffolds engage students in metacognition to promote learning in large classes. Their study helps fill that gap by describing how scaffolds can support students in the three dimensions of metacognition: intelligibility, plausibility, and wide applicability. In another example, Lane (2016) integrated research from science identity, the ethic of care, the sense of belonging, and an expertise model of student success to form a conceptual framework that addressed the critiques of other frameworks. In a more recent example, Sbeglia et al. (2021) illustrated how a conceptual framework influences the methodological choices and inferences in studies by educational researchers.

Sometimes researchers draw upon the conceptual frameworks of other researchers. When a researcher’s conceptual framework closely aligns with an existing framework, the discussion may be brief. For example, Ghee et al. (2016) referred to portions of SCCT as their conceptual framework to explain the significance of their work on students’ self-efficacy and career interests. Because the authors’ conceptualization of this phenomenon aligned with a previously described framework, they briefly mentioned the conceptual framework and provided additional citations that provided more detail for the readers.

Within both the BER and the broader DBER communities, conceptual frameworks have been used to describe different constructs. For example, some researchers have used the term “conceptual framework” to describe students’ conceptual understandings of a biological phenomenon. This is distinct from a researcher’s conceptual framework of the educational phenomenon under investigation, which may also need to be explicitly described in the article. Other studies have presented a research logic model or flowchart of the research design as a conceptual framework. These constructions can be quite valuable in helping readers understand the data-collection and analysis process. However, a model depicting the study design does not serve the same role as a conceptual framework. Researchers need to avoid conflating these constructs by differentiating the researchers’ conceptual framework that guides the study from the research design, when applicable.

Explicitly describing conceptual frameworks is essential in depicting the focus of the study. We have found that being explicit in a conceptual framework means using accepted terminology, referencing prior work, and clearly noting connections between terms. This description can also highlight gaps in the literature or suggest potential contributions to the field of study. A well-elucidated conceptual framework can suggest additional studies that may be warranted. This can also spur other researchers to consider how they would approach the examination of a phenomenon and could result in a revised conceptual framework.

It can be challenging to create conceptual frameworks, but they are important. Below are two resources that could be helpful in constructing and presenting conceptual frameworks in educational research:

• Maxwell, J. A. (2012). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Chapter 3 in this book describes how to construct conceptual frameworks.
• Ravitch, S. M., & Riggan, M. (2016). Reason & rigor: How conceptual frameworks guide research . Los Angeles, CA: Sage. This book explains how conceptual frameworks guide the research questions, data collection, data analyses, and interpretation of results.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Literature reviews, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual frameworks are all important in DBER and BER. Robust literature reviews reinforce the importance of a study. Theoretical frameworks connect the study to the base of knowledge in educational theory and specify the researcher’s assumptions. Conceptual frameworks allow researchers to explicitly describe their conceptualization of the relationships among the components of the phenomenon under study. Table 1 provides a general overview of these components in order to assist biology education researchers in thinking about these elements.

It is important to emphasize that these different elements are intertwined. When these elements are aligned and complement one another, the study is coherent, and the study findings contribute to knowledge in the field. When literature reviews, theoretical frameworks, and conceptual frameworks are disconnected from one another, the study suffers. The point of the study is lost, suggested findings are unsupported, or important conclusions are invisible to the researcher. In addition, this misalignment may be costly in terms of time and money.

Conducting a literature review, selecting a theoretical framework, and building a conceptual framework are some of the most difficult elements of a research study. It takes time to understand the relevant research, identify a theoretical framework that provides important insights into the study, and formulate a conceptual framework that organizes the finding. In the research process, there is often a constant back and forth among these elements as the study evolves. With an ongoing refinement of the review of literature, clarification of the theoretical framework, and articulation of a conceptual framework, a sound study can emerge that makes a contribution to the field. This is the goal of BER and education research.

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A Systematic Review of Literature of Teacher Educators’ Knowledge

• First Online: 21 August 2024

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• Sai Loo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8617-4241 2  

A systematic review of literature is a rarely employed research method in the further education (FE) sector with its distinct characteristics, including over 73.2% of the programmes (Frontier Economics in Further education workforce data for England: analysis of the 2018–19 staff individualised (SIR) data. Education & Training Foundation, London, 2020 , Fig. 54) are work-related. This chapter intends to use this particular desktop research method to investigate teacher educators’ knowledge. It draws on published literature covering the education sectors of FE, compulsory and higher education of teacher trainers/educators. It has two research questions in critiquing the literature sources: (1) To what extent is occupational education (vocationalism) featured? (2) What are the overlaps between the education sectors? The relevant publications are identified using previous systematic literature reviews and research methodological literature sources as guidance. A similar chapter in (Loo in Further education, professional and occupational pedagogy: knowledge and experiences. Routledge, Abingdon, 2019 ) using this research method was carried out relating to professional identities in the FE sector. The publications will be textually analysed concerning the research questions. The findings will enhance the understanding of this neglected group of educationists.

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Loo, S. (2024). A Systematic Review of Literature of Teacher Educators’ Knowledge. In: Teaching, Occupational and Further Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67291-0_5

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The teaching resources recommended on our site are consistent with what is known about how students learn the nature and process of science. Educational research suggests that the most effective instruction in this area is explicit and reflective, and provides multiple opportunities for students to work with key concepts in different contexts. But just how do we know that this sort of instruction works? And how do we know which concepts are hardest for students to learn and which are the most difficult misconceptions to address? To find out, browse the links below. Each link summarizes a journal article from the education research literature and helps reveal how we know what we know about how students learn.

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• Influence of a reflective activity-based approach on elementary teachers’ conceptions of nature of science.  (Akerson et al., 2000)
• Evaluating knowledge of the nature of (whole) science.  (Allchin, 2011)
• Learners’ responses to the demands of conceptual change: Considerations for effective nature of science instruction.  (Clough, 2006)
• Examining students’ views on the nature of science: Results from Korean 6th, 8th, and 10th graders.  (Kang et al., 2004)
• Influence of explicit and reflective versus implicit inquiry-oriented instruction on sixth graders’ views of nature of science.  (Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick, 2002)
• Teachers’ understanding of the nature of science and classroom practice: Factors that facilitate or impede the relationship.  (Lederman, 1999)
• Revising instruction to teach nature of science.  (Lederman and Lederman, 2004)
• Science teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science: Do they really influence teacher behavior?  (Lederman and Zeidler, 1987)
• Examining student conceptions of the nature of science.  (Moss, 2001)
• Student conceptualizations of the nature of science in response to a socioscientific issue.  (Sadler et al., 2004)
• Explicit reflective nature of science instruction: Evolution, intelligent design, and umbrellaology.  (Scharmann et al., 2005)
• Developing views of nature of science in an authentic context: An explicit approach to bridging the gap between nature of science and scientific inquiry.  (Schwartz et al., 2004)
• Tangled up in views: Beliefs in the nature of science and responses to socioscientific dilemmas.  (Zeidler et al., 2002)

Abell, S., M. Martini, and M. George. 2001. “That’s what scientists have to do”: Preservice elementary teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science during a moon investigation.  International Journal of Science Education  23(11):1095-1109. Two sections of an undergraduate course in elementary science education were observed during an extended investigation, in which students made observations of the moon and tried to develop explanations for what they saw. Students worked in groups, were engaged in many aspects of the process of science, and were asked to reflect on their own learning regarding the moon. Eleven student journals of the experience, along with interview transcripts from these students, were analyzed for student learning regarding observation in science, the role of creativity and inference in science, and social aspects of science. Major findings include:

• Students recognized that observations are key in science but didn’t recognize the role that observation plays in science.
• Students recognized that their own work involved observing, predicting, and coming up with explanations, but they did not generally connect this to the process of science.
• Students recognized that collaboration facilitated their own learning but did not generally connect this to the process of science.

This research highlights the pedagogical importance of making the nature and process of science explicit: even though students were actively engaged in scientific processes, they did not get many of the key messages that the instructors implicitly conveyed. The researchers also recommend asking students to reflect on how their own understandings of the nature and process of science are changing over time.

Akerson, V.L., F. Abd-El-Khalick, and N.G. Lederman. 2000. Influence of a reflective activity-based approach on elementary teachers’ conceptions of nature of science.  Journal of Research in Science Teaching  37(4):295-317. Fifty undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a science teaching methods course engaged in six hours of activities designed to target key nature-of-science concepts, consistent with those outlined in Lederman and Lederman (2004). After the initial set of activities and throughout the course, students were encouraged to reflect on those concepts as opportunities arose within the designated pedagogical content, and were assigned two writing tasks focusing on the nature of science. By the end of the course, students were so accustomed to these reflections that they frequently identified such opportunities for themselves. Students were pre- and post-tested with an open-ended questionnaire targeting the key concepts, and a subset of students was interviewed on these topics. Responses were analyzed for key concepts to determine whether students held adequate conceptions in these areas. Major findings include:

• There were few differences between graduates and undergraduates: most students began the course with largely inadequate conceptions.
• Students began the course understanding least about the empirical nature of science, the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between theories and laws, and the role of creativity in science.
• Significant gains were achieved as a result of instruction. Student conceptions improved most in the areas of the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between theories and laws, and the difference between observation and inference.

The explicit, reflective instruction was effective, but despite the gains achieved, many students still held inadequate conceptions at the end of the course. This supports the idea that students hold tenacious misconceptions about the nature and process of science, and, the authors argue, suggests that instructors should additionally focus on helping students see the inadequacy of their current conceptions. The authors suggest that the role of subjectivity, as well as of social and cultural factors, in science are best learned through rich historical case studies, which are hard to fit into a methods course. Finally, the authors conclude that nature-of-science instruction is effective in a methods course, but would likely be more effective in a science content course.

Allchin, D. 2011. Evaluating knowledge of the nature of (whole) science.  Science Education  95:518-542. The author argues that commonly used instruments assessing knowledge of the nature of science are inadequate in several ways. They focus too much on declarative knowledge instead of conceptual understanding, are designed for research not classroom assessment, and are inauthentic in the sense that they do not examine student knowledge in contexts similar to those in which we want students to use this knowledge. Furthermore, lists of the tenets of the nature of science (which such assessments are based upon) are oversimplified and incomplete. The author argues that instead of assessing whether students can list the characteristics of scientific knowledge, we should be interested in whether students can effectively analyze information about scientific and socioscientific controversies and assess the reliability of scientific claims that affect their decision making. In order to do this, students need to understand how the process of science lends credibility to scientific ideas. The author proposes an alternative assessment form (based on the AP free responses essay) that requires well-informed analysis on the part of the student, involves authentic contexts, and can be adapted for many different assessment purposes and situations. In it, students are asked to analyze historic and modern case studies of scientific and socioscientific controversies. Prototypes for this type of assessment are provided.

Clough, M. 2006. Learners’ responses to the demands of conceptual change: Considerations for effective nature of science instruction.  Science Education  15:463-494. The author introduces the idea that many aspects of student learning about the nature and process of science can be explained, and that learning may be improved, by viewing this learning as a process of conceptual change. Just as in learning about Newtonian physics, students often enter an instructional setting with tenacious misconceptions about what science is and how it works — probably resulting from previous instruction (e.g., cookbook labs) and other experiences. Students may then distort new information to fit their existing incorrect knowledge frameworks. The author proposes that this is why explicit, reflective instruction (which provides students with opportunities to assess their previous conceptions) helps students learn about the nature and process of science, while implicit, non-reflective instruction does not. Furthermore, the author argues that explicit instruction on the nature and process of science can be placed along a continuum from decontextualized to highly contextualized. Examples of each are:

• Decontextualized: black-box activities
• Moderately contextualized: students reflecting on the process of science in their own labs
• Highly contextualized: students reflecting on a modern or historic example of science in progress

Highly contextualized activities are useful because they make it difficult for a student to dismiss their learning as applying only to “school science” and because teachers are less likely to view such activities as add-ons. However, decontextualized activities also have advantages because they make it very easy to be explicit and emphasize key concepts. The author concludes that instruction that incorporates instruction from all along the continuum and that draws students’ attention to the connections between the different positions along the continuum is likely to be most effective.

Kang, S., L. Scharmann, and T. Noh. 2004. Examining students’ views on the nature of science: Results from Korean 6th, 8th, and 10th graders.  Science Education  89(2):314-334. A multiple-choice survey (supplemented by open-ended questions) on the nature and process of science was given to a large group of 6th, 8th, and 10th grade students in Korea. Most students thought that:

• Science is mainly concerned with technological advancement
• Theories are proven facts
• Theories can change over time
• Scientific knowledge is not constructed, but discovered (i.e., can be read off of nature)

Interestingly, Korean students don’t tend to hold the common Western misperception of theories as “just hunches.” The researchers found little improvement in understanding in older students. This suggests that special attention is needed to help students learn about the nature of science. The researchers argue that we should begin instruction in this area early in elementary school.

Khishfe, R., and F. Abd-El-Khalick. 2002. Influence of explicit and reflective versus implicit inquiry-oriented instruction on sixth graders’ views of nature of science.  Journal of Research in Science Teaching  39(7):551-578. Two sixth grade classes (62 students total) in Lebanon experienced two different versions of a curriculum spanning ten 50 minute segments. One class participated in an inquiry-oriented science curriculum, which included a discussion component that explicitly emphasized how the nature of science was demonstrated through student activities. The other participated in the same inquiry curriculum, but their discussion focused exclusively on science content or the skills students had used in the activity. Both groups completed open-ended questionnaires and participated in interviews regarding their views of the nature of science before and after the intervention. The two groups started off with similar, low levels of understanding, but the students in the class with explicit discussion of the nature of science substantially improved their understanding of key elements of the nature of science (the tentative, empirical, and creative nature of scientific knowledge, as well as the difference between observation and inference) over the course of the intervention. The other group did not. However, even with the enhanced, explicit curriculum, only 24% of the students achieved a consistently accurate understanding of the nature of science. These findings support the idea that inquiry alone is insufficient to improve student understanding of the nature of science; explicit, reflective instruction is necessary as well. The researchers further conclude that this instruction should be incorporated throughout teaching over an extended period of time in order to see gains among a larger fraction of students. The researchers emphasize that explicit, reflective teaching does not mean didactic teaching, but rather instruction that specifically targets nature of science concepts and that provides students with opportunities to relate their own activities to the activities of scientists and the scientific community more broadly.

Lederman, N.G. 1999. Teachers’ understanding of the nature of science and classroom practice: Factors that facilitate or impede the relationship.  Journal of Research in Science Teaching  36(8):916-929. Five high school biology teachers were observed weekly for one year to examine whether their conceptions of the nature of science were reflected in their teaching. The researcher also collected data from questionnaires, student and teacher interviews, and classroom materials. All five teachers had accurate understandings of the nature of science. The most experienced teachers used pedagogical techniques consistent with the nature of science, though they weren’t explicitly trying to do so and did not claim to be trying to improve students’ understanding of the nature of science. Less experienced teachers did not teach in a manner consistent with their views of the nature of science. This suggests that an adequate understanding of the nature and process of science and curricular flexibility alone are not sufficient to ensure that teachers will use pedagogical techniques that reflect that understanding. In addition, the researchers found that students in these classrooms gained little understanding of the nature of science, regardless of whether they were taught by a more or less experienced teacher. This lends further support to the idea that teachers need to be explicit about how lessons and activities relate to the nature and process of science in order for students to improve their understandings in this area. The researcher concludes that teacher education programs need to make a concerted effort to help teachers improve their ability to explicitly translate their understanding of the nature of science into their teaching practices. Furthermore, teachers should be encouraged to view an understanding of the nature of science as an important pedagogical objective in its own right.

Lederman, N.G., and J.S. Lederman. 2004. Revising instruction to teach nature of science.  The Science Teacher  71(9):36-39. The authors describe seven aspects of the nature of science that are important for K-12 students to understand:

• the difference between observation and inference
• the difference between laws and theories
• that science is based on observations of the natural world
• that science involves creativity
• that scientific knowledge is partially subjective
• that science is socially and culturally embedded
• that scientific knowledge is subject to change.

They argue that most lessons can be modified to emphasize one or more of these ideas and provide an example from biology instruction. Many teachers use an activity in which students study a slide of growing tissue and count cells at different stages of mitosis in order to estimate the lengths of these stages. The authors recommend modifying this activity in several ways:

• asking students to reason about how they know when one stage ends to emphasize the sort of subjectivity with which scientists must deal
• asking students to grapple with ambiguity in their data
• asking students to reason about why different groups came up with different estimates and how confident they are in their estimates in order to emphasize the tentativity of scientific knowledge
• asking students to distinguish between what they directly observed on the slide and what they inferred from those observations.

The authors emphasize that incorporating the nature and process of science into this activity involves, not changing the activity itself, but carefully crafting reflective questions that make explicit relevant aspects of the nature and process of science.

Lederman, N.G., and D.L. Zeidler. 1987. Science teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science: Do they really influence teacher behavior?  Science Education  71(5):721-734. Eighteen high school biology classrooms led by experienced teachers were studied over the course of one semester. Teachers’ understandings of the nature and process of science were assessed at the beginning and end of the semester. In addition, the researchers made extensive observations of each classroom at three different points in the semester and categorized the teachers’ and students’ behaviors along many variables relating to teaching the nature and process of science. The researchers found  no  relationship between a teacher’s knowledge of the nature and process of science and the teacher’s general instructional approach, the nature-of-science content addressed in the classroom, the teacher’s attitude, the classroom atmosphere, or the students’ interactions with the teacher. This finding challenges the widely held assumption that student understanding of the nature and process of science can be improved simply by improving teacher understanding. Instead, the teachers’ level of understanding of this topic was unrelated to classroom performance. The authors emphasize that this doesn’t indicate that a teacher’s ideas don’t matter at all; teachers need at least a basic understanding of the topics they will teach, but this alone isn’t enough. The authors suggest that to improve their teaching in this area, instructors also need to be prepared with strategies designed specifically for teaching the nature and process of science.

Moss, D.M. 2001. Examining student conceptions of the nature of science.  International Journal of Science Education  23(8):771-790. Five 11th and 12th grade students, with a range of academic achievement, taking an environmental science class, were interviewed six times over the course of a year. The class was project-based and engaged students in data collection for real scientific research. Interviews focused on students’ views of selected aspects of the nature and process of science. The researcher coded and interpreted transcripts of the interviews. Major findings include:

• In contrast to previous studies, most students understood that scientific knowledge builds on itself and is tentative. Students also seemed to understand science as a social activity.
• Many students didn’t know what makes science science and had trouble distinguishing science from other ways of knowing.
• Many students viewed science as merely procedural.
• Most students didn’t understand that scientists regularly generate new research questions as they work.
• Despite the authentic, project-based nature of the course, there were few shifts in student views of the nature and process of science.

This research supports the view that explicit instruction is necessary to improve student understanding of the nature/process of science. The researcher suggests that this can be done by having students develop their own descriptions of the fundamentals of the nature and process of science. The researcher also suggests that teachers need to focus on helping students understand the boundaries of science, perhaps by explicitly discussing how science compares to other human endeavors.

Sadler, T.D., F.W. Chambers, and D. Zeidler. 2004. Student conceptualizations of the nature of science in response to a socioscientific issue.  International Journal of Science Education  26(4):387-409. A group of average- to below average-achieving high school students was asked to read contradictory reports about the status of the global warming debate and answer a series of open-ended questions that related to the nature and process of science. Each report included data to support its conclusions. The researchers examined and coded students’ oral and written responses. On the positive side, the researchers found that:

• Most students understood that science and social issues are intertwined.
• Most students were comfortable with the idea that scientific data can be used to support different conclusions and that ideological positions may influence data interpretation.
• Almost half of the students were unable to accurately identify and describe data, and some conflated expectations and opinions with data.
• There was a tendency for students to view the interpretation consistent with their prior opinion as the most persuasive argument – even in cases where they judged the opposite interpretation to have the most scientific merit. This suggests that students may not incorporate scientific information into their decision-making process, dichotomizing their personal beliefs and scientific evidence.

The researchers suggest that instruction should focus on the above two issues and that teachers should encourage students to consider scientific findings when making decisions. In addition, students should be encouraged to deeply reflect on socioscientific issues and consider them from multiple perspectives.

Scharmann, L.C., M.U. Smith, M.C. James, and M. Jensen. 2005. Explicit reflective nature of science instruction: Evolution, intelligent design, and umbrellaology.  Journal of Science Teacher Education  16(1):27-41. Through multiple iterations of a preservice science teacher education course, the researchers designed a 10 hour instructional unit. In the unit, students:

• attempt to arrange a set of statements along a continuum from more to less scientific
• develop a set of criteria for making such judgments
• participate in a set of inquiry activities designed to teach the nature of science (e.g., the black box activity)
• read and reflect on articles about the nature of science
• analyze intelligent design, evolutionary biology, and umbrellaology (a satirical description of the field of umbrella studies) in terms of the criteria they developed.

The final iteration of this set of activities was judged by the authors to be highly effective at changing students’ views of the nature of science and perhaps even helping them recognize that intelligent design is less scientific than evolutionary biology. Furthermore, the researchers suggest that using a continuum approach regarding the classification of endeavors as more or less scientific may be helpful for students who have strong religious commitments and that explicit, respectful discussion of religion in relation to science early in instruction is likewise important for these students.

Schwartz, R.S., N.G. Lederman, and B. Crawford. 2004. Developing views of nature of science in an authentic context: An explicit approach to bridging the gap between nature of science and scientific inquiry.  Science Education  88(4):610-645. A group of preservice science teachers participated in a program that included 10 weeks of work with a scientific research group, discussions of research and the nature of science, and writing prompts which asked the preservice teachers to make connections between their research and the process of science. Participants were interviewed and observed, and responded to a questionnaire about the nature of science. Eighty-five percent of the participants improved their understanding of the nature of science over the course of the program. The two participants who did not improve their understanding were the two that focused on the content of their research and did not reflect on how this related to the nature of science. Participants also seemed to gain a better understanding of how to teach the nature and process of science explicitly. The researchers conclude that the research experience alone did little to improve students understanding, but that this experience was important for providing the context in which active reflection about the nature and process of science could occur. They recommend that scientific inquiry in the K-12 classroom incorporate reflective activities and explicit discussions relating the inquiry activity to the nature and process of science.

Zeidler, D.L., K.A. Walker, W.A. Ackett, and M.L. Simmons. 2002. Tangled up in views: Beliefs in the nature of science and responses to socioscientific dilemmas.  Science Education  86(3):343-367. A sample of 248 high school and college students were given open-ended questions eliciting their views of the nature of science. In addition, researchers elicited students’ views on a socioscientific issue (the appropriateness of animal research) using both a Likert scale item and open-ended questions. From this large sample, 42 pairs of students with differing views of the appropriateness of animal research were selected. These pairs of students were allowed to discuss the issue with each other and were probed by an interviewer. Finally, they were presented with data anomalous to their own view and were probed again on their confidence in the data and their willingness to change their view. Researchers analyzed these 82 students’ responses to the open-ended questions using concept mapping and compared their responses to Likert items. They found that students  did  change their views on the issue as a result of discussion and exposure to anomalous data. They also found that younger students tended to be less skeptical of anomalous data presented to them from an official-sounding report. In only a few cases were students’ views of the nature of science obviously related to their analysis of the socioscientific issue. These were mainly situations in which a student expressed a belief that scientists interpret data to suit their personal opinion, and then, correspondingly, the student selectively accepted or rejected evidence according to whether it supported his or her opinion. In addition, many students seemed to believe that all opinions are equally valid and immune to change regardless of the scientific evidence. The authors conclude that instruction on the nature of science should be incorporated throughout science courses and should include discussion in which students are asked to contrast different viewpoints on socioscientific issues and evaluate how different types of data might support or refute those positions.

Thanks to Norm Lederman and Joanne Olson for consultation on relevant research articles.

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• Published: 24 August 2024

War and peace in public health education and training: a scoping review

• Lisa Wandschneider 1 , 2 ,
• Anna Nowak 1 , 2 ,
• Marta Miller 4 ,
• Anina Grün 1 , 2 ,
• Yudit Namer 2 , 5 ,
• Tomasz Bochenek 6 ,
• Lukasz Balwicki 7 ,
• Oliver Razum 1 , 2 &
• Colette Cunningham 3  

BMC Public Health volume  24 , Article number:  2303 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Armed conflict and war are public health disasters. Public health action has a crucial role in conflict-related emergencies and rehabilitation but also in war prevention and peace promotion. Translating this into public health training and competencies has just started to emerge, especially in Europe.

We conducted a Scoping Review to map and identify the role of public health education and training of public health workforce relating to the prevention of war and promoting peace, as reflected in the scientific literature. We searched in PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, Web of Science Core Collections as well as the reference list of included material in English, German and Polish. Focusing initially on the European region, we later expanded the search outside of Europe.

We included 7 publications from opinion pieces to an empirical assessment of curricula and training. The educational programs were predominantly short-term and extra-curricular in postgraduate courses addressing both public health professionals in conflict-affected countries as well as countries not directly affected by war. Publications focused on public health action in times of war, without specifying the context and type of war or armed conflict. Competencies taught focused on emergency response and multi-disciplinary collaboration during emergencies, frequently drawing on experience and examples from natural disaster and disease outbreak management.

Conclusions

The scientific discourse on competences in public health education for times of war and for the promotion of peace, predominately focuses on immediate emergency response actions. The prevention of war and the promotion of peace are missing foci, that need to feature more prominently in public health training. Public Health Education and training should ensure that war prevention and peace promotion, as well as public health action in times of war, are included in their competencies for public health professionals.

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Introduction

War has profound adverse effects on public health [ 1 ].

War and armed conflict have far-reaching consequences, affecting the lives of millions of people, resulting in the loss of human life, but also in the disruption of social infrastructure such as safe food and water supplies, housing, and access to health services, leading to increased mortality and morbidity. War-torn countries and populations experience an increase in Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost [ 2 ]. In addition, mass displacement, which disproportionately affects women, children, the elderly and vulnerable groups, exposes people to precarious living conditions and arduous travel, affecting their health and well-being. War and armed conflict have profound long-term physical and psychological consequences for those involved. They destroy communities and the fabric of society is often irreversibly undermined. This affects public health as well as legalizing and promoting violence as a way of solving problems [ 2 ]. In this paper, war and armed conflict is defined as ‘hostile contention by means of armed forces, carried on between nations, states, or rulers, or between parties in the same nation or state; the employment of armed forces against a foreign power, or against an opposing party in the state [ 3 ]. The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) casebook differentiates between an international armed conflict which “occurs when one or more States have recourse to armed force against another State, regardless of the reasons or the intensity of this confrontation” and a non-international armed conflict in which one or more non-State armed groups are involved (the vast majority of conflicts since 1945) [ 4 ]. Other authors differentiate wars by causes or intentions, for example imperial wars [ 5 ] or wars of annexation, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The reason is that preventive measures may be quite different. Much of the literature such as Levy et al. [ 1 , 6 ] covers armed conflict but not wars of annexation [ 2 , 7 ]. Today’s wars are often hybrid, meaning they are being fought by military as well as by destabilizing, non-military means [ 8 ]. Debates on preventing wars of annexation need to cover the role of the military, and the way in which public health relates to it, but also political determinants. For reasons of readability, however, the term ‘war’ will be used consistently throughout the text to include armed conflict and wars of annexation, as well as hybrid elements of warfare.

Conceptualizing war in public health is a relatively recent development, while international relations and defense studies have a longstanding tradition of analyzing and theorizing war and peace (e.g. [ 5 , 9 , 10 ]). Public health approaches focusing primarily on emergency response and relief care [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. However, there is a growing shift in public health to emphasize its preventive role in peacetime, with the aim of minimizing the health impact of war on affected populations [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. At the same time, one of public health’s major aims – reducing and dismantling (health) inequities — is also a crucial determinant for preventing armed conflict [ 17 , 18 , 19 ] presenting another valuable angle for public health’s role in peacebuilding and preventing war. This shift is consistent with modern public health care, given the emergence of complex global public health crises such as climate change, biodiversity loss, migration, cybersecurity, inequities, and pandemics such as COVID-19 [ 20 ]. We are looking at syndemics, whereby a set of linked health problems interact synergistically and contribute to the excess burden of disease in a population [ 21 ]. The preventative role provides an opportunity to develop a comprehensive public health framework that can effectively address the needs during war, its prevention, and post-conflict periods. Hagopian and Jabbour (2022) [ 22 ] proposed such a framework, using the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Prevention (PSTP) Framework to address global inequalities and injustices that may contribute to war. It includes primary prevention, which focuses on addressing the root causes and social determinants of war; secondary prevention, which aims to reduce harm and damage during conflict; and tertiary prevention, which involves rebuilding health systems in post-conflict settings [ 22 ]. Wars of annexation have more to do with (re-)building imperia, rather than with inequalities and injustices. Nonetheless, there is no agreed-upon theory on the cause(s) of war [ 10 ].

While the role of public health in emergencies is increasingly well explored in public health research and in interdisciplinary collaboration, the translation of this knowledge into public health training and competencies is only just beginning to emerge, particularly in Europe. The literature is increasingly recommending that public health education and training programs should include an understanding of the health impacts of war and conflict, including the epidemiology of war-related injuries and illnesses, environmental impacts of war, and mental health effects of war on soldiers and civilians [ 2 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Additionally, public health professionals should be trained to respond to the health impacts of war, including strategies for preventing and treating war-related injuries and illnesses, as well as promoting peace and non-violent conflict resolution [ 2 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. ,.

In light of contemporary conflicts and geopolitical tensions, such as the war in Ukraine, as well as those in Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, Israel and Gaza, and other regions, training on effective and systematic public health practice to support affected populations is needed. The role of public health in both the prevention of war and the promotion of peace work is increasingly recognized and calls for its inclusion in public health education, and in the training of public health professionals [ 7 , 25 , 26 ]. Considering the present circumstances, there is a need for public health professionals to develop a skill set that enables them to address the challenges of war, prevention, as well as peacebuilding, so that they can confidently navigate an increasingly multi-disciplinary role and take an active place in the dialogue on the prevention of war and its consequences. We conducted a Scoping Review of the scientific literature in public health to map available evidence and discourse on war. We covered public health perspectives on war prevention, reaction to war, rehabilitation, and peace promotion within public health education and training. More specifically we aimed to answer the following research questions:

How is public health education addressing competencies related to war and peacebuilding? Are there existing examples of teaching and can we build on them for future training?

What are the gaps in public health education on war and how can we address them?

Are there existent frameworks which can be used or adapted to develop public health education programs focused on war, war prevention, and peace promotion?

The research team, representing expertise from schools of public health across Europe, developed the search strategy with the help of the Population, Comparison and Context (PCC) Framework [ 27 ]. We opted for a Scoping Review methodology, since it allows for ‘a preliminary assessment of potential size and scope of available research literature’ as well as ‘identify the nature and extent of research evidence’ [ 28 , 29 ]. It enabled us to map a diverse range of evidence e.g., implementation research on training programs as well as commentaries and opinion pieces, as indicators of an on-going discourse within the public health community. War and peacebuilding in public health education represent an under-researched area, therefore our Scoping Review allowed for the capture and extent, as well as the type of available evidence. Our methodology was developed using the PRISMA-ScR Checklist to comply with reporting and methodological standards (supplementary material 1) [ 30 ]. A review protocol was not published, but the authors used an internal methods protocol which has been updated throughout the process (Supplementary material 3).

Search strategy

We searched in academic databases PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, Web of Science Core Collections (using keywords and MeSH terms) to explore the scientific discourse on war and peacebuilding in public health education. Exploring grey literature, such as the extent of material at the level of Schools of Public Health exceeded the scope of this review and requires additional data collection tools. As related fields like disaster management and preparedness in public health are well represented within the scientific discourse, limiting this first mapping to scientific databases only, allows for a direct comparison and therefore seemed reasonable.

In our review, we defined the population as the body of interest, i.e., education and teaching body. Our search terms were chosen to identify literature that focused on public health education and training on war, war prevention and peace promotion. This method allowed the authors to capture examples of a broad range of education programs and training, both from individual courses to curricula. The concept element represents the thematic focus on war and peacebuilding. We aimed to integrate different stages of war e.g., armed conflict, active war and peacebuilding. In addition, we linked these search terms with closely-related fields, such as disaster management and preparedness, especially as these are competencies that are frequently linked to the context of war [ 31 ]. These terms have been informed by conflict-related health research as well as conceptual models systematizing the impact of war and peace promotion on public health [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 15 , 16 ]. For the context, being the third and last element of the PCC Framework, we used public health as the discipline and added global health since this is a field where the topic of war is frequently documented and addressed.

An experienced librarian supported the development of the search strategy (Table  1 , search protocols for all databases can be found in supplementary material 2). We conducted the searches on 8th September 2022 and extracted the records into the reference manager Zotero. In addition to the search in scientific databases, we checked the reference lists of included sources for further records that could warrant inclusion.

Eligibility criteria and study selection

In our review, we only included sources that had a primary interest in war and peacebuilding in the public health education context. This included publications that identified curricula, workshops, competencies, skills-sets and capacity-building trainings. For the war and peacebuilding element, this required an explicit definition of war and/or peacebuilding as the field of action or interest. We included academic literature, ranging from peer-reviewed articles to commentaries and editorials to capture a broad spectrum of the scientific discourse. We did not exclude any publication based on study design or period of the study.

We excluded sources that mentioned war or peacebuilding but did not elaborate further on how the courses addressed the specific needs or circumstances. Also, any material that solely addressed terrorist attacks was considered ineligible despite representing a potential weapon or strategy of war. Terrorist attacks were considered ineligible because they pertained to one, timely limited event that usually did not destroy the infrastructure of a complete region or country. Other competencies and frameworks for public health professionals is therefore warranted. The scoping review languages of the potential sources was limited to English, German, Polish.

For the screening process, we conducted a pilot with a random sample of 5% of the total records. This ensured inter-rater reliability between the reviewers by detecting inconsistencies and allowed us to adapt the eligibility criteria accordingly. Then, the reviewers (LW, MM, CC) started with the title and abstract screening. For the full texts, the reviewers changed (LW, MM, AG, AN), so we again conducted a pilot of a random 5% sample of the records identified in the abstract and title screening. Disagreements on the eligibility of full texts were discussed with all reviewers (LW, MM, AG, AN, CC) and resolved through discussion.

Data charting and analysis

The data charting and extraction focused on the context of war and the education/teaching element of the material, rather than the study details. The data charting table includes basic study characteristics, information on the context of war and peacebuilding as well as the teaching intervention ( Table  2 ). The standardized form guided the data charting process and was also tested in another pilot round between the reviewers. LW, MM, AG and AN extracted the data and modified the charting form in an iterative process, which was then discussed with the core reviewer team LW, MM, AG, AN and CC.

The data charting form also guided the descriptive and narrative synthesis of the findings. To structure the narrative analysis, we categorized the findings by the phase of war differentiating between a) preparedness and prevention, b) ongoing conflict and emergency, as well as c) recovery and rehabilitation based on Hagopian and Jabbour’s framework [ 22 ].

The initial literature search resulted in a total of 4922 citations (Fig.  1 ). After removing duplicates, a total of 2913 articles were screened. In the subsequent stages of this process, a total of 272 full‐text reports were assessed for eligibility, of which 264 studies were excluded because the focus was not on war or peacebuilding, or not on public health education/training.

Flowchart on the process identifying studies. This Study Flow Chart details the flow of information throughout the distinct phases of the review: identification, screening and included studies for final review

A total of seven articles reported on existing education/training or recommendation for training fulfilling the inclusion criteria (Fig.  1 ) [ 20 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ]. We classified the study design of the 7 articles into three groups: 4 were reports [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 36 ]; two were commentaries [ 20 , 37 ]; and one was an empirical qualitative study [ 35 ].

Study characteristics

The 7 articles were published between 1998 and 2019, with most of them produced in the Global North, including the US ( n  = 3) [ 20 , 32 , 35 ], Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina ( n  = 1) [ 33 ] and Sweden ( n  = 1) [ 34 ]. Only one was conducted in the Global South, the empirical study from South Sudan [ 37 ]. The included publications take different phases of war into account, some take on several within one study: 4 publications reported on early warning/prevention and preparedness [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ]; 4 publications on conflict situations [ 20 , 33 , 35 , 37 ]; 3 on emergency [ 20 , 32 , 37 ]; and one study on recovery / rehabilitation [ 35 ]. Four publications related to specific armed conflicts and time periods; (Balkan (1994–2001) [ 32 ], Sweden (time period not specified) [ 34 ], South Sudan (2013) [ 37 ], and after the First World War (1920–1939) [ 36 ]. Three studies did not specify the geographical region or period of the study. The characteristics of each study are shown in Table  3 , depicting the type of publication, type of war, period, geographic setting, and phase of military operations. Table 3 provides an overview of the teaching interventions recommended or described by the included studies.

Prevention and Preparedness

Four ( n  = 4) publications reported or commented on early warning, prevention and preparedness for war or war-like situations on a professional level. McDonnell et al. recommend that applied epidemiologists should be prepared for war by acquiring knowledge on international law, human rights, and complex interventions by working on specific case studies during training to be able to conduct assessments of the conflict setting and to communicate health-related interventions effectively with stakeholders and the local population [ 35 ]. Joshi strengthens this approach to take into account the psychological burden of mental health professionals working with war-affected children. He recommends analyzing the situation properly, gaining knowledge about the region, culture, and people, but also reflecting on one’s own limitations and resources [ 33 ]. Both commentaries point to the importance of (interdisciplinary) collaboration and training [ 33 , 35 ].

Kulling & Holst and McGann have shown what a training module could look like. While Kulling & Holst refer to the Swedish context, McGann describes in a historical analysis what the training of public health nurses looked like after the First World War [ 34 , 36 ]. On a national level, according to Kulling & Holst different topics should be addressed in regional and local courses for health professionals, such as disaster medicine, management of the healthcare system in a disaster/crisis, command and control at an accident site, chemical accidents, decontamination methods, radiation accidents, microbiological preparedness / bioterrorism, psychiatric / psycho-social support and planning preparedness for chemical, biological, or nuclear/radiological (C B N R) events on a national level [ 34 ]. McGann describes that the training of public health nurses in the 1920s consisted of both a theoretical and a practical part [ 36 ]. In the theoretical part there are already overlaps with the modules recommended by Kulling & Holst [ 34 ]. McGann shows that lectures were given on public health nursing, hygiene, bacteriology, psychology, social conditions, and social administration [ 36 ]. The practical part consisted of work placements in nursing-related fields, such as child welfare centers, TB dispensaries or in a district nursing association [ 36 ].

Conflict and emergency

Burkle et al. and McDonnell et al. refer to the importance of combining medical skills and knowledge in emergency and crisis situations [ 20 , 35 ]. Both reports discuss advanced courses for the development of specific skills for work in humanitarian settings. According to the authors, knowledge of legal frameworks, communication skills, documentation of human rights violations, and the design and management of needs-based health services are necessary skills for public health professionals, with McDonnell et al. also emphasizing competence in qualitative and quantiative data [ 20 , 35 ]. Burkle et al. recommend developing an all-encompassing international program which should be continously evaluated and adapted according to emergency sitations [ 20 ]. Joshi adds the importance of compentency in interdisciplinary cooperation and training of local populations [ 33 ].

Evans et al. and Rathner & Katona describe specific training programs in more detail [ 32 , 37 ]. While Evans et al. describe a program for graduated professionals and mid-careers public health leaders [ 32 ], Ratner & Katona’s training program focuses not only on public health professionals but also on the general public [ 37 ]. Both programs consist of lectures and hands-on-activities or practical work. Evans et al. describe a graduate program based at the Center for Humanitarian Emergencies at Emory University in Atlanta, US. The program covers topics on emergency preparedness, logistics, mental health, needs assessment, nutrition, and risk communication through lectures and group discussions, followed by a field practica at in-country host institutions. The field practica cover areas such as emergency management or global health security [ 32 ]. Ratner & Katona’s program is set in South Sudan and involves first aid courses, providing participants with the skills and knowledge to care for themselves and others in times of medical emergencies. The training brings together people from different tribes or community groups and focuses on specific medical needs. Supported by the local community and local leaders, the training leads to intergroup communication, stigma reduction, and health-related collaboration between different population groups. It not only provided essential healthcare skills, but also served as a platform for peacebuilding and community-building [ 37 ].

Recovery, rehabilitation and peacebuilding

All authors understand their programs as preparation for war-like situations but only two focus specifically on peacebuilding [ 35 , 37 ]. Ratner & Katona’s teaching activity in South Sudan lead to peacebuilding, communication, and interaction between different groups in the local communities [ 37 ]. McDonald et al. emphasize conflict assessment for peacebuilding, using quantitative and qualitative methods and effective communication skills for policy changes and interdisciplinary and interinstitutional cooperation. According to the authors, knowledge about predictors of violent conflict is necessary [ 35 ]. None of the studies in our review pertain to recovery or rehabilitation-related competencies or training programs.

We identified 7 publications dealing with education and/or training for public health professionals that related to war and peacebuilding [ 20 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ]. Most of the publications covered public health training from prevention and preparedness, conflict and emergency to recovery, rehabilitation and peacebuilding. Literature is scarce regarding public health education in the context of war, armed conflict and peace promotion. We found a broad range of different manuscripts including commentaries and opinion pieces on different types of war and armed conflict, but only 7 publications met the review’s inclusion criteria. We did not identify research studies comparing different teaching methods, training modules or evaluating programs. However, there is a growing awareness of the topic and not least since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (e.g. [ 19 , 38 , 39 , 40 ].). Nevertheless, more in-depth research needs to be done in this area.

The included publications are heterogeneous in terms of population, time, and war phases. Most of the programs described in the publications are aimed at public health professionals. Three studies ( n  = 3) focused on specific professional groups (e.g. psychologists, surgeons, nurses) [ 20 , 33 , 36 ]. Only Evans et al. targeted undergraduate and postgraduate students [ 32 ]. Just one publication included the local population in their education program and, in contrast to the other publications the context of the education program was within an emergency situation whereby there was an acute need for action due to the war-like situation in South Sudan [ 37 ]. Two studies described the educational program in more detail: While Kulling & Holst presented a current program in Sweden [ 34 ], McGann took a historical perspective and described the education of public health nurses between the First and Second World War [ 36 ]. Both studies pointed to similar teaching content for preparedness of professionals. Two other studies addressed general principals such as knowledge on human rights and complex interventions or self-reflection [ 33 , 35 ]. None of these publications used a conceptual educational framework.

We note from our scoping review that teaching war in public health education programs or in the training of public health professionals is predominately short-term and extra-curricular in post-graduate courses. A better understanding is needed of the intersections between war and health and of the indispensable role public health practitioners, academics and advocates could play particularly given the increasing significance of war as a determinant affecting population health [ 31 ].

The immediate emergency response in times of war was the main area of action in and for public health education. Some of the studies drew from or were also closely entangled with emergency management and/or disaster management (without any specific reference to war or peacebuilding). This finding is not surprising, given the relevance of this much more advanced and established field of public health practice. Emergency response and management, including infectious disease outbreaks and/or disasters especially natural disasters, are widely included in international standards and recommendations. For example, US [ 41 ] for public health education [ 42 ]. These topics are also frequently and systematically implemented in dedicated public health degrees [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. These competencies play a major role for public response in the context of war, e.g. for first response, multidisciplinary coordination and crisis situation [ 44 ]. However, we also found that emergency management and public health education on war were often entangled, which led to a high number of full-text screenings. Few of the studies and commentaries explicitly differentiated between natural disasters or outbreaks and war/armed conflicts; yet wars require additional skillsets and competencies. For example, conflicts frequently result in waves of trauma cases and public health hazards depending on conflict intensity. Also, infrastructure can be repeatedly destroyed or supplies to rebuild cannot reach communities in need – again depending on conflict activities. Accordingly, we encourage studies and commentaries on public health practice and analysis to more explicitly differentiate between natural disasters and armed conflicts [ 6 ].

Highlighting the different disciplines involved as well as the range of competencies required in different phases of war and peacebuilding, our review reiterates the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration for developing and implementing public health education on war and peacebuilding. Building on this evidence, the growing conceptual understanding [ 6 , 14 , 16 , 22 ] and existing content-analyses of war-related public health education [ 20 , 31 ] will help to systematically advance public health training as well as the scientific discourse on this topic to support evidence-based decision-making for curriculum adaptations, teaching methods as well as adaptation for peacebuilding and in times of war.

Peacebuilding and war prevention were less discussed in the publications included in this review compared to other phases of war. Whoerle et al. suggest that health education can serve as a potential platform for integrating peace education into school curricula. The integration of health and peace involves four key approaches that could be translated into competencies: adopting a socio-ecological perspective; employing complexity thinking and problem mapping, recognizing the continuum of resilience and trauma, and considering the community as a site for practical implementation, calling for interdisciplinary cooperation [ 16 ]. Barry S. Levy, one of the long-standing experts in this field, proposes that citizens should confront the powerful in their country [ 6 ]. This is important advice in democratic societies, and there are precedents of successful protest and civic disobedience such as Daniel Ellsberg’s activism against the Vietnam war, which gave a boost to the US anti-war movement [ 47 ]. We reiterate this call and encourage to focus in on the competencies in public health required to specifically include peace promotion and war prevention in addition to the emergency war response. This is particularly important in an ‘era of geopolitical uncertainty’ [ 48 ] where peace and war play a dominant role and should be reflected as determinants of health and accordingly systematically addressed in public health education [ 49 ]. However, we also realize that advice such as Levy’s is tailored more at civil wars and wars attempting regime change, rather than wars of annexation. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, was the first such event in Europe since World War II. Internal civic action, as recommended by Levy, carries grave personal risk when applied against the Putin regime. Diplomacy has not been successful as Russia, in the eyes of many observers, violates international treaties and security assurances [ 50 ]. In consequence, neighboring states may have to rely on a sufficiently funded military to protect their populations. This conclusion may come counter-intuitive to public health proponents [ 51 ], while in defense theories and international law and relation studies it is widely discussed and elaborated on [ 52 , 53 ]. Again, drawing from interdisciplinary collaboration could ensure deeper analytical and theoretical understandings of the terminology or concepts used in war and peacebuilding and comparability across fields. Moreover, given the contentious nature of these issues, students and teaching institutions should learn how to discuss conflicts constructively and fairly, avoiding the escalations of recent campus discourses in the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Strengths and limitations

In this Scoping Review, we analyzed the scope and extent of scientific discourse on war and peace promotion in public health education. Using a scoping review methodology allowed for a systematized and comprehensive mapping, which has been the first of its kind on the topic, at least to our knowledge. We included studies solely with a primary interest in war and peacebuilding in the public health education context. This allowed for a nuanced analysis of education programs, initiatives, or similar, which is of particular value for the overall aim of advancing public health education.

We thereby contribute to the identification of gaps and addressing them in an important area of public health work. Specifically, we have identified gaps in the European literature arena, where the topic of war and peace promotion has been mostly neglected over the past decades. In addition, we have synthesized war and peace promotion in public health education, which are usually assessed in parallel.

We limited our review to scientific databases aiming to assess the scientific discourse on war and peacebuilding in public health education and training. As a result, the review has not captured any grey literature relating to the topic; it exceeded the scope of this review. Nonetheless, it would be an important next step to assess the status quo at institutions of public health education and training within the European region. This includes Schools of Public Health and Higher Institutes or Centers for Public Health Education, many of whom lead to a graduate degree in public health and which is accredited by a recognized body, or bodies approved for such purpose. This could include for example the Secretary of Education in each European Region country or other authorizing bodies. Of note, a study in this regard, has been undertaken for specific schools of public health in the United States of America [ 31 ]. Such a study in Europe would allow for a more detailed overview of resources and expertise to advance and support the development of initiatives integrate war more systematically into public health education programs.

Since we only included studies with a primary interest in war and peacebuilding in the public health education context, we did not consider the scientific discussion touching on this topic. This was reflected many of full texts screened that ended with just a few publications with findings that could be generalized. The variability in the studies in terms of the type of war described, e.g., armed conflict or war of annexation, may present a challenge in drawing generalizable conclusions.

This scoping review identified a lack of scientific discourse on the role of war and peace promotion in public health education. The few public health education and training programs identified primarily focus on the immediate emergency response in conflict-affected areas. These were often entangled with emergency preparedness in different contexts such as infectious disease outbreaks. Peace promotion and war prevention are missing foci. This suggests a need for a far greater emphasis of the topic in public health training as well as its inclusion in competency frameworks. In addition to training public health professionals for emergencies, training with an emphasis on war prevention and promoting peace should be developed and implemented.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

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LW, YN, CC, TB, LB and OR conceptualized and designed the Scoping Review with important intellectual input from all co-authors. LW, MM, AG, AN and CC, conducted the screening. LW, MM, AG, AN extracted the data. LW, MM and AN analyzed the data. LW, MM, AN, AG and CC created the first draft of the manuscript. CC and LW edited the manuscript prior to submission to all authors, who then contributed input to the final manuscript. CC and LW edited the final draft manuscript. All authors contributed to the final manuscript and provided important intellectual input.

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Wandschneider, L., Nowak, A., Miller, M. et al. War and peace in public health education and training: a scoping review. BMC Public Health 24 , 2303 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19788-w

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Entrustable professional activities for bedside clinical teachers

• Ayesha Rafiq 1 &
• Ahsan Sethi 2  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  887 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Bedside teaching is an important modality for training medical students and postgraduate trainees in clinical settings. Despite its significance, the effective practice of Bedside teaching has been declining over the past few decades. The literature highlighted the need for structured training, assessment, and certification or in other words entrustment of bedside teachers. The current study aims to develop and validate the Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for bedside clinical teachers.

A multi-method study with clinical teachers, medical educationists, and postgraduate medical students was conducted from July 2021-22. First, a nominal group using the jigsaw puzzle technique was conducted with 16 participants to identify EPAs. Then these EPAs were mapped and validated by the skills/competencies identified in the literature. Next, the EPAs were evaluated using the EQual rubric by 3 medical educationists. This was followed by two-rounds of modified Delphi to develop consensus among 90 participants in round-one and 69 in round-two. For qualitative data, a thematic analysis was conducted. For quantitative data, means and standard deviations were calculated.

The study identified five EPAs for bedside clinical teachers: developing bedside teaching program, planning bedside teaching session, conducting bedside teaching, conducting bedside assessments and evaluating bedside teaching.

Conclusions

This study comprehensively developed and validated a full description of EPAs for bedside clinical teachers. The EPAs identified in the study can serve as a guiding framework for bedside clinical teachers’ training, assessment, and entrustment.

Peer Review reports

Bedside teaching (BST) is one of the most important aspects of undergraduate and postgraduate medical education [ 1 ] It allows learners to develop effective history-taking, physical examinations, clinical reasoning, communication and problem-solving skills in real life clinical settings [ 2 ] BST also helps in learning professionalism and medical ethics. Despite its significance, the effective practice of BST has been declining over the past few decades [ 1 ]. Several reasons have been cited for its decline such as a lack of resources and incentives by hospitals, patients’ discomfort and their unavailability during rounds, increased advancements in technology, increased workload of clinicians, and most importantly their lack of training for BST [ 3 ]. Many clinical teachers learn to teach BST through observation and experimentation and remain ignorant of the educational theories, andragogical principles, and teaching methods [ 1 , 3 , 4 ].

Over the last few decades, there have been expectations from clinical teachers to develop certain educational competencies for effective clinical teaching. In this regard, various educational competency frameworks, guidelines, and training programs have been introduced globally. Literature described several competency frameworks for faculty members such as those proposed by Hesketh et al., [ 5 ] Tigelaar et al., [ 6 ] Molenaar et al., [ 7 ] Milner et al., [ 8 ] Hatem et al., [ 9 ] Srinivasan et al., [ 10 ] Ross et al., [ 11 ] Daouk-Oyry et al., [ 12 ] and Walsh et al. [ 13 ]. However, these frameworks do not guide the teachers on implementing them in their context. Several guidelines for providing effective clinical supervision such as Recognizing and approving trainers by General Medical Council (UK) [ 14 ]; the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines for Clinical Supervision of Health Service Psychologists [ 15 ]; the New Zealand Psychologists Board Guidelines on Supervision [ 16 ]; and the Psychology Board of Australia Guidelines for Supervisors and Supervision Training Providers [ 17 ] are also available. There is also a clinician educator milestone project for the assessment of the educational skills of teaching faculty, which is a joint effort of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine [ 18 ]. In Pakistan, the College of Physicians and Surgeons [ 19 ] conducts four training workshops which are mandatory to become a clinical supervisor. Unfortunately, these frameworks or trainings for clinical supervisors neither guarantee the transfer of training to the workplace nor ensure the maintenance of competence. Except for some developed countries such as USA, UK, and Canada [ 20 ], the educational competencies of clinical supervisors are not formally assessed in many countries.

Medical students and trainees have reported dissatisfaction with clinical teachers’ competence to understand the level of learners, observe patient-trainee encounters, provide a safe learning environment, demonstrate clinical tasks consistently, deliver constructive feedback, and encourage reflections [ 21 , 22 , 23 ] They reported experiencing opportunistic learning, which varies from one preceptor to another [ 24 ] This necessitates attention towards the selection, training, and preparation of clinical teachers for effective supervision of students [ 25 , 26 ]. To develop, maintain, and bring continuous improvements in teaching competence, there is a need for structured training, assessments, and periodic certification of Bedside Clinical Teachers [ 25 ] or in other words Entrustment of Bedside Clinical Teachers.

Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are defined as a set of professional tasks that can be fully entrusted to a learner to perform independently once they have attained the required specific competencies [ 27 ]. EPAs were first introduced in 2005 for graduate medical students [ 27 ]. Later, the use of EPAs has been increasingly taken up by various health professions with the intent to improve patient safety in the workplace [ 28 ]. EPAs embrace the concept of Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) which in turn emphasizes the attainment and demonstration of required competencies that are crucial for job performance [ 29 ]. EPAs ground competencies in daily clinical practice & make them assessable. EPAs lay more emphasis on outcome-based, learner-centered, and skills-oriented flexible education, while less on time-barred training, which distinguishes it from the traditional training approaches [ 30 ]. Development of EPAs for BST can help inform faculty training in this important modality for training medical students. These can also be used for training of residents to reduce the burden of clinical teachers [ 31 ] The use of EPAs will also enhance the confidence, insight, and motivation of clinical teachers, while reducing the discomfort of patients and medical students in the process [ 25 , 26 ]. Dewey et al., [ 25 ] proposed the use of EPAs for teaching faculty as well. Iqbal et al., [ 32 ] also emphasized on expanding EPAs for faculty training on specific teaching domains such as bedside teaching, mentoring, small group discussions, etc. In the literature, we could only find one study that developed an EPA for BST [ 33 ]. They used a focus group discussion and open-ended questionnaires via e-mail to collect participants’ perspectives on BST definitions and its essential features to develop an EPA for BST. However, their participants did not involve medical educationists who are the stakeholders in designing, implementing, and evaluating BST. Also, they did not use an EPA evaluation tool such as EQual rubric [ 34 ] for quality or ensured a national consensus or validation [ 35 ] of the final set of EPAs. The current study aims to develop and validate Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for bedside clinical teachers through a rigorous multimethod approach.

Multimethod study design. Abbreviations: JPT, Jigsaw puzzle technique; NGT, Nominal group technique

A multi-method study was conducted in Pakistan from July 2021 - July 2022 (Fig.  1 ). Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethical Review Board of Medical Teaching Institution Abbottabad (Approval Code/Ref.No.RC-2022/EA-01/143 dated 24.05.2021). As an EPA expert has not been precisely defined in the literature, therefore we invited clinical teachers, medical educationists, and postgraduate medical students involved with BST for the study. Participants were selected through purposive maximum variation sampling. The inclusion criteria were set as clinical teachers with a relevant qualification of Member of College of Physicians and Surgeons (MCPS)/ Fellow of College of Physicians and Surgeons (FCPS), a minimum of three years’ field experience, and a designation of Assistant Professor or above. For medical educationists, a relevant qualification of Master in Health Professions Education (MHPE)/ PhD in Health Professions Education, a minimum of three years of experience, and a designation of Assistant Professor or above. Postgraduate students of any age, gender, specialty, and having willingness to participate in the study, were included. The participants were invited through a seminar and email including an information sheet and consent form.

In phase 1, we identified EPAs for BST. We invited 16 participants at Ayub Medical and Teaching Institution Abbottabad, which is a 1460-bedded tertiary care teaching hospital in Pakistan, and currently caters to around 1482 medical students and 546 postgraduate residents in different disciplines of Medicine, Surgery, and Dentistry. Participants were given orientation on study objectives. As the EPA concept was relatively novel to most of them, a detailed presentation encompassing substantial information on EPAs was given by the authors to ensure a common understanding among the participants. The first set of EPAs was developed using the Nominal Group Technique (NGT). In NGT, the experts are involved in independent activities and group interactions for quality ideas (in this research EPAs) generation and consensus development [ 36 ]. As part of NGT, a jigsaw puzzle technique [ 37 ] was used to generate EPAs’ description i.e., title; specifications and limitations; potential risks in case of failure; required competencies; required knowledge, skills, attitudes, and experience; resources for assessment; level of supervision and expiry period [ 38 ]. Jigsaw puzzle technique helped to develop a comprehensive description of all the EPAs through collaborative ideas of all participants in one session. Participants were grouped into four jigsaw groups, where each member of the group was tasked to develop the assigned aspect of EPAs description for all the EPAs. Members (from each jigsaw group) with the same assigned task were then regrouped as expert groups to discuss and compare their ideas with others. Next participants were returned to their original jigsaw groups, where they revised their descriptions to develop a full set of descriptions for all EPAs. Lastly, each group presented their sets of descriptions to other groups for discussion and clarification resulting in the final set of EPAs with descriptions.

The EPAs developed in phase 1 were then validated with the literature review [ 39 ]. A search was made with keywords (EPAs, bedside teaching, and clinical teachers) and by using their synonyms and various combinations in Medline, Embase, Cochrane, ERIC, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar (Additional file 1 ). Inclusion criteria were set as full text, original articles, and systematic and scoping reviews in the English language with a focus on Medicine specialty. Search also involved controlled vocabulary and free text terms combined using Boolean operators ‘AND’ and ‘OR’.

In this phase, the EQual rubric was used to evaluate the structure and content of EPAs because it reliably measures the alignment of the key domains of EPAs with literature defined standards. It consists of 14 questions which are classified under three sub-scales: EPAs as discrete units of work; EPAs as entrustable, essential, and important tasks of the profession; and EPAs’ curricular role [ 34 ]. An online survey was created using QuestionPro ® (Survey Analytics LLC, Beaverton, Oregon, USA) based on 14 items of the EQual rubric along with three additional questions regarding EPAs improvement (Additional file 2 ). An orientation video on the EQual rubric was also inserted into the first page of the survey for participants’ guidance [ 40 ]. A modified Angoff approach was used for the determination of a cut-off score of 3.95 for EPAs adequacy. Three expert medical educationists with qualifications and experience in clinical teaching and medical education reviewed each EPA using the rubric.

Data was analyzed using means, standard deviations, and level of agreement for each EPA. Free text comments were summarized as standalone qualitative data [ 41 ]. Changes were made when suggested by at least two experts for items with mean scores below 3.95.

This phase used a modified Delphi technique to seek national consensus on EPAs identified in the earlier phases [ 42 ]. Participants of this phase included clinical teachers and postgraduate students from multiple specialties as well as medical educationists. By using purposive maximum variation sampling, participants across Pakistan with known contacts were sent invitations through emails for participation. To increase the sample size, we also employed snowball sampling which is a non-probability sampling method and involves asking initially willing participants to suggest other diverse and information-rich participants with similar characteristics from among their acquaintances. Participants’ number reached 90, which is considered appropriate in Delphi studies involving diverse groups [ 41 ].

A piloted and electronically developed questionnaire via QuestionPro was distributed to participants in two rounds. Participants were provided with AMEE Guide No.140 on recommended description of an EPA, to use as a reference guide [ 38 ]. Participants’ agreement was asked on a 5-point Likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Round-one survey’s first part was about participants’ demographics and the second part had two sections, A and B. Section A consisted of seven questions repeated for each EPA. The first six questions were about participants’ agreement on the provided title; specifications; limitations; potential risks in case of failure; competencies; and knowledge, skills, and attitude, while the seventh question asked for suggestions for improvements. Section B had four questions. The first two questions asked for participants’ agreement on the provided EPA level and required resources of entrustment. The last two questions asked for participants’ comments on the expiry period and suggestions on the overall EPAs’ description (Additional file 3 ). Round-two survey had ten questions for EPAs’ descriptions, which received below 80% agreement or had major revisions based on round-one (Additional file 4 ).

Data were analyzed using means, standard deviations, and level of agreements. The consensus was set as ≥ 80% agreement for a minimum score of 4 out of 5 on a 5-point Likert scale. Suggestions were incorporated when recommended by at least two participants and after thorough review and discussions amongst the authors.

Initial 16 EPAs were refined through different phases into 5 EPAs. Demographic details of participants who were clinical teachers, medical educationists, and postgraduate medical students are given in Table  1 . Participants belonged to a diverse range of specialties and from different cities grouped into four provinces of Pakistan.

The participants included 10 (62.5%) males and 6 (37.5%) females (Table  1 ). This phase resulted in a set of 16 EPAs and their descriptions (Table  2 ). However, a definitive consensus could not be obtained for the expiry period of EPAs, so it was included for comments in the round-one Delphi survey.

Five new EPAs i.e., EPAs 7, 12, 17, 20, and 21 were added via literature review through selected databases resulting in 21 EPAs (Table  2 ).

Of 21 EPAs, 11 made below the 3.95 cut-off score and were nested with other EPAs as suggested by the participants resulting in 10 EPAs (Table  2 ).

Phase 4 - Delphi

Of 144 invitees, 90 agreed to participate in the study. The response rate to round-one was 85.5%(77/90 responses). Four EPAs scored ≥ 80% agreements, while titles of six EPAs scored < 80% agreements. Modifications were also made to those EPAs’ descriptions that had already scored ≥ 80% agreement if suggested by at least two participants or with consensus among researchers reviewing the comments. Guided by participants’ feedback, EPAs 2, 6, and 10 were nested under the recommended title as “developing BST program”; EPAs 1 and 5 as “planning BST”, EPAs 3, 4, and 9 as “conducting BST”; EPA 8 was retained as “conducting BST assessments” and EPA 7 as “evaluating BST” resulting into five EPAs (Table  2 ). Levels of entrustment for all EPAs had scored > 80% agreement, so, it was not repeated in round-two. Regarding required resources for entrustment, “minutes of meeting” failed to achieve ≥ 80% agreement and was eliminated from the list (Summary of results of round-one of a modified delphi study is available as Additional file 5 ).

Round-two was completed by 69 participants. Eight participants could not fill in the survey because of other commitments. The response rate for round-two was 89.6% (69/77 responses). In this round, all five EPAs, and their descriptions scored ≥ 80% agreement (Summary of the results of round-two of a modified Delphi study is available as Additional file 5 and 6 ) (Insert Table  2 here provided as a separate file of Tables  1 and 2 ).

Five EPAs were developed through four phases of a multimethod approach for bedside teachers of both undergraduate and postgraduate students (Additional file 6 ). The primary set of 16 EPAs was gradually refined through these phases under the guidance of the participants’ feedback to a final set of five EPAs. Some EPAs were nested with others as sub-activities which is consistent with the literature, advocating EPAs to be broader in design that provide less detailed guidance to the trainee on their expected work [ 43 ].

Resulting EPAs are developing BST program, planning BST session, conducting BST, conducting bedside assessments, and evaluating BST. Each of these EPAs encompasses a full set of descriptions and requires standalone entrustment because a bedside teacher can attain certification for developing BST sessions, but is not yet able to plan or conduct BST.

First EPA ensured an organized and well-defined set of tasks for bedside teachers. It was related to planning and developing a complete BST program that encompassed the development of BST curriculum, study guides, assessment policies, written ethical guidelines, feedback, and evaluation forms in collaboration with all stakeholders. It also included a suggestion from a participant of round-two Delphi to use an evidence-based approach while designing the BST curriculum as supported by literature studies [ 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ] Second EPA was planning individual BST sessions for ensuring timely and smooth information delivery to students. It included lesson planning, pre-briefing the patients, and orienting the students before BST [ 33 , 49 , 50 ] Participants endorsed this EPA in avoiding untoward situations between doctors and patients or their attendants. Third EPA incorporated steps for BST conduction based on principles of evidence-based teaching and this was in line with previous studies [ 51 , 52 , 53 ] Fourth EPA is the ability of bedside teachers to design and conduct standardized assessments using multiple workplace-based assessment tools [ 54 , 55 ]. This is important because carefully designed assessments lead to professional competence in medical students. The last EPA encompassed tasks related to the evaluation of BST sessions and program, vital for any ongoing dynamic process. This EPA will serve to bring improvements in the overall EPAs structure by identifying BST tasks not yet recognizable in this study. Nearly all study participants deemed these EPAs important, but they also pointed out that these tasks might not be practical in terms of bigger workload of clinical faculty.

Only one study in the literature developed EPA for BST [ 33 ]. However that study did not involve diverse stakeholders including medical educationaists and only used focus group discussion and survey for developing BST definitions and features. On the other hand, the current study involved medical educationists involved in professional development, clinical teachers and postgraduate students and used a four-phased multimethod approach for EPAs development and validation [ 56 ]. Moreover, this study also focused on the development of a full set of descriptions of individual EPAs [ 38 ] to provide explicit details for bedside teachers training programs. Also, Participants chose competency domains required for each EPA from the teaching competency framework for the medical educators proposed by Srinivasan et al., [ 10 ] We have used this framework because it included six core competencies, based on the ACGME competencies framework: medical knowledge; learner-centeredness; interpersonal and communication skills; professionalism and role modeling; practice-based reflection; and systems-based practice and four specialized competencies: program design/implementation, evaluation/scholarship, leadership, and mentorship. These competencies were also cross-referenced with educator roles, from CanMEDS, to ascertain role-specific skills [ 10 ].

For summative entrustment, bedside teachers need to be evaluated by experts using multiple assessment methods at various stages of their training and professional development. Assessment methods which are also supported by other studies include direct observation [ 57 ] 360◦ feedback [ 58 ] reflective portfolio [ 59 ] Objective Structured Teaching Examinations [ 60 ] etc. This study used three instead of the original five entrustment levels as proposed for small group facilitators [ 61 ]. Levels of indirect supervision and entrusted to supervise others had not been used as indirect supervision may not be instantly available to teachers during an ongoing session, and without additional courses, a teacher is not competent enough to train other teachers [ 61 ]. It is our opinion that an EPA may expire if bedside teachers do not undergo appraisals for three consecutive years. This is because, unlike clinical skills, teaching skills may not immediately decay over time but would need re-entrustment after the expiry.

Implications

These EPAs can empower bedside teachers for capacity building by recognizing gaps in their BST practice and accordingly improving them. This would also benefit students, patients, program developers, and medical institutions. As recommended for EPA-based programs [ 38 ] this study also entailed that experienced teachers should train, and assess beginner levels and give appraisals to them for their performance. Teachers can then be awarded certification for independent BST after attaining the required entrustment level. As suggested, a ‘statement of awarded responsibility’ (STAR) can be given to a teacher achieving adequate expertise in an EPA [ 25 ] to signify that a certain task has now been entrusted to the awarded teacher to be performed proficiently. Entrusted teachers can be given reasonable points for the attained STARs to be used for recruitment and promotion [ 62 ] These EPAs can also be adopted as structured faculty development or continuing professional development programs to operationalize BST training at the workplace [ 63 ].

The strength of this study was that to our knowledge, it is the first study that used a multimethod approach to develop and validate a full set of descriptions of EPAs for bedside teachers in collaboration with clinical teachers, medical educationists, and postgraduate students to maximally accommodate their requirements and perspectives. This study design can serve as a guide for other researchers to develop EPAs in other fields.

This study also had some limitations. The study was confined to the context of Pakistan where EPAs’ concept is relatively novel and the majority of the participants had minimal prior experience of EPAs development. However, we tried to cope with this limitation, by providing substantial information on EPAs to the participants before each phase and throughout the study whenever required. Participants were mainly selected for their experience with BST. However, there is still a possibility of lacking one or more items in EPAs description relevant to work of bedside teachers, necessitating these EPAs to be field tested, revisited, and modified if required. Regarding the limitation section in EPAs description, the majority of participants of round-one Delphi misunderstood it as barriers of BST, therefore, their comments were not included. Although this was clarified to them again in round-two, however, some participants commented that limitations can be better identified once EPAs are executed. This study only focused on BST, therefore, its findings would be difficult to generalize to other teaching settings.

This study comprehensively developed and validated a full description of EPAs for bedside clinical teachers. The EPAs identified in the study can serve as a guiding framework for the training, assessment, and entrustment of bedside clinical teachers. Future research should explore the long-term impact of implementing EPAs on bedside clinical teachers’ performance, student outcomes, and overall patient safety.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

Abbreviations

The International Association for Medical Education

Bedside Teaching

Competency Based Medical Education

• Entrustable Professional Activities

Education Resources Information Center

Fellow Of College of Physicians and Surgeons

Jigsaw Puzzle Technique

Member Of College of Physicians and Surgeons

Masters In Health Professions Education

Nominal Group Technique

Doctor Of Philosophy

Statement of Awarded Responsibility

United Kingdom

United States of America

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the participants for their active contribution to this research project. We would also like to thank Dr. Najia Sajjad Khan and Dr. Anam Rafiq for their valuable feedback and support throughout the project. The study was conducted as part of First author’s MHPE dissertation under the supervision of Dr Ahsan Sethi.

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Ayesha Rafiq

Health Professions Education, QU Health, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

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AS conceptualized and designed the study. Both authors have made substantial contributions to the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data; as well as in writing, proofreading, and approving the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ahsan Sethi .

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Ethical approval was obtained from Ethical Review Board of Medical Teaching Institution Abbottabad (Approval Code/Ref.No.RC-2022/EA-01/143 dated 24.05.2021) and informed written consent was taken from the participants.

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Rafiq, A., Sethi, A. Entrustable professional activities for bedside clinical teachers. BMC Med Educ 24 , 887 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05876-3

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Received : 06 May 2024

Accepted : 08 August 2024

Published : 18 August 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05876-3

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