Skill Transmittance in Science Education

Science & Education 28 (1-2):45-61 (2019)
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Abstract

It is widely argued that the skills of scientific expertise are tacit, meaning that they are difficult to study. In this essay, I draw on work from the philosophy of action about the nature of skills to show that there is another access point for the study of skills—namely, skill transmission in science education. I will begin by outlining Small’s Aristotelian account of skills, including a brief exposition of its advantages over alternative accounts of skills. He argues that skills exist in a sort of life cycle between learning, practicing, and transmitting, which provides reasons to think that we should pay close attention to the way skills are transmitted in teaching and learning. To demonstrate how a study of skill transmittance can be revealing about the nature of skills in expertise, I explore an example—what I identify as the skill of tension-balancing in model-building. After describing the skill, I briefly examine two case studies from the science education literature that reveal insights about the skill of tension-balancing as it functions in the practice of model-building.

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Brandon Boesch
Morningside College

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References found in this work

The Concept of Mind.Gilbert Ryle - 1949 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 141:125-126.
The Concept of Mind.Gilbert Ryle - 1949 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1 (4):328-332.
Knowing How.Jason Stanley & Timothy Willlamson - 2001 - Journal of Philosophy 98 (8):411-444.
How scientific models can explain.Alisa Bokulich - 2011 - Synthese 180 (1):33 - 45.

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