Scientific observation plays a central part in the formation of scientific knowledge and thus it has animportant role in the teaching and learning of science. Despite its importance there are only a few studies that focus on the problems in making observations. The paper begins with the collection offactors effecting scientific observation. In order to find out primary school student teachers’ conceptions of scientific observation 110 student teachers were asked to write what things they connect tomaking scientific observations. For the majority of the student teachers making observations seemsto mean in the first place just noticing things. Only about 30% of the student teachers connectedearlier experiences and knowledge with observations and only 30% of the student teachers mentioned processing of information. To become efficient at it, student teachers need plenty of practice and experience of the different features of scientific observation.

This article provides an overview of teaching and learning processes in research on physics and chemistry education published in NorDiNa 2005–2013. Using the didactic triangle as our theoretical framework we developed a typology to analyse the data and used this to categorise 89 related research papers, from all levels of education (primary, secondary and tertiary). The results suggest that students’ characteristics, their understanding of the content and learning outcomes are studied frequently. In contrast, science teachers are studied much less. Most papers reported studies that had been done at the teaching organisation level. Course level studies and society level studies were also frequent. However, international level studies were few in this data pool. We conclude by discussing less popular research topics in the science education field.

This study provides an overview of the didactic focus areas in educational research in biology, chemistry and physics, seeking to identify the focus areas that are investigated frequently and those that have been studied rarely or not at all. We applied the didactic focus-based categorization analysis method (DFCM), which is based on an extension of the didactic triangle. As the data set, we used 250 papers published in the Nordic Studies in Science Education (NorDiNa) between 2005 and 2013, and the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) 2013 conference proceedings covering education at upper secondary and tertiary levels. The results show that the teacher’s pedagogical actions and the student–content relationship were the most frequently studied aspects. On the other hand, teachers’ reflections on the students’ perceptions and attitudes about goals and content, and teachers’ conceptions of the students’ actions towards achieving the goals were studied least. Irrespective of the publication forum, the distributions of foci to different categories were quite similar. Our historical analysis completes the recent studies in the field as it is based on the theory driven categorization system instead of the data driven approaches used by the previous researchers. Moreover, our further observations on more recent publications suggest that no significant changes have taken place, and therefore wider discussion about the scope and the coverage of the research in science education is needed.

The article highlights the problem of effective education of adults receiving the second graduate degree in Pedagogy. The importance of this problem is related to the specifics of the formation of the contingent of part-time students majoring in 013 Primary education, which is heterogeneous in age, basic education, and professional activity. The study used the method of questionnaires, interviews, observation of the educational process, methods of quantitative mathematical analysis of data processing. The normative-legal base in the context of the research is analyzed; the comparative analysis of the system of teacher training in a number of European countries is carried out. It was found that in the process of professional training of primary school teachers in the second graduate degree should take into account the following factors: age of students, their needs, social status, the availability of main education, and work due to the specialty. This determines the selection of methods and techniques of teaching, technologies that provide quality practical training, taking into account their professional and life experience, intrinsic motivation and a strong desire for self-realization. The study identified the most important principles of andragogy, which should be based on professional training of students receiving second graduate degree in pedagogic, specifically: priorities of self-study, organization of group work, use of professional experience as a source of new knowledge, relevance of knowledge and experience, self-motivation. This made it possible to identify the priority forms of organization of the educational process, to provide a practical component of the formation of subject and methodological competencies of the modern primary school teacher.