This text is part of the special section Les prix de l’Acfas
In his village of Mestegmer, in eastern Morocco, a young Berber named Abdelkrim Hasni had no idea that he would one day leave for Quebec and that he would found a science education research center there. University of Sherbrooke. “When I arrived for my doctorate, no one in Sherbrooke was interested in this field of study,” explains the winner of the Acfas Jeanne-Lapointe prize for educational sciences.
In 2005, he obtained a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to launch the Research Center for Science Teaching and Learning (CREAS), around which orbit 12 regular researchers, 30 associate researchers and some forty master’s and doctoral students.
Before becoming a science and technology education teacher, the researcher taught secondary school science for five years in Morocco, then spent three years training education inspectors. He has therefore been convinced, from the outset, that the primary vocation of CREAS is to ensure a better transfer of knowledge.
“If we want teachers to take ownership of our research, we have to make the effort to dialogue and establish trust,” he says. This is why CREAS, which he directed from 2005 to 2009, then from 2012 to 2017, brings together not only didacticians, but professors from the faculties of science and engineering and pedagogues from school service centers and teachers .
“A big part of the job is to understand what the obstacles are to learning knowledge,” says the researcher, whose one of the articles on student interest published in the British journal Studies in Science Education is the second most read in the magazine’s history. “The third is my article on teaching by project. »
In the study of what determines students’ interest, the originality of CREAS is its curricular approach. In other words: how the whole curriculum values science or not. “We know that if the acquisition of scientific knowledge is uneven in elementary school, the transition to secondary school will not be optimal. »
Scientific citizenship
He feels that science education in Quebec compares quite well in international tests. “But there is still room for improvement,” he says, emphasizing the issues of citizenship and the promotion of science, which are the two other major objectives of CREAS.
“Society has great needs. And it doesn’t just take doctors and engineers. We also need technicians, electricians, mechanics,” he explains, pointing out that CREAS is currently paying particular attention to the under-representation of women in several disciplines.
“And there is the need for an enlightened citizenry in the face of scientific questions,” he adds. We cannot properly discuss climate change or health security without a minimum of knowledge, especially when scientists are not unanimous.
“This is a problem that we were studying before COVID, especially around the controversy over the human papillomavirus [VPH]. Science education is not only used to produce scientists and technicians. It also aims to make good citizens. »
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the To have to, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of To have to did not take part.