Characteristics of analogies reported by 15 secondary-school chemistry teachers over six weeks of teaching were evaluated in light of literature recommendations for effective instructional uses of analogies. Teachers’ responses to biweekly prompts from the researchers regarding their submitted analogies, together with exit-interview responses, were used to analyze teachers’ reported instructional uses of analogies. E-mailed responses and exit-interviews were analyzed using grounded theory. Results suggest that reported analogy use was largely congruent with major literature-based guidelines for effective use, but teachers generally failed to address limitations of analogies. However, selected interviews indicated that participating teachers considered it important to discuss analogical limitations with students. Several data-supported explanations to resolve this discrepancy are offered.
Milne et al. (Mon,) studied this question.