Understanding nature of science is widely considered an important educational objective and views of NOS are closely linked to science teaching and learning. Thus there is a lively discussion about what understanding NOS means and how it is reached. As a result of analyses in educational, philosophical, sociological and historical research, a worldwide consensus about the content of NOS teaching is said to be reached. This consensus content is listed as a general statement of science, which students are supposed to (...) understand during their education. Unfortunately, decades of research has demonstrated that teachers and students alike do not possess an appropriate understanding of NOS, at least as far as it is defined at the general level. One reason for such failure might be that formal statements about the NOS and scientific knowledge can really be understood after having been contextualized in the actual cases. Typically NOS is studied as contextualized in the reconstructed historical case stories. When the objective is to educate scientifically and technologically literate citizens, as well as scientists of the near future, studying NOS in the contexts of contemporary science is encouraged. Such contextualizations call for revision of the characterization of NOS and the goals of teaching about NOS. As a consequence, this article gives two examples for studying NOS in the contexts of scientific practices with practicing scientists: an interview study with nanomodellers considering NOS in the context of their actual practices and a course on nature of scientific modelling for science teachers employing the same interview method as a studying method. Such scrutinization opens rarely discussed areas and viewpoints to NOS as well as aspects that practising scientists consider as important. (shrink)

The value of argumentation in science education has become internationally recognised and has been the subject of many research studies in recent years. Successful introduction of argumentation activities in learning contexts involves extending teaching goals beyond the understanding of facts and concepts, to include an emphasis on cognitive and metacognitive processes, epistemic criteria and reasoning. The authors focus on the difficulties inherent in shifting a tradition of teaching from one dominated by authoritative exposition to one that is more dialogic, involving (...) small-group discussion based on tasks that stimulate argumentation. The paper focuses on how argumentation activities have been designed in school science. Examples of classroom dialogue where teachers adopt the frameworks/plans are analysed to show how argumentation processes are scaffolded. The analysis shows that several layers of interpretation are needed and these layers need to be aligned for successful implementation. (shrink)

Our research addresses the issue of teaching and learning concepts in science education as an empirical question. We study the process of conceptualization by closely examining the unfolding of classroom lesson sequences. We situate our work within the practice turn line of research on epistemic practices in science education. We also adopt a practice turn approach when it comes to the learning of concepts, as we consider conceptualization as being inherent within epistemic practices. In our work, pedagogical practices are modeled (...) as learning games and epistemic practices in science education are characterized as enacted epistemic games emerging through the unfolding of learning games. Science practices are modeled as source epistemic games since they are the source of the knowledge at stake in pedagogical practices. From this point, we examine closely how playing learning games can enable students to play enacted epistemic games and then in turn the source epistemic games at the core of conceptual understanding. Thus, the main contribution of this paper is to link pedagogical practices to epistemic practices in science education and to science practices in general. Our method is consistent with this epistemological framework as our case study on the concept of earthquakes in a 5th grade classroom sequence illustrates. Following an investigation of two experienced teachers and their classes during a teaching unit, our analysis shows how teaching effectiveness is determined by a dialectic. This entails on the one hand a didactic continuity between learning games and enacted epistemic games and, on the other, an epistemic continuity between enacted epistemic games and source epistemic games. (shrink)

Practicing scientists’ views of science recently have become a topic of interest to nature of science researchers. Using an interview protocol developed by Carey and Smith that assumes respondents’ views cohere into a single belief system, we asked 15 research chemists to discuss their views of theories and experimentation. Respondents expressed a range of ideas about science during interviews, but in ways that defied assignment to a unitary, coherent belief system. Instead, scientists expressed more or less constructivist ideas depending upon (...) the questions asked. We interpret our findings to suggest that efforts to categorize such conceptions at best oversimplify, and at worst misconstrue, people’s views about science and how such ideas might develop. (shrink)

This article develops the notion of resistance as articulated in the literature of critical pedagogy as being both culturally sponsored and cognitively manifested. To do so, the authors draw upon John Dewey's conception of tools for inquiry. Dewey provides a way to conceptualize student resistance not as a form of willful disputation, but instead as a function of socialization into cultural models of thought that actively truncate inquiry. In other words, resistance can be construed as the cognitive and emotive dimensions (...) of the ongoing failure of institutions to provide ideas that help individuals both recognize social problems and imagine possible solutions. Focusing on Dewey's epistemological framework, specifically tools for inquiry, provides a way to grasp this problem. It also affords some innovative solutions; for instance, it helps conceive of possible links between the regular curriculum and the study of specific social justice issues, a relationship that is often under-examined. The aims of critical pedagogy depend upon students developing dexterity with the conceptual tools they use to make meaning of the evidence they confront; these are background skills that the regular curriculum can be made to serve even outside social justice-focused curricula. Furthermore, the article concludes that because such inquiry involves the exploration and potential revision of students' world-ordering beliefs, developing flexibility in how one thinks may be better achieved within academic subjects and topics that are not so intimately connected to students' current social lives, especially where students may be directly implicated. (shrink)

As part of a teacher training project, 16 future chemistry teachers participated in a dramatisation activity, in which they discussed a controversy concerning an event from the history of science: the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Fritz Haber in 1918. Preparations for the role-play activity, the dramatisation of the mock trial, and the subsequent discussions were video-recorded. We also collected the written material produced by the pre-service teachers and the reflective journals they produced during their involvement with (...) the activity. This article discusses the contributions of such an experience to future teachers’ knowledge on aspects related to both nature of science and argumentation, as well as to their views on their future actions related to authentic teaching of and about science. The results show that such contributions were meaningful. (shrink)

This case study explores students’ physics-related personal epistemologies in school science practices. The school science practices of nine eleventh grade students in a physics class were audio-taped over 6 weeks. The students were also interviewed to find out their ideas on the nature of scientific knowledge after each activity. Analysis of transcripts yielded several epistemological resources that students activated in their school science practice. The findings show that there is inconsistency between students’ definitions of scientific theories and their epistemological judgments. (...) Analysis revealed that students used several epistemological resources to decide on the accuracy of their data including accuracy via following the right procedure and accuracy via what the others find. Traditional, formulation-based, physics instruction might have led students to activate naive epistemological resources that prevent them to participate in the practice of science in ways that are more meaningful. Implications for future studies are presented. (shrink)

This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...) field, it lays down a much-needed marker of progress to date and provides a platform for informed and coherent future analysis and research of the subject. -/- The publication comes at a time of heightened worldwide concern over the standard of science and mathematics education, attended by fierce debate over how best to reform curricula and enliven student engagement in the subjects There is a growing recognition among educators and policy makers that the learning of science must dovetail with learning about science; this handbook is uniquely positioned as a locus for the discussion. -/- The handbook features sections on pedagogical, theoretical, national, and biographical research, setting the literature of each tradition in its historical context. Each chapter engages in an assessment of the strengths and weakness of the research addressed, and suggests potentially fruitful avenues of future research. A key element of the handbook’s broader analytical framework is its identification and examination of unnoticed philosophical assumptions in science and mathematics research. It reminds readers at a crucial juncture that there has been a long and rich tradition of historical and philosophical engagements with science and mathematics teaching, and that lessons can be learnt from these engagements for the resolution of current theoretical, curricular and pedagogical questions that face teachers and administrators. (shrink)

We draw on recent accounts of social epistemology to present a novel account of epistemic cognition that is ‘socialised’. In developing this account we foreground the: normative and pragmatic nature of knowledge claims; functional role that ‘to know’ plays when agents say they ‘know x’; the social context in which such claims occur at a macro level, including disciplinary and cultural context; and the communicative context in which such claims occur, the ways in which individuals and small groups express and (...) construct (or co-construct) their knowledge claims. We frame prior research in terms of this new approach to provide an exemplification of its application. Practical implications for research and learning contexts are highlighted, suggesting a re-focussing of analysis on the collective level, and the ways knowledge-standards emerge from group-activity, as a communicative property of that activity. (shrink)

In the last decades, a great amount of research has advocated innovating science education through teaching contents of the history, sociology, and philosophy of science in order for the students to get a reliable image of science, significant and relevant learning experiences, and higher interest and engagement in science. Given the embeddedness of techno-scientific systems in contemporary societies, the science-technology-society (STS) movement suggested the simple initiative of teaching science through making explicit the interrelationships between science, scientists, technology, and society to (...) achieve these aims. Since then, the STS tradition has evolved and produced some conceptual variations. This paper deals with three of these variations that are currently the key areas of school science education research and teaching: “socio-scientific issues,” “scientific literacy for all,” and “nature of science.” As heirs of the STS tradition, these mottos embody, at the same time, a clear continuity with STS origins, and some discontinuities, which arise from the development of their own paradigms, adding original elements to the STS movement. (shrink)

Efforts to assess students' and teachers' understandings of nature of science have extended for over 50 years. During this time, numerous instruments have been developed that span the full range of assessments from the traditional to open-ended assessments with interviews. As one might expect, the development, use, and interpretation of these assessments have paralleled the scholarship on students’ and teachers’ understandings of nature of science. Consequently, such assessments have evidenced the same challenges and obstacles seen in the general research literature. (...) This chapter will provide a rationale for the importance of teaching, and assessing, nature of science as well as a discussion of the construct. A comprehensive review and a critical analysis of the various assessments are also provided. Finally, an in-depth discussion of the contemporary issues regarding nature of science and its assessment is provided along with cautions regarding the future direction of nature of science assessment. (shrink)

There is strong evidence to show that beliefs about knowing and knowledge held by individuals influence preservice teachers’ learning strategies and learning outcomes. However, we know very little about how preservice teachers’ personal epistemologies change as they progress through their teacher education programs. This study investigated changes in personal epistemology and beliefs about learning for a group of preservice teachers as they progressed through the four years of a Bachelor of Education degree. Preservice teachers completed the Epistemological Beliefs Survey when (...) they commenced their course when they were in the 3rd year of their course and then again in the final year of their degree. Findings indicated that there were significant changes in preservice teachers’ personal epistemologies between course entry and the final year of their course across all but one of the dimensions measured. Results are discussed in terms of the implications for teaching and teacher education. (shrink)

Future professionals should be prepared for scientific reasoning, i.e., to construct and apply scientific knowledge, in order to analyze and solve problems in their professional practice. Yet, future practitioners’ scientific reasoning skills often seem to be deficient when solving practical problems. This dissertation explores to what extent collaboration may foster the engagement of future practitioners in scientific reasoning: i.e., in epistemic processes and in referring to scientific content knowledge. Therefore, two studies were conducted to compare collaborative and individual problem solving (...) of pre-service teachers regarding their scientific reasoning. Study 1 investigates the effect of group heterogeneity with respect to problem solving scripts on scientific reasoning. Study 2 explores to what extent Epistemic Network Analysis can serve as a methodological approach for measuring scientific reasoning. As part of Study 1, pre-service teachers solved an educational problem either as individuals or as pairs. Collaboration showed a mixed effect on scientific reasoning processes: pairs engaged more in explaining and reasoning about the problem and drew more conclusions, while individuals engaged more in generating solutions. Additional analyses showed that the more heterogeneous pairs were regarding their members’ problem solving scripts the more they engaged in hypothesizing and evaluating evidence and the less they engaged in generating solutions. Finally, pairs less often referred to scientific content than individuals did during problem solving. Study 2 further analyzed the data by applying Epistemic Network Analysis. This method has the advantage of analyzing patterns of connections between epistemic processes, i.e., epistemic networks of scientific reasoning. The central epistemic process for pairs was evidence evaluation, which they frequently used in combination with hypothesizing and communicating and scrutinizing. On the other hand, the most characteristic process in individuals’ scientific reasoning was solution generation, which very often co-occurred with hypothesizing and evidence evaluation. The overall results indicate that if the aim is to develop a more reflective understanding of the problem, future practitioners should collaborate with each other, especially in heterogeneous settings. However, they should be supported to share knowledge regarding scientific theories and evidence as well as to reach a mutual understanding on the problem after a certain time so as to be able to have the capacity of generating solutions. Moreover, the different effects of collaboration on the process and content aspects of scientific reasoning imply that scientific reasoning might not be a unidimensional construct, and its process and content levels should be differentiated in future research. A further important methodological implication is that the process aspect of scientific reasoning can be analyzed as a network of interconnected skills and such analysis might bring more explanatory value than the mere reliance on frequencies of occurrences of isolated activities. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates the key link between the development of a sophisticated personal epistemology and the concomitant emergent pedagogies of trainee teachers, as identified through research in this area, including empirical engagement with trainees on a PGCE primary teacher training course in the UK. The ensuing review of literature investigates the theoretical and paradigmatic perspectives and aims to theoretically underpin the methods used within the empirical research described. The conclusion is that it is of paramount importance that teacher training institutions (...) allow for the development of exactly these sophisticated personal epistemologies through explicit teaching and exposure to the specific reflective practices discussed in order to promote the best possible outcomes in terms of trainees’ pedagogical understanding and practices when immersed in authentic experiences in situated learning environments on school-based attachments, and retain appropriate levels of control over the contextual, environmental and experiential circumstances that their trainees encounter. (shrink)