Development of understanding about the nature of science

Understanding students' practical epistemologies and their influence on learning through inquiry

“…Assessments of formal science tend to ask students to express their opinions on the nature of scientific knowledge and activity, including questions about what scientists do, what theories are, how theories influence experimentation and vice versa, and so forth. The general picture from such studies is that students' ideas about formal science follow a developmental trajectory toward increasing sophistication throughout adolescence (Driver et al, 1996;Leach et al, 1997;Mackay, 1971;Ryan & Aikenhead, 1992), but tend to remain fairly naïve through high school or even university instruction. In this summary, I focus here on studies that have explicitly asked students to describe their epistemological beliefs about science.…”

“…Through middle school, students do not readily acknowledge that scientific knowledge is constructed. Younger students tend to report that scientific knowledge resides directly in experimental results, whereas older students talk about ideas as being definitely right or wrong (Carey et al, 1989;Carey & Smith, 1993;Driver et al, 1996;Mackay, 1971;Ryan & Aikenhead, 1992). By high school, there is evidence that some students have developed notions that scientists construct models and theories (Driver et al, 1996;Lederman & O'Malley, 1990;Solomon, Scott, & Duveen, 1996).…”

“…Epistemological assessments, whether surveys or interviews, routinely ask students to describe the purpose of experimentation or the relation between experimentation and theory, or prior ideas of some sort (Aikenhead, Fleming, & Ryan, 1987;Carey et al, 1989;Cooley & Klopfer, 1963;Lederman et al, 2002;Mackay, 1971;Ryan & Aikenhead, 1992;Smith et al, 2000). Still others ask students to evaluate experimental designs in terms of their capacity to test or discriminate between ideas (e.g., Driver et al, 1996;Koslowski, 1996;Kuhn et al, 1988;Leach et al, 2000;Linn & Songer, 1993), and then researchers draw inferences about how these evaluations reflect epistemological conceptions.…”

Primary Student Teachers’ Understanding of Basic Ideas of Nature of Science: Laws, Theories and Models

“…To be more specific, students' perception that laws are more valid than theories -which is also mentioned by Mackay (1971), Rubba & Andersen (1978), Meyling (1997), Blanco & Niaz (1997), Irez (2006) and Akerson & Hanuscin (2007) -appears to impact on all the issues under discussion. According to this perception, the difference between laws and theories lies in their degree of validity and not in their different functions; as a result, students believe that mature theories become laws.…”

“…Mackay has pointed since 1971 that pupils do not have sufficient knowledge about the functions of scientific models, the role of theories in scientific research, the distinction between law and theory, and the relationship between model, theory and reality (Mackay, 1971). Scientific theories are probably the most misunderstood aspect of NoS, as they are often considered to be conjecture or very temporary explanations for natural phenomena.…”