Distinguishing Nature of Science Beliefs, Knowledge and Understandings

Abstract

Whilst teaching about the nature of science (NOS) is a significant goal of science education, there remains debate about specifying the NOS and appropriate pedagogies and approaches to researching the NOS. A neglected, but conceptually and practically significant, problem is the proliferation of NOS-related learning goals such as NOS beliefs, views, understandings and knowledge. In this theoretical paper, we argue that such goals are often poorly defined, and different goals cohere with different pedagogical and research strategies. We propose a novel three-part taxonomy of NOS learning goals (as NOS beliefs, knowledge and understandings) and contend that different approaches are appropriate for teaching and assessing NOS beliefs, views and knowledge. An NOS belief refers to a positive attitudinal stance towards some proposition that lacks justificatory support or cannot easily be judged true or false. NOS knowledge indicates justified true beliefs related to the NOS. NOS understanding denotes a grasping of how a collection of NOS knowledge is related. The goals vary by the extent to which they can be judged true or false and the degree of justification they require. For NOS beliefs, a range of stances is acceptable; NOS knowledge must be a true and justified belief; in the case of NOS understanding, teaching and assessment should focus on the appreciation of relationships between justified true beliefs. The novel taxonomy brings needed clarity to a confused aspect of NOS research and may lead to the development of NOS pedagogies and assessment tools more precisely targeted to well-defined learning goals.

Epistemic Goals and Practices in Biology Curriculum—the Philippines and Japan

“…Examining the Epistemic Goals (EGs) and Epistemic Practices (EPs) of the biology curricula requires fundamental inquiries regarding the Nature of Science (NoS), the methodologies scientists employ in knowledge acquisition, and the scientific frameworks of understanding. Brock and Park (2022) argue that there has been a longstanding emphasis in science education on comprehending the NoS and the processes and undertakings of knowledge production. These essential elements are integrated as important learning goals in global science education curricula and policy documents (Leden & Hansson, 2019;Olson, 2018;Park et al, 2020).…”

Innovations, Challenges and Future Directions in Nature of Science Research: Reflections from Early Career Academics

“…I wanted to understand how NOS, which has a very different character from scientific content knowledge, could be assessed in the classroom by science teachers. One aspect of my findings was that we need to think about teachers’ abilities to teach and assess NOS separately from those about scientific content knowledge, due to the complicated nature of NOS knowledge (Brock & Park, 2022 ). I came to research NOS through the national circumstances at the time in Ireland (circa 2015), where NOS was introduced to the science curriculum.…”

The Effect of Textbook Analysis as a Teacher Professional Development Tool on Teacher Understanding of Nature of Science

“…NOS is a dynamic construct, defined over decades of years by various scholars. There has been much debate about its meaning and what could be an appropriate NOS pedagogy (Brock & Park, 2022 ). One definition by Lederman et al ( 2013 ) states that NOS is the “epistemology of science, science as a way of knowing, or the values and beliefs inherent to the development of scientific knowledge” (Lederman, 2007 , p. 140) in what has become known as the consensus view of NOS.…”