Implicit versus explicit nature of science instruction: An explicit response to Palmquist and Finley

Children Making Sense of Science

“…We showed, as have other workers (Akerson and Abd-El-Khalick 2003;Bell et al 1998Bell et al , 2003Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick 2002;Lederman and Abd-El-Khalick 1998) ... because when Galileo said that the world was round, and, and, everybody didn't believe him cause they thought that the world was flat and then they, they, trapped, they locked him in his house, so ... cause they all said that it was flat and then when he said they, they found out, and, em, they sort of did, cause they did experiments to see Em, Isaac Newton and the apple... It fell off the tree, and it fell, yeah, hit him in the head, and he said, why didn't that just go up in the air and, eh, why did it come down?…”

University faculty and their knowledge & acceptance of biological evolution

“…Future research should determine what NOS understanding is most important for understanding and accepting biological evolution. Some previous research on BEE has included a NOS portion, but typically the there is little consistency regarding the instrument used (AAAS 1993;Alters and Nelson, 2002;Bell et al, 1998;Farber, 2003;Johnson and Peeples, 1987;NAS, 1998;Rutledge and Warden, 1999;Rutledge and Mitchell, 2002;Scharmann & Harris, 1992;Smith, 2010;Southerland and Sinatra, 2003). Some studies have shown knowledge of biological evolution to be correlated with understanding of the NOS while other studies have shown that acceptance of biological evolution is correlated with understanding of the NOS.…”

Learners’ Responses to the Demands of Conceptual Change: Considerations for Effective Nature of Science Instruction

“…The crucial role of explicit NOS instruction that draws students' attention to particular NOS ideas has been made abundantly clear in the literature (Akindehin 1988;Hagen et al 1996;MacDonald 1996;Clough 1997Clough , 1998Bell et al 1998;Lederman 1998;Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman 2000a;Akerson et al 2000), but several significant reasons exist for also explicitly stressing instruction that scaffolds back and forth along the decontextualized/contextualized NOS continuum. First, when tied to how students learn, awareness of the continuum can be useful in understanding why students may exit from explicit and reflective NOS instruction not having learned what was intended.…”