Nature of Science in Science Instruction: Meaning, Advocacy, Rationales, and Recommendations

McComas, William F.; Clough, Michael P.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-57239-6_1

Cited by 64 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Erduran and Dagher 2014;Kind and Osborne 2017). One point of criticism refers to the false portrayal of science as a linear and straightforward process, and how this portrayal cultivates student misconceptions about "what science is" and "how it works" (Mccomas 1998). Furthermore, the emphasis of methodological approach being biased towards experimentation and hypothesis testing, implies that these methods are the epitome of scientific rigour (Kind and Osborne 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Hypothesis Testing

Ioannidou

Erduran

2021

Sci & Educ

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Recent reforms in science education have promoted students’ understanding of how science works, including the methodological approaches used by scientists. Given that teachers are expected to teach and promote methodological pluralism, it is worth examining how teachers understand and view scientific methods, particularly when scientific methods are presented as a diverse array and not as a linear model based exclusively on hypothesis testing. The empirical study presented in the paper examines science teachers’ understanding of scientific methods, particularly the diversity of scientific methods. Brandon’s Matrix, a philosopher’s account of scientific methods, has been adapted for educational purposes, and two tasks were developed in order to investigate teachers’ understanding of scientific methods. Fifty-six science teachers (25% male, 75% female) from different regions in the UK responded to an online survey. The results showed that the majority of the teachers showed satisfactory understanding of basic components of Brandon’s Matrix. However, more than half of the sample held naïve understanding of scientific methods. By providing insight into teachers’ misconceptions about scientific methods, the study provides suggestions for the design of teacher training programmes and highlights the need for explicit instruction about scientific methods. In addition, we suggest the use of heuristics such as Brandon’s Matrix for the development of pedagogical tools as well as research instruments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Hypothesis Testing

Ioannidou

Erduran

2021

Sci & Educ

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“…(2016) drew on data gathered from a cohort of German students to argue that the tendency to see science and religion as conflicting is particularly prevalent in this group and that conflict was frequently associated with a commitment to scientism. These findings are illuminated by other research which reveals that students tend to describe science as a static set of facts that have or are awaiting experimental proofs (Driver, 1989; Gilbert et al., 1982; Leach et al., 2003; McComas, 2006, 2017; Millar and Osborne, 1998; Osborne and Dillon, 2008). This characterisation of science arises in part because a considerable amount of school science time is spent carrying out recipe experiments (also called closed enquiry investigations) designed to teach scientific concepts (Abrahams, 2017).…”

Section: Big Questions and The Relationships Between Science And Relimentioning

confidence: 87%

Perceptions of the relationships between science and religion held by upper-secondary school students in Church of England schools

Billingsley

Nassaji

2020

International Journal of Christianity & Education

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We report on a large-scale survey of 1,772 upper-secondary school students in 16 Church of England schools to discover their perceptions of how science and religion relate. We found that students who attend Church schools are pedagogically, socially and cognitively confined to the view that science and religion conflict. The findings are discussed alongside interview studies with students which sought to discover the extent to which they have the epistemic insight they need to access a range of views about the relationships between science and religion.

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“…Science education requires incorporating what are described as conceptual, epistemic, and social learning goals -how one reasons in science; how scientific knowledge is developed and evaluated; and the ways in which scientists collaborate and communicate their work (Duschl, 2008). Agreement exists amongst many science educators regarding the importance for science education of teaching what is called the nature of science (McComas, Almazroa, & Clough, 1998), and extensive strategies have been developed to accomplish this goal, e.g., Nature of Science in Science Instruction (McComas, 2020). Nevertheless, rather than central to the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards (National Research Council, 2013), nature of science appears as an appendix (Appendix H) only linked afterwards to science and engineering practices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific inquiry, pluralism, and complementarity

Grinnell¹

2021

Preprint

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In 1927, Niels Bohr introduced the idea of complementarity as a characteristic of atomic physics at the International Congress of Physics held in Como, Italy. In this essay, I will describe how Bohr’s ideas about complementarity can be useful to science educators to help explain pluralism in scientific inquiry. Pluralism challenges science education when competing claims arise about what counts as science or about how to describe and understand natural phenomena. Underlying this challenge is the question how scientific inquiry that is carried out by individual researchers situated within particular cultural contexts can give rise to knowledge believed to have universal validity. Bohr’s ideas about complementarity offer a framework to understand the inherently pluralistic nature of scientific inquiry. Bohr did not himself use the word pluralism. The extensive philosophical literature concerning science education does not mention Bohr’s ideas. However, I think that complementarity and science education can fit together.

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Nature of Science in Science Instruction: Meaning, Advocacy, Rationales, and Recommendations

Cited by 64 publications

References 42 publications

Beyond Hypothesis Testing

Beyond Hypothesis Testing

Perceptions of the relationships between science and religion held by upper-secondary school students in Church of England schools

Scientific inquiry, pluralism, and complementarity

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