Scientific instruments have long
been a vital part of science,
paving pathways to remarkable scientific advancements. Such advancements
have changed the world both socially and culturally, especially in
the past few decades. Students can be introduced to this idea through
the concepts of nature of science (NOS): scientific observations are
often filtered through apparatus, inferences can be made through observations,
and science is a socially and culturally embedded practice. The curriculum
often fails to emphasize the role of instruments in scientific practices,
even in teaching laboratories. This study uses semistructured interviews
to investigate the cognitive (thoughts) and affective (feelings) domains
of first-year university students as they relate to scientific instrumentation,
including students’ ideas of instruments. First, the study
probed how general chemistry students conceptualize scientific instruments
in relation to the three NOS notions. Second, students’ practices
related to experimental data evaluation were investigated as data
collection is a large part of psychomotor learning in laboratory.
Third, students’ affective states toward learning about instruments
were queried. The interview results suggested that a majority of participants
acknowledge some ideas of NOS, while a few students displayed an advanced
understanding when discussing scientific instruments and also tended
to have higher interest and motivation toward learning about instruments.