Advancing students’ NOS understanding: the power of history of science-based instruction within the reconceptualised family resemblance approach

The nature of science (NOS) has become a central goal of science education in many countries. This study sought an understanding of the extent to which a nature of science course (NOSC), designed according to the conceptualization of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching nature of science (NOS), affects in-service science teachers’ understanding and learning of NOS, and their orientations towards teaching it. A qualitative research approach was employed as a research methodology, drawing upon pre- and post-instruction NOS questionnaires, field notes, and in-service teachers’ weekly journal entries and assignments. Open-ended NOS questionnaires, used to assess participants’ understandings of NOS, were analysed and categorized as either informed, partially informed and naive. Other qualitative data were analysed through an inductive process to identify ways in-service teachers engaged and learned in the NOSC. The results indicate that at the beginning of the course, a majority of the in-service science teachers held naive understandings of NOS, particularly with respect to the definition of science, scientific inquiry, and differences between laws and theories. They viewed implicit project-based science and science process skills as goals of NOS instruction. By engaging in the course, the in-service science teachers developed an understanding of NOS and orientations to teaching NOS based on various elements, especially reflective and explicit instruction, role modelling, and content- and non-content embedded instruction. The aim of this study is to help science teacher educators, consider how to support and develop science teachers’ understandings of NOS while being mindful of PCK for NOS, and develop methods for teaching NOS frameworks.

A significant number of science educators have recognized the importance of the history of science (HOS) in understanding the nature of science (NOS) and scientific content. However, there is little empirical evidence for this effect in the South American educational context. This article shows empirical data about the contribution of HOS in enhancing in-service biology teachers’ understanding of NOS and the effect of HOS in enhancing the understanding of evolution and NOS in high school students. The authors used the VNOS-D+ questionnaire to assess teachers’ and students’ views of NOS at the beginning and the end of interventions. The inclusion of writing artifacts such as lesson “tickets-out”, content tests, and lesson plans for teachers enriched the analysis. The students’ understanding of evolutionary theory was assessed using the ACORN questionnaire. Some of the most important results of the project are the significant improvements observed in teachers’ understanding of NOS, although they assigned different levels of importance to HOS in these improvements, and a significant effect of HOS with students’ understanding of NOS. There was no significant difference between students’ understanding of evolution in treatment and control classes. The authors make suggestions for science teacher education and future research to improve the effect of HOS on students’ and teachers’ understanding of NOS and scientific content.

Nature of science (NOS) is considered to be a controversial topic by historians, philosophers of science and science educators. It is paradoxical that we all teach science and still have difficulties in understanding what science is and how it develops and progresses. A major obstacle in understanding NOS is that science is primarily ‘unnatural’, that is it cannot be learned by a simple observation of phenomena. In most parts of the world history and philosophy of science are ‘inside’ science content and as such can guide our understanding of NOS. However, some science educators consider the ‘historical turn’ as dated and hence neglect the historical approach and instead emphasize the model based naturalist view of science. The objective of this presentation is to show that the historical approach is very much a part of teaching science and actually complements naturalism. Understanding NOS generally requires two aspects of science: Domain general and domain specific. In the classroom this can be illustrated by discussing the atomic models developed in the early 20th century which constitute the domain specific aspect of NOS. This can then lead to an understanding of the tentative nature of science that is a domain general aspect of NOS. A review of the literature in science education reveals three views (among others) of understanding NOS: a) Consensus view: It attempts to include only those domain-general NOS aspects that are the least controversial (Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick); b) Family resemblance view: Based on the ideas of Wittgenstein, this view promotes science as a cognitive system (Irzik, Nola); c) Integrated view: this view postulates that both domain general and domain specific aspects of NOS are not dichotomous but rather need to be integrated and are essential if we want students to understand ‘science in the making’ (Niaz). The following framework helps to facilitate integration: i) Elaboration of a theoretical framework based on presuppositions, guiding assumptions, and previous experience of the scientist; ii) Formulation of research questions; iii) Operationalizing heuristic principles; iv) Designing experiments; and v) Understanding NOS. Various examples from history of science are provided to show how understanding ‘science in the making’ is important in order to integrate domain general and domain specific aspects of NOS. It is concluded that the integrated view of NOS facilitates ‘science in the making’ as based on the postulation of alternative interpretations of experimental data, which are controversial and thus science is primarily a human enterprise.

A number of authors have recognized the importance of understanding the nature of science (NOS) for scientific literacy. Different instructional strategies such as decontextualized, hands-on inquiry, and history of science (HOS) activities have been proposed for teaching NOS. This article seeks to understand the contribution of HOS in enhancing biology teachers’ understanding of NOS, and their perceptions about using HOS to teach NOS. These teachers (N = 8), enrolled in a professional development program in Chile are, according to the national curriculum, expected to teach NOS, but have no specific NOS and HOS training. Teachers’ views of NOS were assessed using the VNOS-D+ questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of two modules about science instruction and NOS. Both the pre- and the post-test were accompanied by interviews, and in the second session we collected information about teachers’ perceptions of which interventions had been more significant in changing their views on NOS. Finally, the teachers also had to prepare a lesson plan for teaching NOS that included HOS. Some of the most important study results were: significant improvements were observed in teachers’ understanding of NOS, although they assigned different levels of importance to HOS in these improvements; and although the teachers improved their understanding of NOS, most had difficulties in planning lessons about NOS and articulating historical episodes that incorporated NOS. The relationship between teachers’ improved understanding of NOS and their instructional NOS skills is also discussed.

In his recent book Teaching the Nature of Science: Perspectives & Resources, Douglas Allchin presents a compelling pedagogical approach for using episodes from the history of science toward improving students’ understanding of aspects of the nature of science (NOS). The text admirably synthesizes Allchin’s expertise in both the philosophy and history of science, including his understanding of recent research in education that strives to both capture and improve students’ NOS conceptions.Allchin admits in the opening pages that the majority of the text can be found elsewhere as separate works, and while this is the case, two notable features of this book make it particularly worthwhile. First, Allchin has admirably synthesized the separate works and included additional chapters to create a rather comprehensive argument for why and how teachers should use history of science as a tool toward helping students learn NOS. Second, while the individual chapters stand alone in helping the reader to understand some facet of how to use the history of science in this way, throughout each there are frequent explicit references to the themes contained in other chapters. Allchin is careful to help the reader see how one or more themes from earlier chapters connect with one another, and this technique indeed synthesizes his points well.The text is divided into two large sections, with the first half of the book designed to help the reader understand some of the philosophical emphases, both historical and recent in education reform designed to improve students’ NOS understanding. In this first section, Allchin draws attention to the increasing emphasis placed on having students learn the nature of science, though he is critical of both research in science education and pedagogical efforts that tend to treat NOS “tenets” as decontextual conceptions that students should learn. Allchin develops his “whole science” model as embodying the notion that NOS should be learned within the confines of an engaging and realistic context and further that the history of science, when properly framed, can be an important tool toward fostering students to learn NOS explicitly, reflectively and meaningfully. His ultimate claim is that such learning will promote a more effective transfer of NOS understanding in the real world, when students encounter situations that require them to be functionally literate about how science works.In the second section, Allchin illustrates his synthesis across several chapters by providing the reader with three different and detailed examples of how to incorporate the history of science with the “whole science” approach (a case study, role play, and problem-solving inquiry). Again, throughout the text, Allchin explicitly highlights how various aspects of the model he has presented in the first section apply, including attention to how teachers can/should avoid incorrect or inappropriate ways of using history of science.Two chapters are particularly noteworthy. One is devoted to assessment of students NOS views, and here Allchin highlights several approaches teachers can use to authentically capture students’ understanding. The second is his final chapter, written expressly for those teachers who are themselves interested in creating their own lessons that use history of science in the manner Allchin describes. With this chapter, Allchin provides several exemplars readily available for teachers to use, and he gives detailed suggestions for those interested in developing their own.Throughout, Allchin is sensitive of his readership. He understands the constraints of contemporary science teaching, of the emphasis on high-stakes testing with its unfortunate pressures. He is realistic about the frequency to which teachers have sufficient time to incorporate history of science, and the text nicely argues how it is possible on occasion to use history both to teach relevant science concepts and nature of science at the same time.Teaching the Nature of Science: Perspectives & Resources is targeted with instructional design in mind, toward best practice for producing scientific literacy, and though the first section may be a little deep for the novice regarding the problems/pitfalls/philosophy of science teaching for nature of science, it is worth reading carefully. Throughout the text are numerous examples from the history of biology, physics, earth science, and chemistry. Readers will appreciate these examples toward supporting the nuances Allchin makes in advocating the whole-science approach. High school and college science teachers should strongly consider reading this text.

Background Nature of Science (NOS) is a significant research area as well as a curriculum theme in science education. Although many analyses of science curricula and their coverage of NOS exist, there are limited accounts of science curricula that take a broad and holistic vision on NOS. A recent framework called the ‘Reconceptualised Family Resemblance Approach to Nature of Science (RFN)’ provides such a broad account and covers the cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional systems of science. The cognitive-epistemic system consists of ‘aims and values’, ‘methods and methodological rules’, ‘scientific practices’, and ‘scientific knowledge’ while the social-institutional system consists of ‘professional activities’, ‘social certification and dissemination’, ‘social values’, ‘scientific ethos’, ‘social organizations and interactions’, ‘financial systems’, and ‘political power structures’. Purpose The empirical study reported in the paper aims to investigate the inclusion of NOS in the Turkish science curriculum by using the RFN. Design and Methods Turkish science curriculum used at primary and middle school levels were analyzed by content analysis. Findings The results suggest that the Turkish science curriculum emphasizes the cognitive-epistemic categories more than the social-institutional categories. The dominating RFN category in the science curriculum is scientific practices while the reference to political power structures is limited. Conclusion The paper contributes to understanding of how Turkish science curriculum covers NOS, and it has implications for international science curricula reform for an inclusive account of NOS that is likely to enhance science learning.

An adequate understanding and classroom application of the Nature of Science (NOS) has become imperative for science teachers. Current research in senior high school science teachers’ understanding of NOS is extensive but junior high school natural sciences teachers’ understanding of NOS and planning of lessons requires further exploration. Six junior high school natural sciences teachers’ understandings of NOS, and how they translated their NOS understandings into lesson planning in South Africa were explored. The conceptual framework of the NOS used in this research is drawn from the seven NOS aspects of explicit and implicit teaching of NOS. Data were collected from teachers’ academic background questionnaires, Views of Nature of Science (VNOS(C)) questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and lesson planning documents of teachers. Data were analysed descriptively and interpretively. The findings revealed that junior high school teachers possessed inadequate understanding of NOS, and that their planning for teaching NOS was hardly influenced by their understanding of NOS aspects. The teachers’ work-schedules and lesson plans showed little explicit links of NOS aspects to lesson content. The research findings have implications for the preparation of lessons with NOS aspects linked to the curriculum content. Keywords: junior high school teachers, lesson planning, nature of science, natural sciences.

Background: An elaborated understanding of Nature of Science (NOS) is seen as an important part of scientific literacy. In order to enable teachers to adequately discuss NOS in their lessons, various approaches have recently been employed to improve teachers’ understanding of NOS.Purpose: This study investigated the effect of participating in a newly developed Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) on pre-service teachers’ NOS views.Program description: In the new STEM curriculum, two versions of explicitly teaching NOS, which are discussed in the literature, have been adopted: the pre-service teachers explicitly reflect upon nature and history of science (version one) as well as conduct own scientific investigations (version two).Sample: N = 76 pre-service teachers from different semester levels (cross-sectional study) who participated in the new STEM curriculum took part in this study (intervention group). As control groups, students who did not partake in the new curriculum participated (pre-service primary (N = 134), science (N = 198), and no-science (N = 161) teachers).Design and methods: In order to allow an economic assessment, a testing instrument with closed-item formats was developed to assess the respondents’ views about six NOS aspects.Results: The intervention group shows significantly more elaborated NOS views than a relevant control group (p < .01, g = .48). Additionally, a one-way ANOVA reveals a positive effect of semester level on NOS views for the intervention group (p < .01; η² = .16) but not for the control groups.Conclusion: The findings support evidence suggesting that explicit approaches are effective when fostering an informed understanding of NOS. More specifically, a sequence of both versions of explicitly teaching NOS discussed in the literature seems to be a way to successfully promote pre-service teachers’ NOS understanding.

The paper reports a qualitative study to reveal how preservice science teachers' decision making (DM) processes on socioscientific issue (SSI) in a referendum case compare between unsophisticated (Group U) and sophisticated (Group S) views in terms of nature of science (NOS) understandings. Firstly, pre-study was conducted with focus group interviews with pre-service science teachers. With the findings, one-on-one semi-structured in-depth interviews of the main study for DM on SSI, the artificial meat was developed. In the main study, 12 participants’ responses were analyzed, and a new DM model named the Fractal Model of DM which reflects real-life situation DM process, especially referendum case, was constructed. In DM, NOS lens usages of five NOS aspects about creativity and imagination, observation and inference, empirical-basis, subjectivity, and social and cultural embeddedness and 23 other lens usages such as animal rights (morality), economic, and risk factor were detected and explained through the fractal model. Findings showed that there is a hidden and complex effect of NOS understandings about tentativeness of scientific knowledge on DM. With multiple lens usage, each participant had multi-perspective considerations in DM. While Group S used NOS lenses mainly parallel with their NOS understandings, Group U used them in a more complicated way.

Although teaching nature of science (NOS) has been continually emphasized in many major reform efforts in science education, researchers claim that students do not possess adequate views of NOS. Insufficient understanding of NOS can be associated with the ineffectiveness of curricular or instructional approaches. Consequently, researchers have begun to examine ways to improve students’ understanding of NOS. In this study, we purposely focused on honored students who major in the sciences to see whether extended science programs develop better understanding of NOS. We aimed to understand the relationship between science instruction and students’ NOS understanding in Israeli science advanced placement courses. Semi-structured interviews with science teachers provided data about the instruction of science in general, and NOS instruction in particular. An open-ended questionnaire that dealt with global climate change assessed students’ understanding of NOS. Teachers reported about limited and implicit instruction about NOS. Although teachers believed that teaching NOS is important, the need for their students to succeed in the high-stake matriculation exams and the fact that these exams do not include questions dealing with NOS were indicated as the main reasons for the teachers’ reluctance to teach NOS. Nevertheless, we found a small overall improvement in students’ understanding of NOS. Two possible factors probably contributed to students’ improved understanding of NOS: conducting inquiry projects and teaching cases in history of science. Yet, in both contexts, the understanding improved only in one aspect of NOS. The small improvement in understanding NOS reflects the limited and non-systematic teaching of NOS. Implicit instruction is not effective enough to promote understanding of NOS, even in advanced 2-year science program, where both students and teachers are highly capable. Other factors that could explain the little improvement are insufficient subjects in the curriculum that emphasize NOS and teaching methods that do not encourage discussion about NOS.

Science education researchers have long advocated the central role of the nature of science (NOS) for our understanding of scientific literacy. NOS is often interpreted narrowly to refer to a host of epistemological issues associated with the process of science and the limitations of scientific knowledge. Despite its importance, practitioners and researchers alike acknowledge that students have difficulty learning NOS and that this in part reflects how difficult it is to teach. One particularly promising method for teaching NOS involves an explicit and reflective approach using the history of science. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of a historically based genetics unit on undergraduates’ understanding of NOS. The three-class unit developed for this study introduces students to Mendelian genetics using the story of Gregor Mendel’s work. NOS learning objectives were emphasized through discussion questions and investigations. The unit was administered to undergraduates in an introductory biology course for pre-service elementary teachers. The influence of the unit was determined by students’ responses to the SUSSI instrument, which was administered pre- and post-intervention. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted that focused on changes in students’ responses from pre- to post-test. Data collected indicated that students showed improved NOS understanding related to observations, inferences, and the influence of culture on science.

This study aimed to investigate students' understanding of the nature of science (NOS) in project-based learning combined with mind mapping (PjBL-MM), students' NOS understanding across gender, and PjBL-MM and gender interaction's effect on students' NOS understanding of conservation education. It employed a pretest-post-test non-equivalent group design. The research population consisted of first-year students at the Biology Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. Thus, the study consisted of 98 students (40 males and 58 females) selected randomly from three different classes. The students' NOS understanding was assessed using the views of NOS type B questionnaire. The learning models' effectiveness was tested using ANCOVA. The results showed a significant difference in students' NOS understanding, PjBL-MM group reported the highest NOS score among all treatment groups in the Conservation education course. There is a significant difference NOS understanding between male and female students. Females outperformed males in NOS understanding. However, PjBL-MM and gender interaction did not affect students' NOS understanding. This study is expected to encourage the implementation of PjBL-MM to improve the students' NOS understanding. The educators are also expected to empower NOS understanding through students' active participation in science by implementing project-based learning combined with mind mapping techniques.

Understanding nature of science (NOS) is considered critical to the development of students’ scientific literacy. However, various studies have shown that a large number of elementary and secondary science teachers do not possess an adequate understanding of NOS. This study investigated how elementary teachers’ understanding of NOS was impacted through a 1-year professional development program in Chile that included NOS instruction as a theme throughout two types of mini-courses in the program. Twelve teachers attended a 1-year development program focused on improving teacher content knowledge and included the instruction of NOS embedded in two self-contained NOS mini-courses (36 h) and two lessons (3 h each) within five science content mini-courses (30 h). The Views of NOS (version D+) questionnaire and interviews were used to assess teachers’ understanding of NOS at the beginning (January) and end of the program (December). Elementary teachers’ understanding of the creative, inferential, and tentative aspect of NOS showed improvement. According to the teachers’ perceptions, the most significant activities for improving their NOS understanding were decontextualized activities in both types of mini-courses (self-contained NOS and science content mini-courses). The implications for professional development programs are also discussed.

The chapter provides a case for holistic consideration of nature of science (NOS) such that NOS can be inclusive of themes as scientific practices. One account of NOS is based on the family resemblance approach (FRA) developed by Erduran and Dagher (Reconceptualizing the nature of science for science education: scientific knowledge, practices and other family categories. Springer, Dordrecht, 2014a). In this framework, NOS is a cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional system, and scientific practices is one category embedded in the system. We briefly review the recent debates on NOS to contextualize our approach and define FRA-based NOS. As part of our depiction of scientific practices as a component of NOS, we proposed a theoretical framework called the benzene ring heuristic (BRH) which consolidates the epistemic, cognitive, and social aspects of scientific practices into a holistic and visual representation. BRH describes scientific practices in terms of concepts such as data, models, explanations, predictions, argumentation, and social certification. After reviewing BRH, we describe a funded project that integrated BRH in a preservice science teacher education program in Turkey. Qualitative analysis of preservice science teachers’ representations of scientific practices is described in detail and contrasted pre- and post-intervention that involved training through the use of BRH. The results indicate that in some cases there was improvement in preservice science teachers’ depiction of scientific practices as being holistic. The study provides empirical evidence on the implementation of a relatively new approach to NOS that is inclusive of scientific practices.

The nature of science has been part of Thailand’s science education curriculum since 2008. However, teachers lack of understanding about the nature of science (NOS) and its teaching, particularly element school science teachers. In 2012, the Science Institute of Thailand MOE, started a project of Elementary Science Teacher Professional Development to enhance their thinking about the Nature of Science. The project aimed to enhance teachers’ understanding of NOS, science teaching for explicit and reflective NOS, with the aim of extending their understanding of NOS to other teachers. This project selected 366 educational persons. The group was made up of a teacher and a teacher supervisor from 183 educational areas in 74 provinces all Thailand. The project provided a one week workshop and a year’s follow up. The week-long workshop consisted of 11 activities of science teaching for explicit reflection on 8 aspects of NOS. Workshop of NOS explicit and reflective on force and motion learning activity is one of eight activities. This activity provided participants to learn force and motion and NOS from the traditional toy “Bang-Poh”. The activity tried to enhance participants to explicit NOS for 5 aspects including empirical basis, subjectivity, creativity, observation and inference, and sociocultural embeddedness. The explicit NOS worksheet provided questions to ask participants to reflect their existing ideas about NOS. The paper examines elementary school science teachers’ understanding of NOS from the force and motion learning activity which provided explicit reflection on 5 NOS aspects. An interpretive paradigm was used to analyse the teachers’ reflections in a NOS worksheet. The findings indicated that majority of them could reflect about the empirical basis of science and creativity but few reflected on observation and inference, or sociocultural embeddedness. The paper will explain the teachers’ NOS thinking and discuss the further enhancing of their understanding and organizing NOS explicit and reflective science teaching.