Rutherford visits middle school: a case study on how teachers direct attention to the nature of science through a storytelling approach

Lena Hansson,Åsa Arvidsson,Ann-Marie Pendrill,Peter Heering

doi:10.1088/1361-6552/ab07e7

Lena Hansson, Åsa Arvidsson + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6552/ab07e7

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Abstract

It has long been argued that nature of science (NOS) is an important part of science teaching. In the literature, many different approaches to NOS have been suggested. This article focuses on a storytelling approach, and builds on data from audio recordings from three middle-school (school year 6) classrooms. The three science classes are run by three science teachers who have been introduced to NOS and storytelling during a one-day workshop. These three teachers chose to tell the students a story about Ernest Rutherford. The stories told by the teachers, as well as the whole-class discussions afterwards, are analysed with respect to what NOS aspects were communicated. The results show that many different NOS aspects, such as the tentative nature of scientific models, empirical aspects of the scientific knowledge process, as well as human aspects of science, emerge in the context of the story about Rutherford and his work on the atomic model. The results indicate promising possibilities for storytelling as an approach to NOS teaching.

Highlights

The results show that many different nature of science (NOS) aspects, such as the tentative nature of scientific models, empirical aspects of the scientific knowledge process, as well as human aspects of science, emerge in the context of the story about Rutherford and his work on the atomic model
In classroom C the teacher, taking the role as Rutherford, told the students about his work on the development of the atomic model: Rutherford [Teacher C]: During my research, I discovered that my results did not quite agree with what we knew about the atom
There is an ongoing discussion in the NOS literature on pros and cons with these different approaches (Allchin et al 2014, Clough 2006)

Summary

Introduction

Research shows that students often describe scientific research in simplistic ways, and that stereotypical images and myths about science are frequent (McComas 1998, Allchin 2003). Such myths include that one specific research method—‘the scientific method’—is always used in scientific research, and that creativity, subjective and socio-cultural elements are absent from the research process. Instead NOS has to be explicitly discussed (e.g. Lederman (2007) and Khishfe and Abd-elKhalick (2002))

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