Nature Of Science Aspects Research Articles

Representation of Nature of Science (NoS) in Indonesian Physics Textbooks: A case of heat and temperature concepts

Learning science including physics cannot be separated from the nature of science or Nature of Science (NoS). Understanding of NoS is very important in the world of education in schools because by understanding NoS students will find it easier to understand the concept of physics in learning at school. For this reason, this study aims to determine the representation of NoS in eleventh grade high school physics textbooks for the concepts of temperature and heat using the content analysis method. The research sample was taken using a purposive sampling technique. Of all the physics textbooks for eleventh grade of high school, only 5 physics textbooks with different publishers analyzed 10 aspects of NoS. The results showed that the frequency of the appearance of the ten aspects of NoS in the five physics textbooks for eleventh grade was different. Book 1 (Erlangga) has 36.64 percent, book 2 (Mediatama) has 18.32 percent, book 3 (Grafindo Media Pratama) and book 4 (Yrama Widya) has the same percentage, namely 14.50 percent. Meanwhile, book 5 (Yudhistira) has an appearance frequency of 16.03 percent. The number of NoS aspects of the five books mostly raises aspects of social and cultural cultivation in science. On the other hand, the aspect that is not raised at all in the five textbooks above is the creative aspect. In general, the five physics textbooks that were analyzed had explicit aspects of NoS, but some were conveyed implicitly. Based on the results of this study it can be concluded that the five physics textbooks have not conveyed aspects of NoS explicitly, correctly and completely.

Higgs in a Box: Investigating the Nature of a Scientific Discovery

The discovery of the Higgs boson by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations in 2012 concluded the longest search for a particle in the history of particle physics and was based on the largest and most complex physics experiments ever conducted, involving thousands of scientists and engineers from around the world. It provided crucial evidence for a theory developed in the 1960s that describes the existence of the invisible Brout–Englert–Higgs field and the effects of this field on the mass of elementary particles. After the discovery, the work on the theoretical prediction was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2013. This discovery provides a prime example of modern science in the making and a fantastic opportunity to discuss important aspects of Nature of Science (NoS) in the classroom. In this article, we draw connections between (a) milestones in the discovery of the Higgs boson, (b) important aspects of NoS, and (c) hands-on activities with mystery boxes, which are an effective tool to enable students to experience elements of scientific discovery and explicitly reflect on NoS. We hope that this supports educators in bringing lively discussions about modern physics research into their classrooms.

Rwandan Senior Secondary Physics Students’ Views on Nature of Science

Although the nature of science (NOS) is recognized worldwide as an important aspect of promoting the understanding of science subjects in schools but very little research has been conducted in this regard in the Rwandan context. This study investigates the status of Rwandan senior secondary physics students’ views on NOS aspects. The instrument for data collection in this study is made up of 30 items adapted from “Views of Nature of Science-B”; “Student Understanding of Science and Scientific Inquiry (SUSSI)”; and “Views of Nature of Science-C (VNOS-C)”. After establishing the reliability of the instrument, we administered this questionnaire to 148 senior secondary physics students from four schools (i.e. randomly selected two boarding schools and two day schools) from Kicukiro and Kayonza districts. Frequency, mean, and standard deviation were calculated, and a t-test was used as part of the data analysis. The findings of this study indicate that many of the students have strongly held and naïve views about all targeted NOS aspects. The naïve views are predominantly related to the tentative nature of science; empiricism; the relationship between scientific theories and laws; social contexts in knowledge construction; and scientific methods, compared to other remaining targeted NOS aspects which are observation and inferences; and imagination and creativity. The study revealed that, overall, students’ understanding of NOS is not influenced by gender or school location. However, a more detailed look shows slight variations between male and female students on some items.

Understanding of Nature of Science (NOS) in pre-service teachers with different science content knowledge, before and after an intervention

ABSTRACT There is worldwide agreement that the understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS) is a critical component of scientific literacy. However, evidence indicates that both pre-service and in-service science teachers hold naïve views about NOS. Even so, the characteristics of pre-service teachers that influence their learning of NOS are not fully described. In this context, the goal of this study is to connect the understanding of NOS of pre-service teachers with a different disciplinary training (second year of biology education programme versus first year of elementary-education programme). The research is quantitative with a quasi-experimental design. To assess the understanding of NOS in students’ science teachers, an adapted version of the VNOS-D + instrument was applied before and after the intervention. Both groups received three NOS teaching sessions using History of Science as context and implementing an explicit and reflective instructional strategy, centered on students. The main results of this study indicate that both groups significantly improved their understanding of NOS, and in the same magnitude, after the intervention. In addition, the understanding of some of the aspects of NOS improved more easily than others. Finally, there is a discussion about the contribution of this study to the pre-service science teacher’s education.

Toward Understanding Science as a Whole

Nature of science (NOS) is a global conception of the infrastructure of science and, therefore, forms the foundation for teaching and learning science, especially for preservice teachers who are expected to have the proper understanding of NOS to thoughtfully emphasize NOS within their instruction to students. However, studies investigating UAE science preservice teachers’ views of NOS through the macro-lens of the Reconceptualized Family Resemblance Approach to Nature of Science (RFN) are limited. This study, therefore, aims to determine the current state of UAE preservice teachers’ (N = 130) understanding of the NOS and NOS instruction. Results obtained from the RFN 70-item questionnaire demonstrate that teachers were mostly informed about issues pertaining to the social-institutional aspects compared to aspects related to the cognitive-epistemic nature of science. Although teachers appeared to hold informed perceptions on certain aspects of NOS across the RFN scales and subscales, they had mixed views, as well as misconceptions on other particular aspects of NOS (i.e., the role of bias, gender, and politics on scientific knowledge, the existence of a universal scientific method, and the distinction between laws and theories). Practical and pedagogical implications for teaching and an agenda for further research are discussed.

Nature of Science in Norway’s Recent Curricula Reform

Developing students’ understanding of the nature of science (NOS) is seen as critical for educating scientifically literate citizens, and has emerged as an important curricular goal internationally. In Norway, a new curriculum reform has recently been implemented, intended to improve the Norwegian education in several ways. The reform aims to promote deep learning, and there has been an increased focus on twenty-first-century skills, including critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. The purpose of this study is to analyse the coverage of various NOS aspects in the new national curriculum for biology, chemistry, and physics, year 12 and 13. The curricula were analysed deductively, using the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to identify and categorise different NOS aspects, providing insight into how NOS is addressed. Findings include that NOS aspects from the cognitive-epistemic system of the FRA framework—aims and values, methods, practices, and knowledge—are predominant in all three curricula, whereas aspects concerning how science interacts with society are scarce. The exception is several occurrences of the aspect social values, i.e. the need for responsible interaction between science, society, and nature, especially in the biology curriculum. Furthermore, different NOS aspects are found in different parts of the curriculum, e.g. practices are found in the basic skills sections more than in the competence aims sections. Findings are discussed in terms of how the new curriculum reform can promote Norwegian students’ learning of NOS.

Comparison Analysis of Junior High School Science Textbooks in Indonesia and Singapore View from Nature of Science (NoS) Aspects

Scientific literacy can prepare quality human resources who can develop the ability to think logically and creatively, solve problems, be critical, master technology and be adaptive in the face of change and face the times. A vital component to improving students' scientific literacy is understanding the Nature of Science (NoS), which must be emphasized in science learning. The purpose of this study is to obtain a comparison of content and explain aspects of NoS in science textbooks in Indonesia and Singapore. The research approach used is descriptive qualitative with content analysis design. This research focuses on science books for Junior High School Class IX Semester 1 Curriculum 2013 Revised Edition 2018, Integrated Science Books for Junior High School Class IX Curriculum 2013 Revised Edition 2018, and Lower Secondary Science Matters Textbook Volume B 2nd Edition 2013. The data collection techniques are by reviewing documents with non-test instruments in the form of observation guidelines for assessing textbooks based on the NoS aspect developed by Abd-El-Khalick et al., (2008). The data analysis technique uses the fixed comparison method by Moleong (2014). The results obtained are that the textbooks from the two countries have represented several relevant aspects of NoS. Still, the theoretically-driven elements have not been found in the three books, and the existing components have not been well described. Science textbooks in Singapore get a higher score than science textbooks in Indonesia. Still, the availability of the NoS aspect of science textbooks in Indonesia is more than that of science textbooks in Singapore.

Nature of science in science textbooks for vocational training in Norway

ABSTRACT Background Teaching and learning of nature of science (NOS) is an explicit goal in the core science curriculum in Norway. Yet there is little understanding of how the content of the current textbooks in certain educational pathways such as vocational training addresses NOS. Purpose: The aim of this study is to contribute to research on NOS in VET through exploring how the cognitive and epistemic aspects of NOS are addressed in end-of-chapter tasks in Norwegian science textbooks for vocational studies. Design and Methods In this paper, we use a particular characterisation of NOS based on the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to investigate the cognitive-epistemic aspects of NOS in the science textbooks aimed at vocational education in Norway. The cognitive-epistemic aspects are about the aims and values, methods, practices, and knowledge in science. Three key textbooks have been selected and analysed with a focus on end-of-chapter tasks. Results The results illustrate that NOS were almost absent in the tasks in all textbooks. Patterns across the coverage of NOS in the textbooks are discussed along with some implications for future studies.

Representation of Nature of Science in Physics Textbooks of Cycle 4 Fundamental Schools in Burundi

<p style="text-align: justify;">Guided by the analytical framework in the current literature, whereby ten nature of science (NOS) aspects were targeted, this study aims at assessing the extent to which the three physics textbooks for Cycle 4 of Fundamental Schools in Burundi represent the NOS aspects. The quantitative embedded research design which combines the qualitative and quantitative to both the representations of text and images were applied to collect and analyses data. Three physics textbooks used in this study as textbooks I, II and III (grade 7 textbook, grade 8 textbook and grade 9 textbook) were purposively selected. 65 physics lessons were analyzed in three steps including exploring representations of NOS aspects, representations of NOS teaching approaches and accuracy and completeness of NOS aspects. Data were collected using a guide document analysis and a rubric of NOS scoring and were analysed descriptively. The findings found a considerable deficit of NOS aspects in the physics textbooks. The findings also revealed the critical situation where the few lessons poorly represent the NOS aspects and the majority of them do not include the aspects of NOS. Furthermore, this study suggests the in-charge of quality assurance to evaluate and deliberate on the accuracy and completeness of physics textbooks for Cycle 4 of Fundamental Education in Burundi.</p>

Representation of Nature of Science Aspects in Secondary School Physics Curricula in East African Community Countries

For several decades, nature of Science (NOS) has been advocated as the fourth dimension of science teaching and is a fundamental source of in-depth learning and teaching. In addition to improving learning and teaching of science, the explicit inclusion of NOS in science curricula helps the creation of a responsible citizenry. Here, we analyze the representation of NOS aspects in science curricula, particularly in the physics syllabi in four East African Community (EAC) countries: Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. These EAC countries have been purposively selected because of sharing similar culture and history as neighboring countries. To compare NOS representation in the physics content, five major topic areas (mechanics, heat and thermodynamics, oscillations and waves, electricity, and atomic physics) were randomly selected from the syllabi used in advanced level secondary schools. The paper critically analyzes the representation of NOS aspects throughout front matter (introductions and rationales) and back matter (appendices and references), content, teaching methods, and assessment procedures proposed in these physics’ syllabi. Based on the analysis of data, the findings reveal that NOS aspects are not explicitly represented in the four physics syllabi analyzed. This study also found that in four syllabi reviewed, competencies were given much attention without any overt connection to the work of scientists. Finally, we suggest possible ways to improve NOS representation in the science curriculum.

Pre-Service Teachers Nature of Science Views After Engaging with COVID-19 as a Socioscientific Issue

This study investigates undergraduate pre-service understanding and views of nature of science (NOS) before and after engaging with a socioscientific issues-based unit based on a the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 unit consisted of lessons about viruses and bacteria, COVID-19, the spread of disease, and NOS. The data sources consisted of pre- and post-semi-structured interviews and pre- and post-questionnaires. After the unit in post-interviews, most students held transitional views of each NOS aspect (tentativeness, process, society, creativity). However, some students had informed views of tentativeness and process of science and naïve views of society and creativity in science. Pre-service teachers tended to rely on examples from the COVID-19 pandemic when explaining their NOS understandings, which resulted from teaching about NOS with socioscientific issues in a contextualized approach. We discuss the implications of these results for future pre-service teacher training with socioscientific issues.

Characteristics of book talks aboutNature of Science

AbstractThis study explores book talks as an approach to teaching Nature of Science (NOS) to young children (4–6 years old). To teach about NOS means to, in one way or another, focus on the processes, humans that build science knowledge, as well as the characteristics and limits of scientific knowledge. Previous research in this area has studied the representation of NOS in science trade books and suggested ways for teachers to highlight this content, specifically in relation to books that have been rendered “exemplary” for teaching NOS. This study focuses on the actual conversations (i.e., book talks) between teachers and children related to science trade books that are available in bookstores. The aim of the study was to contribute further knowledge about the characteristics of book talks related to such books when they are used as an approach to teaching NOS. Book talks (N = 58) between two teachers and their respective groups of children were audiorecorded and transcribed. The results contribute by shedding light on how teachers use the book as a resource in combination with other resources to highlight various aspects of NOS during book talks. This is important since it shows how book talks as an approach to NOS teaching can be staged even if exemplary books are not available. A tentative model that can scaffold teachers' didactic analysis is presented.

Nature of Science in Greek Secondary School Biology Textbooks

The nature of science describes what science is, how it works, and its interactions with society under the perspectives of philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology of science. Understanding it is an essential aspect of scientific literacy. Given the critical role that school textbooks hold, considering what is taught and how it is taught in schools, we find the presence of the nature of science in school science textbooks to be significant. In this research paper, all Greek biology textbooks of lower secondary education are analysed to evaluate whether principal elements of the nature of science can be found in them. The whole array of educational resources available (textbooks, workbooks, lab guides, teachers’ books) was analysed as well as the corresponding official biology curricula. Content analysis was the method of choice, and the ‘meaning unit’ was the unit of analysis. We found that most of the nature of science references in the material that students were taught in 2021/22 was implicit and not especially designed by the curriculum. Some nature of science aspects were more commonly found (e.g., evidence is vital in science) than others (e.g., science has limits). The most opportunities for the nature of science to be introduced were found in history of science vignettes, laboratory activities, and some optional inquiry activities. However, without a structured design from the curriculum, it is the teachers’ responsibility to design and facilitate nature of science instruction (or not). We conclude that lacking explicit references, the nature of science falls into the hidden curriculum and becomes falsely depicted, enforcing a positivist image of science.

Humanising the nature of science: an analysis of the science curriculum in Norway

ABSTRACT If students are to acquire deep learning in science, they need to know about the nature of science (NOS), particularly not only the cognitive-epistemic but also the social-institutional aspects of NOS. In this paper, we investigate the content of the Norwegian science curriculum in order to establish how NOS is represented, in particular to the social-institutional aspects of NOS, which have been reported to be underemphasised in science curricula from different parts of the world. We use the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to NOS as the theoretical and analytical framework to investigate the science curriculum from Norway where there is a history of emphasising the values human dignity, identity and cultural diversity as well as respect for nature and environmental awareness. The findings show that the dominating aspects of NOS in the science curriculum are scientific practices and social values. The observation about the prominence of social values of science is in sharp contrast to comparable analyses, suggesting a particular orientation to NOS that considers the human element in the Norwegian science curriculum. Implications for science curriculum reform and future studies are discussed.

Broadening a nature of science conceptualization: Using school biology textbooks to differentiate the family resemblance approach

AbstractPrevious research about the presence of nature of science (NOS) within science textbooks has been found to be lacking in sufficient coverage. However, given the shift in how scholars conceive of NOS, the shortcomings may not be present in the textbooks but rather in the NOS frameworks used to analyze textbooks. Whereas traditional NOS has taken a more generalized approach to describing scientific practices, the family resemblance approach (FRA) to NOS recognizes variability in the scientific disciplines as reported by practicing scientists as well as philosophers and historians of science. Instead of suggesting that NOS can be applied equally in educational settings to all scientific disciplines, the FRA accounts for cognitive‐epistemic and social‐instructional conceptual elements which more authentically represent science. This study sought to evaluate textbooks using this more recent NOS conceptualization to explore the potential range of NOS aspects. Using the proposed FRA categories, seven German biology textbooks were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. The combination of cognitive‐epistemic and social‐institutional systems of science revealed that the FRA was a suitable mechanism for analyzing textbooks' coverage of NOS. Notably, FRA's distinct attention to modeling (absent from the discipline‐general NOS approach) revealed its presence in textbooks that would have gone unnoticed. Another finding was that the textbooks tended to emphasize the cognitive‐epistemic systems over the social‐institutional. Finally, this study found that even with a broader set of categories and subcategories to the FRA, the application to analyze was reliable.

In-service science teachers’ purposes for integrating the history of science: the role of their science teaching orientation

ABSTRACT This qualitative study examined teachers’ science teaching orientations (STO) and their purposes for integrating the history of science (HOS) into their teaching using newly developed instructional materials. The HOS may be used as an effective instructional tool for achieving scientific literacy; however, science teachers utilise it in various ways for very different purposes. Data was collected from nine in-service high school science teachers using an orientation interview protocol, reflective journals and semi-structured interviews. Data collection focused on the experiences of participating teachers who implemented instructional materials based on HOS over the course of two years. Participants’ STO profiles were classified into three groups: traditional, transitional and reformist. Data analysis revealed 13 distinct purposes for integrating HOS, which fell under four overarching domains: namely, pedagogical, conceptual, affective and epistemological. The results of the study revealed that teachers failed to relate HOS with the tenets of nature of science (NOS) in their teaching. They were not able to identify the potential NOS aspects within the HOS materials. Only the reformist teachers integrated HOS for epistemological purposes, whereas the traditional teachers relied on HOS simply as an interesting life and work stories of well-known scientists. Teachers could use HOS instructional materials for a variety of reasons by utilising different aspects of HOS as their views on science and teaching shift from traditional to reformist.

Early elementary (K‐4) teachers' perceptions of the developmental appropriateness, importance, and potential for classroom inclusion of key nature of science aspects

AbstractNational science reform documents recommend several nature of science (NOS) elements to introduce to children early in the science curriculum. A researcher developed questionnaire was used to gather information from a random, national sample about early elementary teachers' perceptions of the developmental appropriateness of 12 NOS aspects for the grade level taught, ratings of the importance of the NOS elements in the K‐4 curriculum, and the teachers' self‐reported introduction of the NOS elements during the school year. Binary logistic regression was used to determine if the teachers' introduction of the NOS aspects could be predicted from their perceptions of developmental appropriateness and importance. At least 90% of teachers identified the inferential, empirical, and creative aspects as developmentally appropriate; over half identified another six NOS aspects as important or very important. At least half of the 377 respondents reported classroom introduction of the inferential, empirical, creative, collaborative, tentative, and cultural NOS elements, as well as the idea that no single step‐by‐step scientific method exists. Developmental appropriateness was a significant predictor of teachers' self‐reported introduction for nine of the 12 NOS, and importance was a significant predictor for all 12 NOS elements. The implications of this study for science education are discussed.

Investigation of Pre-service Teachers' Conceptions of the Nature of Science Based on the LDA Model.

This study used the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model to analyze pre-service teachers’ views on the nature of science (NOS). This approach can be used to automate the classification of documents, and at the same time, the researcher does not need to deduce with a NOS framework prior to evaluation. Participants were 155 pre-service teachers studying at the Shandong Normal University in China. To gather our data, we used an open questionnaire, namely, the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire—Form C (VNOS-C). LDA topic modeling was used to classify the document, which was divided into 12 topics. By comparing the LDA topic modeling results with the theoretical framework behind the VNOS-C questionnaire, we categorized these 12 topics into eight descriptive aspects of the NOS: The Empirical Nature of Scientific Knowledge, Observation, Inference, and Theoretical Entities in Science, Scientific Theories and Laws, The Theory-Laden Nature of Scientific Knowledge, The Social and Cultural Embeddedness of Scientific Knowledge, The Myth of The Scientific Method, The Tentative Nature of Scientific Knowledge, and The Nature of Scientific Theory. The results show that pre-service teachers usually hold naive or mixed views of the NOS. In addition, each aspect of NOS is not independent of each other but interrelated and influencing each other. In the future, more consideration can be given to the relationship between each aspect of NOS.

Investigation of Preservice Science Teachers' Nature of Science Understanding and Decision Making on Socioscientific Issue through the Fractal Model.

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.

Development of Social and Culture Aspects Pre-service Science Teachers on Learning for Nature of Science

Understanding aspects of the Nature of Science (NOS) for preservice science teachers is one of the essential components to be able to understand Science and its processes. There are seven aspects of NOS: empirical, inference, creative, latent theory, tentative, scientific procedural myths, theories and laws of science, social and cultural dimensions, and their embedding in science. There are 48 preservice science teachers involved in this study. Researchers explored their views about NOS and Indigenous Knowledge (IK) through a validated questionnaire. Results showed that the students' opinions on NOS consisted of empirical, tentative, inference, law, scientific theory, and creativity. Meanwhile, aspects of laden theory, myths of scientific procedures, and social and cultural dimensions embedded with science have not been described by students. Fortunately, the students presented IK as an authentic context based on the culture in science learning. Students express IK ideas: 1) biomedicine (40 students), Biopesticide (2 students), beauty ingredients (2 students), additives (1 student), and supernatural medicine (1 student). Integrating Science and IK as an authentic context in science learning leads IK toward high technology and strengthens NOS aspects. In addition, the assumption that IK has no future is declining.