Nature Of Scientific Models Research Articles

Elementary Teachers’ Trust in Science and Scientists Throughout a COVID-19 SSI Unit

ABSTRACT Scientific knowledge is necessary to make informed decisions about many social issues, but some of the public is skeptical of science and scientific expertise. Teacher education programs are one way to address distrust in science in this generation and the next. Socioscientific issues (SSI) have been advocated as important for teaching about the nature of science, decision-making, and argumentation. This mixed methods case study sought to characterize 10 teachers’ trust in science and scientists in an online elementary science methods course for inservice and preservice teachers as they engaged in a COVID-19 inquiry unit. Data sources included Trust in Science and Scientist survey data gathered before and after the class and several course artifacts from a five-week COVID-19 SSI inquiry unit. Quantitatively, students demonstrated gains in their trust in science and scientists. Qualitatively, participants characterized their trust in science and scientists by attending to scientists’ credibility. Importantly, credibility perceptions were couched in participants’ perceptions of the nature of science, especially their understandings of empirical evidence, tentativeness, subjectivity, the nature of scientific models, and the sociocultural embeddedness of science. In the mixed methods analysis, participants were sorted by their quantitative trust profiles and showed different qualitative nature of science justifications for their trust and distrust. Participants’ trust in science and scientists were influenced by reading different sources about scientists during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the use of media literacy tools. Implications for future research and teacher education are explored.

Locating Narrative in Scientific Papers

Although there is an extensive body of work concerning the relationship between narrative, rhetoric, and imaginative literature on the one hand and scientific writing on the other, the nature of the relationship is more often assumed than analysed. Literature theorists treat science as a thematic input into creative writing, while science theorists look for ways for scientists to tell better stories. This essay describes a principled, coherent and enabling theory to inform the narratology of scientific writing. It describes the framework of narrative codes set out by Roland Barthes which he applied to short fiction, but considered could be applied to other sorts of writing. Application of the codes to a recent scientific paper shows that they can analyse scientific writing as well as literary writing. The implications of this, notably that a common narrative framework does not diminish scientific writing, and that Barthes’ approach may have something useful to say about the nature of scientific models, is discussed.

The Reflex Machine and the Cybernetic Brain: The Critique of Abstraction and its Application to Computationalism

Objections to the computational theory of cognition, inspired by twentieth century phenomenology, have tended to fixate on the embodiment and embeddedness of intelligence. In this paper I reconstruct a line of argument that focusses primarily on the abstract nature of scientific models, of which computational models of the brain are one sort. I observe that the critique of scientific abstraction was rather commonplace in the philosophy of the 1920s and 30s and that attention to it aids the reading of The Organism ([1934] 1939) by the neurologist Kurt Goldstein. With this background in place, we see that some brief but spirited criticisms of cybernetics by two later thinkers much influenced by Goldstein, Georges Canguilhem (1963) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1961), show continuity with the earlier discussions of abstraction in science.

Investigation on the Arts High School Students’ Understanding on the Nature of Scientific Models

Investigation on the Arts High School Students’ Understanding on the Nature of Scientific Models

DEVELOPMENT OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE OF SCIENCE THROUGH AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CURRICULUM: A CASE STUDY

In the research, the purpose was to implement and evaluate an interdisciplinary curriculum that aimed at developing social sciences pre-service teachers’ understanding and knowledge about the nature of science. This research was based on case study design. In order to collect the research data, the methods of observation, interview and document analysis were used. For the analysis of the data, the inductive content analysis approach was applied. The results of the analysis demonstrated that the curriculum implemented had positive influence on the pre-service teachers’ understanding and knowledge about the nature of science. In this respect, it was found that the curriculum helped develop the participants’ lack of skills and knowledge about the subjects related to “nature of scientific models, nature of observations and values guiding scientists in their work and social lives” included in the content of nature of science. In addition, it was revealed that the pre-service teachers’ lack of readiness made the implementation process difficult. Key words: curriculum development, interdisciplinary curriculum, nature of science, teacher education.

Modelling instruction for university physics: examining the theory in practice

In spite of a lack of consensus about the nature of scientific models, the role of models and modelling are well established in the practice of science. Students who participate in developing, validating, deploying, and refining models are engaged in authentic scientific practices. Modelling instruction (MI) was developed to promote the role of models and modelling in introductory university physics classes. MI for university physics is founded on the basis of two theoretical foundations, modelling theory of science and modelling theory of instruction. We claim that the translation of these theories into classroom practice supports learning in science. We substantiate this claim by first describing how these theories establish complementary cycles of content development and student participation. Then we provide evidence of these interacting cycles by analysing the development of a conceptual model in a MI university physics class using video data. The video data we present includes students developing a scientific conceptual model first in a small student group and a later in the full class. We argue that the integration of the theoretical components underlying MI are key supports in providing the opportunity for students to develop conceptual models and engage in the practice of doing physics.

INVESTIGATING OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE VIEWS OF THE PROSPECTIVE SCIENCE TEACHERS ON THE NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC MODELS AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENT ON THE TOPIC OF ATOM

A non-experimental descriptive and correlational design was used to examine the ‘notion of the nature of scientific model, atom achievement and correlation between the two’ held by a total sample of 76 prospective science teachers. “Students’ Understanding of Models in Science” scale was utilized to evaluate the views of the prospective science teachers on the nature of scientific models. “Atom Achievement Test” was used to determine the achievement levels of the prospective science teachers. Some meaningful outcomes were obtained related to the views of the prospective science teachers on the nature of scientific models. No any significant relationship was observed between the views of the prospective science teachers on the nature of scientific models and their achievement in the topic of Atom. The findings have been analysed by comparing them with the relevant literature and the implications to enhance prospective science teachers modeling ability have been discussed. Article visualizations:

Science teacher candidates’ perceptions about roles and nature of scientific models

Background: Scientific models have important roles in science and science education. For scientists, they provide a means for generating new knowledge or function as an accessible summary of scientific studies. In science education, on the other hand, they are accessible representations of abstract concepts, and are also organizational frameworks to teach and learn inaccessible facts. As being indispensable parts of learning and doing science, use of scientific models in science classes should be reinforced. At this point, uncovering pre-service science teachers’ (PSTs) understandings of scientific models are of great importance since they will design and conduct teaching situations for their students. Purpose: The study aimed to provide an answer to the research question: What understandings do PSTs possess about scientific models? Sample: The sample of the study consisted of 14 PSTs enrolled in an Elementary Science Education program in a public university in Ankara, Turkey. Design and methods: Data were collected by using an open-item instrument and semi-structured interviews, and were analyzed by using qualitative data analysis methods. Results: Findings showed that PSTs held fragmented views of models by having informed views in some aspects while having naïve views on others. That is, although they displayed a constructivist orientation by acknowledging the presence of multiple models for the same phenomenon depending on scientists’ perspectives or creativity involved in the production of scientific knowledge, PSTs also expressed logical positivist views by believing that models should be close to the real phenomena that they represent. Findings further revealed that PSTs generally conceptualized models’ materialistic uses, yet they did not think much about their theoretical and conceptual uses. It was observed that roles like reifying and visualizing were overestimated and models were dominantly characterized as three-dimensional representations. Conclusions: It is clear that PSTs, having difficulties in grasping the concept of models, would possibly have problems in planning their lessons effectively and would not develop accurate concepts in their students. These findings apparently support the need for appropriate pedagogic training of PSTs to scientifically reflect on and professionally make use of models in science classes.

Teaching about Scientific Models in a Science Content Course

Scientists construct and use models as part of scientific inquiry. Thus, learners should be knowledgeable about what scientific models are, how they are developed, and how they are used by scientists. This paper describes the instruction and effectiveness of teaching about the nature of scientific models in the context of an undergraduate science course for future elementary and middle school teachers. Multiple representations are used to teach biological phenomena while drawing explicit attention to the development and use of models in the scientific community and in science teaching. Results indicate participants initially considered models to be physical representations of objects to be visualized, the process scientists use to do an experiment, and a chart scientists use to record data. Posttests indicate increased recognition of models as representations of scientists' ideas and explanations of processes. Despite explicit instruction, few came to understand the role of models in making and testing predictions.

Metamodeling Knowledge: Developing Students' Understanding of Scientific Modeling

We argue that learning about the nature and utility of scientific models and engaging in the process of creating and testing models should be a central focus of science education. To realize this vision, we created and evaluated the Model-Enhanced ThinkerTools (METT) Curriculum, which is an inquiry-oriented physics curriculum for middle school students in which they learn about the nature of scientific models and engage in the process of modeling. Key components of our approach include enabling students to create computer models that express their own theories of force and motion, evaluate their models using criteria such as accuracy and plausibility, and engage in discussions about models and the process of modeling. Curricular trials in four science classes of an urban middle school indicate that this approach can facilitate a significant improvement in students' understanding of modeling. Further analyses revealed that the approach was particularly successful in clarifying and broadening students' understanding of the nature and purpose of models. The METT Curriculum also led to significant improvements in inquiry skills and physics knowledge. Comparisons of METT students' performance with that of prior ThinkerTools students suggest that the acquisition of metamodeling knowledge contributed to these gains. In particular, METT students wrote significantly better conclusions on the inquiry test and performed better on some of the far-transfer problems on the physics test. Finally, correlational results, including significant correlations of pretest modeling and inquiry scores with posttest physics scores, suggests that developing knowledge of modeling and inquiry transfers to the learning of science content within such a curriculum. Taken together, the findings suggest that an emphasis on model-based inquiry, accompanied by the development of metamodeling knowledge, can facilitate learning science content while also developing students' understanding of the scientific enterprise.

Science and partial truth: a unitary approach to models and scientific reasoning

Da Costa and French explore the consequences of adopting a pragmatic notion of truth in the philosophy of science-in other words, accepting a theory as valid when it may only be partially true rather than wholly true. Their framework sheds new light on issues dealing with belief, theory acceptance, and the realism-antirealism debate, as well as the nature of scientific models and their heuristic development.

Características del conocimiento científico : creencias de los estudiantes

This paper studies the attitudes and beliefs of students from all educational stages about some characteristics of scientific knowledge. These characteristics are the nature of scientific models and classification schemes, the tentativeness in science, the nature of scientific method, the social influence on scientific knowledge and the controversies within the scientific community. The results show complex, diverse, and sometimes contradictory and inconsistent beliefs in students. The nature of schemes, the tentativeness, the method and the explanation of disagreements show high rates of adequate and authentic scientific attitudes, while responses about models and social influences on science seem to be misinformed. From an educational view, this study offers a diagnostic assessment of students’ preconceptions that are a key issue to achieve a significative science learning on the characteristics of scientific knowledge. Also it suggests the necessity of a deeper work on these aspects in school, as a tool to attain scientific literacy for all.