Design of a student lab program for nanoscience and technology – an intervention study on students’ perceptions of the Nature of Science,the Nature of Scientists and the Nature of Scientific Inquiry

Background: This article describes the design and the evaluation of a student lab program on the topic of nanoscience and technology (NST), mainly focusing on Nanoscience and its applications. The program was designed for students in grades 8–10 and was part of a larger outreach program of the Collaborative Research Center ‘Function by Switching’ at Kiel University. The Model of Educational Reconstruction (MER) served as a framework for the research-based design of the student lab.

Purpose: We aimed to develop an authentic science activity in the area of NST in order to support scientific inquiry learning and to provide a deeper understanding of scientific topics.

Sample: A total of 154 secondary school students from grades 8–10 of seven different secondary schools participated in this study.

Design and methods: A pre-post questionnaire with six subscales on students’ perceptions of the Nature of Science (NOS), Scientific Inquiry (NOSI) and the involved scientists (NOST) in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology was applied.

Results: Results show that the applied explicit and reflective approach embedded in the nanoscience content significantly improved the participating students’ perceptions of NOS, NOSI and NOST facets. After the lab visit, students’ answers corresponded to a more adequate perception of today’s science and scientists. Some gender differences in learning gains were also detected.

Conclusion: The study served its main purpose which was to investigate a well-balanced strategy to develop authentic out-of-school-learning environments with a focus on NOS/NOSI/NOST. Testing students’ perceptions of the nature of nanoscience provided insights into students’ worlds and served as feedback for the lab program. The outcomes of this study might help to better understand and further develop authentic (nano)science programs in out-of-school settings and science outreach programs.     

Associations among attitudes,perceived difficulty of learning science,gender, parents’ occupation and students’ scientific competencies

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the associations among students’ attitudes towards science, students’ perceived difficulty of learning science, gender, parents’ occupations and their scientific competencies. A sample of 1591 (720 males and 871 females) ninth-grade students from 29 junior high schools in Shanghai completed a scientific competency test and a Likert scale questionnaire. Multiple regression analysis revealed that students’ general interest of science, their parents’ occupations and perceived difficulty of science significantly associated with their scientific competencies. However, there was no gender gap in terms of scientific competencies.     

Exploring the pedagogical features of integrating essential competencies of scientific inquiry in classroom teaching

ABSTRACT

Background: As inquiry-based instruction is not universally implemented in science classrooms, it is crucial to introduce instructional strategies through the use of contextualized learning activities to allow students with different background knowledge and abilities to learn the essential competencies of scientific inquiry and promote their emotional perception and engagement.

Purpose: This study explores how essential scientific competencies of inquiry can be integrated into classroom teaching practices and investigates both typical and gifted secondary students’ emotional perception and engagement in learning activities.

Sample: A case teacher along with 226 typical and 18 gifted students from a suburban secondary school at Taiwan participated in this study.

Design and methods: After attending twelve 3-hour professional development workshops that focused on scientific inquiry teaching, the case teacher voluntarily developed and elaborated her own teaching activities through the discussions and feedback that she received from workshop participants and science educators. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through activity worksheet, questionnaire, video camera, and tape recorders. Frequency distribution, Mann-Whitney U test, and discourse analysis were used for data analyses.

Results: Case teacher’s teaching activities provide contextual investigations that allow students to practice making hypotheses, planning investigations, and presenting and evaluating findings. Students’ learning outcomes reveal that typical students can engage in inquiry-based learning with positive emotional perception as well as gifted students regardless of their ability level. Both gifted and typical students’ positive emotional perception of and active engagement in learning provide fresh insight into feasible instructions for teachers who are interested in inquiry-based teaching but have little available time to implement such instructions into their classrooms.

Conclusions: The results of our work begin to address the critical issues of inquiry-based teaching by providing an exemplary teaching unit encompassing essential scientific competencies     

‘Let your data tell a story:’ climate change experts and students navigating disciplinary argumentation in the classroom

ABSTRACT

Science education trends promote student engagement in authentic knowledge in practice to tackle personally consequential problems. This study explored how partnering scientists and students on a social media platform supported students’ development of disciplinary practice knowledge through practice-based learning with experts during two pilot enactments of a project-based curriculum focusing on the ecological impacts of climate change. Through the online platform, scientists provided feedback on students' infographics, visual argumentation artifacts that use data to communicate about climate change science. We conceptualize the infographics and professional data sets as boundary objects that supported authentic argumentation practices across classroom and professional contexts, but found that student generated data was not robust enough to cross these boundaries. Analysis of the structure and content of the scientists’ feedback revealed that when critiquing argumentation, scientists initiated engagement in multiple scientific practices, supporting a holistic rather than discrete model of practice-based learning. While traditional classroom inquiry has emphasized student experimentation, we found that engagement with existing professional data sets provided students with a platform for developing expertise in systemic scientific practices during argument construction. We further found that many students increased the complexity and improved the visual presentation of their arguments after feedback.     

Developing an instrument for assessing students’ concepts of the nature of technology

Background: In Bangladesh, a common science curriculum caters for all students at the junior secondary level. Since this curriculum is for all students, its aims are both to build a strong foundation in science while still providing students with the opportunities to use science in everyday life – an aim consistent with the notion of scientific literacy.

Purpose: This paper reports Bangladeshi science teachers’ perspectives and practices in regard to the promotion of scientific literacy.

Sample: Six science teachers representing a range of geographical locations, school types with different class sizes, lengths of teaching experience and educational qualifications.

Design and method: This study employed a case study approach. The six teachers and their associated science classes (including students) were considered as six cases. Data were gathered through observing the teachers’ science lessons, interviewing them twice – once before and once after the lesson observation, and interviewing their students in focus groups.

Results: This study reveals that participating teachers held a range of perspectives on scientific literacy, including some naïve perspectives. In addition, their perspectives were often not seen to be realised in the classroom as for teachers the emphasis of learning science was more traditional in nature. Many of their teaching practices promoted a culture of academic science that resulted in students’ difficulty in finding connections between the science they study in school and their everyday lives. This research also identified the tension which teachers encountered between their religious values and science values while they were teaching science in a culture with a religious tradition.

Conclusions: The professional development practice for science teachers in Bangladesh with its emphasis on developing science content knowledge may limit the scope for promoting the concepts of scientific literacy. Opportunities for developing pedagogic knowledge is also limited and consequently impacts on teachers’ ability to develop the concepts of scientific literacy and learn how to teach for its promotion.     

'That's what scientists have to do': Preservice elementary teachers' conceptions of the nature of science during a moon investigation

In a science methods course for elementary education majors, students investigated the phases of the moon for six weeks. The moon investigation emphasized that scientific knowledge: a) is empirically based; b) involves the invention of explanations; and c) is socially embedded. After the moon investigation, students realized that scientists make observations and generate patterns, but failed to recognize that observation could precede or follow theory building. Students could separate the processes of observing from creating explanations in their learning, but did not articulate the role of invention in science. Similarly, students valued the social dimensions of learning, but were unable to apply them to the activity of scientists. Although our teaching was explicit about students' science learning, we did not help them make direct connections between their science learning activities and the nature of science [NOS]. We provide a set of recommendations for making the NOS more explicit in the moon investigation.     

Superheroes and supervillains: reconstructing the mad-scientist stereotype in school science

Reform recommendations around the world call for an understanding about the nature of science and the work of scientists. However, related research findings provide evidence that students hold stereotypical views of scientists and the nature of their work.

Purpose

The aim of this case study was to examine the impact of an intervention on 15 elementary school students’ views of scientists.

Sample

An urban, fifth-grade, European elementary school classroom defined the context of this study.

Design and method

The intervention was an 11-week-long investigation of a local problem concerning water quality. In carrying out this investigation the students collaborated with a young metrology scientist to collect and analyse authentic data that would help them to construct a claim about the quality of the water. The students’ initial views of scientists were investigated through a drawing activity, classroom discussions and interviews.

Results

Analysis of these data indicated that all students but one girl held very stereotypical views on scientists and the nature of their work. Analysis of interviews with each student and classroom discussions after the intervention illustrated that they reconstructed their stereotypical views of scientists and the nature of their work owing to their personal engagement in the investigation and their collaboration with the scientist.

Conclusions

The findings of this study suggest that more in-depth study into project-based approaches, out-of-school learning and school–scientist partnerships is warranted, for the purpose of determining appropriate pedagogies that support students in developing up-to-date understanding about scientists and the nature of their work.     

Dramatizing the Authentic Research of a Local Scientist to Urban Elementary Students Through Professional Theater

This article focuses on the impact of a professional play that we developed in order to introduce elementary learners of an urban school to the research of a scientist working at a local university. The play was written in a way that might increase student understandings of the nature of science, scientific inquiry, the identity of scientists, and the work that scientists do. We collected pre-and post-play questionnaire responses and drawings of scientists from third and fourth grade students who attended the play. We also interviewed five of the ten teachers whose students attended the play. Findings indicated that most of these teachers felt strongly that their students had learned about scientific inquiry, the identity of scientists, and the work that scientists do as a result of attending the play. However, less than half of the student questionnaires and drawings of scientists indicated such growth as a result of the play. That being said, numerous students were able to tell us what they learned from the play and many questionnaire responses and drawings indicated such learning. Implications for partnerships between schools and university faculty from various disciplines in order to develop potentially impactful plays that portray authentic scientific research are discussed.     

Students’ Representations of Scientific Practice during a Science Internship: Reflections from an activity‐theoretic perspective

Working at scientists’ elbows is one suggestion that educators make to improve science education, because such “authentic experiences” provide students with various types of science knowledge. However, there is an ongoing debate in the literature about the assumption that authentic science activities can enhance students’ understandings of scientific practice. The purpose of the study is to further address the debate in terms of the ethnographic data collected during an internship programme for high school students right through to their public presentations at the end. Drawing on activity theory to analyse these presentations, we found that students presented scientific practice as accomplished by individual personnel without collaboration in the laboratory. However, our ethnographic data of their internship interaction show that students have had conversations about the complex collaborations within and outside the laboratory. This phenomenon leads us to claim that students experienced authentic science in their internships, but their subsequent representations of authentic science are incomplete. That is, participating in authentic science internships and reporting scientific practice are embedded activities that constitute different goals and conditions rather than unrefracted reflections of one another. The debate on the influence on students’ understanding of science practice is not simply related to situating students in authentic science contexts, but also related to students’ values and ideology of reporting their understanding of and about science. To help students see these “invisible” moments of science practice is therefore crucial. We make suggestions for how the invisible in and of authentic science may be made visible.     

The parallelism between scientists' and students' resistance to new scientific ideas

This paper compares resistance by scientists to new ideas in scientific discovery with students' resistance to conceptual change in science learning. First, the resistance by students to abandon their misconceptions concerning scientific topics is studied. Next, the resistance by scientists to scientific discovery is studied and some of the causes of such resistance are explored. Some conclusions and direct implications for science teaching are suggested.     

Making authentic science accessible to students

Authentic activities are important in promoting inquiry because they provide natural problem-solving contexts with high degrees of complexity. This study designed and studied effective inquiry tasks through transforming content, scientific thinking, and resources featured in scientists' authentic practices. This study investigated how 59 inner-city 6th grade students performed in real-time forecasting situations involving fronts and pressure systems. Forecasts were evaluated in terms of prediction agreement, meteorological entity consideration, explanation type, and scientific knowledge use because these four categories reflected inquiry features emphasized in the forecasting task. Results show that real-world situations that mapped closely onto students' content understandings, rather than those with naturally occurring complex patterns, helped students perform inquiry. Key ideas discussed in this paper include the importance of using authentic situations to develop rich understandings about scientific knowledge and the design of tasks that prepare students to participate in social practices valued by the science community.     

Making inquiry-based science learning visible: the influence of CVS and cognitive skills on content knowledge learning in guided inquiry

ABSTRACT

Many science curricula and standards emphasise that students should learn both scientific knowledge and the skills associated with the construction of this knowledge. One way to achieve this goal is to use inquiry-learning activities that embed the use of science process skills. We investigated the influence of scientific reasoning skills (i.e. conceptual and procedural knowledge of the control-of-variables strategy) on students’ conceptual learning gains in physics during an inquiry-learning activity. Eighth graders (n?=?189) answered research questions about variables that influence the force of electromagnets and the brightness of light bulbs by designing, running, and interpreting experiments. We measured knowledge of electricity and electromagnets, scientific reasoning skills, and cognitive skills (analogical reasoning and reading ability). Using structural equation modelling we found no direct effects of cognitive skills on students’ content knowledge learning gains; however, there were direct effects of scientific reasoning skills on content knowledge learning gains. Our results show that cognitive skills are not sufficient; students require specific scientific reasoning skills to learn science content from inquiry activities. Furthermore, our findings illustrate that what students learn during guided inquiry activities becomes visible when we examine both the skills used during inquiry learning and the process of knowledge construction. The implications of these findings for science teaching and research are discussed.     

An Environmental Approach to Marine Science K-12

Abstract

Providing professional development for science teachers, Teachers in the Woods is a 6-week summer research experience in the national forests of the Pacific Northwest. Participants contributed to the scientific understanding of forest ecosystem functioning and later created local projects as forest ecology fieldwork for their students. Teachers were surveyed 3 times during the year and interviewed onsite. A standardized performance assessment measured student progress. The project changed teachers' approach to teaching and created greater motivation, confidence, knowledge, and skills in teaching biology and environmental science using field projects. Teachers attributed their success to enduring professional contacts with scientists and to their field experience. Evaluations also revealed major factors that affect the success of student field projects.     

The role of non-formal contexts in teacher education for STEM: the case of horno3 science and technology interactive centre

Abstract

Teacher education can benefit directly from experiences in non-formal settings. This article presents a research study with elementary teachers who were teaching in public schools in the state of Nuevo León, México, and participated in a STEM Continuous Professional Development (CPD) workshop. The workshop provided a platform for teachers to interact with scientists and disseminators of science, allowing the appropriation of scientific knowledge applied to everyday activities and settings. Participants improved the quality of their teaching practices in classrooms and gained a new understanding of STEM subjects, enabling them to promote inspiring learning experiences with their students, where dialogue, experimentation and elucidation became an important part of their lessons. The study was carried out using ethnographic tools for analysing recorded videos, 15 sets of field notes, and 49 questionnaires. The sequential analysis of talk and gestures in their participation in the CPD workshop demonstrated high levels of involvement, creativity, and collaborative solution of STEM problems.     

The effects of different types of text and individual differences on view complexity about genetically modified organisms

ABSTRACT

View change about socio-scientific issues has been well studied in the literature, but the change in the complexity of those views has not. In the current study, the change in the complexity of views about a specific scientific topic (i.e. genetically modified organisms; GMOs) and use of evidence in explaining those views was examined in relation to individual factors and type of text (informational, persuasive, or narrative). Undergraduate students completed measures of their prior views about GMOs their epistemic beliefs about the nature of science, and activities related to food consumption. Participants then read either an informational, persuasive, or narrative passage about GMOs and again answered a question related to their views about GMOs. Participants who read the persuasive passage decreased in the complexity of their views, while those who read the narrative and expository passage increased in the complexity of their views. Additionally, while cultural activities related to the complexity of individuals’ views during the pretest, these significant differences were not evident at posttest after the text intervention. These findings can be used to help scientists and teachers better understand how to communicate information critical to understanding complex science and environmental issues to the public and their students.     

Experienced teachers' knowledge of teaching and learning of models and modelling in science education

This article reports a study of the knowledge of experienced science teachers in the context of a reform in science education in The Netherlands. The study focused on a major goal of the reform, that is, improving students' knowledge and abilities in the field of models and modelling in science. First, seven teachers of biology and chemistry were interviewed about the teaching and learning of models and modelling in science. Next, a questionnaire was designed consisting of 30 items on a Likert-type scale. This questionnaire was completed by a group ( n = 74) of teachers of biology, chemistry and physics. Results indicated that the teachers could be grouped in two subgroups, who differed in terms of their self-reported use of teaching activities focusing on models: one sub-group applied such activities substantially more often than the other sub-group. This distinction appeared not to be related to the teachers' subject, or teaching experience. Moreover, the use of teaching activities seemed only loosely related to the teachers' knowledge of their students, particularly, students' views of models and modelling abilities. Implications for the design of teacher education are discussed.     

Socio‐scientific controversies and students' conceptions about scientists

This article discusses the results of a mainly qualitative study into possible impacts of recent controversial socio‐scientific issues on a group of Portuguese secondary school students regarding their conceptions about scientists. The 86 participants: (1) answered a questionnaire with open‐ended questions; and (2) wrote a science fiction story involving a group of scientists working on a particular situation of her/his choice. Next, semi‐structured interviews were carried out to clarify and discuss the ideas embodied in the stories and mentioned in the questionnaire. All data underwent a process of content analysis. The socio‐scientific controversies recently discussed, and the way science and scientists are depicted in the media, seem to have produced some impact on students' conceptions about scientists. Based on the results obtained, some remarks and educational implications are discussed.     

Promoting Science Outdoor Activities for Elementary School Children: Contributions from a research laboratory

The purposes of the study were to analyse the promotion of scientific literacy through practical research activities and to identify children's conceptions about scientists and how they do science. Elementary school children were engaged in two scientific experiments in a marine biology research laboratory. A total of 136 students answered a questionnaire about their previous habits towards science and carried out the following actions: (1) a guided visit to the laboratory, (2) a brief presentation of the research theme, (3) the development of two experiments, and (4) a questionnaire about the experiments and science conceptions. The research methods included observation, document analysis, and content analysis of the answers to the questionnaires. Additionally, each visit was video recorded in order to design learning materials. The results revealed that most of the pupils were able to follow every stage of experimentation. However, some of them misinterpreted results and conclusions. One implication of the study is that this type of outdoor activity is extremely important to promote meaningful science learning in children, but more care should be taken in practical science activities so that children can overcome some common difficulties when performing scientific inquiry.     

The scientists: an experiment in science teaching

In an attempt to provide school science students with an appreciation and understanding of the work of scientists and the nature of scientific discovery, a project called ‘The Scientists’ was set up. The project is concerned with the development of curriculum materials which include biographies of scientists, instruction manuals and materials for carrying out experiments. The scope and nature of this project are briefly described.