Epistemological beliefs of students and teachers about the nature of science: from ‘baconian inductive ascent’ to the ‘irrelevance’ of scientific laws

The main objectives of this study are to: (a) to investigate students' and teachers' beliefs about the nature of science; (b) to explore the relationship among the students' and teachers' beliefs; and (c) to carry out a rational reconstruction of students' and teachers' beliefs based on a Lakatosian perspective of the history and philosophy of science. Eighty-nine freshman students and 7 chemistry teachers at the Instituto Universitario de Tecnología, El Tigre (Venezuela) were asked to respond to a 4-item questionnaire. Students' and teachers' responses were classified as positivist, transitional or Lakatosian. Most of the students and teachers responded with a very similar positivist approach. Epistemological beliefs of students and teachers in this study can be summarized as follows: a scientific theory has not been proved in its totality, whereas a scientific law has not only been proved, but is also universal, and furthermore, a theory tells us about more complex and explicit things. In view of the Lakatosian interpretation that the conflict is not between theories and laws, but rather between an interpretative and an explanatory theory, it is concluded that science teachers reconsider the dichotomous presentation of scientific progress found in most text books, in terms of theories and laws.     

An expert system for diagnosing fire-caused damages to reinforced-concrete tunnel lining

During the last four decades, reinforced-concrete structure failures have been happening widely for many reasons, such as increased service loads, war accidents, fire, and durability problems. The economic losses due to those failures are very high. An expert system is an interactive computer-based decision tool that uses both facts and heuristics to solve difficult problems based on knowledge acquired from experts. To realize these requirements, a logic programming visual basic language is used together with visual diagnosis. The expert system, Diagnosis of Fire-Caused Damages to Reinforced-Concrete Tunnel Lining (DFCDRCTL) was developed in this work for diagnosing the annual damages caused by fire. The program is used as an alternative of a human expert to make annual technical decisions in diagnosing fire damages at the second reinforced-concrete tunnel lining segment. It is concluded that the proposed DFCDRCTL expert system is easy to use, and is fast and helpful for engineers.     

A Rationale for Mixed Methods (Integrative) Research Programmes in Education

Recent research shows that research programmes (quantitative, qualitative and mixed) in education are not displaced (as suggested by Kuhn) but rather lead to integration. The objective of this study is to present a rationale for mixed methods (integrative) research programs based on contemporary philosophy of science (Lakatos, Giere, Cartwright, Holton, Laudan). This historical reconstruction of episodes from physical science (spanning a period of almost 300 years, 17^th to 20^th century) does not agree with the positivist image of science. Quantitative data (empirical evidence) by itself, does not facilitate progress (despite widespread belief to the contrary), neither in the physical sciences nor in the social sciences (education) A historical reconstruction shows that both Piaget and Pascual‐Leone's research programs in cognitive psychology, follow the Galilean idealisation quite closely, similar to the research programs of Newton, Mendeleev, Einstein, Thomson, Rutherford, Millikan and Perl in the physical sciences. This relationship does not imply that researchers in education have to emulate research in the physical sciences. A major argument in favor of mixed methods (integrative) research programs is that it provides a rationale for hypotheses, theories, guiding assumptions and presuppositions to compete and provide alternatives. Similar to the physical sciences, this proliferation of hypotheses leads to controversies and rivalries, and thus facilitates the decision making process of the scientific community. It is concluded that mixed methods research programs (not paradigms) in education can facilitate the construction of robust strategies, provided we let the problem situation (as studied by practicing researchers) decide the methodology.     

Can We Integrate Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Science Education?

The main objective of this paper is to emphasize the importance ofintegrating qualitative and quantitative research methodologies in scienceeducation. It is argued that the Kuhnian incommensurability thesis (a majorsource of inspiration for qualitative researchers) represents an obstacle forthis integration. A major thesis of the paper is that qualitative researchershave interpreted the increased popularity of their paradigm (researchprogramme) as a revolutionary breakthrough in the Kuhnian sense. A review ofthe literature in areas relevant to science education shows that researchersare far from advocating qualitative research as the only methodology. It isconcluded that competition between divergent approaches to research inscience education (cf. Lakatos, 1970) would provide a better forum for aproductive sharing of research experiences.