Browsing by Subject "Nature of science"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Identifying variations in thinking about the nature of science: a phenomenographic study
    (2010-05) Keiser, Jonathan Charles
    It is hard to imagine how one can be scientifically literate without understanding what science is about. One of the central elements of science education reform efforts over the last twenty years has been ensuring that students have a deep understanding of the nature of science (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2008). However, research suggests these efforts have done little to improve students’ understanding of the nature of science (Sutherland et al., 2007). Much of the current research is aimed at evaluating the correctness of students’ conceptions or classifying conceptions according to philosophical positions (Bell et al, 2003; Khishfe 2008). This study attempts to build off that work by using an emergent phenomenographic research approach to identify variations in high school chemistry students’ thinking about the nature of science, using open-ended written response data from a six-item questionnaire that probes the following aspects of the nature of science: • Purpose of science • Tentativeness of scientific knowledge and the nature of theories • Creativity & imagination • Aim & structure of experiments This analysis yielded 39 primary level codes, which were then collapsed based on similarity into 14 categories of description. These categories reflect a wide range of understanding about science. Further analysis highlighted relationships between the categories and suggests two different orientations toward the nature of science. Some high school students orient their thinking about science in terms of an activity driven to prove or make certain, characterized by a collection of facts, whereas other students orient their thinking about science in terms of a finding out activity that results in discovering new information. The results of this study reveal more nuanced conceptions within these four aspects of the nature of science. Implications for science education and future research are discussed.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Senior science teachers' experience of teaching in a changing multicultural classroom: A case study
    (2012-09) Ryan, Mark
    Demographic changes within the US are bringing significant changes in the cultural make-up of the classrooms in our schools. Results from national and state assessments indicate a growing achievement gap between the science scores of white students and students from minority communities. This gap indicates a disconnect somewhere in the science classrooms. This study examines the teacher's perspective of the changing learning environment. The study focuses on senior teachers with traditional Midwestern backgrounds and little multicultural experience assuming these teachers had little or no education in multicultural education. Senior teachers are also more likely to have completed their science education within a traditional Universalist perspective of science and likewise have little or no education in multicultural science. The research method was comparative case studies of a purposeful sample of nine science teachers within a community experiencing significant demographic change, seven core senior teachers and two frame of reference teachers. The interviews examined the teachers' awareness of their own cultural beliefs and the impact of those beliefs on classroom practices, the teachers' understanding of cultural influences on the students' academic performance, and the relationships between the teachers' understanding of the cultural aspects of the nature of science and their classroom practices. Analysis of the interview data revealed that the teachers maintain a strong, traditional Midwestern worldview for classroom expectations and they are generally unaware of the impact of those standards on the classroom environment. The teachers were supportive of minority students within their classroom, changing several practices to accommodate student needs, but they were unaware of the broader cultural influences on student learning. The teachers had a poor understanding of the nature of science and none of them recognized a cultural element of NOS. They maintained a Universalist perspective of science with a strong commitment to the philosophy of scientism which left no room for a multicultural view of science. These results have implications for the broad science community with respect to the philosophy and nature of science. There are also implications in pre- and in-service teacher education and professional development aimed at raising cultural awareness of science teachers and providing a broader understanding of NOS. The problems raised by this research appear to be systemic requiring a commitment beyond the level of the individual teacher to implement a multicultural education that matches the composition of our classrooms.