Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a h...

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Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises:

The development of adequate student conceptions of the nature of science has been a perennial objective of science instruction regardless of the currently advocated pedagogical or curricular emphases. Consequently, it has been an area of prolific research characterized by several parallel, but distinct, lines of investigation. Although research related to students' and teachers' conceptions of the nature of science has been conducted for approximately 40 years, a comprehensive review of the empirical literature (both quantitative and qualitative) has yet to be presented. The overall purpose of this review is to help clarify what has been learned and to elucidate the basic assumptions and logic which have guided earlier research efforts. Ultimately, recommendations related to both methodology and the focus of future research are offered.

Students' and teachers' conceptions of the nature of science: A review of the research

Helping students develop informed views of nature of science (NOS) has been and continues to be a central goal for kindergarten through Grade 12 (K–12) science education. Since the early 1960s, major efforts have been undertaken to enhance K–12 students and science teachers' NOS views. However, the crucial component of assessing learners' NOS views remains an issue in research on NOS. This article aims to (a) trace the development of a new open-ended instrument, the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS), which in conjunction with individual interviews aims to provide meaningful assessments of learners' NOS views; (b) outline the NOS framework that underlies the development of the VNOS; (c) present evidence regarding the validity of the VNOS; (d) elucidate the use of the VNOS and associated interviews, and the range of NOS aspects that it aims to assess; and (e) discuss the usefulness of rich descriptive NOS profiles that the VNOS provides in research related to teaching and learning about NOS. The VNOS comes in response to some calls within the science education community to go back to developing standardized forced-choice paper and pencil NOS assessment instruments designed for mass administrations to large samples. We believe that these calls ignore much of what was learned from research on teaching and learning about NOS over the past 30 years. The present state of this line of research necessitates a focus on individual classroom interventions aimed at enhancing learners' NOS views, rather than on mass assessments aimed at describing or evaluating students' beliefs. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 497–521, 2002

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Views of nature of science questionnaire: Toward valid and meaningful assessment of learners' conceptions of nature of science

Understanding how science students respond to anomalous data is essential to understanding knowledge acquisition in science classrooms. This article presents a detailed analysis of the ways in which scientists and science students respond to such data. We postulate that there are seven distinct forms of response to anomalous data, only one of which is to accept the data and change theories. The other six responses involve discounting the data in various ways in order to protect the preinstructional theory. We analyze the factors that influence which of these seven forms of response a scientist or student will choose, giving special attention to the factors that make theory change more likely. Finally, we discuss the implications of our framework for science instruction.

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The Role of Anomalous Data in Knowledge Acquisition: A Theoretical Framework and Implications for Science Instruction

Our objective has been to develop an instructional theory and corresponding curricular materials that make scientific inquiry accessible to a wide range of students, including younger and lower achieving students. We hypothesized that this could be achieved by recognizing the importance of metacognition and creating an instructional approach that develops students' metacognitive knowledge and skills through a process of scaffolded inquiry, reflection, and generalization. Toward this end, we collaborated with teachers to create a computer enhanced, middle school science curriculum that engages students in learning about and reflecting on the processes of scientific inquiry as they construct increasingly complex models of force and motion phenomena. The resulting ThinkerTools Inquiry Curriculum centers around a metacognitive model of research, called the Inquiry Cycle, and a metacognitive process, called Reflective Assessment, in which students reflect on their own and each other's inquiry. In this article, we report on instructional trials of the curriculum by teachers in urban classrooms, including a controlled comparison to determine the impact of including or not including the Reflective Assessment Process. Overall, the curriculum proved successful and students' performance improved significantly on both physics and inquiry assessments. The controlled comparison revealed that students' learning was greatly facilitated by Reflective Assessment. Furthermore, adding this metacognitive process to the curriculum was particularly beneficial for low-achieving students: Performance on their research projects and inquiry tests was significantly closer to that of high-achieving students than was the case in the control classes. Thus, this approach has the valuable effect of reducing the educational disadvantage of low-achieving students while also being beneficial for high-achieving students. We argue that these findings have strong implications for what such metacognitively focused, inquiry-oriented curricula can accomplish, particularly in urban school settings in which there are many disadvantaged students. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s1532690xci1601_2)

Inquiry, Modeling, and Metacognition: Making Science Accessible to All Students

Thirty-three 7th-grade mixed-ability students and 22 11th-grade honors students were interviewed about their conceptions of models and their use in science. Three analyses are presented in order to: (1) portray the character of students' spontaneous answers; (2) examine the criteria students use to decide whether specific items are models or not; and (3) describe how different general levels of understanding models reflect different epistemological viewpoints. Four experts were also interviewed for purposes of comparison. We found that students in both groups have conceptions of models that are basically consistent with a naive realist epistemology. Thus, they are more likely to think of models as physical copies of reality that embody different spatiotemporal perspectives than as constructed representations that may embody different theoretical perspectives. As student ideas become more sophisticated, however, they increasingly include the fact that models are designed for particular purposes, especially to help communication. All of our experts expressed ideas consistent with a constructivist framework, drawing a distinction between abstract and physical models and articulating ways that models are used for the construction and testing of ideas. Our findings suggest that students need more experience using models as intellectual tools, more experience with models that provide contrasting conceptual views of phenomena, and more discussions of the roles of models in the service of scientific inquiry.

Understanding models and their use in science: Conceptions of middle and high school students and experts.

Most views of good thinking and its development hold that good thinking depends on general and specific abilities. A theory of good thinking based on the concept of dispositions is proposed here. Dispositions are often considered to be a matter of motivation. However, defined here is an expanded concept called triadic dispositions which emphasizes (a) inclinations, which may reflect motivation, habit, policy, or other factors; (b) sensitivity to occasion; and (c) abilities themselves. Advanced is a list of seven general dispositions that are argued to be collectively sufficient and individually necessary for a general characterization of good thinking. For example, these include the disposition to be broad and adventurous, the disposition toward sustained intellectual curiosity, and the disposition to be metacognitive. Finally, it is argued that a dispositional perspective on good thinking is a generative way of approaching issues concerning theories of thinking, the generality of thinking abilities, cnceptual development, culture, and education

Beyond Abilities: A Dispositional Theory of Thinking.

The research reported here focuses on grade 7 (12‐year‐old) students’ epistomological views prior to and after exposure to a teaching unit especially developed to introduce the constructivist view of science. A clinical interview was used to assess students’ understanding about the nature of scientific knowledge and inquiry. Students’ initial epistemological stance is that scientific knowledge is a passively acquired, faithful copy of the world, and that scientific inquiry is limited solely to observing rather than constructing explanations about nature. We found that it is possible to move students beyond this initial view.

`An experiment is when you try it and see if it works': a study of grade 7 students' understanding of the construction of scientific knowledge

(1993). Teaching thinking dispositions: From transmission to enculturation. Theory Into Practice: Vol. 32, Teaching for Higher Order Thinking, pp. 147-153.

Teaching thinking dispositions: From transmission to enculturation

Acknowledgments. 1. Introduction: The Idea of a Culture of Thinking. 2. The Language of Thinking. 3. The Language of Thinking: Pictures of Practice. 4. Thinking Dispositions. 5. Thinking Dispositions: Pictures of Practice. 6. Mental Management. 7. Mental Management: Pictures of Practice. 8. The Strategic Spirit. 9. The Strategic Spirit: Pictures of Practice. 10. Higher Order Knowledge. 11. Higher Order Knowledge: Pictures of Practice. 12. Teaching for Transfer. 13. Teaching for Transfer: Pictures of Practice. 14. Pulling It All Together: From the Thinking Classroom to the Thinking School. Appendix. Bibliography.

Eileen Jay

Papers

Understanding models and their use in science: Conceptions of middle and high school students and experts.

Beyond Abilities: A Dispositional Theory of Thinking.

`An experiment is when you try it and see if it works': a study of grade 7 students' understanding of the construction of scientific knowledge

Teaching thinking dispositions: From transmission to enculturation

The Thinking Classroom: Learning and Teaching in a Culture of Thinking