Fouad Abd-El-Khalick

Bio: Fouad Abd-El-Khalick is an academic researcher from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The author has contributed to research in topics: Nature of Science & Science education. The author has an hindex of 38, co-authored 81 publications receiving 10685 citations. Previous affiliations of Fouad Abd-El-Khalick include College of the North Atlantic & University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

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

Abstract: 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

Improving Science Teachers' Conceptions of Nature of Science: A Critical Review of the Literature.

Abstract: This paper aimed to review, and assess the 'effectiveness' of the attempts undertaken to improve prospective and practising science teachers' conceptions of nature of science (NOS). The reviewed attempts could be categorized into two general approches: implicit and explicit. Implicit attempts utilized science process-skills instruction or engagement in science-based inquiry activities to improve science teachers' conceptions of NOS. To achieve the same goal, explicit attempts used instruction geared towards various aspects of NOS and/or instruction that utilized elements from history and philosophy of science. To the extent that teachers' NOS conceptions were faithfully assessed by the instruments used in the reviewed studies, the explicit approach was relatively more effective in enhancing teachers' views. The relative ineffectiveness of the implicit approach could be attributed to two inherent assumptions. The first is that developing an understanding of NOS is an 'affective', as compared to a 'cognitiv...

The nature of science and instructional practice: Making the unnatural natural

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to delineate the factors that mediate the translation of preservice teachers' conceptions of the nature of science (NOS) into instructional planning and classroom practice. Fourteen preservice secondary science teachers participated in the study. Prior to their student teaching, participants responded to an open-ended questionnaire designed to assess their conceptions of the NOS. Analysis of the questionnaires was postponed until after the completion of student teaching to avoid biasing the collection and/or analysis of other data sources. Throughout student teaching, participants' daily lesson plans, classroom videotapes, and portfolios, and supervisors' weekly clinical observation notes were collated. These data were searched for explicit references to the NOS. Following student teaching, participants were individually interviewed to validate their responses to the open-ended questionnaire and to identify the factors or constraints that mediate the translation of their conceptions of the NOS into their classroom teaching. Participants were found to possess adequate understandings of several important aspects of the NOS including the empirical and tentative nature of science, the distinction between observation and inference, and the role of subjectivity and creativity in science. Many claimed to have taught the NOS through science-based activities. However, data analyses revealed that explicit references to the NOS were rare in their planning and instruction. Participants articulated several factors for this lack of attention to the NOS. These included viewing the NOS as less significant than other instructional outcomes, preoccupation with classroom management and routine chores, discomfort with their own understandings of the NOS, the lack of resources and experience for teaching the NOS, cooperating teachers' imposed restraints, and the lack of planning time. In addition to these volunteered constraints, the data revealed others related to an intricate interaction between participants' perspectives on the NOS, pedagogy, and instructional outcomes. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed82:417–436, 1998.

Influence of Explicit and Reflective versus Implicit Inquiry-Oriented Instruction on Sixth Graders' Views of Nature of Science.

Abstract: This study investigated the influence of an explicit and reflective inquiry-oriented compared with an implicit inquiry-oriented instructional approach on sixth graders' understandings of nature of science (NOS). The study emphasized the tentative, empirical, inferential, and imaginative and creative NOS. Participants were 62 sixth-grade students in two intact groups. The intervention or explicit group was engaged in inquiry activities followed by reflective discussions of the target NOS aspects. The comparison or implicit group was engaged in the same inquiry activities. However, these latter activities included no explicit references to or discussion of any NOS aspects. Engagement time was balanced for both groups. An open-ended questionnaire in conjunction with semistructured interviews was used to assess partici- pants' NOS views before and at the conclusion of the intervention, which spanned 2.5 months. Before the intervention, the majority of participants in both groups held naive views of the target NOS aspects. The views of the implicit group participants were not different at the conclusion of the study. By comparison, substantially more participants in the explicit group articulated more informed views of one or more of the target NOS aspects. Thus, an explicit and reflective inquiry-oriented approach was more effective than an implicit inquiry-oriented approach in promoting participants' NOS conceptions. These results do not support the intuitively appealing assumption that students would automatically learn about NOS through engagement in science-based inquiry activities. Developing informed conceptions of NOS is a cognitive instructional outcome that requires an explicit and reflective instructional approach. ! 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 551-578, 2002

Inquiry in science education: International perspectives

Abstract: This paper set emerged from an international symposium that aimed to shed light on issues associated with the enactment of inquiry both as means (i.e., inquiry as an in- structional approach) and as ends (i.e., inquiry as a learning outcome) in precollege science classrooms. The symposium contributors were charged with providing perspectives from

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

Abstract: 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