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

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...

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

The construct “nature of science” (NOS) has been advocated as an important goal
for students studying science for approximately 100 years (Central Association of
Science and Mathematics Teachers, 1907). Most recently, NOS has been advocated
as a critical educational outcome by various science education reform documents
worldwide (e.g., Australia, Canada, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States).
To be blunt, when it comes to NOS, one is hard pressed to find rhetoric arguing
against its importance as a prized educational outcome. Still, detractors do exist
(Winchester, 1993). The observation that NOS has been a perennial goal of science
education, and is now receiving increased emphasis, can be construed to mean that
high school graduates, and the general citizenry, do not possess (and never have
possessed) adequate views of NOS. The research reviewed later in this chapter provides clear support for such a notion. That said, has anything been lost? Is it really
important for students and the general citizenry to understand NOS? What have
we not accomplished because our students do not have good understandings of
NOS? What can we make of the obsession with NOS?

Nature of Science: Past, Present, and Future

In this review of the published literature in English on the concept of scientific literacy, the net is cast wider than just the professional science education com- munity, and the diverse works on scientific literacy are brought together in an interpretative synthesis of this literature. Scientific literacy is first placed in an historical context, and a number of different factors that influence interpretations of this concept are discussed thereafter. These factors include the number of different interest groups that are concerned with scientific literacy, different conceptual definitions of the term, the relative or absolute nature of scientific literacy as a concept, different purposes for advocating scientific lit- eracy, and different ways of measuring it. The overview yields a fuller understanding of the various factors that contribute to the concept of scientific literacy, and makes clear the relationships between these factors. 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci. Ed 84:71- 94, 2000.

Scientific literacy: A conceptual overview

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

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Peter A. Rubba

Papers

Development of an instrument to assess secondary school students understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge

A Study of Two Misconceptions About the Nature Of Science Among Junior High School Students

Attitude changes of elementary teachers according to the curriculum studied during workshop participation and their role as model science teachers

Development and validation of an inventory to assess science teacher needs in developing countries

A survey of Illinois secondary school science teacher needs