Abstract:

Background: Mis- and disinformation in the science field, such as climate change denial and vaccine hesitancy, are pressing issues that affect society. While science teachers often delegate the task of teaching students to deal with fake news to social science classes, it is important for students to learn how scientists arrive at reliable knowledge to combat these issues. The science class is the ideal context to teach students to reflect on science critically. Although science teachers want to stimulate critical thinking about science, they express the need for a didactic approach to deal with students’ statements such as "Because scientists are not 100% sure, we should not believe them.”

Aim: This research project aims to develop a teaching method for 9th and 10th grade teachers that fosters critical thinking about science through the concept of Nature of Science (NoS). NoS refers to the epistemological aspects of science that science educators deem relevant for students. The teaching method is inspired by philosophical dialogue, where students research a philosophical question in a community of inquiry guided by a teacher-facilitator (e.g., “Are scientists allowed to doubt?’). The research will identify the design criteria that the teaching method should meet to stimulate reflection about NoS (RQ1) and the challenges and opportunities of implementing philosophical dialogue in the science class expressed by students, pre- and in-service teachers (RQ2).

Method: Following the principles of education-design research, the teaching method with learning material is developed, evaluated, and adjusted in consecutive cycles in cooperation with a professional learning community. The didactic material is evaluated in secondary schools and workshops for pre-service and in-service teachers. A small scale try-out of the prototype of the learning material has been executed by members of the research team in both contexts (5 classes and 3 workshops). Semi-structured focus group interviews among students and teachers, field notes, and surveys are analysed through Directed Content Analysis.

Results: Seven design criteria are identified (RQ1), such as couple abstract reflection to concrete science contexts, allow students to engage in dialogues about science, and let the teacher facilitate dialogues by asking questions such as : Why do you think so? Or ‘Who disagrees?’ Why?. The design criteria lead to hands-on and minds-on learning activities on different science subjects that vary in the degree and the way of contextualisation within science contents, divided in four categories (abstract, experimental, historical, and socio-scientific). Teachers express enthusiasm for the teaching method, as it helps them scaffold student thinking, and students show high engagement in the exercises (RQ2). Preliminary results show that reflection about science through philosophical dialogue can lead to a critical examination of scientific claims rather than blindly accepting or rejecting them. However, facilitating philosophical dialogues is challenging for teachers, and adequate support is needed to move from exercise to explicit reflection.

Discussion: The implications of this pilot study for schools, teacher education, and teacher professionalization will be discussed. This research project provides a novel approach to addressing mis- and disinformation in the science field, empowering students to think critically about scientific claims.

Keywords:

Secondary education, nature of science, philosophical dialogue, critical thinking.