Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to present the findings of a case study to answer the question of whether we can teach some aspects of Nature of Science (NOS) that was emphasized implicitly. Implicit approach advocates that students will come to understand NOS by doing science or using history of science without emphasizing specifically some aspects of NOS and this approach asserts that inquiry-oriented activities and/or science process skills are sufficient to develop understanding of NOS. The question which context should we choose for teaching and learning NOS meets us two different approaches as integrated and nonintegrated. If NOS is taught as embedded within the science content then it is integrated instruction. On the other hand, nonintegrated instruction of NOS involves teaching of the some aspects of NOS through a relevant NOS activity. In the present study we used integrated approach. While we were trying to teach gases unit to secondary school students, we provided them some activities for NOS related to the gases topic. For example, by designing an experiment, students explored relationship between pressure and volume of gases, read history of discovering air pressure and investigated and discussed “sea of air” theory versus “nature abhors a vacuum” theory . In these activities we focused implicitly on some aspects of nature of scientific knowledge which are tentative, creative, developmental, unified, parsimonious, amoral and testable. In this case study, we acquired both qualitative and quantitative data from the course. The course lasted for nine weeks—two hours per week. 26 students attended our course. Qualitative data sources of the study included audio and video records of interviews with participants, classroom activities and discourses, field notes, responses to open-ended questions; a quantitative Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale used as pre- and post test to assess participants’ NOS concepts. The quantitative analysis of the data obtained revealed that there were no significant development and changes in students’ understandings of NOS. Also, in the qualitative analysis of the transcripts of interviews it came out that participants demonstrated no positive changes in their understandings about NOS except some aspects of nature of scientific knowledge such as tentative and creative. There may be some reasons why implicit approach lack success in improving students’ understanding of nature of science. For example, students merely focused on learning scientific concepts in the lessons. During conducting the experiments students tried to give correct answer, they didn’t consider what an experiment was or why the experiment was done? They read history of science and they saw that more than one theory explained same phenomenon. However, they didn’t ask the question whether a theory could change. As a result we can conclude that implicit approach isn’t a very strong way to enhance students’ views of NOS

Keywords:

Chemistry Education, Nature of Science, Implicitly Approach, Secondary School Science.