In this paper, we use the "Family Resemblance Approach" (FRA) as a framework to characterize how scientists view the nature of science (NOS). FRA presents NOS as a "system" that includes clusters or categories of ideas about the cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional aspects of science. For example, the…

The paper aims to provide a review of literature that emphasizes students' and teachers' views on the nature of science (NOS) and associated instructional approaches to develop adequate understanding of the NOS that have been employed in different contexts. One hundred and seventy-two (172) studies were selected from ResearchGate, Academia, Google…

In this article, we tackle the phenomenon of what seems to be a misunderstanding between science education theory and philosophy of science--one which does not seem to have received any attention in the literature. While there seems to be a consensus within the realm of science education on limiting or altogether denying the explanatory role of…

The notion of function is central in all of the secondary curriculum, and indeed functional models appear in almost all higher education that is based on mathematics. However, in secondary education, functions usually appear in restricted and somewhat sterile forms. In this (mostly theoretical) paper, we present a proposal -- exemplified by a…

Energy conversion devices such as fuel cells, metal-air batteries, and electrolyzers have been envisaged as possible solutions for cutting down the continuous accumulation of greenhouse gases resulting from the combustion of fossil fuel. The bottleneck reaction for these devices is the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) occurring at the cathode. The…

Researchers of science education, historians, and philosophers of science agree that the teaching of nature of science (NOS) is important to be integrated into K-12 classes. Our previous research showed that NOS is not embedded into science teaching in Greece. To study the possibility of its integration, a PD-program for in-service science…

In this article we analyze the classic Hodgkin and Keynes 1955 paper describing investigations of the independence principle, with the expectation that there is much students and educators can learn from such exercises, most notably how the authors applied their diverse skill set to tackling the numerous obstacles that the study presented. The…

This study aims to investigate the effect of the teaching model developed for hot conceptual change on middle school 7th-grade students' understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS) aspects. In this qualitative and exploratory study, activities were carried out with 24 students of two classes in a village school in the South Marmara region using a…

The purpose of this study is to see how the inquiry-based nature of science (NOS) argumentation (IB-NOSA) instructional model affects scientific literacy skills. This research used a quasi-experimental method. The design of this research is a pretest-posttest control group design. This study describes the significance of the differences between…

Despite decades of research, NOS is still rarely explicitly and accurately taught in K-12 schools (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2023). Teachers often address NOS ineffectively as a result of inadequate knowledge of NOS and science content (Wahbeh & Abd-El-Khalick, 2014) as well as NOS pedagogy (Hanuscin et al., 2011). A variety of contextual…

This article reports on the effect of textbook analysis as a tool of teacher professional development on nature of science (NOS) understanding of 10 science teachers in South Africa. The teacher professional development program (TPDP) was based on an explicit reflective methodology of textbook analysis and conducted online due to the Covid-induced…

This study investigated evidence of how students' mental models of fundamental kinematic relations evolved (i.e., developed cognitively over time) as observed during an introductory course in calculus-based classical mechanics. The core of the curriculum is based on a claim known as Galileo's principle of relativity. The course material comprised…

This study employed a case study methodology to investigate students' misconceptions about solid, liquid, and atmospheric pressure. The research included 36 8th-grade students from various middle schools in Giresun, comprising 19 girls and 17 boys. Data collection involved a test consisting of 14 concept cartoon questions, and the concept cartoons…

Involving undergraduate STEM majors in authentic research has been cited as being an imperative goal in advancing the field of science and preparing students for careers and post-graduate educational programs. An important component of authentic research that is often overlooked is student understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS) and how this…

This study investigated the added value of real-time adaptive feedback on seventh graders' performances in tablet-based geometry learning. To isolate the effects of the medium (ie, tablet) from those of the feedback, three groups were compared: paper-and-pencil, pen-based tablet without feedback and pen-based tablet with feedback. The feedback was…