In this paper, we begin a conversation with educators invested in developing epistemic insight. We argue that generative artificial intelligence provides an opportunity to make a necessary corrective to our understanding of knowledge and knowledge building. The use of the metaphors of such as 'human-as-machine' has inadvertently promoted a…

This study aims to examine the relationship between pre-service teachers' understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS), epistemic beliefs (EB), and pseudoscientific beliefs (PSB), and whether there is a difference between pre-service teachers' understanding of NOS and pseudoscientific beliefs with sophisticated and naive epistemological beliefs.…

Observation is widely regarded as a fundamental way of studying nature. However, due to its complexity, proposing a comprehensive characterization is challenging. Observation is a method of studying nature that can be divided into several dimensions. Each of these dimensions can be presented as a pair of terms, which are elaborated in this paper…

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…

There is a growing application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in K-12 science classrooms. In K-12 education, students harness AI technologies to acquire scientific knowledge, ranging from automated personalized virtual scientific inquiry to generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Sora, and Google Bard. These AI technologies inherit various strengths…

Scientific teleological explanations cite end states as causes to account for physical phenomena. Researchers in science education have noted that students can use teleological explanations in ways that are illegitimate, for example, by implying that inanimate objects are acting intentionally. Despite such cases, several examples of legitimate…

Physical education in colleges plays an increasingly important role in cultivating high-quality innovative talent. The main factors that affect college students' approaches to learning physics remain unknown. This study examined the relationships among college engineering students' epistemic views of physics, conceptions of learning physics, and…

Museums and science centers are constantly changing scientific environments which exert a lasting positive impact on the society through the popularization of science. One of the most effective strategies employed by these science popularization venues is the organization of scientific exhibitions using scientific devices which are presented to…

This article explores the epistemological trade-offs that practical and technology design fields make by exploring past philosophical discussions of design, practitioner research, and pragmatism. It argues that as technologists apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to more domains, the technology brings this same set of…

The purpose of this study was to gauge the attitudes towards artificial intelligence (AI) use in the science classroom by science teachers at the start of generative AI chatbot popularity (March 2023). The lens of distributed cognition afforded an opportunity to gather thoughts, opinions, and perceptions from 24 secondary science educators as well…

The introduction of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT has raised many challenging questions about the nature of teaching, learning, and assessment in every subject area, including science. Unlike other disciplines, natural science is unique because the ontological and epistemological understanding of nature is…

In-depth understanding of nature of science (NOS) moves beyond knowledge of discrete NOS aspects to consider connections among NOS aspects. This study presents three teacher cases pre to post a nature of science graduate course to explore the potential of an innovative analytic approach that focuses on the connections individual learners make…

Studies consistently show the social impact of spreading epistemologically unfounded beliefs (or 'conspiracy beliefs'), including negative effects on public health. The present study identified correlations among epistemologically unfounded beliefs, authoritarianism, and scientific literacy in a representative sample of 303 Slovak secondary school…

Idealizations are omnipresent in science. However, to date, science education research has paid surprisingly little attention to the use of idealizations in fostering students' model competence and understanding of the nature of science (NOS). The starting point for the theoretical reflection in this paper is that insufficient consideration of…

The paper reports how a teacher and her students use drawings as a resource for observations and how such observations are connected to different epistemic practices in science lessons. Interactional data in a 1st grade classroom were analyzed based on Ethnography in Education. Results show that the use of drawings materialized children's…