The central argument of this article is that abduction as a "mode of inference" is a key element in the nature of scientists' science and should consequently be introduced in school science. Abduction generally understood as generation and selection of hypotheses permits to articulate the classical scientific contexts of discovery and…

In this study, we explored Turkish preservice teachers' (PTs) informal reasoning regarding COVID-19 vaccination and new media literacy (NML), and investigated potential relationships between their informal reasoning and NML levels. Participants of the study were 410 PTs enrolled in teacher education programs of 19 different universities in…

In this article, I present an analysis of the epistemic value of the students' conceptions, as employed in the current constructivist research. I focus on the conceptions about natural kinds. Since natural kind terms are a crucial part of the discourse of the natural sciences, my conclusions are particularly relevant in science education. To…

In this paper, I consider whether the critical rationalist philosophy of science may provide a rationale for trusting scientific knowledge. In the first part, I refer to several insights of Karl Popper's social and political philosophy in order to see whether they may be of help in offsetting the distrust of science spawned by the COVID-19…

In this article, I introduce Robert Brandom's inferentialism as an alternative to common representational interpretations of constructivism in science education. By turning our attention away from the representational role of conceptual contents and toward the norms governing their use in inferences, we may interpret knowledge as a capacity to…

In a historical moment in which Artificial Intelligence and machine learning have become within everyone's reach, science education needs to find new ways to foster "AI literacy." Since the AI revolution is not only a matter of having introduced extremely performant tools but has been determining a radical change in how we conceive and…

Perspective taking is a critical yet tangled construct that is used to describe a range of psychological processes and that is applied interchangeably with related constructs. The resulting ambiguity is particularly vexing in science education, where although perspective taking is recognized as critical to informed citizens' ability to negotiate…

Fundamental knowledge of natural history is lacking in many western societies, as demonstrated by its absence in school science curricula. And yet, to meet local and global challenges such as environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change, we need to better understand the living and non-living parts of the natural world. Many have…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the features of modeling-based abductive reasoning as a disciplinary practice of inquiry in the domain of earth science. The study was based on an undergraduate course of a university of education, Korea, offered for preservice elementary teachers majoring in science as their specialty. The course…

It is well known that the Meno presents the argument called "the paradox of inquiry." This paper has two purposes. First, I analyze the paradox of inquiry and reformulate the argument as the "renewed paradox of inquiry." Second, I clarify that the problem of inquiry posed by this paradox concerns the necessary conditions for a…

Our work extends a previous study of epistemological presuppositions in teaching quantum physics in upper scientific secondary school in France. Here, the problematic reference of quantum theory's concepts is treated at the ontological level (the counterintuitive nature of quantum objects). We consider the approach of using narratives describing…

Previous studies have shown that students often ignore molecular mechanisms when describing genetic phenomena. Specifically, students tend to directly link genes to their encoded traits, ignoring the role of proteins as mediators in this process. We tested the ability of 10th grade students to connect genes to traits through proteins, using…

Philosophical debates about chemistry have clarified that the issue of emergence plays a critical role in the epistemology and ontology of chemistry. In this article, it is argued that the issue of emergence has also significant implications for understanding learning difficulties and finding ways of addressing them in chemistry. Particularly, it…

The paper is a philosophical analysis of experimentation. The philosophical framework of the analysis is the interrogative model of inquiry developed by Hintikka. The basis of the model is explicit and well-formed logic of questions and answers. The framework allows us to formulate a flexible logic of experimentation. In particular, the formulated…

Natural selection is one of the most famous metaphors in the history of science. Charles Darwin used the metaphor and the underlying analogy to frame his ideas about evolution and its main driving mechanism into a full-fledged theory. Because the metaphor turned out to be such a powerful epistemic tool, Darwin naturally assumed that he could also…