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…

Enabling students to learn about science is essential for science education. Students are expected to not only gain scientific knowledge but also need to develop a deep understanding of science. One approach to equipping students with a sense of science is to present science as a living collective human enterprise. As essential educational…

The importance of the philosophy of science in science teacher education has long been argued for by science educators. In particular, understanding how scientific knowledge is generated, negotiated, and developed is a key area of the philosophy of science that is relevant to science teaching. However, research on the nature of scientific…

Studies in the field of science education have discussed using historical approaches. Although previous studies have shown the potential advantages to addressing national sciences in the classroom in countries underrepresented in the history of science, there are still few initiatives in this direction. Thus, this paper aims to explore a…

Michael Faraday is considered one of the greatest science lecturers in history. He popularized the Christmas Lectures as a format of science communication that has survived until today in the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Especially, his "Chemical History of a Candle" has become a classic of science communication that has inspired…

Public trust in science and expertise remains a contentious issue. When public trust is analysed, it often simplifies a complex process of information retrieval and interpretation. Questionnaire surveys help us make sense of differences among actors and countries, but they fail to provide a comprehensive analysis of the reasons that lead citizens…

Despite advances in discussions about the nature of science, there is still a paucity of discussion on the ontological dimension of science in science education research that makes it difficult to defend its content and teaching. In this article, the reasons for trusting science and science education are analyzed through three arguments. The first…

In this study, high school physics textbooks published by People's Education Press (PEP) and Educational Science Publishing House (ESP) (a total of 6 books) in China were analyzed via a self-developed scale measuring nature of science (NOS) including three first-level indicators of scientific knowledge, scientific process, and scientific…

Practical work is a distinctive feature of school science and has close associations with scientific experiment and scientific methods as well. In this study, the nature of practical work was examined in the view of the diversity of scientific methods. Based on an analytical framework derived from Brandon's matrix consisting of four categories of…

Scientific inquiry is both theoretical and empirical. It succeeds by bringing thought into productive harmony with the observable universe, and thus, students can attain a robust understanding of the nature of science (NOS) only by developing a balanced appreciation of both these dimensions. In this article, I examine naïve empiricism, a teaching…

The social reaction to the recent detection of the Higgs boson and gravitational waves provided evidence that public interest in modern physics has reached a high point. Although these modern physics topics are being introduced into the upper secondary physics curricula in a growing number of countries, their potential for teaching various aspects…

We will attempt a synthesis from various research perspectives that have analyzed the alterations that knowledge inevitably goes through while percolating into classroom activities. We will try to identify some of their causes and will illustrate them with examples in genetics. First, we will discuss some research on knowledge transformation when…

Teaching false theories goes against the general pedagogical and philosophical belief that we must only teach and learn what is true. In general, the goal of pedagogy is taken to be epistemic: to gain knowledge and avoid ignorance. In this article, I argue that for realists and antirealists alike, epistemological and pedagogical goals have to come…

The current study compared the effectiveness of two methods in biology teaching that are based on the science-as-inquiry approach: visits to authentic university laboratories (AULs) and analyzing adapted primary literature (APL). The methods' effectiveness was measured in terms of high-school students' increased understanding following a 6-week…

Environments of learning often remain unnoticed and unacknowledged. This study follows a student and myself as we became aware of our local environment at MIT and welcomed that environment as a vibrant contributor to our learning. We met this environment in part through its educational heritage in two centennial anniversaries: John Dewey's 1916…