Existing research identifying common student ideas about forces focuses on students' misunderstandings, misconceptions, and difficulties. In this paper, we characterize student thinking in terms of resources, framing student thinking as continuous with formal physics. Based on our analysis of 2048 written responses to conceptual questions, we…

Science education and scientific literacy has gained enormous attention in the global educational scenario. In many cases, however, the holistic intent of science education is largely affected due to the lack of adequate understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS). This cross-sectional study was carried out to establish Bhutanese pre-service…

This article describes a system of analysis aimed at characterizing students' scientific explanations. Science education literature and reform documents have been highlighting the importance of scientific explanations for students' conceptual understanding and for their understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, and despite…

The paper presents an empirical study on university students' perceptions of nature of science (NOS). NOS is framed in terms of the cognitive, epistemic, and social-institutional systems of science based on the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) (Erduran and Dagher 2014; Irzik and Nola 2014; Irzik and Nola, SCED 20:591-607, 2011). FRA includes the…

This study aimed to investigate changes in the understandings of the Nature of Science (NOS) of preservice chemistry teachers after participating in the explicit, reflective, and contextual NOS teaching. The sample of the study consisted of nine preservice chemistry teachers who attended scientific research methods course at the undergraduate…

Conrad Hal Waddington (1905--1975) was an English biologist who was especially interested in the big (metaphysical) questions of life. His thinking has become part of the foundation of modern systems biology. This article applies his thinking to middle-years school biology curricula (for ages 11-16), to see if their approach to epistemic questions…

Proposing scientific descriptions is critical for individuals to cope with daily problems and acquire essential information. Nonetheless, few classes have enhanced students' ability to describe facts of scientific phenomena. Thus, using a tool of technology-based laboratory, this research examined whether students' scientific descriptions and…

Background: Preschoolers' knowledge of the principle of static equilibrium is an important research focus for understanding children's science content knowledge. Hitherto studies have mainly used behavioural observation with small samples. Thus, extending these studies with a validated test instrument is desirable. Aims: The aim was to validate an…

This study focused on exploring and evaluating students' views of the Nature of Science in the context of undergraduate chemistry laboratory. Thirty-six undergraduate students doing a laboratory course in upper division physical chemistry were assessed using an open-ended instrument and assessment criteria that categorise them in three levels of…

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the conventional high school instruction about conservation of mechanical energy in Canton Sarajevo. To that end we tested 441 high school students from six different schools in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) for their competence to apply the law of conservation of mechanical energy.…

Purpose: Awareness of the interaction between science, technology, society, and environment (STSE) is seen as important in life in the modern world. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the science teacher candidates' views on relations between science, technology, society, and environment. Research Methods: In this research, which used…

This research examines viewpoints held by pre-service science teachers on key concepts of the Nature of Science (NoS) in the Saudi context. Much research in this context emphasises quantitative methods, so this research utilises methodological triangulation to validate the data. Quantitative data was first obtained from 35 pre-service teachers…

We propose explicit and implicit approaches for the teaching of acid-base chemistry based on research into the history and nature of science (NoS). To support these instructional proposals, we identify four rationales for students to understand acid-base processes: daily life, socio-scientific, curriculum, and history of science. The extensive…

Quantum physics describes light as having both particle and wave properties; however, there is no consensus about how to interpret this duality on an ontological level. This article explores how pre-university physics students, while working with learning material focusing on historical-philosophical aspects of quantum physics, interpreted the…

The aim of this study is to present pre-service biology teachers with reading texts about the research of Van Helmont and Joseph Priestley relate to the subject of photosynthesis, for their familiarization with the processual and contextual aspects of science and their understanding of the nature of science, and to reveal the extent to which these…