Scientists and science educators have argued that learners (students, preservice teachers, and inservice teachers) should understand knowledge construction in science, in addition to figuring out disciplinary core ideas. Given this goal, some science education scholars created a construct called the "Nature of Science" (NOS), which aims…

Despite the abundance of literature discussing Kuhnian views, it is rare to find studies that comprehensively compare the arguments of Kuhnian supporters and skeptics. This study aims to fill the gap by providing a comparative review and synthesis between the two groups of views using the systematic literature review (SLR) analysis technique. The…

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…

This systematic review summarized 42 selected empirical studies on the representations of nature of science (NOS) in science textbooks guided by three theoretical frameworks, which are the four-theme scientific literacy (SL), the consensus view on nature of science (CV), and the family resemblance approach to the nature of science (FRA). This…

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 current study aimed to examine the structural relationships between pre-service science teachers' intention to teach and perceptions of the nature of science (NOS) and attitudes toward teaching science. The sample consisted of 206 pre-service science teachers from a major university in the United Arab Emirates who have bachelor's degrees in…

Beginning 60 years ago, Thomas Kuhn has had a significant impact across the academy and on culture more widely. And he had a great impact on science education research, theorising, and pedagogy. For the majority of educators, the second edition (1970) of his "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (Kuhn, 1970a) articulated the very nature…

This study used the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model to analyze pre-service teachers' views on the nature of science (NOS). This approach can be used to automate the classification of documents, and at the same time, the researcher does not need to deduce with a NOS framework prior to evaluation. Participants were 155 pre-service…

Scientific literacy not only involves scientific content relative to each branch of science, as a scientifically literate person is also aware of what science is, as well as how it operates in a broader and complex sense. Therefore, in order to develop and implement successful methodologies in the classroom aiming to improve students' scientific…

This study sought to discover what aspects of the nature of science (NOS) should be emphasized to nurture great scientists. To this end, educational practices in the Sommerfeld school, regarded as highly successful in scientist education, were analyzed and compared with past and present educational practices. Sommerfeld school's educational…

The family resemblance approach to nature of science is receiving increasing attention by science educators since its inception about a decade ago. Many scholars of science education have contributed and continue to contribute to it not only theoretically but also by applying it empirically to a wide range of areas such as curriculum and textbook…

Interfacial, or surface tension, is a significant topic in chemical education. This paper describes the directional motion of gallium-based liquid metal drops, resulting from a difference of interfacial tension across the drop. This demonstration can engage students in discovering the underlying chemical principles. A mechanism for the drop's…

Studies on the quality of nature of science (NOS) representations in school science textbooks report them being mostly of implicit manner and not fully adequate. However, the often underlying NOS framework of the consensus list in these studies is criticized as undifferentiated and inadequate. The family resemblance approach (FRA) to NOS shows…

The main topics of this dissertation are: 1) the development and discussion of a new molecular balance for measuring alkyl-alkyl interactions in a wide array of organic solvents, 2) the development of linear solvation energy relationships between solvent interaction parameters and solvent accessible surface area (SASA) in CH-arene interactions,…