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Using History of Science to Teach Nature of Science to Elementary Students

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Abstract

Science lessons using inquiry only or history of science with inquiry were used for explicit reflective nature of science (NOS) instruction for second-, third-, and fourth-grade students randomly assigned to receive one of the treatments. Students in both groups improved in their understanding of creative NOS, tentative NOS, empirical NOS, and subjective NOS as measured using VNOS-D as pre- and post-test surveys. Social and cultural context of science was not accessible for the students. Students in second, third, and fourth grades were able to attain adequate views of empirical NOS, the role of observation and inference, creative and imaginative NOS, and subjective NOS. Students were not able to express adequate views of socially and culturally embedded NOS. Most gains in NOS eroded by the next school year, except for tentative NOS for both groups and creative NOS for the inquiry group.

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Notes

  1. It is likely that some of the work attributed to Jābir ibn Hayyān was actually conducted by researchers working within a Jabirian school of thought, rather than by Jābir ibn Hayyān himself (Kraus 1942), but this aspect of the Jabrian corpus was not discussed with the students in this study.

  2. Examples of responses are taken from both pre- and post-test written answers and from interviews.

  3. Whenever quotes from students have been used, the spelling and grammatical errors in the original responses have been corrected, and redundant wording and space fillers such as “um” have been removed from interview transcripts for clarity. All names given are pseudonyms.

  4. Question 1 “What is science?” was omitted because it did not directly measure any of the tenets of nature of science we were investigating here. Also, several students who explained that science could include specific subjects, such as the study of animals and plants, on their pre-tests did not include this information on their post-tests. It is unlikely that this was due to a change in their understanding of what science is, and more likely due to taking less care in filling out the post-test. Question 6 referred to scientific models, but these were not directly addressed during the intervention, so this question was omitted as well.

  5. Only items that specifically contained the context in student responses themselves were counted as contextualized for this purpose, regardless of whether or not the question itself was contextualized. This analysis was carried out by the first author.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. Heidi Masters

    Present address: University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, La Crosse, WI, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University, 201 N. Rose Ave., W. W. Wright Education Bldg., Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA

    Khadija E. Fouad, Heidi Masters & Valarie L. Akerson

Authors
  1. Khadija E. Fouad
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  2. Heidi Masters
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Khadija E. Fouad.

Appendix

Appendix

VNOS-D scoring rubric

Question

Coding

NOS aspect

What is science?

Inadequate: Science is everything

Adequate: Science is exploring and studying topics, such as chemistry, insects, batteries, etc.

Informed: Science is a way of knowing about the world

Question #1

Inadequate is too vague or does not show how it is unique—science is everything, science is a subject

Adequate mentions specific science subjects

Informed has science as a distinct way of knowing about the world

 

What other subjects are you learning?

How is science different from other subjects?

Inadequate: Science is in everything, science follows one method

Adequate: Science investigates things

Informed: Science uses data to make claims and create ideas

Question #2

Adequate answers have to do with investigations and empirical evidence

(Empirical NOS)

Scientists are always trying to learn about our world. Do you think what scientists know might change in the future?

Inadequate: Science does not change

Adequate: As we learn more or have new technology science changes

Informed: Science changes as we learn more or as scientists reinterpret existing data

Question #3

Inadequate—science does not change

Adequate—accept yes—science changes due to new knowledge or technology

Informed—science changes due to reinterpreting existing data as well as from new knowledge and technology

(Science is tentative)

How do scientists know that dinosaurs really existed?

How certain are scientists about the way dinosaurs looked?

Inadequate: Scientists saw dinosaurs. Scientists read about dinosaurs. They are sure

Adequate: Scientists have collected evidence of dinosaurs (bones, fossils, etc.). They are pretty sure

Informed: Scientists have made observations of evidence (bones, fossils, etc.) and inferred that dinosaurs must have existed. They are pretty sure, but could change their minds with new evidence, or looking at the existing evidence in a different way to create an idea of what dinosaurs must have looked like

Question #4

Inadequate—sure—scientists saw dinosaurs, or someone told them, or they looked it up, or they read it

Adequate—pretty sure—they collected evidence, bones, fossils—saying certain will not disqualify—evidence or inference but not both

Informed—pretty sure—they could change their minds with new evidence, they observed evidence and inferred that dinosaurs existed.—must have the evidence and the inference

(observation and inference)

(tentative NOS; creative NOS)

A long time ago all the dinosaurs died. Scientists have different ideas about how and why they died. If scientists all have the same facts about dinosaurs, why do you think they disagree about this?

Inadequate: If they had more information they would all agree

Adequate: Scientists have different interpretations of the facts

Informed: Scientists have different interpretations of the facts because of their background knowledge and experiences

(Subjective NOS)

TV weather people show pictures of how they think the weather will be for the next day. They use lots of scientific facts to help them make these pictures. How certain do you think the weather people are about these pictures? Why?

Inadequate: They are certain because they have the data

Adequate: They are not certain; they might get new data to interpret through inferences

Informed: They are not certain; they might get new information or reinterpret the existing data that would change their prediction

(Tentative NOS, Observation and Inference)

In your view, what is a scientific model?

Inadequate: The model is just like the thing it represents

Adequate: The model is a representation of something in the natural world, but different in some aspects from the thing it represents. They may give an example of a model

Informed: A model is a representation of some aspect of nature that the scientist can use to explore aspects of a phenomenon that would be too impractical to explore otherwise (too large, too small, too time-consuming, etc.)

Question #6

The notion of using the model to explore makes it informed

 

Do you think scientists use their imaginations when they do their work? Yes/No

If No, explain why? If Yes, then when do you think they use their imaginations?

Inadequate: No, they can’t imagine things because it wouldn’t be real

Adequate: Yes, they use their imaginations to design investigations

Informed: Yes, they use their imaginations to design investigations, interpret their data, and create explanations

(Creativity)

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Fouad, K.E., Masters, H. & Akerson, V.L. Using History of Science to Teach Nature of Science to Elementary Students. Sci & Educ 24, 1103–1140 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-015-9783-5

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