Nature of Science (NOS) Being Acquainted with Science of Science (SoS): Providing a Panoramic Picture of Sciences to Embody NOS for Pre-Service Teachers

Abstract

Understanding about nature of science is important topic in science education as well as in pre-service science teacher education. In science education, Nature of Science (NOS), in its different forms of educational scaffoldings, seeks to provide with students an understanding of features of scientific knowledge and science in general, how scientific knowledge changes and becomes accepted, and what factors guide scientific activities. For a science teacher, deep and broad enough picture of sciences is therefore of importance. This study attempts to show that the research field called Science of Science (SoS) can significantly support building such a panoramic picture of sciences, and through that, significantly support NOS. The SoS approaches the structure and dynamics of science quantitatively, using scientific documents (e.g., publications, reports, books and monographs and patent applications) as trails to map the landscape of sciences. It is argued here that SoS may provide material and interesting cases for NOS, and in so doing enrich NOS in a similarly significant way as history, philosophy and sociology of science (HPSS) scholarship has done thus far. This study introduces several themes based on SoS that are of relevance for NOS as they were introduced and discussed in a pre-service science teachers’ course. The feedback from pre-service teachers shows that introducing SoS, with minimal additional philosophical interpretations and discussions, but simply as evidential facts and findings, sparks ideas and views that come very close to NOS themes and topics. Discussions related to nature of science, and specific educational NOS scaffoldings for it, can find a good companion in SoS; the latter providing facts and evidence of thee structure and dynamics of sciences, the former providing perspectives for interpretations.

Significados que construyen, en torno a la enseñanza de las ciencias, profesores de educación primaria que laboran en una comuna rural de la Región de Coquimbo, Chile

“…En las últimas décadas, se ha incrementado el debate epistemológico referido a la forma en que se comprende y concibe tanto la naturaleza de la ciencia como el conocimiento científico (Koponen, 2021;Lederman et al, 1998;McComas et al, 2002). En este plano, diversas han sido las corrientes de pensamiento postmodernas que han invitado a repensar la forma en que los docentes planifican y organizan los procesos de enseñanza, tendencias especialmente sustentadas en la validez del conocimiento y la naturaleza de la ciencia, desde una perspectiva social, histórica, política y culturalmente contextualizada (Aduriz-Bravo e Izquierdo, 2002).…”