The Principal Elements of the Nature of Science: Dispelling the Myths

McComas, William F.

doi:10.1007/0-306-47215-5_3

Cited by 205 publications

(280 citation statements)

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“…The uncertainty or messiness of science in the making is seldom emphasized (Ruhrig and Höttecke 2015). Through such school science, myths about indisputable, objective knowledge and heroic scientists are implicitly and explicitly communicated to the students (Allchin 2003;McComas 1998).…”

Section: Aims and Goals Of School Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…To teach about sociocultural and subjective aspects of NOS, at least through the issues that these teachers suggest, means to challenge that tradition for better or worse. A common part of the school-science tradition, as described both in the research literature (e.g., Allchin 2003;Feinstein et al 2013;McComas 1998;Rudolph 2005;Ruhrig and Höttecke 2015;Zacharia and Barton 2004) and by the teachers in this study, is the focus on science concepts. These concepts, which are often presented as indisputable facts, constitute an important part of what is referred to as black and white science in the present study.…”

Section: Tensions and Parallel Tracksmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From black and white to shades of grey

2017

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Traditional school science has been described as focused on indisputable facts where scientific processes and factors affecting these processes become obscured or left undiscussed. In this article, we report on teachers' perspectives on the teaching of sociocultural and subjective aspects of the nature of science (NOS) as a way to accomplish a more nuanced science teaching in Swedish compulsory school. The teachers (N = 6) took part in a longitudinal study on NOS and NOS teaching that spanned 3 years. The data consists of recorded and transcribed focus group discussions from all 3 years. In the analysis, the transcripts were searched for teachers' suggestions of issues, relevant for teaching in compulsory school, as well as opportunities and challenges connected to the teaching of these issues. The results of the analysis show that (a) the number of suggested issues increased over the years, (b) teachers' ways of contextualizing the issues changed from general and unprecise to more tightly connected to socio-scientific or scientific contexts, and (c) the number of both opportunities and challenges related to NOS teaching increased over the years. The most evident changes occurred from the beginning of year 2 when the focus group discussions became more closely directed towards concrete teaching activities. Tensions between the opportunities and challenges are discussed as well as how these can be met, and made use of, in science teacher education.

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Section: Aims and Goals Of School Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Tensions and Parallel Tracksmentioning

confidence: 99%

From black and white to shades of grey

2017

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“…Myths about basic scientific principles and practices, however, continue to be propagated by science textbooks and to be held by science teachers and students (McComas, 1998b). These myths range from the existence of a single and universal method of inquiry, to the idea that theories become laws over time, to the perception of science as a solitary pursuit.…”

Section: Contemporary Descriptions Of the Nature Of Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Learning to teach science in contemporary and equitable ways: The successes and struggles of first‐year science teachers

et al. 2003

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Recent studies of beginning science teachers make clear that learning to integrate contemporary nature of science descriptions and equitable instructional strategies into educational practices is a complex and challenging endeavor. In this research project, we examined the views and practices of three first-year science teachers, recent graduates of a teacher education program in California known for its attention to gender equitable and multicultural content and instruction. We explored these beginning teachers' attempts to present contemporary descriptions of the nature of science and implement equitable instructional strategies in their classrooms; we videotaped two of their curricular units and conducted individual interviews after each unit lesson. From qualitative analysis of these interviews, we developed case studies that described the ideas and practices these beginning teachers took up from their preservice experiences, as well as the reasons provided and constraints identified for science topics taught and instructional approaches used. In our discussion, we examined commonalties across beginning teachers' successes and struggles in learning to teach science in contemporary and equitable ways, as well as lessons we learned about ways to improve preservice science teacher education.

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“…For this explanation to make sense, the hypothesis must be connected to a 180 more comprehensive model relating the particulars of 60 C within the even more 181 comprehensive theory of solid state physics. This implies that a hypothesis cannot stand 182 alone, and that the theory or research objective to which it is related is needed to separate a 183 scientific hypothesis from a groundless guess about an outcome or arbitrary fortune-telling 184 (McComas, 1998). 185…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Uses of the Term Hypothesis and the Inquiry Emphasis Conflation in Science Teacher Education

Gyllenpalm

Wickman

2011

International Journal of Science Education

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International audienceThis paper examines the use and role of the term 'hypothesis' in science teacher education as described by teacher students. Data was collected through focus group interviews conducted at seven occasions with 32 students from six well known Swedish universities. The theoretical framework is a sociocultural and pragmatist perspective on language and learning, introducing the notion of pivot terms to operationalise language use as a habit and mediated action. We describe three different customs of using the term 'hypothesis' within four cultural institutions that can be said to constitute science teacher education in Sweden. Students were found to habitually use the term hypothesis as meaning a guess about an outcome. This is contrasted to the function of this term in scientific research as a tentative explanation. We also found differences in how this term was used between the pure science courses given by the science departments of universities and science education courses taken only by teacher students. Findings also included further support for school students hypothesis fear reported in an earlier study. It is discussed how these findings can obstruct learning and teaching about the nature of scientific inquiry. Constructivist theories of learning are suggested as a possible origin of these problems. The findings are also related to curricular reform and development

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The Principal Elements of the Nature of Science: Dispelling the Myths

Cited by 205 publications

References 5 publications

From black and white to shades of grey

From black and white to shades of grey

Learning to teach science in contemporary and equitable ways: The successes and struggles of first‐year science teachers

The Uses of the Term Hypothesis and the Inquiry Emphasis Conflation in Science Teacher Education

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