research methodologies in science education: students’ ideas about the nature of science · 2013....

In today’s world, individuals must confront complex is-sues of broad social relevance – ranging from threatsfrom biological weapons, to impacts of global warming,to the implications of new reproductive technologies–yet many individuals lack the necessary skills to evalu-ate information and make informed decisions (AAAS,1989). In light of this situation, current reform efforts inscience education at all levels, including undergraduatescience education, stress that instructors need to helpstudents achieve a deep understanding of important sci-ence concepts, as well as an understanding of how scien-tific knowledge is constructed, including the strengthsand limitations of science (NSF, 1996; NRC, 1996, 1997).The latter goal, which pertains to the epistemology ofscience, is often referred to as the “nature of science” inthe science education literature (Lederman, 1992).

Although the goal of improving students’ concep-tions of the nature of science is laudable, many collegescience faculty are left wondering what classroom strate-gies and materials are required to achieve this goal. Asadministrators at universities and colleges attempt toimplement reform efforts, science faculty are faced withthe huge task of transforming the rhetoric of reform intoclassroom practice. In this column we explore how threeassistant professors in geology departments attempedtto assess college students’ understanding of the natureof science. We discuss the usefulness of both qualitativeand quantitative data in this assessment, and the ways inwhich assessment can impact teaching reforms. The fac-ulty and institutions portrayed in this column are all fic-tional, but the ideas that non-majors hold about thenature of science are based on our collective research ex-perience with college freshman enrolled in introductorycourses for non-science majors at many undergraduateinstitutions.

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Laura, Dean, and Nancy had completed their doctoratesin geosciences at the same research university in theNortheast. After defending their dissertations in 1998and completing two-year postdoctoral research posi-tions, they each landed faculty jobs. Laura, ageomorphologist, accepted a position at a large privateresearch university in the Northeast. Dean, a seismolo-gist, took a position at a large state research university in

California. Nancy, a geochemist, who had always lovedteaching, took a position at a small liberal arts college inthe Midwest. All three had enjoyed their experiences asgraduate teaching assistants and although their empha-sis on teaching and research varied, all three recognizedthe importance of teaching in fulfilling their academicroles. As graduate students, they had participated inseveral workshops on teaching methods both at the uni-versity and at professional meetings.

In their first year, all three were asked to teach an in-troductory geology course for non-science majors. Eachcourse was designed to introduce freshman to importantconcepts in geology as well as the ways that scientistsdeveloped this knowledge. Given that they had nevertaught a course for non-science majors before, they cor-responded regularly about ideas for the course andstruggled with how best to teach students about the na-ture of science in just one semester. Nancy asked afriend in the College of Education for advice. Althoughthis colleague’s research area focused on teacher profes-sional development, she was active in several science ed-ucation professional societies and had just attended asymposium on the nature of science at the past NationalAssociation of Research in Science Teaching conference.She gave Nancy the papers from that symposium as wellas several other prominent publications in the field.Nancy read through this literature and chose two instru-ments, one quantitative and one qualitative, that couldbe used as a first attempt to assess students’ ideas aboutthe nature of science. She emailed Laura and Dean thefollowing three questions as well as the two instruments.

� What ideas about the nature of science do collegestudents bring to the classroom?

� Do these three introductory courses have any influ-ence on students’ ideas about the nature of science?If so, in what ways?

� Does a quantitative instrument capture students’ideas of various aspects of the nature of science ade-quately? Although the use of a qualitative instru-ment gives an instructor a much richer view ofstudents’ understanding, is the additional time re-quired to process qualitative data feasible or war-ranted in large introductory science courses?

322 Journal of Geoscience Education, v.50, n.3, May, 2002, p. 322-329

Research Methodologies in Science Education:Students’ Ideas About the Nature of Science

Josepha P. KurdzielTeaching and Teacher Education, University of Arizona, Education Room 703,Tucson AZ 85721;

[email protected]

Julie C. LibarkinScience Education Department, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics60 Garden Street, MS-71, Cambridge MA

02138; [email protected]

They all agreed that this would be a good start to de-termining how their approaches to teaching about thenature of science worked in practice. Although they didnot plan on publishing any of this research, they thoughtit might be useful as preliminary data for future in-housegrant proposals to improve their respective courses. Sothey each found out about the guidelines in place for hu-man subjects research at their institutions and all threesubmitted the required paperwork before collecting anydata.

INSTRUMENTS AND METHODS

Although Laura, Dean, and Nancy taught at differentinstitutions, the demographics of their student popula-tions were surprisingly similar. At the time of the study,56% of all the participants were freshman, 22% weresophomores, 19% were juniors, and 3% were seniors.Approximately 54% of the participants designated theirethnicity as Caucasian, 17% Latino, 5% Asian, 5% Afri-can American, and 4% Native American; about 15% ofthe participants did not choose to provide informationon ethnicity. None of the participants planned to majorin the natural sciences; the majority planned to major inbusiness, many were undecided, and a small percentageplanned to go into elementary education.

The three courses were implemented in the fall se-mester 2000 for the first time. Laura’s course was alarge-enrollment university course utilizing a traditionallecture approach coupled with a lab section. The lab fo-cused on activities that were designed to promote con-ceptual understanding of geology concepts.Additionally, this course had an interdisciplinary focuson global issues. Laura believed that students wouldlearn about the nature of science by reading and hearingabout scientific investigations and discussing them inlecture and during labs. Dean’s large-enrollment univer-sity course had no lab component, but Dean used a So-cratic questioning approach and planned class

discussions of several aspects of the nature of science.Both of the university courses had enrollments of 100students and met in a lecture hall; Laura’s course had 4lab sections of 25 students each. Nancy’s course was of-fered at the liberal-arts college with an enrollment of 24students. Nancy designed the course to be in-quiry-based. Students experienced the processes of sci-entific inquiry by planning and designing severaloriginal research studies and actually carrying out onecomplete investigation. This investigation unfolded asany scientific study would, from initial conceptualiza-tion of a research question, through actual scientific in-vestigation, to presentation in an end-of-semestersymposium. Nancy firmly believed this inquiry-basedapproach would improve students’ understanding ofthe nature of science. However, after reading many re-search articles in this area, she added three class discus-sions of the nature of science to discuss specificcharacteristics that she thought students might not ac-quire simply through involvement in a scientific investi-gation.

Two instruments were used to capture students’views of the nature of science using a pre-instructionand post-instruction design (e.g., Libarkin and Kurdziel,2001) – the qualitative VNOS C instrument developed byAbd-El-Khalick and Lederman (1998) (Figure 1) and thequantitative PASE 8.0 instrument developed byMcComas (2001) (Figure 2). The VNOS questionnaireand PASE survey assess students’ views of seven aspectsof the nature of science. Nancy, Dean and Laura decidedcollectively to focus on only four of these aspects (Table1). These four aspects are that science is empirically based,scientific conclusions are usually tentative, scientistsmust be creative, and science is always based on subjectiveinterpretation (Table 1). Dean decided not to use thequantitative instrument and only administered theVNOS instrument in his course; Nancy and Laura ad-ministered both instruments during the first week andthe last week of classes, respectively. All three instruc-

Kurdziel and Libarkin - Research Methodologies in Science Education 323

Aspect Description

Empirically based � Scientific knowledge is based on or derived from observations and inferences of the natural world

� There are multiple approaches to science in addition to experimentation

Tentative � Scientific knowledge is subject to change as new observations are made and existing data arereinterpreted

Creative � Scientific knowledge is created from logical reasoning and human imagination using observationsand inferences of the natural world

Table 1. Nature of science aspects and the descritpions that serve as a basis for evaluation of students’ re-

sponses. Descriptions are based on national science education reform documents such as the National Sci-

ence Education Standards published by the National Research Council (1996).


Views of the Nature of Science (VNOS, version C)

Empirically based

1. What, in your view, is science? What makes science (or ascientific discipline such as physics, biology, etc.) differentfrom other disciplines of inquiry (e.g., religion, philoso-phy)?

Tentative

2. After scientist have developed a scientific theory (e.g.,atomic theory, theory of evolution), does the theory everchange?

If you believe that scientific theories do not change, explainwhy? Defend your answer with examples.

If you believe that scientific theories do change:

(A) Explain why theories change?

(B) Explain why be bother to learn scientific theories.

Defend your answer with examples.

Creative

3. Scientists preform experiments/investigations when tryingto find answers to the questions they put forth. Do scien-tists use their creativity and imagination during their in-vestigations?

If yes, then at which stages of the investigations do you be-lieve that scientists use their imagination and creativity:planning and design; data collection; after data collection?

Please explain why scientists use imagination and creativity.Provide examples if appropriate.

Subjective

4. It is believed that about 65 million years ago the dinosaursbecame extinct. Of the hypotheses formulated by scientiststo explain the extinction, two enjoy wide support. The first,formulated by one group of scientists, suggests that a hugemeteorite hit the Earth 65 million years ago and led to a se-ries of events that caused the extinction. The second hy-pothesis, formulated by another group of scientists,suggests that massive and violent volcanic eruptions wereresponsible for the extinctions. How are these differentconclusions possible if scientists in both groups have ac-cess to and use the same set of data to derive their conclu-sions?

Figure 1. (Above) Qualitative instrument for assess-

ing students’ ideas about the nature of science (4

items taken from VNOS, Abd-El-Khalick et al, 1998).

Pase 8.0

The items in this survey address your thoughts about how sci-ence really works (not how you think it should work). Thereare no right or wrong answers, just agree or disagree witheach statement.

SD means Strongly Disagree

D means Disagree

NO means No Opinion, only to be used if you find itimpossible to give a definite answer

A means Agree

SA means Strongly Agree

Empirically based

1. Evidence is necessary to support conclusions in science. (+)

2. The results of a scientific investigation must be repeatableby others before they are considered valid. (+)

3. The results of a scientific experiment will be accepted byother scientists even if the experiment does not yield thesame results to other scientists. (-)

4. In part, scientific ideas are accepted by the scientific com-munity only if the facts support those ideas. (+)

Tentative

1. Suppose chemists agree that a particular reaction occurs be-cause electrons move from one molecule to another. Thisproblem is now solved forever. (-)

2. Well established scientific conclusions will generally re-main unchanged through time. (+)

3. Even when scientific investigations are done correctly, theconclusions that scientists reach may change in the future.(+)

4. With evidence, a scientific idea will be proved conclusivelywith no likelihood of change in the future. (-)

Creative

1. Scientists commonly use creatively and imagination whenconducting scientific investigations. (+)

2. Ideas and conclusions in science come, in part, from imagi-nation and intuition. (+)

3. Scientific ideas are based only on evidence, not on infer-ences or hunches. (-)

4. Observational or experimental evidence alone is all that isnecessary to form scientific ideas. (-)

Subjective

1. When a scientist sees evidence that might show one ofher/his ideas to be false, it is likely that the scientist willquickly give up her/his original idea. (-)

2. Scientific conclusions are based on evidence and subjectiveissues such as personal preferences and opinions of the sci-entist doing the work. (+)

3. Scientists naturally sometimes de-emphasize or overlookevidence that does not support their favored ideas. (+)

4. Scientists focus only on the evidence. Personal bias, prefer-ences, and opinions play no role. (-)

Figure 2. (Right) Quantitative instruments for assess-

ing students’ ideas about the nature of science. (4 as-

pects taken from McComas et al., 2001)


pre post

Empirically Based

Question 1 3.46 4.56

Question 2 2.57 0.82 4.00



Mean Score 2.93 4.10

Tentative




Question 4 3.29 0.97 3.24


Creative




Question 4 3.94


Subjective



Question 3 3.11 1.03 3.29



Table 2. Students’ views about the nature of science.

Results from quantitative instrument - PASE 8.0, n =

73* students from Laura’s large lecture class. (*Al-

though 100 students completed the pre-test, only 73

completed the post-test. Only those students who

completed both tests are included in the analysis.)

pre post

Empirically Based


Question 2 2.57 0.82 4.00




Tentative




Question 4 3.29 0.97 3.24


Creative




Question 4 3.51


Subjective



Question 3 3.11 1.23 3.19



Table 3. Students’ views about the nature of science.

Results from quantitative instrument - PASE 8.0, n =

24 students from Nancy’s inquiry class.


tors gave their students the option of completing the in-struments and assured them that their responses wouldnot affect their grades.

Following the pre-test administration of the VNOS,Laura and Dean interviewed 10% of their students to es-tablish the validity of the instrument following the pro-tocol provided by Abd-El-Khalick et al. (1998);interviewing 25-50% of each population would havebeen preferable, but given the large number of studentsin each course, this was the maximum number of inter-views that Laura and Dean could complete given theother demands on their time. Nancy interviewed 50 % ofher students after administering the VNOS at the begin-ning of the term. During interviews, Laura, Dean orNancy read the questions to the students and askedprobing questions if a student’s response was ambigu-ous. After the interviews were completed, Laura, Deanand Nancy pooled student responses and developed cat-egories in which to place student answers, a processknown as “coding” for thematic analysis (discussed inLibarkin and Kurdziel, 2002). For each student, re-sponses were coded and compared to the contemporaryconceptions of the nature of science outlined in table 1.The PASE data was analyzed according the protocol es-tablished by McComas et al., 2001. Each item was scoredon a 5-point scale (1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = noopinion, 4 = disagree, 5 = strongly disagree). Each itemin the PASE instrument was purposefully written to pro-voke either a positive or negative response (see figure 2for the “correct response”) to check for consistency ofopinions within each subscale. Items designed to pro-voke a negative response were reverse scored (1 =strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) such that a “per-fect” score in each subscale would be a score of “5”. Thereliability of the PASE instrument and its subscales werealso evaluated using Chronbach alpha reliability analy-ses.

STUDENTS’ PRE-INSTRUCTION IDEAS ABOUTTHE NATURE OF SCIENCE

Analysis of students’ responses on the VNOS and PASEquestionnaires (Tables 2, 3 and 4 and Figure 3) revealedthat the majority of students held naive conceptions ofmany aspects of the nature of science when they enrolledin each course. The majority of students viewed scienceas a static body of facts that described the natural world.Many did not appreciate the role that evidence plays inscience or the roles of creativity and subjectivity in scien-tific inquiry. Students did not view science as a creativeendeavor and failed to appreciate the role of theories inguiding scientific research as well as influencing scien-tists’ observations and their interpretations of the data.All three instructors were surprised at the widely heldmisconceptions about the nature of science. Addi-tionally, they each expected to see a change in their stu-dents’ thinking after participation in their courses.

Empirically Based (question 1)

Science is facts about the world

Science produces technology that helps people

Science is used to solve problems

Science is used to discover the truth

Science uses the scientific method

Science uses evidence to back up its claims (c)

Science provides explanations for natural phenomena (c)

Tentative (question 2)

Scientific theories never change

Theories change when new equipment allows scientists tomake better measurements

Theories change because the scientist changes his mind

Theories change when a scientist finds new evidence (c)

Data can be reinterpreted from a different perspective leadingto changes in the theory (c)

Creative (question 3)

Scientists don’t use creativity and imagination when theyconduct investigations

Strict procedures must be followed - no place for imagination

Scientists are only creative when they design the investiga-tion

Scientists are only creative when they come up with the re-search question

Scientists use creativity in most aspects, except data analysis

Scientists use creativity in all aspects of the investigation in-cluding analysis of data and interpretation (c)

Subjective (question 4)

Event happened too long ago - we can’t tell either way

Event happened in the past - we can’t do experiments so wecan have many interpretations

We need more evidence

The data are ambiguous and support both theories

Scientists are influenced by the way they were trained and theresults of previous experiments (c)

Scientists are creative with explanations (c)

Figure 3. Students’ ideas about the nature of science.

Results from the qualitative instrument VNOS C and

interviews, n=55 from Laura’s large lecture class,

n=47 from Dean’s large lecture class and n=24 stu-

dents from Nancy’s class. Only those students who

completed both tests are included in the analyses.

Responses marked with a (c) coincide with contem-

porary views as articulated in national reform docu-

ments.

CHANGES IN STUDENTS IDEAS ABOUT THENATURE OF SCIENCE

Interpreting changes to student’s understanding of thenature of science using multiple instruments is some-times difficult, especially when different instrumentssuggest different effects. In the case of our three exam-ple courses, the results from the qualitative VNOS andthe quantitative PASE implied different student out-comes. In Laura and Dean’s larger, more traditionalcourses, the VNOS results showed no significantchanges in students’ views of the nature of science (Ta-ble 4 and Figure 3). However, the PASE results fromLaura’s class (Table 2) suggested that students experi-enced an improvement in one aspect, an understandingof the empirical basis of science. This ambiguity in thetest results may be explained by the reliability analysisof the PASE test. A Cronbach alpha analysis revealed anoverall reliability of �=0.60, but the reliabilities of thefour subscales of the PASE instrument were muchlower, all �<0.45. This low reliability highlights the needto ensure that a test is reliable before administration.The PASE test was originally designed for adult subjectswho served as volunteers on various “Earthwatch” re-search projects with scientists across the world – a groupconsiderably older than the college students in the threegeology courses. Although the PASE survey has beenshown to be reliable for this original subject population(McComas et al., 2001), reliability always needs to be re-confirmed when instruments are used with dramaticallydifferent test subjects. Ultimately, Laura relied on theVNOS results to determine that her course was not effec-tive at changing students’ ideas about the nature of sci-ence.

Dean had utilized only the qualitative instrument inhis course and his conclusions were similar to Laura’s –there were no substantive changes in students’ under-standing of the nature of science after completion of hisgeology course (Figure 3, Table 4). In Nancy’s more in-quiry-oriented course, there appeared to be some im-provements in students’ views of some aspects of thenature of science after instruction: understanding of theempirical basis of science and the roles of creativity andsubjectivity in science seemed to improve as docu-mented by the qualitative VNOS instrument (Table 4and Figure 3) as well as the PASE instrument (Table 3).Because of the low reliability of the PASE subscales,Laura and Nancy decided to only discuss the PASE re-sults in aggregate. However, they were able to use thequalitative VNOS results to form conclusions aboutchanges in student performance on each of the four tar-geted aspects of the nature of science. Their experiencereinforces the idea that a test must be both valid and reli-able to be a useful indicator of student change.

This example illustrates the power and pitfalls of us-ing established instruments for evaluating student

learning. Nancy, Dean, and Laura were able to use thePASE and VNOS tests as diagnostic tools at the start ofthe semester. As a result, they knew before they beganteaching that the majority of their students had naiveconceptions about the nature of science. This type of in-formation can be a powerful tool for curriculum devel-opment, allowing faculty to modify course materials toaddress weaknesses in student understanding. Addi-tionally, in our example, both the PASE and VNOS testswere used as assessment instruments. Nancy, Dean, andLaura were able to make conclusions about the effective-ness of their courses at modifying student ideas aboutthe nature of science. This type of information allowsfaculty to make informed decisions about major curricu-lum overhauls, and is especially important when choos-ing between different pedagogical approaches. In thisexample, Nancy was able to conclude that her in-quiry-oriented teaching approach was more effective


Aspect Pre-test Post-test

Empirically based

Laura’s Class 10% 13%

Dean’s Class 8% 11%

Nancy’s Class 15% 30%

Tentative




Creative




Subjective




Table 4. Students’ ideas abut the nature of science.

Resutls from the qualitiative instrument VNOS C and

interviews. The percentages represent the number of

students holding contemporary views (as outlined in

table 1 and figure 3) about each of the four targeted

aspects of science at the beginning of the course and

at the end of each course.


than her friends’ more traditional approaches. Dean andLaura may decide to adopt some of Nancy’s ideas, al-though continued monitoring of course effects is proba-bly warranted. First, the dramatically different classsizes (24 vs. 100 students) may limit Dean’s and Laura’sability to implement inquiry. Second, personal style canaffect student learning even when pedagogical ap-proaches are identical; it is important to control for theinfluence of individuals when implementing new cur-riculum.

Nancy, Dean, and Laura also experienced one of themost difficult aspects of science education research: theissue of validity. Although the PASE test has been vali-dated and is well received by the education community,administration of the instrument in a new area must al-ways be done carefully. If our faculty had not per-formed a reliability test, they may have drawndramatically different conclusions about the effect oftheir courses on student learning, especially with respectto the PASE subscales. Luckily, a Chronbach alpha reli-ability test was performed. This analysis revealed thatPASE has validity to the college student population butits sub-scales do not, and our three faculty were able tointerpret the test results accordingly. It is lesstime-consuming and probably most valid to use estab-lished tests when evaluating courses, but concern mustalways be taken when applying these tests to new popu-lations.

WHAT DOES THE LEADING SCIENCEEDUCATION RESEARCH SAY ON THISTOPIC?

In his 1992 review of the research literature, Ledermandocuments that the objective of improving students’ un-derstanding of the nature of science has been a goal ofscience education for at least 85 years; yet in reality, moststudents do not understand much about how scienceworks. Most of the research effort has focused on K-12students, pre-service teachers, and in-service teachers.Early on, research focused on improving pre-serviceteachers’ understanding of the nature of science with thehope that this would translate into improved teaching ofthe nature of science and hence improved student un-derstanding (Duschl, 1990; Abd-El-Khalick et al., 1998).However, improved teacher understanding of the na-ture of science did not inevitably lead to improved class-room instruction of the nature of science, especially withrespect to novice teachers (Brickhouse & Bodner, 1992;Abd-El-Khalick et al., 1998).

Recent research has focused on new attempts to im-prove the translation of teachers’ understanding of thenature of science into classroom practice (Lederman andAbd-El-Khalick, 1998; Lederman, 1999; Abd-El-Khalick& Lederman, 2000). One approach that has been advo-cated in previous research is the addition of history andphilosophy of science coursework to teacher prepara-

tion programs or the inclusion of this perspective intoscience content courses. A recent study byAbd-El-Khalick and Lederman (2000) concludes thatthis approach does not improve college students’ viewsof the nature of science. The authors advocate an explicitapproach whereby instruction on specific aspects of thenature of science is incorporated into either science con-tent courses, history of science courses, or teacher prepa-ration courses, such that students have ample time todiscuss these aspects and reflect on them. An alternativeapproach is to give students experience with the pro-cesses of science using inquiry-based teaching strate-gies, which should lead to improved conceptions of thenature of science. However, some research at the collegelevel suggests that such an implicit approach does notwork (e.g., Haukoos and Penick, 1985). Abd-El-Khalickand Lederman (2000) advocates the incorporation of ex-plicit instruction on the nature of science, whether this iscoupled with inquiry-based teaching methods or the ad-dition of history and philosophy perspectives incoursework. Several other approaches to improving theteaching of the nature of science can be found inMcComas (2000). This research base could be extremelyuseful in helping college science faculty modify their in-troductory courses; however, we have a long way to goin communicating the implications of this research toscience faculty. Additionally, the college community isstill a fertile ground for research, both in determininghow best to communicate the nature of science to under-graduates and in developing research methodologies forexploring student understanding.

REFERENCES

American Association for the Advancement of Science,1989, Science for all Americans: Project 2061, NewYork, Oxford University Press.

Abd-El-Khalick, F. and Lederman, N.G., 2000, The influ-ence of history of science courses on students’ viewsof nature of science, Journal of Research in ScienceTeaching, v.37, p. 1057-1095.

Abd-El-Khalick, F., Bell, R.L., and Lederman, N.G., 1998,The nature of science and instructional practice:making the unnatural natural, Science Education, v.82, p. 417-436.

Brickhouse, N.W., and Bodner, G.M., 1992, The begin-ning science teacher: Classroom narratives of con-victions and constraints, Journal of Research inScience Teaching, v.29, p. 471-485.

Duschl, R.A., 1990, Restructuring Science Education,New York, Teachers College Press.

Haukoos, G.D., and Penick, J.E., 1985, The effects ofclassroom climate on college science students: Areplication study, Journal of Research in ScienceTeaching v. 22, p. 163-168.

Lederman, N.G., 1992, Students’ and teachers’ concep-tions of the nature of science: A review of the re-search, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, v.29, p. 331-359.

Lederman, N.G., and Abd-El-Khalick, F., 1998, Avoidingde-natured science, Activities that promote under-standing of the nature of science, in W. McComased., The nature of science in science education, ratio-nales and strategies, Dordrecht, Netherlands:Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 83-126.

Libarkin, J., and Kurdziel, J., 2001, Research Methodol-ogies in Science Education: Strategies for ProductiveAssessment, Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 49,p. 300-304.

Libarkin, J., and Kurdziel, J., 2002, Research Methodol-ogies in Science Education: Qualitative Data, Journalof Geoscience Education, in press.

McComas, W.F., 2000, The nature of science in scienceeducation: rationale and strategies, Dordrecht,Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

McComas, W.F., Cox-Petersen, A., and Narguizian, P.,2001, The impact of experiential science learning onparticipants’ understanding of the nature of science.Paper presented at the meeting of the National As-sociation for Research in Science Teaching, St. Louis,MO.

National Research Council, 1996, National Science Edu-cation Standards, Washington, DC, National Acad-emy Press.

National Research Council, 1997, Science Teaching Re-considered: A Handbook, Washington, DC, Na-tional Academy Press.

National Science Foundation, 1996, Shaping the Future:New Expectations for Undergraduate Education inScience, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology,NSF 96-139.

Note: The authors are supported by National ScienceFoundation Postdoctoral Fellowships in Science, Mathe-matics, Engineering, and Technology Education (grantsDGE-9906479 (Libarkin) and DGE-9906478 (Kurdziel)).Libarkin is also partially supported by a National ScienceFoundation Assessment of Student Achievement in Un-dergraduate Education grant (DUE-0127765).


research methodologies in science education: students’ ideas about the nature of science · 2013....

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