Rola Khishfe

Relationship between Instructional Context and Views of Nature of Science.

The study investigated the relationship between instructional context (integrated and non‐integrated) that explicitly teaches about nature of science (NOS) and students’ view of NOS across different disciplines. Participants were three teachers and their students, which comprised six classes of 89 ninth‐graders and 40 10th/11th‐graders. Each teacher taught two intact sections of the same grade level within a specific science discipline. The treatment for all groups involved teaching a 5–6 week unit that included the science content and NOS. The two intact groups learned about same content; the only difference was the context of NOS instruction (integrated or non‐integrated). An open‐ended questionnaire, followed by interviews, was used to assess change in participants’ views. Results showed improvement in students’ NOS views regardless of whether NOS instruction was embedded within the content. Therefore, it was not possible to make claims about whether one instructional context is more effective than another in general terms.

Transfer of Nature of Science Understandings into Similar Contexts: Promises and Possibilities of an Explicit Reflective Approach

The purpose of this study was to (a) investigate the effectiveness of explicit nature of science (NOS) instruction in the context of controversial socioscientific issues and (b) explore whether the transfer of acquired NOS understandings, which were explicitly taught in the context of one socioscientific context, into other similar contexts (familiar and unfamiliar) was possible. Participants were 10th grade students in two intact sections at one high school. The treatment involved teaching a six-week unit about genetic engineering. For one group (non-NOS group), there was no explicit instruction about NOS. For the other group (NOS group), explicit instruction about three NOS aspects (subjective, empirical, and tentative) was dispersed across the genetic engineering unit. A questionnaire including two open-ended scenarios, in conjunction with semi-structured interviews, was used to assess the change in participants’ understandings of NOS and their ability to transfer their acquired understandings into similar contexts. The first scenario involved a familiar context about genetically modified food and the second one focused on an unfamiliar context about water fluoridation. Results showed no improvement in NOS understandings of participants in the non-NOS group in relation to the familiar and unfamiliar contexts. On the other hand, there was a general improvement in the NOS understandings of participants in the NOS group in relation to both the familiar and unfamiliar contexts. Implications about the transfer of participants’ acquired NOS understandings on the basis of the distance between the context of learning and that of application are highlighted and discussed in link with the classroom learning environment.

A Look into Students’ Retention of Acquired Nature of Science Understandings

Having the learning and retention of science content and skills as a goal of scientific literacy, it is significant to study the issue of retention as it relates to teaching and learning about nature of science (NOS). Then, the purpose of this study was to investigate the development of NOS understandings of students, and the retention of these understandings four months after being acquired through explicit reflective instruction in relation to two contexts. Participants were 24 tenth-grade students at a private high school in a city in the Middle East. Explicit NOS instruction was addressed within a six-week unit about genetic engineering. Three NOS aspects were integrated and dispersed across the unit. A questionnaire, together with semi-structured interviews, was administered as pre-, post-, and delayed post-test to assess the retention of participants’ NOS understandings. The questionnaire had two open-ended scenarios addressing controversial socioscientific issues about genetically modified food and water fluoridation. Results showed that most students improved their naïve understandings of NOS in relation to the two contexts following the six-week unit with the explicit NOS instruction. However, these newly acquired NOS understandings were not retained by all students four months after instruction. Many of the students reverted back to their earlier naïve understandings. Conclusions about the factors facilitating the process of retention as the orientation to meaningful learning and the prolonged exposure to the domain were discussed in relation to practical implications in the classroom.

A Reconstructed Vision of Environmental Science Literacy: The case of Qatar

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) develop a conceptual framework for environmental science literacy; and consequently (b) examine the potential of science standards/curricula to prepare environmentally literate citizens. The framework comprised four pillars: science content knowledge, scientific inquiry, nature of science (NOS), and socioscientific issues (SSI). A conceptual understanding of these pillars as interconnected was presented and justified. Then the developed framework was used to examine the potential of the Qatari science standards to prepare environmentally literate citizens. Results showed that the secondary Qatari science standards generally take up the pillars of science content and scientific inquiry in an explicit manner. The NOS pillar is rarely addressed, while the SSI pillar is not addressed in the objectives and activities in a way that aligns with the heavy emphasis given in the overall aims. Moreover, the connections among pillars are mostly manifested within the activities and between the science content and scientific inquiry. The objectives and activities targeting the environment were less frequent among the four pillars across the Qatari standards. Again, the connections related to the environment were less frequent in conformity with the limited environmental objectives and activities. Implications from this study relate to the need for the distribution of the four pillars across the standards as well as the presentation of the different pillars as interconnected.

Students’ understandings of nature of science and their arguments in the context of four socio-scientific issues

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine students understandings about nature of science (NOS) and their arguments in context of controversial socio-scientific issue (SSI). A total of 74 11th graders in six schools in Saudi Arabia participated in the study. The instrument used was a questionnaire consisting of four scenarios addressing SSI about global warming, genetically modified food, acid rain, and human cloning. The scenarios were followed by questions relating to argumentation and NOS. Quantitative and qualitative measures were employed to analyze the data related to participants understandings of three NOS aspects (subjective, tentative, and empirical) and their arguments components (argument, counterargument, and rebuttal). Results showed no significant correlations between argument components and the NOS aspects. On the other hand, qualitative data showed that participants who generated well-developed arguments across the four SSI also exhibited more informed understandings of the NOS aspects, especially for female participants. Further, the chi-square analyses did not show significant differences in participants arguments and NOS understandings across the four scenarios. Again, the qualitative data from questionnaires showed differences in participants responses to the different scenarios. The results were interpreted along contextual factors, emotional factors, and cultural factors. Implications for the teaching of NOS and arguments were discussed.

Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Nature of Science and Socioscientific Issues: A Dialogue between Two Researchers.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast between two theoretical frameworks for addressing nature of science (NOS) and socioscientific issues (SSI) in school science. These frameworks are critical thinking (CT) and argumentation (AR). For the past years, the first and second authors of this paper have pursued research in this area using CT and AR as theoretical frameworks, respectively. Yacoubian argues that future citizens need to develop a critical mindset as they are guided to (1) practice making judgments on what views of NOS to acquire and (2) practice making decisions on SSI through applying their NOS understandings. Khishfe asserts that AR is an important component of decision making when dealing with SSI and the practice in AR in relation to controversial issues is needed for informed decision making. She argues that AR as a framework may assist in the development of more informed understandings of NOS. In this paper, the authors delve into a dialogue for (1) elucidating strengths and potential of each framework, (2) highlighting challenges that they face in their research using the frameworks in question, (3) exploring the extent to which the frameworks can overlap, and (4) proposing directions for future research.

Consistency of nature of science views across scientific and socio-scientific contexts

ABSTRACT The purpose of the investigation was to investigate the consistency of NOS views among high school students across different scientific and socio-scientific contexts. A total of 261 high school students from eight different schools in Lebanon participated in the investigation. The schools were selected based on different geographical areas in Lebanon and the principals’ consent to participate in the study. The investigation used a qualitative design to compare the responses of students across different contexts/topics. All the participants completed a five-item open-ended questionnaire, which includes five topics addressing scientific and socio-scientific contexts. The items of the questionnaire addressed the empirical, tentative, and subjective aspects of NOS. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to answer the research questions. Results showed that participants’ views of the emphasised NOS aspects were mostly inconsistent. Plus, there was variance in participants’ views of NOS between scientific and socio-scientific issues. Discussion of the results related to differential developmental progression, contextual factors, social constructivist perspective, different domains of knowledge, and students’ individual differences.