Contemporary sciences, including the didactics of science, employ computational simulations as tools in their academic endeavors. The construction and application of these simulations are of interest to didactics as they contribute to shaping new perspectives on scientific activity. Consequently, they warrant special attention in…

Developing an adequate understanding of the nature of science includes developing an understanding of the uses and importance of models in science. General accounts of science aimed at university students, however, tend to neglect this aspect. A noticeable exception is the simple model of the key elements of a scientific result presented by Giere,…

The importance of the philosophy of science in science teacher education has long been argued for by science educators. In particular, understanding how scientific knowledge is generated, negotiated, and developed is a key area of the philosophy of science that is relevant to science teaching. However, research on the nature of scientific…

Teaching and learning introductory thermodynamics has drawn considerable research attention over the last two decades, especially in several disciplines of higher education. Under particular investigation is the First Law of Thermodynamics (FLT), which offers an expression of energy conservation in thermodynamic systems, as the evidence shows that…

The professionalization of teachers is a fundamental and decisive issue for all education systems. This text presents a qualitative research on an original experiment in training future primary school teachers in the nature of science (NOS) and its transposition into teaching practice. It is a script for reading the children's book, "7 souris…

The objective of this work was the theoretical modeling of a construct based on teaching practice about the perception that pupils have of difficulties in problem solving (PS) in experimental sciences, specifically physics, to predict pupil performance in PS. The research was carried out with an incidental sample of second year of secondary…

The importance of learning "chemical ways of thinking" is widely recognized. Various frameworks have been developed to address the essence of chemistry and chemical thinking. However, very few studies have focused on how chemical ways of thinking can be defined. To elaborate chemical ways of thinking, this paper draws on scientific…

We propose explicit and implicit approaches for the teaching of acid-base chemistry based on research into the history and nature of science (NoS). To support these instructional proposals, we identify four rationales for students to understand acid-base processes: daily life, socio-scientific, curriculum, and history of science. The extensive…

Stemming from the realization of the importance of the role of explanation in the science classroom, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013) call for appropriately supporting students to learn science, argue from evidence, and provide explanations. Despite the ongoing emphasis on explanations in the science classroom, there…

Understanding nature of science (NOS) is widely considered an important educational objective and views of NOS are closely linked to science teaching and learning. Thus there is a lively discussion about what understanding NOS means and how it is reached. As a result of analyses in educational, philosophical, sociological and historical research,…

There is nowadays consensus in the community of didactics of science (i.e. science education understood as an academic discipline) regarding the need to include the philosophy of science in didactical research, science teacher education, curriculum design, and the practice of science education in all educational levels. Some authors have…

Philosophy of science education can play a vital role in the preparation and professional development of science teachers. In order to fulfill this role a philosophy of science education should be made practical for teachers. First, multiple and inherently incomplete philosophies on the teacher and teaching on what, how and why should be…

In this paper I inspect a "semantic" view of scientific models taken from contemporary philosophy of science-I draw upon the so-called "semanticist family", which frontally challenges the received, syntactic conception of scientific theories. I argue that a semantic view may be of use both for science education in the…

The purpose of this paper is to provide an examination of the role tacit knowledge plays in understanding, and to provide a model to make such knowledge identifiable. To do this I first consider the needs of society, the ubiquity of information in our world and the future demands of the science classroom. I propose the use of more implicit or…

This paper concerns "Bildung"-oriented chemistry education, based on a reflective and critical discourse of chemistry. It is contrasted with the dominant type of chemistry education, based on the mainstream discourse of chemistry. "Bildung"-oriented chemistry education includes not only content knowledge in chemistry, but also…