Data from PISA and TIMSS have recently fuelled the debate on the efficacy of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching (IBST). Some analyses of these data show that the effects of different scientific activities related to IBST carried out with students vary according to the frequency of their implementation. Extending this research, the present study…

Background: Developing upper secondary school students' understanding of the nature of science and technology are important priorities in educational systems worldwide. More research is needed to better understand the conditions under which teaching and learning of epistemological insights become possible, as well as the tools that are necessary…

In science education, learners' conceptions of scientists and their work are often assessed by the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST). Due to validity concerns, methodical literature demands the development of alternative instruments to measure learners' conceptions validly and efficiently. This study presents an instrument with 29 rating scale items to…

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…

Recent reforms emphasize a shift in how students should learn and demonstrate knowledge of science. These reforms call for students to learn content knowledge using science and engineering practices, creating integrated science knowledge. While there is existing literature about the development of integrated science knowledge assessments, few…

The time evolution of quantum states is arguably one of the more difficult ideas in quantum mechanics. In this article, we report on results from an investigation of student understanding of this topic after lecture instruction. We demonstrate specific problems that students have in applying time dependence to quantum systems and in recognizing…

I profile here a prospective method for assessing nature of science (NOS) knowledge, as an alternative to VNOS and similar approaches. Questions about cases in contemporary news and from history probe scientific literacy in context. Scoring targets how "well informed" the analysis is, based on identifying relevant NOS information and interpreting…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of an activity-based explicit nature of science (NOS) instruction undertaken in the context of a "Science, Technology and Society" course on the prospective science teachers' (PSTs') understandings of NOS. In this course, social science based inquiry activities were used to as a context…

Current reform documents place a strong emphasis on students' understandings of the nature of science (NOS). Interestingly, the importance of this educational outcome is not new and has been agreed upon as important by most scientists and science educators for the past 100 years. Despite numerous attempts, including the major curricular reform…