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The main subject of this research study was the content and process of students’ small-group discussions about the nature of science (NOS) in upper secondary biology classrooms. Secondly, we wanted to gain insight into students’ and teachers’ judgements of this teaching unit, and thirdly, we wanted to know if and in what ways students’ ideas about the NOS changed in the course of this process.
In cooperation with two experienced biology teachers, we developed a teaching unit comprising 4 to 6 lessons, using the historical case of the discovery of the first Archaeopteryx fossil which is particularly interesting as it shows the debate between creationist and Darwinist interpretations of the fossil. The teaching unit has been tested with students in a first stage of field trials. On the basis of research results, it has been modified and tested again with different classes in a second round of field trials being researched again. The activities in the classroom have been videotaped. Moreover, we interviewed students and teachers and investigated students’ views on what constitutes science and scientific knowledge as well as changes in these views by administering pre- and post-test questionnaires.
In both stages of the field trials, the majority of the student groups can be described as being well prepared for the group work. It also has to be noted that the students worked highly task-oriented and spent most if not all of the time allowed for the cooperative group work on completing the assignments. Other noticeable features of communication and interaction in the groups are that students treated each other in a friendly and respectful way in most of the cases. With two exceptions, the students played well together in the team and also fulfilled their roles in a very natural and smooth way. The students generally showed a very integrative behaviour in that they tried to include the ideas of all group members into the group’s answers. As regards the content of the group discussions, most groups substantiated their answers by referring to information contained in the script.
The groups do not show difficulties in finding answers to the questions, but their arguments often remain implicit or unfinished. It should also be mentioned that, during group work, students rarely drew conclusions from the science case study in terms of expressing more abstract, conceptual ideas about what constitutes science and scientific knowledge. This might not be surprising, given the fact that the students were not explicitly asked to do so while working in groups. Aside from this, students’ ideas about the NOS can be discerned in the group discussions, albeit on a less explicit level. Particularly remarkable in this regard is that most groups oscillate in their view between the image of the disinterested scientists producing objective knowledge by applying experiments on the one hand, and the image of the scientist being mainly driven by his own interests.
The students generally judge the topic of the teaching unit as interesting or even very interesting. Despite some minor differences with regard to liking single aspects of the topic, the historical case study was well received throughout. Also the design of the lessons and most notably the small-group discussions are being judged positively. The quantitative analysis of pre- and post-test results shows a statistically significant positive effect on three out of five dimensions of the NOS construct we used in this study. There are no statistically significant differences regarding the strength of the effect, neither between the individual classes nor between the two stages of the research. The results of qualitative analysis suggest that quantitative findings be put into perspective: Other than mere numbers might suggest, students’ views as emerging from their written answers are often not either ‘rather sophisticated’ or ‘rather naïve’ but a sometimes complex intermixture of both. Maybe the most striking outcome of the qualitative analysis is that students’ views on the NOS became more inconsistent after the teaching unit in a noticeable number of cases, the main inconsistency being the coexistence of a realist-naturalist view and – increasingly – a constructivist-culturalist view of science and scientific knowledge. The change in views about the NOS thus cannot be described as consistent ‘rather naïve’ views being completely supplanted by consistent ‘rather sophisticated’ ones but rather as an increase in coexisting 'naïve' and 'sophisticated' views.
Using a historical case study as a method to learn about the nature of science and scientific knowledge has not only proved to be highly accepted by the students but it also produced good results as regards students’ understanding of the case study at hand. On the other hand, our analysis also points to a challenge which has not yet been fully met. This challenge consists in enhancing methods to support the transfer between the understanding of a concrete example (like the historical case study in this project) and the development of more general, conceptual ideas about the nature of science and scientific knowledge among students.
Notwithstanding the encouraging results, it has to be pointed out that the effect of teaching about the nature of science will remain limited unless more time is devoted to this topic in school. Case studies from the history of science can be a productive starting point when exploring what constitutes science but only repeated involvement with different examples to NoS will lead to a deeper understanding. Moreover, as our study shows, there might not be a single one case which illustrates all aspects of the NOS construct equally well. Historical case studies are not the only promising approach to learning about the nature of science. Rather, they might be complemented by other methods such as linking the reflection about the NOS with students’ own research e.g. in the school lab, interviewing scientists, or going on excursion to places where science is being done.
Publikationen
Wolfensberger, Balz, Claudia Canella & Regula Kyburz-Graber (2012). Discussing the Nature of Science in Small Groups (DINOS): A Video-Based Research Study on Process and Content of Students‘ Small-Group Discussions in Specific Learning Arrangements. Wissenschaftlicher Schlussbericht zum Nationalfondsprojekt Nr. 100014-124556. Zürich: IfE, Universität Zürich.
Wolfensberger, Balz; Canella, Claudia; Piniel, Jolanda (2012). DINOS: Discussing the nature of science. A video-based research study on the process and content of students’ small-group discussions in specific learning arrangements. In: Zeyer, A; Kyburz-Graber, R. Science | Environment | Health – Towards a Renewed Pedagogy for Science Education. Dordrecht: Springer, 42-44.
Kyburz-Graber, Regula (2012). Socio-scientific views on environment and health as challenges to science education. In: Zeyer, A; Kyburz-Graber, R. Science | Environment | Health – Towards a Renewed Pedagogy for Science Education. Dordrecht: Springer, 31-48.
Piniel, Jolanda; Canella, Claudia; Wolfensberger, Balz; Kyburz-Graber, Regula (2014). Wie Wissen entsteht: Neue Unterrichtseinheit zur Nature of Science. Gymnasium Helveticum, (4):46-47.
Wolfensberger, Balz; Canella, Claudia (2015). Cooperative learning about nature of science with a case from the history of science. International Journal of Environmental and Science Education, 10(6):865-889.
