In this study, high school physics textbooks published by People's Education Press (PEP) and Educational Science Publishing House (ESP) (a total of 6 books) in China were analyzed via a self-developed scale measuring nature of science (NOS) including three first-level indicators of scientific knowledge, scientific process, and scientific…

The social reaction to the recent detection of the Higgs boson and gravitational waves provided evidence that public interest in modern physics has reached a high point. Although these modern physics topics are being introduced into the upper secondary physics curricula in a growing number of countries, their potential for teaching various aspects…

Though there are a multiplicity of approaches that have been used to promote Nature of Science (NOS) among school students, an approach based on exploration of a scientific discovery indigenous to the sample population, of contemporary interest, and based on a topic outside the school science syllabus seems to be lacking in the literature. This…

Research apprenticeship experiences provide a uniquely authentic context for deepening participants' understanding of the nature of science and encouraging them to choose STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) studies and careers. This study evaluated a STEM program for high school students who engaged in science research with…

Background: Uncertainty is a crucial element of scientific knowledge growth. Students should have some understanding of how science knowledge is developed and why scientific conclusions are considered more or less certain than others. A component of the nature of science, it is considered an important aspect of science education and allows…

After seeing several reports in newspapers making claims about the cause of death after children had swallowed button batteries, a team of students decided to try to establish which (if any) claims were true. The findings were reported in the Schools Exhibition at the ASE Annual Conference 2018 in Liverpool and are shared in detail here. (A…

The current study compared the effectiveness of two methods in biology teaching that are based on the science-as-inquiry approach: visits to authentic university laboratories (AULs) and analyzing adapted primary literature (APL). The methods' effectiveness was measured in terms of high-school students' increased understanding following a 6-week…

In this paper, we investigate some of the ways in which students, when given the opportunity and an appropriate learning environment, spontaneously engage in collaborative inquiry. We studied small groups of high school students interacting around and with an interactive whiteboard equipped with Algodoo software, as they investigated orbital…

Anchored in the thirteenth of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), climate change is one of the key content areas in education for sustainable development. This evaluation study describes a school project that introduces students to scientific work and, more specifically, to scientific research methods in climate research. Using a pre-post…

Nature of science is considered to be an important component of scientific literacy, and understanding the nature of science is advocated as an important goal of science education. Scientific inquiry is regarded as the core of curriculum reform, which has become the consensus of the international K-12 science education, as well as a scientific…

The merits of three approaches (explicit, reflective and implicit) to Nature of Science (NOS) teaching and learning in the context of a summer research experience on high school student participants' NOS ideas were explored in this study. The effectiveness of explicit over implicit approaches has been demonstrated in school contexts, but less…

The purpose of this research was to examine the consistency between students' practical and formal understandings of scientific epistemologies (also known as nature of science (NOS) understandings) in the context of a research apprenticeship program. Six high school student participants of a residential summer research apprenticeship program at a…

This study describes an investigation of a research apprenticeship program that we developed for diverse high-school students often underrepresented in similar programs and in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professions. Through the apprenticeship program, students spent 2 weeks in the summer engaged in biofuels-related research…

Helping students develop informed views about scientific inquiry (SI) has been and continues to be a goal of K-12 science education, as evidenced in various reform documents. Nevertheless, research focusing on understandings of SI has taken a perceptible backseat to that which focuses on the "doing" of inquiry. We contend that this is…

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of an apprenticeship program on high school students' understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. Data related to seventeen students' understanding of science and scientific inquiry were collected through open-ended questionnaires. Findings suggest that although engagement in authentic…