Conveying an adequate conception of the nature of science to students is considered by many to be implicit in the broader context of what has come to be known as scientific literacy. It has also been demonstrated that possession of valid concepts of the nature of science do not necessarily result in better science teaching. This study examines the…

One aim of this study was to identify, in a group of unsuccessful college level problem solvers, the status and use of their declarative knowledge as revealed by students' attempts to solve novel problems in a pencil-and-paper setting. It was hypothesized that for some unsuccessful problem solvers, their problem representation could be improved by…