Investigating the relationship between teachers’ nature of science conceptions and their practice of inquiry science

The Teachers’ Understandings of NOS Concepts

Analysis of the teachers’ VNOS responses and their electronic postings in the NOS course indicate that none of the teachers’ holds a sophisticated understanding in all of the VNOS prompts. Some of teachers’ responses to an individual prompt reflect both a sophisticated and a naïve understanding of NOS concepts. Among the three teachers, Kelly’ is the only teacher whose NOS conceptions are holistically categorized as naïve, whereas Amy’s and Jason’s NOS conceptions are categorized as in-between category. I present examples of the teachers’ sophisticated and naive NOS conceptions in the following paragraphs.

Kelly holds the least sophisticated understanding of NOS concepts introduced in the VNOS questionnaire. Although she holds a sophisticated and in-between understanding of some aspects of NOS, the majority of her NOS conceptions as stated in the VNOS questionnaire fell in the category of “naïve” NOS conceptions. As an example to her undesired NOS conception, she states, “A scientific law is proven and occurs repeatedly. It can be thought of as a universal truth” (Kelly, VNOS Questionnaire). Kelly’s statements about scientific theories and laws suggest that her understanding of scientific theories and laws are not parallel to the desired NOS conceptions at least in two respects. First, labeling a scientific law as “proven” and “universal truth” suggests that scientific theories and laws are not equal in importance, but rather that scientific laws are, in fact, more important than scientific theories.

As the majority of Kelly’s responses consisted of undesired NOS conceptions, we categorize her NOS conceptions to be somewhere in the “naïve” NOS concepts range. Kelly has the least adequate understanding of NOS conceptions, probably due to her limited science background. Kelly is an elementary school teacher and has limited experience with science.

Amy’s VNOS responses appear to be more sophisticated than Kelly’s. Amy’s VNOS responses are categorized somewhere between “naïve” and “in-between”, but closer to the in-between category. It appears that Amy’s VNOS responses are composed of a balanced mixture of naïve, in-between, and sophisticated NOS conceptions. As an example to desired NOS conceptions Amy states:

Experiments are required when possible; however, it is sometimes impossible to actually conduct an experiment because of lack of technology or distance, etc. Galileo’s study of planetary movement is an example of scientific observation leading to a correct scientific conclusion. He made thorough, constant observations of the planets and carefully recorded his observations. Because of his observations and brilliance he was able to correctly predict planetary movement and deduct that we did not live in a geocentric universe. (Amy, VNOS Questionnaire)

Among the three focus group teachers, Amy provides the most adequate definition of what an experiment is. Amy defines an experiment as a “controlled test of one variable compared to a known factor” (Amy, VNOS Questionnaire). None of the other two teachers mention controlling for a variable. Amy also has a sophisticated understanding about the development of scientific knowledge.

As an example to desired NOS conceptions Jason believes that theories are as valid as laws. He states, “Evolution happens; it is as real and concrete as the Newtonian laws of motion” (Jason, VNOS Questionnaire). Also, Jason’s understanding of scientific theories and laws appears to be sophisticated. Jason believes that scientific theories and laws are subject to change over time, “as we discover more” (Jason, VNOS Questionnaire). An analysis reveals that his understanding of NOS concepts fit somewhere between the “in-between” and “sophisticated” categories.

Assertion 1: Understanding NOS concepts more in depth helps the teachers to develop a higher appreciation of the importance of inquiry science instruction and boosts their confidence in teaching science through inquiry.

Kelly. Understanding NOS concepts more in-depth allows Kelly to develop a higher appreciation of the importance of inquiry science instruction. Better understanding of NOS concepts helps her see the mismatch between the real science and the science she has been practicing in her classroom. Seeing this mismatch provides a rationale for her as to why she should teach science through inquiry.

Better understanding of NOS conceptions enables Kelly to realize how NOS concepts, inquiry science instruction, and the goal of creating a scientifically literate society fit all together. She feels that the NOS course has helped her gain a new perspective of science. In order to translate her new perspective into her instruction, she feels that she has to integrate more inquiry approaches into her classroom:

Now that I have a different outlook on the nature of science, I feel like I was looking at the little pieces before and now I need to step back and focus on the whole picture. I need to really make inquiry-based learning my mantra. So I think my objectives need some more reflecting (Kelly, NOS, Discussion Board).

It is noteworthy in the above excerpt that a better understanding of NOS concepts triggers her to re-examine her entire approach to teaching science. She thinks that in order to initiate this change, she first has to start by revising her instructional objectives.

Amy. Better understanding the NOS concepts boosts Amy’s confidence in her ability to integrate inquiry science into her instruction. Amy:

I realized I was more confident this year. I was wondering why. I truly think that NOS course did give me a lot more confidence just because it just nailed down so many things that perhaps were not 100% firm (Amy, Interview 2, September 29, 2005).

Developing a more sophisticated understanding of NOS helps Amy to overcome some of her misconceptions about inquiry learning. Better understanding of NOS concepts helps her realize that doing inquiry in the classroom does not necessarily mean doing hands-on activities all the time in the classroom. She states:

Inquiry does not hold you down to just exploring with some hands on activities, you can explore with some books or references, observations or whatever. I think that is very important. It does not hold you to one thing. (Amy, Interview 2, September 29, 2005)

As seen in the above excerpt, developing a more sophisticated understanding of NOS helps Amy to overcome some of her misconceptions about inquiry learning.

Jason. Jason states that a better understanding of NOS concepts alone does not make him to transform his traditional science instruction to inquiry science instruction but, rather, “gave him a different framework” (Jason, Interview 1, September 16, 2005) in making the change. It appears that a better understanding of NOS concepts contributes to his efforts of transforming his traditional classroom into an inquiry classroom by enhancing his ability to distinguish between the fake and real view of science more clearly. A better understanding of NOS concepts enables him to see how the different aspects and pieces of how science really works and fit together. He states:

Prior to joining the program I did understand that science was tentative, that science is culturally biased, that difference between inference and observation and all the wonderful NOS stuff. I did understand these points individually but I did not see them as an integrated whole. That came with taking the NOS class last semester. (Jason, Interview 1, September 16, 2005)

	Kelly	Amy	Jason
Better Understanding of NOS concepts	Helped her to see the mismatch between real science and the science she has been practicing	Boosts her confidence in integrating inquiry science into her instruction.	Gave him different framework to transform his traditional science classroom into inquiry science classroom
	Allows her to realize the connection between NOS, inquiry, and creating scientifically literate citizens	Allows her to realize inquiry science is not all about doing hands-on science	Enhances his ability to distinguish between fake and real science
	Encourages her to re-examine her approach to teaching science	Encourages her to put more emphasis on some aspects of inquiry more than others.	Enables him to see how the different aspects and pieces of how science really fit together

Table 1. Summary of the differences and similarities between the teachers involved in this study in regard to the influence of NOS conceptions on their practice of inquiry science.

Assertion 2: Sophistication of the teachers’ NOS concepts influences their decisions about the type of inquiry they plan to incorporate in their instruction. The teachers who hold more sophisticated understanding of NOS conceptions intend to conduct inquiries that are less structured in nature.

Kelly. Kelly, as a student, learned best through collaboration. She states:

As I said earlier I work best with others. I hate open inquiry where I am just out there on my own. I find it very uncomfortable and a waste of time. I need some direction and scaffolding. I still think the support that is given during that stage is most critical if the learner is to be successful. This is such a tricky balance (KellyColloquium,prompt7).

It is clearly stated in the above excerpt that Kelly hates open inquiries as a student and holds the misconception that open inquiries have to be pursued alone. It is likely that she will not want to spend time on an open inquiry approach because she highly values collaboration in her classroom. She goes on even further to state: “I am just not convinced that the discovery should be left up to the students” (Kelly, Colloquium prompt 15). This, in a sense, is a confirmation of her opinion that she is neither ready nor willing to use open inquiry in her classroom.

Kelly also does not think that her students are ready for inquiry learning and can discover for themselves. Her lack of faith in students’ ability to discover scientific knowledge for themselves may be tied to Kelly’s beliefs about the role of creativity in the development of scientific knowledge. She states:

I think the aspect that involves invention of explanation is the most difficult for me. I am astounded by the creativeness that is involved in science. I also struggle with the tentativeness of science. Sometimes I think the more I learn the less I know. This kind of falls back to my religious background- what an awesome world we live in and who can be so bold as to try to explain all of its workings (Kelly, NOS, Personal Information).

As stated in the above excerpt Kelly finds the tentativeness of scientific knowledge and creativity involved in the development of scientific knowledge to be aspects of NOS that are too difficult to understand. Such an understanding of the role of creativity in the development of scientific knowledge appears to cause her implement inquiry classes that do not require students use their creativity in their inquiries. This is probably due to her thinking that only smart people like scientists can be creative in their scientific investigations.

Several aspects of Kelly’s inquiry lesson are quite different from the other two teachers’ inquiry lessons. First, Kelly’s inquiry lesson is richer in hands-on content. This is not surprising because relative to the other two teachers Kelly puts more emphasis on hands-on aspect of inquiry science in explaining her views about inquiry science teaching and learning. More emphasis on hands-on aspect of inquiry may be due to her understanding that development of scientific knowledge occurs only through experimentation. When asked about the definition of an experiment Kelly states, “An experiment is a methodical process that is used to test an idea or belief. This hands-on technique tries to establish explanations by collecting data.” (Kelly, VNOS Questionnaire). As seen the excerpt in her brief description of an experiment, Kelly specifically mentions the hands-on aspect of experiments but fails to mention the necessity of a controlled environment nor does she mention the purpose of establishing a cause-and-effect relationship. No mention of test and control groups in the above statements suggest that Kelly holds a misconception that all hands-on experiences students have in science classes are considered to be experiments. True experiments involve test and control groups with the purpose of establishing a cause-and-effect relationship.

Amy. Amy teaches science for several reasons:

I teach science because I love it - both the teaching and the subject matter. I want to give my students a bit of enthusiasm about the field(s) of science because I was older (late 20's) before I came to realize that "most everything is science!” I want my students to understand this early in life and in turn, to find something interesting or valuable to them personally (Amy, NOS Survey).

As stated in the above one of Amy’s goal as a teacher is to make science more interesting and valuable to her students. She believes that one way to achieve this is to involve her students into inquiry learning. For Amy, in inquiry learning, discussing, questioning, and talking about things is far more important than manipulating things. The excerpt below reflects her views about the value of discussing things in inquiry learning:

I do not feel like you have to do a lot of hands-on. I think minds-on is wonderful. Why can’t you do inquiry with just your mind? I do not understand why you cannot investigate something just by thinking about it and questioning it and trying to come up with a logical answer. (Amy, Interview 1, September 15, 2005)

As seen in the above excerpt, Amy views inquiry as both a hands-on and mind-on approach to learning science. She believes the hands-on aspect of inquiry is best promoted in science labs whereas the minds-on aspect of it is best promoted in inquiry-based class discussions.

Amy’s NOS conceptions are also reflected in her inquiry teaching in the classroom. Amy defines science as follows:
Science is the study of the natural world – how and why things work. It is man’s quest to understand the marvels around him. It is a discipline based on evidence, observations, and careful recording and reporting of data. It is always open to further investigation (Amy, VNOS Questionnaire).

As seen in the above description for Amy, careful recording and reporting of scientific data is an important aspect of science. Such an understanding of science probably led her design inquiry classes in which lab reports constitute an important component of student inquiries. She thinks lab reports are an ideal outlet for students to effectively communicate what they did in a lab. Also, she thinks having students write lab reports using their own words enhances their analytical thinking skills because she believes expressing the results in their own words facilitates their grasp of the big picture.

Jason. Like Amy, Jason too has a somewhat sophisticated (i.e. in-between category) understanding of NOS concepts. In his teaching, he does not want to use experimentation frequently in the classroom because he tends to be disheartened by the traditional experimental mode. He does not think that traditional experiments in science classrooms are a good representation of how science works. He finds many traditional experiments done in science classrooms to be artificial. In order to represent the true nature of science, Jason thinks experiments need to be conducted by the students themselves, from start to finish, with the purpose of not just confirming what is written in the book, but also to look for anomalies. He states:

I encourage kids to come up with experimentation themselves. You are telling them [students], hey this is how science works. You look for anomalies. Then you use the tools you have to figure out an answer to that anomaly. (Jason, Interview 1, September 16, 2005)

He does not like the idea of going through a series of labs where the teacher and students know the answer before the lab is over. He thinks this way of doing labs is “not teaching the kids anything” (Jason, Interview1, September 16, 2005). Consistent with his understanding of how science works, Jason believes the purpose of the science labs conducted in his classroom should not be a mere verification of what they already know before they start the experiments.

For Jason, creativity is an important ingredient of all phases and aspects of a scientific inquiry. He stressed the role of creativity in the development of scientific knowledge as follows:

Science is a creative enterprise when creativity is described as the synthesis of the accepted to produce something new. This synthesis exhibits itself in planning and design (through the framing of the research question and the development of a unique experimental method), data collection (through the nuances of how the subject is observed), as well as after data collection (through the development of explanations for the phenomena observed) (Jason, NOS Discussion Board).

In accordance with his understanding the role of creativity in the development of scientific knowledge, he aims at designing inquiries in his classroom that promote student creativity. Self sustaining saltwater fish tank project is a good example of this.

I am doing something I am really excited about with my marine science class. I am having the kids design a saltwater fish tank. I am teaching pretty much everything that I need to about marine science; of both the biotic and abiotic factors of it by having them build a saltwater fish tank. We are trying to get as close to a slice of Gulf of Mexico in a fish tank as possible, trying to get as complete an ecosystem as possible. One that would function with as little human intervention as possible which has led to these incredible problems. We are looking at approximately an entire year to complete this thing. (Jason, Interview 2, September 30, 2005)

Students will have to use their creativity and reasoning in building the fish tank and, deciding which species to put in the tank and determine the right chemical and physical properties of the saltwater.

Analysis of the teacher’s inquiry teaching videos using the inquiry rubric developed by the researcher reveals that Kelly’s, Amy’s and Jason’s inquiry classes best fit the category of structured, guided and guided inquires, respectively. Amy and Kelly’s inquiry lessons were similar in that they both handed out an instruction sheet for the inquiry lesson. However, Amy’s hands-on activity differed from Kelly’s in that it did not include all the steps or procedures to successfully complete the activity. In her dissection activity, Kelly provided students with all the procedures necessary to classify different bone structures using the booklet. In Amy’s hands-on activity, on the other hand, the methodology section was left up to the students. Students were only provided with the materials and equipment necessary and were asked to test three possible reactions to find out which one of these reactions actually occurred. It was up to students in groups to decide which route to take in their attempts to find the actual reaction that took place.

Finally, Jason’s inquiry class differed from the other teachers’ in several respects. First, he does not provide any type of worksheet for the students. The inquiry project centers on achieving the unifying goal of designing a sustainable saltwater fish tank that can function with as little human intervention as possible. Second, it is not an inquiry activity that can be done in one or two class periods. Jason thinks that he can teach the entire marine science class through this single open inquiry project. Jason is the only teacher who mentions doing long-term inquiry science projects in his classroom.

Table 2 below summarizes the differences and similarities between the teachers involved in this study in regard to the enactment of inquiry learning in their science classes.

	Kelly	Amy	Jason
Relative Sophistication of NOS concepts	Naive	In-between	In-between
Emphasis on logical thinking and problem solving in lesson plan	No	Yes	Yes
Emphasis on data analysis in inquiry teaching	No	Yes	Yes
Observed Inquiry Teaching	Structured	Less Structured	Guided
Targeted Inquiry Teaching	Guided	Guided	Open

Table 2. Differences among the teachers in regards to their inquiry science planning and practices