Journal article
Beyond hypothesis testing: Investigating the diversity of scientific methods in science teachers' understanding
- Abstract:
- Recent reforms in science education have promoted students’ understanding of how science works, including the methodological approaches used by scientists. Given that teachers are expected to teach and promote methodological pluralism, it is worth examining how teachers understand and view scientific methods, particularly when scientific methods are presented as a diverse array and not as a linear model based exclusively on hypothesis testing. The empirical study presented in the paper examines science teachers’ understanding of scientific methods, particularly the diversity of scientific methods. Brandon’s Matrix, a philosopher’s account of scientific methods, has been adapted for educational purposes, and two tasks were developed in order to investigate teachers’ understanding of scientific methods. Fifty-six science teachers (25% male, 75% female) from different regions in the UK responded to an online survey. The results showed that the majority of the teachers showed satisfactory understanding of basic components of Brandon’s Matrix. However, more than half of the sample held naïve understanding of scientific methods. By providing insight into teachers’ misconceptions about scientific methods, the study provides suggestions for the design of teacher training programmes and highlights the need for explicit instruction about scientific methods. In addition, we suggest the use of heuristics such as Brandon’s Matrix for the development of pedagogical tools as well as research instruments.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 533.4KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s11191-020-00185-9
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Science and Education More from this journal
- Volume:
- 30
- Pages:
- 345-364
- Publication date:
- 2021-02-06
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-11-13
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1573-1901
- ISSN:
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0926-7220
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1145347
- Local pid:
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pubs:1145347
- Deposit date:
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2020-11-13
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Ioannidou and Erduran
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2021. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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