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Knowledge of scientific inquiry (SI) is considered essential to the development of an individual's Scientific Literacy (SL) and therefore, SI is included in many international science education reform documents. Two previous large scale international studies assessed the SI understandings of students entering middle school and secondary students at the end of their formal K-12 science education. The purpose of this international project was to use the VASI-E to collect data on what primary level students have learned about SI in their first few years of school. This study adds to previous research to bridge the landscape of SI understandings now with representation from primary, middle and high school samples. A total of 4,238 students from 35 countries/regions spanning six continents participated in the study. The results show that globally, primary students are not adequately informed about SI for their age group. However, when compared with the students in the previous international studies (grades seven and 12), the primary students' understandings were surprisingly closer to the levels of understanding of SI of the secondary school students than those in the seventh grade study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is aimed at exploring ninth-grade Bhutanese students' views of nature of science (NOS). A total of 389 students from middle secondary and higher secondary schools from the eastern, western, southern and central regions of Bhutan took part in this study. To generate a representative population, a stratified random sampling technique was used. An adopted and adapted version of the Students Understanding of Science and Scientific Inquiry (SUSSI) comprised Likert-type items, and open-ended questions were used as a research tool. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, and the qualitative data were analysed and categorized into naïve, transitional and informed views. The results indicated that the majority of the Bhutanese students held naïve views on sociocultural embeddedness, scientific laws, scientific theories and science as a body of knowledge. The study has an implication for curriculum developers and teaching professionals, particularly in culturally rich countries, that explicit instruction of NOS should be reframed based on students' cultural backgrounds and their indigenous knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]