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The development of attitudes toward science instruments has recently emerged in science education research. However, a comprehensive review of their psychometric properties, using currently accepted assessment standards, has not yet been completed. Consequently, this review discusses the validity and reliability of 18 measures published between 2005 and 2019 in leading science education journals. Findings showed that construct validity and internal consistency reliability was reported for all instruments; however, evidence for predictive validity and temporal stability reliability was rather scarce, which could limit their use in intervention and correlational type of studies. Similarly, content validity was found to be underreported. Consequently, the relevance, comprehensiveness, and comprehensibility of the items in some instruments are currently unknown and yet to be established in future studies. Finally, there is a gap in the literature regarding instruments that can be used across different countries and scientific disciplines, which could restrict accumulative and comparative results worldwide. Since the use of valid and reliable measurement instruments is a crucial aspect of educational research, the findings of this study could be useful in assisting researchers and practitioners in selecting the most appropriate measure for different research designs.

How do scientists make inferences for something they cannot directly observe? The Black Box approach seems ideal to help students understand how scientists work. Black Boxes are sealed units; their interior is not accessible. The effort to determine their possible content (internal structure) demands successive modifications in hypothesis, measurements, and observations, without opening the Box. There can be more than one suggested inference for its internal structure, compatible with all observations. This lesson asks students to identify Nature of Scientific Knowledge aspects using a Black Box problem-based activity on electric circuits, and was part of a greater project on the Nature of Science in an 11th-grade science class in Greece.

This paper reports on a case study of South African Grade 12 learners' views about scientific inquiry. The study focuses on a non-fee-paying government school that receives curricular support and resources to specifically develop Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) teaching in a low socioeconomic setting. Data were collected using the Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI) questionnaire. The learners demonstrated high levels of understanding of some inquiry aspects, while other aspects were poorly understood. The best understood aspects relate to questions, data and conclusions, whilst the aspects related to multiple methods, previous knowledge and differences in interpretations were poorly understood. Results were compared with those of Grade 12 learners at other South African schools who also completed the VASI questionnaire. The findings suggest that the case study school's emphasis on STEM and high performance may support understandings of scientific inquiry in general, but at the same time encourages some naive views such as believing that scientific investigations are rigid processes, independent of human creativity.

This paper analyses data from the Swedish sample of the international VASI (Views about scientific inquiry) study (Lederman et al. [2019]. An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students' understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline. "Journal of Research in Science Teaching." Published online. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21512). Understandings about scientific inquiry involve knowledge about the processes of inquiry, and are not the same as being able to do inquiry although these are related domains. This paper focuses on what students know about scientific inquiry and what impact school science may have on this knowledge. Data were collected using the VASI instrument developed previously and was administered to 126 students at the beginning of year seven and 145 students at the end of year 12 in a cross-sectional design. Results indicate that the majority of students do not have an informed understanding of key aspects of scientific inquiry in either grade. Although students in year 12 are more informed, the average is still less than 50% as measured by the VASI and with a large spread.

The purpose of this study is to develop a flow map for history of science instruction on nature of science (NOS) using a cognitive strategy. This is done to enhance overall scientific literacy through specificity and reflectiveness, and to examine pre-service elementary teachers' understanding of the NOS using NOS flow maps concerning Galileo's discovery of sunspots. There exists a general consensus in the science education literature regarding the goal of enhancing learners' views of the NOS. An extensive body of research in the field has highlighted the effectiveness of explicit NOS instructional approaches in improving learners' views on the NOS. Because it is valuable to introduce elementary students to some of the ideas developed by Kuhn, pre-service elementary teachers' understanding of the NOS was explored using an explicit NOS flow map developed as an instructional tool. The lessons combined cognitive conflict strategies in episodes concerning the history of science (Galileo's discovery of sunspots) with accompanying responses consisting of illustrations and questions. The lessons were designed to spend 50 minutes on study of the history of science, including conflict strategy, and 30 minutes on an explicit NOS flow map including all elements of the NOS. Students demonstrated understanding of tentativeness of scientific knowledge, and the lack of a universal scientific method. Therefore, instruction based on an NOS flow map is a promising method to enhance science teaching and learning.

The purposes of this study were to (1) investigate 127 high school students' views about scientific inquiry at different grade levels, and (2) to describe factors such as the teacher's views about scientific inquiry, his teaching, and his curriculum that facilitated or constrained students' views about scientific inquiry. The majority of students held naïve and mixed views for many aspects about scientific inquiry. There were few differences among students' views about scientific inquiry when comparing ninth/tenth graders to eleventh/twelfth graders. Despite the teacher having informed views and implementing aspects of inquiry-oriented teaching, few students held informed views for many aspects. When comparing the findings of the present study to past VASI studies, students had more mixed and informed views for specific VASI items. Based on interviews with the teacher and a review of the teacher's curriculum, these mixed and informed views about scientific inquiry were explicitly addressed in the classroom.

How nature of scientific knowledge (NOSK) or nature of science (NOS) and scientific inquiry (SI) are contextualized, or related to each other, significantly impacts both curriculum and classroom practice, specifically with respect to the teaching and learning of NOSK. NOS and NOSK are considered synonymous here, with NOSK more accurately conveying the meaning of the construct. Three US-based science education reform documents are used to illustrate the aforementioned impact. The USA has had three major reform documents released over a period of 20 years. The "Benchmarks for Science Literacy" was the first in 1993, followed by the "National Science Education Standards" (NSES) in 1996, and the newest, the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS), was released in 2013. NOS or NOSK was strongly emphasized and given a prominent position in the first two, while the NGSS has marginalized the construct. It is categorized as a set of connections (with no specific standards or performance expectations) that can be made to some of the "Science Practices or Crosscutting Ideas." However, a careful conceptual analysis of how the NGSS positions NOSK/NOS relative to the previous reform documents reveals a complex situation related to how NOSK/NOS is contextualized and apparent assumptions about how NOSK/NOS is best taught and learned. A historical review of how NOSK/NOS is contextualized reveals a longstanding confusion concerning the relationship between NOSK/NOS and SI as well as about how the reform documents seem to assume how it can be best taught to students. The assumptions often run contrary to the empirical research on the teaching and learning of NOSK as well as call into question the ability of the NGSS to promote the perennial science education goal of scientific literacy.

Although understandings of scientific inquiry (as opposed to conducting inquiry) are included in science education reform documents around the world, little is known about what students have learned about inquiry during their elementary school years. This is partially due to the lack of any assessment instrument to measure understandings about scientific inquiry. However, a valid and reliable assessment has recently been developed and published, Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI; Lederman et al. [2014], Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65-83). The purpose of this large-scale international project was to collect the first baseline data on what beginning middle school students have learned about scientific inquiry during their elementary school years. Eighteen countries/regions spanning six continents including 2,634 students participated in the study. The participating countries/regions were: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mainland China, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. In many countries, science is not formally taught until middle school, which is the rationale for choosing seventh grade students for this investigation. This baseline data will simultaneously provide information on what, if anything, students learn about inquiry in elementary school, as well as their beginning knowledge as they enter secondary school. It is important to note that collecting data from all of the approximately 200 countries globally was not humanly possible, and it was also not possible to collect data from every region of each country. The results overwhelmingly show that students around the world at the beginning of grade seven have very little understandings about scientific inquiry. Some countries do show reasonable understandings in certain aspects but the overall picture of understandings of scientific inquiry is not what is hoped for after completing 6 years of elementary education in any country.

The purpose of this study is to examine the salient characteristics of the 'Question-Answer Process' (QAP) in senior high school chemistry class between pre- and in-service teachers. We first developed the 'Instrument of Question-Answer Process' (IQAP), and then, applied it to compare salient characteristics of QAP between pre- and in-service teachers. Data collection consists of classroom observation and structured-interview. Participants are seven pre-service and seven in-service chemistry teachers. The results are: (a) Both pre-and in-service teachers ask most of the questions and students ask few questions; (b) Pre-service teachers ask more lower cognitive level questions, while in-service teachers ask more higher cognitive level questions; (c) Pre-service teachers tend to ask non-volunteer students while in-service teachers tend to ask volunteer students to respond; (d) Pre-service teachers tend to be 'no feedback or ignore' after students provide answers and both pre- and in-service teachers seldom guide students to reflect on answers; and (e) The frequency of authority of 'student' in pre-service teachers' class is much higher than those in in-service teachers' class, while the frequency of authority of 'teacher and student' is much lower than those of in-service teachers' class.

This study provides an example of a systematic professional development project designed to build capacity for the teaching of nature of science and scientific inquiry, while not sacrificing the learning of more traditional science subject matter. Specifically, this project examined the impact of a 5-year professional development project on K-12 science teachers' content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, and their students' knowledge, related to nature of scientific knowledge (NOSK) and scientific inquiry (SI). For five years a total of 236 science teachers in K-12 participated in the project and over 23,000 students were affected by the project. During each year of professional development teachers engaged in science internships, NOSK and SI activities, model lessons, curriculum development, microteaching presentations, and assessment practices related to NOSK/SI. The pre- and post-test results from the Views of nature of Science, Form D (VNOSK-D) and the Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI) instruments indicated that teachers and their students significantly improved their understandings of NOSK/SI. In addition, analysis of teachers' microteaching lessons showed that there was a developmental continuum of teaching NOSK/SI from implicit to didactic to explicit teaching as teachers progressed through the program.

Although the reasons for concern about quality differ from nation to nation, the primary rallying point for science education reform is the perceived level of scientific literacy among a nation's populace. The essential nature of scientific literacy is that which influences students' decisions about personal and societal problems. Beyond this, however, educators work to influence students' ability to view science through a more holistic lens. Examining the philosophy, history, and sociology of science itself has the potential to engender perceptions of science, in the broader context, that can impact the lens through which students view the world. The integration of explicit, reflective instruction about nature of science (NOS) and scientific inquiry (SI) in traditional science content is addressed as a means through which the development of scientific literacy is fostered.

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]

The present study explores ways to enhance students' question-asking ability (i.e., the ability to ask critical questions), which is the premise of scientific inquiry and a precondition for effective science teaching. A survey of junior high school students in Zhejiang province in China showed that students' questioning behavior was not well developed and that their ability and willingness to question authority were weak. These results are consistent with an educational culture that dictates that textbooks and science teachers are always correct and cannot be questioned. The intervention involved several designed cases that included the explicit teaching of questioning strategies and ample opportunities to ask questions for inquiry and question card use. After the intervention, a dependent t-test of several dimensions was conducted, the students' question-asking consciousness and question quality were compared, and the frequency distribution of different levels of questions was analyzed and compared. The development of question-asking ability was further identified in the interviews. The efficacy and implications of the treatment for enhancing the critical question-asking ability of middle-school students in Chinese science classrooms are discussed.