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We report on the development of a rubric to reliably qualify and score responses to the "Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire" (VNOS): The "VNOS Analysis and Scoring Rubric" (VAScoR). The "VAScoR" is designed to (a) provide systematic guidance for the qualitative analysis, and score assignment to nuanced categories, of "VNOS" responses, (b) explicitly scaffold qualitative inferencing and standardize score assignment to substantially lessen the burden of, and variance in, analyzing and scoring the "VNOS," and (c) improve the viability and meaningfulness of cross-study comparisons drawing on "VNOS" data. The rubric adopted the "VNOS's" consensus NOS framework and further delineated core and related elements across 10 target NOS aspects. The "VAScoR's" reliability was examined in two studies that drew on "VNOS" questionnaires completed by 185 preservice secondary science teachers (58% female; 126 undergraduate and 59 graduate students) enrolled over several years in a combined undergraduate and graduate licensure program in a large U.S. Midwestern university. In Study I, "VAScoR" analyses of 86 "VNOS" questionnaires undertaken by a single author were used to examine the rubric's intra-rater reliability, which resulted in a robust Cronbach's alpha value of 0.81. In Study II, analyses by four authors of a randomly generated, overlapping set of 18 questionnaires were used to examine inter-rater reliability, which was supported with substantial consensus among raters as indicated by a Cohen's kappa of 0.71. Further evidence for the "VAScoR's" inter-rater reliability was indicated by moderate to strong consistency among four raters with an overall Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.82, and coefficient values ranging from 0.77 to 0.89 for six possible rater pairings.

As the story progressed, Mr. Russo highlighted that William was growing up in a culture that looked very different from the American culture that the students were in, pointing out the privileges students had that were not available to William. We focus on a read-aloud of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Kamkwamba and Mealer 2012) to illustrate how Mr. Russo leveraged NOS connections into meaningful learning opportunities for his students. In the following sections, we share how a third-grade teacher, Mr. Russo, provided opportunities for his students to engage with NOS by using what we call "discussion starters" that relate to each of these topics. [Extracted from the article]

This study investigated the effect of including explicit nature of science (NOS) content in read‐alouds of elementary science trade books on the teaching and learning of NOS. We focused on three aspects of NOS: the creative, the empirical, and the inferential NOS. The trade books were read aloud by teachers in three hierarchical levels: Level I served as a control and consisted of a trade book that remained unmodified, Level II consisted of a trade book that had been modified to include explicit references to NOS, and Level III consisted of a modified trade book accompanied by educative curriculum materials that were aimed at improving the teachers' views of NOS as well as supporting teaching about NOS. We used the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire‐form CE (VNOS‐CE) preintervention and postintervention to determine changes in teachers' views of NOS and interviews preintervention and postintervention to determine changes in students' views. Audio recordings of read‐alouds were used to determine changes in teaching practice, including the frequency and the quality (i.e., naïve or informed) of the NOS references in the discussions. Interviews were used to determine teachers' perceptions of the modified trade books and educative curriculum materials. We found that both teachers and students developed more informed views of the targeted NOS aspects after the intervention and that teachers addressed NOS more often, and in a more informed manner, when they had trade books that explicitly supported NOS instruction and educative curriculum materials that supported their learning about NOS. Furthermore, they perceived the intervention materials favorably. Teachers' views and practices were able to change in tandem because of the intervention materials that supported explicit NOS instruction. We highlight the need for more widespread development of similar educative curriculum materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the use of specific educative features for supporting the teaching of nature of science (NOS) during read-alouds of elementary science trade books. Educative features are components of educative curriculum materials that aim to increase teachers' content knowledge and support effective instructional practices. Understanding how teachers use specific educative features is important for the future design of curriculum materials that can be used to improve teachers' views of NOS in tandem with changing their teaching practices. Qualitative data from teacher interviews and observations of read-alouds were used to determine which educative features teachers used and how effective they were perceived as being. Results indicate that teachers varied in their use of educative features and tended to focus on the ones that addressed specific teaching moves as opposed to those that supported understanding why the curriculum was developed as it was. Based on these findings, recommendations for future research that highlights the importance of all educative features are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]