| dc.contributor.author | Cochrane, Donald Brian. | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-10-21T12:35:32Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2000 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2000 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.other | AAINQ57346 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10222/55694 | |
| dc.description | The goal of scientific literacy requires that students develop an understanding of the nature of science to assist them in the reasoned acquisition of science concepts and in their future role as citizens in a participatory democracy. | en_US |
| dc.description | The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe the range of positions that grade six students hold with respect to the nature of science and to investigate whether gender or prior science education was related to students' views of the nature of science. Two grade six classes participated in this study. One class was from a school involved in a long-term elementary science curriculum project. The science curriculum at this school involved constructivist epistemology and pedagogy and a realist ontology. The curriculum stressed hands-on, open-ended activities and the development of science process skills. Students were frequently involved in creating and testing explanations for physical phenomena. The second class was from a matched school that had a traditional science program. | en_US |
| dc.description | Results of the study indicated that students hold a wider range of views of the nature of science than previously documented. Student positions ranged from having almost no understanding of the nature of science to those expressing positions regarding the nature of science that were more developed than previous studies had documented. Despite the range of views documented, all subjects held realist views of scientific knowledge. Contrary to the literature, some students were able to evaluate a scientific theory in light of empirical evidence that they had generated. | en_US |
| dc.description | Results also indicated that students from the project school displayed more advanced views of the nature of science than their matched peers. However, not all students benefited equally from their experiences. No gender differences were found with respect to students' understanding of the nature of science. | en_US |
| dc.description | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 2000. | en_US |
| dc.language | eng | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Dalhousie University | en_US |
| dc.publisher | | en_US |
| dc.subject | Education, Elementary. | en_US |
| dc.subject | Education, Sciences. | en_US |
| dc.title | Grade six students' understanding of the nature of science. | en_US |
| dc.type | text | en_US |
| dc.contributor.degree | Ph.D. | en_US |
