STEM-Based NOS Teaching on 7th Grade Students’NOS Views

Oct 15, 2026

The study aims to enhance 7th grade students’ understandings of nature of science by integrating NOS aspects into science-technology-engineering-mathematics (STEM) activities. Over four weeks, four STEM-based contextualized NOS activities were developed and implemented with eighteen students. Data were gathered through VNOS-D questionnaires, follow-up interviews, and classroom observations, then analyzed using content analysis to build holistic student view profiles. Results indicate students held generally naive NOS views before the program and improved after STEM-based explicit-reflective teaching.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages27

Reading Time1 h 8 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Nature of Science (NOS) and Scientific Literacy

Approaches to NOS Teaching

Theoretical Framework

STEM Educational Approach

STEM-Based NOS Teaching on 7th Grade Students’NOS Views Günkut MESCİ1 Giresun University Eda ERDAŞ-KARTAL2 Kastamonu University Abstract The aim of the study is to improve students’ nature of science understandings while integrating nature of science aspects into appropriate science-technology-engineering-mathematics (STEM) activities. In this study, four STEM-based contextualized nature of science activities are developed during the 4 weeks study. The sample of this study consists of eighteen 7th grade students. The data are collected the views of nature of science questionnaires (VNOS-D), follow-up interviews, and classroom observations. All data are analyzed holistically to create a profile of students’ views for the targeted aspects of nature of science with using content analysis. The analysis showed that 7th grade students have generally naive views of the targeted nature of science aspects before participating in the 4-week study. After STEM-based nature of science teaching, all students improved their views of nature of science. STEM-based explicit-reflective nature of science teaching may be an alternative approach to improve students’ nature of science views, and it is recommended to use this approach in the future studies. Keywords: Science Education, Nature of Science, Scientific Literacy, STEM-Based Teaching DOI: 10.29329/epasr.2020.373.14 1Dr., Education Faculty, Giresun University, Giresun, Turkey, ORCID: 0000-0003-0319-5993, Email: [gunkutmesci@gmail.com](gunkutmesci@gmail.com) 2 Assist. Prof. Dr., Education Faculty, Kastamonu University, Kastamonu, Turkey, ORCID: 0000-0002-1568-827X Correspondence: [erdaseda@gmail.com](erdaseda@gmail.com) Introduction Nature of science (NOS) has been considered a critical component of scientific literacy in reform documents all around the world (e.g., AAAS, 1993; MoNE, 2013; 2018; NGSS Lead States, 2013). Although there is no single definition of NOS (Lederman and Lederman, 2012), NOS has been defined as the epistemology of science, the role of scientists in a scientific research, and the improvement of scientific knowledge (Lederman, 2007) . Clough (2006) defined NOS as understanding of how scientific knowledge is produced, what science is, the basic elements of science, the interaction between science and society, and the role of the scientists. Recent studies have recommended that NOS should be a part of all science courses (Mesci, 2016; Lederman and Lederman, 2014; Olson, 2018), and emphasized the importance of NOS teaching for all students (Akerson, Elcan-Kaynak and Avsar-Erumit, 2019; Murphy, Smith and Broderick, 2019) . However, teaching of NOS is quite difficult. There are mainly two approaches (implicit and explicit/reflective) that have been used for teaching NOS (Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman, 2000a; Lederman, 2007; Lederman and Lederman, 2014) . In the implicit approach, it is assumed that students can learn NOS aspects by themselves during the activities or laboratory applications without emphasis (Schwartz, Lederman and Crawford, 2004) . On the other hand, in the explicit/reflective approach, NOS aspects are explicitly and reflectively associated with the scientific practices (Khishfe and AbdEl-Khalick, 2002) . Explicit/reflective NOS teaching is not just about directly telling the students the NOS aspects that are intended to be taught. It involves explicitly linking the activity with the NOS objectives to be taught, making connections with students’ previous experiences, reflecting their learning on NOS aspects, and assessing their understandings of NOS aspects. Research reveals that the explicit/reflective approach is more effective than the implicit approach in teaching NOS aspects (Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Lederman and Stefanich, 2006; Schwartz et al., 2004) . There are some different ways for conducting explicit/reflective NOS teaching (i.e., argumentation-based, inquiry-based, PCK-based etc.) (Mesci, 2020; Cofre et al., 2

FAQs

What was the main goal of the study?

To improve students’ understandings of nature of science by integrating NOS aspects into STEM activities.

How were participants and data collected?

The study involved eighteen 7th grade students, and data were collected using VNOS-D questionnaires, follow-up interviews, and classroom observations.

What were the key findings after the STEM-based teaching?

All students improved their views of nature of science, moving from generally naive views prior to the four-week program.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by MrHarris58