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THE EFFECT OF USING THE OF IN SCIENCE LESSONS ON

MEANINGFUL LEARNING

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Doctor of

in the of The Ohio

By

Hayati Seker, MSc

*****

The Ohio State University

2004

Dissertation Committee: Approved by

Professor Arthur L. White, Adviser

Professor Donna F. Berlin Adviser Professor Gordon Aubrecht College of Graduate Program ABSTRACT

Incorporating the into the instructional process has been proposed by national endeavors in because of the advantages for understanding scientific , the of scientific , interaction between science and society, and humanizing scientific knowledge. Because studies of the effectiveness of history of science in promoting student understanding report mixed for student learning of science and interest in science, only its effect on understanding aspects of the nature of science has been emphasized by science educators.

This dissertation presents a four- study which investigated the effectiveness of materials incorporating the history of science on learning science, understanding the nature of science, and students’ interest in science. With regards to these objectives, three different class contexts were developed three main types of historical information: history of scientific , the nature of science, and stories from ’ personal lives. In the first class context, which is termed the “Meaningful

Class”, the similarities between students’ alternative ideas and scientific concepts from the history of science were considered in developing teaching materials. In the

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context, which is termed the “Nature of Science (NOS) Class”, the developed

discussion sessions on the ways scientists produce scientific knowledge. In the third class

context, which is termed the “Interest Class”, short stories about scientists’ personal lives

were used without connection to the concepts of science or nature of science.

Ninety-four eighth-grade students were randomly assigned to four classes taught by the same science teacher. The concepts in the unit and in the unit were taught. The curriculum of the school district was followed in the development of the three class contexts. Three of the four classrooms were taught using the contexts provided by

the history of science while the fourth class was taught in the same way that the teacher

had used in previous .

The effects on student learning of science, understanding the nature of science,

and interest in science were evaluated at the beginning, at the middle, and at the end of

the study to compare differences between historical class contexts and the Traditional

Class. Three separate instruments were administered, class sessions were videotaped, and

semi-structured interviews were audio taped.

Student learning was measured using mapping before and after the

motion and force units. Results of analysis showed that for each class independent of

each other, student Meaningful Learning for both the motion and force units increased

significantly from pretest to posttest. However, the results of statistical analysis showed

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that the differences between classes were not significant for either the motion or force

unit.

Students’ views of the nature of science were measured by using Perspectives on

Scientific (POSE) instrument. The percentage of Naïve and Informed views of students was observed for the following aspects of the nature of science:

Scientific Method, Tentativeness, Inference, and Subjectivity. The history of science affected student of scientific process and role of Inference in the process of science.

The Interest Survey measured components of interest: Individual Interest,

Situational Interest, Involvement Component of Interest, Meaningful Component of

Interest, and Story Component of Interest. The effect of the different types of historical information on the levels of student interest was analyzed. Results of the study showed that stories from scientists’ personal lives stimulated the Story Component of Interest, while discussions of scientific methods without these stories decreased student interest.

The positive effects of stories relating ’ personal life on student interest in science has major importance for the teaching of science. This also helps to clarify the different class contexts which can be provided with different types and uses of historical information.

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Dedicated to my mother, to my father,

and to my sister

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Arthur L. White, for his support and insight during this research project and during my program of study leading up to my project.

I would also like to thank committee members Dr. Donna Berlin and Dr. Gordon

Aubrecht for their , careful of my numerous drafts of my dissertation, and thoughtful suggestions.

Thankfulness goes to Laura Welsh for her willingness to conduct this research in her classes.

My gratitude is expressed to Bengu Borkan for her statistical advice and help with analysis of data.

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VITA

The Ohio State University……………….Ph.D., Science Education, 1999-

Marmara University………………………………………….M. Sc. , 1999

Marmara University…………………………B.S. in Ed., , 1995

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FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Education

Doctoral Studies in:

Science Education with Arthur L. White, Donna F. Berlin, Michael Beeth.

Physics with Gordon Aubrecht.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Abstract...... ii Dedication…………………………………………………………………………………v Acknowledgments ...... vi Vita...... vii Acknowledgements...... vi List of Figures...... xvii

Chapters:

1. Introduction...... 1

Standards...... 2 Studies before the ...... 3 Studies after the 1970s...... 4 Aspects of using history of science...... 5 Learning science ...... 5 Understanding the nature of science ...... 8 Interest in science...... 10 Class contexts...... 12 Meaningful class ...... 13 Nature of science (NOS) class ...... 13 Interest class...... 14 Considerations...... 14 Choosing historical materials...... 14 Appropriateness for the grade level ...... 16 Standards, benchmarks, and curriculum ...... 16 Students’ expectations ...... 17 ’ reluctance ...... 17

ix

Theoretical framework...... 18 Purpose of the study...... 24 Research questions...... 25 Definition of terms...... 26 2. review...... 28

Introduction...... 28 Constructivism ...... 28 Meaningful learning...... 35 Assessment of propositional learning ...... 36 Concept mapping ...... 38 The effects of using the history of science in science teaching ...... 41 Student learning of science content ...... 42 Students’ views of the nature of science...... 47 Student interest...... 52 History of science approaches to teaching science...... 61 History of science cases ...... 61 Story forms...... 62 MindWorks ...... 66 Summary...... 67 3. ...... 69

Introduction...... 69 Population and sample ...... 69 Dependent and independent variables ...... 69 Treatment ...... 70 ...... 74 Concept mapping ...... 74 Perspectives on scientific epistemology (POSE)...... 77 Interest Survey ...... 79 Video recordings...... 80 ...... 81 Analysis...... 81 Analysis of meaningful learning data ...... 82 Analysis of NOS data...... 82 Analysis of interest data...... 83 4. Analysis and results ...... 85

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Demographic information...... 85 Student meaningful learning of science...... 91 Students’ views of nature of science...... 96 ...... 99 Tentativeness...... 101 Inference ...... 103 Subjectivity ...... 105 Student interest...... 107 Individual interest ...... 107 Situational interest ...... 111 Involvement component of interest ...... 116 Meaningful component of interest ...... 121 Story component of interest...... 125 The relationships between objectives of using history of science ...... 129 Learning science and perceptions of the nature of science...... 130 Student learning of science and interest in science...... 134 Class contexts...... 140 Meaningful class context ...... 140 NOS class context...... 141 Interest class context ...... 143 Summary of findings...... 144 Section one: background variables ...... 145 Section two: results for each dependent variable...... 145 Section three: results for each class ...... 154 Section four: results for the interaction of variables by class ...... 162 Section five: results of the correlations between variables...... 163 5. Conclusions...... 166

The effects on student meaningful learning...... 170 The effects on student views of the nature of science ...... 172 The effects on student interest in science ...... 175 Student learning of science and views of the nature of science...... 177 Student learning of science and interest in science...... 178 Differentiation of class context...... 179 The meaningful class ...... 182 The NOS class...... 184 The interest class...... 185 Appropriateness of curriculum materials including the history of science...... 186 Limitations and delimitations ...... 187

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Recommendations for research ...... 189 References...... 197

Appendices

A. Concept map instruments for the motion and force units…………………………...205

B. Perspectives on scientific epistemology (POSE) questionnaire...... 214

C. Interest survey……………………………………………………………………….223

D. Curricula……………………………………………………………………………..228

E. Examples for evaluation of student perspectives of the nature of science………….234

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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

2.1 Indication analysis of behavior related to interest-oriented actions...... 59

2.2 Egan (1989), Wandersee (1992), and Stinner and Williams (1993) story forms...... 64

3.1 The content knowledge taught through the study...... 71

3.2 An example of curriculum followed for the motion unit by class contexts...... 72

3.3 Quality of proposition categories with examples...... 75

3.4 Inter-rater reliability coefficients ...... 76

3.5 Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's Alpha) of scales in interest survey ...... 80

4.1 Distribution of student background variables by class ...... 86

4.2 Mean scores and standard deviations of student background variables by class...... 87

4.3 Correlation matrix across student background variables...... 88

4.4 MANOVA of student pre-study characteristics: IQ scores; pre-meaningful learning (concept map) scores on motion; and prior perceptions of nature of science; interest, and interest components by class ...... 90

4.5 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of meaningful learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit ...... 92

4.6 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of meaningful learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit ...... 93

4.7 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the force unit ...... 95

4.8 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of meaningful learning (concept map) scores for the force unit ...... 95

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4.9 Pretest, midtest, and posttest percentages of naïve, intermediate, and informed students about perceptions of nature of science by class...... 98

4.10 The differences between classes in the proportion of students who changed their views of scientific method ...... 100

4.11 The differences between classes in the proportion of students who changed their views of tentativeness ...... 102

4.12 The differences between classes in the proportion of students who changed their views of inference...... 104

4.13 The differences between classes in the proportion of students who changed their views of subjectivity ...... 106

4.14 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the individual interest scores for the motion unit...... 108

4.15 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the individual interest scores for the motion unit ...... 108

4.16 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the individual interest scores for the force unit...... 110

4.17 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the individual interest scores for the force unit...... 110

4.18 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Situational Interest scores for the motion unit ...... 112

4.19 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the situational interest scores for the motion unit ...... 113

4.20 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the situational interest scores for the force unit ...... 114

4.21 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the situational interest scores for the force unit...... 115

4.22 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the involvement component of interest scores for the motion unit...... 116

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4.23 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the involvement component of interest scores for the motion unit...... 117

4.24 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the involvement component of interest scores for the force unit...... 119

4.25 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the involvement component of interest scores for the force unit...... 120

4.26 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the meaningful component of interest scores for the motion unit ...... 121

4.27 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the meaningful component of interest scores for the motion unit...... 122

4.28 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the meaningful component of interest scores for the force unit...... 123

4.29 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the meaningful component of interest scores for the force unit...... 124

4.30 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the story component of interest scores for the motion unit...... 125

4.31 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the story component of interest scores for the motion unit...... 126

4.32 Trial by class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the story component of interest scores for the force unit...... 128

4.33 Trial by class ANOVA with repeated measures of the story component of interest scores for the force unit...... 128

4.34 Kendall’s Tau correlation coefficients between student perceptions of the nature of science and meaningful learning (concept map) scores after the motion unit.....131

4.35 Differences in the correlation coefficients between classes for student meaningful learning (concept map) scores and perceptions of the nature of science for the motion unit...... 132

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4.36 Kendall’s Tau correlation coefficients between student perceptions of the nature of science and meaningful learning (concept map) scores after the force unit...... 133

4.37 Differences in the correlation coefficients between classes for student meaningful learning (concept map) scores and perceptions of the nature of science for the force unit...... 134

4.38 Correlations between meaningful learning (concept map) scores and interest scales for the motion unit...... 136

4.39 Differences in the correlation coefficients between classes for student meaningful learning (concept map) scores and interest scales for the motion unit.137

4.40 Correlations between meaningful learning (concept map) scores and interest scales for the force unit...... 138

4.41 Differences in the correlation coefficients between classes for student meaningful learning (concept map) scores and interest scales for the force unit ....139

4.42 Results for changes of student meaningful learning (concept map) scores for each class ...... 145

4.43 Results for changes of student perspectives of the nature of science for the meaningful class...... 148

4.44 Results for changes of student perspectives of the nature of science for the NOS class...... 148

4.45 Results for changes of student perspectives of the nature of science for the interest class...... 149

4.46 Results for changes of student perspectives of the nature of science for the traditional class ...... 149

4.47 Results for changes of student interest scores for the meaningful class...... 152

4.48 Results for changes of student interest scores for the NOS class ...... 153

4.49 Results for changes of student interest scores for the interest class ...... 153

4.50 Results for changes of student interest scores for the traditional class...... 154

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1.1 Story form of the use of history of science (adapted with permission of Wandersee, 1992) ...... 7

1.2 The map of theoretical framework for the relationship between student meaningful learning and the use of history of science in science teaching ...... 20

1.3 The aspects of using the history of science in science teaching ...... 23

2.1 An example of a propositional statement...... 35

4.1 The change in student meaningful learning (concept map) scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by class ...... 93

4.2 The change in student meaningful learning (concept map) scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by class...... 96

4.3 The change in student individual interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by class ...... 109

4.4 The change in student individual interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by class ...... 111

4.5 The change in student situational interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by class ...... 113

4.6 The change in student situational interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by class ...... 115

4.7 The change in student involvement component of interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by class ...... 118

4.8 The change in the involvement component of interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by class...... 120

4.9 The change in the meaningful component of interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by class ...... 122

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4.10 The change in the meaningful component of interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by class...... 124

4.11 The change in the story component of interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by class ...... 127

4.12 The change in the story component of interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by class ...... 129

4.13 An example of student responses to “ do you believe scientific knowledge will change in the future?” ...... 142

4.14 Examples of student propositions between the concepts of force and acceleration from pretest to posttest...... 144

5.1 The model of the use of history of science in science teaching (UHOSIST) ...... 180

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Recently, the history of science has been viewed as more important in science teaching because of its effects on understanding the nature of science; however, its effect on student learning is still under debate. To explain the effects of the use of history of science on student learning, science educators debate the parallel between student learning of concepts and the development of scientific knowledge throughout history. Even though the parallelism is still obscure, the similarity between scientists’ ideas and students’ alternative ideas helps students to learn meaningfully. Meaningful- learning claims that (a) learning materials should be related to student prior experience, (b) students should see the relationship between their cognitive structures and the learning materials, and (c) students should be motivated to learn. In this study, it is expected that the similarity between scientists’ ideas and student alternative ideas will help students develop their cognitive structure, which is composed of concepts and propositions.

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Standards

As pointed out in the National Science Education Standards (National Research

Council [NRC], 1995a), Science for all Americans (American Association for the

Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993a), and Benchmarks for Science Literacy

(AAAS, 1993b), the history of science plays an important role in reaching goals specified in science education. “The intention of this standard is not only to develop an overview of

the complete history of science. Rather, historical examples are used to help students understand scientific inquiry, the nature of scientific knowledge, and the interactions between science and society” (NRC, 1995a, “Developing student understanding”). A goal in science education is to increase student interest in science. One of the for students’ lack of interest is because of the image of science and scientists. The history of science provides information about the lives and of scientists, which may stimulate student interest and motivation (Becker, 2000; Solomon, Duveen, & Scot,

1992). Another goal in science education is to increase , and because

today’s students are future citizens of the community, their scientific literacy is critical.

Yet another concern in science education is teaching science as inquiry, and the National

Standards suggest that using the history of science in instruction may help teachers teach

inquiry skills (NRC, 1995c). However, the standards do not suggest discussing history of

science for the purpose of improving science learning. One of the reasons for this

omission is an insufficient number of studies on the effects of the inclusion of the history

of science on student learning of science and the mixed research results due to inadequate

research .

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Studies Before the 1970s

Before the 1970s, endeavors such as the Harvard Case in Experimental

Science (Conant, 1957) and The Project Physics Course (Holton, Rutherford, & Watson,

1970; 1981) incorporated the history of science into instructional materials for an

introductory course in the for college students and for science

teachers in programs. Science educators have been aware of how the

history of science may shape the student image of science and scientists; therefore, they

have incorporated the history of science in teaching scientific methodology and the nature

of science.

It is nearly fifteen years since I delivered a of at Yale University on ‘Understanding Science.’ In the meantime, public concern with science has not decreased. Quite the contrary, science has become increasingly an activity in which must play a constructive role. This means in a free society each citizen to some degree is involved in scientific decisions and need some appreciation of the methods of science. (Conant, 1951, “preface”)

Studies prior to the 1970s on the use of history of science in science teaching

reported both successes and failures (Russell, 1981; Welch, 1973). However, the

difficulties of incorporating history into the lessons discouraged science educators from

integrating the history of science into the curriculum. Yet the failures offer instructive

counsel to consider when promoting the use of history of science in science teaching.

Those initial endeavors put and the philosophy of science under the of

the history of science to promote the integration of history, philosophy, and sociology of

science in the science curriculum. Since students did not expect to learn philosophy and

sociology of science in their science classes, their attitude did not change significantly

and enrollment in science declined (Russell). Most of the earlier efforts targeted college-

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level courses. As historical materials are used for the high school or the

level, different instructional methods are required. The classroom difficulties, such as

limited period of time and student reluctance to become involved in science classes, were

not considered when these curricular materials were prepared. Moreover, teachers were reluctant to use these materials because they did not know, or were not even familiar with the concepts in the philosophy and sociology of science. The concepts were not taught in either the teacher education programs or in the departments of science. Rutherford

(2001), one of the enthusiasts of the initial efforts, states one more obstacle to the integration of the history of science into the science curriculum is that teachers are persistent in using the traditional curriculum and do not want to change it.

Early initiatives between the 1950s and 1970s centered on the of curriculum for college level science education and teacher education programs instead of developing instructional practices for high school and elementary school science courses

(Duschl, 1994). Only Klopfer and Cooley (1961) drew upon the history of science to prepare materials for high school science education in order to “provide high school teachers a means for attaining the objectives concerning students’ understanding of science and scientists” (p. 5). Even though they were successful, there are no follow-up studies to develop their cases as teaching tools.

Studies After the 1970s

Following the 1970s, the influence of the history of science on student understanding of the nature of science and scientific method gained more attention.

History of science, scientists’ lives, their inventions and discoveries, and the development

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of scientific concepts were considered as good instructional material to change students’ views of the nature of science. However, these endeavors did not propose teaching strategies to help teachers overcome the obstacles of using historical information in science lessons (Wandersee, 1992). Since the initial efforts, some problems have continued to be a barrier to the use of history of science in science teaching. Wandersee suggested story form for the use of history of science as a reasonable way to overcome these problems. Carefully crafted science stories have been proposed because they can be incorporated readily into science lessons as shown in Figure 1.1 (Roach & Wandersee,

1995; Stinner, 1995; Wandersee & Roach, 1998). This approach does assume that science teachers are storytellers, even though teacher education programs do not regularly educate teachers in creating and telling stories.

Aspects of Using History of Science

There are various aspects of using the history of science. In this section three aspects are considered with regard to the goals and objectives of science teaching: learning science, understanding the nature of science, and interest in science.

Learning Science

Even though enthusiasts of the history of science believe that it helps students learn science content (Klopfer & Cooley, 1961; Roach & Wandersee, 1995; Seroglou,

Koumaras & Tselfes, 1998; Stinner & Williams, 1993; Wandersee & Roach, 1998) there is no empirical about its effectiveness. Most have debated the parallelism between student learning of concepts and the development of scientific knowledge throughout history, and how to best take advantage of this relationship. The parallel

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between student cognition and the development of scientific concepts emphasizes that the

assimilation and accommodation processes in learning scientific concepts are analogous

to the normal and sciences in the development of scientific knowledge. However, there are arguments against using this to explain student learning. Seroglou et al. (1998) listed these counterarguments from their review:

a) The development of cognitive schemata differs among individuals. The way a cognitive schema was developed by its creators does not reflect the actual way that pupils use nowadays the same schema. b) Pupils and scientist have different starting points in their thinking and different cognitive backgrounds. Why should they have to follow similar conceptual paths in their reasoning? c) Scientific models were developed in a context quite different from the current one where pupils live and learn. (p. 262)

Even though the parallelism is still obscure, the similarity between scientists’ ideas and student alternative ideas can be useful in science teaching ( Galili & Hazan,

2001; Seroglou et al. 1998; Stinner & Williams 1993; Wandersee, 1985). There are two main ways to introduce the history of science into a science class. The first draws a parallel between the development of science itself in the and the students’ construction of their own knowledge. The advantage of these similarities is that, as the

lesson progresses, students may be able to recognize their own alternate conceptions, thus

enabling them to understand the new information and better learn concepts. In the second approach, the teacher presents historical information in such a way that conflict is introduced. A disagreement between two scientists could serve as a catalyst and such cognitive dissonance can lead to discussions in the classroom setting that would enable the student to understand the concept better (B. Becker, personal , May

18, 2001; Stinner & Williams, 1993).

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Constructed using Carefully crafted historical vignettes Drawn from

Told using

Binary Interrupted opposites story form Histories of the sciences

Involving To attain Designed to encourage In order to elicit Conflict Science lesson goals

Student generated Related to

Centered on Scientific attributes Followed by

Resolution of Followed by Discussion of current conflict implications

Figure 1.1: Story form of the use of history of science (Adapted with permission of

Wandersee, 1992)

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Understanding the Nature of Science

The use of the history of science in science teaching has a potential effect on

students’ understanding of the nature of science (NOS). However, science educators have

various commentaries about the effectiveness of the history of science on students’ views

of NOS (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000a; Bentley, 2000; Boujaoude 1995; Duschl,

1990; Irwin, 1997, 2000; Matthews, 2000; Quale, 2001). Abd-El-Khalick (1998)

investigated the effect of use of history of science on pre-service teachers’ views of the

nature of science. In contrast to many science educators’ beliefs that history of science is

the best way to change views of the nature of science, his study did not provide evidence to support this change in view. Despite this research, some studies have shown that

historical materials may have a positive effect on students’ views of nature of science

(Irwin, 2000; Solomon et al., 1992).

There are arguments over the definition of nature of science. Even though the definition is always irresolute, it can be defined best with aspects of NOS. There are agreements on these aspects: the empirical nature of scientific knowledge, creative and imaginative nature of scientific knowledge, theory-laden nature of scientific knowledge, social and cultural embeddedness of scientific knowledge, and the tentative nature of scientific knowledge (Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002).

Scientific Method

Studies have discussed the potential dangers of presenting the nature of science as if there were only one scientific method, “the scientific method” (Lederman, Abd-El-

Khalick, Bell, Schwartz , & Akerson , 2001). In science classrooms, the inductive approach has been emphasized more than the deductive approaches (Lederman et al., 8

2002). However, various types of scientific methods are followed by scientists. This can

be seen in the comparison of scientific methods in the history of science. ,

Galileo, and Newton followed different paths while developing their ideas.

Tentativeness

Scientific knowledge is tentative. There are two ways of changing scientific

knowledge: accumulative and substitutive. Students are more aware of accumulative

change, in which new knowledge, new , and new discoveries add to old ones

(Khishfe & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002). The other way is substitutive in which new ideas

contradict older ones and then replace them.

There are two discussion points on the tentative nature of scientific knowledge.

The first one is the danger of teaching “final form science.” Duschl (1990, 1994) warns

science educators about presenting scientific knowledge as final. He described the

growth of scientific knowledge as cumulative and changing, and used “final form

science” to describe traditional science instruction, which presents current scientific

without the development process. Science teachers should explain how scientific

knowledge has developed throughout history.

The second point is whether scientific knowledge is mostly durable. Students should see that scientific understanding can change. However, emphasizing this approach in science teaching may support naïve causing students to think scientific knowledge is unreliable. Durability and reliability of scientific knowledge should be considered when emphasizing tentativeness (Lederman et al., 2002). For example, the scientific meanings of concepts in , such as , force, or acceleration have not been changed for hundreds of years. 9

Inference

Scientific research often starts with questions based on .

is one way of explaining phenomena in nature that is based on senses, directly or

indirectly. Scientists use these observations to make logical statements that should be

consistent with others. But science is not only based on observation. Scientists make

inferences when they cannot access phenomena directly with their senses. For example,

particles in are not accessible through senses. Explanations about these

particles are based on inferences. Students should be aware of the differences between

observation and inference.

Pedagogy

There are two approaches proposed for teaching NOS, implicit and explicit. Abd-

El-Khalick (1998) suggested the use of the explicit approach after his study investigating

the effectiveness of history of science courses on students’ views of NOS. In further

study, Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick (2002) identified the use of history of science (HOS)

as a third approach that may help students articulate their prior beliefs related to scientific

methods. HOS is an instructional resource, which can be considered either implicit or

explicit, as it may as both.

Interest in Science

One of the goals in science education is to stimulate student interest in science.

History of science is a potential resource as a learning material to develop class contexts that humanize science and scientists. Accordingly, students may learn to believe that they

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can do science. Particularly, information about how scientists failed and made mistakes in

their scientific research could increase student interest in science.

Early endeavors, such as the Harvard Project Physics course, also observed that

student attitudes toward science had been changed positively, but enrollment in these

classes declined (Welch, 1973). Student interest stimulated by historical information

should be maintained to change students’ attitudes toward science. Some studies (Irwin,

2000; Solomon et al., 1992) observed an increase in student interest in science, but not

student learning of science content. Interesting curriculum materials should also be

effective in the cognitive domain as well as in the affective domain.

Student interest will be discussed under two components that take into account duration and effects on learning: individual interest and situational interest. Individual interest is defined as a characteristic of the person, or a part of that person’s disposition

(Krapp, Hidi, & Renninger, 1992). Individual interest is described as stable interest, enduring over time and characterized by high levels of stored knowledge and stored

(Renninger, 1990).

The second type of interest is situational interest. Situational interest “is generated primarily by certain conditions and/or concrete objects (e.g., texts, film) in the ” (Krapp et al. 1992, p.8). Since situational interest is initiated by environmental factors such as learning materials, it is possible for a group of people (e.g., a class) to all experience situational interest simultaneously. However, this experience tends to be short-lived, lasting only as long as the situation provides interest.

If the history of science only helps enhance student situational interest, interest may not be sustained. However, if it contributes to student individual interest, it may be 11

retained and may affect student attitudes toward science lessons. There has been little research that investigates how the incorporation of the history of science into science teaching affects student interest.

Class Contexts

Irwin (2000) and Solomon et al. (1992) observed that the use of history of science affects students’ views of the nature of science, but does not affect student learning of scientific concepts. However, there are other studies that have shown that the use of history of science can affect student learning of science (Seroglou et al., 1998; Stinner &

Williams, 1993; Wandersee, 1985). This discrepancy is because teaching scientific knowledge and teaching the nature of science require different teaching contexts, different teaching strategies, and have different aspects (Duschl, Hamilton, & Grandy,

1992). Most studies ignored the differences between various types of historical information and related class contexts with regard to the effects on student NOS views. In terms of their purposes, there are two different contexts which must be considered by science educators in the use of history of science in science classrooms: (a) to help students understand the nature of science, and (b) to help students understand scientific concepts. Studies on student learning of science via the use of historical materials are expected to affect student understanding of the nature of science. However, this is rhetoric, as too few studies have been conducted to measure the effect of the use of history of science on students’ views of the nature of science. Therefore, there is a need to observe the effect of history of science on the views of the nature of science when it is used to help students understand scientific concepts. Besides the purpose of learning

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science and understanding the nature of science, the purpose of interest in science requires a class context, which could be provided by the history of science.

Three different class contexts that were developed using the history of science will be described. The differentiation of these class contexts is important to explain the relationship between types of historical information and their effects on student learning, interest, and views of nature of science.

Meaningful Class

The Meaningful Class is the class context in which the science teacher uses learning materials related to students’ existing ideas. For example, there are similarities between the alternative ideas of students and the ideas advanced by scientists in the

development of theories throughout history (Boujaoude, 1995; Seroglou et al., 1998;

Stinner & Williams, 1993; Wandersee, 1985). For example, students’ pre-concepts of

photosynthesis are similar to ’ ideas from the history of science

(Wandersee). Such similar ideas are a source of learning materials to provide the class

context for the Meaningful Class.

Nature of Science (NOS) Class

The Nature of Science (NOS) Class is the class environment in which the teacher

gives science content along with of scientists from the past with the aim of

helping students become more aware of the aspects of the nature of science. For example,

Aristotle, and Galileo used different scientific ways in producing scientific knowledge.

Aristotle did not conduct an to control variables and his conclusions were

generally based on observation. Galileo conduct an experiment to explain the acceleration

13

concept. A science teacher can present these ways of doing science as illustrations in relation to the content being taught.

Interest Class

The class environment in which students are told 5- stories during class sessions is defined as the Interest Class for this research. The stories are based on scientists’ personal lives from the history of science and told without connection to the historical development of specific concepts of science. For example, stories about

Newton’s childhood are not related to the concepts of force, mass, or acceleration and they are short enough to incorporate into the science class.

Considerations

Choosing Historical Materials

Historical information can be seen in journals, newspapers, TV programs and other media. The problem is bringing this historical information into the science classroom. First, the science teacher should recognize the different types of historical information. There are distinctions that emphasize scientific concepts, nature of science, or interest in science. This differentiation is important in meeting curriculum objectives and goals. Reviews of the major studies on the use of history of science since the 1950s point to four different approaches for using historical information: (a) history of scientific concepts, (b) scientific methods throughout history, (c) interrelationships between science and society, and (d) scientists’ personal life stories.

14

History of Scientific Concepts

Some historical sources present the development of scientific concepts throughout history. For example, the history of electrical charge involves more than one scientist.

Scientists’ contributions to the development of the concept throughout history were given

rather than other types of personal information.

Scientific Methods Throughout History

The second type of historical information focuses on how scientists produce

scientific knowledge. This type of historical information may emphasize aspects of the

nature of science implicitly or explicitly.

The Relationship Between Science and Society

One of the aspects of teaching the nature of science is to help students understand

the relationship between science and society. Some historical information emphasizes the

role of science for social and cultural events. “Science and technology have advanced

through contributions of many different people, in different , at different in

history” (NRC, 1995a, “Science and Technology in Society”). Science students should be

aware of the value of scientific knowledge. For this purpose, science teachers should

inform students about the effects of inventions by scientists on social and cultural

developments throughout history. As an example, Jewish scientists, who escaped from

Germany settled in the U.S. and their contributions, played an important role in changing

the direction of War II (Wandersee & Roach, 1998). Understanding the

relationship between science and society is one of the tenets of the nature of science.

15

Scientists’ Personal Life Stories

Scientist-centered history of science is generally about the important events in

scientists’ lives, and may or may not be connected to specific content knowledge. In this approach, the teacher provides the students with information about scientists in an effort to change the student image of scientists. For example, Sir was raised in the home of his grandmother after his father died. While he was still a young child, his mother remarried and moved several miles away, leaving him behind. This type of historical information focuses student attention on a scientist’s experience as a person rather than as a scientist.

Appropriateness for the Grade Level

Regardless of the type of historical information selected, consideration must be given to the appropriateness of the material for the grade level of the students (Stinner,

McMillan, Metz, Jilek, & Klassen, 2001). It would be unwise to engage in a lesson on realism vs. relativism with elementary-aged students, though a similar discussion could be held at the high school level. The intricacies of Galileo’s debate with the Roman

Catholic Church would be a good discussion with older high school students, but would fail in a middle school where students generally only see things as right or wrong.

Standards, Benchmarks, and Curriculum

A review of the national standards and the benchmarks for American science education shows that both documents contain reference to the history of science. They place special emphasis on the relationship between the history of science and the nature of science. However, neither document gives teachers guidance on how to incorporate

16

the history of science to achieve the goals of their lessons (AAAS, 1993b, 2001; NRC,

1995b).

Students’ Expectations

Another consideration is students’ expectations. Students are used to learning

final-form science. They are given the current accepted thinking and rarely question it.

Even in a lab-based setting, students are often given labs to complete that have a

prescribed “right” answer. The history of science shows students that science is a

process, one in which the accepted answer is wrong many times over. It also emphasizes

the trial-and-error effort that scientists undertake when doing their . Both of these

ideas are unexpected and they meet with student resistance when introduced for the first

time by teachers.

The students do not expect to have to consider philosophical and historical

background as a part of their science learning. Irwin (2000) noticed initial reluctance by

students when presented science with history of science. Even the Harvard Project

Physics course was criticized for emphasizing historical and philosophical knowledge over scientific knowledge (Welch, 1973). This suggests that science educators should avoid using overly complicated historical and philosophical content while incorporating the history of science into science lessons.

Teachers’ Reluctance

Another challenge is that science teachers are not educated in the history of

science. Gallagher (1991) and his research group conducted an ethnographic study of

science teachers and observed science lessons. Their findings showed that “both

17

prospective and practicing secondary teachers had a limited knowledge of the history and

philosophy of science, because they have had very little opportunity to study these fields”

(Gallagher, p. 132). Matthews laments “the unfortunate lack of historical and

philosophical knowledge about science in the U.S. science education community”

(Matthews, 1998, p. 285). Courses related to the history of science find homes neither in

teacher education programs nor in departments of sciences (Matthews; Rutherford, 2001).

Some science teachers learn some of the history of science to satisfy their own curiosity;

however, they do not know how to bring this information to the science classroom. They

need to develop pedagogical skills to incorporate the history of science into science lessons. History of science courses should be offered in pre-service or in-service programs to help teachers learn about the development of scientific knowledge throughout history.

Theoretical Framework

In this study, the advantages of the use of the history of science will be discussed from the of meaningful learning theory. Meaningful learning theory was

developed by Ausubel (1968) and advanced by Novak (1995). The theory claims that (a)

learning materials should be related to student prior experience (logically meaningful),

(b) students should see the relationship between their cognitive structures and the learning materials (psychologically meaningful), and (c) students should be motivated to learn. In this study, it is expected that developmental propositions in the history of science will be effective for student meaningful learning. A map of the theoretical

18

framework for the relationships of the history of science to meaningful learning of

science is shown in Figure 1.2.

In meaningful learning theory, the most important variable of student learning is the existing cognitive structure. Therefore, learning materials should be related to what students bring with them to the science classroom, and students should be aware of the relationship between their own cognitive structures and the learning context. The history of science consists of ideas similar to student alternative ideas (similar ideas). These similarities may help students in recognizing their alternative ideas. These ideas also are

in conflict with current scientific knowledge (opposing ideas) and this conflict between

scientists’ ideas throughout history can be used to create dissonance for discussion

sessions. These pedagogical advantages can be used for developing curriculum materials

for science teaching.

The history of science may help organize student ideas and strengthen the

relationship between concepts because of the similarity between the context of learning

material and their knowledge structure. This may help students generate propositions and

develop new cognitive structures. Cognitive structure is comprised of concepts and

propositions. Propositions are statements that explain the relatedness of concepts or

relatedness between two or more concepts. Propositions, which organize cognitive

structures, can be measured when students write their own propositions. The valid

propositions generated by students are important measure of student learning of science

(Novak, 1998).

19

Figure 1.2: The map of theoretical framework for the relationship between student Meaningful Learning and the use of history of science in science teaching Meaningful learning theory claims that students should be motivated to learn. The history of science can be used as a motivational tool because it stimulates student interest in learning about science and scientists’ lives and inventions. Student interest is described as Individual Interest, Situational Interest, and Interest Components (Involvement

Component of Interest, Meaningful Component of Interest, and Story Component of

Interest) as shown in Figure 1.3. Individual Interest is described to be a stable interest, enduring over time and characterized by high levels of stored knowledge and stored value. Situational Interest is generated primarily by certain conditions and/or concrete objects in the environment. If learning materials stimulating Situational Interest are used for extended periods of time, they may affect Individual Interest. Interest components are

Involvement Component of Interest, Meaningful Component of Interest, and Story

Component of Interest. Learning materials that students think are meaningful and in their involvement in class sessions can stimulate the Involvement Component of

Interest, and the Meaningful Component of Interest. Historical materials given without connection to the concepts being taught can stimulate the Story Component of Interest.

The use of the history of science may be more influential than materials which only stimulate student Situational Interest. Historical materials may stimulate student

Individual Interest, with potential long- impact on student motivation to learn.

Meaningful learning theory is a human constructivist approach, which explains learning as negotiation of the meaning of between teacher-to-student and student- to-student. Knowledge is the product of construction in a socially and culturally embedded context. In other perspectives of constructivism, radical and social constructivists deny objective reality and underestimate the need for ontological reality in

21 science teaching. Human constructivists believe that reality and knowledge are products

of construction from negotiation. Therefore, knowledge is subjective.

Overall, the history of science may help to develop different teaching contexts:

the meaningful context, which is related to student cognitive structures; the NOS context, which places emphasis on scientists’ throughout history; and the interest

context, which provides appealing cases from scientist lives (see Figure 1.3).

The Meaningful Class may help students organize cognitive structure and develop

better propositions between concepts of their . The NOS context

may help students understand the following as aspects of the nature of science: scientist’s

ways of doing science (Scientific Method), Tentativeness, Inference, and Subjectivity.

The interest context may stimulate student Individual and Situational Interest. Individual

Interest is considered to have a more direct effect on student learning than Situational

Interest. However, if Situational Interest influences Individual Interest then it may also

have an important role in affecting student learning (see Figure 1.3).

22

Figure 1.3: The aspects of using the history of science in science teaching

23 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to develop three historical contexts and observe their

effects on student Meaningful Learning, students’ views of the nature of science, and

student interest in science. For the first historical context, the meaningful context, instructional materials were related to students’ alternative concepts. In the second historical context, the nature of science (NOS) context, the teacher put more emphasis on concepts related to the nature of science while incorporating historical information into the lesson. In the third historical context, the interest context, appealing historical materials were used without consideration for relatedness to the curriculum.

There are different approaches for using historical information in science teaching, such as of famous scientists’ , visiting history of science

, role-playing activities, and story telling. The story form is considered for use

in this study because of its potential advantages in organizing students’ cognitive

structure, connecting ideas in the learning material, and for incorporating the history of

science into the science curriculum as illustrated in Figure 1.1. The advantages of the

story form are discussed in the second chapter.

In this study, four different science were developed to help the science teacher incorporate historical information into science lessons. Lesson were developed based on these curricula. Also, classroom difficulties; such as, overloaded curriculum, and the appropriateness of discussion sessions to the grade level were anticipated based on the prior experience of the science teacher with eighth-grade students.

24 The effectiveness of these curriculums on student Meaningful Learning, understanding of nature of science, and interest in science were explored. Before the study, instruments (e.g., concept maps, Perspective on Student Epistemology [POSE]

Instrument, and Interest Survey) were used to explore students’ background in and perceptions of science. Throughout the study, all class sessions were videotaped and field notes were taken. At the end of the study, the same instruments and interviews were used to determine differences between classes that resulted from these curriculums.

The use of history of science in science teaching may impact students’ views of the nature of science and stimulate student interest in science. Even though these variables are expected to influence student learning of science, not all studies have resulted in significant effects (Irwin, 2000). Therefore the relationships between student learning of science, interest in science, and understanding of the nature of science are investigated in this study.

Research Questions

1. Is there significant evidence that using historical information related to student

alternative ideas affects eighth-grade student a) learning of science, b) views of

the nature of science, c) interest in science?

2. Is there significant evidence that the discussion of methods followed by

scientists throughout history changes eighth-grade student a) learning of

science, b) views of the nature of science, c) interest in science?

3. Is there significant evidence that telling scientists’ life stories affects eighth-

grade student a) learning of science, b) views of the nature of science, c) interest

in science?

25 4. Is there a significant relationship between eighth-grade students’ Meaningful

Learning and their views of the nature of science due to the use of historical

information?

5. Is there a significant relationship between eighth-grade students’ Meaningful

Learning and their interest in science due to the use of historical information?

Definition of Terms

Alternative Conceptions: Student concepts inconsistent with the ones taught in the

science lessons. Because alternative concepts are constructed and used in daily

life, they are persistent and hard to change.

Concept Maps: “Concept maps are tools for organizing and representing knowledge.

They include concepts, usually enclosed in or boxes of some type, and

relationships between concepts or propositions, indicated by a connecting line

between two concepts” (Novak, 1995, p. 229).

Context of Development: “The situation in which knowledge claims are created and

initially developed” (Duschl et al., 1992, p. 28).

Context of Justification: “The situation in which knowledge claims are systematically

presented in relation to the data” (Duschl et al., 1992, p. 28).

Historical Context: The context that is provided by the use of history of science in

science teaching.

Historical Vignette: “A brief (5-10 minute), carefully told, historically accurate narrative

about an incident of dramatic conflict drawn from the life of a scientist whose

work is relevant to the science course being taught” (Wandersee, 1992, p.429).

26 Student grade level, gender differences, and should be considered in the

preparation of historical vignettes.

Interest Context: The teaching context enriched with interesting histories from scientists’

lives without regard to their relatedness to the curriculum.

Meaningful Context: The teaching context enriched by historical information related to

student alternative ideas.

Meaningful Learning: “ The meaning we acquire for a given concept is formed from the

composite of propositions we know that contain that concept (Propositional

learning); the richness of meaning we have for a concept increases exponentially

with the number of valid propositions we learn that relate that concept to other

concepts” (Novak, 1998, p. 40).

Nature of Science (NOS) Context: The teaching context enriched by historical

perspectives related to the epistemology of science.

Proposition: “Propositions are two or more words combined to form a statement about an

, object or idea” (Novak, 1998, p. 38).

Story Form: A teaching technique that helps teachers a framework for effective

storytelling within the science lesson.

27

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

This chapter discusses the constructivism and meaningful learning theory for use of history of science in science teaching with a foundation in human constructivist approach. The literature on the use of history of science for student learning of science, student views of the nature of science, and student interest in science are discussed. The remainder of Chapter 2 describes the endeavors related to the use of history of science in terms of the different approaches.

Constructivism

In this section, constructivism is discussed as a learning theory and as a knowledge theory because of the effects of the use of history of science on student understanding of the nature of science and the potential connections to meaningful learning. Individual and social constructivist approaches are described in terms of their teaching methods and definitions of learning. Next, the human constructivist approach of

Novak (1998) is described, as he and Ausubel (1968) developed meaningful learning theory. In addition to the teaching strategies related to constructivist approaches, constructivist ontology and epistemology are discussed in this section along with the

28 assumption that learning materials and teaching methods affect student understanding of the nature of science. The definition of knowledge and reality in two main ,

realism and , is discussed taking student ontology and epistemology into

consideration.

Before the advent of constructivist , teacher-dominated, didactic, and direct teaching methods were used in science classes. In contrast to the idea that teachers

can teach what they want to, constructivism denies knowledge transfer from teacher to

student (Bettencourt, 1989) because all knowledge arises by the student’s own

construction. Learning occurs within student cognitive schema and that knowledge is a

product of the learning process (Bettencourt; Mathews, 2000; Mintzes & Wandersee,

1998; Osborne, 1996; Quale, 2001).

Direct teaching methods, which are parallel to behaviorist approaches, do not

consider student experience and views students’ brains as empty vessels. But student

existing knowledge is important for constructing new knowledge. “ Teaching is not a

process of filling children’s empty channels” (Monk & Osborne, 1997, p. 412). With

constructivism, science educators put more emphasis on teaching methods based on

student prior knowledge and class context. Therefore, learning materials related to

student prior knowledge are very important in constructivism compared to other learning

theories in which teachers are more directive. Teachers should prepare the learning

environment to facilitate student learning rather than transferring their own knowledge to

the students. Learning materials and teaching strategies should be based on the cognitive

schema that students bring into the classroom. These schema arise from students’ life

experiences, informal conversations, information from communication tools (e.g.,

29 newspapers, journals, scientific magazines, and ), and learning experiences from previous science lessons and other disciplines.

The constructivist approach proposes “rich context” which means that teachers should provide as many learning materials as possible so that students can choose the ones most related to their own prior knowledge structure. Teachers often fail to practice this characteristic of constructivist pedagogy because of lack of materials and limited class time. Even though this looks like a gap in the constructivist approach and is often criticized by science educators, as it is explained by human constructivism, the denial of knowledge transfer between the teacher and students is not supposed to mean the teacher is passive. The teacher role, as a facilitator, is to choose the best learning material related to the prior experience of the students so as to develop an appropriate cognitive and affective class environment.

Student beliefs and expectations are very important in constructivist learning theory. Learning occurs when students believe that the result of learning is consistent with expectations; otherwise, students disregard new knowledge. This about student learning is not always consistent with theories of knowledge. Constructivism is not only an educational theory but a knowledge theory as well. Constructivism will be discussed both as an educational theory and as a knowledge theory because of the effects of constructivist pedagogy on student epistemology. As a knowledge theory, constructivism has its own definition of knowledge discussed by of science.

The debate between philosophers of science about the source of knowledge has been going on under the two paradigms: “instrumentalism” and “realism.” In instrumentalism, there is no objective . Knowledge is the product of an individual’s

30 construction. Because each student constructs information about the outside world in a

different manner, and knowledge is the product of construction, there is no true

knowledge and no epistemological . Scientific knowledge is subjective,

tentative, and observer dependent. Realism, on the contrary, holds that there is objective knowledge which does not depend upon individual construction. Therefore, the constructivist epistemology is parallel to “instrumentalism” rather than “realism.”

So, knowledge is not like a collection of shards on an archaeological dig- object in existence and waiting to be unearthed; rather, each learner’s knowledge is moulded and constructed at his/her own cognitive potter’s wheel. The teacher’s role is to provide suitable clay and define the parameters of the object to be moulded. (Kinnear, 1994, p. 3)

The existence of reality or ontological commitments is important in science education. Kipnis (1998) opposed the teaching methods proposed by the constructivist approach because of their effects on a student’s way of knowing and because of the need for absolute truth in science teaching. “As the result, students leave the classroom with a variety of results and not knowing which is correct, or what they have actually discovered” (p. 246). Because he minimizes the effect of teacher guidance, this opposition is mostly to the radical constructivists, who believe students learn new knowledge if it is viable. As they are described in subsequent paragraphs, social constructivist and human constructivist approaches put more emphasis on student-teacher interactions and the teacher role in science classrooms. However, the need for “absolute

truth” is still debated in science education along with the effects of teaching methods on student epistemology.

In the realist approach, the existence of objects and the reliable from

observations about the features of objects is consistent with the idea that there is an

objective reality. There are three different types of theories in terms of existence of 31 reality. The first type of theory explains observable objects and phenomena, such as different colors of . The second type of theory explains unobservable phenomena that are only accessible with instruments, such as colors of light which need an instrument to be observed. The third type of theory describes objects for which there is no direct access to the objects, such as quarks, muons, or other nuclear particles (Osborne,

1996).

There are two approaches in constructivism: individual and .

Individual constructivism also includes two different perspectives, the initial, or “naïve,” constructivism and radical constructivism. Initial approaches, such as cognitive or

Piagetian constructivism are called “naïve” by the radical constructivists. While the radical constructivists emphasize there is no external reality, naïve constructivists believe there is a reality outside and each person constructs knowledge of the outside in their own way.

Radical constructivists believe learning is the construction of knowledge in cognitive schema. They are radical because they believe knowledge is the result of cognitive activities, and therefore it is subjective. Radical constructivists put more emphasis on learning methods, such as learning and inquiry learning in which students “learn how to learn.” Radical constructivists ignore student-student and teacher- student discourse in the class context. However, social interactions are also important in the learning process. “Other persons are crucial for knowledge construction in provoking our of inadequacies in our concepts” (Bettencourt, 1989, p. 19).

Radical constructivists underestimate the socio-cultural effect on the construction of knowledge. The interaction between student-to-student and student-to-environmental

32 settings in the classroom context are as important as individuals’ cognitive activities in

science learning and should be considered. Therefore, newer approaches in

constructivism, social constructivism and human constructivism, consider social interactions in the learning process.

Social constructivists emphasize the importance of interactions between

individuals, society, and to develop a knowledge structure. There are two

different perspectives in the social constructivist approach. The early social

constructivists consider the importance of discourse in the classroom and emphasize that

knowledge is constructed by the contributions of individuals in the classroom. The other

constructivist perspective considers the effects of socio-cultural context as well as

individual interactions (Duit & Treagust, 1998).

The early social constructivists propose teaching methods that stimulate student

arguments and discussion sessions to promote the interaction between the scientific

knowledge, society, and culture. In particular, teaching methods that use the history of

science and technological developments are suggested for science teachers in the socio-

cultural constructivist approach.

As the use of the history of science can affect student’s views of the nature of

science, Matthews (2000), one of the enthusiasts of history of science in science teaching,

also discusses the realist approach and the constructivist approach in the development of

scientific knowledge. He emphasizes that pragmatism in constructivist learning cannot be

mentioned as one of the tenets of the nature of science. Considering the effect of the use

of the history of science on the understanding of the nature of science, science educators

should clarify the idea of ‘denial of objective reality’. Even though the realist approaches

33 alert science educators to negative effects of the constructivist approach in science teaching, constructivists state that there is a reality outside of the individual and that knowledge is the product of learning about the outside world.

Human constructivists, who introduce themselves as realist and believe that there is an objective ontological reality, describe learning as a negotiation process for the meaning of the reality of an object. The list of basic premises of human constructivism are summarized based on the work of Mintzes and Wandersee (1998): (a) No two human beings, scientists included, precisely the same meaning even when presented with identical objects or events; (b) Knowledge is an idiosyncratic, dynamic construction of human beings; (c) Education attempts to bridge differences among people, and (d)

Teachers are middlemen or negotiators of meaning. Human constructivists propose teaching strategies in which students are actively involved: cooperative group work; debates; one-on-one conversations; demonstrations or that introduce and attempt to resolve conceptual conflict; interactive ; and whole class activities that provide context and encourage meaning-making, such as historical vignettes and creative use of , metaphors, and story telling.

Meaningful learning theory, as a human constructivist approach, emphasizes the importance of prior knowledge that students bring to the class. Constructivists assert that new knowledge is built on the existing knowledge structures, and meaningful theory emphasizes that the learning material should be related to the student existing cognitive structure. Social and human constructivists emphasize the importance of student-teacher and student-student discourse on learning. It will be seen in later sections of this chapter that enthusiasts of the use of history of science suggest using the relationship between

34 student alternative ideas and scientists’ ideas from the past to have discussion sessions in which students are encouraged to participate. The meaningful learning theory also claims that students should be motivated to learn. The history of science can be used as a motivational tool because it stimulates student interest in science.

Meaningful Learning

The meaningful learning theory (Ausubel,1968; Ausubel, Novak, & Hanesian,

1978) is based on the assimilation of new knowledge into the existing knowledge structure, which consists of concepts and propositions in a semantic network form.

Concepts are defined as regularities of events or objects with distinctive characteristics

(Novak, 1995). “First concepts” are shaped between the ages of birth to 3 years. After 3- years of age, children start assimilating new concepts and propositions into cognitive schema because 3- old children are able to use language and ask questions to acquire new knowledge. First information is stored in short-term memory or working memory, and then it is stored in composites of propositions in long-term memory. Both old and new propositions are stored in cognitive schema (Wandersee, 1992). As shown in Figure

2.1, propositions are statements relating two or more concepts in a meaningful way

(Novak).

Force Proposition Acceleration

Proposition: Force causes acceleration

Figure 2.1: An example of a propositional statement

35

In the assimilation process, student prior knowledge is important for learning new concepts and propositions. Therefore, learning material and teaching strategies should be developed by considering what students have experienced related to the content being taught in the lesson. Meaningful learning theory requires learning materials to be meaningful, i.e., “nonarbitrarily and substantively relatable to the learners’ structure of knowledge” (Ausubel, 1968, p. 38). Instructional materials should provide a potentially meaningful context, psychologically and logically. Psychologically, students should see the relationship between their own cognitive structure and the subject . Logically, meaningful context interrelates the propositions concerning the learning materials with student existing cognitive structures. This interrelatedness assists students in constructing new knowledge and adapting their cognitive schema.

Meaningful learning theory requires meaningful learning contexts, which are related to student existing propositions in their cognitive schema. Therefore, student existing cognitive structure is important in learning new knowledge in science lessons.

“When students lack the relevant concepts necessary to link new knowledge they encounter in classroom science lessons to their existing cognitive structure, meaningful learning cannot occur” (Wandersee, 1985, p. 584). For meaningful learning, teaching context and strategies in science education are important variables to help to generate valid propositions (Hegarty-Hazel & Prosser, 1991a, 1991b).

Assessment of Propositional Learning

Meaningful learning theory explains learning as the growth of cognitive structure.

Cognitive structure gradually grows and assimilates new concepts linked with

36 propositions in a hierarchical format. Students have valid propositions in their cognitive

structure when they learn meaningfully, which is called propositional learning.

Shavelson (1974) used a Word Association Method and Graph Construction

Method to examine the cognitive structure of individuals. He investigated the relationship between the knowledge structure of the learning material and student understanding of concepts in Newtonian mechanics. He divided 40 subjects into two groups: experimental group (n=28) were instructed in Newtonian mechanics and control group (n=18) with no instruction. The two groups were pre-tested with a word-association and an achievement instrument before treatment. Throughout the study, a word association test was administered after every instruction to the experimental group. After the treatment, both groups were tested again with the word-association test and achievement test. The results of diagraph analysis for the experimental group showed that (a) their achievement increased significantly, (b) association between concepts were closer at the end of the instruction, and (c) cognitive structure is more related to the content structure at the end of the instruction while these differences were not observed for the control group.

Stewart (1979) reviewed assessment techniques and criticized: “Measurement techniques such as word association, tree construction tasks, and graphing tasks are unable to deal with propositional relationships between concepts” (p. 399). In another review, Stewart (1980) offers a list of assessment techniques for propositional knowledge:

1. Clinical interviews

2. Paper-and-pencil assessment techniques- Declarative knowledge

• Concept map line labeling task

37 • Tree construction line labeling task

• Concept relations task

• Sentence generation task

• Essay test

3. Paper-and-pencil assessment techniques-

• Thinking aloud protocols

• Stimulated recall

“These assessment techniques allow the researcher to assess and represent propositions in cognitive structure; the propositions may then be compared to instructional or disciplinary structure for consistency” (Stewart, 1980, p. 223).

Concept Mapping

Concept mapping is one of the ways to assess student Meaningful Learning

(Novak, 1995). Novak and his research group developed the concept mapping technique to represent student knowledge structure in the form of a network connecting concepts with propositions. “Concept maps are tools for organizing and representing knowledge.

They include concepts, usually enclosed in circles or boxes of some type, and relationships between concepts or propositions, indicated by a connecting line (cross- links) between two concepts” (Novak, 1995, p. 229).

As an assessment technique, basically a concept map measures whether students understand the relationships between the concepts, or propositions, and can put them in correct hierarchical format. Novak (1998) states that the valid propositions students produce reveals student levels of understanding, and the best way to assess student propositional knowledge is to have them write their own propositions. Other assessment

38 techniques of learning and understanding, such as multiple-choice tests, are used to confirm propositional statements rather than assess students’ generation of propositions.

There are two main ways of constructing concept maps: hierarchical and nonhierarchical. Ruiz-Primo, Shavelson, and Schultz (1997) compared these two concept map techniques. Two classes of high school classes (n = 48) taught by the same teacher, a second chemistry teacher, two experts, and a participated in the study. The hierarchical concept map technique was used to assess the learning content of a unit on atomic structure and a nonhierarchical concept map was used to assess the learning content for , , and compounds. Classes were randomly assigned to the learning units, and were instructed in how to create both the hierarchical and nonhierarchical maps. Three types of scoring methods were used, proposition accuracy – sum of scores obtained on all propositions; convergence – the proportion of valid propositions in the students’ concept map out of all propositions in the criterion map; and salience – the proportion of valid propositions out of all the propositions in the students’ map. Experts participated in the study by constructing the criterion maps. Before administering the concept maps, both classes received multiple choice tests. Student scores were compared using ANOVA analyses. No significant interaction effect was observed between mapping technique by content knowledge and no significant main effect was found for the salience scoring method. Students’ scores on the multiple choice tests were compared to the three scoring methods. The findings of the study showed that there were no significant differences between students’ scores from hierarchical and nonhierarchical concept mapping. Inter-rater reliability coefficients are encouraging; the correlation between concept map scores and multiple choice scores were moderate.

39 Proposition accuracy and convergence scoring methods are more consistent than the

salience scoring method.

In another study, Ruiz-Primo, Schultz, Li, and Shavelson (1998) compared fill-in-

the-map and construct-a-map techniques. The fill-in-the-map technique provides students

with a map where nodes (concepts) or links (propositions) have been left out. The

construct-a-map technique provides some information and asks students to draw to the

concept map. The fill-in-the-map mapping technique is categorized in two ways: fill-in-

nodes and fill-in-links. Three types of scoring methods were used: proposition accuracy score, convergence score, and salience score. The participants were 152 high school chemistry students in seven classes and two chemistry teachers. Students were randomly assigned to concept mapping techniques; the construct-a-map technique and the fill-in- the-map technique. Besides concept maps, a multiple choice test was administered.

Results of the study show that mean scores for the two types of fill-in-the-map (the fill- in-nodes and fill-in-links) are not equivalent but not significantly different. The correlations between the fill-in-the-link scores and multiple choice test scores were higher than other concept mapping techniques. Proposition accuracy and convergence scores better reflect the differences in students’ knowledge than salience scores since the percent of variability among students is higher for proposition accuracy and convergence scores than for salience scores. Ruiz-Primo et al. suggest the construct-a-map technique to assess student knowledge because this technique better reflects the differences among scores due to the greater variance of student scores. In the current study, considering the time given to develop a concept map, students were asked to fill-in-the-link concept maps. Since the participants in the Ruiz-Primo et al. study are high school students and

40 participants of the current study are elementary level students, the difficulty level is expected to be different.

Schau, Mattern, Weber, Minnick, and Witt (1997) reviewed various types of concept mapping techniques and chose the fill-in-the-map technique to measure seventh and eighth grade students’ knowledge structure. They conducted their study to explore the validity of the fill-in-concept map format as an assessment tool. Initially they developed 25 different map assessment tools. Then they chose the most promising ones and interviewed participants using the maps. They identified student difficulties associated with generating their own concept maps compared to selecting answers:

“(a) it depends heavily on the students’ communication skills, including vocabulary, spelling, and handwriting; (b) it is not possible to identify all possible correct responses before students complete the assessment, making scoring difficult; (c) different scorers will disagree about what responses should be counted as correct; a group of experts would have to make decisions after a list of all responses to each blank in the map had been tallied” (p.10).

They chose the fill-in-the-map technique as the best approach as this approach was validated by correlating scores with multiple choice tests. Correlation coefficients were moderately high (0.77) and the reliability coefficient was 0.91 for eighth grade students. Their findings support the use of the fill-in-the-map technique similar to the one used in the current study (see Appendix A).

The Effects of Using the History of Science in Science Teaching

There are three main effects of using the history of science in science teaching: student learning of science content, student views of the nature of science, and student interests in science. Mixed results generated by the studies on these three main variables are discussed.

41 Student Learning of Science Content

A desirable effect of the use of the history of science in the science classroom is

to help students learn science content. In some studies on the use of the history of science

as a means to shape student views of the nature of science (Irwin, 2000; Solomon et al.,

1992), the learning of science content has been secondary. These studies did not observe a substantial effect from the use of history of science on student learning of scientific

concepts. Contrary to the results of these studies, many others (Seroglou et al., 1998 ;

Wandersee, 1985;) show potential effects of using history of science on student learning.

The variety of results is potentially due to the different contexts provided by historical

materials.

Wandersee (1985) conducted a study to investigate the relationship between

student conceptual development and the development of photosynthesis concepts through

history. The Photosynthesis Concept Test (PCT) was used to detect students’

misconceptions. Participants in his study included 1,405 pupils in elementary school,

junior high school, senior high school, and college. Twenty-two different misconceptions

were noticed. He reported significant differences within and between grade levels using

chi-square tests. The parallel between the percentages of students’ misconceptions for

different grades and scientists’ ideas through history were presented in a graphic to show

the similarity. The conclusions from these findings were that the history of science could

be used to anticipate students’ misconceptions because of the similarity between

scientists’ ideas from the past and student alternative ideas. Younger students’

conceptions of photosynthesis are more similar to that of the earlier scientists’ concepts

as reported in historical accounts. Wandersee points out that “students’ conceptual

42 structures that are limited or inappropriate for further learning of modern science content often contain propositions that arose earlier in the history of science” (p. 594).The study did not investigate the instructional use of the similarity between student alternative ideas and scientists’ ideas from the past on student learning of science. The teaching context of a science lesson stressing this similarity can provide a meaningful context, which may help students learn science.

Seroglou et al. (1998) investigated the similarity between student alternative ideas and ideas of early scientists. The participants in the first part of their study were 13 -14 year-old students and 19-21 year-old student teachers. The findings from these participants based on in-depth interviews and questionnaires showed a similarity between participants’ alternative ideas and scientists’ ideas from the past related to and . In the second part, the history of science was used to help 10 new students to overcome their alternative ideas. Eight of 10 students changed their alternative views after the historical intervention. In the third part, they used another 10 students and used a different design to investigate the effectiveness of their treatment on student learning of concepts. They used the similarity between previous participants’ alternative ideas and scientists ideas to encourage student . Students first did tasks with no historical context and then they did tasks from Faraday’s experiment. An open-ended instrument was used for measuring student understanding of scientific concepts before and after the historical treatment. Their results were based on interviews and responses to the open-ended instrument. Their report consisted of the number of students and percentages of students. They did not describe how students were selected in the second and in the third part of the study. Even though their results claim that the use of the

43 history of science may help students overcome their alternative ideas, there were no

statistical controls or evidence indicating the effectiveness of historical treatments.

Nevertheless, the results of their study encourage further studies on the use of the history

of science in science teaching.

B. Becker (personal communication, May 18, 2001) and her study group worked

with a and developed 10-minute video dramatizations. One of the

purposes of the instructional modules, including videos prepared for teachers, was to

change students’ conceptions of the physical world. The activities in modules include

“(a) open-ended, hands- and -on student investigations; (b) creative and reflective reading and writing projects; (c) in-class , debates, and discussions; and (d) carefully articulated out-of-class activities” (Becker). These materials were tested with approximately 925 students taught by fifteen Training Teachers (TTs) who were provided with all the MindWorks materials as well as two of training in their use; nine Non-

Training Teachers ( NTs) who received all MindWorks materials without training; eleven

Comparison Teachers (CTs) taught as they usually did with no MindWorks materials.

Post tests were administered to investigate the effect of MindWorks materials on student understanding of scientific concepts related to falling bodies, structures, collisions, heat, light and color, electricity and magnetism, scale of solar system, and atoms and matter.

She reported that MindWorks students showed significantly substantially greater improvement than CT students in understanding scientific concepts related to light and color, electricity and magnetism, scale of the solar system, and atoms and matter. Overall performances for the treatment groups were also significantly higher than for the CT students. However for the concepts related to the falling bodies, which is more related to

44 the concepts taught in the current study, no significant differences were observed

between historical treatment groups and control groups. These results were

communicated by Becker in 2001. She stated that “basing science instruction on historic

episodes can open up opportunities for students to identify their own untutored beliefs about the working natural world …” (B. Becker, personal communication, May 18,

2001). She did not provide adequate information as to the theoretical basis of her study for identifying the relationships between the class contexts provided with MindWorks materials and student learning of science.

Warrick (2000) used the history of science in her class and measured student understanding with a concept-mapping technique both before and after the project. The project required students to explore the work of a variety of scientists during the -

long unit. She gave 15 scientific concepts to the students with instructions to link them.

She assigned 5 points per hierarchical level, 5 points for each link between branches, 2 points for each reference and correct connection to topics outside the immediate science

curriculum, and 5 points for each reference and correct connection to science in the real

world. However, she did not discuss the problems related to the reliability and validity of

the concept-mapping technique. Even though the method and data analysis of the study

were not discussed, this article is unique in the literature of the use of history of science

as it measures student learning with a concept-mapping technique. Moreover, Warrick

stated that students had clearer connections as revealed in the posttest than in the pretest.

Meaningful Class Context

There are three main ways to provide Meaningful Class context by historical

materials. The first one suggests that students’ ideas are similar to scientists’ ideas in the

45 past. of science and science educators note that there are similarities between scientists’ ideas throughout history and student prior knowledge, which arise from prior experiences from daily life or learning activities. For example, students have misconceptions about Earth’s place in the : Earth is at the center. This idea is similar to the old Greek philosophers’ ideas. If students were introduced to these ideas in the historical context, they may recognize their own misconceptions.

The second one, historical materials suggest that students’ conflicts are also similar to scientists’ conflicts. The idea of a “solid body floating in and the direct experiences of the fall of objects towards the ground” is similar to scientists’ conflicts (Bar, & Zinn, 1998, p.479). The history of science includes debates

between scientists to resolve their conflicts. The answers of the scientists raise other

questions for future scientists. As scientists are forced by in their experiences

and other scientists’ studies to develop new theories, similarly, students are more likely to

learn new concepts when they are dissatisfied with current conceptions. Teachers can use

discussion sessions similar to previous scientists’ debates to encourage students to be

involved in the lesson. Moreover, appreciation for discussing scientists’ ideas may

stimulate student interest. Doubt about scientific knowledge may affect students’ view of

the nature of science.

The third one, historical context suggests explanations, particularly in story form.

Stories constitute a powerful teaching tool as a cognitive organizer. The historical

information provides “context of development,” which is defined by Duschl et al. (1992)

as “the situation in which knowledge claims are created and initially developed” (p. 28).

Information related to the development of concepts and the connection of old ideas to

46 current ones becomes “developmental propositions” in this study. This context offers

answers to questions starting with how, why, or when, which is crucial for student

learning. These explanations can help students connect conceptual ideas; i.e., student propositional learning.

Students’ Views of the Nature of Science

Lederman and Abd-El Khalick, have conducted extended reviews (Bell, Abd-El-

Khalick, Lederman, McComas, & Matthews, 2001), and qualitative and quantitative studies for the following purposes (a) to reach consensus on the tenets of the nature of science (Lederman et al. , 2001), (b) to determine the effect of the use of history of science on students’ understanding of the nature of science (Abd-El-Khalick &

Lederman, 2000b); and (c) to help science teachers and undergraduate students change their views of the nature of science (Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Lederman, 1998; Abd-El-

Khalick & Lederman, 2000a).

Lederman et al. (2001) presented a review of their studies on the nature of science at the NARST (National Association of Research in Science Teaching) annual meeting.

In their paper they explained how they developed items and how they assessed students’ responses to these items in the forms of Views of the Nature of Science questionnaires

(VNOS-Form A, VNOS-Form B, VNOS Form C). Also, they posited tenets of the nature

of science on which science educators have consensus: (a) empirical, (b) subjectivity

(theory laden), (c) tentativeness, (d) partially based on human inference, imagination and creativity, (e) socially and culturally embedded, and (e) no single scientific method.

Lederman et al. provided examples from students’ answers to show how students’ views of the nature of science were assessed. These instruments were used to assess pre-service

47 science teachers, undergraduate students, and K-12 students’ views of the nature of science. They validated the instrument with follow-up interviews. Because the science curriculum depends on the content of the science lesson, grade level of students, and the context of the science class, science teachers should consider modifying the items before a study is conducted.

Duschl (1990, 1994) suggests that the historical development of conceptual scientific knowledge should be placed in the science curriculum. Scientists’ contributions to the development of a scientific idea may help students learn about the tentative nature of scientific knowledge. In the history of science, it can be seen that current scientific ideas replace older ones. Duschl (1990, 1994) describes the growth of scientific knowledge as cumulative and always changing. He used “final form science” to describe traditional science instruction, which presents current scientific theories without the development process. Science teachers should explain how scientific knowledge has been developed throughout history (Duschl, 1990). In his , he describes examples of frameworks to show how the tentative nature of science can be portrayed in a classroom context for each of the principle middle-level science disciplines: chemistry, , life science, and physics. For example he describes how to incorporate the history of the theory of periodicity of elements into a chemistry lesson. However, applications of these frameworks may be difficult due to the constraints of the science curriculum.

Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman (2000b) assessed the influence of history of science courses on college students' nature of science views. Their sample consisted of undergraduate students, graduate students, and prospective science teachers enrolled in

48 history of science classes. The courses covered the history of science with no science content being discussed. Professors sometimes informed students explicitly about aspects of the nature of science during lectures. They assessed students’ views of the nature of science with the VNOS instrument and conducted follow-up interviews with students and professors. The findings showed that the history of science had little influence on

students’ views of the nature of science. The change was attributed to the explicit

information about the nature of science provided by the professor during the lectures

rather than the history of science in the course.

Boujaoude (1995) used the history of science to show that science is tentative.

He asserted that the tentative nature of scientific knowledge can be understood by following the development of combustion theory through history. As scientists contradict each other, similarly student alternative ideas are in contradiction to the ideas in the learning materials. With the use of these contradictions, Boujaoude suggested creating discussion sessions in class. He emphasized that the history of burning theory can be used

to show students the tentative and evidence-based nature of science. However, he did not

report any measurement or analysis methods in his paper. Irwin (1997) also used the

history of combustion theory to provide students with an insight into the nature of science. Participants in his research were his students, ages 13 – 14 years. He introduced students to the early ideas of burning, informed students about the history of combustion theory, conducted original experiments, and did an experiment on burning. Open-ended questions were asked throughout the treatment and a questionnaire with 6 open-ended questions was administered at the end of the study. His findings were based on answers to these questions. He suggested that his instructional use of the history

49 of burning helped to develop better views of the nature of science and a more positive

image of science by his students.

Klopfer and Cooley (1961) developed history of science cases as teaching tools

for high school science classes. One hundred sixteen high school classes were randomly

assigned to either experimental group (59 classes) or control group (47classes). Klopfer

and Cooley developed eight case studies using the history of science for different topics

in different fields of science. These cases were used by the experimental groups while the

traditional curriculum was followed by the control groups. Eight case studies were

developed for different topics in different fields of science. Student understanding of the

, scientists, and the methods and aims of science were measured using

a Test on Understanding Science (TOUS). These topics are related to the nature of

science. The results show that the use of history of science cases had a significant effect

on student understanding of the scientific enterprise and the methods and the aims of

science. However, there are validity concerns related to the TOUS (The Center of

Advance Science Education [CASE], 2000). Standardized tests developed by the

Educational Testing Service were used to measure content knowledge. Even though the

use of history of science resulted in significant differences in some of the TOUS scores,

student achievement related to content knowledge did not show significant change.

Irwin (2000) used the history of science and measured student learning of science

and understanding of the nature of science. He developed two different curriculum lines

in two classes: one was a “historical theme group (HTG)” (n = 25 ) and the other was a

“final form group (FFG)” ( n = 25 ). The development of the concept of the and

periodic patterns in the atoms of the elements throughout history was introduced to 14-

50 year-old, middle-level students. Student learning of science was measured by two

different instruments before and after the treatment. However, pretest and posttest

instruments were not the same. After posttest, a questionnaire was given to measure

student understanding of the nature of science. Interviews were conducted with four

students from the historical theme group and three students from the final form group.

Based on interviews and qualitative analysis , he concluded that students in the historical

theme group (a) gained some understanding of the way in which scientific knowledge

grows, (b) appreciated the power of scientists’ imagination and creativity, and (c)

appreciated that scientific knowledge was not a static body of and principles. He

observed that student attitude was affected positively by the use of the historical perspective. Even though his findings about student attitude were based on observation, they are valuable for this study because he is one of the few teacher-researchers who have used historical information in science teaching. However, there was no substantial difference in the understanding of science content between his two groups of students.

“The results show that there is no difference in understanding of contemporary science

content between two groups despite my hope that historical perspective would lead to a

firmer grasp of concepts” (p. 5). This finding does not affirm the suggestion that the use of the history of science may have a positive effect on student learning of science

(Seroglou et al., 1998; Wandersee, 1985).

Solomon et al. (1992) conducted an action research study. Participants in their

study were students (age 11 – 14 years old) in five science classrooms located in three

schools in different in the . In each classroom, a researcher worked

alongside the teacher. The National Curriculum of and Wales was followed

51 including the use of historical contexts. Curriculum materials were prepared to emphasize

the nature of science. They administered a survey related to the understanding of the nature of science before and after the intervention. Interviews were conducted with students after the surveys were administered and along with the intervention. Information about reliability and validity of the survey was not provided in the paper. Results were based on a qualitative analysis of the interviews and a descriptive comparison of students’ responses and their frequency. Their results suggest that teaching the history of science within the normal school curriculum helps students’ understanding of the nature of science. The researchers suggest that “There is a significant away from serendipitous and toward an appreciation of the interactive nature of experiment and theory” (p. 418). The teachers involved in the study, pointed out that improvement in student learning of school science did not appear to be related to the use of history of science but that history of science may make the process of conceptual change easier.

Student Interest

Studies of the use of the history of science stress that it affects student interest in science and motivates students to learn science (Becker, 2000; Solomon et al., 1992;

Warrick, 2000). Although such teaching materials may arouse student interest within the classroom context, they may not help students understand concepts in science.

Considering motivational levels, individual interest is the highest level and is most effective in stimulating student learning (Schick & Schewedes, 1999).

For this study, two components of student interest are investigated: individual interest and situational interest. Because situational interest depends on the classroom

52 context and has a short-term effect, individual interest has a greater impact than situational interest on learning science content. This part of the literature discusses the effects of historical materials on student motivation and interest, and the studies on defining and evaluating student individual and situational interest.

Examples from the history of science can humanize the sciences (Matthews,

1994). Science lessons and especially physics lessons are often uninteresting for students.

One of the reasons for the unwillingness of students to enroll in science classes is that they think scientific knowledge only relates to the science laboratories, and therefore science content is decontextualized from daily life. Stories about science can provide historical information in a real-life context and humanize science and scientists.

Accordingly, students may come to believe that they may be able to do science.

Particularly, information about how scientists failed and made mistakes in their scientific research may change student attitude toward experiments in which they expect exact results, such as the cookbook-style experiments in today’s science lessons. Moreover, unexpected results and mistakes in science laboratories should be used to encourage students to do the experiments again instead of leading to frustration. From this researcher’s personal observations of high school physics laboratories, some students make up results instead of using their own data so that they can have the “correct” results, that can be obtained from textbooks, colleagues, and even the science teacher.

B. Becker (personal communication, May 18, 2001), after applying her teaching modules of history of science, emphasized that

Teachers reported that their students were genuinely moved by the very human qualities of the scientists portrayed in each video drama …. Scientists are people, tenaciously curious people of all kinds. They don’t always know what to do, or how best to do it. They don’t always communicate their ideas successfully

53 to others. They argue, collaborate, worry, laugh, and complain. (B. Becker, personal communication)

MindWorks materials were tested to investigate their effectiveness related to student attitude toward science. Training Teachers were provided with all the MindWorks materials as well as two weeks of training in their use; Non-Training Teachers received all the MindWorks materials used them without training, Comparison Teachers taught as they usually did with no MindWork materials. The Test of Science Related Attitude

(TOSRA) was used to investigate the change in student attitude. B. Becker (personal communication, May 18, 2001) mentioned that there were little difference between classes that used MindWorks and those that did not before the treatment began. Becker reported gain scores (pretest to posttest) for each treatment group. Comparison groups’ attitude toward science lessons and interest in science decreased significantly from pretest to posttest. There were no significant attitudinal changes for the two treatment groups in which teachers received MindWorks with training and without training.

Warrick (2000) used history of science in her science classroom as an extracurricular activity and observed how student interest was enhanced. She developed a project in which eighth-grade students researched famous ’ lives and inventions, and presented reports to the classroom. She asserted that student excitement increased because of the projects. “Students become so excited about planning their projects that they voluntarily stay after class to try an experiment or ask about certain (historical) materials they researched” (Warrick, p. 25). This conclusion is based on her observations during the activity.

Haussler and Hoffmann (2000) conducted three interlinked studies to develop new curriculum frameworks which stimulate student interest in physics and physics

54 lessons. This study was a longitudinal study of 8000 students conducted between the

years 1984 (at that time the students were about 11-years-old) and 1989 (students were about 16-years-old). Two important interest variables, student interest in physics and student interest in physics as a school subject, were analyzed with 88 items on a 5-point

Likert type scale. Inter-item variance was used to evaluate students’ responses on the content of the items. Regression of factors were compared. Students were

“fascinated by technical objects” or “natural phenomena.” This was the basis for their interest in physics. Student interest in physics as a school subject was influenced more by physics-related self-concept. Value-related beliefs and recognition of the importance of physics for their future played important roles in the stimulation of student interest.

Haussler and Hoffmann asserted that student interest was more closely related to context than content and teaching activities.

We concluded that the most promising way of making science instruction more interesting is embedding content in an interesting context. … Interest in physics is not so much influenced by a particular content or activity but rather by the context that a student is provided for studying physics. (p. 697)

Solbes and Vilches (1997) also proposed that content be taught in context to stimulate student interest. Solbes and Vilches conducted an experimental study to measure the effectiveness of textbooks with STS (Science-Technology-Society) interaction. For the purpose of the study, commonly-used textbooks were analyzed and teachers were surveyed to propose a curriculum frame with STS activities to stimulate student interest in physics and chemistry. They surveyed 212 students as a control group

and found that students were not interested in physics and chemistry because students’

images of science were far from the world we live in. Physics and chemistry teachers

were consulted in the program. Their proposals for new curriculum were evaluated and

55 new teaching materials were developed. These materials were used for two experimental

groups. Solbes and Vilches taught the first group and teachers interested in the project

taught the second group. Percentage values of students’ responses to the instrument were evaluated to observe the effectiveness of the new teaching materials with STS interactions. Results of the study reveal that new teaching materials with STS interaction positively affected students’ image of science and increased students’ interest in physics and chemistry. In the comments, Solbes and Vilches emphasized the contribution of historical and philosophical perspectives related to the content as a way to increase student interest in the course.

The history of science has the features of the context that Hausler and Hoffmann

(2000) suggest in their work. Features of this context and examples from history of science to support the idea of using the history of science in physics lessons are as follows:

1. Physics as a vehicle to promote practical competence: Edison’s inventions bring

tremendous changes in the students’ daily lives. After his entire cities

continued to be lit by electricity.

2. Physics as a socioeconomic enterprise: The necessity of the light bulb and the

use of it from the to the present.

3. Physics to enhance emotional experience: Emotional experiences of the invention

of the light bulb. The story of the invention can be given to students and they can

do the same experiments. Doing experiments already done by a famous scientist

may increase student interest and affect student attitude toward the science.

56 4. Physics as an intellectually challenging scientific enterprise: Edison’s

persistence in repeating the experiments hundreds of times even though he failed.

5. Physics as a vehicle to qualify for work world: The importance of invention of

the light bulb with examples from our daily life.

Individual Interest and Situational Interest

Student interest is defined as the interaction between a person and an object. In this definition, object does not refer only to objects in the classroom environment but also to ideas and activities. Students may engage in activities and ideas because (a) they might already be interested in the subject domain or (b) their interests are triggered by the learning activities during class sessions. These two potential reasons for student interest in the classroom refer to the definitions of two types of interest: individual and situational interest (Krapp et al., 1992).

Individual interest consists of the personal dispositions of students (Krapp et al.,

1992). It can be actualized with student interest before the teacher presents content knowledge. Student prior interest before involvement in class activities can be considered as student individual interest, which develops with human growth, and it is difficult to influence student individual interest in one class period. If students have individual interest they are intentionally pre-occupied with the subject matter. This type of interest can be observed while students are engaged in the first activity after they have been away from school for a long break.

Situational interest is stimulated by the settings of the environment. It is temporary in nature and it lasts only as long as the setting remains the same. Student prior interest plays an important role in developing student situational interest. Student prior

57 interest, which may arise from student individual interest or situational interest due to the previous learning activities, is comprised of two types of beliefs: value-related beliefs and emotional beliefs. Value-related beliefs relate to the importance and relevance of the subject matter for student self-identity. Value-related beliefs are students’ expectations for the class. If learning activities meet the positive expectations of students, their interest will increase and they will engage in the activity. For low-interest students, those with negative expectations, the subject matter should be introduced as worthwhile to learn.

The student should see that the content is important and relevant to their current status and to their future. The change in value-related beliefs is called the “hold” component of interest (Hidi & Baird, 1986; Mitchell 1993). The second type of belief, emotional belief, occurs when students enjoy their engagement with learning activities. This component is called the “catch” component of interest (Hidi & Baird; Mitchell). According to

Mitchell’s model of interest, the hold component has two sub-components, “meaningful” and “involvement”. He described the catch component as student interest in activities such as puzzles and games. In this study, the “story” component is an example of a catch component, as stories were not developed considering their relationship to the subject matter.

Measurement of Situational Interest

In this section, methods to assess students’ individual and situational interest have been explored. Qualitative (Schick & Schewedes, 1999) and quantitative (Mitchell, 1992,

1993, 1994) measurement techniques have been used.

Schick and Schewedes (1999) designed a qualitative study and defined individual and situational interest from interest-oriented actions (see Table 2.1) in the classroom. A

58 20-week physics course was given to eighth-grade students. A play-oriented approach

was used as a teaching strategy. “Play-oriented, means the pupils work on self-

elaborated questions, or independently, planned and carried out experiments based on

their own ideas and hypotheses” (p. 5). Video recordings during the lesson and personal

interviews were documented and transcribed. Three of the students’ verbal and non-

verbal behaviors were described in detail in the article to illustrate interest-oriented

actions. Their analysis of interest was based upon verbal and non-verbal statements and actions as described in Table 2.1.

VERBAL NON-VERBAL Most statements consider the task and topic Absolute concentration on the task and Statements express joy topic Statements concern the importance of the Only action and behavior which is task and actions necessary for the task and has a Statements that show deeper enquiry relation to the task Problem solving No reaction to disruption Statements that show that the individual Variation of the task wants to know more

Table 2.1: Indication analysis of behavior related to interest-oriented actions.

Their study provides examples of students displaying individual interest and situational interest. They reported the behavior of these students working in a group for a project. Interviews before the class sessions were used toevaluate student individual interest. During the session, the situational interest of students was evaluated by observing interest-oriented actions. After the session, students were interviewed again.

They observed how students’ individual interest was stimulated by the play-oriented

59 approach. It was observed that the student who had the highest individual interest before the session among the three students showed more interest during the session. The

student who had less individual interest and more situational interest before the session

tried to finish the experiments as quickly as possible, simply to be done.

Mitchell (1992, 1993, 1994) prepared an extensive literature review on interest

and learning, and based on his own definitions, developed an interest questionnaire to

measure elementary students’ individual and situational interest. He defined individual

interest as the interest a student brings to the classroom context, and situational interest as

student interest related to participating in a classroom context. He investigated the

distinction between individual and situational interest, the relationship between individual

interest and situational interest, and the measurability of the components of situational

interest (“catch” and “hold”). He defined the catch component of interest as a short-term

situational interest and the hold component of interest as long-term interest. He

characterized student interest in “group work,” “,” and “puzzles” as “catch”

components of situational interest. He characterized student interest in “involvement” and

“meaningful” as “hold” components of situational interest. Items in “involvement” ask

students about their feelings related to their participation in class. “Meaningful”

investigates whether students believe the content of a course is important or related to

their lives. His instrument had reliability coefficients of more than 0.70 for all

components of the interest survey. He used factor analysis, LISREL analysis, and other

correlation analyses to evaluate the data. He showed that his instrument differentiated the

distinction between individual and situational interest and measured the catch and hold

components of situational interest. In his paper, he did not stress the importance of

60 individual interest on student learning. He put more emphasis on student situational

interest from the class context. Meaningfulness and involvement are variables most

related to student situational interest.

History of Science Approaches to Teaching Science

Since 1950, a variety of ways have been used to incorporate history of science

into science teaching. Before the 1970s, science educators put the history of science into

the science curriculum in order to change students’ attitudes toward science lessons and

to help students better understand scientific methodology. Russell (1981) reviewed

studies on the use of history of science and justified the rationale. In particular, he discussed well-known endeavors of the integration of the history of science in the science curriculum: Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science (Conant, 1957), the

Harvard Project Physics Course (Holton et al., 1970), and Teachers’ Handbook

(Schwab, 1963). He discussed the failure of these studies to help students understand

science and the inconsistent results among the studies. In contrast to these studies,

Klopfer and Cooley (1961) developed history of science cases as teaching tools and

obtained positive results related to student understanding of science and scientists. Their

projects enriched instructional materials with historical information such as biographical

information, inventions of scientists, and the philosophy of some of the scientists. Irwin

(2000) also developed cases in the use of historical information; however, he did not

observe effects on student learning.

History of Science Cases

History of science cases as teaching tools were first developed by Klopfer and

Cooley (1961) for high school science classes. This was a significant study because other

61 studies on the use of history of science were at the college level or for prospective science

teachers. Eight case studies were developed for different topics in different fields of

science: in the field of biology, “the sexuality of plants,” “frogs and batteries,” and “the

cells of life”; in the field of chemistry, “the discovery of bromine” and “the chemistry of

fixed air”; and in the field of physics, “ Fraunhofer lines,” “the speed of light,” and “air

pressure”. Even though these history of science cases were considered as effective, there

are no follow-up studies developing history of science cases (The Center of Advance

Science Education [CASE], 2000). Russell (1981) emphasized Klopfer’s study in his review of the studies between the 1950s and the 1970s. “Klopfer’s excellent history of

science cases did not become incorporated into a conventional format, and are now out of

print” (Russell, p. 62). Irwin (2000) also developed historical cases for middle school

science lessons. He described how he taught to two groups of students: the

“Historical Theme Group” and the “Final Form Group” for four periods of class time.

The findings of his study were discussed in previous sections: “Student Learning of

Science Content” and “Students’ Views of the Nature of Science.”

Story Forms

Stinner and Williams (1993) and Roach and Wandersee (1995) used Egan’s story form to fit historical information into a class period. As shown in Table 2.2, Egan prepared a format for teachers who want to use stories in their lessons. In his book, Egan

(1989) proposed models for social studies, , English / language , and science. Roach and Wandersee focused more on “binary opposites” in their format, while

Stinner and Williams focused more on the “story line.”

62 The story form for using historical information in a science lesson can provide context to help students organize their cognitive structure (Egan, 1989; Lauritzen &

Jaeger, 1992, 1997) and connects ideas in the learning material (Carson, 1997). Egan stated that teachers could think of a science unit as a story to be told. Egan emphasized the effect of story form on student affective learning, which is important to science educators concerned about increasing student attention and interest in science lessons. He emphasizes the importance of “binary opposites” in learning because students learn meaning with opposites (Egan, 1985). In Egan’s sample unit on heat using the story form model, he states, “The most binary opposite is cold. Our identification of heat with power to improve life, however leads us towards an opposition such as heat as helper/heat as destroyer” (p. 98). Roach and Wandersee (1995) and Stinner (1995) also used binary opposites in Egan’s story form to create conflicts for students (see Table 2.2).

Roach and Wandersee (1995) introduced interactive historical vignettes that take

10 to 15 of class time, and enable science teachers to use science stories within the current curriculum. Moreover, Roach and Wandersee and Monk and Osborne (1997) propose that science teachers create their own vignettes (scientific stories). In this approach, there are two impetuses in using the history of science: the human appeal of the lives and inventions of scientists and the power of using stories.

63

Table 2.2: Egan (1989), Wandersee (1992), and Stinner and Williams (1993) story forms.

The life of a scientist and the creation of inventions, when used in the classroom in a story form, brings yet another difficulty for science teachers. Science teachers do not know how to create and use drama in their science lessons. They have not taken courses related to developing and telling stories as a part of science lessons. Moreover, science teachers know only a little about the development of scientific knowledge throughout history, and most have not taken courses that provide information about the history of science. Roach and Wandersee (1995) do not explain how to overcome these difficulties in creating and using stories in science lessons. They observe that science teachers find it

64 enjoyable to use interactive historical vignettes. However, in general, this does not

necessarily make them capable of creating and telling stories.

Stinner (1989, 1994, 1995, 1996) and his colleagues (Stinner et al.; Stinner &

Williams, 1993) suggest using the story-line approach to attract student attention and

engage their imagination. Stinner (1994) explains the story of force from Aristotle to

Einstein in a story-line. In the development of a scientific concept, scientists sometimes

reject the ideas of previous scientists and develop new ones. Sometimes they interpret

phenomena differently and extend or modify previous theories. This scientific process

goes on as concepts develop throughout history. Stages in the development of scientific

knowledge throughout history can be constructed as a story line (see Table 2.2). Stinner

and Williams asserted that the substance of discussions between scientists could help

science teachers engage in similar discussions with their students. Therefore, they focused on arguments between scientists rather than the development of scientific knowledge. Stinner and his research group at the University of Manitoba used student teachers and teachers in the science education department. Science teachers developed story lines in the Stinner story form, which is inspired by Egan’s story form as shown in

Table 2.2. In Stinnner’s papers (1989, 1994, 1995, 1996), he emphasized the importance of context in learning science and then he discussed the teaching context provided by historical information related to the content.

Stinner (1995) emphasized the importance of the grade level of students in the use f history of science. In the elementary school, science stories are based on student imagination, in middle school science stories they are based on history, and in high school years literature related to the content should be used to create a

65 teaching context. Stories of science should be developed for students in the early years

and middle years. It is difficult to use the historical context for science teachers at the

high school level because the students already know the “right” answer (Irwin, 2000;

Kuhn, 1962; Stinner, 1995). In his articles, Stinner et al. (2001) criticized the studies of

the use of story of science in science teaching; however, he did not provide any

information about how science teachers develop curriculum materials including historical

information nor how they should measure student interest and the learning of science

content. His remarks are based on science teachers’ reflections in his department.

MindWorks

MindWorks (B. Becker, personal communication, May 18, 2001) is one of the

comprehensive projects supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1994 to

develop instructional materials to use history of science in the science classroom. Eight

instructional modules were prepared with the following goals:

(a) to motivate students who have previously shown little interest in science; (b) to accomplish deep change in students’ internalized conceptions of the structure and working of the physical world; and (c) to build greater understanding, in both teachers and students, of the process and culture of scientific activity. (B. Becker, personal communication )

Becker and her study group teaching modules including videotapes related to the

history of science. Using pilot studies, they validated the appropriateness of these instructional materials in the science classroom. These materials were tested on (8th -10th

grade) students. While historical groups’ attitude did not change significantly, comparison groups’ attitude toward science lessons and toward career interest in science decreased significantly. Students in the historical treatment groups showed substantially greater improvement in understanding scientific concepts than the comparison group.

66 After the project, teacher attitude was ranked with a Likert scale survey with open-ended items. The results were given descriptively. It was reported that teachers’ attitudes toward

using MindWorks were positive (B. Becker, personal communication).

Summary

Reviewed literature shows mixed results on the effectiveness of the use of history

of science in science classrooms even though it has possible effects on such variables as

student science learning (B. Becker, personal communication, May 18, 2001; Seroglou et

al., 1998; Wandersee, 1985; Warrick, 2000); views of the nature of science (Boujaoude,

1995; Irwin, 1997, 2000; Klopfer and Cooley, 1961; Solomon et al., 1992); and interest

in science(Becker, personal communication, May 18, 2001). There is not enough research

reported in the literature to explain the relationships between these variables and how

pedagogical approaches overcome the classroom difficulties in applying the historical

materials. Klopfer and Cooley’s (1961) results suggest that these materials facilitate

student understanding of the scientific enterprise and aims and methods of science. Based

on these cases, curriculum frameworks were prepared to guide the science teacher in

using history of science.

Among a number of instructional approaches for using history of science, the

story form is used in this study (Wandersee, 1992). The teacher can generate discussion

sessions and the similarity between scientists’ ideas from the past and student alternative

ideas may help students to develop cognitive structures, propositions, and concepts in

their cognitive schema (Ausubel, 1968). Therefore, student cognitive structure may be

expanded with valid propositions (Shavelson, 1974). Students’ propositions can be

measured using the concept mapping technique (Novak, 1995). Valid propositions

67 generated by the students are an indication of better organization of ideas in their cognitive schema (Ruiz-Primo, 2000).

The use of historical information also may change students’ views of the nature of

science. The literature revealed that instructional materials used for changing students’

views of the nature of science may not have the same effect as those used for learning science content (Irwin, 2000; Solomon et al., 1992). Therefore, the relationship between understanding the nature of science and learning science should be investigated. In this study, the Perspective on Student Epistemology (POSE) instrument developed by Abd-

El-Khalick (2002) was used to measure student understanding of the nature of science.

The students’ scores from concept mapping (Meaningful Learning) and the nature of science instrument were investigated to identify the relationship between them.

The literature indicated that the history of science can stimulate student interest in science (B. Becker, personal communication, May 18, 2001). However, investigations are needed to determine whether the history of science is simply a collection of amazing stories that stimulate student situational interest or whether instructional materials stimulate individual interest that then can affect student learning. Student interest as measured by Mitchell’s (1992) Interest Survey was adapted for use in this study.

68

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

Introduction

In this chapter the sample and the population, the research design of the study, dependent and independent variables, the preparation of curriculum materials, and measurement techniques are described. The study is an experimental study. Three of the four classes were assigned to experimental groups, and one of them was assigned to the control group.

Population and Sample

Ninety-one students in grade 8 from a Central Ohio school district were the subjects of this study. While the school district was classified as an urban school district by the state, the students reflected a greater diversity, with the majority coming from

suburban and rural homes representing the mid- to low-socioeconomic status. The

students were randomly selected for each class prior to the beginning of the study. The

treatments were also randomly assigned to the classes.

Dependent and Independent Variables

In the study, the teaching strategy for the use of history of science is the

manipulated independent variable. This variable has four levels, including three

treatments and the control group. The first level of the manipulated independent variable

69 is the use of historical information for Meaningful Learning. The use of history of science

for changing students’ views of the nature of science is the second level of the

manipulated independent variable. The third level of the manipulated independent

variable is the use of history of science for stimulating student interest in science. The

fourth and final level of the manipulated independent variable is the regular or traditional

approach to the science curriculum.

There are three main categories of dependent variables: student Meaningful

Learning, student views of the nature of science, and student interest in science. The valid

propositions generated in the concept mapping activity represents student Meaningful

Learning. Student views of the nature of science are measured by the POSE (Perspectives

On Scientific Epistemology) survey which has four components: Scientific Method,

Inference, Tentativeness, and Subjectivity. Student interest in learning is measured by the

Interest Survey, which has five factors: Individual Interest, Situational Interest,

Involvement Component of Interest, Meaningful Component of Interest, and Story

Component of Interest.

Treatment

Before developing history of science cases for the four different teaching strategies, a science curriculum was developed based on the course of study in the school district. Considering the objectives of the lessons, appropriate historical information was found. The science teacher who had experience teaching the concepts of motion and force for eighth-grade students verified the appropriateness of all materials.

70 Motion Force –Frames of reference –(Free fall) –Units –Air resistance –Time – –Speed – –Distance –Terminal velocity –Velocity –(Impetus) –Displacement –, Newton’s First –Graphing –(Momentum) –Acceleration –Force, Newton’s Second Law – Newton’s Third Law

Table 3.1: The content knowledge taught through the study

Table 3.1 shows which concepts in the motion and force units were taught. The

concepts in parenthesis were added to the curriculum prepared for the Meaningful Class and NOS Class. For the force unit, free fall was put into the curriculum, because students’ pre-concepts are often similar to the ideas of ancient scientists. The concept of impetus was incorporated into the current curriculum because of the similarity between the students’ pre-concepts of force and the medieval idea of impetus. After the impetus concept, the momentum concept was introduced, then the force concept. The momentum concept was included becuase Isaac Newton described force with reference to change in momentum. After each class session, a table was prepared to compare the curriculums followed in each class context (see Appendix D). Table 3.2 is an example of one of these tables prepared for the concept of acceleration which was taught during motion unit.

71 Traditional Meaningful NOS Class Interest Class Class Class The way of Galileo' s experiment Discovery of producing (Position time) ‘Acceleration’ ‘acceleration’ ramps (Velocity Definition of Definition of

Distance) ‘Acceleration’ Acceleration Car ramps (Velocity Experiment Experiment Time) Galileo' s experiment First Inductive

(Position time graph) experiment approach Car Ramp (Calculation Analysis Analysis Analysis Analysis acceleration) The relationship Historical Velocity of between force and development of Falling Bodies acceleration (history) Falling Bodies The relationship Daily life Daily life between force and examples examples acceleration Galileo’s Life Stories Stories

0—10 (min) 10—20 (min) 20—30 (min) 30—40(min)

Table 3.2: An example of curriculum followed for the motion unit by class contexts

To develop the motion unit for the Meaningful Class, students’ pre-concepts of velocity and acceleration were explored along with their responses to the concept map and discussions in the classroom. Responses showed how they acceleration is

‘going fast’ or ‘is a big force’ rather than ‘change in velocity.’ Historical ideas of free fall were given to students and they were encouraged to discuss their ideas. Initially students were introduced to the idea “objects fall with a constant speed”. This sparked a discussion of whether the velocity of a falling objects changes or not. Aristotle’s ideas

72 and Strato’s sand experiments were discussed. Once students understood the difference

between constant and changing velocity, Galileo’s inclined experiment was

conducted to demonstrate the acceleration concept.

In the inclined-plane experiment, modeled directly from Galileo’s original

experiment, the students experienced the change in velocity of falling objects which was

referred to as acceleration. The teacher used opposing ideas of Galileo and Aristotle for

discussion sessions.

Galileo is one of the first experimenters and he developed theories about motion

which were opposite to the accepted ideas of Aristotle. Using this opposition, the teacher

purported to help students understand the empirical and tentative nature of scientific

knowledge in the NOS Class. The difference in discussion sessions between the

Meaningful Class and the NOS Class were questions asked by the teacher during the

sessions. In the Meaningful Class after explaining Aristotle’s and Galileo’s ideas, the

teacher asked whether heavier objects fall faster. Alternately, in the nature of science

context, the teacher compared Aristotle and Galileo’s scientific methods in explaining the

behavior of falling bodies, and then the teacher asked why Aristotle’s theory failed to

explain the behavior of falling body. This was intended to emphasize the tentative nature

of scientific knowledge.

Stories from famous scientists’ lives were used to help the science teacher provide the context for the Interest Class. Galileo’s relationships with his family and church leaders served as a humanizing factor. Galileo’s father was an artist and musician, and wanted his son to become a medical student. While at the University in Pisa, Galileo attended a philosophy class that discussed Aristotle’s ideas and led him to change his

73 focus on mechanics. With such stories, the history of science played a humanizing role

in the interest context of science teaching.

Measurement

At the beginning and at the end of the treatments, student Meaningful Learing in terms of propositional learning of science, interest in learning science, and views of the nature of science were assessed. Student propositional learning of science content was measured by concept mapping (see Appendix A). Student interest in science was assessed by an interest instrument (see Appendix C), which was developed by Matthew Mitchell

(1992). Students’ views of the nature of science were measured by using the instrument

POSE (see Appendix B) developed by Abd-El-Khalick (2002), which was derived from the Views of the Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS).

Concept Mapping

In this study, the non-hierarchical fill-in-the link concept-mapping technique was used to measure student Meaningful Learning. In this study, propositions were focused on more than other aspects of concept mapping. As such, the concepts and the hierarchical order of concepts were not scored. Only propositional knowledge was assessed in this study to represent Meaningful Learning.

The fill-in-the-map concept mapping is one of the non-hierarchical methods of concept mapping. The fill-in-the-map technique provides students with a group of concepts and/or linking words and leaves some of the concepts and some of the links blank. Students are asked to fill in the blanks in the map. There are two types of fill-in- the-map diagrams: fill-in-nodes and fill-in-links. Because the focus of the study is to measure student propositional learning, students were asked to fill in the blanks for

74 linking lines. The current study assessed student Meaningful Learning scores with the fill-in-links concept map instrument as given in the Appendix A. Validity of propositions was assessed with a system to rate the quality or validity of proposition categories as developed by Ruiz-Primo (2000) (see Table 3.3).

Students needed training to become familiar with the concept mapping technique.

Students learned elements of concept mapping by constructing concept maps related to their own family trees. It took one class period for them to learn the elements of concept maps: concepts and linking lines.

Quality of Proposition Descriptions Outstanding proposition. Complete and correct. It shows a Excellent - 4: deep understanding of the relation between the two concepts. “Weight is a force of gravity.” Complete and correct proposition. It shows a good Good - 3: understanding of the relation between the two concepts. “Weight is a force.” Correct but incomplete proposition. It shows partial Poor – 2: understanding of the relation between the two concepts. “If you put force it weights more.” Although accurate, the proposition does not show Don't Care - 1: understanding of the relationship between the two concepts. “The more weight the more force” Invalid propositions Invalid – 0 : “Force and weight are heavy things”

Table 3.3: Quality of proposition categories with examples

The content included concepts related to the motion and force units. The study was divided into two parts because these concepts and related historical information have different characteristics. The motion unit covered concepts of motion, observer, force,

75 distance, displacement, speed, average speed, instantaneous speed, velocity, average

velocity, and acceleration. The first concept map task asked students to write the

relationships among these concepts (k = 12 propositions). The force unit covered

concepts of motion, force, friction, inertia, gravity, weight, mass, acceleration, and action

and reaction . The second concept map task asked students to write the

relationships (links) among these concepts (k = 10 propositions). Results are presented in two different sections to reflect the data collected before and after each unit.

Propositions Alpha p Motion – Force 0.58 0.000 Motion – Observer 0.85 0.000 Motion – Displacement 0.64 0.000 Force – Acceleration 0.67 0.000 Displacement – Velocity 0.77 0.000 Displacement – Distance 0.79 0.000 Acceleration – Velocity 0.76 0.000 Distance – Speed 0.69 0.000 Velocity - Average Velocity 0.73 0.000 Velocity – Speed 0.76 0.000 Speed - Average Speed 0.73 0.000 Speed - Instantaneous Speed 0.81 0.000 Average 0.71

Table 3.4: Inter-rater reliability coefficients

Students’ responses to the concept mapping for the motion unit were

independently scored by the researcher and the science teacher using the quality of

76 proposition categories (see Table 3.3). The Pearson correlation coefficients for the ranking of the items were calculated. The inter-rater reliability of 0.71 was derived from

the average correlation of the raters’ results (Table 3.4). Pearson correlation values for inter-rater reliability varied from r = 0.54, to r =0.85.

Perspectives on Scientific Epistemology (POSE)

Students’ views of the nature of science were measured using Perspectives On

Scientific Epistemology (POSE) (see Appendix B), an instrument developed by Abd-El-

Khalick (2002), which was derived from the Views of the Nature Of Science

Questionnaire (VNOS). Khishfe and Abd-El-Khlaick (2002) applied the similar versions

of the POSE instrument to compare two classes of sixth graders’ views of the nature of

science after they were taught the nature of science explicitly and implicitly. They

reported 95% agreement between the two authors’ independent analyses. Based on

descriptive analyses of students’ responses, substantially more participants in the explicit

group articulated more informed views of the nature of science than in the implicit group.

In the current study, POSE was administered both before and after the treatment.

After the post- administration, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six

students randomly chosen from each class to clarify students’ responses to the open

response items in the POSE. Interviews took at most one for each student. The

interviews were used to evaluate each aspect of the nature of science. Each aspect of

student views of the nature of science were sorted into three categories: blank or Naïve

response as “1”; Intermediate as “2”, and Informed as “3”. Examples for each

of the nature of science are provided in Appendix E. Students’ views of Scientific

77 Method were evaluated as explained below. These scales show the degree of awareness of students as to how scientific knowledge is produced.

Naïve responses: If students indicated that they were aware of inductive methods, such as doing experiments, and observation they were graded as “1”. For example; “They do experiments and test everything to make sure before they use it” (0247).

Intermediate responses: If students indicated that they were aware of other ways to produce scientific knowledge, communication with other scientists, developing ideas, using mathematics rather than experimenting, and observing, they were graded as “2”.

For example; “Scientists produce scientific knowledge making a model of something to show some facts and theories” (0522).

Informed responses: If students indicated that they were aware of inductive and inductive scientific methods to produce scientific knowledge, they were graded as “3”.

For example; “Scientist produce their scientific knowledge by experimenting, observing, using math, or by using someone elses information. Then they would go to board meeting and share their information. But these days they just put it on the internet” (2939).

Students’ responses to the POSE instrument were scored by the researcher and the science teacher. Kendall’s Tau coefficients were computed to determine the consistency of the rankings from these scores. Significant correlation coefficients between the rankings were obtained for students’ views on Scientific Method, Kendall’s Tau = 0.50, p=0.000; Tentativeness, Kendall’s Tau = 0.67, p=0.000), and Inference (Kendall’s Tau =

0.58, p=0.000). The agreement between the two raters was low. Further examination of these differences revealed that the science teacher ranked students’ responses lower than the author. The researcher tended to expect higher perceptions of scientific method than

78 did the teacher. The correlation between the two rankings of students’ views on the

Subjectivity was not significant and unacceptably low (Kendall’s Tau = 0.07, p>0.05).

For this scale, raters evaluated whether students were aware that different results for scientific research was potentially due to the different minds of scientists. Students responded as “They are people, they think different,”, or “Scientists think differently.”

Often students did not support their answers with further . Ranking such responses was very subjective therefore inter-rater reliability is low.

Interest Survey

The student interest instrument, developed by Mitchell (1992), was modified for use in this study. The original instrument was used to survey 350 high school students in

Santa Barbara, California. It was designed to measure high school students’ interest in mathematics, general levels of student Individual and Situational Interest, and five components related to interest: Meaningful, Involvement, Computers, Groups, and

Puzzles. Meaningful relates to whether students believe the content of a course is important or related to their lives. Involvement Component of interest scales asks student about their feelings related to their participation in class. Three components of the instrument; Computers, Groups, and Puzzles, were not included in the adapted instrument, since they were not deemed significant for this study. Instead, a Story

Component of Interest was added to the survey. This assessment asked students about their feelings related to stories told in the class. There were four items to measure student

Individual Interest (i.e., science is enjoyable to me), six items for Situational Interest(i.e., our class is fun), six items for the Involvement Component of Interest of students in the class (i.e., we learn the material ourselves instead of being lectured to), three items for the

79 Meaningful Component of Interest (i.e., The stuff we learn in this class will never be used

in real life), and five items for the Story Component of Interest (i.e., stories are more

interesting than text materials). There were 25 items on a six-point Likert scale from 1

(Strongly Agree) to 6 (Strongly Disagree). Based on pilot study findings, one item in the

Meaningful Component of Interest scale was removed in order to increase the internal consistency of the measure.

Pretest Midtest Posttest

Variable k n Alpha k n Alpha k n Alpha

Individual Interest 4 92 0.84 4 88 0.83 4 89 0.89 Situational Interest 6 84 0.85 6 83 0.88 6 84 0.91 Involvement Component 6 89 0.68 6 86 0.72 6 88 0.83 of Interest Meaningful Component 3 88 0.70 3 90 0.72 3 88 0.85 of Interest Story Component of 5 89 0.70 5 88 0.73 5 85 0.77 Interest Note: k=number of items; n=sample size

Table 3.5: Internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's Alpha) of scales in interest survey

Video Recordings

Four classes (three experimental groups and one control group) were video taped.

the video recorder was focused on teacher practices. The data were used to describe

examples of the teacher’s use of the history of science, and difficulties in the use of the

history of science in science teaching.

80 Timeline

1. First week: Assignment of students to experimental and control groups

2. Second week: (Pretest) Concept map training (20 minutes), filling out

concept maps (20 minutes), Interest Instrument (15 minutes), POSE

instrument (45 minutes)

3. Third week. Subject content: motion, velocity, distance. Historical

information: Aristotle’ definition of motion

4. Fourth week: Subject content: Acceleration. Historical information:

Galileo’s inclined plane

5. Fifth week: Subject content: Gravitation. Historical information:

Galileo’s free-fall experiment

6. Sixth week: Subject content: Newton’s first law. Historical

information: Aristotle’s failure to explain motion without force.

7. Seventh week: Subject content: Newton’s second law. Historical

information: The development of force concept throughout history

8. Eighth week: Subject content: Newton’s third law. Historical

information: Newton’s definition of ‘action’ and ‘reaction’

9. Ninth week: (Posttest) filling out concept maps (20 minutes), Interest

Instrument (15 minutes), POSE instrument (45 minutes).

Analysis

Sources of data included students’ demographic characteristics (i.e., gender, age

IQ level, pre-grades) and students’ responses to the concept mapping tasks, POSE, and the interest survey. The Statistical Package for (SPSS 11.5) and Microsoft

81 Excel 2000 were used to run the analyses. An alpha level of 0.05 was used to test for

significant differences. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to

investigate differences among four treatment groups of students at the beginning of the

study. Significant difference between classes on the variables of IQ, pre-grades, students’

prior knowledge of motion and force, views of nature of science, and components of prior

interest were investigated.

Analysis of Meaningful Learning Data

Students’ responses to concept mapping were scored from 0, “invalid proposition” to 4, “valid proposition”. Their scores for each proposition in the concept map were added, and each student’s cumulative score was computed as their total

Meaningful Learning (concept map) score. Student scores varied from 1 to 74 for the motion unit and from 6 to 84 for the force unit. The changes of class means from pretest to posttest were compared using ANOVA with repeated measures followed by appropriate post-hoc analyses.

Analysis of NOS Data

Students’ responses to the survey were scored as Naïve, Intermediate, and

Informed for four aspects of nature of science: (a) Scientific Method, (b) Tentativeness,

(c) Inference, and (d) Subjectivity. Percentages of Naïve, Intermediate, and Informed students were computed in each class at three points (pretest, midtest, posttest) throughout the duration of the study.

The changes of students’ views of nature of science between the pretest and posttest scores were analyzed across both units of the study (motion unit and force unit) instead of considering them separately. Students who changed their views positively

82 (from Naïve to Intermediate, from Naïve to Informed, or from Intermediate to Informed)

were categorized as “positive”. Students who didn’t change their views were categorized

as “no change”. Students who changed their views negatively (from Informed to

Intermediate, from Informed to Naïve, or from Intermediate to Naïve) were categorized as “negative”.

The students who were ranked Naïve and Intermediate were included in the

number who could change positively and those students who were ranked Intermediate

and Informed were included in the number who could change negatively. The significant

differences between class proportions of positive and negative changes were computed

(Ferguson, 1966).The proportion of the number of students who changed their

perceptions of the nature of science positively (from Naïve to Intermediate, from Naïve to

Informed, or from Intermediate to Informed) and negatively (from Informed to

Intermediate, from Informed to Naïve, or from Intermediate to Naïve) to the number of

students who could change their views positively and negatively as identified at the

beginning of the study were computed.

Analysis of Interest Data

There were missing data in the interest survey as some students skipped some

items (percentage of responses replaced by class means = 0.5%). Each factor in the

interest measurement has three to six items. The mean of the items within the specific

scale were calculated and used to replace the missing item responses for that item for that

scale. This method is referred to as “cell mean imputation” (Lohr, 1999).

A Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures was followed up using post hoc

analysis to investigate differences in components of student interest between and among

83 groups. The main effects of Trial and Class and the interaction effects of Trial by Class were observed. The change in Class means of these values have been shown in the graphs.

84

CHAPTER 4

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

This chapter presents the results of the study on the effects of using the history of

science on student learning of science, understanding of the nature of science, and

interest in science. The results of the analyses of the data are from 95 respondents in

grade 8 from a middle school in an urban Central-Ohio school district.

Demographic Information

Table 4.1 represents the students’ background data for gender, age, IQ scores, and

cumulative scores of grades prior to this study. It can be observed that the total number of female students was greater than male students for each class. The gender proportions ranged from 35% male and 53% female to 47% male and 65% female.

Information on the age of the students were collected as a ‘fill-in’ question with the POSE survey. The ages of the students were 13 or 14. It can be observed that the majority of all classes were 13 year-old students ranging from as low as 65% in the

Traditional Class as to as high as 84% in the Interest Class.

85 Class Description Categories Meaningful NOS Interest Traditional Gender Male 7 (35%) 6(38%) 9(47%) 7(35%) Female 13 (65%) 10(62%) 10(53%) 13(65%)

Age 13 15 (75%) 12 (75%) 16 (84%) 13 (65%) 14 5 (25%) 4 (25%) 3 (16%) 7 (35%) IQ Level 0 -74 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 2 (10%) 0 (0%) 75 – 99 8 (40%) 5 (31%) 11 (58%) 7 (35%) 100 - 10 (50%) 7 (44%) 5 (27%) 9 (45%) Missing 2 (10%) 4 (25%) 1 (5%) 4 (20%) Pre-Grades 0 – 99 1 (5%) 2 (12%) 2 (11%) 0 (0%) 100 – 149 2 (10%) 2 (12%) 5 (26%) 6 (30%) 150 – 199 14 (70%) 7 (44%) 9 (47%) 10 (50%) 200 – 250 2 (10%) 4 (26%) 3 (16%) 4 (20%) Missing 1 (5%) 1 (6%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Table 4.1: Distribution of student background variables by Class

Even though students were randomly assigned to the four classes, there were some deviations from this random assignment process which may have had some undetermined influences on the results of this study. During the study some students withdrew from school while other new students were enrolled in the classes. Therefore student background variables: IQ scores; pre-grades; and pretest scores for Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores, perceptions of the nature of science, interest, and interest component scores were used to investigate pre-existing differences among the four classes.

86

Classes Meaningful NOS Interest Traditional

n M SD n M SD n M SD n M SD

IQ Scores 18 101.6 16.0 12 101.7 13.1 18 91.2 12.3 16 100.9 13.3

Pre-grades 19 166.9 43.1 15 169.5 39.6 19 154.3 41.2 20 170.4 35.6 Pre-Meaningful Learning (Concept Map) Scores 20 6.8 5.6 16 3.7 2.4 19 5.2 3.2 20 5.6 3.8 Nature of Science

Scientific Method 20 1.8 0.6 16 1.6 0.6 19 1.8 0.6 20 2.1 0.9

Tentativeness 20 2.1 0.5 16 1.9 0.6 19 1.7 0.4 20 2.0 0.6

Inference 20 2.2 0.7 16 2.1 0.7 19 1.7 0.6 20 2.0 0.7

Subjectivity 20 2.3 0.8 16 1.9 0.8 19 2.4 0.8 20 2.2 0.8

Interest Individual 20 14.1 4.6 16 14.9 4.9 19 15.4 3.8 20 13.6 5.3

Situational 20 25.4 6.4 16 24.7 5.5 19 26.0 5.6 20 25.2 5.6

Interest Components Involvement 20 25.0 5.1 16 23.9 4.3 19 25.6 4.5 20 27.1 4.8

Meaningful 20 13.0 3.1 16 14.3 2.9 19 13.9 2.5 20 13.8 3.2

Story 20 20.8 3.8 16 21.8 4.1 19 20.9 3.5 20 20.6 4.4

Table 4.2: Mean scores and standard deviations of student background variables by Class

87

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1.IQ

2.Pre-grades r 0.37* p 0.003 n 64 3 Pre- r 0.40* 0.36* Meaningful p 0.001 0.002 Learning n 64 73 (Concept Map) Scores 4 Pre Scientific r 0.23 0.22 0.28* Method p 0.073 0.061 0.014 n 64 73 75 5 Pre r 0.31* 0.23 0.07 0.12 Tentativeness p 0.012 0.052 0.568 0.288 n 64 73 75 75 6 Pre Inference r 0.18 0.11 0.26* 0.19 0.14 p 0.163 0.365 0.022 0.109 0.244 n 64 73 75 75 75 7 Pre r -0.06 0.14 0.04 -0.10 0.08 0.24* Subjectivity p 0.615 0.249 0.719 0.397 0.507 0.035 n 64 73 75 75 75 75 8 Pre Individual r 0.31* 0.34* 0.17 -0.13 -0.10 -0.18 -0.21 Interest p 0.012 0.003 0.137 0.280 0.380 0.116 0.069 n 64 73 75 75 75 75 75 9 Pre Situational r 0.42* 0.37* 0.21 -0.08 0.09 -0.19 -0.07 0.80* Interest p 0.001 0.001 0.072 0.517 0.444 0.102 0.563 0.000 n 64 73 75 75 75 75 75 75 10 Pre r 0.37* 0.37* 0.21 0.13 0.02 -0.06 0.10 0.53* 0.66* Involvement p 0.003 0.001 0.064 0.278 0.882 0.595 0.386 0.000 0.000 Component n 64 73 75 75 75 75 75 75 75 11 Pre r 0.33* 0.31* 0.33* -0.02 0.07 0.16 0.09 0.55* 0.55* 0.52* Meaningful p 0.008 0.007 0.004 0.882 0.562 0.166 0.439 0.000 0.000 0.000 Component n 64 73 75 75 75 75 75 75 75 75 12 Pre Story r 0.23 0.21 0.18 -0.09 0.08 0.02 -0.10 0.38* 0.45* 0.25* 0.44* Component p 0.072 0.082 0.120 0.429 0.493 0.836 0.397 0.001 0.000 0.028 0.000 n 64 73 75 75 75 75 75 75 75 75 75

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Table 4.3: Correlation matrix across student background variables

88 Mean scores and standard deviations of student background variables, IQ level,

Pre-grades, Pre-Meaningful Learning (Concept Map) scores, Nature of Science

(Scientific Method, Tentativeness, Inference, and Subjectivity), and Interest (Individual and Situational), Interest Components (Involvement, Meaningful, and Story) are given in

Table 4.2. Substantial differences among the four classes were observed in student IQ scores. Students in the Interest Class appear to have somewhat lower IQ scores than

students in the other classes.

Table 4.3 presents a correlation matrix identifying the relationships between

student background variables. It can be seen that student IQ scores were correlated

significantly positive with student pre-grades, Meaningful Learning (concept map) pretest

scores, and perceptions of Tentativeness. Both student IQ scores and pre-grades were

correlated with all interest scales scores except Story Component of Interest. There were

no significant correlations between student pre-grade scores of previous achievement and

perceptions of the nature of science. Student Meaningful Learning (concept map) pretest

scores significantly and positively correlated with student perceptions of Scientific

Method and Inference. Students with prior knowledge about concepts of the motion unit

had better perspectives of Scientific Method and Inference. However, student perceptions

of Inference were the only variable related to the perceptions of Subjectivity. All of the

interest scales were significantly and positively correlated with each other. Other perceptions of the nature of science were not related to each other.Student pre-grades were significantly correlated with student Meaningful Learning (concept map) pretest

scores and all interest scales except Story Component of Interest.

89

Source SS df ms F P

IQ Scores 1353.06 3 451.02 2.37 0.080 Pre-grades 3557.02 3 1185.67 0.77 0.515 Pre- Meaningful Learning (Concept Map) Scores 73.28 3 24.43 1.50 0.223 Nature of Science Scientific Method 2.28 3 0.76 1.59 0.223 Tentativeness 0.95 3 0.32 0.95 0.420 Inference 2.21 3 0.74 1.43 0.242 Subjectivity 0.89 3 0.30 0.49 0.688 Interest Individual 42.94 3 14.31 0.64 0.591 Situational 29.98 3 9.99 0.30 0.825

Interest Components Involvement 136.31 3 45.44 2.06 0.115 Meaningful 3.43 3 1.14 0.12 0.946 Story 46.38 3 15.46 1.06 0.374

Wilk’s Λ for Class F(36,145.50) = 1.45 p = 0.065 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.4: MANOVA of student pre-study characteristics: IQ scores; pre- Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores on motion; and prior perceptions of nature of science;

interest, and interest components by Class

90 Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to detect differences between classes for background variables (see Table 4.4). Wilk’s Λ (1.45) for the class effect (p = 0.065), indicated no significant difference at p ≤ 0.05 between classes. The univariate ANOVA, used as a follow up, indicated that there were no significant univariate differences between classes for the variables observed (see Table

4.4). Near significant class effects for IQ scores (p = 0.080) should be noticed. These initial effects may have important implications for the interpretation of the results of this research.

Student Meaningful Learning of Science

Student Meaningful Learning of science was measured using concept mapping before and after the motion and force units. The nature of concepts in these two units was different because the concepts of the force unit were more abstract than that of the motion unit (see Table 3.1). Because of this there were two phases in the analysis of student

Meaningful Learning from responses to the concept mapping tasks. These phases of the study are reported separately.

Motion Unit

Mean scores of Meaningful Learning (concept map) pretest and posttest scores for each class for the motion unit are given in Table 4.5. Table 4.6 presents the summary of

ANOVA with repeated measures, which shows that student Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores across all classes changed significantly by the end of the motion unit, F(1,71) = 141.99; p = 0.000 . It can be seen in Figure 4.1 that students in all classes had higher Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores at the end of the motion unit.

There were no differential changes from pretest to posttest Meaningful Learning (concept

91 map) scores by Class, F(3,71) = 1.28, p = 0.288. Historical learning materials related to

students’ alternative ideas did not reveal a significantly different effect on student

learning than the other approaches as measured by the for Meaningful Learning (concept

map) for the motion unit.

Trial Pretest Posttest Meaningful Learning (Concept Map) Scores (Motion) n M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 6.8 5.6 20 25.3 17.7 18.5 5.97 0.000 NOS Class 16 3.7 2.4 16 16.4 10.4 12.7 5.33 0.000 Interest Class 19 5.2 3.2 19 19.2 9.4 14.0 7.31 0.000 Traditional Class 20 5.6 3.8 20 18.6 11.2 13.0 6.32 0.000 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.5: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences

of Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit

92

Source df Ms F P

Trial (Meaningful Learning 1 7896.89 141.99** 0.000 [Concept Map] Scores) Class (Treatment) 3 232.36 1.88 0.140 Trial X Class 3 71.16 1.28 0.288 Within Group Error 71 55.61 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.6: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for the motion unit

30

25

20

15 Class Means 10

5

0 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.1: The change in student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by Class

93

Force Unit

Mean scores of student Meaningful Learning (concept map) pretest and posttest

scores for the force unit are given in Table 4.7. Table 4.8 presents a summary of ANOVA

with repeated measures, which showed that student Meaningful Learning (concept map)

scores across all classes changed significantly by the end of the force unit, F (1,71) =

201.86, p = 0.000. Changes from pretest to posttest were near significant by Class,

F(3,71) = 2.22, p = 0.093. It can be seen in Figure 4.2, that pretest Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores of the Meaningful Class were nearly identical to or lower than that

of the Traditional Class. The posttest Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores of the

Meaningful Class were somewhat better than those of the other classes for the force unit.

It should be noted that the greatest difference in increased Meaningful Learning (concept

map) scores is between the Meaningful Class (MDiff = 23.0) and Traditional Class (MDiff =

14.4).

94 Trial Meaningful Learning Pretest Posttest (Concept Map) Scores (Force) n M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 10.6 7.6 20 33.6 18.2 23.0 8.41 0.000 NOS Class 16 10.4 6.0 16 27.1 14.6 16.7 5.19 0.000 Interest Class 19 10.6 6.5 19 30.3 12.8 19.7 7.99 0.000 Traditional Class 20 11.3 6.5 20 25.7 12.7 14.4 7.27 0.000 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.7: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences

of Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the force unit

Source df ms F p

Trial (Meaningful Learning [Concept map] Scores) 1 12630.65 201.86** 0.000 Class (Treatment) 3 107.56 0.536 0.659 Trial X Class 3 139.23 2.22 0.093 Within Group Error 71 62.57 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.8: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for the force unit

95 40

35

30

25

20

Class Means Class 15

10

5

0 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.2: The change in student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by Class

Students’ Views of Nature of Science

Students’ answers to the POSE were scored as 1 = Naïve; 2 = Intermediate; 3 =

Informed. Table 4.9 displays the percentage scores of Naïve, Intermediate, and Informed students for pretest, midtest, and posttest measures by Class. The pretest was given before the motion unit. The midtest was given after the motion unit and before the force unit.

The posttest was given after the force unit. Since students’ views of the nature of science need a long time to change (Irwin, 2000; Schwartz & Lederman, 2000), the changes of

96 students’ views of nature of science between the pretest and posttest scores were analyzed across both phases of the study (motion unit and force unit) instead of considering them separately.

Students who changed their views positively (from Naïve to Intermediate, from

Naïve to Informed, or from Intermediate to Informed) were categorized as “positive.”

Students who didn’t change their views were categorized as “no change.” Students who changed their views negatively (from Informed to Intermediate, from Informed to Naïve, or from Intermediate to Naïve) were categorized as “negative.”

97 Class Meaningful NOS Interest Traditional (n = 20) (n = 16 ) (n = 19) (n = 20 ) (Percentage) Percentage Percentage Percentage Aspects aN T I N T I N T I N T I

Scientific Method Pretest 30 60 10 44 50 6 26 63 11 30 25 45 Midtest 30 50 20 31 50 19 16 53 31 35 35 30 Posttest 5 45 50 6 56 38 11 42 47 25 55 20

Tentativeness Pretest 10 70 20 19 69 12 27 73 0 15 65 20 Midtest 15 15 30 6 81 13 21 58 21 15 70 15 Posttest 10 35 55 0 44 56 10 74 16 5 50 45

Inference Pretest 20 45 35 19 56 25 37 53 10 25 50 25 Midtest 15 50 35 13 50 37 21 47 32 35 30 30 Posttest 25 35 40 6 13 81 10 32 58 25 60 15

Subjectivity Pretest 25 25 50 37 37 26 16 32 52 20 40 40 Midtest 25 15 60 19 44 37 10 37 53 20 30 50 Posttest 20 30 50 12 19 69 10 37 53 20 30 50

aN: Naïve ; T: Intermediate; I: Informed

Table 4.9: Pretest, midtest, and posttest percentages of Naïve, Intermediate, and Informed students about perceptions of nature of science by Class

98 Scientific Method

Student views of Scientific Method based on responses were evaluated and placed

into one of three categories: Naïve, Intermediate, and Informed. Some students had no

idea about how scientists produce scientific knowledge. These responses were evaluated

as “Naïve.” Students, who identified one aspect of the scientific method, such as

experimenting, observing, or developing new ideas were evaluated as “Intermediate.”

Students who demonstrated understanding of the existence of more than one aspect of the scientific method were evaluated as “Informed.”

As can be seen in Table 4.9, the that 45% of the Traditional Class started at

the Informed level and 11% or less of the other classes were at this level should be

considered when interpreting these results. This means that there were fewer in the

Traditional Class who could increase and more who could decrease than in the other

classes.

Table 4.10 presents proportions of the number of students who changed their

perception of Scientific Method positively (from Naïve to Intermediate, from Naïve to

Informed, or from Intermediate to Informed) and negatively (from Informed to

Intermediate, from Informed to Naïve, or from Intermediate to Naïve) to the number of

students could change their views positively and negatively as determined at the

beginning of the study. Those students who were ranked Naïve and Intermediate were

included in the number who could change positively and those students who were ranked

Intermediate and Informed were included in the number who could change negatively.

99

Class Proportions z p a(1) b(2) a(1) b(2)

Proportions of Positive Changes Meaningful NOS 0.61 0.53 0.45 0.653 Interest 0.610.65 -0.22 0.826 Traditional 0.61 0.45 0.82 0.412 NOS Interest 0.530.65 -0.66 0.509 Traditional 0.53 0.45 0.40 0.689 Interest Traditional 0.65 0.45 1.00 0.317

Proportions of Negative Changes Meaningful NOS 0.00 0.00 - 1.000 Interest 0.000.15 -1.47 0.147 Traditional 0.00 0.50 -3.06* 0.002 NOS Interest 0.000.15 -1.19 0.234 Traditional 0.00 0.50 -2.54* 0.011 Interest Traditional 0.15 0.50 -2.02* 0.043

Note. * p < 0.05. a number ‘1’ represents the first column of ‘Class’ b number ‘2’ represents the second column of ‘Class’

Table 4.10: The differences between classes in the proportion of students who changed their views of Scientific Method

The significant differences between classes proportions which changed their views of Scientific Method were computed as can be seen in Table 4.10 (Ferguson,

1966). The proportion of students who changed their views positively were not

100 significantly different between classes. The proportion of students who changed their views negatively in the Traditional Class was greater than each of the other classes; the

Meaningful Class (z = -3.06, p = 0.002), the NOS Class ( z = -2.54, p = 0.011), and

Interest Class ( z = -2.02, p = 0.043).

Tentativeness

Student views of Tentativeness based on responses were evaluated and placed into one of three categories: Naïve, Intermediate, and Informed. Some students responses indicated that scientific knowledge does not change, or since everything changes therefore scientific knowledge changes. These responses were evaluated as “Naïve.”

Students, who believed that scientific knowledge changes because of new discoveries, better ideas, or different people, were evaluated as “Intermediate.” Students who believed that some scientific ideas can be wrong and be replaced were evaluated as “Informed.” A few students were aware of mostly durable scientific knowledge.

Table 4.11 presents proportions of the number of students who changed their perception of Tentativeness positively (from Naïve to Intermediate, from Naïve to

Informed, or from Intermediate to Informed) and negatively (from Informed to

Intermediate, from Informed to Naïve, or from Intermediate to Naïve) to the number of students who could change their views positively and negatively as determined at the beginning of the study. Those students who were ranked Naïve and Intermediate were included in the number who could change positively and those students who were ranked

Intermediate and Informed were included in the number who could change negatively.

The significant differences between classes proportions were computed as can be seen in

101 Table 4.11.The proportion of students who changed their views of Tentativeness positively or negatively were not significantly different between classes.

Class Proportions z p a(1) b(2) a(1) b(2)

Proportions of Positive Changes Meaningful NOS 0.50 0.65 -0.79 0.429 Interest 0.50 0.32 1.11 0.267 Traditional 0.500.56 -0.35 0.726 NOS Interest 0.65 0.32 1.86 0.063 Traditional 0.650.56 0.45 0.653 Interest Traditional 0.320.56 -1.47 0.141

Proportions of Negative Changes Meaningful NOS 0.17 0.00 1.55 0.121 Interest 0.17 0.07 0.81 0.418 Traditional 0.170.18 -0.07 0.944 NOS Interest 0.00 0.07 -0.98 0.327 Traditional 0.000.18 -1.60 0.110 Interest Traditional 0.070.18 -0.87 0.384

Note. * p < 0.05. a number ‘1’ represents the first column of ‘Class’ b number ‘2’ represents the second column of ‘Class’

Table 4.11: The differences between classes in the proportion of students who changed their views of Tentativeness

102 Inference

Students’ perspectives on Inference in scientific knowledge were evaluated as

Naïve, Intermediate, and Informed. Students in the Naïve category had no idea on either the role of observation or Inference in production of scientific knowledge. Students who were aware of only observations and experimenting in the production of scientific knowledge were considered as Intermediate level. Students, who were aware that scientists infer based upon their observations and experimenting were categorized as

Informed students.

As it can be seen in Table 4.9, 35% of the Meaningful Class started at the

Informed level. This means that there were somewhat fewer who could increase and more who could decrease than other groups. Table 4.12 presents proportions of the number of students who changed their perception of Inference positively (from Naïve to

Intermediate, from Naïve to Informed, or from Intermediate to Informed) and negatively

(from Informed to Intermediate, from Informed to Naïve, or from Intermediate to Naïve) to the number of students who could change their views positively and negatively as determined at the beginning of the study. Those students who were ranked Naïve and

Intermediate were included in the number who could change positively and those students who were ranked Intermediate and Informed were included in the number who could change negatively.

103

Aspects of NOS Class Proportions z p a(1) b(2) a(1) b(2)

Proportions of Positive Changes Meaningful NOS 0.23 0.83 -3.01* 0.003 Interest 0.23 0.65 -2.26* 0.024 Traditional 0.230.20 0.20 0.841 NOS Interest 0.83 0.65 1.10 0.271 Traditional 0.830.44 3.27* 0.001 Interest Traditional 0.650.44 2.54* 0.011

Proportions of Negative Changes Meaningful NOS 0.23 0.08 1.00 0.317 Interest 0.23 0.06 1.37 0.171 Traditional 0.230.33 -0.60 0.548 NOS Interest 0.08 0.06 0.26 0.795 Traditional 0.080.33 -1.55 0.121 Interest Traditional 0.060.33 -1.98* 0.048

Note. * p < 0.05. a number ‘1’ represents the first column of ‘Class’ b number ‘2’ represents the second column of ‘Class’

Table 4.12: The differences between classes in the proportion of students who changed their views of Inference

The significant differences between classes proportions were computed as can be seen in Table 4.12. The proportion of students who changed their views positively for the

104 NOS Class was greater than that for the Meaningful Class (z = -3.01, p = 0.003), and the

Traditional Class (z = 3.27, p = 0.001). The proportion of students who changed their

views positively for the Interest Class was greater than that for the Meaningful Class (z =

-2.26, p = 0.024), and the Traditional Class ( z = 2.54, p = 0.011). The proportion of students who changed their views negatively for the Traditional Class was greater than that for the Interest Class (z = -1.98, p = 0.048). The proportion of students who changed their views of Inference positively for the Traditional Class and Meaningful Class were less than that for the NOS Class and Interest Class.

Subjectivity

Students’ perspectives on Subjectivity in scientific knowledge were evaluated as

Naïve, Intermediate, and Informed. Students who were not aware of the effects of

Subjectivity in the production of scientific knowledge, were considered as the naive level.

Students who did not explicitly show the awareness of Subjectivity were considered as the Intermediate level. Students who were aware that different results from the same data are possible because scientists have different minds, were categorized as Informed students.

Table 4.13 presents proportions of the number of students who changed their perception of Subjectivity positively (from Naïve to Intermediate, from Naïve to

Informed, or from Intermediate to Informed) and negatively (from Informed to

Intermediate, from Informed to Naïve, or from Intermediate to Naïve) to the number of students who could change their views positively and negatively as determined at the beginning of the study. Those students who were ranked Naïve and Intermediate were included in the number who could change positively and those students who were ranked

105 Intermediate and Informed were included in the number who could change negatively.

The significant differences between classes proportions were computed as can be seen in

Table 4.13.The proportion of students who changed their views of Subjectivity positively or negatively were not significantly different between classes.

Class Proportions z P a(1) b(2) a(1) b(2)

Proportions of Positive Changes Meaningful NOS 0.40 0.67 -1.25 0.211 Interest 0.400.56 -0.68 0.496 Traditional 0.400.42 -0.08 0.936 NOS Interest 0.670.56 0.52 0.603 Traditional 0.670.42 1.23 0.219 Interest Traditional 0.560.42 0.63 0.529

Proportions of Negative Changes Meaningful NOS 0.20 0.00 1.51 0.131 Interest 0.200.19 0.09 0.928 Traditional 0.200.19 0.09 0.928 NOS Interest 0.000.19 -1.46 0.144 Traditional 0.000.19 -1.46 0.144 Interest Traditional 0.190.19 0.00 1.000

Note. * p < 0.05. a number ‘1’ represents the first column of ‘Class’ b number ‘2’ represents the second column of ‘Class’

Table 4.13: The differences between classes in the proportion of students who changed their views of Subjectivity

106

Student Interest

In this section, class means of student scores for Individual Interest; Situational

Interest; and Involvement, Meaningful, and Story Components of Interest were compared using ANOVA with repeated measures of Trial by Class. Not only effects on student interest, but also the sources of student interest were investigated. For all classes the sample sizes, means, and standard deviations are given in this section. If there was a significant Trial by Class interaction effect, a graphic is provided to illustrate the different class mean scores before and after the study.

Individual Interest

Motion Unit

Mean scores of the Individual Interest pretest and posttest scores for each class for the motion unit are given in Table 4.14. Table 4.15 presents a summary of ANOVA with repeated measures of Trial by Class indicating that the changes between pretest and posttest Individual Interest scores between classes were not significant, F(3,71) = 0.26, p

= 0.855. Figure 4.3 provides a graphic display of the pretest and posttest Individual

Interest scores for the motion unit. It should be noted that the Traditional Class started

somewhat lower with a pretest score of 13.6 while the Interest Class started at 15.4. The

changes in their scores from pretest to posttest were nearly identical (See Figure 4.3). It

can be seen that student Individual Interest scores for the Meaningful Class and NOS

Class seem to stay about the same while the Interest Class and Traditional Class

increased somewhat for the motion unit.

107

Trial Individual Interest Pretest Posttest (Motion Unit) n M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 14.1 4.6 20 14.0 4.8 -0.1 -0.16 0.876 NOS Class 16 14.9 4.9 16 14.8 4.6 -0.1 -0.07 0.946 Interest Class 19 15.4 3.8 19 15.9 3.7 0.5 0.86 0.403 Traditional Class 20 13.6 5.3 20 14.2 4.8 0.6 0.69 0.497 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.14: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Individual Interest scores for the motion unit

Source df ms F P

Trial (Individual Interest) 1 2.64 0.44 0.507 Class (Treatment) 3 25.83 0.71 0.550 Trial X Class 3 1.53 0.26 0.855 Within Group Error 71 5.94 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.15: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Individual Interest

scores for the motion unit

108

17

16

15

Class Means Class 14

13

12 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.3: The change in student Individual Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by Class

Force Unit

Mean scores of the Individual Interest pretest and posttest scores for the force unit for each class are given in Table 4.16. As can be seen in Table 4.17, ANOVA with repeated measures of Trial by Class, student Individual Interest scores decreased at a level approaching significance for all classes, F(1,71) = 3.69, p = 0.059. The differences in the change of Individual Interest scores between pretest and posttest for the four classes were not significant, F(3,71) = 0.89, p = 0.451. It can be seen in Figure 4.4 that student Individual Interest scores for the NOS Class appear to decrease more than those

109 for the Interest Class and the Traditional Class. For the motion unit, the Individual

Interest scores of the NOS Class showed little change while the scores dropped

noticeably for the force unit (see Figure 4.3 and Figure 4.4).

Trial Individual Interest Pretest Posttest (Force Unit) N M SD N M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 14.0 4.8 20 13.2 5.2 -0.8 -1.00 0.326 NOS Class 16 14.8 4.6 16 12.7 4.8 -2.1 -2.15 0.048 Interest Class 19 15.9 4.8 19 15.8 4.7 -0.1 -0.19 0.848 Traditional Class 20 14.2 4.8 20 13.8 4.3 -0.4 -0.37 0.712 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.16: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Individual Interest scores for the force unit

Source df ms F p Trial (Individual Interest) 1 25.86 3.69 0.059+ Class (Treatment) 3 41.20 1.15 0.335 Trial X Class 3 6.23 0.89 0.451 Within Group Error 71 7.01 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01. + p ≈ 0.05

Table 4.17: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Individual Interest

scores for the force unit

110 17

16

15

Class Means Class 14

13

12 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.4: The change in student Individual Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by Class

Situational Interest

Motion Unit

Mean values of the Situational Interest pretest and posttest scores for the motion unit for each class are given in Table 4.18. As can be seen in Table 4.19, the changes between pretest and posttest Situational Interest scores between classes were near significant, F(3,71) = 2.70, p = 0.052.

111 Trial Situational Interest Pretest Posttest (Motion Unit) N M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 25.3 6.4 20 23.9 5.9 -1.4 -1.33 0.199 NOS Class 16 24.7 5.5 16 25.1 7.2 0.4 0.27 0.793 Interest Class 19 26.0 5.6 19 28.4 4.4 2.4 2.42 0.027 Traditional Class 20 25.2 5.6 20 27.6 5.9 2.4 2.12 0.047 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.18: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Situational Interest scores for the motion unit

An analysis of the mean scores of the Situational Interest for the motion unit showed a slight drop in the posttest scores for the Meaningful Class while the scores remained constant for the NOS Class, and increased for the Interest Class and the

Traditional Class (see Figure 4.5). LSD (Least Significant Difference) comparison test showed that the Meaningful Class score changes were significantly less than the Interest

Class (Mean Difference = -3.75, Standard Error = 1.54, p = 0.018) and the Traditional

Class (Mean Difference = -3.77, Standard Error = 1.56, p = 0.018).

112

Source df ms F p

Trial (Situational Interest) 1 31.70 2.66* 0.107 Class (Treatment) 3 57.31 1.02 0.389 Trial X Class 3 32.19 2.70+ 0.052 Within Group Error 71 11.90 Note. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, + p ≈ 0.05

Table 4.19: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Situational Interest

scores for the motion unit

30

29

28

27

26

25

Class Means Class 24

23

22

21

20 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.5: The change in student Situational Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by Class

113 Force Unit

Mean scores of the Situational Interest pretest and posttest scores for the force unit for each class are given in Table 4.20. The ANOVA with repeated measures of Trial by Class given in Table 4.21 showed that the differences in the change from pretest to posttest for the Situational Interest scores between classes were not significant, F(3,71) =

0.68, p = 0.565. Figure 4.6 provides a graphic display of the pretest and posttest

Situational Interest scores for the force unit. Students in the Meaningful Class have increased slightly while all three of the other classes appear to have decreased by the end of the force unit. For both the motion and force unit, student Situational Interest scores for the Interest Class and Traditional Class showed similar trends (See Figure 4.5 and

Figure 4.6). Their scores for the motion unit increased while those for the force unit decreased.

Trial Situational Interest Pretest Posttest (Force Unit) N M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 23.9 5.9 20 24.5 6.6 0.6 0.92 0.368 NOS Class 16 25.1 7.2 16 23.6 6.2 -1.5 -1.06 0.304 Interest Class 19 28.4 4.4 19 27.3 5.4 -1.1 -0.96 0.352 Traditional Class 20 27.6 5.9 20 26.6 5.2 -1.0 -0.85 0.404 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.20: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Situational Interest scores for the force unit

114

Source df ms F p

Trial (Situational Interest) 1 22.45 1.95 0.167 Class (Treatment) 3 129.69 2.25 0.090 Trial X Class 3 7.86 0.68 0.565 Within Group Error 71 11.52 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.21: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Situational Interest

scores for the force unit

30

29

28

27

26

25

Class Means Class 24

23

22

21

20 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.6: The change in student Situational Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by Class

115 Involvement Component of Interest

Motion Unit

Mean scores of the Involvement Component of Interest pretest and posttest scores for each class for the motion unit are given in Table 4.22. ANOVA with repeated measures of Trial by Class on the Involvement Component of Interest of student interest

(in Table 4.23) reveals that the changes between pretest and posttest Involvement

Component of Interest scores between classes were not significant F(3,71) = 1.60, p =

0.200.

Trial Involvement Component of Interest Pretest Posttest (Motion Unit) n M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 24.9 5.1 20 24.0 5.7 -0.9 -0.83 0.418 NOS Class 16 23.9 4.3 16 25.2 5.2 1.3 0.89 0.387 Interest Class 19 25.6 4.5 19 27.9 4.0 2.3 4.44 0.000 Traditional Class 20 27.1 4.8 20 28.0 4.7 0.9 0.75 0.458 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.22: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Involvement Component of Interest scores for the motion unit

Figure 4.7 provides a graphic display of the pretest and posttest Involvement

Component of Interest scores for the motion unit. It should be noted that the Traditional

116 Class started noticeably higher with a pretest score of 27.1 while the NOS Class started at

23.9. Their changes in scores from pretest to posttest were nearly identical and somewhat

increased (See Figure 4.7). The Involvement Component of Interest scores of the

Meaningful Class decreased somewhat while the Interest Class appeared to increase for

the motion unit.

Source df ms F p

Trial (Involvement Component of 1 29.38 2.60 0.113 Interest) Class (Treatment) 3 92.90 2.64 0.056 Trial X Class 3 18.17 1.60 0.200 Within Group Error 71 11.43 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.23: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Involvement

Component of Interest scores for the motion unit

117 30

29

28

27

26

25

Class Means Class 24

23

22

21

20 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.7: The change in student Involvement Component of Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by Class

Force Unit

Mean scores of the Involvement Component of Interest pretest and posttest scores for each class for the force unit are given in Table 4.24. ANOVA with repeated measures of Trial by Class showed that differences between classes were significant for the change between the student pretest and posttest Involvement Component of Interest scores,

F(3,71) = 3.00, p = 0.036 (see Table 4.25).

118 Trial Involvement Component of Interest Pretest Posttest (Force Unit) n M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 24.0 5.7 20 24.4 5.3 0.4 0.46 0.648 NOS Class 16 25.2 5.2 16 21.6 6.3 -3.6 -2.34 0.034 Interest Class 19 27.9 4.0 19 27.6 4.6 -0.3 -0.45 0.659 Traditional Class 20 28.0 4.7 20 28.1 5.2 0.1 0.15 0.880 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.24: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Involvement Component of Interest scores for the force unit

As seen in Figure 4.8, the Involvement Component of Interest scores of NOS

Class decreased sharply while the other classes seem to stay about the same for the force unit. LSD (Least Significant Difference) test showed that the difference in the decrease of the Involvement Component of Interest scores for the NOS Class was significantly different from the slight changes for the Meaningful Class (Mean Difference = -4.05,

Standard Error = 1.50, p = 0.008), Interest Class (Mean Difference = -3.34, Standard

Error = 1.51, p = 0.031), and Traditional Class (Mean Difference = -3.75, Standard Error

= 1.50, p = 0.014). The Involvement Component of Interest scores of the NOS Class showed little change for the motion unit while the scores dropped noticeably for the force unit (see Figure 4.7 and Figure 4.8). This trend is similar to the change of student

Individual Interest scores is for the NOS Class (see Figure 4.3 and Figure 4.4).

119 Source df ms F p

Trial (Involvement Component of 1 24.75 2.49 0.119 Interest) Class (Treatment) 3 209.49 4.84** 0.004 Trial X Class 3 29.84 3.00* 0.036 Within 71 43.30 Group Error Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.25: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Involvement

Component of Interest scores for the force unit

30

29

28

27

26

25

Class Means Class 24

23

22

21

20 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.8: The change in the Involvement Component of Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by Class 120

Meaningful Component of Interest

Motion Unit

Mean scores of the Meaningful Component of Interest pretest and posttest scores

for each class for the motion unit are given in Table 4.26. ANOVA with repeated

measures of Trial by Class showed that differences between classes are not significant for

the change between student pretest and posttest Meaningful Component of Interest

scores, F(3,71) = 0.93, p = 0.428 (See Table 4.27). Figure 4.9 provides a graphic display

of the pretest and posttest Meaningful Component of Interest scores for the motion unit.

The Meaningful Component of Interest scores for the Interest Class and Traditional Class

seemed to be unchanged or decreased slightly while Meaningful Class and NOS Class

decreased more noticeably for the motion unit.

Trial Meaningful Component of Interest Pretest Posttest (Motion Unit) n M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 12.9 3.1 20 11.9 3.3 -1.0 -1.76 0.094 NOS Class 16 14.4 2.9 16 13.2 2.3 -1.2 -1.63 0.123 Interest Class 19 13.9 2.5 19 14.1 1.9 0.2 -0.23 0.822 Traditional Class 20 13.8 3.2 20 13.5 3.2 -0.6 -0.47 0.641 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.26: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Meaningful Component of Interest scores for the motion unit

121 Source df ms F p

Trial (Meaningful Component of 1 12.76 3.52 0.065 Interest) Class (Treatment) 3 19.96 1.56 0.208 Trial X Class 3 3.39 0.93 0.428 Within Group Error 71 12.84

Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.27: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Meaningful

Component of Interest scores for the motion unit

15

14

13

Class Means 12

11

10 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.9: The change in the Meaningful Component of Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by Class

122 Force Unit

Mean scores of the Meaningful Component of Interest pretest and posttest scores

for each class before and after the force unit are given in Table 4.28. ANOVA with

repeated measures of Trial by Class in Table 4.29 showed that differences between

classes were not significant for the change between the student pretest and posttest

Meaningful Component of Interest scores, F(3,71) = 0.10, p = 0.958. Figure 4.10

provides a graphic display of the pretest and posttest Meaningful Component of Interest

scores for the force unit. The Meaningful Component of Interest scores of all classes

seem to stay about the same for the force unit.

Trial Meaningful Component of Interest Pretest Posttest (Force Unit) n M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 11.9 3.3 20 12.0 3.8 0.1 0.13 0.901 NOS Class 16 13.2 2.3 16 12.9 4.0 -0.3 0.40 0.694 Interest Class 19 14.1 1.9 19 14.1 1.9 0.0 0.06 0.948 Traditional Class 20 13.5 3.2 20 13.7 3.3 0.2 0.32 0.749 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.28: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Meaningful Component of Interest scores for the force unit

123

Source df Ms F p

Trial (Meaningful Component of 1 0.00 0.00 0.993 Interest) Class (Treatment) 3 33.00 2.21 0.094 Trial X Class 3 0.40 0.10 0.958 Within Group Error 71 3.87 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.29: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Meaningful

Component of Interest scores for the force unit

15

14

13

Class Means 12

11

10 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.10: The change in the Meaningful Component of Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by Class

124 Story Component of Interest

Motion Unit

Mean scores of the Story Component of Interest pretest and posttest scores for each class for the motion unit are given in Table 4.30. ANOVA with repeated measures of Trial by Class showed that differences between classes were significant for the change between pretest and posttest student Story Component of Interest scores, F(3,71) = 5.74, p = 0.001 (see Table 4.31). An analysis of the mean scores of the Story Component of

Interest showed little change for the Meaningful, the NOS, and Traditional Classes while the Interest Class appears to increase dramatically (see Figure 4.11).

Trial Story Component of Interest Pretest Posttest (Motion Unit) N M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 20.7 3.8 20 20.5 4.0 -0.2 -0.25 0.803 NOS Class 16 21.8 3.8 16 21.9 4.4 0.1 0.06 0.954 Interest Class 19 20.9 3.5 19 24.8 2.9 3.9 5.20 0.000 Traditional Class 20 20.6 4.4 20 19.3 4.9 -1.3 -1.31 0.206 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.30: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Story Component of Interest scores for the motion unit

LSD (Least Significant Difference) test showed that the difference in the increase

of Story Component of Interest scores for the Interest Class was significantly different

125 from the changes for the Meaningful Class (Mean Difference = 4.14, Standard Error =

1.34, p = 0.003), the NOS Class (Mean Difference = 3.83, Standard Error = 1.42, p =

0.009), and the Traditional Class (Mean Difference = 5.24, Standard Error = 1.34, p =

0.000).

Source df ms F p

Trial (Story Component of Interest) 1 12.91 1.47 0.229 Class (Treatment) 3 64.84 2.68 0.053 Trial X Class 3 50.22 5.74** 0.001 Within Group Error 71 8.75 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.31: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Story Component of

Interest scores for the motion unit

126 27

26

25

24

23

22

Class Means Class 21

20

19

18

17 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.11: The change in the Story Component of Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the motion unit by Class

Force Unit

The mean scores of the Story Component of Interest pretest and posttest scores for each class for the force unit are given in Table 4.32. ANOVA with repeated measures of Trial by Class in Table 4.33 showed that differences between classes were not significant for the change between pretest and posttest Story Component of Interest scores, F(3,71) = 0.13, p = 0.942. There was a significant difference between classes in students’ scores, F(1,71) = 8.08, p = 0.000. It can be seen in Figure 4.11, the Story

Component of student interest was affected by the treatment in the Interest Class during the motion unit but not in the force unit as can be seen in Figure 4.12.

127

Trial Story Component of Interest Pretest Posttest (Force Unit) N M SD n M SD Da t p

Meaningful Class 20 20.5 4.0 20 21.2 4.0 0.7 0.81 0.428 NOS Class 16 21.9 4.4 16 21.9 5.2 0.0 0.05 0.958 Interest Class 19 24.8 2.9 19 25.1 3.4 0.3 0.49 0.628 Traditional Class 20 19.3 4.9 20 19.4 3.6 0.1 0.14 0.889 a D = Posttest (M) – Pretest (M)

Table 4.32: Trial by Class sample sizes, means, standard deviations, and mean differences of the Story Component of Interest scores for the force unit

Source df ms F p

Trial (Story Component of 1 2.94 0.47 0.496 Interest) Class (Treatment) 3 219.45 8.08** 0.000 Trial X Class 3 0.821 0.13 0.942 Within Group Error 71 6.30 Note. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Table 4.33: Trial by Class ANOVA with repeated measures of the Story Component of

Interest scores for the force unit

128 27

26

25

24

23

22

Class Means Class 21

20

19

18

17 Pretest12Posttest Trial

Meaningful Class NOS Class Interest Class Traditional Class

Figure 4.12: The change in the Story Component of Interest scores from pretest to posttest for the force unit by Class

The Relationships between Objectives of Using History of Science

One of the justifications for this study is that other studies reported mixed results because they ignored the differences among historical materials. These differences were discussed in the previous chapters (‘The Ignorance of Class Context’) with regards to the objectives of science lessons, learning science, understanding of the nature of science, and interest in science. If the history of science can improve student learning of science, understanding of the nature of science, and students’ interest in science simultaneously there should be significant correlations among these variables. The analysis of

129 relationships between these variables is reported in the sections ‘Learning Science and

Perceptions of the Nature of Science’ and ‘Student Interest in Learning Science.’

Learning Science and Perceptions of the Nature of Science

Kendall’s Tau correlation coefficients between students’ perceptions of the nature

of science and the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores are presented in Table 4.34

and in Table 4.36 for the motion and force units respectively. Correlation coefficients

between class groups were compared using the Fisher Z-transform as given in Table 4.35

and 4.37 (Institute of Phonetic Sciences, 2004).

Motion Unit

For the Meaningful Class, the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the

force unit were near significantly correlated with perceptions of Scientific Method

(Kendall’s Tau = 0.36, p = 0.054), and significantly correlated with perceptions of

Inference (Kendall’s Tau = 0.48, p = 0.009). In the Meaningful Class, students who had better Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores tended to have better perceptions of

Scientific Method and Inference. For the Traditional Class, there was a significant correlation between the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and perceptions of

Inference (Kendall’s Tau = 0.37, p = 0.044). In contrast to these significant correlations, there were no significant correlations between student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and perceptions of nature of science for the NOS Class or the Interest Class.

There were no significant differences observed between correlation coefficients from the different classes as can be seen in Table 4.35.

130

Meaningful Learning (Concept Map) Scores Perceptions of Nature of Science (Motion) METH TENT INF SUBJ

Meaningful Class r 0.36+ -0.27 0.48** -0.26 (n = 20) p 0.054 0.144 0.009 0.167 NOS Class r 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.19 (n = 16) p 0.804 0.789 0.725 0.376 Interest Class r 0.35 0.22 0.01 0.08 (n = 19) p 0.067 0.249 0.969 0.694 Traditional Class r 0.04 0.22 0.37* -0.13 (n = 20) p 0.808 0.239 0.044 0.475 Note: METH, Scientific Method; TENT, Tentativeness; INF, Inference.; SUBJ, Subjectivity * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, + p ≈ 0.05

Table 4.34: Kendall’s Tau Correlation coefficients between student perceptions of the nature of science and Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores after the motion unit.

131 Scientific Tentativeness Inference Subjectivity Method

Class z p z p z p z p

Meaningful NOS 0.89 0.373 -0.91 0.363 1.23 0.219 -1.24 0.215 Interest 0.030.976 -1.44 0.150 1.47 0.142 -0.99 0.322 Traditional 0.980.327 -1.46 0.144 0.39 0.696 -0.39 0.696 NOS Interest -0.800.424 -0.44 0.660 0.16 0.873 0.30 0.764 Traditional 0.030.976 -0.44 0.660 -0.86 0.390 0.88 0.379 Interest Traditional 0.930.352 0.00 1.000 -1.09 0.275 0.61 0.542

Table 4.35: Differences in the correlation coefficients between classes for student

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and perceptions of the nature of science for

the motion unit

Force Unit

For the Meaningful Class, the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores were

significantly correlated with perspectives of Tentativeness (Kendall’s Tau = 0.38, p =

0.039) (See Table 4.36). For the NOS Class, Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores were significantly correlated with perspectives of Inference (Kendall’s Tau = 0.45, p =

0.038). In contrast to these significant correlations, there were no significant correlations

between student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and perceptions of the nature

of science for the Interest Class and Traditional Class. There were no significant

differences observed between correlation coefficients of the classes (see Table 4.37).

.

132

Meaningful Learning (Concept Map) Scores Perceptions of Nature of Science (Force) METH TENT INF SUBJ

Meaningful Class r 0.19 0.38* 0.15 -0.21 (n = 20) p 0.318 0.039 0.403 0.254 NOS Class r 0.18 0.21 0.45* 0.30 (n = 16) p 0.406 0.340 0.038 0.164 Interest Class r 0.03 0.30 -0.01 0.08 (n = 19) p 0.876 0.120 0.968 0.694 Traditional Class r 0.17 0.31 0.34 0.35+ (n = 20) p 0.364 0.104 0.067 0.054

Note: METH. Scientific Method; TENT, Tentativeness ; INF, Inference.; SUBJ=Subjectivity * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, + p ≈ 0.05

Table 4.36: Kendall’s Tau Correlation coefficients between student perceptions of the

nature of science and Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores after the force unit

The correlation coefficients between student perceptions of the nature of science

and Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores did not show any meaningful to

clarify relationships between perceptions of the nature of science and Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores. There were no significant correlations for the Interest

Class between student perceptions of the nature of science and Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for either motion or force units.

133 Scientific Tentativeness Inference Subjectivity Method

Class z P z P Z p z p

Meaningful NOS 0.03 0.9760.51 0.61 -0.9 0.368 -1.57 0.116 Interest 0.47 0.6380.26 0.795 0.46 0.645 -0.84 0.401 Traditional 0.06 0.9520.23 0.818 -0.59 0.555 -1.69 0.091 NOS Interest 0.39 0.696-0.26 0.795 1.32 0.186 0.61 0.952 Traditional 0.03 0.976-0.29 0.772 0.35 0.726 -0.15 0.881 Interest Traditional -0.41 0.682-0.03 0.976 -1.04 0.298 -0.82 0.412

Table 4.37: Differences in the correlation coefficients between classes for student

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and perceptions of the nature of science for

the force unit

Student Learning of Science and Interest in Science

Correlations between student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and

components of student interest for the motion and force units are presented in Table 4.38

and Table 4.40 respectively for all classes. The correlations of these variables for the four treatment groups were compared using the fisher Z-transform (Institute of Phonetic

Sciences, 2004), and are presented in Table 4.39 and 4.41.

Motion Unit

Table 4.38 presents correlation coefficients between interest scales and

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit. For historical treatment groups (Meaningful Class [r = 0.60, p = 0.005]; NOS Class[r = 0.57, p = 0.021]; and

134 Interest Class[r = 0.50, p = 0.029]), Individual Interest scores were significantly and positively correlated with Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores, whereas for the

Traditional Class the Individual Interest scores were not significantly correlated with

Meaningful Learning scores. For the Meaningful Class, the Situational Interest scores were significantly and positively correlated (r = 0.72, p = 0.000) with Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores while they were not for the other classes. The

Involvement Component of Interest scores for the Meaningful Class (r = 0.51, p = 0.021) and Interest Class (r = 0.62, p =0.004) were significantly and positively correlated with

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores. The Meaningful Component of Interest scores were significantly and positively correlated (r = 0.56, p = 0.010) with Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores for the Meaningful Class, and the Story Component of

Interest scores were significantly and positively correlated with Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for the NOS Class (r = 0.60, p = 0.013)and Interest Class (r = 0.69, p =0.001).

135

Meaningful Learning Interest Scales (Concept Map) Scores (Motion) IND SIT INV MEAN STORY

Meaningful Class r 0.60** 0.72** 0.51* 0.56** 0.36 (n = 20) p 0.005 0.000 0.021 0.010 0.12 NOS Class r 0.57** 0.38 0.32 0.14 0.60** (n = 16) p 0.021 0.144 0.178 0.599 0.013 Interest Class r 0.50* 0.39 0.62** 0.14 0.69** (n = 19) p 0.029 0.095 0.004 0.555 0.001 Traditional Class r -0.19 -0.20 0.03 0.09 0.18 (n = 20) p 0.431 0.408 0.903 0.691 0.436

Note: IND, Individual Interest; SIT, Situational Interest; INV, Involvement Component; MEAN, Meaningful Component; STORY, Story Component * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

Table 4.38: Correlations between Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and interest scales for the motion unit

136

Individual Situational Involvement Meaningful Story

Class z p z p Z p z p z p

Meaningful NOS 0.12 0.9021.38 0.167 0.06 0.952 1.33 0.183 0.001.000 Interest 0.41 0.6821.42 0.156 -0.46 0.645 1.41 0.158 -0.910.363 Traditional 2.58* 0.0103.23* 0.001 1.55 0.121 1.58 0.114 0.570.569 NOS Interest 0.25 0.8020.06 0.952 -1.05 0.294 0.00 1.000 0.001.000 Traditional 2.28* 0.0231.64 0.101 0.82 0.412 1.34 0.180 1.390.164 Interest Traditional 2.13* 0.0331.76 0.078 1.99* 0.046 1.46 0.144 1.910.363

* p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

Table 4.39: Differences in the correlation coefficients between classes for student

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and interest scales for the motion unit

Correlation coefficients between student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and the Individual Interest for the Traditional Class were significantly different from the Meaningful Class, NOS Class, and Interest Class for the motion unit (See Table

4.39). The correlation coefficient between Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and the Situational Interest for the Traditional Class was significantly different from for the Meaningful Class. The correlation coefficient between Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and the Involvement Component of Interest for the Traditional Class was significantly different from for the Interest Class. Other apparent differences between classes were not statistically significant.

137

Force Unit

Meaningful Learning Interest Scales (Concept Map) Scores (Force) IND SIT INV MEAN STORY

Meaningful Class r 0.64** 0.63** 0.45* 0.48* 0.38 (n = 20) p 0.002 0.002 0.047 0.031 0.095 NOS Class r 0.58** 0.42 0.44 0.07 0.33 (n = 16) p 0.017 0.106 0.084 0.786 0.215 Interest Class r 0.23 0.21 0.09 0.10 0.48* (n = 19) p 0.334 0.394 0.720 0.679 0.038 Traditional Class r 0.17 0.14 0.35 0.14 0.37 (n = 20) p 0.474 0.562 0.129 0.542 0.104

Note: INV, Individual Interest; SIT, Situational Interest; INV, Involvement Component; MEAN, Meaningful Component; STORY, Story Component * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

Table 4.40: Correlations between Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and interest scales for the force unit

For the Meaningful Class student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores were significantly correlated with Individual Interest (r = 0.64, p = 0.002), Situational

Interest (r = 0.63, p = 0.002), Involvement Component of Interest (r = 0.45, p = 0.047),

Meaningful Component of Interest (r = 0.48, p = 0.031) for the force unit as can be seen

in Table 4.40. For the NOS Class, Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores were

138 significantly correlated with the Individual Interest (r = 0.58, p = 0.017). For the Interest

Class, Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores were significantly correlated with the

Story Component of Interest (r = 0.48, p = 0.038). In contrast to these significant

correlations, for the Traditional Class there were no significant correlation between

student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and interest scales. There were no

significant differences observed between correlation coefficients of classes for the force

unit (see Table 4.41).

Individual Situational Involvement Meaningful Story

Class z p z P Z p z p z p

Meaningful NOS 0.26 0.795 0.80 0.424 0.03 0.976 1.23 0.219 0.16 0.873 Interest 1.50 0.134 0.52 0.603 1.13 0.258 1.21 0.226 -0.35 0.726 Traditional 1.71 0.087 1.75 0.080 0.35 0.726 1.11 0.267 0.03 0.976 NOS Interest 1.09 0.275 0.63 0.529 1.02 0.308 -0.08 0.936 -0.48 0.631 Traditional 1.33 0.183 0.83 0.406 0.29 0.772 -0.19 0.849 -0.12 0.904 Interest Traditional 0.18 0.854 0.21 0.834 -0.79 0.429 -0.12 0.904 0.39 0.696 * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

Table 4.41: Differences in the correlation coefficients between classes for student

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and interest scales for the force unit

Even though there were significant correlations for the Interest Class between

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores, the Individual Interest scores, and

139 Involvement Component of Interest scores for the motion unit, there were no significant

correlations for the Interest Class between these variables for the force unit.

For the Meaningful Class, student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for

both the motion and force units were significantly and positively correlated with all interest scales except the Story Component of Interest (see Table 4.38 & Table 4.40). For the Interest Class student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and Story

Component of Interest scores for both the motion and force units were significantly and positively correlated. For the motion unit, the correlations between Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for the Interest Class were significantly correlated with Individual

Interest scores and Involvement Component of Interest scores while these were not

significantly correlated for the force unit. For the Tradition Class, there were no

significant correlations for both the motion and force units between student Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores and student interest scores.

Class Contexts

In this section, some examples from class observations and interviews are

presented to describe class contexts provided by historical information. Differentiation of

class contexts can be important for future research considering lesson goals and

objectives. The analysis of the quantitative data indicated a variety of changes of student

perceptions of the nature of science and student interest in science. Three types of class

contexts are described: the Meaningful Class, the NOS Class, and Interest Class.

Meaningful Class Context

Based on researcher observations, two different groups of students were perceived

in the Meaningful Class: one group of students who were eager to participate in the

140 discussion, and another group of students that were not. Some students appeared to be frustrated. One student stated, “If someone is going to come along in the next few years and come up with something new, then what’s the point? I’m not learning this stuff if it will change” (Student 8281, Meaningful Class). Some students involved in discussions in the Meaningful Class seemed to have recognized that their alternative ideas were similar to those used in developing scientific concepts as described in the history of science. For example, some students emphasized that force “wears off” as objects travel. To counter this, the historical concept of impetus was introduced which seems to be similar to students’ emphasis on their concept of force. These students rejected the idea of impetus, and in later discussions, whenever a student said the “force was wearing off” they reminded each other that it was impetus, rather than force.

NOS Class Context

Responses to the POSE instrument showed that some students in the NOS Class chose examples from the history of science to support their answers. These students seemed to remember the historical information even though history of science was not specifically taught, but had been used as a supplementary learning material. Students were not expected to know any historical information during the study. As an example, one of the students in the NOS Class supported his answer to POSE with the historical information given throughout the study.

“Scientists find new scientific knowledge by making inferences and then testing them. Some scientists think of good ideas, like impetus, but they might have a lot of exceptions, like impetus. So they have to think of new ideas. Scientists also get ideas from other peoples data and change them a little, like Philiponus and Buridan, and they could think of new ideas for the idea and make it better. Scientists can use different methods to solving a problem. They could use math, observations, or experiments.” (9757 – Posttest)

141 In this study, the teacher was not required to address aspects of the nature of science explicitly. Rather, the teacher asked students to discuss “how scientists produce scientific knowledge”. For example, the teacher did not target the idea more than one scientific method but encouraged students to see the various ways of producing knowledge throughout history.

“The scientific method” is consistently taught as the only way of doing science.

Because posters that show the steps of the scientific method can be found in most science classrooms, they were not removed from the wall in the NOS Class. At the beginning of the study, some students in the NOS Class were checking these posters during discussions of old scientists’ methodologies. Through the study, they gave up referring to the posters. Furthermore, by the end of the study some of these students got rid of the posters which emphasize the scientific method. They chose to save one, but changed the title to “a scientific method.”

On the other hand, some of the open-ended item responses to POSE supported that there was a possible danger in using the history of science.

Do you think that the scientific knowledge found in your science textbooks will change in the future? “I choose no (scientific knowledge will “I think it (scientific knowledge) will not change) because what is in the book (change) because when you go back and was put in it in the past so it is already look at the facts theories change a lot! So helped the future.” (7663 – Pretest) it is a pattern”. “There is no scientific knowledge” (7663 - Posttest)

Figure 4.13: An example of student responses to “ Do you believe scientific knowledge will change in the future?”

142

As shown in Figure 4.13, a student in the NOS Class crossed out his answer and

wrote, “There is no scientific knowledge.” It seemed that this student believed that science was untrustworthy.

Interest Class Context

Based on class observations, it can be proposed that stories about scientists’

personal lives, even those with no connection to subject matter can be influential

historical materials on affecting student interest. Some students in the Interest Class

discussed learning activities outside the classroom, telling short stories might have

stimulated these students Individual Interest

Other incidents suggest that some student Individual Interest might have been

influenced by stories. Some students mentioned that they discussed stories told to them in

class about history with their parents. Students brought pages printed from a website

about that had different information than had been given in class. One student also brought a web address to class that referenced a different story told about Kepler’s

musical work. In class, an audio clip had been played about the pitches of the ,

based on Keplers’ work with octaves and orbits.

Some students’ responses to the concept map for the force unit supported that

students in the Interest Class appeared to have clearer understanding of the relationships

between concepts. In Figure 4.14, examples are given from students’ responses to the

relationship between force and acceleration.

143

Interest Class “When you have pulling force or pushing “If you apply a force to an object say a ball force of any object you can have you are only putting that force on it until it acceleration which causes the object to leaves your hand, and when it does leave move faster and faster.” (1433 - Pre) your hand it will no longer accelerate it will travel at a constant velocity until acted by another force.” (1433 - Post)

Meaningful Class “The force of something will determine “For a heavy objects you would need to the acceleration an objects gets.” (4607 - apply more force for a high acceleration. Pre) With a lighter object you would need to add less force for it to accelerate.” (4607 – Post)

Traditional Class “Acceleration is when a force or matter “It takes unbalanced forces to make pick up speed.” (0870 – Pre) acceleration or a force.” (0870- Post)

NOS Class “The more force is pushing on something “You need a force if you want to accelerate the less it own accelerate.” (6641 – Pre) no matter if it is positive or negative.” (6641 – Post)

Figure 4.14: Examples of student propositions between the concepts of force and acceleration from pretest to posttest

Summary of Findings

The results of the study are reported in five sections

1. Background variables

2. Results for each dependent variable

3. Results for each class

4. Results for the interaction of variables by Class

5. Results of the correlations between variables

144 Section One: Background Variables

Student IQ scores were significantly correlated with student pre-grades,

Meaningful Learning (concept map) pretest scores, and pre-perceptions of Tentativeness.

Both student IQ scores and pre-grades were correlated with all interest scale pretest

scores except Story Component of Interest. Student Meaningful Learning (concept map)

pretest scores significantly correlated with student pre-perceptions of Scientific Method

and Inference. Interest scale pretest scores were significantly correlated with each other.

Only student pre-perceptions of Inference were related to the pre-perceptions of

Subjectivity (See Table 4.3). Overall interest scales were correlated to each other while

perceptions of the nature of science were not.

Section Two: Results For Each Dependent Variable

Meaningful Learning (Concept Map) Scores

For each class independent of each other, student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for both the motion and force units increased significantly from pretest to

posttest (see Table 4.42).

Meaningful Learning (Concept Map) scores Class Change Unit Change Unit Meaningful Class (+)** Motion (+)** Force NOS Class (+)** Motion (+)** Force Interest Class (+)** Motion (+)** Force Traditional Class (+)** Motion (+)** Force * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

Table 4.42: Results for changes of student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for

each class

145

Perceptions of the Nature of Science

In this section the summary of the results from the analysis of student perceptions of Scientific Method, Tentativeness, Inference, and Subjectivity are presented. First, the significant differences between classes in these perceptions are described, then the correlation with Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores are discussed.

Only student perceptions of Scientific Method and Inference showed significant differences between classes. The proportion of students who changed their views of

Scientific Method negatively for the Traditional Class was greater than that for each of the other classes; the Meaningful Class, the NOS Class, and Interest Class (see Table

4.46). The proportion of the positive changes of Inference for the Meaningful Class and

Traditional Class were less than for the Interest Class and the NOS Class (see Table 4.43

& Table 4.46). The proportion of students who changed their views of Inference negatively for the Traditional Class was greater than that for the Interest Class (see Table

4.45).

The perceptions of Inference and the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the Meaningful Class and Traditional Class for the motion unit were significantly and positively correlated. For the force unit, the correlations of Inference and the Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores for the NOS Class were significant and positive. The perceptions of Tentativeness for Meaningful Class and the perceptions of Subjectivity for the Traditional Class as related to the force unit were the only other measures significantly and positively correlated with Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores.

146 There were no significant correlations between the nature of science measures and

Meaningful Learning for the Interest Class.

The positive changes in the perceptions of the nature of science occurred

primarily in relation to the changes in the perception of Inference for the NOS Class and

Interest Class that were more than that for the Meaningful Class and Traditional Class. In addition, the negative changes of perception of Inference for the Interest Class were less than that for the Traditional Class.

The only incidence of both positive and negative significant changes in perceptions of Inference were in the Interest Class and the Traditional Class. These changes favored the Interest Class with greater numbers of positive changes and fewer negative changes than the Traditional Class. In addition, the negative changes in the perception of Scientific Method for the Traditional Class were greater than that for all the historical treatment groups. There were no significant differences in positive changes in the perceptions of Scientific Method between the Traditional Class and any of the historical treatment classes.

The perceptions of Inference for the Meaningful Class and the Traditional Class were correlated significantly and positively with Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit. The correlation of perception of Inference and Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores for the force unit was also positive and significant for the

NOS Class. The correlation between the perception of Scientific Method and Meaningful

Learning was positive and significant for the Meaningful Class for the motion unit only.

The correlation between the perceptions of Tentativeness was also positive and significant for the Meaningful Class for the force unit only. The correlation between the

147 perceptions of Subjectivity was also positive and significant for the Traditional Class for the force unit only.

Class Variable Change Class Direction Difference Meaningful Class: Significant Class Differences Scientific Method (-) Meaningful Class < Traditional Class Inference (+) Meaningful Class < NOS Class Inference (+) Meaningful Class < Interest Class Significant Correlations Variable Unit Direction Sci.Met.vs Con.Map. Motion (+)+ Infer. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)** Tent. vs Con. Map. Force (+)* * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, + p ≈ 0.05

Table 4.43: Results for changes of student perspectives of the nature of science for the

Meaningful Class

Class Variable Change Class Direction Difference

NOS Class: Significant Class Differences Scientific Method (-) NOS Class < Traditional Class Inference (+) NOS Class > Meaningful Class Inference (+) NOS Class > Traditional Class Significant Correlations Variable Unit Direction Inf. vs Con. Map. Force (+)* * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, + p ≈ 0.05

Table 4.44: Results for changes of student perspectives of the nature of science for the

NOS Class

148

Class Variable Change Class Direction Difference

Interest Class: Significant Class Differences Scientific Method (-) Interest Class < Traditional Class Inference (+) Interest Class > Meaningful Class Inference (+) Interest Class > Traditional Class Inference (-) Interest Class < Traditional Class Significant Correlations No significant correlations * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, + p ≈ 0.05

Table 4.45: Results for changes of student perspectives of the nature of science for the

Interest Class

Class Variable Change Class Direction Difference

Traditional Class: Significant Class Differences Scientific Method (-) Traditional Class > Meaningful Class Scientific Method (-) Traditional Class > Interest Class Scientific Method (-) Traditional Class > NOS Class Inference (+) Traditional Class < NOS Class Inference (+) Traditional Class < Interest Class Inference (-) Traditional Class > Interest Class Significant Correlations Variable Unit Direction Infer. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)* Subj. vs Con. Map. Force (+)+ * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, + p ≈ 0.05

Table 4.46: Results for changes of student perspectives of the nature of science for the

Traditional Class

149

Student Interest in Science

In this section, the results from the analysis for student scores for the interest scales (Individual Interest, Situational Interest, Involvement Component of Interest,

Meaningful Component of Interest, and Story Component of Interest) are presented. The first section includes the description of significant differences between classes for the change of these scores from pretest to posttest for both the motion and force unit. These are followed by the significant correlations between Interest scores and Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores. Significant differences in correlation coefficients between classes are indicated following the presentation of the significant correlation coefficient results.

There were significant differences between classes related to interest, primarily related to the increase in the Interest Class scores for Situational Interest, and Story

Component of Interest for the motion unit (see Table 4.49 & Table 4.50) and the decrease in the NOS Class scores for Involvement Component of Interest for the force unit (see

Table 4.48). In addition, the changes of the Situational Interest scores for the Interest

Class and Traditional Class for the motion unit were significantly different from the change of the Meaningful Class. This was partially due to the increase in the Interest

Class and the Traditional Class scores while the Meaningful Class scores remained constant. Also, the change in the Story Component of Interest scores for the Interest Class for the motion unit was significantly different from all other classes because of the increase in the Interest Class scores while the others remained constant.

150 The correlation coefficients between the Individual Interest scores and

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores related to the motion unit for the Meaningful

Class, the NOS Class, and the Interest Class were significantly higher than that for the

Traditional Class. The Situational Interest scores and Meaningful Learning (concept map)

scores for the Meaningful Class for the motion unit were correlated significantly and

positively and were significantly higher than that of the Traditional Class. The

Involvement Component of Interest scores and Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit for the Meaningful Class and the Interest Class were correlated

significantly. This correlation for the Interest Class was significantly higher than that for

the Traditional Class. The Meaningful Component of Interest scores and Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit for the Meaningful Class were

significantly and positively correlated. The Story Component of Interest scores and

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit for the NOS Class and the

Interest Class for were significantly and positively correlated.

The negative change of the Involvement Component of Interest scores for the

NOS Class for the force unit was significantly different from those of the other classes.

This was partially due to the decrease in the Involvement Component of Interest scores

for the NOS Class while the other classes remained constant. The Individual Interest

scores and Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the force unit for the

Meaningful Class and the NOS Class were correlated significantly positive. The

Involvement Component and Meaningful Component of Interest scores and Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores for the force unit for the Meaningful Class were

correlated significantly positive. The Story Component of Interest scores and Meaningful

151 Learning (concept map) scores for the force unit for the Interest Class were also correlated significantly positive.

Class Variable Change Unit Direction Difference

Meaningful Class Significant Class Differences Situational Interest (±) Motion < Interest Class Situational Interest (±) Motion < Traditional Class Involvement Component (±) Motion > NOS Class Story Component (±) Motion < Interest Class Significant Correlations Ind. Int. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)** > Traditional Class Sit Int. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)** > Traditional Class Invol. Comp. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)* Mean Comp. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)** Ind. Int. vs Con. Map. Force (+)** Sit Int. vs Con. Map. Force (+)** Invol. Comp. vs Con. Map. Force (+)* Mean Comp. vs Con. Map. Force (+)* * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ±p>0.05

Table 4.47: Results for changes of student interest scores for the Meaningful Class

The significant increases in scores on the interest scales occurred primarily in relation to the motion unit. The most prevalent increases were on the Situational Interest with the Interest Class and the Traditional Class increasing more than the Meaningful

Class. The Interest Class showed a significant gain in the Involvement Component of

Interest scores and Story Component of Interest scores for the motion unit as well. The only significant decrease in interest scores occurred related to Individual Interest and the

Involvement Component of Interest for the NOS Class in regards to the force unit.

152

Class Variable Change Unit Direction Difference

NOS Class Significant Class Differences Individual Interest (-)* Force Involvement (-)* Force > Meaningful Class Involvement (-)* Force > Interest Class Involvement (-)* Force > Traditional Class Story (±) Motion < Interest Class Significant Correlations Ind. Int. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)** > Traditional Class Story vs Con. Map. Motion (+)** Ind. Int. vs Con. Map. Force (+)** * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ±p>0.05

Table 4.48: Results for changes of student interest scores for the NOS Class

Class Variable Change Unit Direction Difference

Interest Class Significant Class Differences Situational Interest (+)* Motion > Meaningful Class Involvement Component (+)** Motion Involvement Component (±) Force > NOS Class Story Component (+)* Motion > Meaningful Class Story Component (+)* Motion > NOS Class Story Component (+)* Motion > Traditional Class Significant Correlations Ind. Int. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)* > Traditional Class Invol. Comp. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)** > Traditional Class Story Comp. vs Con. Map. Motion (+)** Story Comp. vs Con. Map. Force (+)* * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, + p ≈ 0.05, ±p>0.05

Table 4.49: Results for changes of student interest scores for the Interest Class

153 Class Variable Change Unit Direction Difference

Traditional Class Significant Class Differences Situational Interest (+)* Motion > Meaningful Class Involvement Component (±) Force < NOS Class Story Component (±) Motion < Interest Class Correlations Ind. Int. vs Con. Map. Motion (±) < Meaningful Class Ind. Int. vs Con. Map. Motion (±) < NOS Class Ind. Int. vs Con. Map. Motion (±) < Interest Class Sit Int. vs Con. Map. Motion (±) < Meaningful Class Invol. Comp. vs Con. Map. Motion (±) < Interest Class * p < 0.05, **p < 0.01,±p>0.05

Table 4.50: Results for changes of student interest scores for the Traditional Class

Generally Interest scores were positively correlated with Meaningful Learning for

the historical treatment classes. This positive relationship resulted more consistently for

Individual Interest. Involvement scores tended to correlate positively with Meaningful

Learning for the motion unit in all of the historical treatment classes except the NOS

Class.

Section Three: Results for Each Class

Meaningful Class

The gains in the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for both the motion and force units were significant for the Meaningful Class, but they were not significantly different from these changes for the other classes. The Meaningful Class scores showed significant differences in the changes in the perception of Scientific Method and

154 Inference (see Table 4.43). The interest scale scores did not change significantly for either the motion or force units.

The positive changes in the perception of Inference for the Meaningful Class were less than those for Interest Class and NOS Class. The proportion of students who changed their views of Scientific Method negatively was less than that for the Traditional Class.

The perceptions of both Scientific Method and Inference for the Meaningful Class were correlated with their Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit. For the force unit, the perceptions of Tentativeness and the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores were correlated significantly and positively (see Table 4.43).

The analysis of the changes in student interest scores for the Meaningful Class showed no significant differences for both the motion and force units. The Individual

Interest, Situational Interest, Involvement Component of Interest, and Meaningful

Component of Interest scores for both the motion and force units were significantly and positively correlated with Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the Meaningful

Class. For the motion unit, the correlation coefficients of Individual Interest and

Situational Interest scores with the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores were significantly higher than the correlations for the Traditional Class (see Table 4.47).

The analysis of the changes in the Meaningful Class scores can be evidence for the effect of using history of science for the perception of Scientific Method and

Situational Interest. The negative changes in the perception of Scientific Method for the

Meaningful Class were significantly less than those for the Traditional Class. The changes in the Situational Interest were significantly less than that for the Traditional

Class (see Table 4.50). In addition, the analysis of the correlation coefficients between

155 student Meaningful Learning and Individual Interest and Situational Interest scores show that the coefficients for the Meaningful Class were significantly greater than those for the

Traditional Class.

Also significant and negative differences were observed between the Meaningful

Class and the historical treatment groups in the negative changes of Involvement

Component of Interest scores for the force unit for the NOS Class and in the positive changes of the Situational Interest scores and the Story Component of Interest scores for the motion unit for the Interest Class.

The NOS Class

The gains in the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for both the motion and force units were significant for the NOS Class, but they were not significantly different from these changes for the other classes. The NOS Class showed significant differences in the change of student perception of Scientific Method, perceptions of

Inference, Individual Interest, and Involvement Component of Interest scores (see Table

4.44 & Table 4.48).

The student perception of Inference in the NOS Class showed that the proportion of students who changed their views of Inference positively was greater than that for the

Meaningful Class and Traditional Class. In addition, the perceptions of Inference and

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the force unit were significantly and positively correlated. Also the proportion of students who changed their views of

Scientific Method negatively for the NOS Class was less than that for the Traditional

Class (see Table 4.44).

156 The Involvement Component of Interest scores for the NOS Class decreased

significantly. Because of this, the change of the Involvement Component of Interest

scores for the NOS Class was significantly different from all the changes of these scores

for the other classes for the force unit (see Table 4.48). For the NOS Class, the decrease

in Individual Interest scores for the force unit was not significantly different from the

other classes. The Individual Interest scores and Meaningful Learning (concept map)

scores for both the motion and force unit were significantly and positively correlated. For

the motion unit, this correlation for the NOS Class was significantly higher than that for

the Traditional Class. For the motion unit the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores

and Story Component of Interest scores were significantly and positively correlated; however this correlation coefficient was not significantly different from those for other

classes.

The analysis of the changes in the NOS Class scores can be evidence for the

effect of using history of science for the perception of Scientific Method, the perception

of Inference, and Involvement Component of Interest. The reduced negative changes in the perception of Scientific Method and increased positive changes in the perception of

Inference for NOS Class were significantly and positively different from those for the

Traditional Class. The changes in Involvement Component of Interest scores for the NOS

Class were significantly less than that for the Traditional Class. In addition, the analysis of the correlation coefficients between student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and Individual Interest scores for the motion unit show that the coefficient for

NOS Class was significantly greater than that for the Traditional Class.

157 The significant differences that were observed between the NOS Class and the

other historical treatment groups were primarily due to the positive changes in the

perception of Inference for the Meaningful Class, in the changes of the Involvement

Component of Interest scores for the force unit for the Meaningful Class and the Interest

Class, and in the positive changes of the Story Component scores for the motion unit for

the Interest Class.

The Interest Class

The gains in the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for both the motion and force units were significant for the Interest Class, but they were not significantly different from these changes for the other classes. The Interest Class scores showed significant differences between classes for the perceptions of Scientific Method, the perceptions of Inference, Situational Interest, Involvement Component of Interest, and

Story Component of Interest (see Table 4.45 & Table 4.49).

The analysis of perspectives of the nature of science showed that the Interest

Class perception of Inference changed more positively than the Traditional Class and the

Meaningful Class (see Table 4.45). In addition, the proportion of students who changed their views of Inference and Scientific Method negatively for the Interest Class was less than that for the Traditional Class.

The changes of the Situational Interest scores for the motion unit were significantly more positive for the Interest Class than for the Meaningful Class primarily due to the fact that the Interest Class scores increased while the Meaningful Class scores remained constant. The change in the Story Component of Interest scores for the motion unit was significantly different from the other classes primarily due to the increase in

158 Interest Class scores while those of the other classes remained constant (see Table 4.49).

Significant differences between the Interest Class and the NOS Class in the change of

Involvement Component of Interest scores for the force unit was partially due to the decrease in the NOS scores (see Table 4.48)

The Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the Interest Class were significantly and positively correlated with Individual Interest and Involvement

Component of Interest scores for the motion unit and were both significantly higher than

that of the Traditional Class. The Story Component of Interest scores and Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores for both the motion and force units were significantly and

positively correlated.

The analysis of the changes in Interest Class scores can be evidence for the

positive effect of using history of science for the perception of Scientific Method,

perception of Inference, and the Story Component of Interest. The fewer negative

changes in the perception of Scientific Method, and the fewer negative and greater

number of positive changes in the perception of Inference for Interest Class when

compared to the Traditional Class, illustrate the benefits derived in this study. The

changes in the Story Component of Interest scores for the Interest Class were

significantly greater than that for the Traditional Class as well as the Meaningful Class

and the NOS Class. In addition, the analysis of the correlation coefficients between

student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit and the interest

scales showed that the coefficients for Interest Class were significantly greater than those

for the Traditional Class with Individual Interest and Involvement Component of Interest.

159 The significant differences were observed between the Interest Class and historical treatment groups in the positive changes of the Situational Interest scores for the motion unit for the Meaningful Class, in the negative changes of the Involvement

Component of Interest scores for the force unit for the NOS Class, and in the changes of the Story Component of Interest scores for the motion unit for the Meaningful Class and

NOS Class.

The Traditional Class

The student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for both the motion and force units increased significantly but these changes were not significantly different than any other historical treatment classes (see Table 4.42). Summary of analysis of the

Traditional Class scores can be seen in Table 4.46 and Table 4.50. The Traditional Class showed significant changes different from other classes for their perspectives of

Scientific Method and Inference, and the change in their Situational Interest scores.

The proportion of students who changed their views of Scientific Method negatively for the Traditional Class was greater than that for each for the other historical treatment classes. The proportion of students who changed their views of Inference positively for the Traditional Class was less than that for the NOS Class and Interest

Class. The proportion of students who changed their views negatively for the Traditional

Class was greater than that for the Interest Class.

The perceptions of Inference and Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit, and the perceptions of Subjectivity and Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the force unit were correlated significantly and positively for the

Traditional Class.

160 The changes of the Situational Interest scores for the motion unit for the

Traditional Class were significantly different than for the Meaningful Class, because the

Traditional Class scores increased while the Meaningful Class scores remained constant.

The other components of interest for the Traditional Class remained constant.

The negative correlation coefficients between Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit and their Individual Interest scores were less than those of all the historical treatment classes. The negative correlation coefficients between

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit and Situational Interest scores were significantly lower than that of the Meaningful Class. The correlation coefficients between Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit and

Involvement Component of Interest scores were significantly lower than that of the

Interest Class.

The analysis of the changes in students’ scores related to the perceptions of the nature of science and interest scale scores for the Traditional Class resulted in (a) more negative changes in the perception of the Scientific Method compared to all of the historical treatment groups, (b) less positive changes in the perception of Inference compared to the Interest Class and NOS Class, (c) more negative changes in the perception of Inference compared to the Interest Class, and (d) less positive changes in the Story Component of Interest for the motion unit compared to the Interest Class. The analysis of the correlation coefficients between Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit and interest scales generally resulted in (a) less relationship between Individual Interest for the Traditional Class compared to all of the history of science classes, (b) less relationship with Situational Interest compared to the Meaningful

161 Class, and (c) less relationship with Involvement Component of Interest compared to the

Interest Class.

Section Four: Results For The Interaction Of Variables By Class

The analysis of the changes in student perceptions of the nature of science showed

that there were interactions for the changes in student perceptions of Scientific Method

and Inference by Classes. For the perceptions of Tentativeness and Subjectivity there

were no significant interactions by Class. The proportion of students who changed their

views of Scientific Method negatively for the Traditional Class was greater than that for

each of the other historical treatment classes (see Table 4.46). The proportion of students

who changed their views of Inference positively for the Traditional Class and the

Meaningful Class was less than that for the NOS Class and Interest Class (see Table

4.46). The proportion of students who changed their views of Inference negatively for the

Traditional Class was greater than that for the Interest Class (see Table 4.46).

There were interactions for the changes of student interest (i.e., Situational

Interest, Involvement Component of Interest, and Story Component of Interest) by Class.

The changes of the Situational Interest scores showed significant differences, because the

Interest Class and Traditional Class scores increased while the Meaningful Class scores

remained constant (see Table 4.49 & Table 4.50). The significant differences between

classes for changes of the Story Component of Interest scores was partially due to the

significant increase of the Interest Class scores for the motion unit while other classes remained constant (see Table 4.49). The changes of the Involvement Component of

Interest scores showed significant differences between classes for the force unit,

162 primarily due to the decrease for the NOS Class scores while others remained constant

(see Table 4.48).

The analysis of the interaction of change in student scores by Classes indicated

that the different methods for the use of history of science had different effects on student perceptions of the nature of science and interest scores and interest scores. The

curriculum used in the Interest Class affected student perception of Inference, Situational

Interest, and Story Component of Interest positively. The curriculum followed in the

NOS Class affected student perception of Inference positively, but affected the

Involvement Component of Interest negatively. The curriculum followed in the

Meaningful Class shows negative effects on the perception of Inference, and no

significant effect on any of the interest scales.

Section five: Results of the correlations between variables

The correlation coefficients between student perceptions of the nature of science

and Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for both and motion and force unit were

not consistently significant. However there were significant correlations either for the

motion unit or for the force unit. The Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the

motion unit were significantly correlated with the perceptions of Scientific Method for

the Meaningful Class; and the perceptions of Inference for the Meaningful Class and

Traditional Class (See Table 4.34). For the force unit, the Meaningful Learning (concept

map) scores were significantly correlated with the perceptions of Tentativeness for the

Meaningful Class; the perceptions of Inference for the NOS Class; and the perceptions of

Subjectivity for the Traditional Class (See Table 4.36). There were no significant

163 correlations for the Interest Class between the perceptions of the nature of science and

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for either the motion or force unit.

The Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for both the motion and force units were significantly and positively correlated with Individual Interest scores for the

Meaningful Class and the NOS Class; Situational Interest, Involvement Component of

Interest, Meaningful Component of Interest scores for the Meaningful Class; and Story

Component of Interest for the Interest Class. For the Meaningful Class, the Meaningful

Learning scores for both motion and force units were significantly and positively correlated with all interest scales except Story Component of Interest. For the NOS Class, the Meaningful Learning scores and Story Component of Interest were positively and significantly correlated only for the motion unit. For the Interest Class, the Meaningful

Learning scores and both Individual Interest and Involvement Component of Interest were positively and significantly correlated only for the motion unit. For the Traditional

Class, there were no significant correlations between interest scales and Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores for either the motion or force unit.

There were no significant differences between classes for the correlation coefficients between Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and perceptions of the nature of science while there were significant differences in correlation coefficients between student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and interest scores

(Individual Interest, Situational Interest, and Involvement Component of Interest). The positive correlation coefficients between Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit and the Individual Interest scores for the Meaningful Class, the NOS

Class, and the Interest Class; Situational Interest scores for the Meaningful Class; and

164 Involvement Component of Interest scores of the Interest Class were significantly higher than the correlations for the Traditional Class (see Table 4.50).

165

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSIONS

This chapter reports and summarizes the results related to the research questions

for this study based on the findings from the analyses reported in Chapter 4 and the

relationship between these results, the strategies employed in each class, and the findings

from previous research. In addition recommendations and implications for further research are discussed.

The analysis of the data showed prevalence for significant differences in the change of perceptions of the nature of science (Scientific Method, Inference), and in the

change of interest scales (Situational Interest, Involvement Component of Interest, and

Story Component of Interest) related to class context for the use of history of science in

teaching science. However the changes between classes in the Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for either the motion or the force unit did not show significant

differences even though their scores increased significantly from pretest to posttest for

each of the classes.

The historical treatment in the Meaningful Class resulted in positive effects on the

perception of Scientific Method while it showed negative effects on the perception of

Inference. The negative changes in the perceptions of the Scientific Method for the

Meaningful Class were less than those for the Traditional Class. The positive changes in

166 the perceptions of Inference for the Meaningful Class were less than those for the NOS

Class and Interest Class. The scores for the interest scales did not show significant changes from pretest to posttest for either the motion or the force unit for the Meaningful

Class. Even though the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores increased significantly for both the motion and force units, the changes did not show significant differences between classes. Significant correlations were observed between the

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit and the perceptions of

Scientific Method and Inference, and for the force unit between Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores and the perception of Tentativeness. The Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for both the motion and force units were significantly and positively correlated with interest scales: Individual Interest, Situational Interest,

Involvement Component, and Meaningful Component of Interest. The correlations with

Individual and Situational Interest scores were greater than those for the Traditional

Class.

The historical treatment in the NOS Class showed positive effects on the perception of Scientific Method and Inference. The negative changes in the perceptions of the Scientific Method were less than those for the Traditional Class. The positive changes in the perceptions of Inference were greater than those for the Traditional Class.

The Individual Interest and Involvement Component of Interest scores decreased significantly from pretest to posttest for the force unit, but other interest scale scores did not show significant change from pretest to posttest for either the motion or force unit.

The negative changes in student Involvement Component of Interest scores for the force unit were significantly greater than other classes. Even though the Meaningful Learning

167 (concept map) scores increased significantly for both the motion and force unit, the

changes were not significantly different between classes. The student Meaningful

Learning scores for the motion unit were positively and significantly correlated with

Individual Interest and Story Component of Interest. The correlations with Individual

Interest scores were significantly greater than those for the Traditional Class. The

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the force unit were significantly and positively correlated with perceptions of Inference, and Individual Interest.

The historical treatment in the Interest Class showed positive effects on the

perception of Scientific Method and Inference. The negative changes in the perceptions

of the Scientific Method and Inference were less than those for the Traditional Class. The

positive changes in the perceptions of Inference were greater than those for the

Traditional Class. The Situational Interest, the Involvement Component of Interest, and

the Story Component of Interest scores increased significantly for the motion unit and

showed significant differences between the classes. The positive changes in the

Situational Interest scores were significantly different from those for the Meaningful

Class. The positive changes in the Involvement Component of Interest were significantly

increased for the motion unit, but this increase for the Interest Class was not significantly

different from those for the other classes. The positive changes in the Story Component

of Interest scores were significantly different from those for the other classes. Even

though their Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores increased significantly for both

the motion unit and force unit, the changes did not show significant differences between

classes. Significant correlations were not observed between the Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for either the motion or the force unit and perceptions of the nature

168 of science. On the contrary there were significant correlations between student

Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the motion unit and Individual Interest,

Involvement Component of Interest, and the Story Component of Interest scores. The

Story Component of Interest scores were also correlated with the Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for the force unit. The positive correlations with Individual Interest

and Involvement Component of Interest scores for the motion unit were significantly

greater than for the Traditional Class.

For the Traditional Class, the negative changes in perceptions of Scientific

Method were significantly greater than those for other classes. The positive changes in perceptions of Inference were significantly less than those for the NOS Class and Interest

Class. The negative changes in perceptions of Inference were significantly greater than the Interest Class. The Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for both the motion and force units scores increased significantly, however these changes did not show significant difference between classes. Significant correlations were observed between the Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores and perceptions of the nature of science; the perceptions of Inference for the motion unit, and the perceptions of Subjectivity for

the force unit. The positive correlation coefficients between Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores for the motion unit and the Individual Interest scores for the

Meaningful Class, the NOS Class, and the Interest Class; Situational Interest scores for

the Meaningful Class; and Involvement Component of Interest scores of the Interest

Class were significantly greater than the correlations for the Traditional Class.

169 The Effects on Student Meaningful Learning

Previous studies emphasized the similarity between students’ alternative ideas and

scientists’ past ideas and suggested taking advantage of this similarity for student

learning of science. Wandersee (1985) investigated the parallel between student learning

of science concepts by grade level age and the development of scientific concepts throughout history. He reported the similarity between student alternative concepts and scientists’ concepts of photosynthesis. He suggested using the similarity for student

Meaningful Learning. Seroglou et al. (1998) also reported the similarity between student alternative concepts and scientists’ concepts from the past related to electricity and magnetism and used this similarity for student learning of science. Even though the teaching context developed by Seroglou et al. was similar to that used in the Meaningful

Class context; their intervention was not conducted in the actual science classroom. In the current study, the Meaningful Class context refers to the use of the similarity between student alternative ideas and scientists’ ideas from the past in the actual science class integrated with the related science curriculum. The similarities between student alternative concepts for the motion and force units and the development of scientific concepts related to motion and force through the use of history were considered in the development of curricular materials for the Meaningful Class. For example student pre- concept of force is similar to the idea of impetus. While the concept of force was taught with examples from daily life in the Traditional Class, the similarity between student concepts of force and the idea of impetus from the history of science was used to create discussion sessions to articulate the student concepts of force before teaching Newton’s

Laws in the Meaningful Class. In the other historical treatment classes; the NOS Class,

170 and the Interest Class, historical information about scientific methods and scientists’

personal life stories respectively were included in the lessons.

Before and after the motion and force units, the concept mapping technique was

used to measure student Meaningful Learning. The mean values for Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores were compared between the classes to investigate the effectiveness

of the use of scientific concepts from the history of science on student learning of

science. The change in the mean of Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores from the

pretest to the posttest for the Meaningful Class appeared to be higher than for other

classes. However, the results of statistical analysis did not reveal significant differences

in Meaningful Learning for either the motion or the force units. Student Meaningful

Learning (concept map) scores significantly increased across all classes for both the

motion and force units. Since the concept mapping technique was used in all classes, it is

possible that these significant increases may be due, in part, to the experiences with

concept mapping prior to the study.

It should be noted that there were more similarities than differences in the teaching methods used for all classes. Since the study was conducted in actual science

classrooms, student learning of science concepts was targeted for all historical treatment groups and the Traditional Class. For example; students in all classes discussed their untutored beliefs about physical phenomena; they were all encouraged to find their own misconceptions; the relationships between concepts were all strongly emphasized in all classrooms; motivation to learn scientific concepts was considered for all classes. Since these similar considerations for all classes would be expected to contribute to meaningful learning, this may explain the similar significant changes for all classes from pretest to

171 posttest for the increase of student Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for both

the motion and for units.

The design of this study was developed from a base of meaningful learning theory, which defines learning as the extension of student cognitive structure by incorporation of new concepts and propositions. The similarity between student prior cognitive structure and knowledge structure of learning material is the most essential aspect for Meaningful Learning. The results of the current study revealed no specific positive or negative effects of historical information on student Meaningful Learning.

These results are similar to the findings of Becker (personal communication, May 18,

2001), Irwin (2000), and Klopfer and Cooley (1961). These studies did not provide a theoretical basis for the relationship between the use of history of science and student learning of science.

The Effects on Student Views of the Nature of Science

Even though history of science is considered as potentially a valuable curriculum resource for understanding the nature of science, the results of the previous studies

(Irwin, 1997, 2000; Klopfer & Cooley, 1961; Solomon et al., 1992) did not provide conclusive evidence. Matthews (2000), and Duschl (1990, 1994) only discussed the potential effects of history of science on students’ views of the nature of science.

The historical information related to the nature of science was used in the NOS

Class while regular science curriculum was followed in the Traditional Class. Also, there were no treatments for understanding of the nature of science in the other historical treatment classes; the Meaningful Class and the Interest Class. The changes in student perceptions of the nature of science were compared with the Traditional Class and the

172 other historical treatment groups. Irwin (1997) did not use a control group to compare his intervention with the traditional science lesson. While Irwin’s (2000) and Solomon et al.

(1992)’s findings were based on analysis of interviews, the current study’s findings were based on statistical analysis of student responses to the POSE instrument. Klopfer and

Cooley’ (1961) used the TOUS (Test on Understanding Science) instrument, that has construct validity concerns related to the aspects of the nature of science. One of the factors that the TOUS assesses is the student understanding of the scientific enterprise and the methods and the aims of science, which were not considered to be related to the aspects of the nature of science (The Center of Advance Science Education [CASE],

2000). The POSE instrument was developed to measure the following aspects of the nature of science: Scientific Method, Tentativeness, Inference, and Subjectivity.

The current study observed significant evidence on the effectiveness of the use history of science on student perceptions of Scientific Method and Inference. The number of students in each class who could change their views positively or negatively at the beginning of the study was considered. The proportion of the number of students who changed their perceptions positively or negatively to the number of students who could change their views positively and negatively were compared between classes. For the perceptions of Scientific Method, the proportion of negative changes for the Traditional

Class was greater than for the historical treatment groups. These differences between classes in part resulted because students in the Traditional Class changed their views of

Scientific Method negatively while students in the historical treatment groups changed their perceptions of Scientific Method positively.

173 There were significant differences between classes in the change of student

perception of Inference. The proportion of students who changed their views of Inference

positively for the Traditional Class and Meaningful Class were less than that for the NOS

Class and Interest Class. The proportion of students who changed their views of Inference

negatively for the Traditional Class was greater than that for the Interest Class. These

differences in perceptions of Inference may be due to the use of discussions about

scientific methods that past scientists used and sharing of their personal life stories. For

example, students in the NOS Class discussed how Galileo inferred about the motion of

objects without air, or without friction. For other aspects of the nature of science,

Tentativeness and Subjectivity, there were no significant differences in the proportion of

students, that changed their perspectives either positively or negatively.

The current study was different from the prior studies conducted in this field with

regards to the design and the length of the study. The design of this study provided

opportunities to compare explicit, implicit, and traditional ways of using history of science in teaching the nature of science. Irwin (1997, 2000), Klopfer and Cooley (1961)

Solomon et al. (1992) did not consider the differences between explicit and implicit ways

of teaching nature of science. Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman (2000a) suggested explicit

explanations of nature of science conceptions, but their sample was college students and

student teachers. The Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman study has limited relevance to the

results of the current study with eighth-grade students. Based on the definitions in the

literature (Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick, 2002), the explicit way of teaching is when the

teacher targets the aspects of the nature of science; the teaching strategies in the NOS

Class was the explicit way of teaching the nature of science. The teaching strategies for

174 other historical treatment classes; the Meaningful Class, the Interest Class, and the

Traditional Class can be considered as implicit ways of teaching the nature of science

because the teacher did not target the aspects of the nature of science. The results of the

current study indicated no statistical significant differences resulted between these

contexts for using the history of science for teaching the nature of science.

The length of the current study was over more than a 4 month period of time. This

was longer than Irwin’s (1997, 2000) previous studies which were at most five periods of

class time, hardly enough time for determining the effectiveness of curricular materials

on students’ views of the nature of science. Descriptive analysis of students’ views on all

aspects of the nature of science in the current study showed that the percent of Informed

students increased and the percent of Naïve students decreased only in the NOS Class. In

addition, considering the teaching strategy in the NOS Class as an explicit way of

teaching, the positive changes support the findings of the study conducted by Khishfe and

Abd-El-Khalick (2002). They did not use the history of science, but they suggested

explicit ways of teaching the nature of science would be more effective than implicit

ways. The descriptive results of this study suggest that an explicit use of the history of

science would be better for student understanding of the aspects of the nature of science.

The Effects on Student Interest in Science

The current study investigated the effects of history of science on student responses to interest scales: Individual Interest, Situational Interest, Involvement

Component of Interest, Meaningful Component of Interest, and Story Component of

Interest. Not only the effects on student interest, but also the sources of student interest were investigated. B. Becker (personal communication, May 18, 2001) reported positive

175 results on student attitude toward science, but did not provide a theoretical base for the relationship between the use of history of science and student attitude. The current study used the interest model discussed by Hidi and Baird (1986), Krapp et al. (1992), and

Mitchell (1993). According to this model, aspects of student interest are Individual

Interest, Situational Interest, Hold Components of Interest (Involvement Component of

Interest, Meaningful Component of Interest), and Catch Component of Interest (Story

Component of Interest) (see “Student Interest” section in the Chapter 2). The current study used on interest survey to investigate the differences between class contexts.

Students’ responses were analyzed using statistical methods. Other studies (Irwin, 2000;

Solomon et al. 1992, Warrick, 2000) did not collect data on student interest but they emphasized positive effects on student interest rhetorically. Matthews (2000), and Stinner

& Williams (1993) also mentioned that history of science can have a positive effect on student motivation.

Findings from the analyses in the current study revealed that scientists’ personal life stories consistently affected student interest positively. The Story Component of

Interest for the Interest Class changed more than that for the other classes; the

Meaningful Class, the NOS Class, and the Traditional Class. The student Situational

Interest scores also showed significant increases for the Interest Class and the Traditional

Class while those for the NOS Class and Meaningful Class remained constant. Scientists’ life stories had a greater effect on Situational Interest than other historical materials used in the Meaningful Class and the NOS Class. The student Involvement Component of

Interest scores for the NOS Class showed a decrease for the force unit, and this change was significantly different than the other classes. This suggests that discussions of

176 scientists’ ideas of the past and their methods affected student interest in a negative way.

Scientists’ personal life stories have the most positive effect on student interest. Stinner

(1995) emphasized the importance of the grade level of students in the use of history of

science based on science teachers’ reflections in his department. Stories of science should

be developed for students in the early years and middle years. Findings of the current

study support his arguments.

The interviews with students at the end of the study revealed that students in the

Meaningful Class and the NOS Class were not used to discussing their ideas. In previous years, they were expected to memorize what the science teacher told them and what the textbook emphasized. Expectations might have played an important role and their interest may have declined when they did not experience what they had expected in the NOS

Class. The science teacher encouraged the students to challenge their prior knowledge about concepts and scientific methods. Dissatisfaction with prior knowledge may also have affected student interest in a negative way.

Student Learning of Science and Views of the Nature of Science

The effects of the use history of science on both student learning of science and understanding of the nature of science were reported without considering differences in

the class contexts with regards to the class objectives (B. Becker, personal communication, May 18, 2001; Irwin, 2000; Solomon et al., 1992). Irwin and Solomon created class context to improve student understanding of the nature of science and reported trivial results on student learning. In the current study, the relationships between student Meaningful Learning and understanding aspects of the nature of science were investigated. Even though there were significant correlations, they are consistently

177 significant for both motion and force units. Because differences between classes were not

significant, there was no evidence that student learning was affected by changes in

student perceptions of the nature of science. There was no direct evidence that the

teaching materials from the history of science affected both learning of science and

understanding of the nature of science.

Student Learning of Science and Interest in Science

The correlation coefficients between student learning and student interest were

given in Table 4.34 and Table 4.36. The analyses of differences between classes for these

correlation coefficients showed that students with more Individual Interest had better

Meaningful Learning scores in the Meaningful Class, the NOS Class, and Interest Class

than did the students in the Traditional Class. However, in general, the Meaningful Class

and NOS Class interest scores decreased during the study. It might be expected that

students who have low interest would get low scores. This also may explain the substantial change in standard deviation for these classes (Table 4.5 & Table 4.7). The discussions may have frustrated some students in these classes.

Student Situational Interest plays a more important role in relation to the

Meaningful Learning for students in the Meaningful Class than in the Traditional Class.

Students in the Meaningful Class seemed to be frustrated because of discussions of the history of scientific concepts. The teacher did not give a resolution but through discussions encouraged students to discuss their own ideas. Opposing ideas, such as

geocentric vs. heliocentric models of the universe, and the concept of impetus vs. the

concept of force were presented as equally valid ideas. The students might have thought

that what they were learning was not substantial for them and consequently were less

178 motivated and had lower Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores. As a student stated,

“If someone is going to come along in the next few years and come up with something

new, then what’s the point? I’m not learning this stuff if it will change” (Student 8281,

Meaningful Class). On the other hand, students who thought that what they were learning

in science class was important for them and their future, they might have tended to get higher Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores. In the Meaningful Class, the

distinction between the low-interest student and the high-interest student was clearer than

with students in the Traditional Class. Stronger correlations between the Meaningful

Learning and the Individual and Situational Interest for Meaningful Class also supported

this distinctive characteristic of the class.

The relationship between student Meaningful Learning and the Involvement

Component of Interest for the Interest Class was significantly different from that of the

Traditional Class. The increase in the Involvement Component of Interest for the Interest

Class for the motion unit suggests that students who were more involved in class activities presumably due to scientists’ life stories, scored better on the Meaningful

Learning assessment.

Differentiation of Class Context

One of the reasons for non-significant evidence from previous studies was that class context was ignored. Stinner et al. (2001) and Duschl (1990) discussed the importance of characteristics of class context developed with historical information.

Studies reported the results without mentioning the class context in which materials were

presented. With regards to their main purposes; Seroglogu et al. (1998), Wandersee

(1985) developed a class context for student learning of science; and Irwin (1997, 2000),

179 Solomon et al (1992) developed a class context for student understanding of the nature of

science. Other studies (B. Becker, personal communication, May 18, 2001; Klopfer &

Cooley, 1961) did not clearly describe the context developed with the use of history of

science as it related to the objectives of the science lesson.

The current study developed three different curriculum approaches using the

history of science for three science classrooms. The results of the analysis of differences

between classes in the changes of student Meaningful Learning, perspectives of the

nature of science, and student interest in science showed that there were unique

components of class contexts for the use of the history of science. The effects of the

historical materials developed for the Interest Class on student interest were different

from other historical treatment groups. While student views of Inference in the Interest

Class changed positively, those in the Meaningful Class changed negatively.

The class contexts had different effects on student interest in science and

perceptions of the nature of science. This suggests a need for identifying types of

historical information with regards to the objectives of the science class. Figure 5.1 represents the effects of these different historical contexts on student Meaningful

Learning, interest in science, and perceptions of the nature of science.

180

Figure 5.1: The model of the use of history of science in science teaching (UHOSIST). Note: “+” = positive change or relationship; “-“ = negative change or relationship; “±” = no change or relationship.

181 At the left edge of Figure 5.1, the types of historical information used in the study are labeled. Similar and opposing ideas of scientists were used in the Meaningful Class;

scientists’ epistemologies or scientific methods, were used in the NOS Class;

biographical information from scientists’ personal life stories were used in the Interest

Class; and no history of science was used in the Traditional Class. The following symbols

“+, -, ±” represent the followings: “+” indicates a positive change or relationship; “-” indicates a negative change or relationship; “±” indicates no change or relationship.

When the symbols are in the parentheses, such as (+,±) , the first symbol is representative

of the effects or relationship for the motion unit, and the second symbol is representative

of the effects or relationships for the force unit.

The Meaningful Class

Learning materials used in the Meaningful Class were selected from the history of

science considering the relationship between student alternative ideas and scientific ideas

from the past. Class activities include discussion sessions about scientists’ similar ideas,

scientists’ dissensus, and original scientists’ experiments. The primary expected outcome

of these activities was to help student Meaningful Learning (Seroglou et al, 1998;

Wandersee, 1985). Also it was expected that students would perceive that the historical

information incorporated into the science class would be useful for their future. This

variable was defined as Meaningful Component of Interest. Additionally, it was expected

that students would like to be involved in class discussion, which was defined as the

Involvement Component of Interest. As previous studies did not report any relationship

between student learning of science and views of the nature of science, the gains in the

perceptions of the nature of science were not projected as expected outcomes for the

182 current study. However, intuitively it might be expected that scientists’ dissensus throughout history may affect student perceptions of Tentativeness.

The results of the current study showed that student Meaningful Learning increased for the motion and force unit; however this result was similar to that of the

Traditional Class, in which students were taught with traditional curriculum activities and other historical treatment groups. In addition no significant changes were observed in

Meaningful Component and Involvement Component of Interest. It should be noted that

Involvement Component of Interest for the Meaningful Class did not change while that for the NOS Class, in which students discussed scientists’ scientific methods, decreased significantly. The class activities in the Meaningful Class did not result in a decrease in interest, which might be expected because of the addition of discussion sessions. The analysis of student interest scores and Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores showed that these variables for the Meaningful Class were significantly and positively correlated.

Student interest appeared to play an important role in Meaningful Learning of science in the Meaningful Class.

For the Meaningful Class, student perceptions of Inference changed negatively. It was not an expected outcome of the study that this historical treatment would have this effect on student perceptions of Inference. In addition there were significant relationships between Meaningful Learning of science and the perceptions of Inference for the

Meaningful Class. The potential expected outcome in the Meaningful Class was to change student perceptions of Tentativeness; however their perceptions were not significantly different than other classes. Nevertheless, there was a significant relationship between the perceptions of Tentativeness and Meaningful Learning.

183 The NOS Class

The Class activities for the NOS Class were based on the historical information

about scientific methods throughout history. The activities included discussions on

comparing different scientific methods, and on reasons for different explanations by

different scientists. The expected outcome from the treatment in this class was to help

student to be aware of different scientific methods, the tentative nature of scientific

knowledge, the role of inference in producing scientific knowledge, and subjective nature of scientific knowledge. It was also expected that students would appreciate discussing scientists’ methods and that the Involvement Component of Interest would change positively.

The results of the study showed that Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the NOS Class increased significantly for the motion and force units; however this change was not significantly different from these changes for the classes. The positive changes of student perceptions of Inference for the NOS Class were greater than that for the Traditional Class. The negative changes of the perceptions of Scientific Method for the NOS Class were less than that for the Traditional Class as well. However other historical treatment class scores also showed the same positive results. The treatments in both the Meaningful Class and the NOS Class had some similarities with regards to the characteristics of some historical information. For example, different scientific methods to observe the same natural phenomena and different scientific concepts as result of observations of the same phenomena can emphasize the aspect of Scientific Method and

Tentativeness. These results support the positive effects of the use of history of science, but not uniquely for class activities conducted in the NOS Class. Contrary to the

184 expectations of the study, Involvement Component of Interest decreased significantly and this drop was significantly different from other classes. The discussions on scientific methods from the past affected student interest negatively. The Individual Interest scores for the NOS Class showed significant relationship with Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores, stronger than that for the Traditional Class. Since the Individual Interest scores decreased significantly, students with lower Individual Interest had lower

Meaningful Learning scores while students with higher Individual Interest had higher

Meaningful Learning scores.

Interest Class

Scientists’ personal life stories were incorporated into the traditional science curriculum without considering its connection to science content or the nature of science content. The expected outcome from these stories was to increase student Situational

Interest and Story Component of Interest. Additionally it was expected that stimulation of student interest over a long term would positively influence student Individual Interest, which has been considered to have a positive effect on student learning of science (Krap et al.1992).

The results of the study showed that Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores for the Interest Class increased significantly for the motion unit and force unit however this change was not significantly different than that for the other classes. The Situational

Interest scores for the Interest Class increased significantly but did not differ from that of the Traditional Class. On the other hand, the Story Component of Interest scores for the

Interest Class increased significantly and differed from that for the Traditional Class.

Although the Situational Interest, the Involvement Component of Interest, and the Story

185 Component of Interest increased, Individual Interest scores seem to be unchanged by the

end of the study. Perhaps if students had more consistent and regular exposure to this

context for the use of the history of science, the long term effect would develop positive changes in Individual Interest. Unexpectedly the positive changes and negative changes in student perspective of Inference for the Interest Class were positively and significantly different from the Traditional Class. Scientist personal life stories seem to be the best way of using history of science to affect student Story Component of Interest and perspectives of Inference. The Individual Interest and Involvement Component of Interest scores for the Interest Class showed a significant relationship with Meaningful Learning

(concept map) scores, stronger than those for the Traditional Class.

Appropriateness of Curriculum Materials Including the History of Science

The variety of results with regards to the different class contexts supports the differentiation of class contexts developed with different types of historical information.

The initial step of overcoming the difficulties of the use of history of science in science teaching was to help the science teacher recognize various types of historical information and their connection to lesson objectives and goals. For example, one of the concerns about using new materials was the already crowded curriculum (Gallagher, 1991). The variety of historical information presented by media and represent only supplementary materials for science teachers unless it can be related to the lesson objectives and goals. In order to incorporate these materials, teachers need to understand the differences between the types and uses of historical information as described before; the history of scientific concepts, scientific methods through history, the relation between science and society, and scientists’ personal life stories (see section ‘Considerations’ in

186 Chapter 1). The history of science is a proper supplementary material for science teaching

as long as teachers recognize the parallel between the objectives of the lessons and the

historical materials. Historical information can be valuable and accessible learning

material.

Limitations and Delimitations

This study was conducted on ninety-one students in grade 8 from a Central Ohio

school district. Students were randomly assigned to four classes and treatments were

randomly assigned to the classes to control potential confounding variables:

homoscedasticity, student background differences, testing effect, instrumentation,

regression, and selection. The sample size is small for each class therefore the statistical

power for detecting differences in adversely affected.

Students who did not complete every component of the study were not included in

the analysis. Deleting these students’ scores from the analysis did not significantly affect

the equality between classrooms. Even though students were separate in science classes,

they may have taken other classes together. They had the chance to talk with each other

about activities conducted in their science classes. For example the literature teacher

explained what is meant by inference and observations in her classes. The descriptions of these concepts and processes were purposefully not given directly to students in this

study.

Curriculum was also developed based on coursework and the curriculum

framework for the school district. Teachers were given the flexibility to choose their own

specific curriculum based on these guidelines. Therefore not all eighth-grade students

were taught the same concepts at the same time. The curriculum in this study covered

187 scientific concepts related to the motion and force units (see Table 3.1) and was

conducted and is reported in two phases. In the first phase, motion unit, students were taught for two . There were breaks, such as Thanksgiving (one week), assembly days, etc. The second phase, the force unit, extended over more than two months because of time lost for winter break and assembly days. Since all classes have the same breaks, these factors are controlled between classes. However differences in treatment effects between the motion and force units may have been due to the lengths of breaks rather than content knowledge taught.

The science teacher had no specific experience related to the use of history of science, curriculum materials for nature of science, or student interest in science. She had conducted a master’s degree on the comparison between student proficiency test results and their achievement scores in class. Before the study began, she read studies on the use of history of science to use as resources for teaching science. Because this study was conducted with one teacher, the effect of the teacher perspective could not be controlled.

Stories about scientists’ personal lives stimulated student interest consistently. It is important to note that students might have perceived ‘stories’ to mean different things depending upon the context. Story may refer to the teacher talk unrelated to the subject matter taught. In the Interest Class, it is assumed that students interpreted this to mean stories about scientists’ personal lives. For example Newton’s relationship with his friends was not directly related to the subject matter taught. In the Meaningful Class, it is assumed that students thought this meant stories about the discovery stories of scientists.

Even though discovery stories are related to the subject matter they were not told as subject matter of the lesson. The teacher did not ask students to learn them. In the NOS

188 Class, it is assumed that they saw stories as the description of the methods scientists used.

As it was in the meaningful class, students were not asked to learn historical information about scientific methods. Also it is assumed that the Traditional Class interpreted stories to mean the daily life examples they were given. In the Traditional Class, the teacher told stories about her experiences. Even though these stories can be related to the subject matter, students were not asked to learn them as a part of the science lesson.

Recommendations for Future Research

With regard to results of this study, the following suggestions for further research in the use of history of science, and its effects on student learning of science,

understanding nature of science, interest in science, and the assessment of these aspects

are provided. One of the results of this study is that there were different class contexts provided by history of science with regards to the objectives of science lessons. As it is discussed in previous chapters (‘Class Contexts’ in Chapter 1, ‘Class Contexts’ in

Chapter 4) the tendency to ignore class context has been a source of mixed results of studies in the use of history of science. Future research should describe the type of class

context developed with history of science as it is described in this study; such as

Meaningful Class, NOS Class, and Interest Class. The results of research on the use of history of science to teach science should be designed and reported in respect to the

specific context, not as a general finding related to the overall effectiveness.

The results of the current study showed that discussions of scientific concepts from the history of science and on scientists’ ways of producing scientific knowledge tended to decrease student interest in science. The characterization, selection, and sequencing of historical materials appropriate for discussion session at various grade

189 levels is one of the concerns of using the history of science as it is discussed in the literature review section. Irwin’s (2000) study also had similar results on the effect of the

history of science on student attitude at the middle school level. Further studies should

investigate strategies for engaging students in historical class contexts which foster

positive student attitudes toward history of science. The effectiveness of historical

materials considering the class contexts created should be investigated for middle school,

high school, and college level science instruction.

Student learning of science was measured using a concept mapping technique

which focused upon the acquisition of valid propositions. Concept mapping as an

assessment tool does not assess student understanding of specific scientific concepts in

contextual settings. The context of the questions can be important in physics as some

concepts come from daily life experiences and others are more abstract. In the

measurement of science learning, a concept mapping technique should be developed

using daily life context or other measurement techniques including context should be

considered. For example; “push” and “pull” are concepts that students used for

explaining their daily life examples. These concepts should be used in the concept

mapping techniques in addition to the concept of force to explore their alternative

concepts.

Results of the statistical analysis of Meaningful Learning (concept map) scores

showed that various methods for use of the history of science did not differentially affect

student Meaningful Learning. However, based on class observations some students

showed that they could recognize the similarity between their prior knowledge and

scientific concepts from the historical accounts. For example, some students recognized

190 the similarity between their prior concept of force and medieval concept of force. To develop student meta-cognitive skills, the teacher needs to develop discussion sessions in which students can become familiar with their alternative ideas. History of science might be a potential meta-cognitive material to develop such discussion sessions. Further studies should be conducted to investigate how to use historical material for meta- cognitive activities, such as discussion session sparked with scientists’ conflict from history of science.

The substantial changes in standard deviations of mean values for the Meaningful

Learning scores may be due to the differences in cognitive abilities. Considering the relationship between student IQ level and pre-interest scale scores, students with high cognitive ability may have started with a high interest and students with low cognitive ability may have started with a low interest. Particularly, for the Meaningful Class, student interest scale scores were more related to student Meaningful Learning scores and the standard deviation for their Meaningful Learning scores were higher than other classes. Student cognitive ability might have played an important role on the effectiveness of historical information on student meaningful learning. Further research should consider student cognitive abilities in the use of history of science for learning of science.

The results of the statistical analysis of Tentativeness scores were not consistent with the class observations. Student perspectives on Tentativeness seemed to be affected by the historical materials. As an example, some students were frustrated with the uncertain image of science (‘The Meaningful Class Context’ in Chapter 4). One possible was that the NOS survey was not adequately developed to evaluate the student

191 views of nature of science. The second question of the nature of science instrument

targeted the evaluation of student perspective of Tentativeness; “Do you think that the

scientific knowledge found in your science textbooks (facts, , and theories) will

change in the future?” Most students answered ‘yes’. Their explanations did not result in

significant changes on differences in changes throughout the study. Considering the

strong consistencies in student responses to this question, there is need for more

directional questions and follow-up exploratory support. This may help to increase

reliability of the instrument as the current instrument had low interrater reliability for

assessing this aspect of the nature of science. With more directional questions, rubrics

will be less subjective. For example, students responded most frequently to changes in

scientific knowledge due to “new technology,” “new discovery,” or “new equipment.” If

these terms are given as optional answers and the students are asked further information,

this process may help the students who responded to changes in scientific knowledge due

to “new things” or “better things” to give more support their answers. Also less

subjective questions will help raters to be more consistent in their scoring. Another potential reason for the low interrater reliability might be the insufficient training of raters before scoring student perspective of the nature of science. Assessment of the instrument POSE requires more supervision for assessing student perspectives of the nature of science.

Historical class contexts showed significant effects on Scientific Method. These results showed that the history of science had an influence on student perceptions of

Scientific Method when the science teacher incorporated scientists’ ideas, scientific methods, or scientists’ personal life stories. Then again, the historical classes, except for

192 the Meaningful Class, showed significant effects on perceptions of Inference. The

Meaningful Class scores for Inference are significantly lower than for the other historical classes. Considering different results for different aspects of the nature of science, it is

difficult to suggest a certain way of using history of science to help student understanding

of the nature of science. New curriculum materials should be developed for effective

ways of using history of science in science teaching. In the development of these

curricula, student interest should be the initial concern due to the decrease in the

Involvement Component of Interest for the NOS Class. Instead of promoting discussion

sessions, other methods should be used to incorporate the history of science into the

science teaching. For example role playing, drama writing, etc. The variety of results in

the implicit and explicit ways of using history of science for student understanding of the

nature of science suggests that there is a need for more detailed description of the

teaching strategies rather than implicit or explicit ways of teaching the nature of science.

Perhaps the strategies could be categorized as direct (extremely explicit) teaching; direct-

interactive (moderately explicit) teaching; and inquiry based (implicit) teaching of the

nature of science.

Another argument for studies on student views of the nature of science is that

students believe there is only one way of doing science, “the scientific method”. It is

observed that some students in the NOS Class were checking the posters illustrating the

steps of “the scientific method” during discussions of old scientists’ methodologies at the

beginning of the study. Most students were familiar with “the scientific method” and

some even memorized this from the previous science classes. What they were taught

about “the scientific method” should be considered as prior knowledge to develop

193 instructional methods. Research in science education has disparaged the importance of

student prior knowledge about the scientific method. For those who want to teach the nature of science conceptions explicitly they should use the steps of the scientific method

as prior knowledge; (a) observation (inductive way), (b) (deductive way), (c)

(deductive way), (d) testing (inductive way), (e) conclusion (inference). This

method should be emphasized as “a scientific method”. Steps of the scientific method

may include aspects of the nature of science (i.e.; observation; conclusion, inference

based on experiment; hypothesis and prediction, deductive ways; testing, inductive way).

The model developed by Berlin and White (1995) can be used as a reference to integrate

inductive and deductive processes in teaching science. Science teachers need to take the

benefit of this prior knowledge to help students understand the aspects of the nature of

science. Research should be conducted to investigate effects of curriculum materials

developed from the consideration of student prior knowledge about the scientific method

on understanding aspects of the nature of science.

One of the disadvantages of using the history of science in science teaching is the

lose of student trust in scientific knowledge. History of science was used to illustrate

different perspectives on the development of scientific knowledge; however this affected

student trust in a negative way. Other ways of incorporating history of science into the

teaching of science would be to emphasize the importance of scientific knowledge. The

may help students understand how science interacts with society.

Specifically, changes in the technology impact the social, and political activities of

society. For example, Galieo’s and Tartaglia’ ideas on projectile motion can be presented

as significant steps in the technology of war .

194 The current study showed that scientists' personal life stories affected student interest positively. This is consistent with Stinner’s (1995) arguments on the appropriateness of historical information for the middle grade level. The Story

Component of Interest survey measures student emotional beliefs (‘Individual and

Situational Interest’ in Chapter 2), which is related to the student short-term interest. This survey also assessed student Individual Interest, which is long term and not easily changed in the science class. Through the current study, it was observed that student dispositions changed with regards to student interest in science, the analysis of the

Individual Interest scores did not show any difference between classes (‘Interest Class

Context’ in Chapter 4). Further research should monitor students over longitudinal studies to measure student Individual Interest overtime. The Schick & Schewedes (1999) analysis of Individual Interest and Situational Interest can be used to support the analysis

of interest level. Future studies can evaluate student out-of-school experiences by conducting interviews throughout the research. In addition, qualitative analysis can be

conducted to obtain information about involvement of individuals with class activities.

Their involvements with class activities, and the effects or connections of class activities related to daily life situations could help to explore the change in student Individual

Interest.

There were differences in results of the analyses for the motion unit and the force unit. There were several potential reasons for these differences; (a) concepts in the force unit (i.e., inertia, action and reaction forces) were more abstract than in the motion unit

(i.e., distance, velocity, and speed), (b) students were more familiar with the concepts in the motion unit (i.e., distance, displacement, velocity, speed vs. inertia, gravity, action

195 and reaction forces), (c) there are long breaks in the school schedule throughout the force

unit. Moreover, the design of further research should consider the effect of content knowledge in observing effects of historical materials. The characteristics of concepts in the content should be described as to their abstract level, student experience, quantitative requirements, , and the perceived relevance to the students. Research to characterize and classify concepts by the degree of consistency they have with specific contexts for the use of history of science could help guide science curriculum and instructional development.

196

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204

APPENDIX A

CONCEPT MAP INSTRUMENTS FOR THE MOTION AND FORCE UNITS

205 (MOTION UNIT)

Examine the concept map below. Notice that the circles are filled in with science concepts from the current unit. Your task is to fill in the boxes on the lines between the concepts. You should focus on how the concepts are related to one another. You may describe this relationship with a single statement, or more than one statement if you can think of several ways that two concepts can be related. Write your statements on the following pages in the appropriate .

MOTION

I II III OBSERVER FORCE

DISPLACEMENT

IV VI DISTANCE

V ACCELERATION VIII

VII VELOCITY SPEED X

IX XII XI AVERAGE INSTANTANEOUS VELOCITY AVERAGE SPEED SPEED

206

RELATIONSHIPS CONCEPTS

MOTION – FORCE I

II MOTION – OBSERVER

III MOTION – DISPLACEMENT

IV FORCE – ACCELERATION

V DISPLACEMENT – VELOCITY

207

RELATIONSHIPS CONCEPTS

DISPLACEMENT – DISTANCE VI

VII ACCELERATION – VELOCITY

VIII DISTANCE – SPEED

IX VELOCITY – AVERAGE VELOCITY

X VELOCITY – SPEED

208 RELATIONSHIPS CONCEPTS

SPEED – AVERAGE SPEED XI

XII SPEED – INSTANTENOUS SPEED

OTHER RELATIONSHIPS

209

(FORCE UNIT)

Examine the concept map below. Notice that the circles are filled in with science concepts from the current unit. Your task is to fill in the boxes on the lines between the concepts. You should focus on how the concepts are related to one another. You may describe this relationship with a single statement, or more than one statement if you can think of several ways that two concepts can be related. Write your statements on the following pages in the appropriate spaces.

MOTION

FRICTION I II INERTIA

IV III

ACTION & WEIGHT FORCE REACTION VVI

VII VIII

ACCELERATION MASS

X IX GRAVITY

210

CONNECTIONS RELATIONSHIPS

I MOTION – FRICTION

II MOTION – INERTIA

III FRICTION – WEIGHT

IV MOTION – FORCE

V WEIGHT – FORCE

211 CONNECTIONS RELATIONSHIPS

VI FORCE – ACTION & REACTION

VII WEIGHT – MASS

VIII FORCE – ACCELERATION

IX MASS – GRAVITY

X GRAVITY - ACCELERATION

212

OTHER RELATIONSHIPS CONNECTIONS

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APPENDIX B

PERSPECTIVES ON SCIENTIFIC EPISTEMOLOGY (POSE)

QUESTIONNAIRE

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I. Tell me about yourself

1. Your number: ______

2. Today’s date: / /

3. Age: ______years

4. Please one: Male Female

5. Grade level: ______

II. Instructions

• Please answer each of the following questions. You can use all the space provided to answer a question. If you need more space, use the reverse side of the sheet on which the question appears.

• There are no “right” or “wrong” answers to the following questions. I am only interested in your ideas related to the following questions.

215 1. Scientists produce scientific knowledge (facts, laws, and theories). Some of this

knowledge is found in your science textbooks. How do scientists produce scientific

knowledge?

216 2. Do you think that the scientific knowledge found in your science textbooks (facts,

laws, and theories) will change in the future?

Circle one: Yes [Answer part (a) if you circled “yes”] No [Answer part (b) if you circled “no”]

(a) If you circled “yes,” explain why you think scientific knowledge will change in

the future.

(b) If you circled “no,” explain why you think scientific knowledge will not change

in the future.

217 3. While buying some bulbs at a florist shop, you come by a hand-written note next to

some liquid bottles. The note claimed, “-grow will make your plant grow

much faster than it would without this scientific breakthrough: Try it today!” Having

grown plants yourself; you are a bit suspicious of this claim. Can you think of an

experiment that would allow you to test this claim?

218 4. (a) What does the word “evidence” mean to you?

(b) What does the word “data” mean to you?

(c) What ways do scientists use to collect “evidence” or “data”?

(d) Why do scientists collect “evidence” or “data”?

219 5. Scientists believe that the lived more than 65 millions years ago.

(a) How do scientists know that dinosaurs really existed?

(b) How can scientists tell what the dinosaurs looked like (for example, the texture and

color of dinosaurs’ skin, the shape of their eyes)?

(c) How are scientists sure about the way they believe the dinosaurs looked?

220 6. Scientists agree that about 65 million years ago the dinosaurs became extinct.

However, scientists disagree about what caused this extinction. Some scientists

believe that massive and violent volcanic eruptions were responsible for the

extinction of the dinosaurs. Other scientists believe that a huge comet (or ) hit

the Earth 65 million years ago and led to a series of events that caused the extinction.

(a) Did you hear about this issue before? Circle one: Yes No

(b) What, if any, is your view on this issue? Why do you hold this view?

(c) Does it surprise you that scientists disagree about the cause of the extinction

of the dinosaurs? Explain your answer.

(d) It is known that all the above scientists have access to and use the same set of

data. How could it be that these scientists use the same data and still arrive at

different conclusions regarding the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs?

(e) Is there a difference between scientific knowledge and scientific opinion?

Explain your answer.

221 7. All matter is made up of atoms. Atoms are very small: even a single cell is made up

of millions and millions of atoms. The atom is shown as having a nucleus in the

center with moving around it.

Scientists hold different views about this representation of the atom. Some scientists

believe that this is a true and exact representation of the atom. Other scientists believe

that this representation is just a model since we cannot know whether this

representation of the atom is true and exact.

(a) What is your view on this issue? Why do you hold this view?

(b) How do scientists determine the representation of the atom shown above?

(c) Scientists disagree about their beliefs regarding the representation of the atom.

How is it possible for scientists to disagree? Explain your answer.

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APPENDIX C

INTEREST SURVEY

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225 Individual Interest

• Science is enjoyable to me. (Item 6)

• I have always enjoyed studying science in school. (Item 11)

• Compared to other subjects, I feel relaxed studying science. (Item 20)

• Compared to other subjects, science is exciting to me. (Item 13)

Situational Interest

• Our class is fun. (Item 1)

• I actually look forward to going to science class this year. (Item 18)

• Our science class is boring. (Item 23)

• This year I like science. (Item 8)

• I don’t find anything interesting about science this year. (Item 2)

• My other classes are more interesting than science. (Item 17)

Involvement Component

• Our teacher has fun activities to learn the stuff that we need to know. (Item 21)

• We just come in, take notes, go home, do homework, and it’s the same thing

every . (Item 5)

• We learn the material ourselves instead of being lectured to. (Item 24)

• We usually sit and listen to the teacher talk. (Item 22)

• We often do something instead of the teacher just talking.(Item 12)

• We often hear long, long explanations and I quickly loose interest. (Item 3)

Meaningfulness Component

• The stuff we learn in this class will never be used in real life. (Item 16)

226 • Class would be better if the science problems were more related to life problems.

(deleted because of low reliability)

• I see the science we’ve learned as important in life. (Item 9)

• I will never use the information in class again, so I don’t need it. (Item 14)

Story Component

• I like to learn science from stories about scientists’ discoveries. (Item 4)

• Stories are more interesting than text materials. (Item 7)

• I feel more able to participate in discussions when the teacher uses stories in

science teaching. (Item 10)

• I enjoy listening to stories during the science lesson. (Item 15)

• Learning with stories about scientists’ lives makes our class more enjoyable.

(Item 19)

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APPENDIX D

CURRICULA

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10min 20min 30min 40min 50min

TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST MOTION NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS

Definition of motion

Relationship between motion and observer Situational Problems

Motion in Daily Life

First about motion

Ptolemy and Copernicus models

Stories

TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST DISTANCE NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS Speed Contest with Standard Units Speed Contest with Units in

History The history of units

The need for units

Baseball Activity

Invention of time Invention of The need for standards standards Invention of

Roller Blades Activity

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TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST SPEED NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS

Motion Diagrams

the speed of light

history of speed of light

reasons of measuring speed of light TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST DISPLACEMENT NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS

Blind Activity

Geographic Map

Football Field Activity

Airplane Toy

Stories

TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST VELOCITY NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS

Position-time Graph

Analysis and Interpretation of Graphs Free Fall

History of History of concepts in Free Fall change in Strato’s velocity experiment Stories

More

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TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST ACCELERATION NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS

Galileo' s experiment

Car ramps ( Velocity Distance)

Car ramps ( Velocity Time)

Galileo’s Galieo’s Galileo' s experiment (Position frictionless inference in time graph) concept frictionless Car Ramp ( Calculation acceleration) Galileo’s Galileo’s Force and acceleration (history) acceleration controlling concept variables Force and acceleration

( experiments +graphics) Stories

TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST GRAVITY NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS relationship between mass and velocity of falling body Discussion about theories on falling body Air resistance

Galielo's Approximation

Inference ( no air )

Experiment on the

Moon as a falling body

Gravity

Galileo's Cannon Balls Change in Motion without velocity air friction Terminal Velocity

Stories

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TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST FRICTION NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS

Friction as a concept of force

Friction and Weight

Friction and sport discuss "if there is no friction" History of Inferential friction Scientific Kno. Friction and Surface types

More daily life examples

Stories

TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST INERTIA NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS

Inventory

Force and Inertia

History of Inertia Concept Galileo vs. Falsification of Newton Impetus Theories in Motion

Discussions on Impetus

States of Motion

Newton's First Law

Discovery of Inertia Concept Impetus idea Buridan’s theory, Impetus Comparison Strato’s and Impetus and Inertia impetus and Galileo’s inertia experiment Stories

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TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST NEWTON'S SECOND LAW NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS Newton’s definition of Newton’s Impetus, inertia, and momentum force with second law with momentum momentum Force , mass, and acceleration

Scientific Method in Discovery

of Force Concept Free fall "Gravity as a force"

Problem Solving

Stories

TRADITIONAL MEANINGFUL INTEREST NEWTON'S THIRD LAW NOS CLASS CLASS CLASS CLASS

Newton's Third Law

Daily life examples

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APPENDIX E

EXAMPLES FOR EVALUATION OF STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES

OF THA NATURE OF SCIENCE

234 Table. Examples for evaluation of students perspectives of the nature of science

Scientific Method How do scientists produce scientific knowledge Naïve First they find something they want to know more about Scientists produce scientific knowledge by doing Intermediate experiments, survey, and charts. Scientists produce their scientific knowledge by experimenting, observing, using math, or by using someone Informed else information Do you think that the scientific knowledge found in your Tentativeness science textbooks will change in the future?

Naïve I think it will not change because it is so self explanatory. I think that it will change because everyday people make Intermediate new discoveries It will most likely because things always change. People can add on to the ideas or laws. They can also prove it wrong and Informed totally change it. How do scientists determine the representation of the atom Inference shown above? They can look at different kinds of atoms to see if it really is Naïve a representation

Intermediate They use the data they have and hope it is the best and right They make an inference, it is their opinion of what it looks Informed like How could it be that these scientists use the same data and Subjectivity still arrive at different conclusions Naïve All of data is not clear obviously Because they are different people and believe different Intermediate things Because they have the same data they don’t have the same Informed

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