In this paper, we use the "Family Resemblance Approach" (FRA) as a framework to characterize how scientists view the nature of science (NOS). FRA presents NOS as a "system" that includes clusters or categories of ideas about the cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional aspects of science. For example, the…

Studies on integrated STEM education and the integration of engineering practices into the instruction of science have called for the need to better understand the similarities, differences and interrelations between science and engineering, as well the naïve views often associated with them. The current study contributes to this scholarly work…

This study sought to discover what aspects of the nature of science (NOS) should be emphasized to nurture great scientists. To this end, educational practices in the Sommerfeld school, regarded as highly successful in scientist education, were analyzed and compared with past and present educational practices. Sommerfeld school's educational…

The devastating COVID-19 pandemic has cast a light on the question of why trust in scientists is important. This mixed-method study aimed to explore the study participants' trust in scientists about getting the COVID-19 vaccine. It also aimed to reveal which key sources of information participants followed about the pandemic. Participants'…

The study seeks to explore the extent to which students think pedagogical activities exemplifying various degrees of contextualization accurately reflect the work of scientists. Arguing for scaffolding across multiple degrees of contextualization, Clough (2006) reasoned that different contextualization plays different, but complimentary, roles in…

The past decade has seen multiple debates and discussions over the appropriate framing of Nature of Science (NOS) for science education. These debates have stemmed from a diversity of philosophical views on what science fundamentally is. In post-secondary STEM education, the goals of a science education rest in having students socialize into…

Imagination is necessary for scientific practice, yet there are no in vivo sociological studies on the ways that imagination is taught, thought of, or evaluated by scientists. This article begins to remedy this by presenting the results of a qualitative study performed on two systems biology laboratories. I found that the more advanced a…

From literature on understandings of the "nature of science" (NOS), we know that sometimes scientists and others that participate in teaching and mentoring in the sciences lack an informed view of the philosophical underpinnings of their discipline. In this study, we ask whether biologists who are also teachers or mentors for college…

This article presents the results of an exploratory study of students' knowledge about scientists and countries' contributions to science, aiming at answering two research questions: "In which ways are students aware of the history of scientific development carried out by different people in different places of the world? What can be…

Scientific inquiry is both theoretical and empirical. It succeeds by bringing thought into productive harmony with the observable universe, and thus, students can attain a robust understanding of the nature of science (NOS) only by developing a balanced appreciation of both these dimensions. In this article, I examine naïve empiricism, a teaching…

Including the perspectives of scientists about the nature and process of science is important for an authentic and nuanced portrayal of science in science education. The small number of studies that have explored scientists' worldviews about science has thus far generated contradictory findings, with recent studies claiming that scientists…

Drawn from the cultural-historical theories of knowing and doing science, this article uses the concept of professional vision to explore what scientists and experienced teachers see and articulate as important aspects of climate science practices. The study takes an abductive reasoning approach to analyze scientists' videotaped lectures to…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013) mandates that schools provide students an understanding of the skills and knowledge that scientists use to engage in scientific practices. In this article, I argue that one of the best ways to accomplish this goal is to have students take the perspective of the scientist by…

This article presents a qualitative study, descriptive-interpretive in profile, of the effectiveness in learning about the nature of science (NOS) of an activity relating to the historical controversy between Pasteur and Liebig on fermentation. The activity was implemented during a course for pre-service secondary science teachers (PSSTs)…

Current curriculum demands require primary teachers to teach about the Nature of Science; yet, few primary teachers have had opportunity to learn about science as a discipline. Prior schooling and vicarious experiences of science may shape their beliefs about science and, as a result, their science teaching. This qualitative study describes the…