Study On The Development And Influening Factors Of High School Students' View Of Nature Of Science

Improving all students' scientific literacy has been the main goal in science education throughout the world, and it's also an important curriculum idea of common high school science curriculum reform in present China. Furthermore, an adequate understanding of nature of science (NOS) is a central component of science literacy. Strengthening the nature of science education and culturing students' understanding of NOS are helpful to promote the development of high school students' scientific literacy successfully. The domestic research on NOS starts relatively late, and the existing research materials are less, especially there are no systematic and thorough studies on the status quo and factors influencing of high school students' NOS views. Therefore, it is of both important theoretical and practical meaning to research the development level, characteristic and influencing factors of high school students' NOS views.Currently there are seven aspects of nature of NOS , including the empirical nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between observation and inference in science, the functions and relations between scientific theories and laws, the roles of creativity and imagination in science research, the theory-laden nature of scientific knowledge, the social and cultural embeddedness of scientific knowledge, the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, which are accepted by the main science education organizations and science educators. Based on the above opinion. This dissertation mainly investigated two questions as follow by using qualitative and quantitative methods: (1) the development levels, characteristics, gender difference and development equilibrium of the high school students' VNOS; (2) the influencing factors of the high school students' VNOS which include high school science teachers' VNOS, the presentation modes of NOS in the high school science curriculum standards and textbooks.The instruments and methods used in this study include:(1)the opened-questionnaires of VNOS-High school student and VNOS-High school science teacher, which were adapted from Lederman's VNOS-C and Khalick's VNOS-HS; (2) semi-structured interview and group interview; (3) Structured document analysis.Referring to the current adopted assessment guideline scheme, which include three levels: more naive, mixed and more informed in the study of international NOS, and with the application of explicit and implicit levels that newly brought into the NOS instruction, this paper reconstructed the assessment guideline scheme which contained explicit naive, implicit naive, mixed, implicit informed and explicit informed. Through actual examinations, the opened-questionnaires and assessment guideline scheme have satisfactory reliability and validity, and they can be considered as measures for the high school students' VNOS.Main findings and conclusions of this dissertation are as follow:1. The conclusions of the study on the development levels, characteristics on high school students' VNOS(1) Grade plays a significant main effect on the whole understanding of high school students' VNOS. With the increase of grade, the understanding level of high school students' NOS raise accordingly. There is a rapid period of the understanding of high school students' NOS in Senior 2, and the understanding level tends to be stable in Senior 3.(2) Gender has a significant main effect on the whole understanding of high school students' VNOS. On the whole, female is better than male in the understanding of NOS. but there is significant difference only in senior 1. Both males' and females' conception of NOS are rapid development in senior 2, and tend to stabilization in senior 3.(3) It is found that there is unbalance in the high school students' understanding of all aspects of NOS, and the correlation coefficients are lower among all aspects.(4) Grade plays a significant main effect on the conceptions of empirical nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between observation and inference in science, the roles of creativity and imagination in science research, the theory-laden nature of scientific knowledge, the tentative nature of scientific knowledge. But there is no significant difference on the conceptions of the distinction between theories and laws and the social and cultural embeddedness of scientific knowledge.(5) Gender has a significant main effect only on the conceptions of empirical nature of scientific knowledge, and there is no significant difference on the others aspects. There is different characteristic of the conceptions of all aspects of NOS both in male and female students. The male's conceptions of empirical nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between observation and inference in science, the roles of creativity and imagination in science research, the theory-laden nature of scientific knowledge, and the tentative nature of scientific knowledge develop rapidly in senior 2, and tend to stabilization in male students of senior 3. The female students' conceptions develop rapidly only on the difference between observation and inference in science in senior 2 and develop smoothly on the others six aspects in all three grades.(6) According to the conceptions levels on all aspects of NOS, the students' conception levels (include explicit and implicit) are lower than 50% except for theory-laden and tentative at informed level. Senior 2 is the rapid developmental period of the conceptions of the empirical nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between observation and inference in science, the roles of creativity and imagination in science research, the theory-laden nature of scientific knowledge, the social and cultural embeddedness of scientific knowledge, the tentative nature of scientific knowledge at informed level (include explicit and implicit).2. The conclusions of the study on the development levels, characteristics on high school science teachers' VNOS(1) It is found that there is unbalance among the high school science teachers' understanding of all aspects of NOS, and the correlation coefficients are lower among all aspects.(2) The male teachers' conceptions are remarkable better than female teachers' on the roles of creativity and imagination in science research and the social and cultural embeddedness of scientific knowledge, but there is no significant difference on the conceptions of the empirical nature of scientific knowledge, the difference between observation and inference in science, the functions and relations between scientific theories and laws, the theory-laden nature of scientific knowledge, the tentative nature of scientific knowledge and total scores between male and female teachers. The male teachers' conception is better than the female's only on the roles of creativity and imagination in science research at informed (include explicit and implicit) level and there is no significant difference on the others aspects at informed level.(3) There is significant difference on all aspects and total scores between students and teachers, and the student's conceptions are significant higher than the teachers'.(4) According to the conception levels on all aspects of NOS, the teachers' conception levels (include explicit and implicit) are lower than 50% except for theory-laden at informed level.3. The conclusions of the study on the presentation modes of NOS in the high school science curriculum standards(1) All curriculum standards convey the information that culturing students' conception of NOS is one of curriculum goals in manner of implicit or explicit.(2) According to the presentation modes on the high school science curriculum standards, some aspects of NOS are presentated in manner of explicit informed modes, but some other aspects are presentated in manner of implicit informed, mixed or implicit naive modes, and some aspects havn't been presentated in all curriculum standards.4. The conclusions of the study on presentation modes on the high school science textbooks(1) Some aspects of NOS are presentated in manner of explicit informed conception, some aspects presentated in manner of implicit informed, mixed or implicit naive mode, and some aspects havn't been presentated in all analyzed new curriculum textbooks.(2) According to the marching between the curriculum standards and textbooks about the NOS, the textbooks chosen to analyze all can match the curriculum standards' request well about the NOS.