| This study investigates age-related differences in secondary school students' conceptions of the nature of scientific inquiry, and explores whether students' conceptions are changed given instruction in linguistic theory-building. Thirty-two seventh graders and 28 eleventh graders in mixed-ability science classes participated, receiving a two-week-long unit designed to impart a constructivist epistemology of science by engaging them in linguistic inquiry.;Before and after instruction, students' conceptions were assessed in the domain-independent context of the Nature of Scientific Inquiry Interview (NOSII), and in the context of constructing and evaluating explanations for linguistic phenomena, using the Theory Construction Interview (TCI). Both interviews were analyzed according to ordered levels of understanding, from a Level 1 failure to relate ideas and data to knowledge acquisition, to a Level 2 focus on inducing facts from data, to a Level 3 focus on constructing and developing explanations of nature.;Although the eleventh graders were initially more advanced on NOSII, both groups made half-level gains following instruction: the seventh graders' mean level increased from 1.04 to 1.54 (;It seems then that the older students' somewhat more sophisticated preinstruction metaconceptual understanding (as assessed by NOSII) enabled them to benefit more from instruction in linguistics, as their greater TCI improvement shows. Thus, while changes in students' conceptions may be attributed to the theory-building instructional experience, it is hypothesized that the linguistics unit's effectiveness was constrained by age-related differences in students' initial epistemology of science. |
