An instructional design model to teach nature of science

Nature of science (NOS) has been thought of as an important requirement for the informed-decision making and being active citizen in a society. These qualities, in relations to daily life, have been discussed in science education literature on scientific literacy (Uno & Bybee, 1994; Damastes& Wandersee, 1992). As a component of scientific literacy, NOS has been emphasized as an important aim in the science education research literature and certain international examination frameworks such as PISA and international reform documents (Damastes& Wandersee, 1992; Klymkowsky, Garwin-Doxas & Zeilik, 2003; OECD, 2003; BSCS, 1993). NOS is defined as “the values and assumptions inherent to science, scientific knowledge, and/or the development of scientific knowledge” (Lederman, 1992;331). NOS has included some aspects from scientific method to science in society. Epistemological and educational studies have resulted in a purified set of aspects to teach NOS in schools (McComas, 1998). Aspects of NOS include the fact that scientific knowledge is based on evidence and observation, but scientific knowledge is also tentative. A scientist is not objective when he or she begins to study; he or she has a background embedded in social and cultural context. In line with these explanations, creativeness and imagination are also important in producing scientific knowledge. In its basic meaning, science is a way of knowing and does not have a universally accepted right way. Another aspect of science is that there is no hierarchy among theory and law; they each have different roles in science (McComas, 1998, Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, and Schwartz, 2002).

Science education researchers and reformers have struggled to teach NOS, and studies have shown existence of many misunderstandings of the NOS aspects. These misunderstandings have been presented by various groups including teachers, pre-service teachers, teacher educators, students and textbooks (McComas, 2003; Akerson, Morrison & Mc Duffie, 2006; Abd-El-Khalick, Waters & Le, 2008; Blanco & Niaz, 1997; Tsai, 2006; Irez, 2006; Ryan & Aikenhead, 1992). The most important and relevant context to learn about the NOS aspects is through science courses. Teaching approaches and materials in science courses are basic means to learn about NOS. Many science lessons, textbooks and subjects begin with NOS issues and continue with content knowledge. Biology teaching textbooks, in particular, start with NOS issues and continue with content knowledge. In spite of this emphasis and priority, the literature has continuously shown misunderstandings of pre-service biology teachers and biology teachers about NOS (Nehm & Schonfeld, 2007). Nehm and Schonfeld (2007) studied forty-four secondary level biology teachers, and they found the participants commonly believed that theories become facts when well supported, and a theory is a weak scientific idea. In addition, Chiapetta and Fillman (2007) and Irez (2008) have shown existence of unacceptable ideas and descriptions in biology textbooks. Biology is an important area for people’s informed-decision making on a daily basis. Socio-scientific issues such as genetically modified products, cloning, global warming and ozone depletion are active biology research topics. At the same time, biology is addressing important subjects including evolution to teach NOS. The problems of learning NOS in biology education contexts have required instructional solutions to teach NOS at the teacher education level.

In science education literature, there are three instructional approaches that are not framed in a systematic instructional design model to help teach NOS. These approaches are the historical approach, implicit approach and the explicit-reflective-embedded approach (Khishfe & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Meichtry, 1992; Palmquist & Finley, 1997; Palmquist & Finley, 1998; Lin & Chen, 2002). The explicit-reflective-embedded approach has been actively studied and shown to be effective on NOS teaching in pre-service and in-service teacher education programs (Akerson, Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Küçük, 2008; Akerson & Volrich, 2006). The explicit-reflective-embedded teaching requires deliberate planning, assessment and explanations (Akerson & Volrich, 2006; Lederman, 2007). This requirement needs preparation prior to instruction in order to teach NOS. In the literature, instruction is defined as “intentional (explicit) facilitation of learning toward identified learning goals” (Smith & Ragan, 2005, 4). Instructional design is defined as “the systematic and reflective process of translating principles of learning and instruction into plans for instructional materials, activities, information resources and evaluation” (Smith & Ragan, 2005, 4). By taking the systematic and intentional nature of instructional design approach into consideration in line with components of the explicit-reflective-embedded teaching, NOS teaching might be more effective.

At the same time, as stated by Dick, Carey and Carey (2005), as a new understanding of learning and instruction becomes accepted, the existing instructional design models should be refined and enhanced to meet required developments. For example, the multiple intelligences approach has been incorporated into the Dick and Carey Model for refinement of existent instructional approaches on multiple intelligences and for providing a more comprehensive model of instructional design for multiple intelligences based applications (Tracey & Richey, 2007). Need for embedding NOS into biology content as a new point to consider in biology teaching should also be seen to change existent models. Accordingly, clearer and more comprehensive guidelines for NOS teaching is needed to overcome problems regarding to NOS learning in biology courses.