Story telling: research and action to improve 6<sup>th</sup> grade students’ views about certain aspects of nature of science

Two different data sources were utilized in order to answer the research questions. Analysis of the data from these sources is presented together in a supportive way to show the students’ views in relation to NOS. The students’ views were sorted into four main categories, including the purpose of science and characteristics of scientists; places to conduct scientific research; different interpretations of the same phenomenon; and tentative nature of scientific knowledge.

Students’ Ideas about the Purpose of Science and Scientists

Before starting and at the end of the first story, brief class discussions took place. The teacher’s notes stated three main topics: reasons for interest in science; characteristics of scientists; and places scientists work. These notes, along with the students’ ideas from the interviews, are illustrated in Table III.

Table III. Changes in students’ ideas about the purpose of science and characteristics of scientists

Theme	Before Practice	After Practice
Reasons for interest in science?	To live comfortably To make our lives easier by invention	To live comfortably To make our life easier by invention To make their dreams come true To realize their dreams
Characteristics of scientists	Doing research Reading a lot of books Being curious Being very successful Working in a laboratory	Doing research Reading a lot of books Being curious / Asking questions Being successful Working tirelessly in laboratory to do experiments Learning from others’ and their own mistakes Being intelligent Being organized, hard working, and confident
Places scientists work	Laboratory or library	Laboratory or library Workshop / Factory Outside (a place where they can practice)

As seen in Table III, the students’ views about reasons for interest in science were enhanced during the study. The students said that scientists are interested in science because they want to invent new things. The researcher asked “Do scientists always work to invent something? Don’t they ever think about how it snows or rains? Why don’t they think of these kinds of things?” and the answer was “You are right, but they had already found the answers to these kinds of questions, and now they are trying to invent something new.” The responses to these questions show us that the students generally think that scientists must work to be useful for society or humanity, but that they do not pay much attention to their own curiosity. Erenoğlu (2010) stated that most popular idea regarding the aim of science for 5^th grade students was to make inventions and to do experiments. Kara (2010) also reported that students, even at the university level, may still have the idea that science is for improving life quality rather than fulfilling the need for knowing. As a result, students generally do not perceive science as an enterprise to understand the universe (Karataş & Bodner, 2006; Karataş, Bodner & Çalık, 2009). Therefore, teachers should emphasize and show students that there are many issues that science deals with in science classes. After the first phase of the ongoing teaching process, a few students changed their ideas and expressed that “science is a field of study that tries to understand the world, the close and distant environment and the universe in general.”

As can be seen in Table III, the students developed new ideas about the characteristics of scientists during practice. Only Student 04 answered “I don’t know” about the characteristics of scientists in the interviews. The most repetitive characteristic of scientists noted in the students’ responses was “being curious,” along with “doing research.”

At the end of the teaching module, we asked students whether they would consider being a scientist in the future or not. Three out of fourteen students asserted that they would be scientists. As a follow-up question, we asked them “why?” Student 02, who does not want to be a scientist, said, “If I study hard, I can be a scientist, but I don’t want to be a scientist.” Many others reported that they could not become scientists, as they do not have scientists’ characteristics. Four students, for example, pointed out that as they are not pertinacious, they cannot be scientists. Two students indicated that they were not clever enough to be scientists. Student 01 pointed out that he is not curious enough to be a scientist. Student 06 said that she is not a hard worker and does not like studying. We found that the students’ ideas changed according to the stories and class discussion. While reading and/or narrating the stories, the teacher noticed that the students were really impressed that scientists conducted so many experiments and could study for years to achieve their aims. The following excerpt is a good illustration of the changes in Student 08’s view regarding the characteristics of scientists, as well as the scientific research process. He expressed his ideas in the class discussion after reading the story “To Dreams.” “I thought that scientists conduct experiments two or three times and they achieve their goals. But now, I can see that they need to study many long hours to achieve results.” Another interpretation was expressed by Student 13: “Scientists are so hardworking; they try again and again to achieve their aims.”

Students’ Ideas about Places to Conduct Scientific Research

When the students were asked where scientists do their jobs, their ideas were limited to “laboratories” at the beginning of the first class, except one student who indicated that scientists can also work in libraries (see Table III). Zimmerman and Bell (2012) claimed that students perceived observing and experimenting in school science as only the scientific activity in their lives. Similar to Çakıcı and Bayır (2012), our students think that a laboratory is a suitable work place, because it is quiet and has all the needed equipment and tools. Likewise, our students may have had some pre-conceptions about science, scientists and their work place before taking this class based on conventional wisdom and the mainstream view that “scientific knowledge is generated in controlled laboratories” (McComas, 1997). These widely-shared impressions might affect our students’ ideas about science and scientists. Other sources of this laboratory image might come from pictures and figures about scientists in science textbooks or media that always show scientists working in laboratories (Karatas, Micklos & Bodner, 2011). However, the HOS-based stories helped students change and enrich their views, as seen in Table III, because real examples from the HOS showed the students that scientists can study in any place that is suitable for their research.

The students also mentioned two other places where scientists can study/research, as seen in Table III. When asked where scientists carry on their work during the interviews, all of the students expressed that they can work both outside and in a laboratory. Four students talked about Newton and gravity as an example of outside work. Student 10 expressed that “Scientists can work inside or outside; for example, to do experiments, they work in laboratory. They could observe stars and planets outside.” Four students gave the exact examples from the stories that were read in class. Three of them gave the same example about flight from the story “To Dreams.” Student 06, for instance, expressed that “…to have flight, scientists worked outside, like in the first story.” Student 03 cited the story “Like Gold” to support his view that experiments can be done either inside or outside. Nine out of fourteen examples that the students gave were addressed in the class/stories. Based on these findings, we can say that teaching with HOS-based stories altered the students’ views of places where scientific research takes place.

Students’ Ideas about Subjectivity in Science

In her journals, the teacher noted that only one week (two hours) of the practice included discussion of the question“Have scientists got any different ideas about the same topic?” while reading the story “Where?” All of the students claimed that scientists can have different ideas on the same topic, but they could neither explain their ideas in detail nor back up them. Then, the teacher realized that the students did not understand the topic from their confused looks and puzzled faces. In addition to the story, she provided different examples from daily life. She asked, for example, if the blackboard is big or small. Some students responded that it was big; some of them claimed that it was small. After the teacher got all of their responses, she emphasized personal opinion and explained that the students’ decisions are based on their previously seen and experienced blackboards. Then, she gave some examples to support the idea in the story. The teacher provided another example of this nature to elaborate that background knowledge and experiences might affect interpretations. However, a few students still could not answer the question: “Have scientists got any different ideas about the same topic? Why?” They were also surprised and doubtful. Even though all of the students mentioned that “different people think in different ways,” none of them comprehended why different scientists have different ideas on the same topic, so they could not explain it. This might be caused by the idea that observations in science are purely objective, which is one of the myths about science. After the intervention, most of the students could interpret why scientists have different ideas about the same topic. In addition to the teacher’s field notes, the interviews supported this finding. All of the interviewed students said that scientists can have different ideas. Student 07 expressed that they behave according to their prior knowledge. Another pointed out that scientists’ feelings shape their ideas; especially what they like or dislike. Student 05 focused on living in different places by addressing the story told in the class “Scientists can think differently… Maybe… they are from different places and they don’t know each other, like in the story.” The rest of the students’ responses addressed differences among scientists, but they could not provide reasons for these differences, even though they were intentionally solicited.

They think differently because they are different people. (Student 10)
Different people can have different ideas. (Student 06)
Of course they can have different ideas; they don’t have to think the same way. (Student 08)

Students’ Ideas about the Tentative Nature of Scientific Knowledge

One of the important aspects of NOS is the tentative nature of scientific knowledge. Several studies reported that students at all levels of education think that scientific knowledge is absolute (Çelikdemir, 2006; Khisfe & Lederman, 2007; Kılıç, Sungur, Çakıroğlu & Tekkaya, 2005). In other words, many students believe that scientific knowledge cannot change. Others believe that scientific knowledge is not tentative, but rather that new knowledge can be added to the old; in other words, scientific knowledge is cumulative (Çelikdemir, 2006). This view illustrates that students could not examine and comprehend how science progresses. To address this issue, HOS provides a chance for students to explore the development process of scientific knowledge at its cultural and social roots with a historical lens. In this study, after reading each story, it was emphasized that scientific knowledge can change by addressing the findings in the stories and comparing the findings at the beginning and end of the stories. The teacher noted in her journal that the students realized from different examples in the stories that scientific knowledge can be organized or changed according to new evidence and findings.

All students but two asserted that scientific knowledge can change over time when asked in the interviews after the teaching. Three students grounded their ideas in an example of the change in atom models from John Dalton to Marie Curie. Two students did not provide any examples even though they were asked promptly. Another student expressed that new information can be added to old, but he could not give an example. Another student confused science with technology by giving TV as a constantly improving invention: “CRT televisions are old. Technology has improved, and they become better.” A total of five students provided examples for the tentative NOS from the stories that they read; two from the story “To Dreams”; two from the story “Like Gold”; and another one from the story “Restless Creatures.” An illustrative excerpt from an interview is provided below:

Teacher: Scientists attain scientific knowledge by researching, observing, doing experiments. Do you think about whether all this knowledge will change in the future?

Student 08: Yes, they will find new things.

Teacher: Can you explain your thoughts with an example?

Student 08: For example, in the “Particular Structure of Matter Unit” in our science courses, we learned that people believed that atoms are indivisible in history. That was Daltons’ idea. But we know now that it’s wrong.

Teacher: Why wrong? Please express your thoughts.

Student 08: Curie and Becquerel studied on this topic and found that atoms are fissionable.

All but two of the students mentioned that scientific knowledge can change over time. Eight of these, more than half of the class, expressed and supported their views with correct examples or explanations. Thus, HOS-based stories can be considered as an effective tool for teaching about the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, but it cannot be claimed that this is enough; it seems that the students gained the right ideas, but some of them could not elaborate these ideas in greater detail (e.g., providing examples). Two students thought that scientific knowledge does not ever change. Student 09 gave as an example that “water boils 100⁰C all the time.” Other two students talked about technological inventions and innovations. These cases show that some students’ views are still not very well developed. Students generally think that results based on empirical evidence never change, such as laws; because they are tested so many times, they will always give the same results. Çakmakçı, (2012) reported similar results with pre-service science teachers. The stories were very useful, but further elaboration via examples is needed to support these students.

Description of General Class Participation

The overall level of class participation (CPL) (or engagement) for each story is defined here according to the scale described in Table II, As seen in Table IV, the story titled “Restless Creatures” had the lowest engagement and participation. The story “To Dreams” had the highest class participation.

Table IV.The students’ class participation and behaviors during the study.

Stories	CPL	Student behaviors
“Restless Creatures”	2	Showing enthusiasm to examine the stories and asking questions curiously about them Showing willing to respond to the questions that the teacher asks the whole class about the scientific concepts, NOS, and the stories in general Coming up with a conclusion by interpreting events and situations in the stories
“Where” and “Like Gold”	3	Statu 2 + Answering the questions about events and situations that take place in the stories
“To Dreams”	4	Statu 3 + Interpreting, joking and asking follow up questions about different events, situations or pictures in the stories

When asked directly, all of the students said that “they like the stories,” but the teacher’s observations contradicted the students’ responses. The length of the stories might cause differences in class engagement. Based on observational data, including the students’ answers to the teacher’s questions; their degree of attention to the story; the quality and quantity of the questions asked about it; and other behaviors such as interpreting or joking about the story, it seems that not all of the students were really interested in the stories. As the teacher noted in her journals, about half of the class showed enthusiasm for the class activities, especially the stories. As a different approach, HOS-based stories drew most of the students’ attention to the class activities, which has been similarly emphasized in the related literature (Klassen, 2009). However, the stories might be too long for some students, and some of the story topics might not be as interesting as others.

The whole class was willing to read the stories out loud except one student who had problems with his voice. The students put themselves into the story as one of the characters and tried to solve the problems. This helped them solve problems and make sense of NOS (Klassen, 2009). While the stories were being read, the students asked some questions, such as “could they produce gold?”; “what does Keratokis mean?”; “is there anybody who believes in spontaneous generation of living things?” Moreover, the students asked to repeat some parts of the stories that they did not understand, such as the Arabic scientist Alfragan’s errors in calculation of the size of the world. In addition to asking questions, the students made jokes and commented about the stories. For instance, in the story “Restless Creatures,” the students laughed out loud at the claim that frogs come from clouds when it rains. Then, they commented on the story by saying “this story is so funny,” after they read some of the early beliefs about the creation of the animals, such as “sweaty shirts give birth to a mouse with wheat, and dead flies create new flies with fish in the pond.” Students generally liked the HOS-based stories and enjoyed the time they spent reading them. This enabled more active engagement in the class discussions and other information provided by the teachers. The students were observed to have “serious” fun, as with Liu and Falk’s (2014) assertion, rather than being “reluctantly” involved in activities.

Furthermore, it was observed that the students were surprised from time to time while reading the stories. In the story of “To Dreams,” the students had reactions such as “Oooh!” or “Hummm!” Student 09, for example, shouted out, “How can they (birds) be eight times stronger than a person?” while she came across the sentence “If birds were the same size as humans, they would be much stronger.” In another example, Student 02 asked, “Teacher! Did they (scientists) really believe in spontaneous generation?” The students realized that scientists can also make mistakes; this shows that science is a human endeavor (Klassen, 2009; Silva, Colleiva & Malachias, 2009) and motivates them for learning science. The teacher’s journals also identified similar behaviors in the class at different times.

The students also had chances to interpret the stories and come up with some conclusions about NOS. Analysis of the teacher’s journals revealed that the students could draw deductions about NOS while reading the stories. For instance, Student 4 stated, “As scientists try something, they learn new things. They also learn new things from their own mistakes, and they benefit from them for new research” after the story “Like Gold.” The students pointed out that Christopher Columbus had to support his claims with some evidence, as mentioned in the story “Where”. The NRC (2012) report points out the importance of students’ making comparisons, interpretations, and deductions from observations and experiences. Evidence from the journals helps us infer that this research encouraged students to improve in that respect, as well. The HOS-based stories were very motivational for the students, and they were more active and took more responsibilities when compared to earlier classes. Thus, as Kruse (2010) and Smith (2010) emphasized, the HOS-based stories had a positive effect on the teaching of NOS.

In the researchers’ journals, the halting ways of research and the necessary and appropriate changes during the process were dealt with by considering the arguments and ideas from the observations of the teacher. For example, the teacher initiated an argument after the students read the story completely in the first practice period. In this period, it was observed that the students did not ask about words when they did not know their meanings. Furthermore, it was observed that the students could not understand some elements of NOS while the stories were being read. Thus, the teacher emphasized that the story should be read in a high tone of voice. This method turned out to be very useful and effective.

In the last lesson, the teacher asked “What have you learnt from the stories? Are there any changes in your ideas?” Almost all of the students raised their hands, and many expressed their changing views regarding the process of scientific work and what scientists do. Here are three students’ responses as illustration:

Scientists do not work only in a laboratory, they can work in a library or outside. (Student 05)

They believed in ‘spontaneous generation’, but nobody believes that now. (Student 02)

I learned how scientists work. (Student 14)

As can be seen in Table III and from the students’ expressions above, the students’ views about NOS were improved. The students had learnt more about NOS at the end of four weeks, as they stated. This process provided the students more opportunities to understand science, scientists, scientific research, the scientific process, and progress of scientific knowledge. Similar findings are reported by the related literature that emphasizes HOS as a useful tool and context for learning NOS (Doğan & Özcan, 2010; Irwin, 2000; Kim & Irving, 2010; Lin & Chen, 2002).