Ideas about science portrayed in the existing and proposed science curricula of grades IX-X in Bangladesh

There is little consensus among philosophers and historians of science, scientists, and science educators on a specific definition and/or content of IAS. However, some consensus exists on fundamental ideas about science that are relevant and accessible to school science education (Lederman, 2004; McComas et al., 1998). Two prominent schools of thought on IAS in science education literature are Lederman (2004) and Osborne et al. (2003). Lederman (2004) and his research group describe the Nature of Science (NOS) and scientific inquiry separately while admitting that they are intimately related, and there is overlap between them. According to Lederman (2004), it is useful to conceptualize scientific inquiry as the process by which scientific knowledge is developed. On the other hand, the knowledge developed by the process has certain unavoidable characteristics, and these characteristics are commonly referred as NOS (Lederman & Lederman, 2005). Lederman (2004) and his research group used three criteria to determine what aspects of NOS can be included in science curriculum. The three criteria are (Lederman, 2004, p. 304):

Is knowledge of the aspect of NOS accessible to students (can they learn and understand)?
Is there general consensus about the aspect of NOS?
Is it useful to all citizens to understand the aspect of NOS?

Seven aspects of NOS that meet these criteria, and students should, therefore, be informed about: observation and inference, scientific laws and theories, science is empirically based, science necessarily involves human inference,imagination and creativity, science is a subjective and theory-laden knowledge, science is socially and culturally embedded, and scientific knowledge is tentative. These aspects of NOS have been discussed elaborately in Lederman (2004) and in Lederman & Lederman (2005), therefore, this paper does not describe them, but rather attempts to make a comparison with the ideas suggested by Osborne et al. (2003). Osborne et al. (2003) have conducted a study to determine the extent of agreement among scientists, science teachers, philosophers and sociologists of science, and science educators on IAS that should be included in school science curriculum. The study recommends nine ideas about science under three umbrella themes to include in school science curriculum. Some of the nine ideas are similar to Lederman’s NOS aspect and scientific inquiry, while some differ. Moreover, two schools place variable emphases on similar ideas. Osborne et al.’s nine ideas and Lederman’s NOS aspects and scientific inquiry have been presented in Table I. Following a review of similarities and differences between two schools of thought, I adapted a framework of IAS for this study by choosing ideas from these two schools of thought.

Table I: Comparison of two sets of recommended IAS

Broad themes about science	Findings in Delphi Study by Osborne et al. (2003)	Recommended by Lederman (2004)
Nature of Scientific Knowledge	Science and certainty	Scientific knowledge is tentative
	Historical development of scientific knowledge	Science is socially and culturally embedded
	Not suggested	Scientific laws and theories
	Not suggested	Observations and Inference
	Empirical base of science (not recommended but there was an agreement to a good extent)	Science is empirically based
	Not suggested	Science is subjective and theory-laden knowledge
	Similar to creativity under the Methods of Science theme	Science necessarily involves human inference, imagination and creativity
Methods of Science	Scientific method and critical testing	Descriptive research Correlational research Experimental research
	Diversity of scientific thinking
	Analysis and interpretation of data	Multiple approaches and analysis
	Hypothesis and Prediction	Not emphasized
	Creativity	Science necessarily involves human inference, imagination and creativity
	Science and questioning	There may not be always be a question
Institutions and Social practices in Science	Cooperation and collaboration in the development of scientific knowledge	Not emphasized

As seen in Table I, Osborne et al. specifically recommend two ideas on the nature of scientific knowledge and implies two others, whereas Lederman recommends seven aspects of NOS. Osborne et al.s’ ‘science and certainty’ is similar to Lederman’s ‘scientific knowledge is tentative’. Lederman asserts that scientific knowledge is subject to change when new evidence emerges or old evidence is reinterpreted. While agreeing with this, Osborne et al. add that much of the school science is beyond reasonable doubt. Similar is the ‘historical development of scientific knowledge’ and that ‘science is socially and culturally embedded’. Osborne et al. assert that students should be taught the historical development of scientific knowledge explicitly to facilitate an appreciation of developments in science and to know “the ways and extent to which such developments have been affected by the demands and expectations of society at different points in history” (2003, p. 706). From this point of view, it partially corresponds with the Lederman’s ‘science is socially and culturally embedded’, which asserts that science is affected by the society where it is practiced because the practitioners are the products of that society; social values, power structures, politics, socio-economic factors, philosophy, and religion are among the socio-cultural elements that can affect science (Lederman, 2004). However, Osborne et al.s’ view differs from Lederman’s because Lederman places emphasis on the current and future settings as well as the past settings emphasized by Osborne et al.. An ‘empirical base of science’ is recommended by Lederman, but this idea fails to meet the criteria for Osborne et al.’s recommendation by a very small margin. Osborne et al. recommend creativity under the broader theme ‘methods of science’, although it is similar to Lederman’s ‘science necessarily involves human inference, imagination and creativity’. However, Osborne et al. describe creativity in more general terms associated with the enterprise of science being carried out by humans, rather than being associated with creating explanations and/or ways in which to investigate scientific phenomena.

Osborne et al. (2003) recommends six ideas about science under the theme ‘methods of science’ whereas Lederman (2004) recommends teaching students about different forms of inquiry. According to Lederman, students should be informed that there is no single method or a fixed set and sequence of steps involved in science (Lederman, 2004), but rather, scientific questions guide the approach, and the approaches vary widely within and across scientific disciplines. Generally, scientific inquiry takes several forms, such as descriptive, correlational and experimental. Descriptive research derives the variables and factors important to a particular situation of interest; correlational research determines relationships among variables identified in descriptive research; and experimental research intervenes and manipulates variables to derive causal relationships among them. Experimental research often involves the development of a model, which is then tested. In contrast to Lederman’s recommendation, Osborne et al.’s recommended aspects include ‘scientific method and critical testing’, ‘analysis and interpretation of data’, ‘hypothesis and predictions’ and ‘science and questioning’, which are based on the notion of experimental science. Although Osborne et al. assert that there are diverse methods of doing science; they did not elaborate on any other methods or approaches of doing science. In essence, Lederman’s notion of scientific inquiry is more inclusive and comprehensive than Osborne et al.’s suggested ideas ‘scientific method and critical testing’ and ‘diversity of scientific thinking’. Therefore, Lederman’s notion of scientific inquiry will be included in the conceptual framework, instead of these two ideas suggested by Osborne et al. Three ideas - ‘analysis and interpretation of data’, ‘hypothesis and predictions’ and ‘science and questioning’ are embedded in Lederman’s notion of inquiry; however, they can be included in the framework separately in order to place more emphasis on them in a school science curriculum. Similarly, Lederman’s notion of scientific inquiry includes the scientific enterprise, but it is not explicitly dealt with. Osborne et al. emphasize the inclusion of the aspect of ‘cooperation and collaboration in the development of scientific knowledge in school science by stating that scientific work is a communal and competitive activity; it is frequently of multidisciplinary and international nature. Students should be taught that scientific work is often carried out in groups, although individuals may make significant contributions. New knowledge claims are shared and peer reviewed critically before the community accepts it.

From the discussion above, it is evident that both schools of thought have some ideas in common. However, in some cases, one school of thought articulated or emphasized a particular idea in a better way than the other school did. Moreover, each of the two schools also suggests few important ideas that are different than ideas suggested by the other school. Therefore, I adapted the following framework of ‘Ideas about Science’ by choosing aspects from the two schools to analyze the curriculum documents in question.

Table II: Framework of ideas about science

Broad themes	Ideas about science
Nature of Scientific Knowledge	Scientific knowledge is tentative
	Science is socially and culturally embedded
	Scientific laws and theories
	Observations and inference
	Science is empirically based
	Science is subjective and theory-laden knowledge
	Science necessarily involves human inference, imagination and creativity
Methods of Science	Different forms of scientific inquiry - descriptive research, correlational research, experimental research
	Analysis and interpretation of data
	Hypothesis and prediction
	Science and questioning
Institutions and Social practices in science	Cooperation and collaboration in the development of scientific knowledge