Contribution to Book
Surveys Fail to Measure Grasp of Scientific Practice
2012 Physics Education Research Conference
(2013)
Abstract
There is debate in the science education literature about how best to improve students’ understanding of the nature of science: Can an “immersion” experience in the process of doing science like scientists outperform explicit instruction on the nature of science? Central in resolving that debate is the development of appropriate measures of students’ understanding of the nature of science. We report on a course in which students engaged in sophisticated scientific practices, and yet student responses to a standard nature of science survey showed surprisingly few pre-post changes. We argue that this data suggests that when students do science like scientists do, they gain a grasp of scientific practice that cannot be measured by declarative means such as surveys and interviews.
Keywords
- learning theory and science teaching,
- physics education
Disciplines
Publication Date
2013
Editor
Paula V. Engelhardt, Alice D. Churukian, and N. Sanjay Rebello
Publisher
American Institute of Physics
ISBN
9780735411340
DOI
10.1063/1.4789727
Citation Information
Irene Y. Salter and Leslie J. Atkins. "Surveys Fail to Measure Grasp of Scientific Practice" Melville, NY2012 Physics Education Research Conference Vol. 1513 (2013) p. 362-1 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/leslie-atkinselliot/11/