What We Know

Science education should encourage students to think critically and help them gain a deeper appreciation of science. This includes an understanding that scientific knowledge is based on evidence, is predictive, logical, subject to modification and limited to the natural world. By using the scientific processes employed by scientists, students will exercise their critical thinking skills and become more capable of evaluating real-world problems. Learning about individual’s contributions, as well as peer group processes responsible for scientific advances, may help students understand the nature of science and develop scientific habits of mind. Encouraging scientific methods may help students gain a better understanding of scientific concepts and help them become more interested in the pursuit of science careers.

What is scientific understanding?

According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1990), scientific understanding is an appreciation of the processes, abilities and values of the scientific enterprise. It involves recognizing the regularities of the natural world and reproducibility of experiments. Students learning to view the world as scientists should be able to reason scientifically and apply their understandings of science to their daily lives. Students with a scientific perspective should be capable of collecting data, analyzing the relevance of information, and organizing data for better comprehension and presentation. They recognize scientific terminology and symbols and understand that laws, theories and models are scientific representations of nature, generally accepted yet subject to change.

The National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 2000) were written to help teachers guide the scientific growth of students. The Unifying Concepts and Processes and the History and Nature of Science standards stress the importance of recognizing the relationship between scientific disciplines and a scientific way of thinking about the world. An important component of the Unifying Concepts and Processes standard is helping students differentiate between evidence and explanations. Students should learn how to generate testable hypotheses and collect data to critically analyze these hypotheses. Critical analysis skills gained from these experiences help students learn to think scientifically.

Scientific understanding includes the historical development of scientific ideas. An important component of the History and Nature of Science standard is helping students understand that science is developed by individuals and cooperative groups who critically analyze one another's work in order to understand the natural world. Science history illustrates how peer review among scientists promotes revision of hypotheses and theories, producing more robust explanations of natural phenomena. 

How do students develop scientific understanding?

Students do not easily reject their pre-existing explanations of scientific phenomena (Driver, 1983). It is this tendency to cling to previously held explanations that makes teaching and learning science challenging. Science is driven by the critical analysis of hypotheses, using data to make decisions about the validity of underlying assumptions. It may be difficult for students to appreciate that science is a changing body of knowledge, unless they experience the process of science (Wiske, 1995). Students must have the opportunity to disprove their own misconceptions before they can accept the correct scientific explanations for phenomena.

Students need classroom experiences that challenge their conceptions (Driver). Peer review of hypotheses, experiments and conclusions are vital elements of scientific literacy. Student participation in this process helps students understand science knowledge as a body of tested ideas (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999; Carey & Smith, 1995).

Embedded cultural and historical components in science lessons make science seem more tangible to students and increase active student participation (Halkia, 2001). Understanding the historical development of science enables students to realize that scientists routinely test their own conceptions and that scientists must be open to conflicting hypotheses and data. An historical context can help students consider their metacognitive processes and learn how to objectively weigh evidence and alternative explanations. 

How do teachers help students understand science as a way of knowing?

In a study of secondary students’ abilities to answer both lower-order and higher-order questions on chemistry exams, Zoller and Tsaparlis (1997) found that rote memorization increases student performance on lower-order cognitive tasks, but it does not necessarily help them understand science. Silverman (1992) has found that most students entering college believe that science provides absolute explanations of complex phenomena, belying the complexities of scientific processes.

Infusing the curriculum with science process skills will help students understand how scientific knowledge is developed. Halkia argues that rather than expect students to absorb scientific facts through memorization, teachers should present science as a way of knowing, providing opportunities for students to do science and think critically. In essence, teachers are a link between professional scientists and students (Halkia). To develop scientifically literate students, teachers should provide opportunities for students to engage in observation, inference, prediction, classification, measurement, interpretation of data, control of variables, formulation of hypotheses and experimentation (Colvill & Pattie, 2003). It is important, however, that teachers gradually introduce scientific processes in the classroom, so that students have a clear understanding of these processes prior to implementing them in a laboratory context. 

In addition to laboratory process skills, scientific habits of mind include the peer review process and study of ethical practices. When students participate in peer review, they learn that different interpretations of data are acceptable (American Association for the Advancement of Science). The study of ethical practices raises student awareness that societal beliefs and norms influence the interpretation of data. Historical science is replete with examples of ethical conundrums and differences of opinion that have fueled or inhibited scientific advances.