Spanish Secondary-School Science Teachers' Beliefs ... - Springer Link

Sci & Educ (2013) 22:1191–1218 DOI 10.1007/s11191-012-9440-1

Spanish Secondary-School Science Teachers’ Beliefs About Science-Technology-Society (STS) Issues ´ ngel Va´zquez-Alonso • Antonio Garcıá-Carmona • A Marıá Antonia Manassero-Mas • Antoni Benna`ssar-Roig

Published online: 24 January 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract This study analyzes the beliefs about science-technology-society, and other Nature of Science (NOS) themes, of a large sample (613) of Spanish pre- and in-service secondary education teachers through their responses to 30 items of the Questionnaire of Opinions on Science, Technology and Society. The data were processed by means of a multiple response model to generate the belief indices used as the bases for subsequent quantitative and qualitative analyses. Other studies have reported a negative profile of teachers’ understanding in this area, but the diagnosis emerging from the present work is more complex. There was a mix of appropriate beliefs coexisting with others that are inappropriate on the topics analyzed. The overall assessment, however, is negative since clearly teachers need to have a better understanding of these questions. There were scant differences between the pre- and in-service teachers, and hence no decisive evidence that the practice of teaching contributes to improving the in-service teachers’ understanding. These results suggest there is an urgent need to bring the initial and continuing education of science teachers up to date to improve their understanding of these topics of science curricula, and thus improve the teaching of science.

´ . Va´zquez-Alonso A Departamento de Pedagogıá Aplicada y Psicologıá de la Educacioń, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Baleares, Spain e-mail: [email protected] A. Garcıá-Carmona (&) Departamento de Didaćtica de las Ciencias, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain e-mail: [email protected] M. A. Manassero-Mas Departamento de Psicologıá, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Baleares, Spain e-mail: [email protected] A. Benna`ssar-Roig Departamento de Biologıá, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Baleares, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

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´ . Va´zquez-Alonso et al. A

1 Introduction For years, the understanding of science-technology-society (STS) interactions is considered an important goal in science education, as it is a basic component of scientific literacy for all (e.g., Bennett et al. 2007). The STS approach is a meta-knowledge that includes a wide array of multidisciplinary issues drawn (mainly) from epistemology, sociology and history of science and technology, but also from politics, ethics, psychology, etc. (Aikenhead et al. 1989). Many of the recent efforts to find out the main traits of the Nature of Science (NOS) that entail consensus among scholars include the STS interactions as a significant part of the consensually acknowledged NOS tenets. Lederman (2006, 2007) and co-workers usually apply a list of consensual NOS tenets in their research including epistemological aspects and a broad category that establishes scientific knowledge as socially and culturally embedded (influenced by the society or culture in which the science is practised). Similarly Bartholomew et al. (2004) have elaborated another list of nine consensual NOS issues to teach to pupils, which they call ‘ideas-about-science’. The STS interactions are manifest in the idea about the historical development of scientific knowledge. The ‘‘twenty-first century Science’’ project is more explicit about the STS interactions in the ‘idea-about-science’ called ‘‘making decisions about science and technology’’ (Millar 2005). Consequently, it can be said that the STS dimension is an important component of the broad field of NOS. The philosophical principles that underlie the validation of scientific knowledge (the epistemological tenets of science) constitute the central theme of most of the recent research literature on NOS. However, in accordance with what has been said above, the broad dimension of STS should also receive an especial attention in the studies of the understanding of NOS issues. The inclusion of NOS—and hence STS—issues in the school curriculum has been justified for several reasons (cognitive, utilitarian, democratic, cultural, axiological, and comprehensive), but the overriding rationale is the aim of promoting scientific literacy for all in the sense that there is a need for quality science education to develop firmly based public understanding of science and technology in a world that is becoming ever more saturated by science (Acevedo et al. 2005). The educational reforms that have been undertaken in many countries beginning in the last decade of the twentieth century have taken up these educational goals as part of their school curricula [American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1993; Department for Education and Employment, 1999; National Research Council (NRC), 1996; NSTA, 2000]. The problem is that recent studies consistently report that science teachers’ understanding is not concordant with today’s broad consensus of academics on the concepts underlying science (Garcıá-Carmona et al. 2011). Instead, teachers seem rooted in traditional positivist notions (logical empiricism) and idealized views of science and technology that are very similar to the list of myths identified by McComas (1996) and contrary to the current consensus (Bartholomew et al. 2004) on what constitutes a correct understanding of NOS, and therefore its STS dimension. Various studies have shown that many teachers see science as a static body of knowledge (thus, true and unchanging), or as a process of discovering what exists externally, not as a human process of inventing explanations, etc.1 1

See Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman (2000), Abd-El-Khalick and Akerson (2004), Abell and Smith (1994), Aikenhead and Ryan (1992), Gallagher (1991), Haidar (1999), Hammrich (1997), King (1991), Lederman (1992), Lederman et al. (2001), Pomeroy (1993), Rubba and Harkness (1993), Tsai (2002).

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The instruments and methods of research into the conceptions of NOS have long been the object of critical review and improvement (Lederman 2007; Lederman et al. 1998). Allchin (2011) nevertheless pinpoints some remaining shortcomings of NOS research that need to be addressed, for instance, the limitation to a short list of NOS tenets instead of broadening the scope of the field, the pursuit of declarative knowledge instead of functional (interpretive) competence, the use of abstract philosophical concepts instead of the analysis of the concepts encountered in authentic contexts, and the failure to consider all the relationships between the different tenets of NOS. Some studies have also attempted to categorize epistemologically teachers’ thinking, although there are some drawbacks involved in these methods. For example, Apostolou and Koulaidis (2010) interviewed science teachers about the scientific method, the demarcation between science and nonscience, and change and the present state of scientific knowledge, classifying the views expressed into four epistemological categories: empirical inductivist, hypothetic deductivist, contextualist, and relativist. The teachers’ predominant views were a mix of empirical inductivist and contextualist for most epistemological questions, and there was very little evidence of hypothetic deductivist positions for questions on scientific knowledge, with the views expressed commonly being eclectic. Teachers’ beliefs about NOS issues have an influence on how they teach science in their classrooms. Some studies have found that teachers who believe that science is an accumulation of knowledge tend to do experiments by following the instructions in the textbook and focus their teaching on getting the correct answers, whereas teachers who believe that science changes are more likely to encourage discussion and comments from their students (Brickhouse 1990; Smith and Scharmann 1999). However, the problem of transferring NOS teaching to the classroom is complex. In particular, even though a teacher has an adequate understanding of NOS, this is not necessarily translated automatically into their classroom practice (Lederman 2007). Some of the key factors for addressing the teaching of NOS to be appropriately addressed in the curriculum are the following: planning, design and evaluation of the NOS content; explicit and appropriate presentation of the concepts of NOS for the students; and generally providing coherence between and encouraging reflection on the principles of NOS and the representation of science and technology that is presented when NOS is taught in the classroom (Abell and Smith 1994; Lederman 1999, 2007). Consequently, science teacher education on the themes of NOS, including its STS dimension, is currently a priority goal, and the analysis of teachers’ prior beliefs about the topic is a key line of research aimed ultimately at improving science teacher education (Manassero et al. 2001). In Spain, NOS and its corresponding STS dimension were not included in official preuniversity syllabuses until recently with the Education Act of 2006 and its curricular development during 2007 and 2008. Moreover the current presentation of STS–NOS content in school science curricula is still far from well-structured if compared with other curricular efforts towards the same goal (AAAS, 1993; Millar and Osborne 1998). STS–NOS content knowledge was not compulsory for Spanish science teachers, and consequently teachers have not been concerned about these issues until recently. Neither has their initial training specifically addressed them. Faculties of Education have not systematically trained science teachers in STS–NOS content knowledge or about the appropriate paedagogical content knowledge to teach the topic (Bencze et al. 2006; Lederman et al. 2001). Thus, Spanish teachers have not consistently learnt STS–NOS content knowledge during their undergraduate training, so that teachers’ conceptions of STS–NOS stem presumably from their simple previous ideas, likely conveyed to them

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during their non-specific undergraduate science education and their secondary and postsecondary experience of science teaching. In Spain, teacher professional development lacks institutional in-service training courses on STS–NOS, so that the importance of this present study for Spanish science education is twofold: first, to diagnose Spanish science teachers’ conceptions of STS–NOS in order to determine which specific inadequate traits might impede them from adequately teaching the new STS–NOS curricular content; and second, to examine whether, due to this lack of institutionally-promoted professional development, the hypothetical teaching expertise developed through their science teaching experience is not enough for them to cope with teaching the new STS–NOS content, so that specific training is needed to have effective STS–NOS teaching in the classrooms. Although there are many studies on the STS–NOS conceptions of pre-service teachers,2 the literature devoted to in-service teachers (Akerson and Hanuscin 2007; Ma 2009; Rubba and Harkness 1993), or to exploring the differences between novice and expert teachers has been far less frequent (Haidar 1999; Tairab 2001). Most of these studies have been conducted with small samples or are case studies, and have been confined to the Anglo-Saxon context.3 There have been far fewer studies of teachers in other cultural contexts,4 especially in the Ibero-American context (Manassero and Va´zquez 2000; Guisasola and Morentin 2007). This paper presents a part of the results of an international investigation (IberoAmerican Project of Evaluation of Attitudes Related to Science, Technology, and Society) whose objective is to diagnose students’ and teachers’ beliefs about STS–NOS in seven Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. Specifically, Spanish secondary science teachers’ beliefs about STS–NOS are evaluated here by means of a questionnaire (Questionnaire of Opinions on Science, Technology, and Society), and a new quantitative method which allows easy and reliable application to large representative samples (Va´zquez 2009; Va´zquez et al. 2009).

2 Research Questions The study attempts to answer the following questions for a representative sample of secondary education science teachers: • What are the strengths and weaknesses of secondary education science teachers’ beliefs about themes of STS–NOS? This question is proposed in order to determine which are the STS–NOS issues that should receive most attention in the science teachers’ training. • Do differences exist between pre- and in-service secondary science teachers’ beliefs about themes of STS–NOS? The idea with this question is to evaluate whether science teaching experience improves teachers’ understanding of STS–NOS issues.

2

See Abell and Smith (1994), Aguirre et al. (1990), Hanuscin et al. (2006), Lin and Chen (2002), Liu and Lederman (2007), Mellado (1998), Tairab (2001), Yalvac et al. (2007).

3

See Abd-El-Khalick et al. (1998), Akerson et al. (2009), Aguirre et al. (1990), King (1991), Lederman (1999, 2007).

4

But see Lin and Chen (2002), Liu and Lederman (2007), Ma (2009), Yalvac et al. (2007).

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3 Methods 3.1 Context and Sample Recent studies (e.g., FECYT 2007) show that Spanish society has, in general, a positive image of science and technology, and that interest in science has been growing since 2008.5 Nevertheless, various educational reforms during the present decade have reduced the specific weight of science in Spanish compulsory education (6–16 years old). Also, the latest PISA assessments place Spain below the mean of OECD member countries. This situation demands that greater attention be paid to basic science education in Spain from primary school age onwards (ENCIENDE 2011). Part of this attention needs to be directed to science teachers’ initial and continuing education, in which an adequate understanding of STS–NOS should constitute a core theme. In Spain (with the condition being the same for all of its 17 Autonomous Regions), secondary science teachers’ initial training requires a higher education degree (i.e., most science teachers are graduates in life sciences, chemistry, physics, earth sciences, engineering, etc.) plus a master’s degree in education, which involves general paedagogy and specific didactics according to the specialization of the entrance degree. Since 2010, Spanish universities have formed part of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) with the application of the Bologna Plan. This plan promotes, among other things, a competency-based curriculum. However, the data for the present study were collected before 2010 (between 2007 and 2009), so that the pre- and in-service secondary science teachers can be taken to have received similar initial training in a pre-Bologna higher education system. The present study was made possible by the participation of science teachers at a great number of secondary schools distributed over the whole of Spain. It also counted on the collaboration of instructors of secondary teacher education in the faculties of various Spanish universities, who invited their science teacher students to voluntarily participate by responding to a selection of items, as will be seen below. In-service teachers were enrolled in the study through the head-teachers of their schools, through in-service teacher training courses, or through personal contact. In all cases, the participation was voluntary and anonymous. The teachers responded to a selection of items from a standard questionnaire, as will be seen below. They had two options of responding to these items: either written responses on paper, or through a computer application that presented the items and coded the responses. The resulting valid sample of participants consisted of 613 secondary education science teachers, both pre-service (68%) and in-service (32%). The age range was from 23 to 63 years, and the distribution by gender was roughly even (men, 52%; women 48%). The range of teaching experience of the in-service teachers was from 1 to 15 years, and the preservice teachers had not teaching experience. The sample can be considered representative of Spain’s population of science teachers at a 95.5% confidence level (p = q = 0.50) and an error of less than ±2.5%.

5

This information is provided by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, and it is available from: http://www.micinn.es/stfls/MICINN/Prensa/FICHEROS/2010/NP_Encuesta_Percepcioń_Pu´blica_de_la% 20Ciencia_0810.pdf (last accessed: 10 November 2011).

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3.2 Research Instrument The questionnaire used in the study is named Cuestionario de Opiniones sobre la Ciencia, la Tecnologıá y la Sociedad (COCTS) (Questionnaire of Opinions on Science, Technology & Society). It is a 100-item pool after a faithful translation and adaptation to the Spanish cultural context of the ‘‘Views on Science, Technology, and Society’’—VOSTS—(Aikenhead and Ryan 1992; Aikenhead et al. 1989) and ‘‘Teachers’ Beliefs about ScienceTechnology-Society’’—TBASTS—(Rubba and Harkness 1993; Rubba et al. 1996) questionnaires, with minimal changes. The original items were developed empirically on the basis of interviews and open responses given by students and teachers that endow the items with an intrinsic validity and reliability. Lederman et al. (1998) consider VOSTS to be a valid and reliable instrument for investigating standpoints concerning the STS–NOS. Its empirical reliability was established by Botton and Brown (1998). VOSTS has been adapted to different international contexts such as Canada Aikenhead et al. (1989), Portugal (Nunes 1996), Spain (Manassero and Va´zquez 1998), the United Arab Emirates (Haidar and Nageeb 1999), Taiwan (Lin 1998; Lin and Chen 2002); Nigeria (Mbajiorgu and Ali 2003), and Lebanon (Abd-El-Khalick and BouJaoude 1997) and is increasingly being applied in science education research.6 A set of 30 items were selected from COCTS7 to provide a balanced coverage of all the different STS–NOS dimensions. They were assigned into two separate booklets (Form 1 [F1] and Form 2 [F2]) to give a suitable length that would avoid fatigue. The selection was based on a consensus among the researchers and collaborators of this study. Together, the two forms contain a total of 200 statements that cover all the dimensions of the pool (Table 1). Valid complete responses were obtained from 309 teachers for F1, and 304 for F2. All COCTS items have a multiple-choice format: the item stem poses an STS–NOS issue, using simple common language in a non-technical style, and the stem text is followed by a variable number of statements, each labelled with a letter A, B, C, D, E … Each statement presents a reason explaining a particular position (belief) on the stem issue; the set of statements presents a range of different positions on each item which allow the teacher’s view concerning the item to be characterized. The structure of the original VOSTS was used here to classify the items into three main dimensions (leftmost column of Table 1), which correspond to the two underlying component fields of NOS, that is, STS interactions (Dimensions a and b) and epistemology of scientific knowledge (Dimension c). Each single item is labelled by a five-digit number, whose first digit identifies the dimension (from 1 for definitions to 9 for epistemology), the second pair of digits correspond to themes (Internal sociology of science, etc.), and the third pair of digits to the sub-themes (science, technology, etc.). Each statement within an item is identified by the set of five digits corresponding to the item it belongs to, plus the letter that represents the position of the statement within the item. Moreover, some statements include the coding ‘_C_’ inserted before the tag number, which means the statement represents an idea that achieved the judges’ consensus (the group of expert judges strongly agreed on the category they assigned to the statement). All this is illustrated in the example in Table 2.

6

See for example, Celik and Bayrakçeken (2006), Dass (2005), Dogan and Abd-El-Khalick (2008), MartinHansen (2008), Tedman (2005).

7

The set of 30 items selected from COCTS for the study is available at: http://www.oei.es/COCTS/ esp/index.html.

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Table 1 Labels of the items included in the two questionnaire forms (Form 1 and Form 2) are displayed across the overall COCTS dimensions that provide the general structure of the issues Dimensions

Cronbach’s Form 2 (F2) items Alpha Sub-themes

Cronbach’s Alpha

(a) Definition of science F1_10111 science and technology (S&T) F1_10411 interdependence

0.858

F2_10211 technology

0.206

0.936

F2_10421 interdependence quality of life

0.490

(b) ScienceTechnology-Society Interactions

F1_30111 STS interactions

0.673

(b.1) Influence of society on S&T

F1_20141 country’s government politics

0.864

F2_20211 industry

0.733

F1_20411 ethics

0.816

F2_20511 educational institutions

0.212

F1_40161 social responsibility: pollution

0.930

F2_40131 social responsibility information

0.966

F1_40221 moral decisions

0.904

F2_40211 social decisions

0.533

F1_40531 social well-being

0.795

F2_40421 application to daily life

0.674

F2_50111 union two cultures

0.739

(b.2) Influence of S&T on society

Form 1 (F1) items Sub-themes

(b.3) Internal sociology F1_60111 motivations of science

0.917

F2_60521 gender equality

0.883

F1_60611 women’s under-representation

0.894

F2_70211 scientific decisions

0.500

F1_70231 consensus decisions

0.881

F2_70711 national influences

0.779

F1_80131 advantages for society

0.873 0.640

(c) Epistemology

F1_90211 scientific models

0.894

F2_90111 observations

F1_90411 tentativeness

0.806

F2_90311 classification 0.921 schemes

F1_90621 scientific method

0.765

F2_90521 role of assumptions

0.404

F2_91011 epistemological status

0.868

Note the correspondence between each dimension and the first numbers of the item label a short description of the item content (sub themes) follows each key number The reliability Cronbach’s alphas for each item are shown in the columns

3.3 Procedure A series of previous studies led to the development of a new, valid, and effective response and application methodological approach to evaluating STS–NOS conceptions, whose cornerstones are the following:

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Table 2 Text of item 40211 (social decisions), displaying the text of statements (centre), the statement labels (left column), the category assigned to each statement (second column left), and the mean indices for the whole sample of the statements, the three categories and the whole item (right) Variable

Category

Item 40211 Scientists and engineers should be the ones to decide what types of energy our country will use in the future (for example, nuclear, hydro, solar, or coal burning) because scientists and engineers are the people who know the facts best. Scientists and engineers should decide:

F2_C_40211A_N_

Naı¨ve

A. because they have the training and facts which give them a better understanding of the issue.

F2_C_40211B_N_

Naı¨ve

B. because they have the knowledge and can make better decisions than government bureaucrats or private companies, both of whom have vested interests.

F2_40211C_P_

Plausible

C. because they have the training and facts which give them a better understanding; but the public should be involved—either informed or consulted.

F2_C_40211D_A_

Adequate

D. The decision should be made equally; viewpoints of scientists and engineers, other specialists, and the informed public should all be considered in decisions which affect our society.

F2_40211E_P_

Plausible

E. The government should decide because the issue is basically a political one; but scientists and engineers should give advice.

F2_40211F_A_

Adequate

F. The public should decide because the decision affects everyone; BUT scientists and engineers should give advice.

F2_40211G_P_

Plausible

G. The public should decide because the public serves as a check on the scientists and engineers. Scientists and engineers have idealistic and narrow views on the issue and thus pay little attention to consequences.

F2_40211H_P_

Plausible

H. It depends of the type of decision; it is not the same thing to decide on the nuclear disarmament or on a baby. In some cases the scientists could make the decision, but in other, the citizens or the stakeholders should make it.

F2: form 2 of questionnaire ‘_C_’ inserted before the tag number means the statement represents an idea that achieved judges’ consensus

• The construction and adaptation of VOSTS–TBASTS texts into Spanish COCTS with minimal modifications, the analysis of the validity of its application by means of a single response model (each respondent selects just one statement), and the awareness of the many limitations of this model, which has been extensively applied by VOSTS users (Va´zquez and Manassero 1999). • The scaling of COCTS statements into one of three categories (Adequate, Plausible, or Naı¨ve) by a panel of expert judges according to the agreement between the statement’s content and the proposals of the modern history, philosophy, and sociology of science and technology—HPSST—(Va´zquez et al. 2005) as other researchers have also

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suggested (Rubba and Harkness 1993: Tedman and Keeves 2001). The meaning of the 3-category scheme is taken from its proponents (Rubba and Harkness 1993): • • •

Appropriate (A): the statement expresses an adequate view. Plausible (P): though not totally adequate, the statement expresses some acceptable aspects. Naı¨ve (N): the statement expresses a view that is neither adequate nor plausible.

• The creation of a new multiple response model (MRM)—the respondent rates each statement in the item—, which provides more accurate and extensive information about the respondent’s thinking. The MRM avoids ‘‘forced’’ choices that misinform the researcher about the subject’s thinking. • The construction of a quantitative metric that produces a normalized and invariant index [-1, ?1] for each statement from the respondent’s raw rating and taking into account the statement’s category. The statement indices can be averaged to compute valid and efficient indices to summarize the respondent’s conception of an item (or category); these weighted averages provide a better assessment than selecting just one statement, because the average index represents the respondent’s conception on the basis of all the item’s statement indices (Acevedo et al. 2001; Manassero et al. 2003a, b). • Response and metric The MRM asks participants to express their agreement/disagreement with each statement within each question on a nine-point scale (1–9, disagreement to agreement). If a respondent does not wish to answer, he/she may choose one of two reasons for not evaluating the statement (I do not understand the issue or I do not have sufficient knowledge about the issue) or leave it blank. Each direct agreement statement score (1–9) is transformed into a homogeneous invariant normalized statement index within the interval [-1, ?1] through a scaling procedure that takes into account the category of the statement (Adequate, Plausible, Naı¨ve) previously assigned by a panel of expert judges (further details have been presented elsewhere, Va´zquez et al. 2005, 2006). For instance, an appropriate statement expresses an adequate view on the issue, thus the scaling procedure assigns the index score ?1 to total agreement (9) and -1 to total disagreement (1), and proportionally for the in-between scores; a naı¨ve statement expresses a view that is neither adequate nor plausible, so that the scaling assigns a scoring index that is the inverse of that of the appropriate statements; a plausible statement assigns the ?1 scoring index to the middle direct score (5) and -1 to the two extremes (1, 9), and proportionally for the in-between scores. This is summarized in Table 3. This scaling procedure is common for Likert attitudinal scales that use multi-directional statements, to avoid revealing the ‘‘right position’’ through convergent statements (Eagly and Chaiken 1993). The value of the index represents the degree of match between the respondent’s opinion, which was expressed originally through the direct agreement score, and the current conceptions of experts on HPSST. The higher (lower) the index, the better (poorer) is the match between the respondent’s view and the experts’ conceptions on HPSST, no matter which kind of original statement generated it (invariant). Thus, the closer to the maximum positive value (?1) an index is, the more informed (closer to experts’ conceptions of STS– NOS) the respondent’s view is; while the closer to the negative value (-1) the index is, the more misinformed (detached from current NOS conceptions) the respondent’s view is (Acevedo et al. 2001; Manassero et al. 2001). As misinformed conceptions are associated with the lower negative values of the index, and informed conceptions with the higher

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Table 3 Correspondence between direct scores and scores of beliefs (A, P, N), according to the category (Adequate, Plausible, or Naı¨ve) of each statement, and computation of the normalized index of the statement (A0 , P0 , N0 ) Direct score scale Degree of agreement Total

Near total

High

Partial high

Partial

Partial low

Low

Near null

Null

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Correspondence to scores of beliefs Categories

Direct scores of beliefs (A, P, N)

Normalized index [-1, ?1]

Adequate

4

3

2

1

0

-1

-2

-3

-4

A0 = A/4

Plausible Naı¨ve

-2

-1

0

1

2

1

0

-1

-2

P0 = P/2

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

N0 = N/4

positive values of the index, for brevity, the former are often simply referred to as ‘‘positive’’, and the latter as ‘‘negative’’, with no implication of any meaning of bias. The statement indices form the basis for further computations and statistics. For instance, three category indices (adequate, plausible, and naı¨ve) are computed for each item by averaging the statement indices that belong to the same category (i.e., the average of the statement indices that belong to the appropriate category produces the appropriate category index, and so on for the plausible and naı¨ve categories in each item). This computation produced 87 category indices for the two forms (a few items lacked one category). Furthermore, the average of the category indices for each item produces the weighted item overall index, which is the quantitative value of the overall conception about the item’s issue (30 overall indices for both forms). In sum, to each item correspond a number of statement indices (one index per statement), three averaged category indices, and one weighted item index. For the whole application, 99 statement indices for F1 (101 for F2), 43 category indices for F1 (and 44 for F2), and 15 item indices for each form help to pinpoint the respondent’s conceptions of STS–NOS. Thus, the respondent’s conceptions of STS–NOS as expressed in the 15 items are assessed through one hundred (independent) statement indices, over forty category indices, and 15 item indices. The reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) computed from the statement direct scores for the whole form was fairly good (0.880 for F1 and 0.974 for F2). However, the single item reliability was lower and much more variable, an unsurprising result as the reliability decreases when the number of statements in the computations decreases (see Table 1). • Statistical analysis The indices provide homogeneous, invariant, and normalized interpretations of the scores across all statements, categories, and items, i.e., the magnitude of the correctness of a conception. The index scores allow the variables to be averaged and interrelated, and inferential statistics to be applied for hypothesis testing, group comparison, or to establish cut-off points for achievement levels (Va´zquez et al. 2006). In the latter case, inferential statistics are usually reported through probabilistic measurements of the significance of differences (p values) which do not provide any information about how large or small a

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difference is. This is done by reporting the effect size (difference between means expressed in units of standard deviations), which allows the magnitudes of the differences to be compared across variables and groups. The effect size statistic is usually applied by means of some simple arbitrary criteria (Cohen 1988) that classify differences in intervals labelled as trivial (d \ 0.10), small (d \ 0.20), medium (d \ 0.5), large (d \ 0.8), etc. For the samples and indices in the present study, an effect size of over 0.30 corresponds to statistically significant differences (p \ 0.01). We shall henceforth use the word ‘‘relevant’’ to refer to differences that satisfy both the effect size criterion of greater than 0.30 and the statistical significance criterion of p \ 0.01. Scores or differences below this threshold will be considered irrelevant, even though they might still be statistically significant or interesting from other points of view (e.g., personal evaluation). In sum, the quantitative methodology used to assess STS–NOS conceptions based on the MRM model offers the researcher sounder, more accurate, and fuller information on the respondent’s conceptions of an NOS issue than a single response model. Furthermore, since the assessment is constructed from the scores on all statements, the set of invariant multiple indices (statement, categories, and overall item indices) provides valid and reliable overall quantitative evaluation data that are solidly based on well-founded measurements and allow the application of statistical hypothesis testing. The method thus ensures the clarity and comparability of the results, facilitating their qualitative analysis and discussion.

4 Results 4.1 Qualitative Analysis The statements with the highest positive indices reveal the strengths of the teachers’ understanding about STS–NOS issues, i.e., when the teachers’ beliefs coincide with current informed understanding of experts in the history, sociology, and philosophy of science and technology. Educationally, these strong points represent beliefs that do not require reinforcement through continuing teacher education since, apart from being very positive, they are already consolidated in much of the population. At the opposite extreme, the statements with the most negative indices reveal the weak points of the teachers’ beliefs about STS– NOS issues, i.e., the beliefs the teachers hold which run counter to current informed knowledge on STS–NOS. The statements which present the highest positive indices referred to two issues concerning gender and science (under-representation of women, and equality between women and men in science and technology), social responsibility concerning the pollution resulting from heavy industry and its transfer to other countries, the influence of a country’s government and politics on scientists, and the interdependence of science and technology and the quality of life. The teachers hold, appropriately and highly positively, that the influence of a country’s politics on scientists is not justified by saying that scientists are isolated from their society. Similarly, they hold that heavy industry should not be moved out to underdeveloped countries just to save our country and its future generations from pollution, and also because moving industry is not a responsible way of solving pollution (we should reduce or eliminate pollution here, rather than create more problems elsewhere). The under-representation of women in science and technology is not because men are stronger, faster, brighter, or concentrate more on their studies, or because men seem to

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have more scientific capacity than women (although women may excel in other fields). In the same line, equality between men and women in science and technology is justified because any difference in the way that scientists work in science is due to individual differences, and these differences have nothing to do with being male or female, or because men and women are equal in terms of what it takes to be a good scientist. On the contrary, they reject that men would work somewhat differently in science because they are better at science than women. The interdependence of science and technology (investment in science or investment in technology) for the country’s quality of life means that there is no justification for saying that there should be investment in neither because the quality of life will not improve with advances in science and technology, but will improve with investments in other sectors of society (for example, social welfare, education, job creation programs, the fine arts, foreign aid, etc.). The content of the two statements that exhibit the lowest indices for the teachers refer to questions of equality between women and men in science and technology, and consensus in making decisions on the acceptance or rejection of scientific theories. In the first case, the teachers do not recognize the Plausible, partially acceptable, character with regard to gender equality in science and technology of the viewpoint that overall women and men are equally intelligent. In the second case, the teachers hold the Naı¨ve belief that scientists make consensus decisions on whether to accept a theory based on being shown conclusive evidence. Analogous qualitative analyses allow one to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each specific viewpoint raised in the different items. As an example, consider the results (Appendix 1) for the item on the interdependence of science and technology (investment in science or investment in technology) to improve the quality of life (10421). The teachers’ strong points on this issue are the rejection of some simplistic ideas such as investing in neither (H), the dualistic image of science = cures while technology = risks (G), investment only in technology (A), and adherence to the idea of the complementarity of science and technology (D). Their weakest point is not recognizing the merely Plausible nature of investing in both because scientific knowledge is necessary to make technological advances (C). Educationally, the teachers’ weak points reflect their beliefs that would be most in need of reinforcement through continuing teacher education as they are widely extended and consolidated in much of the teacher population. Overall, the simultaneous existence of strengths and weaknesses for the same given item is a further indicator of the complexity of what it means to understand STS–NOS. As mentioned above, another contribution of the present study is the identification of beliefs about STS–NOS issues that attain a consensus in the scientific community, that is, ideas that experts find high agreement about. With great unanimity, they may see these ideas as being well-informed (appropriate), describing an aspect of science and technology such as it is actually understood, or as being uninformed (inappropriate), describing something which science and technology is not. The consensus beliefs that achieved very positive scores on the part of the teachers in the present study (with the teachers correctly identifying either their appropriate or their inappropriate nature as unanimously agreed on by the experts) were the following (Acevedo et al. 2007): 1. Science and technology are closely related to each other because science is the basis of all technological advances, though it is hard to see how technology could aid science. 2. Scientists are not affected by the politics of their country, because scientific research has nothing to do with politics or because scientists are isolated from society.

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Heavy industry should be moved to underdeveloped countries: 3. 4.

To save our country and its future generations from pollution. It does not matter where industry is located. The effects of pollution are global. Heavy industry should NOT be moved to underdeveloped countries:

5. 6.

Because moving industry is not a responsible way of solving pollution. We should reduce or eliminate pollution here, rather than create more problems elsewhere. Because pollution should be confined as much as possible. Spreading it around would only create more damage.

To improve the quality of life in the country, it would be better to spend money on technological research rather than scientific research: 7. 8.

Because they interact and complement each other equally. Technology gives as much to science as science gives to technology. Invest in neither. The quality of life will not improve with advances in science and technology, but will improve with investments in other sectors of society (for example, social welfare, education, job creation programs, the fine arts, foreign aid, etc.).

Scientists and engineers should be the only ones to make decisions on scientific affairs of our country because they are the people who know these issues best: 9.

The decision should be taken on a shared basis. The opinions of scientists and engineers, other specialists, and informed citizens should be taken into account in decisions that affect our society. 10. There are not just these two kinds of people (arts and sciences). There are as many kinds as there are individual preferences, including people who understand both the arts and sciences. When doing science or technology, a good female scientist would carry out the job basically in the same way as a good male scientist: 11. Because any differences in the way scientists do science are due to differences between individuals. Such differences have nothing to do with being male or female. 12. Men would do science somewhat differently because men do science better. 13. There could be other correct ways to classify nature, because science is liable to change and new discoveries may lead to different classifications. Assumptions MUST be true in order for science to progress: 14. It depends. Sometimes science needs true assumptions in order to progress. But sometimes history has shown that great discoveries have been made by disproving a theory and learning from its false assumptions. The consensus beliefs that achieved very negative scores on the part of the teachers in the present study (with the teachers failing to correctly identify either their appropriate or their inappropriate nature as unanimously agreed on by the experts) were the following: 15. The scientific method ensures valid, clear, logical and accurate results. Thus, most scientists will follow the steps of the scientific method. Disagreements among scientists can occur:

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• because not all the facts have been discovered. Scientific opinion is based entirely on observable facts and scientific understanding. On balance, therefore, far more of the experts’ consensus ideas on STS–NOS attained good scores on the part of these secondary education science teachers than attained very negative scores. In sum, the secondary school science teachers show a good understanding of many of the consensus ideas, so that this aspect has to receive a relatively positive evaluation. 4.2 Quantitative Analysis In the following paragraphs, we shall present the results in progressively more detail beginning with the indices of the items, then of the categories, and finally of specific statements as an approach to the thinking of these secondary education science teachers with respect to their beliefs about themes of STS–NOS. Given the enormous quantity of data obtained in this study, we shall only present here the data that are most significant for the purposes of the analysis. • Assessment of the teachers’ beliefs about STS–NOS through the item variables The teachers’ overall viewpoints on the 30 STS–NOS issues are represented by the respective item indices, obtained as weighted means of the item’s three separate category indices. Their values for forms F1 and F2 are shown in Figs. 1 and 2, respectively. One observes that these indices are mostly positive, although modest in value. The items with the lowest indices reach negative values in both questionnaires (F1 and F2), but without attaining values low enough to be considered relevant. The most positive item indices thus pertain to issues of social responsibility concerning environmental pollution, the interaction between science, technology, and society, the definition of science, understanding of science and technology, and understanding of humanities as part of the same culture (‘‘union two cultures’’), equality between men and women in science and technology, and the interdependence of science and technology. This means that the secondary science teachers’ positions on these issues are their best in the sense that their mean indices were the highest. The most negative indices concern ethics, the role of science and technology in helping deal with everyday affairs, and scientific observations. This means that the secondary science teachers’ positions on these issues are the worst in the sense that their mean indices were the lowest.

F1_20411 Ethics F1_40531 Social well-being F1_60111 Motivations F1_70231 Consensus Decisions F1_90621 Scientific Method F1_90211 Scientific Models F1_80131 Advantages for Society F1_90411 Tentativeness F1_60611 Women’s Under-Representation F1_10411 Interdependence F1_40221 Moral Decisions F1_10111 Science F1_20141 Country’s Government Policies F1_40161 Social Responsibility: Pollution F1_30111 STS Interaction -0,1

0

0,1

0,2

Fig. 1 Overall mean item indices of the 15 issues of F1 in descending order

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0,3

0,4

0,5


1205

F2_90111 Observations F2_40421 Application to Daily Life F2_10211 Technology F2_70211 Scientific Decisions F2_40211 Social Decisions F2_70711 National Influences F2_91011 Epistemological Status F2_90311 Classification Schemes F2_90521 Role of Assumptions F2_20211 Industry F2_20511 Educational Institutions F2_40131 Social Responsibility Information F2_60521 Gender Equality F2_50111 Union Two Cultures F2_10421 Interdependence Quality of life -0,2

-0,2

-0,1

-0,1

0,0

0,1

0,1

0,2

0,2

0,3

0,3

Fig. 2 Overall mean item indices of the 15 issues of F2 in descending order

• Assessment of the teachers’ beliefs about STS–NOS by means of the category variables The indices of the three categories (Appropriate, Plausible, Naı¨ve) for each item were calculated as means of the statement indices corresponding to each category. Because there are necessarily fewer statements in each category of an item than in the item as a whole, the category indices exhibit greater variability than the item indices, and therefore have a greater range of positive and negative mean values. The grand averages of the indices of all the categories continued to be moderately positive in both F1 (m = 0.168, SD = 0.449) and F2 (m = 0.123, SD = 0.444), so that this indicator also continues to place the overall beliefs of the teachers as measured by the category indices in a slightly positive, but fairly neutral position. The category variables with the highest positive indices (more than one standard deviation above zero) are: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Naı¨ve Index: social responsibility: pollution F1_40161NA Naı¨ve Index: women’s under-representation F1_60611NA Appropriate Index: social responsibility: pollution F1_40161AP Appropriate Index: STS interaction F1_30111AP Appropriate Index: moral decisions F1_40221AP Appropriate Index: advantages for society F1_80131AP Appropriate Index: scientific method F1_90621AP Naı¨ve Index: interdependence F1_10411NA Appropriate Index: interdependence F1_10411AP Appropriate Index: tentativeness F1_90411AP Appropriate Index: gender equality F2_60521AP Appropriate Index: union two cultures F2_50111AP Appropriate Index: interdependence quality of life F2_10421AP Appropriate Index: classification schemes F2_90311AP Appropriate Index: role of assumptions F2_90521AP Appropriate Index: industry F2_20211AP Naı¨ve Index: gender equality F2_60521IN Naı¨ve Index: interdependence quality of life F2_10421IN Appropriate Index: epistemological status F2_91011AP

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In both F1 and F2, practically all of the more positive category indices correspond to Appropriate (AP) category variables, with the inclusion of some Naı¨ve (NA) category variables. The highest values of the category indices were for themes that have already been seen as the most positive in the item indices (responsibility concerning pollution problems, the STS interaction, the definition of science, culture, gender, and the interdependence of science and technology), and for some new themes (moral decisions, advantages, scientific method, tentativeness, classification schemes, role of assumptions, industry, educational institutions, and epistemological status). The category variables with the lowest negative indices (without reaching one standard deviation below zero) are: • • • •

Plausible Index: women’s under-representation F1_60611PL Naı¨ve Index: advantages for society F1_80131IN Plausible Index: gender equality F2_60521PL Naı¨ve Index: technology F2_10211IN

As noted above, the category variables with the lowest indices do not reach such negative values that they exceed one standard deviation. Also, there is no variable in this group that belongs to the Appropriate (AP) category for any item, there only appearing Plausible (PL) and Naı¨ve (NA) variables. Interestingly, the lowest category indices correspond to items (advantages, technology, and gender) that did not appear as the most negative in the item indices (which were ethics, application to daily life, and observations). Comparison of the most positive and the most negative item and category variables already provides some indication of the complexity of the issues of STS–NOS, and consequently of the complexity of its understanding and learning. Indeed, the apparently contradictory presence of variables of the same item among both the most positive and the most negative is a reflection of the many nuances that an understanding of STS–NOS may involve. For example, the item of equality between women and men in the science and technology system (60521) appears together with two of its category variables (Appropriate and Naı¨ve) within the set of most positive indices, but, on the contrary, the Plausible category variable of this item is among the most negative. Similarly, the Naı¨ve and Plausible category variables of the items advantages for society (80131) and under-representation of women in science and technology (60611), respectively, appear among the most negative, while other category variables of these items appear among the most positive. In sum, teachers may display a good understanding of some aspects of a subject, but at the same time a poor understanding of others. • Assessment of the teachers’ beliefs about STS–NOS by means of the statement variables The statement indices represent the beliefs about a particular position taken to the given item. Because of the specificity of the content of the statements, their indices exhibit greater variability than that of the category, and item indices since these are calculated as means of the statements and categories, respectively, thus reducing their variability. As already mentioned above, the values of the grand average of the indices for all the statements was slightly positive (m = 0.186, SD = 0.546) for F1 and lower and neutral (m = 0.081, SD = 0.553) for F2, so that these statements indices reflect an overall beliefs of the teachers that correspond to a slightly positive neutral position. This greater variability led to there being many statements having indices that exceeded the most stringent effect size threshold for relevance (one standard deviation). Therefore, the statements with the highest (most positive) and lowest (most negative) indices will be

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presented separately. There were many statements with belief indices above the less stringent effect size threshold (d [ 0.50)—33% in F1 and 30% in F2. The statement variables with the highest positive indices surpassing the most stringent relevance threshold (more than one standard deviation above zero) are: F1_C_60611A_N_women’s under-representation F1_C_40161A_N_social responsibility: pollution F1_C_60611B_N_women’s under-representation F1_C_40161D_A_social responsibility: pollution F1_C_20141J_N_government’s politics F1_C_10411B_A_interdependence F1_C_30111G_N_STS interaction F1_C_40161F_A_social responsibility: pollution F1_10111I_N_science F1_C_20141I_N_government’s politics F1_C_40161C_A_social responsibility: pollution F1_C_30111F_A_STS interaction F1_60611C_N_women’s under-representation F1_80131B_A_advantages for society F1_C_90211A_N_scientific models F1_10411D_N_interdependence F1_10111B_A_science F1_C_30111E_A_STS interaction F1_C_40221B_A_moral decisions

F2_C_10421H_N_interdependence F2_C_60521H_N_gender equality F2_60521D_A_gender equality F2_C_60521F_A_gender equality F2_90311D_A_classification schemes F2_C_90311E_A_classification schemes F2_C_50111E_A_union two cultures F2_C_40211D_A_social decisions F2_C_10421D_A_interdependence F2_C_90521D_A_role of assumptions F2_20211E_A_industry F2_40421C_A_application to daily life F2_C_10421A_N_interdependence F2_C_20511G_N_educational institutions

Most of the statements with the highest positive indices belong to the Appropriate (A) category, especially in F2. But there are various Naı¨ve (N) statements, especially in F1. Also noteworthy in this group of positive indices is the absence of Plausible (P) statements. Also, these statements with highly positive indices have common features that stand out as interesting for two main reasons. Firstly, one notes that half of those that correspond to F1 belong to only three items (20141, 40161, 60611). The first (20141) refers to the influence of a country’s government politics on science and technology; the second (40161) to social responsibility concerning pollution; and the third (60611) to the under-representation of women in the science and technology system. The analogous items in F2 (60521, 10421, 90311) concern the equality between women and men, the quality of life, and classification schemes. The group of the most positive statements represents beliefs which the teachers understand very well. Considering the expanded list of statements with very positive indices, one observes that all the items evaluated have some statement which the teachers understand well. Educationally, this characteristic is very interesting since, if there exists a belief on all issues which teachers understand well, it could be used as a structural element in teaching for the conversion and reconstruction of potential negative beliefs through learning and teacher education. The statement variables with the lowest negative indices (more than one standard deviation below zero) are: • F1_70231A_N_consensus decisions • F2_60521C_P_gender equality The asymmetry in numbers between the highly positive and the highly negative statement indices carries over to the more extensive case of considering the less stringent criterion. Again there are far fewer statements with negative indices than with positive indices as identified by this criterion. This result suggests that the teachers’ understanding of

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STS–NOS is clearly asymmetric: many more of the opinions about items concerning STS– NOS are significantly well understood by the teachers than are significantly poorly understood. Nevertheless, most of the beliefs assessed in this study present a neutral level of understanding—neither very positive nor very negative—and this is far below what would be desirable in a science teacher to develop informed understanding of STS–NOS. Another notable general feature of these results is that almost all of the statements with the most positive indices (25) correspond to beliefs about STS that received a clear consensus verdict from the judges (these positions are identified by the tag F1_C_ or F2_C_ included in their labels). These beliefs were represented by statements about STS–NOS whose acceptability (or unacceptability) is accepted by a broad consensus in the community of specialists in the history, philosophy, and sociology of S&T, and which hence merit no further discussion. 4.3 Differences Between Pre-service Teachers and In-service Teachers The main variable differentiating the pre-service teachers (training to begin on their teaching career) and the in-service teachers (who have various years of teaching experience) is the experience teaching and the consequent ongoing professional learning accumulated by the in-service teachers. Indeed, the learning and skills developed in teaching science subjects should have some influence on the teacher’s beliefs about STS–NOS. This section will examine the differences between pre- and in-service science teachers in all the variables studied. This comparison will hence constitute an indirect assessment of the influence of teaching experience and in-service teacher education on the development of a better understanding of STS–NOS in science teachers. Since the differentiating factor with respect to pre-service teachers is experience and professional development, the cause of any observed differences may be attributed to professional development in teaching. The distinctive differences between pre- and in-service teachers will be presented in the following sequence: the statement, category, and item variables that show relevant differences (d [ 0.30 or d \ -0.30), for questionnaires F1 and F2, ordered by decreasing value of effect size (Tables 4, 5, respectively). In F1, there are 18 statements that exhibit relevant differences between pre- and inservice teachers, most of them (13) negative (in-service teachers score higher than the preservice teachers), with some (5) positive (pre-service teachers score higher than the inservice teachers). One also observes in Table 3 that many statements belong to the same item (a country’s government politics, scientific models, and moral decisions). The profile of F2 is somewhat different. There are more statements with relevant differences than in F1, but the distribution of positive (15) and negative (9) differences is completely different, since in this case it is the pre-service teachers who have a greater number of higher scores than the in-service teachers. Again, there are various statements which belong to the same items—educational institutions (all of the corresponding positions, but surprisingly with different signs), women’s equality with men in science and technology, application to daily life, and technology. From the list of relevant statements, one can also observe the following tendency: there are statements that generate positive differences in all three categories (Appropriate, Plausible, and Naı¨ve) with a certain predominance of Plausible statements, while almost all of the statements in F1 and F2 that generate negative differences belong to the Appropriate or Naı¨ve categories. There are 19 category variables with relevant differences in the mean indices for pre-service and in-service teachers, about evenly distributed between positive and negative

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Table 4 Descriptive statistics of the variables of F1 which presented relevant differences (d [ 0.30 or d \ -0.3) between the pre- and in-service groups of science teachers (a positive sign indicates a better score for the pre-service teacher group, and a negative sign a better score for the in-service group) Variables

Pre-service teachers

Differences

In-service teachers

Mean

Sig.

Mean

SD

Effect size (d)

SD

Statements F1_40221A_P_moral decisions

-0.020

0.607

0.0000

0.52

-0.337

0.608

F1_40161B_P_social responsibility: pollution

-0.166

0.663

0.0005

0.44

-0.447

0.617

F1_40221E_P_moral decisions

0.050

0.601

0.0054

0.34

-0.165

0.653

F1_40531D_A_social well-being

0.000

0.463

0.0055

0.34

-0.170

0.543

F1_10411E_P_interdependence

-0.209

0.681

0.0117

0.31

-0.418

0.652

F1_60111A_A_motivations

-0.088

0.526

0.0132

-0.31

0.082

0.570

0.326

0.540

0.0123

-0.32

0.497

0.525

F1_20141D_P_country’s government politics

F1_C_70231E_N_consensus decisions

-0.022

0.627

0.0089

-0.33

0.181

0.600

F1_C_90211B_N_scientific models

-0.205

0.544

0.0070

-0.34

-0.006

0.640

0.218

0.579

0.0073

-0.34

0.408

0.548

F1_C_40221D_N_moral decisions F1_90211E_A_scientific models

0.068

0.534

0.0037

-0.37

0.276

0.596

F1_90621B_N_scientific method

-0.246

0.436

0.0022

-0.37

-0.056

0.584

F1_C_90411D_N_tentativeness

0.017

0.585

0.0009

-0.41

0.275

0.666

F1_C_20141C_A_country’s government politics

0.196

0.476

0.0008

-0.44

0.390

0.415

-0.078

0.483

0.0002

-0.46

0.165

0.582

0.587

0.454

0.0002

-0.48

0.787

0.374

F1_C_40221C_N_moral decisions F1_C_20141I_N_country’s government politics F1_20141B_A_country’s government politics F1_C_90211C_N_scientific models

0.418

0.429

0.0000

-0.54

0.628

0.340

-0.211

0.465

0.0000

-0.58

0.091

0.584

Categories 0.014

0.478

0.0000

0.55

-0.253

0.495

Plausible Index: social responsibility: pollution F1_40161PL

Plausible Index: moral decisions F1_40221PL

-0.128

0.502

0.0017

0.40

-0.321

0.475

Plausible Index: interdependence F1_10411PL

-0.209

0.681

0.0117

0.31

-0.418

0.652

0.106

0.487

0.0056

-0.35

0.285

0.541

-0.269

0.449

0.0041

-0.35

-0.092

0.551

0.212

0.346

0.0020

-0.38

0.348

0.365

-0.044

0.488

0.0005

-0.43

0.181

0.565

0.361

0.322

0.0006

-0.44

0.493

0.273

0.045

0.377

0.0000

-0.53

0.265

0.459

Appropriate Index: scientific models F1_90211AP Naı¨ve Index: scientific method F1_90621NA Naı¨ve Index: moral decisions F1_40221NA Naı¨ve Index: tentativeness F1_90411NA Appropriate Index: country’s government politics F1_20141AP Naı¨ve Index: scientific models F1_90211NA Items F1_60611 women’s under-representation

0.188

0.279

0.0061

-0.34

0.286

0.302

F1_20141 country’s government politics

0.256

0.214

0.0007

-0.43

0.344

0.202

F1_90211 scientific models

0.039

0.296

0.0006

-0.43

0.173

0.325

effect sizes but unevenly distributed between the two forms (F1 has fewer positive categories, while F2 has more). The categories that generate positive differences are of the Plausible (6) or Naı¨ve (3) classes, while those that generate negative differences belong to the Appropriate (5) or Naı¨ve (3) classes. This characteristic seems to suggest that in-service

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Table 5 Descriptive statistics of the variables of F2 which presented relevant differences (d [ 0.30 or d \ -0.3) between the pre- and in-service groups of science teachers (a positive sign indicates a better score for the pre-service teacher group, and a negative sign a better score for the in-service group) Variables


Differences

In-service teachers

Mean

Sig.

Mean

SD

Effect size (d)

SD

Statements F2_20511B_P_educational institutions

-0.008

0.580

0.0000

0.75

-0.434

0.565

F2_10421C_P_interdependence quality of life

-0.371

0.560

0.0000

0.6

-0.670

0.445 0.764

F2_20511D_P_educational institutions

0.194

0.619

0.0000

0.5

-0.150

F2_C_90111E_N_observations

0.018

0.530

0.0005

0.45

-0.229

0.569

F2_60521C_P_gender equality

-0.485

0.610

0.0013

0.43

-0.728

0.531

F2_40421D_P_application to everyday life

-0.088

0.580

0.0015

0.41

-0.321

0.567

0.073

0.577

0.0017

0.39

-0.158

0.620

-0.064

0.703

0.0023

0.38

-0.333

0.698

F2_20511A_P_educational institutions F2_20211F_P_industry F2_10211D_P_technology

0.159

0.500

0.0029

0.36

-0.035

0.583

F2_60521A_P_gender equality

-0.302

0.639

0.0063

0.35

-0.522

0.624

F2_10211B_N_technology

-0.366

0.491

0.0053

0.34

-0.537

0.519

F2_10211F_P_technology

0.165

0.524

0.0061

0.33

-0.020

0.590

-0.154

0.564

0.0118

0.33

-0.338

0.565

F2_C_70711F_N_national influences F2_60521E_P_gender equality

-0.205

0.693

0.0134

0.32

-0.421

0.661

F2_40421A_N_application to everyday life

-0.288

0.491

0.0130

0.32

-0.442

0.485

F2_40131B_A_social responsibility information F2_C_91011A_N_epistemological status F2_C_20511F_N_educational institutions

0.211

0.487

0.0085

-0.33

0.367

0.463

-0.088

0.606

0.0034

-0.37

0.153

0.712

0.209

0.567

0.0014

-0.40

0.439

0.591

-0.111

0.567

0.0016

-0.40

0.117

0.582

F2_C_90521B_N_role of assumptions

0.024

0.583

0.0013

-0.42

0.277

0.621

F2_C_20511C_A_educational institutions

0.378

0.435

0.0007

-0.42

0.564

0.448

-0.178

0.559

0.0000

-0.61

0.188

0.640

F2_40211F_A_social decisions

F2_C_90521A_N_role of assumptions F2_20511E_N_educational institutions

-0.014

0.585

0.0000

-0.72

0.416

0.616

F2_C_20511H_N_educational institutions

-0.032

0.608

0.0000

-0.84

0.489

0.629

Categories Plausible index: educational institutions 20511PL

0.087

0.427

0.0000

0.77

-0.254

0.457

Plausible index: gender equality 60521PL Naı¨ve index: technology 10211NA

-0.362

0.447

0.0065

0.35

-0.514

0.429

-0.366

0.491

0.0053

0.34

-0.537

0.519

Plausible index: application to everyday life 40421PL Naı¨ve index: observations 90111NA

-0.024

0.359

0.0071

0.33

-0.153

0.410

-0.172

0.418

0.0094

0.33

-0.315

0.449

-0.288

0.491

0.0130

0.32

-0.442

0.485

Appropriate index: social responsibility information 40131AP

0.308

0.429

0.0066

-0.34

0.454

0.441

Appropriate index: educational institutions 20511AP Naı¨ve index: role of assumptions 90521NA Naı¨ve index: educational institutions 20511NA

0.378

0.435

0.0007

-0.42

0.564

0.448

-0.051

0.436

0.0008

-0.43

0.137

0.439

0.157

0.427

0.0000

-0.69

0.486

0.524

Naı¨ve index: application to everyday life 40421NA

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Table 5 continued Variables


Differences

In-service teachers

Mean

Sig.

Mean

SD

Effect size (d)

SD

Items F2_40421 application to everyday life

-0.087

0.249

0.0074

0.33

-0.173

0.271

F2_10211 technology

-0.023

0.235

0.0065

0.33

-0.102

0.241

F2_70211 scientific decisions

0.072

0.269

0.0089

0.33

-0.022

0.304

F2_20211 industry

0.238

0.260

0.0096

0.31

0.153

0.280

F2_60521 gender equality

0.293

0.196

0.0119

0.31

0.225

0.242

teachers better identify the Appropriate beliefs, while the pre-service teachers better recognize the ambiguity of the Plausible beliefs. There are 8 item variables with relevant differences in the mean indices for pre-service and in-service teachers. Interestingly, the three items that correspond to F1 give rise to negative differences (pre-service teachers worse than in-service teachers), while the five items of F2 give rise to positive differences (pre-service teachers score better than inservice teachers). The above empirical evidence is thus not decisive to argue that the professional development and teaching experience of in-service science teachers serves to significantly enhance their understanding of STS issues. On the one hand, the total number of statement, category, and item variables that exhibit relevant differences (71, or approximately 23%) is small relative to the total of variables analyzed. And on the other, many of these variables exhibit relevant positive differences, which, with the definition of the sign used in Tables 4 and 5, is evidence for the contrary hypothesis, namely that teaching experience worsens the understanding of STS–NOS. From a perspective of expectations of the capacity of the practice of teaching to improve the understanding of STS–NOS, one really should take into account as weaknesses all those variables in which a relevant improvement is achieved, as well of course as those in which the understanding is negative even though there might be a relevant degree of improvement. The main consequence to be drawn from these results is the need to provide continuing education for in-service teachers that includes topics allowing them to develop an adequate understanding of STS–NOS. This more demanding perspective greatly extends the spectrum of STS–NOS themes that potentially need to be dealt with in continuing teacher education. These should cover all the items that in the Tables 4 and 5 have relevant effect sizes with a sign unfavourable to the in-service teachers, and in general to all those items which do not have a positive mean index. In sum, the practice of teaching science produces some improvement in the teachers’ understanding of certain aspects of STS–NOS, but this improvement is neither systematic nor extensive, since significant worsening is also detected in many other aspects. Therefore it could be argued that the practice of teaching can not by itself be considered a decisive factor in improving science teachers’ understanding of STS–NOS.

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5 Discussion and Conclusions The evaluation of a large sample representative of the population of Spanish secondary education science teachers overcomes the usual limitations of studies with small samples, and demonstrates this new method’s capacity to perform representative studies without a major investment in time and resources—two considerations which, together with the method’s inherent validity endowed by the empirical qualitative construction of the questionnaire, can be crucial for the viability of planning diagnostic evaluations using extensive samples (Kang, Scharmann and Noh 2005; Dogan and Abd-El-Khalick 2008). Beyond any potential criticisms of the instrument, its simplicity, validity and reliability will allow teachers to consider making use of the item contents in teaching STS–NOS topics in the classroom, either as an evaluation tool or as a guide to how they might approach the curriculum (Clough and Olson 2008). The assessment instrument and method meet many of the requirements suggested by Allchin (2011) for appropriately assessing functional STS–NOS understanding. The authentic context is implemented by the item stems which provide the contextual framework for the teachers’ responses. It is certain that a limitation of the instrument is that the teachers do not compose free written responses which would provide greater depth in understanding their ideas and arguments regarding STS–NOS issues (post-test interviews or free essays elaborating on the item responses would constitute a natural continuation to the instrument). Nevertheless, a well-informed analysis emerges from the complete information provided by the multiple responses to all the item statements. Adaptability to diagnostic, teacher education, or overall performance evaluation contexts is clearly ensured with the flexibility of the construction of a profile of STS–NOS knowledge indices for each individual from their category scores (Va´zquez et al. 2005, 2006). Also, the instrument’s adaptability to single, mass, local, or large-scale comparative uses including respect for the relevant stakeholders is quite evident since the standardization of the indices and the quantitative method allow hypothesis testing statistics to be applied for comparative purposes in rapid, inexpensive, and flexible implementations. Most previous research on teachers’ understanding of STS–NOS has found, more or less explicitly, a very negative vision of teachers’ beliefs about STS–NOS, identifying a prevalence of misinformed and negative beliefs.8 Perhaps this is because these analyses have focused on identifying certain abstract features of STS–NOS (tentativeness, creativity, scientific method, social influences, relationship between science and technology, empirical foundations, theory-laden aspects, positivist empiricism, etc.) which seem to be far removed from the reality of most teachers’ experience. Furthermore, the conclusions that the teachers’ visions are negative are often drawn from their responses to context-free questions or stimuli for which they might find it quite hard to give simple declarative accounts of what could well be quite complex beliefs. The present results paint a picture of the weaknesses and strengths of teachers’ STS– NOS conceptions that, on the one hand, replicates previous findings in the STS–NOS literature, but, on the other, displays features that differ somewhat from previous research. In particular, the diagnosis given by the present study is more complex in that both negative (inappropriate) and positive (appropriate) beliefs coexist for all the STS–NOS issues studied. Indeed, there coexist multiple different beliefs—not in an abstract context,

8

See for instance, Abell and Smith (1994), Apostolou and Koulaidis (2010), Irez (2006), Ma (2009), Yalvac et al. (2007), Lederman (1992), among others.

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but in the various specific contexts set out in each item as a framework for its responses (Allchin 2011). Overall, the analysis showed that Spanish science teachers have fairly appropriate beliefs for just over 40% of the STS–NOS items examined. For the other items, they presented moderately appropriate beliefs in most cases, although there was a noticeable fraction that entailed quite inappropriate beliefs. One can therefore say that, in general, Spanish science teachers’ beliefs about STS–NOS are generally quite adequate. However, the fact that there are themes of STS–NOS in which the teachers hold inappropriate beliefs is a cause for concern with respect to initial and continuing teacher education concerning the understanding of STS–NOS. The teachers’ more appropriate beliefs pertain to the following STS–NOS issues: social responsibility concerning environmental pollution; the interaction between science, technology, and society; the definition of science; scientific and humanistic knowledge as part of a single culture; gender equality in science and technology; and the interdependence of science and technology. Their more inappropriate beliefs pertain to the following issues: ethics in science and technology; the role of science and technology in helping deal with everyday affairs; and scientific observations. In general, the overall profiles considering all the variables of the pre-service and in-service teachers were more similar than different, although the in-service teachers’ beliefs tended to obtain slightly higher mean indices than those of the pre-service teachers. The few relevant differences that were observed between the two groups presented a kind of balance in the sense that there were approximately the same number of positive (in favour of pre-service teachers) and negative (in favour of in-service teachers) differences. The main differentiating variable between the pre- and in-service groups of teachers is teaching experience and the progressive professional development gained through it. Analysis of the differences between pre- and in-service teachers thus constitutes an indirect evaluation of the effectiveness of this teaching experience (and of continuing in-service teacher education) in improving teachers’ understanding of STS–NOS. Relatively few (about one-fifth) of the total of statement, category, and item variables exhibited relevant differences, and these were roughly evenly distributed according to their signs, i.e., there were almost the same number of variables for which teaching experience seemed to worsen understanding of STS–NOS as those that improve it. Nevertheless, even those cases in which the negative differences (i.e., those which were in favour of the pre-service teachers) did not reach the threshold to be considered as relevant have to be a cause for concern. Thus, the practice of teaching science produces some improvement in teachers’ understanding of certain aspects of STS–NOS, but this improvement is neither systematic nor extensive, and there is significant worsening in other aspects. Assuming that the two groups had received similar initial teacher education, the empirical evidence that we have presented is clearly insufficient to argue that experience in the practice of teaching science significantly enhances the teacher’s conceptions about STS–NOS. Consequently, by itself the practical experience of teaching science can not be considered a decisive factor for improving science teachers’ conceptions of STS–NOS for their subsequent implementation in the classroom. The deduction therefore would have to be that teachers need to learn the content of STS–NOS explicitly—one can not hope that it will be absorbed implicitly as part of their activities (not just teaching, of course, but also their reading and discussions with colleagues, etc.) connected with their everyday teaching practice. Furthermore, evidence from expert-versus-novice teacher research indicates that, when expert teachers are confronted with teaching a less familiar subject matter (for instance, STS–NOS), they may not be able to transfer to this relatively uncomfortable context the behaviour that was characteristic of their expert teaching, thereby unexpectedly mirroring a

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novice’s relatively incompetent teaching approach, and exhibiting greater difficulty in including STS–NOS in their science teaching than might have been expected (Hashweh 1987; Sanders et al. 1993). All in all, the numerous negative, or simply non-positive, aspects found in the secondary education science teachers’ understanding of STS–NOS, together with the lack of effectiveness of experience in the practice of teaching to improve this state of affairs, show that it is necessary to design and implement training activities that involve teachers in an explicit and reflexive analysis of STS–NOS topics for both pre- and in-service teacher education programs (Schwartz et al. 2004; Hanuscin et al. 2006; Acevedo 2009). The aim of these activities will not be so much to make teachers more knowledgeable about STS–NOS, but to help them increase their classroom competence in science teaching practices, in the learning of science, and in understanding the validity of scientific claims. To this end (Garcıá-Carmona et al. 2011), a particular attention needs to be paid to: 1. the characteristics of scientific activities (empirical NOS, scientific research and methods, modeling, relationships between science, technology, and society, etc.); 2. situations of controversy that arise in the construction of scientific knowledge; and 3. aspects of the history and philosophy of science. Acknowledgments The present study corresponds to grant SEJ2007-67090/EDUC funded by the national I?D?i 2007 programme of the Ministry of Education and Science (Spain) and the support of the IberoAmerican States Organization (OEI).

Appendix 1 Example of an item that displays several positions with the highest positive indices—or strong points (superscript [1])—and with the lowest negative indices—or weak points (superscript [2])—of the teachers’ beliefs about the STS–NOS: 10421 In order to improve the quality of living in our country, it would be better to spend money on technological research RATHER THAN scientific research.

A. Invest in technological research because it will improve production, economic growth, and unemployment. These are far more important than anything that scientific research has to offer.[1] Invest in both: B. Because there is really no difference between science and technology. C. Because scientific knowledge is needed to make technological advances.[2] D. Because they interact and complement each other equally. Technology gives as much to science as science gives to technology.[1] E. Because each in its own way brings advantages to society. For example, science brings medical and environmental advances, while technology brings improved conveniences and efficiency. F. Invest in scientific research—that is, medical or environmental research—because these are more important than making better appliances, computers, or other products of technological research. G. Invest in scientific research because it improves the quality of life (for example, medical cures, answers to pollution, and increased knowledge). Technological

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research, on the other hand, has worsened the quality of life (for example, atomic bombs, pollution, automation, etc.).[1] H. Invest in neither. The quality of life will not improve with advances in science and technology, but will improve with investments in other sectors of society (for example, social welfare, education, job creation programs, the fine arts, foreign aid, etc.).[1]

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