Type of Document Dissertation Author Philpot, Cindy Johnson URN etd-03282007-213459 Title Science Olympiad Students' Nature of Science Understandings Degree Ph.D. Department Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Dr. Lisa Martin-Hansen Committee Chair Dr. Geeta Verma Committee Member Dr. Michael Dias Committee Member Dr. Olga Jarrett Committee Member Keywords
- Secondary Science Education
- Nature of Science
- Science Education
- Science Olympiad
Date of Defense 2007-01-23 Availability unrestricted Abstract Recent reform efforts in science education focus on scientific literacy for allcitizens. In order to be scientifically literate, an individual must have informed
understandings of nature of science (NOS), scientific inquiry, and science content matter.
This study specifically focused on Science Olympiad students’ understanding of NOS as
one piece of scientific literacy. Research consistently shows that science students do not
have informed understandings of NOS (Abd-El-Khalick, 2002; Bell, Blair, Crawford, and
Lederman, 2002; Kilcrease and Lucy, 2002; Schwartz, Lederman, and Thompson, 2001).
However, McGhee-Brown, Martin, Monsaas and Stombler (2003) found that Science
Olympiad students had in-depth understandings of science concepts, principles,
processes, and techniques. Science Olympiad teams compete nationally and are found in
rural, urban, and suburban schools. In an effort to learn from students who are generally
considered high achieving students and who enjoy science, as opposed to the typical
science student, the purpose of this study was to investigate Science Olympiad students’
understandings of NOS and the experiences that formed their understandings.
An interpretive, qualitative, case study method was used to address the research
questions. The participants were purposefully and conveniently selected from the Science
Olympiad team at a suburban high school. Data collection consisted of the Views of
Nature of Science – High School Questionnaire (VNOS-HS) (Schwartz, Lederman, &
Thompson, 2001), semi-structured individual interviews, and a focus group.
The main findings of this study were similar to much of the previous research in
that the participants had informed understandings of the tentative nature of science and
the role of inferences in science, but they did not have informed understandings of the
role of human imagination and creativity, the empirical nature of science, or theories and
laws. High level science classes and participation in Science Olympiad did not translate
into informed understandings of NOS. There were implications that labs with a set
procedure and given data tables did not contribute to informed NOS understandings,
while explicit instruction may have contributed to more informed understandings.
Exploring these high achieving, Science Olympiad students’ understandings of NOS was
a crucial step to understanding what experiences formed these students’ understandings
so that teachers may better their practices and help more students succeed in becoming
scientifically literate citizens.
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