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Student conceptions of the nature of science

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ABSTRACT Research has shown that students from elementary school to college have major misconceptions about the nature of science. While an appropriate understanding of the nature of science has been an objective of science education for a century, researchers using a variety of instruments, continue to document students' inadequate conceptions…

ABSTRACT Research has shown that students from elementary school to college have major misconceptions about the nature of science. While an appropriate understanding of the nature of science has been an objective of science education for a century, researchers using a variety of instruments, continue to document students' inadequate conceptions of what science is and how it operates as an enterprise. Current research involves methods to improve student understanding of the nature of science. Students often misunderstand the creative, subjective, empirical, and tentative nature of science. They do not realize the relationship between laws and theories, nor do they understand that science does not follow a prescribed method. Many do not appreciate the influence culture, society, and politics; nor do they have an accurate understanding of the types of questions addressed by science. This study looks at student understanding of key nature of science (NOS) concepts in order to examine the impact of implementing activities intended to help students better understand the process of science and to see if discussion of key NOS concepts following those activities will result in greater gains in NOS understanding. One class received an "activities only" treatment, while the other participated in the same activities followed by explicit discussion of key NOS themes relating to the activity. The interventions were implemented for one school year in two high school anatomy and physiology courses composed of juniors and seniors. Student views of the nature of science were measured using the Views of the Nature of Science - Form C (VNOS-C). Students in both classes demonstrated significant gains in NOS understanding. However, contrary to current research, the addition of explicit discussion did not result in significantly greater gains in NOS understanding. This suggests that perhaps students in higher-level science classes can draw the correlations between NOS related activities and important aspects of "real" science. Or perhaps that a curriculum with a varied approach my expose students to more aspects of science thus improving their NOS understanding.
ContributorsTalbot, Amanda L (Author) / Luft, Julie (Thesis advisor) / Baker, Dale (Committee member) / Brem, Sarah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
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Internal Longitudinal and Transverse Muscles in Relation to Octopus Arm Function

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The entirely soft-tissue anatomy of the octopus arm provides the animal with a large amount of freedom of movement, while still allowing the specimen to support itself despite the lack of a skeletal system. This is made possible through the use of various muscle layers within the octopus arm, which…

The entirely soft-tissue anatomy of the octopus arm provides the animal with a large amount of freedom of movement, while still allowing the specimen to support itself despite the lack of a skeletal system. This is made possible through the use of various muscle layers within the octopus arm, which act as muscular hydrostats. Magnetic Resonance imaging of the octopus arm was employed to view the muscle layers within the octopus arm and observe trends and differences in these layers at the proximal, middle, and distal portions of the arms. A total of 39 arms from 6 specimens were imaged to give 112 total imaged sections (38 proximal, 37 middle, 37 distal). Significant increases in both the internal longitudinal muscle layer and the nervous core were found between the proximal and middle, proximal and distal, and middle and distal sections of the arms. This could reflect selection for these structures distally in the octopus arm for predator or other noxious stimuli avoidance. A significant decrease in the transverse muscle layer was found in the middle and distal sections of the arms. This could reflect selection for elongation in the proximal portion of the octopus arm or could be the result of selection for the internal longitudinal muscle layer and nervous core distally. Previous studies on Octopus vulgaris showed a preference for using the proximal arms in the pushing movement of crawling and a preference for using the anterior arms in exploring behaviors (Levy et al., 2015 and Byrne et al., 2006). Differences between the anterior and posterior arms for the transverse muscle layer, internal longitudinal muscle layer, and the nervous core were insignificant, reflecting a lack of structure-function relationships. This could also be due to a low sample size. Differences between the left and right arms for the transverse muscle layer, internal longitudinal muscle layer, and the nervous core were insignificant, supporting previous evidence that left versus right eye and arm preferences in octopus are not population-wide, but individual. Some slight trends can be found for individual arms, but the sample size was too small to make definitive statements regarding differences among specific arms.
ContributorsRoy, Cayla C (Author) / Fisher, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Marvi, Hamid (Committee member) / Cherry, Brian (Committee member) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05