There exists a general consensus in the science education literature around the goal of enhancing students. and teachers. views of nature of science (NOS). An emerging area of research in science education explores NOS and argumentation, and the aim of this study was to explore the effectiveness of a science content course incorporating explicit NOS and argumentation instruction on preservice primary teachers. views of NOS. A constructivist perspective guided the study, and the research strategy employed was case study research. Five preservice primary teachers were selected for intensive investigation in the study, which incorporated explicit NOS and argumentation instruction, and utilised scientific and socioscientific contexts for argumentation to provide opportunities for participants to apply their NOS understandings to their arguments. Four primary sources of data were used to provide evidence for the interpretations, recommendations, and implications that emerged from the study. These data sources included questionnaires and surveys, interviews, audio- and video-taped class sessions, and written artefacts. Data analysis involved the formation of various assertions that informed the major findings of the study, and a variety of validity and ethical protocols were considered during the analysis to ensure the findings and interpretations emerging from the data were valid. Results indicated that the science content course was effective in enabling four of the five participants. views of NOS to be changed. All of the participants expressed predominantly limited views of the majority of the examined NOS aspects at the commencement of the study. Many positive changes were evident at the end of the study with four of the five participants expressing partially informed and/or informed views of the majority of the examined NOS aspects. A critical analysis of the effectiveness of the various course components designed to facilitate the development of participants‟ views of NOS in the study, led to the identification of three factors that mediated the development of participants‟ NOS views: (a) contextual factors (including context of argumentation, and mode of argumentation), (b) task-specific factors (including argumentation scaffolds, epistemological probes, and consideration of alternative data and explanations), and (c) personal factors (including perceived previous knowledge about NOS, appreciation of the importance and utility value of NOS, and durability and persistence of pre-existing beliefs). A consideration of the above factors informs recommendations for future studies that seek to incorporate explicit NOS and argumentation instruction as a context for learning about NOS.

Submitted by Johnny Rodrigues (johnnyrodrigues@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-08-27T17:25:48Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FREDERICO MOREIRA BUBLITZ - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGCC 2007..pdf: 904934 bytes, checksum: 8d563223d93f55292a39ac820e5c565d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T17:25:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FREDERICO MOREIRA BUBLITZ - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGCC 2007..pdf: 904934 bytes, checksum: 8d563223d93f55292a39ac820e5c565d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-07-20 / O desenvolvimento tecnológico tem proporcionado que os computadores se tornem cada vez mais compactos e mais poderosos, levando a computação a um novo paradigma: o de Computação Pervasiva. Neste paradigma, os computadores estão embutidos em objetos comuns ao cotidiano das pessoas (e.g.,roupas, telefones, automóveis, canetas, óculos e eletrodomésticos em geral), permitindo-os estar acessíveis em qualquer lugar e a qualquer momento, integrando-se à vida das pessoas, agindo em benefício delas. Tornar estes dispositivos integrados aos seres humanos, requer que as aplicações se adaptem em tempo de execução às alterações no ambiente e às necessidades dos usuários. Isto exige que o desenvolvedor de aplicações voltadas a ambientes pervasivos lide com questões que fogem à lógica de negócio de sua aplicação, principalmente no que diz respeito à obtenção de contexto,que é fundamental para obtenção desta adaptabilidade desejada. Neste trabalho, aborda-se a problemática supra mencionada, propondo-se uma infraestrutura capaz de fornecer mecanismos para a obtenção, representação e inferência sobre a informação contextual, tornando-as disponíveis a qualquer aplicação que possa fazer uso delas. Mais especificamente, esta infra-estrutura denominada Lotus, contempla em uma abordagem integrada todos os aspectos relacionados com a provisão de informação contextual. A viabilidade da infra-estrutura foi demonstrada por meio do desenvolvimento de duas aplicações, uma no domínio de comunidades virtuais móveis e outra no domínio de ambientes pervasivos, onde foi possível constatar que a Lotus torna a informação contextual disponível para as aplicações, permitindo que o desenvolvedor foque na lógica de negócio da aplicação. / Enabling applications to use any contextual information available in pervasive environment is a hard task from the perspective of the developers. In this work is described an approach to make that an easier task: The Lotus, which consists of an infra-structure for developing context-aware applications, providing mechanisms for acquiring, modeling, and delivering contextual information, enabling it to be shared by different applications. The feasibility of this infra-structure was established through development of a case study where was possible verify that Lotus made the contextual information available to the applications, enabling the developer to focuses on application business logic