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This research explored the complex issue of the nature of science. The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between teachers 's beliefs about the nature of science and their classroom practices. Limited literature exists on the nature of science in South Africa. However, findings from the study concurs with the abundant international literature on the nature of science. This research has shown that textbooks, the curriculum, and teacher training are three of the primary factors that shape teachers ' beliefs about the nature of science. The under-emphasis of the nature of science in textbooks, the curriculum and in teaching training contributes to the misrepresentation of the nature of science by teachers in their classroom practices. This research was conducted as a case study using quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection such as questionnaires, interviews, and classroom observations. Findings from the study have shown that teachers' instructional strategies are consistent with their personal educational philosophies, that is, teachers' teach science according to a belief system. For teachers operating in the analytical paradigm, the products of science such as the laws and theories were emphasized in their teaching and lessons were teacher dominated. Teachers operating in the hermeneutic and critical paradigms present science as dynamic and changing and they emphasized the products and processes of science with the teacher acting as a facilitator. Recommendations from the research include the development of new textbooks, curricula, teaching techniques and approaches to science. The research also calls for the inclusion of history and philosophy of science in the science curriculum. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1998.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate how students in Grade Five and Six generate explanation for scientific phenomena and how they evaluate the quality of these explanations. In part, this was done by analyzing the in-class explanations that the students gave in response to questions stemming from two topics in the 1996 Alberta program of studies for Grade Five Science. In addition, the students shared their own perceptions of the sources of their questions and ideas and the methods by which they evaluated them. Analysis of in-class discussions and activities occurred on an ongoing basis between January and June 1998. In addition, five students who vary in their ability to generate and evaluate scientific ideas were selected for more in-depth interviewing outside of class time. These students were interviewed once during each of the main units of study. Their interviews focused on the manner in which their thoughts and ideas had progressed during previous class discusiions and activities, how they evaluated these ideas, the manner in which they were able to generate new ideas, and their continued evaluation of these ideas. This involved reflection stimulate by requests to summarize their findings as well as on-the-spot reflection as the students continued to evaluate and develop their ideas. Attention was paid to possible effects that the metacognitive activity encouraged during class discussions and during the interviews may have had on methods that the students used to construct meaning. Each of the students who participated in individual interviews pertaining to specific content areas also participated in a narrative interview that focused on their general interests and habits. The individual interviews and class discussions were fully transcribed, analyzed and compared to generate broad themes which were then able to guide further analysis of student work. / xiii, 539 leaves ; 29 cm.

In my dissertation, I present Hermann Cohen's foundation for the history and philosophy of science. My investigation begins with Cohen's formulation of a neo-Kantian epistemology. I analyze Cohen's early work, especially his contributions to 19th century debates about the theory of knowledge. I conclude by examining Cohen's mature theory of science in two works, The Principle of the Infinitesimal Method and its History of 1883, and Cohen's extensive 1914 Introduction to Friedrich Lange's History of Materialism. In the former, Cohen gives an historical and philosophical analysis of the foundations of the infinitesimal method in mathematics. In the latter, Cohen presents a detailed account of Heinrich Hertz's Principles of Mechanics of 1894. Hertz considers a series of possible foundations for mechanics, in the interest of finding a secure conceptual basis for mechanical theories. Cohen argues that Hertz's analysis can be completed, and his goal achieved, by means of a philosophical examination of the role of mathematical principles and fundamental concepts in scientific theories.

This work is an investigation of the influence of academic philosophy on non-academics in the Early Modern period (the 16th and 17th centuries). The first chapter will use Craig’s Similarity Thesis to examine Early Modern philosophy in general, Philosophy of Science and Theology and how they interacted to elevate human reason to the level of divine certainty. The second chapter will draw on Dear’s description of the changing status of mathematics in academia in the Early Modern period. This second chapter will draw the importance and divine relevance of rationality as developed in the first chapter into the discussion to further explore the relationships between science, metaphysics, mathematics and the divine. The third and final chapter will examine one particular instance of the influence of these ideas on popular thought, specifically in Girard Thibault’s early 17th century treatise instructing the reader in swordsmanship, who uses the view of mathematics and the rational mind that is discussed in the preceding chapters to inform his theories of martial arts practice and pedagogy. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Bibliography: leaves 308-316. / v, 346 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / This thesis seeks to understand the interrelation of knowledge, power and culture in the context of globalization. Crisis of Marxism has prompted intense reflection on the nature of modernity as a post-cultural phenomenon. This discourse highlights forms of domination and resistance neglected by Marxism and Liberalism. Intellectual developments in the West have acquired a halo of universality which makes it difficult for outsiders to recognise their limitations. The debate between modernists and postmodernists is a case in point. Post-colonial theorists appropriation of post-structuralism, thematic and methodological, raises questions about their own relationship to Western theory and whether their analyses neglect material aspects of globalization as well as problems specific to post-colonial societies. This thesis contends that it is unnecessary to absolutise the "culture vs. materialism" dichotomy. While it may be true that the cultural is "always already" political, critical theory must insist on foregrounding a more activist notion of political agency in a conjecture marked by global management of dissent, economic fundamentalism, media spectacles and cynical conflation of democracy with consumption. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Politics, 1998?

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-126). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 527-562).

Habilitationsschrift--Göttingen, 1974. / Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 345-360).