The objective of the dissertation was to assess the suitability of the scientific literacy development by using learning tasks in chemistry classes for ISCED 2. By comparing the learning tasks types in commercial workbooks and in the international assessment PISA, a significant difference in their structure was found out. Although the Czech Republic has undertaken to participate in the PISA project, Czech teachers have a different type of teaching tasks commonly available in their workbooks than the pupils afterwards solve in the PISA project. PISA's released and author's learning tasks were compiled into authentic workbooks. They were used in chemistry classes during the school year 2016/2017. Based on the pupils' results in the final assignments, all groups of grammar school pupils from experimental groups achieved better results in solving multicomponent learning tasks than the control group. However, the results of elementary schools pupils were significantly worse at final test scores than at initial ones, which was explained by the entire loss of their motivation to study. Pupils rated motivation to work with multicomponent tasks above average. They were fully aware of the importance and usefulness of solving multicomponent learning tasks, and, therefore, they solved them with proper...

The main topic of this thesis focuses on finding out how teachers in primary and pre- primary education, according to their opinion, approach to incorporating science experiments into teaching, what are the conditions for experiments in teaching and how students react to the experiments. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on analysis of information related to science experiments and their incorporating into curriculum. The practical part of the thesis includes data collection methods by interviewing teachers and by surveying opinion of students on the experiments, and their evaluation. KEYWORDS: Scientific Literacy, scientific Pre-Literacy, School Experiment

The proposed biology curriculum for non-majors has one main objective, namely to improve scientific literacy among college students. The National Science Education Standards defines scientific literacy as "the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity". The suggested strategies to accomplish this goal are to limit the number of topics covered, introduce relevant scientific terminology, emphasize general biological concepts and themes, and hone critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Activities such as group projects, written and oral assignments, and class discussions are effective tools to assess student ability to communicate scientifically. It is also important for students to make connections between the course subject matter and how it affects real life events.

Följande studie ämnar undersöka hur läromedel i biologi angriper ämnet naturvetenskapens karaktär. Den bygger på de sju aspekter som Norman Lederman använt för att definiera naturvetenskapens karaktär på grund- och gymnasienivå: att det är skillnad mellan observation och slutsats, det är skillnad mellan lagar och teorier, naturvetenskapen är baserad på empiri, den är öppen för förändring, den är kreativ, den är subjektiv och beroende av sitt kulturella sammanhang. Läromedlen analyseras både kvantitativt och med en hermeneutisk brukstextanalys. Resultatet visar att böckerna förmedlar att naturvetenskapen baseras på empiri och till viss del att det är skillnad mellan observationer och slutsatser. De missar dock att förmedla att dagens naturvetenskap är föränderlig, subjektiv och beroende av sitt kulturella sammanhang. Den huvudsakliga slutsatsen är därför att författarna lagt den största vikten vid att förmedla en bild av naturvetenskapens pålitlighet.

Religiously conservative Americans consistently demonstrate lower scientific literacy than other Americans. Some argue, however, that Americans’ scientific literacy is contingent on subcultural conflict, showing differences in scientific literacy that emerge only on religiously contested scientific claims. Building on these insights, we find that the most salient factor explaining Americans’ divergence on contested (though not on uncontested) scientific claims is not religious commitment or conservatism per se, but an ideology that seeks political—and consequently epistemic—dominance: Christian nationalism. National data show that Christian nationalism is unassociated with Americans’ answers on questions about uncontested scientific knowledge. However, Christian nationalism is the strongest predictor of incorrect answers on questions about religiously contested scientific claims. Contemporary “culture war” debates over science have little to do with outright ignorance of science, nor are they strictly about religiosity or theological conservatism. Rather, disputes over science and religion reflect politically motivated denials of scientific facts that threaten Christian nationalism’s claims to epistemic and cultural authority.

The purpose of this study was to explore the evolution science content used during college students' negotiation of biology-based socioscientific issues (SSI) and examine how it related to students' conceptual understanding and acceptance of biological evolution. Specific research questions were, (1a) what specific evolutionary science content do college students evoke during SSI negotiation, (1b) what is the depth of the evolutionary science content reflected in college students' SSI negotiation, and (2) what is the nature of the interaction between evolution understanding and evolution acceptance as they relate to depth of use of evolution content during SSI negotiation? The Socioscientific Issues Questionnaire (SSI-Q) was developed using inductive data analysis to examine science content use and to develop a rubric for measuring depth of evolutionary science content use during SSI negotiation. Sixty upper level undergraduate biology and non-biology majors completed the SSI-Q and also the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS: Anderson, Fisher, & Norman, 2002) to measure evolution understanding and the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE: Rutledge & Warden, 1999) to measure evolution acceptance. A multiple regression analysis tested for interaction effects between the predictor variables, evolution understanding and evolution acceptance. Results indicate that college students primarily use science concepts related to evolution to negotiate biology-based SSI: variation in a population, inheritance of traits, differential success, and change through time. The hypothesis that the extent of one's acceptance of evolution is a mitigating factor in how evolution content is evoked during SSI negotiation was supported by the data. This was seen in that evolution was the predominant science content used by participants for each of the three SSI scenarios used in this study and used consistently throughout the three SSI scenarios. In addition to its potential to assess aspects of argumentation, a modification of the SSI-Q could be used for further study about students' misconceptions about evolution or scientific literacy, if it is defined as one's tendency to utilize science content during a decision-making process within an SSI context.

This study investigated South Africa’s secondary school teachers’ understandings of the nature of science (NOS) in relation to their instructional practices. The participants were three Grade 10 Physical Science teachers conveniently selected from three schools in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Teacher understandings of the nature of science were elicited through semi-structured interviews. The core questions for the interviews were adapted from the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS) – Form C developed by Abd-El-Khalick, Lederman, Bell and Schwartz (2002). The nature of science tenets explored were: what is science?: the role and purpose of experiments in science: the difference between scientific theories and laws in science and how scientists settle scientific disputes. Teacher instructional practices were ascertained through semi-structured interviews and lesson observations. The results were analyzed using a combination of typological analysis and interpretive analysis. These results show that on the selected NOS tenets, the sampled teachers hold a mixture of naïve and sophisticated understandings. These understandings are, however, largely naïve. It was found that the teachers only teach about NOS implicitly. None of the teachers was found to explicitly teach about the NOS. It also came out that the teachers were experiencing difficulties in both interpreting and implementation of Learning Outcome 3 of South Africa’s new science curriculum. It is concluded that the interaction between teachers’ NOS understandings and their instructional practices occurs without the teachers being aware of it, i.e. unconsciously. Recommendations for teaching, curriculum implementation and future research are suggested.

Textskapande kan ses som ett viktigt redskap för elevers kunskapsutveckling i naturvetenskap. Textskapande i de naturorienterande ämnena är också ett av de sätt med vilket elever kan närma sig en scientific literacy. Scientific literacy handlar om att i de naturvetenskapliga ämnena uttrycks naturvetenskapens världsbild både genom själva innehållet och genom de språkliga aktiviteter som eleverna deltar i. Tidigare forskning inom området har främst varit inriktad på frågan huruvida skrivande kan leda till lärande inom naturvetenskap. Syftet med detta examensarbete är att fördjupa kunskapen om hur lärare i de naturorienterande ämnena i årskurs4–6 upplever att textskapande kan främja lärandet i naturvetenskap. Undersökningen genomfördes med hjälp av kvalitativa intervjuer med nio grundskollärare. Slutsatsen som dras är att det de facto är en konst att få till ett skrivande eller textskapande som främjar lärandet inaturvetenskap. För att få till ett skrivande eller textskapande som främjar elevernas lärande i naturvetenskap behöver många olika aspekter beaktas. Det handlar både om olika förutsättningar som behöver vara uppfyllda innan lärare och elever går in i klassrummet men även vilka aktiviteter lärare med fördel kan organisera i klassrummet i syfte att främja lärandet genom textskapande. Om dessa förutsättningar är uppfyllda visar undersökningen att lärarna upplever att skrivande eller textskapande kan främja olika typer av lärande, såsom vetenskapligt förhållningssätt och förmåga att läsa och skriva naturvetenskapligt innehåll. Orsaken till att skrivande eller textskapande främjar detta lärande hos eleverna upplever lärarna bland annat beror på att skrivande och textskapande befäster kunskap och ger eleverna möjlighet att reflektera över det naturvetenskapliga innehållet. I examensarbetet introduceras en modell av scientific literacy baserad på Norris och Phillips (2003) samt Yore och Treagust (2006). Denna modell modifieras sedan utifrån aspekter som kommit fram i undersökningen. Modellen gällande scientific literacy kan användas som vägledning av de lärare som vill arbeta medvetet med skrivande och textskapande inom naturvetenskap. / <p>Pedagogiskt arbete, inriktning NO-teknik</p>

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of explicitly teaching multiple modes of representation (MMR) on middle school students' understanding of science content and their use of MMR on a science unit test. Participants in this quasi-experimental study were seventh- and eighth-grade students enrolled in science courses taught by three different middle school science teachers. Half of the students received explicit instruction in MMR in addition to their regular science instruction; the other half received only regular science instruction. Ordinary least squares multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between gain scores on unit assessments, whether students received explicit MMR instruction, and demographic variables. Additionally, regression analysis was used to examine how receiving explicit instruction in MMR and demographic variables predicted student use of MMR on the final test. These analyses indicated that receiving explicit instruction in MMR did not influence students' gain scores or use of MMR on a final test. However, Latinos and females used MMR more often than Whites and males, respectively, on the final test, even though these two groups of students did not use MMR more often on the first test. This suggests that Latinos and females may be placed at a disadvantage when compared to some of their peers by the bias towards using words that is present in the U.S. school system. This study also highlights challenges in creating instruments that assess student learning in MMR and difficulties in interpreting multimodal responses. Implications for classroom teachers and educational researchers are also discussed.

Som blivande lärare i förskoleklass och årskurs 1–3 med fördjupningsämne naturorientering, teknik och lärande blev ändamålet med denna studie att undersöka lärares didaktiska ställningstaganden genom utomhuspedagogik inom de naturorienterande ämnena. Studien utgår från olika teoretiska perspektiv: Vision I, II och III och den didaktiska triangeln. Dessa teoretiska perspektiv förtydligar vilket naturvetenskapligt innehåll lärare erhåller genom deras didaktiska ställningstaganden inom den naturorienterande undervisningen i utomhuspedagogik. Syftet med arbetet är att undersöka hur det naturvetenskapliga innehållet i koppling till de didaktiska ställningstagandena kan möjliggöra för olika kunskaper inom den naturorienterande undervisningen genom utomhuspedagogik.  Studiens datainsamling utfördes genom kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra aktiva lärare i lågstadiet på tre olika kommunala skolor och tre aktiva lärare på två olika naturskolor i södra Sverige. Resultatet visade att de intervjuade lärarnas didaktiska ställningstagande medför många möjligheter för elevernas kunskapsintag. Den största möjligheten som den utomhuspedagogiska undervisningen erhöll till elever var att de får lära sig naturorientering för inomvetenskapligt syfte där eleverna ska utveckla kunskaper som kan användas för framtida utbildning. Det framgick även att en del lärare använder sig av naturvetenskapligt innehåll som möjliggör att eleverna kan använda och befästa kunskaper utifrån deras intresse och vardag. Där elever ska få en förståelse över sin roll till den naturorienterande undervisningen.