Abstract
We report on the development of a rubric to reliably qualify and score responses to the
Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire
(VNOS): The
VNOS Analysis and Scoring Rubric
(VAScoR). The
...VAScoR
is designed to (a) provide systematic guidance for the qualitative analysis, and score assignment to nuanced categories, of
VNOS
responses, (b) explicitly scaffold qualitative inferencing and standardize score assignment to substantially lessen the burden of, and variance in, analyzing and scoring the
VNOS
, and (c) improve the viability and meaningfulness of cross‐study comparisons drawing on
VNOS
data. The rubric adopted the
VNOS's
consensus NOS framework and further delineated core and related elements across 10 target NOS aspects. The
VAScoR's
reliability was examined in two studies that drew on
VNOS
questionnaires completed by 185 preservice secondary science teachers (58% female; 126 undergraduate and 59 graduate students) enrolled over several years in a combined undergraduate and graduate licensure program in a large U.S. Midwestern university. In Study I,
VAScoR
analyses of 86
VNOS
questionnaires undertaken by a single author were used to examine the rubric's intra‐rater reliability, which resulted in a robust Cronbach's alpha value of 0.81. In Study II, analyses by four authors of a randomly generated, overlapping set of 18 questionnaires were used to examine inter‐rater reliability, which was supported with substantial consensus among raters as indicated by a Cohen's kappa of 0.71. Further evidence for the
VAScoR's
inter‐rater reliability was indicated by moderate to strong consistency among four raters with an overall Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.82, and coefficient values ranging from 0.77 to 0.89 for six possible rater pairings.
The paper aims to provide a review of literature that emphasizes students’ and teachers’ views on the nature of science (NOS) and associated instructional approaches to develop adequate understanding ...of the NOS that have been employed in different contexts. One hundred and seventy-two (172) studies were selected from ResearchGate, Academia, Google Scholar, and ERIC database from the year 2000 to 2022 and few important documents published before 2000. The paper presents an exploration of NOS aspects and identifies the gaps in the previous researches. The reviewed studies inform us that students have strong misconceptions on some NOS aspects such as relationship between theories and laws, observations, and scientific method, while teachers have strong misconception on relationship between theories and laws. The NOS instructional approaches discussed in reviewed papers have a positive effect in improving the NOS understanding. Reviewed literature suggests that some instructional approaches have positive effect to teach most of targeted NOS aspects such as explicit and reflective approach. In addition, the findings indicate that explicit and reflective instruction has been more documented and tried out into different contexts in which a considerable effect on students’ views on NOS was noted. Despite all efforts put in place, there is still a need for a lot to be done on active instructional approaches and interventions in this regard, particularly in developing countries with emphasis to the Sub-Saharan Africa education context.
Although the nature of science (NOS) is recognized worldwide as an important aspect of promoting the understanding of science subjects in schools but very little research has been conducted in this ...regard in the Rwandan context. This study investigates the status of Rwandan senior secondary physics students’ views on NOS aspects. The instrument for data collection in this study is made up of 30 items adapted from “Views of Nature of Science-B”; “Student Understanding of Science and Scientific Inquiry (SUSSI)”; and “Views of Nature of Science-C (VNOS-C)”. After establishing the reliability of the instrument, we administered this questionnaire to 148 senior secondary physics students from four schools (i.e. randomly selected two boarding schools and two day schools) from Kicukiro and Kayonza districts. Frequency, mean, and standard deviation were calculated, and a t-test was used as part of the data analysis. The findings of this study indicate that many of the students have strongly held and naïve views about all targeted NOS aspects. The naïve views are predominantly related to the tentative nature of science; empiricism; the relationship between scientific theories and laws; social contexts in knowledge construction; and scientific methods, compared to other remaining targeted NOS aspects which are observation and inferences; and imagination and creativity. The study revealed that, overall, students’ understanding of NOS is not influenced by gender or school location. However, a more detailed look shows slight variations between male and female students on some items.
Vitamin D (VitD) is involved in calcium and phosphate homeostasis, bone health, and normal functioning of the immune system. VitD status is monitored using serum 25-hydroxy-vitamin D (25(OH)D) as a ...biomarker. Serum 25(OH)D concentrations below 30 nmol/L indicate VitD deficiency and below 50 nmol/L indicate insufficiency. VitD can be synthesised endogenously in human skin when exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation. In the absence of sufficient UVB-light exposure, VitD intake becomes the main source of VitD, with a recommended daily intake of 20 μg. The aim of this study was to conduct a review and meta-analysis on the abovementioned topics, focusing on scientific studies in various Slovenian populations.
We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of published scientific papers, academic theses, or conference contributions reporting serum 25(OH)D status and VitD intake across various Slovenian populations. A search was carried out using Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, and the Slovenian library database.
We identified 43 pertinent studies that addressed 25(OH)D status and 16 that addressed VitD intake. Serum 25(OH)D status was generally low across all populations, and notable seasonal variability was observed. VitD intakes were below 5 μg in all studies.
A general observation is that various population groups across Slovenia are at high risk of vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency, particularly during wintertime. Regarding vitamin D intake, all included studies reported daily intakes below the recommended level. We also identified key research gaps that need to be addressed to support further public health decision-making.
Slovene press has recently expressed concern for the health of children who ingest playground sand contaminated with lead. However, current assessments may be overestimating the health risk, as they ...assume that human body absorbs the whole amount of a contaminant. The aim of our study was to see how much lead in sand intended for playground sandboxes in Slovenia really is absorbed and what health risk it may present. To do that, we ran bioaccessibility tests to simulate metabolism and see how digestion affects lead levels. Our results show low bioaccessibility of lead from sand (0.01- 36.84 %). Taking into account lead bioaccessibility, we ran several scenarios of sand ingestion in children and established that in general the risk is negligible, except for pica behaviour with extremely high (20 g) ingestion of sand with highly mobilised lead (2.69 μg g-1). Further research should assess real-life exposure to lead from playground sand in children and perhaps update these preliminary bioaccessibility data.
V zadnjem obdobju so se v Sloveniji pojavili številni pomisleki o varnosti mivke, ki je namenjena za otroške peskovnike. Ocena tveganja otrok, ki so izpostavljeni svincu temelji na predpostavki, da je celotna količina toksične kovine biološko dostopna. Zato je bil namen raziskave analizirati biološko dostopnost svinca v mivki, ki je namenjen za peskovnike otroških igrišč. Z simulacijo prebavnega trakta smo analizirali vpliv prebavnih sokov za izplavljanje svinca iz mivke. Rezultati kažejo na majhno biodostopnost svinca v mivki (0,01-36,84 %) slovenskih proizvajalcev. Na podlagi biološke dostopnosti smo simulirali različne scenarije vnosa in ugotovili, da je tveganje zanemarljivo, razen v primeru pica sindroma (zaužitje 20 g mivke) ter ob predpostavki največje dokazane biološke dostopnosti (2,69 μg g-1). Raziskave v prihodnosti bodo vključevale realno izpostavljenost otrok svincu iz peskovnikov in bodo morda nadgradile preliminarno raziskavo.
Current approaches in Science Education attempt to enable students to develop an understanding of the nature of science, develop fundamental scientific concepts, and develop the ability to structure, ...analyze, reason, and communicate effectively. Students pose, solve, and interpret scientific problems, and eventually set goals and regulate their own learning by doing science and reasoning scientifically (NRC, 2000; Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1991). This study investigated pre-service science teachers' views about the nature of science (NOS) and considered an explicit-reflective instructional practice to promote pre-service science teachers' appropriate NOS views. Methodology for this study included: VNOS-C (Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Lederman, 1998; Lederman, Schwartz, Abd-El-Khalick, & Bell, 2001), Myths of Science survey (McComas, 1998), associated interviews that tracked the changes in the NOS views of pre-service science teachers at the end of the course, and video-records of the NOS workshop in the second semester. Pre-service science teachers were interviewed by using the VNOS-D (Lederman & Khisfe, 2002) to track changes in their NOS views at the end of the course. Based on the results from the analysis of the surveys, interviews, and video-recordings, pre-service science teachers made substantial increases in their views of the NOS aspects. Less considerable gains were evident in the case of the subjective, social and cultural aspects of the NOS. The results of this study support the impact of an explicit-reflective NOS instruction.
This research examines viewpoints held by pre-service science teachers on key concepts of the Nature of Science (NoS) in the Saudi context. Much research in this context emphasises quantitative ...methods, so this research utilises methodological triangulation to validate the data. Quantitative data was first obtained from 35 pre-service teachers using a method based on the Myths of Science Questionnaire (MOSQ). A qualitative approach was then applied using an open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interviews of ten pre-service teachers, adopted from the Views of Nature of Science questionnaire form C (VNOS-C). The pre-service teachers’ perspectives on the NoS were found to be lacking, especially regarding scientific knowledge, scientific methods, and the work of scientists. Furthermore, several respondents failed to consider science as a social enterprise. Suggestions and recommendations are provided to address such misinterpretations and poor scientific understandings, which are likely due to a lack of science philosophy content in educational programmes for teachers.
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