Neuroscience as a Contemporary Science Domain to Contextualize Nature of Science Instruction

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate if neuroscience, a contemporary example of science-in-the-making, provides a useful domain for contextualized Nature of Science (NOS) instruction. Six pre-service teachers (PSTs) enrolled in an NOS course participated, where the focus of this study was on how NOS views changed as a result of the course and how PSTs attempted to connect neuroscience and NOS. Data included the Student Understanding of Science and Scientific Inquiry (SUSSI) Survey, reflection reports, and audio recordings with transcripts. Results indicated that PSTs held more naïve views of NOS prior to the course. As a result of the course, PSTs improved their understanding of multiple aspects of NOS. Additionally, PSTs grounded their informed understanding of NOS in how science operates as a cultural institution and discovered a conflict between a prescriptive version of NOS via the Lederman tenets versus a descriptive version of how scientists actually operate, influencing the way in which PSTs might teach NOS in their classrooms. The study also found that PSTs connected neuroscience and NOS in different ways. Either PSTs considered neuroscience as a “hard science” that is not subject to NOS tenets, or they found that neuroscience loses its “seductive allure” once it is critically analyzed through a lens of NOS. The findings suggest that neuroscience was a useful context for NOS instruction and, in combination with the explicit reflective approach, had a positive impact on PSTs’ understanding of NOS.