The Changes of Five-year-old Children's Understanding about the Nature of Science through the Explicit and Reflective Instruction

Abstract

This study focused on the changes of five-year-old childrens understanding about the nature of science (NOS) by participating in the explicit and reflective instruction. Participants were 106 five-year-old children. Data sources included participant observation, semi-structured interviews with children by using the questionnaire form of The Views of Nature of Science (VNOS) questionnaires. Before the explicit reflective instruction, the majority of participants held naive views of NOS except 'the empirically based NOS', but after the instruction, the participants improved their perception about the nature of science, especially 'the tentative NOS' and 'imagination and creativity' of NOS. Also, slight improvement was observed in the views of 'the socially and culturally embedded NOS' and 'the relationship between observation and inference' of NOS. Therefore, the teaching and learning activities related to the nature of science can be more effective by the explicit and reflective instruction. It is valuable to design and develop the educational program of providing the experience of the nature of science for five-year-old children.