Exploring Pre-service Science Teachers' Understanding of Scientific Inquiry and Scientific Practices Through a Laboratory Course.

The intervention study presented in this paper explored pre-service science teachers' (PSSTs) understanding of scientific inquiry (SI) and scientific practices (SPs) during a laboratory application in science education course. Thirty-nine secondary school PSSTs, who study in the Science Education Department in a public university in Turkey, enrolled in a 14-week-long course and volunteered to participate in the study. The participants were exposed to a method is called the 4-phase implementation that includes laboratory-based inquiry activities addressing SI and SPs and they completed microteaching presentations. Their understanding of SI and SPs was examined through the course period. The main data sources included Views about Scientific Inquiry (VASI) Instrument and concept maps were used to track the changes in these understandings. The findings indicated that PSSTs had inadequate understanding of inquiry on some aspects even after the treatment. Yet, the method had positive impact in PSSTs' understanding inquiry especially in terms of facilitating the comprehension that scientific investigations begin with questions, there is no single method in investigations, and explanations are derived from collected data. The concept maps created by some of the participants also supported these results and revealed a more coherent and holistic understanding of SPs by integrating both epistemic and social components into their maps. However, PSSTs did not seem to have totally understood other aspects of inquiry including the inquiry procedures, the research conclusions, and the difference between data and evidence. Further implications are critically discussed in terms of designing future laboratory applications for science education courses.

Facilitating Middle School Students' Reasoning About Vaccines.

In a pandemic era, it is necessary to equip individuals with the ability to make informed decisions about health issues, especially in relation to viruses and vaccines. In order to achieve this goal, science educators need to explore students' decisions and reasoning about vaccination. The aim of the study reported in the paper, therefore, is to explore eighth graders' reasoning about vaccination throughout a 4-week implementation of small group and plenary discussion of false claims about vaccinations. The implementation consisted of a five-phase procedure including teacher presentation of false claims and related evidence texts about vaccination, small group discussions, a plenary discussion, and finally, an introduction to valid scientific content about vaccination. The explanations of the representatives from each group during the plenary discussion were video-taped and analyzed by the researchers independently to examine student decisions on each claim. Another data source of this study included student interviews in which the researchers videotaped and analyzed eight interviewees' responses. The findings revealed that including well-informed students in small group and plenary discussions may have a positive impact on other students' reasoning. This result indicated the benefit of encouraging students to provide evidence about vaccines during small group and plenary discussions in terms of their reasoning. The implications of this study suggest the necessity of emphasizing on scientific knowledge as well as argumentation for further investigations of students' reasoning on vaccination. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11191-021-00318-8.

Pre-Service Teachers' Analysis of Claims About COVID-19 in an Online Course.

Along with the COVID-19 outbreak, which has been a global threat for public health, the unconfirmed information about the pandemic in circulation has become another threat. Hence, it has become important to improve public understanding of science with a focus on explaining the nature of uncertainty in science and its impacts. The goal of the present study was to explore pre-service teachers' analysis of claims related to the COVID-19 pandemic throughout an 8-week online implementation of a pre-service teachers' analysis task, focus group interviews, and instructor's feedback to this analysis in a course focusing on critical and analytical thinking. In order to achieve this purpose, the researchers used the claims that contain fallacies, conspiracy theories, and scientific arguments related to the COVID-19 pandemic as an assessment tool. The researchers developed and used a rubric consisting of the high, moderate, and low levels of analysis in three different categories including evaluation of claims, demarcation of fallacies and conspiracy theories from scientific arguments, and judgment of the credibility of sources. The findings indicate that the participants analyzed the claims rarely at a high level before the focus group interviews. However, after the focus group interviews, almost every participant's analysis scores of evaluation, demarcation, and judgment increased. The results also revealed their commitment to various fallacies and conspiracy theories while arguing the claims. Concluding remarks are made for the further implications of teaching critical evaluation of claims based on evidence.

Turkish middle school students' evaluation of fallacious claims about vaccination.

In today's world, there is too much information pollution and people circulate it without questioning, and the claims on controversial issues often contain fallacies and conspiracy theories. Considering this point of view, it is necessary to create citizens who critically evaluate information. In order to achieve this goal, science educators need to address students' evaluation of fallacies on controversial issues. The aim of the present study, thus, is to explore eighth graders' evaluation of fallacies about vaccination. We used case study in the study in which 29 eighth grade students participated. We adapted a rubric that was developed by Lombardi et al. (Int J Sci Educ 38(8):1393-1414, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2016.1193912) to assess students' evaluation levels between claims and evidence and used it to analyze students' evaluations of each fallacy in groups and individually. The findings of this study indicate that students were mostly unable to evaluate claims and evidence critically. We advocate that attempts should be made so that students cope with misinformation and disinformation, ensuring that they establish a consistent relationship between claim and the evidence, and the social and cultural factors that affect their evaluation of false claims should be identified. The implications of this study suggest to make deliberate attempts in order to enable middle school students to evaluate claims and evidence critically in various science topics, particularly in health issues, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Implications of the present research include suggestion of a method including discussions of fallacies about controversial issues and utilizing additional data sources such as interviews to reveal student ideas in-depth and analyze students' decision-making skills.