Many science teachers don't understand nature of science, study finds

TCU's Andrews Institute provides professional development opportunities for area math and science teachers.

Fort Worth, TX

3/27/2008

Many middle and high school science teachers lack understanding of evolutionary theory and the nature of science itself, according to research by Mark Bloom, instructor of biology and Dr. Molly Weinburgh, associate professor of education at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

This hinders the teachers’ ability to decide what is proper for a science curriculum and what is not.

“While students may wish to have controversial topics such as stem cell research, cloning, sex education and evolution taught in their classrooms, many teachers lack the confidence needed to address them. This lack of confidence could be attributed to a deficiency in their understanding of the philosophical nature of science,” says Mark Bloom.

Designed to help instructors develop their content knowledge in science as well as their educational skills, the study included 23 middle and high school teachers recruited from “high-need institutions.”

After surveying the teachers, two trends were identified: the teachers appeared to have a significant deficiency in content knowledge related to evolutionary theory and they reported a significant amount of uncertainty regarding how to teach it.

“Many teachers described that they were unsure what was appropriate or even legal to teach their students, and others described discomfort in addressing this topic because of its controversial nature,” says Bloom.

After conducting four study groups in all, the researchers concluded that the overall issue was a generalized lack of understanding of the nature of science (NOS) which is the driving force behind many of their misconceptions about evolution and their “issues” about teaching this subject matter.

Some participants indicated the need for more evidence that would give them firm confidence in evolutionary theory. Other teachers underestimate the strength of scientific evidence and are willing to present evolution as “just a theory” which shows a lack of understanding of what a scientific theory actually is.

The original intent of the research was to measure the understanding that teachers had regarding their content knowledge of evolutionary theory. What the researchers found, instead, were deep-rooted misunderstandings about evolution and even deeper misconceptions about the nature of science.

These findings reveal that teachers’ lack of understanding of nature of science, can impact their confidence in what they teach, allow non-scientific material to infiltrate the science classroom, and undermine long-supported, well-tested scientific theory. With all the growing concern that U.S. students are falling behind in the race for scientific literacy, these problems cannot go ignored.

This research was published in the Winter 2007 issue of the Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI) Focus on Middle School, a quarterly publication for the education community.

The work that led to the article co-authored by Bloom and Weinburgh was conducted through the Andrews Institute of Mathemathics, Science & Technology Education with funds from Teacher Quality grants. The Andrews Institute of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education was established as a collaborative venture between TCU’s College of Education and the College of Science & Engineering to address, among other things, the issues of training and qualifications for both pre-service and in-service teachers in mathematics and the sciences.

For more information on this research contact Mark Bloom at (817) 257-6776 or at m.bloom@tcu.edu or Dr. Molly Weinburgh at (817) 257-6115 or at m.weinburgh@tcu.edu