Using a multicultural approach to teach chemistry and ... - Springer Link

Cult Stud of Sci Educ (2012) 7:631–651 DOI 10.1007/s11422-012-9382-6

Using a multicultural approach to teach chemistry and the nature of science to undergraduate non-majors Peter Goff • Sarah B. Boesdorfer • William Hunter

Received: 12 December 2010 / Accepted: 2 January 2012 / Published online: 31 January 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract This research documents the creation, implementation, and evaluation of a novel chemistry curriculum. The curriculum allowed students to create theories situated in a variety of cultures while they investigated chemical phenomena central to all civilizations; it was a way of synthesizing chemistry, the history and nature of science, inquiry, and multicultural education. Achieving both chemistry content and nature of science objectives were the main goals of the curriculum. A small sample of undergraduate students participated in the curriculum instead of attending a large lecture course. The novel curriculum covered the same chemistry topics as the large lecture course. Program efficacy was evaluated using a combination of grades, survey data, and interviews with the participating undergraduates. The results suggest that this curriculum was a successful start at engaging students and teaching them chemistry as well as nature of science concepts. Keywords Nature of science Curriculum development Multicultural Undergraduate education

The authors have found teaching introductory chemistry to non-chemistry majors a unique challenge. For us, chemistry is inherently exciting, interesting, and enjoyable. For some students however, this joy is simply not true. As we continue to try to improve the learning and experience of non-majors in our introductory chemistry courses, we find ourselves asking the question: Why should we teach chemistry to non-majors? For us, the answer, as echoed in national standards (NRC 1996), is that the value of learning chemistry (for the non-scientist) lies more in the science than in the specifics of chemistry; while there is some chemistry content important for the students to know, ultimately chemistry can provide tangible examples and understandings to improve students’ scientific literacy. If chemistry can be used to teach what science is and what it is not, people may be better able P. Goff Vanderbilt University, Peabody #514, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203-5721, USA S. B. Boesdorfer W. Hunter (&) Illinois State University, Campus Box 5960, Normal, IL 61790-5960, USA e-mail: [email protected]

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to assess the threats and benefits of chemistry in a rational manner. Empowering students to engage such thoughts would benefit the field of chemistry and society as a whole. This idea then has become a major focus of our objectives as we teach non-majors chemistry. We seek to teach chemistry content and improve students’ understandings of science, or understanding of the nature of science (NOS). Such aspirations require changes in what we teach as well as how we teach. Research suggests that we must be explicit in our teaching of NOS; expecting students to understand NOS concepts exclusively through learning and doing chemistry has not been successful in the past (Schwartz, Lederman, and Crawford 2004). Shifting from an indirect teaching of the NOS to a direct, explicit pedagogy of science required us redesign the existing curriculum. Our goal was to make a chemistry course that is both meaningful and engaging. Integrating the NOS with the fundamental tenets of chemistry presented a way to make the content more substantive to a broader audience. To address the second issue of engagement, we looked to the literature on multicultural education. This literature suggests that curriculum devoid of people with whom the students can identify and relate may create an artificial distance, resistance, and alienation to the content presented (Banks and Banks 2004). Including the history of science (HOS) provided an avenue to introduce various cultural contexts to address this disparity and possibly help improve students’ enthusiasm for chemistry. Prompted by our experiences, the extant literature, and organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Rutherford and Ahlgreen 1990), which advocates science as a human endeavor, we sought to create a curriculum whose view of chemistry and history stretched back far beyond the last few hundred years. In the same way that many teachers use demonstrations, not because they are especially effective learning tools (Crippen and Brooks 2009), but because they stimulate interest that opens the door for learning to take place, the development of our multicultural chemistry curriculum was valuable if it would provide an impetus for subsequent learning. This trial study was designed to determine whether a chemistry curriculum integrated in the NOS, using rich multicultural contexts across geography and time provided such an impetus and warranted further exploration. The first author created a 6-week curriculum that portrays chemistry concepts, through the topics of fire, distillation of alcohol, and smelting of ores to metals as a fundamentally human undertaking. This curriculum was taught to a small group of undergraduate nonchemistry majors. We collected data from this group of students to see both what they learned and their attitudes towards chemistry and the new curriculum. This article presents a description of the curriculum that was created and what we found out about student learning and attitudes towards the curriculum.

Nature of science The study and inquiry into what characterizes science, what it is and what it is not, what constrains it, how it functions, and what assumptions it makes is known as the philosophy or the NOS (Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman 2000). Given the individual (non-centralized) methods of science, an array of interpretations within a range of implicit understanding is to be expected. Lederman (2002) indicates broad consensus from the scientific community that NOS includes: the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, an empirical epistemology,

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being theory-laden, being partly the product of human inference, imagination, and creativity, and being socially and culturally imbedded. With regard to teaching NOS, research has developed significantly around whether NOS can be taught implicitly as opposed to explicitly. Common wisdom presupposed that if students ‘‘did’’ science enough (in a classroom context), they would come to know NOS (Schwartz, Lederman, and Crawford 2004). Research indicates that an implicit approach is insufficient in the classroom, and is also inadequate to promote cogitative change regarding NOS in undergraduate research experiences as well (Lederman 1992). Simply ‘‘doing’’ science in K-12 and undergraduate classrooms does not result in substantive NOS understandings. To achieve gains in NOS the curricular material must move beyond implicit instruction and be presented and assessed in an explicit manner (Schwartz et al. 2004). The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Chemical Society (ACS), the National Research Council (NRC), and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), all advocate the incorporation of NOS into science curricula. The AAAS (1993) supports a more profound understanding of NOS because people need to be able to react thoughtfully to scientific claims, have a basic understanding of science to follow science stories logically as they occur in their lifetime, and to overcome myths and stereotypes of science. The NRC (1996) focuses on using NOS and HOS to bring forth personal and social aspects to achieve a more accurate understanding of science. NSTA (2000) and AAAS draw attention to endemic misunderstandings and distortions of science, and plan to focus on teaching science to combat these detrimental views.

History of science Inclusion of history in chemistry curricula has been advocated for nearly a century as being integral to the learning process, but has rarely been adopted (Holmyard 1924). While educators like Holmyard (1925) have crafted elegant and passionate justifications for the inclusion of HOS, these topics have been relegated to footnotes and ‘‘interest boxes’’ in textbooks, rather than being integrated into the curricula (Matthews 1994). Science education is incomplete without developing the basic experiences with regard to how that scientific knowledge is obtained, hence a focus on process and inquiry. Some educators contend that educational experiences that focus on developing process fail to accurately represent science (Monk and Osborne 1997). Monk and Osborne (1997) contend that ‘‘the ‘process’ approach gives the strong impression that scientific investigation is an empirical process in which rigid application of the standard ‘rules of knowing’ will lead inexorably to the derivation of certain knowledge—the ‘laws of science’’’ (p. 408). True inquiry would avoid this, but due to the constraints of time, effort, and ability, inquiry experiences may be skewed into this distortion of science in which the methodological aspect is overemphasized. The argument is made that inclusion of HOS will temper the tendency of methodology to dominate students’ conceptions of science by situating scientific discovery within the broader temporal context. In this way, there is a synthesis of HOS and NOS insofar as including HOS will better represent NOS in educational settings. Matthews (1994) also seeks to harness the complementary character of HOS and NOS. Matthews argues that the inclusion of HOS improves comprehension of concepts and methods, connects development of individual thinking with the development of scientific ideas, is necessary to understand NOS, counteracts the scientism and dogmatism of many curricular materials, humanizes science making is more attractive and engaging for students, and allows connections to be made across topics and disciplines.

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The most well-developed and successful example of history being integrated into a science curriculum (Matthews 1994) is the ‘‘Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science’’ by James Conant (1957a, b), printed in 1957. This two-volume set taught science, without (or substantially less) artificial distinctions between chemistry, biology, and physics. Each chapter included a history of landmark scientific events, the individuals involved (not just those credited with the ‘‘right answer’’), the evidence available at the time, and the arguments proposed. The American Chemical Society (n.d.) pointed to Conant’s work when discussing how to develop the nature of scientific knowledge. Conant’s work and influence integrating HOS and NOS and establishing HOS with science has influenced all the subsequent HOS curricula (Matthews 1994). Unfortunately, just as HOS and NOS were beginning to be valued and integrated in the academic landscape, the Russians launched Sputnik and concession were made to accommodate the increased content load by removing HOS and NOS (Matthews 1994). Conant’s case history examples reach back only a few hundred years. All of his examples come from the pool of talented white males who have stood at the helm of science during this time. In a recently developed independent curriculum, Kevin Dunn (2003) plunges the depths of human achievement and looks at the development of chemical/material knowledge over the last several millennia. Dunn provides a way to unite the aspects of NOS, HOS, and traditional chemistry content in a way that is not limited by exemplars of the European enlightenment.

Multicultural education Much of the work in multicultural education is based on the tenets of Critical Race Theory, in which one views a scenario with special attention to power dynamics with regard to race (Ladson-Billings and Tate 2006). Proponents of multicultural education have raised questions as to why certain decisions for certain curricula have been made (LadsonBillings 1995). Banks and Banks (2004) have pointed to the use of multicultural education as a method to reduce ‘‘tokenism’’ and seeks to present minorities as those groups view themselves, as opposed to how teachers, writers, editors, and publishers see them. They also have noted that multicultural education is also an attempt to alter the vantage with which students learn, to confront issues from the point of view of the various cultures and classes. Matthews (1994) has expounded on several critiques of multicultural education in science. He has, however, ultimately contended that the instructional aspects of multicultural science education are uncontroversial: we should teach in a way that does not discourage women and minorities from science while, at the same time, we present a realistic picture of the cultural-historical development of science as the product of many cultures across time (Matthews 1994). The challenges arise when deciding how to teach about science and what framework to use. Stanley and Brickhouse (1994) and others argue with Seigel (2002) and other universalists about the relative strengths of Western science, by claiming back and forth that although multiple frameworks would enable more complete investigation of many scientific problems, that the modern Western science framework is very powerful indeed certain situations. However, both sides return to the power with which Western Science provides deep understanding in many, many situations. Both sides recognize the dominance of the successes of Western science over the past 200 years which has led to the overwhelming concurrence of scientists to use the epistemology of Western science. If the goal of science is the reliable and reproducible procurement of

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knowledge regarding the natural world, the literature reveals no framework better suited for this undertaking than the methods of Western science. This is not to say that other ways of knowing are invalid, incomplete, or faulty, just simply that none are as robust and effective at increasing our command over and understanding of natural processes. And, although cultural influences are endemic, it is the foundational belief of science that in the most idealized of cases, the product and ways of science should be culturally blind.

Description of curriculum We wanted to develop a curriculum that addressed the confounding problems of student engagement and content relevancy. Specifically these issues include student apathy, the presentation of chemistry separate from science, the lack of a universal human element in traditional chemistry curricula, the proliferation of scientific facts without NOS understanding, and a resistance to science. These discontents formed the core motivation for defining the objectives and creating the experiences found in this historical/cultural chemistry curriculum. The curriculum focuses explicitly on two aspects of NOS: (a) the culturally embeddedness of science, and (b) what scientific theories are, namely tentative but empirically established abstract conceptions of how a given cause results in a certain effect. Relative to these objectives, the curriculum was quite explicit. Two other aspects of the NOS were integrated implicitly: the creative/imaginative NOS and how personal/ cultural/social values can influence theory construction and data interpretation. These implicit and explicit NOS goals were taught in addition to the traditional chemistry content taught over the first 6 weeks. The traditional chemistry content to be covered during this curriculum, which would match a more traditional lecture course, started with enthalpy changes and balancing equations, moved to redox, then to solvation and intermolecular forces, and concluded with gas laws and kinetic molecular theory. None of these topics was intended to be exhaustive; each was to be revisited (spiraled back to) later in the semester. (See ‘‘Appendix’’ for specific content and NOS objectives.) The first author worked to develop a curriculum with these objectives. The aim was to present chemistry as a human rather than as an exclusively Western product. He identified ways in which people applied their intellect to modify or harness the natural world, where they people thought about or internalized their experiences with the natural world. An example would be metallurgy, where great attention must be paid to find and mine ores and extract, purify, and shape the metals. As a counter-example, eating can be explained chemically, and all people ate, but this was not categorized as a ‘‘chemical experience,’’ since eating can be done without attention to the variables that influence it as a chemical process. We cannot, for example, change the quantity of oxygen we use to metabolize food or alter the mix of gastric enzymes. Thus fire, metallurgy, solvation, and gas behavior became the four domains around which the curriculum developed. These choices also held an appeal in that ancient Greek and Chinese conceptions of the material world were both formalized around fire, earth, water, and gas, thus adding a level of historical symmetry to the selection. We realized, however, that this approach presented a barrier for teaching modern chemistry concepts to the students as well as NOS concepts. The ways ancient peoples ‘‘studied’’ and understood material processes was not science as we understand it to be today. To take this approach, to present chemistry as a culturally universal undertaking, special attention would have to be paid to what science was, what science is, and how the criteria for knowing the natural world has changed over time. This approach

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allowed the curriculum to be fused with HOS and NOS learning along with chemistry content. The chemistry curriculum was developed from a constructivist approach (Bodner 1986), using inquiry learning as a model (Trout, Lee, Moog, and Rickey 2008). We wanted to give students a chance to build their knowledge by posing of engaging questions and then allowing them some subsequent struggles in trying to answer that question. The 6-week curriculum created consisted of a series of 4 day cycles, where students would develop their understanding of theories (how they change in light of new information and how cultural values are infused in their construction) in an iterative process. This process consisted of a day of ‘‘hands-on’’ exploration/activity, a day to ask questions and develop theories in class in small groups, a day to present, critique, and challenge theories, and a day of lecture regarding the contemporary understanding of the phenomenon investigated in the initial activity (see ‘‘Appendix’’ for a more complete description of each week). The focus of the curriculum was on the qualitative mastery of the content over the quantitative. This choice was made for several reasons, the first of which was to retain historical continuity. In this curriculum students were mimicking the questioning and theorizing in which various cultures engaged. A quantitative understanding of our world did not come for several millennia later and such a contrivance would involve historical anachronisms far beyond those deemed acceptable in the literature (Allchin 2000). The second reason for focusing on qualitative rather than the quantitative thinking was that the cognitive load on the students was already high (reading challenging passages, synthesizing cultural information with experimental observations, and constructing coherent expressions of relatively complex ideas). Typically, the more quantitative elements of chemistry can be difficult for many students (Huddle and Pillay 1996). The first author wanted to be sure that any resistance or failure to engage with the new curricular approach was due to the new format, not an existing aversion to or misunderstandings with quantitative reasoning. Lastly, this trial curriculum was designed as introductory section, intended to set the stage for the remainder of the course. Since there would be ample time for students to explore the quantitative facets of chemistry later in the year, the timing of the modified curriculum lent itself to a more qualitative understanding.

Assessment of the curriculum To gauge the success or failure of the historical/cultural approach we used a traditional chemistry course for non-majors as a comparison group. We sought to measure differences in the knowledge of traditional chemistry content, NOS objectives, and student attitudes towards learning. One measure of success of this curriculum is if it were able to elicit similar achievement outcomes with regard to traditional chemistry content, while providing an additional dimension that could prompt some students who may otherwise be averse to a traditional approach to engage the material. This approach may be somewhat unintuitive, or at least unconventional, since the conventional null hypothesis is that the treatment is not equal to the control. Here we assert that, conditional upon positive outcomes in other domains (NOS, HOS), a null result on content knowledge is actually a positive outcome. If this curriculum can show that it does induce (at least) short term gains in understanding what science is along with the chemistry content learning, the door is open for expanding or modifying this approach to achieve longer more substantive gains. Our study was guided by three main questions:

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1. Did the students using the new chemistry curriculum learn the required chemistry content, which was the same content required of a large chemistry lecture course? 2. Did the students understanding of NOS improve, specifically in the areas addressed by the curriculum? 3. What were the students’ attitudes towards and experiences with the new curriculum? Participants We selected 25 students at random from an introductory non-majors chemistry class of about 200 students. These 25 students, the ‘‘target class,’’ were taught separately, not as part of the lecture course, for 6 weeks, meeting 4 times for 50 min each week. The target class (N = 24, 1 of the original 25 dropped the course within the first week) consisted of 19 females (79%) and 5 males (21%) most of whom were freshman (79%), with a few sophomores (17%) and one senior. The target class was involved in the historical/cultural curriculum while remaining students from the traditional lecture course (the control class) received instruction with similar content standards, albeit in a more traditional lecture-style format without any historical/cultural aspects to the instruction. At the close of the 6-week period the target class was reintegrated with the large lecture course. Data collection and analysis Average exam scores and course grades from both the target class and the large lecture course to determine if the chemistry content learning was similar between the two groups. The scores from an exam given just 2 weeks after the classes were combined and the scores from the final exam were collected along with the students’ final course grades. Averages and standard deviations were calculated. Along with grades, the students in the target class were given a slightly modified version of Lederman et al.’s (2002) Views of the Nature of Science (VNOS) survey at the start of the course and then after the 6-week curriculum were completed. The VNOS survey is a 10 question, open-ended survey about the practice of science (see ‘‘Appendix’’ for VNOS survey). Lederman’s VNOS-C form was modified in several minor ways. Each question was separated by twelve lines to allow students adequate room to express their views. A question regarding the relationship between culture and science, originally ninth on Lederman’s VNOS-C, was moved to the forth question on our survey. Analysis of this question was anticipated to be central to reflecting the aims of the curriculum and placing this towards the end of the survey may have diminished the quality of response through exam fatigue. Also, original question seven (now eight on our survey) was changed to a similar question with more relevance to chemistry. 20 of the 25 students took both the preinstruction and post-instruction VNOS survey. Growth was anticipated in the before/after VNOS of the treatment class, for questions 4, 5, 9, and 10 based on the design of the curriculum. Since we wanted to understand more about the effectiveness of the curriculum, only VNOS questions 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10 were analyzed. VNOS question 6, which probes students’ ability to differentiate between a theory and a law, was analyzed as well to investigate the importance of the inquiry component of the curriculum. As recommended by Lederman et al. (2002) this topic was taught explicitly, but it was done so through a lecture approach only, there was no inquiry component for this topic. Question 6 helps us understand how important the inquiry component of the curriculum is to helping improve student NOS understanding.

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To determine any change in students NOS understanding, the five VNOS questions were digitized and coded. The coding scheme followed the methods used by Lederman et al. (2002) and Schwartz et al. (2004) classifying responses predominantly as naı¨ve/ uninformed, limited, and informed. The coding was executed in a manner congruous with students exact words, to the greatest degree possible, as recommended by Lederman et al. For example, VNOS question four asked students about the influences of cultural and social values on science. Student responses that indicated that science was universal were placed in the naı¨ve category. An actual example of a naı¨ve response to question four is ‘‘I believe that science is universal. When it comes down to it, it is based on a series of facts, and facts shouldn’t change based on political or social values.’’ Student responses that indicated that science was both universal and cultural imbedded were classified as limited. An example of a limited response was ‘‘I believe it goes both ways. Sometimes cultures use science to back up their religious views. Sometimes they refuse to believe scientific findings because it goes against their views. Overall science is the same worldwide. The differences are the things people choose to ignore.’’ Finally, if student responses indicated that science is a product of social and cultural values then they were classified as informed responses. An actual example of an informed response is ‘‘people tend to study things that are important to them or interesting. Culture shapes people and those people use science in a way that benefits them or what they think would benefit others, or what is interesting to them or their employers.’’ Lederman et al. (2002) recommend interviews be used partially to establish validity and reproducibility of the VNOS responses. Lederman et al. suggest that interviewing 15–20% of the survey population is sufficient to discern the salient features of VNOS responses. The target class consisted of 25 students, of which 11 were asked to be interviewed and 7 accepted. Three of the students were purposefully selected as they represented a range of student abilities, while the remaining randomly selected. The students were asked to interview because they represented a wide variety of VNOS responses, in-class contributions, varied levels of engagement, and a variety of declared majors. Along with asking questions from the VNOS survey, the interview questions also asked students about the curriculum, the goals of the curriculum, their views of chemistry and suggestions for improvements to the curriculum. The semi-structured interviews were conducted in a public, but non-distractive location. All interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. In analyzing the student interviews, all student responses regarding the NOS, HOS, or traditional chemistry content was extracted and coded, again relying on the categories of naı¨ve/uninformed, limited, and informed perspectives. Two of the seven surveys were analyzed by an external researcher to establish coding reliability.

Results and discussion Did the students using the new chemistry curriculum learn the required chemistry content which was the same content required of a large chemistry lecture course? Average score results on the exam given 2 weeks after the large lecture course and small target class were combined along with averages for the final exam are presented in Fig. 1. The final distribution of grades for the course are provided in Table 1. While not exactly the same, the average and range of scores of the exam and final exam for the two groups demonstrates a strong overlap. Table 1 shows that 74% of the control

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Fig. 1 Exam grades for target and lecture class Table 1 Final course grade distribution A

B

C

D

17

10

Control: # of students

42

74

% of students

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38.3

Target class: # of students % of students

3 12.0

12 48.0

8.8

5.2

3

1

12.0

4.0

F

W/I

47

3

24.4

1.6

4

2

16.0

8.0

class passed the class and 76% of the experimental class passed. Again, the distribution of passing grades between the two groups was similar, although not the same. These grades indicate that the experimental curriculum was not detrimental to the students’ abilities to respond to traditional chemistry content questions, relative to the control class, which supports the conclusion that the experimental curriculum did not detract from students’ abilities to learn, retain, and apply traditional chemistry content. Did the students understanding of NOS improve, specifically in the areas addressed by the curriculum? Data from the VNOS along with the interviews was complied in answering this question. As mentioned earlier, since we wanted to understand more about the effectiveness of the curriculum, only answers to VNOS questions 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10 have been analyzed. Also, only 20 of the 25 students took both the pre-instruction and post-instruction VNOS survey. It should be noted that when interviewed, student responses to the VNOS questions asked in the interview supported their responses on the written post-instruction VNOS survey, helping to confirm the interpretation and categorization of the written VNOS responses. Question 4 of the VNOS asked students about the influences of cultural and social values on science. Figure 2 represents how students’ views have or have not changed as a result of the curriculum. The ‘‘6’’ at the top of Fig. 2 indicates that 6 (30%) students who thought that science was universal in pre-instruction indicated that science is a product of social and cultural values after instruction using the new curriculum. Similarly, the ‘‘0’’ at the bottom of Fig. 2 shows that no students who initially thought science was a product of social and cultural values changed their opinion over the course of the 6-week curriculum to conclude that science is universal. The ‘‘5’’ represents that 5 (25%) students felt that science is a product

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Fig. 2 VNOS question 4 results

of social and cultural values before and after the curriculum. The numbers displayed above the coding boxes represent positive results (desirable as defined by the curricular objectives) and those below represent undesirable stagnations or regressions. The analysis of question 4 reveals encouraging growth in students’ conceptions of science. With 11 (55%) students clearly growing beyond prior conceptions and 5 (25%) students able to expand upon their understandings of social and cultural influences on science, this curriculum may be an effective tool to elicit cognitive change in this domain. Question 5 asked students to comment on whether scientific theories do or do not change, and to evidentiary provide support if possible. Figure 3 represents how students’ views have or have not changed as a result of the curriculum. There was negligible mobility between coding categories as seen in Fig. 3. Thirteen (65%) students indicated both at the beginning and conclusion of class that theories do change and that this change is based upon new evidence. The asterisk is used to note that, although they remain in the same pre/post category, several students’ responses indicated improved understanding, above and beyond their initial response. For example, in the preVNOS survey, two of these students indicated that theories are ‘‘true.’’ This was one of the


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students comments on the post-instruction VNOS: ‘‘If the theory doesn’t explain [new information] it must be revised. …Theories are something to believe in; a cause to an effect. Theories help provide answers for the time being until they must be revised.’’ The presence of the word ‘‘truth’’ in the pre-instruction VNOS and its absence in the postinstruction VNOS is notable. It was an emphasis of both curriculum and instruction to facilitate an understanding that science is not an undertaking designed to reveal absolute, eternal, unwavering truths. Three other students mentioned that theories are ‘‘proven’’ in the pre-VNOS survey. In the post-instruction VNOS survey, these students made comments like ‘‘When a theory is found it isn’t concrete, people still test it and if a test proves an aspect of it false, it will need changing.’’ In developing and modifying theories students were challenged to incorporate all relevant observations. If this could not be achieved, the theories must be abandoned and or modified. This shift in the objective of a theory formation from ‘‘proving’’ theories to be ‘‘true’’ to ‘‘falsifying’’ or ‘‘disproving’’ theories in light of ‘‘new evidence’’ was a notable change. On the whole the information in question 5 reveals more about how students perceive theories changing than it does about if students believe that theories change. As this curriculum is focused on modeling ‘‘pre-scientific’’ theory creation and modification to explore the natural world, the findings from an analysis of question 5 are important even though there wasn’t a shift in the classification of their answers, there was significant learning occurring. Question 6 asked students about the difference, if any, between laws and theories. This topic was taught in the curriculum only through lecture format using the specific examples of the Kinetic Molecular Theory and Charles’ Law; no inquiry activity was designed for the topic. Figure 4 represents how students’ views have or have not changed as a result of the curriculum. In contrast to question 5, the majority of students were poorly informed and showed little improvement between pre-instruction and post-instruction assessments. The students who did show ‘‘growth’’ in this category used the words given in the lecture, almost verbatim. Since this lecture was given less than 2 weeks before the final VNOS survey and the students used neither their own words nor their own examples in response, it is unlikely that these represent authentic changes in cognition.


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These results were support the inquiry design of the curriculum. While this approach may have worked for some students, the majority were not able to add any additional information regarding theories and laws to their initial conceptions as expressed on the first VNOS survey. Explicit NOS instruction will be less efficacious than explicit instruction with inquiry. Question 9 prompted students to explain how scientists can construct two different conclusions with equal access to the same data set. Question 10 prompts students to evaluate the role that creativity and imagination play in scientific endeavors. The understanding of these concepts is only implicitly taught in the curriculum through students experiences with the same observations and in generating different theories; there was no explicit instruction of any form on these topic during the curriculum. Figures 5 and 6 represents how students’ views have or have not changed as a result of the curriculum. Much like question 6, the pre-post responses from question 9 and 10 show very little growth. Neither category nor quality of individual response changed between administrations. These results support the findings of other researchers (e.g., Schwartz et al. 2004) that NOS instruction must be explicit in order for students to learn.



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Interestingly, question 9 on the VNOS survey is likely the most challenging on the survey. Where questions 4 and 10 ask students directly whether social/cultural values and creativity/imagination respectively influence science, question 9 is an application of those questions to analyze the reason why divergent theories arose. Question 9 positions students to cite differences in values stemming from society, culture, or the scientist as an individual to explain how different people could arrive at different ideas when given the same data. Classifications by Bloom’s taxonomy generally recognize application and analysis questions as more challenging than knowledge or comprehension questions (Anderson et al. 2001). This challenge may be especially true given the wording of the question that did not prompt students to use social/cultural/individualistic rationale to account for the difference between theories. It is possible, then that students did learn about social/cultural/ individualistic influences of science, but their understanding was not sufficiently deep or mature to be able to apply it, unprompted, to VNOS question 9. Question 10, however, is likely the simplest and most error-free question analyzed. The question is unencumbered with technical terms that may have different meanings in a colloquial rather than a scientific usage. The question also asks students directly to express their perception of the role of creativity and imagination in science. The results from question 10 are similar as from question 9, both showing little growth and thereby supporting the position that NOS taught with inquiry should be as explicit as possible. Overall, the results of the VNOS data demonstrate students did improve their NOS understandings in the areas explicitly taught using inquiry instruction. When looking at the results for targeted questions overall, students made more gains in understanding than regressions. The results of question 4 and 5 when compared to question 9 and 10 indicate that the curriculum could be improved with more explicit instruction of all NOS objectives. Question 6 helps support the use of an inquiry approach with the curriculum. These results provide a good starting point to improve and expand the curriculum. What were the students’ attitudes towards and experiences with the new curriculum? For the most part, student comments on the curriculum were positive and demonstrated that the students understood the goals and objectives of the curriculum. They also noted that the curriculum made them think and got them working. Jaden (pseudonym) commented that this curriculum ‘‘wasn’t just the boring stuff that you expect with chemistry. It had the whole critical thinking part to it.’’ He felt that ‘‘applying chemistry was more important than recognizing formulas.’’ Lola (pseudonym) echoed similar impressions, saying that ‘‘it was kind of like looking at chemistry from a different angle, and it was looking at it like— we don’t have to sit there with a textbook, we can think about how things were in the past, how it relates to now, and that there isn’t just one way to look at chemistry.’’ Michaela (pseudonym) responded ‘‘it seems we were learning a little more about the ideas behind chemistry.’’ Talia (pseudonym) indicated ‘‘this was more the history of it and how to think about or with it. That’s what I liked about it.’’ Each of these comments supports the idea that this curriculum was able to shift the focus from science as an abstraction to a practice engaged in by thinking individuals. We can also see from the above comments that students were also able to identify that this curriculum presented chemistry (or perhaps science) differently. Many of the students also discussed how the curriculum made them think more and how they liked the curriculum. Jaden finds this curriculum to be ‘‘a better approach to make someone think about chemistry or think about learning students’ roles in chemistry aren’t necessarily clear or obvious.’’ Michaela added, ‘‘At first I thought ‘Am I even learning

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anything?’ But yeah, I learned chemistry, just in a different way. Instead of spending all my time thinking about equations and stuff, we thought about how theories were developed and the thought process behind it.’’ Teagan (pseudonym) enjoyed learning this material and engaging in the activities: ‘‘I did learn from it, and it was a very good thing to do. We talked a lot about history too. It’s really—I wish I could have learned that in high school. The basics of chemistry in science.’’ Lola replied that this curriculum is ‘‘keeping you alert, making you think about things in different ways and applying what you know. It’s not just ‘Here: know this,’ it’s ‘Know this. Now, how do we use it?’ Or it’s you figuring out what you need to know and how to use it. That’s a lot about this class.’’ Talia ‘‘I know myself in high school it was all about math and they just threw the equations at you and nobody ever told you where they came from—they just told you the end result. They may throw out a name, but nobody makes you think about where it might come from, or if you were in that position, how you could picture somebody coming up with something like that. So to me, I think it was extremely beneficial.’’ The insights provided by the student interviews suggest that this 6-week trial of the curriculum encountered a level of success in creating opportunities for students to explore and develop these scientific and humanistic concepts. It challenged their thinking and for the most part, they enjoyed this ‘‘new’’ way of learning chemistry. With the absence of negative data on exam grades, final grades, or student comments, and the consideration of the above positive results, this curriculum may be tentatively regarded as effective. Limitations The overall view of the curriculum presented by students in the interviews was positive. However, students who made themselves available for interviews presumably had a neutral to positive impression of the class or of the instructor (who conducted the interviews), therefore their responses should be considered carefully. It is worthy to note, that no complaints were made to the department about the curriculum, nor were any negative comments provided on the course evaluation surveys required by the university at the end of the semester. This suggests that while the interview data might be slightly skewed, there is no evidence of strong negative feelings towards the curriculum. Although exam data did not reveal a marked difference in performance between the two groups, a small difference would have been acceptable. Since the experimental group spent a large portion of the first 6 weeks grappling with issues not immediately applicable to solving many traditional chemistry questions, a small trade off in traditional knowledge for NOS knowledge was anticipated. The absence of this gap raises several questions. It is possible that the superior teaching ability of the control class was such that any deficit was quickly overcome within 2 weeks of merging classes. It is also possible that the experimental curriculum was designed well enough so that the combination of macro/micro/ symbolic explanation with NOS and the weekly expository lectures were sufficient to keep pace with the control class. It is sufficient to conclude at this point that there is not strong evidence revealing substantive deficits of the traditional chemistry content of the experimental curriculum. The results of this study are only tentative. This was a small study with only 25 students using a curriculum for only 6 weeks in a semester. While the results are promising, if this curriculum were to be presented to a wide range of students, by a wide range of instructors, over a period of several years, then more definite conclusions could begin to be drawn regarding the merits of this approach.

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Conclusion We wanted to find a way to engage our non-major undergraduate introductory chemistry students and teach them not only chemistry but NOS as well. To begin to meet these goals, the first author created a 6-week curriculum to try with a small group of students. This curriculum allowed students to create theories situated in a variety of cultures while they investigated chemical phenomena central to all civilizations; it was a way of synthesizing chemistry, NOS, HOS, inquiry, and multicultural education. The data from an analysis of VNOS survey question 4 strongly suggests that this method is useful to allow students to envision how social and cultural influences can or have influenced science. Data from interviews strongly suggests that this curriculum is a viable tool for giving a primary focus on scientific thought. Although other evidence is weaker, none points to any severe detriments or shortcomings as a result of this curriculum. There is room for improvement and the need for more exploration of this approach. Lederman (1992) and Schwartz et al. (2004) emphasize that NOS must be taught explicitly, and the need for this is reflected in the VNOS results of question 9 and 10, which were taught implicitly with inquiry and showed very little growth. We would recommend including explicit assessments and reflections in addition to explicit readings and in class discussions. The methodology could be strengthened by incorporating several teachers and many more students. The use of a control group, or several control groups with varying layers of controls could shed much light on the both the curricular and instructional modifications that make this project more or less effective. With more instructors and students involved this study could be expanded from an exploratory design to an experimental design. The curriculum did not require excessive charisma, planning, or incentive schemes to succeed. The materials were relatively simple to procure and use in lab and the students behaved as expected (academically, personally, and intellectually). Not only do we think it might work well with undergraduates but it may also be useful for high school chemistry. Engaging students and learning is the goal at all ages and this method might provide a way for educators at multiple levels to achieve successful. This work is a small germ of something with the potential to be much greater.

Appendix VNOS survey question See Tables 2 and 3. 1. What, in your view, is science? What makes science (or a specific discipline such as physics, biology, etc.) different from other disciplines of inquiry (e.g., religion, philosophy)? 2. What is an experiment? 3. Does the development of scientific knowledge require experiments? • If yes, please explain why. Provide examples to support your position. • If no, please explain why. Provide examples to support your position. 4. Some claim that science is infused with social and cultural values. That is, science reflects the social and political values, philosophical assumptions, and intellectual norms of the culture in which it is practiced. Others claim that science is universal.

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Week 4

Week 3

Week 2

Week 1

Identify science as being culturally embedded Explain why scientific theories must be tentative

Write a balanced redox reaction for various metal with HCl

Explain why scientific theories must be tentative Identify why science is a creative endeavor

Provide evidence that gases have mass

Use individual gas laws to make qualitative predictions based on observations

Explain the rationale behind Kelvin’s determination of absolute zero

Identify a theory as being empirical Identify science as being culturally embedded

Use a symbolic representation to explain why alcohol burns and water does not

Provide physical evidence for the existence of different gases

Identify why science is a creative endeavor

Classify bonds as polar, non-polar, or ionic

Provide chemical evidence for the existence of different gases

Identify science as being culturally embedded Explain why scientific theories must be tentative

Use the periodic table to predict a dipole between two atoms

Identify a theory as being empirical

Explain the role of intermolecular forces, specifically hydrogen bonding, in boiling and density

Use an enthalpy diagram to explain the smelting process using the terms oxidation and reduction

Construct an enthalpy diagram for smelting of ore

Use the periodic table to predict the most likely ion formed

Identify a theory as being empirical

Define oxidation and reduction

Symbolically and microscopically represent a redox reaction

Balance a chemical equation

State the 2 parameters for chemical explanation: macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic

Classify reactions as endo or exothermic based on observations

Identify a theory as being empirical Identify science as being culturally embedded

Identify salient points (e.g., reactants, products, activation energy, etc.) on diagram

NOS/HOS objectives Students will be able to:

Draw an enthalpy diagram for endo and exothermic reaction

Chemistry content objectives Students will be able to:

Table 2 Curriculum objectives

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Week 6

Week 5

Table 2 continued

Use the macro, micro, and symbolic framework to explain our contemporary understanding of various phenomena

Chemistry content objectives Students will be able to:

Apply their theory to explain a modern phenomena (if the event is irreconcilable with their theory, they will review and reapply)

Explain how Bacon’s contribution to scientific theories facilitated Lavoisier’s refutation of phlogiston

Evaluate their theory based on the criteria in Bacon’s introduction to the New Organon

Identify parallels between the theories they created and Greek and Chinese examples

Provide a summary of Bacon’s argument in favor of empiricism

Explain western resistance to abandoning the Aristotelian model

NOS/HOS objectives Students will be able to:

Using a multicultural approach to teach chemistry 647

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Read ‘‘What does it mean to ‘do’ chemistry?’’

Lecture: equations, macro, micro, symbolic representation, enthalpy

Read India Narrative

Activity: brainstorm physical and chemical properties of water

Develop questions

Homework

Week 2

Homework

Week 3

Homework

Prepare theory paper, final draft

Class research towards group project

Independent work towards project

Homework

Group work to revise and complete theories

Week 5

Homework

Read China narrative

Homework

Week 6

Activity: physical and chemical properties of gases

Week 4

Read Meso-America narrative

Introductions, pre-VNOS

Week 1

Day 1

Table 3 Activities outline

Develop questions


Class research towards group project

Read New Organon introduction

Historical accounts: Hellenistic and Chinese elemental systems

Compose theory

Develop questions, develop theories

Compose theory

Develop theory with the aid of children’s books

Compose a theory


Class research towards group project and VNOS

Read Lavoisier

Discussion: Francis Bacon

Revise theory

Present theories

Revise theory

Present theories

Revise theory

Present theories

Read ‘‘Magic, science, and culture’’. Compose theory independently

Read Africa Narrative Activity: investigate physical and chemical properties of metals

Develop questions and begin theory in small groups

Day 3

Activity: make fire

Day 2

Poster presentation of projects

Lavoisier’s application of Bacon with regard to combustion

Quiz (online)

Lecture: law vs. theory, ideal gas law, KMT

Quiz (online)

Lecture: intermolecular forces

Quiz (online)

Lecture: simple atomic structure, oxidation and reduction

Revise theory

Discuss prior reading. Present and critique theories

Day 4

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That is, science transcends national and cultural boundaries and is not affected by social, political, and philosophical values. • If you believe that science reflects social and cultural values, explain why. Please support your response with examples. • If you believe that science is universal, explain why. Please support your response with examples. 5. After scientists have developed a scientific theory (e.g., atomic theory, evolution theory), does the theory ever change? • If you believe that scientific theories do not change, please explain why. Provide examples to support your position. • If you believe that scientific theories do change, please explain (a) why theories change, and (b) why do we learn theories? Provide examples to support your position. 6. Is there a difference between a scientific theory and a scientific law? Please support your response with examples. 7. Science textbooks often represent the atom as a central nucleus composed of protons (positively charged particles) and neutrons (neutral particles) with electrons (negatively charged particles) in motion around the nucleus. How certain are scientists about the structure of the atom? What specific evidence do you think scientists used to determine what an atom looks like? 8. Science textbooks often define an element as that which cannot be separated into simpler substances by chemical means and that, singly or in combination, constitute all matter. How certain are scientists about their characterization of what an element is? What specific evidence do you think scientists used to determine what an element is? 9. It is believed that about 65 million years ago the dinosaurs became extinct. Of the hypothesis formulated by scientists to explain the extinction, two enjoy wide support. The first, formulated by one group of scientists, suggests that a huge meteorite hit the earth 65 million years ago and led to a series of events that caused the extinction. The second hypothesis, formulated by another group of scientists, suggests that massive and violent volcanic eruptions were responsible for the extinction. How are these different conclusions possible if scientists in both groups have access to and use the same set of data to derive their conclusions? 10. Scientists perform experiments/investigations when trying to find answers to the questions they put forth. Do scientists use their creativity and imagination during these investigations? •

•

If yes, then at which stages of the investigations do you believe scientists use their imagination and creativity: planning and design, data collection, after data collection? Please explain how scientists use imagination and creativity. Please provide support your response with examples. If you believe that scientists do not (or should not) use imagination and creativity, please explain why. Provide examples to support your response.

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Author Biographies Peter Goff is a former chemistry teacher and current doctoral candidate in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organization at Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on the measurement and evaluation of school leadership, primarily in urban schools. Additional research interests include school choice and accountability policies. Sarah B. Boesdorfer is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Illinois State University. Her research interests include secondary, specifically chemistry, science education and secondary science teacher education. William Hunter is Director of the Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology and professor of chemistry and curriculum and instruction at Illinois State University. His research focused on developing and evaluation novel ways of teaching chemistry to secondary and tertiary students.

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