History of Science in Science Classrooms: the Influence of History of Science on Students? Attitudes and Conceptions of the Nature of Science

From my experience as chemistry teacher, I realized the importance of using the history of science (HOS) in my teaching. HOS attracted my students in a way that I constantly used it throughout my work. In addition, I acknowledged its importance in clarifying the concept of the nature of science. In this book I tried to confirm these premises. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of using history of science, following the historical model described by Monk and Osborne (1997) while learning science on students' attitudes toward science and their conceptions of three aspects of the nature of science (NOS). These aspects are namely the tentative, the empirical nature of scientific knowledge, and the role of scientists' creativity in the development of scientific knowledge. These specific aspects of the NOS are addressed in the historical model used. Results of this study provided support for the use of a historical perspective without detracting from the content taught at school.