Differences in the Scientific Epistemological Views of Undergraduate Students

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Differences in the ScientificEpistemological Views ofUndergraduate StudentsShiang‐Yao Liu a & Chin‐Chung Tsai b

a National Kaohsiung Normal University , Taiwanb National Taiwan University of Science and Technology , TaiwanPublished online: 17 May 2008.

To cite this article: Shiang‐Yao Liu & Chin‐Chung Tsai (2008) Differences in the ScientificEpistemological Views of Undergraduate Students, International Journal of Science Education, 30:8,1055-1073, DOI: 10.1080/09500690701338901

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International Journal of Science EducationVol. 30, No. 8, 25 June 2008, pp. 1055–1073

ISSN 0950-0693 (print)/ISSN 1464-5289 (online)/08/081055–19© 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09500690701338901

RESEARCH REPORT

Differences in the Scientific Epistemological Views of Undergraduate Students

Shiang-Yao Liua* and Chin-Chung TsaibaNational Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan; bNational Taiwan University of Science and Technology, TaiwanTaylor and Francis LtdTSED_A_233784.sgm10.1080/09500690701338901International Journal of Science Education0950-0693 (print)/1464-5289 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis0000000002007Dr. [email protected]

The purpose of this study was to examine whether science and non-science major students havedifferent scientific epistemological views (SEVs). A multidimensional instrument previously devel-oped by the authors was used to assess differences in college students’ SEV of various aspects. Atotal of 220 freshmen (42% science and 58% non-science majors) attending two public universitiesparticipated in this investigation. Results indicated that the science majors have less sophisticatedbeliefs in the theory-laden and cultural-dependent aspects of science than non-science majors.Analysis of variance results further revealed significant differences in SEV dimensions among thethree major fields: non-science, pure science, and science education. Science education studentsgained the lowest scores on the entire scale among the groups. Findings of this study imply thatscience major (including science education) students might be involved longer in such anepistemic environment that described scientific knowledge as objective and universal. It is alsopossible that beliefs about certainty and objectivity lead these students to select science as theirmajor field. Implications for future research and science teacher education are discussed.

Introduction

The role and influence of an individual’s epistemological views on learning andother cognitive processes have been widely recognized in educational and psycholog-ical literature (Buehl & Alexander, 2001). According to researchers in the psychol-ogy field (e.g., Hofer & Pintrich, 1997; Schommer, 1990), the term epistemologicalbelief generally refers to the beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing.They have highlighted that epistemological views of individuals may influence their

*Corresponding author. Environmental Education, National Kaohsiung Normal University,Taiwan, No. 62, Shenzhong Rd., Yenchao Township, Kaohsiung 824, Taiwan, Republic ofChina. Email: [email protected]

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1056 S.-Y. Liu and C.-C. Tsai

learning strategies and reasoning modes. Research efforts in science education havealso been devoted to exploring students’ epistemological understandings of science.These studies were mainly concerned with learners’ views about the nature of scien-tific knowledge, which deal with issues including the assumptions and values inher-ent to scientific knowledge and its development, and consensus-making in scientificcommunities (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Hammer, 1995; Smith & Wenk,2006). Evidence indicated the interplays between scientific epistemological views(SEVs) and science learning, and suggested that students’ epistemological views mayshape their meta-learning assumption and problem-solving strategies (Edmondson& Novak, 1993; Hammer, 1995). The contemporary epistemological views ofscience place greater emphasis on the tentative and sociocultural feature of scientificknowledge (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2000; Hodson, 1993). Therefore, scienceeducators claimed that science instruction should aim to promote students to haveconstructivist-oriented epistemological views toward science (Edmondson & Novak,1993; Tsai, 1998a).

Several lines of research have been conducted on assessing college students’epistemological views (e.g., Hofer, 2000; Palmer & Marra, 2004; Paulsen & Wells,1998; Schommer-Aikins, Duell, & Barker, 2003). Some studies concluded thatstudents’ epistemological views may predispose them to choose academic course-work in which the content is consistent with their beliefs (Schommer & Walker,1997; Unger, Draper, & Pendergrass, 1986). In other words, the academicdisciplines that students select as their major fields of study may be related to theirepistemological views.

However, relevant studies that have examined views about the nature of knowl-edge held by college students with different majors reveal contradictory results.Jehng, Johnson, and Anderson (1993) found that students in social sciences andhumanities were more likely than students in engineering and business to viewknowledge as uncertain. Similar findings were reported by Paulsen and Wells (1998)that students majoring in “soft” fields were less likely than those in “hard” fields tohold naïve views about certain knowledge, where “soft” fields include socialsciences, arts, and humanities, and “hard” fields are natural sciences and engineer-ing. On the contrary, Schommer’s (1993) study indicated that epistemological viewsof social science majors were less sophisticated than those of technological sciencemajors. Social science students tended to believe that knowledge was a collection ofsimple isolated facts. Schommer-Aikins et al. Barker (2003) further indicated thatstudents with different major backgrounds have similar epistemological views aboutmathematics and social science.

Overall, these studies were concerned with differences in epistemological beliefs ofstudents from different majors. However, they were assessing views about the natureof knowledge in general. According to Buehl and Alexander’s (2001) review, episte-mological views of academic knowledge may be distinct from beliefs about generalknowledge. Moreover, studies both by Hofer (2000) and Palmer and Marra (2004)revealed that college students viewed knowledge in science as more certain andunchanging than in psychology, and believed that truth is attainable by expert in

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Scientific Epistemological Views of Undergraduate Students 1057

science. These findings suggested that epistemological views differ by discipline andare domain specific. Such arguments build upon the premise that academicdisciplines do have different knowledge structures and epistemological assumptions(Schwab, 1978).

The domain-specific approach to characterizing individual’s epistemological viewshas recently been advocated by several science education researchers. Elby andHammer (2001) argued that epistemological views may vary while taking the aspectsof discipline, particular knowledge, and knowledge application into account. Peoplemay use different epistemological concepts and standards to interpret differentdomains of knowledge, and their epistemologies often reflect the intellectualdiscourse of school subjects that they have experienced (Smith & Wenk, 2006).Furthermore, some researchers suggested that the characterizations of epistemolo-gies of science need to consider discipline-based and contextual aspects of science(Elby & Hammer, 2001; Samarapungavan, Westby, & Bonder, 2006). The presentstudy investigates science and non-science major students’ views on various dimen-sions of the nature of scientific knowledge. It explores the key epistemologicalconcepts interdefined within the domain of science, but not among the scientificsubdisciplines.

With a line of research on student and teacher SEVs, researchers have proposedvarious dimensions of the characteristics of scientific knowledge (Abd-El-Khalick,Bell, & Lederman, 1998; Tsai, 1998a). In order to assess students’ SEVs, aquestionnaire was developed by Tsai and Liu (2005) that assesses beliefs about fivecharacteristics of scientific knowledge and its development: (1) the role of social nego-tiations in the science community, (2) the invented and creative nature of science, (3)the theory-laden quality of scientific exploration, (4) the cultural impacts on science,and (5) the changing and tentative feature of science knowledge. The dimensionsof the instrument were based on the conceptual framework developed in previousstudies (Tsai, 1998a, b, 2002), and the question items were designed by incorporatinginterview results.

Relevant research findings (e.g., Tsai, 1999, 2000; Windschitl & Andre, 1998)have indicated that students having a strong belief that knowledge never changes arelikely to view learning as a matter of memorization. By contrast, successful learnerstend to see scientific knowledge as a constructed system based upon evidence andagreed paradigm in the scientific community, and show stronger preferences to learnin the constructivist learning environment. Such a constructivist view toward scienceemphasizes the theory-laden and conceptual change aspects of scientific knowledge,and illustrates how our knowledge in science should be viewed as an invented realitythat is constructed through social negotiations and affected by cultural factors(Songer & Linn, 1991; Tsai, 1998b, 2000). More evidence suggested that students’SEVs may be related to their learning strategies, reasoning abilities, and achievementmotivation (Cavallo, Rozman, Blickenstaff, & Walker, 2003; Zeidler, Walker,Ackett, & Simmon, 2002).

Recent reforms in science education have directed university scientists andscience educators to improve undergraduate science instruction that makes science

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understandable and relevant to all students (National Research Council, 2002). Itis recommended that scientists and science educators should look more closely atthe intersection of their views of students, educational practices, and the nature ofscience in order to move undergraduate science programs toward the goal ofexcellence for all students (Bianchini, Whitney, Breton & Hilton-Brown, 2002).Moreover, some of undergraduate students have potential to enroll in teacherprograms and become prospective science teachers. Given that holding a construc-tivist view of science is a prerequisite of good science teaching (Chinn & Malhotra,2002; Tsai, 2002), teacher education programs should be devoted to helpingundergraduates develop sophisticated epistemological understandings of science. Inorder to achieve this goal, it is important to examine undergraduate students’epistemological beliefs toward science and to explore whether SEVs differ amongstudents with different majors. A better understanding of their beliefs may helpteacher educators to develop and implement instruction that could enhance episte-mological development in college classrooms.

Research Purpose

The guiding research question for this study was: “Do students from different majorfields hold different SEVs?” It was anticipated that students in science disciplineswould have better understandings about what science is. Based on the premise thatpersonal epistemology may fluctuate in various dimensions (Abd-El-Khalick &Lederman, 2000; Schommer-Aikins et al., 2003), we have developed a multidimen-sional instrument to examine SEVs (Tsai & Liu , 2005). Some aspects, such as “thechanging and tentative feature of scientific knowledge,” are consistent with thedimensions of general epistemology discussed in Hofer’s (2000) and Schommer’s(1993) studies. The others are specific for the scientific enterprise. This studyfurther analyzes students’ SEVs on various dimensions and explores a group ofundergraduate students of different majors by multiple SEVs.

Method

Sample

This study was conducted at two public universities located in southern Taiwan.Both universities offer programs in education, humanities, fine arts, and sciences.One university traditionally provides secondary teacher preparation programs, whilethe other one offers elementary teacher training courses.

Two hundred and twenty first-year undergraduate students (41% males and 59%females) ranging in age from 18–25 years participated in this investigation. Studentswere surveyed in five different classes including language art, liberal education,teaching methods, biology, and chemistry. They completed the questionnaire duringthe first week of the fall semester. The course instructors were informed about thepurpose of this survey, but none of them were involved in this research project.

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Based on the demographic data, students were from a variety of majors; those fromthe departments of physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, and science educationwere categorized as science majors (42%), while the others in language, art, andeducation were considered as non-science majors (58%). Note that only the univer-sity that provides elementary education program has the department of scienceeducation and the department is affiliated to the college of sciences.

Similar to other eastern countries, the curricular standards and examinationsystems in Taiwan are uniform to some extent. Recently Taiwan’s education author-ity has changed the regulations on university admissions, including two enrollmentmethods; namely, admission via recommendation and examination distribution.However, most students enter universities by examination distribution—they areassigned to schools depending on their scores on certain nationwide standardexaminations. Therefore, teaching and learning materials in high school educationgenerally are test-driven, and curricula are basically designed for preparing studentsto pass the entrance examination. Every high school student is required to choose amajor either in sciences or liberal arts at the end of 10th-grade study. But before thisgrade, all students have taken biology, earth science, physics and chemistry courses.For preparing students to continue their college study, two types of curricularprograms are designed for 11th and 12th graders. The science program includesmore advanced science and mathematics courses, while the liberal art program offersmore courses in the fields of art and social studies. In general, the college sciencemajors have been involved in the science program at their high school level, whilethe non-science majors have been in the liberal art program. The college students inthis investigation were in their first-year study at college level. Thus, the educationbackgrounds of these two groups represent their secondary schooling experiences.

SEV Questionnaire

Numerous instruments have been designed to assess people’s epistemological viewsof science or understandings of nature of science. Among these instruments, theViews on Science–Technology–Society survey is the one that discusses multipledimensions related to epistemology of science, but it contains too many items forrespondents to complete. Some researchers advocate the usefulness of open-endedquestionnaire and interview (Lederman, Abd-el-Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, 2002).Open-ended items leave respondents freedom to express their own views regardingthe issues of nature of science. However, it may be difficult to obtain a larger samplesize by administering this type of questionnaires.

In this study, we used a multidimensional instrument developed in our previousresearch (Tsai & Liu , 2005) to assess students’ SEVs in five dimensions: “role ofsocial negotiation” (SN), “invented and creative nature of science” (IC), “theory-laden exploration” (TL), “cultural impacts” (CU), and “changing and tentativefeature of science knowledge” (CT). These dimensions basically cover the issuesrelated to the epistemology of science proposed by Ryan and Aikenhead (1992) andLederman et al. (2002), which include the assumptions and conceptual inventions

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in science, consensus-making in scientific communities, and features of scientificknowledge. This instrument also placed an emphasis on the cultural impacts on thedevelopment of science (i.e., the CU dimension). The original instrument consistedof 35 items, seven for each dimension, asking respondents to rate their level of agree-ment for each item on a five-point Likert scale—from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5(strongly agree). The questionnaire was initially designed for high school students. Inthe previous study, only 19 items were retained as the results of factor analysis. Theinternal reliability of each dimension is .71, .60, .68, .71, and .60, with an overallalpha value of .67. It was found that some omitted items were good ones butcontained complex concepts that might influence high school students’ responses.

To further validate the SEV questionnaire for college students, the original 35-item version was administered to 410 college students for pilot testing. Anadditional six items were added to the high school version after testing by factoranalysis (Table 1): three of them in the CT dimension, and one each in the SN,IC, and CU dimensions, respectively. The alpha coefficients for the five subscalesranged between .56 and .75, with an overall value of .76. A low Cronbach’s alphacoefficient of .55 can be accepted for social science studies (Hatcher & Stepanski,1994). Therefore, the 25-item version (see Appendix) was considered as an appro-priate instrument to assess college students’ SEVs.

Although paper-and-pencil measurements continue to be used in research onepistemological beliefs and learning, some researchers suggest that there is a “needto venture beyond Likert-type scales for more breadth of assessment” (Hofer, 2000p. 385). In addition to the Likert-scale type of questions, one open-ended questionwas included at the end of the instrument: “What, in your view, is science? Whatmakes science different from other disciplines of inquiry (for example, philosophyand art)?” This item was borrowed from the Views of Nature of Science question-naire (Lederman et al., 2002) and used to elicit students’ intuitive ideas aboutscience. Analysis of the qualitative data and SEV score was conducted indepen-dently. The researchers reviewed and categorized the responses without knowingstudents’ final SEV scores. In follow-up analyses, the SEV scores were used to selectsamples to further interpret and compare students’ views.

Results and Discussion

Differences in Scientific Epistemological Views

The SEV data were gathered from students of two universities. The comparison wasfirst made to determine whether there is a difference in the school factor. The statis-tical analysis showed no differences in students’ views between two universities.Therefore, the SEV analysis of the sampled participants was mainly focused on thevariable of academic fields.

Students who studied in the college of science (in this study, including mathemat-ics, physics, chemistry, biology, and science education) were identified as sciencemajors. The other students in the college of humanities (including the departments

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of Chinese, English, geography), fine arts (music and fine arts), and education(special education, language education, and physical education) were classified asnon-science majors. The initial t-test analysis revealed that students’ SEVs weresignificantly different on four dimensions (Table 2). Science major students gainedhigher scores than non-science majors on the SN subscale (3.84 versus 3.68), andIC subscale (4.21 versus 4.09). Conversely, non-science majors have significantly

Table 1. Rotated factor loadings and Cronbach’s alpha values for the five subscales of the SEV instrument

Factor 1: SN Factor 2: IC Factor 3: TL Factor 4: CU Factor 5: CT

Factor 1: Role of social negotiations (SN) α = .75SN 1 .663SN 2 .596SN 3 .629SN 4 .756SN 5 .662SN 6 .556SN 7 .493

Factor 2: Invented and creative nature of science (IC) α = 0.56IC 1 .575IC 2 .637IC 3 .564IC 4 .558IC 5 .464

Factor 3: Theory-laden exploration (TL) α = .56TL 1 .532TL 2a .705TL 3a .739

Factor 4: Cultural impacts (CU) α = 0.56CU 1 .465CU 2 .732CU 3 .486CU 4 .464

Factor 5: Changing and tentative feature of science knowledge (CT) α = .65CT 1 .489CT 2 .484CT 3a .489CT 4 .655CT 5 .569CT 6 .534

Eigenvalues 4.693 2.537 1.672 1.569 1.413

Note: aScored in reverse manner, factor loading less than .40 omitted. Overall alpha = .76.

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higher scores than science students on the TL (4.00 versus 3.81) and the CUdimensions (3.93 versus 3.72).

In order to further understand variations of student views across major fields,Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics of students’ scores on SEV dimensions.Higher values for the SEV scores indicate more “sophisticated” beliefs, while lowerscores indicate more “naïve” views. Since the researchers in this study wereconcerned with the issues of science teacher preparation, responses of science educa-tion students were extracted from those of pure science majors. Follow-up analysiswas then made to compare differences among three groups: non-science, science,and science education.

Analysis of variance revealed significant differences on four SEV dimensions amongstudents in three major fields. Post-hoc comparisons, based on Tukey’s HonestlySignificant Difference (HSD) tests for unequal samples, identified the significant

Table 2. Comparisons of SEV scores between different majors

Subscale Major M SD t

SN Non-science 3.68 0.49 −2.35*Science 3.84 0.51

IC Non-science 4.09 0.45 −1.98*Science 4.21 0.40

TL Non-science 4.00 0.53 2.62**Science 3.81 0.52

CU Non-science 3.93 0.53 2.96**Science 3.72 0.52

CT Non-science 4.17 0.39 0.01Science 4.17 0.44

Notes: Non-science n = 93, science n = 127, *p < .05, **p < .01

Table 3. Means (standard deviations) and range of SEV subscale scores of different major students

SEV domains

Major field SN IC TL CT CU

Fine arts (n = 35) 3.63 (0.53), 2.43–4.71

4.03 (0.55), 3.00–4.80

3.90 (0.60), 2.33–5.00

4.20 (0.44), 3.33–5.00

3.97 (0.63), 2.80–5.00

Education (n = 42) 3.73 (0.48), 2.57–4.57

4.18 (0.37), 3.00–4.80

4.08 (0.43), 3.33–5.00

4.19 (0.33), 3.50–4.83

3.84 (0.46), 2.60–4.60

Humanity (n = 16) 3.65 (0.43), 2.71–4.43

4.00 (0.39), 3.00–4.60

4.02 (0.61), 2.67–5.00

4.05 (0.41), 3.50–5.00

4.04 (0.41), 3.40–5.00

Science (n = 90) 3.86 (0.51), 2.43–5.00

4.25 (0.35), 3.40–5.00

3.83 (0.49), 1.67–5.00

4.18 (0.44), 3.33–5.00

3.80 (0.50), 2.00–5.00

Science ed. (n = 37) 3.78 (0.51), 3.00–5.00

4.11 (0.49), 2.60–5.00

3.76 (0.60), 2.00–4.67

4.15 (0.45), 3.00–5.00

3.51 (0.50), 1.60–4.40

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differences for each dimension among student groups. As shown in Table 4, scienceeducation majors were significantly more likely to have naïve views on the TL and CUdimensions than the other majors. Students with majors in fine arts, education, andhumanity were significantly more likely to hold naïve epistemological beliefs in theSN and IC dimensions than those with majors in pure science. However, the meanscores of science education majors on these two dimensions were not significantlyhigher than those of non-science majors.

Gender differences in epistemological belief have been reported in our previousstudy (Tsai & Liu, 2005) and the other research (Hofer, 2000; Schommer, 1993).Our prior study with high school students revealed that male students gain signifi-cantly higher scores on the “invented and creative” and “changing and tentative”dimensions. However, for the college students sampled in this investigation, therewas no difference on any of the dimensions (Table 5). Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman

Table 4. Comparisons for SEV scores of non-science, science, and science education majors

Non-science(n = 93) Science (n = 90)

Science education(n = 37)

Analysis of variance

SEV domain M SD M SD M SD F p

SN 3.68a 0.49 3.86b 0.51 3.78 0.51 3.02 0.05IC 4.09a 0.45 4.25b 0.35 4.11 0.49 3.46 0.03TL 4.00b 0.53 3.83ab 0.49 3.76a 0.60 3.72 0.03CT 4.17 0.39 4.18 0.44 4.15 0.45 0.07 0.93CU 3.93b 0.53 3.80a 0.50 3.51a 0.50 8.90 <0.01Total 3.97 0.27 4.02 0.29 3.91 0.32 2.09 0.13

Note: Means with differing superscript letters are significantly different at the level of .05, according to Tukey HSD follow-up tests of contrast.

Table 5. Analysis of gender differences on the subscales

Subscale Gender M SD p

SN Male 3.79 0.53 0.57Female 3.75 0.48

IC Male 4.22 0.35 0.10Female 4.12 0.47

TL Male 3.84 0.55 0.28Female 3.92 0.52

CT Male 4.20 0.44 0.38Female 4.15 0.40

CU Male 3.77 0.55 0.43Female 3.82 0.50

Note: male n = 89, female n = 130.

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(2000) have also indicated that college students’ epistemic views about sciencewere not related to their gender. Apparently, the existence of gender differences inscientific epistemological beliefs need to be further explored.

Correlations among the SEV Dimensions

Correlations among the subscales (Table 6) indicated that the CU dimension issignificantly correlated with three of the other four dimensions. Students who havemore sophisticated views on the CU subscale were more likely to understand thecreative, theory-laden, and tentative nature of scientific knowledge. Correlationswere also significant between the CT dimension and those of the SN, IC, and CUdimensions. Results obtained from this measurement implied that the dimensions ofcultural embeddedness and tentativeness of nature of science were the importantelements of these undergraduate students’ beliefs. This finding was slightly differentfrom our previous study with high school students (Tsai & Liu, 2005) in which thetheory-laden aspect was the core concept. This instrument was initially designed toemphasize more on the cultural aspect of science. In the present study, the CUaspect became a relatively vital SEV dimension. This could entail the argument thatundergraduate students are epistemologically mature to discuss the concept ofcultural-dependent nature of science, based on the theory of epistemological devel-opment (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997). However, it is noted that although the correla-tions were significant, if considering the coefficients they were of only moderatelevel. Consistent with our previous study (Tsai & Liu, 2005), these findingssuggested a certain degree of independence of these SEV scales (dimensions).

Responses to the Open-ended Item

Students’ SEV scores were used to select samples for analyzing their responses to theopen-ended item. Students’ sum scores of all SEV subscales were converted into z-scores. The z-score is a measure of the distance in standard deviations of an individ-ual’s score from the mean of the entire sample. Only the students with z-scores higherthan 1 (high-score group) or lower than −1 (low-score group) were selected to furtherreview their responses. This approach allows researchers to search for maximum

Table 6. Correlations among SEV dimensions

SN IC TL CT CU

SN – 0.24* 0.01 0.31* 0.16IC – 0.05 0.22* 0.24*TL – 0.01 0.19*CT – 0.28*CU –

Note: *Significant correlation is at the .01 level.

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variations in students’ answers. Finally, a total of 70 students’ questionnaires wereanalyzed in detail. The numbers of these selected students and their majors in thehigh and low SEV score groups are displayed in Table 7. The percentages for non-science majors in both high and low groups were similar. Among the science majorsmore students were categorized in the high-score group than in the low-score group,while more science education students were grouped in the low-score group than inthe high-score group. Chi-square tests showed a significant difference in the distribu-tion of frequencies, χ2 (2, n = 70) = 14.14, P < .001.

The open-ended question was added at the end of the SEV scale in an attempt togather students’ ideas about the characteristics of science. It was found that a certainamount of students did not write answers to the question (see Table 8). Mostresponses were very brief and only provided one or two terms. With a closer exami-nation, students in the low SEV score group were more likely to write short answersthan those in the high-score group. Five out of 19 students in low SEV score groupwho completed the open-ended question wrote responses of less than eight Chinesecharacters, while only two of 26 high SEV score students proved short answers.Using eight words as a cut-off criterion is valid because one concept (or term) inEnglish usually includes two to four characters in Chinese language. Althoughstudents who wrote long sentences might not necessarily hold adequate views aboutscience, they were more willing to elaborate on their thoughts when asked torespond to the no-single-answer question.

Table 8 summarizes primary concepts revealed in student responses and compari-sons of the two groups. In the following discussions, some representative writtenresponses are presented. After each quotation, the letters “S” and “N” refer toscience and non-science students, respectively.

The phrases that students often used to describe science were “rational” and“objective.” There was a similar amount of students in both groups holding thisimpression about science. Four differences appear in the frequencies of students’concepts about science between high and low SEV groups. First, more high SEVstudents attributed empirical characteristics to science than low-score students.However, most of them still perceived science as a discipline that seeks tangible,

Table 7. Numbers of different major students in high and low SEV score groups

High-score group (n = 38) Low-score group (n = 32)

Major fieldNumber of studentsa %

Number of studentsa %

Non-science (n = 93) 18 19 14 15Science (n = 90) 17 19 8 9Science ed (n = 37) 3 8 10 27

Notes: aStudents whose total score on the SEV scale is higher or lower than the mean score over one standard deviation. % means percentage of majors in either the high-score or low-score group.

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concrete, measurable facts or evidence and tended to believe that “scientific knowl-edge is verified through objective observations and experiments” (N86). Anothersignificant difference found between two score groups was related to the practicalfunctions of science. Four students in the low-score group emphasized that sciencecan improve the quality of human life and two others view science as foundation ofmodernization and social progress. Only one student in the high-score group implic-itly mentioned this aspect.

About one-quarter of selected samples considered science as a study about thenatural world. The third difference was found that students in the high-score groupwere more likely than those in the low-score group to express an explicit view thatscience is a human endeavor to understand natural phenomena. Four students in thehigh-score group specifically discussed the subjective and objective features inscience and other disciplines. They described science as a discipline that attempts tobe “objective.”

Science is to describe some objective facts through subjective perspectives. Science alsotries to discuss cause-effect relationships of the natural phenomena, but sometimes islimited by insufficient data. Science focuses on the development of theories. (S59)

Science is influenced by personal, subjective views, but it is generally intended to beobjective. (N92)

Humans use mind to study world. Science is a human created sphere that containssymbols, theories, and scientist imagination. (S80)

These students tended to express, as in the quotes above, “objectivity” as an inten-tion sought by the scientific community where communications and negotiationsamong scientists create the basis of objectivity. It is noted that all of those studentswho recognized science as involving subjective factors had high scores on the CTsubscales (with z-scores higher than 1).

Table 8. Frequencies and categories of concepts in student responses to the open-ended question “What is science?”

Number of responses

Key conceptHigh SEV

score groupLow SEV

score group

Science is rational 4 3Science is objective; subjective factors have to be excluded 5 6Science emphasizes data and evidence 6 3Science makes a better quality of human life; science is a synonym for “modern”

1 6

Science is to find explanations for natural phenomena 12 6Science is no different but related with other disciplines; they all involve human factors and cultures

3 0

No answer 12 13

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Finally, three students who were all in the high SEV group expressed an idea thatscience has no differences with other disciplines, such as art and philosophy. Two ofthem specifically commented that science is derived from human culture.

Knowledge in science is part of human culture. Similar to philosophy, psychology, artand even religion, science is to find explanations of the world and also to develophuman curiosity and control of nature. (N25).

In looking at the demographic information, all of these four students were femaleand from the college of fine arts. They gained relatively high scores on the IC andCU subscales. Practices of science and art both involve creativity and imagination.With these limited cases, we suspected that students’ academic experience mighthave influenced their epistemological beliefs. Overall, students’ written responses tothe open-ended question were reflected in their SEV scores, which also suggestedadequate validity of the SEV questionnaire.

Conclusions and Implications

The results of this study revealed differences in scientific epistemological beliefs ofstudents across different majors. Inconsistent with Schommer’s (1993) findings andour initial assumption, this study showed that students from the college of sciencesdid not have more sophisticated views about science than non-science majors. Jehnget al.’s (1993) study found that students in the hard fields were more likely thanstudents in soft fields to believe that knowledge is certain and unchanging. Althoughthe current study did not reveal divergence in students’ views regarding the changingfeature of scientific knowledge, results indicated that science majors have less sophis-ticated beliefs than non-science majors on the theory-laden and cultural-dependentaspects of science. However, based on the data assessed by the instrument, no onegroup held more sophisticated overall SEVs than any other group. Before theconduct of this study, we did assume that science majors could have better episte-mological understandings about science since they had experienced more intellec-tual discourse of science disciplines. Findings of this study suggest that much workneed be done to develop students’ epistemological understandings of science atsecondary and postsecondary education level.

One interpretation of the result that science students tended to hold naïve viewson some aspects of science could be directed to students’ learning experience.Traditionally, the process and knowledge in science is often presented as objectiveand universal in secondary science classroom (Palmer & Marra, 2004). We suspectthat these undergraduate students with a major in science had been involved in suchepistemic environment longer than those majoring in humanities and social sciences.Their views of science would have been “contaminated” with a traditional positivistapproach to interpreting what constitutes science.

Another possible interpretation is that some beliefs—for example, about certaintyand objectivity—are representative of personal characteristics that lead students toselect science as their major field of study (acculturation) (Hofer, 2000). However,

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according to our above argument, students’ views about the culture of science wereinfluenced by their school science. Involving some general aspects of the nature ofscience in K–12 science curriculum that are consistent with contemporary scientificepistemologies has been advocated by many science educators (e.g., Abd-El-Khalicket al., 1998; McComas & Olsen, 1998). Therefore, such an interaction betweenpersonal beliefs and acculturation into science discipline needs to be carefully exam-ined. Students’ epistemological views might undergo change as they move from highschool through higher education to become practitioners of some academic fields(e.g., scientists) (Samarapungavan et al., 2006). Yet, unsophisticated epistemologi-cal understandings about science could also prevent students from success in theirgraduate studies in the area of science (Elby & Hammer, 2001; Smith & Wenk,2006). Understandings what epistemological views the first-year science collegestudents bring from their secondary education could provide valuable informationfor the design of undergraduate and graduate courses to improve students’ SEVs.

Data collected by the open-ended question in this study supplemented theresearchers’ interpretations of self-report measures. The question elicited students’intuitions about what science is and their descriptions about what differentiatesscience from other disciplines. The terms they provided to describe science could beseen as a reflection of their images about science. Although the response rate andresponse quality to the written question was not satisfactory, such a combination ofquantitative measurement and open-ended item to gather data was intended todelineate SEVs of a large sample. It is common that students are unwilling to answeropen-ended questions, especially when the contents of questions are not interestingto them. Further analysis revealed that students in the low score group were morelikely to disregard the open-ended item. Liu and Lederman (2007), using the Viewsof Nature of Science questionnaire as the written instrument and interview protocol,also found that respondents who held naïve nature of science views were not reflec-tive enough to provide comments on the questions. Thus, the pattern of students’written responses could be considered an indication of their epistemological under-standings.

This study assessed epistemological beliefs, with the instrument focusing on thenature of scientific knowledge rather than that of general knowledge. Significantdifferences in students’ views on several SEV dimensions were observed. Researchabout students’ conceptions of epistemology is important to understand how theymake meaning and learn (Hofer, 2000; Schommer, 1993). The existing work onscientific epistemological beliefs should be extended to study individual beliefs aboutthe nature of knowing, particularly in regard to the processes of scientific inquiry. Inaddition, Elby and Hammer’s (2001) study reminded us of regarding the criteria forevaluating epistemological sophistication and the research on identifying epistemo-logical resources. A more contextualizing epistemological assessment was recom-mended. Sample items could be referred to following Sadler and Zeidler (2004) forassessing views of nature of science via a socioscientific issue, and Smith and Wenk(2006) for interview probes involving scientific controversies. Further research canbe conducted to observe students’ engagement in authentic scientific investigations

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and to analyze how different SEVs influence their exploration strategies in science.Interviews with special cases and collection of longitudinal data may generate morein-depth explanations on the development of individual epistemological beliefs infuture research.

The results of this study suggest that there is a relation of major and epistemologi-cal views among these university students. The academic experiences may play arole in influencing students’ beliefs. More analyses can be done to tap the relationbetween course-taking patterns and epistemological views. Future research work isalso needed to examine the initial differences in SEVs of different majors as well asthe change or stability of those differences over time or throughout some instruc-tional interventions (Palmer & Marra, 2004; Smart & Feldman, 1998).

Relevant research has provided evidence of epistemological components toenhance students’ success in learning science, especially physics (Carey & Smith,1993; Hammer, 1995; Hammer & Elby, 2003; Roth & Roychoudhury, 1994). Otherstudies concerned with teachers’ beliefs suggested that epistemological beliefs affectcurricular and pedagogical decisions (Brickhouse, 1990; Chinn & Malhotra, 2002;Kagan, 1992). Therefore, teacher educators need a better understanding of whatkind of epistemological beliefs preservice teachers hold and how these beliefs changeand develop (Schraw, 2001). This study found that science education majors hadrelatively naïve epistemological views toward science, especially on the cultural andtheory-laden dimensions. Given that these students are potential teachers whoseepistemological beliefs might be projected into their future teaching, the academicdepartment should provide instructional environments that can help student developmore sophisticated epistemological views (Hammer & Elby, 2003; Paulsen & Wells,1998). Constructivist teaching strategies and other inquiry-based instructionalapproaches that challenge learners’ underlying beliefs about knowledge and learningare recommended to be effective (Edmondson & Novak, 1993; Hammer, 1994;Tsai, 1998b, 2006). University science educators, especially those who offer teacherpreparation courses, in their roles as a teaching model, should also be more reflectiveon their own epistemological beliefs and the interactions with students’ beliefs inorder to design instruction that can improve students’ epistemological development.

Acknowledgement

Funding of this research work was supported by the National Science Council,Taiwan, under grant NSC 93-2511-S-017-010.

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Appendix. The SEV questionnaire with 25 items

The role of social negotiation (SN)

1. New scientific knowledge acquires its credibility through the recognition bymany scientists in the field.

2. Scientists share some agreed perspectives and ways of conducting research.3. The discussion, debates, and result sharing in science community is one major

factor facilitating the growth of scientific knowledge.4. Valid scientific knowledge requires the acknowledgement of scientists in

relevant fields.5. Contemporary scientists have agreed with an acceptable set of standards in

evaluating scientific findings.6. Through the discussion and debates among scientists, the scientific theories

become better.7. Scientific knowledge is developed through discussions and debates among scien-

tists.

The invented and creative nature of science (IC)

8. Scientists’ intuition plays an important role in the development of science9. Some accepted scientific knowledge comes from human’s dreams and

hunches.10. The development of scientific theories requires scientists’ imagination and

creativity.11. Creativity is important for the growth of scientific knowledge.12. It is not unusual for scientists to get ideas from a variety of seemingly unrelated

scientific and non-scientific sources.

The theory-laden exploration (TL)

13. Scientists’ research activities will be affected by their existing theories.14. Scientists can make totally objective observations, which are not influenced by

other factors.*15. The theories scientists hold do not have effects on the process of their explora-

tion in science.*

The cultural impacts (CU)

16. Different cultural groups have different ways of gaining knowledge aboutnature.

17. There is a significant amount of scientific knowledge in folklore and myth.18. For different cultural groups, scientific knowledge has different values.19. The development of scientific knowledge is affected by cultures.

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The changing and tentative feature of science knowledge (CT)

20. Scientists in different eras may use different theories and methods to interpretthe same natural phenomenon.

21. Some scientific knowledge proposed earlier is opposite to the contemporaryknowledge.

22. Theories in science are unchangeable.*23. The development of scientific knowledge often involves the change of concepts.24. Contemporary scientific knowledge provides tentative explanations for natural

phenomena.25. Currently acceptable scientific knowledge may be changed or totally discarded

in the future.* presented in an empiricist-aligned perspective

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Documents

Differences in the Scientific Epistemological Views of Undergraduate Students