Philosophy of science: an empirical study of teachers’ views

Abstract

An empirical survey of science teachers’ views about scientific knowledge from a philosophical‐epistemological perspective was carried out by means of a questionnaire specially developed for the purpose. The themes investigated were views concerning the nature of scientific method, the criteria of demarcation of science from non‐science, the nature of change in scientific knowledge and the status of scientific knowledge. Individuals could be identified, from particular patterns of responses, as being in agreement or not with a number of broad philosophical positions. These results point to a version of contextualist thought (broadly Kuhnian) as being the most favoured system. This would represent a shift from findings of earlier research, which has tended to identify empirical inductivism as the view mostly held by science teachers. However, the extent of any such shift is shown to depend on the aspect of science under consideration. In addition, the analysis looks at correlations between teachers’ views about the three themes mentioned above, and finds groupings of views that accord with patterns identified from an a priori analysis of the content of questionnaire items. The full research is described in greater detail in Koulaidis (1987).