an innovative approach

2003) was proposed to reveal misconceptions and promote conceptual
understandings. Using only concept mapping, however, did not change persistent
misconceptions. Secondly, a new teaching strategy based on narrative technique and
the history of ideas was suggested in science education (Millar and Osborne, 1998
cited in Hipkins et al., 2002; LaBoskey, 2002). Using everyday life stories (Kuhn and
Hand, 1995) and even stories from the history of science (Barker, 1995, 1997;
Allchin, et al., 1999) enabled students to learn about, have a positive attitude towards,
and understand the nature of science. Also, Gallas (1995) and Barker (1997)
suggested that the technique should be utilized suitably with students’ learning
contexts. Thirdly, an additional strategy is the integrated nature of science (Bell,
Lederman, and Abd-El-Khalick, 1998; Smith and Scharmann, 1999; Lin and Chen,
2002; Bell et al., 2003). Lin and Chen (2002) suggested that teaching based on the
aspect of science as a social enterprise could bring students to an understanding of the
nature of science, which might then encourage them to improve their understanding of
scientific concepts.
2. Concept Mapping
“A concept map is a two-dimensional node-link representation that depicts the
most important concepts and relationships in a knowledge domain” (Mintzes,
Wandersee and Novak, 2001: 119). The concept mapping technique illustrates the
organization of conceptual ideas showing how major ideas are related to subordinate
ideas and to associated ideas from other topic areas (Novak and Gowin, 1984;
Kinchin, 2000b; Mintzes, Wandersee and Novak, 2001). This technique is very
useful in diagnosing the errors in understanding of complex conceptual frameworks
and revealing flawed reasoning.
Novak and Gowin (1984: 24-28) suggested that introducing concept mapping
to senior high school students should follow three main steps; identification,
organization, and presentation. Helping students to learn and acknowledge natural
phenomena as concepts, in terms of words, is the first step which enables students to
identify which concepts exist in their minds. The organisation process of the
56