Undergraduate science research projects and students - School of ...

Undergraduate Learning in Science Project Working Paper 57 Discussion and educational implicationsIn section 1, a distinction was made between knowledge of science andknowledge about science. A case was made that in order for students todevelop their knowledge of science - that is, to learn the contents andmethods of science - it is also necessary for them to learn about the nature ofscience itself. In sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the paper, a characterisation ofstudents’ images of science is made, and evidence is presented about howthese images of science relate to students’ undergraduate project work. Inthis final section of the paper we begin with a brief summary of the mainimages of science held by final year undergraduate science students. This isfollowed by a consideration of the pedagogical and curricular significance ofundergraduate students’ images of science.7.1 What are the main images of science held by final year undergraduatescience students?The first two of our research questions given on page 8 ask what are the mainimages of science held by students and how these images of science changethrough project work. In this section we will summarise our findings relatingto these questions. We will draw on the tabulated codings for the questionby-questionanalysis in section 3 and the epistemological and sociologicalprofile for the whole student sample given on page 115 appendix B. We alsocompare our findings with those from some of the earlier studies discussed insection 1.1.General findingsOur study indicates that individual students hold a range of images of sciencewhich they refer to in different contexts. Rather than holding a single imageof science students exhibit a profile of images of science. By the end of theirproject work students tended to exhibit an extension of their image of scienceprofile rather than a movement from one image of science to another. Manystudents held very sophisticated images of science, showing an awareness ofthe contingent nature of knowledge claims and the social factors which mightinfluence the acceptance or rejection of knowledge claims. Other studentsexhibited far less sophisticated profiles, for instance making little reference tothe influence of theoretical ideas on the evaluation of data or thedevelopment of research questions. Generally speaking the importance ofempirical data in validating knowledge claims tended to be well representedin students responses. On the other hand very few students made anyreference to social factors in the validation of knowledge claims, or theinfluence of scientific institutions on the progress of science.The nature of lines of scientific enquiryStudents at the beginning of their project tended to focus on lines of scientificenquiry as being dictated by the personal interests of scientists, areas inwhich funding could be obtained and the desire to solve problems for the73