The Value of the Philosophy of Science in Senior High School Science Education from the Perspective of the Nature of Science

Numerous studies have shown that teaching the history and philosophy of science (POS) can help improve senior high school students’ scientific literacy. The history of science is usually taught in school science lessons by reference to particular cases, experiments, and scientists. In contrast, the POS — that is, the study of general and fundamental questions regarding the nature of science (NOS) — is often embedded within lessons, is considered difficult to teach, and is sometimes hidden from students. This research analyses the overlap between the conceptualisations of the NOS and the POS. The paper also reports on a study that used “explicit” pedagogical methods to teach topics related to the POS to Chinese senior high school students. The empirical results, which are supported by a theoretical framework that adopts the family resemblance approach to the NOS, show that students who participated in this POS course significantly improved their scientific literacy and their understanding of the relationships among science, technology, and society. The POS topics in this course helped students better understand the cognitive-epistemic system in the NOS. The findings of this small-scale study have broader implications for the way in which the POS is taught in high school education.