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The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding about undergraduate life science students' conceptions concerning the role of photosynthesizing plants in the ecosystem, utilizing a network analysis method. Science learning requires the integration and linking of abstract and often counterintuitive concepts successfully into multifaceted networks. The quality of these networks, together with their abilities to communicate via the language of science, influences students' success in academic, verbal problem-solving tasks. This study contributes to investigating students' understanding, utilizing a modern network analysis method in exploring first-year university life science students' written answers. In this study, a total of 150 first-year life science students answered two open-ended tasks related to the role of photosynthesizing plants in the ecosystem. A network analysis tool was used in exploring the occurrence of different-level science concepts and the interrelatedness between these concepts in students' verbal outputs. The results showed that the richness of concept networks and students' use of macro-concepts were remarkably varied between the tasks. Higher communicability measures were connected to the more abundant existence of macro-concepts in the task concerning the role of plants from the food-chain perspective. In the answers for the task concerning the role of plants regarding the atmosphere, the students operated mainly with single facts, and there were only minor interconnections made between the central concepts. On the basis of these results, the need for more all-encompassing biology teaching concerning complex environmental and socio-economic problems became evident. Thus, methodological and pedagogical contributions are discussed.

Understanding about nature of science is important topic in science education as well as in pre-service science teacher education. In science education, Nature of Science (NOS), in its different forms of educational scaffoldings, seeks to provide with students an understanding of features of scientific knowledge and science in general, how scientific knowledge changes and becomes accepted, and what factors guide scientific activities. For a science teacher, deep and broad enough picture of sciences is therefore of importance. This study attempts to show that the research field called Science of Science (SoS) can significantly support building such a panoramic picture of sciences, and through that, significantly support NOS. The SoS approaches the structure and dynamics of science quantitatively, using scientific documents (e.g., publications, reports, books and monographs and patent applications) as trails to map the landscape of sciences. It is argued here that SoS may provide material and interesting cases for NOS, and in so doing enrich NOS in a similarly significant way as history, philosophy and sociology of science (HPSS) scholarship has done thus far. This study introduces several themes based on SoS that are of relevance for NOS as they were introduced and discussed in a pre-service science teachers' course. The feedback from pre-service teachers shows that introducing SoS, with minimal additional philosophical interpretations and discussions, but simply as evidential facts and findings, sparks ideas and views that come very close to NOS themes and topics. Discussions related to nature of science, and specific educational NOS scaffoldings for it, can find a good companion in SoS; the latter providing facts and evidence of thee structure and dynamics of sciences, the former providing perspectives for interpretations.

Learning the wave-particle dualism of electrons and photons plays a central role in understanding quantum physics. Teaching it requires that the teacher is fluent in using abstract and uncommon terms. We inspect the lexical structures of pre-service teachers' declarative knowledge about the wave-particle dualism of electrons and photons in the context of double-slit interference. The declarative knowledge is analyzed in the form of a lexical network of terms. We focus on lexical structures because, in teaching and learning, knowledge is communicated mostly through lexical structures, i.e., by speaking and writing. Using the lexical networks, we construct the lexicons used by pre-service teachers to express their knowledge of electrons and photons in the context of double-slit interference. The lexicons consist of eight different key terms, each representing a set of closely-related or synonymous terms. The lexicons by 14 pre-service teachers reveal remarkable variation and differences, and are strongly context-dependent. We also analyzed lexicons corresponding to two didactically-oriented research articles on the same topic and found that they also differ. Lexicons paralleling both texts are found among the pre-service teachers' lexicons. However, only some of the pre-service teachers use such rich vocabulary as would indicate multi-faceted understanding of quantum entities.

Nature of science (NOS) has been a central theme in science education and research on it for nearly three decades, but there is still debate on its proper focus and underpinnings. The focal points of these debates revolve around different ways of understanding the terms "science" and "scientific knowledge". It is suggested here that the lack of agreement is at least partially related to and reflected as a lack of common vocabulary and terminology that would provide a shared basis for finding consensus. Consequently, the present study seeks motivation from the notions of centrality of lexicons in recognizing the identity of disciplinary communities and different schools of thought within NOS. Here, by using a network approach, we investigate how lexicons used by different authors to discuss NOS are confluent or divergent. The lexicons used in these texts are investigated on the basis of a network analysis. The results of the analysis reveal clear differences in the lexicons that are partially related to differences in views, as evident from the debates surrounding the consensus NOS. The most divergent views are related to epistemology, while regarding the practices and social embeddedness of science the lexicons overlap significantly. This suggests that, in consensus NOS, one can find much basis for converging views, with common understanding, where constructive communication may be possible. The basic vocabulary, in the form of a lexicon, can reveal much about the different stances and the differences and similarities between various disciplinary schools. The advantage of such an approach is its neutrality and how it keeps a distance from preferred epistemological positions and views of nature of knowledge.

Relational interlinked dependencies between concepts constitute the structure of abstract knowledge and are crucial in learning conceptual knowledge and the meaning of concepts. To explore pre-service teachers' declarative knowledge of physics concepts, we have analyzed concept networks, which agglomerate 12 pre-service teacher students' representations of the key elements in electricity and magnetism. We show that by using network-based methods, the interlinked connections of nodes, locally and globally, can be analyzed to reveal how different elements of the network are supported through their connections to other nodes in the network. Nodes with high global connectivity initialize contiguous concept patchworks within the network and are thus most often found to be abstract, general, and advanced concepts. Locally cohesive concepts, on the other hand, are nearly always auxiliary supporting concepts, related to specific textbook-type experiments and model-type conceptional elements. Comparisons of group-level knowledge and individual pre-service teacher students' knowledge in the form of networks shows that while in group-level the aggregated knowledge is expert-like, at the individual level pre-service teacher students possess only a fraction of that knowledge.

The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding about undergraduate life science students’ conceptions concerning the role of photosynthesizing plants in the ecosystem, utilizing a network analysis method. Science learning requires the integration and linking of abstract and often counterintuitive concepts successfully into multifaceted networks. The quality of these networks, together with their abilities to communicate via the language of science, influences students’ success in academic, verbal problem-solving tasks. This study contributes to investigating students’ understanding, utilizing a modern network analysis method in exploring first-year university life science students’ written answers. In this study, a total of 150 first-year life science students answered two open-ended tasks related to the role of photosynthesizing plants in the ecosystem. A network analysis tool was used in exploring the occurrence of different-level science concepts and the interrelatedness between these concepts in students’ verbal outputs. The results showed that the richness of concept networks and students’ use of macro-concepts were remarkably varied between the tasks. Higher communicability measures were connected to the more abundant existence of macro-concepts in the task concerning the role of plants from the food-chain perspective. In the answers for the task concerning the role of plants regarding the atmosphere, the students operated mainly with single facts, and there were only minor interconnections made between the central concepts. On the basis of these results, the need for more all-encompassing biology teaching concerning complex environmental and socio-economic problems became evident. Thus, methodological and pedagogical contributions are discussed.

Understanding about nature of science is important topic in science education as well as in pre-service science teacher education. In science education, Nature of Science (NOS), in its different forms of educational scaffoldings, seeks to provide with students an understanding of features of scientific knowledge and science in general, how scientific knowledge changes and becomes accepted, and what factors guide scientific activities. For a science teacher, deep and broad enough picture of sciences is therefore of importance. This study attempts to show that the research field called Science of Science (SoS) can significantly support building such a panoramic picture of sciences, and through that, significantly support NOS. The SoS approaches the structure and dynamics of science quantitatively, using scientific documents (e.g., publications, reports, books and monographs and patent applications) as trails to map the landscape of sciences. It is argued here that SoS may provide material and interesting cases for NOS, and in so doing enrich NOS in a similarly significant way as history, philosophy and sociology of science (HPSS) scholarship has done thus far. This study introduces several themes based on SoS that are of relevance for NOS as they were introduced and discussed in a pre-service science teachers’ course. The feedback from pre-service teachers shows that introducing SoS, with minimal additional philosophical interpretations and discussions, but simply as evidential facts and findings, sparks ideas and views that come very close to NOS themes and topics. Discussions related to nature of science, and specific educational NOS scaffoldings for it, can find a good companion in SoS; the latter providing facts and evidence of thee structure and dynamics of sciences, the former providing perspectives for interpretations.

Nature of science (NOS) has been a central theme in science education and research on it for nearly three decades, but there is still debate on its proper focus and underpinnings. The focal points of these debates revolve around different ways of understanding the terms “science” and “scientific knowledge”. It is suggested here that the lack of agreement is at least partially related to and reflected as a lack of common vocabulary and terminology that would provide a shared basis for finding consensus. Consequently, the present study seeks motivation from the notions of centrality of lexicons in recognizing the identity of disciplinary communities and different schools of thought within NOS. Here, by using a network approach, we investigate how lexicons used by different authors to discuss NOS are confluent or divergent. The lexicons used in these texts are investigated on the basis of a network analysis. The results of the analysis reveal clear differences in the lexicons that are partially related to differences in views, as evident from the debates surrounding the consensus NOS. The most divergent views are related to epistemology, while regarding the practices and social embeddedness of science the lexicons overlap significantly. This suggests that, in consensus NOS, one can find much basis for converging views, with common understanding, where constructive communication may be possible. The basic vocabulary, in the form of a lexicon, can reveal much about the different stances and the differences and similarities between various disciplinary schools. The advantage of such an approach is its neutrality and how it keeps a distance from preferred epistemological positions and views of nature of knowledge.

Science education research is, in many ways, involved with exploring relational aspects of diverse elements that affect students’ learning outcomes; at one end, the elements may be concepts to be learned, and at the other end, the relations between students in different types of learning settings and environments and, ultimately, how such elements may interact [...]

Learning the wave-particle dualism of electrons and photons plays a central role in understanding quantum physics. Teaching it requires that the teacher is fluent in using abstract and uncommon terms. We inspect the lexical structures of pre-service teachers’ declarative knowledge about the wave-particle dualism of electrons and photons in the context of double-slit interference. The declarative knowledge is analyzed in the form of a lexical network of terms. We focus on lexical structures because, in teaching and learning, knowledge is communicated mostly through lexical structures, i.e., by speaking and writing. Using the lexical networks, we construct the lexicons used by pre-service teachers to express their knowledge of electrons and photons in the context of double-slit interference. The lexicons consist of eight different key terms, each representing a set of closely-related or synonymous terms. The lexicons by 14 pre-service teachers reveal remarkable variation and differences, and are strongly context-dependent. We also analyzed lexicons corresponding to two didactically-oriented research articles on the same topic and found that they also differ. Lexicons paralleling both texts are found among the pre-service teachers’ lexicons. However, only some of the pre-service teachers use such rich vocabulary as would indicate multi-faceted understanding of quantum entities.

Relational interlinked dependencies between concepts constitute the structure of abstract knowledge and are crucial in learning conceptual knowledge and the meaning of concepts. To explore pre-service teachers’ declarative knowledge of physics concepts, we have analyzed concept networks, which agglomerate 12 pre-service teacher students’ representations of the key elements in electricity and magnetism. We show that by using network-based methods, the interlinked connections of nodes, locally and globally, can be analyzed to reveal how different elements of the network are supported through their connections to other nodes in the network. Nodes with high global connectivity initialize contiguous concept patchworks within the network and are thus most often found to be abstract, general, and advanced concepts. Locally cohesive concepts, on the other hand, are nearly always auxiliary supporting concepts, related to specific textbook-type experiments and model-type conceptional elements. Comparisons of group-level knowledge and individual pre-service teacher students’ knowledge in the form of networks shows that while in group-level the aggregated knowledge is expert-like, at the individual level pre-service teacher students possess only a fraction of that knowledge.