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Effect of STSE Approach on High School Students' Understanding of Nature of Science

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Abstract

Nature of science (NOS) has been a target of interest for decades. The main goal of this study is to explore the impact of the science, technology, society, environment (STSE) approach on students’ understanding of NOS, taking “Galileo’s study of free-fall motion” as an example. Participants in this study were 350 students of grade 10 from a public high school in China. The Student Science Understanding and Scientific Inquiry (SUSSI) instrument was used in the intervention and control groups to explore the impact on students’ NOS. The intervention group (N = 210) participated in the STSE class, whereas traditional instruction was applied to the control group (N = 140). Results revealed that there was a significant difference between the two groups, and the learners in the intervention group understood NOS better than the control group. STSE approach is an effective way to enhance students’ understanding of NOS. Despite the fact that the implementation is challenging for teachers, it appears that the STSE approach has positive effects on students’ understanding of NOS, which offers some reference for physics classroom teaching.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Fan-Fan Teng, Yu-Jia Xie, and Le Yuan for their support in data collecting.

Funding

This research was founded by the Project of Ministry of Education Industry-University Cooperation Collaborative Education Fund of P.R. China under the grant no. 202102153057 and Jiangsu Modern Educational Technology Research Project “Construction and Application of Adaptive Cognitive Diagnostic Evaluation System for Physics Learning” under the grant no. 2021-R-91911. This research was also supported by the Research and Practice on Teaching Reform of Postgraduate Education in Jiangsu Normal University Fund of P.R. China under grant no. JGKTZ201921 and a Project Funded the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Insititutions (PAPD).

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  1. School of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Jiangsu Normal University, Tongshan District, No. 101 Shanghai Road, Xuzhou, 221116, Jiangsu, China

    Jiawen Xiang & Caiqin Han

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  1. Jiawen Xiang
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Correspondence to Caiqin Han.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Student understanding of science and scientific inquiry scale
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Xiang, J., Han, C. Effect of STSE Approach on High School Students' Understanding of Nature of Science. J Sci Educ Technol 33, 263–273 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-023-10053-0

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