Sibel Erduran

• PhD
• Professor at University of Oxford

Almost 40 years ago, the American astronomer, planetary scientist, and science communicator, Carl Sagan, reflected on the role of mass media in science communication. “How much science and technology do you see in the mass media? Every newspaper has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly science column?” he asked, lamenting the limit...

Science education bears the broader objective of nurturing students today to be scientifically-literate citizens of tomorrow who are able to foresee challenges, invent solutions and make responsible decisions for global issues. As a prelude to the new focus of agency in the Anthropocene, this paper presents an intervention on climate change with up...

The paper presents an empirical study on physics, chemistry, and biology teachers’ perceptions of nature of science (NOS) and domains of science. Family Resemblance Approach to NOS (FRA) was used as a theoretical framework and informed the data analysis approaches. FRA inherently considers both domain-general and domain-specific features of NOS, an...

In this article, we use the family resemblance approach as a framework to contribute to the debate about the similarities and differences between the constituent disciplines of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) and to explore the implications for education. The family resemblance approach has been used in science educat...

Although there has been increasing research and development efforts in the integration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as well as the integration of STEM with the arts (i.e. STEAM), little attention has been placed on how other school subjects such as religious education (RE) can be integrated. In some countries like Engl...

In order to promote learning for environmental sustainability, the European Union launched the GreenComp framework in 2022. The framework identifies a set of sustainability competences that should be cultivated across all learning contexts to support the action-taking and transformations required by global ecological crises. The framework comprises...

Effective teaching and learning of Nature of Science (NOS) has been a curriculum goal for decades and its inclusion into the science education from K-12 is becoming commonplace worldwide, regardless of the differences in the adapted science curricula. However, less attention, if any, has been paid to the holistic representation of NOS at kindergart...

News media plays a vital role in communicating scientific evidence to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such communication is important for convincing the public to follow social distancing guidelines and to respond to health campaigns such as vaccination programmes. However, newspapers were criticised that they focus on the socio-political...

DESCRIPTION In recent years, argumentation, or the justification of knowledge claims with evidence and reasons, has emerged as a significant educational goal, advocated in international curricula and investigated through school-based research. Research on argumentation in science education has made connections to the cognitive, linguistic, social a...

Nine years after reconceptualizing the nature of science for science education using the family resemblance approach (FRA) (Erduran & Dagher, 2014a), the time is ripe for taking stock of what this approach has accomplished, and what future research it can facilitate. This reflective paper aims to accomplish three goals. The first addresses several...

Research indicates that teachers lack a sophisticated understanding of Nature of Science (NOS), which in turn, can impact their instructional decisions and students’ understanding of NOS. The aim of the study was to investigate United Arab Emirates (UAE) early years’ science teacher’s (N = 433) perceptions about the NOS. Results obtained from a 70-...

While many recent curriculum reforms recognise the value of history of science (HOS) in science teaching, in-depth investigations into teachers’ experiences of planning HOS-based science lessons have been rare. We present a case study of two groups of preservice science teachers (PSTs) who collaboratively planned high school science lessons using H...

Background STEM literacy has increasingly become a significant educational goal worldwide. Teachers’ STEM literacy is of utmost importance in mediating students’ learning. Although many teacher preparation programs are being structured to accommodate the changing educational landscape there is still limited understanding of how teachers engage with...

The article explores how teachers' learning of epistemic practices of science can be supported. The particular focus will be on argumentation in science as an epistemic practice. Following a review of the literature on epistemic practices including examples of argumentation, modeling and explanations, we focus on teachers' learning of argumentation...

Engineering education has slowly been making its way into schools with the aim of promoting engineering literacy, which is central to learning and working in a technology-oriented society. Educators and policy makers advocate the need for developing students’ understanding of the nature of engineering (NOE); yet, there is an ongoing debate on the h...

Background Teachers’ views of nature of science (NOS) play a key-role in how they teach science and can significantly impact their students’ understanding of and achievement in science. NOS has been a curriculum goal in science education for several decades. Therefore, there is a need for assessment tools that can examine views of NOS in the langua...

Background Teaching and learning of nature of science (NOS) is an explicit goal in the core science curriculum in Norway. Yet there is little understanding of how the content of the current textbooks in certain educational pathways such as vocational training addresses NOS. Purpose: The aim of this study is to contribute to research on NOS in VET t...

The goal of this study was to examine the way preservice science teachers depict and develop their understanding of nature of science (NOS), from the perspective of the family resemblance approach (FRA). FRA defines NOS as a Cognitive-Epistemic and Social-Institutional system. Appling the dual-analytic approach via reflective drawing analysis, we s...

The paper reports about the outcome of a systematic review of research on family resemblance approach (FRA) to nature of science in (NOS) science education. FRA is a relatively recent perspective on NOS being a system of cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional aspects of science. FRA thus consists of a set of categories such as aims and values...

If students are to acquire deep learning in science, they need to know about the nature of science (NOS), particularly not only the cognitive-epistemic but also the social-institutional aspects of NOS. In this paper, we investigate the content of the Norwegian science curriculum in order to establish how NOS is represented, in particular to the soc...

The rapid changes in science and society during the last decade have demonstrated the need for readiness to address the uncertain future through the development of future-oriented skills. Despite previous attempts, there is still no consensus regarding what is meant by “future-oriented skills” and how these could be integrated into science curricul...

Argumentation is widely recognised as a core practice of science, but the relation between argumentation in the teaching of science in contrast to the teaching of other school subjects has not been sufficiently addressed. In this study, we investigate science and religious education (RE) teachers’ instructional practices related to argumentation in...

Understanding Nature of Science (NOS) is a requisite for improving scientific literacy, and as such, it is increasingly being included in science curricula worldwide. It is now therefore important that teachers understand NOS so that intended learning outcomes become visible in the classroom. Pre-service teachers also need an opportunity to develop...

SciKids” is a joint collaboration grant project between the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) and Oxford University (OU). The project is led by Dr. Rachel Takriti (UAEU) and Prof. Sibel Erduran (OU), who both have extensive knowledge and relevant experiences on science and early year education, in coordination with the UAE Ministry of Educatio...

Argumentation, the justification of claims with reasons and/or evidence, has emerged as a significant educational goal in science education in recent years. It has also been noted as an important pedagogical approach in numerous school subjects. Yet, there is limited understanding of how teachers’ views of argumentation and its teaching compare in...

This presentation is part of a funded large-scale research project was guided by the Reconceptualised Family Resemblance Approach to NOS (RFN) (Erduran & Dagher, 2014) and aimed to examine the provisions of NOS as part of Science Education at the Early Years’ school level in the UAE, with the aim of designing, implementing, and evaluating the impac...

This article utilizes a framework for classifying different scientific methods suggested by a philosopher of science (Brandon Synthese , 99, 59–73, 1994) called Brandon’s Matrix. It presents findings from teachers who took part in a funded project in England that looked at the nature of scientific methods in science investigations. Science investig...

A significant issue in the teaching, learning and summative assessment of practical science is that the underpinning model of scientific methods is based on a fairly simplistic and linear account that does not represent how scientists actually do practical work. In this paper, we examine how science teachers in England and Wales view scientific met...

There is substantial research in science education about students’, teachers’, and scientists’ views of nature of science (NOS). Many studies have used NOS frameworks that focus on particular ideas such as tentativeness of scientific knowledge and cultural embeddedness of science. In this paper, we investigate NOS from the perspective of the Family...

Teachers’ understanding and teaching of argumentation is gaining more attention in science education research. However, little is known about how science teachers engage in argumentation with teachers of different subject taking an interdisciplinary perspective that may inspire new pedagogical ideas or strategies. In particular, the positioning of...

Effective teaching of STEM has become a significant concern for teachers’ professional development (PD). Many teachers are not familiar with STEM strategies and do not possess the disciplinary knowledge or pedagogical strategies demanded by STEM teaching. The purpose of the study reported in this paper was to explore the path and model of Chinese t...

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-021-00247-6

In this paper, we use the “Family Resemblance Approach” (FRA) as a framework to characterize how scientists view the nature of science (NOS). FRA presents NOS as a “system” that includes clusters or categories of ideas about the cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional aspects of science. For example, the cognitive-epistemic aspects include aim...

The article describes the analysis of the Italian physics curriculum documents in terms of the coverage of nature of science (NOS). NOS is not explicitly presented as part of the Italian high-school physics curriculum. The article focuses on analysing the implicit aspects of the curriculum documents. The Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to NOS was...

Background Argumentation, the justification of claims with reasons and/or evidence, has emerged as a significant goal in science education in recent years. Yet, there is limited understanding of secondary students’ arguments and particularly their use of warrants in interdisciplinary contexts such as science and religious education. Furthermore, re...

There is substantial body of literature in science education focusing on students’ understanding of the theory of evolution by natural selection. However, despite decades of research on the evolution versus creationism debate there is still widespread concern that particular misconceptions about evolution persist. The study aimed to recalibrate the...

The incorporation of epistemic aspects of science in science education continues to be a challenge for researchers and practitioners. The paper presents an empirical study investigating how epistemic framing of scientific methods can be incorporated in science teaching, learning and summative assessment, and what impact such framing has on student...

Purpose The social aspects of nature of science (NOS) have become more eminent but entrepreneurial perspectives of NOS continue to be neglected. Entrepreneurship is relevant to NOS and science education due to its role in scientific enterprises and its importance as a 21st-century skill required in all subjects, particularly in science, technology,...

This chapter illustrates the opportunities and challenges of boundary crossings in STEM education. We discuss three talks presented at an invited symposium during ESERA 2019 that aimed to problematize disciplinary boundary crossings and examine the potential, affordances, challenges, and impairments to science education they entail. Each presentati...

Many school practical activities focus on scientific methods such as hypothesis testing. Yet science is more than hypothesis testing: it includes other methods. This article presents a framework called ‘Brandon’s Matrix’ that illustrates the diversity of scientific methods. The matrix has been used as part of Project Calibrate based at the Universi...

Recent reforms in science education have promoted students’ understanding of how science works, including the methodological approaches used by scientists. Given that teachers are expected to teach and promote methodological pluralism, it is worth examining how teachers understand and view scientific methods, particularly when scientific methods ar...

Background: The paper discusses how the design of summative assessments of practical science can be enhanced through the use of robust theoretical models that capture the diversity of scientific methods. The developments in assessment policy in England and the role of practical science in teaching and learning of science are reviewed. Purpose: The...

Although STEM education has been prevalent in curriculum policy and research literature, the precise epistemic nature of STEM and how it applies in education are relatively understudied. In this chapter, we use the framework of the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) as a basis for highlighting the epistemic similarities and differences between the c...

The paper examines how science teachers’ instructional adaptations to Toulmin’s Argumentation Pattern (TAP), made during the first time the framework is introduced to students as a learning heuristic for structuring their arguments, could contribute to the way the quality of students’ arguments is evaluated. We first depict these adaptations, that...

Even though enhancement of students’ understanding of social justice is thought to contribute to good citizenship, contextualising social justice in science education remains challenging for teachers because social justice is not conventionally a common feature of science teaching and learning. A separate issue in science education concerns a vast...

The objective of this chapter is to present some practical resources and strategies for teaching nature of science (NOS) to secondary students and to teachers in in-service training settings. Our work is based on a framework that characterizes NOS as a cognitive-epistemic and social-institutional system (Erduran and Dagher 2014a) and as such, it is...

Citizens often face dilemmas where they need to make decisions that impact our lives and are related to science and religion. For example, genetic cloning, nuclear energy and climate change can potentially appeal to moral and religious values as well as scientific knowledge. The ability to coordinate knowledge and values in reaching justified concl...

The paper presents a study about pre-service science teachers’ perceptions of the Nature of Science (NOS). Although there is a substantial amount of research on NOS in science teacher education, international comparative accounts particularly of in-depth qualitative data emerging from group discussions are fairly minimal. The primary aim of the res...

High stakes examinations can have profound implications for how science is taught and learned. Limitations of school science such as the ‘cookbook problem’ can potentially be addressed if high stakes assessments target learning outcomes that are innovative. For example, less mindless procedural engagement and more thoughtful consideration of practi...

Understanding the nature of science (NOS) has emerged as a core curricular goal since at least the 1960s. While science education reforms around the world have shed light on various epistemic and social underpinnings of science, how science curriculum documents portray the nature of other related disciplines such as mathematics and engineering has...

Teachers’ engagement with and in educational research has become an aspiration in many countries. However, this has been counterbalanced with decades of research on the perennial theory-practice divide. This study provides new perspectives by considering the role of epistemic beliefs in pre-service science teachers’ (PSSTs’) acceptance or rejection...

The article raises questions about how argumentation is situated in science and religious education. Argumentation is about the justification of claims with reasons and evidence. It is a way of reasoning in both science and religious studies. A current 3-year research and development project entitled Oxford Argumentation in Religion and Science (OA...

Background Informal science activities are critical for supporting long-term learning in STEM fields. However, little is known about the kinds of activities children and their families engage in outside of formal settings and how such activities foster long-term STEM engagement. One gap in the literature is the lack of data that document self-desig...

The epilogue reviews some of the key themes raised in the chapters of this book and proposes a way forward for new research and development initiatives in STEM education. Issues derived from the chapters include curriculum, domain knowledge, teaching, learning, school culture, and assessment in relation to STEM education. The implications of these...

Argumentation has emerged as a key area of research and development in science education in recent years. Simply defined, argumentation is about the justification of knowledge claims with evidence and reasons. Although there is now a vast amount of work in argumentation, much research remains to be pursued. Given the interdisciplinary nature of arg...

The traditional description of “the scientific method” as a stepwise, linear process of hypothesis testing through experimentation is a myth. Although the teaching and learning of the scientific method have been a curriculum and assessment goal, the notion of the ‘scientific method’ itself has been identified as being problematic. Many researchers...

The article focuses on the analysis of curriculum documents from Taiwan to investigate how benchmarks for learning nature of science (NOS) are positioned in different versions of the science curricula. Following a review of different approaches to the conceptualization of NOS and the role of NOS in promoting scientific literacy, an empirical study...

The chapter focuses on Alev, a pre-service chemistry teacher, and provides an in-depth illustration of her perceptions and representations of the epistemic core. For each category of the epistemic core, data are presented before and after the implementation of the teacher education intervention. The data sources are (a) drawings which are accompani...

3 new books published in 2019 as follows: ***Erduran, S., & Kaya, E. (2019). Transforming Teacher Education through the Epistemic Core of Chemistry: Empirical Evidence and Practical Strategies. Dordrecht: Springer. ***Erduran, S. (Ed.) (2019). Argumentation in Chemistry Education: Research, Policy and Practice. London: Royal Society of Chemistry....

The chapter considers the implications of incorporating the epistemic core (i.e. aims and values, practices, methods and knowledge) in pre-service teacher education. Research on teachers’ knowledge and epistemic beliefs as well as related concepts such as personal epistemologies and epistemic cognition are highlighted. Features of effective teacher...

The chapter provides the background to why it is important to include epistemic themes in chemistry pre-service teacher education. It includes an introduction to the book by reviewing the literature on philosophy of chemistry and its broad implications for chemistry education. Philosophy of chemistry is the disciplinary context for the consideratio...

The chapter focuses on epistemic categories collectively labelled as the “epistemic core”. By “epistemic core” we mean the epistemic aims, values, practices, methods and knowledge. The aim of the chapter is to illustrate what the epistemic processes and products in chemistry are and to explore how they might be incorporated in education. Epistemic...

The chapter focuses on the design and implementation of a pre-service chemistry teacher education module that aimed to integrate the epistemic core in pre-service teachers’ learning. The module was offered as part of an undergraduate programme at a state university in Turkey. The participants were pre-service teachers in their senior year of a 4-ye...

The book set out to bridge theoretical perspectives from philosophy of chemistry and teacher education research and practice. The chapters so far explored how theoretical perspectives on epistemic themes can be adapted for the purposes of pre-service teacher education in practice. A teacher education intervention was designed and implemented to tea...

The chapter presents a self-reflective account of the authors as teacher educators engaged in learning about philosophy of chemistry for the purpose of selecting themes to incorporate into their teaching of pre-service teachers. The authors are motivated to pursue self-study because (a) the broad content of the book, the interplay between philosoph...

The chapter illustrates some outcomes of a teacher education intervention designed to promote pre-service teachers’ learning of the epistemic core which includes the aims and values, practices, methods and knowledge of chemistry. The purpose is to demonstrate what is likely to be observed when the epistemic core ideas are infused in chemistry teach...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify whether or not females believe they associate with the culture of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by investigating the perceptions of female students currently enroled in STEM courses. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents data from a survey on female STEM students...

The emergence of the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to nature of science (NOS) (Erduran & Dagher, 2014a) has prompted a fresh wave of scholarship embracing this new approach in science education. The FRA provides an ambitious and practical vision for what NOS-enriched science content should aim for and it promotes evidence-based practices in sci...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to identify whether or not females believe they associate with the culture of STEM by investigating the perceptions of female students currently enrolled in STEM courses. Design The paper presents data from a survey on female STEM students' 'Perspectives of Women in STEM', 'Parents' Science Qualification', 'Sup...