Using the Activity Model of Inquiry To Enhance General Chemistry Students' Understanding of Nature of Science

Nature of science refers to the processes of scientific activity and the social and cultural premises involved in the creation of scientific knowledge. Having an informed view of nature of science is important in the development of scientifically literate citizens. However, students often come to the classroom with misconceptions about nature of science. The activity model of inquiry is a theoretically grounded and empirically derived model of scientific inquiry and could be used as a thinking frame to help students develop more informed views of nature of science. This paper reports work on how to implement this model in the general chemistry classroom, and on how undergraduate students' views of scientific inquiry shift. Implementation includes having students reflect on how current topics in science and their own lab work compare to the activity model of inquiry. Students are asked to respond to essay prompts and a pre- and postquestionnaire designed to assess naive and informed views of nature of science. Findings show student responses to essay prompts and questionnaires and how they shifted in their views of nature of science.