Middle school students' science epistemic beliefs : Implications for measurement

[Extract] Nations are currently facing unprecedented social, environmental, and health challenges that require epistemic knowledge associated with thinking like a scientist (OECD, 2018). To address these complex challenges, it is important to consider how students’ meaning making in science education might be improved (OECD, 2018; Office of the Australian Chief Scientist, 2016). In this paper we argue that meaning making in science demands identifying, explaining, and evaluating (Yanga, Chang, Chena, & Chena, 2016, p. 1592) multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives inherent in the study of scientific issues (Mason, 2016). Rather than promoting exploration, inquiry, and evaluation, however, many Western curriculum reforms over the last four decades have focused on developing science disciplinary knowledge and practices needed for post-compulsory science/STEM education and employment. In Australia, for example, this focus has largely led to a decline in open-ended inquiry (Fensham, 2013), a focus on benchmark testing regimes, and the need for students to excel at recalling science “facts” (Hardy, 2018; Tovani & Moje, 2017). Concerns about such simplistic notions of science learning, which exclude student “abilities in scientific inquiry, and their decision-making about socio-scientific issues” (Fensham, 2013, p. 165), have led to calls for a greater consideration of the nature of science (NOS) in school science education.