Students’ scientific epistemology: ‘Source of knowledge’ – A comparison between two biology lessons in a high-school classroom

Abstract

This paper investigates the construction of one of the components (the source of science knowledge) of scientific epistemology present in a high-school biology classroom, from the classroom discourse. Focusing on the enacted scientific epistemologies of the student, we analyzed field notes obtained from two sessions of classroom lessons to identify various tenors in the discourse and infer the source of knowledge in the students’ minds. The science curriculum is being taught using the THINK cycle (not discussed in this paper) and it centered on engaging the student with the teacher taking the role of the facilitator of both small-group and whole-class discussion. The analysis of this initial stage indicated that the students were involved in the classroom interactions, and there was a spread of the teacher and student involvement and the students used various sources of knowledge through the two sessions in the Biology classroom.