What Account of Science Shall We Give? A Case Study of Scientists Teaching First-year University Subjects

Abstract

This article presents a case study of four academic scientists. These academics teach in the first year of a Bachelor of Science degree at a large research-focused Australian university that has demanded and supported a greater focus on undergraduate learning. Taken as a whole, the accounts of science that the first-year academics in this case study gave, and which they are presenting to their students, challenge the images of science and scientists typically presented in school science curricula. Using Roberts' heuristic of Vision 1 and Vision 2 for the broad purposes of learning science, we consider various accounts given of science by these academic scientists and consider how science might appear to a student who takes all four of their subjects.

Keywords:

• Practice of scientists
• Visions 1 and 2 for science
• Undergraduate science
• Nature of science
• First-year university
• Curriculum

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Australian Research Council (Project No. DP120102714).