Nature of science:

Various arguments have been drawn out for the necessity of understanding the nature of science [#!driver-96!#]. Major ones include that it helps people make sense of the science and manage the technological objects they encounter everyday. It helps people understand socio-scientific issues and participate in the decision making process. It also develops an awareness of the nature of science, and norms of the scientific community. It fosters appreciation of science as a major element of contemporary culture and also supports successful learning of science content.

Under this tradition, various studies have been carried out to study students' understanding of the scientific world and their conceptions of the nature of theories, hypothesis, experiments, and explanations. Carey et al. [#!carey-89!#] devised a teaching lesson designed to facilitate children's move from an inductivist epistemology (where scientific knowledge is seen as emerging from observation) to a hypothetico-deductive epistemology (where experimentation and observation are seen as purposeful theory-driven activities). Solomon et al. [#!solomon-94!#] in a similar study designed a teaching intervention based on episodes from the history of science.