The Development of Students’ Understanding of NOS (Nature of Science) in Upper Secondary School Inquiry Activities: Protocol Analysis of Students Using Qualitative Text Analysis

Abstract

This study identifies how students learn NOS (Nature of Science) in inquiry-based activities conducted in Japanese upper secondary school. In this study, we recorded all the classroom utterances of two students in natural science inquiry and two students in humanities and social science inquiry for one year. The recorded utterances were qualitatively analyzed using MAXQDA, a leading qualitative data analysis software. The results showed that even when NOS was not explicitly taught, there were NOS-related utterances from both students and teachers. In addition, qualitative depth was found for specific content among the NOS as the inquiry activities progressed. This qualitative deepening was found to be influenced by the different areas of inquiry, different teaching styles, and the participating students’ own subjective experiences and interests.