An adequate understanding of the nature of science, that is, an understanding of what science is, continues to be an important goal of science education. The Japanese view of science, however, has not been clearly formulated. In this project, we investigated the Japanese conception of the nature of science and technology, and of their interrelationship, as well as the relationship between the respective views of high school science teachers and students. The results are as follows. 1. Most Japanese accept both the linear and nonlinear development process of scientific knowledge, but the ratio of science teachers who accept the linear process is relatively low. 2. More than half of the subjects point out theory-ladenness as a reason why different conclusions are obtained from the same data. Not a few people, however, identify the methodological reason (e.g. calculation and analysis). 3. Most people agree that scientific theory is acceptable when correct logically, even when it is not be based on experimental evidence. 4. The number of people in general who understand the role of the scientific model as a form of theory is relatively low, but of course this does not apply to science teachers. 5. Only one third of the subjects conceive of science as value free, while most science teachers believe it is so. 6. Many people find it difficult to distinguish science from technology, but the number of high school students who find it difficult is particularly low. 7. Science teachers' views of science and technology are quite different from those of high school students in many respects. So it is difficult to see how the views of science teachers affect those of their students directly through their science classes.

As is well known, "interest, will, and attitude," as important scholastic attainments described in the official Accumulated Guidance Records used in elementary and secondary schools in Japan, are regarded not as extrinsic but intrinsic motivations. In the present study, the authors aimed at arousing such intrinsic motivations for science learning in students through problem-solving activities which lead them to acquire an understanding of nature as a result of their own interest in the subject. The results obtained from the investigation are as follows: 1) The students' intrinsic motivations for science learning improved through the problemsolving activities. 2) The more improvement in intrinsic motivation they showed, the more they learned about nature, i.e., a "knowledge-understanding of natural things and phenomena" as described in the Accumulated Guidance Records. 3) This intrinsic motivation through science learning had a decisive effect upon building up intrinsically motivated learners.

The formation of creativity is an important matter in science education. This research project investigated the characteristics of the creative attitudes on elementary school students by means of factor analysis in order to clarify how the two chief factors of "exertion and continuance" and "independence and originality" develop among lower secondary school students. Questionnaires on creative attitudes were prepared based on the 24 items of creative attitudes given by Onda, similar to the questionnaires given to lower secondary school students in a previous study. The questionnaires were given to 612 elementary school students in March 2001. The findings are as follows. (1) The score for creative attitude significantly decreases from the second grade to the fourth grade. (2) The score for originality is extremely low in eight terms of creative attitudes given by Onda for every grade. (3) The factors of "exertion and continuance" and "independence and originality" are still unclear in the lower grades, begin to be clear in the middle grades, and are fairly clear in the higher grades.

Today, developing student's problem-solving abilities, in particular their ability to make predictions in various problem-solving processes, is very important. Furthermore, such abilities are important factors of meta-cognition, which affects students' acquisition of science concepts, but its essence is difficult to recognize. In this research project, we investigated the relationship between meta-cognition and the acquisition of the ion concept in science classes through questionnaires and clinical interviews. As a result of our investigations, the following points became clear. 1. Students processing appropriate meta-cognition acquired ion concept step by step. Also, they usually showed an awareness of his comprehension level and used this to look for the next goal of their study. 2. Students who didn't have the ability to control their cognition according to 'what shall I do next?' , even if they could grasp the limits of their understanding or their learning situations, didn't acquire ion concept fully. 3. Students who couldn't reflect on their learning process didn't aquire ion concept and metacognition in the process of their learning.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate how college students who had studied Newton's law represented the concept of Force and Motion. Eighty-eight college juniors majoring in education were given a questionnaire concerning their knowledge of force and motion and the relation between force and motion by qualitative tasks. Analysis of their responses showed that over half of the students persisted in their ideas of designated forces on motive forces. It was suggested that these naive concepts of force were constructed by three factors: (a) knowledge of a specific mechanism, (b) mutual relationships between knowledge on force and motion, and (c) the explanatory framework. As was the case with dynamics by qualitative tasks, it appears that a framework theory of dynamics in which force is a property of objects might constrain the generation of naive concepts of force