What is this thing called geoscience? Epistemological dimensions elicited with the repertory grid and their implications for scientific literacy

Abstract

To appropriately prepare informed citizens, science education must improve scientific literacy, which includes public understanding of science. Therefore, students' perceptions of science is considered a fruitful area of research. This kind of investigation should elicit the images of science that students are likely to hold when they enter the science classroom. The main aims of the present investigation are: (i) to explore the perceptions held by a university geology instructor and five students of the images of the geosciences, before and after the teaching intervention; (ii) to claim that the repertory grid technique is a powerful tool to assess people's actual epistemological dimensions beyond any conceptual framework constructed by experts; and (iii) to argue that the societal aims of geological (science) education must be specifically targeted within a constructivist framework. The subjects were five first-year undergraduates of the geography degree course and their geology instructor. This investigation uses the repertory grid technique, the tool envisaged by George Kelly to elicit people's personal constructs according to his theoretical framework known as “personal construct psychology.” The elicitation of constructs took place at the beginning and at the end of the academic year. Principal component analysis was used to determine the teacher's and students' constructs with the highest epistemological value; that is, the constructs that most affect students' perception and interpretation of the geosciences. The findings indicate that some stereotyped images of science appear, with a characteristic antithesis between physics (considered objective and rigorous) and the geosciences (seen as subjective and approximate). Beyond this, little concern for societal issues inherent within the geosciences emerged as a significant conceptual dimension from individuals' construct systems. These results seem to indicate that this methodology gives insights into students' everyday ontology and epistemology, and therefore can be used to guide teaching interventions relevant for adequate scientific literacy. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed 83:675–700, 1999.

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