The impact of epistemic framing of teaching videos and summative assessments on students’ learning of scientific methods

Despite years of reform across the world to improve science teaching and learning, the epistemic aspects of science teaching and learning continue to be of concern to many science education researchers and practitioners. The paper presents an empirical study conducted with 959 secondary students taught by 152 teachers from a national sample in England. Teaching videos and summative assessments were framed from an epistemic perspective using a theoretical framework on the diversity of scientific methods ranging from hypothesis testing to non-manipulative parameter measurement derived from the work of a philosopher of science. The findings from the study are discussed including (a) the students’ views on the teaching videos and summative assessments, (b) the impact of the teaching videos on students’ understanding of the epistemic aspects of scientific methods, and (c) students’ performance on summative assessments. The curriculum content was biology, chemistry and physics topics included in high-stakes examinations in England. The findings suggest that the students’ understanding of scientific methods significantly improved after watching the videos. Furthermore, the students’ performance on the summative assessment items indicated a high level of accuracy in responses. The majority of the national sample of 969 students (or a total of about 68%) were of the age group that takes high-stakes examinations. Hence, it can be said that the outcomes of the study have direct implications for the actual national high-stakes examinations.