The Interplay Between Philosophy of Science and the Practice of Science Education

This article describes the importance of understanding philosophy of science for science teachers or students. The connections between philosophy of science and science education practice are also discussed. This article analyzes three major types of instructional approaches, that is, didactic, discovery and constructivist approaches, and their supporting philosophies of science. It also illustrates potential commonalities of constructivist thoughts between the philosophical views proposed by T. S. Kuhn, and the psychological frameworks proposed by J. Piaget. The article concludes with a discussion about how students philosophical views may play a role in science learning, and how to help students acquire constructivist-oriented philosophical views of science.