Exploring a process view of students' knowledge about the nature of science

The role that students' knowledge about the nature of science plays in their daily learning of science in school is not well understood. To explore this topic, two categories are introduced that classify how students' understanding of the nature of science has been operationalized. Distal knowledge of the nature of science is students' declarative knowledge about professional science, including about the nature of scientific knowledge and scientists' epistemological commitments. Proximal knowledge of the nature of science is students' personal understandings, beliefs, and commitments regarding their own science learning and the scientific knowledge they-not scientists-produce and encounter. It is suggested that viewing these two kinds of knowledge structures within modem information processing frameworks that delineate roles of epistemological and metacognitive knowledge in learning can guide future research on students' knowledge about the nature of science as a mediator, not just an outcome, of their science experiences in school. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.