Introduction

Abstract

Alexander Pope expressed the Enlightenment ideal of broadening the Scientific Revolution to include the study of human beings not only as physical organisms but psychological ones as well. The scientific study of the human being flourished and eventually spawned many new and more specific disciplines. Among these one counts the scientific study of science learning and teaching. All of this is part and parcel of modernism. Without commenting on the successes and failures of modernism, suffice it to say that in many disciplines today many scholars look to very different methods for addressing the questions they have about people and their behavior. There has come an attitude shift nicely summarized in C. S. Lewis’ two brief sentences quoted above. It is an attitude most clearly seen to date in feminist scholarship of which Carol Gilligan’s (1982) In A Different Voice and the Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger & Tarule (1986) study, Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind are seminal examples. If we may paraphrase and adapt from these scholars, there are voices of people that need to be heard if scholars intend to have a valid understanding of people and their behavior. The feminist scholars were of course seeking ways of making women’s voices heard but the importance of their work exceeds gender issues. It is important for restoring the image of people as persons rather than as objects of research. As I have undertaken it, the foundational perspective of worldview research is that one must hear from students and science teachers about themselves. If we as teachers can come to a better understanding of how people - including ourselves make sense of the world (especially the natural, physical world) we should be better equipped for the task of structuring effective science learning environments. Of equal importance, we should be better equipped to monitor our own activities and our curriculum for the chauvinistic tendencies of ideology and dogmatism (Griffith & Benson, 1994).

“The proper study of mankind is man.” Alexander Pope (18th century)

“You cannot study people. You can only get to know them.” C. S. Lewis (20th century)