Teaching Nature of Science

Teaching nature of science through popular video games in secondary school level

Abstract: My PhD thesis investigates the effectiveness of video games for teaching nature of science (NoS) in secondary school level. Nature of science (NoS) is one of the predominant research areas in science education and it has gain great importance in the past few decades. Definitions of NoS presented in the literature are diverse but it basically refers philosophy of science and addresses the questions what makes science ‘science’ and how science works? Integrating NoS into science curriculum is one of the most important aims of science education. In my research, I analyse some of the popular video games such as Kingdom Rush. I propose an analytical framework identifying key affordances of these games and I demonstrate some of the similarities with NoS based on the family resemblance approach. A case study was planned to see the role of popular video games for teaching the NoS. By doing this research, I aim for students to have improved NoS views and help them to build a foundation for understanding the events and phenomena they encounter in schools and everyday life.

Researcher: Onur Imren
Commencement Date: September 2014
End Date: October 2016