Nature of Science und epistemologische Überzeugungen: Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede

Nature of science is a key topic in current international research on science education. Nature of science contains views about scientific knowledge. This is close to the concept of epistemological beliefs, which is used in psychological literature. This paper aims at differentiating the two concepts from each other. First, the main arguments from current research literature on both concepts are presented. Against this background, five aspects – discipline specificity; content; first vs. third person perspective; knowledge vs. belief; normative vs. descriptive approach – are identified and used to elaborate differences and similarities of the nature of science and epistemological beliefs. Finally, we suggest a consistent wording to account for the different theoretical frameworks, which underlie the two concepts, and propose how both concepts might be merged within the conceptual change theory. In summary, this paper shall help to locate science education research projects within this field of research.