Epistemological understanding in science learning: the consistency of representations across contexts

This article addresses the extent to which written diagnostic questions can be used to assess science students' representations of the nature of scien ce. The responses of 731 European science students in upper secondary schoo l and undergraduate programmes to two written diagnostic questions are anal ysed for consistency. The written questions yielded some insights into stud ents' views. There is evidence that the majority of students in this sample draw upon different epistemological representations in different contexts. The paper concludes with a discussion of the use of data from such questio ns in science education, and the significance of models of students' episte mological knowledge. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.