DETERMINING THE USEFULNESS OF FAIRY TALES, IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES, AND DIGITAL SCIENCE NOTEBOOKS TO INCREASE THE UNDERSTANDING OF NATURE OF SCIENCE IN KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the usefulness of fairy tales, immersive experiences, and digital science notebooks in increasing the understanding of specific Nature of Science (NOS) aspects in kindergarten students and aimed to fill a gap in the literature where NOS and children’s literature overlap. Seventeen kindergarten students in a suburban classroom participated in this study. It is difficult for classroom teachers to find scientifically accurate children’s literature, potentially leading to misconceptions about science in young children. Previous research (Akerson et al., 2019a; Akerson et al., 2019b; Alan et al., 2018; Avsar Erumit & Akerson, 2022; Buck et al., 2019) has shown that young children are able to attain some understanding of specific NOS aspects including observation, inference, creativity, subjectivity, empirical evidence, and the tentativeness of science. Explicit-reflective instruction is a model that has been studied and has been determined to be a strategy classroom teachers can use to help increase student understanding of NOS aspects (Khishfe & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002, Akerson et. al., 2011). The explicit-reflective model that has been effective in teaching NOS aspects and parallels the work of Vygotsky, where students learn from older, more skilled peers and persist in inquiry (Zuckerman et al., 1998, Trudge, 1990). These models helped the researcher to develop a framework to allow students to be explicitly taught specific NOS aspects, use them as a whole group in practice, discuss with peers, and then reflect upon their learning through weekly reflection and inferring sheets. In this action research, qualitative study, fairy tales combined with immersive experiences (mock crime scenes), and digital science notebooks were used using the explicit-reflective teaching model to increase student understanding of specific NOS aspects. The validated VNOS-E was administered as a pre/posttest/delayed posttest to determine the increase in student understanding and use and the longevity of the understanding and use of specific NOS aspects. Using a five weeklong intervention consisting of five fairy tale centered crimes, students were able to increase their use and understanding of specific NOS aspects as indicated by growth on the VNOS-E and student recording and inferring sheets.