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One important goal of science education is to help students understand the nature of the scientific enterprise itself. We review data from several sources, indicating that middle school and high school students have a common sense epistemology of science at variance with the constructivist epistemology we advocate as the appropriate curricular goal. We sketch the student epistemology and discuss two attempts to induce changes in it through science education.
Carey et al. (Tue,) studied this question.