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Is HPS a valuable component of a STEM education? An empirical study of student interest in HPS courses within an undergraduate science curriculum

Lusk, Greg

Is HPS a valuable component of a STEM education? An empirical study of student interest in HPS courses within an undergraduate science curriculum Thumbnail


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Abstract

This paper presents the results of a survey of students majoring in STEM fields whose education contained a significant history, philosophy and sociology (HPS) of science component. The survey was administered to students in a North American public 4-year university just prior to completing their HPS sequence. The survey assessed students’ attitudes towards HPS to gauge how those attitudes changed over the course of their college careers, and to identify the benefits and obstacles to studying HPS as a component of their STEM education. The survey reveals that students generally found unexpected value in taking HPS within their STEM curriculum. It also reveals that framing HPS courses as a means of gaining communication skills necessary to be an influential scientist seems to resonate with students. However, students also identified several factors limiting engagement with HPS content, including the length and density of required readings and assessment via essays and papers.

Citation

Lusk, G. (2022). Is HPS a valuable component of a STEM education? An empirical study of student interest in HPS courses within an undergraduate science curriculum. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 12(1), Article 19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-021-00433-x

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 25, 2021
Online Publication Date Feb 26, 2022
Publication Date 2022
Deposit Date May 5, 2022
Publicly Available Date May 6, 2022
Journal European Journal for Philosophy of Science
Print ISSN 1879-4912
Electronic ISSN 1879-4920
Publisher Springer
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 12
Issue 1
Article Number 19
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-021-00433-x

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.





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