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"Observation (Scientific method)"
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Observe it!
\"We all learn about the world around us by making observations. Scientists are no exception! This intriguing title explains how scientists observe using their senses and tools. Readers will apply what they learn by making observations, comparing, sorting, and classifying.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Machine Learning for Science: State of the Art and Future Prospects
Recent advances in machine learning methods, along with successful applications across a wide variety of fields such as planetary science and bioinformatics, promise powerful new tools for practicing scientists. This viewpoint highlights some useful characteristics of modern machine learning methods and their relevance to scientific applications. We conclude with some speculations on near-term progress and promising directions.
Journal Article
Reproducibility
\"A comprehensive, insightful treatment of the reproducibility challenges facing science today and of ways in which the scientific community can address them.\" - Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania \"How can we make sure that reproducible research remains a key imperative of scientific communication under increasing commercialization, media attention, and publication pressure? This handbook offers the first interdisciplinary and fundamental treatment of this important question.\" - Torsten Hothorn, Professor of Biostatistics, University of Zurich Featuring peer-reviewed contributions from noted experts in their fields of research, Reproducibility: Principles, Problems, Practices, and Prospects presents state-of-the-art approaches to reproducibility, the gold standard of sound science, from multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. Including comprehensive coverage for implementing and reflecting the norm of reproducibility in various pertinent fields of research, the book focuses on how the reproducibility of results is applied, how it may be limited, and how such limitations can be understood or even controlled in the natural sciences, computational sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and studies of science and technology. The book presents many chapters devoted to a variety of methods and techniques, as well as their epistemic and ontological underpinnings, which have been developed to safeguard reproducible research and curtail deficits and failures. The book also investigates the political, historical, and social practices that underlie reproducible research in contemporary science studies, including the difficulties of good scientific practice and the ethos of reproducibility in modern innovation societies. Reproducibility: Principles, Problems, Practices, and Prospects is a guide for researchers who are interested in the general and overarching questions behind the concept of reproducibility; for active scientists who are confronted with practical reproducibility problems in their everyday work; and for economic stakeholders and political decision makers who need to better understand the challenges of reproducibility. In addition, the book is a useful in-depth primer for undergraduate and graduate-level courses in scientific methodology and basic issues in the philosophy and sociology of science from a modern perspective.
eBook
Observation and experiment : an introduction to causal inference
We hear that a glass of red wine prolongs life, that alcohol is a carcinogen, that pregnant women should drink not a drop of alcohol. Major medical journals first claimed that hormone replacement therapy reduces the risk of heart disease, then reversed themselves and said it increases the risk of heart disease. What are the effects caused by consuming alcohol or by receiving hormone replacement therapy? These are causal questions, questions about the effects caused by treatments, policies or preventable exposures. Some causal questions can be studied in randomized trials, in which a coin is flipped to decide the treatment for the next experimental subject. Because randomized trials are not always practical, nor always ethical, many causal questions are investigated in non-randomized observational studies. The reversal of opinion about hormone replacement therapy occurred when a randomized clinical trial contradicted a series of earlier observational studies. Using minimal mathematics - high school algebra and coin flips -- and numerous examples, Observation and Experiment explains the key concepts and methods of causal inference. Examples of randomized experiments and observational studies are drawn from clinical medicine, economics, public health and epidemiology, clinical psychology and psychiatry.-- Provided by publisher
Book
The Inventory of Personality Organization-Reality Testing Subscale and Belief in Science Scale: Confirmatory factor and Rasch analysis of thinking style measures
The Inventory of Personality Organization-Reality Testing Subscale (IPO-RT) and Belief in Science Scale (BIS) represent indirect, proxy measures of intuitive-experiential and analytical-rational thinking. However, a limited appraisal of factorial structure exists, and assessment of person-item functioning has not occurred. This study assessed the IPO-RT and BIS using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch analysis with a sample of 1030 participants (465 males, 565 females). Correlation analysis revealed a negative, moderate relationship between the measures. CFA supported a bifactorial model of the IPO-RT with four bifactors (Auditory and Visual Hallucinations, Delusional Thinking, Social Deficits, and Confusion). A one-factor model best fitted the BIS. Satisfactory item/person reliability and unidimensionality was observed for both measures using Rasch analysis, and items generally exhibited gender invariance. However, IPO-RT items were challenging, whereas BIS items were relatively easy to endorse. Overall, results indicated that the IPO-RT and BIS are conceptually sound, indirect indices of intuitive-experiential and analytical-rational thinking. Acknowledging the breadth of these thinking styles, a useful future research focus includes evaluating the performance of IPO-RT and BIS alongside objective tests.
Journal Article
Predict it!
\"Scientists look for patterns to help them make predictions. This motivating title explores different patterns in the natural world, such as day and night and the changing seasons. Using their new knowledge, readers will act like scientists by identifying weather patterns and making predictions.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Representations of Nature of Science in Science Textbooks
This systematic review summarized 42 selected empirical studies on the representations of nature of science (NOS) in science textbooks guided by three theoretical frameworks, which are the four-theme scientific literacy (SL), the consensus view on nature of science (CV), and the family resemblance approach to the nature of science (FRA). This review aimed to identify research trends, research foci, and research results of the reviewed studies under each framework. Concerning research trends, the most prevalent and widely used framework was CV framework, followed by SL, and the least was FRA. Moreover, it took an increasing trend in the application of CV and FRA framework while there was a decreasing tendency for the application of SL framework. With regard to research foci, articles that utilized the SL framework exclusively concentrated on “the balance of four scientific literacy themes.” Articles that applied the CV framework identified four research foci: “the quality of and approach to addressing NOS aspects,” “the quantity and distribution of addressing NOS aspects,” “the factors that influenced NOS representations,” and “the content relation of NOS aspects.” Studies that applied the FRA framework included three foci: “the quantity and distribution of addressing NOS aspects,” “the quality of and approach to addressing NOS aspects,” and “the category differentiation of FRA.” In respect of research results, NOS was poorly represented in science textbooks, irrespective of the NOS framework utilized, country, discipline, and educational level. Some recommendations concerning future research and practice in this field are provided.
Journal Article
Research on the Nature of Science in China’s Current High School Physics Textbooks
In this study, high school physics textbooks published by People’s Education Press (PEP) and Educational Science Publishing House (ESP) (a total of 6 books) in China were analyzed via a self-developed scale measuring nature of science (NOS) including three first-level indicators of scientific knowledge, scientific process, and scientific enterprise and 12 secondary indicators, and the content level, presenting position, and representation form are adopted to analyze the NOS of textbooks. First of all, the contents of the three first-level indicators are more presented in the main text, generally expressed in the form of conceptual laws and text examples. There are obvious differences between PEP and ESP textbooks in the three dimensions of scientific knowledge, scientific process, and scientific enterprise. Secondly, there are many contents of observation and inference, theories and laws, and scientific culture in the two editions of textbooks, while there are very few contents of scientific ethics. There are obvious differences between the two editions in terms of empirical basis, diversity of scientific methods, scientific spirit, and theories and laws. Third, results of longitudinal comparison showed that the growth of grades, the relevance of NOS in PEP with a gradual downward trend, while the ESP with an “inverted U” curve. The results of horizontal comparison showed that NOS in PEP of grade 10 is better than the ESP, while it is the opposite in grade 12. The content of NOS in the two editions of grade 11 textbooks is equivalent. At the same time, there are differences in the content level, presenting position and representation form between the two editions in different grades.
Journal Article