A Popperian Perspective on Science Education

Abstract

Despite the rigorous debate around the purposes of higher education and the associated concept of graduate attributes, science education at the tertiary level has remained largely impervious to engaging with these ideas. This is may be due to the emphasis on the knowledge base of the hard science as opposed to the emphasis on the knower in the humanities. However, many science graduates leave tertiary institutions with a fairly simplistic epistemology despite the rhetoric of the importance of problem solving and conceptual understanding. Arguments stemming from an emphasis on the being of the student are easily dismissed by scientists as being irrelevant or substantially less important than the content knowledge of their subjects. In exploring the philosophy of Karl Popper an argument can be made for the importance of personal development on the basis of Popper’s understanding of critique.