Others question the implicit approach to NOS learning in the context of a research apprenticeship. Bell and colleagues (2003) systematically examined the implicit impact of participation in a research apprenticeship on participants’ conceptions of NOS. Using an open-ended questionnaire specifically addressing various NOS aspects both prior to and following secondary student participation in an 8-week long research apprenticeship, the researchers found that most participants’ NOS conceptions remained unchanged (Bell, Blair, Crawford, & Lederman, 2003). This is especially interesting considering that the mentors of the ten participants in this study believed that their students had gained more sophisticated NOS understandings as a result of their participation in the program. In this study, it was observed that one student showed gains in understandings of the creative aspect of NOS. The authors attribute this gain specifically to the epistemic demand placed on the student as she was forced to confront the role that theory played in her research in addition to the amount of reflection that she engaged in with her mentor. The program employed an implicit model of NOS instruction, but in the case of the single student who showed gains, the authors document ways in which she experienced a more personalized explicit approach.