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Asia-Pacific Forum
on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 10, Issue 1, Article 4
(June, 2009) |
Science teachers’ conceptions of the NOS potentially influence their actions in classrooms. Therefore, preparing pre-service science teachers to acquire an adequate understanding of the NOS should be a basic requirement for teacher preparation programmes. However, the reality is that some pre-service science teachers arrive with largely unexamined conceptions of the NOS, and, too often, they leave the teacher education programmes without these conceptions being challenged (O'Brien & Korth, 1991). The MOSQ employed in this study may be useful for science teacher preparation programs in exploring pre-service science teachers’ conceptions of the NOS at the beginning and the end of individual courses, or even the program as a whole. It is able to provide both quantitative and qualitative data of conceptions of the NOS.
If one accepts the importance of understanding the NOS, then pre-service science teacher education programs are obligated to develop new science teachers who understand a contemporary view of the NOS and its application to teaching (Palmquist & Finley, 1997, p. 596). The NOS should not be anticipated as a side effect or secondary product of hands-on inquiry (Akindehin, 1988); rather, it should be explicitly mentioned and included in science teacher education programmes. Based on empirical evidence (Akindehin, 1988; Billeh & Hassan, 1975; Carey & Strauss, 1968; King, 1991; Ogunniyi, 1982), explicit instruction on the NOS in science teacher education programmes has the potential to improve pre-service science teachers’ conceptions of the NOS. However, explicitly teaching the NOS outside a science context has only a limited effect on changing and improving understanding of the NOS. Therefore, NOS-associated activities and discussions should not be an “add-on”, but should be tightly linked to science content (Driver et al., 1996).
Science teachers’ views about how student learn science potentially influence their views of science. Another aspect that should be included in science teacher education programmes is constructivist epistemology. Growing awareness of and commitment to constructivism among prospective science teachers have the potential to improve their conceptions of the NOS (Pomeroy, 1993), in particular as related to the tentativeness of science and theory-laden observation. The other implication is to study the relationship between pre-service science teachers’ conceptions of the NOS and their classroom practices. Although this question is still unclear in the literature, it is worth studying, especially in the Thai context. However, there are, of course, limitations to this study. The assertions made cannot be generalised from this small sample, which was not randomly selected to represent all pre-service science teachers in Thailand.
