Is consensus generalizable? A study of Chinese science teacher educators’ views of nature of science content to be taught

When putting Table 1 together with the NOS elements which were suggested by more than a half of the educators in this study as NOS content to be taught, we can find that all three lists include a good number of NOS elements that are relevant to scientific investigation. Two difference aspects can also be identified. First, there is a rather distinctive positivist trend in the five high frequency elements in this study, among which four are the empiricist and one is the realist. Such a positivist tendency is not easily identified in both studies included in Table 1. Second, none of high frequency elements in this study falls into in the social dimension of science, which is rather different from the agreed list of McComas and Olson’s (1998) study that have a rich of features of science in this dimension.

These two difference aspects may be related to two prominent ideological elements in Chinese society. The first is Marxism, which was originally developed in the middle of 19th century by two German philosophers, Karl Marx (1818 –1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1885), and now is still playing important roles in contemporary society. Its basic philosophical standpoints are materialist, realist and empiricist. In other words, it favors the positivist views of science. Marxism was introduced into China in 1917- 1920 when October Revolution broke in Russia. The victory of 1949 further made Marxism the dominating ideology of society and the guiding thought of China. Until now, it has been believed in and admired by millions throughout the country and has also become a formal component in the curriculum of Chinese school and university. Another prevailing ideological element in China is scientism. Scientism can be differentiated by into the weak and strong styles (Moreland, 1994). Weak scientism refers to a belief that science has a higher or even highest status in comparison with non-science fields in terms of its method, worldview, ethos, and etc. Strong scientism intends to apply scientific method, worldview, assumptions or ethos into non-science fields both within the academy (e.g., sociology, history, philosophy) and the broader society (e.g., art, morality, religion). Regardless of the specific difference between these two styles, both emphasize the objectivity of science, which is an important feature of positivist views of science. Scientism has a very long history in Chinese society. Its origin can be traced back to early 1910s, the early stage of introducing Western Science into China in (Kwok, 1965). Nowadays scientism is still very popular in China.

Given the prevalence of both Marxism and scientism in China, which are consistent with the positivist views of science, a good number of Chinese science teacher educators, under their influence, might tend to pay more attention to the positivist NOS elements in their NOS instruction. In fact, the positivist views of science illustrate a rather positive and objective picture of science. On the contrary, more subjective and negative aspects of science are revealed in the NOS elements in social dimension. Therefore, being affected by the popular Marxism and scientism in China, some educators may choose to lower down the status of NOS elements within social dimension.

With the process of globalization, NOS education is attracting more and more attention in Non-western countries and regions. Educators in these areas may start to consider or have been considering what NOS content should be taught in their own countries and regions. When thinking of such a question, it is helpful to refer to the consensus lists published in international literature. However, we should note that most of these lists are from Western countries, which have their unique ideological tradition. As reminded by the findings of the present study, although some aspects of the consensus on NOS content to be taught achieved in a specific country or region may be generalized into other countries and regions, due to the different ideologies in different areas some other aspects may not. Therefore, when referring to these lists, we may not be able to adopt them directly. We still need to make efforts to generate a consensus list in our own country or region, through which our requirements can be better met. When the list is achieved, we can further compare it and those international ones. The result of comparison and the analysis of the factors causing the difference as well as similarity will enrich our understanding of NOS education from a global perspective and improve our design of NOS instruction in the local background.