Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 15, Issue 2, Article 6 (Dec., 2014) Funda ÖRNEK Do pre-service science teachers have understanding of the nature of science?: Explicit-reflective approach Contents Next

Do pre-service science teachers have understanding of the nature of science?: Explicit-reflective approach

Funda ÖRNEK

Kocaeli, TURKEY

E-mail: fundaornek@gmail.com

 

Received 15 Jan., 2014
Revised 4 Sept., 2014

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Contents

• Abstract
• Introduction
  • Structure of the course
  • Purpose of study and research questions
• Methodology
  • Context of the study
  • The instructional approach-intervention
  • Workshop
  • Theoretical framework for the study: Phenomenography
  • Data collection
  • Data analysis
• Results
  • Pre-service science teachers’ views of the NOS
  • Discussions and implications
  • Acknowledgement
• References

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Abstract

Current approaches in Science Education attempt to enable students to develop an understanding of the nature of science, develop fundamental scientific concepts, and develop the ability to structure, analyze, reason, and communicate effectively. Students pose, solve, and interpret scientific problems, and eventually set goals and regulate their own learning by doing science and reasoning scientifically (NRC, 2000; Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1991). This study investigated pre-service science teachers’ views about the nature of science (NOS) and considered an explicit-reflective instructional practice to promote pre-service science teachers’ appropriate NOS views. Methodology for this study included: VNOS-C (Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, & Lederman, 1998; Lederman, Schwartz, Abd-El-Khalick, & Bell, 2001), Myths of Science survey (McComas, 1998), associated interviews that tracked the changes in the NOS views of pre-service science teachers at the end of the course, and video-records of the NOS workshop in the second semester. Pre-service science teachers were interviewed by using the VNOS-D (Lederman & Khisfe, 2002) to track changes in their NOS views at the end of the course. Based on the results from the analysis of the surveys, interviews, and video-recordings, pre-service science teachers made substantial increases in their views of the NOS aspects. Less considerable gains were evident in the case of the subjective, social and cultural aspects of the NOS. The results of this study support the impact of an explicit-reflective NOS instruction.

Keywords: explicit-reflective, nature of science, VNOS-C; VNOS-D, myths of science