Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Nature of Science Courses: Explicit, Implicit, or…?

Abstract

Most of preservice elementary teachers’ have misunderstood about aspects of nature of
science (NoS). In fact, teachers' understanding of NOS have an impact on learning in the
classroom teaching. Purposes of this research are: (1) to know their misunderstood of
NoS aspects; and (2) to make an alternative practice that improved their NoS. This
research used survey method design. Beliefs about nature of science questionnaire was
used as research instrument. The questionnaire currently being developed to break the
ground for future cross-sectional research on the nature of science. The questionnaire
taps from aspects of nature of science as knowledge, process, attitude, and social
dimension. The 56-item NoS questionnaire was administered to a sample of 223 (18%
male and 82% female) preservice elementary teachers. The validity of the instrument
(questionnaire) used a test construct validity with expert judgment reference and the
empirical validity. Data analysis used descriptive with percentage. The main findings
were as follows: (1) some aspects of NOS (hypothetico-deductive testing, durable,
tentative,) are more misunderstood than others (science as product of imagination and
creativity, natural phenomena, social and cultural embeddedness, scientific knowledge is
open to revision with the latest evidence, science affects human social life, and scientific
method). The misunderstood of NoS aspect can be reduced through explicit-reflective
learning, NoS Pedagogical Content Knowledges (PCK), and inquiry and natures of
science, technology, and engineering (INSTE) course