A longitudinal study of preservice chemistry teacher's views about the nature of science

The aim of this study is to determine preservice chemistry teachers? views about the nature of science (NOS) in Gazi University and to test this views with literature. Additionally how this views change according to each class level was investigated in this study.This study was administered the total 131 preservice teachers (79 women, 52 men) Gazi University Faculty of Chemistry Education in education year of 2008?2009. ?Nature of Scientific Knowlenge Scale? (NSKS) questionnaire developed by Rubba and Anderson (1978) was applied to assess the preservice chemistry teachers? views on the NOS. According to result of this questionnaire the preservice teachers who take maximum and minimum point in each class were interviewed to investigate the teachers views on the nature of science in depth. This interview?s questions were adapted ?Views of The Nature of Science? questionnaire developed Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell and Schwartz (2002).The result of the questionnaire and the interview revealed that the preservice teachers in the first three classes held traditional views on the nature of science than in the last class preservice teachers? views.In the result of examining the transcripts of the preservice teacher it was found that the success points haven?t effect on the nature of science views and the course about the nature of science taken by students of the fifth class have effect on it.Keywords: Nature of science, scientific knowledge, preservice chemistry teachers