Investigating science teachers' and high school students' views on the nature of science in Turkey

The aim of this study is to investigate the views of physics, chemistry,biology teachers and 10th class math-science students on nature of science (NOS) inTurkey. A total of 1994 students and 362 teachers (physics 125, chemistry 124 andbiology 123) chosen from high schools of foreign language, high schools ofscience, and high schools of Anatolia in 21 cities of seven geographical regionsparticipated in the study. In order to assess the views of participants on NOS, Viewson Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS) questionnaire developed by Aikenhead,Ryan and Fleming (1989) and composed of 9 categories and 114 multiple-choicequestions were utilized. A total of 25 chosen questions ( science-1 question, thecharacteristics of science person-3 questions, the social structure of scientificknowledge- 2 questions, the effects of science and technology on society- 3questions, the effects of society on science and technology-2 questions, thecharacteristics scientific knowledge-14 questions) were translated and adapted intoTurkish. Interviews with 9 teachers and 10 students were also conducted in order tounderstand the participants? views on NOS in depth.The results of this study revealed the misconceptions of teachers and studentson NOS. The results of this study also indicated that the participants held traditionalviews on the definition of the nature of scientific models, the relationships betweenhypotheses, theories, and laws, the scientific method, fundamental assumptions ofscience, epistemological status of scientific knowledge and relationships betweendisciplines while they have contemporary (realistic) views on the scientificobservations, the nature of classification schemes, the tentativeness of scientificknowledge, and cause and effect relationships. Analysis of interviews with teachersand students also supported these findings.It has been found out that the region in that the students have the mostcontemporary views on the NOS is the Marmara Region and the least contemporaryviews on the NOS is the Southeastern Region. As for the teachers, it is the AegeanRegion in that the teachers have the most contemporary views on the NOS but it isivthe Mediterranean Region in that the teachers have the least contemporary views onthe NOS.It has been found out that the female students of Mediterranean Region andthe male students of Marmara Region have the most contemporary views on theNOS. Besides, male and female students of Southeastern Region which comes thelast as for the social-economic development the have the least contemporary viewson the NOS.It hasn?t been found out a big difference between male and female teachers onthe views of NOS. In addition to that the effect of society and science on each other,according to the branches of teachers, differentiates regarding the questions ofhypotheses, theories and laws but for the other subjects statistically.According to the experience of science teachers, there were significantdifferences in their views on the effect of science on society, the characteristicsscience persons, the social structure of scientific knowledge, hypotheses, theories andlaws, coherence of concepts across disciplines but for the other subjects statistically.Keywords: Views on nature of science, science teachers, high schoolstudents, scientific knowledge, scientific method, misconceptions.