The effect of socioscientific issues in nature of science instruction on preservice science teachers' nature of science conceptions

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of using socio-scientific issues (SSI) in teaching Nature of Science and History of Science course to 3rd grade pre-service science teachers on their views about the nature of science. Non-equivalent control group design which is among the quasi experimental designs was used in this study. The research was conducted in the spring semester of 2016-2017 academic year. 64 third grade pre-service science teachers from a university in Adana participated in the study. In the experimental group (n=34), Nature of Science and History of Science course was taught through explicit reflective approach in the context of SSI. In the control group (n=30), explicit reflective approach without using SSI was implemented to teach the course. Qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were used in the study. Quantitative data was collected using the Views on Science–Technology–Society (VOSTS) as a pretest and post test. Each opinion expression under 21 items in the VOSTS was coded as "Realistic"," Reasonable" and " Naive". The responses of the students in the experimental and control groups to the VOSTS items in the pre-test and post-test were presented as percentages, and these percentages were compared and interpreted for both groups. Qualitative data was collected by semi-structured interviews with a total of 17 students selected from both groups in order to examine their views on the nature of science deeply. Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire - Form C (VNOS-C) was used in the interviews. In the analysis of the qualitative data, the responses of the participants were placed into "naive", "eclectic" and "informed" categories in accordance with the nature of science aspects and related sub-categories. The findings of the experimental and control group were compared and given in tables. According to the results of VOSTS, in the experimental group, number of informed views was increased for the definition of science, the impact of society on science, ethics and the impact of society on scientists, the impact of science on society in the category of social responsibility of scientists compared to the control group. In addition, while the number of informed views in the experimental group for the effect of gender on the science process and product in the category of characteristics of scientists increased, there was a decrease in informed views in the control group. About the scientific decisions in the category of social structure of scientific knowledge, there was an increase in the informed views of the experimental group students more compared to the control group students. Considering hypotheses theories and laws, there is an increase in informed views in the experimental group after the application. These results are consistent with the semi-structured interview findings. Keywords:. The nature of science, socio-scientific issues