A study about the nature of science?s effect on the preservice science teachers? informal reasoning about global warming

The purpose of this study is to reveal how the preservice Science teachers conceptualize the nature of science in their informal reasoning, regarding the subject of global warming. In line with this purpose, the method of case study was selected among the qualitative study approaches in the research. The study was conducted in two phases. Firstly, 38 second-grade preservice Science teachers, who were receiving education at a state university, were determined and their conceptualizations regarding the nature of science were attained. Following the analyses, four preservice Science teachers were selected among 38 preservice Science teachers and the second phase started. In this phase, a research was performed to find out how the conceptualizations about nature of science of these four preservice Science teachers affect their informal reasoning processes. Descriptive analysis and content analysis were used for the data analyses.According to the findings, it was revealed that preservice Science teachers have difficulty with defining the scientific data about the global warming, which is a socioscientific issue, in their informal reasoning processes and that they qualify experiment and observation as the basic elements of science. Examining the effects of the element of ?tentativeness of the scientific knowledge? regarding the nature of science in informal reasoning processes of preservice Science teachers, the general opinion is that the scientific knowledge might change under the influence of various factors. On the other hand four preservice Science teachers?, who were participated in the study, conceptualizations about the social and cultural embeddedness of scientific knowledge we can claim that preservice teachers can not suggest a clear idea about this subject and they are in a result-based informal reasoning process.