Review of relationships between the educational beliefs of the primary and secondary school teachers' and their critical thinking disposition and their beliefs of the nature of science

In modern society it has become crucial to raise critical and scientific thinkers. Understanding the educational philosophies of the teachers to educate these individuals and how they grasp the critical thinking and the nature of science is one of the most important steps to be taken. In this context, the objective of this study is to examine the relationship between the primary and secondary school teachers' educational beliefs and their critical thinking disposition and their beliefs of the nature of science. The present research was created in the relational survey model in a quantitative research design with 411 primary and secondary school teachers working in the districts of Nilüfer, Osmangazi and Yıldırım in the center of Bursa. Data collection tools such as "The Educational Beliefs Scale", "The Critical Thinking Disposition Scale", "The Nature of Science Beliefs Scale" were used. In addition, a personal information form was used to obtain information about the participants. As for the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U, Kruskall Wallis H, Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression tests were used. As the results indicated, the philosophy which was most adopted by the primary and secondary school teachers in their educational beliefs was existentialism while the least was essentialism. In the critical thinking dispositions scale and in it's sub-dimensions the level of the primary and secondary school teachers was good. In the nature of science beliefs scale and in it's sub-dimensions the level of the primary and secondary school teachers was above the average. The highest score was obtained from the creativity and imagination sub-dimensions, while the lowest score was obtained from the sociocultural effect dimension. Within the scope of the research, variables that make a significant difference in educational beliefs sub-dimensions, critical thinking dispositions and nature of science beliefs were determined. While a negative low-level relationship was found between the primary and secondary school teachers' essentialism sub-dimension of the educational beliefs scale and their critical thinking disposition, positive low-level relationships were found in other educational beliefs dimensions. While a low negative correlation was found between the primary and secondary school teachers' perennialism sub-dimension of educational beliefs and nature of science beliefs and some sub-dimensions, both positive and negative low-level relationships were found in other sub-dimensions. It was concluded that educational beliefs significantly predicted critical thinking dispositions and nature of science beliefs. While progressivism, existentialism and essentialism are important predictors of critical thinking disposition; progressivism and perennialism are important predictors of the nature of science beliefs. Within the scope of the research, it has been suggested that new studies with larger groups and different scales should be conducted. Key words: Beliefs of the nature of science, critical thinking, philosophy of education, primary education