Nature of science representation in scenarios created by prospective science teachers on socio-scientific issues

Ümit Duruk

African Educational Research Journal
Published: October 23 2020
Volume 8, Special Issue 2
Pages S109-S120
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30918/AERJ.8S2.20.037

Abstract

This study aims to categorize the scenarios designed on socio-scientific issues (SSIs) by prospective teachers who participated in an SSI-based instructional practice and to analyze these scenarios in terms of representing the nature of science (NOS) components. Sample of the study comprised SSI scenarios written by 30 third-year prospective science teachers enrolled at a public university in spring semester of 2018-2019 academic year. These scenarios were created during SSI-based instruction when half of the participants were assigned to the environment group and the other half to the genetics group. A total of 30 SSI scenarios were analyzed through the document analysis method. In the analysis of SSI scenarios, two different analyses were employed. In the first analysis, whether objective/positive/negative information balance was ensured across scenarios was examined. In the second analysis, scenarios were analyzed in terms of NOS representation attempts, consistency of these attempts and NOS representation scores. The later analysis included the empirical, tentative, inferential, theory-laden, creative and socio-cultural NOS components. At the end of the analyses, it was found that participants had trouble in differentiating SSIs from scientific issues. SSIs on which participants prepared scenarios varied, scenarios created by participants in the environment group were prepared with negative information whereas scenarios in the genetics group were in a balanced manner; and of the scenarios created by the two groups, the component with the highest percentage of consistent attempts was the empirical NOS whilst the component with the lowest percentage of consistent attempts was theory-laden NOS. Based on these findings, it was deduced that the SSI scenarios were not generally written in a well-balanced manner in terms of information types and there was a general trend of compatibility between the NOS representation scores and percentages of consistent attempts of two groups. Based on the results, a number of recommendations were proposed.

Keywords: Science education, nature of science, nature of science representation, SSI-based instruction, prospective science teachers.

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