An Investigation of Prospective Teachers’ Views about the Nature of Science in Terms of Gender, Age and Department Variables

The purpose of this study is to analyse prospective teachers’ views about the nature of science. The study has also revealed the students’ profiles in the sub-categories of the nature of science according to some variables (gender, age and department). The study is a descriptive survey research. Sample: It was conducted with 827 students who were enrolled in the formation program in the education faculties of two Public University in the 2014-2015 education year. The data were collected through the “Views about the Nature of Science” inventory which was developed by Mick, Nott and Jerry Wellington [26] and adopted into Turkish by Toz [33] as well as Personal Information Form. Results show that the participants demonstrated a positivist, realist, deductive, independent and contextual profile in terms of the sub-categories of the nature of science. The participants’ views about the nature of science were found to differ according gender, age, and the departments they graduated from. In conclusion, the present study revealed parallel results with those conducted before in that prospective teachers showed a decrease in their positivist views when they were newly graduated from the university and the positivist belief became more precise with the increase in age. It is suggested to further investigate the reasons why prospective teachers demonstrate such a profile. Higher level thinking skills in the education programs should involve science as a powerful thinking method and prospective teachers should be provided with such a skill which can help people to understand, explain and control the universe. Therefore, education programs should include the necessary evaluations and improvements; and those programs should have such courses as “science history”, “the nature of science” and “science philosophy”.