New Perspectives in Science Education

Despite the emphasis of NOS,studies show that students-teachers hold naïve views of NOS[2].Science teachers hold key role in improving students’ views of NOS.Therefore,teacher edu. programs,both in/pre-service help teachers improve NOS understandings.If effective,CPDs can have influence on students’ views of NOS long term.However,designing effective CPD is challenge.This study is about a large-scale teacher CPD project aimed at improving science teachers’ views of NOS.Purpose of the study is to assess the influence of project on students’ views of NOS.Data was collected with the VNOS-D instrument developed by Lederman&Khishfe.6 tenets of NOS,1)empirical,2)tentative,3)inference-observation,4)creativity-imagination,5)subjective,6)scientific models are chosen.The VNOS-D was administrated to 5^th,6^th,7^th graders 3 times as pre,middle,posttest.The data is classified as naïve,eclectic,informed,analyzed quantitatively.To make the coding,a rubric developed by Lederman & Holliday was used and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test is used to compare the results.In this study,10(4female,6male)science teachers’ and their 613 students’ data,the changes in their NOS views were analyzed.Totally 57 NOS activities were developed embedded in the subject units of the curriculum and were implemented.Therefore it’s assumed that more activities may have an impact on students’ NOS views.Wil.Test results showed the statistically significant changes of the students’ views at the end of the CPD;however, the differences were occurred in the NOS tenets among the grades.Because of space limitations,only limited amount of data is provided.For ex.5^th graders results revealed no significant differences between pre-midtest results except the subjectivity(p=0.020,p<0.05;z=-2.335)tenet,however when the pre-post test results are compared,the changed views of NOS tenets,including subjectivity(p=0.007,p<0.05;z=-2.712),empirical base(p=0.000,p<0.05;z=-3.703),tentativeness(p=0.000,p<0.05;z=-3.620),observation inference(p=0.000,p<0.05;z=5.519),scientific models(p=0.000,p<0.05;z=-3.717)found statistically significant at the end of the CPD while the change on creative-imaginative tenet wasnt found statistically significant(p=0.200, p>0.05; z=-1.282).The study consists of CPD,its impacts on students’ NOS views.With this combination,the results provided here showed that,CPDs might have the positive impact on students’ views of NOS.In contrast to the studies showed students’ views cannot be changed,this study supports the findings of the studies[17]that students’ views can change positively,but dependent on many factors.

Selected Ref.[2]Abd-El-Khalick&Lederman(2000).Improving Science Teachers' Conceptions of NOS:A Critical Review of the Literature. International Journal of Science Education,22,7,665,701[17]Yoon,K.S.,Duncan,T.,Lee,S,Scarloss,B.&Shapley,K.L.(2007).Reviewing the Evidence on How Teacher PD Affects Student Achievement.Issues&Answers.REL2007-No.033.Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest