Future High School Teachers’ Conceptions of the Nature of Science for the Elaboration of Training Criteria in this Field

Abstract

This paper studies the views about the nature of science (NOS) sustained by science graduates who carry out the master in secondary education at the University of Cádiz, in the fields of physics and chemistry and biology and geology. The open-ended questionnaire that was used to collect information included questions referring to both epistemic aspects and aspects related to the sociology of science. This study belongs to the diagnostic phase for the design and implementation of a teaching-learning sequence research on NOS. The results, coincident with those of other studies, show that teachers in training have uninformed views about the epistemic aspects of NOS and more varied and complex views about its sociological aspects. Significant differences were not found according to gender, although significant differences were obtained in certain aspects according to the special fields carried out by the students (physics and chemistry vs. biology and geology).