Teachers' and Students' Understanding of the Nature of Science

중 . 고등학교 과학교사와 학생들의 과학의 본성에 대한 인식 조사

In the last few years, there has been a significant growth of interest in how the philosophy of science can be related to science education. Adequate understanding of the philosophy and history of science can promote understanding of the nature of science in teacher and student. The 6th curriculum in Korea has also placed emphasis upon understanding of the nature of science. From this point of view, to ensure effective school science education it is necessary to investigate how teachers and students are understanding the nature of science. To do this 45 secondary science teachers and 191 students of 7 schools in Seoul are administered Nott and Wellington's questionaire(1993). This questionaire is consisted of 24 Likert Scale statements and asks questions on 5 subscales of philosophy of science :Relativism-Positivism, Inductivism-Deductivism, Contextualism-Decontextualism, Instrumentalism-Realism, Thinking science education as a Process or a Content. The results of this study are as follows : 1. Teachers' view of the nature of science was relativism, deductivism, decontextualism and instrumentalism. And they thought process is more important than content in science education. 2. There was no difference in teachers' conceptions on the nature of science according to experience and gender. 3. Students' view of the nature of science was relativism, deductivism, decontextualism and instrumentalism. And they thought process is more important than content in science education. 4. There was no difference in students' conceptions on the nature of science according to schools level(middle vs high) and gender. But, female students exhibited higher score than male students on deductivism(p<.05). 5. Teachers' and students' conception of the nature of science was in agreement with each other.