Chinese Science Teacher Educators’ views about the values of teaching nature of Science

Abstract

Teaching nature of science (NOS) is beginning to find its place in the science education in China. NOS has long been a prominent area of active research in science education in the West, where the science education practitioners’ perceptions of NOS education can, to some extent, be informed in the literature. However, little is known on how the teaching of NOS is perceived by practitioners in China, which has very different cultural heritage from the Western world. An exploratory study was conducted to investigate Chinese teacher educators’ conceptions of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers. Twenty-four educators took part in two semi-structured interviews. Five dimensions emerged on the conception of teaching NOS, including value of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers, NOS content to be taught to prospective science teachers, arrangement of NOS instruction in science teacher education courses, learning of NOS, and role of teacher in NOS teaching. This paper only focuses on reporting the value of teaching NOS. Considerable differences between the values of NOS held by Chinese science teacher educators and the corresponding views informed in the Western literature on NOS research. They were attributed to the rather different social, political and historical contexts.