Chinese Journal of Science Education


Vol. 13 No. 2 , Pages 169 - 190 , 2005

Science Teacher Understanding of the Nature of Science and His Teaching Practice: A Case Study of An Elementary School Teacher (Article written in Chinese)

Shwu-Fei CHENG, Sang-Chong LIEU, & Hsiao-Lin TUAN

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between a case teacher’s understanding of the nature of science (NOS) and his teaching practices. In order to collect data thoroughly, a questionnaire (Test on Understanding Science, TOUS) was used at the beginning of a semester to probe the status of the case teacher’s understanding about the nature of science; semistructured interviews followed after collecting the questionnaire results. In addition, classroom observations, interviews, videotaping, audio-taping and the collection of related documents such as handouts, lab sheets, and students’ test results took place. The results of this study indicate that the case teacher, with appropriate understanding of NOS, did not bring his understanding of NOS into his classroom teaching. Factors influencing the teacher to not include NOS in his teaching included: NOS teaching is not the goal for the teacher’s teaching, the teacher did not have confidence in applying NOS in his teaching, NOS is not embedded in textbooks, no sources such as valid teaching strategies were available for supporting NOS teaching. Given these constraints it is not surprising that the case teacher chose to skip or ignore teaching his students understanding about the nature of science. Recommendations for teacher education, textbook companies and future research directions are discussed in the paper.

Keywords: science teaching; nature of science; case study; elementary teacher

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