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Tracing Preservice Teachers’ Understanding of Nature of Science Through Their Drawings and Writing

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Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine the way preservice science teachers depict and develop their understanding of nature of science (NOS), from the perspective of the family resemblance approach (FRA). FRA defines NOS as a Cognitive-Epistemic and Social-Institutional system. Appling the dual-analytic approach via reflective drawing analysis, we studied participants’ drawings and written explanations, before and after participating in a “methods of teaching” course. The findings indicated a significant increase in the number of preservice science teachers who associated NOS with scientific practices, methods and methodological rules, scientific knowledge, and scientists’ professional activities. The findings also indicated an increase in the number of categories identified within the Cognitive-Epistemic domain, and an increase in the number of new categories associated with the Social-Institutional domain. The FRA-related activities resulted in an improvement trajectory, indicating a transition from a stance based on a learner’s perspective of asking everyday questions toward a more epistemic, social, and institutional stance, depicting understanding of NOS from a scientist viewpoint.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

    Miri Barak & Tal Yachin

  2. Department of Education, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Miri Barak & Sibel Erduran

Authors
  1. Miri Barak
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  2. Tal Yachin
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  3. Sibel Erduran
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Miri Barak and Tal Yachin. Data analysis and manuscript writing were performed by Miri Barak, Tal Yachin, and Sibel Erduran. All three authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Miri Barak.

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Ethics Approval and Consent

The study is compliant with ethical standards. The participants were informed about the study, participation was voluntary, and their consent was obtained. The study was administered according to the university’s ethical guidelines and it received an IRB ethical clearance #2021–029.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Barak, M., Yachin, T. & Erduran, S. Tracing Preservice Teachers’ Understanding of Nature of Science Through Their Drawings and Writing. Res Sci Educ 53, 507–523 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-022-10069-3

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