Examining Junior High School Science Teachers’ Understanding of the Nature of Science in Chaiyaphum Province, Thailand

Abstract

This research aim to examine junior high school science teachers’ understanding of the nature of science (NOS). The participants include 116 junior high school science teachers in education extended schools from the Chaiyaphum Primary Educational Service Area Office 1 - 3, Thailand. Research instruments consisted of an open-ended questionnaire of NoS that was adapted from Lederman et al. (2002) VNOS-C, and an interview record form. Ten percent of the participants were randomly selected for an interview to probe deeper into their understanding. The data from the questionnaire and interviews were analysed base on an interpretive paradigm. The results revealed that about sixty three percentage (63.3%) of the junior high school science teachers held intermediate views of NoS in each of the surveyed aspects. There was about thirty three percentage (32.7%) that hold the naïve views in all surveyed aspects of NoS. However there was about seven percentage (6.6%) of the participants hold the informed views in only five aspects of NoS. These aspects were the empirical, tentative, observation & inferential, creative & imaginative, and social & cultural understandings. These results indicated that the teachers’ understanding of NoS inadequate to teach NoS to their students. Therefore, teachers’ understanding of NoS is neccesory.