Black & white or shades of grey: teachers perspectives on the role of nature of science in compulsory school science teaching

Abstract: Traditional science teaching often has a focus on ready-made facts. Including nature of science (NOS) in science teaching has been discussed as a way to broaden the images of science. However, there is a gap between research on NOS teaching and practice. As teachers are important keys to what takes place in the classroom this study has focused on their perspectives and ways of making meaning of NOS as an element of science teaching. Six science teachers took part in a longitudinal study on NOS and NOS teaching that spanned three years. The data consists of questionnaires, interviews, classroom observations, and focus-group discussions. The main data source is the recorded and transcribed focus-group discussions from all three years (N=12). A qualitative content analysis was performed and teachers’ perspectives were interpreted through the theoretical frameworks of scientific literacy and science teaching traditions. The results show that teachers talked about NOS teaching as something new that differed from their traditional teaching of “facts and lab-work”. However, they often welcomed NOS teaching as a way to challenge stereotypical, black-and-white images of science, as well as a means to reach overarching goals of science education such as developing students’ abilities for critical thinking.