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

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.

Automated summary

The study examines the understanding and development of nature of science (NOS) among preservice science teachers from the perspective of the family resemblance approach (FRA). Through reflective drawing analysis, the researchers analyzed participants' drawings and written explanations before and after a methods of teaching course. The results showed an increase in the number of preservice science teachers associating NOS with scientific practices, methods and rules, scientific knowledge, and scientists' professional activities. There was also an increase in the categories identified within the Cognitive-Epistemic domain and new categories associated with the Social-Institutional domain. Overall, the FRA-related activities led to an improvement in participants' understanding of NOS from a scientist viewpoint.