Teachers’ Beliefs on Science-Technology-Society (STS) and Nature of Science (NOS): Strengths, Weaknesses, and Teaching Practice

This study assesses teachers’ understanding of the science-technology-society (STS) and nature of science (NOS) issues in a large sample of secondary and high-school science teachers, encompassing preservice and in-service teachers. The teachers anonymously answered 15 pencil-and-paper items, whose responses were scaled through a new procedure into a set of invariant homogeneous indices. The overall results show globally neutral index scores, and the detailed examination of indices allowed the strengths and weaknesses of teachers’ beliefs to be identified. Unlike other studies, the picture emerging from the data about teachers’ understanding is more complex than the roughly negative profile usually emphasized in the literature, since appropriate beliefs coexist with some inappropriate beliefs. The comparison between preservice and in-service science teachers shows they do not significantly differ; thus, teaching experience is not decisive for the improvement of teachers’ understanding. The implications of the methodology and results for research, teacher training, and teaching of the nature of science and technology issues are discussed. The overall evaluation is essentially negative, because science teachers should exhibit better understanding of these issues since they directly affect their teaching practice. The results highlight the urgent need to bring science teachers up to date through training on the development of teaching STS-NOS topics in science curricula, as a means to improve the overall science teaching.