A Case Study of Iranian Physics Education Students’ Understanding of the Nature of Science

This paper studied Iranian Physics education students’ understanding of the nature of science. The research is descriptive and was conducted through a survey study method. The sample of our study consisted of 94 students of Physics education in the second and third year of university. They were selected through random sampling from four classes at Isfahan University and Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University in Iran. For this purpose, 24 statements of the SUSSI questionnaire (Student Understanding of Science and Scientific Inquiry) were translated into Farsi. The statements were randomly arranged to form a new questionnaire. The validity of the new questionnaire was examined and approved and the Cronbach's alpha of the questionnaire was calculated as 0.738. In the data analysis phase, the mean score of each statement was calculated using the frequency and the numerical value of each response. The score of each component of the nature of science was determined by averaging the scores of the statements related to that component. The average score of each component expresses the formal or naïve or transitional view regarding that component. According to the results, while our subjects’ attitude to observation and deduction conformed to international standards of science education, they had some misunderstandings regarding the other components of scientific inquiry. As physics education students will become teachers and contribute to the future generation's view of science, it would be better to incorporate more educational activities into teacher education programs with the aim of improving the trainees’ conception of science.