Teaching Nature of Science to Preservice Science Teachers: A Phenomenographic Study of Chinese Teacher Educators’ Conceptions

Drawing from the phenomenographic perspective, this study investigated Chinese science teacher educators’ conceptions of teaching nature of science (NOS) to preservice science teachers through two semi-structured interviews. The subjects were twenty-four science teacher educators in the developed regions in China. Five key dimensions emerged from the data on the conceptions of teaching NOS, including value of teaching NOS, NOS content to be taught, incorporation of NOS instruction in courses, learning of NOS, and role of the teacher. While some of these dimensions share much similarity with those reported in the studies of conceptions of teaching in general, some are distinctively different, which is embedded in some unique features of teaching NOS to preservice science teachers. These key dimensions can constitute the valuable components of the module or course to train science teachers or teacher educators to teach NOS, provide a framework to interpret the practice of teaching NOS, as well as lay a foundation for probing the conceptions of teaching NOS of other groups of subjects (e.g., school teachers’ conceptions of teaching NOS) or in other contexts (e.g., teaching NOS to in-service teacher).