What is science?: preservice elementary teachers’ conceptions of the nature of science

Science for All Americans declares that an understanding of the nature of science is one criterion of scientific literacy. Unfortunately practising science teachers often misunderstand and misrepresent the nature of their disciplines. In this study we have attempted to construct an understanding of preservice elementary teachers' views by analysing their written responses to questions about the nature of science. We used analytic induction to derive categories and themes from the data and then formulated generalizations from these themes. Our findings reveal that out students have realist and positivist views of the scientific enterprise, and that they place little emphasis on the social or creative dimensions of the discipline. These preservice teachers will soon offer young children their first experiences with school science; their beliefs about the nature of science have implications for their science teaching and for their students' science learning.