Mass assessment of large samples' nature of science views has been one of the core concerns in science education research. Due to impracticality of using open-ended questionnaires or conducting interviews with large groups, another line of research has been required for mass assessment of pupils' nature of science conception meaningfully. Considering these issues, Chen et al. (2013) developed the questionnaire titled Students' Ideas about Nature of Science (SINOS) to evaluate young students' NoS views. This study targeted to translate and adapt SINOS into Turkish with the aim of measuring Turkish middle-school students' nature of science (NoS) views. Analysis results presented confirmation for the reliability and validity of Turkish version of the questionnaire with seven-factor structure as similar to the original questionnaire. The study concluded with recommendations for use of SINOS in Turkish context in order to improve NoS perspectives in national science curriculum.

Nature of science (NOS), as an aspect of informed decision making about science related issues in daily life, is frequently emphasised when reform and the curriculum are in question. When reflecting on studies done on the subject, it comes apparent that the majority of them comprise of determination or assessment studies conducted with traditional groups. In order to gain further understanding, there should be more comprehensive research approaches with non-traditional groups such as academically advanced students. The aim of this study is to determine epistemological understanding of academically advanced science students concerning aspects of the NOS. The study was a case study conducted with qualitative perspective. A questionnaire on the students’ attitude toward science and motivation toward science learning plus a form for the teacher’s ideas and VNOS-C, were used as instruments. The study revealed that the majority of the students were found to be naïve in aspects such as “observation and inference”, “social and cultural embeddedness” and “theories and laws” whereas the majority of them were expert in aspects of “tentativeness” and “subjectivity”.

Teaching the Nature of Science (NOS) seems to be neglected despite the many developments in the teaching science. This is becoming especially important in the light of recent developments in pedagogy, as for example, more teachers adopt constructivist methodologies and computing technology which enables similarities that may blur the lines between models and reality. Consequently, identifying effective means for teaching the nature of science (NOS) has become a central focus for science education in the recent years. Accordingly, pre-service science teaching methods courses should promote NOS understanding. It is given that if science teachers are to present effective NOS instruction, they must have informed understandings of the NOS themselves and pedagogical content knowledge about effective NOS instruction. In this investigation,

View of Nature of Science is one of crucial scientific learning goals in several countries. As in the literature, the understanding of Nature of Science can lead students to be a scientific literate persons which allow them to understand science sufficiently for making a decision in daily life. The aim of this study is to investigate student's view of Nature of Science. Thirty students participated in this preliminary study. The View of Nature of Science Two-tier Questionnaire was adapted from the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire (VNOS-C) and was applied in this study. There are two parts in this questionnaire including rating scale and open-ended questions. The non-structured interview protocol was also used with fifteen students in order to triangulate students' view. Students’ responses were categorized into 3 groups including informed, adequate and inadequate view. The study shown that there are 16.67% informed , 20.00% adequate and 63.33% inadequate. In addition, they had misconception in many aspects of NOS. The findings in this study lead to the development of learning unit concerning Nature of Science in science classroom in the second phase of this study. In conclusion, Teachers should concern about students’ NOS understanding supporting. They should study on students’ prior view of nature of science and learning unit should be designed based on students' prior view of nature of science.

Nature of science is defined as one of the directions of scientific literacy. The main aim of this study was to investigate both secondary school social and science branch post-graduate (non-thesis master) teacher candidates attitudes about the Nature of Science (NOS) and compare their attitudes towards NOS. A 12-item Likert type scale for teacher candidates was used, based on responses of 207 participants. The results indicated that teachers had low positive attitudes towards NOS, but found some significant understanding differences against scaled items between social and science teacher candidates. There was no relationship between the attitudes to the NOS, and the scientific disciplines.