INFLUENCE OF A SOCIALLY-MEDIATED CONTEXTUAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ON PROSPECTIVE SCIENCE TEACHERS’ UNDERSTANDINGS OF NATURE OF SCIENCE, AND INTEGRATING IT INTO THEIR INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING

Abstract

This study, which was conducted in 2016-2017 academic year, scrutinized the impact of apurposefully designed professional development program titled ‘NOS-PD’ on theunderstandings of the Nature of Science (NOS) via instructional practices. Specifically, thepurpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to delineate the impact of a NOS programwith a socially-mediated contextual support on the prospective science teachers’understandings of NOS and integrating it into their instructional planning. In the studyprocess, 13 prospective science teachers took part in an intensive 9-week program conductedat 3 stages (5 weeks + 3 weeks + 1 week) based on a 6-week explicit-reflective NOSinstruction plus three weeks of participants’ developing lesson plans with the help of sociallymediated contextual support. Data sources included an open-ended NOS questionnaire andlesson plans. Results indicated that as a result of the NOS instruction, the vast majority of theparticipants improved their understandings of NOS in an appropriate way. The analysis of thelesson plans revealed three characteristics of participants’ instructional planning for teachingNOS after the NOS-PD program, a) NOS was not sufficiently interpreted except for threeNOS components, b) some improvements in terms of the instructional and evaluationstrategies were observed, but the knowledge of objectives did not show substantial change,and c) few participants exhibited a robust reported PCK by performing NOS integration at ahigh level.