Pre-service Chemistry Teachers’ Understanding of the Nature of Chemistry

Abstract

Nature of chemistry (NOC) is the study of thinking processes and working of chemists in order to acquire knowledge in chemistry. Focusing on students to think like a chemist is considered as goal of learning chemistry in science curriculum including training pre-service chemistry teachers to teach chemistry in its nature. The purpose of this study was to survey and analyze pre-service chemistry teachers’ understanding of the NOC. The participants were 100 pre-service chemistry students in years 1-4. Data were gathered by using open-ended questionnaire with semi-structured interviews. It covered three aspects: chemical world view, chemical inquiry and chemical enterprise. The qualitative data were analyzed inductively to groups describing their understandings of NOC. The results indicated that a majority of pre-service chemistry teachers held inconsistent understanding of NOC, particularly in the aspect of chemical world view and chemical inquiry. The pre-service chemistry teachers did not understand the goal of creating model and chemical experiment. They thought that they were what chemists have created in theory or the content according to the textbook. The research findings suggested that chemistry teachers should provide activities of inquiry for chemical learning about what are some ways to create knowledge? and how does society play a role for chemists? in terms of benefits and social impacts from research of chemists combined with chemical content in the textbook.