Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
The National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), California, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, 17 - 21 Nisan 2009, ss.221
The purposes of this study were to explain the development and validation of a new instrument for assessing elementary students’ views
of the Nature of Science (NOS) and to give detailed information about the elementary school students NOS views with respect to grade
level. The sample included 4044 students enrolled in sixth, seventh and eighth grade elementary schools located in Ankara, Turkey.Data
collection was carried out during the spring 2008. Confirmatory factor analysis was run to determine the factors of the NOS scale. Descriptive statistics and one way ANOVA were used to determine students’ understanding of NOS in terms of grade level. The final version of NOSI included 20 items. These items were loaded in four factors namely, the distinction between observation and inference(OI),
the role of imagination and creativity in generating scientific knowledge(IC), the tentative nature of scientific knowledge(TE), and the
empirical nature of scientific knowledge(EM). Cronbach’s alpha reliability of this version was calculated as .63. Results indicated that
elementary students had favorable understanding of the EM while being uncertain about understanding of TE and IC. Moreover, low
means of OI indicated that elementary students didn’t differentiate observations from inferences. Grade Level had significant main effect
on students’ understanding of NOS aspects.