Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Education

First Advisor

Jeffrey Radloff

Abstract

Students’ classroom experiences affect their views of science, placing importance on teachers’ instructional approaches. Current reform suggests that inquiry-based science instruction supports positive views of science. However, students and teachers have been shown to hold developing views of nature of science (VNOS), or understanding what science is and how it progresses. Compounding matters, every student has their own personal science experiences that shape their science understandings and attitudes. This project investigates the attitudes and VNOS among preservice elementary teachers (PSTs) enrolled in an integrated physics and chemistry content course (SCI142). Two course sections were surveyed throughout one semester (n = 77 students total) to track their views and attitudes and how those changed over time. Data was collected via open-ended surveys and analyzed using open coding. Results revealed a range of attitudes and VNOS, and that PSTs understood certain NOS aspects more than others. Findings supported previous VNOS research and provided concrete entry points to supporting elementary PSTs' NOS understandings via inquiry-based approaches.

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