Preservice science teachers’ views about scientific inquiry: The case of Turkey and Taiwan

Abstract

In recent years, the importance of examining the opinions of preservice science teachers who will educate future science literate individuals towards scientific research has been frequently mentioned. In this research, in order to contribute to the field, 88 preservice science teachers in Turkey and 80 preservice science teachers in Taiwan participated in the study. The data was collected via Views about Scientific Inquiry-VASI Questionnaires. Also, semi-structured interviews with volunteered preservice science teachers. Results showed that there is a significant difference on behalf of preservice science teachers in Taiwan in terms of “the way that the scientific inquiries are done”, “the place of experiment and observation in scientific inquiries” as for the first dimension, and “there is no single set or sequence of steps followed in all inquiries” as for the second dimension. Besides, the preservice science teachers from both countries stated their views in “scientific” level on the dimension of “The result of an inquiry should be in accordance with the collected data”. Moreover, it was revealed that preservice science teachers in Turkey have difficulty in defining that scientific research always starts with a question; and preservice science teachers in Taiwan have difficulty in defining the scientific data and scientific evidence. Considering all the findings, preservice science teachers’ views of scientific inquiry in Taiwan are better than them in Turkey. © 2020, Abdullah Kuzu. All rights reserved.