Educational Background, Teaching Experience and Teachers’ Views on the Inclusion of Nature of Science in the Science Curriculum.

The aim of this research is to ascertain teachers’ opinions on what elements of nature of science (NOS) and science–technology–society relationships (STS) should be taught in school science. To this end an adapted version of the questionnaire developed by Osborne et al. is used. Our results show that experts consulted by Osborne et al. and Spanish teachers confer similar importance on the provisional, experimental, and predictive nature of scientific knowledge based on some of the procedures used such as the drawing up of hypotheses and the analysis and interpretation of data. We also look into the relationship between the teachers’ views and their educational background. 1 Results suggest that philosophy teachers are more concerned with the inclusion of NOS and STS topics in science curricula than science teachers, although further studies will be necessary. Some suggestions concerning the university training of science teachers are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]