Pre-Service Teachers Nature of Science Views After Engaging with COVID-19 as a Socioscientific Issue

Abstract

This study investigates undergraduate pre-service understanding and views of nature of science (NOS) before and after engaging with a socioscientific issues-based unit based on a the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 unit consisted of lessons about viruses and bacteria, COVID-19, the spread of disease, and NOS. The data sources consisted of pre- and post-semi-structured interviews and pre- and post-questionnaires. After the unit in post-interviews, most students held transitional views of each NOS aspect (tentativeness, process, society, creativity). However, some students had informed views of tentativeness and process of science and naïve views of society and creativity in science. Pre-service teachers tended to rely on examples from the COVID-19 pandemic when explaining their NOS understandings, which resulted from teaching about NOS with socioscientific issues in a contextualized approach. We discuss the implications of these results for future pre-service teacher training with socioscientific issues.