The Nature of Science: Case Study of University of Tehran Undergraduate Students’ Attitude

Achieving a scientific literacy is the purpose of teaching the science curriculum in educational systems in the world. One of the most important and the most essential components that increases scientific literacy in students, is teaching about the nature of science. Purpose of this study is to investigate the attitude of undergraduate students at University of Tehran toward the nature of science as a component of scientific literacy. The research is descriptive and was conducted in survey study method. The population of this research includes all undergraduate students in faculties of psychology and educational sciences, and basic sciences. From this population, a sample size of 779 persons in stratified sampling method and considering the proportions (gender and faculty) was selected. In order to collect the attitudes of students about the nature of science, a questionnaire was designed based on the theoretical foundations of the project 2061 and its reliability and validity were examined and approved. One-sample t-test results indicate that the average of understanding the nature of science and its dimensions in students have significant differences with the average scores. Also the MANOVA test shows that there are significant differences between factor levels of faculties (faculty of psychology and educational sciences and faculty of basic sciences) about “nature of science” variable. Results showed that students have poor understanding about the nature of science and its dimensions. Based on the analysis of the results of conducted researches, the reasons can be traced in these factors: paying no attention to the components of nature of science in the development and design of science curriculum, low teachers’ knowledge and understanding about nature of science, lack of the development of science and technology in society and lack of the economical, political and cultural support structures for science and its values. The results also showed that students of basic science have more understanding about nature of science than students of psychology and educational sciences. The reason for that can be found in the nature of academic disciplines in two faculties and the amount of addressing the subject matters about science and nature of science in their curriculum.