Pakistani grade ten students\u27 conceptions of nature of science

In Pakistan, science students memorize scientific facts and laws without going into the depth of how these were developed. They consider science as a body of knowledge characterized by facts, concepts, laws and theories that are absolute and cannot be changed. The lack of understanding of scientific enterprise is rooted in the education and learning process. An understanding of current view of nature of science (NOS) is considered to be an important element of school science for developing student conceptions. So far, very limited research has been done in NOS and this has been a neglected area in our country (Halai, 2004). This study aims to assess grade ten Pakistani students\u27 conceptions of NOS and whether these conceptions were related to selected variables. These variables include participants\u27 gender, system of schools, students\u27 household income, parents\u27 educational level and students\u27 overall grades in grade nine. A questionnaire comprising 14 modified Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS) items was adapted for this study to assess students\u27 views on certain aspects of NOS. After establishing its validity in the Pakistani context through a pilot study, participants\u27 were administered the questionnaire. A multi-stage clustered sampling approach was used to recruit a representative sample (n=508) of science students of grade ten from government (n=11) and private (n=7) schools in three towns of Karachi. Participants\u27 responses were categorized as naive, have merit or informed conceptions. The result showed that majority of participant students\u27 held naive views of a majority (nine out of fourteen items, 64%) of the target aspects of NOS. Furthermore, the student views of some NOS aspects were significantly related to the target variables. These included students\u27 gender, their parents\u27 education, students\u27 household income, and students\u27 overall grade in grade nine. Results of this study would provide important information about an under researched area - students\u27 conceptions of NOS. The adapted 14-item VOSTS questionnaire would make a valuable contribution in indigenous literature. Those who want to take the same line of inquiry can use this tool to conduct large scale studies