High School Students’ and Parents’ Perceptions of the Nature of Science

Today, only people, who truly understand what scientific knowledge is and how it is obtained, are considered scientifically literate. This understanding expected in today’s scientific areas is called the nature of science (NOS). This study aimed to determine the perceptions of high school students and their parents regarding NOS. In addition, the changes in high school students’ and their parents’ perceptions of NOS according to various variables were examined. The data of the research were collected in the second semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. The research involves students and their parents studying in high schools in Konya, a Central Anatolian province of Turkey. The sample group of the research consists of 428 high school students and 428 of their parents. “NOS Questionnaire as Argumentation (NSAAQ)” developed by Sampson and Clark (2006) and translated into Turkish by Çetin et al. (2010) was used. As the results showed, students’ perceptions of NOS did not differ significantly according to gender, grade level, place of residence, and average monthly income of the family. Only in the first dimension (How do you define scientific knowledge?) was there a significant difference between parents in favor of men. However, this difference had a low effect size. On the other hand, the fact that parents with higher education had average score and the existence of a significant linear correlation between NOS perceptions of students and their parents were two noteworthy findings. From this perspective, it can be said that today’s formal education process in Turkey has significant deficiencies in terms of a more advanced understanding of NOS. In summary, it is clear that the desired development has not been achieved in the perceptions of high school students regarding NOS in formal education in Turkey.


INTRODUCTION
The speed of scientific discoveries and the transformation of knowledge highlight the need for individuals who have realized creative learning in the world (Uğurlu, 2019).In this sense, having the ability to produce scientific knowledge has passed into the literature as scientific literacy.Scientific literacy has been one of the main focuses in the curricula of today's developed countries.In scientific literacy, the nature of science (NOS) is the most basic component (Holbrook and Rannikmae, 2007;Holbrook and Rannikmae, 2009;Roberts and Bybee, 2014).Scientific literacy basically includes the ability to distinguish between scientific and non-scientific.It is known that societies consisting of people with advanced scientific literacy have healthier reasoning skills on issues related to science (Tamer, 2021).
Events such as the First World War and the Second World War affected the need for necessary and practical knowledge for daily life and therefore science education.At the end of this process, science teaching curricula of belief-based stereotypes in society (Weisberg et al., 2021).Again, a good understanding of NOS makes science one of the unifying fundamental elements of society and culture (Driver et al., 1996).In this regard, one of the most important goals of science education is to teach not only the content of science but also NOS (Kaya et al., 2019).
In many countries, NOS has been included as the basic component of scientific literacy in curriculums that provide the theoretical framework of teaching in classrooms (McComas, 2014;McComas and Olson, 1998;MoNE, 2018).However, there are deficiencies in many components of NOS in other pillars of teaching practice in classrooms (e.g.textbooks) (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2008;Atakan and Akçay, in press;DiGiuseppe, 2014;McDonald and Abd-El-Khalick, 2017;Aydin and Tortumlu, 2015).During the quarantine period brought about by the Covid-19 epidemic, people had more contact with the media than in the past.News was conveyed to people through media such as the Internet, television, radio, newspapers and periodicals.However, the necessity of people's ability to scientifically filter the news flows they are exposed to has never been felt so deeply (Bergman, 2022;Demirdöğen, Aydın-Günbatar, 2021).
It is obvious that being personally involved in scientific research is the most effective method in terms of improving students' NOS acquisitions.However, this is almost impossible to achieve in formal teaching processes.Nevertheless, it is more likely to overcome this difficulty by getting support from various teaching methods (Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman, 2000;Akerson and Carter, 2022).Centering the basic components of NOS in the classrooms at all levels and in the preparation of all teaching materials seems to be the most efficient teaching way for students to acquire NOS acquisitions (Bugingo et al., in press; Soudani, in press).Individuals who have a good grasp of NOS are considered scientifically literate.In addition, these individuals can reach healthier conclusions on socioscientific issues.In summary, the main condition for being a productive society is scientific literacy and therefore an improved perception of NOS (DeBoer, 2000;Dienes, 2023;Herman et al., 2019;Vilanova and Martins, 2020).

Objective and Research Questions
In line with the points mentioned above, it is important to determine high school students' perceptions of NOS, because high school is the last step of compulsory education before university in Turkey.Determining NOS understandings at this level provides a snapshot of previous teaching processes in terms of NOS.Only in this way can we see our shortcomings and develop appropriate solutions (Alisir and Irez, 2020;Eymur, 2019).
The concept of NOS is explicitly included in the primary school science curriculum in Turkey for the first time in 2004 (Aliyazıcıoğlu, 2012).In this context, an important objective is to investigate the effect of this theoretical change on the next formal education process.Only by finding an inclusive and realistic answer to this question can we design new teaching processes in the field of NOS.The main problem of this research is to investigate the level of high school student's perception of NOS and its relationship with some variables.Specifically, answers were sought to the following research questions: 1.What are high school students' perceptions of NOS in terms of a.The way in which scientific knowledge is defined?b.The way in which scientific knowledge is produced?c.The way in which reliable and valid scientific knowledge is defined?d.The role of scientists in producing scientific knowledge?2. Do the levels of students' perceptions of NOS differ by gender, grade level, place of residence they live in and average monthly income of their families?3. What are parents' perceptions of NOS in terms of a.The way in which scientific knowledge is defined?b.The way in which scientific knowledge is produced?c.The way in which reliable and valid scientific knowledge is defined?d.The role of scientists in producing scientific knowledge?4. Do the levels of parents' perceptions of NOS differ by gender, education level and weekly working hours? 5. What is the relationship between high school students' and their parents' perceptions of NOS?

Research Design
This research was carried out using the survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, in order to determine the perceptions of high school students and their parents about NOS.In this model, quantitative data is collected from very large samples.Studies carried out with the survey model offer an important vision for future research in the literature (Büyüköztürk et al., 2011).

Participants
Uninterrupted compulsory education in Turkey has been increased to 12 years with the 4+4+4 model since the 2012-2013 academic year.With this practice, the first level of primary education has been reduced from 5 to 4 years, the second level of primary education (secondary school) has been increased from 3 to 4 years, and the high school education period has been determined as 4 years (Coşkun, 2020).
The students forming the sample of this study were made up of high school students.

Sampling Method
The population of the research consists of high school students and their parents living in Konya city Centre.
According to the data of the Ministry of National Education, about 50 thousand students completed secondary education at the end of 2022 within the borders of Konya province (MoNE, 2022).The research was carried out on a sample selected from this universe by the convenience sampling method.Using this method, the researcher starts to create his sample starting from the most accessible respondents to reach the study group he needs for research, or works on a situation and example that will be the most accessible and provide maximum savings (Büyüköztürk et al., 2011).This research was carried out with a sample selected from the universe created by these students.It was considered sufficient to reach at least 381-593 students with a tolerance of at least 5% for the representation of the universe (Cohen et al., 2007, p. 104).As a result, 856 responds were collected from 428 high school students and their parents.

Data Collection Tool and Process
In this study, the "NOS as Argument Questionnaire (NSAAQ)" developed by Sampson and Clark (2006) was used to determine the perceptions of high school students and their parents about NOS.The questionnaire was translated into Turkish by Çetin et al. (2010).It consists of 4 dimensions with 26 items.Each item presents two argument named A and B. A represents the strong perception of NOS whereas B represent the naïve perception.Respondents are asked two rate each item based on a 5-point Likert type scale where 1 = strongly agree with A argument, 5= strongly agree with B argument.Those items with negative meaning are reversely scored.A composite variable is constructed by calculating average of all item scores.The NSAAQ consists of 4 dimensions.The first one asks "How do you define scientific knowledge?"It investigates whether there is an acceptable and strong perception with the question.This dimension consists of 6 items numbered 2-3-5 and 1-4-6.The second dimension seeks an answer to the question "How is scientific knowledge produced?"and investigates whether there is a strong perception on this subject.This dimension consists of 6 items numbered 7-11-12 and 8-9-10.The third dimension asks "How to produce reliable and valid scientific knowledge?"It investigates whether there is an acceptable and strong perception as an answer to the question.This dimension consists of 7 items numbered 13-16-17 and 14-15-18-19.The fourth dimension asks "What is the role of the scientist in the production of scientific knowledge?"and investigates whether there is an acceptable perception as an answer to the question.This dimension consists of 7 items numbered 20-21-24 and 22-23-25-26 (Çetin et al., 2010).
The data collection process of the study was carried out in the 2 nd semester of the 2021-2022 academic year.The data were collected remotely due to the difficulty of face-to-face  In addition, a 45-minute meeting was held with 2 graduate students, including the researchers.In this meeting the independent variables (demographic variables) to be asked before the scale were determined.

Data Analysis
For the analysis of the data, it was first examined whether the data, which is the basic assumption of parametric tests, are normally distributed or not.For this, skewness coefficients were used.If any of the skewness values are within the -2/+2, these data are considered to have a normal distribution (George and Mallery, 2019).While examining the differences between the groups, parametric tests were used as all the dependent variables showed normal distribution.These are independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA tests.In case of significant difference in the ANOVA test, a pairwise comparison was made by applying the Scheffe test.Pearson correlation coefficients was calculated because the data showed normal distribution while examining the relationship between the variables.

FINDINGS
In this section, the findings obtained from the research are discussed in line with each research questions.The results are presented in the form of tables.Table 1 presents the demographic variables of the participant.Most of the students (63.8%) were female while 36.2% were male students.When the class variable was examined, it was seen that 25.5% were 9 th grade, 24.1% were 10 th grade, 23.4% were 11 th grade and 27.1% were 12 th grade.It was seen that 56.5% of the parents were female and 43.5% were male.Regarding education level, it was seen that 42.1% of them were at primary education (1-8 th grade), 43.9% at middle education (9-12 th grade) and 14% were at high education (university level) (Table 1).

High School Students' Perception of NOS
When Table 2 was examined, it was seen that the average score of the students' NOS perceptions was the highest in the first dimension and the lowest in the second dimension.

Comparing High School Students 'Perception of NOS across Some Variables
According to the findings in Table 3, it was seen that there was no significant difference between NOS perceptions of the students according to their gender.
In accordance with the findings in Table 4, it was seen that NOS perceptions of the students did not show a significant change according to their grade, residential area, and monthly income of the family.

Parents' Perceptions of NOS
According to the data in Table 5, it was seen that the lowest average is in the third dimension (Production of reliable and valid scientific knowledge) (Mean=3.07).Highest averages were in the second dimension (Mean=3.14)(Production of scientific knowledge) and fourth dimension (Role of scientists in producing scientific knowledge).

Comparing Parents' Perception of NOS across Some Variables
The difference in parents' perceptions of NOS according to gender was investigated with the t-test.There was a significant difference in parents' perceptions of NOS according to their gender only in the first dimension (how would you define scientific knowledge?)(p>.05).This difference is a significant difference in favor of men (Table 6).
According to the results in Table 7, the perceptions of the parents on NOS did not show a significant difference according to their education level and weekly working hours.

The Relationship Between Parents' And Students' Perceptions of NOS
The findings in Table 8 show very strong relationships between student and parent perceptions.Correlation analysis is a process that helps determine the relationship between two variables.As the correlation coefficient gets closer to -1, it shows a strong negative relationship.Correlation coefficient values approaching +1, on the other hand, describe a strong positive relationship (Can, 2020).The finding of a  correlation coefficient of 0.70 between students and their parents' perceptions of NOS indicated that there was a significant strong positive relationship.From this point of view, it can be said that the students' perceptions of NOS explain 49% at the variance in parents' perceptions of NOS (r 2 =0.49) (Büyüköztürk, 2011).

DISCUSSION
The maximum average score that can be obtained from the five-point Likert-type scale is 5.In this sense, it can be said that the participants' perceptions of NOS are at a moderate level.Similar to the findings in this study, Demir and Akarsu (2018) also found that secondary school students did not have strong perceptions of NOS.In addition, Eyceyurt Türk and Tüzün (2017) reported that Turkish high school students had various myths about NOS.No significant differences were found among students' perceptions of NOS according to gender, class level, place of residence, and income status of their families.In terms of parents, a significant difference was determined in favor of males in the first dimension (definition of scientific knowledge).However, when the effect size of this difference is considered, it is seen that it has a fairly small effect value (Table 6).
Perhaps the first of the two most important findings of this study is that parents' perceptions of NOS do not differ significantly according to their education level although parents with higher education received at least an average of 12 or more years of formal education compared to those with primary education (Coşkun, 2020).As a result, they are expected to have a more advanced perception of NOS.The second is the finding of a significant relationship between students' and their parents' perceptions of NOS.Almost half (49%) of students' perceptions about NOS are due to their parents' perceptions about NOS.This is a significant finding for students who are in the last step of their compulsory formal education process.Based on this finding, it would not be wrong to say that students in the last step of the compulsory formal education process did not gain the desired perception of NOS within the education processes.

CONCLUSION
According to Aydemir et al. (2016), science teachers' and pre-service science teachers' perceptions of NOS were found to be insufficient in raising scientifically literate individuals.In this sense, it seems inevitable to emphasize the discipline of NOS, especially in teacher training processes.There are many studies in the international literature showing that teaching history of science is effective in helping students develop a more advanced understanding of NOS (e.g.Brown, 1991;Kim and Irving, 2010;Rudge et al., 2014;Wolfensberger and Canella, 2015).In this context, an education that focuses on the history of science from kindergarten is likely to contribute to the development of the perception of NOS.
In the related literature, it is stated that the achievements related to NOS in Turkey are limited in textbooks (Esmer, 2011;Özer et al., 2017).On the other hand, in the revisions made since 2005 in the science curriculum, the elements of the history of science and NOS have been brought to the fore (Özcan and Koştur, 2019).In this context, it would be beneficial for textbook authors to focus primarily on a sophisticated perception of NOS, away from myths.In addition, it has been determined that the media has an important effect on creating a scientist image among students (Steinke et al., 2007).In this sense, it would be beneficial to increase the publications on science in the media for a more sophisticated perception of NOS.Kaya and Erduran (2016) examined the Turkish science curriculum comparatively with the US and Irish curricula within the framework of NOS.As a result, they viewed the Turkish curriculum was quite weak in terms of socio-scientific issues, collaboration of scientists, peer review in science, and financing of science.
On the other hand, it is argued that a holistic and nature-of-science-oriented approach is necessary in all processes of education in order to properly acquire NOS achievements (McComas et al., 2020;Nouri et al., 2021).In fact, it has been argued that starting education focused on NOS achievements at an early age is necessary and critical for a more meaningful and effective scientific literacy (Hansson et al., 2021).In this context, it can be said that radical reforms are necessary at every stage of education in Turkey, especially in the science curricula.
It is known that teachers, who are the critical and fundamental pillar of education, must be trained in order to be qualified in NOS (Kite et al., 2021).However, it was found that teachers trained in NOS had significant deficiencies in their subsequent classroom practices and were reluctant to reflect the training they have received into the classroom (Herman et al., 2013).In this sense, providing ready-made thematic activities, especially those focused on the history of science that teachers can easily use in classrooms will be useful in breaking this reluctance.
In addition, it may be useful to produce fictional and story-type reading books on the history of science for every level of education.The Ministry of National Education is expected to undertake the driving role here.

Table 1 .
Distribution of participants by demographic variables

Table 2 .
Findings on the scores of high school students from NOS questionnaire

Table 3 .
Findings of t-test for students' perceptions of NOS by gender

Table 4 .
Findings of one-way ANOVA test for students' perceptions of NOS according to other variables data collection caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.The NSAAQ was transferred to digital media via Google forms.

Table 5 .
Findings on the parents' scores from NOS questionnaire

Table 6 .
Findings of t-test for parents' perceptions of NOS by gender * P < 0.05

Table 7 .
Findings of one-way ANOVA test for parents' perceptions of NOS according to other variables

Table 8 .
Correlation analysis of high school students and their parents' perceptions of NOS ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).