Abstract

Background:
Studies reveal that students do not possess adequate views regarding scientific models, science and its nature. Moreover, research has shown that teachers do not give enough attention to the development of learning activities that prompt a suitable construction of their students’ nature of science and scientific models views. Bearing in mind that both teachers’ views and knowledge strongly influence students’ educational experiences, the main scope of this study was to evaluate Portuguese prospective teachers’ views of nature of science, models and earth’s structure models and to analyse if their views differ (by comparing prospective primary teachers’ with prospective middle and secondary school teachers’ views).

Materials and methods:
A questionnaire, focused on those topics, was applied to 65 prospective science teachers who were enrolled in different Portuguese institutions of higher education.

Results:
Descriptive analysis showed that although the majority of the participants revealed intermediate views of nature of science, a high percentage of them hold uninformed views regarding the other topics of analysis.

Conclusions:
Results from correlational analysis and chi square test indicated that that prospective middle and secondary teachers were found to possess more accurate views about nature of science and earth’s structure models than prospective primary teachers.