Common Interest, Common Visions? Chinese Science Teacher Educators' Views about the Values of Teaching Nature of Science to Prospective Science Teachers

Teaching nature of science (NOS) is beginning to take root in science education in China. This exploratory study interviewed 24 science teacher educators from economically developed parts of China about their conceptions of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers. Five key dimensions emerged from the data. This paper focuses on the dimension of value of teaching NOS. The values of teaching NOS as perceived by the educators fall into two types. The first type relates to values within the scope of science teaching, which consists of (i) enriching content to be taught in school science, (ii) transforming traditional science teaching methods, (iii) increasing interest in science teaching, and (iv) constituting a foundation of school science teaching. The second type goes beyond classroom teaching, which includes (i) enhancing individual well‐being in daily life and work‐related matter, (ii) enlightening Chinese traditional culture, and (iii) promoting national development. While some of these values share much similarity of those discussed in the Western literature on NOS research, some are distinctively different with a Chinese favor. This paper discusses the social, political, and historical contexts that have contributed to the shaping of such differences. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed95:1101–1123, 2011

There has been a long history in Western science education to advocate the goal of developing school students and science teachers' understanding of the nature of science (NOS) (Abd‐El‐Khalick & Lederman, [2]; Driver, Leach, Miller, & Scott, [20]; Hodson, [25]). The earliest statements of NOS in the literature can be traced back to the beginning of the last century (Hodson, [26]). Since the 1990s, the objective of developing school students and science teachers' understanding of NOS has been further explicitly articulated and emphasized in the science education reform documents in the Western world (e.g., American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], [6], [8]; Council of Ministers of Education, Canada [CMEC], [16]; National Research Council [NRC], [54]).

Science education in China had a rather late start compared with the Western world. It was not until the end of the 19th century that school science teaching was introduced into China (Lewin, [35]; Wang, [68]). This late start was further hindered by the ensuing political and social unrests in China for almost a century until the 1980s. Prompted by the soaring economy in recent years, which has brought tremendous changes in people's lives, the Chinese government started to look for strategies to sustain long‐term development of the country. These include investing in education that can nurture and prepare the future generations for the competitive global economy at the turn of the 21st century. Within science education in China, in parallel with the international trend, there is a transition from a more elite to a more future citizenry–oriented school science curriculum coupled with the emphasis on scientific literacy as the objective of Chinese school science education (Wei & Thomas, [69]; Wong, Yung, Guo, Lederman, & Lederman, [72]; Yung, Lo, Wong, & Fu, [80]). NOS, as one of the components of scientific literacy, has also begun to find its place in science education in China as it appears in the goals of Chinese science curriculum reform documents (e.g., Ministry of Education, 2001a–2001d). Discussion on NOS and related issues has also emerged in some recent Chinese academic journals (e.g., Chen & Pang, [14]; Ding, [19]; Xiang, [74]; Yuan, [77], [78]) and some textbooks for training science teachers (E. S. Liu, [38]; Yu, [76]; Yuan & Cai, [79]; Zhang, [83]).

NOS has been a prominent area of active research in science education in the Western countries for a number of decades (Lederman, Abd‐El‐Khalick, Bell, & Schwartz, [34]), where the science education practitioners' views of NOS education can, to some extent, be informed in the literature. However, little is known about how the teaching of NOS is perceived by the practitioners in China, a country with her own unique social, political, and historical background. Therefore, an exploratory study was conducted to investigate Chinese teacher educators' conceptions of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers.

We targeted our investigation on teacher educators' conceptions because they will have a direct bearing on the future development of science education in China through training prospective science teachers. In addition, some of the teacher educators in this study are authors of school science textbooks and/or textbooks for training science teachers. A few of them have also participated in the development of the National Curriculum Standards. Given these important roles taken up by this group of science teacher educators, their views are also likely to be influential in shaping the views of in‐service science teachers and possibly some science teacher educators in other less developed parts of China.

Five key dimensions of Chinese teacher educators' conceptions of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers emerged from the data. This paper focuses on reporting one of them, i.e., the value of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers. Other findings will be reported in separate papers.

Although NOS has been one of the commonly discussed and researched topics in science education, there is not a unified way to define the phrase of NOS in the literature. On some occasions, NOS is defined as epistemology of science or nature of scientific knowledge (e.g., Abd‐El‐Khalick & Lederman, [2]; Lederman, [33]). In contrast to delimiting NOS discussion within epistemology of science, some recent literature encompasses a much broader range of contents. In Project 2061 (AAAS, [8]), NOS is divided into three general categories of "scientific world view" (p. 25), "scientific inquiry" (p. 26), and "the scientific enterprise" (p. 28).

Such broader meaning of NOS has also been explicitly defined by McComas, Clough, and Almazroa (1998) as follows: The nature of science is a fertile hybrid arena which blends aspects of various social studies of science including the history, sociology, and philosophy of science combined with research from the cognitive science such as psychology into a rich description of what science is, how it works, how scientists operate as a social group and how society itself both directs and reacts to scientific endeavors. (p. 4) (authors' emphasis)

In this definition, the scope of NOS has apparently expanded from the previous definition dominated by one area of the study on science (philosophy of science), into four areas of the study on science, i.e., history, sociology, psychology, and philosophy of science.

In Wong and Hodson's (2009) recent work on scientists' views about science, the authors also adopt a broader meaning of NOS in common with definitions adopted by Osborne and his colleagues (2003) and Clough ([17]). The phrase NOS used in their work encompasses the characteristics of scientific inquiry, the role and status of the scientific knowledge it generates, how scientists work as a social group, and how science impacts and is impacted by the social context in which it is located.

It is evident that even among science educators in the West, there are different meanings associated with the phrase NOS, the present study has therefore avoided adopting a fixed definition of NOS during the process of probing Chinese science teacher educators' conceptions. An open stance to any possible differences in their views about the conceptions and meanings associated with the phrase NOS has been adopted to encourage the educators to speak out their mind.

In addition to the difference in the scope of the meaning associated with the phrase NOS, there are many disputes on the contents that are to be included in these definitions. It is claimed by Herron ([24]) that no sound and precise description exists concerning the nature and structure of science. After conducting a study to investigate how philosophers of science viewed NOS, Alters ([4]) concludes that "we should acknowledge that no one agreed‐on NOS exists" (p. 48).

When facing the contested NOS, some scholars believe that the controversies in NOS should not be avoided in NOS teaching. Instead, the different and sometimes even conflicting views of science should be included in the teaching of NOS so as to give a real picture of science (e.g., Alters, [5]; Jenkins, [29]; Siegel, [8]). For instance, learners were encouraged to discuss a number of statements about science in Nott and Wellington's ([8], [56]) NOS course. These statements were classified and presented in terms of relativism versus positivism, inductivism versus deductivism, contextualism versus decontexualism, instrumentalism versus realism, and process versus content. Such a way of presentation explicitly embodied the contested NOS to their students.

However, some other scholars think that regardless of the debates on the ultimate NOS, there still exists a considerable consensus regarding NOS content to be taught to students (e.g., Lederman et al., [34]; Osborne et al., [57]). Hence they do not bother to include the disputes among NOS views in their NOS teaching. On the contrary, they suggest to focus on NOS instruction on these agreed‐on NOS tenets. These as summarized by Lederman and his colleagues (2002) are [S]cientific knowledge is tentative; empirical; theory‐laden; partly the product of human inference, imagination, and creativity; and social and culturally embedded. Three additional aspects are the distinction between observation and inference, the lack of a universal recipe‐like method for doing science, and the functions of and relationships between scientific theories and laws. (p. 499)

Despite the disputes on the meaning of NOS, the value of understanding NOS is vastly recognized in the literature. The rationales put forward in the literature in support of teaching NOS can be broadly grouped into six kinds: (i) supporting and enriching science teaching, (ii) enhancing science learning, (iii) making sense of socioscientific issues and participate in the decision‐making process, (iv) encouraging appreciation of science as a major element of contemporary culture, (v) understanding the norm of scientific community and developing moral commitments, and (vi) making better sense of science and managing the technological objects and processes that learners encounter in everyday life. The last five kinds of rationales correspond to the science learning, democratic, cultural, moral, and utilitarian arguments of Driver and her colleagues (1996), which are comprehensively discussed in their book. We elaborate below the richness and subtle differences in the ways these six kinds of rationales of teaching NOS are put forward in related studies.

The most common argument of teaching NOS appears to come from the science teaching side (e.g., Carey & Stauss, [12]; Hodson, [25], [26]; Manuel, [41]; Matthews, [43]; Palmquist & Finley, [58]). As stated by Hammrich ([23]), teachers' personal understanding of the subject matter can exert a great influence on their instructional practice, so their understandings of NOS was also a foundational part of their knowledge basis for teaching science. In addition to such general arguments, Lakin and Wellington ([32]) further relate science teachers' understanding of NOS with teaching methods and contents in school science by stating that "a particular view and belief about the nature of science may have a considerable influence not only on what science is taught but also on how it is taught." (p. 44)

More specifically, Matthews ([43]) thinks that the understanding of NOS is likely to increase teachers' ability to apply conceptual change models in their science instruction. It is argued that many students' ideas parallel those of early scientific ideas, so teachers can use the historical development of scientific concepts to help illustrate the conceptual journey that students might experience when they learn science. With such deeper understanding of the psychology of students' learning science, the outcomes of implementing conceptual change models in teaching science will be improved.

In the Western world, some science teachers avoid or feel uncomfortable in teaching biological evolution due to their religious beliefs. Scharmann and Harris ([62]) suggest that deeper understanding of the distinction between science and religion, which is a part of NOS, can reduce teachers' anxiety toward teaching evolution. Besides, it is suggested that incorporating NOS into teaching science contents can humanize the sciences and convey a great adventure rather than simply memorizing the outcomes of the process so as to make science teaching more interesting (McComas, [46]).

Another frequently suggested argument is from the science learning side (e.g., Hammrich, [23]; Hodson, [25]; Songer & Linn, [65]). As stated by Hodson ([25]), it is commonly recognized that students often enter science education with their own intuitive explanations for physical phenomena. In this sense, science learning, as argued, involves reconstructions of meaning similar to scientific revolution as described by Kuhn ([31]). Therefore, if learners appreciate the tentative nature of scientific knowledge and, in turn, see the similarity between their own learning and the historical progress in scientific understanding, they will not feel so frustrated with the difficult journey of learning associated with the conceptual change process. In addition to conceptual change, understanding of NOS is further related to science learning method and interest. Songer and Linn's study (1991) argues that if students have a dynamic view of science, they will be less likely to think that learning science relies on memorization and will achieve a more integrated understanding of scientific concepts. It is also stated that sensitivity to the development of scientific knowledge may make science itself more interesting (e.g., McComas, Almazroa, & Clough, [47]; Driver et al., [20]).

The third and also another most cited argument in literature is the democratic one (e.g., AAAS, [7], [8]; CMEC, [16]; Driver et al., [20]; Hodson, [27]; NRC, [54]; Zeidler, Sadler, Applebaum, & Callahan, [81]). It means that "an understanding of the nature of science is necessary if people are to make sense of socioscientific issues and participate in the decision‐making process." (Driver et al., [20], p. 18) As argued in Science for all Americans (AAAS, [7]), science has such a large impact on the world that decisions regarding science and its uses are too important to be left to scientists. However, if only scientists have the understanding of the nature and purpose of science and people are without such understanding, we will run the risk of excluding the vast majority of the population from discussion and decision‐making processes involving science‐related issues.

Sometimes, the advantage of understanding of NOS is related to culture. There are mainly two different ways to establish such relationship. The first one mainly appears in some recent literature (e.g., Driver et al., [20]; McComas, [46]), arguing that understanding NOS is necessary for appreciating science as a major component of contemporary culture. It is contended that science is a major achievement of human culture. Therefore, to understand the elegant and powerful structure of ideas, the underlying values and assumptions in the development of science, the institutional framework and the process of science, its methods of funding, its systems of recognition and reward, is an indispensible component of understanding the human culture. Thus learning NOS that covers most of these elements can serve to enhance our understanding of the human culture. The second way to relate NOS to culture is to consider teaching NOS as a tool to enlightening the existing culture. Such kind of understanding can be traced back to John Dewey's argument in 1916 and is reemphasized recently by Matthews as follows: The nature of science has long been of concern to science teachers and curriculum developers... it has been hoped that science teaching would have a beneficial impact on the quality of culture and personal life by virtue of students not only knowing science, but also by internalizing something of the scientific spirit, and knowing and appreciating something of the nature of science. (Matthews, 1998 , p. 985)

Occasionally, understanding of NOS is also related to the development of students' moral values. The ethics of science has been discussed in sociology of science. For example, Merton ([49]) puts forward four institutional norms of science, including universalism, communism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism. These norms not only constitute the most effective and efficient way of generating new scientific knowledge but also provide a set of "moral imperatives" that serves to ensure good and proper conduct (Wong & Hodson, [71]). When a broader meaning of NOS is adopted (e.g., Driver et al., [20]; McComas, [46]; Osborne et. al., [57]; Wong & Hodson, [71]), the norms or ethics of the scientific community stand as important aspect of NOS. Thus it is argued that teaching NOS can draw students' awareness of such ethical principles and hence can help develop moral values in them. Nevertheless, whether scientists adhere to these norms to a greater extent than any other comparable social groups in contexts outside science or the extents which they are honored with science is still a controversial issue (Barnes & Dolby, [10]). The use of ideas drawn from science in pursuit of nonscientific goals and purposes sometimes has been criticized as scientism (Peterson, [59]). Because of these controversies, this argument is not as commonly found in the literature as the previous ones and even if it appears, the tone is rather cautious.

The last one is the utilitarian argument, which is less commonly stated in the literature. This argument emphasizes that an understanding of NOS is the requirement for everyone to make sense of the science and manage the technological objects and processes that they encounter in everyday life (Driver et al., [20]). It cannot be denied that scientific and technological information can be found in almost any areas in the modern society. To assimilate information about scientific and technological matters from various kinds of resources, people needs know what science and technology are all about, which resource is more credible, and what the limitations of different resources are. All these are part of the understanding of NOS.

Although the last five arguments are commonly discussed in the context of teaching NOS to general public, they are still related with teaching NOS to science teachers. First, as part of the general public, science teachers, also need to participate in the social decisions relevant to science, to understanding the human culture, to nurture their moral values, to make use of scientific knowledge to make decision, and to learn science. Second and more importantly, if these arguments will be realized for the general public, NOS needs be taught to our future citizens, i.e., school students. Therefore, science teachers should also be taught of NOS and after then they can teach it to their students.

China had a splendid and long history of development in science and technology. The first recorded observations of comets, solar eclipses, and supernovae were made in China. The four great inventions of ancient China—the compass, gunpowder, paper making, and printing—were among the most important technological advances in human's history. One of the prominent features of Chinese ancient science and technology is its pragmatism orientation (Wu, [73]). Actually, almost all its important achievements were mainly driven by the pragmatic needs. For example, astronomy was one of the most developed science areas in ancient China. Its development was mainly driven by the need of establishing and revising the calendar system in the agricultural society. The inventions of paper making and printing were to meet the requirement of efficient communication in a vast and centralized country. The invention of gunpowder was related to alchemy and military purposes. However, after achieving their pragmatic needs, ancient Chinese had scarcely gone further to inquire, propose, and testify the underlying reasons or mechanisms causing the natural phenomena. This was in big contrast to Western science, which, with its origin from the natural philosophy in ancient Greece, had a tradition of emphasizing the inherent value of knowledge rather than its pragmatic values. As stated by Aristotle in his famous work, The Metaphysics, That it (natural philosophy) is not a science of production is clear even from the history of the earliest philosophers. For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize... And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant; therefore since they philosophized in order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end. (Aristotle, 1933 , p. 4)

Before the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), the development of the science and technology in ancient China was basically separated from the Western civilizations (Shen, [63]). It was not until the 16th century that Western science was introduced into China by the Jesuit China Missions.1 The Jesuits made great efforts to translate Western mathematical and astronomical works into Chinese, and at the same time, also brought Chinese scientific and technological achievements to Europe. However, science and technology had a rather low status then in the society, which highly valued literature and arts, as competencies in the latter were seen as a gateway to public administration. Therefore, although the Jesuits' work had attracted the interest of few emperors and small part of governors, they had a very limited impact on Chinese society.

Only after suffering from the trauma of repeated failures in defending Western invaders in 1840–1841 and 1860, Chinese recognized the need to master Western military technology (Wu, [73]). As a part of the Self‐Strengthening Movement in the 1860s, a number of Western‐styled arsenals and shipyards were built. A large number of military and industrial training schools were established where extensive Western scientific knowledge was taught. In 1889, the Imperial University of Peking, the first university in China and now renamed as Peking University, was set up, where Western science was included into the courses systematically divided into six disciplines, including mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and geography. At the same time, the government also mandated middle and primary schools to teach science courses (Yang, [75]). After then, Western science started to gain a very high status and spread widely in China.

On the basis of the above description, it can be found that the pragmatic needs played a rather significant role in the history of science in China, including both the development of science in ancient China and the popularization of Western science in modern China. This pragmatism orientation is one of the important contextual factors to shape Chinese people's views of science, science education as a whole, as well as some specific issues within such education.

The science teacher educators in the study were from the most economically developed regions in China, including Shanghai, Beijing, and cities in provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong. Given considerable time and efforts needed in the present study, all the educators participated on a voluntary basis. The access to Chinese science teacher educators may be more challenging than other kinds of participant in science education (like science teachers or school students). First, the number of them is relatively small. Actually, there are only a few of them in each city of China. Second, the contact information of these educators is difficult to be found. In Mainland China, the contact information of the university teachers is rather private and cannot be found through public resources, such as the Web page of the institute or yellow page. Given these difficulties, it is not feasible for this study to adopt the probability sampling strategy.

The snowballing strategy was used in the present study. The authors first contacted some Chinese science educators that they knew in person and invited them to participate in the study. Upon completion of the interviews, each of the participants was asked to introduce other educators to us as potential participants of the study. Such snowballing process carried on throughout the whole process of data collection. Twenty‐four educators participated in the study. As shown in Table 1, the participants have considerable variations in their age, the major discipline they teach, teaching experience, and academic position.

1 An Overview of the Background of Participating Chinese Science Teacher Educators

1 aIn China, instructor is the lowest title in academic positions.

There are two possible limitations of the sampling in this study. First, the participants only represent a specific group of science educators from the economically developed areas of Mainland China who have interest in talking about their conceptions of teaching NOS. Second, since the snowballing sampling strategy was adapted in this study, given the relationship among the participants, they may belong to a group of educators with similar views in some aspects of teaching NOS. Although our data did not indicate a tendency of overdominating views among the 24 educators, further research with inclusion of more educators from more cities will inform whether enrichment or adjustment of the findings in this study is needed.

Two semistructured interviews were conducted in Mandarin with each participant. The first one was a general interview, during which a general open‐ended question was used to probe their conceptions of teaching NOS: How do you teach NOS to your prospective science teachers in your own course(s) and why? When raising this question, the participants were asked to try to locate the discussion of teaching NOS within the real context of their own courses of teaching prospective science teachers. When the participants discussed their NOS teaching practice, some follow‐up questions covering various aspects of such practice might be asked, including "how do you start your NOS lessons," "what are your major teaching and learning activities," "what teaching materials do you use," "what kinds of assignments do you give for your NOS lessons," and "how do you round up your NOS lessons," The interview time of each participant ranged from 45 to 100 minutes.

The second semistructured interview was a scenario‐based interview. During the interview, each of the science educators was provided with five examples of NOS teaching designs (one example is attached in the Appendix), which were constructed based on NOS instructional designs reported in the literature on teaching NOS to science teachers (Abd‐El‐Khalick & Akerson, [1]; Abell, [3]; Lin & Chen, [37]; McComas, [46]; Nott & Wellington, [56]). After careful reading of the five NOS instructional designs, the science teacher educators were asked to talk about each of the instructional designs and how they are similar to and/or different from how they teach NOS to their prospective science teachers in their own course(s). This interview lasted for 40–120 minutes. According to Kagan ([30]), the pre‐existing conceptions held by the teachers serve as the filter through which they view and interpret the teaching performance of others. Therefore, the teacher educators' reaction to others' NOS teaching plan could also reflect their conceptions of teaching NOS. This interview served as another source of data to supplement and triangulate with the data collected in the general interview.

NOS is a term imported from the West into China. When using this term in the interviews, there might be a risk of leading the participants to follow the prevailing opinion in the West to talk about NOS rather than their own. However, as indicated in the data, there were considerable variations among participants' understandings about NOS. Actually, there also exists considerable difference in the Western academics' opinions on NOS. If the participants chose to believe one kind of Western opinions, it was also their own decision among many different kinds. Therefore, there would not be much bias caused by using the term NOS in the interview.

The data analysis was initially done by the first author. Regular meetings were held among the authors to discuss on the codes and themes identified in the data. The interview was transcribed verbatim into Chinese, then read, coded, and analyzed. Translation into English was done only to the transcripts that were selected for inclusion in this paper. This is to ensure that ideas from the participants are preserved faithfully during the data analysis process.

The exploratory approach (Grbich, [22]) was adopted to analyze the data collected in this study. It roughly followed three phrases for generating a holistic picture of educators' conceptions of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers to analyze the data: open coding, axial coding, and focused coding (Charmaz, [13]; Strauss & Corbin, [67]). For open coding, the transcripts of the interview were read line by line repeatedly and coded by the first author, during which several meetings were held among the authors to discuss on these initial codes. In the end, a large number of initial codes were generated. In the second phase, the initial categories created in the first phase were further integrated by the first author. Several meetings among the authors were again held, through which a number of broader categories were produced.

The process of the focus coding, i.e. the third phase of data analysis, was not easy. We had to consider all the data and all the possible questions that might be answered in the present study holistically. It required us to constantly revisit the raw data, revise the original codes, and further analyze the existing categories based on the clues found in the literature to check whether such clues could be the focus of this study. During the third phase of data analysis in this study, the first author went back to the literature on NOS and conceptions again, sensitized himself with the theoretical issues in this area, and generated some guiding questions that might be the focus and axial codes in the study. After then, he repetitively moved among the raw data, temporary categories, and guiding questions implied in the literature.

Through many rounds of such a repetitive move and discussions among the authors, the focused codes gradually emerged. They were the five key dimensions of Chinese science teacher educators' conceptions of teaching NOS: (i) value of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers, (ii) NOS content to be taught to prospective science teachers, (iii) arrangement of NOS instruction in science teacher education courses, (iv) learning of NOS, and (v) role of the teacher in NOS teaching. This paper reports the findings on the results of the first dimension, i.e., value of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers.

The "value of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers" is really about the reasons believed by the science teacher educators that including NOS in the teacher training curriculum is valuable and important. Reasons offered by teacher educators in this study fall into two types. The first type is more related to or within the scope of science teachers' day‐to‐day teaching, including (i) enriching content to be taught in school science, (ii) transforming traditional science teaching methods, (iii) increasing interest in teaching science, and (iv) constituting a foundation of school science teaching. The second type goes beyond classroom teaching, including (i) enhancing individual well‐being in daily life and work, (ii) enlightening Chinese traditional culture, and (iii) promoting national development. For convenience sake, the first type was labeled as NOS value within science teaching and the second type as NOS value beyond science teaching (see Table 2).

2 Values of Teaching NOS to Prospective Science Teachers Suggested by Chinese Science Teacher Educators

In the present study, teaching NOS was discussed in the context of training prospective science teachers, who are expected to teach school science in the future, so it was very natural for the educators in this study to relate teaching NOS with science teaching in their discussion on the value of NOS.

In China, school science has long been commonly criticized as being too knowledge loaded by Chinese scholars (Gao, [21]). Most teachers just focus on teaching scientific knowledge to students so as to help them get higher grades in the public examination. Such examination‐oriented teaching is considered by Chinese scholars as short‐sighted, problematic, and needy of change (e.g., Z. X. Liu, [39]; Yu, [76]). Nineteen educators in the current study saw teaching NOS as a viable means to enrich science lessons and extend beyond the monotonic focus of teaching in science classrooms. For example, as stated by a biology teacher educator: Scientific knowledge has been overemphasized in science teaching... excessive or exclusive emphasis on it in science teaching is problematic since it is only an aspect of science... Let's take a simple metaphor. If you can only paint with one color, how will such a painting look like? It'll surely be boring and unattractive... What we need to present to school kids should be a colorful and splendid picture... of various colors. Nature of science should be one part of such picture... Teaching nature of science to my prospective science teachers will stimulate them to enrich their science teaching by incorporating the nature of science into their science teaching, which in turn will make their science classroom more colorful. (STE23 GI pp. 2–3)2

In the eyes of many Westerners, the classroom in Asia is usually seen as being dominated by transmissive teaching methods and minimal students' participation (e.g., Stigler & Stevenson, [66]). Such kind of teaching methods is also commonly criticized by Chinese scholars (e.g., Z. X. Liu, [39]; Yu, [76]), so transforming traditional science teaching methods is considered as an important and valuable undertaking in China (Gao, [21]; Wei & Thomas, [69]). All but one educator in the present study shared the same view on the need to transform the traditional science teaching methods, and they saw NOS teaching as a good means to the move. Below is a statement of this value provided by a chemistry teacher educator: Our goal of science teaching has been focusing just on scientific knowledge. When students can remember it, understand it and then apply it, the goal of science teaching is considered as having been achieved... On the basis of such beliefs, the more scientific knowledge is taught, the better. To achieve such a goal of teaching as much scientific knowledge as possible, transmitting is the most efficient method... If science is taught through inquiry, the effectiveness might be too low... If teachers have deeper understanding of the nature of science, they'll know that there are a lot more other valuable things that can be taught in science education... and that the transmissive method may not be the most effective method (in teaching these other valuable things)... It's likely that they'll be more inclined to guide and engage students in the process of teaching and learning science. (STE1 GI pp. 1–2)

Interest is one of the important psychological constructs that regulate human's behavior. With greater interest in certain activities, people will get positive emotional experience when engaging in such activities and bring about higher efficiency. On the contrary, lack of interest will result in negative emotional experience and lower efficiency. Five of the educators believed that many Chinese science teachers find their work boring and mechanical and are not very much interested in science teaching. They thought that teaching science teachers NOS could serve to some extent to address such a problem. For example, as stated by a chemistry teacher educator, For many science teachers, teaching is just helping students to prepare for the examination and transmit scientific knowledge to them. They consider science teaching a boring and mechanical work. Their interest in science teaching is not high... If they are taught of these NOS content, they'll find much richer and more profound content that can be taught in science lessons, they'll find the richness of science teaching... they'll no longer consider science teaching as a tedious work... and will be more interested in science teaching. (STE8 SI3 p. 4)

It is often believed that if teachers need to teach a subject, they are expected to have a good understanding of not only the ideas of the subject matter but also the ideas about the subject (Salmon, [61]). Similarly, if science teachers need to teach science, they should also have a good understanding about science, i.e., NOS. Such kind of belief was shared by 14 educators in this study. Below are two examples: The prospective science teachers need to have adequate scientific knowledge... They also need to have a sufficient understanding about science itself, which is a fundamental basis for their future science teaching. (STE2 GI p. 6)There are two cornerstones of science teaching: first, understanding of features of children's psychology and learning behavior... ; second, understanding of the nature or features of science... An adequate understanding in these two aspects is required for school science teachers. (STE6 SI pp. 2–3)

Clearly, ascribing NOS as the "fundamental basis" and "cornerstone" for science teaching, this group of educators held a common belief that if a science teacher does not have an adequate understanding of NOS, he or she should not be qualified to teach science. If NOS value is discussed in term of its relationship with other concrete issues in science teaching, such as content, teaching method, and interest, its value is just perceived as an instrumental one. On the contrary, when NOS value is discussed in terms of its foundational role of science teaching in general, rather than its relationship with other concrete issues in science teaching, its value is being perceived as an inherent one. Such kind inherent value of NOS was emphasized by Lederman ([33]), stating that NOS should be "advocated because of its inherent educational value in understanding science as a discipline, as opposed to its being anything of concrete instrumental value" (p. 872).

In addition to recognizing the values of teaching NOS within science teaching, some educators saw further values of teaching NOS that are beyond science teaching per se. This latter category can be classified into three aspects: (i) enhancing individual well being in daily life and work‐related matter, (ii) enlightening Chinese traditional culture, and (iii) promoting national development. It should be noted that the science teacher educators who saw the values of teaching NOS beyond science teaching, also saw the targeted learners beyond their own teacher training classrooms to the future students taught by their prospective teachers. By developing their prospective teachers' understanding of NOS and enhancing their pedagogical knowledge of teaching NOS, the teacher educators could reach a wider public—a belief as reflected in their frequent use of "people" and "society" (rather than teachers) during their interviews.

Teaching NOS was related by five Chinese science teacher educators to enhancing individual well‐being in their daily life and work. More specifically, there were two arguments. The first was promoting the ability of distinguishing pseudoscience in individual's daily life and the second was facilitating success in individual's work.

Distinguishing Pseudoscience in Individual's Daily Life. It cannot be denied that science has gained a very high status and reputation in modern society. People respect the knowledge generated by scientists, and when something is labeled as scientific, it is commonly considered to be right or true. Therefore, to gain the public's trust of a certain claim that lacks a scientific status, some people may make such a claim to appear to be scientific. This is called pseudoscience (Bauer, [11]; Martin, [42]). Two educators in the present study related teaching NOS to distinguishing pseudoscience in individual's daily life. For example, as stated by a physics teacher educator, In modern society, we can find a large number of pseudoscientific things... For example, many fortune tellers call their fortune telling as scientific... Much content in Li Hongzhi's Falun Gong4 are disguised with a science coat... In order to discriminate those pseudoscientific things, we need to know what is science and what is not science... In addition, we should have the scientific rational ways of thinking... When confronted with an argument, the scientists do not rush to accept it. Instead, they'll seek for the empirical evidence of such arguments... repeatedly analyze the reliability and validity of such evidence, analyze the logics underlying such argument, deduce from this argument other hypotheses and test them. Only when such argument survives a long period of such repeated testing process can it be accepted and included into scientific knowledge... In fact, all the features that can differentiate science from other things and the scientific rational way of thinking are all embedded in those NOS elements I'll teach. (STE12 GI p. 4)

In addition to distinguishing pseudoscience in individual's daily life, some educators further related NOS to the success of work‐related matter. As stated by a physics teacher educator, In today' society, scientific knowledge is used everywhere in our work... When people know these NOS elements, they will know better the nature of such knowledge... They'll in turn make better use of such knowledge in their work, which will help them work more effectively. (STE5 GI p. 4)

A similar argument was also stated by another physics teacher in a more detailed manner: Scientific knowledge has been used almost in all the areas. We'll unavoidably encounter with scientific knowledge in our future work, the understanding about the feature of such knowledge will surely guide our use of it in our work... Scientific methods are not just the methods of scientific investigation, but also an effective way of thinking when we understand the world. Grasping such kind way of thinking will help us solve the problems encountered in our work.... Without scientific worldviews, it's difficult to attain the success in scientific endeavor.... Without those worldviews, it's also difficult to attain the success in other endeavors. (STE7 GI p. 2)

The educators in the present study also discussed the value of teaching NOS to prospective science teachers in term of enlightening Chinese traditional culture. They thought that teaching NOS could contribute to change in certain adverse elements in Chinese traditional culture, including (i) scientism, (ii) authoritarian submission, (iii) superstition, and (iv) subjectivity.

Mitigating Scientism in Chinese Traditional Culture. Scientism, in its broader sense, is a belief of science as the only true way to get knowledge about the world and the only source of human values and worldview (Peterson, [59]). The scientism in Chinese can be traced back to 1890s when Western science was first imported in China. As stated by a very famous Chinese scholar, Shi Hu ([28]), During the last thirty years or so there is a name which has acquired an incomparable position of respect in China; no one, whether informed or ignorant, conservative or progressive, dares openly slight or jeer at it. The name is Science. The worth of this almost nationwide worship is another question. But we can at least say that ever since the beginning of reformist tendencies (1890s) in China, there is not a single person who calls himself a modern man and yet dares openly to belittle science. (pp. 2–3)

Actually, people may have different attitudes toward scientism. For some, it is just used as a neutral term and they feel at ease when labeling themselves as adhering to scientism. However, for some others, scientism is a pejorative term as associated with the misuse of the authority of science in other areas. In the present study, three educators had a critical attitude toward scientism and considered it as a negative aspect of Chinese traditional culture in need of rectification. They believed that understanding NOS could help mitigate the problem. For example, as stated by an integrated science teacher educator, In Chinese culture, there is a serious scientism tendency. When science is stated, it's considered as objective, precise, correct and omnipotent... Such kind of thoughts can be traced back to the date when Western science was first introduced into China... The large‐scale introduction of Western science into China started in the May Four Movement in 1920's, when China was invaded by other countries. Therefore, the Chinese intellectuals, with the mission of saving the country, began to learn and introduce Western Culture... This is the historical background of introduction of Western science into China. As science bears such a glorious dream of Chinese intellectuals, it's usually sanctified by them. No one dare to question it... However, is science really unquestionable? Why these NOS content need to be taught is to let people know the real picture of science, to avoid blind trust in science. (STE6 GI p. 6)

"Mitigating scientism" means to lower the status of science in society. However, the term "distinguishing pseudoscience," which appears in the preceding section, seems to imply that the status of science is higher than something else, which, to some extent, may be regarded as an example of scientism. Here we can find that even among the same group of people (i.e., science teacher educators) in the same country (i.e., China), there still exists rather different or even conflicting attitudes toward science.

Overturning Authoritarian Submission in Chinese Traditional Culture. The word authoritarian can be used in both political and psychological studies. In political studies, it refers to a form of government characterized by an emphasis on the authority of the state in a republic or union. At the same time, it is used in psychology to represent a personality of absolute obedience to authority. What is adopted here is mainly its psychological meaning. It is commonly believed that the popularity of authoritarian submission is due to the Confucianism5 deeply rooted in Chinese culture, since Confucius regarded it as important to keep hierarchy in every aspect of human relations, and that obedience should be shown to those in higher positions (Gao, [21]). The authoritarian submission in Chinese traditional culture has been criticized in some Chinese articles (e.g., Li & Liu, [36]; Luo & He, [40]). As they argue, authoritarian submission does harm to individual spiritual freedom, so it is one of the negative aspects in Chinese traditional culture that needs to be rectified. Such a perspective was echoed by two educators in this study, thinking that teaching NOS could contribute to conquering such a negative aspect of Chinese traditional culture. As stated by a physics teacher educator, The Confucian thoughts have a great influence on Chinese society. Confucian Moral Standards emphasis three cardinal guides: ruler guides subject, father guides son, husband guides wife. What's embedded in these cardinal guides is an absolute and blind obedience. Such a culture embodied in education is the students' obedience to teacher. In the academic circle, it's the obedience to authorities ... I want to let the students know the relativity of science. I want them to know that even scientific knowledge, which might be considered as the most objective knowledge, is also the creation of human's subjectivity and has its limitation, so are there anything that cannot be questionable, and are there any authorities who should be absolutely obeyed?... Therefore, if these conceptions are popularized in China, the authoritarian submission in Chinese culture can be conquered. (STE5 GI p. 5)

Suppressing Superstition in Chinese Traditional Culture. Superstition is commonly regarded as an irrational belief that future events can be influenced or anticipated by some unrelated behaviors or phenomena (Saenko, [60]). An essential component of superstition consists of omen and signs. The former predicts misfortune and failure, whereas the latter indicates happiness, success, and profit. To avoid the former and encourage the latter, a superstitious person engages in ritual, defensive acts, incantations, and spells. Superstition originated at the early stages of the development of humankind is still prevalent today. For some people, the superstition might be appreciable because it can meet certain psychological needs of humankind. However, in China, it is commonly considered that superstition is a negative part in Chinese traditional culture and therefore should be suppressed (Zhao & Lin, [84]). Two educators in the present study echoed such an opinion and thought that teaching NOS can contribute to suppress such a negative aspect of Chinese traditional culture. As stated by a biology teacher educator, Superstition was deeply rooted in Chinese feudal society and is still very popular nowadays. The building of temples is still popular. Even though Chinese peasants are very poor, they still try to save money from their daily expense to build temples. On the contrary, the school buildings are always between the beetle and the block... In addition, wizards, witches and geomancers swagger through the streets... We need the scientific worldviews and scientific rationality to suppress superstition... I'd like to reflect the scientific worldviews and rationality through teaching about science. Only when such scientific worldviews and rationality are popularized in China can the superstition be eliminated. (STE13 GI p. 3)

Overcoming Subjectivity in Chinese Traditional Culture. Although subjectivity versus objectivity is a pair of terms commonly used in the literature, there is no universally accepted articulation of this pair of concepts. On some occasions, they refer to two different realities. Objectivity means external or material reality, whereas subjectivity means the spiritual reality within a person's mind. On some other occasions, they are used to describe two different qualities or states. Objectivity refers to a state or quality of respecting the facts and being uninfluenced by personal emotions, desires, interests, or biases. At the same time, subjectivity means a state or quality of ignoring the facts and being influenced by personal emotions, desires, interests, or biases. The meanings attached to them in the latter cases are used here. The subjectivity in Chinese traditional culture has been criticized in some Chinese articles (e.g., Li & Liu, [36]; Zhang, [82]). According to them, objectivity has not been valued in Chinese culture and Chinese people always sacrifice the objectivity so as to achieve the subjective needs. Four educators in the present study held such a perspective and thought that teaching NOS can contribute to conquering such negative aspect of Chinese traditional culture. The following is an exemplary statement provided by a chemistry teacher educator: Chinese culture is lack of scientific spirit of pursuing the objectivity. The scientific spirit of pursuing the objectivity requires being bias‐free and valuing the evidence... You should try your best to avoid the influence of the subjective factors on your judgment... It doesn't allow any artistic inflation. However, in Chinese culture, such a spirit is lacking. Chinese research works value the metaphysical speculation and ignore the seeking for the evidence... The decision‐making depends on conjecture rather than going to the field to do investigation... Teaching NOS content to students is helping them to realizing the scientific spirit of pursuing objectivity. (STE11 GI p. 5)

From the 1940s to the 1960s, maintaining the prosperity and national security of a country was commonly considered as the dominant concern of science education in the Western world (Chisman, 1984). However, the explicit discussion of the value of NOS teaching in term of its relationship with national development is scarcely found in the Western literature on NOS. In this study, it was interesting to find that nine science educators explicitly talked over the value of teaching NOS from the perspective of promoting national development. As stated by a physics teacher educator, Our prime minister, Wen Jiabao, has asked the Vice‐Chancellor of several prestigious universities in China: Why aren't there any top‐notch scientists in a country with such a huge population? I think the main reason is the lack of creativity of Chinese students... If our students can realize that scientific observation can be subjective, science is full of imagination, scientific concepts and theories are sometimes outcomes of speculation, and scientific investigation can be influenced by social and cultural factors... they will dare to raise questions to the existing knowledge in their future scientific investigation, dare to criticize the existing knowledge... Only such kind of people can be creative... If a nation lacks creative people, its scientific endeavor can just follow others and it will never truly develop. (STE14 GI p. 5)

A similar vision also appeared in an integrated science teacher educator. Why does China lag behind in modern era? It's due to the backward of science. Although our gross domestic product has increased, the contribution from original science and technology is rather limited. The major contribution is from the cheap labors, but most of our core science and technology are mainly imported... To develop scientific enterprise in our country, we need to develop the scientific spirit of pursuing objectivity... Chinese research works value the metaphysical speculation and ignore empirical inquiry. Chinese peoples' decision making depends on the conjecture rather than investigation. Such a tendency is harmful to the development of science in China... We should develop the scientific spirit in China. Otherwise, China can't truly develop. Otherwise, China can't truly turn strong. (STE3 GI pp. 3–4)

The present study reveals a number of values of teaching NOS as suggested by Chinese science teacher educators. While some of these values share much similarity to those discussed in the Western literature on NOS research, some represent specific intended goals of teaching NOS that are shaped by the unique historical, social, political contexts in China.

The values of teaching NOS within science teaching suggested by the Chinese educators echo the values of NOS teaching that are discussed in the Western literature. Actually, we can find their counterparts in the Western literature, like Hammirich's (1997) statement of NOS as the foundation of science teaching, Lakin and Wellington's (1994) argument of the influence of NOS knowledge on science teaching contents and methods, and McComas and his colleagues' (1998) claim of the relationship between teaching NOS and interest in science teaching. Comparatively speaking, those NOS values within science teaching that can be found in the Western literature are a bit richer than those reported in this study. For example, the arguments on the relationships between NOS and implementing conceptual change model in science teaching (Matthews, [43]) as well as on resolving the conflict between religion and teaching evolution (Scharmann & Harris, [62]) were absent in the present study. This is not surprising since conceptual change models are not commonly practiced in China. Similarly, the conflict between religion and teaching evolution does not seem to exist in China because the Communists, who are governing China, should be materialists and have popularized materialism in Chinese society. Hence, Chinese educators in this study did not see the value of relating NOS to these issues during the interview.

In the Western literature, values of teaching NOS are also related to learning, such as experiencing conceptual change process (Hodson, [25]), science learning strategy (Songer & Linn, [65]), and interest in science learning (McComas, [46]). All these arguments could have been grouped into values of NOS within science teaching if they appear. However, such arguments were not emphasized by educators in the present study. This might be due to the less straightforward relationship between teaching NOS to science teachers and school students' science learning, which needs to be mediated by science teachers' learning of NOS, their teaching of NOS to school students, and school students' learning of NOS. Given such a multistep and complex mediation mechanism, Chinese science teacher educators may not be able to notice them during the process of talking about teaching NOS to science teachers.

Different from the values of teaching NOS within science teaching, there exist considerable differences between NOS values beyond science teaching suggested by Chinese educators and those discussed in the Western literature. The most prominent difference is absence of the democratic argument. It is rather popular in the Western literature to relate NOS with participation in the public decision on social issues related to science (e.g., AAAS, [7], [8]; CMEC, [16]; Driver et al., [20]; Hodson, [27]; McComas, [46]; NRC, [54]). However, not any traces of data can be found in the present study leading to such argument. Such an absence may be explained in terms of the political context in China. China is now a socialist country governed by Chinese Communist Party. In such a less decentralized system, general public has relatively little voice in the public decision on social issues. Therefore, Chinese educators might not be interested to relate NOS with this argument during the interview.

In the interview, quite a number (9 of 24) of educators explicitly elaborated on the NOS values of promoting national development—which is scarcely discussed in the Western literature. Such a difference could be explained in terms of the historical and economic context in China. As introduced in the literature review, although China had a splendid civilization in its ancient time, the country suffered from invasions by other countries in 19th century. As a nation whose bitter memories of being invaded still lingers and whose science and technologies are still lagging behind the developed countries, it is understandable why economic growth and national reflourishment are given higher priorities, and that education is seen as the vehicle to achieve these aims. Indeed, the slogan "Ke Jiao Xing Guo," which means rejuvenating our country through science and education, is easily found in all kinds of official documents in China. Hence, not surprisingly, Chinese science teacher educators in this study were also paying attention to how this goal could be achieved through NOS teaching.

As discussed in the literature review, two different ways are used to establish the relationship between culture and NOS. The first is to consider understanding NOS as a way to appreciate contemporary culture, and the second regards understanding NOS as a way to enlighten the existing culture. For the educators in the present study, the relationship between Chinese culture and NOS was solely discussed in term of enlightenment and such relationship seems to be rather rich and complex. This tendency should be viewed against the pragmatism orientation in the history of science in China. As introduced in the early section, the pragmatic needs played a rather significant role in both the development of science in ancient China and the popularization of Western Science in modern China. Given such a pragmatism orientation, it is understandable that Chinese science teacher educators were more likely to perceive teaching NOS as a pragmatic tool to enlighten Chinese traditional culture, instead of a way of appreciating Western culture.

The Chinese science teacher educators' emphasis on the cultural enlightening value of NOS also reflects a Chinese people's tradition of criticizing their own culture. After China was invaded in 19th century, Chinese people began to realize the backwardness of China, and it was commonly believed by Chinese scholars that such backwardness was due to the shortcomings in the Chinese culture (Zhang, [82]). On the basis of such consideration, a well‐known Chinese Cultural Enlightening Movement6 was initiated in 1919, which is also known as the New Culture Movement in China. From then on, the act of criticizing Chinese culture becomes very popular among Chinese people. The extreme case might be what happened in another widely known movement in China, Cultural Revolution, which was launched by Mao Zedong in China on May 16, 1966. During such movement, the Chinese Confucian culture was also heavily criticized. In fact, when values of NOS are discussed in terms of enlightening the Chinese traditional culture, it implies a criticism tone on the Chinese culture, which might be a reflection of the Chinese tradition of criticizing its own culture since 19th century.

Compared with values of NOS in enlightening Chinese traditional culture and promoting national development, the utilitarian and moral arguments in the Western literature were not emphasized by these Chinese educators. The values of NOS in helping people in distinguishing pseudoscience in daily life and as facilitating success in individual's work were, respectively, discussed just by two educators in an explicit way. On other occasions, it was embedded in other arguments of the value of NOS beyond science teaching. The realization of the cultural and national values, which should be considered as the collective values, will unavoidably need support and actions from individuals of the society. In other words, changing the country and her culture should begin with influencing individuals in the country. Therefore, the utilitarian argument is essentially embedded in other collective arguments. Nevertheless, when the utilitarian argument appears as embedded in other arguments, it is an implicit call rather than an explicitly emphasized focus.

Such an implicit way of expressing the values of NOS can also be found in this study for the moral argument. As indicated in the data, values of NOS had not been explicitly discussed in terms of moral. However, NOS elements like scientific ethos, which can also be called as ethics or norms of science, had appeared in educators' discussions on the values of teaching NOS in distinguishing pseudoscience in daily life, facilitating success in individual's work, overcoming the subjectivity in Chinese traditional culture, and suppressing the superstition in Chinese traditional culture. When these elements appeared and were related to others values, the moral values were implied since they are by themselves ethical. Similar to the utilitarian argument discussed above, when being implied in other arguments, such moral values are just implicit rather than explicit.

Michael Matthews ([45]) states in his comments on the appropriate attitude to the teaching and learning trends in science teaching, If teachers no longer think seriously about the purpose of education and how they related to personal and social well being, then questions about the content and aims of science education become trivialized, or settled by reference to whatever is the passing educational fad. (p. 53)

What is emphasized in Matthews' statement is the importance of understanding values or purposes of education both within and beyond teaching. As indicated in the present study, there are both similarities and differences between the Western and Chinese views on the values of teaching NOS due to the rather different social, political, and historical contexts. Set against Matthews' advice, these findings have one important implication for science curriculum development in the era of globalization. Each country, be it China or other non‐Western countries, in the process of introducing and/or adopting NOS education in their own system, needs to thoroughly discuss the values rooted in their own social, political, and historical contexts, and the appropriate ways of realizing these values. Without such an in‐depth discussion, the teaching of NOS in these regions might also be something like chasing educational fad.

Although NOS can be found in some science curriculum reform documents in China, the values of teaching it have not been discussed in depth in these documents. Without a clear understanding of the values of teaching NOS, teachers may not be motivated enough to teach NOS in their classroom. The findings elicited in this study can be a useful resource used in teacher training programs as the reference for teachers to think of their own visions of teaching NOS. When science teachers have a deeper understanding of the values of teaching NOS, they could have greater intention to take on a proactive role in NOS instruction.

NOS is a contested issue, which includes a large number of controversies and even conflicts, so it is not easy to decide on its content to be taught. Some scholars suggest that regardless of these controversies and conflicts, we still can reach a consensus regarding NOS content to be taught and so NOS teaching should focus on those agreed‐on NOS tenets (e.g., Lederman et al., [34]; Osborne et al., [57]). If such a consensus is to be achieved, its validity should first base on the condition that everyone contributing to the consensus has a thoughtful decision on their own NOS content to be taught. People's decision on NOS content to be taught is at least influenced by two factors, i.e., their own beliefs on NOS and views of the values of teaching NOS. The present study provides some perspectives, which are to some extent different from the typical ones in the existing literature. Although it is not necessary for everyone to adopt all of them, these different perspectives may at least stimulate people to think more thoroughly of their own views of values of teaching NOS so as to make more thoughtful individual decision on their own NOS content to be taught, which in turn, contributes to the validity of the consensus regarding it.

2 * Scenario A was designed on the basis of the paper by Abd‐El‐Khalick and Akerson (2004).