Characterizing Naturalized Epistemology of Science Possessed by Korean Pre-Service Elementary Teachers

This study aimed at exploring how pre-service teachers possessed naturalized epistemology of science. The epistemology of science has been major topics of investigation in science education research targeting pre-service and in-service teacher education. How science works including scientific investigation for achieving science knowledge was well known item in school science. The role of scientific epistemology would play in science classroom. Therefore improving teachers’ perspectives and designing advanced teaching-learning sequences along them have been substantial parts of the science education reform. Such efforts have been active when a new epistemological position emerged such as naturalized epistemology. Through this research Korean pre-service teachers’ understanding of the naturalized epistemology was explored. The questionnaire to explore pre-service teachers’ epistemological beliefs was adopted majorly focusing on naturalized epistemology of science knowledge. They were administrated to forty per-service elementary teachers. The questionnaire is composed of items using a Likert scale. According to the finding, Korean elementary teacher candidates in this study had more agreement for naturalized epistemology than for traditional one.