Examining Hong Kong senior secondary and tertiary science students’ epistemological view on the Nature of Science (NOS)

This study examined and compared students’ epistemological view on the Nature of Science (NOS) with 108 senior secondary science students and 96 tertiary education science students in Hong Kong using a quantitative method approach. Descriptive statistics, correlation test and one-way multivariate analysis (MANOVA) are applied to examine the data. Overall, students showed a mixed and independent epistemological view towards the NOS. Students who studied Biology as electives in HKDSE were observed to have significant effect on the view towards item “socio-cultural embeddedness” and “tentativeness”, while significant effect of academic background can also be observed. Questions were aroused based on the result of Pearson Correlation test. Implication for the design of science lesson and limitation of research will also be discussed.