Investigating the effect of subject specialisations, academic performance, and gender on pre-service teachers’ nature of science beliefs

The study sought to understand how students’ subject specialisations, academic achievements and gender influence the belief about nature of science (NOS) they hold at the end of their four year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree programme in South Africa. The study was underpinned by an epistemological development theory. It was a quantitative study which involved one hundred and seventeen fourth-year students registered for a four-year Bachelor of Education degree, of whom 72 were females and 45 were males. The study revealed the following: (i) Most fourth year pre-service students were neither naïve nor sophisticated in their conception of NOS beliefs when they exited the programme. Students NOS beliefs also differed with respect to whether they were female or males. Overall, female students were slightly more sophisticated in their NOS beliefs than their male counterparts. (ii) The study also revealed that specialising in Physical Science, Life Sciences, and Technology had no effect on NOS beliefs held by both male and female students. (iii) However, male students specialising in Mathematics were found to hold more sophisticated NOS beliefs and these beliefs were significantly superior to their female counterparts. (iv) Students who academically performed at a distinction level had significantly superior NOS beliefs than those whose academic performance was just at a pass level. (v) Female students specialising in Physical Science had superior beliefs about how scientific knowledge is generated.