DEVELOPMENT OF NATURE OF SCIENCE SCALE (NSS) FOR ADVANCED SCIENCE STUDENTS

Frequent use of open-ended questionnaire plus interview application for nature of science as a requirement for informed decision making has been criticized by many researchers and a need for an easily administrable and scorable instrument has been emphasized. At the same time, existing instruments were developed with the students out of advanced students. Therefore, the purpose of this study is development of a nature of science scale for advanced science students. The study was conducted with 224 advanced science students. Both confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis were done to collect evidence for validity of the scores on the instrument and it was found that both of the analyses approved appropriate validity of the scores. Cronbach alphas for subscales were found as from .55 to .77 as acceptable values. The implications and importance of the instrument will be discussed in this article.