Research Information System
The National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), Oregon, United States Of America, 15 - 18 March 2020, pp.1
In this study, we report the results of the descriptive analysis of preservice middle school science
teachers’ own written story books and related lesson plans that includes the science content (science
units and science topics), target grade, and main characters used in the book. We also report the results
of content analysis of story books in terms of their accurate and explicit representation of nature of
science aspects and cultural perspectives identified in the books. Also, we report the analysis of audio
recorded classroom discussion with six grade students about five of these story. The participants of this
study were 49 pre-service middle school science teachers taking nature and the history of science
course, and 13 six grade students. The 49 books and lesson plans covered a range of content areas.
While 27 PSTs preferred to use popular main characters in their stories, 22 PSTs did not use any popular
characters in their stories. Among the NOS aspects, observation and inference was the most commonly
used aspect that was followed by tentativeness. Some books explicitly represent the culture where they
were created such as a traditional food or a famous historical figure.