Abstract:

The purpose of the study is to identify how teachers’ candidates distinguish the science from the non-science (from the so-called science) and whether they use the ideas of the nature of science (NOS) when deciding in the so-called scientific content. The research sample consists of 47 teachers candidates studying in the second class of a university's science knowledge teaching department. In the study, two scenarios were used. Each teacher responds to the question by reading two scenarios. He also asked the teacher candidates to explain with an example how they can distinguish science from the so-called science. The data is performed by the content analysis method based on the themes and codes created according to the students’ responses. The data was independently analyzed by two researchers and created codes and themes, then compared similarities and differences. The results from the study showed that teaching candidates first use evidence, scientific methods, experiments and observation criteria to distinguish science and the so-called science. It has also been determined that they are influenced by factors outside science while evaluating non-scientific sample events that are presented within the research and where they are likely to encounter.

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