Perceptions of the Courses Format, Third-grade Secondary School Students about the Nature of Science

The aim of the study was to identify the perceptions about the nature of science of the course format, third grade secondary school female students. Quantitative and qualitative data have been collected using the Students' Understanding of Science and Scientific Inquiry (SUSSI) tool, in its Arabic version, which was translated by Hamaida (2013). It was converted to a questionnaire and an interview. They include the following nature of science areas: the temporary nature of scientific theories, the difference between observations and inferences, and the relationship between theories and scientific laws. Scientific knowledge is a human activity. It overlaps with the cultural and social aspects, as it is also partly resulted of the imagination and human creativity. Finally, there are no specific scientific method steps to reach scientific knowledge. The sample of the study was (178) female students who were asked to answer the questionnaire. They were selected with a simple random sampling method. The interviews were conducted with 13 students; to deeply identify the perceptions of the students. The interview sample was chosen in purpose based on the diversity and the different responses in the questionnaire as well as their willingness to undergo the questions, through the coding and classification of the responses of the students in each school after the completion of the collecting of the questionnaires.
         The results of this study found consistency between the perceptions of the study sample in the questionnaires and interviews, which also revealed the inaccurate perceptions that the sample of the study holds on the areas of the nature of science that were included in the tools of the study. At the end, the researcher provided some recommendations and suggestions.