Abstract

The national awareness on science literacy is an international phenomenon and a matter of considerable concern among educators in Malaysia. The number of students furthering their studies in the field of science has dropped to a critical state as many lack understanding on the philosophy of science. This study was conducted to explore teachers’ and students scientific epistemological understanding on the nature of physics knowledge. This was done through a quantitative study that involved statistical analysis to measure teachers’ and students’ epistemological understanding towards physics subject. The study started with identifying the components of scientific epistemology that best suits Malaysian culture and context. Epistemology is the study of knowledge and its acquisition process. Scientific epistemology consists of practical and formal epistemology with respect to nine elements: application of physics concept in real life; mathematics in physics; generating knowledge; source of knowledge; the degree of scientific validity; creativity; diversity of scientific method; scientific laws and theories; and observation and inferences. This study developed an instrument called Scientific Epistemological Measurement for Teacher and Scientific Epistemological Measurement for Sttudent toward physics knowledge based on previous studies within Malaysian science education context. These instruments were administered to 70 physics teachers and 255 students in Johor Bahru. The data showed that there were four levels of scientific epistemological that include naive, low transition, high transition, and sophisticated. The findings indicated that the average level of teachers’ and students scientific epistemological level is at the low transition level. Teachers’ educational background and students achievement in PMR sciences shows contribution towards level of epistemological thinking. The effects and the role of teachers’ scientific epistemology in the formation of students' understanding of physics is shown by five epistemological models that were built at the end of the study using stepwise multiple regression analysis. The study found that the sustainability epistemology components in science education helps to stimulate the development of a more balanced scientific culture among teachers and students.