NATURE OF WORLDVIEW PRESUPPOSITIONS AMONG SCIENCE TEACHERS IN BOTSWANA, INDONESIA, JAPAN, NIGERIA, AND THE PHILIPPINES

The focus of this study was to identify the nature of worldview presup positions held by a group of science teachers from five non-western cu ltures. The results show that the subjects, irrespective of their cult ural backgrounds, hold identical worldview presuppositions. It is not clear at this exploratory stage to what extent the subjects' alternati ve viewpoints influenced their scientific outlook or their science tea ching. However, an analysis of the subjects' viewpoints suggests eithe r poor conceptualizations of the nature of science or a form of collat eral thinking, whereby an individual accepts or uses both mechanistic and anthropomorphic explanations depending on the context in question and without exhibiting any sign of cognitive dissonance. The implicati ons of such a scenario for the teaching-learning process are highlight ed.