Scientific literacy has been identified as the main goal of science education by National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) in 1971 and understanding the nature of science (NOS) has been accepted as one of the most important components of scientific literacy. In the Nature of Science position statement, NSTA (2000) suggested that all people involved with science should have a contemporary view of NOS. Abd-El-Khalick (2012, p. 1051) defined NOS as “a reflective endeavor: The varying images of science that have been constructed throughout the history of scientific enterprise are, by and large, the result of the collective scholarship of historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science, as well as scientists turned historians or philosophers, and reflective scientists” (Abd-El-Khalick, 2012, p. 1051).

Although the importance of understanding NOS has been strongly emphasized, there is not a single universally accepted definition of the term. However, there is an agreement on some general aspects of NOS that should be known by all scientifically literate people. Lederman, Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, and Schwartz (2002) identified these aspects as: (1) empirical-basis; (2) subjectivity; (3) tentativeness; (4) the distinction between theories and laws; (5) the distinction between observation and inference; (6) creativity; (7) social-cultural embeddedness.

Since understanding NOS is accepted as a crucial component of scientific literacy improving pre-service science teachers' (PSTs) NOS understanding has been a major task for science teacher educators. If PSTs do not understand NOS, it is impossible for them to teach appropriate views of NOS in their future classrooms (Abd-El-Khalick, & Lederman, 2000). For this reason, several studies had conducted over the past several decades in order to test the effectiveness of different strategies in improving learners' NOS views; however, despite these attempts, recent studies still reveal that learners do not have adequate views of NOS (Lederman, 2007).  Akerson and Donnelly (2008) suggested that learners might experience difficulties to understand NOS because of their personal characteristics.

One of these characteristics is religious beliefs. Roth and Alexander (1997) argued that when their scientific knowledge and religious beliefs contradicted with each other, undergraduate physics students’ strong religious beliefs cause them to have difficulties in gaining a meaningful understanding of NOS. Muğaloğlu and Bayram (2010) and Haidar (1999) also found similar results suggesting that strong religious beliefs might prevent learners to adopt a contemporary understanding of NOS.

However, the number of the studies investigating this interaction is still so limited and there is a need for a detailed case study to be able to not only claim that there is an interaction, but also to identify at which points PSTs perceive a contradiction between their religious beliefs, scientific knowledge and NOS aspects. In the present study, the purpose is to identify the interaction between NOS and religious beliefs by an instrumental case study with a Muslim Turkish PST. 

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