Abstract: Helping students develop informed views of nature of science (NOS) has been and
continues to be a central goal for kindergarten through Grade 12 (K –12) science education. Since the early
1960s, major efforts have been undertaken to enhance K –12 students and science teachers’ NOS views.
However, the crucial component of assessing learners’ NOS views remains an issue in research on NOS.
This article aims to (a) trace the development of a new open-ended instrument, the Views of Nature of
Science Questionnaire (VNOS), which in conjunction with individual interviews aims to provide meaning-ful assessments of learners’ NOS views; (b) outline the NOS framework that underlies the development of
the VNOS; (c) present evidence regarding the validity of the VNOS; (d) elucidate the use of the VNOS and
associated interviews, and the range of NOS aspects that it aims to assess; and (e) discuss the usefulness of
rich descriptive NOS profiles that the VNOS provides in research related to teaching and learning about
NOS. The VNOS comes in response to some calls within the science education community to go back to
developing standardized forced-choice paper and pencil NOS assessment instruments designed for mass
administrations to large samples. We believe that these calls ignore much of what was learned from research
on teaching and learning about NOS over the past 30 years. The present state of this line of research
necessitates a focus on individual classroom interventions aimed at enhancing learners’ NOS views, rather