This study investigated the understanding of students of arts high school on the nature of scientific models and compared their level of understanding according to visual arts, music, dance, play and movie majors, scientific achievements, and the nature of scientific model’s factors. The study compared the mean and the percentage of each item and used two way ANOVA to analyze whether there were differences in the understanding according to the major and the level of science achievement.
Students attending arts high school were interviewed to observe the similarities in the nature of the scientific model and the experience in arts education related to making models, according to the nature of the scientific models’ factors. Students were well aware that the scientific model is a part of diverse visual representation, and the arts high school students especially had a better understanding of factors such as ‘Models as explanatory tools (ET)’, ‘the uses of scientific models (USM)’, and ‘the changing nature of models (CNM)’ than other students. In the case of arts high school students, the awareness of the model seemed to be higher because their curriculum which requires producing concrete results through the creative training process is similar to making models. However, the arts high school students understanding of models as ‘exact replicas’ was observed to be far from the modern perspective, as was the case with other general high school students. The results of the interviews showed that because the scientific model is also a symbol of work of art, it is related to what the students of arts high school learn in their major, such as various representational aspects, tools for communication that provides explanation, inspiration and ideas, and esthetic aspects. Therefore, findings suggested that when the learning experiences such as the nature of a scientific model or model making are linked, integrated, and influenced by education in other fields, it is important to emphasize the education of the nature of scientific model so that students can broaden their thinking through these experiences.