Oktay Bektas

In-service and Pre-service Science Teachers’ Views regarding Conceptual Integration of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology Disciplines*

Article History: Received 05.08.2017 Received in revised form 05.01.2018 Accepted 28.04.2018 Available online 22.05.2018 The purpose of the study was to understand knowledge and opinions of in-service (ISTs) and preservice science teachers (PSTs) regarding the conceptual integration (CI). The research design of this study was phenomenology as a type of qualitative research methods. Purposive sampling methodology was chosen for this study. A sample of the study consisted of ten ISTs and 40 PSTs. Twostage open-ended questions were utilized as the primary data source to evaluate ISTs’ and PSTs’ subject matter knowledge in terms of integrating biology, physics, and chemistry concepts with each other and their views about CI. The content analysis was used to evaluate the data. It was given information regarding validity and reliability studies. Findings indicated that most of the ISTs and PSTs had insufficient subject matter knowledge regarding the CI and most of them responded questions with only biology, physics and chemistry concepts without any integration. Moreover, all participants stated that the CI was crucial and necessary owing to the interrelationships among the concepts of biology, chemistry, and physics. Also, most of ISTs had difficulty in applying the CI. Moreover, ISTs did not mention any specific teaching strategy and assessment technique while using the CI. Finally, most of ISTs stated that they were not aware of the presence of the CI in curriculum. Furthermore, PSTs mentioned that the CI has some contribution to their learning; however, participants had the difficulties in using the CI in their learning. Implementation of the study was discussed. In light of these results, training workshops can be organized to inform teachers and preservice science teachers about the CI and encourage them to use it in class.

Öğretmen Adaylarının Fen Öğrenimi ile ilgili Beklentilerini Belirleme

The purpose of this study was to examine the expectations of the pre-service science (biology, chemistry, and physics) teachers about learning science on independence, coherence, concept, reality link, math link, and effort dimensions by using Science Expectations Questionnaire (SEQ) and conducting interviews with selected pre-service teachers on their questionnaire responses. The SEQ was applied to 121 pre-service science teachers in a public university. The results show that most of the pre-service science teachers had sophisticated view of learning in terms of independence and reality link dimensions; they had naive view of learning in terms of other dimensions. Hence, teacher educators could determine pre-service science teachers’ view of learning and encourage them to have more sophisticated view of learning.