Yezdan Boz

Turkish Prospective Chemistry Teachers' Beliefs about Chemistry Teaching.

In order to study the beliefs of Turkish prospective chemistry teachers about teaching chemistry, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 12 prospective teachers. Analysis of the interviews revealed that most of the prospective teachers held intermediate (transition between constructivist and traditional) beliefs about chemistry teaching. Most of the student teachers exhibited inconsistencies in their beliefs about teaching chemistry. The findings indicate the complexity of the teachers’ belief systems and imply the significance of identifying prospective teachers’ beliefs for the design of teacher education programs.

A Qualitative Case Study of Prospective Chemistry Teachers’ Knowledge About Instructional Strategies: Introducing Particulate Theory

The purpose of this study was to investigate prospective chemistry teachers’ knowledge about instructional strategies, one component of pedagogical content knowledge about introducing particulate theory, as well as sources of this knowledge. Twenty-two prospective chemistry teachers participated in the study. Data were collected by the means of a vignette, semistructured interviews, and lesson plans. Analysis showed that concrete objects, computer animations, and expository teaching were the preferred teaching techniques by prospective teachers. Several issues, such as general pedagogical knowledge, subject matter knowledge, and knowledge about students’ difficulties, were found to be the main factors for choosing a teaching strategy to make an introduction to particles.

Turkish student teachers' concerns about teaching

The purpose of this study was to examine the teaching concerns of Turkish student teachers and how these concerns differ among year groups within the teacher education programme. Data were collected from 339 student teachers using the Teacher Concerns Checklist. Analysis of the data, including both descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), showed that student teachers held more task‐related concerns, but had the fewest self‐survival concerns. In addition, fifth‐year prospective teachers were found to have significantly lower self‐related concerns than did second‐ and third‐year student teachers.

The nature of the relationship between teaching concerns and sense of efficacy

This study examined the relationship between prospective teachers’ concerns about their teaching and their beliefs about their sense of efficacy. Three hundred and thirty‐nine prospective teachers participated in this study. Two instruments, the ‘Teaching Concerns Checklist’ and the ‘Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Beliefs Scale’, were used to elicit the participants’ teaching concerns and their sense of efficacy. Canonical correlation analysis, conducted to explore the relationships between these two constructs, revealed that concern variables were negatively correlated with efficacy variables. This means that if teachers believe their efficacy is weaker, they tend to have more concerns about teaching. The results of this study have implications for teacher education programmes.

Is case-based learning an effective teaching strategy to challenge students’ alternative conceptions regarding chemical kinetics?

Background: Case-based learning (CBL) is simply teaching the concept to the students based on the cases. CBL involves a case, which is a scenario based on daily life, and study questions related to the case, which allows students to discuss their ideas. Chemical kinetics is one of the most difficult concepts for students in chemistry. Students have generally low levels of conceptual understanding and many alternative conceptions regarding it. Purpose: This study aimed to explore the effect of CBL on dealing with students’ alternative conceptions about chemical kinetics. Sample: The sample consists of 53 high school students from one public high school in Turkey. Design and methods : Nonequivalent pre-test and post-test control group design was used. Reaction Rate Concept Test and semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. Convenience sampling technique was followed. For data analysis, the independent samples t-test and ANOVA was performed. Results : Both concept test and interview results showed that students instructed with cases had better understanding of core concepts of chemical kinetics and had less alternative conceptions related to the subject matter compared to the control group students, despite the fact that it was impossible to challenge all the alternative conceptions in the experimental group. Conclusions: CBL is an effective teaching method for challenging students’ alternative conceptions in the context of chemical kinetics. Since using cases in small groups and whole class discussions has been found to be an effective way to cope with the alternative conceptions, it can be applied to other subjects and grade levels in high schools with a higher sample size. Furthermore, the effect of this method on academic achievement, motivation and critical thinking skills are other variables that can be investigated for future studies in the subject area of chemistry.

Modelling between epistemological beliefs and constructivist learning environment

The purpose of this study was to model the relationship between pre-service chemistry teachers’ epistemological beliefs and their preference to use constructivist-learning environment in their future class. The sample was 125 pre-service chemistry teachers from five universities in Turkey. Two instruments were used in this study. One of the instruments was constructivist-learning environment scale developed by Taylor, Fraser and Fisher. The other instrument was Epistemological Questionnaire (EQ) developed by Schommer. In order to analyse data, Structural Equation Modelling was conducted by using LISREL 8.7. The results provided evidence for the good fit of the hypothesised model. Pre-service chemistry teachers’ epistemological belief scores were found to be correlated to their constructivist-learning environment scale scores with the value of .35. This study revealed that pre-service chemistry teachers with sophisticated epistemological beliefs favoured constructivist-learning environment in their future class.

Investigating the relationships among students’ self-efficacy beliefs, their perceptions of classroom learning environment, gender, and chemistry achievement through structural equation modeling

Abstract Background: Investigating factors contributing to chemistry achievement is important since it enables us to make more concrete instructional decisions related to improving students? chemistry achievement. Purpose: This study aimed to investigate how students? perceptions of learning environment, self-efficacy and gender are related to chemistry achievement. Sample: Three hundred fifty six high school students with the age range of 14 and 19 from three different schools in the same district were the participants. Design and methods: A structural equation model was designed and tested. Constructivist learning environment survey, self-efficacy scale were the instruments of the study. Information about students? gender and their chemistry grades belonging to the previous semester were also collected. Results: The model testing showed that chemistry self-efficacy beliefs, students? perceptions of constructivist learning environment (through chemistry-self efficacy) and gender were significantly related to chemistry achievement. Moreover, the findings showed that students? chemistry self-efficacy beliefs mediated the relation of students? learning environment perceptions to their chemistry achievement. Conclusions: The present study has some educational implications for teachers, teacher educators and curriculum developers. First of all, self-efficacy was found to have an effect on students? achievement. Therefore, teachers should consider students? self-efficacy beliefs and devise their instruction accordingly. Another implication of this study is the necessity of considering gender differences in designing teachers? instruction.

Development of pre-service chemistry teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge

In this study, a mixed-method design was employed to investigate pre-service chemistry teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) development. For effective technology integration in instruction, knowledge about technology is not enough; teachers should have different knowledge types which are content, pedagogical, and technological. The 17 pre-service chemistry teachers who enrolled in the Instructional Technology and Material Development course participated in the study for one semester. The purpose of this course was to learn how to integrate simulations, animations, instructional games, data-logging, virtual labs and virtual field trips into chemistry instruction considering factors such as chemistry subjects and students’ possible alternative conceptions or their previous chemistry knowledge. A survey and interviews were used to gather data on the pre-service chemistry teachers’ TPACK framework both before and after the semester. A mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance was conducted to examine the differences in the pre-service teachers’ TPACK at two time periods considering also the gender factor. For the qualitative data, deductive analysis based on existing codes and categories was applied. The quantitative and qualitative findings of this study revealed that the pre-service chemistry teachers’ TPACK improved partially on some components. In addition, based on these findings, gender was not found to be a significant variable in technology integration. For further development in the TPACK framework, more context related technology applications in a learning and teaching environment are needed.