مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - An Action Research For Enabling Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Active Learning in General Chemistry Laboratory Course

Abstract :

It is important for science teachers who develop chemistry laboratory knowledge and skills of middle school students are competent in pedagogies applied in laboratory. However, the researcher’s personal observations as well as studies carried out in General Chemistry Laboratories 1 and 2 (GCL) courses have shown that pre-service science teachers have some difficulties in the laboratory. To address this issue, the researcher planned and implemented an action research in GCL-1 course. Thus, the aim of this study is to overcome the difficulties faced by the pre-service science teachers in the core subjects of chemistry laboratory such as “recognition of laboratory materials, safety rules, and solution preparation” in GCL-1 course by using reflective teaching approach. The researcher developed reflective teaching-related activities on the subjects and administrated them to 22 first-year pre-service science teachers. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching on the pre-service science teachers’ learning, an achievement test was utilized. The participants’ views about the activities and implementation process were determined by a questionnaire. Findings of the study have shown that the activities were useful and entertaining for the pre-service teachers. However, it has been noted that the participants cannot solve solution preparation problems regardless of their gains in the laboratory. Based on this result, it is suggested pre-service teachers’ problem solving processes for solution preparation problems should be examined and a new activity for solution preparation problems should be design in this direction.