Investigation of the Experiment Design Skills of Biology and Science Teachers and Preservice Teachers

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to examine the experiment design skills of Biology and Science teachers and preservice teachers. For this purpose, 85 Biology and 80 Science teachers and preservices given information about laboratory approaches, experiment types and science process skills were asked to design an experiment about germination. In the reports of the experiments designed by the teachers and the presevice teachers, they were expected to give information about the factors affecting germination, write the problem, determine the hypotheses and the variables, plan their experiments and reach a conclusion. In the analysis of the reports, the sets of data digitized by forming a graded scoring scale were analyzed by benefiting from SPSS package program and their experiment design levels were analyzed based on their fields, being a teacher or a preservice teacher and gender. From the obtained data, it was determined that the number of those who designed an experiment was very low and although there were significant differences between the Biology and the Science teachers and preservice teachers in terms of designing an experiment according to many criteria, there was a difference only in one criterium according to gender.