Students tend to learn genetics by rote and may not realise the interrelationships in daily life. Because reasoning abilities are necessary to construct relationships between concepts and rote learning impedes the students' sound understanding, it was predicted that having high level of formal reasoning and adopting meaningful learning orientation would improve students' understanding of genetics concepts. To test this hypothesis, relationships among students' understanding of genetics concepts, reasoning ability and learning approaches were investigated. A total of 586 eleventh-grade students participated in the study. Students' reasoning ability and learning orientation were measured using the Test of Logical Thinking and the Learning Approach Questionnaire, respectively. Students' understanding of fundamental genetics concepts was assessed using the Two-tier Genetics Concepts Test. Regression analyses were conducted to examine predictive influence of reasoning ability and learning orientations on students' understanding of genetics concepts. The results revealed that all cognitive variables investigated accounted for a statistically significant portion (27%) of the variance in students' understanding of genetics concepts. Reasoning ability and meaningful learning orientation predicted students' understanding of genetics concepts in a positive direction, rote learning orientation predicted it in a negative direction. Additionally, the results indicated that reasoning ability explained more of the variance in test scores as compared to learning approaches.

This study focuses on the process of implementing self-, peer-and teacher-assessment in teacher education in order to examine the ways of applying these assessment practices and specifically aims at finding out the level of agreement among pre-service teachers' self-, peer-and teacher-assessments of presentation performances. Pre-service teachers' presentation performances including an application of a teaching method assessed by peers and teacher and also by themselves through criteria based assessment forms. The analysis of the data revealed that there are statistically significant differences among self-, peer-and teacher-assessment scores. Peer-assessment of pre-service teachers' presentations is found to be significantly higher compared with teacher-assessment and self-assessment. With regard to the comparison of teacher-assessment scores and self-assessment scores, it is revealed that there are no significant differences between teacher-and self-assessments. In teacher training programmes beside summative approach self-, peer-and teacher-assessments can be implemented in a formative way as useful practices in developing more succesful performance, higher confidence, effective presenting skills and essential competencies required for effective teaching.

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Bu araştırmanın amacı, "Fen ve Teknoloji Öğretmenlerine Yönelik Laboratuvar Uygulamaları" programının, öğretmenlerin laboratuvar kullanımına yönelik özyeterlik inançlarına olan etkisinin araştırılmasıdır. Araştırmanın çalışma grubu, programa katılan 60 fen bilimleri öğretmeninden oluşmaktadır. Araştırmada değişkenler arasındaki neden-sonuç ilişkisini belirlemek amacıyla yarı deneysel araştırma modellerinden, tek grup öntest-sontest modeli izlenmiştir. Öğretmenlerin laboratuvar kullanımına yönelik özyeterlik inançlarını incelemek için "Laboratuvar Kullanımı Öz-Yeterlik Algı Ölçeği" kullanılmıştır. Yapılan analizler sonucunda öğretmenlerin özyeterlik inançlarına ilişkin öntest ve sontest puanları arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bulunan fark, laboratuvar uygulamaları programının öğretmenlerin özyeterlik inançlarını arttırarak katkı sağladığını ortaya koymuştur. Araştırma sonucunda, laboratuvar uygulamalarına yönelik eğitimlerin teorik bilgi sunumundan çıkarılıp uygulamalı eğitimler şeklinde planlanması önerilmiştir.Anahtar Sözcük: fen bilimleri öğretmenleri, laboratuvar uygulamaları, özyeterlik inancı.