The aim of this study is to determine science teacher candidates" (PSTs) levels of associating their chemistry knowledge with daily life and to examine the relationship between these levels and their attitudes towards teaching science. The study is a descriptive study conducted through the survey method. This study was carried out with 30 PSTs in the part of science teacher education at the College of Education in their final semester. As the data collection tools, an open-ended questionnaire, which was developed by Kıyıcı and Aydoğdu (2011), was applied to determine the PSTs" levels of associating their chemical knowledge with daily life. Also, the "Science Teaching Attitude Scale" developed by Thompson and Shringley (1986) and adapted into Turkish by Özkan, Tekkaya and Çakıroğlu (2002) was used to determine PSTs" attitudes towards teaching science. The data obtained from the open-ended questionnaire analyzed based on the three categories that were used by Vazquez-Alanso and Manassero-Mas (1999). Findings obtained from the data showed that PSTs" level of associating their chemistry knowledge with daily life was low. Results of the statistical analyses showed that there was a significant relations between level of associating their chemistry knowledge with daily and their attitudes towards teaching science.

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The purpose of this research was to determine the heuristics used by pre-service science teachers in understanding the details of hydrogen bonding.  The reasoning processes demonstrated were evaluated based on ten heuristic models suggested by Talanquer (2014). Phenomenographic assessment of the 30 participants indicated that all ten heuristics were utilized to make interpretations about hydrogen bonding. It was found that most students used short-cut strategies rather than efficient analytical reasoning processes. A total of 12 answer patterns were determined based on the answers of the participants. The percentage of students who gave the correct answer was low. The frequency sequencing of participants' heuristics demonstrated in this study was fluency, associative activation, recognition, one-reason decision making, attribute substitution, overconfidence, surface similarity, generalization, rigidity, and affect.

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