Every aspect of teaching, including the instructional method, the course content, and the types of assessments, is influenced by teachers' attitudes and beliefs. Teacher education programs play an important role in the development of beliefs regarding teaching and learning.

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ABSTRACT. The purpose of the study was to investigate and describe pre-service elementary science teachers' written arguments related to Mersin-Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in terms of reasoning mode, Toulming argumentation model and argumentation levels. A single group pre/post-test design was administered to investigate participants written arguments about Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant. The result of the study was that when the preservice science teachers' knowledge about the socio-scientific issues increased, their multiple reasoning modes increased too. Furthermore, it was found that the most generated argument was ecologic oriented while the least was social oriented. The result of the study also showed that when the argumentation level increased, the reasoning mode tended to increase as well. Key Words: Argumentation, socio-scientific issues, Akkuyu, nuclear Power Plant, science education SUMMARY Purpose and significance:The purpose of the study is to investigate the written arguments of pre-service elementary science teachers' reasoning modes and argumentation levels about the Nuclear Power Plant which is going to be constructed in Mersin-Akkuyu reagent. The importance of the study is to document pre-service elementary science teachers' reasoning modes and argumentation levels about a socioscientific issue.Method: A total of 38 pre-service elementary science teachers from Adana, which is the neighbor city where the nuclear power plant is going to be constructed, were participated in the study. A single group pre/pose-test design was administered. Written arguments were analyzed before and after reading an article about the nuclear power plant. Participants' reasoning modes were categorized based on the Patronis et al., and Wu & Tsai's work and participants' argumentation levels were categorized based on the Toulmin and Osborne, Erduran & Simon's work. Results:Investigation of pretest showed that ecological reasoning mode was the dominant mode which was the main reason of participants' decisions. On the other hand, economic, scientific-technological reasoning modes besides the ecological were the main reasons according to posttest results. Participants who were in lower argumentation levels during the pretest tended to change their decision regarding the construction of a power plant. However, participants who were in higher argumentation levels tended to be stable in their decision. Overall finding from the study was that when the teachers' knowledge about the socio-scientific issues increased, multiple reasoning modes increased, too. The most general reasoning mode was the ecological mode while the least general modes were social mode. There was also a parallel increase of argumentation levels and multiple reasoning modes. The higher the argumentation level participants had, the more multiple reasoning modes they had. Discussion and Conclusions:The findings were supported by other studies, which were reported in the literature. Some practical implications come to forward in the current study. Pre-service teac...

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