Investigation of Pre-service Teachers’ Opinions about Science in Terms of the Basic Elements of the Education Program

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the pre-service teachers' opinions about science within the context of the basic elements of the education program, such as objectives, content, learning-teaching process and evaluation. The study was designed as a case study, one of the qualitative research methods. The participants of the study are eight, university fourth-year, pre-service science teachers. In the study, a semi-structured interview form consisting of eight questions was used to collect data. During the data collection process, the questions in the interview form were asked of the participants individually and each interview lasted about 20-29 minutes. The collected data were analyzed through "descriptive analysis" and "content analysis". The findings of the study were systematically tabulated according to the emerging codes and themes and supported with direct quotations from the participants. At the end of the study, it was found that the pre-service teachers could explain the objectives of science. Moreover, the pre-service teachers were found to be evaluating the content of science in terms of scientific disciplines, skills, basic features and current developments; the learning-teaching process in terms of individual differences, materials, methods-techniques and approaches and learning environment and the evaluation process in terms of evaluation time and methods-techniques and approaches.