Examination of the Ability of Classroom Teacher Candidates’ Making Written Arguments

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the ability of classroom teacher candidates’ written arguments. 100 teacher candidates who are 3rd grade, participated in the study. For this purpose, a worksheet was prepared which contains 4 problems about the physical and chemical changes, the state of matter and mixtures from General Chemistry course. The worksheet was prepared according to the method of argumentation. The second problem in the worksheet consists of two different interrelated questions within itself. The answers given by teacher candidates to problem situations were scored by argumentation scale. The firstly to evaluate the answers given, it must be true in the field of chemistry. Wrong answers show that there may be misconception. When the data obtained from the study are analysed, it is seen that only the ratio of those who make correct in the first question of the second item is higher than those who do wrong. In other problems, it is seen that the ratio of the wrong answer is higher. This shows that teacher candidates have misconceptions about physical and chemical change. On the other hand, a simple linear correlation process was applied to determine the relationship between teacher candidates' grades of Science Information Laboratory Practice grade and the points they got from the argumentation scale. The result shows that there is a negative relationship between the passing score and the argumentation score. This means that the level of argumentation of students who are very successful in academic terms is not high.

Keywords: Argumentation, Written Argument Skills, Classroom Teacher

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-6-06