The effect of the argumantation based chemistry experiment designing on pre-service science teachers' understanding of nature of science

In this study, it was examined whether there was a significant difference between the argumentation based experimental design group and the science process skills based experimental design groups' understanding of the nature of science, the effect of argumentation based chemistry experiment designing on science teacher candidates' understanding of the nature of science, and the development of teacher candidates' ability to build arguments. In the study, pre-and post-test control group semi-experimental model and mixed research method with which the qualitative research design was used. The study was carried out with the participation of 71 science teacher candidates, 34 of whom being the argumentation-based study group and 37 whom being the scientific process skills-based study group who enrolled the Experimental Designs in Chemistry course in 2017-2018 spring semester. During the process of the study, the argumentation-based study group were applied the argumentation-based chemistry activities developed by the researcher while the scientific process skills-based study group were designed experiments about the objectives of the Material and Nature units included in the 2018 Science course curriculum. In order to determine pre-service science teachers' understanding of the nature of science, the Nature of Scientific Knowledge Scale and the Opinions about the Nature of Science Questionnaire were applied as a pre- and post-test respectively. Argument Rating Grade Scoring Key was used in order to examine the development of teacher candidates' argument building skills. In order to analyze the data, SPSS 15.0 package software was used. It was found that while there was no statistically significant difference between the study groups, at the end of the study understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge in the in the argumentation-based study group were higher than the scientific process skills based study group (p = 0,00). In addition, it was seen that the opinions of the teacher candidates in the argumentation-based study group about the definition of science, the impact of society on science, characteristics of scientists, scientific observations, scientific models, hypothesis and laws, scientific theories, scientific method, certainty and uncertainty of scientific knowledge, epistemological situation of scientific knowledge tended to realistic view from naive and reasonable view. As a result of the findings obtained from the study, it was found that (a) there is a significant positive difference between the argumentation based and science process skill based study groups in terms of understanding the nature of science, (b) argumentation-based chemistry experiment designs have a positive effect on science teacher candidates' on the understanding the nature of science and, (c) argumentation-based chemistry experiment designing contribute to their development of argument building skills. Keywords: Argumentation, nature of science, science education, teacher education