The impact of online cooperative learning on preservice science teachers' scientific reasoning, motivation and science teaching efficacy beliefs

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the online cooperative learning method on pre-service science teachers' scientific reasoning skills, motivation and self-efficacy towards science teaching. Non-equivalent control group design, one of the quasi-experimental designs, was used in the study. It was conducted with 54 junior pre-service science teachers in the spring semester of the 2020-2021 academic year at a university in Adana for 7 weeks. The experimental and control group consisted of 28 and 26 students, respectively. In the study carried out in the Science Teaching II course, the experimental group students received online cooperative learning instruction, while the control group received online whole-class discussion.The data were collected by using "Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR)", "Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ)" and "Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument-Form B (STEBI-B)". LCTSR, MSLQ and STEBI-B were administered to pre-service teachers as pre and post-test. Independent samples t-test was used to compare the groups in terms of pre and post-LCTSR scores. The pre- LCTSR results showed that there was no significant difference between the groups. However, there was a significant difference in favor of the experimental group, as determined by the analysis of the post-LCTSR data. In order to compare the groups in terms of pre-MSLQ scores, independent samples t-tests were conducted for the subscales of intrinsic goal orientation (IGO), extrinsic goal orientation (EGO), control of learning beliefs (CLB) and test anxiety (TA), and Mann Whitney U was performed for the self-efficacy for learning and performance (SELP) and task value (TV) subscale. According to the results, there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of pre-MSLQ scores. To determine whether there was a significant difference between the groups in terms of post-MSLQ subscales, independent samples t-test was performed for each subscale. The findings show that there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of IGO, EGO, and CLB, but there was a significant difference in terms of TV, SELP, and TA in favor of the experimental group. To determine whether there was a significant difference between the groups in terms of pre-MSLQ scores, Mann Whitney U was used to analyze the scores of science teaching outcome expectancy (STOE) and ANOVA was used to analyze personal science teaching efficacy (PSTE) scores. Results show that there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of pre-STOE and pre-PSTE. Post-STOE and PSTE scores were analyzed by ANOVA. According to the results, there was a significant difference between the groups in terms of post-STOE scores in favor of the experimental group while there was no significant difference in terms of post-PSTE scores. It can be concluded that online cooperative learning increased pre-service science teachers' scientific reasoning skills, motivation, and science teaching outcome expectancy compared to whole-class discussion. In general, considering its positive effects on scientific reasoning skills, motivation and science teaching self-efficacy, online cooperative learning is an effective method to be used in the pre-service science teacher education even after the pandemic.