The effects of inquiry based and verification laboratory instruction on preservice science teachers? achievement, misconceptions about force and motion and their epistemological beliefs

The purpose of this study was i) to investigate preservice science teachers? misconceptions about force and motion and to overcome misconceptions preservice science teachers hold through inquiry based and verification laboratory instruction, ii) to determine their epistemological beliefs before activities, and after activities, iii) to examine the relationships among achievement, misconceptions, and epistemological beliefs.The participants of the study were recruited by convenience sampling method. Of the participants, 38 were in experimental group while 40 of them were in the control group. The participants were in third grade of science teacher education program. The study was conducted in 2009-2010 school year. This research was a semi-experimental study. In the experimental group, laboratory activities prepared based on inquiry based instruction was used, while in the control group laboratory activities based on verification laboratory instruction was employed throughout six weeks. To test the problems of the research, force concept inventory (FCI) and epistemological beliefs survey were used as pre and post test. The three tier format of FCI was used in this study. It was marked according to three steps and revealed participants? achievement and misconceptions. The epistemological beliefs scale was used to examine participants? epistemological beliefs.To analyze the findings of the study, statistical tests including ANCOVA, two factors ANOVA, independent t-test, and Pearson moment correlation were used. The results were assessed at .05 level. The results obtained based on the study indicate that inquiry based instruction was found to be significantly effective on participants? achievement and to overcome misconceptions about force and motion and their epistemological beliefs. In addition, the findings also indicate that achievement and misconceptions was significantly in relation with epistemological beliefs.Keywords: Inquiry based instruction, force and motion, conceptual change and epistemological beliefs