Cognitive and metacognitive strategies activated while the science texts being read by science and technology pre-service teachers having alternative concepts

The aim of this study is to determine a. the conceptual understandings of pre-service teachers having alternative conception related to photosynthesis ? respiration and force ? motion subjects before and after reading expository texts, b. the cognitive and metacognitive strategies activated while the pre-service teachers read related expository texts, and c. the frequencies of those strategies. Within this scope, first the nature of pre-service teachers conceptual understanding, namely, a. the scientific conception before and after reading the expository text, b. the scientific conception before reading the expository text and the expanded scientific conception after reading the expository text, c. the scientific conception before reading the expository text and the alternative conception after reading the expository text, d. the alternative conception before and after reading the expository text, e. the alternative conception before reading the expository text and a different alternative conception after reading the expository text, f. the alternative conception before reading the expository text and the scientific conception after reading the expository text was identifies and the frequencies of cognitive and metacognitive strategies within each type of conceptual understanding were calculated. Case study ? one of the qualitative research methods ? was used in this study.Totally 6 senior pre-service teachers, during 2011-2012 academic year, studying at two different sections of Science Teaching Program of a university located in Ankara, participated in this study. After the administration of multiple choice conceptual understanding tests about photosynthesis ? respiration and force ? motion concepts totally 6 pre-service teachers, 1 male and 5 females, were selected for case study considering the number and variety of pre-service teachers? alternative conception. In order to examine chosen pre-service teachers? conceptual understandings regarding to photosynthesis ? respiration and force ? motion subjects in detail, before and after reading the expository texts, semi-structured interviews were conducted for each teacher. The expository texts related to photosynthesis ? respiration and force ? motion subjects were read by six Science and Technology pre-service teachers chosen for the case study. During this reading process, to be able to identify cognitive and metacognitive strategies, they were requested to do both reading and thinking aloud, and they have been observed by the researcher. For the purpose of determining whether the strategies that the pre-service teachers used were metacognitive or cognitive, semi-structural interviews were conducted right after their readings in order to clarify their using purposes. The interviews and the process of expository texts? reading have been recorded.The results show that, for each participant and for both of content areas, after reading the expository texts; pre-service teachers who maintained or enhanced their scientifically correct conceptual understanding, and or who changed their alternative conceptions with scientifically correct conceptions used more cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Moreover, among those who used strategies, in order to reach the scientific conception after reading the expository text, the number of the metacognitive strategies used was greater than the number of cognitive strategies.