The effects of experiential learning on metacognitive awareness in the analytical chemistry laboratory

In this study, it was aimed to determine the effect of analytical chemistry laboratory applications based on experiential learning on students' metacognitive awareness. Learning occurs as a result of experiences and individuals learn in different ways. When individuals learn about a situation through their own experiences, they create more permanent learning. The laboratory environment plays an important role in learning theoretical knowledge with practical applications. It is expected that there will be significant differences in the metacognitive awareness of individuals in the analytical chemistry laboratory conducted with experiential learning. Based on this idea, the effect of experiential learning practices in the analytical chemistry laboratory environment on the metacognitive awareness of chemistry teacher candidates was examined. The study group of the research consists of chemistry teacher candidates who took analytical chemistry laboratory course at Hacettepe University Faculty of Education, Department of Chemistry Education in the fall semester of 2020-2021. Practices within the scope of the course were carried out by following the experiential learning method of sample research. In the study, tools consisting of metacognitive awareness inventory and semi-structured interviews to be directed face-to-face/online were used during the data collection phase. In this way, the change in the metacognitive awareness levels of the students with the experiential learning method was determined.