Assessing the feedback thinking, homological reasoning, and feedback recognition levels of senior pre-service middle school science teachers using domain-specific and domain-general scenarios

As the world becomes increasingly complex and many systems problems such as hunger and global warming are encountered in everyday life, individuals need to be equipped with systems thinking skills to deal with these complex systems. Teachers play an important role in educating students to become systems thinkers, so it is valuable to examine teachers' systems thinking skills. However, it is noted that systems thinking studies that include pre-service and in-service teachers as participants are very limited. The purpose of this study is to assess the feedback thinking, homological reasoning, and feedback recognition levels of senior pre-service middle school science teachers through domain-specific and domain-general scenarios. Ten senior pre-service middle school science teachers with strong science and mathematics backgrounds from a leading public university participated in this study. The Systems-Based Inquiry (S-BI) protocol developed by Sweeney and Sterman (2007) was selected for this study, and it was deemed appropriate to revise this protocol due to the earth-shattering effects of the 21st century. Data were analyzed using the revised S-BI protocol scoring rubric. The results showed that participants' feedback thinking, homological reasoning, and feedback recognition skills were limited. This study is considered to be a pioneering study for future studies by revealing the systems thinking skills of individuals in areas that are familiar and unfamiliar to them.