Using hypermedia for developing pre-service science teachers' understandings of the nature of science: Examining the role of self regulation

The purpose of this study is to develop pre-service science teachers' understandings of the nature of science in hypermedia and to investigate the role of self regulation in this process. For this purpose, the research was carried on two stages. In the first stage, hypermedia learning environment about nature of science was to be used in computer assisted learning was designed. In the second stage, the effectiveness of hypermedia and self regulation in learning nature of science was examined. The research was conducted in two different 3th year groups of pre-service science teachers in spring semester 2011 at a metropolitan university. One of the groups was randomly assigned to Experimental Group 1 to examine the effectiveness of self regulation on learning about nature of science within hypermedia, the other group was assigned to Experimental Group 2 to examine the role of hypermedia in learning of nature of science. The participants in both group were taking "History of Science and Nature" course during research. Experimental studies were carried out for 6 weeks in both groups within scope of this course. Pre test-post test experimental design with control group was used in the research. For this purpose, first both groups' views about nature of science were identified with Views about the Nature of Science (VANS) Questionnaire and their concepts about nature of science were identified with concept map. The data of self regulation behaviors were gained by turkish version of Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). In the experimental part of study, pre-service science teachers in Experimental Group 1 who were encouraged to use self regulatory behavior learned nature of science in hypermedia, pre-service science teachers in Experimental Group 2 learned nature of science by using only hypermedia. During the instructional interventions of study, think aloud protocol was conducted in a total of 10 pre-service science teachers who were selected according to maximum variation sampling principles from both groups in order to examine their self regulation behavior in details. After instructional interventions, VANS, concept map and MSLQ were conducted as a post test to both groups. As a result of the study, it was seen that self regulation is effective for developing understandings of the nature of science. The findings of obtained from VANS and concept maps showed that pre-service science teachers in Experimental Group 1 developed their nature of science understandings more than the pre-service science teachers in Experimental Group 2. Moreover, the findings emerging from MSLQ questionnaire reveal that self regulation training foster pre service science teachers' self regulatatory behaviors. Think aloud protocol data indicated that pre-service science teachers in Experimental Group 1 who were given self regulation training used these self regulation behaviors during learning more than the pre-service science teachers in Experimental Group 2: "Setting goals and planning", "Recycle goal in working memory", "Judgment of learning", "Content evaluation", "Expectation of adequacy of content", "Monitoring progress toward goals", "Monitoring learning strategy use", " Monitoring time", "Repetition", " Reviewing notes", "Taking notes", "Goal-directed search". Keywords: Self regulation, Hypermedia, Computer Based Learning, Nature of Science, Science Education, Pre-service Science Teachers.