Mental models of pre-service science teachers about science teaching

The purpose of this research is to determine mental models of pre-service science teachers about science teaching and to examine these models according to variables such as gender, class level, educational status of parents, academic achievement scores from the high schools which pre-service teachers graduated. In this research, survey method was used and the sample were 200 pre-service teachers who were students in Mehmet Akif Ersoy University Science Teaching Department. 50 pre-service teachers of this sample were freshman, 41 pre-service teachers of this sample were sophomore, 55 pre-service teachers of this sample were junior, 54 pre-service teachers of this sample were senior. DASTT-C, was developed by Chambers in 1983, edited by Thomas, Pederson & Finson in 2001 and individual information form were used for data collection instrument. At first, data were analyzed by Scoring Rubric then they were analyzed by SPSS 20.00 programme. According to the analysis results, it was seen that %39 of pre-service teachers have conceptual , %34,5 pre-service teachers have searcher and %26,5 of pre-service teachers have explanatory mental models. Whereas there is no significant difference between mental models and gender, there is a significant difference between mental models and class levels. It is found that pre-service teachers change their models from explicit mental models to explanatory mental models when they become senior graders. Whereas there is no significantly differences between educational status of parents variable and the high schools graduated variable, there is low and negative relationship between general academic success and mental models.