An examining of the metacognitive awareness and decision-making styles of science teacher candidates according to their decision-making skills

The present research aims to examining the metacognitive awareness and decision-making styles of science teacher candidates according to their decision-making skills. The relational screening model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. The study group of the research consisted of 604 teacher candidates studying in the first, second, third and fourth years of the Department of Science Education, Division of Mathematics and Science Education, Faculty of Education of eight different state universities in the 2017-2018 academic year. The data of the study were collected using the Metacognitive Awareness scale adapted by Akın, Abacı & Çetin (2007), the Decision Making Styles Scale adapted by Taşdelen (2002), and the Decision Making Skill Test adapted by Bozkurt (2014) for teacher candidates. It was found out in the study that the decision-making skill of most of the teacher candidates was at an average level, while it was high for some of them and less for others. It was determined that teacher candidates considered themselves to have the rational decision-making style the most and the avoidant decision-making style the least. The metacognitive awareness of most of the teacher candidates was revealed to be at an average level, while it was at a high level for some of them and less for some others. The rational decision-making style values of those teacher candidates who had a high level of decision-making skill were shown to be higher than those with a low or average level; and the values of those with an average level of decision-making skill were higher compared to those with a low level. It was also shown that the avoidant and spontaneous decision-making style values of those with a high decision-making skill were lower than those with a low decision-making skill. The intuitive and dependent decision-making style values of science teacher candidates did not differ according to the level of their decision-making skill. It was determined that the metacognitive awareness of teacher candidates did not change according to the level of their decision-making skill. The conclusion was that the rational and intuitive decision-making style values increased and the avoidant decision-making style values decreased according to the metacognitive awareness.