Examination of science teacher candidates' attitudes and opinions towards contemporary measurement and evaluation systems in distance education

Equipped and qualified individuals in terms of knowledge and skills can only grow with a quality and efficient education system. The level of material and spiritual development of a society depends on the quality of education received by the individuals in that society. Science also has an important place in raising individuals who will contribute to this level of development and strive to solve the problems that occur in daily life. Since the beginning of 2019, the Covid-19 epidemic, which has been experienced all over the world, has also negatively affected education systems. In this process, remarkable scientific researches were carried out on different learning environments and approaches such as distance education, and teaching methods and techniques applied in these environments, and these researches are still continuing. This study aimed to examine prospective science teachers' attitudes and opinions towards contemporary measurement and evaluation systems in distance education. In the research process, the combining (diversification) design was used in mixed-method research. During the research process, 82 science teacher candidates from different grade levels studied at a state university participated. Quantitative and qualitative data collection tools were used together in the research. Attitude towards Distance Education Scale, which consists of 20 items and 4 factors, was used as a quantitative data collection tool. Structured Interview questions developed by the researcher were used as a qualitative data collection tool. The data obtained within the scope of the research were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics. Within the scope of the research, it was determined that teacher candidates' attitudes did not make a significant difference in gender variables. However, it was determined that the pre-service teachers' attitudes made a significant difference in the grade level variable. According to this, it was determined that the pre-service teachers in the 3rd grade had the highest attitude, while the pre-service teachers in the 1st grade had the lowest attitude. Open-ended interview questions with pre-service teachers were presented comprehensively by divided into codes with 8 different themes and sub-categories. In distance education applications, it is of great importance to develop modern measurement and evaluation tools and to design a teaching program suitable for this process in order to make effective assessment and evaluation in education.