Views of sci̇ence teachers about science curriculum

ABSTRACT Master's Thesis VIEWS OF SCİENCE TEACHERS ABOUT SCIENCE CURRICULUM Esra CEVİZCİ Kastamonu University Graduate School of Natural and Applied Science Department of Primary Education Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Esra KABATAŞ MEMİŞ The aim of this study is to determine the views of teachers about content, application and basis of the Science Lecture Curriculum revised in 2013. When the Curriculum of Science Lecture is examined, it is seen that the concept of argumentation takes place in the content of the curriculum. For this reason, the views of teachers about the Argument Based Science Learning Approach, which is frequently heard in science education in recent years, was tried to be determined. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 17 science teachers who were working in Kastamonu province during 2015-2016 education year. After the necessary literature search was made in research process, the questions to be asked to the teachers were prepared during the first month. Then, expert opinion about the questions was received for two weeks. The interviews were completed in two months. The interviews with teachers were recorded using a voice recorder and subsequently transcribed into a written document. Written documents were coded by the researcher. In order to ensure the reliability of the coding, a different researcher coded the data and the inter-encoder consistency has been determined as 93%. According to the results obtained from the research, the most important reason for the revision of the curriculum was to alleviate the content of the curriculum. In addition, it was determined that the most of teachers found ABSL process beneficial for the cognitive and academic development of students. However, teachers stated that there were disadvantages such as time, excessive classroom size, inadequate readiness of students. When the science definitions of teachers were examined, it was determined that they mostly interpreted science as transferring knowledge to daily life, using scientific process. In addition, it was observed that they mostly correlated science to science lecture. Based on teachers' research-questioning definitions, it was concluded that this process includes activities such as use of problem-solving skills and being in negotiation process. Teacher roles were determined to be implementing different learning activities, being a good role model and positive exemplifying according to the responses received from teachers. Keywords: Argumentation, science education, science and nature of science, research-questioning, Science Lecture Curriculum 2017, 116 page Science Code: 101