The investigation of learning styles and critical thinking skills related to the various variables: Science education prospective teachers

In this study, it is aimed to investigate the learning styles and critical thinking skills of the science education prospective teachers attending to Education Faculty of Amasya University and to figure out how they improve these skills during their education period using cross-sectional method in developmental research approach. The sample of the research involves prospective students attending to the Education Faculty of Amasya University Elementary school science education department in 2012-2013 academic year. 'Gregorc Learning Styles Envantory' was used to determine the learning styles of the students and 'California Critical Thinking Tendency Scale' and 'Personal Knowledge Form' were used to figure out their critical thinking tendencies.For the analyses of the data,frequency and percentage values were calculated and Kaykare (X2 ), İndependent sample t test and ANOVA were used. It was seen that the prospective teachers mostly had Abstract Random (%41) and least Abstract Secuence (%12.2) learning styles. Furthermore, it was realized that there was no meaningful relation between the learning styles of the prospective teachers and their gender, grade,academic success and education level of their parents.Nevertheless, there was a statistically meaningful relation between learning styles and learning status of normal and evening education prospective teachers. Besides this,when the critical thinking tendencies of the students examined, it was found out that they had moderate tendency. It was realized that few students had critical thinking tendency at high level. In the study, when the students answered ' I do not agree' to the open idea sub-scale, it proved that they were not reluctant to accept the different ideas and opinions of the others. At the analytic sub-scale, the prospective teachers had this tendency. When the critical thinking tendency of the prospective teachers related to their gender investigated, there was a meaningful difference only at systematical sub-scale. Related to the obtained data, various suggestions were made within the study.