A mixed method study on pre-service teachers' informal reasonings aimed at origin of global warming

The main purpose of this study was to explore pre-service teachers' informal reasoning aimed at origin of Global Warming (GW) in terms of decision-making, informal reasoning and argument modes. The practice group of the study consists of senior 90 pre-service teachers, chosen by criteria sampling method from purposive sampling methods, studies in department of social sciences education, science teaching and primary school teaching in state university of a city somewhere in Central Anatolia Region. To examine pre-service teachers' informal reasonings aimed at origin of Global Warming (GW) within holistic and rich view, mixed method research model, which uses qualitative and quantitative research methods together, is practiced. Exploratory sequential mixed method is used because informal reasonings of pre-service teachers are investigated thorough integrally by investigating first qualitative then making qualitative findings quantitative. To collect the data, open-ended survey questions, developed by Wu and Tsai (2007) are used. During the data analysis stage, first qualitative data analysis is made then qualitative analysis are subjected to quantification. At the qualitative data analysis stage, content analysis made use of while quantitative data analysis stage Mann-Whitney U-Test, Kruskal-Wallis test, crosstab and chi-square test are taken into use. In addition to results obtained from the study, the pre-service teachers in this study tended to process reasoning from multiple perspectives, and most of them were prone to make evidence-based decisions. When the given answers are examined, a case is emerged which is science-technology oriented and ecology oriented informal reasonings of pre-service teachers are more outweigh. However, lesst han 25% of the participants were able to construct rebuttals against counter-arguments. Moreover, the male and the female students in this study did not show any significant difference on their construction of arguments for different purposes (supportive argument, counter-argument, and rebuttal). In terms of informal reasoning level, it is not possible to say pre-service teachers have a high level of reasoning. The graduate program must include classes to make argumentation studies consisting socioscientific issues on the purpose of making the pre-service teachers, who are to become the practitioner of socioscientific issues in curriculum, gain knowledge and experience. Science Code : Keywords :Pre-service teachers, informal reasonings, socioscientific issue, global warming, mixed method research Total Page : xvi + 140 pages Thesis Supervisor : Assist. Prof. Barış EROĞLU