Preschool teachers' views and practices regarding the use of experiment method in science education

This research was conducted as a qualitative study in order to determine the opinions of six teachers, who have high and low self-efficacy beliefs towards science education as regard to the effectiveness of experiment method in science education and the practices they carried out in this context. The research was carried out as a case study which is the one of the qualitative research methods, and the participants were selected by criterion sampling method. The Preschool Teachers' Science Education Self-Efficacy Belief Scale was applied to the teachers working in the schools in Adana Central districts, and three teachers with high self-efficacy beliefs and three teachers with low self-efficacy beliefs were evaluated according to this scale. Interviews were held with six determined teachers and their application of experimental method to their classes was observed. The data of the research included six interviews and 12 observation records. The obtained data were analyzed with Maxqda software using the content analysis method. As a result of the research, it was determined that the opinions of teachers showing high self-efficacy beliefs and teachers showing low self-efficacy beliefs about the experimental method were similar. It was observed that teachers often emphasized the advantages of the experimental method, especially its contribution to the field of cognitive development. It was observed that while planning the experiment activity, they started from handy plans and used the experiment method mostly to teach the concept of color. In terms of experiment types, it was revealed that they preferred demonstration technics and individual methods according to the way they would be conducted, and closed-ended technics according to the purpose of the experiment. When the interview results were compared with the observation results, the teachers emphasized that children should be active participants in the experimental activities, but it was seen that the role of the children in practice was the observer or implementer of what the teacher said. It was observed that the teachers, who used the questioning method as a post-experimental evaluation, did not do any work other than providing information on family participation. Finally; although the opinions of teachers with high self-efficacy beliefs in science education and those with low self-efficacy beliefs were similar, teachers with high self-efficacy beliefs in practice asked children more open-ended questions and included them to the learning process more. Keywords: Preschool education, teacher, scince education in preschool, experiment in science education.