Investigating the effects of poe technique-based laboratory activities on preservice science teachers' argumentation skills

One of the aims of today 's modern education systems is to educate individuals who can research, inquire, think critically and creatively, communicate cause - effect relationships between events or situations, and transfer what they learn to their daily life. In this respect, practices that support this situation are being developed day by day in teaching techniques. In this study, it was tried to determine the levels of argumentation of science teacher candidates by using POE and MPOE type laboratory activities. The variation in argument levels in the implementation process has also been assessed. Moreover, this study attempted to determine the opinions of the candidates on the POE and MPOE activities. In this context, this study is a case study research. The research was carried out within the scope of General Chemistry Laboratory II course with 40 first grade students attending to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Faculty of Science Education Teacher Training Department. During the study period, 4 POE and 1 MPOE activities, developed by the researcher and idealized by expert opinions, were applied to the candidates at certain intervals during one semester. The worksheets of the activities were subjected to content analysis according to the revised Toulmin argument level scale, and the development of the argument skills was examined in this way. As a result of the evaluation, it has been determined that candidates' argument-making skills have improved in the positive direction, and the argumentation levels have been moved to higher levels, new and higher-level arguments have been produced. As a result of the study, interview form was applied to get opinions about candidates' attitude and this form was subjected to content analysis. The analysis of the data obtained from the form also showed that the candidates had a positive attitude towards the activities.