Writing constructivist texts and effects of construcivist texst on preservice teachers` interest, knowledge and attitude toward chemistry textbooks

To improve instruction and students learning, school reform efforts have become very common throughout the world including Turkey. Like other part of the world, Turkey has been deeply influenced by the constructivist approach. Especially in science teaching, preservice teachers are thought how to become a constructivist teacher; curriculum developers consider developing new curricula that can be used along with constructivist learning models. In many developed countries such as U.S.A. or UK, there are some efforts to write science textbooks that support constructivist learning models. However, these efforts are not very common, even in some countries, there is virtually no effort to create a textbook that claims to be designed for constructivist learning environment. In this study, our aim is to create chemistry texts for Lise 2 (10th grade) students about the concepts of acids-bases, pH and pOH, which are written in a manner o f s upporting constructivist v iew o f 1 earning. First o f all, t he t ext u tilized learning cycle format (pattern first - term second) contrary to traditional text format(term first - pattern second). Secondly, the text was written in an investigative fashion and designed to help students and teachers use in inquiry-based science classroom. Thirdly, in certain parts of the text, conceptual change model was used to target common misconceptions the students may have had about acids and bases. Finally, to enhance students' interest, activities and analogies were used to explain concepts. We have chosen two groups from undergraduate students enrolled in Gazi University, Gazi Faculty of Education, Chemistry Education Department. The participants were high school chemistry teacher candidates. The control text was adapted from the chemistry textbook, which is widely used in public high schools in Turkey. Logical Thinking Test and Reading Comprehension Test were applied prior to study to show that there is no significant difference between these groups. One group read the control text and the other group read our constructivist text during a given period of time. Topic Measures, Knowledge Measures were applied to the participants as pre- and posttests to assess change in interest, knowledge and self- efficacy for teaching about the topic and how the texts enhanced metacognition while learning chemistry, Flow Measures were applied as pre- and posttest to measure how the texts impacted the motivation. At the end, students compared both test using Text Measures. Careful statistical analysis showed that there was no significant difference between control test and treatment text in terms of the effect of the text on interest, perceived knowledge, self-efficacy, success and metacognition. However, there was statistical evidence that constructivist text enhance learning motivation (flow). Also, results from Text Measures showed that students, as preservice-teachers, dominantly preferred constructivist text.