The effects of problem solving applications on the development of science process skills, logical thinking skills and perception on problem solving ability in the science laboratory

The fast changes in science and technology in recent times have affected education systems. Students of today need to be able to adapt to a rapidly changing technological world (Şaşan, 2002). As a result of these fast changes, the education systems need to be modified. The education systems can activate the students to learn ways to reach knowledge, to develop solutions for problems yet unknown and to enhance the skills of decision-making (Fisch & McLeod, 2007; İnce Aka, Güven & Aydoğdu, 2010). Science education reformers have supported the idea that learners should be engaged in the excitement of science, they should be helped to discover the value of evidence-based reasoning and higher-order cognitive skills and be taught to become innovative problem solvers (DeHaan, 2005; Perkins & Wieman, 2008). So, it is important for students to be prepared for the future by facing real problems in their learning environment and producing appropriate solutions to these problems (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993; Chin & Chia, 2004; Gallagher, 1997; Walker & Lofton, 2003).

Gagne (1980) suggested that the main objective of education is to teach individuals how to think and how to be good problem-solvers because in real life individuals who are able to think, question, research and produce solutions to the problems they meet may be successful. A great majority of the criticisms concerning the Turkish Education System relates to the fact that students who are raised as the passive recipients of knowledge may have difficulties in making critical choices, solving the complex problems they will face and achieving in their academic studies in the face of today’s information explosion (Şahinel, 2007), and thus it is suggested that the new implications in the Turkish Education System should concentrate on students’ intellectual development. The content and methods should be re-arranged in a way so as to instill in them such skills as critical thinking, creative thinking, relational thinking and reasoning (Özden, 2011). For this aim, student-centered learning may be a new implication. Student-centered learning is a broad approach that

“includes such techniques as substituting active learning experiences for lectures, holding students responsible for material that has not been explicitly discussed in class, assigning open-ended problems and problems requiring critical or creative thinking that cannot be solved by following text examples, involving students in simulations and role-plays, assigning a variety of unconventional writing exercises, and using self-paced and/or cooperative (team-based) learning”. (Felder & Brent, 1996).

Therefore, appropriate methods must be chosen to realize this situation in the learning environment. Accordingly, the problem-solving method (PSM) may be implemented as one of the student-centered learning approaches.

As an instructional approach, PSM is a learning model which centers on the student, develops active learning, skills of problem-solving and field knowledge, and it is based on understanding and problem solving (Major, Baden & Mackinnon, 2000; Malinowski & Johnson, 2001). The problem solving method shows thought on an advanced level when this method is described as a scientific process in terms of finding, inquiry and critical thought (Kemertaş, 2001).

According to Chiappetta and Koballa (2002), various methods have been developed in recent years to increase the productivity of laboratories along with turning them into environments where meaningful learning occurs. One of these approaches is the problem solving method in the laboratory (Wilson, 1987). Laboratories are ideal and productive environments to implement technical concepts into real life content (Gallet, 1998). Students participate in laboratory activities in the same way as following the instructions of a recipe (Neeland, 1999). With the aim of correcting this mistake, certain chemistry educators reached better conditions by using the problem solving method in laboratories (Wilson, 1987). Although laboratory instruction has the potential to enhance the development of scientific concepts held by students through the encouragement of inquiry, intellectual development, problem solving and manipulative skills, research has shown it rarely obtains its full potential (Hofstein & Lunetta, 1982). Consequently, many educators have come to question the pedagogical value of traditional methods of laboratory instruction that give little consideration of how to plan an investigation or interpret experimental results (Merritt, Marilyn & Darlington, 1993). Laboratory activities in nontraditional styles of laboratory instruction such as the problem solving method in the laboratory are believed to promote the development of critical thinking skills (DeBoer, 1991; Gunstone & Champagne, 1990; Merrit et al., 1993; Raths, Wasserman, Jonas & Rothstein, 1986), reasoning skills (Merritt et al., 1993; Tamir, 1977), reading comprehension (Gunstone & Champagne, 1990) and teamwork (Merritt et al., 1993).

Problem solving is one of the primary tools for college and university science instruction (Gök, 2010). Problem solving ability sets one of the roles that individuals undertake in becoming individuals and coping with their environments. Problem-solving ability is often associated with decision-making and scientific rationale (Abdullah & Shariff, 2008). For improving problem solving abilities, it is important to guide students and provide them with feedback as well as introducing strategic methods and modeling students in utilization of these methods (Asieba & Egbugara, 1993; Collins, Brown & Newman, 1989; Keith, 1993). Educators should be able to observe problem solving performances of students, provide their students with feedback and support them in acquiring these abilities (Jeon, Huffman & Noh, 2005).

Developing and enhancing the ability of problem solving and science-process skills of students have long been important objectives of science education (National Research Council, 1996). One of the widest purposes of science education reformation is to train up students who are interested in science actively (Lorsbach & Tobin, 1992). In addition, this system aims to increase students’ academic achievement. This situation is possible for the upper-level mental skills and science process skills (Kaptan, 1999). According to the Ministry of National Education (2005), the new Turkish Elementary Science and Technology curriculum aims to enhance students’ understanding of NOS and develop their scientific processing skills.

Scientific processing skills are the skills that facilitate learning in science, gain research tactics and methods and are essential for problem solving (Burns, Okey & Wise, 1985; Harlen, 1999; Tan & Temiz, 2003). According to Lind (1998), these are thinking skills used in forming information, thinking about problems and formulating results. The main aim of science teaching is to enable students to develop their inquiry, critical thinking and problem solving skills, to become lifelong learners and to continue their senses of curiosity towards their environments. Therefore, it is very important for students to acquire scientific process skills which enable them to produce scientific knowledge as well as learn about the nature of science through experiences (Aydoğdu, 2006). Again, according to Chiappetta and Koballa (2002), one of the most important targets of laboratory studies is to arise an understanding in students about the nature of science. To improve this target, students are required to use some scientific processing skills during research in the laboratory. Individuals, who attain science process skills, possess problem solving abilities and know how to attribute meanings to the events happening by looking at them, and forming a different perspective. Furthermore, students with the said skills manage to think like scientists (Aydoğdu, 2006).

A problem solving strategy is a plan or method to achieve a goal. Analogical reasoning, deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning and abductive reasoning are examples of general strategies used in solving scientific problems (Sternberg & Williams, 2002). Problem solving capabilities are developed empirically or through inductive reasoning, in addition to the aforementioned scientific rationale. Together, these abilities enable science educators to expand upon probabilistic thinking in order to experiment with scientific theory (Stevens, Zollman, Christel, & Adrian, 2007). The ability of problem solving is generally viewed as the ability to reason analytically, to think critically and to create productively, which all involve quantitative, communicative, manual and critical-response skills (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993). According to Korkmaz (2002), logical thinking skill is an individual’s solving a problem by realizing various mental processing or reaching principles and laws by abstractions and generalizations. According to Sonmaz (2002), it is one of the skills which is desired to be gained with science teaching. According to Aşkar (1988), logical thinking is one of the sub-stages of problem solving. Therefore, it is considered that logical thinking and reasoning skills of people who can solve complicated problems are sufficient (Bozdoğan, 2007). Problem solving training should be taken into consideration to improve logical thinking skills. When it is considered that the problem solving training improves the logical thinking skills of the students, the importance of teaching methods and techniques that develop problem solving skills is revealed (Aşkar, 1988). Abdullah and Shariff (2008) further defined deductive reasoning as “thinking patterns which include identifying and controlling of variables, proportional thinking, probabilistic thinking, combinational thinking, and correlational thinking” (p. 388). Logic is related with reasoning relations between thoughts, independently from the forming and content of thinking (Özlem, 2004) and logic is related with the validity of thinking (Çubukçu, 2004). It has been determined that there are various definitions of the "logic" concept. Logic defines a thinking form that is called “correct thinking” and “logical thinking” (Özlem, 2004); it is one of the most abstract and general among all thinking forms and an indispensible tool in explanation, prediction and verification processes consisting of the basic elements of the scientific method (Yıldırım, 2004). Logical thinking is a skill that can be obtained from cognitive development stages of Piaget in tangible and abstract processes. The logical thinking process is that an individual solves a problem through logical processes or reaches principles and laws through a series of abstractions or generalizations (Yaman & Karamustafaoğlu, 2006). Lawson, Banks and Logvin (2007) proved in their study that logical thinking skill is the primary factor affecting students’ self-efficacy and achievement in science. There are also various studies mentioning the positive relationship between students’ logical thinking skills and their abilities to comprehend science (Cavallo, 1996; Johnson & Lawson, 1998).

It is important to have the skills to research, inquire and solve problems through scientific methods in order to understand and comply with the age of information and technology (Erbaş, Şimşek & Çınar, 2005). According to Erbaş et al., to be able to cultivate individuals that are able to attain knowledge through observation, asking meaningful questions and seeking answers to these questions, certain learning environments, which enable permanent learning such as learning by doing and experiencing, should be provided. Laboratory practices are among the factors that have great contributions to this process (Erbaş et al., 2005). The importance of laboratory practices has been widely studied in the relevant literature; however, the main role of laboratories has been observed to be misinterpreted (Renner, 1986). In the laboratory practices, students were frequently observed not to be guided towards activities in which they could ask questions, create hypotheses, make observations, design experiments and estimate the results (Germann, Haskins & Auls, 1996). Besides the traditional laboratory practices, there have been various studies that involved problem solving applications and analyzed performances, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, self-competence beliefs, self-regulations skills, metacognitive skills, scientific process skills, logical thinking skills and many other variables as a result of these applications (Ağdaş, 2013; Aurah, 2013; Delvecchio, 2011; Fanetti, 2011; Grigg, 2012; Grutsch, 2014; Gupta, 2012; Güngör Seyhan, 2014; Güngör Seyhan & Morgil, 2015; İnce Aka et al., 2010; Imai, 2014; Jenkins, 2013; Laird, 2014; Rader, 2010; Shoop, 2012; Taasoobshirazi & Glynn, 2009; Yin, 2010). Also, the results showing that PSASL has positive effects mainly on scientific process skills and on logical thinking makes this research remarkable in education, especially in chemistry education. Hence, it is believed that the research that is presented in this paper will contribute meaningfully to the existing related literature. The main purpose leading to this study was to cultivate individuals that aimed to make observations, ask meaningful questions and seek answers to these questions as the means to acquire knowledge within the age of technology and information today.

Aim of this Study
The aim of this study was two-fold. The first aim was to determine the levels of perception of problem solving ability, science process skills and logical thinking skills of prospective teachers. The second aim was to compare the effects of problem solving applications and a more researcher-oriented teaching method in the science laboratory on the perceptions of problem solving ability, science process skills and logical thinking skills of prospective teachers. The present study focused on the following research questions:

What are the perception levels of problem solving ability of prospective science teachers?
What are the levels of science process skills of prospective science teachers?
What are the levels of logical thinking skills of prospective science teachers?
Is there a significant difference between prospective science teachers’ perception levels of problem solving ability according to the different teaching methods implemented?
Is there a significant difference between prospective science teachers’ science process skills according to the different teaching methods implemented?
Is there a significant difference between prospective teachers’ logical thinking skills according to the different teaching methods implemented?