The effect of an instructional intervention on enhancement pre-service science teachers’ science processes skills

This study was conducted with the aim of enhancing the SPSs of PSTs via the instructional intervention. During the study, procedural understanding and knowledge as well as the content knowledge -which are necessary to interpret tests, recognize and explain relationships, and provide analysis-, were highlighted. It was expected that the instructional intervention by putting an emphasis on science process through inquiry-oriented laboratory activities would enhance the SPSs of PSTs.

In relation to the first set of data, a significant difference was found between pre- and posttest with respect to TSPS. Considering the results of statistical analyses given in the Table 3, it is possible to suggest that the R-LASE-I course had a positive effect on the enhancement of the PSTs’ integrated SPSs. There are many studies in science literature indicating that targeted SPSs have been gained via a course in which the focus was explicitly on SPSs (e.g. Akben, 2015; Coil, Wenderoth, Cunningham, and Dirks, 2010; Etkina, Karelina, Ruibal-Villasenor, Rosengrant, Jordan, and Hmelo-Silver, 2010; Spektor-Levy, Eylon, and Scherz, 2009). According to these studies, the participants who were exposured to planned intervention could have significant gains in the mastery of SPSs with respect to the students who did not enroll planned instruction, and the spontaneous attainment of any targeted process skill(s) may occur only to a limited extent. These results support the present study’s findings that SPSs might be enhanced gradually, if it is well emphasized during courses.

In this study, frequency and percentile values were also calculated for each item in the TSPS. In the light of descriptive statistics for scores on the pre- and posttest, it was found that in the pretest, the weak process skills of the participants were identifying variables and stating hypothesis skills. The results showed that the lowest rate of correct responding percentage was 44.4% for item 27, a stating hypothesis, in the posttest. The results support Windschitl’s (2003) conclusion that all participants of the study (6 secondary PSTs) had difficulty formulating questions or hypotheses to investigate.

It should be stated that this study had some limitations such as it had no control group, the sample size was small, and the analysis of the long-term PSTs’ outcomes of SPSs was lacked. As it had a one group pre-post test preexperiemental design, there were some testing effects including history, maturation, and regression. Although extraneous variables were not controlled in this study, and thus the results indicated a slight effect in terms of the tested innovation, the results of the study also suggested that the instructional intervention had a potential to enhance the SPSs of the PSTs.

In relation to the second set of data, when the scores of the TSPS and the performance-based scores of the PSTs were compared, a significant correlation was found. The participants became more aware of the SPSs, and they gradually moved from applying their experiment step by step to enhance their own SPSs during the semester. However, based on literature, Germann, Aram, Odom, and Burke (1996) reported that a low correlation was found between results assessed by paper-and-pencil tests and results based on performance from practical laboratory examinations. Although the participants tended to overstate their confidence as an experimental investigator as seen in Table 6, the results of performance-based assessment showed that they still had difficulty in conducting an open-ended investigation. This is not surprising as either they were not or a few was exposured to open-ended investigations during their previous education. Taking into consideration that education reform in Turkey has been implemented since 2005 for elementary schools and 2009 for secondary schools; it is possible to claim that all of the participants in this study did not have background of inquiry or open-ended research during their elementary and secondary education. Enhancing SPSs of them who have brought up with cook-book type lab courses and did not adequately have these skills is a real problem. Therefore, more guidance at strategic points via instructional interventions and scaffoldings would be very useful in helping PSTs to overcome difficulties through courses such as LASE-I or other courses in the education faculties. It is a need to consider that SPSs will enhance as long as they are used. Therefore, it is proposed that performance-based assessments should be implemented longitudinally. Hammann, Phan, Ehmer, and Grimm (2008) used three different test formats in order to identify the biology students’ skills in designing experiments. They concluded that open-ended and performance-based tests were more successful in determining student success in more detail. Performance tasks reflect better the level of SPSs and difficulties which were encountered while practicing science.

The study results also revealed that there were several problems encountered while using SPSs as expressed before. Similarly, previous studies have reported that pre-service teachers had difficulty in identifying variables (dependent, independent, and controlled variables), analyzing data and graphing, and designing experiments skills (Ateş, 2005; Bolat, Türk, Turna, and Altınbaş, 2014; Ercan and Taşdere, 2011; Etkinaet al., 2010; Hammann et al., 2008). Additionally, as seen in Table 4, the participants did not actually take the time to repeat their own investigations. The reasons might lie prevalent behind ‘cookbook’ type of laboratory courses. However, focusing on a positivist view of science, it can be suggested that a confronting change is necessary to provide a level of disequilibration to a learner.

In relation to the third set of data, the PSTs had positive views about the course session. It was expected that participants taking the general chemistry –physics–biology laboratory I and II courses through two years would have grasped the process skills of science, however; they stated that, after the course, they developed a better understanding of the process of science than previous laboratory sessions. In the light of the researcher’s observations during the study, the implementations performed at the beginning of the semester were interesting for the participants. However, it was seen that they had difficulty with the integrated process skills, and they were discouraged. This observation corroborates the ideas of Etkina et al. (2010), who expressed that although students provided scaffolding by means of lab handout drawing their attention on the elements of scientific process (or on specific scientific abilities), they struggled first to generate possible designs, implement their own designs, and evaluate the results. Likely, Akben (2015) who asked pre-service teachers to design inquiry-oriented laboratory experiments having different openness levels in order to develop SPSs mentioned that the pre-service teachers’ anxieties of process were getting decreased and their self-confidences were getting increased gradually over the study. In the present study, despite the difficulties encountered in conducting an open-ended investigation, the PSTs took courage and actively participated in the performance tasks late in the semester when they noticed enhancement in their performance on these skills. The PSTs showed positive reflections towards the R-LASE-I course process, and they expressed that the scaffolding for using SPSs would be useful for their careers as future science teachers. Additionally, they emphasized the need to perform the experimental activities on the new science curriculum, which will foster their own practices dealing with how to help for enhancing their own students’ SPSs in the future.

Although science educators have suggested that many benefits (such as scientific practical skills and problem solving abilities; scientific habits of mind; understanding of how science and scientists work; interest and motivation) acquire from engaging students in science laboratory activities, this has not yet been realised for more than a century of promotion of lab works (Dillon, 2008; Hofstein and Mamlok-Naaman, 2007). It can be offered that how a laboratory activity can be practiced is more important than what laboratory activity can be used in a laboratory class. The important issue might be that there can be matchup aims of the laboratory activities and instructors’ intentions to improve students’ SPSs. Effective learning of scientific investigation processes requires using the structure of particular scientific frameworks including framing questions, formulating hypotheses, constructing comparisons in data, and evaluating hypotheses. In order to learn scientific processes, students need to understand how the general strategies of science (controlling variables, discriminating hypotheses) are realized within particular scientific domains (Reiser, Tabak, and Ucla, 2001). Targeted practical tasks can be very useful for developing specific understandings about data, experimental planning, and data interpretation. How successful any given practical work task depends on the intended learning objectives of the task (Millar, 2004). At this point, it should be noted that since PSTs did not have any previous experiences in SPSs, we should not expect meaningful outcomes of inquiry-based learning in the science teaching courses unless we provide them opportunities to enhance their process skills. The PSTs can enhance SPSs through integrating the outcomes of science processes into traditional laboratory course.

Conclusion

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of an instructional intervention on enhancement the pre-service science teachers’ (PSTs) science process skills (SPSs), to identify the problems encountered in using SPSs, and to determine the opinions of the PSTs about the R-LASE-I course process. The following conclusions can be drawn from the present study:

The SPSs of the PSTs were enhanced significantly at the end of the instructional intervention.
A significant correlation between the scores of the SPSs test and performance-based scores of the PSTs was found.
The PSTs had some problems in using SPSs.
The PSTs had positive opinions about the effect of the R-LASE-I course process on enhancing SPSs.

Based on the results of the study, it is possible to suggest that the instructional intervention integrating the learning science processes into the traditional laboratory course had a positive effect on enhancing of PSTs’ SPSs. However, the small sample size and the non-existence of a control group make it hard to generalize the conclusions. Further studies need to be conducted to better understand whether putting an emphasize on targeted SPSs via an instructional intervention embedded inquiry-oriented activities is useful or not in order to enhance SPSs of PSTs through science teaching laboratory applications courses in education faculties alike.