Determining the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of atom and atomic structure through word association test

On the basis of the findings of the current study, it was attempted to determine the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of atom. In this process, the WAT was used to determine how the concept of atom was associated with the related concepts. As it is an interdisciplinary subject, the subject of “Atom and Atomic Structure” is studied within the context of general physics and general chemistry courses during the undergraduate education but it is also studied in high school physics and chemistry classes. Moreover, the participants of the current study take the modern physics course after they have completed the general physics and chemistry courses. In the modern physics course, the students study the subject of “Atom and Atomic Structure” once more. Thus, the students are expected to have correctly learned the concepts related to atom and to establish correct relationships between the concepts. As can be seen in Table 1, of the prepositions produced by the students after that had taken the general physics and chemistry courses, 55.98% are correct. This means that nearly half of the propositions produced by the students are wrong. On the other hand, of the prepositions written by the same students after they had taken the modern physics course, 71.43% were found to be correct.

As can be seen in Table 1, the number of correct prepositions written for the key concepts of “Electron” and “Orbital” decreased after the students had taken the modern physics course. On the other hand, the numbers of the correct prepositions written for the key concepts of “Orbit, Spin, Quark, Proton, Nucleus, Neutron and Atom” increased after the modern physics course.

When the pre-service teachers’ mind maps are examined, it is seen that in CP 50 and above, first the key concept of “Atom” was associated with the response word “structural unit”. Furthermore, in this CP, the pre-service teachers were found to have established an association between the key concepts of “Proton” and “Nucleus”. In the mind maps produced after they had taken the modern physics course, in the same CP, the pre-service teachers associated the key concepts of “Electron” and “Orbit”.

When the mind maps produced in CP 49-45, CP 44- 40 and CP 39-35 were examined, it was concluded that the pre-service teachers associated the key concepts of “Nucleus, Electron, Proton and Neutron”. While the pre-service teachers associated these concepts with each other, they also used “charge and location” that are their basic characteristics. In the first mind maps of the pre-service teachers, it was determined that they first associated the concept of “Atom” with the response word “structural unit”. After the completion of the modern physics course, it was found that the pre-service teachers used the key concept of “Atom” in CP 34-30. In the mind maps constructed after the completion of the modern physics course, the key concept of “Orbital” was first associated with the key concept of “Electron” in CP 44-40. In the first mind maps, the key concept of “Orbital” first emerged in CP 29-25. With decreasing CP, it is seen that the pre-service teachers combined the concepts of “Atom, Nucleus, Electron and Proton” in the relationships they established and expressed characteristics belonging to these key concepts. The key concept of “Quark” emerged in BMPC mind maps in CP 9-5 and after they had taken the modern physics course, it was seen in CP 14-10. It was also observed that in the first mind maps of the pre-service teachers, atomic models were not included yet after the completion of the modern physics course, atomic models and their characteristics were expressed in CP 9-5.