1Assist. Prof., Dr. Marmara University, Atatürk Faculty of Education Elementary Science Teaching Department. Göztepe Campus, 34722, Kadiköy/Istanbul, Turkey
2Science Teacher in Kocaeli, Turkey
*This study was presented in Conference of the International Journal of Arts & Sciences, Florence, Italy on 19–22 June, 2012 and is a part of “Figen Uzun”s Mater thesis at Marmara University, Educational Sciences Institue and supported by Marmara University Sceintific Research Projects Unit (BAP) with number EGT-C-YLP-161111-0301.
The aim of this study was to determine if the lessons of General Physics Laboratory 1 course that were planned with context based learning approach affect the scientific process skills of prospective science teachers. This study was conducted with 51 prospective science teachers which were taking General Physics Laboratory 1 Course at a University in Istanbul in Turkey in the Elementary Education Department Science Education Program in 2011–2012 education year fall term. The study was planned with quasi-experimental method with pre-test and post-test control group model. 51 prospective science teachers were divided into two groups and one of these two groups was selected as to be control group and the other as experimental group randomly. There were 27 prospective science teachers in the control group and 24 prospective science teachers in the experimental group. Scientific process skills test was applied to both control and experimental groups as pre-test before the application and as post-test after the application. In result, it was found that context-based learning is an effective method to improve scientific process skills of prospective science teachers.
Prospective science teachers, scientific process skills, context based learning, physics laboratory
