Preservice science teachers' system thinking skills and conceptual understanding for water cycle

Date

2024-8-28

Author

Mercan, Beyza

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

198
views

351
downloads

Cite This

The purpose of this study was to examine system thinking skills (STSs) and conceptual understanding of preservice science teachers (PSTs) within the context of the water cycle. Additionally, the study investigates the relationship between STSs and conceptual understanding. For this purpose, a correlational research design was used. Through convenient sampling, a total of 254 PSTs from three public universities located in Central Anatolia and Marmara constituted the sample of the study. Water Cycle Concept Map (WCCM) and Water Cycle Diagnostic Test (WCDT) were used as data collection instruments. When the results of WCCM were examined, it was found that domino causality is the most commonly used causal pattern. Many PSTs associate components of the water cycle in a linear, chain-like manner. Cyclic causality is the second most commonly used causal pattern. Meanwhile, mutual and relational causalities are used much less frequently by PSTs. This showed that PSTs have difficulty identifying more than one causal pattern in the water cycle. When the results of WCDT were examined, it was revealed that PSTs had low WCDT scores, indicating a lack of sophisticated understanding of the water cycle. Misconceptions have been observed regarding the conditions required for deposition to occur, with carbon dioxide being the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, phase change of water in clouds, and melting of floating sea ice as a cause for sea level rise. The results of the correlation between STSs and conceptual understanding of the water cycle showed that there is a positive medium correlation exists.

Subject Keywords

Water Cycle, Systems Thinking Skills, Misconception, Concept Map, Water Cycle Diagnostic Test

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/111276

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis