Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
3rd International Conference on Lifelong Learning and Leadership for all-ICLEL, Porto, Portekiz, 12 - 14 Eylül 2017, ss.185, (Özet Bildiri)
The Word Association Test (WAT), developed to reveal how concepts related to the subject to be investigated are comprehended and how the connections between these concepts are established, clearly displays the cognitive structure of the participants in the subject. In our study, this test was used to investigate the cognitive structures of pre-service science teachers about energy metabolism which is one of the basic functions of life. The participant group constitutes 67 pre-service students who are studying in the 2nd grade at Department of Elementary Science Education of a university in Black Sea Region of Turkey in the spring semester of 2015-2016 academic year. WAT was used as a data collection tool in the research. In the stage of application of this test, some basic concepts (energy, respiration, photosynthesis, mitochondria, chloroplast, cell, enzyme, protein, fat, carbohydrate) in the General Biology course are given as a stimulating word. As a result of the data obtained from the test, a conceptual network was established which clearly shows the relation between these concepts and the frequency table indicating how many times words and concepts were repeated. In the formation of this network the most given words was taken as first cut point and four separate cut points were created by going down with certain number from this point (cut points: 51- 42, 41-32, 31-22, 21-11). The data were analyzed according to these points. As a result of the analysis, it was observed that the pre-service science teachers could not connect the respiratory event with the plants and considered this event only as an occurrence in animal cells. In addition, it was determined that while perceiving the realization process of photosynthesis in the cellular level, they could not perceive the respiratory in the cellular level, they perceive it much more macro level according to assess the words given such as breath and lung. When the general structure is considered the emerging of the concept of "enzyme", which has a significant role in the cell and energy metabolism, at the third cutting point and only association with protein in terms of key words shows that the enzyme molecule is not cognitively structured in the minds of pre-service science teachers. In this study, cognitive structures of pre-service science teachers about energy metabolism are revealed. It was believed that the data obtained from this study will present new approaches to understanding the subject of energy metabolism (photosynthesis and respiration) which too many misconceptions were observed.