PRE-SERVICE SCIENCE TEACHERS’ IMAGES OF PHYSICIST AND PHYSICS COURSE

Year 2014, Volume: 1 , 211 - 216, 01.09.2014

Emine Çil Durmuş Yanmaz Seda Şahin Akyüz Funda Gül İri Hazel Kar

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the pre-service science
teachers’ images of physicist and physics course. A total of 69 students, who
were studying in primary science teaching at the Education Faculty of Muğla
Sıtkı Koçman University in Turkey. The data were collected using Word
Association Test. Response words with the same meaning were classified under
the most frequently repeated words. Words less than two times and those words
that could not be associated were considered as irrelevant and were excluded.
After contents have been analyzed, the frequency of the response words has been
calculated and categorized. Participants’ associations of the term physicist
were arranged into four categories. Participants’ associations of the term
physics course were arranged into six categories. According to results, most of
the participants related to personal character of physicist. More than half of
the participants’ images are that physics course is difficult and most of them
have negative attitudes towards physics course.    

Keywords

Physicist, physics course, image, word association test

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