The aims of the present study were to investigate the relationship among preservice science teachers&rsquo / informal reasoning regarding nuclear power plant construction, epistemological beliefs and metacognitive awareness. Throughout 2010-2011 fall and spring semesters, a total of 674 pre-service science teachers participated in the study. Data were collected through Schommer&rsquo / s Epistemological
Questionnaire, Metacognitive Awareness Inventory, and Open-ended Questionnaire Assessing Informal Reasoning regarding Nuclear Power Usage. MANOVA, correlational analysis, and stepwise multiple regression analyses were conducted. The analyses revealed that the differences between pre-service science teachers&rsquo / epistemological beliefs within the two decision making groups were not statistically significant. Besides, results of the bivariate correlation revealed that there were statistically significant correlation between pre-service science teachers&rsquo / total argument construction and all the dimensions of SEQ except omniscient authority. Also, there was a significant correlation between pre-service science teachers&rsquo / certain
knowledge dimension of SEQ and their counterargument construction. Moreover, the differences between pre-service science teachers&rsquo / metacognitive awareness within
the two decision making groups were not statistically significant. Results of the bivariate correlation revealed that there was a significant correlation between preservice
science teachers&rsquo / metacognitive awareness and informal reasoning outcomes. Finally, stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that pre-service science teachers&rsquo / information management strategy was the only significant predictor for their rebuttal construction. Declarative knowledge was the best predictor of preservice
science teachers&rsquo / counterargument construction while the second best predictor was certain knowledge for their counterargument construction. Finally declarative knowledge was the only significant predictor for the amount of preservice science teachers&rsquo / reasoning modes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12613705/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Creators | Ozturk, Nilay |
| Contributors | Yilmaz-tuzun, Ozgul |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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