A Qualitative Study on Teacher Candidates’ Concept Knowledge Level

Abstract

Concept teaching is an important process which should be handled with great care as of the very first years of primary education. Teaching concepts precisely and accurately during primary education will help students comprehend the concepts emerging in their secondary and further education. At this point, teachers, with their role as a guide, have great responsibilities. That the necessary conditions of concept learning and teaching process cannot be comprehended by teachers may naturally lead to the difficulties in learners’ concept learning and improving their skill of concept learning. From this perspective, it will make it easy to realize the aims and goals of teaching-learning practices if teacher candidates take courses on concept learning and teaching in their teacher training programs, know the basic concepts in their field of study, be aware of the misconceptions that emerge in teaching the topics available in their field of study, be knowledgeable about the techniques that will help overcoming the misconceptions and carry out the activities in their professional life with this consciousness. In literature, there are many studies conducted on students’ misconceptions in several courses and topics from primary to higher education and the methods that aim to determine their levels of concept knowledge and misconceptions. However, there is no study conducted on how teacher candidates develop their concept knowledge during their university education. It is believed that enlightening this point will help teacher candidates’ position on concepts and will guide the learning-teaching practices on this issue. The aim of this study is to examine how teacher candidates are trained regarding concept teaching and learning, based on students’ opinions. Case study was applied as the method of study. The participants included 30 freshman and senior teacher candidates, with 10 participants in each of the disciplines of Mathematics, Science and Social Sciences at the faculty of education of a university located in a middle-sized city in Turkey during the spring semester of the academic year 2011 -2012. The teacher candidates were interviewed through a semi-structured interview forms. The interviews were recorded via a sound recorder and the data gained though the interviews were analyzed qualitatively. The results of the analysis conducted have indicated that although the senior teacher candidates have higher knowledge of concepts, misconceptions and the techniques on determining misconceptions than the freshman teacher candidates, their knowledge was not sufficient. It is believed that offering elective or must courses in the faculties of education on concept analysis will help teacher candidates.