Evaluation of Pre-Service Science Teachers' Visual and Cognitive Constructions of A Line Graph

Abstract

This research was conducted in order to explain the process of creating a line graph on the subject of biology by pre-service teachers and thus to understand their comments about the graph they drew. In this context, the research was conducted with 180 pre-service science teachers, 55 in the 2013-2014 fall semester, 66 in the 2015-2016 fall semester, and 59 in the 2016-2017 fall semester, who were studying in the second year of a state university. The research was carried out within the framework of document analysis. The data source is the end-of-term evaluation form of the general biology laboratory course collected for three years The answers of the pre-service science teachers were made within the framework of evaluating their visual and cognitive construction in drawing the line graph. According to the findings, it can be stated that pre-service teachers have poor visual construction skills and cognitive construction skills and their ability to make logical inferences from a graph is less efficient when compared to graph drawing and interpretation skills.