Exploring prospective teachers’ science process skills: A voice from freshmen to senior of science education major

Abstract

This research conducted to determine the science process skills of science education students in a public university in Indonesia. This research is a survey to student teachers (N=323) who belong to the Department of Science Education of the State University of Surabaya: Senior (81), Junior (75), Sophomore (77), and Freshmen (90), which were selected purposively. This study involved cross-sectional case study with one-shot survey. The 50-item science process skills test was applied to students. The components of the science process skills tested include observing, measuring, formulating hypotheses, predicting, manipulating variables, identifying response variables, controlling variables, recording data, interpreting data, and making conclusions. Based on data analysis from test results, the average score of science process skills of students were 59.66 (Senior), 57.48 (Junior), 47.39 (Sophomore), and 51.57 (Freshmen) respectively, while each component of the science process skills for all students for four years has the same tendency. The lowest component is controlling variables. Based on the data, it can be concluded that the science process skills of prospective science teacher are in the inadequate category, and it indicate to reform the professional development in preparing future science teacher.