Logical thinking and cognitive development levels of pre-service science teachers [Fen bilgisi öğretmen adaylarının mantıksal düşünme ve bilişsel gelişim düzeyleri

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine logical thinking and cognitive development levels of pre-service science teachers. The sample of this survey study consists of 241 pre-service science teachers attending the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade of the Science Teaching Program, at the Faculty of Education of Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Turkey, selected through the proportional stratified sampling method. As for data collection, Group Assessment of Logical Thinking Test (GALT) was used, which includes 21 items and was developed by Roadrangka, Yeany and Padilla (1982 Cited in: Aksu, Berberoglu, Martin & Paykoc, 1990) and adapted into Turkish by Aksu et al. (1990). Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of the tool is calculated as .64 for this study. In analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, t-test and ANOVA test were used. According to the results of the study, it was determined that 38.17% of pre-service science teachers are in concrete operations stage, 61.41% of them are in transitional stage and 0.42% of them are in formal operations stage; and that in general, they are in transitional stage with an average of 9.25 points. Besides, it was determined that logical thinking levels of pre-service science teachers do not vary by gender; in contrast, they statistically differ according to grade level and type of graduated high school.