Pre-service science teachers’ competence to design an inquiry based lab lesson

Abstract

Science teachers are expected to design inquiry based lessons which include most of the science process skills. The present study examined 21 pre-service science teachers’ scientific process skills and their competence to design inquiry based lab instruction. A six week program was developed and implemented to improve competence of preservice science teachers to design an inquiry based lab lesson. During the intervention, there were interactive lectures, discussions, metacognitive prompts, assignments and micro-teaching practices related to science process skills and designing an inquiry based lab. The participants were administered the adapted version of TIPS-II and asked to design an inquiry laboratory instruction based on a predetermined authentic problem ex-ante and ex-post. As a result of the intervention, competence of the preservice science teachers to develop an inquiry based lesson plan improved substantially whereas there was no improvement in their process skills.