Abstract
The main focus of this study is to determine pre-service science teachers' cognitive structure about trichome and stoma through two alternative assessment techniques: metaphor and word association test. The study was conducted with 35 pre-service science teachers. Word association test given stoma and trichome as stimulant words was applied. Also it was asked them to complete these sentences 'Stoma is like/similar to … Because …' and 'Trichome is like/similar to … Because ….' The data obtained from both techniques were analysed according to the content analysis, frequency tables were prepared and divided into categories. With the help of these categories, the cognitive structures of pre-service science teachers and also misconceptions they had were revealed. Consequently, it was suggested that using metaphors in conjunction with word association test for determining of the cognitive structure of students in any subject would be complementary factor for each other's.
Highlights
Biology, which is a very interesting field as it examines the life of living organism, includes subjects which are difficult to be understood by students
Boulter and Rutherford (1998) emphasize that it is quite difficult to explain the cognitive structures of individuals but the key concepts reveal the cognitive structures of individuals
It is inevitable to talk about the metaphors when it comes to the analogy
Summary
Biology, which is a very interesting field as it examines the life of living organism, includes subjects which are difficult to be understood by students. The word association tests are used to determine whether the connections between concepts in the student's cognitive structure and the relationships between concepts in the student's long-term memory are sufficient, and are used in many studies (Bahar, Johnstone and Sutcliffe 1999; Cardellini and Bahar 2000). In this test, it is assumed that the sequential response to the stimulus word given by students from their long-term memory reveals the connections between concepts in the cognitive structure. In this study, it was aimed to identify pre-service science teacher’ cognitive structures related to these concepts by using word association test and metaphor together
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