Profile of prospective primary school teachers’ mental model in the subject matter of change

Abstract

This study aimed to obtain an overview of the profile of the mental model (MM) of prospective primary school teachers in the concepts of change in the state of matter. The mental model (MM) categories reviewed in this study includes scientific MM, synthetic MM, and initial MM. A descriptive quantitative method was selected in this study. Among 30 of prospective primary school teachers at one university in Riau Province who had attended the science course were involved in this study. Lectures on the essential concept of science are carried out by lecturers using traditional (teacher centered). A test was used to collect the information of conceptual understanding, which is consisting of three question fragments (explanatory and depictions responses). The results demonstrated that the mental model profile of primary school teachers on phase transition (melting phenomena) are: scientific MM (0%), synthetic MM (27%) andiInitial MM (73%); related to the concept of freezing are: Scientific MM (0%), Synthetic MM (20%), and Initial MM (80%); related to the concept of evaporate are: Scientific MM (0%), Synthetic MM (23%) and Initial MM (77%); and related to the concepts of condense are: Scientific MM (0%), Synthetic MM (17%) and initial MM (83%). These results indicated that lectures on the basic concept of science carried out by lecturers had not facilitated the achievement of a scientific mental model for prospective primary school teachers.