Primary School Teacher Candidates Research Articles

Geometric thinking program to enhance problem-solving skills of primary school teacher candidates

Geometry is a mathematics subject that has been widely considered hard. Several problems in learning geometry lead to geometric problem-solving skills. After exploring various causes, theories, and processes of geometric thinking, there should be an evaluation program to optimize problem-solving skills. This study aims to (1) develop a geometric thinking evaluation program and (2) enhance geometric problem-solving skills observed from the students’ thinking level. The research and development adopted the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) model, which started from the analysis stage involving four lecturers and 306 of students. The research was conducted at Primary School Teacher Education Department, Universitas Negeri Semarang. The process continued to the design stage, at which the evaluation program was drafted, followed by the development stage to test the validity. The last two phases included the trials in which the t-test and n-gain were applied to measure the program's effectivity and the evaluation phase aimed at assessing its practicality and the student's achievement in geometry. The established evaluation program covers an instrument of 39 multiple-choice items as an early assessment to determine the thinking level and learning trajectories as a scaffolding for improving geometric thinking skills. The trajectories, in the form of worksheets, were adjusted to the students' thinking level and were effective in assisting them in elevating to the informal reasoning level as well as refining their problem-solving skills.

Developing the music listening skills test (MLST) for pre-school and elementary school teacher candidates

In this study, it was aimed to develop a music listening skill test for primary school teacher candidates to determine their levels of perception of basic musical structures through listening. A total of 260 teacher candidates studying in the department of primary education (early childhood and elementary education) of a public university in Türkiye formed the study group of the research. KR-20 internal consistency coefficient of the Music Listening Skills Test (MLST) was determined as 0.731. The mean of the item difficulty index of the test is 0.60, and the mean of the item distinctiveness index is 0.38. The MLST consists of a total of 27 questions with 53 listening contents converted into audio files in MP3 format to be played by the practitioner. The MLST can be used as a preliminary assessment tool in studies on the development of musical competencies. In addition, the musical structures in the test content can be handled in the music education processes of teacher candidates. Assessing music listening skills can also make it easier to follow the steps to be followed in the education of teacher candidates. In this way, educational contents can be developed and music education programs can be updated.

Validation of the Scientific Reasoning Competencies Instrument: Relationships with Epistemological Beliefs and Analytical Thinking

AbstractScientific reasoning competencies (SRC) are an area of competence emphasized in science education and are considered essential in the world of 21st Century skills. Developing these competencies is important for all levels of education, from primary school to university. However, to accurately measure them, measurement tools with validity and reliable evidence are needed. The current study was conducted with two different sample groups. In Study-1 (n = 155), the SRC test consisting of 21 items was adapted into Turkish, and evidence of its validity and reliability was presented. To this end, the Turkish adaptation of the SRC test, which was previously developed and tested for validity in different languages, was conducted in a sample of primary school teacher candidates. In Study-2 (n = 483), the relationship between SRC and epistemological beliefs and analytic thinking skills was examined. Regression analysis showed that epistemological beliefs and analytic thinking were significant predictors of SRC. The study and discussion offer implications for future research on the relationship between SRC and other thinking skills not examined in this research.

An Analysis of Primary School Teacher Candidates’ Perceptions of Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety

Anxiety is a crucial factor in the process of teaching/learning a foreign language. This study, designed as a mixed-method quasi-experimental study, investigates primary school teacher candidates’ a) foreign language teaching anxiety levels, b) sources of anxiety, and c) expectations and suggestions about “Foreign Language Teaching in Primary School” course. The study used quantitative and qualitative tools to collect data. The results revealed that there was no statistically significant difference in FLT anxiety levels of the participants over the Foreign Language Teaching in Primary Schools course. This study provided insider views about how to make this innovative course more cost-effective and better tailor its content to help them gain practical ideas about how to handle factors triggering foreign language teaching anxiety.

Applıcatıon Desıgns to Measure the Mathematıcal Reasonıng Skılls of Teacher Candidates

Mathematical reasoning can be defined as the ability of individuals to approach situations they encounter from a mathematical perspective, to investigate the cause and effect, to make sense of the situation, and to make reasoning that will help reach a logical conclusion by using mathematical concepts and symbols. The purpose of the research is to evaluate the mathematical application designs of primary school teacher candidates studying at Khoja Akhmet Yassawi International Kazakh-Turkish University in order to measure the mathematical reasoning skills of primary school students. For this purpose, at the primary school level, teacher candidates will be asked to (a) identify and use appropriate reasoning, (b) recognize and use mathematical knowledge / patterns / structures / general properties, (c) recognize different representations of the same data, (d) predict, (e) Developing logical arguments regarding the solution, (f) Deciding on the correctness of the solution/result, (g) Making generalizations, and (h) Solving non-routine problems. In this respect, the research was designed in the case study pattern, one of the qualitative research methods. The study group of the research includes a total of 16 teacher candidates representing different grade levels. Typical case sampling method was used to select the teacher candidates in the study group. Pre-service teachers were asked to develop application designs in which they could evaluate the mathematical reasoning sub-dimensions mentioned above. In the research, the theoretical framework was scanned, and an application was carried out to 16 teacher candidates and at the end of the application, the teacher candidates were able to design questions for all their reasoning skills. When the questions they prepared were evaluated, it was seen that the question objectives met some of those stated in the literature.

Designing a digital escape room game: An experience of a digital learning tool in basic education

The study aims to explore the perspectives of primary school teacher candidates who attend Turkish Language Teaching courses on their experiences of developing digital educational escape room games (DEERGs). Phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was utilized. The study group comprised 48 primary school teacher candidates who were reached by the convenience sampling method. A semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher and DEERGs designed by the participants were used as data collection tools. In the 14-week study, interviews were conducted via Microsoft Teams. The findings were analysed from a holistic perspective using content analysis. Results indicated that the participants preferred Google Forms and Genially tools in game design, and they benefited from Web 2.0 tools. In first language education, games for reading and writing skills were designed, and mostly primary school and 4th-grade achievements were selected. It was observed that they considered areas of interest, individual differences, and constructs that support cognitive-emotional and skill development in scripting. It was emphasized that DEERGs contribute to attention, focus, maintaining and motivating learning, problem-solving, developing a positive attitude towards the lesson, and learning while having fun.

DETERMINING THE FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE ATTITUDE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER CANDIDATES TOWARDS E-ASSESSMENT AND TECHNOLOGY

The aim of this study is to determine the attitudes of prospective primary school teachers towards technology and e-assessment in the distance education process. The study was designed according to the correlation method. The study was applied to students in all grades studying in the Department of Elementary Education of a state university in Turkey. In this study, "attitude scale towards technology", "attitude scale towards e-assessment and "demographic information form" were used to collect data. The results of the analysis showed that the relationship between the attitude towards e-assessment dependent variable and the independent variables of gender and continuous access to the internet was positive and direct. In addition, it was found that the relationship between the attitude towards technology and gender, the frequency of using technology and the frequency of using distance education was positive and directly related. It was observed that the independent variables of gender, grade level, frequency of distance education use, frequency of internet use positively affected the dependent variables of e-assessment and attitude towards technology. Accordingly, it can be said that these factors should be keep in mind in e-assessment and technology use.

Sınıf Öğretmeni Adayları için Aktif Öğrenme Temelli Çocuk Hakları Eğitimi

This study investigated the effect of children’s rights (CR) education on the understanding and attitudes of primary school teacher candidates regarding CR through active learning-based implementations. Explanatory sequential design was employed in the study. The quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent pretest-posttest control group and case study were employed. Experimental implementations were conducted with 72 third year teacher candidates. The experimental group was trained for 13 weeks by employing the Active Learning-Based Children’s Rights Education Curriculum (ACREC) developed in the study and the traditional teaching method was used in the control group. In the qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews with 12 teacher candidates were carried out. The findings revealed that posttest scores showed significant difference in favour of the experimental group, and that the development of understanding was higher in this group. The ACREC was found to contribute to teacher candidates in the context of understanding, attitudes, behaviours and professional development concerning CR.

Development of e-LKM for Elementary School Mathematics Learning as an Open-Ended Problem-Based Teaching Material using MiKIR Approach

Active learning demands teaching materials that engage and motivate pupils. E-LKM is an active learning material because of this. This study develops e-LKM mathematics learning courses based on open-ended problems assisted by the LIMIT application using the MiKIR approach and describes the trial results. This e-LKM is developed using 4D models: define, design, create, and distribute. The study included University of Muhammadiyah Prof. Dr. HAMKA primary school teacher candidates. Students of UIN STS Jambi madrasah ibtidaiyah professors will test the product. Validation and practical instruments are utilised. The defined step produces the e-LKM's mathematical learning needs, including student indicators and targets. After the design stage, the mathematics learning e-LKM has a title, group name column, directions for use, lecture objectives and achievements, questions, answer columns, conclusions, and reflections. After development, the validation instrument for e-LKM was 77.33% material, 80.00% language, and 76.92% media, putting it in the correct category. Practicality instruments scored 83.76%, indicating e-LKM is practical. The distribution step will yield student and instructor opinions on e-LKM's practicality. This study suggests lecturers use LIMIT to create e-LKM and use it in learning. Research can also create an open-ended problem-based MiKIR e-LKM for additional materials.

The Predictive Power of Academic Motivation of Primary School Teacher Candidates on Their Self-Efficacy in the First Reading and Writing Teaching

The aim of this study was to determine the predictive power of academic motivation of primary school teacher candidates on their self-efficacy in the first reading and writing teaching. To this end, the study was designed as correlational survey model. The universe of the study consisted of public university students at Grades 2, 3 and 4 of the department of primary school education in 2021-2022 spring semester and the participants were selected randomly for this study. As data collection tool, “Academic Motivation Scale” was used in order to determine the motivational level of candidate primary school teachers, whereas “Self-Efficacy Scale for the First Reading and Writing Teaching” was used to evaluate the self-efficacy of the primary school teacher candidates in the first reading and writing teaching. Designed on “Google Forms”, these two scales were administered to teacher candidates in one online session. For the data collection procedure, two weeks were allowed for data collection. At the end of this duration, the data was analyzed. As for data analysis, descriptive statistical analysis and simple linear regression analysis were used in the study. As a result of the study, it was seen that both academic motivation level and self-efficacy level of the teacher candidates on the first reading and writing teaching were at high level. Additionally, it was realized that there was a significant relationship between academic motivation and self-efficacy in the first reading and writing teaching, and also it was stated that academic motivation significantly predicted the level of self-efficacy in the first reading and writing teaching. Besides, academic motivation accounted for 22% of the changes in the self-efficacy scores in the first reading and writing teaching.

Social Studies in Out-of-Class Learning Environments: A study on Teacher Candidates’ Views and Awareness

This research aimed to investigate the awareness of out-of-class learning environments that can be utilized in social studies courses among both social studies teacher candidates and primary school teacher candidates. Social studies, with its interdisciplinary nature, has the potential to provide a wide array of out-of-class learning opportunities, and we aimed to explore this aspect. In pursuit of this objective, we sought to evaluate the extent of teacher candidates’ familiarity with these learning environments and their ability to establish connections between these settings and the content of the social studies course. In our research we used the descriptive case study which is one of the types of qualitative research methods. In this context, we carried out the qualitative data collection process within the framework of the interview technique through a ‘semi-structured interview form’ for the participating teacher candidates. We analyzed all the collected data using descriptive analysis. As a result of our analyses, we found that teacher candidates from both programs who had taken this course were able to identify a wide range of out-of-class learning environments and that the most common examples they mentioned were ‘museums, libraries, schoolyard, canteens and historical sites/places, excursions and laboratories’. However, we found that both groups had relative difficulty in associating these learning environments with the social studies curriculum and content. When we assessed whether this finding indicated a difference in the extent of the teacher candidates’ own branches and the course hours they had taken, we found that the examples of association of the teacher candidates with less social studies field education were far behind the examples of the social studies teacher candidates. Another significant finding from the research is that the teacher candidates were more capable of offering robust examples of associations related to out-of-class in-school learning environments compared to those associated with out-of-school learning environments.

Evaluation of digital instructional materials developed by primary school teacher candidates with different learning styles

This embedded design mixed-method study aimed to evaluate the teaching materials developed by primary school teacher candidates using Web 2.0 tools in line with their learning styles. The participants comprised 60 primary school teacher candidates identified via purposive sampling. The data were collected with the Maggie McVay Lynch Learning Style Inventory and the Digital Teaching Material Development Self-Efficacy Scale, and from the products of the primary school teacher candidates. Inventory data were subjected to descriptive statistics, the product data were subjected to descriptive analysis and the scale data were subjected to the paired sample t-test of inferential statistics techniques. The results indicated that the majority of the primary school teacher candidates had visual learning styles and used Kahoot and LearningApps Web 2.0 tools for measurement-evaluation and Canva and Emaze for presentation purposes. In addition, the material development process according to learning styles significantly increased the participants' self-efficacy in developing digital teaching materials. Based on these results, it was suggested to determine the learning styles of teacher candidates to develop teaching materials accordingly.

The effect of digital literacy levels and e-learning attitudes on screen reading self-efficacy: A structural equation modelling

In this study, it was aimed to determine the relationships between digital literacy levels, e-learning attitudes and screen reading self-efficacy of primary school teacher candidates through structural equation modeling, and to examine to what extent digital literacy levels and e-learning attitudes predict screen reading self-efficacy perceptions. The study group, which was formed by simple random sampling in the research carried out with the relational screening model, consists of 677 primary school teacher candidates. "Digital Literacy Scale", "Attitude Scale Towards E-learning" and "Screen Reading Self-Efficacy Perception Scale" were used to collect data. The data were analyzed by structural equation modeling and LISREL and MPLUS package programs were used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the research, it has been determined that hypothesis models were valid and that the digital literacy levels and e-learning attitudes of the primary school teacher candidates significantly predict their screen reading self-efficacy perceptions both separately and together, and there are positive relations between the variables. In addition, while e-learning attitudes play a mediating role in the effects of digital literacy on screen reading self-efficacy perceptions of primary school teacher candidates, it is a result that digital literacy levels significantly predict screen reading self-efficacy perceptions and the relationship is positive if e-learning attitudes are considered as mediating variable.

Perceptions of Primary School Teacher Candidates Regarding the Characteristics and Education of Gifted Students

Perceptions of Primary School Teacher Candidates Regarding the Characteristics and Education of Gifted Students

A case study of implementing engineering design process to build a “controllable switch instrument”

"STEM education serves to prepare a workforce in which integration of scientific information as well as technological literacy are becoming more and more widespread. Important skills for success in the twenty-first century include critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, cooperation, self-directed learning, scientific environmental and technological literacy. In this study, primary school teacher candidates used a STEM activity, following the engineering design process. The case study, a qualitative research approach, was used in this study. The participants in the study were thirty primary school teacher candidates from second class at university. This study used audio and video recordings and engineering design notebooks as data collection tools. The engineering design process as a context for developing science, mathematics and technology concepts was used. An electrical engineering activity requiring students to design and build an electrical instrument to control the current intensity was created. This activity has been determined in an engineering context where students were introduced to the work of electrical engineers, such as designing basic electric circuits and using different electrical tools. As a result of this research, primary school teacher candidates had an opportunity to experience engineering design-based science education focused on electricity saving, which is a problem they may encounter in real life and also results demonstrated that the adjustable wrench designed by primary school teacher candidates changes the bulb's brightness. "

Scientific Literacy in Hybrid Learning with the STEM Approach for the Students of Primary School Teacher Education

Scientific literacy is essential in improving students' skills to deal with the rapid development of science and technology. This quantitative descriptive research aims to: obtain information about the scientific literacy skills of prospective elementary school teacher students in hybrid learning with a STEM approach at a university in Indonesia. The sampling technique in this research applied convenience sampling involving 101 students of semester two as the subjects. The scientific literacy of primary school teacher candidates was collected using a self-developed, multiple-choice questionnaire following the scientific literacy competence of PISA, and it has been validated, achieving a score of 3.50 (perfect category). The results of this research show that scientific literacy of the 2nd-semester students of the primary elementary school teacher department is categorized as low with an average value of competency one is 53.96% (low category), competency 2 is 56.19% (low category), and competency 3 of 63.61% (medium category) so that the overall average of the three competencies is 57.92% (low category). Following up on the findings of this research, the scientific literacy of primary school teacher candidates in hybrid learning with a STEM approach can be further optimized by paying attention to the design of lesson plans, learning modules, and the implementation of a STEM-based learning approach.

Examination of Primary School Teacher Candidates' Views on Distance Education: A Mixed-Method Study

This study aimed to gather prospective primary school teachers' opinions on distance education and ascertain whether these opinions varied based on different variables. A mixed-methods approach was employed to obtain more reliable results, with the sequential explanatory design being utilized in the study. The research sample comprised 233 teacher candidates from Erciyes University's Ziya Eren Faculty of Education during the 2020-2021 academic year who participated in distance education amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The Distance Education Students' Views of Distance Education Scale, developed by Yıldırım, Yıldırım, Çelik, and Karaman (2014), served as a quantitative data collection instrument. Qualitative data were gathered online via a structured interview form. Descriptive statistics such as percentages, frequencies, and arithmetic means were used to analyze the quantitative data. Since the data exhibited a normal distribution, t-tests and ANOVAs were conducted. The Qualitative data analysis involved using the descriptive analysis method for the semi-structured interview responses. The findings of the study revealed that the opinions of primary school teacher candidates regarding distance education did not significantly differ based on gender or home internet access. However, significant differences were identified in relation to class level and duration of internet usage. Based on these results, recommendations were provided, such as enhancing distance education infrastructure within universities.

A Project Proposal Preparation Experience: Perceptions of Primary Teacher Candidates

In this research, it is aimed to understand the perceptions of the primary school teacher candidates, who have experienced preparing a project proposal, about these experiences. The study group of the research, which was carried out in a phenomenological design, which is one of the qualitative research methods, consists of four primary school teacher candidates determined according to the criterion sampling method. A semi-structured interview form prepared by the researchers was used as a data collection tool. During the data collection process, focus group interviews and semi-structured individual interviews were conducted. The data obtained at the end of the interviews were transcribed and subjected to content analysis. In the research, it was concluded that although there were various difficulties in the process of preparing a project proposal, this experience improved the high-level thinking, scientific research and digital skills of the primary school teacher candidates. In addition, the experience of preparing a project proposal supported the personal development of the primary school teacher candidates and contributed to their self-knowledge adventures. It is among the suggestions of the research to conduct workshops in which teacher candidates and lecturers will be together to prepare an undergraduate project.

The Mathematics Connection of Teacher Candidates to Solve Mathematics Problems of Primary School Teacher Candidates

The Mathematics Connection of Teacher Candidates to Solve Mathematics Problems of Primary School Teacher Candidates

Educating future primary school teachers to create a communication culture through educational technologies

The purpose of this research is to get the opinions of teacher candidates to train future primary school teachers to create a communication culture through educational technologies. This study was created with the qualitative research method. The study group of the research consists of 40 teacher candidates studying in the primary school teaching department at various universities in Kazakhstan. Research data were collected with a semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers. As a result, while the majority of primary school teacher candidates found themselves sufficient in using technology, they found themselves moderately competent in using educational technologies. Primary school teacher candidates stated that programs related to both educational technologies and creating a communication culture should be developed in universities. It is necessary to implement the suggestions of pre-service teachers on improving the communication culture and to organize the education given at universities in this direction.
 Keywords: Communication culture; educational technologies; primary school; teacher candidates.