ANALYSIS OF PRE-SERVICE CHEMISTRY TEACHERS' SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN SOLVING MULTICOMPONENT TASKS WITH PROBLEMATIC ELEMENTS
Abstract
Students' ability to solve problems is seen as a key aspect of education. Research results (e.g.
PISA) indicate reserves of Czech pupils in this area [1]. The possible cause is the lack of development of these abilities in schools.
The role of the teacher is crucial in this respect. The research focuses on the pre-service teachers' problem-solving.
The results include data from chemical problem tasks as well as general science tasks. Both parts contained three tasks designed for 15-year-olds.
These were given to the first-year bachelor students (N = 27) and the last year master students (N = 11). A significant difference between the student groups was found in solving chemistry problem tasks (p = .018), however no statistically significant difference was found between the groups in scientific- literacy focused tasks (PISA).
The freshmen are significantly better (p < .01) in solving general science tasks compared to the chemistry tasks. This phenomenon does not appear in the last-year students (p = .929).
A possible cause of the students' failure is also their excretion from the school/laboratory environment [2]. However, this does not explain the higher success rate in science tasks.
More information is therefore needed. The qualitative analysis of the task-solving procedure for the selected sample of students is planned.
The analysis includes eye-tracking, think-aloud and structured interview as research methods which can be used to analyse the solving-procedure [3].