Students' ability to solve problem tasks is seen by the OECD as key aspect of education. Research results (e.g.
PISA) indicate significant reserves of Czech pupils in this area. The possible cause is the lack of development of these abilities in schools.
The active role of the teacher is crucial. Nevertheless, teachers' ability to solve problem tasks has not yet been examined.
The presented research focuses on pre-service chemistry teachers, the condition and possibilities of development of their ability to solve problem tasks. The aim is to map their adopted practices, strategies and bottlenecks of task- solving process.
Multicomponent tasks for lower-secondary school student assessment and the released items from PISA were used. To get more detailed information, retrospective think-aloud together with eye-tracking were used.
The results suggest that pre-service chemistry teachers (N=33) have more difficulty solving tasks set in a chemical context than solving general science problems.