PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS' AND EXPERTS' PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS: A COMPARISON ON A CHEMISTRY AND SCIENCE PROBLEM TASKS
Abstract
Problem solving as one of the 21st Century Skills belongs among areas Czech students' do not excel in, as shown in PISA. Students' ability to solve problem tasks should be implemented in curriculum and therefore be developed by teachers.
However, in order to do so, they need to be successful problem solvers themselves. This contribution dealt with chemistry pre-service teachers' problem solving skills which were compared with experts'.
The pre-service teachers (n = 3) of various success-rates were given one chemistry and one general science task. Their performance was compared with experts (PhD or PhD candidates) (n = 3).
The results of eye-tracking, retrospective think-aloud and interviews proved students' relatively low ability to solve the tasks. Despite the differences in performance, differences in the attention paid to individual parts of the tasks between students and experts were insignificant.
The think-aloud and interviews revealed that the pre-service teachers considered the chemistry task more difficult. They saw chemistry context as something they should remember.
On the other hand, experts considered the scientific task more difficult because of the need to of an overview and knowledge from several disciplines combination. The students' results were also affected by reading.
The results explain the reason behind the students' failure and will be focused on in the university courses.