Abstract
One of the 21st century key competencies closely linked with science education is problem-solving. To develop these skills in students, teachers must be good problem solvers themselves.
The presented study therefore aimed at identifying these skills in pre-service (chemistry) teachers. Based on a pre-test, three students from a group of freshman chemistry teacher students were selected for qualitative part of the study, which involved one chemistry and one general scientific problem task.
To analyze their problem-solving procedure, eye-tracking, retrospective think-aloud and semi-structured interviews were used. Students' progress was compared to experts'.
The results showed that novices considered chemistry task more difficult, unlike experts, who considered the science task more difficult and complex, however scored better than the students. Students solved chemistry task using memorized facts and omitted support provided in these tasks.
Eye-tracking enabled identification of the study subjects' focus on particular parts of the task. Experts focused on relevant parts, whereas novices distributed their focus also to other parts.
Results also revealed the strategies the subjects used. Experts used only expansive strategies, whereas novices used also limiting ones.
The combination of methods used in this study proved to be useful. The results suggest, there is a need to present chemistry in more variable ways than testing field-specific, separated, memorized information.