Development and validation of Children’s Responsible Environmental Behavior Scale

Though environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) has been a focus of many studies in the field of environmental education, very few scales have been developed to assess children’s ERB. In this regard, this article focuses on the development and validation of Children’s Responsible Environmental Behavior Scale (CREBS) and also reports the psychometric properties of this scale. The items in the CREBS were developed initially from the responses to four open-ended items by 229 fourth and fifth grade students. This initial form was pilot tested with 673 fourth and fifth graders and then subjected to exploratory factor analysis. Later, the revised version of the scale was administrated to 2412 fifth graders, and those results were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analysis. CREBS consists of 23 items measured using a seven-point Likert-type scale, which have been organized into four sub-scales: political action (six items, α?=?.92); eco-management (six items, α?=?.70); consumer and economic action (five items, α?=?.70); and Individual and Public Persuasion (six items, α?=?.80). Study results indicate that CREBS can be used for exploring the extent to which elementary school students in Turkey demonstrate four types of behavior to help prevent and resolve environmental problems and issues.     

Moral reasoning patterns and influential factors in the context of environmental problems

This study investigated pre-service science teachers’ (PSTs’) moral reasoning patterns and the factors underlying these reasoning patterns. Local and non-local environmental dilemmas were used to examine moral reasoning patterns. An explanatory design was used with the collection and analysis of quantitative data, which was subsequently refined using qualitative interview data. For the quantitative part of the study, PSTs were asked to comment on four local and non-local environmental dilemmas (i.e. deforestation, e-waste, oil spills, and global warming). The responses were categorized as ecocentric, anthropocentric, or non-environmental reasoning. The findings showed that the participants’ moral reasoning focused on both ecocentric and anthropocentric perspectives, with a few displaying non-environmental reasoning. Concern for environmental problems was related to perceptions of whether the issue was directly related to nature, and was independent of whether the issues were local or non-local. The Moral Decision Making Interview protocol was used in the qualitative part of the study. Analysis revealed that the participants’ moral decisions were based on their resolutions in situational context and their concerns showed variations in their moral reasoning due to different factors like, effect on human life, formal principles, notion of rights, moral emotions, potential harm to others, and popular culture.     

Pre-service and in-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning chemistry in Turkey

This paper describes beliefs held about teaching and learning chemistry by Turkish teachers and student-teachers. The study investigated different aspects of pre-service and in-service teachers’ belief structures. Part of the study examined teachers’ overall beliefs, based on participants’ drawings of classroom situations. A qualitative evaluation was employed to offer information on (student-)teachers’ beliefs about classroom organisation, their beliefs about teaching objectives, and their stance on epistemological beliefs. Beliefs ranged from very traditional, teacher-centred ideas to modern, student-centred ones. Data evaluation was triangulated using a quantitative approach, which focused on whether beliefs were characterised by either teacher-centredness or learner-centredness. Additionally, a Likert questionnaire was used to evaluate the educators` beliefs about the nature of good education. The results for the group of participants are presented and compared. Implications for chemistry teacher education in Turkey will also be addressed.     

Policy,practice, and reality: exploring a nation-wide technology implementation in Turkish schools

Technology has already become an indispensable part of our lives, and nations around the world see schools as the main agents to prepare their youth for a technology-filled future, and invest important amounts of funding to provide hardware to schools, students and teachers. The Turkish Ministry of National Education is in the midst of the FAT?H project, a nation-wide attempt to provide each classroom with an interactive whiteboard and each student with a tablet computer. In this paper, the authors present interview data from teachers at first-year FAT?H pilot schools who are using these technologies to understand how this national attempt is being translated into practice, and identify what is working and what areas need further attunement. Results show that teachers were especially content with being able to make their lessons visually more appealing for their students. They were, however, not satisfied with the in-service training provided, especially in understanding ways to effectively integrate the technologies into their teaching, and the limitations put upon Internet access from the tablets. The impacts of these tools on their teaching practices were very minimal.     

Supply Chain Sourcing Game: A Negotiation Exercise

This article introduces an exercise that simulates the negotiation process in a dynamic supply chain. The retailer and wholesaler roles are assigned to student groups who negotiate supply contracts in a number of rounds during a class period. Each group makes pricing, inventory, and ordering decision concurrently, and competes with others to achieve the highest profit. The exercise is easy to implement using pen and paper, and lends itself to a wide variety of negotiation environments.     

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PREDICT–OBSERVE–EXPLAIN TECHNIQUE IN PROBING STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING ABOUT ACID–BASE CHEMISTRY: A CASE FOR THE CONCEPTS OF pH, pOH, AND STRENGTH

The present study describes high school students’ conceptions about acids and bases in terms of pH, pOH, microscopic level, strength, and concentration. A total of 27 high school students participated in the study. The data was collected using 3 POE tasks and a semi-structured interview. The data analysis demonstrated that most of the students had poor understanding related to a drawing of weak and strong acids. In addition, the findings revealed that the POE’s were effective in terms of gathering students’ predictions and reasons for the prediction of outcomes in an open-ended format. The POE tasks also revealed that some of the students had misconceptions regarding pH and pOH. The students believed that pH was a measurement of the acidity, while pOH was a measurement of the basicity. The findings obtained have certain implications for the secondary chemistry program.     

Effects of Problem-Based Learning on University Students’ Epistemological Beliefs About Physics and Physics Learning and Conceptual Understanding of Newtonian Mechanics

This study investigated the effects of problem-based learning on students’ beliefs about physics and physics learning and conceptual understanding of Newtonian mechanics. The study further examines the relationship between students’ beliefs about physics and their conceptual understanding of mechanics concepts. Participants were 124 Turkish university students (PBL = 55, traditional = 69) enrolled in a calculus-based introductory physics class. Students’ beliefs about physics and physics learning and their physics conceptual understanding were measured with the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) and the Force Concept Inventory (FCI), respectively. Repeated measures analysis of variance of how PBL influence beliefs and conceptual understanding were performed. The PBL group showed significantly higher conceptual learning gains in FCI than the traditional group. PBL approach showed no influence on students’ beliefs about physics; both groups displayed similar beliefs. A significant positive correlation was found between beliefs and conceptual understanding. Students with more expert-like beliefs at the beginning of the semester were more likely to obtain higher conceptual understanding scores at the end of the semester. Suggestions are presented regarding the implementation of the PBL approach.     

Prospective teachers’ perceptions on different aspects of portfolio

This qualitative–case study examined how portfolio and portfolio assessment were perceived by prospective teachers. The participants were 23 prospective teachers from seven different teaching areas from a Turkish university. A semi-structured individual interview was conducted. The interview schedule included 15 open-ended questions. The main results emerged from content analysis were that prospective teachers perceived portfolio as a learning and an assessment tool. Further, they believed that portfolio was complementary rather than an alternative assessment method to traditional assessment procedures.     

BELIEFS ABOUT CHEMISTRY TEACHING AND LEARNING—A COMPARISON OF TEACHERS’ AND STUDENT TEACHERS’ BELIEFS FROM JORDAN,TURKEY AND GERMANY

This paper discusses beliefs about teaching and learning chemistry. The sample includes chemistry student teachers and in-service teachers from Jordan, Turkey, and Germany. Two test instruments were used to investigate (student) teachers’ beliefs. A qualitative instrument was used to explore Beliefs about Classroom Organization, Beliefs about Teaching Objectives, and Epistemological Beliefs. A quantitative instrument was added to evaluate participants’ beliefs concerning the Nature of Good Education. The results show that Jordanian chemistry teachers and teacher trainees held the most traditional, teacher-centered, and transmission-oriented beliefs, while the German sample showed the most modern beliefs toward teaching and learning. Turkish (student) teachers evidenced more moderate beliefs, which tended to be between the two extremes, but that could still be positioned more closely to the traditional way of thinking. The results are discussed in the context of chemistry teacher education in the three respective countries.