Analyzing Pre-service Science Teachers’ Physics Materials

Abstract

Recently, with the influence of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education approach, the material design has become an important aspect within science courses. The material development course in science curriculums is a unique opportunity to evaluate pre-service teachers’ material designs. In this study, student science teachers’ physics materials were subjected to critiquing, while the authors discussed the advantages and disadvantages of their designs with a consideration of possible misconceptions. In the study, a content analysis technique, as one of the qualitative analysis methods was used. There were 27 materials and lesson plans in total, concerning the physics topics. The findings are presented under the titles of energy, light, sound, and electricity. Results showed that only three of the materials were linked to a misconception. Moreover, a fair amount of the participants chose to design either too simple, easy to build, easy to find, digital, or irrelevant teaching materials. This result can be recognized as a critical finding in this research and described as the unwillingness of the participant pre-service teachers. Findings are discussed with an effort to settle the misconceptions and the unwillingness of pre-service teachers.