Recognition of the tools used in general chemistry laboratory of science teacher candidates and determination of their levels of knowledge

Abstract

Informal and formal observations have made over many years on General Chemistry Laboratories and it has been determined that the students in the laboratories are in an attitude in which they act like as if they have never seen or used the laboratory equipments before. We believe that our observations should be investigated scientifically based on the evidence. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the science teacher candidates’ knowledge and understanding of the chemistry laboratory equipments. 55 teacher candidates who started their first semester in 2016-2017 academic years in Uludag University studying science participated in this study. Teacher candidates were given an open-ended test, in which the names of the laboratory instruments mentioned in the experiments in high school freshman, sophomore and junior year textbooks and were asked
whether they know the shape of the instrument, what it is used for, if they have seen it before, and learning of which concept it contributes to. According to the findings, a large majority of prospective teachers graduated without using or seeing these laboratory tools. The obtained data will be explained in this study with the help of the rubric

Keywords: Chemistry laboratory tools; chemistry teaching; laboratory experiments.