Identifying Science Teachers' Needs About Developing Students' Scientific Reasoning Skills

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine science teachers' needs about developing students' scientific reasoning skills. The study was qualitative descriptive survey and participants were 32 science teachers working at state middle schools with different socio-economic status in Izmir Data were collected via Needs Determination Survey developed by researchers. Content validity of survey was provided by expert views. Data obtained from survey were analyzed by using content analysis. At the end of the study, findings showed that teachers associated scientific reasoning skills with science process skills mostly; although they knew the place of scientific reasoning skills in the curriculum, they could not make any explanations about them; they could not design a scientific reasoning skills based learning environment due to the lack of their inadequacy and to overcome this, they needed some factors related to them such as training and colleague support and external factors such as enough experimental material and class size and they had an expectancy from a possible training to experience activities which they could use directly in the class and in which simple and cheap materials were used. It is hoped that this need analysis may contribute to other stakeholders to design training programs.