COMPARISON OF PRE-SERVICE SCIENCE TEACHERS’ UNDERSTANDING OF CHEMISTRY IN VIRTUAL AND TRADITIONAL LABORATORY ENVIRONMENT

In this study, it was aimed to investigate and compare the impact of virtual chemistry laboratory (VCL) instruction versus traditional laboratory instruction on first grade pre-service science teachers’ understanding of general chemistry concepts. In this study, eight VCL activities related to thermochemistry, chemical kinetic, chemical equilibrium, acids and bases, electrochemistry were developed in the context of General Chemistry course. In the first step of developing VCL activities, literature was reviewed and students’ understanding and learning difficulties were determined. After the learning objectives were identified VCL activities were developed. Laboratory materials and equipments were compared pictures in books and in websites. The VCL activities were reviewed by experts and then it was piloted with a group of pre-service science teachers.

A quasi-experimental research design with pre and post-test, experimental-control-group model was used in this study. Instructions were conducted by participation of thirty-four pre-service science teachers, which were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. While instruction in the experimental group was accomplished via VCL, in the control group the same laboratory activities were performed in real laboratory environment based on traditional methods. Instructions were conducted during eight weeks. Two tier diagnostic General Chemistry Concept Test which were developed by the researchers was used for data collection. Data was analysed using SPSS 16 program. Mann-Whiney U test was used to compare pre-test scores of the experimental and control groups. Results indicated that there was no significant difference between experimental and control group before the instruction (U= 119.000, p>0.05). After the instructions in both group, Mann-Whiney U test was used to compare post-test scores of the experimental and control groups and significant difference was found between groups' post-test scores in favour of experimental group (U=68.500, p<0.05). To investigate pre-service science teachers understanding of general chemistry concepts, their answers to the diagnostic test were analysed using Lertap. The results showed that pre-service science teachers in experimental group had significantly lower alternative conceptions in comparison with control group.