Eliciting Prospective Science Teachers’ Teaching Orientations by Using a Card Sorting Activity

The purpose of this study is to develop a tool for prospective science teachers to elicit their beliefs about science teaching and learning, and goals or purposes of science teaching. We used the card sorting activity developed by Friedrichsen and Dana (2003). We took expert opinions for the produced scenarios. We conducted piloted card sorting activity first. Then, we prepared the final form of 16 scenario texts about electricity unit. We conducted this activity with ten junior prospective teachers. We used MAXQDA 2018 program to analyze the conversations of prospective teachers. The data revealed that most of the prospective teachers taught science in order to teach scientific knowledge. In addition, we found that prospective teachers who want to integrate technology into their teaching practices held mostly transitional and responsive orientations. As a result, we were able to demonstrate that this activity could be used to elicit prospective teachers' beliefs about science teaching and learning, and beliefs about goals or purposes of science teaching in technology integrated environments.