Analysis of Prospective Elementary Science Teachers’ Perceptions about Chemistry

The effect of attitude and beliefs of students on achievement is the focus of lots of studies. Studies related to conceptions are conducted to analyze both attitude and beliefs. This study is conducted in spring semester of the 2014-2015 academic year with 20 fourth grade Prospective Elementary Science Teachers who enrolled “Chemistry in Daily Life”. As data collection instruments were used chemistry perception scale and semi-structured interview. Chemical perception scale was developed by Wells (2003) and adapted to Turkish by Tosun (2013). Chemistry perception scale consists of 20 questions in 5 dimensions. The instrument was administered to identify prospective elementary science teachers’ chemistry perceptions. At the end of the study, a semi-constructed interview was performed with 5 students. Purpose of the interview was to analyze the affecting factors on perceptions and effect of “Chemistry in Daily Life” on perceptions. In this study, the affecting factors on chemical perception were addressed