New Perspectives in Science Education

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the usage of argumentation-based and problem-based learning approaches in the development of environmental knowledge of pre-service science teachers. The research was designed in means of embedded design which  is one of mixed research methods. Quantitative part of this study was based upon one group pretest-posttest design. On the other hand qualitative part of this study was based upon  multiple holistic case study. The implementation of the study was carried out in the spring term of the educational year 2011-2012 at Gazi University Gazi Faculty of Education, Department of Science Education. Teaching applications were applied on all 34 students whereas the study was mainly carried out with six focus students consisting of three male and three female. The experimental study took 15 weeks (45 hours) in Environmental Science Course. The first week involved the acquaintance with the students and briefing them with the study. Also this week  an educational plan related to the application of the argumentation was prepared  and applied. And this week finally, tests were administered as pretest. The study was started in the second week. Last week scales were administered as posttest.  The data of the study were gathered with different tools as semi-structured interviews, researcher diaries student diaries, handcrafts, messages sent to social sharing networks and environmental knowledge test.  In quantitative data analysis paired samples t-test was  used. The quantitative data of the study were analyzed through SPSS 20.00 package program. For the qualitative data, descriptive analysis was used for data obtained throughout the implementation process. On the other hand, the program Nvivo-9 with categorical content analysis basis was used to analyze the data of semi-structured interviews obtained after the implementation process and the obtained findings were interpreted sticking to research question.