Thai Pre-service Teachers’ Aspects of Epistemology and Cognitive Processes for Providing Scientific Inquiry Activities

Abstract

The study aimed to examine Thai pre-service teachers’ aspects of epistemology and cognitive process for providing scientific inquiry activities. Methodology is qualitative research. The research will interpret Thai pre-service teacher existing aspects of providing scientific inquiry activities through framework of Chinn & Malhotra (2002) epistemology and cognitive processes of scientific inquiry. Participants included 15 science pre-service teachers who enrolled for teaching practices in schools for one year, in Thailand. The questionnaire of Providing Activities for Scientific Inquiry (QASI) and interviewing were tools for interpreting science pre-service teacher existing ideas of providing activities for scientific inquiry. The findings revealed that the most of participants perceived few aspects of cognitive process of scientific inquiry when they gave the ideas of using computer-supported for science teaching. Only three of six aspects of epistemology of scientific inquiry were found from science pre-service teachers’ ideas. These included responses to anomalous data, purpose of research, and theory-data coordination.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2p465