The effects of teaching methods on preservice teachers knowledge about basic astronomy subjects

The purpose of this study is to explore the learning effect related to different teaching methods (computer assisted instruction and 5E learning cycle model) on basic astronomy subjects of preservice teachers. In this research the pretest-posttest experimental design was used. The working group consists a total of 78 preservice teachers who were studying different departments (41 Classroom Education, 37 Science Education) of Erciyes University in the fall semester 2016-2017 academic year. Astronomy Knowledge Test which was developed by Tascan (2013) was used for data collection tool. For the analysis of the data; two-way ANOVA and the descriptive statistics were conducted and the findings were interpreted with respect to each research question. The significance level was taken as .05 for the comparisons. Two-way ANOVA results revealed that, the main effect for teaching method and program type interaction were not significant. Suggestions have been developed in the direction of the obtained results.


Introduction
Astronomy is derived from the astro and nomos words of ancient Greek and is synonymous with sky science.Astronomy is defined "as a science that examine the location of the celestial bodies, their movements, measurement of their distance to each other, their science and chemistry aspects" (TLS, 2006).Astronomy that is interwoven with other sciences, benefit from physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology during the evaluation of data; geography during the detection of the locations of the observatories (Zurnaci, 2015), psychology and physiology during the investigation of the mistakes of the observer (MNE, 2010).Thus, it is possible to say that the developments in astronomy science provide important contributions to our daily life.For instance, it can be stated that astronomy is a good educational instrument in terms of conducting individuals/societies to scientific facts (MNE, 2010).
It is becoming increasingly important to include this area in many educational programs that is intertwined with everyday life.One of these educational programs is science education.The acquisitions of the science course teaching program was designed taking into account the relationship of scientific knowledge with skills, emotion and daily life (MNE, 2013).Astronomy acquisitions are also intensively involved (43 acquisitions) in the World and Universe subject area of this course.Science acquisitions in life science course curriculum are similarly associated with everyday life and referred to astronomy issues (MNE, 2009).In this sense, it is important to learn and teach astronomy meaningfully that is interrelated with daily life, within the scope of science education.
Looking at the studies done in the field of astronomy, it can be stated that it is on identifying alternative ideas (Goncu & Korur, 2012;Trumper, 2001;Trundle, Atwood & Christopher, 2006;Trundle & Troland, 1996), knowledge level (Bostan, 2008;Kanli, 2014;Kaplan & Ciftci-Tekinarslan, 2013), mental models (Iyibil, 2010;Iyibil & Saglam-Arslan, 2010;Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992;Vosniadou, Skopeliti & Ikospentaki, 2004) and astronomy self-sufficiency (Carter, 2005;Gunes, 2010).Except these, studies investigating the effect of the teaching method on the conceptual understandings/learning effects of individuals on astronomy issues are also available in the national literature.Some of these studies are included in the following table.When the Table 1 is examined, it can be seen that in the studies generally had worked with primary school students as a sample.Besides in Okulu (2012) and Bostan and Isildak (2010) studies was conducted with preservice science and mathematic teachers.It is seen that there is not a study investigating of the effectiveness of astronomy education for both preservice science and classroom teachers.In terms of topic(s), it is stated that the focus is often on the Solar System unit and the Moon phases.Besides, it is clear that the control group is based on traditional methods in the experimentcontrol group studies.However, except that traditional instruction, doing studies examining the effect of two different methods will allow comparison of these different methods.For this reason, in the present study one of the groups was conducted computer assisted instruction while the other group was conducted 5E learning cycle model.In this context the purpose of this study is to explore the learning effect related to different teaching methods (computer assisted instruction and 5E learning cycle model) on basic astronomy subjects of preservice teachers.The research question identified for this purpose is: "Do the prospective teachers' scores from the Astronomy Knowledge Test show a statistically significant difference according to the interaction between the program and the teaching method?"

Research design
In this research the pretest-posttest experimental design was used.The most important feature of experimental research that distinguishes it from others is that researchers manipulate the independent variable (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2006).Within the content of this study, teaching method and program type Armagan, O. F. & Cevik, E. E. (2017).The effects of teaching methods on preservice teachers knowledge about basic astronomy subjects.New Trends and Issues Proceedings on Humanities and Social Sciences.[Online].4(1), pp 270-277.Available from: www.prosoc.eu273 as independent variables, scores from Astronomy Knowledge Test as dependent variable were considered.

Participants
The working group consists a total of 78 preservice teachers who were studying different department (Classroom Education and Science Education) of Erciyes University in the fall semester 2016-2017 academic year.The information about the prospective teachers is given in Table 2.When Table 2 is examined, it is seen that there are four different groups.Prospective teachers in classroom education are divided into two groups (computer assisted instruction and 5E learning cycle model), similarly prospective teachers in science education are divided into two groups in this way.

Instrumentation
Astronomy Knowledge Test (AKT) which was developed by Tascan (2013) was used in this study.There are 21 questions in this test.Questions in the test are related to basic astronomical definitions, Sun, Earth and Moon's movements, Moon phases, Moon eclipse and solar eclipse, stars, galaxy and Solar System.A reliability coefficient was found for this test as .730.

Data analysis
SPSS 22 was used to analyze data and benefited two-way ANOVA.The significance level was taken as .05for the comparisons.The two-way ANOVA compares the mean differences between groups that have been split on two different categorical independent variables on one continuous dependent variable (URL, 1).Thus, researcher tries to find out if there is an interaction between the independent variables on the dependent variable.

Findings
This section presents the findings from the quantitative data collection tool of the study, i.e. from the AKT scores conducted with all of the selected preservice teachers after the instruction period.
Firstly, assumptions must be made to make two way ANOVA.To check normality assumption for the variables, Shapiro-Wilk test was conducted.Table 3 shows the results of this statistics.As seen from Table 3, for all variables, it can be said that normality assumption was met.Besides, when we analyzed it was seen that histograms together with their normal curves for AKT posttest mean scores' distribution for each of the groups.
In order to check the assumption of equality of variances, Levene's test was used.Table 3 shows the results of this statistics.As seen from Table 4, Levene's test was not significant for posttest.Thus, this assumption was satisfied and two way ANOVA could be performed.Descriptive statistics for AKT posttest were given in Table 4.In view of Table 5, it is possible to say both science and classroom education CAI group mean scores of AKT is higher than 5E group mean scores of AKT.Table 5 gives the information about two way ANOVA in terms of AKT posttest for groups.Table 6 shows that two-way ANOVA indicated significant main effects for teaching method (F(1,74) = 4.172, p<.05) but not for program type or program type*teaching method interactions (p>.05).That is to say, preservice teachers learning effect about basic astronomy subjects didn't change in accordance with the teaching method (CAI and 5E) and program type (science education and classroom education) interactions.

Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendation
From a general perspective, it can be concluded that preservice classroom and science teachers learning effect about basic astronomy subjects didn't change according to the teaching method and program type interactions.A study done by Ezberci (2014), results showed that when students' pre-test scores obtained from the conceptual understanding test are statistically controlled, a significant difference, was found among the conceptual understanding of students taught by three different methods.The performed Bonferonni test indicated that the conceptual understanding of students exposed to 5E learning cycle model supported metaconceptual processes was significantly higher than the conceptual understanding of students taught with traditional instruction.However, a significant difference wasn't found between two different teaching methods the 5E learning cycle model and the 5E learning cycle model supported with metaconceptual processes.
When looking at the means in the present study, is was seen that the mean score of those who participate in CAI from preservice classroom and science teachers is higher than preservice teachers participating in the 5E learning cycle model instruction.In this sense, it can be said that materials presented in computer, models and images of sky observations have a positive effect on the conceptual understanding of preservice teachers.Bell and Trundle (2008)'s study also described the conceptual understandings of 50 early childhood preservice teachers about standards-based lunar concepts before and after inquiry-based instruction utilizing educational technology.Thus, they used computer simulations.They have found that after the instruction with technology integration, most participants (82%) held a scientific understanding of the cause of moon phases and stated that well-designed computer simulation used within a conceptual change model of instruction can be very effective in promoting scientific understandings.Another study, in Kucukozer ( 2008)'s study, prospective science teachers' misconceptions about the seasons and the phases of the Moon were determined, and then the effects of 3D computer modelling on their conceptual changes were investigated.The results of the study suggest that the teaching was quite effective regarding conceptual change.Kucukozer, Bostan and Isildak (2010), used computer programs in astronomy course content.At the end of the study, a significant difference has been found between the results of pre and post-tests of four sections and the general questionnaire.Thus, they said that instruction has lead to a conceptual change.These and similar studies in the literature showed that the CAI has an effect on meaningful learning of astronomy topics.The high mean score in the present study supports this situation.
In the direction of the results obtained, it is thought that new teaching approaches should be included in the learning environments especially in the teaching of astronomy topics; sky observations, video, computer simulations, modeling, etc. should be used during instruction.There was no significant difference in the teaching of astronomy topics between the computer assisted instruction and the 5E learning cycle model in this study.After that in similarly, it is suggested that studies should be done on the effect of different teaching methods (collaborative learning, problem based learning etc.) on the teaching of astronomy topics apart from traditional instruction.

Table 3 . Results of Shapiro-Wilk test
Cevik, E. E. (2017).The effects of teaching methods on preservice teachers knowledge about basic astronomy subjects.New Trends and Issues Proceedings on Humanities and Social Sciences.[Online].4(1), pp 270-277.