Prospective Physics Teachers’ Views on Their Knowledge about the New Concepts in Turkish High School Physics Curricula

Serkan Kapucu; Ufuk Yıldırım

Serkan Kapucu Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University
Ufuk Yıldırım Middle East Technical University

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to a) investigate prospective physics teachers’ views on their knowledge about new physics concepts introduced in Turkish High School Physics Curricula; b) investigate the sources of their acquired knowledge about these new physics concepts; and c) explore if there were differences in views on knowledge about these new physics concepts among prospective physics teachers of different genders, years of study and universities. A total of 98 prospective physics teachers from different two universities in the physics and physics education departments participated in this study. “Physics Concepts Knowledge Questionnaire” developed by the authors was administered to the participants. Descriptive statistics and t-test were used to analyze the data collected. No statistically significant difference was found in mean view scores of prospective physics teachers of different genders, in different years of study, and from different universities. Additionally, more than 50% of prospective physics teachers thought that they were not knowledgeable about 19 of the 32 concepts selected for this study. The results of this study also showed that prospective physics teachers did not
consider themselves as knowledgeable enough especially about astronomy and sound concepts.

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