Difficulties pre-service science teachers encountered in conducting research projects at teacher education college

Figures & data

Figure 1. A Conceptual framework that depicts the skills required to conduct research projects in terms of procedural and epistemic knowledge.

Table 1. Demonstrates the candidates’ activities about the constructs of procedural and epistemic knowledge

Types of knowledge	Constructs to represent scientific knowledge
Procedural	Developing problems or inquiry tasks (Surif et al., 2012)
	Developing hypothesis and research questions (Surif et al., 2012)
	Conceptualizing a problem to be solved, synthesizing a literature review (Abate et al., 2020)
	Gathering empirical data using valid tools (Surif et al., 2012)
	Analysis of various data (Vorholzer et al., 2020)
	Interpreting data (Arnold et al., 2021; Osborne, 2014)
Epistemic	Discussion of results with an argument (Kind, 2013; Osborne, 2014)
	Create a link between data, evidence, and conclusion (Abate et al., 2020)

Table 2. Depicts the coding of paper 7 for literature review by one of the authors

Codes/criteria to evaluate Literature Review	Some Excerpts and justifications of the paper evaluator	Score		Difficulty level
		Yes	No
Gap identification	“Abera (2016) has suggested that there are only limited studies … . “	✔		Less Difficult
Organization	Lacks organization (the paper has no introductions at the beginning of the chapter and under each title, the titles are not organized and presented from the main construct to the other less important issues and lacks a conclusion at the end of the chapter … .		✔
Coverage	All the main constructs in the study were discussed	✔
Up-to-date citations	There are more than two citations from the last 10 years	✔
Total points		3	1

Table 3. Aspects of research activities that candidates face difficulties in

Forms of scientific knowledge	Research activities	Levels of difficulties
		very diff.		Diff.		Less diff.		Easy
		f	%	f	%	f	%	f	%
Procedural knowledge	Identifying the research problem	18	22	20	24	23	28	21	26
	Formulating research questions and/or objectives	12	15	23	28	34	41	13	16
	Reviewing related literature	32	39	18	22	20	24	12	15
	Sampling and selecting data gathering tools	20	24	34	41	21	26	7	9
	Data collecting and organization	30	37	25	30	16	20	11	13
	Data analysis and interpretation	39	48	24	29	12	15	7	9
Epistemic knowledge	Discussion of results	10	12	21	26	35	42	16	20
	Concluding findings	16	20	20	24	21	26	25	30

Table 4. Difficulty as demonstrated in research report writing

Forms of scientific knowledge	Research activities	Levels of difficulty
		very diff.		Diff.		Less diff.		easy
		F	%	f	%	f	%	F	%
Procedural knowledge	Identifying the research problem	1	11	3	33	4	44	1	11
	Formulating research questions and/or objectives	-	-	3	33	5	55	1	11
	Reviewing related literature	3	33	4	44	2	22	-	-
	Sampling and selecting data gathering tools	1	11	5	55	2	22	1	11
	Data collecting and organization	2	22	5	55	2	22	-	-
	Data analysis and interpretation	6	66	3	33	-	-	-	-
Epistemic knowledge	Discussion of results	7	77	2	22
	Conclusion and implication	4	44	4	44	1	11	-	-

Surif, J., Ibrahim, N. H., & Mokhtar, M. (2012). Conceptual and procedural knowledge in problem solving. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 56, 416–425. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.671

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Abate, T., Michael, K., & Angell, C. (2020). Assessment of Scientific Reasoning: Development and Validation of Scientific Reasoning Assessment Tool. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 16(12), em1927. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/9353

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Vorholzer, A., Von Aufschnaiter, C., & Boone, W. J. (2020). Fostering upper secondary students’ ability to engage in practices of scientific investigation: A comparative analysis of an explicit and an implicit instructional approach. Research in Science Education, 50(1), 333–359. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-018-9691-1

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Arnold, J. C., Mühling, A., & Kremer, K. (2021). Exploring core ideas of procedural understanding in scientific inquiry using educational data mining. Research in Science & Technological Education, 41(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02635143.2021.1909552

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Osborne, J. (2014). Teaching scientific practices: Meeting the challenge of change. Journal of Science TeacherEducation, 25(2), 177–196. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10972-014-9384-1

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Kind, P. (2013). Establishing a ssessment S cales U sing a N ovel D isciplinary R ationale for S cientific R easoning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50(5), 530–560. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21086

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