Investigation of Prospective Science Teachers' Understandings on Ergastic Substances with the Semantic Mappings

The aim of this study was investigated of prospective science teachers' understandings on ergastic substances with the semantic mappings. This study was phenomenological research method. 38 prospective science teachers in the science teaching department of a public university participated in the research. The prospective science teachers were asked to prepare the semantic mappings about Ergastic Substances. In this study, student products are 36 semantic mappings prepared by the prospective science teachers. The semantic mappings were analyzed content analysis method. According to the findings obtained from the research, it can be said that in the semantic mapping, the prospective science teachers used most of concepts related to Ergastic Substances in the experiments. Additionally, it can be said that conducting experiments and preparing the semantic mappings have important contributions to the teaching, researching and associating of concepts. In order to eliminate the difficulties, intervals applications at different times will contribute to the literature instead of one-off applications. According to the results of 36 semantic mappings prepared by the prospective science teachers, a semantic mapping containing 6 groups and 140 concepts was formed.