Does explicit problem solving teaching strategy improve pre-service elementary teachers' problem solving ability in Chemistry?

Abstract

This study compares the effectiveness of two teaching approaches: an inquiry with added ‘Explicit General Problem Solving Teaching Strategy’ (EGPSTS) and traditional inquiry which excludes this EGPSTS on pre-service elementary school teachers’ ability to solve heat transfer problems. The pre-service elementary teachers in this study were enrolled in two sections of chemistry for pre-service elementary teachers’ class at a four year university in spring 2011 semester. One section of this class was taught a treatment method, the explicit general problem solving approach, while the other section was taught an inquiry approach which excluded the explicit problem solving. Quantitative data was obtained using post-tests while qualitative data was obtained using semi-structured interviews. Although there was no statistical difference in the two groups’ performance to the post-test, the treatment group had higher mean percentage than the control group. There was not much difference in the way participants thought through their problems during interviews between the two groups although subjects in the treatment group seemed more organized than their control counterparts. Hence, this study concludes that both EGPSTS and traditional inquiry have comparable effectiveness to teaching problem solving although EGPSTS has a slight edge over traditional inquiry.