Scientific Reasoning Among Teachers and Teacher Trainees: the Case in Ethiopian Schools and Teacher Training Colleges

Because teachers' instructional practices are fundamental to the development of scientific reasoning ability, it is important that teachers become proficient in scientific reasoning. With such a premise, the study examined the scientific reasoning ability of teacher educators, schoolteachers, and prospective teachers in a province in Ethiopia. The study involved 37 (2 F; 35 M) teacher educators, 116 (51 F; 65 M) prospective teachers, and 140 (57 F; 83 M) primary school teachers. Lawson's Test of Scientific Reasoning was administered to collect data. Analysis of the data showed that the participants generally had a low level of reasoning ability with 86% of them classified as intuitive thinkers. Group comparisons revealed that teacher educators were better in reasoning ability than schoolteachers who in turn were better than prospective teachers. It is found that equal proportions of teacher educators were transitional thinkers and intuitive thinkers, but the vast majority of prospective teachers (94.8%) and schoolteachers (88.6%) were intuitive thinkers. Considering six dimensions of scientific reasoning, participants' difficulties in scientific reasoning were evident mainly in relation to hypothetico-deductive reasoning and control of variables. Implications of the results for curricula at different levels and teacher preparation programs are discussed.