Future Chemistry Teachers’ Perceptions of Vocationally Relevant Learning Methods

The lack of relevance is a major challenge in chemistry education. In the last two decades, a lot of research and development projects for increasing the relevancy have been conducted in all educational levels, expect in chemistry teacher education. This research is filling this knowledge gap by investigating what kind of learning methods in pre-service chemistry teacher education have high and low vocational relevance. The relevance of different learning methods included in chemistry teacher education courses are analysed by studying future chemistry teachers’ perceptions. Research was carried out as a case study utilising a mixed methods approach. Data was collected via an online questionnaire. The total number of respondents was 72. According to this research, laboratory activities, teaching exercises (e.g. teaching for peers or pupils in a non-formal learning environment study visit) and discussions (e.g. group discussions) were experienced the most vocationally relevant. Writing exercises were experienced the least relevant. All highly relevant learning methods stimulated high-order thinking skills and supported collaborative learning. The level of experienced relevance was mostly intrinsic (skills and knowledge for career) and it had both present and future focus. These results can be used for developing vocationally high relevance learning methods for pre-service chemistry teacher education.