Özet:

The aim of this research is to identify the changes in scientific creativity and academic achievement of prospective science teachers during their four-year education and to reveal the opinions of the participants on the reasons for the change of scientific creativity. Besides, the relation between their yearly average academic achievement and the scientific creativity scores of that year have been investigated. The research was conducted through convergent parallel mixed research in which quantitative and qualitative approaches were used together. The quantitative part of the study was designed in the context of longitudinal research and qualitative data were used to support quantitative findings. Thirty-four prospective science teachers studying in science teacher education program during the academic year of 2012-2016 constitute the participants of the research. According to the results, it was found that prospective science teachers’ scientific creativity and academic achievements scores increased over the years. Furthermore, there was a positive correlation between academic achievement scores and the scientific creativity scores of third graders. The qualitative data obtained from the opinions of the prospective teachers supported these findings and based on the evaluation of qualitative findings, prospective science teachers can be advised to increase their scientific creativity by carrying out self-designed activities.

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