EXAMINING PROSPECTIVE PRE-SCHOOL AND BIOLOGY TEACHERS’ METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS

The primary aim of this study was to describe prospective pre-school and biology teachers’ level of metacognitive awareness and epistemological beliefs and to examine differences between the groups. the total of 286 pre-school and biology teacher candidates participated in the study. participants were asked to complete the central epistemological beliefs questionnaire which consisted of four sub-scales namely: belief in science as a source of knowledge, belief in rational society, belief in superstitious rituals, and belief in supernatural powers and metacognitive awareness inventory which consisted of two main sub-scales namely: knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. descriptive statistics is used to describe responses from both groups and the differences between the groups were examined by one-way analysis of variance. findings of the study showed that in terms of central epistemological beliefs prospective pre-school and biology teachers’ responses were statistically different only in belief in superstitious rituals sub-scale. in terms of metacognitive awareness biology teacher candidates scores were statistically significantly higher in all sub-scales.