Examination of the Reasoning Skills of 60-72 Months-Old Preschool Students on Socio-Scientific Issues According to Epistemic Profiles-Isparta Example

The purpose of this study is to examine preschool students' reasoning about socioscientific issues (SSI) according to their epistemic profiles. A qualitative case study was used in the study. The participant group of the study consisted of 22 children aged 60-72 months studying in a public kindergarten in the central district of Isparta province in the 2021-2022 academic year. Three scenarios about SBK developed by the researchers and two different question sets related to each scenario were used as data collection tools. Before starting the main study, researcher1 spent time with the participant group as a participant-observer within the scope of naturalistic inquiry approach and the main research process was started after she was seen as a natural member of the group. During the implementation process, researcher1 met with each student in a quiet environment with one-to-one interviews and read the scenarios and aimed to reveal the students' reasoning about the scenarios. The same process was followed for each scenario. The data collection process lasted four weeks. The interviews were recorded and converted into written format. The data obtained in the study were analyzed based on content analysis and Schommer and Kuhn's epistemological belief models. According to the findings, it was concluded that the participant group could not make sufficient reasoning and had naive epistemic profiles even if they had ideas about current issues within the scope of SBK. However, as the practices progressed and the scenarios changed, positive changes were observed in students' reasoning. The findings were discussed with reference to the literature and recommendations were presented.