Researching of Pre-Service Elementary Teachers' Problem Solving Skills

The present study aims to investigate pre-service teachers' problem-solving skills and to examine their problem solving skills in terms of their gender, grade levels, and the high schools they graduated from. To this aim, the problem solving skills scale was administered to 256 pre-service elementary school teachers studying in a mid-sized university in Turkey. The results of an analysis on the obtained data demonstrated that the pre-service teachers have generally good levels of problem solving skills. Furthermore, the study also found that the pre-service teachers did not significantly differ in their problem solving skills according to their genders and high school diplomas; yet, females had higher problem solving skills than males. The study also examined the pre-service teachers' problem solving skills in terms of their grade levels and found a significant difference in favor of the freshmen. The results suggest that the study will contribute to the literature in determining and improving pre-service teachers' problem solving skills and may serve as a guide for further studies in this field.