Studying Argumentation Writing Skills of Science Teacher Candidates on COVID-19 Pandemic and Their Opinions Regarding the Vaccine as a Socio-Scientific Issue

To see the reflections of scientific literacy in individuals' daily life manners is one of the most significant objectives of science education. In this context, it is thought that science teacher candidates are required to have the skills of socio-scientific issues and writing arguments on those subjects. Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess science teacher candidates' skills of writing argumentation on COVID-19 pandemic, which is a socio-scientific issue, and discuss their opinions on COVID-19 vaccine. The research was designed by using mixed method case study. The study group of the research consisted of 33 teacher candidates who were second grade students enrolled in the department of science teaching in a state university in Istanbul. The data in this study were gathered via "Written Argumentation Form" in accordance with argumentation writing components of Cope et al. (2013). For the opinions of teacher candidates on COVID-19 vaccine, "Interview Form" including two open-end questions was used. In data analysis, Argumentation Assessment Rubric (AAR) was used for argumentation and for opinions related to the vaccine, content analysis was applied. At the end of the research, it was found out that the teachers were successful in terms of creating "argument" and "result argument" while writing argumentation of which subject is socio-scientific, however they could not refute the counter claims adequately. Even though the teacher candidates approached COVID-19 pandemic scientifically in the arguments, it was found out that they had hesitations about how to behave in COVID-19 pandemic considering their opinions on vaccines. Although the teacher candidates thought that it was a real pandemic and follow vaccine studies closely, vast majority stated that they did not want to be vaccinated or they were undecided about it. It is recommended to examine thoroughly the fact that even though the vast majority of the teacher candidates thought pandemic was real, they had different opinions on vaccines.