Öğrencilerin araştırma yaptığı, problem çözdüğü, kararlar aldığı ve bilimsel yöntemlere başvurarak aktif olarak sürece dâhil olduğu etkinliklerden biri de proje çalışmalarıdır. Bu becerilerin bireylere kazandırılmasına öncülük edecek olan kurumların okullar olduğu göz önüne alındığında bu noktada en büyük görev ve sorumluluk hiç kuşkusuz öğretmenlere düşmektedir. Nitekim öğretmenlerin sahip oldukları becerilerin öğrencilerine kazandıracakları beceriler üzerindeki etkisi büyüktür. Ancak alanyazında öğretmen yetiştiren kurumlarda proje çalışmalarının üzerinde yeterince durulmadığı ve öğrencilerin proje hazırlama becerilerinin istenilen düzeyde olmadığı belirtilmektedir. Bu tespit doğrultusunda çalışmada, sınıf öğretmeni adaylarının proje hazırlama becerilerinin bilimsel süreç becerileri dikkate alınarak incelenmesi ve proje hazırlama süreci hakkındaki görüşlerinin alınması amaçlanmıştır. Karma araştırma yönteminin kullanıldığı çalışmanın örneklemini bir devlet üniversitesinin Eğitim Fakültesi Sınıf Öğretmenliği Programı üçüncü sınıfına devam eden 103 öğretmen adayı oluşturmaktadır. Veri toplama aracı olarak, proje değerlendirme formu, akran değerlendirme ve öz-değerlendirme formu ile beş sorudan oluşan yazılı görüş formu kullanılmıştır. Değerlendirme formlarından elde edilen bulgular ışığında, öğretmen adaylarının proje hazırlama becerilerinin genel olarak orta düzeyde olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca, öğretmen adaylarının büyük çoğunluğunun proje hazırlama ve hazırlatma konusunda kendilerini yeterli gördükleri ortaya çıkmıştır. Çalışmanın sonunda sağlanabilmesi ve karşılaşılan zorlukların üstesinden gelinebilmesi için öğretmen adaylarına proje çalışmalarının öneminin kavratılmasına ve farklı alanlardan proje uygulamaları yaptırılmasına yönelik önerilerde bulunulmuştur

Project studies are some of the activities in which students do research, solve problems, make decisions and consult scientific methods to participated in the process actively. When considering the fact that schools are the organizations which will pioneer bringing individuals into these skills, the greatest duty and responsibility is undoubtedly of teachers. Indeed, teachers’ skills have a great impact on the skills which they will provide their students with. However, it is stated in the literature that project studies in teacher-training institutions are not sufficiently emphasized and students’ project preparation skills are not on the desired level. It was aimed in accordance with this determination to examine preservice classroom teachers’ project preparation skills by considering science process skills and to receive their opinions on the project preparation process in this study. Using the mixed method, study’s sample was composed of 103 preservice teachers who are attending the third year of the Classroom Teaching Department in the Faculty of Education at a state university. The data were obtained with a project evaluation sheet, a peer evaluation and self-evaluation sheet and a five-question questionnaire form. It was determined in the light of the findings obtained with the evaluation sheets that the preservice teachers have moderate project preparation skills in general. Also, it was revealed that majority of the preservice teachers regarded themselves as competent at preparing a project and having a project prepared. At the end of the study, proposals were made to teach candidate teachers about the importance of project work and to make project applications from different fields so that project preparation works can be made widespread and overcoming the difficulties encountered.In our era, new mathematical instruction programs that require students to solve problems, reason, think and acquire skills (NCTM, 2000). Instructional programs—which embrace student-centered instructional methods, aim the family and environment participation in student-teacher and student-student interaction and are based on the constructivist approach—started to be implemented in Turkey by 2005 in parallel with those changes and developments. In accordance with those changes in instructional problems, content of courses, instructional methods, tools and assessment-evaluation methods have been altered, too (Gelbal and Kelecioğlu, 2007). Aiming at turning evaluation into a part of learning, these programs suggest evaluation activities such as discussion, presentation, project, observation, interview, product file, self-evaluation, peer evaluation, etc. A project is an activity in which students have the chance to examine, investigate and interpret a problem of their interest or in their area of study in groups or individually (Kubinova, Novotna and Littler, 1998) and obtain new information, produce original ideas and make assumptions under the guidance of the teacher (Gömleksiz, Sinan ve Demir, 2010; Katz and Chard, 2000; MoNE, 2009). Instruction by projects is an effective and important type of instruction used for the solutions of problems in different disciplines (mathematics, science, social sciences, etc.) and involves a student-centered structure in which students actively participate in activities, work with groups and which improve their creative-thinking skills and positive risk-taking behaviors (Aktepe and Aktepe, 2009; Bell, 2010; Blumenfeld, Soloway and Marx, 1991; Shearer and Quinn, 1996). Project development is a long, complex and challenging process (Katz and Chard, 2000; MoNE, 2009). Due to including science process steps, the process from the design of the project to its implementation helps science process skills improved (MoNE, 2009). Mental and psychomotor skills used for accessing information, organizing the information with various methods and explaining unorthodox situations and solving problems with scientific methods, efforts and skills of producing information are named science process skills (Böyük, Tanık and Saraçoğlu, 2011; Celep and Bacanak, 2013). Use of those skills by students makes learning more permanent and effective. Science processes constitute the basic component of thinking and are used in problem solving in all areas (Aktamış and Şahin Pekmez, 2011; Böyük, Tanık and Saraçoğlu, 2011; Özdemir, Özdemir ve Parmaksız, 2016). One of the studies which provides the opportunity to perform an activity using scientific methods in practice is projects. Nevertheless, it has been revealed in some research in Turkey that project studies are not sufficiently emphasized at high schools and teacher-training institutions, students’ project preparation skills are not on desired levels and teachers do not find themselves to be competent at preparing a project. Based on these determinations, it was aimed to examine project preparation skills of preservice teachers who are studying classroom teaching by considering science process skills and to receive their opinions on the project preparation process in this study. Having been conducted with the mixed method, study’s participants were 103 preservice teachers who are attending the third year of the Classroom Teaching Department in the Faculty of Education at a state university. The “Project Evaluation Sheet (PES)”, “SelfEvaluation Sheet (SES)”, “Peer Evaluation Sheet (PEES)” and the fivequestion questionnaire form developed by the researchers were used as data collection instruments. The PES results showed that the preservice teachers had moderate levels of project preparation skills. Similarly, the SES and PEES analysis results showed that the preservice teachers regarded themselves and their peers as partially competent at the subject. It can be said in the light of the sheets used that the participants’ project preparation skills are generally on a moderate level at the end of an evaluation in accordance with project steps. When the preservice teachers were asked about advantages and disadvantages of a project study, it was seen that the most emphasized advantages were increasing student-student communication and increasing student-teacher communication. It was also determined that other advantages included ensuring learning the process of scientific research, improving research skills and facilitating learning. When examining participants’ opinions on disadvantages of a project study, they highlighted disadvantages like increasing workload and taking too much time the most, and they also mentioned about in-group conflicts, difficult and time-taking evaluation process, high cost and the fact that it causes reluctance among students when the process does not go as planned. As for the difficulties experienced by the preservice teachers when preparing their projects, it was revealed that they had trouble with identifying the problem situation, analyzing the data, preparing written report, interpreting the data and developing the data collection instruments. Another issue emphasized by the participants was the group study. Preservice teachers starting teaching profession as being equipped with science process skills can be thought as an important step for improving students’ related skills, too. In this approach, the programs include courses such as Scientific Research Methods, Nature of Science and History of Science to train teachers in accordance with era’s requirements. It was remarkable that 37 of the participants emphasized the Scientific Research Methods course which they had taken in the second year. Some of the preservice teachers reported that they had not carried out an applied study in the Scientific Research Methods course which they had taken in the previous year, they only prepared a research proposal and they thought that they would not face so many problems if they made an applied study to prepare the research report. These problems to which the preservice teachers provided solutions coincide with the findings obtained with PES and SES. Finally, it was asked to the participants if they found themselves to be competent at preparing a project and having a project prepared and it was observed that most of them found themselves to be competent. Furthermore, some of them regarding themselves as being competent and the greater part of them regarding themselves as being partially competent is in parallel with this finding. Based on these findings, it can be said that majority of the preservice teachers find themselves to be competent at conducting their future project studies without any problems.