The effects of teaching applications with real life content on the levels of pre-service teachers' abilities to associate daily life with astronomy and electrical learning topics

Ogrencilerin bilgilerini gunluk yasamla iliskilendirmeleri; okul ortaminda ogrenmis olduklari konularin onemini anlamalari, nerede ve nasil kullanilacagini gormeleri ve konularin aslinda gunluk yasantiyla butunlesik oldugunun farkina varmalari acisindan buyuk onem tasimaktadir. Bu baglamda; ogrenme ortamlarina bu iliskileri yansitacak olan ogretmenlerin yeterli bilgi ve deneyim sahibi olmalari gerekmektedir. Arastirmada; Gercek yasam icerikli ogretim uygulamalarinin ogretmen adaylarinin astronomi ve elektrik ogrenme alanlari ile gunluk yasami iliskilendirebilme duzeylerine etkisinin incelenmesi amaclanmistir. Katilimcilar Fen Bilgisi Egitimi Anabilim Dalinda ogrenim goren toplam 30 dorduncu sinif ogrencisinden olusmaktadir. Calismada astronomi ve elektrik ogrenme alanlari secilmis ve bu ogrenme alanlarinda gercek yasam problemlerine dayali etkinlikler yapilmistir. Calismadaki veriler, bu etkinliklerin ogretmen adaylarinin astronomi ve elektrik konularini gunluk yasamla iliskilendirme durumlarina dayali olarak elde edilmistir. Arastirma deneysel nitelikte olup veriler on-son test desen kullanilarak toplanmistir. Veriler nitel olarak, ogrenme alanlarinin gunluk hayatta kullanimina iliskin acik uclu anketler ile toplanmistir. Calisma sonunda ogrenme alanlarinin gunluk yasamla iliskilendirme duzeylerinin elektrik ogrenme alaninda ve astronomi ogrenme alaninda yaklasik iki katina ciktigi gorulmustur.


Introduction
Science education has two significant purposes. The first purpose is to increase students' scientific literacy levels and the other is to develop their higher order thinking. It is necessary to explain learned science in context to ensure these purposes (Gilbert, 2006). The individual realizes that scientific knowledge is the real life itself, combining what he or she learned with events s/he encountered in real life. In this case, contexts make the implementation and transfer of knowledge easier (Richey, 2000). The context-based approach, which is based on teaching of knowledge in-context, which is presented as a starting point for teaching concepts (De Jong, 2008). The "Context Based Approach", which is a curriculum development approach rather than a teaching approach, is to present scientific concepts with selected contexts in daily life (Barker & Millar, 1999). For this reason, the term "context" in the literature is also used as the term "real life." In the context-based approach, individuals build relationships among learners by establishing examples from daily life and begins to learn through context by gaining experiences (Choi & Johnson, 2005;Vignouli, Hart & Fry, 2002). The aim of the context-based approach is to develop young students' interest and curiosity about the real world and ensure its continuity. In addition, it helps students to make relationships between the scientific knowledge and the real life (Vignouli, Hart & Fry, 2002). The context-based approach assumes that learning occurs in a natural environment and when it is needed, more easily, meaningfully and permanently (King & Ginns, 2015). That is, an individual who encounters with real life problems manages the conceptual changing process easier (Gilbert, Bulte & Pilot, 2011); this case helps to perceive misconceptions (Karslı & Yiğit, 2015) and ensures effective learning (Kistak, 2014). In addition, the basic reason why the context-based practices increase in education is to make the things taught meaningfully (Bülbül & Matthews, 2012). In addition, necessary motivation support is provided to help students to learn relevant concepts through the context-based approach (De Jong, 2008;Menthe & Parchmann, 2015). Moreover, the context-based learning may lead to needs-to-know among students (King & Ritchie, 2013) and ensures entertaining teaching environment (Parchmann et al., 2006).
Teaching with the context-based approach, which is a new approach in curricula, is crucial for both teachers and students (Overman et al., 2014). In order for an educational reform to be successful, it has great significance that teachers' perceptions of the new curriculum and strategies are positive. In addition, teachers need to deal with both new content and new teaching and assessment strategies (Avargil, Herscovitz & Dori, 2012). The context-based curriculum reform brings significant differences to the teaching styles of teachers (King, 2007;Overman et al., 2014). For these reasons, it is necessary to change the pedagogical knowledge of the teachers (King, Bellocchi & Ritchie, 2008). As teachers do not exactly know how this approach is applied, they may experience various difficulties (Ayvacı, 2010). Teachers sometimes may feel inadequate to apply the context-based approach in their lessons (Topuz et al., 2013) or they unconsciously apply this approach in their lessons (Kurnaz, 2013). This case can be attributed to teachers' inadequate knowledge of the context-based approach (Ayvacı, 2010).
In the study, it was aimed to help pre-service teachers to associate astronomy and electric topics that they would teach to their students in their professional lives with daily life. It is thought that it can contribute to prepare richer learning environments containing more sample cases and situations that can be associated with daily life. Thus, helping students become aware where and how astronomy and electric topics are applied in daily life, encountered and how they make our lives easier by assisting them to internalise the topics.

Research Problem
The study aimed to answer the following research question: -Do the Teaching Applications with Real Life Content (TARLC) have any effects on the levels of preservice teachers in associating astronomy and electric learning topics with daily life?

Research Model
The research was experimental and the data were collected using the weak experimental design in which the effects of experimental procedure on a single group was examined using pre-test and posttest (Büyüköztürk et al., 2010).

Study Group
The study group of the research consisted of totally 30 participants who were at the Department of Science Teacher and Science Department in Faculty of Education located in Erzincan University.

Limitations
The research was limited with 30 participant students in the Department of Science Teaching.

Data Collection Tools
The data were collected through open-ended questionnaires related to the use of learning topics in daily life. These questionnaires were prepared in order to determine the level of knowledge and improvement of pre-service teachers before and after the activities on the relationship of physics with real life. The questionnaire, which was prepared considering the common thoughts of seven educational researchers (four mathematics education and three science education) who are experience of qualitative research, consisted of questions as: "Does the field of electricity/astronomy learning topics have any relationships with real life? If it does, please, write all the fields of use you know and explain how they are used."

Application
This study was carried out with the application of real life content teaching practices (ARLCTP) prepared for two different learning areas. The determined activities were chosen by evaluating some criteria as; whether they really covered the learning topics or not, whether they were in quality to reveal the relationships of learning topics with the real life, whether it would enable the participants to notice the different relationship between learning topics and real life and the applications for each learning area were determined. Various, remarkable and interesting problems with real life content including especially the electric and astronomy topics were applied during the application process. For instance; a real life contended problem, which the judges are obliged to use during their judgement in a court, was brought to the class environment for the pre-service teachers. The pre-service teachers reached the astronomical knowledge in order to solve the problem and make decisions; and, it was tried to make them recognise where and why the astronomic knowledge were used differently.
The activities were carried out using all kinds of materials and materials that participants could need within the scope of the ARLCTP. Throughout the activities, the pre-service teachers worked in groups consisting of four or five individuals.

Data Collection and Analysis:
In this study, the data were collected through applying pre-test and post-test. In order to determine preliminary knowledge of the participants, they were gathered in a classroom environment to prevent access to different sources. Open-ended questionnaires were applied to the participants related to their learning topics before the applications. Similarly, in a determined time period, the participants were asked to fill the same questionnaires after these applications, and the collected data were transferred to computer environment to analyse them statistically.
The qualitative data gathered from open-ended questionnaires were subjected to descriptive analysis. In order to understand the reliability of the applied analysis, it is necessary to analyse the data by different experts or researchers separately. It should be considered whether the same words, sentences or paragraphs were coded under the same category or not in this process. The reliability at the level of 80% among the categories was considered to be appropriate (Türnüklü, 2000). It can be expressed in this study that the harmony, which was counted as 83 %, was extremely reliable. That the questions' being clear and understandable could be a factor in this high reliability level (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2008). The statements expressed by the participants between physics learning topics and daily life practices were directly determined; then, they were grouped under codes and categories to enable more regular presentation of findings and were described with determined frequency values.

Results
The frequency distributions of the categories and codes according to the answers given by the students in the pre and post protocols about astronomy-learning field are given in Table 1. As the expressions of pre-service teachers in preliminary protocols related to the topic of astronomy in Table 1, it is noticed that totally 8 categories emerged. These categories included the universe, the planet, the satellites, the Earth, the solar system and the stars, the daily use areas, the celestial bodies, and the sky events. In the pre-protocol, the frequency was 1 and the code in the universe category was 1. In the post protocol, the frequency was 14 with 2 codes emerging. The codes in the category of universe in the post protocol were universe recognition and events in the universe. The participants expressed their thoughts as, "we know every kind of event that takes place in the universe thanks to physics" and "physics helps us to learn all the secrets we do not know about the universe". In addition, the participants claimed that physics helped to learn, understand and recognise the formation of the universe.
While the category of the satellites was represented with 1 code and 1 frequency in pre-protocol, it was represented with 2 codes and 5 frequencies in the post-protocol. The participants expressed their thoughts as "thanks to physics, satellites and defence systems are created" and "thus, the use of satellites for communication is provided". The participants also claimed that as a result of the developments in physics, satellites could observe the surface of the earth and today's technology on the satellites played a major role in transmitting radio and television signals. The last protocol data consisted of the category of the Earth and consisted of 2 codes and 14 frequencies. These codes were the recognition of the Earth and the effects of astronomical systems on the earth. The pre-service teachers expressed that they learned about all the secrets of the Earth that they did not know about such as its turning around itself and the sun, our understanding of its location in the space, the gravitational force between Earth and Moon, and the effect of the astronomical systems on the Earth. Another code in the pre-protocol in the category of the planets with 4 frequency increased to 3 codes with 14 frequency in the post-protocol. The added codes in the category of planets in the post-protocol were the recognition of the planets and the effects on wavelength and our earth.
The code of wavelength consisted of the thoughts of the participants that they learned about: `wavelength of the atmosphere held the waves emitted from the planets` and `these were passed with the help of the physics`. The answers of the participants to this category were as, "physics helps us to learn the distance of planets from the Earth", "to learn the effects of planets on the Earth", and "to calculate the gravitational force of planets to each other". In addition, the participants claimed that they learned the formation of the planets, the location of our planet, understood the planets and their movements, the order of the planets and how they were created thanks to the physics.
In the pre-and post-protocols of the solar system and stars categories, there were totally 2 codes and 8 frequencies. On the other hand, in the post-protocol, there were 3 codes and 26 frequencies. The solar system and the stars category consisted of the recognition of solar system, recognition of the stars and determining the constellations in the post protocol. The thoughts of the participants related to this code were `physics learning helps to understand the bursts in the sun, the characteristics of the sun as a star, the formation of the sun, the movement of the sun, sunrise and sunset, the sun's keeping the earth in gravitational field, learning all the secrets of the sun, the forms of the stars, the distance of the stars, calculating the brightness of star, the formation of the stars, movements of the stars, birth, growth and death of the stars, stars' shifting.
The daily usage areas category in the pre-protocol consisted of 8 codes and 21 frequencies. The codes constituted the pre-protocol data were the events in the nature, time formation, seasons, direction finding, formation of the earth's surface, gravity, proof, and location. There were 9 codes and 45 frequencies in the post-protocol. The codes emerging in the post-protocol were the events in the nature, gravity, location, prediction, harmful rays, greenhouse effect, time formation, seasons and direction finding. The participants expressed their thoughts as, "It protects us from bad events that may occur or allows us to take precautions earlier", "It helps us to find direction", "It helps us to learn some events earlier", "It helps me to interpret everyday life", "It helps us to learn how to take precautions in the future", "It enables us to know the situations which may affect the earth" and "…… In this way, we try to protect the world from harmful rays of the sun". In addition, the participants claimed that physics was used in the stages of predicting the events that may occur in the future, finding new residential areas, protecting from harmful rays emitted from sun lights, time formation, formation of the seasons, direction finding and formation of the earth surface, how and why the events occur. The frequency distributions of the categories and codes according to the responses of the students in the pre and post protocols regarding the field of electrical learning were given in Table 2. As Table 2 displays, totally 3 categories were found when the responses by the students in pre and post protocols related to the electricity topic are taken into consideration. Among these categories, one that has the highest frequency is the category of usage areas. This category consists of 10 codes and 40 frequencies.
These codes are the nerve system, lighting, energy conversion, heat, food storage, technology, nature events, grounding, plant feeding, and clothes removing. The data related to the post-protocol reveals 5 codes and totally 235 frequencies. The post protocol data of the used areas category includes 11 codes and 58 frequencies. These expressions of the participants generally stated in the category of the used areas. These are: nutrition, cleaning, in amusement parks, food storage, water heating, heating, moving, cooking, cooling, magnetism, lighting, sound transmission, sound generation, communication, data processing centres, charging, lighting, energy conversion, heating, cooking and hair styling. In addition, students talked about the presence of a spark (static electricity) from friction when they were putting off their clothes. The participants expressed their thoughts related to this topic as: "Sometimes our hair is electrified when it touches our wool clothes", "Without electricity, we could not use electronic devices", "There is a need for electricity to operate the mechanisms of many devices such as iron, television, computers", "Electricity is transformed into life in our lives, especially as we use it to enlighten our lives", "Some devices, which can be used with electricity, such as refrigerators, frying machines, washing machines, ovens, irons, vacuum cleaners, and many other electrically operated household devices which we cannot remember". While the pre-protocol data of the household devices category consisted of 3 codes and totally 40 frequencies, the post-protocol data consisted of 6 codes and 129 frequencies in total. The post protocol data constituted this category with (f: 49) code of white goods and the pre-protocol data constituted the technological devices with (f: 27). It can be expressed that the participants stressed the category of household devices (f: 40, f: 129) as the usage areas of electricity in daily life.
The result of the analysis of both the pre and post protocol data constitutes the category of the usage areas. While the pre-protocol data constituted this category with 7 codes and totally 27 frequencies, the post protocol data constituted this category with 6 codes and 44 frequencies. The participants claimed that the electricity was used in transportation, industry, factories, health, industrial productions, communication, and education. The participants expressed their thoughts as: "Electricity is essential for the use of all devices used in the hospital", "Electricity is used in medical diagnosis and treatment methods and techniques", "Electricity is needed for operating the machines in factories", "In many factories and industrial establishments, and electricity provides energy for movements of many machines during their working". In the post protocol data, the participants claimed that the electricity was used in various sorts of cars and even in different parts of the cars. As a result of their expressions, the category of car emerged and it consisted of 5 codes and totally 9 frequencies. They pointed out that the electricity was used in the ignition systems of cars, in car batteries and charging the electric cars. In addition, the participants referred the benefits of electricity in daily life in their post protocols. The category of benefits consisted of 3 codes and totally 4 frequencies. The codes were gaining time, making our lives entertaining and the development of technology.

Discussion, Conclusion and Implementation
As the pre-service teachers' associating the astronomy topic with daily life was analysed, it was determined that generally the number of associations given by the pre-service teachers after the application was approximately twice compared with the associations before the application. Similarly, the codes constituted by the post protocol data nearly doubled compared with the codes constituted by the pre-protocol data. The pre-service teachers expressed that they were able to recognise the universe, the planets, satellites, the earth and solar system and stars and understand their places in daily life better thanks to the application. In addition, after the application, it was determined that the preservice teachers expressed that the meteor rains, sun and moon eclipse, neutron star turning into a black hole, the Milky Way galaxy, moon movements and flux and reflux formations were detected with the help of the physics. Thus, it can be claimed that they can understand and make sense of the relationship between physics-astronomy, astronomy-daily life better. The participating pre-service teachers expressed that they recognized the role of physics in their lives better and that they had not understood what they learned in their school before the activities, which helped them to conceptualise the place of these topics in their daily lives.
The results gathered as a result of the study conducted by Demircioğlu (2008), pointed out that the material prepared using context-based (real life based) approach was effective in transforming the alternative ideas of the pre-service teachers to the scientific understandings. In addition, it was concluded that this approach increased the permanence by providing meaningful learning of concepts and provided significant contribution to the continuing the forming process of the learned concepts in the mind even after teaching.
Considering the thought that the scientific understandings of teachers had crucial effects on science learning of their students, Brunsell and Marcks (2005) pointed out the significant positive effects of the real life content and practices on pre-service teachers' scientific understanding. In addition, in the study conducted by Ucar and Demirioğlu (2011), it was determined that the teacher training program in faculties of education extremely affected their attitudes towards the astronomy. In another study conducted by Bektaşlı (2016), the relationship between the knowledge levels of pre-service science education teachers in astronomy and their attitudes towards astronomy was investigated. As a result of the study, the astronomy lessons in faculties of education have great significance in terms of pre-service teachers' understanding of the relevant courses better, realizing them better by associating with daily life and thus, developing positive attitudes towards the subject.
While the pre-service teachers did not express their thoughts about the topic of electricity and car and the benefits of electricity at the beginning of the application in terms of associating the electric learning with real life, it was determined that they stressed on these relationships at the end of the application. In addition, it was found out that the number of associations made for the electricity with real life increased adding different situations and different events. As the number approximately doubled after the application, it can be claimed that the pre-service teachers gained awareness in terms of the place and use of electricity in daily life. It was determined that the pre-service teachers gained a new point of view about the case and place of electricity learning areas in daily life and where the events took place, what it was for, how it was used and its benefits; they realised the events and situations they came across, even they gained scientific point of view by associating the events with science.
Students' associating their knowledge with daily life is quite important in terms of acknowledging the significance of subjects they learn in their schools, understanding where and how they will be used, and becoming aware that the topics are actually related to daily life. In this context, teachers who would demonstrate these relationships in learning environments should have sufficient knowledge and experience. In this respect, the result of the study gains great significance. Moreover, teaching the courses by associating the topics with daily life contributes to students' increased interests to the courses in classrooms (Yılmaz, Othan & Cantimur, 2014), students' learning the topics without memorising, their understanding the concepts better, increasing their motivations and developing positive attitude towards the courses (Ayvacı, Nas & Dilber, 2016;Gainsburg, 2008) and increasing their academic achievement levels (Özturan Sağırlı et al., 2016).
At the end of this study, pre-service teachers who will be teachers in the future will benefit positively for their content knowledge by associating physics topics with daily life. Thus, this can play a role in solving the problem: "when the content knowledge of teachers is insufficient, this situation is reflected in their teaching practices" (Alev & Karal, 2013). As the research point out that students, pre-service teachers and teachers have incomplete, insufficient knowledge and even misconceptions in astronomy and electricity topics (Bektaşlı, 2016;Brunsell & Marcks, 2005;Kaltakçı & Eryılmaz, 2010;Kanlı, 2014;Karal, Alev & Başkan, 2010;Korur, 2015;Küçüközer & Demirci, 2008;Ogan-Bekiroğlu, 2007;Plummer, 2009;Plummer & Maynard, 2014;Sadler et al., 2010;Small & Plummer, 2014;Steinberg & Cormier, 2013;Trumper, 2000;Trundle et al., 2002Trundle et al., , 2006Wilhelm et al., 2007;Ünsal, Güneş & Ergin, 2001), increasing their knowledge is important. The teaching methods and techniques that teachers use in this process is significant as well as their content knowledge (Cantrell, Young & Moore, 2003). In addition, the pre-service teachers' associating physics topics with daily life will help them know the use of courses in their branches in real life, enrich their lessons with examples from real life the light of this knowledge and associate the teaching content with real life (King, Winner & Ginns, 2011;Özturan Sağırlı et al., 2016). In this study, the pre-service teachers were able to learn how teaching practices with real life content were associated with astronomy and electric topics in physics directly face-to-face. The result of this study is significant in terms of not only the benefits to content knowledge of pre-service teachers, but also their gaining various dimensions in teaching methods and techniques to be used in their professional lives. As Demircioğlu (2008) points out, a pre-service teacher, who had a teaching year with traditional teaching methods, would prefer these methods even during in-service years. A lecturer should be careful during the course both in order to be better understood by students and to be a model for pre-service teachers in terms of the teaching methods applied. In this context, most lecturers and professors should enrich their courses and use teaching materials based on contemporary teaching methods, which will present a model and help students understand the subjects easily.
At the end of the study, it was determined that applying real life practices in electric and astronomy learning topics approximately doubled the association levels of the pre-service teachers' learning topics with daily life. Thus, it can be claimed that they understood and realise the relationships of physicsastronomy, electricity-daily life, even physics-daily life better. It can be indicated that the pre-service teachers gained awareness in terms of the place and use of the electric and astronomy learning topics in daily life. It was found out that the pre-service teachers gained new point of view in terms of where these learning topics stated in the cases and events they experience in daily life, what were they for, how were they used, their benefits; and conceptualised the situations and events they encountered, even gained scientific point of view by associating events with science.
It can be claimed that it enabled them to acquire a scientific point of view for their knowledge and events they encountered. In this study, the pre-service teachers were able to learn how teaching practices with real life content were associated with astronomy and electric topics in physics directly face-to-face. The results of this study is significant in terms of not only the benefits to content knowledge of pre-service teachers, but also equipping them with various dimensions in teaching methods and techniques they will use in their professional lives.

Recommendations
In order to help students love physics topics, it is necessary to relate them to students' daily lives and recognise their importance before all. That is; it is crucial that they should understand that physics topics are inevitable parts in our lives, they make our lives easier; people can solve most of their problems thanks to the physics and make connections with the physics topics and daily life. This can only be achieved by providing students learning environments associated with daily life. A teacher who can associate the topics with daily life does not have difficulty in providing such environments with their students. In this study, it was determined that the pre-service teachers who apply the teaching applications with real life content could associate astronomy and electric topics among the physics topics with daily life more. In order to prepare these pre-service teachers in a more talented and skilful manner in their professional life and helping them gain a thought system to ensure to apply their knowledge in various ways, the academicians have significant tasks. The applications with real life content may be included in curriculum of the faculties of education and applied in courses effectively. In addition, some in-service training activities may be given to teachers related to the teaching applications with real life content by the Turkish Ministry of Education.

Acknowledgments
This study includes data from the "Mathematics Physics and Life Matic" project number 113B280 supported by TÜBİTAK.