English abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate questioning skills among preservice science teachers who are currently studying at the colleges of education in the Sultanate of Oman, with respect to some variables such as: student's achievement, academic year and skill domains.
The sample consisted of 51 pre-service science teachers, and was selected stratified from a population of 240. They were observed using an observation sheet consisted of 43 skills. The content and construct validity of the observation sheet were conducted-by-a-panel of experts. The interobserver reliability of the checklist was calculated by using Kappa Coefficient. The data was collected during the study period of over 60 days. The SPSS was used for statistical analysis. Mean scores, standard deviation, t-test, OneWay ANOVA and ANOVA with Repeated Measures Design were used in due time.
The followings are the major findings of this study:
-The performance of pre-service science teachers in four main skills was medium whereas in the remains four other skills were low.
- No significant differences in the performance of the questioning skills at (a = 0.05) with respect to academic year. However, there were significant differences concerning achievement (between higher achieving student and medium and low achieving student only) and skill domains.
In the light of these results, the researcher recommended the following: teaching questioning skills should be implicated (included) in such college's courses in the colleges of education. Also student teachers need to be mentored by educationally professional supervisors. Finally pre-service science teachers should give opportunities to do more practice in the training schools.
