The aim of this study is to examine the effects of textbook review activities on the cognitive and visual perceptions of pre-service science teachers towards the textbook. A pre-test post-test control group-free research design was used in the research. The study group consists of 32 pre-service science teachers studying in the senior year of the Department of Science Education of the Faculty of Education of a well-established state university in Ankara in the 2023-2024 academic year. The research data were obtained through the textbook word association test, textbook open-ended questions, and textbook drawings. Content analysis was conducted using the MAXQDA analysis program in the analysis of qualitative data. According to the results obtained, the answers given by the pre-application science teachers to the word association test regarding the concept of “textbook” were collected in 3 categories (Content of the textbook (n=92), function of the textbook (n=42), feature of the textbook (n=4)). After the application, the answers of the pre-service science teachers to the word association test regarding the concept of “textbook” were gathered in 4 categories (Content of the textbook (n=44), function of the textbook (30), feature of the textbook (5), textbook review criteria (80)). The answers of the pre-service science teachers regarding the open-ended question before the application were gathered in 2 categories (Content of the textbook (n=115) and feature of the textbook (n=12)). It was seen that the pre-service science teachers associated the textbook mostly with the words visuality (n=24), experiment/activity (n=23) and subject explanation (n=19) in the content of the textbook category. The answers of the pre-service science teachers regarding the open-ended question after the application were gathered in 2 categories (Content of the textbook (n=150) and feature of the textbook (n=21)). It was observed that the prospective teachers associated the textbook mostly with the words visuality (n=25), experiment/activity (n=23) and subject description (n=19) in the content category of the textbook. After the application, the prospective teachers started to evaluate the textbook in a broader functional framework, which reveals that teachers should consider the books as materials based on activities and enriched in terms of visuals, instead of using them only for explanation purposes. The results obtained from the pre- and post-application drawings of science teacher candidates are the characteristics of the results regarding theoretical perceptions.

Science education, textbook, cognitive perception, visual perception, prospective teachers.