Journal of Baltic Science Education, vol.22, no.5, pp.813-832, 2023 (SSCI)
Creating a metaphor for the concept of energy can contribute to the determination of the mental structuring of the concept of energy. Pre-service teachers' metaphors about the concept of energy were classified according to traditional and scientific fields. The metaphors produced by the mathematics and science teacher candidates for the concept of energy consisted of structural and abstract concepts, approximately 60% of them were the continuity of life and 40% were science categories. While pre-service mathematics teachers mainly produce metaphors for biology, pre-service science teachers produce metaphors mainly for physics. Empathic tendency scores and levels of pre-service teachers were determined. Pre-service teachers have a high level of empathic disposition and predominantly see the other person's problem and emotion as their own. There was no quantitatively significant difference between traditional metaphor types and empathic tendencies. It is understood that the pre-service teachers have high empathic tendencies, and mostly in the you stage, the concepts related to the continuity of life are primarily used in developing metaphors related to the concept of energy, and they tend to produce structural metaphors. Metaphor and empathy will contribute to the determination of mental models and the establishment of a connection between the fields of science.