CULTURAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE EDUCATION, cilt.17, sa.4, ss.991-1012, 2022 (AHCI)
According to cognitive and spiritual developmental theories, individuals construct and transcend their previous thought processes by incorporating more sophisticated ways of understanding the world as they progress through stages requiring efforts in different modes of thought. These theories focus on the importance of contextual variables in development and emphasize that these variables will spark a change in cognitive and spiritual development or awareness. We have investigated the effects of blended learning on cognitive learning and spiritual interpretations of science teacher candidates. The study with a quasi-experimental design had 54 science teacher candidates attending the science education department of a state university in Turkey. Our study showed that when learning Einstein's theory of special relativity, a blended learning environment affects students' cognitive learning positively. In the spiritual sense, too, significant results were found in favor of the blended learning group students. This effect that triggers spiritual change has been discussed in two contexts: "the effect embedded in the variable" and "indirect effect from the variable." If supported by further research, the results of this study suggest that the spiritual dimension can be incorporated into three domains of learning, namely cognitive, affective, and psychomotor.