<b>The Effect of Argumentation-Based Teaching Supported by Concept Cartoons on Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Ability to Translate Chemical Representations About Basic Chemical Concepts </b>

This study aims to investigate the effect of argumentation-based teaching supported by concept cartoons on pre-service biology teachers' conceptual understanding of basic chemistry concepts and their skills of transition between chemical representations. In this study, mixed methods were used as a research design; particularly, a special type of embedded design, a one-phase experimental embedded pattern design, was applied. The sample consisted of pre-service biology teachers studying at the Faculty of Education at a university in western Türkiye. Concept cartoons were prepared by the researchers, and the instruction lasted for nine weeks. In this study, quantitative data were collected through multiple-choice questions on chemical representations prepared by Gkitzia and colleagues (2020), and qualitative data were collected through interviews with students about these questions. We used the SPSS 23 package program for quantitative data analysis, and content analysis for qualitative data analysis. The study found that students correctly interpreted the submicroscopic drawings of substances after instruction, used symbolic representations without errors, and successfully transitioned between chemical representations. The findings of the study emphasize that the role of concept cartoons in the argumentation process is critical, especially in teaching abstract concepts.