Turkish pre service elementary science teachers scientific literacy level and attitudes toward science

2013-01-01
Çavaş, Pınar
Özdem Yılmaz, Yasemin
Çakıroğlu, Jale
Çavaş, Bülent
Ertepınar, Hamide
In order to educate elementary students scientifically literate as expected in the science curricula in many countries around the world, science teachers need to be equipped with the diverse aspects of scientific literacy. This study investigates whether pre-service elementary science teachers at universities in Turkey have a satisfactory level of scientific literacy, and how the level of scientific literacy is affected by different variables, such as attitude toward science, gender, year in university, and education level of parents. The domains of scientific literacy for this study are scientific content knowledge (SCK), nature of science (NOS), and the nature of technology (NOT). The data were collected with the Test of Basic Scientific Literacy (TBSL) and the Scientific Attitude Inventory (SAI-II). The sample consisted of 667 first-year and 405 fourth year pre-service teachers from 10 education faculties in all regional areas in Turkey. The results indicated that pre-service teachers have adequate levels of scientific literacy regardless their gender and year in university. The comparisons illustrated that female students score higher than males, and 4th year students score higher than 1st year students in the TBSL.
Science Education International

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Citation Formats
P. Çavaş, Y. Özdem Yılmaz, J. Çakıroğlu, B. Çavaş, and H. Ertepınar, “Turkish pre service elementary science teachers scientific literacy level and attitudes toward science,” Science Education International, pp. 383–401, 2013, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1022326.