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Asia-Pacific Forum
on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 10, Issue 1, Article 7
(June, 2009) |
Investigating level of the scientific literacy of primary school teacher candidates
Ahmet BACANAK and Murat GÖKDERE
Amasya University, Education Faculty, Amasya, TURKEY
Received 30 Apr., 2009
Revised 18 Jun., 2009
The purpose of this study is twofold; first, to determine the level of primary school teacher candidates’ scientific literacy acquired with the current science education, and second, to find out whether there is a relationship between gender and levels of scientific literacy. This research was implemented during the fall semester of 2008-2009 academic year as a case study approach. The sample consists of ninety females and forty-two male fourth-year student teachers from the primary school teacher training program at Amasya University. In this research, a multiple choice test developed by researchers and Sperman-Brown, which had 35 items, was used with the aim of assessing scientific literacy of student teachers. The correlation coefficient was calculated 0.80. As a result, the mean of teacher candidates’ whole scores was determined to be 56.71%. The findings could be interpreted that males are not more significantly scientific literate than females except in the life sciences.
Keywords: Scientific literacy, Primary School Teacher Candidates, Gender
