Investigating level of the scientific literacy of primary school teacher candidates

Abstract

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. Copyright (C) 2009 HKIEd APFSLT.