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Abstract
This study investigated undergraduate students' attitudes toward science and science teaching who were majoring in science education at four-year teachers colleges in Turkey. Furthermore, the study examined pre-service Turkish science teachers' attitudes toward science and science teaching based on genders, class levels, teachers colleges, and several socio-demographic factors.
The subjects for this study were 309 female and 303 male pre-service Turkish science teachers, who were freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, from teachers colleges of Ataturk, Dokuz Eylul, Gazi, and Karadeniz Technical Universities in Turkey during the 1998 spring semester. The instrument used in this study was “Science Teaching Attitude Scale-II” (STAS-II) developed by Moore (1973) and revised by Moore and Foy (1997). The reliability coefficient of the Turkish translation of STAS-II was found to be .795 using test-retest method.
Three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression analysis were the statistical techniques utilized to test the null hypotheses of the study.
The results of the study showed that all of the subjects have positive attitudes toward science and science teaching. There was a statistically significant mean difference between class levels on attitudes of pre-service Turkish science teachers toward science and science teaching. This was primarily due to a statistically higher attitudinal mean of juniors than that of freshmen using three-way ANOVA and Tukey tests. However, when data were analyzed according to gender and teachers colleges, attitudes of pre-service Turkish science teachers toward science and science teaching did not indicate statistically significant mean differences. The subjects of families having higher level incomes had statistically significant higher mean on attitudes toward science and science teaching than other subjects. Therefore, the uniqueness of a nationwide science curriculum and the unification of the education system may develop substantially similar attitudes among pre-service science teachers in Turkey.
