مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - DETERMINATION OF PRE-SERVICE SCIENCE TEACHERS’ SCIENCE PROCESS SKILLS AND INVESTIGATING OF RELATIONSHIP WITH GENERAL ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Abstract :

The purpose of this study is to determine levels of science process skills of pre-service scienceteachers and to examine relationships between their science process skills and general academic achievement. The study had a descriptive survey design that used with together causal comparative and correlation studies. Data were collected through “general academic achievement” obtained from automation system and “Science Process Skills Test (SPST)” which was developed by Okey, Wise and Burns (1982) and adapted by Geban, Aşkar and Özkan (1992) for Turkish language. The SPST was administered to 149 pre-service science teachers in a public university in Turkey. Obtained data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, pearson product-moment correlations and one way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results indicated that pre service science teachers’ total SPST scores are moderate level. But recognizing variables and defining operationally scores are lower level, formulating hypotheses is moderate level and experimenting and interpreting data are high level. Science process skills scores of pre-service teachers according to their grade level have statistically differed favor third grade(F(2, 146)=11,773; p 0,001). Besides, moderate positive correlation (r=+0.33) was found between science process skills and general academic achievement.