Changes in Preservice Teacher Attitudes Toward Astronomy Within a Semester-Long Astronomy Instruction and Four-Year-Long Teacher Training Programme (original) (raw)
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1991
The primary objective of this study was to determine what effect astronomy teaching experience has on the astronomy concepts of elementary school teachers by comparing their conceptions to those held by cohort teachers who had not taught astronomy. In addition, this investigation sought to determine (1) whether teacher interest in astronomy increased as a result of instruction, (2) if interest increased, what kind of relationship exists between interest gains and conceptual change, (3) what astronomy misconceptions are held by teachers who teach astronomy, and (4) how do these misconceptions compare to those held by elementary teachers who do not teach astronomy. A static group comparison design was used to examine the astronomy concepts held by two groups of elementary school teachers in a suburb of Boston, MA. After controlling for prior interest in astronomy and previous astronomy teaching experience, the experimental group consisted of 12 second grade teachers who were using an ...
Prospective Pre-School Teachers Attitudes towards Astronomy.pdf
World Journal of Education , 2016
The purpose of this study is to examine the changes in prospective pre-school teachers’ attitudes towards astronomy in terms of their grades. The study was conducted with 205 prospective teachers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th graders) studying in the education faculty of a university in Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. Astronomy Attitude Scale (AAS) was used as data collection instrument. One-Way Anova was used for independent groups in data analysis in order to find out whether prospective pre-school teachers’ attitudes towards astronomy differed in terms of their grades. Data analysis results showed that prospective pre-school teachers’ attitudes towards astronomy did not differ significantly in terms of their grades. In addition, it was concluded that while prospective pre-school teachers had positive attitudes such as associating astronomy with daily life, thinking that astronomy can be learned better through applied activities and contemporary developments about astronomy attracted their attention, they also had negative attitudes such as feeling insecure about astronomy subjects and not liking the field of astronomy. In line with these results, it was recommended that the number of physical sciences lessons in pre-school teaching departments in education faculties should be increased.
Başkent University Journal of Education, 2020
In this study, it is aimed to investigate whether science teachers' attitudes towards astronomy differ according to demographic characteristics by using the "Astronomy Attitude Scale (AAS)" developed by Zeilik et al. (1999) and adapted to Turkish by Bilici et al. (2012). In the research, the attitudes of 135 science teachers, who work in any public and private schools in the 2018/2019 academic year, toward astronomy are determined by using the survey method and relational research method. The data were collected by sharing of the scale prepared in Google Form, in electronic media which consist of science teachers. The obtained data is analyzed by using SPSS package software. The results of the research showed that the main factors affecting the attitudes of the teachers towards astronomy are the level of education and to participate in any education or activity related to astronomy during their teaching career.
Pre-Service Teachers’ Conceptions of Specific Astronomy Concepts: A Longitudinal Investigation
Journal of Social Science Studies, 2015
The aim of this study is to determine the changes in the knowledge of pre-service Primary and Science teachers related to basic astronomy concepts occurring after four years of undergraduate study in education and the extent of and reasons for these changes. For this purpose, a "Basic Astronomy Test" involving 14 questions was administered to the pre-service Primary and Science teachers by education faculty members in the Black Sea Region of Turkey in the first (2009) and fourth (2013) years of their educations. In the data analysis, nonparametric Mann-Whitney U tests and Wilcoxon signed ranks tests were used to
EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 2014
Nowadays, the importance given to astronomy teaching in science and physics education has been gradually increasing. At the same time, teachers play an important role in remediating the misconceptions about astronomy concepts held by students. The present study aims to determine the misconceptions of pre-service physics teachers (n=117), preservice science teachers (n=97) and in-service physics teachers (n=174) about astronomy concepts using a three-tier test. The Astronomy Concept and Achievement Test (ACAT), developed by Trumper (2001a, 2001b, 2006), was adapted as a three-tier instrument and used as the data collection instrument. The first tier, first and second tier and all three tier responses that were obtained from the ACAT were analyzed separately to identify misconceptions and to evaluate the respondents" achievement. The results showed that the achievement scores of pre-service and in-service teachers considerably decreased when the third tier was considered. In addition, when the misconceptions of pre-service and inservice teachers were determined using all three tiers, they held extensive misconceptions especially about the reasons for seasons, the Moon"s phases, the Moon"s phase in the solar eclipse and the Sun"s position in the sky.
2022
The purpose of the current study is to investigate pre-service science teachers' sustainable environmental education attitudes and the factors affecting them in terms of some variables (gender and grade level). The study group of the current research is comprised of 154 pre-service teachers attending the Department of Science Education in the Faculty of Education of Aksaray University. The study employed the descriptive survey method, one of the qualitative research methods. As the data collection tool, "The Sustainable Environmental Education Attitude Scale" developed by Afacan and Demirci Güler (2011) was used in the study. The Cronbach alpha reliability of the scale was calculated to be α=.93. In the statistical analysis of the data, SPSS was used. In the analysis of the data, Independent Samples t-Test and One Way ANOVA were run. The analysis results revealed that sustainable environmental education attitudes frequency of the pre-service teachers is at the medium level. It was also found that the sustainable environmental education attitudes of the pre-service teachers do not vary significantly by gender; yet, they were found to be varying significantly depending on the grade level variable. It can be suggested that further research can attempt to determine the attitudes of pre-service teachers from different branches and to analyze different factors affecting sustainable environmental education attitude.
Determining Pre-Service Teachers’ Astronomy-Related Self-Efficacy Belief Levels
CEPS Journal, 2023
This study aims to reveal the astronomy-related self-efficacy beliefs of pre-service teachers studying science education, primary school education, and social studies education programmes. The study is conducted using the survey design, a quantitative research method. The study sample consists of 322 pre-service teachers in their third or fourth year of a science education, primary school education, or social studies education programme at a university in Turkey’s Central Anatolia Region during the 2016 fall semester. The Astronomy Teaching Self-Efficacy Belief Scale developed by Güneş was used as the data collection tool. SPSS 22 was used to analyse the data, and the analyses benefited from descriptive and inferential statistics. Based on the findings, the pre-service teachers’ total scores for astronomy self-efficacy showed no significant difference in terms of certain variables (i.e., gender, age, year, and having taken a previous astronomy course). However, significant differences were found regarding self-efficacy scores in terms of the programme and having taken part in astronomy and sky-gazing activity. Concerning the obtained results, the following suggestions can be made: pre-service teachers should be actively involved during the astronomy course, and their classroom management experiences should be promoted to improve their astronomy self-efficacy belief levels.