DETERMINATION OF THE TEACHER CANDIDATES' ATTITUDES TOWARDS ASTRONOMY

Abstract

Astronomy has the characteristics of a key which endears science to primary students and develops their science literacy. In addition to that, the most important factor is qualified trained teachers, who have positive attitudes toward astronomy, for effective earth science education. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to determinate teacher candidates' attitudes towards astronomy from different teacher training programs. For this surveying method study, first grade pre-service science teachers, classroom teachers and social studies teachers who study in a university on west part of Turkey were chosen as sample (N=193). "Survey of Attitudes toward Astronomy" test was applied as data collection tool. Descriptive and inferential statistics (frequency, mean, standard deviation, one-way ANOVA and Tukey HSD test) were used for the data analysis. The results showed that pre-service teachers' attitudes toward astronomy are undecided level. There is a significant differences between pre-service science teachers' and classroom teachers' attitudes scores. It can be concluded that attitudes towards astronomy might changes in terms of the different teacher training program