Primary Education Science and Technology Teachers’ Knowledge, Awareness and Degree of Use of Science Process Skills

Article History: Received 6.12.2013 Received in revised form 11.25.2013 Accepted 12.24.2013 Available online 10.08.2014 This study was done in order to determine the active science teachers’ knowledge, awareness and degree of use of Science Process Skills (SPS) in their courses within the Primary Education in Central province of Tokat in Turkey. The method of this study is a general descriptive design. The target population of this study is those teachers who are actively teaching in these second level of Primary Education and the population size is 87 and the sample size is 62 Science Technology teachers who are chosen from the target population by a conveniance sampling method. Within this study, ‘Science Process Skills Knowledge & Awareness Scale’ (SPS-KAS) and ‘Degree of Use of Science Process Skills’ (DUSPS) scales, both were developed by us have been used as data collecting tools. After pilot application of the scales to 24 4th grade teacher canditate students (from the GaziosmanpasaUniversity in Tokat) and 21 active science and thecnology teachers (who are out of central province in Tokat) validty calculations were made. In order for validity assesment item discrimination calculations were made and those items which have 0.3 or above ‘rjx’ values were used. For the face and content validity expert opinion were relied. In order to calculate internal consistency realibility scale KR-20 formula were used and was found as 0,80. Questions of the DUSPS scale were presented using a five-point Likert item, of the The results for the construct validityimplies a single factor. DUSPS’ Cronbach Alfa internal consistencyco efficient was found as .97. The result of this study Show that only 1.5% active Science and Technology teachers in Tokat have enough knowledge about SPS, but none of them can relate a SPS-related question to a specific SPS . In addition to these, 11% of science and technologyteachers have admitted to try to use these SPS in their courses during teaching. In addition, teachers' knowledge and awareness differ according to their inauguration year (before or after the new program). © 2014 IOJES. All rights reserved