Improving the Science Process Skills and Science Literacy of Primary School Pre-service Teachers with Different Parental Education Levels

Abstract

This research was undertaken to improve the science process skills (SPS) and science literacy (SL) of primary school pre-service teachers with different family backgrounds in terms of parental education. It was planned with a quasi-experimental design with pretests and posttests in the framework of quantitative research methodology. Eighty-four first-year students from the primary school education departments of two different public universities participated in this 14-week-long study conducted in the spring semester of 2021-2022. Classes were taught with a focus on SPS for the experimental groups and within the scope of a textbook developed for basic science education in primary school for the control groups. Data were collected by administering the SPS Test and SL Test. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and MANOVA were used. The results showed that SPS-focused education processes significantly increased the SPS and SL of the pre-service teachers. Furthermore, prior to the implementation, participants in both experimental and control groups whose parents were had bachelor degree or high school diploma ranked higher in terms of SPS and SL. While the gap in SPS arising from parental education level was closed in the experimental groups as a result of the implementation, the advantage of having a bachelor degree parent continued for SL. These results are discussed in the context of primary school pre-service teachers regarding parental education levels, SPS, and SL.