Pre-Service Science Teachers' Universal Science Literacy Levels Across The Statistical Regional Units

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to determine the Universal Science Literacy level of pre-service science teachers attending universities located in different units of Turkish Statistical Regions and to investigate whether the universal science literacy level varies significantly depending on the variables of gender and grade level. The current study was carried out with the participation of a total of 1088 first-year pre-service science teachers and 920 fourth-year pre-service science teachers enrolled in the education faculties of 20 different universities from 12 different statistical regions of Turkey in the spring term of 2015-2015 academic year. The total number of the participants is 2008 and 1564 of them are females and 444 are males. The findings revealed that the pre-service science teachers' universal science literacy level is high in all the dimensions. Moreover, it was concluded that the female participants' universal literacy level is higher than that of the male participants and the fourth-year students' universal literacy level is higher than that of the first-year students. On the other hand, the level of universal science literacy was found to be varying depending on the units of Turkish Statistical Regions.