Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to examine the elementary teacher candidates' knowledge levels regarding the elementary school 4th grade science course units. For this purpose, it is investigated that the elementary teacher candidates’ knowledge levels regarding to the first three units of 4th grade elementary science course. The survey model is used this study. The study group consists of 411 elementary teacher candidates from first, second, three and fourth grade levels in Elementary Teaching Degree Program of Kastamonu University Faculty of Education in 2015-2016 academic year autumn semester. Data were collected the achievement tests, developed by Uyanık (2014). Data were analyzed with SPSS 21.0 statistical software package. One-way ANOVA and Tamhane’s T2 test were used for analyzing data. According to the findings, it was determined that there was a significant difference between the achievement test scores of first, second graders and third graders in favor of third grade students. Furthermore, it was determined that there was a significant difference between the achievement test scores of first, second graders and fourth graders in favor of fourth grade students. The difference between the achievement test scores of the first and second grade teacher candidates were determined not to be statistically significant. Besides the difference between the achievement test scores of the third and fourth grade teacher candidates were determined not to be statistically significant

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