Abstract:

This study was conducted to investigate the preschool teachers' attitudes toward science teaching. The research universe consists of all preschool teachers working in public preschools and kindergartens affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Usak Province. The sample of this research included a number of 140 preschool teachers. An attitude scale toward science teaching translated into Turkish and a personal information form were applied to collect data in the research. The attitude scale toward science teaching was developed by Cho, Kim, and Choi (2003) and adapted into Turkish by Çakmak (2006). One of the research methods, the correlational survey model, was used in the research. The quantitative data collected with the attitude scale toward science teaching was examined using a statistical program. The data's frequency distributions and percentage values were organized using the SPSS statistical package. The normality distribution of the data was tested using the Kolmogorov Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether preschool teachers' attitudes toward science teaching differed significantly regarding age and educational status, and the t-test was used to determine whether there was a significant difference in gender. Based on the findings of this research, more than half of the preschool teachers in the study have a medium and high level of attitude toward science teaching. As a result of the research, the attitudes of in-service preschool teachers toward science teaching have not indicated any significant difference based on gender, age, and educational status.

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