NATURAL SCIENCE LITERACY OF THE WOULD-BE TEACHERS: THE ANALYSIS OF UNDERSTANDING OF SOME NATURAL PHENOMENA

Many researches of last years specify necessity of perfection of natural science education at all levels of an education system. For more than the last two decades, Western countries have tried to advance teaching techniques of natural sciences and suggest using a constructive system instead of didactical one (Zoller, Tsaparlis, 1997). However, in general, there is little research on the secondary school learners', university students` would-be teachers achievements, motivation for learning chemistry/physics and the peculiarities of concept and phenomenon perception. The object of research is the university students would-be teachers ability to perceive physical/chemical phenomena. This pilot research focuses on how students would-be teachers understand such everyday phenomena as the impact of temperature on the flow of particles (diffusion), evaporation and condensation, material solution, combustion, air expansion and reduction caused by the fluctuation in temperature conditions. Research was carried out in February-March, 2007. The students would-be teachers of Siauliai university participated in the survey. Concerning the format of the pilot research, the survey sample was limited. 87 students representing Faculty of Education were involved in research. Such sample complies with capacity requirements for the pilot research. The five tasks (phenomena: diffusion, air expansion and reduction, combustion, evaporation and condensation, solution) have been evaluated applying the proportion scale (no comments made - 0 points, a wrong option is chosen – 0.25 points, the phenomenon is perceived but failed to be fully explained – 0.5 points, the task is almost correctly completed – 0.75 points, the task is successfully accomplished – 1 point). Three experts have individually evaluated the tasks by general agreement. We can state that a total general evaluation of the accomplishment of all tasks correlates with an individual task. The high correlation coefficients show that all the tasks are basically of a similar complexity and none of them can be singled out from the whole system of 5 tasks. Research is of a local character and the reached conclusions are not applied for the whole population. The examination and evaluation of the respondents' results disclosed that the tasks were rather complicated and the surveyed participants' knowledge was insufficient to explain the introduced phenomena. The most unfavourable comments are made interpreting nature phenomenon 4, which is the air qualities. The respondents have failed to explain why the heated air expands and the iced air – reduces. The best results are obtained describing situation 2 which is the evaporation of heated water and condensation of cooled water vapour.