An Investigation of Primary School Students’ Scientific Literacy

Abstract

<p>Scientific literacy (SL) is critical for individuals to cope effectively with the everyday life situations of modern society. On this premise, this survey aims threefold: to validate the Greek version of the SL Assessment (SLA) tool, examine the SL of 425 Greek primary school students, and understand their attitudes and beliefs about science. Reliability and validity were investigated through statistical techniques, including exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and the alpha-Cronbach coefficient. According to the statistical analyses, students have moderate to low SL levels. Variables such as gender and urban vs. rural setting appear to significantly impact the performance of the study’s participants, and of particular interest are students’ attitudes and beliefs about science. The research findings enhance concern over students' low SL level and the extent to which the school establishment responds to society’s science needs and expectations.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/lit/0758/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Pre-service teachers’ and primary students’ motivations and beliefs towards science

“…The results for teachers are like previous studies (Ecevit & Kingir, 2022;Koutsianou & Emvalotis, 2019;Stylos et al, 2023a). Students seem to achieve lower scores compared to students from similar surveys (Fausan & Pujiastuti, 2017;Fives et al, 2014;Tsoumanis et al, 2024). The results about teachers, maybe reveal that the sample believe that have a strong science background.…”

“…Factors were determined through a principal component analysis and based on several criteria including structure coefficients equal to 0.300, scree plot analysis and eigenvalues surpassing one (Benishek & Lopez, 2001;Pett et al, 2003;Stevens, 1992). In the present study, we deleted the questions that had been removed (Items: 27, 32, 44) for each sample in the previous analyzes (Stylos et al, 2023b;Tsoumanis et al, 2024) as low loadings, to make the comparison between the two groups of the sample on the same questions of SLA-MB.…”

“…Science education is crucial for cultivating valuable scientific knowledge, as well as fostering positive attitudes towards science (Jones et al, 2022). Primary teachers can shape students SL skills and attitudes toward science (Tsoumanis et al, 2024). Thus, it is essential to understand the attitudes and beliefs of undergraduate students towards science to customize teaching methods that encourage participation and improve SL skills across all students (Strzalkowski & Sobhanzadeh, 2023).…”