Investigation of curiosity levels of prospective primary school teachers in mathematics- science- social studies courses

This research is conducted to determine the curiosity levels of classroom teacher candidates regarding Mathematics, Science and Social Studies courses. For this purpose, it is aimed to reveal the relationship between academic motivation, questioning skills and lifelong learning tendencies that can encourage curiosity towards disciplines and general curiosity tendencies. Descriptive survey research method, one of the quantitative research models, is used in the research. The universe of the research consisted of Pamukkale University Faculty of Education teacher candidates. The sample group of the research is determined according to the purposeful sampling method. With purposeful sampling, which is one of the non-probability sampling methods, teacher candidates from the Department of Classroom Education formed the sample group of the research. With this technique, which allows working with a sample group that meets certain criteria, fourth-year teacher candidates is selected according to the criterion of having successfully completed the Social Studies Teaching, Science Teaching and Mathematics Teaching courses in the undergraduate program. 51 teacher candidates, 20 female and 31 male, participated in the research. In the study, Curiosity and Exploration Scale-2, Academic Motivation Scale, Questioning Skills Scale and Lifelong Learning Tendency Scale and Structured Forms were used. SPSS 27.0 program is used in the analyses. As a result of the data obtain in the study, it is found that the curiosity and exploration levels of classroom teacher candidates is low and this situation did not vary by gender, their academic motivation is medium and this situation is not vary by gender, their questioning skills are high and this situation is not vary by gender, their lifelong learning tendencies is high and this situation is not vary by gender. It is revealed that the curiosity levels of teacher candidates regarding the Mathematics course is below average, their curiosity levels regarding the Science course is below average, and their curiosity levels regarding the Social Studies course are high. Keywords: Curiosity, academic motivation, questioning skills, lifelong learning