Development of renewable energy sources awareness scale for preservice science teachers

In this study, it was aimed to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool that can be used to measure the awareness levels of preservice science teachers about renewable energy sources. For this purpose, preservice science teachers' perceptions of renewable energy sources were determined through the metaphors they produced, an item pool was created in line with these metaphors and the literature, the created item pool was submitted to expert opinion, a pilot study was conducted with the items accepted by the experts, and finally the main application was carried out. The sample group of the study consisted of 776 preservice science teachers studying at 24 state universities in the spring semester of the 2023-2024 academic year. The data obtained during the data collection processes were subjected to various validity and reliability analyes. These analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS v22 and IBM SPSS AMOS v24 software packages. As a result of the analyses conducted on the scale, it was determined that content validity was ensured through the metaphors on the subject produced by the participants and the opinions received from the experts, construct validity was ensured through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, and reliability was ensured for both the overall scale and the sub-dimensions by calculating the composite reliability coefficient, Cronbach's alpha coefficient, itemtotal correlation coefficients and item discrimination indices. As a result of the research, the YEKAFÖ was developed as a valid and reliable 5-point Likert scale with 26 items and 4 sub-dimensions. At the end of the research, suggestions were made about the application of the renewable energy resources awareness scale developed at the end of the research on different samples and variables.