Determine of science teachers knowledge level about basic astronomy subjects (The example of Malatya)

Purpose of this study is determine the knowledge level of Science Teachers about basic astronomy subjects and examine how changing the knowledge level according as specialities like the gender, type of graduated faculty and department, seniority, situation of taking the astronomy lesson during undergraduate life, situation of working in a private institution, or not and situation of attending in any activity about sky and astronomy. With this purpose an astronomy knowledge test was improved in the first step of this research. Improved test with consist of 26 question was applied to 75 science teachers who serve in secondary school at the centre of Malatya in 2012-2013 academic year. Data which is taken from this exercise was analized with ITEMAN (ıtem and test analysis programme Version:3.0) and ? reliability coefficient parameter was found as 0,730. After this stage, the last shape of the test was given and the real application was applied.The population of the study is created from science teachers who serve in Malatya in 2012-2013 academic year, and sample of the study is created from 100 science teacher who serve in secondary school at the centre of Malatya in 2012-2013 academic year. This research designed with descriptive model and used mixed method combining qualitative and quantitative method. The test which consist of 21 question and the data which taken from 100 teachers analized with SPSS(17.0) statistic package programme. Independent groups t-test and one-way anova were used in analize process. According to data obtained from the real application, an interview form consisting of 10 question was created and applied to 10 science teachers. Acquired results demonstrated that only science teachers graduated from Faculty of Education and Faculty of Science and science teachers who graduated from Institute of Education have a meaningful difference between knowledge level. There isn?t a meaningful difference between knowledge levels of teachers related with factors like gender, type of graduated faculty and department, seniority, taking the astronomy lesson, or not, during the undergraduate life, working in the public or private school and attending any activity about sky and astronomy.This research showed that the teachers has deficiency about basic astronomy subjects like creation of seasons, eclipses, moon and moon phases and the ability of three dimensional thinking and has very little interest against astronomy subjects. Key Words: Astronomy Knowledge Level, Astronomy Education, Science Teachers