The analyze of the relation between astronomy knowledge with the nature of science and the astronomy self-efficacy belief of pre-service teachers

The aim of this research is analyzing the relation between astronomy knowledge with the nature of science and the astronomy self-efficacy belief of pre-service teachers from science & technology department and the social studies department. The research carried out with a total of 127 participants from Çukurova University. They were 55 (36 female, 19 male) pre-service science & technology teachers and 72 (21 female, 51 male) pre-service social studies teachers. Instruments were applied during the spring semester of 2009-2010 education year. Basic Astronomy Knowledge Test was developed from using of tests which applied by Zeilik(1998), Trumper(2000) and Kalkan (2007) and the KR-20 result was calculated 0.64. Another instrument was astronomy self-efficacy belief scale that developed by Riggs & Enochs (1990) and translated into Turkish by Özkan, Tekkaya ve Çakıroğlu (2002). The cronbach alpha value was found 0.80. Nature of Scientific Knowledge scale was the last instrument developed by Rubba & Andersen (1978) and translated into Turkish by Kılıç, Sungur, Çakıroğlu & Tekkaya (2005), the cronbach alpha value was 0.84.In this research, the general success of astronomy was nearly 40%, also level of astronomy self- efficacy belief is middle and the nature of science thoughts a little bit higher than middle level. While there was statistically meaningful relation between astronomy successes and the astronomy self-efficacy belief, there was not found correlation between the astronomy successes and the nature of science. Moreover, there was determined that statistically meaningful relation between the astronomy self-efficacy and the nature of science. However, there were no co-efficient of astronomy self-efficacy beliefs and the nature of science on the astronomy success found.Keywords: Astronomy Education, Nature of Science, Astronomy Self-efficacy Beliefs, Teacher Education