Scientific literacy levels of social studies pre-service teachers

The aim of this research is to determine the scientific literacy levels of social studies teacher candidates. The research was carried out in the education faculties of state universities affiliated to the higher education institution in the fall and spring semester of the 2020/2021 academic year. A total of 743 social studies teacher candidates, 541 female and 202 male teacher candidates, participated in the research. The data of the research were collected online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In this research, which was carried out with the descriptive survey model, the data were developed by the researcher; gathered with "Scientific Literacy Scale for Social Sciences (SBBOS)" and Interview Questions. While developing the scale, exploratory factor analysis was used. In order to determine the scientific literacy levels of teacher candidates; descriptive analysis was done in IBM SPSS 22.0 program. In order to determine whether the answers given to the scale differ according to the independent variables in line with the purposes of the research, the Kruskal Wallis test, one of the non-parametric analysis techniques, in cases where the distribution is normal, Mann-Whitney U, one of the non-parametric analysis techniques, was applied to determine between which groups there were significant differences and the relationship between them was explained. Content analysis was used in the analysis of the data obtained from the interview questions. According to the findings obtained in the study, it was concluded that the scientific literacy levels of social studies teacher candidates are high. It has been shown that the total scores of social studies teacher candidates from the Scientific Literacy Scale for Social Sciences (SLSFSS) differ significantly according to the grade point average, type of high school graduated, following scientific journals or publications, mother's education level, and the use of the information obtained in undergraduate education in daily life; this difference is in favor of pre-service teachers with high grade point averages, those who graduated from general high school type, those who follow scientific journals or publications, those whose mother's education is an associate degree, and pre-service teachers who use the information obtained in undergraduate education in daily life, gender, age, class level, residence before starting university, frequency of reading books (except textbook), father's education level, mother's profession, father's profession, whether to choose the teaching profession voluntarily, whether to participate in scientific activities, to access information about social sciences resource status, family status, the relationship between the current social studies teaching undergraduate program and social sciences, the relationship between the social studies course curriculum and social sciences, participating in scientific activities as a researcher and participating in social sciences-related activities at the university where the education is studied are significant. found to differ. In this study, content analysis was used to analyze the data obtained from the interview questions. Categories and codes were determined from the written expressions obtained from teacher candidates. Teachers candidate generally describe scientific literacy as one-dimensional, but they also have misconceptions, it is related to social sciences and should not be separated from social sciences, it is related to social studies course because it consists of the content of social sciences, and that many social sciences are like science and mathematics sciences. It was concluded that they used scientific research methods, that the use of scientific literacy topics in the social studies course would contribute positively, but it could differ according to the grade level and conditions, and that the social studies teacher candidates were not scientifically literate individuals at a sufficient level. Based on these results, in-class practices related to the scientific literacy levels of social studies teacher candidates are included, scientific literacy, which is mostly related to science and is also referred to as science literacy in the literature, is discussed in relation to the nature of social sciences. In order to train candidates, it can be suggested to give more space to courses on science and the nature of science.