Perceived Relevance of Science and Scientific Literacy among Pre-Service Teachers

Abstract

This descriptive research was conducted to investigate on the degree of association between pre-service teachers’ perceived relevance of science and their scientific literacy. It made use of an explanatory-correlational design. Data were gathered and statistically treated using analysis of variance (ANOVA) to find the differences in scientific literacy among the respondents when grouped according to demographic profile and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r) to test whether respondents’ demographic profile and their perceived relevance of science significantly relates to their level of scientific literacy. Based from the findings, it was found that scientific literacy among the respondents had a low mean score in the scientific literacy test equivalent to beginning level while scientific literacy does not differ significantly across demographic profile. Likewise, it was found that there existed a significant association between the respondents’ scientific literacy and parental education, both mother and father, but not with age. Further, respondents’ scientific literacy significantly co-vary with perceived relevance of science. The study concluded that scientific literacy among the respondents were not yet established at higher level, thus further researches may look into the how this can be addressed. Furthermore, predictors of scientific literacy could as well be examined in future researches.