Aim of this study is determination of elementary students’ knowledge levels and misconceptions about subject of greenhouse effect. The study has been conducted in 319 students who are randomly chosen from 6th, 7th and 8th classes in five elementary schools in Kayseri in Turkey. To obtain adequate data about the greenhouse effect knowledge level of the students, the literature has been reviewed and a scale has been developed. This scale is likert type and consists of 36 expressions. The reliability coefficient of scale was calculated α=.87. As a result of obtained findings, it has been determined that knowledge levels about greenhouse effect of the students are too low and there is no statistical important difference between classes. Besides, it was determined that lots of students have these misconceptions; “As the greenhouse effect increases, the incidence of skin cancer would increase (46%); becoming thinner the ozone layer will cause an increase in greenhouse effect (37%);.”
 

Teachers are concerned with effective teaching in their classrooms, and there are times they employ some techniques to this end. One influential factor promoting the quality of teaching, for classroom practitioners, is to shape their use of authority and act of teaching around robust theories. However, it is not always an easy task for them to regulate their teaching according to the current theoretical frames in the ever-changing atmosphere of a classroom. Technique oriented approaches focusing the attention more on techniques than understanding lead practitioners to adhere to topdown approaches. Normalized antidemocratic values infiltrating into the school culture further reshape teachers’ use of authority. Therefore, there are times teachers find themselves demonstrating teaching acts inclined towards obsolete theories, justified beliefs, or cultural myths.  There are three inherent factors misleading classroom practitioners’ authority. Those include theoretical vulnerability of their teaching acts, infiltration of behaviorist discourses into their practices, as well as the force of crystallized myths upon their act of teaching. Such contaminating factors, in particular, lure practitioners into the pitfalls of authoritarianism that, in the long run, silences students or of laissez-faire and indifferent approaches that eventually undermine the process of democratization by inviting teacher authoritarianism to the forefront. This study aims to clarify what are meant by four different authority (authoritarian, authoritative, laissez-faire, and indifferent) and to analyze the way novice teachers fall into the alluring pitfalls of authoritarian, laissez-faire, and indifferent approaches.

 Energy is one of the most important topics in science education. For example, physics has been unified with energy. All the physics topics can be taught under this topic. In the same way, the energy circle in the nature is an essential topic for biology. But, it has been demonstrated in the researches that there are many difficulties in teaching the energy concept.  This research has been made in order to determine the prospective science teachers’ misconceptions about the topics of energy and energy resources.  For this aim, a questionnaire-test has been applied to 100 prospective science teachers in first-year undergraduate program at the department of Science Education in Pamukkale University in Denizli in Turkiye. Also, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 10 prospective teachers.  The results of findings indicated that prospective science teachers had misconceptions about where plants got their energy at the percentage of 93%, where animals got their energy at the percentage of 88% and the materials which gave energy at the percentage of 96%. Besides, it is found that when energy is called, most of the prospective science teachers (63%) focus on the concept of energy in physics. In order to remote prospective science teachers from such thoughts, since primary school unity of energy concept by integrating in all fields should be provided and the misconceptions should be tried to remove by methods like conceptual change texts.

The aim of this study is to determine  the learning styles of the students of the schools that accept students by entrance exam and their attitudes towards biology course. This study was carried out by using school survey which is one of the descriptive methods. Learning style inventory and biology course scale were applied to 266 ninth-grade students of three different schools. 1. %19,82 of the students of the Anatolian High School is imaginative, %43,96 is analytical, %29,31 is common sense and %6,89 is dynamicaly learning; %13,75 of the students of the Anatolian Teachers’ High School is imaginative, %51,25 is analytical, %30 is common sense and %5 is dynamicaly learning; %14,28 of the students of the Science High School is imaginative, %47,14 is analytical, %28,57 is common sense and %10 is dynamicaly learning. 2. A significant attitude difference towards biology course (p< ,05) was detected in terms of gender. The attitude of the girls is more positive. 3. According to school variable, there is a major difference among attitudes of the students towards biology course.There is an important attitude score difference between the Anatolian High School and the Science High School and between the Anatolian Teachers’ High School and the Science High Schools.(p< ,001) The scores of the Anatolian High School  and the Anatolian Teachers’ High  School are better.  4. According to learning styles, there is an important attitude score difference between the Second Type Learners and Third Type Learners (p< ,05). The scores are in favor of the Third Type Learners.

Computers are useful in the field of teaching-learning process of science education as they are in every other field. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a computer-assisted instruction material on understanding of photosynthesis subject.  This study was implemented with the same teacher two different classes with 53 students in a lycee in the central of Trabzon in Turkey. While in one class (the control group) traditional instruction was followed, in the other class (the experimental group) the computer-assisted instruction material was followed. The Photosynthesis Achievement Test and Biology Attitude Scale were given to the two groups as a pre-test and post-test.  The result showed that the computer-assisted instruction group increased their success about photosynthesis when compared with the traditionally designed science instruction group. Besides, when compared with the control group, there appeared an significantly positive difference in experiment group students in their attitudes toward science as a school subject.

Background (Introduction)
 
It may be many factors that effect students’ math and science learning. Teaching strategies and methods and students’ learning preferences also are the most important factors of students’ math and science learning. Therefore, responses for the following questions has been searched in this research;
 
Question 1. Are these scores which were taken by primary school students from the factors of the scale towards students’ science learning preferences showing a significant difference according to their grade level? Question 2. Are these scores which were taken by primary school students from the factors of the scale towards students’ math learning preferences showing a significant difference according to their grade level? Question 3. Is there a relationship between primary school students’ science and math learning preferences?
 
Purpose
 
This research attempted to examine primary school students’ math and science learning preferences based on their grade level. Thus, the study was adopted quantitative research approach, where it will then be employed to test hypotheses of the study.
 
Sample
 
Subjects of the research is 679 primary school students who were selected by random and studied at 6th, 7th and 8th grades of primary schools in Sivas in 2004-2005 spring semester.
 
Design and methods
 
The study was used a five-point Likert-type scale which was developed by the researchers. The scale were primary based on the work conducted by Taylor, Fraser and White (1994). Furthermore, there were also benefit from the works done by Knochs and Riggs (1990), Koul and Rubba  (1999), and Riggs and Knochs (1990). It was administered to primary school students for determining primary school students’ math and science learning preferences based on their grade level variable. Exploratory factor analysis showed that the scale included two factors. It contained items measuring primary school students’ individual learning preferences (factor-1) and teacher-centered learning and working with group (factor-2). The results indicated analysis of variance for the entire scale was 42.90%; for each factor, analysis of variance ranged from 26.05% to 16.85%. Factor loading of items in the scale also ranged from .572 to .712. Furthermore, Cronbach Alpha Coefficient is also calculated as .81 for reliability of the entire scale; for each factor, alpha ranged from .891 to .847. Based on the reliability and validity analysis, it showed that there were satisfactory factor structure and reliability of the scale. For determining primary school students’ opinions according to the scale factors were used descriptive statistics methods. In addition, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and simple correlation analysis were used for the statistical analyses.

Results

At the end of analyzing data, it was found that there was no meaningful relation between grade level and the entire scale towards students’ math and science learning preferences. Similarly, it was also found that there was no meaningful relation between grade level and the factor mentioned above towards students’ science learning preferences. However, it was found that there was meaningful relation between grade level and individual learning factor towards students’ math learning preferences. Furthermore, it was also determined that teacher-centered learning and working with group was preferred more than individual learning in the 6th, 7th and 8th grades students in both the lessons. In addition, the results indicated that there was significant correlation between primary school students’ science and math learning preferences (r =.356, p <.01). In other words, primary school students’ science learning preferences was related to their math learning preferences. 
 
Conclusions
 
Results of the research showed that teacher-centered learning and working with group was preferred more than individual learning in the 6th, 7th and 8th grades students in both the lessons. Furthermore, the results indicated that primary school students’ science learning preferences was related to their math learning preferences. Therefore, in the light of findings of the present research was suggested that there may be common studies and similar students’ science and math learning preferences among national and intermational boundaries according to ages, class levels, and gender and so on. So, differences and similarities should be discovered if we want to understand about students’ science and math learning preferences both national and intermational.

The goal of this research is to investigate whether there is a significant difference between constructivist approaches based instruction (CABI) and traditionally designed science instruction on Preservice Teacher 3rd grade students’ understanding of concept with the “Electric” unit and attitudes toward science. Two classes, each with 60 students were randomly selected. The experimental group was instructed though CABI strategies, whereas the control group was utilized with traditional methods. The measurement instruments utilized were Physics Achievement Test. As a result of this study it was found out that CAB, when compared to the traditional learning method, created positive effects on students’ success science as a school subject.

The main aim of this research is to develop a valid and reliable scale to asses Turkish primary science student
teachers who attend Science Society Technology Course (STS). The scale has been applied to 355 primary
student teachers of Gazi University Kırsehir Education Faculty Department of Primary Education in 2003-2004
at fall semester academic year. In this 5 point Likert scale, there were 14 positive and 15 negative attitude
questions. The data has been analysed by using SPSS software. After the factor analysis, according to
Component Matrix results, the scale has been found to be one factor; according to Varimax Rotated (Rotated
Component Matrix) results, it has been found to be eight factor and Cronbach-Alpha internal integrity of the
final version of the scale was found to be 0.8978.