The purpose of this paper is to give historical perspective foundational points of Science, Technology and Society (STS), the reasons of STS’s being involved in Science Educations Programs, and the effort of connecting and integrating STS on the curricula and in this respect, the condition in Turkey is tried to be put forth.
 

Helping student to improve the problems solving skills is the primary target of the science teacher trainees. In modern science, for training the students, methods should be used for improving their thinking skills, make connections with events and concepts and scientific operations skills rather than information and definition giving. One of these methods are problem solving.With this study, it is shown that problem solving is not just solving a movement problem like in the physics as it is understood by most of the science teachers but it can be used also in social problems like environmental problems. Further more, scientific operation skills, problem solving attitudes and academic success of teacher trainees who use problem solving method in solving environmental problems are investigated.The study is an experimental work, and pre-test last-test grouped patterns are used. The study has been carried on with 102 students of Gazi University, Gazi Education Faculty, Primary Education Department, and Science Teacher Sciences of 2003-2004 Academic Years. In the experimental group problem solving method is used whereas in control group traditional methods are used. The data gathered to test the study hypothesis were evaluated by using SPSS package program. As a result of the analyzes, it is found that the science teaching based on problem solving improves scientific operations skills of the teacher trainees, increase their attitude points towards problem solving and increase their grades to be obtained in environment success tests.
 

The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons why six Malaysian students from upper secondary school are playing video games, types of games and the features preferred.  A qualitative method was being used in the study.  Purposive sampling was conducted in selecting the students.  The findings indicated that students played video games for a great range of reasons.  Different students play for different reasons.  Some shared common reasons and preferences.  A few findings were very specific and never mentioned before in previous researches.  However, more research needs to be undertaken in order to address the diversity of students with a bigger sample and different methodology.  

Teachers contribute enormously to a positive social climate in science classes, particularly through their communication with students.  In the study described in this article, a questionnaire (The Teacher Communication Behaviour Questionnaire (TCBQ)) developed by She and Fisher (2000) was used. TCBQ can be used to assess students' perceptions of science teachers' interpersonal communication behaviours in their classroom learning environments. TCBQ has five scales: Challenging, Encouragement and Praise, Non-Verbal Support, Understanding and Friendly, and Controlling. The TCBQ was used with a large sample of a university’ students in Turkey.  Girl students perceived more of these communication behaviours in their teachers than did the boy students. There were statistically significant differences (p<0.0001) on four of the five scales of the TCBQ between teachers’ gender. Statistically significant differences were not found among different grade classes. Teachers in biological and chemistry science classrooms exhibited more favourable behaviour toward their students than did those in physical science classrooms.

According to many students, introductory physics is difficult. We are investigating what students believe makes physics difficult and what can be done to overcome these difficulties. Our investigation includes an initial free-response survey given to approximately 1400 students in an introductory physics course and a second survey, which was given to approximately 400 students in another semester, distilled from the responses to the first survey. Also faculty members and teaching assistants (TAs) for physics courses are asked to complete the second survey. Our findings show that the perceptions of the students and faculty members are different in terms of difficulties which students have in a physics course. The perceptions of students and TAs are mostly the same. Both students and faculty members agree that student-related factors, such as not studying more have the most influence on students’ success in physics.