What is the level of scientific literacy among geography students studying bachelor's studies in natural sciences?

ABSTRACT

The objective of our research was to identify the level of the acquired scientific literacy among Geography students studying bachelor's studies and compare it with the level of scientific literacy among students of other academic disciplines within the natural sciences. To identify the level of scientific literacy among students, we applied the Test of Scientific Literacy Skills (TOSLS). The obtained results indicate that the level of scientific literacy among Geography students, as compared to other academic disciplines, is not statistically significantly higher. However, we observed statistically significantly lower levels of scientific literacy among students in teacher training for general subjects in combination with one of the science subjects (including Geography). The lowest success rate was observed among Geography students in the item focused on the production of an appropriate graph based on the measured data. Problems were also observed in the field of understanding and interpretation of basic statistics, critical assessment of credibility of a literature source, and understanding research design elements and determination of their impact on the research results and conclusion. By contrast, the highest success rate was observed among Geography students in the skill of problem solving while using quantitative skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Scientific literacy
• geography learning
• public understanding of science
• test of scientific literacy skills

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency [grant number APVV-14-0070].