The Relationship between Science Student Teachers' Level of Understanding the Ethics of Science and their Attitudes towards them

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the relationship between science student teachers' level of understanding ethics of science and their attitudes towards them. The sample of the study consisted of (59) science student teachers enrolled in the College of Education, Sultan Qaboos University in the academic year 2011/2012. Two research instruments were used in the study to answer the research questions. These are the ethics of science understanding scale which consisted of (44) items. The second instrument is attitudes towards ethics of science consisting of (41) items. The validity of both scales was checked by a number of referees. The reliability value of former scale is (0.80), whereas for the latter scale is (0.91). The results showed that the level of understanding ethics of science among science student teachers is below the accepted educational level. In addition, there were no significant differs in the level of understanding ethics of science due to gender, specialization and interaction between the two variables. The results showed that science student teachers had positive attitudes towards ethics of science in terms of teaching and learning them. The results revealed that there were no significant differences in student teachers' attitudes towards ethics of science due to gender, specialization and interaction between the two variables. Finally, the results showed positive significant correlation between student teachers' level of understanding ethics of science and their attitudes towards them.