Awareness, exposure, and knowledge levels of science teachers about nanoscience and nanotechnology

Zeki İpek
Levent Aydın Anatolian High School, Turkey
Ali Derya Atik
Kilis 7 Aralık University, Turkey
Şeref Tan and Figen Erkoç
Gazi University, Turkey

Advances in nanotechnology have drawn attention to nanotechnology education. The aim of this study is to determine awareness, exposure, and knowledge levels of science (physics, chemistry and biology) teachers about nanoscience and nanotechnology. Teachers (N=624) from secondary schools in Turkey comprised the working group. Descriptive methods were used in data analyses. Awareness and exposure subscales were adopted from the Nanotechnology Awareness Instrument developed by Dyehouse et al. (2008), and the knowledge subscale, developed by the authors, was added to the Turkish version. Differences among or between the teachers' awareness, exposure, and knowledge levels regarding nanoscience and nanotechnology were determined. No significant differences were found in levels of awareness, exposure, and knowledge of teachers in terms of subject specialisation and educational levels; however, some significant differences were found in gender, tenure, grade and type of school, in-service training participation, following scientific publications, documentary watching frequency and school localisation variables. In general, nanoscience and nanotechnology awareness, exposure, and knowledge levels of the teachers were at a "neutral" level. This study shows needs for further training of science teachers in nanoscience and nanotechnology, to increase their level of awareness and knowledge and to ensure their preparedness for teaching this topic.
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Authors: Zeki İpek PhD is a biology teacher at Levent Aydın Anatolian High School, Antalya, Turkey. His current research interests are biology education, nanoscience and nanotechnology education, mobile learning, blended learning and curriculum studies. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8097-5849. Email: ipekzeki@gmail.com Ali Derya Atik PhD (corresponding author) is an assistant professor in the Department of Science Education, Kilis 7 Aralık University, Turkey. His research interests are ecology, biodiversity, learning and teaching biology, secondary school biology, and higher education life sciences curriculum issues. He has participated in national congresses and symposia, was advisor to students in national science school project competitions. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5841-6004. Email: alideryaatik@gmail.com Professor Şeref Tan works in the Department of Measurement and Evaluation in Education, Gazi Education Faculty, Gazi University, Turkey. He has experience in question editing and large-scale data analysis at the National Exam Centre of Turkey, and presently is collaborating in EU Erasmus+ KA2 project DVINE. ORCID: ID: 0000-0002-9892-3369. Email: sereftan4@yahoo.com Professor Figen Erkoç works in the Department of Biology Education, Gazi Education Faculty, Gazi University, Turkey. She specialises in ecotoxicology, toxicology, drug metabolism, endocrine disruptors and biology education. She has been principal investigator for several national and international projects. ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0658-2243. Email: erkoc@gazi.edu.tr Please cite as: İpek, Z., Atik, A. D., Tan, Ş. & Erkoç, F. (2020). Awareness, exposure, and knowledge levels of science teachers about nanoscience and nanotechnology. Issues in Educational Research, 30(1), 134-155. http://www.iier.org.au/iier30/ipek.pdf