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PRE-SERVICE PRIMARY TEACHERS’ SCIENCE CONTENT KNOWLEDGE: A CASE OF LITHUANIA

Primary school teachers’ science competence remains a highly relevant theoretical and practical problem. Although the general curricula and educational standards of Lithuanian general education school set quite high requirements for the process of primary school science education, the science competence of teachers raises reasonable concerns. It has to be stated that in university primary education study programmes, insufficient attention is paid to the natural science component. This leads to a possible lack of preparation for pre-service primary school teachers in science education. A pilot study conducted at the beginning of 2020, in which 107 students from two Lithuanian universities participated, showed that their scientific knowledge was poor and insufficient. Particularly weak was subject knowledge from the field “Nature research”, and also knowledge related to animate and inanimate nature. An assumption can be made that science literacy of pre-service primary education teachers is not sufficiently developed at university, which is one of the factors limiting the quality of children’s science education. There are probably two main reasons for this situation: insufficient science education in general education schools, and insufficient training of students in the field of science education for pre-service primary school teachers. Keywords: quantitative research, pilot research, pre-service teachers, science content knowledge, university students