Abstract
A total of 2,010 teachers working in public elementary schools were questioned in order to investigate the status of science teaching literacy in Japanese elementary school teachers. The responses from 580 of these (29%) were collected and analyzed by dividing the teachers into the three groups of science-oriented teachers, literature-oriented teachers and other teachers, including junior college graduates etc., acording to their academic careers. The main findings of this study are summarized as follows: (1) Most elementary school teachers have not acquired enough basic knowledge or basic skills in physical geography and/or astronomy for elementary science teaching. (2) Science-oriented teachers are apt to be good at laboratory works such as in-door experiments while the other teachers are apt to be good at field works such as out-door observation in elementary science lessons. (3) Some elementary school teachers have difficulty in teaching observations or experiments in science classrooms. The reason for this difficulty is considered to be that not enough experience on observations and experiments are acquired by the teachers themselves and/or that their ability of making designs of observations and experiments suitable for children's cognitive development is weak.
