Longitudinal Teacher Training Impact on Students’ Attributes of Scientific Literacy
Anne Laius, Miia Rannikmäe

Abstract
This study examines the impact of science teachers’ STL (scientific and technological literacy) longitudinal training course on their 9th grade students’ enhancement in their scientific literacy. Twelve science teachers (eight chemistry and four biology teachers) participated in two consecutive intervention studies, each running for 8 months, both designed to guide teachers on promoting students’ scientific and technological literacy through raising the levels of scientific creativity and socio-scientific reasoning of their students. During the training courses, the teachers exhibited their learning by creating teaching materials for 4 integrative teaching modules and these were used in teaching their students using the designed STL teaching modules. The in-service resulted in remarkable teachers’ professional change exhibited within 4 categories: content-oriented teaching, interdisciplinarity, pedagogical competence and confidence in socio-scientific teaching. The students’ development was determined in terms of scientific creativity and socio-scientific reasoning skills, as indicators of scientific literacy gains, with an initial pre-test before and a post-test after the STL intervention. The results of the study revealed that the teachers’ teaching level in promoting problem solving and decision making and its impact on student gains, as well as the number of teachers collaborating together in the teaching within a school, had a significant impact on their students’ improvement in skills associated with socio-scientific reasoning and scientific creativity. Gender issues and knowledge in chemistry and biology had less influence on students’ creativity and reasoning skills.

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