Determining the levels of university students' chemistry knowledge associating with the daily life

The aim of this study is to find out how the university students explain the cases in their daily life by using chemistry knowledge. The method of the research is case study. The study group consists of university students who get chemistry education at an university in Middle Blacksea Region attending to Education Faculty and Vocational High School in 2016-2017 academic year. The sample of the study is 160 second grade students attending to science and elementary school teacher training departments of Education Faculty and chemistry first degree Vocational High School program. As a data collection tool, "Chemistry Knowledge Associating Daily Life Questionnaire" was used developed by researcher. In the first part of the questionnaire, the students were asked questions about demographic properties, the sources of knowledge they get in their daily life and the sources they used for solving problems. In the second section, two tailed questions about chemistry were asked. The students said that they use internet and their families to get knowledge and they benefit their experiences and traditions more than scientific knowledge to solve their problems. Most of the students chose the acceptable answers in offered cases but they were insufficient to make explanations. It was seen that the students could not give meaning to the cases they faced in their daily life with the chemistry knowledge they had. It can be suggested that the chemistry knowledge given to the university students should be related to problems they can face in the daily life and how they overcome these cases.