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Shifting the Teaching Beliefs of Preservice Science Teachers About Socioscientific Issues in a Teacher Education Course.

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to investigate how 22 preservice science teachers' (PSTs') beliefs about teaching socioscientific issues (SSI) changed after experiencing SSI instruction and reflection from both a learner's perspective and a teacher's perspective during a 12-week initial teacher education course. The study also explored the learning experiences associated with these changes. This study was conducted in Hong Kong, where the science, technology, society and environment (STSE) framework has been integrated into the secondary science curriculum but no SSI instruction is provided. Data were collected through learning tasks completed by the participants: (a) curriculum designs (pre-, mid- and post-course), (b) lesson plans (mid- and post-course) and (c) weekly reflective journals. Six profiles characterising teaching beliefs about SSI emerged from the data analysis. Qualitative analysis showed that the teaching beliefs of the PSTs had shifted from the traditional view that SSI should not be covered in science education to embracing SSI teaching. Three illustrative cases were used to capture key learning experiences and explore how these had led to a change in beliefs over time. These cases explained how PSTs' reflection on the why, what and how of teaching SSI to students can shape their beliefs about teaching SSI. The results have implications for the development of a closer alignment between PST beliefs and the SSI paradigm.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10763-021-10177-y.

SUBMITTER: Leung JSC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8121640 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Enjoyment for teaching represents one of the most frequently reported teaching emotions and positively affects student outcomes. Therefore, researchers and teacher educators need to understand its nature and underlying appraisal processes to prepare motivated teachers as part of initial teacher education. Using cross-sectional questionnaire data from 189 German biology preservice teachers (73.5% female, meanage = 23.45 years, SD age = 3.71 years), we empirically tested the topic-specific structure and antecedents of participants' anticipated enjoyment for teaching. We adapted the established Teacher Emotion Scale to measure preservice teachers' trait-based enjoyment for teaching by reframing the items with the environmental socioscientific issues of the return of wild wolves and climate change and the health socioscientific issue of preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the best fit of a topic-specific model. We also found different correlations for the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about the issues, but no significant differences in means. Concerning further topic-specific antecedents, the environmentally oriented basic value of universalism predicted the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about the return of wolves, and the socially oriented universal value of benevolence predicted the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Both values inconsistently predicted the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about climate change. While this is in line with the complex nature of this socioscientific issue, psychological distance was a predictor for the anticipated enjoyment for teaching about every topic. While these effects remained stable when controlling for demographic variables, male participants showed a higher anticipated enjoyment for teaching about wolves and about climate change, and female preservice teachers for teaching about preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Further studies are needed to investigate if the results can be transferred to in-service teachers or to other teaching emotions. Furthermore, future studies could examine effects on other factors relevant to teaching emotions such as reactions to student behavior, which have been described as central for the causation of teaching emotions in prior studies (i.e., "reciprocal model of teaching emotions"). The present study stimulates such new studies and adds important knowledge to the understanding of topic specificity and topic-specific antecedents of anticipated enjoyment for teaching, which are relevant for teacher education and professional development.

Project description:Theory Digital technologies have become an integral part of everyday life that children are exposed to. Therefore, it is important for children to acquire an understanding of these technologies early on by teaching them computational thinking (CT) as a part of STEM. However, primary school teachers are often reluctant to teach CT. Expectancy-value theory suggests that motivational components play an important role in teaching and learning. Thus, one hindrance to teachers’ willingness to teach CT might be their low expectancies of success and high emotional costs, e.g., anxiety towards CT. Thus, introducing preservice teachers to CT during their university years might be a promising way to support their expectancies and values, while simultaneously alleviating their emotional costs. Prior CT competences might contribute to these outcomes. Aims We investigated whether a specifically designed seminar on CT affected preservice teachers’ expectancies and values towards programming.Method: A total of 311 German primary school and special education preservice teachers took part in the study. The primary school preservice teachers received a seminar on CT and programming with low-threshold programming tasks, while the special education teachers served as a baseline group. The seminar was specifically designed to enhance expectancies and values and decrease emotional costs, following implications of research on expectancy-value theory. Results The preservice teachers who visited the seminar gained higher expectancies and values towards CT and programming compared to the baseline group. Moreover, their emotional costs decreased. CT was positively related to change in expectancies and values and negatively related to emotional costs. Discussion Interventions with low-threshold programming tasks can support primary school preservice teachers in finding trust in their abilities and values towards CT. Moreover, their anxiety towards CT and programming can be alleviated. Thus, first steps in preparing preservice teachers to teach CT in their future classrooms can be taken in university.

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Shifting the Teaching Beliefs of Preservice Science Teachers About Socioscientific Issues in a Teacher Education Course.

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