Abstract

The development of professional competence is of major importance for each teacher student and in the end for the entire education system. Therefore, optimising students’ learning processes is a central goal of professional development at the university level. Learning processes are influenced by an individual’s prior knowledge, beliefs, and expectations. Having insights into the beliefs and expectations of our students should give us the opportunity to optimize their university courses. To obtain a better understanding of these beliefs and expectations we used a questionnaire with open questions. All statements of feedback from 168 students in BA/MA programmes were categorised. For this purpose, we developed a category system based on the COACTIV model of professional competence. The results indicated that many students assume that the most important influence on their future profession is the possession of self-related ability cognitions, but they do not expect to develop such cognitions in their university courses. As a consequence of these findings, the Division of Chemistry Education has begun offering students authentic learning situations with real pupils. This approach offers the chance for the students to try out the teacher role and to reflect upon the first teaching experiences. They can revise their image of the teachers’ role and acquire a realistic view of their future profession.

Highlights

  • When university studies are assessed retrospectively by young in-service teachers, the majority express not having been adequately prepared by university courses for the job of teaching chemistry: according to an Allerbach study, every second teacher entering the workforce indicated that their studies had been insufficient preparation for the teaching profession (Vodafone Stiftung, 2012)

  • In this contribution we focus on the expectations that students of chemistry education have regarding their future profession and their science education courses at university

  • Most statements from the BA students were assigned to the aspect beliefs/values/goals (18,68%) and the facet knowledge of learning processes (18,11%) under the domain of pedagogical-psychological knowledge, and the facet explanatory knowledge (15,09%) under the domain of pedagogical-content knowledge

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Summary

Introduction

When university studies are assessed retrospectively by young in-service teachers, the majority express not having been adequately prepared by university courses for the job of teaching chemistry: according to an Allerbach study, every second teacher entering the workforce indicated that their studies had been insufficient preparation for the teaching profession (Vodafone Stiftung, 2012) Such widespread dissatisfaction is concerning, as it seems to indicate a deficiency, either in the content and design of university courses or in the mentality of students in terms of adequately gleaning what these courses work to convey. The Division of Chemistry Education at Freie Universität Berlin tries to alter the narrow conceptions that the students have: firstly, by getting insights into the expectations and beliefs of students regarding their future profession and their related courses. In this contribution we focus on the expectations that students of chemistry education have regarding their future profession and their science education courses at university

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