First-Year Science Education Student Teachers’ Beliefs about Student- and Teacher-Centeredness: Parallels and Differences between Chemistry and Other Science Teaching Domains

Abstract

This paper examines quantitative differences among groups of first-year science education students regarding student- or teacher-centeredness while teaching. Our research sample comprised four groups of first-year students from university-level teacher-training programs for both primary school science and for secondary school in the subjects of chemistry, biology, and physics. We collected data in the form of drawings from these students during the first two weeks of their university teacher training. Students were asked to portray themselves as teachers in what they considered to be a typical classroom situation; these drawings were analyzed using a draw-a-science-teacher-test-checklist. Analysis of data from a total of 266 subjects from four German universities indicates that the majority of chemistry and, especially, physics first-year science education students from this sample possessed teacher-centered beliefs about science teaching. In contrast, a majority of biology science education students, and, even more so, primary school science education students demonstrated student-centered beliefs about teaching science.