Investigating the Pre-service and In-service Science Teachers’ Conceptions of A ‘teacher’ at the Beginning of Their Initial Teacher Training Program

Abstract

This study is an on-going research that aims to explore pre-service and in-service teachers’ conception of ‘a teacher’ at the beginning of their initial teacher training program. This particular study administered an open ended questionnaire that consists of 4 questions to 13 pre-service science teachers and 7 in-service science teachers during the first session of the initial teacher training programme. The open-ended questionnaire explores the teachers’ conception of what makes a teacher, a good teacher, an excellent teacher and a 21st century teacher. A thematic analysis was conducted by two researchers in order to ensure trustworthiness of the emerging themes that emerged found from the data. One of the potential contributions from the findings of this research is the discourse of how pre-service and inservice science teachers’ construct their conceptions on the different dimensions of a teacher i.e. from good to a 21st century teacher.