Science Teacher Education Research Articles

Integrating Artificial Intelligence in Science Teacher Education for Enhanced Pedagogical Practices

Integrating Artificial Intelligence in Science Teacher Education for Enhanced Pedagogical Practices

How Are The Science Process Skills of Prospective Science Teacher Students: Studies in Inorganic Chemistry and Gender

Prospective teacher students must be able to design practicums so that the learning process is meaningful. The skills that students develop in carrying out scientific discoveries, namely applying concepts, rules, and characteristics that exist in science, are called science process skills (SPS). Therefore, in building students' knowledge, students must have process skills in teaching so they can teach effectively and must have a good understanding of concepts and strong process skills. This research aims to describe the SPS of prospective science education teacher students through inorganic chemistry courses after going through learning with the discovery learning model. This research uses a quantitative approach with a pre-experimental design one-shot case study research method. The research results show that student SPS as a whole is in the high category with an average percentage of 59.71%. SPS analysis in classes A, B, and C, respectively, has an average percentage of 58.23%, 62.66%, and 58.24% in the high category. SPS analysis based on gender shows that the respective percentage of male students is 53.89% with the medium category for women and 59.81% for the high category.

Educational practices with gender perspective in science education: perceptions of teacher educators and pre-service teachers

ABSTRACT This study characterizes the perception of gender-sensitive practices among pre-service teachers and teacher educators in science teacher education programs. A 23-item questionnaire was completed by 238 pre-service teachers and 25 teacher educators to identify gender-sensitive practices recognized in their courses and the number of gender equity activities they participated in. No significant differences were found in the perception of gender-sensitive practices based on gender, although males showed higher participation in activities (31.2%). Teacher educators perceived a lower proportion of gender-sensitive practices (41.9%) but engaged more in gender equity activities (61.9% compared to 23.5% for pre-service teachers). A significant positive correlation (0.397) was found between the perception of gender-sensitive practices and activity attendance, while age had a negative correlation (-0.241) with this perception. The findings suggest that the role of being a pre-service teacher or educator is more influential than gender in shaping perceptions. Although participation in the activities positively influences the perception of gender-sensitive practices, the participants of these activities is a consistent group. It is recommended to increase access to gender equity activities, focusing particularly on teacher educators and considering age as a factor to enhance effectiveness.

Teaching infectious diseases during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic – middle school teachers’ choice of content and instructional approaches

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic impacted immensely in schools worldwide, emphasising the pivotal importance of infectious diseases. This study aims to delineate the teaching of diseases in middle schools, investigating how content and instruction was influenced in the aftermath of the pandemic. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with teachers. The analytical method involved thematic analysis. The first analysis concerned teaching content was based on the framework of contagion literacy. The second analysis investigated the teaching approaches through an inductive analysis. The findings suggest that the pandemic had an impact on the biology teaching in relation to infectious diseases. During the pandemic, teaching largely revolved around student-initiated, question-driven discussions about current events related to societal health initiatives within schools, rather than expanding the planned biology curriculum. The main finding is that teachers focused on hygiene and to influence students’ behaviours interactively. The pandemic was not fully exploited by the participating teachers to develop more curriculum-based teaching including functional and critical health literacy perspectives. The study recommends that biology teachers collaborate with school health teams and engage in interdisciplinary work. We also suggest to amend primary science teacher education to meet the need to teach the young people in the event of future pandemics.

Norwegian science teacher educators’ views of the master’s thesis and the supervision process

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to investigate Norwegian science teacher educators’ views of the master’s thesis and the supervision process in connection with the recent change to five-year master’s programmes. Interviews with fourteen science teacher educators from the seven teacher education institutions offering a master’s specialisation in science education were analysed inductively through thematic analysis. The teacher educators’ perceptions were represented by four themes: development of personal traits, academic competence, value for classroom practice and value for the teaching community. Furthermore, they emphasised being project leaders and having competence in science education and relational competence when supervising master’s theses. The science educators are positive about the general features of the master’s thesis, such as developing personal traits and more research-competent colleagues of teachers. However, the study revealed that many supervisors expressed a lack of competence and supervision experience, and we suggest involving teacher educators in research projects in education.

Models of Science Teacher Identity: The Multiple Representations of Pre-Service Elementary Science Educators

ABSTRACT Experiences in pre-service teacher education can have a lasting effect within the professional life histories of classroom teachers. Investigating the ways in which pre-service elementary teachers (PSETs) represent themselves as science teachers before, during, and after methods course experiences can inform best practices of elementary science teacher pre-service and inservice development as well as further highlight the concerns and objectives of PSETs. Therefore, as a pre-service science teacher educator, I seek to understand the ways in which PSETs represent themselves as future science teachers and the experiences within the methods courses that influence those representations. This study relies on quantitative pre- and post-survey data and qualitative course artifact data completed as part of regular undergraduate course assignments. PSETs representations of self within this study tend to shift from a traditional approach to science teaching toward constructivist, student-centered pedagogical practices and show reduced anxiety toward teaching science and increased science teaching self-efficacy.

<span><strong>Factors affecting learning activeness of students from the Faculty of Social Sciences Teacher Education, School of Education, Dong Thap University</strong></span>

Students' activeness in learning plays an important role in comprehending the content of university teaching because the nature of university teaching is a unique cognitive activity of a research nature of students under the organization and instructions by teachers. Therefore, activeness in learning requires students to be proactive in assigned learning tasks, forming a sense of self-study and self-research during university studies and in professional activities in their future careers. Students' activeness in learning is the result of subjective and objective factors. This article presents the results of a survey of the current status of factors affecting the active learning of students at the Faculty of Social Sciences Teacher Education at Dong Thap University to serve as a basis for further research on methods of student education.

What’s the Future for Science in the New Zealand Curriculum?

AbstractThis commentary article considers the current contentious debates over the national school science curriculum in Aoteaora New Zealand. The co-authors of this commentary are members of a group of science teacher educators and science education researchers who met recently to discuss concerns over aspects of these debates in the context of a wider political contest over the control and direction of education policy.

Transformative Shifts in Informal Reasoning of Pre-Service Teachers in a Real-Time Health Issue

ABSTRACT COVID-19 became a serious health problem all over the world. This health issue also turned into one of the most striking socio-scientific controversies in recent years. The present study utilized qualitative exploratory methodologies to investigate how pre-service science teachers’ informal reasoning transformed over the pandemic’s first two months of social distancing and quarantine. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with N = 26 3rd and 4th year pre-service biology teachers studying at a state university in Türkiye. Analysis revealed that these preservice teachers’ rational decision-making mode and moral-based reasoning decreased in the second interviews, while their emotive and intuitive modes increased. This could be explained by the fact that decision-making mechanisms are likely operating under the influence of different variables in unstructured natural SSI cases, since rational decisions are insufficient for producing solutions during these complex processes. In addition, the results indicated that individuals may hold more than one decision-making mode at the same time when grappling with complex, ill-structured SSIs. Moreover, participants who held multiple perspectives at the beginning tended to consider fewer factors in their decision-making processes at the end of the two-month period. The study contributes to the evolving understanding of science teacher education during times of crisis.

Preservice teachers' framing and noticing of elementary students' ways of communicating scientific ideas

AbstractChildren draw on diverse sensemaking repertoires that are inclusive of their cultural and community knowledge to make sense of science in the world around them. However, preservice teachers often do not notice the science embedded in children's explanations of phenomena. Discourses that frame children, particularly those from minoritized communities, through deficit‐based lenses contribute to this deficit‐based noticing, perpetuating inequitable science teaching practices. This exploratory case study draws on a noticing framework that uses framing, attending, interpreting, and responding to examine how preservice teachers' anti‐deficit noticing can be supported. Specifically, the study focuses on what 44 preservice teachers, enrolled in teacher preparation classes taught by the authors, notice in children's scientific explanations and how they interpret that noticing in relation to their own framing. Noticing profiles were constructed for preservice teachers using (a) data collected from written explanations of what constitutes a “good” scientific explanation and (b) written reflections of five noticing sessions during which preservice teachers viewed videos featuring elementary students providing explanations of a scientific phenomenon. Findings discuss three key patterns reflected across preservice teacher's noticing profiles: responses that reflected conventional noticing with more anti‐deficit noticing in later sessions, responses that reflected potential for anti‐deficit attending but were interpreted in deficit‐based ways, and responses that shifted across noticing sessions in a non‐linear trajectory toward more anti‐deficit noticing. Implications for science teacher education explore practices that facilitate shifts toward more anti‐deficit, equitable noticing with considerations for the dialogic nature between framing and noticing.

Re-visioning Zimbabwe’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics for Secondary Schools through the Science Teacher Education Programme

The study highlights the necessity of developing innovation, creativity, and scientific competencies among Zimbabwean secondary school learners for their future social and economic engagement and participation. It explored the government’s efforts to enhance access to STEM education through the Science Teaching Education Programme (STEP) for secondary schools. Five STEM lecturers and ten STEM student teachers were purposefully selected to participate in the study. Focus group discussions with respect to student teachers, in-depth interviews with lecturers and on-site observation of the infrastructure were the data collection instruments. The research, employing a phenomenological framework, identified challenges such as resource constraints, inadequate infrastructure, and lecturer turnover as factors threatening the successful implementation of the programme. The study recommended that the government and other educational stakeholders provide additional support and resources for STEM lecturers, such as professional development opportunities, mentorship programmes, and access to cutting-edge technology and tools to produce teachers who can make a difference through the STEP programme. Thus, the study expands knowledge on discourses regarding growing challenges related to the effective institutional provision of STEM education in Zimbabwe. Keywords: College of Education, Science Teaching Education Programme (STEP), Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Secondary Schools, Student Teachers, Technology

Ways of questioning, ways of gesturing: how teachers elicit different ways of students’ thinking in elementary science classrooms

ABSTRACT Questions and gestures used in pedagogical contexts have each received considerable attention. However, rarely have studies focused on the relationship between questions and gestures and what this relationship may mean for pedagogical practice and the development of higher-level thinking. Drawing on previous research into the cognitive levels of questions and gestures, this study addresses this issue through focusing on the type of gestures used when teachers ask questions in elementary science classrooms. Participants were two Grade One science teachers, and video recordings constitute the major data sources. The study is primarily qualitative, with frequency analyses conducted to analyse the cognitive levels of questions and the cognitive distribution of gestures in the questions. The results show that elementary science classrooms are dominated by low cognitive level questions, which reflects a direct instruction teaching method. However, the use of higher cognitive level questions suggests that teachers use some learner-centred approaches to challenge and encourage students for deeper levels of thinking. Overall, there is a correspondence between the cognitive levels of questions and of gestures, e.g. LCL gestures are most commonly distributed in LCL questions, although variations in the specific use of gestures in each type of question exist. This research contributes to the understanding of the interplay between questions and gestures within the elementary science teaching-learning context, and has implications for science teachers and teacher educators to consider the relationship between cognitive levels of gestures and questions and its role in developing higher-level thinking in elementary science pedagogy.

Computational Thinking Integration into Pre-Service Science Teacher Education: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT Computational Thinking (CT) has emerged as a fundamental aspect of modern science education, especially within pre-service teacher education. This study examines the current landscape of CT integration in pre-service science teacher education, drawing insights from an analysis of 18 empirical studies conducted since the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards in 2013. The findings reveal the predominantly exploratory nature of research in this area and underscore the prevalence of positive outcomes associated with CT integration. Moreover, the study identifies prominent pedagogical strategies such as problem-based learning and the engineering design process, highlighting their integral roles in CT integration. Additionally, the findings uncover the interconnectedness of modeling and simulation, computational problem-solving, and systems thinking practices within CT-integrated science interventions. This suggests the necessity for a more holistic approach, including the integration of unplugged activities, the generalization component of CT, and diverse science disciplines, encompassing life science and Earth/space science. Ultimately, these findings emphasize the imperative for further investigation to comprehensively explore CT integration within pre-service science teacher education, aligning closely with contemporary educational standards and practices.

Design and usability evaluation of a mobile app for elementary school inquiry‐based science learning

AbstractTeachers often struggle to implement inquiry‐based science teaching. To support them, IndagApp—a 3D educational app that offers curriculum‐aligned, inquiry‐based lesson plans—was designed. The app is rooted in the inquiry phases recommended in best‐practices literature, which arguably align with most international standards. This study describes IndagApp and evaluates its usability with fifth‐graders from two elementary schools in Spain (N = 43). The system usability scale (SUS) and the Pictorial‐SUS were used to collect students' feedback on usability. Both frequentist and Bayesian analyses were conducted to compare the mean SUS score with established benchmarks for usability. The results showed that IndagApp had high usability ratings, with most students rating it as the “Best imaginable” or “Good.” The mean SUS score was 84.816, which was significantly higher than the benchmark score of 68. There were no differences in usability between girls and boys, and students in private and public schools. These findings suggest that IndagApp is a valuable resource for inquiry learning in elementary grades and has significant implications for science education and science teacher professional development, as it helps teachers adopt reform‐oriented teaching practices that align with the curricular standards and goals.

Nurturing Scientific Literacy under Sustainable Development Goals in the Teaching of Science

To cope with the global challenges, United Nations came up with 17 sustainable development goals (SDG for short) to eradicate the extreme poverty, education inequality, climate change and other issues concerning to mankind living condition. SDG 4 aims to provide the access to quality education for everyone around the world. Since education plays a crucial role in realizing SDGs, science education is conducive to equip students with scientific literacy to explore the sustainability considering its nature of discipline. This research was conducted in a Chinese senior high school among science teachers, including biology, physics, chemistry, and management staff for a more comprehensive data needed. Based on findings, science education was poorly implemented on scientific literacy-oriented since all disciplines in class are for exam purpose not for overall development of students. Therefore, this research is trying to contribute for well-performed science education teaching mechanism in China in context of sustainability in a long run.

Gamifying Teacher Education with FantasyClass: Effects on Attitudes towards Physics and Chemistry among Preservice Primary Teachers

This study investigates the impact of structural gamification, using the digital platform FantasyClass, on the attitudes and motivation of preservice primary education teachers towards physics and chemistry. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research combined quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis involving 65 second-year university students over a 14-week course. The quantitative component was framed within a quasi-experimental pre-post design, allowing for the comparison of students’ attitudes and motivations before and after the gamified intervention. The qualitative component was designed to complement the quantitative findings. Quantitative analysis revealed significant improvements in students’ perceptions and motivation, with notable increases in positive attitudes towards these sciences. Qualitative data further highlighted enhanced interest and enjoyment, with students reporting greater engagement and a shift in their perception of physics and chemistry as accessible and enjoyable. The study also noted an increase in self-confidence among future teachers and improved teaching self-efficacy. The findings suggest that integrating gamification in initial primary science teacher education can effectively foster more favorable attitudes, enhance motivation towards science, and improve teaching confidence. Future research should explore long-term impacts, as well as personalized gamification approaches to cater to different types of learners and maximize educational effectiveness.

Integrating Text Structure Instruction in Science Education: A Design-Based Study

ABSTRACT Integrated science-and-literacy programs have proven to positively affect both language proficiency and science knowledge. Because making connections is important in both text comprehension and understanding the disciplinary core ideas taught in science, it seems worthwhile to explore the potential of integrating text structure instruction in science education. Therefore, we conducted a design-based research (DBR) in collaboration with teachers in the upper levels of primary education in the Netherlands. A set of four design principles directed both the design process and the analysis of this process. Research questions were aimed at the viability of these principles and at gaining knowledge about the application of DBR within the field of an integrated science curriculum. The study demonstrates the potential of DBR as a vehicle for translating research outcomes into educational practice. The four design principles eventually resulted in materials that worked well in grades 4–6. Still, since several design principles were new to the teachers, the design task was a challenge to the teachers and required support by the researchers. Especially the selection of suitable texts proved difficult. The study yields insights and recommendations for future DBR studies in the field of science-and-literacy integrated education. Given the abundance of cross-cutting concepts that can be tied to specific text structures, there is ample room for the development of integrated materials.

Critical Perspectives of School Science: A Science Teacher’s Self Reflective Study of Science Classroom Interactions with Students

ABSTRACT Critical perspectives of science (CPS) elucidates science as a human endeavor that not only embodies the rigorous process of knowledge construction but also reflects the inherent flaws arising from unequal and unjust power relations among humans and between humans and nature. Science teachers need opportunities for self-examination to learn CPS and apply it to their teaching practices, supporting students in developing CPS in the context of school science and using it for what matters to their lives. This self-reflective study applies the CPS as a conceptual framework to reexamine my past experiences teaching science at public middle schools in Korea, particularly the in-classroom interactions with students in science classrooms. As a result, I identified classroom episodes from which I inferred opportunities I could have facilitated students’ engagement with CPS in science classrooms. Three ways to facilitate students’ CPS were inferred from the episodes: (1) probing unjust practices of science hidden from school science; (2) addressing the linguistic and epistemic whiteness implicit in school science; and (3) identifying the relevance of school science to students and what matters to them. Implications for science teacher education are discussed, including how teacher educators can facilitate teachers’ self-reflective examination of their classroom interactions and integration of CPS into daily classroom discourse.

The Impact of a Mobile Phone and Mobile Application-Supported Science Laboratory on the Digital Literacy of Preservice Teachers and Their Disposition Toward Using Technology in Class

Science education at different levels can be supported by various mobile applications that can be downloaded for free onto mobile phones, tablets, and other devices. Such applications can also be used in laboratory work, but it must be said that their use in science laboratories is a relatively new approach. This study is aimed at determining the impact of mobile phone and mobile application-supported laboratory work on the digital literacy of preservice science teachers and on their disposition toward using technology in class. The study was carried out with 17 participants at the second-year level of a Science Teacher Education Program in Turkey. It was a single-group pretest-posttest study, representing a type of weak experimental research design. Data for the study were collected with the Digital Literacy Scale developed by Hamutoğlu et al. (Ege Journal of Education 18(1):408–429, 2017) and the Disposition toward Using Technology in the Classroom Scale developed by Gunuc and Kuzu (Journal of Theory and Practice in Education 10(4):863–884, 2014). The data collection tools were implemented prior to and following a 6-week teaching period, and the quantitative data compiled from the participants were analyzed with the SPSS 21.0 program. The parametric t-test of related samples was used in the pretest/posttest comparison of the data sets. The results of the study demonstrated that science laboratory activities supported by mobile phones and mobile applications provided preservice teachers with increased digital literacy and enhanced their disposition toward using technology in the classroom. It is recommended that preservice teachers make extensive use of experiments supported by the mobile applications in this study.

The Problem of Teaching the Science of Climate Change

This article discusses how to teach the science of climate change as a call for introducing critical thinking in science teacher education programs and professional development. It can be argued that to get a science student to develop his/her critical thinking skills to think outside the box, teachers must work to overcome the student's and their own dogmatic beliefs, hardened biases, and motivated and/or distorted reasoning. The article shows how teacher education programs and professional development providers should change their methods and strategies by providing a framework to overcome the key elements of the problem of teaching the science of climate change, and by providing some high-quality resources to teach this topic with practical ideas made available for teachers at all levels.