Pre-service Science Teachers’ Experiences in their Virtual Internship

This study examined the relationships between pre-service science teachers’ teaching self-efficacy, locus of control, attitude towards science teaching and teaching anxiety. A conceptual model of these relationships was examined using data collected from 356 pre-service elementary science teachers. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, zero-order correlations and path analysis. Results showed that attitude towards science teaching was linked positively and teaching anxiety negatively to pre-service science teachers’ science teaching self-efficacy. Additionally, pre-service science teachers’ locus of control was found to be related positively to attitude towards science teaching and related negatively to science teaching anxiety. Finally, pre-service science teachers’ attitude towards science teaching had a negative effect on science teaching anxiety. These results point to the importance of positive role modelling and increased teaching practice in pre-service science teacher education to emphasise the effect of teachers’ attitudes and efforts on student performance.

Atoms, ions and molecules are considered as abstract concepts that often lead to students’ learning difficulties. Th is study aimed at providing description of pre-service science teachers (PSTs)’ creative thinking skills on atoms, elements and compounds digital media creation. Qualitative descriptive method were employed to acquire data. Instruments used were rubric of PSTs’ digital teaching media, open ended question related to PSTs’ technological knowledge and pre-test about atoms, ions and molecules that were given to eighteen PSTs. The study reveals that PSTs’ creative thinking skills were still low and inadequate to create qualified teaching media of atoms, ions and molecules. PSTs’ content and technological knowledge in regard with atoms, ions and molecules are the most contributing factors. This finding support the necessity of developing pre-service and in-service science teachers’ creative thinking skill in digital media that is embedded to development of technological content knowledge.

The purposes of the study are to investigate pre service science teachers' level of scientific literacy, beliefs about science teaching, and science teaching efficacy belief and how much variance in pre service science teachers' scientific literacy can be explained by beliefs about science teaching, science teaching efficacy belief and grade point average (GPA). The survey design was used in this study and the sample of this study consisted of 172 pre service science teachers enrolled in elementary science education department in the university. Test of basic scientific literacy, science teaching efficacy belief instrument, beliefs about science teaching questionnaire were used as data collection tools of this study. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analyses were used as data analyses technique. Descriptive analysis results revealed that while preservice science teachers had high levels of scientific literacy and beliefs about science teaching, they had low level of personal science teaching efficacy belief. On the other hand, preservice science teachers' science teaching outcome expectancy and grade point average indicating academic achievement was acceptable level. Multiple regression analyses results revealed that preservice science teachers' academic achievement was the best predictor of the variance in preservice science teachers' scientific literacy. Besides, science content knowledge, personal science teaching efficacy belief, and beliefs about science teaching with respect to assessment made significant contribution to explaining science teachers' scientific literacy. Key Words: Scientific literacy, Science teaching efficacy belief, Beliefs about science teaching, DOI: 10.7176/JSTR/7-05-02

The use of VR-based OERs in STEM education has the potential to enhance teaching and learning by making it more immersive and interactive. Despite their increased availability in higher education, there is limited understanding of how these resources support pre-service life science teachers' subject knowledge and pedagogical skills. This study examined the reflections of 13 pre-service life science teachers on VR learning experiences using Human Anatomy VR software, guided by Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT). Through focus group discussions, VR interaction screenshots and eye-tracking data, the study provided qualitative insights into how VR enhanced their understanding of life science topics and reshaped their teaching perspectives. Four key themes emerged: i) immersive engagement with subject knowledge; ii) development of digital pedagogical competencies; iii) evolving perceptions towards VR integration; and iv) challenges such as motion sickness. The study underscores the benefits of VR in improving content mastery and digital teaching skills, offering valuable insights for curriculum developers and policymakers in STEM teacher education. Future research is suggested to explore VR applications in mathematics, physical science, and rural education.

ABSTRACTEducational reform needs to address the role of literacy in science if there is to be any hope of achieving the goal of literacy for all U.S. students. For reading to play a more prominent role in secondary science, teacher education programs need to develop and offer courses that familiarize preservice science teachers with disciplinary literacy. This study examines this question: What tacit reading strategies do preservice science teachers use to understand science texts? This study focuses on structured literacy activities designed to engage preservice secondary science teachers in reading 3 common genres of science texts. Analysis reveals that preservice science teachers use a variety of general comprehension strategies that are consistent with expert reading strategies. Also, preservice science teachers employ reading strategies that attend to genre-specific text features to understand texts. These findings could be used by science teacher educators to inform the design of science methods and disciplinary literacy courses that scaffold the development of pedagogical content knowledge necessary to teach reading as a disciplinary practice.

This study aimed to examine preservice science teachers’ views on the social responsibility of scientists and engineers. A total of 153 students enrolled in Russian public university formed as the participants. We assessed the social responsibility of pre-service teachers using a scale, “Views of Social Responsibility of Scientists and Engineers” (VSRoSE), developed by previous researchers, and included eight different areas of social responsibility. The results indicated that the preservice biology, chemistry, and science teachers who participated in this study had high awareness of human welfare and safety, a sustainable environment, and consideration for social risks and impacts. However, their awareness related to practice and participation was relatively low. Female students had more scores than male students in all areas. The results also revealed that chemistry students had slightly higher average scores than the other majors in all areas of the scale. The average scores in all age groups showed slight differences. This study provides a starting point for researchers and teachers to comprehend preservice science teachers’ views on the social responsibility of scientists and engineers in resolving humanity’s greatest problems from the perspective of preservice science teachers. With this respect, this study contributes insightful information to the literature and fills a gap in the research. We hope that future researchers will concentrate on enhancing pre-service teachers’ understanding of the social responsibility of scientists and engineers and on educating more socially responsible teachers who recognize the importance of science and engineering research’s impact on society. This study also indicates that PSTS were less concerned with the role of social responsibility in promoting scientific research in science and engineering. This finding suggests the necessity of emphasizing the positive impact of science and engineering research on society and the significance of incorporating social impact into teacher education. This emphasis on the significance of social responsibility will assist in comprehending the effects of science and engineering within a social context on professional responsibility.

In this study, pre-service science teachers' anxiety, self-efficacy and attitudes regarding educational technology were investigated. Given the increased emphasis on educational technology in the classroom, teachers' attitudes, anxiety and self-efficacy regarding educational technology are important. The study was conducted with a total of 726 pre-service science teachers enrolled in teacher education courses in Turkey and Switzerland. Three different questionnaires, with appropriate reliability and validity values, were used to collect data for pre-service science teachers' attitudes, anxiety and self-efficacy regarding education technology. The differences between the pre-service science teachers' attitudes, anxiety and self-efficacy regarding education technology were determined by t-test and one-way ANOVA. The data were analysed based on the dimensions of gender, country and age. Pearson's correlation coefficients were used for the relationships amongst the dependent variables. The findings revealed statistically significant differences amongst the pre-service science teachers' anxiety towards educational technology for all three dimensions (gender, country and age). Also, there were meaningful differences amongst the pre-service science teachers' self-efficacy in the three dimensions. When pre-service science teachers' attitudes towards educational technology were considered, there were only differences in the country dimension. The study revealed that pre-service science teachers had a high level of self-efficacy, an average level of anxiety and a high level of positive attitudes towards educational technology, and it also revealed that self-efficacy, anxiety and attitudes regarding educational technology are correlated.

The study aims to examine science teachers' and pre-service science teachers' metaphors about learning, teaching, and teacher concepts and compare their metaphors. The study is designed according to phenomenology research design. The study participants consisted of 62 in-service science teachers working in government schools and 45 pre-service science teachers attending a government university’s science teaching department. The data was collected during the 2017-2018 academic year. The participants were requested to fill in the blanks of three statements: "Learning is like…..; because …….", "Teaching is like…..; because…….", "Teacher is like….; because……". The results displayed that teachers and pre-service teachers generally have different meaning categories. While teachers expressed the concept of “teacher,” they took their own experiences and professional lives into consideration since they are actively working as teachers. On the other hand, pre-service teachers expressed their own teachers and their behaviors while defining the concept of “teacher.” Similarly, when we take a look at the results related to the concept of “student,” while teachers started off with the children they taught, pre-service teachers talked about their own experiences since they are students.

Evolution continues to be a controversial topic around the world but nowhere is this more apparent locally than in the Southeastern region of the USA. In this study, we explored acceptance and rejection of evolution among pre-service science teachers in a teaching college in the rural Southeast and sought to determine (1) what relationships exist between the worldview variables and acceptance of evolution among pre-service secondary science teachers? and (2) Which combination of these variables explains the most statistically significant amount of variance in acceptance of evolution among pre-service secondary science teachers? Regression analysis was used to determine the best-fit model predicting levels of acceptance in this sample, explaining 45 % of variance in acceptance of evolution in 4 variables. The result of this study sheds light on possible remediation for low acceptance of evolution and directions for improved preparation of future science teachers relative to teaching and learning evolution.

While developing the ability of preservice science teachers (PSTs) to teach responsively is regarded as an important goal of science teacher preparation programs, there remains a limited understanding of how and under what conditions PSTs acquire this ability. This paper explores how secondary PSTs learn to enact the core practice of eliciting and working with student thinking through a video- and practice-based teaching intervention designed to enhance their responsive teaching practices. We examined changes in PSTs’ ability to enact this core practice by investigating changes in discourse characteristics and utilizing a multi-grain-sized responsive teaching practice framework to analyze PSTs’ enactment of the core practice during teaching rehearsals. We also investigated PSTs’ perceptions of the usefulness of the teaching intervention and its features in their learning. A mixed-methods analysis of rehearsal videos revealed that PSTs improved their ability to enact the core practice, evidenced by increased student contributions in the discourse and a greater use of responsive discourse practices and moves. However, challenges remained in enacting some responsive teaching practices. Of the 23 PSTs, all reported enhanced abilities to enact the core practice. Only one did not rate the intervention as very or extremely useful. PSTs perceived tool-supported, feedback-rich approximations of practices as useful, as reflected in their ratings of the three most useful features, which include: (1) a practice-based approach, (2) the provision of praxis tools, and (3) feedback from various sources on their core practice enactment. Implications for better supporting PSTs in learning this focal core practice are discussed.

The study aimed to examine pre-service physical education and science education teachers' health-promoting lifestyle profiles, nutrition habits, knowledge of nutrition levels, and their relationships with some demographic variables (gender, department, smoking, physical activity level). The study is a descriptive study conducted in a government university in Türkiye. The samples consisted of fourth-year pre-service physical teachers (N=37) and pre-service science teachers (N=32). Nutrition Habits Assessment Form, Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II instrument (HPLP II), and Nutrition Knowledge Level for Adults Scale, which consisted of two parts, "Basic Nutrition Scale" and "Food Preference Scale," were used as data collection tools. Descriptive statistics and parametric tests analyzed data. Considering differences in the physical activity subscale between different departments, a significantly higher score was recorded among pre-service physical education teachers compared to pre-service science teachers. A significantly higher score was observed in the subscales on interpersonal relations and stress management and Basic Nutrition Scale Score among pre-service science teachers compared to pre-service physical education teachers. A significantly higher score was observed in the subscales on physical activity and interpersonal relations among male compared to female students. The HPLP II scores of the pre-service teachers, which exercised three times more than three times a week, were higher than those who egzersize once a week and didn't exercise.

ABSTRACTCultivating in preservice science teachers (PSTs) the competence required to teach scientific models and modeling is a valued outcome of teacher preparation programs. However, science teacher educators face inherent tensions when designing and implementing teacher preparation experiences to achieve this outcome. In this systematic review, we first propose five sets of design tensions that science teacher educators need to navigate. We identify empirical intervention studies that aimed to develop PSTs' professional competence for teaching scientific models and modeling and analyze how the reviewed interventions addressed the design tensions, and examine their outcomes. Our analysis reveals that the reviewed interventions prioritized the development of PSTs' cognitive aspects of teacher professional competence for teaching scientific models and modeling while giving limited attention to affective–motivational aspects and the need to simultaneously develop aspects of PSTs' competence not specific to scientific models and modeling. The interventions were more successful in enhancing PSTs' declarative knowledge than enacted knowledge and affective–motivational aspects. However, the nature of modeling activities included in the interventions varied widely, posing challenges in identifying critical features that led to the identified positive outcomes. The interventions reported mixed outcomes in developing PSTs' enacted knowledge in teaching contexts, even when incorporating activities for knowledge application and knowledge transfer beyond the intervention context. We discuss the implications of these findings and provide recommendations for better‐preparing PSTs to teach scientific models and modeling. We also discuss the unique affordance of using the design tension framework to analyze the interventions.

Fen bilgisi öğretmenlerinin farklı türde çok sayıda etmenin yer aldığı öğrenme ortamlarında öğrencilerin fen ile ilişkili düşüncelerine katılmaları, analiz etmeleri ve öğretimlerinin bir sonraki adımını planlamaları gerekmektedir. Fark etme becerisi olarak isimlendirilen bu beceriler yetkin bir öğretmenin etkili bir şekilde yerine getirmesi gereken uygulamalardır. Ancak öğretmen ve öğretmen adaylarının bu becerileri hakkında veri toplamak için araştırmalarda kullanılan video kamera ve video klip gibi araçların yüksek maliyetli ve zaman açısından verimsiz olmaları yapılacak çalışmaları güçleştirmektedir. Bu sebeple bu çalışmanın iki amacı vardır: (1) fen bilgisi öğretmen adaylarının fark etme becerilerini ölçmek için uygulanması kolay, düşük maliyetli ve zengin bir veri sağlayan geçerli ve güvenilir bir ölçme aracı geliştirmek ve (2) fen bilgisi öğretmen adaylarının fark etme becerilerinin seviyesini belirlemektir. Bu doğrultuda araştırma sorgulama bağlamında ve elektrik devreleri içeriğinde öğrenci deney raporları tasarlanarak veri toplama aracı olarak kullanılmıştır. Ölçeğin geçerlik çalışması için uzman görüşü alınmış ve fen bilgisi öğretmen adaylarıyla pilot çalışması yapılmıştır. Kodlama listesi ve rubrikler kullanılarak analizler sırasında kodlayıcılar arası güvenirlik sağlanmıştır. Sonuçlar tasarlanan öğrenci deney raporlarının fen bilgisi öğretmen adaylarının fark etme becerilerini ölçmek için geçerli ve güvenilir olduğunu göstermiştir. Ayrıca, fen bilgisi öğretmen adaylarının fark etme becerilerinin yeterince iyi bir seviyede olmadığı ortaya çıkmıştır. Buna göre fen bilgisi öğretmen adayları çoğunlukla öğrencilerin fen ile ilişkili olan düşünceleri yerine daha genel öğelere katılım göstermiş, öğrencilerin düşünceleri ve becerilerine katılım gösterdiği öğeleri genellikle düşük bir seviyede analiz etmiş ve öğrenmenin bir sonraki adımını planlamada yeterince etkili olamamışlardır. Ulaşılan sonuçlara göre tasarlanan ölçme aracının kullanımı ve fen bilgisi öğretmen adaylarının fark etme becerilerine ilişkin önerilerde bulunulmuştur.

Background:Pre-service science teachers’ conceptual understanding of astronomical concepts and their misconceptions in these concepts is crucial to study since they will teach these subjects in middle schools after becoming teachers. This study aimed to explore both 7th-grade students’ and the science teachers’ understanding of astronomical concepts and to diagnose the misconceptions of 7th-grade students and pre-service science teachers regarding some basic astronomy concepts derived from a three-tier test.Materials and methods:The test was administered to 105 pre-service science teachers and 91 seventh-grade students. The best conceptual understanding was related to the properties of the Sun.Results:The students and pre-service science teachers have some common misconceptions in astronomy. Pre-service teachers mostly have misconceptions not regarding complex concepts but instead in very basic knowledge of astronomy.Conclusions:There is a need to take serious measures to correct the misconceptions of the teachers, since under such circumstances it is optimistic to expect them to teach the subject correctly.

The study explored the changes in pre-service science teachers’ understanding of the nature of science and their opinions about the nature of science, science teaching and argumentation after their participation in explicit nature of science (NOS) and socioscientific argumentation processes. The participants were 56 third-grade pre-service science teachers studying in a state university in Turkey. The treatment group comprised 27 participants, and there were 29 participants in the comparison group. The comparison group participants were involved in a student-centred science-teaching process, and the participants of the treatment group were involved in explicit NOS and socioscientific argumentation processes. In the study, which lasted a total of 11 weeks, a NOS-as-argumentation questionnaire was administered to all the participants to determine their understanding of NOS at the beginning and end of the data collection process, and six random participants of the treatment group participated in semi-structured interview questions in order to further understand their views regarding NOS, science teaching and argumentation. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis revealed that the explicit NOS and socioscientific argumentation processes had a significant effect on pre-service science teachers’ NOS understandings. Furthermore, NOS, argumentation and science teaching views of the participants in the treatment group showed a positive change. The results of this study are discussed in light of the related literature, and suggestions are made within the context of contribution to science-teaching literature, improvement of education quality and education of pre-service teachers.