Resilience of Science Teaching Philosophies and Practice in Early Career Primary Teaching Graduates
Full Text (PDF)
Rex Bartholomew 1 * , Dayle Anderson 1, Azra Moeed 1
More Detail
1 Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
* Corresponding Author

Abstract

There has been recent concern over the variable quality of science teaching in New Zealand primary schools. One reason suggested has been the relatively low levels of science education components in initial teacher education (ITE) programmes. This paper follows a cohort of recent teacher graduates from a science education course in their ITE programme through the first two years of their teaching career. Their beliefs in science education, their confidence in their science subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, and use of strategies suggested in their ITE science course were explored. It was found that the teachers retained their positive views of science in the curriculum, and confidence in their ability to teach science grew. The use of student and investigation-centred teaching strategies increased as the new teachers experienced success with the approaches. These outcomes are discussed in light of recent changes in primary curriculum emphasis on literacy and numeracy, and ITE science course contractions.

Keywords

License

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2012.824a

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, 2012 - Volume 8 Issue 2, pp. 103-112

Publication date: 12 Jan 2012

Article Views: 656

Article Downloads: 297

Open Access References How to cite this article