Issue 1, 2008

A case study on German first year chemistry student teachers beliefs about chemistry teaching, and their comparison with student teachers from other science teaching domains

Abstract

This paper gives insights into the beliefs of 85 German first year chemistry student teachers about chemistry teaching and learning at the beginning of their teacher education. The study is based on student teachers drawings of themselves in a typical classroom situation and four open questions. The approach evaluated: (I) Beliefs about Classroom Organisation, (II) Beliefs about Teaching Objectives, and (III) Epistemological Beliefs. The tool, evaluation pattern and the results of the 85 first year chemistry student teachers evaluated by Grounded Theory are discussed and compared with similar studies from secondary biology, secondary physics, and primary science education, respectively. The results show that the first year chemistry student teachers in this sample hold heterogeneous beliefs about science teaching and learning. A minority are oriented around modern theories of learning, especially in their epistemological beliefs; the majority tend towards more traditional beliefs of chemistry teaching, not in line with modern educational theory. The latter tendencies are not as strong as they are among their physics colleagues. Beliefs of their biology colleagues and even more so among first year primary science student teachers from our sample are much more student-centred, oriented towards scientific literacy and constructivistic learning. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

Article information

Article type
Paper

Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2008,9, 25-34

A case study on German first year chemistry student teachers beliefs about chemistry teaching, and their comparison with student teachers from other science teaching domains

S. Markic and I. Eilks, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2008, 9, 25 DOI: 10.1039/B801288C

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements