Research: Science and Education
First-Year Science Education Student Teachers' Beliefs about Student- and Teacher-Centeredness: Parallels and Differences between Chemistry and Other Science Teaching Domains Silvija Markic and Ingo Eilks* Department of Biology and Chemistry, Institute of Science Education, Didactics of Chemistry, University of Bremen, 28334 Bremen, Germany *
[email protected] Science is taught in secondary schools as an integrated subject in many countries around the world. Conversely, some nations maintain separate school subjects for the different science disciplines. This is the case in Germany where secondary schools (grades 5-13) teach three different science subjects: chemistry, biology, and physics. Different instructors teach these individual subjects; science education students must choose a specific science discipline before the beginning of their university training to become a teacher. Other science education students choose to teach at the primary level (grades 1-4) where science is still taught in an integrated fashion. Each subject differs in its content matter and is perceived differently by students as well. In Germany, chemistry and physics are relatively unpopular subjects with students in comparison to biology or primary school science (1). This raises a question of whether the negative perception of chemistry and physics stems solely from the subject matter, or whether varying teaching styles in these subjects also add to students' negative connotation of studying chemistry and physics. To address this question, we chose to study beliefs about science teaching at the exact point where former students decide to become future science teachers. Various studies have evaluated first-year science education students'1 beliefs about science teaching and learning and have included the four different science teaching domains: chemistry, biology, and physics at the secondary level, plus primary school science. The beginning science education students in this study were in the phase where they had just completed secondary school but had not yet had any university education in their chosen fields. Our study integrated different qualitative and quantitative instruments (2). In this research paper, a quantitative differentiation concerning student- and teacher-centeredness between the four subgroups is presented as measured by the Draw-A-ScienceTeacher-Test Checklist (DASTT-C) (3). Here, we discuss the data from a total of 266 first-year science education students from four separate German universities. The results show the importance of reflecting upon students' reasoning when deciding to become science teachers in chemistry or one of the other three subjects. These results also demand putting some thought into the perceived teaching style that the first-year science education students most probably experienced themselves as students in primary and secondary school.
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Theoretical Framework and Research Question In many research studies, the concept of “teachers' beliefs” was used as a theoretical framework for investigating the “how” and “why” of teachers' actual behavior. The construct “beliefs” covers all the ideas that lead, consciously or unconsciously, to teachers' decisions about which ways to teach, how to act, and why to organize their teaching in the way they do (4). Bandura (5) viewed beliefs as one of the best indicators of why a person behaves, handles information, and makes decisions in a certain way, concerning all kinds of interactions between teachers and pupils. Beliefs about teaching and learning always include beliefs related to a teacher's discipline or subject (6). Every science teacher possesses personal beliefs about teaching and learning that influence both choices about teaching strategies, and teaching behaviors (7), as well as developmental steps in teacher training (8). For chemistry education, Koballa et al. (6) evaluated the beliefs of German grammar school (in German: “Gymnasium”) student-teachers and described chemistry student-teachers' beliefs as being transmission-oriented rather than oriented to the theory of constructivism. A similar situation was described by Fischler (8) for German physics trainees, who categorized physics teaching as generally having a very dominant teacher and passive pupils, which evoked bad memories of physics classes. Furthermore, Fischler revealed that such experiences have a very strong influence on the student-teachers' behavior when standing in front of a class for the first few times. The situation seems to be different for primary school science teachers. Skamp and Mueller (9) showed that these student-teachers held a belief in the active involvement of their pupils in hands-on activities at the beginning of the university education program. This was despite the fact that their pupils' active participation was directly guided by textbook approaches. In biology, Lemberger, Hewson, and Park (10) described secondary school teachers' beliefs about learning as positivistic, and their beliefs about teaching as centered on knowledge transfer. These studies stemmed from different countries, cultures, and educational systems. The overall evidence tends to indicate that education students in secondary science are more contentfocused, teacher-centered, and less oriented on the theory of constructivism in comparison with education students preparing
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r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Vol. 87 No. 3 March 2010 10.1021/ed8000864 Published on Web 02/09/2010
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Research: Science and Education Table 1. Draw-a-Science-Teacher-Test-Checklista
a
Adapted from ref 3. b A score of 1 indicates the attribute is present; 0 indicates the attribute is not present. Totals range from 0 to 13.
to teach primary school science. However, information about differences between the three domains of secondary science teaching cannot be obtained from these studies. Furthermore, no direct comparison was available between primary and secondary science teachers' beliefs concerning a specific science subject or level among teachers with the same educational background. To fill this gap, the current study evaluates first-year science education students' beliefs about the student- or teacher-centeredness of teaching in the four domains in the natural sciences (primary school science and secondary-level chemistry, biology, and physics). The students all came from a common educational and regional background (2, 11, 12). This study intends to examine the quantitative differences between the different groups of first-year science education students with regard to student- or teacher-centeredness of science teaching. Method and Sample The central idea behind the Draw-A-Science-Teacher-Test Checklist as developed by Thomas et al. (3) is to ask teachers or teacher trainees to spontaneously draw themselves and their students in a typical teaching situation. This drawing exercise asks the participants the question “How do you see yourself as a teacher of science?” The drawing is accompanied by two open questions asking the teacher to describe both the instructor's and the students' activities in the teaching situation. This tool is used 336
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to create a “snapshot” of the teachers' (in this case, first-year science education student teachers') beliefs. Thomas et al. (3) developed a rating scale based on a 13point checklist of teacher- and student-centered attributes in three areas (teacher, students, and environment). Each of the 13 attributes (see Table 1) within the three sections is scored with either 1 or 0, representing the presence or absence of each attribute, respectively. Total scores range from 0 to 13. Scores of 0-4 indicate a fairly student-centered teaching approach, whereas scores of 7-13 mark a fairly teacher-centered teaching approach. For scores of 5 or 6, no decision can be made (3). In their work, Thomas et al. defined teacher-centeredness as follows (3 p 293): [T]hose classrooms and teaching events where the teacher is at the center of instruction and learning. In this instructional model, the teacher is the knowledge conduit and the classroom environment is organized to facilitate the teacher as the knowledge conduit. Student input is acknowledged but not expected and the learning curriculum is focused on specific outcomes.
For student-centeredness, Thomas and co-workers articulated this definition (3, p 298): [T]he students are at the center of learning and the teacher guides or facilitates activities and investigations. The classroom environment is open and encourages student inquiry and exploration. Students manage their own learning and generally set the direction in which lessons proceed.
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r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Research: Science and Education
Figure 1. Examples from the science education students' drawings. Table 2. DASTT-C Inter-Rater Reliability Scores by Sample Group Sample Groups
a
κ Values
Whole sample (N = 266)
0.80
Physics (N = 45)
0.72
Chemistry (N = 80)
0.77
Biology (N = 75)
0.82
Primary school science (N = 66)
0.79
a
Cohen's κ coefficient measures inter-rater agreement: values of 0.61-0.80 are typically deemed “substantial agreement”; values of 0.81-1.00 are typically deemed “almost perfect agreement”.
Data were collected from a total of 266 science student teachers from four different German universities in each of the four science domains. The sample was composed of first-year science education students: 80 in chemistry, 45 in physics, 75 in biology, and 66 preparing for primary school science. The subjects made their drawings and filled out the accompanying questionnaire within the first two weeks of their university teacher-training program. This was at the very start of universitylevel education for nearly all of the student teachers; therefore, they had not yet been influenced by the university teachertraining program. Most of the students in the sample were 19-20 years old, meaning they had just completed their secondary school education before going directly to university. All of the students' drawings were independently rated by two researchers according to the DASTT checklist. The inter-rater reliability was sufficiently high throughout all subgroups of the sample (Table 2). In a few cases of disagreement, the two researchers reviewed the data together and a joint score was negotiated through intersubjective agreement as discussed by Swanborn (13). Findings Figure 1 shows two examples from the student teacher questionnaires, with one expressing quite teacher-centered views, whereas the other delineates a student-centered learning environment. Table 3 presents the rating results of the student
r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
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teachers' drawings according to the DASTT-Checklist (3). Looking at the absolute numbers and relative frequencies, we can see that the majority of biology first-year science education students and, even more pronouncedly, primary school science education students demonstrated student-centered beliefs of teaching their subject in school (Table 3). In contrast, first-year science education students from chemistry and, especially, physics tended to draw classroom situations indicating more teachercentered beliefs. From the calculated means and applied t-tests (Tables 4 and 5), we see that the physics first-year science education students in this sample expressed significantly stronger teachercentered beliefs on average when compared to any other group. However, the chemistry education students in our sample also showed significantly stronger teacher-centered beliefs on average than did those students intending to teach biology or primary school science. Discussion The majority of chemistry students from this sample showed teacher-centered beliefs. This is despite the fact that modern theories of learning and instruction are based on a framework of constructivism (14), which calls for studentcentered teaching approaches. Many promising examples are readily available to prospective teachers (15, 16). This tendency toward teacher-centered beliefs was, however, weaker than that seen among physics education students. In contrast, students planning to become secondary biology or primary school science teachers fall more in line with modern educational theory and prove that not all German science education students in the natural sciences possess such teacher-centered beliefs. Although our sample was not tested to determine whether it was representative, the sample is large and the composition in terms of age, gender, and so on is comparable to typical student groups at most German universities. The tendencies described above were determined to be highly significant (see Table 5); the presented results are in line with findings in refs 11 and 12 which
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Research: Science and Education Table 3. Distribution of Scores Indicating Student- or Teacher-Centered Attitudes by Sample Group Number (%) of Sample Group Respondents for Each Checklist Score Physics (N = 45)
Chemistry (N = 80)
Biology (N = 75)
Primary School Science (N = 66)
0
0 (0.0)
0 (0.0)
10 (13.3)
14 (21.1)
1
0 (0.0)
3 (3.8)
5 (6.7)
4 (6.1)
2
3 (6.7)
6 (7.5)
5 (6.7)
8 (12.1)
3
0 (0.0)
8 (10.0)
9 (12.0)
11 (16.7)
DASTT-Checklist Score
4
2 (4.4)
5 (6.3)
3 (4.0)
12 (18.2)
5 (11.1)
22 (27.5)
32 (42.7)
49 (74.2)
5
2 (4.4)
3 (3.8)
7 (9.3)
2 (3.0)
6
2 (4.4)
2 (2.5)
8 (10.7)
4 (6.1)
Subtotal: Neither student-centered nor teacher-centered scores (5-6)
4 (8.9)
5 (6.3)
15 (20.0)
6 (9.1)
7
7 (15.6)
8 (10.0)
4 (5.3)
2 (3.0)
8
5 (11.1)
7 (8.8)
9 (12.0)
2 (3.0) 3 (4.5)
Subtotal: Student-centered scores (0-4)
9
3 (6.7)
20 (25.0)
6 (8.0)
10
5 (11.1)
10 (12.5)
7 (9.3)
2 (3.0)
11
9 (20.0)
5 (6.3)
1 (1.3)
2 (3.0)
12
7 (15.6)
2 (2.5)
1 (1.3)
0 (0.0)
13 Subtotal: Teacher-centered scores (7-13) Table 4. Sample Group Comparisons of Student- or Teacher-Centered Attitudes Mean Valuesa
SD
Physics (45)
8.56
2.92
Chemistry (80)
7.13
3.16
Biology (75)
5.12
3.44
Primary school science (66)
3.55
3.04
Sample Groups (N)
a
Mean values based on DASTT-C scores (range of 0-13).
Table 5. Comparative t-Test Results by Sample Group Sample Groups (Total N = 266)
Physics (N = 45)
Chemistry (N = 80)
0.016a
Chemistry
;
Biology
