Developing Turkish preservice preschool teachers’ attitudes and understanding about teaching science through play

Dr. Bulunuz

Published: April 10, 2012

This research studied the development of preservice teachers’ understandings and attitudes about teaching science through playful experiences. Subjects were 94 senior preservice teachers in two sections of a science methods class on teaching preschool children. Data sources were semi-structured interviews and open-ended questionnaire at the beginning and end of the semester, students’ reflections on their field placement implementation, and a Playful Science Survey. At the beginning of the course, preservice teachers perceived teaching science through play primarily as drama and puppetry and saw it as an instrument for teaching, demonstrating, having fun, making competition, and making learning easier. At the …

Investigating student attitudes and achievements in an environmental place-based inquiry in secondary classrooms

Brian T. Gautreau,

Ian C. Binns

Published: April 10, 2012

Student attitudes toward science and content achievements were examined in three secondary Biology I classrooms using an environmentally place-based curriculum as well as a traditional curriculum. Student attitudes were measured using Likert-scale science attitude surveys administered at the beginning of the school year and once again following completion of weeklong ecology curricula. Content achievements were assessed on a pre- and post-test as well as an end-of-unit test. The quantitative results show some attitude measures are correlated with ability-group tracking, and that little change in science attitudes occurred during the course of the study for the three groups. Results also indicate …

Omani pre-service science teachers’ views about global warming: Beliefs about actions and willingness to act

Abdullah Ambusaidi,

Neil Taylor,

Edward Boyes,

Martin Stanisstreet

Published: April 10, 2012

A 44-item questionnaire was employed to determine pre-service teachers’ beliefs about how useful various specific actions might be in helping to reduce global warming, their willingness to undertake these same actions, and the extent to which these two might be related. The instrument was administered to pre-service science teachers (n=104) at the Sultan Qaboos University in the Sultanate of Oman. The findings indicate that the majority of these Omani pre-service science teachers believed that global warming and associated climate change is happening now and they are concerned about it. Furthermore, they are aware of the measures that individuals could take …

Science teachers and the dissection debate: Perspectives on animal dissection and alternatives

Jan Oakley

Published: April 10, 2012

This study investigated Ontario science and biology teachers’ practices and attitudes toward animal dissection and dissection alternatives. The data was collected through a mixed methods approach involving online surveys (n=153) and subsequent telephone interviews (n=9) with secondary school science and biology teachers. The findings indicate that teachers identify strengths and drawbacks to both dissection and alternatives, but the majority continue to strongly favour traditional dissection and see it as vital to biology education. Further, although teachers expressed concerns with dissection, their concerns were overshadowed by an overall dissatisfaction with alternatives. It is argued that teachers need to engage more deeply …

Secondary teachers’ conceptions of creative thinking within the context of environmental education

Maria Daskolia,

Athanasios Dimos,

Panagiotis G. Kampylis

Published: April 10, 2012

Creative thinking in Environmental Education (EE) remains greatly under researched topic. Research on teachers’ conceptions of creative thinking within EE context is also limited, although their role in facilitating creative thinking in students is well documented. The small-scale qualitative study presented here investigates Greek secondary teachers’ conceptions of creative thinking in EE. Empirical data were collected based on nonstructured interviews with 20 secondary teachers with diverse backgrounds and subject expertise. Among the findings of the study is that participants view creative thinking as a thinking process that can or should be enhanced within the context of EE. All four key …

A longitudinal study to identify prospective science teachers’ beliefs about science teaching using the draw-a-science-teacher-test checkli

Abdullah Ambusaidi,

Edward Boyes,

Martin Stanisstreet,

Neil Taylor

Published: April 10, 2012

This is a longitudinal study aimed at revealing the beliefs of prospective science teachers in the College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University/Sultanate of Oman about science teaching. To achieve this aim a Draw-A-Science-Teacher-Test Checklist (DASTT-C) tool was used. The study sample consisted of (45) prospective science teachers in the College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University. The instrument was applied to the sample three times: before the Science Method I course, after finishing this course and after finishing the Science Method II course and the Practicum. The results revealed that after completing the Science Methods I course, prospective science …

Metacognition in Science Education: Trends in Current Research

Umesh Ramnarain

Published: April 10, 2012

Book review Metacognition in Science Education

The Inclusion of Environmental Education in Science Teacher Education

Astrid Steele

Published: April 10, 2012

Book review The Inclusion of Environmental Education in Science Teacher Education