Personal Definitions Of Science And The Self Efficacy And Classroom Practice Of Elementary School Teachers

Download or read book Personal Definitions of Science and the Self-efficacy and Classroom Practice of Elementary School Teachers written by Deborah L. Hanson and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science is a subject that many elementary teachers struggle to teach. One of the reasons documented in the literature is the low science teaching self-efficacy of many elementary teachers. This study investigated possible connections between how a teacher defines science (her personal definition of science) and her science teaching self-efficacy. Thirteen teachers participating in Science EDUCATES, a professional development program that emphasized NOS, scientific inquiry and physical science content knowledge, were investigated to see how their science teaching self-efficacy was impacted as changes to their personal definition of science occurred. Two of these teachers were selected for further study; in addition, two teachers, outside the professional development, were also studied. Personal definitions of science were gathered using the VNOS-D2 and VOSI-E survey instruments while science teaching self-efficacy was measured by the STEBI survey. Interviews and classroom observations were conducted to see the patterns that emerged between the teachers' personal definition of science, their science self-efficacy and their classroom practices. The teachers in the professional development did increase their science teaching self-efficacy and contributed this increase to their enhanced knowledge about NOS and how scientific knowledge is generated. This increased science content knowledge led to a statistically significant difference in the PSTE scores of the teachers. Teachers with low to mid science teaching self-efficacy levels seem to have various elements embedded within their personal definition of science that prevents them from engaging fully in science. Their science practices seem to pattern those subjects, like social studies or language arts, they are more comfortable teaching. Understanding NOS helped the teachers to change their personal definitions of science and place their classroom practices more in line with the recommendations in the national reform documents. Teachers were able to incorporate NOS into their classroom practices by making multi-disciplinary connections between NOS and other subject areas. It does appear, however, that no direct relationship exists between one's personal definition of science and science teaching self-efficacy. One cannot predict a teacher's science teaching self-efficacy based solely on their definitions of science; however, low science self-efficacy teachers can benefit from studying NOS.