Teaching and Learning Beliefs of Preservice Science Teachers from Different Grade Levels

Abstract

Preservice teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning have gained increasedattention. Therefore, many studies in the field of educational research have focused onpreservice teachers' beliefs to reveal their images of teaching and learning throughdifferent instruments. Preservice teachers’ drawings of teaching and learningsituations constitute one of these instruments. Drawing is used commonly because itallows one to represent vivid images of mental models which may not be expressedverbally. In this study, the Draw-a-Science-Teacher-Test (DASTT) was used to revealparticipants’ beliefs of teaching and learning of science. The research sample included134 preservice science teachers from different grade levels. Also, the relationshipsbetween gender and among grade levels of the participants were investigated. Theresults showed that preservice science teachers had educational perspectives includingcharacteristics of both teacher-centered and student-centered instruction. The resultsalso showed that there was no significant difference between educational perspectiveswith respect to gender and the grade levels of the participants. However, seniorstudents had different instructional understandings from other participants by givingscience teachers a role of doing experiments or activities instead of spending thewhole class time just by talking and standing in front of students. Similarly, the seniorstudents imagined a science class as arranged with U-shaped rows or with oval tables,which allows their students to study in groups instead of a science class arranged inrows.