Student teachers' prior experiences of history, geography and science: initial findings of an all-Ireland survey

Research into student teachers' perceptions, attitudes and prior experiences of learning suggests that these experiences can exert an influence on practice which can be relatively undisturbed by their initial teacher education. This article is based on the initial findings of an all-Ireland survey of all first-year students on B.Ed. courses in colleges in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. The survey is the first stage in a longitudinal study which will follow the same cohort of students for the duration of their initial teacher education, seeking to map and track the development of their ideas about teaching and learning in primary history, geography and science. Based on an analysis of the quantitative data in the entry questionnaire, the initial findings suggest that subject knowledge remains a problematic issue in initial teacher education and that both location and gender interact with knowledge, attitudes and subject area to produce a complex and challenging context for teacher educators in history, geography and science education.

Primary science teacher confidence revisited: ten years on

Background

A survey of sidedness in Northern Irish schoolchildren: The interaction of sex, age, and task

The study examined lateral preference in use of hands, feet, eyes, and ears in a group of nearly 5000 schoolchildren in Northern Ireland. Performance tests were carried out by student teachers during their school-based work in 2002 and data were submitted on-line. Six tasks were used-writing, throwing a ball, kicking a ball, hopping, listening to quiet sounds, and looking through a cardboard tube. There was right bias in every task but the extent of it differed between tasks. Males were generally less right biased than females, and younger children less than older ones; for hearing, the changes with age were markedly different in the two sexes, with females showing a strong increase in right bias but males showing none. These observational results do little to illuminate the reasons for the patterns observed.

Children making sense of science

Abstract This study explored the effects that the incorporation of nature of science (NoS) activities in the primary science classroom had on children’s perceptions and understanding of science. We compared children’s ideas in four classes by inviting them to talk, draw and write about what science meant to them: two of the classes were taught by ‘NoS’ teachers who had completed an elective nature of science (NoS) course in the final year of their Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree. The ‘non-NoS’ teachers who did not attend this course taught the other two classes. All four teachers had graduated from the same initial teacher education institution with similar teaching grades and all had carried out the same science methods course during their B.Ed programme. We found that children taught by the teachers who had been NoS-trained developed more elaborate notions of nature of science, as might be expected. More importantly, their reflections on science and their science lessons evidenced a more in-depth and sophisticated articulation of the scientific process in terms of scientists “trying their best” and “sometimes getting it wrong” as well as “getting different answers”. Unlike children from non-NoS classes, those who had engaged in and reflected on NoS activities talked about their own science lessons in the sense of ‘doing science’. These children also expressed more positive attitudes about their science lessons than those from non-NoS classes. We therefore suggest that there is added value in including NoS activities in the primary science curriculum in that they seem to help children make sense of science and the scientific process, which could lead to improved attitudes towards school science. We argue that as opposed to considering the relevance of school science only in terms of children’s experience, relevance should include relevance to the world of science, and NoS activities can help children to link school science to science itself.