Pre-service Elementary Teachers’ Images of Scientific Practices: a Social, Epistemic, Conceptual, and Material Dimension Perspective

Abstract

This qualitative study aimed to explore what are pre-service elementary teachers’ (N = 325) conceptualizations of scientific practices prior to their entry into the science teaching methods course through their drawn images and narratives of the scientists (male and female) and teacher as scientists. Data (drawings, narratives, and responses to reflective prompts) were analyzed inductively and then deductively using a conceptual framework that comprised of constructs from the four dimensions of scientific communities, science-as-practice, science knowledge-building practices, current policy statements, and literature on scientific practices. Analysis indicated differences between participants’ images of scientists and images of the teacher as scientist. The differences were predominantly inherent in the visible activities scientists and teachers as scientists were engaged in and these activities included the following: (1) Theoretical activities which were focused on presenting and communicating science content as a finished product to an audience (students or scientists); (2) General Scientific Inquiry activities, which were focused on commencing, carrying out, and completing experiments and enacted agency towards experiments/investigations devoid of conceptual accounts and results for scientific findings; and (3) Specific Scientific Inquiry activities, which were focused on specific actions to investigate, to resolve and to reason about scientific phenomena. Implications include the need for science teacher educators to modify their curriculum such that their pre-service teachers can experience authentic investigations centered on contextualized accounts of knowledge construction with scientific practices and the professional vision of seeing and the articulation of what is seen in relation to scientific practices.