Preservice Teachers’ Instructional Beliefs and Examination of Consistency Between Beliefs and Practices

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to determine preservice physics teachers' instructional beliefs and to investigate the relationship between their beliefs and practices. The theoretical framework was based on the combination Haney & McArthur's (Science Education, 86 (6): [783][784][785][786][787][788][789][790][791][792][793][794][795][796][797][798][799][800][801][802] 2002) research and Ford's (1992) motivation systems theory. A multicase study design was utilized for the research in order to focus on a beliefpractice relationship within several examples. Semistructured interviews, observations, and preservice teachers' written documents were used to collect data. Results showed that most preservice teachers held instructional beliefs aligned with constructivist philosophy. Some of the preservice teachers' beliefs were consistent with their practices while some of them presented different practices from their beliefs in different placements.

Attitude level of prospective science teachers towards assessment

“…Results of this study are generally in line with the previous finding 9 . It was also found that the attitude level of prospective science teachers towards assessment in Turkey is categorized as close to constructivist.…”

“…In the traditional model of assessment, the main purpose of assessment is to place students according to certain characteristics. Meanwhile the purpose of the assessment according to constructivist epistemology is to determine the nature of learners to construct knowledge 9,10 . Furthermore, Bekirglu states that the dichotomy attitude level of prospective science teachers towards assessment may be used for provisioning process improvement assessment for prospective teachers 9 .…”

“…Moreover, there is a positive correlation between attitudes prospective teachers towards the assessment and instructional practices. In other words, the application of various forms of assessment in assessing student learning are affected by attitudes towards assessment 9 . This study aim to identify attitudes level of prospective science teachers towards assessment.…”

“…The questionnaire was adopted from Bekiroglu (2009). It was designed with regard to four aspects, namely the prospective science teachers attitude towards assessment (cognitive level of assessment, type of assessment, and criterion of evaluation), prospective science teachers instructional practice, internal difficulties that prospective science teachers experienced related to their assessment skills, and the use of assessment process of prospective science teachers.…”

Describing Physics Student Teachers' Orientations through Lesson Planning

“…[31] argued that beliefs, applications and orientations of beginning teachers are more flexible and can be changed by factors such as students, teachers, programs and school environment. The excerpt of ST5 in Table 3 supports the statement, due to [32], 'if the context is not suitable for the teachers after they graduate from TEPs, they may not perform their constructivist beliefs in their profession and go back to traditional beliefs after some time'. According to the expression by ST35 in Table 3, there is a probability that student-centred orientations can be replaced by a teacher-centred one due to contextual conditions; especially the pre-service secondary science teacher's belief orientations are unstable and have a tendency to change [4,7].…”