elementary preservice teachers: constructing conceptions about learning science, teaching science...

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Elementary preservice teachers:constructing conceptions aboutlearning science, teaching scienceand the nature of scienceBrenda J. Gustafson a & Patricia M. Rowell aa Department of Elementary Education , University ofAlberta , Room551, Education South, Edmonton, Alberta,Canada, T6G 2G5Published online: 25 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Brenda J. Gustafson & Patricia M. Rowell (1995) Elementary preserviceteachers: constructing conceptions about learning science, teaching science and thenature of science, International Journal of Science Education, 17:5, 589-605, DOI:10.1080/0950069950170504

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INT. j . sci. EDUC., 1995, VOL. 17, NO. 5, 589-605

Elementary preservice teachers:constructing conceptions about learningscience, teaching science and the natureof science

Brenda J. Gustafson and Patricia M. Rowell, Department of ElementaryEducation, Room 551, Education South, University of Alberta,Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2G5

Elementary preservice teachers' conceptions of learning science, teaching science and the nature of sciencewere elicited through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews at the beginning and end of twosenior undergraduate elementary science education courses. Responses and comments were analysed andsimilar conceptions of learning, teaching and science were grouped together. Analysis of the responsesreveals that few changes to these conceptions occurred over the 13-week length of the courses and wetherefore focus our discussion on the complicated question: why did there appear to be such modest changesto the preservice teachers' initial ideas about learning, teaching science and the nature of science?

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a growing acceptance among educators that childrenbring ideas to classrooms which can influence their understanding of classroomscience. Children's prior ideas are usually derived from everyday life experiences andcan remain uninfluenced or influenced in unanticipated ways by classroom science.One message about children's learning arising from the research in this area is thatchildren actively construct personal understandings through making links betweenprior ideas and ideas presented by the teacher and other students. This constructionof meaning requires children to take responsibility for their learning and to makethe effort to recall information and imaginatively reconstruct the new with the old(Freyberg and Osborne 1985).

Preservice teachers also bring ideas to their undergraduate courses which mayor may not be influenced by the learning situation. Researchers have attempted toaccess these ideas using a variety of direct and indirect methods and have furthertried to determine what might influence preservice teachers to change their ideas(Kagan 1992, Weinstein 1989). Within the area of science education research,preservice teachers' ideas about children's learning, science teaching and the natureof science have received modest attention at the elementary level (Abell andSmith 1992, Bloom 1989), but have received some attention at the secondary level(Aguirre et al. 1990, Gurney 1990, Haggerty 1990,1992, Hewson and Hewson 1987,Parsons-Chatman 1990). These studies show that preservice teachers hold a varietyof conceptions about science, science teaching and children's learning and suggest

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590 RESEARCH REPORTS

that these conceptions can affect the ways in which preservice teachers think abouttheir undergraduate science education courses and the way in which they eventuallyapproach science teaching in their future classrooms.

This study was carried out with elementary preservice teachers enrolled in afour-year Bachelor of Education programme. It is based on the assumption thatindividuals learn through the interaction of ideas and experiences. For elementarypreservice teachers, this suggests that their understanding of children's sciencelearning and the potential role they will play in that leaning may be extended whenthey have opportunities to think of themselves as learners and to consider how theirown ideas about science, children's learning and science teaching change duringscience education courses. This paper deals with the preservice teachers' conceptionsof children's learning, teaching science and the nature of science.

Study methods

Participants

Twenty-seven (5 male, 22 female) preservice teachers enrolled in optionalsenior-level elementary science education courses participated in this study. All thepreservice teachers had completed a compulsory junior-level elementary scienceeducation course and had completed the four-week and eight-week practicumcomponents of the undergraduate programme.

This study was carried out over a 13-week term and involved the use of twoquestionnaires (see Appendices A and B) designed by the authors and a series ofinterviews with eight of the 27 preservice teachers.

Initial questionnaire

The initial questionnaire was administered to the 27 preservice teachers during thefirst week of the two elementary science education courses. Preservice teachers wereasked to provide information about their science backgrounds, junior-levelelementary science education course, practicum experiences, opinions about howchildren learn science, views of science teaching, opinions about the role of sciencein the elementary curriculum and views of the nature of science.

Final questionnaire

A final questionnaire was administered to the 27 preservice teachers during the finalweek of the two courses. At that time, the preservice teachers were asked to commenton how and why their views had or had not changed with regard to how childrenlearn science, how science should be taught, the nature of science and why childrenmay have a variety of ideas about an activity. They were also asked to write downideas about their future science classrooms.

Interviews

Four preservice teachers from each of the two courses who displayed a range of viewsabout science, science teaching and science learning were asked to participate in threeinterviews scheduled for January, February and April. These interviews allowed

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LEARNING, TEACHING AND THE NATURE OF SCIENCE 591

more in-depth exploration of questionnaire responses and provided insight into thedevelopment of ideas which were, in part, influenced by participation in the twocourses.

Course descriptions

The two courses were taught by the authors and both included discussion of theconstructivist view of learning, emphasized group work, class discussion and sharingideas, and allowed time for students to reflect on their personal beliefs and thepractical implications of a constructivist view of learning.

'Approaches to Elementary School Science1 began with students listing anddiscussing their initial ideas about teaching, learning and science. In subsequentweeks, students read, discussed and participated in group activities which were basedon the view of teaching and learning arising from research reported in Learning inScience: The Implications of Children's Science (Osborne and Freyberg 1985).The course concluded with preservice teachers reading and discussing literaturewhich focused on the challenge of conceptual change.

The other elementary science education course, 'Curriculum in ElementarySchool Science', was situated within a framework which gave recognition to theconcepts underlying provincial programme topics. Students engaged in a variety ofactivities intended to facilitate the construction and identification of concepts whichcould contribute to an understanding of programme topics, and an exploration ofpossible teaching approaches for the topics. The activities included the discussionof articles relating to children's learning and the importance of play and 'messingabout' (Hawkins 1965) in school science, and a series of manipulative investigationsarising out of the curricular topics. Four consecutive sessions (three hours once aweek) were spent at Haden Elementary School (pseudonym has been used) wheregroups of students worked with elementary-level children in activities designed tofacilitate the construction and recognition of concepts related to selected topics.The course concluded with class discussions and a reflective paper about the HadenSchool experience.

Analysis and results

In order to include ideas shared by all preservice teachers, we will focus on the initialand final questionnaires completed by all the preservice teachers. Additionalquotations from interviews with the eight interviewees, however, will be used toextend the discussion we present at the end of this paper.

Questions listed on both questionnaires provided a broad framework into whichresponses could be categorized, and further analysis led to a differentiation ofcategories. For example, the question 'How do children learn science?' receivedresponses such as:

I really feel that students learn science (and most other subjects) in a physical hands-onapproach.

[Children] learn science by doing as many experiments as possible.

Both responses have the common idea that children learn science through hands-onphysical manipulation and subsequently would be grouped together under thatcategory.

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An analysis of many questionnaire responses, however, revealed that it wasdifficult to categorize some answers as containing a single view of learning or havingonly one view of what was key to learning. Similar observations of preservice teacherresponses are reported by Aguirre et al. (1990) and Hewson and Hewson (1987).Instead, preservice teachers frequently wrote responses which contained two ormore ideas about learning. For example, one preservice teacher wrote:

Children learn best by doing and children learn by connecting new information tothe old.

In this case, the written response contains two ideas about learning and wouldtherefore be interpreted as providing support for two categories: (1) children learnscience through hands-on physical manipulation, and (2) children learn throughconnecting new information to old. As far as possible we attempted to useterminology in our category descriptions which was close to the actual words usedby the preservice teachers. Despite the variety of responses, data clearly show thatthere were ideas which appeared with greater frequency.

Ideas about children's learning

A. Initial questionnaire: The initial questionnaire contained three questions aimedat exploring the preservice teachers' conceptions of children's learning:

1. What does it mean to learn?2. How do children learn science?3. What challenges do you think children encounter when they are trying to learn

science in elementary classrooms?

The responses to these three questions are presented in table 1.A popular response to the question 'What does it mean to learnV was that learning

involved gaining information. Gaining information was frequently linked to the ideathat learning demanded an active stance towards the world and together theseresponses suggested that, for many of the preservice teachers, learning meantcarrying out actions which could lead to the possession of greater knowledge.Actions which lead to this learning were similar to the process skills described in theprovincial 'Elementary Science Program of Studies' (1983) which they had studiedduring their junior-level elementary science education course.

With regard to the question 'How do children learn science?', the dominantresponse was to draw a link between learning and hands-on activities. Smallergroups of preservice teachers mentioned that children's learning could also beinfluenced by children's perceptions of the personal relevance of lesson content,and the opportunities to work with peers, watch others and reflect on experiences.Three preservice teachers who had not previously written about the importance ofchildren's prior ideas wrote in this section of the questionnaire that science learningcould be affected by ideas children brought to the learning situation.

The final question about children's learning from the initial questionnaire askedthe preservice teachers to identify challenges which children might encounter whentrying to learn science. Responses seemed, in part, to be influenced by observationsthey had made during their practica, by recollections of their own experiences aselementary students and by reflection on lab experiences from their junior-levelelementary science education course.

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Table 1. Initial questionnaire - ideas about children's learning.

Question No. of comments

What does it mean to learn?*Learning means gaining information 15Learning means problem solving 13Learning is assimilating new knowledge with 5

existing knowledgeLearning is charge 1Learning is reflection 1

Total 35

How do children learn science}Learn through hands-on physical manipulation 26Learn through peer interaction 4Learn through connecting new information 3

to oldLearning influenced by affective factors 3Learn through watching 2Learn through reflection 1

Total 39

What challenges do you think children encounter when theyare trying to learn science in elementary classrooms?Challenged by nature of science content 17Challenged by demands of activity science 10Challenged by affective factors 7Challenged by physical environment of 5

classroom and limited resources

Total 39

*For all questions in this table, respondents tended to provide answers representing more than onecategory.

In summary, preservice teachers tended to view learning as a situation in whichchildren used process skills during hands-on activities to gain information aboutsome science concept. With only eight preservice teachers making mention of therole of existing ideas in learning, it is easy to be left with the impression that themajority of preservice teachers could have held a tabula rasa view of children'sminds. Kagan (1992) warns, however, that questionnaires and interviews only standto reveal a modest proportion of preservice teachers' ideas and that preserviceteachers may not be aware of their beliefs, or may lack the language needed to sharetheir beliefs, or may simply be reluctant to espouse them publicly. For these reasons,we can only claim that the trends revealed in these data represent the portion of theirideas that they were ready and willing to share with us.

B. Final questionnaire: After the preservice teachers completed the initial question-naire, they participated in the course activities described at the beginning of thispaper. Course readings, discussions and activities in the two elementary scienceeducation courses centred on a constructivist view of learning and its implicationsfor teaching science to children. The role of children's prior ideas, the benefits ofusing multiple teaching strategies, and the importance of teachers exploring their

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Table 2. Final questionnaire - ideas about children's learning.


Now that you have completed your 400 levelscience curriculum course, describe how you thinkchildren learn science*Learn through hands-on physical manipulation 13Learn through connecting new experiences to old 9Learn through a variety of ways 7Learning influenced by affective factors 5Learn from their own experiences 1Learn through peer interaction 1

Total 36

•Respondents tended to provide answers representing more than one category

own understanding of science concepts were just some of the ideas which weredebated and discussed.

On the final questionnaire, preservice teachers were asked the following questionabout children's learning:

Now that you have completed your [senior] level science curriculum course, describehow you think children learn science.

Responses to this question are presented in table 2.At the end of the two courses, about half the respondents continued to maintain

that hands-on physical manipulation was key to children's learning. Thisrepresented a decrease from the initial questionnaire in which the great majority ofpreservice teachers identified this element of children's learning and implied thatpreservice teachers were less certain about the link between learning and hands-onactivities.

An idea about learning which gained favour was that children learned in a varietyof ways; however, these ways were not identified or described in any detail.

Interestingly, despite being a major theme of the two elementary scienceeducation courses, the importance of children's prior ideas and helping childrenmake connections between ideas was recognized by only one more person in the finalquestionnaire.

In summary, a comparison of initial and final questionnaire responses aboutlearning science showed that course participation had possibly begun a trend towardspreservice teachers questioning the 'doing equals learning' stance of past elementaryscience programmes, but had little overall impact on preservice teacher thinking.

Ideas about teaching science

A. Initial questionnaire: One question on the initial questionnaire was intended toexplore the preservice teachers' conceptions of teaching science to elementarychildren:

What teaching strategies do you think are most effective for helping children learnscience?

In response to this question, 21 of the 27 preservice teachers tended to identify theuse of hands-on activities as a key teaching strategy for use in elementary classrooms.

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This response seemed predictable in light of the large number of respondents whohad identified hands-on activities as being central to learning science. Six preserviceteachers, however, went further and wrote that student investigations should bebased on topics, ideas and questions in which the children showed a personal interest.Children's personal interests and ideas could be investigated through talking tochildren about their existing ideas. As one preservice teacher wrote:

Teachers must question/discuss with students their thoughts and beliefs about sciencein order for learning to occur.

A number of teaching strategies was identified either by small groups of preserviceteachers or by individuals. These strategies included:

1. class discussions;2. group work;3. using interest tables and centres;4. planning for individualized activities;5. note-taking;6. using discrepant events;7. relating classroom science to everyday life;8. teaching by example; and9. providing materials plus guidance.

B. Final questionnaire: On the final questionnaire, preservice teachers were askedone general question regarding science training. The question read:

Now that you have completed your [senior] level science curriculum course, describeyour ideas about effective teaching strategies for helping children to learn science.

In reply to this question, 20 of the 27 preservice teachers wrote about the importanceof accessing children's existing ideas and basing lessons on these ideas. Lessons couldincorporate a number of teaching strategies including: (1) presenting topics of relatedconcepts; (2) discussing the science; (3) questioning the children; (4) encouragingchildren to take responsibility for their own learning, and; (5) using hands-onactivities. Additionally, four preservice teachers wrote that it would be useful toexplore one's own personal understanding of science concepts before beginningsuch lessons with children. Only one preservice teacher continued to maintainthat hands-on activities constituted the sole teaching strategy to use. As manywrote:

Pulling out the students; ideas and interests on a topic and building from that.Start where the kids are at and make it relevant to them. Have the students participatingactively and use effective questions to get the students thinking, questioning,self-questioning, analyzing and considering alternative strategies.

These written responses show that, for many preservice teachers, their initial ideasabout science teaching had expanded to include the idea that something more thanhands-on activities must be used to help children learn science. This idea aboutteaching was stressed in both of the elementary science education courses and wasillustrated by numerous examples from research of the variety of ideas whichchildren may have at the conclusion of any one hands-on activity.

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Table 3. Initial questionnaire - ideas about the nature of science.


Describe your view of the nature of science*Science includes explanations and knowledge 13Science ideas are subject to change 7Science is a process of inquiry 7Science is an activity directed towards 4

technological advancementScience does not have all the answers 1

Total 32

No response to questionnaire question 2

When you teach science to children, what imageof science do you present to them}Science is a process of inquiry 13Science is relevant to everyday life 9Science is exciting and enjoyable 9Science ideas are subject to change 4

Total 35

Don't know what image I present 1No response to questionnaire question 1

*For both questions in this table, respondents tended to provide answers representing more than onecategory.

Ideas about the nature of science

A. Initial questionnaire: Two questions on the initial questionnaire were meant toexplore the preservice teachers' ideas about the nature of science:

1. Describe your view of the nature of science.2. When you teach science to children, what image of science do you present to

them?

When asked to describe their views of the nature of science, 25 of the 27 preserviceteachers responded and these responses are presented in table 3.

Popular views of the nature of science included the ideas that science was a bodyof knowledge separate from us and that science involves active seeking or discovery.These ideas are similar to those found in the provincial 'Elementary Science Programof Studies' (1983) which describes science as consisting of concepts which can beexplored through using inquiry as the 'basic instructional strategy' (AlbertaEducation 1983).

Equally popular was the view that science ideas are subject to changeand modification and are not as absolute as they may appear. This responsecould be found in isolation or in combination with other ideas about scienceknowledge or process. For example, one student combined the notion of thechanging nature of science with the idea that science consists of knowledge waitingto be 'uncovered'.

The facts that we attempt to uncover are often not really facts at all but theories whichcan change over time.

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When asked about the image of science they presented to children, about half therespondents answered that they tried to present an active view which emphasizedthe role children could play in acting like scientists and perhaps finding answers.There seemed, however, to be two kinds of answers which children could discover.One kind of answer was associated with the body of knowledge which comprisedscience and it was the child's responsibility to find these already existing answers.Other ideas which children could discover seemed much more personal in nature.

Finally, four preservice teachers commented that they tried to present the imagethat science is tentative and can change over time. One wrote:

[I present] a view that shows that science is not absolute or the 'real truth' about theuniverse. They must understand that science is very much an exploratory, inquisitiveprocess that changes over time as new information is gained.

B. Final questionnaire: The final questionnaire posed one question about the natureof science:

Now that you have completed your [senior] level science curriculum course, describeyour ideas about the nature of science.

Unfortunately, ideas and discussions about the nature of science were probably leastattended to in the two courses. Instead, by modelling a constructivist approach tolearning in school science we hoped at the same time to convey messages about thenature of science. For example, discussions about the importance of identifying andexploring children's existing ideas and the role these ideas play in influencingchildren's meaning making is an idea which can also hold true for scientists.Scientists also bring many preconceptions to their work: preconceptions which caninfluence the nature of their explorations and the meanings they construct. Also, aconstructivist approach to learning promotes extensive discussion and 'messingabout' before children ever begin to design more formal investigations. Scientistsalso spend much time thinking about and discussing an idea before beginning moresystematic investigations. Both children and scientists try to construct meaningwhich can serve to predict events and provide a tentative explanation for the datagathered.

When compared with the responses found on the initial questionnaire, theparticipants' ideas did not show much change. They still thought that scienceoffered many explanations for phenomena, involved questioning and experimenting,could be an activity directed towards technological advancement, and was subjectto change. The only addition to their initial ideas was the inclusion ofscience-technology-society (STS) issues.

It was during the course of this class that I had first heard of the term STS. I'm not surethat I know everything about STS, in fact I'm sure I don't, but I do think that the basictenets of STS philosophy agreefs] with the way I have viewed science, and why I feelscience is important.

Summary of ideas about learning, teaching and the nature of science

The preservice teachers began the two science curriculum courses with many ideasabout learning, teaching science and the nature of science. An initial idea aboutlearning held by many respondents was that children who participated inhands-on-experiences were seen to be taking an active role in their own learning.

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This activity could result in a gain of information which confirmed that learning hadoccurred. Approximately one-third of the respondents mentioned that children'sexisting ideas could play a role in the nature of the information gained. The majority,however, put great faith in the link between learning and hands-on activities, anobservation supported by other research studies (Smith and Neale 1989). Theseinitial ideas about learning dovetailed with the initial ideas about teaching science,with preservice teachers recommending the use of a hands-on approach to teaching.

Final ideas about learning and teaching showed only modest changes from theinitial ideas. On the final questionnaire, the majority of preservice teachersquestioned the link between learning and hands-on activities, but it was unclearwhether they had replaced this initial idea with any other distinguishable view of howchildren learn science. Final ideas about teaching, however, showed that the majorityof preservice teachers thought lessons should incorporate children's existing ideas.These responses can be interpreted in a number of ways. Perhaps the preserviceteachers felt that mentioning the importance of children's existing ideas in theteaching section of the questionnaire was sufficient and that they need not repeatthemselves when they answered the questions about learning. Another interpret-ation could be that the preservice teachers found it easier to 'latch on' to the notionof how teaching strategies could be modified to incorporate children's existing ideasthan to conceptualize how these existing ideas played a role in children's constructionof meaning. We discuss these and other possible interpretations in the discussion.

Juxtaposed with these ideas about learning and teaching science were theparticipants' ideas about the nature of science and science education. For many ofthem, science was viewed as a body of knowledge, quite separate from us and waitingto be 'discovered'. Knowledge could be discovered by taking an active stance whichinvolved observing and experimenting to find out what exists independently.This view has been commonly identified in studies of preservice teachers' beliefs(Abell and Smith, 1992, Aguirre et al. 1990, Benson 1989), and can be associatedwith nai've realism or an inductivist view of the nature of science. In these views,science knowledge is seen as separate from the objective observer who, throughskilled observation and appropriate induction, can 'uncover' patterns and build moregeneral laws and theories. A few preservice teachers mentioned that science involvedseeking explanations which were tentative in nature. Although these comments maysuggest that the preservice teachers thought of science as subject to change, it wasless clear whether they thought change occurred because initial uncoverings werethe result of early misguided methodologies, or that changes to scientists' personalconceptions of the world could lead to science being discussed in a number ofdifferent ways.

In summary, the preservice teachers' final ideas about learning, teaching scienceand the nature of science were not remarkably different from their initial ideas.Ideas about the link between learning and hands-on activities still held sway butwere, modified by statements proposing that children learned in a variety of ways.Teaching strategies showed a greater recognition of the importance of exploringchildren's prior ideas before commencing classroom science activities, and madepassing reference to exploring one's own prior ideas. Ideas about the nature ofscience showed little change other than small mention of science-technology-societyinterconnections.

In the next section of this paper we discuss what we believe influenced preservice

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teachers' ideas and use further data from interviews with eight of the preserviceteachers to clarify and support our interpretations.

Discussion

In light of the observations made in this study, the question which begs considerationis: why did there appear to be such modest changes to the preservice teachers' initial ideasabout learning, teaching science and the nature of science}

At least two areas of research can potentially stand to inform this question.One area of study has focused on exploring children's alternative ideas about variousphenomena and researchers have attempted to hypothesize about the nature ofconceptual change. Another promising area of study looks at aspects of teachereducation programmes which either constrain or enhance intellectual change inpreservice teachers.

Studies of children's alternative ideas and discussion about the nature ofconceptual change abound in research literature (Garrison and Bentley 1989,Neale et al. 1990, Posner et al. 1982, Smith and Neale 1989, Solomon 1983,Strike and Posner 1982, 1990). Although there is general agreement among theseauthors that the history of people's existing ideas can influence conceptual change,the conditions which might bring about conceptual change are much more open todebate and interpretation. Some authors suggest strategies for encouragingconceptual change which include discrepant events and presenting contradictoryinformation (Anderson and Smith 1984). Others contend that 'a strategy that isattentive to the student's collections of metaphor or that addresses how ordinarylanguage analogues of scientific terms structure perception may be more importantthan a frontal assault on the misconception' (Strike and Posner 1900, p. 8).Regardless of strategies theorized, authors tend to agree that a range of interactingfactors needs to be taken into account when describing why conceptual change doesor does not occur, and that considerable time is needed for children to change theirconceptions of phenomena.

Teacher education studies have confirmed the existence of preservice teachers'prior ideas about learning and teaching, and have speculated about how these priorideas may serve as filters for understanding and reconstructing ideas about learningand teaching (Calderhead 1989, Hollingsworth 1989, Trumbull and Slack 1991).Trumbull and Slack (1991) observed that some preservice teachers failed to developinsights about children's learning. They hypothesized that factors related topreservice teachers' prior ideas, the course context and the fact that these studentshad all experienced success within the existing school system, could potentially beginto explain the range of conceptual change observed. Calderhead (1989) questionswhether teacher education courses really do encourage preservice teacher reflection,and supports his inquiry with the observation that preservice teacher's prior ideasare 'highly influential in shaping what student teachers extract from their preservicetraining, how they think about teaching, and the kind of teacher they become withinthe classroom' (p. 47). Hollingsworth (1989) sheds doubt on apparent cognitivechange when she contends that preservice teachers are able to adapt cognitively toteacher education programmes while simultaneously remaining true to their ownsocially and culturally defined beliefs. In her review of a number of studies, shesuggests that a combination of personal, programme and contextual factors appearsto have the potential to help or hinder apparent intellectual change in preservice

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teachers. Preservice teacher conceptual change is a concern, however, and researchinto how teacher education programmes influence preservice teacher thinking andreflection is still in its preliminary stage.

In this study, interviews revealed that preservice teachers' initial ideas aboutteaching, learning and science were predominantly influenced by the participants'own learning preferences, previous practicum experiences and undergraduatecourses, and by a variety of experiences from their personal lives. Some initial ideasbore great resemblance to course ideas about constructivist learning and preserviceteachers who shared these similar ideas did not tend to change their ideas to any greatdegree. For example, one participant, who initially wrote about the importance ofchildren's prior ideas and how learning is reconstructing new knowledge with old,commented in an interview at the end of the study that:

... in terms of teaching and learning and stuff, [my ideas] are pretty much the same.

Another preservice teacher said:

[I've got some] new ideas about how to approach certain topics. But in the overallscheme of things of how I see science and how I think it should be done... [my ideasare] pretty much the same.

Hollingsworth (1989) has made similar observations about preservice teachers whosebeliefs are congruent with course ideas. These preservice teachers tend to both agreeand trust course messages and do not experience any disequilibrium. Disequi-librium, or, at the least, examining contrasting views of learning, might be importantprerequisites of conceptual change. In this study, many preservice teachers beganour courses with ideas which conceivably could be construed to be supportive of aconstructivist philosophy. This might, in part, account for the modest changesobserved to preservice teachers' ideas.

Related to this argument is Johnston's (1988) observation that teachers caninterpret a constructivist view of learning in a number of different ways to justifya number of different teaching strategies. Perhaps our preservice teachers were alsocapable of interpreting course ideas in a number of different ways so as to renderthem compatible with their initial ideas about learning, teaching and science. In thisway, they would be less likely to identify areas of conceptual change as they mighthave put considerable time into adapting and modifying course messages so that theywere in greater accord with their existing ideas. Johnston (1988) draws a link betweenthese preservice observations and studies concerned with children's conceptualchange. She believes that changes in practice which require preservice teachers torestructure their own beliefs 'can be as problematic, time consuming and personallythreatening as the changes which we ask our students to make in restructuring theirviews of the world' (p. 195).

Regardless of the nature of preservice teachers' prior ideas, they all seemed tobe rooted in past life experiences which had the power to 'outweigh' course ideas.For the majority of our preservice teachers, initial ideas about teaching, learning andscience tended to be retained as a core philosophy to which course ideas could onlybe added. The circumstances which gave rise to initial ideas, and the common-sensetheories which arose from these circumstances, then, could also be responsible forthe modest conceptual changes observed in this study. One source of initial ideasabout learning was the preservice teachers' lengthy observations of their ownpersonal learning styles. For example, during the initial interviews the majority

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commented that children's learning preferences probably mirrored their own andtherefore they believed that science should be approached in those ways.One interviewee spoke of his preference for involving children in hands-on physicalmanipulations because that was how he personally learned best:

For me that is the way you learn science. Getting your hands [on]. That's the kind ofperson I am. I need hands-on. I need to play with things. I have to be right there tolook at [things]. I like to experiment with stuff.... [When children work] with thematerials it becomes much more embedded in [their minds too].

Other sources of initial ideas about teaching and learning were previous teachereducation courses and practicum situations which allowed the preservice teachersto 'try out' some of their ideas. For example, one preservice teacher talked about howhis practicum confirmed his ideas about teaching and learning science:

I was able to take the information from my [junior-level elementary science educationcourse] and add my own experiences and say, 'Okay kids, here's a unit we're trying tofigure [out]'. ...I could see what worked and what didn't.

This relationship between practica situations and developing philosophies ofteaching and learning science has been reported by other researchers who haveobserved that preservice teachers develop greater awareness of children's scienceexperiences during their practica assignments (Lederman and Gess-Newsome1991). Hollingsworth (1989) has some reservations, however, about the nature ofconceptual change occurring during practica situations. She has observed that somepreservice teachers restructure their thinking about classroom management whileincorporating 'unique facets of their preprogram beliefs into their managerialrepertoires. Their changes in thinking, in other words, were accomplished withoutchanging their basic identities' (Hollingsworth 1989, p. 176).

A third source of initial ideas about teaching and learning was the variety ofchildhood, school, family and employment situations experienced by the preserviceteachers. Half of the interviewees talked about how these experiences had helpedform their core philosophy of education. As one said:

...I have been a swimming instructor for six years and that has really influenced[my ideas]. In terms of how I see how children learn, how adults learn, how we processand put things together. So a lot of [my ideas] came from there. And my own personalview I guess.

These past experiences seemed particularly vivid and convincing to the participants,and the approaches used in our education courses seemed to have only a modest effecton these personal, and persistent, ideas about teaching and learning.

The two courses shared the approach that opportunities to discuss, reflect on andact on ideas associated with a constructivist view of learning would provide a contextin which conceptual change might occur. Similar assumptions were shared byTrumbull and Slack (1991) who designed a substantially different course in whichthe primary activity involved designing, conducting and analysing interviews aboutinstances. They found, however, that this alternative approach did not result in allstudents developing course insights about learning. Instead, they identified factorssimilar to those discussed in this study, and concluded that an interviews-about-instances approach could result in, or at least start, some students becoming moreaware of the complexity of teaching and learning.

On the final questionnaire, we asked participants to identify aspects of the courses

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which they believed might have influenced them to change any of their ideas aboutlearning, teaching science and the nature of science. Many respondents struggledwith these questions and either provided responses unrelated to the questions or gaveno response at all. Our previous discussion about the nature and source of prior ideassheds light on the paucity of questionnaire responses. Simply, it would be difficultto recognize the efficacy of course activities if preservice teachers did not believe theirideas had significantly changed. Another related explanation is that it seemeddifficult for preservice teachers to recognize even small changes to their initial ideas.For example, on the questionnaires and during the interviews, preservice teacherssometimes identified ideas which they personally felt had changed. When wecompared these ideas with previous responses, the ideas really did not represent anyapparent change at all. As one interviewee explained in February:

I can't figure out how my ideas are changing but I know that by the end [of the course]I'll notice some changes just by things I've picked up.

This 'picking up' of ideas, however, was an elusive process to study. Questionnaireswere not designed to allow participants to describe their own learning processes otherthan to identify their own ideas and speculate as to what might be influencing theirideas. Only the occasional interview comment hinted at how course ideas were beingconsidered. Two interviewees said:

... the ideas come together as my ideas and all this knowledge comes together from allthese places and it's neat to see how it is all fitting together.

How you teach science comes from how you think science is yourself and I didn't knowthere were that many angles. I haven't yet picked my angles...

These comments show that modest changes to initial ideas could, in part, beexplained by the fact that some students were just beginning to develop an awarenessof issues and implications and that changes to ideas about learning and teaching couldpossibly occur after completion of their coursework.

A related reason for only modest changes to participants' initial ideas could bethe length of the two science education courses. Both courses were 13 weeks longand perhaps this amount of time simply did not allow sufficient opportunity to reflecton new ideas, judge the merit of these ideas and incorporate them into personalphilosophies of science teaching. As one interviewee said:

[I am] just kind of forming my own style. Coming together with everything I've seenso far and [my ideas] are still forming and I guess they still will be long after this courseis over.

Other interviewees spoke of the effort involved in assessing one's own ideas and thetime which must be reserved for such an undertaking. For example, two intervieweessaid:

It's hard to say if I had the same ideas. Perhaps [the course] has made me more awareof my ideas. Until this interview I've never really had the chance to sit down and reallydiscuss some of my thoughts.

My [view of science] hasn't really changed in the sense that I've sat down and madeit more clear to myself about the way I want to teach.

Perhaps a 13-week course should be aiming at identifying alternative ideas andallowing some time for considering and discussing a number of conflictingconceptions of learning and teaching. Personal belief in new ideas may occur only

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gradually as these preservice teachers enter the teaching profession and makeobservations in their own classrooms.

Conclusions

In this study, identification of preservice teachers' initial ideas about learning,teaching and the nature of science, and participation in a variety of course activities,did not lead to remarkable changes to these existing ideas. Instead, courseparticipation seemed to increase preservice teachers' awareness of the developmentand nature of their initial ideas and to provide a venue in which they could considerand reflect on those and other ideas. Awareness and reflection, however, did notnecessarily result in the abandonment of existing ideas.

During the two courses, some preservice teachers were quite articulate abouttheir ideas while others admitted that it was difficult to describe what they trulybelieved. The majority still seemed to struggle with judging and integrating the ideasand experiences to which they had been exposed during the undergraduateprogramme and their philosophies included an assortment of shifting, developingand sometimes contradictory ideas.

These observations lead to further questions about our elementary scienceeducation courses and about the future experiences of these preservice teachers asthey enter the teaching profession. First, what should be the aims for preserviceelementary science education courses? This study shows that, for the most part, the13-week courses provided a context in which the participants could consider, butnot necessarily reconstruct, ideas. Integrating new ideas into conceptual frameworksseems to demand much more than the relatively brief encounter with a constructivistapproach to learning science offered in these courses. An extended amount of timeto consider an idea, and personal experience of its potential to explain and solve apractical problem were elements of the more durable initial ideas shared by thepreservice teachers.

Finally, is it reasonable to expect that ideas about teaching, learning and thenature of science which the preservice teachers identified at the conclusion of ourcourses will also be subject to modest change during their first year of teaching?Or, will their ideas show great changes due to more lengthy participation in aclassroom context? These questions could serve as lines of inquiry into theexperiences of first-year teachers' elementary science programmes. Observationsfrom such studies could potentially inform how conceptions develop and change, inpart, as a result of first-year teaching experiences.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the University Teaching Research Fund, Universityof Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

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Appendix A. Initial questionnaire

1. Ideas about how you think children learn science:

(a) What does it mean to learn?(b) How do children learn science?(c) What challenges do you think children encounter when they are trying to

learn science in elementary classrooms?

2. Ideas about science teaching:

(a) What teaching strategies do you think are most effective for helping childrenlearn science?

3. Ideas about the nature of science:

(a) Describe your view of the nature of science.(b) When you teach science to children, what image of science do you present

to them?

Appendix B. Final Questionnaire

1. Ideas about how you think children learn science:

(a) Now that you have completed your [senior] level science curriculum course,describe how you think children learn science.

(b) If your ideas about children's learning have in some way changed, describewhat you think influenced your ideas to change.

2. Ideas about science teaching:

(a) Now that you have completed your [senior] level science curriculum course,describe your ideas about effective teaching strategies for helping childrento learn science.

(b) If your ideas about teaching strategies have in some way changed, describewhat you think influenced your ideas to change.

3. Ideas about the nature of science:

(a) Now that you have completed your [senior] level science curriculum course,describe your ideas about the nature of science.

(b) If your ideas about the nature of science have in some way changed, describewhat you think influenced your ideas to change.

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elementary preservice teachers: constructing conceptions about learning science, teaching science...

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