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Mutual Misunderstanding: PreserviceScience Teachers’ and Instructors’Mismatching(?) PrioritiesSarah Elizabeth Barrett aa York University , Toronto, Ontario, CanadaPublished online: 26 Nov 2008.

To cite this article: Sarah Elizabeth Barrett (2008) Mutual Misunderstanding: Preservice ScienceTeachers’ and Instructors’ Mismatching(?) Priorities, Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics andTechnology Education, 8:4, 313-330, DOI: 10.1080/14926150802506282

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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS,AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION, 8(4), 313–330, 2008Copyright C© OISEISSN: 1492-6156 print / 1942-4051 onlineDOI: 10.1080/14926150802506282

Mutual Misunderstanding: Preservice Science Teachers’and Instructors’ Mismatching(?) Priorities

Sarah Elizabeth BarrettYork University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Abstract: There is a growing movement to incorporate and integrate ethics and socioscientificissues (SSIs) into the school science curriculum. Educating prospective science teachers about theimportance of SSI is an important aspect of this movement. One area of particular interest is therole of participant beliefs about SSI in shaping the content of teacher education courses, particularlyin the physical sciences. This study compared the beliefs of teacher candidates with the beliefs oftheir instructors on the topic of injecting ethics and SSI into teaching the physical sciences. Findingsindicate that teacher candidates have progressive views about teaching ethics and SSI. However,instructor practices are based on a belief that their students hold the opposite view. The result is amismatching of student and instructor priorities and ambiguity around the teaching of science andethics.

Resume: Il existe un mouvement de plus en plus important qui vise a incorporer et a integrer lesquestions ethiques et les questions socio-scientifiques (QSS) dans le curriculum scientifique a l’ecole.Former les futurs enseignants de sciences sur l’importance des QSS constitue un aspect important dece mouvement. On s’interessera notamment au role que joue l’opinion des participants au sujet desQSS dans l’elaboration des contenus des cours de formation destines aux enseignants, surtout dans ledomaine des sciences physiques. Cette etude compare les convictions des candidats a l’enseignementet celles de leurs professeurs quant a l’integration des questions ethiques et des QSS dansl’enseignement des sciences physiques. Les resultats indiquent que les enseignants en formation ontdes idees progressistes sur ce sujet, alors que les pratiques de formation se fondent sur la conviction queles etudiants sont d’opinion contraire. Au resultat, on obtient, d’une, part une dissonance entre lespriorites des etudiants et celles de leurs professeurs et, d’autre part, une certaine ambiguite pour cequi est des questions ethiques en enseignement des sciences.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of teacher education programs is to prepare teacher candidates to teach. This probablygoes without saying. What makes the purpose complicated is the question of where, to whom,and how we are preparing these new teachers to teach. Once we begin to answer such questions,

Address correspondence to Sarah Elizabeth Barrett, Faculty of Education, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto,ON M3J 1P3, Canada. Email: sbarrett@edu.yorku.ca

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what are our responsibilities, as teacher educators, to our teacher candidates? Are we preparingthem to flourish in the system as it is or to reform the system into something else or something inbetween? As a teacher educator, my goals include making changes to science education and, inturn, society through my students, but this is not a straightforward endeavor.

While researchers are divided on the efficacy of teacher education (see, for example, Brouwer& Korthagen, 2005; Marbach-Ad & McGinnis, 2008), what research seems to indicate is thata central factor in teachers’ choices and subsequent behavior in the classroom is their beliefs(Friedrichse & Dana, 2005). Research also indicates that identifying and confronting teachers’beliefs is an effective way to change teaching practice (Bryan & Atwater, 2002). However, Ibelieve that it is equally important to understand the beliefs of teacher educators.

This article focuses on the contrast between the beliefs of teacher candidates and theirinstructors in a teacher education program. I will briefly describe the specific beliefs to beinvestigated here and elaborate on them in subsequent sections.

I am concerned with introducing ethics into the teaching of science. This would involve, forexample, consideration of socioscientific issues (SSIs) such as the impacts of fertilizers on agri-culture and the environment, the availability of pharmaceutical products to different populations,and consideration of such issues as stem cell research, global warming, and research funding.

The purpose of bringing SSI into the teaching of science is to develop moral discoursewithin science. This idea is not new. Indeed, it is part of a larger science–technology–society–environment (STSE) framework. STSE involves relating science to technology, society, and theenvironment. I will describe the place of SSI within STSE in more detail presently but suffice itto say that SSI is one of many aspects of STSE that can be emphasized in a given classroom. Myown reason for focusing on SSI is the opportunity it affords for discussion of social justice issueswithin science classrooms (Barrett & Nieswandt, 2008). Sadler (2004) has found that, withoutpractice discussing SSI, students are not generally able to bring their science knowledge into theconsideration of SSI in the future. In light of this, if my goal is changing society through theprospective teachers that I teach, helping them to bring SSI into their teaching may be one wayto do so.

To be effective, reform-minded teacher educators must meet our students where they areand move them forward (Page, Rudney, & Marxen, 2004). Indeed, the academic histories thatteacher candidates bring with them to teacher education are highly significant with respect totheir reactions to their experiences in teacher education (Britzman, 2007). Moreover, what theteacher candidate wishes to reform (subject matter? pedagogy?) necessitates different programfoci. Thus, a hurdle that instructors must overcome is understanding the beliefs that preservicestudents bring with them to the program. Without this knowledge, attempts to instigate reformsin the way science is taught can amount to shots in the dark.

As a former chemistry teacher and new university science teacher educator, I am interested inusing teacher education to encourage teachers to include SSI in the physical sciences in spite oftheir experiences in their own science education. Thus, this exploratory study sought to comparethe beliefs of the physics and chemistry teacher candidates in a 9-month teacher educationprogram to the beliefs of their instructors on teaching ethics through SSI in the physical sciences.The research questions were the following:

1. In what ways do the beliefs of teacher candidates with respect to infusing ethics into thephysics and chemistry curriculum change from the beginning to the end of their teachereducation program?

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2. What are the intentions of their instructors in this regard?3. How do the beliefs of the instructors and teacher candidates relate to one another?

The literature predicts that these students will hold very conservative beliefs about whatconstitutes legitimate content in chemistry and physics (Becher & Trowler, 2001; Yerrick, Parke,& Nugent, 1997). Thus, since physics and chemistry traditionally do not include SSI, these teachercandidates were expected to resist the inclusion of SSI in their own teaching. The instructors’beliefs, along with how they would respond to what they predicted their students believed, werean open question to be explored.

TEACHER BELIEFS AND CONCEPTIONS OF TEACHER EDUCATION

My main assumption in this research is that beliefs are central to teachers’ decision-making in theclassroom. In their article, “Struggling to Promote Deeply Rooted Change,” Yerrick et al. (1997)state that most science teachers “embrace a transmission model of teaching that filters othermessages out and makes change highly unlikely” (p. 156). Similarly, Pedretti, Bencze, Hewitt,Romkey, and Jivraj (2006), who studied teacher candidates’ reactions to case studies of teachersusing a transformative STSE framework for entire units of study in high school, documentedteacher candidates’ resistance to STSE.

The problem may be that science teacher candidates’ beliefs have developed over many yearsof schooling, coalescing in a very well-developed and perhaps elaborate understanding of thenature of education, the nature of science, the role of the teacher, and the role of the student(Barrett, 2007). This conglomeration of understandings cannot be escaped by either the teachercandidates or their instructors (Britzman, 2007). For teacher education, then, an understandingof beliefs is essential.

Kane, Sandretto, and Heath (2002) divide beliefs into two types—espoused theories (which Ishall call espoused beliefs) and theories-in-use (which I shall call beliefs-in-use)—where espousedbeliefs are a person’s response when asked and beliefs-in-use are demonstrated by a person’sactions. I view beliefs-in-use as a problematic construct because so many contextual factors cancause a teacher to act contrary to his or her espoused beliefs. Therefore, I focus on espousedbeliefs and teachers’ reflections on their ability or inability to realize them in practice.

In the case of this study, the examination of beliefs is complicated by the fact that I amconsidering the beliefs of teacher educators as teachers who are trying to influence the beliefs ofpotential teachers. At the same time, I examine the beliefs of teacher candidates about what theywould like to do as teachers and whether they feel the teacher education program will help themto do it.

Teacher education, like any educational endeavor, is complex and problematic. It is problematicbecause of its simultaneous role as a site of preparation for an existing system and a site for thegenesis of potential change (Britzman, 2007). Volante and Earl (2002) describe five conceptualorientations to teacher education as perceived by teacher candidates: academic (mainly concernedwith transmitting knowledge), practical (mainly concerned with craft and technique), technical(mainly concerned with efficiency), personal (puts teacher at center of inquiry), and critical/social(mainly concerned with social reconstruction). The academic approach may be more typical incourses on the philosophy, psychology, and sociology of education than teaching methods courses,which tend toward the practical and technical.

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The lived curriculum in teacher education programs and elsewhere is complex because it isdialogical. That is, it flows in more than one direction and is constantly changed by both theteacher and the students into something that may or may not have been planned, resulting inlearning that may or may not have been intended. Both teacher and student are changed by thisprocess in unpredictable ways (Greene, 1991). In the case of this study, the way that SSIs werepromoted, mentioned, or ignored depended on the instructors’ orientation to the curriculum, theteacher candidates’ expectations of the curriculum, and the teacher candidates’ and instructors’interpretations of what SSIs are. It is for this reason that, in order to understand what is happeningto beliefs within teacher education programs, both instructors’ intentions and beliefs and teachercandidates’ beliefs and impressions must be elicited.

PROTOTYPICAL SCIENCE, SCIENTIFIC LITERACY ANDSOCIOSCIENTIFIC ISSUES

Traditionally, physics and chemistry follow the pattern of what Carlone (2004)) calls prototypicalscience, focusing on procedure and decontextualized problem-solving, which excludes SSI. Dueto the high status of senior physics and chemistry, students do not resist this tendency, ratherseeing it as a badge of honor to earn such a credit (Carlone, 2004). This conception of thephysical sciences continues from high school through to university (Becher & Trowler, 2001)and has been largely successful in recruiting scientists. However, it has been a complete failure inkeeping the majority of students interested in science study (Bennett, Lubben, & Hogarth, 2006).At another level, this approach to science education is also inadequate for students who go onin science (Barrett & Nieswandt, 2008) because this traditional approach encourages studentsto artificially separate science content from its context, leaving citizens/scientists uncomfortablewith discussing real ethical issues in light of scientific knowledge (Saul, 2001; Somerville, 2006).

Scientific literacy has been discussed at length elsewhere (Norris & Phillips, 2003; Reeves,Cordova, & Kelly, 2004; Roth & Barton, 2004; Shwartz, Ben-Zvi, & Hofstein, 2005) almost asthe antidote to such an eventuality, yet there are many facets to it. De Boer (2000)) outlined nineconceptions of scientific literacy that were popular at different points in history: (a) teaching andlearning about science as a cultural force in the modern world; (b) preparation for the worldof work; (c) teaching and learning about science that has direct application to everyday living;(d) teaching students to be informed citizens; (e) learning about science as a particular way ofexamining the natural world; (f) understanding reports and discussions of science that appear inthe popular media; (g) learning about science for its aesthetic appeal; (h) preparing citizens whoare sympathetic to science; and (i) understanding the nature and importance of technology andthe relationship between technology and science. I would add a tenth that may come to the fore inthe coming years, in light of the climate change crisis—understanding and taking responsibilityfor the ethical aspects of scientific and technological advances.

In Canada, STSE seems to be the place within science education that scientific literacy isemphasized. STSE’s context-based nature means that approaches vary; however, the componentsof STSE can be boiled down to sustainable development, decision-making, ethics and moralreasoning, personal and political dimensions, critical social reconstruction, action, and nature ofscience emphasis (Alsop & Pedretti, 2001), with different jurisdictions and teachers emphasizingdifferent aspects according to their knowledge and comfort levels.

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These content emphases within STSE also interact with educators’ larger goals for educationwith respect to society. Some educators and governments advocate STSE in order to preparestudents to flourish within society as it is (i.e., STSE for social reproduction; Barrett & Pedretti,2006), while others wish to prepare students to change society into something more equitableand just (see, for example, Barrett & Pedretti, 2006; Hodson, 2003).

Similarly, there are different approaches to bringing ethics into science teaching through SSI.Some scholars, such as Zeidler and his colleagues (Sadler & Zeidler, 2005; Zeidler & Keefer, 2003;Zeidler, Walker, Ackett, & Simmons, 2002), have focused on a cognitive approach, examiningthe intellectual capacity of students in their consideration of SSI. The aim is to develop informedcitizens, which in turn is expected to lead to engaged citizens. Others have focused on using SSIto inject social justice issues into the teaching of science (Barrett & Nieswandt, 2007). The aim,here, is to develop a sense of moral agency and citizenship (see, for example, Barton, 2003),locally and globally.

In my view, the cognitive perspective is a traditional approach to nontraditional curriculum.That is, it assumes that, given the knowledge and skills of how to deal with ethical dilemmasrelated to science, students will apply what they have learned to consideration of ethical dilemmasrelated to science in their lives and become better citizens as a result. Promoting this throughteacher education fits well with academic or practical orientations to teacher education.

The social justice perspective does not assume a straight line between knowledge/skills andcitizenship and makes a point of discussing citizenship (global and local) explicitly. This meansthat SSI may be used to, for example, help students develop an understanding of the environmentalramifications of science and technology; the uneven distribution of the benefits of science andtechnology to those who are less economically powerful, and the underrepresentation of womenand minorities in science and technology fields and science curricula (Barrett, 2007). It wouldbe difficult to promote the social justice perspective for teaching SSI within teacher educationwithout taking a critical/social approach to at least some aspects of the program. In any case,teaching through SSI, using either the social justice or cognitive approaches, is very different fromthe traditional approaches and goals of science education—especially in the physical sciences.

METHODS

The study was conducted at a large urban university in southern Ontario, Canada, which ran a9-month post-baccalaureate teacher education program.

The survey and interviews to be described in this article were part of a larger study thatinvolved surveying teacher candidates studying to be physics and chemistry teachers at thebeginning and end of their year at the faculty of education. Throughout the school year, a dozenteacher candidates were interviewed, along with their instructors. The findings to be related herereflect the teacher candidates’ beliefs at the beginning and end of the preservice program (asdescribed in the two surveys) as well as the interviews done with the three instructors halfwaythrough the school year.

The 55 participants included 26 male and 29 female participants with 31 participants in thechemistry curriculum methods courses and 25 in physics (1 student was in both chemistry andphysics). Fifty-three percent of the participants had majored in the physical sciences—chemistry,physics, and engineering—and 28% in biology.

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The instructors who participated in this study (Instructors A, B, and C) had all taught at thefaculty of education for several years. Instructor A was an education researcher who had taughtat the university for 6 years in both the graduate and undergraduate (preservice) program and hadsome experience teaching science in K–12. Instructors B and C had taught high school sciencefor more than 20 years each and were not involved in education research. They taught in theundergraduate program (preservice) only. I mention this background because, just as teachercandidates’ academic backgrounds were expected to influence their beliefs, so the academicbackgrounds of the instructors were also expected to provide some insight.

After obtaining ethical approval from my home institution, surveys were done anonymouslyand without their instructors present. In keeping with the exploratory nature of this study, thequestions in the survey were open-ended (see Appendix A). To make a clear connection to theuniversity’s influence on the teacher’s curricular choices, the students were asked whether theybelieved that discussions of ethics should be an integral part of physics and chemistry in thesenior grades in high school. They were also asked if the teacher education program (classesand/or practicum) had affected their beliefs.

The three instructors of the courses were interviewed. These interviews were semistructuredand lasted for one to two hours (see Appendix B). Questions focused on the instructors’ academicexperiences, their philosophy of science teaching, and how this philosophy informed their teachingat the faculty. We also discussed challenges they faced in realizing their goals for their students.

I took a qualitative approach to analysis. Surveys and interviews were initially coded usinga grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Qualitative analysis software (N6) wasused in the analysis to track coding and maintain an audit trail of the analysis. These themes werethen grouped according to De Boer’s (2000) categories of scientific literacy or Volante and Earl’s(2002) scheme of orientations to teacher education.

The Program

The program at this university allowed the instructors considerable autonomy and flexibility inplanning their courses. Instructors A and B taught the 31 chemistry teacher candidates in theTeaching Chemistry course and Instructor C taught the 25 physics teacher candidates in theTeaching Physics course.

The course outlines for the Teaching Chemistry and Teaching Physics courses did not describethe goals for the course explicitly. I focused on the evaluations described in the course outlinesbecause it is this aspect of these documents that would be most closely studied by the studentsand considered by them to be important.

The Teaching Chemistry course had one or two days set aside for consideration of STSE. Therewas also a group project in which two groups could have easily incorporated SSI—one groupwas asked to consider equity in the Atomic Theory unit and one group was asked to considernewsworthy environmental issues to do with chemistry. Given this, according to course outlines,Instructors A and B had both incorporated space for discussion of SSI in their assignments andinstructional time.

In the Teaching Physics course, taught by Instructor C, no instructional time was set aside forthe discussion of ethics in science. Whereas the group projects in the Teaching Chemistry classhad two projects potentially relating to STSE and possibly SSI, Teaching Physics’ group projectfocused on content, though it allowed for an STSE component if students wished. Similarly, an

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individual assignment in Instructor C’s course outline made allowances for consideration of SSIin perhaps 2 or 3 out of 25 project choices.

The orientation to teacher education suggested by these course outlines was essentiallypractical or technical, but this was not surprising for curriculum courses. What interested me washow these courses were experienced by instructors and students alike in their implementation.

FINDINGS

The Lived Curriculum: Past Experiences Meet the Present

Only 10 of the 59 teacher candidates recalled STSE or SSI components in the courses they took ineither their high school or undergraduate studies. This proportion falls in line with other researchon the content of senior high school and undergraduate physics and chemistry studies (Becher& Trowler, 2001; Carlone, 2003; Cross & Price, 1996). It was also expected that the teachercandidates would favor teaching in the way they had been taught in school (Holt-Reynolds,1992).

However, at the beginning of the program that is the context for this study, most teachercandidates were enthusiastic about bringing ethics into their teaching of physics and chemistry(only 2 out of 55 were opposed). Having arrived in the program already believing that SSI shouldbe included in senior level physical sciences, the next question was how they interpreted theirTeaching Physics and Teaching Chemistry courses in light of these beliefs.

The Lived Curriculum: Atypical and Typical

For the most part, the attitude of teacher candidates did not change from the beginning to the endof the school year. That is, at both the beginning and end of the course, most were in favor ofincluding ethics or SSI in their teaching. Note these two responses from Candidate A:

I believe [ethics] should be an integral part of science class to make students aware of current issuesand differing opinions. [Candidate A]

Ethics definitely should be an integral part. . . . It makes learning more relevant, contextual and,therefore successful. [Candidate A]

For this candidate, as for most of the larger group, there is no real change in attitude between thetwo surveys, in spite of their being administered 9 months apart. However, I will highlight thethree exceptions here because, though atypical, their responses are instructive.

The first atypical participant had disagreed with teaching about ethics at the beginning andchanged her mind at the end.

I think ethics should not be a part of the grade 12 chemistry and/or grade 12 physics course becauseI believe these courses should only concentrate on the physical part of science. The discussion ofethics can be reserved for discussion in classes such as sociology, or human issues/environmentalissue courses that may or may not be offered during high school years. [If] it is not offered, it can bereserved for University level courses. [Candidate B]

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Ethics should be integrated into the curriculum because 1) it has been shown that students learnconcepts better when they apply to their daily lives, 2) it is important for students to see how scienceis actually used—this is an important knowledge in addition to the concepts. [Candidate B]

One can see that Candidate B began the year with a very traditional conception of whatbelonged in science. However, her response in the final survey indicates that she had learned howstudents learn more readily when relevance is obvious to them (Bennett, Lubben, & Hogarth,2006). This appeared to have been enough of a reason for her to decide to change her mind.

The second atypical participant was the only one out of 55 teacher candidates who neitherbelieved that ethics belonged in his teaching when he began the program nor at the end.

I do not believe that ethics should be discussed in the science classroom. One reason is that sciencedoes not provide a basis for ethics (it can only provide evidence to back or argue against a decisionbased upon existing ethical standards). The second reason is that ethics should not influence scientificinquiry. The third reason is that scientists are notorious for making unsound ethical decisions, andmost science teachers were trained as scientists first. And the fourth reason is that teachers shouldnot be imposing their values upon students, or be perceived to do so. [Candidate C]

Candidate C’s reasons had to do with his conception of the nature of ethics versus the natureof science, that the latter is based on evidence and the former is not; therefore, they do not belongtogether. He suggested that science teachers are ill-equipped to deal with ethical issues but hismain concern was the imposition of his values on his students via his position as an authority. Thisis an unexpected assertion since most teacher candidates are naıve about their ability to be neutralin discussions about controversial issues in their classes (Sadler, Amirshokoohi, Kazempour, &Allspaw, 2006).

The third atypical was the only teacher candidate who had begun the school year believingthat ethics was essential and then changed her mind by the end of the year. She began the yearsaying:

Ethics should be discussed to make students aware of the issues and to initiate the thought processesrequired for students to form an informative opinion. [Candidate D]

but ended the year saying:

There is already too much packed in. I think ethics should be taught, but not unless “room” is madeor in another separate philosophy course. [Candidate D]

This comment is likely related directly to the sheer number of expectations in the Ontariocurriculum at the time (Wien & Dudley-Marling, 2001). This teacher candidate appears to bephilosophically in favor of teaching ethics but does not give it priority. The curriculum beingtaught in Ontario—which is currently under review—does have expectations relating to SSIwithin the STSE sections of science courses, but Candidate D does not seem to count SSI ascontent and rather appears to categorize it as philosophy. There is no indication that she hadchanged her mind about whether ethics should be there but there is a sense that she had decidedthat whether it was actually taught or not was not her decision to make. In her survey, she saidher practicum was what had ultimately changed her mind. Pedretti et al. (2006) reported similarfindings, where the teacher candidates worried about the practicality of an STSE approach.

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The vast majority of teacher candidates, however, were in favor of including ethics from startto finish in spite of time constraints, lack of resources, and lack of experience. As one teachercandidate in my study put it:

While I believe ethical issues should be incorporated I understand the realities that exist in highschool, and the stresses of time management and “getting through” the curriculum, and as a resultthese issues of how humans and society relate to the science are often abandoned in order to ensurethere is time to teach the science concepts. [Candidate E]

Here, Candidate E, who was strongly in favor of including ethics in her teaching, hints at reasonswhy espoused beliefs and beliefs-in-use may not match. But this disconnect anticipated in theirfutures may also be considered in light of their experiences as students within the teacher educationprogram.

As noted above, 53 out of 55 teacher candidates were interested in teaching about ethicsthrough science. All espoused the belief that it was important for students’ future decision-makingas individuals. Typical responses were the following:

I believe that these issues (stated above) are real-life issues that will affect all humans in one form oranother and therefore should be discussed and thought about in Ontario’s classrooms. [Candidate F]

I believe ethical issues should be raised in grade 12 because science and technology isn’t only abouttheories, but also how science and Tech relates to society and how these matters influence society.[Candidate G]

As far as De Boer’s (2000) conceptions of scientific literacy were concerned, these viewswere in line with “Teaching and Learning About Science That Has Direct Application toEveryday Living,” “Teaching Students to Be Informed Citizens and Understanding Reports,”and “Discussions of Science That Appear in the Popular Media,” which is in line with the statedintent of the curriculum documents for this jurisdiction.

The teacher candidates’ conceptions of SSI appear to be cognitive, which is based on individualenlightenment advocated by Zeidler and others (see, for example, Zeidler & Keefer, 2003) ratherthan the community interactions emphasized in the social justice approach of Barton (2003).

The two teacher candidates who indicated that they would not be willing to include ethics intheir teaching were, arguably, opposed based on logistics: How to do it in light of the loadedcurriculum or how to avoid the imposition of values?

Recall the different orientations to teacher education listed by Volante and Earl (2002):academic, practical, technical, personal, and critical/social. Which orientation would appearto be most conducive to the teacher candidates realizing their goals? The academic approachwould probably be redundant, as the teacher candidates clearly already have knowledge aboutthe SSI they wish to include or, at the very least, know where to look for them. Their concernsabout the loaded curriculum could perhaps be addressed through a technical or craft orientationand the personal orientation could begin to address ways in which their academic experienceshelp or hinder their ability to teach as they say they wish to. It is unclear whether a critical/socialapproach is what they seek or whether they recognize the ways in which science and technologyaffect the social aspects of people’s lives (wealth/poverty, geopolitics, and human rights).

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This gives rise to two questions: (a) Were the instructors’ intentions in line with the students?and (b) Did the students feel that the teacher education program was helpful in preparing them tofulfill their goals as science teachers?

The Lived Curriculum: Instructors’ Intentions

The three instructors interviewed expressed different priorities for their teaching. Instructor Ahad a personal orientation to her teaching of prospective science teachers, saying:

Besides learning some of the basic techniques of teaching, I want to make them aware that theirunderstanding of science and learning is reflected in the way they are teaching. [Instructor A]

She saw the more practical aspects as peripheral to her main goals as illustrated by the followingquote:

And I think one approach was that I have these ideas of what is important. . .it was more at a theoreticallevel. . . . [at] a more pragmatic level or understanding over the years that [I’ve been] teaching it, Irealize how important it is for students also to get little tips . . . or resources so that they can feelsecure. . . . I compromise between practical survival tips and what I think is important for them [for]understanding what teaching is about. And then what is important about teaching about in science.[Instructor A]

Here, we see that Instructor A prefers the personal or academic approach but acquiesces toteach in a practical or technical way to please the students. She places these aspects of her teachingunder the label “tips,” which suggests that she does not regard them as especially important orworthy of large amounts of time. This is further evidence of her personal orientation (see alsoVolante & Earl, 2002).

In contrast, Instructors B and C had more practical or technical orientations. They eachsuggested that classroom management and assessment were extremely important, though theirpriorities diverged significantly beyond that. Instructor B said:

So they probably get less theory from me and more practical stuff that relates to my experiences andthings that I can imagine that they will be doing in the classroom. [Instructor B]

She continued:

Looking toward [the application and context aspects of the official curriculum], I want to make sure[they see that here] because I know when they arrive in the school, it’s not going to be that way.[Instructor B]

Instructor B’s approach seems closely aligned with the students’ espoused beliefs, in that sheaims to show her students alternatives to what they may have experienced in their educations.This is her priority, in contrast to Instructor A’s grudging acknowledgement of the students’ wishfor “tips.” Instructor B showed no indication of emphasizing a critical/social approach (see alsoVolante & Earl, 2002), whereas Instructor A’s interview data indicate that she was frustrated bythe fact that her students did not appear to be ready for such discussions.

Instructor C’s technical/practical orientation was different from Instructor B’s. When askedwhat his priorities were in his teaching, he said:

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I find in my course I want to start helping them get the skills to survive the first batch of teachingexperience. And what they tend to need would be the ability to manage the class, the ability toquestion students effectively, the ability to use some basic scientific tools. . . . Maybe the masterslevel for teachers is the place for some of these things. The place for more sociology and equityissues. [Instructor C]

Instructor C, then, saw “sociology and equity issues”—which is how he characterized SSI—asextraneous or, at least, less important than “skills of survival.” So much so that, in spite of thefact that only a small percentage of teachers go to graduate school, it was still appropriate, fromhis perspective, not to talk about sociology or equity issues in initial teacher education.

In comparing the three instructors’ orientations and priorities, we can see how their workbackgrounds influenced them. Instructor A, with her research background, emphasized whatis often seen in education research journals—analysis of the ways that teachers’ backgroundsinfluence what they do. Instructors B and C, with their extensive practitioner backgrounds,emphasized ways to implement curriculum—though, clearly, Instructor B focused on exposingher students to topics within the curriculum that are not necessarily being taught at present andInstructor C was more focused on helping his students to thrive in the system as it is.

The Lived Curriculum: Mutual Misunderstanding

The instructors said that they held back on discussing SSI because they perceived that therewere other more important topics (Instructor C). Certainly, in a 9-month program, an instructorcan be forgiven for focusing on survival at some point in the program. It is difficult to argueagainst the new teachers’ needs to know the techniques of teaching—lesson planning, managinga classroom, paperwork, assessment, and discipline. But Instructors A and B also believed thatteacher candidates were not interested or were outright resistant to the idea of discussing thepossibility of teaching SSI. As one instructor said:

That’s one of the big challenges. To get over this wall that they put around themselves. That teachingcan only be in a certain way—how they learned and how they experienced. [Instructor A]

Instructor A’s assumptions about what her teacher candidates would accept is in line with whatother researchers have found (Pedretti et al., 2006), yet 32 of the teacher candidates indicated thatthey felt the opposite. One complained:

[The teacher education program was] full of busy work more focused on curriculum [and] lessonplanning, instead of ethics, morals and discussion of controversial issues. [Candidate H]

According to this teacher candidate, the techniques she learned were a waste of her time, givenher desire to discuss other content. She seemed to have a clear grasp of what she thought SSIwere.

Within Instructor C’s class, three students indicated that they had not thought about teachingSSI until they encountered the idea in his course:

I saw the importance of making these connections to the world. Science was taught to me like mathwas/is: dry and unconnected when it is more than that. [Candidate I]

Since Instructor C indicated that he did not teach this aspect of science, it is reasonable toassume that they had studied the topic through their independent study projects. Alternatively,

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Candidate I may have simply taken the next logical step from the recognition of the applicationsof science that Instructor C would have discussed as part of the technique for introducing topics:

To further connections with the application of science and the use of critical thinking, it is necessaryto discuss ethics. [Candidate I]

This is important because Candidate I seemed to see teaching ethics through SSI as a naturalpart of STSE and scientific literacy in general. Ten teacher candidates noticed the absence ofdiscussion of the topic within the program:

I always thought it should be included. I’m surprised that we didn’t cover much ethical issues in theclass. [Candidate J]

My opinion has not changed because we spent very little time discussing ethical issues in science. Iam also quite confident in my position and it would take serious discussion to impose any change.[Candidate K]

However, the majority (22 out of 55 candidates) saw their work at the faculty of educationas a reinforcement of their beliefs; 17 of those 22 students were in either Instructor A’s orInstructor B’s classes. Only 5 were in Instructor C’s class (in spite of the fact that he taught45% of the students). However, this was not surprising based on what he had said about hispriorities.

Clearly, both the students’ interpretations of what constituted SSI and the instructors’interpretations of what teacher candidates wanted and needed from the program were complexand, in many ways, problematic.

CONCLUSIONS, FURTHER RESEARCH, AND IMPLICATIONS

With only a few exceptions, the beliefs of teacher candidates did not change from the beginningof the program to the end. They already believed that SSI should be taught in science, thoughtheir instructors seemed largely unaware of this.

It would not be fair to suggest that the teacher candidates had simply arrived with the “correct”beliefs and the instructors had missed a golden opportunity to capitalize on those beliefs intheir teaching. Beliefs about what should be taught are more complex than either for or against.There are different approaches to teaching SSI and different emphases and goals associated withthose approaches within an STSE framework. Though some teacher candidates were aware ofthese subtleties, most were not. Further, given the time constraints inherent in a 9-month program,two instructors prioritized preparing their students for the technical demands of teaching science(assessment, interpreting policy documents, etc.) while attempting to inject alternative approacheswhere they could. They had a practical/technique orientation (Volante & Earl, 2002), though thisresulted in very different approaches (Instructor C preparing his students for the status quoand Instructor B preparing her students to challenge the status quo). The third instructor had apersonal orientation (Volante & Earl, 2002). It is unclear whether any of the three instructors hadcritical/social leanings.

The social justice approach that I advocate requires an instructor who will take a critical/socialapproach as well as teacher candidates who are willing to examine that perspective in a curriculum

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methods course traditionally focused on how’s rather than why’s. However, I wonder whetherit is this distinction—how’s versus why’s—that is the real problem. If new teachers are alreadyamenable to new ideas, while it is certainly true that they may have a lot to learn about thesociological aspects of education, how they take that information and translate it into practice,especially when there is a real possibility that the system of schooling will resist their efforts,becomes a pressing issue.

If the teacher candidates’ assignments gave little indication that they were ready to enactchange, the problem may lie in the assumption that experience and goals are in lock-step witheach other, when in fact it is more likely in almost any situation involving highly capableadults, enrolled in a professional program, that their goals will be much farther ahead of theirexperiences. Teacher candidates can change beliefs like any other student, provided that they haveopportunities to reflect on and interrogate their beliefs (Rosaen & Schram, 1998), but they needa great deal of help moving from their ideals to their actual teaching. I am not suggesting thatthis means that we, as teacher educators, should focus exclusively on technique. This approachwould undermine the critical-mindedness necessary to do SSI justice in the classroom. Rather, Ibelieve that we can begin with conversations about SSI at a deeper level, as Bryan and Atwatersuggest (2002), knowing that teacher candidates are already convinced of their importance. Wedo not need to spend large amounts of class time justifying this different approach to scienceeducation.

In this study, survey responses indicate that many teacher candidates have grown impatientwith being told what needs to be changed in science education. They seem to already know whatneeds to change. The question is how to do it. Having done undergraduate degrees in the subjects,the teacher candidates seemed confident about traditional approaches and wanted somethingmore. The instructors did not necessarily pick up on this and tended to believe that their studentswould be resistant to new ideas.

These findings emphasize that teacher educators and researchers may be overly pessimisticwhen it comes to the beliefs of their students. If SSIs, for example, are not generally found inthe teaching of the physical sciences in high schools, teacher candidates’ beliefs may not be toblame. Further research needs to investigate preservice teachers’ beliefs further and consider whynew teachers’ progressive beliefs about ethics in science education are not, for the most part,manifesting in the classroom. It may be that they change their minds but it may also be that theydo not know how to implement their beliefs and give up, lose heart, or become resigned to theimpossibility of realizing them.

With respect to SSI, science teacher education programs can begin to address these problemsby first making a point of eliciting students’ opinions on teaching SSIs anonymously at thebeginning of the program. Confident that their students already see these issues as important,instructors can then focus on more substantive issues of implementation such as school culture,the inertia of curriculum tradition, integrating issues into traditional curriculum, and assessingtheir students’ work around SSI. I suspect that spending time in both small and large groupdiscussions about possible barriers to implementation and allowing time for brainstorming aboutwhat can be done would also be helpful, as my own research seems to point in that direction(Barrett, 2007). This approach probably does not require large amounts of time to be effective.The important thing is to make sure that these discussions occur. Barriers to implementationand the reasons behind those barriers, if addressed during class, may give teacher candidates theconfidence not only to try something new but to ask for help if they need it.

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Barrett, S. E., & Nieswandt, M. (2008). The role of science education in fostering democracy: Perspectives of futureteachers. In D. E. Lund & P. R. Carr (Eds.), Doing democracy: Striving for political literacy and social justice (pp.231–246). New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

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APPENDIX A

Questionnaire #1: Ethical Issues in the Physical Sciences

1a) Highest Degree (e.g. B.Sc., M.A.):b) Year:c) University:d) Major:

2a) First Teachable Subject:b) Number of courses in first teachable subject in university:

3a) Second Teachable Subject:b) Number of courses in second teachable subject in university:

4. List and name courses you took in university that related science to society and/or technology:

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5. What was your occupation between attaining your highest university degree and entering theteacher education program?

6. Please describe any experience you have volunteering or teaching in a secondary schoolclassroom.

7. In your opinion, what are the overall purposes/goals of science education in a secondaryschool?

8. Science-technology-society (STS), now an official part of curriculum in Ontario, can raiseethical issues about the interaction of science, technology and society. Ethical issues in thephysical sciences can arise in discussions about use of fertilizers and pesticides, energyresources, use of technology, research funding, the mining industry and organic chemistry.

Give reasons why you believe or don’t believe that discussions about ethics should be anintegral part of chemistry and physics courses (specifically the grade 12 university boundcourse in high school).

Questionnaire #2: Ethical Issues in the Physical Sciences

1. In your opinion, what are the overall purposes/goals of science education in secondaryschool?

2. STS, now an official part of curriculum in Ontario, can raise ethical issues about theinteraction of science, technology and society. Ethical issues in the physical sciences can

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arise in discussions about use of fertilizers and pesticides, energy resources,use of technology, research funding, the mining industry and organic chemistry.

Give reasons why you believe or don’t believe that discussions about ethics should bean integral part of chemistry and physics courses (specifically the grade 12 university boundcourse in high school).

3. Has your time here at [THE FACULTY] had any effect on your opinions of this subject? Ifso, was it your classes, practicum or both? If not, why was your opinion unaffected?

4. Has your experience as a physics/chemistry student in university influenced your opinion onthis subject? If so, how? If not, why not?

5. Do you consider yourself to be a scientist, a teacher or both? Why?

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6. As a professional teacher, you will have to balance the demands of scientists (in theworkplace and universities), your students, their parents, your colleagues and thecurriculum when choosing how and what to teach. When these demands conflict, whosedemands should take precedence? Why?

Thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey. Your input is appreciated.A preliminary report of findings will be available upon request.

APPENDIX B

Course Instructor Interview Questions

1. Please describe your academic and professional background.2. Why did you choose to study science in university?3. Why did you decide to become a science teacher education instructor?4. In your view, what should be the overall goals of science education?5. If you had to choose the two most important topics for your curriculum course, what would

they be?6. What are your primary goals for your students?7. How do you decide what is important/relevant and what is not important/relevant in your

methods course?8. What are some of the challenges you face when trying to teach the course as you feel it

should be taught?9. Please describe your conception of a socioscientific or ethical issue in physics/chemistry.

You may want to start with specific examples.10. Explain why ethical issues should or should not be included in your curriculum course?11. (How do you handle ethical issues in your course?)12. (Have you ever experienced students’ resisting including socioscientific issues in your course?

If so, how have you handled it?)

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