Primary School Pre-service Teachers’ Orientation towards Science Teaching

One of the challenges that primary school teachers have is teaching science lessons and their beliefs have an essential role in teaching science. Therefore, this study focuses on primary school pre-service teachers’ orientation toward science teaching including beliefs about the purposes of science teaching, beliefs about science teaching and learning, and beliefs about the nature of science (NOS). Data were collected from seven pre-service primary teachers (PST) through semi-structured interviews to reveal their beliefs and analyzed by using deductive and inductive coding. The primary analysis showed PSTs focused on everyday coping, affective domain, and improving skills like social skills as beliefs about the purpose of science teaching. Teachers mainly had teacher-centered beliefs (e.g. traditional) and transitional beliefs. Also, they mainly held naïve NOS beliefs. Further analysis showed that the teachers having teacher-centered beliefs had teaching purposes like the correct explanation, solid foundation, and science process skills. These teachers also had naïve NOS understandings. The teacher having informed beliefs in the nature of science held student-centered beliefs and also focused on the structure of science as a teaching purpose, unlike other teachers. Discussions and implications are presented considering the beliefs forming teachers’ orientation toward science teaching in primary schools.