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Factors contributing to attitude exchange amongst preservice elementary teachers
Author(s) -
Palmer David H.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
science education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.209
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1098-237X
pISSN - 0036-8326
DOI - 10.1002/sce.10007
Subject(s) - psychology , mathematics education , tutor , positive attitude , science education , attitude change , pedagogy , social psychology
Previous research has shown that elementary education majors often dislike science and lack confidence in their ability to teach it. This is an important problem because students who hold these attitudes are likely to avoid teaching science, or teach it poorly, when they become teachers. It is therefore necessary to identify preservice elementary teachers who hold negative attitudes towards science, and attempt to convert these attitudes to positive before they become teachers. This study was designed to identify students whose attitudes had changed from negative to positive (i.e., attitude exchange had occurred) after participating in a one‐semester elementary science education course, and to identify the course factors that were responsible. Four participants were individually interviewed. The transcripts indicated that attitude exchange had occurred for each of the four students. Each student described several features of the course that had a positive influence. These were of three main types: personal attributes of the tutor, specific teaching strategies, and external validation. It was proposed that many of the individual factors were effective because they represented either “performance accomplishments” or “vicarious experience” as defined by Bandura (Psychological Review, 84, 1977, 191–215). © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed 86: 122–138, 2001.