PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ PREPAREDNESS AND CONFIDENCE IN TEACHING LIFE SCIENCES TOPICS: WHAT DO THEY LACK?

Pre-service teachers’ preparedness and confidence levels to teach is a topical subject in higher education. Previous studies have commented on the role of teacher in-service training in preparing teachers for provision of meaningful classroom experiences to their learners, but many researchers regard pre-service teacher development as the cornerstone. Whilst teacher competence can be measured in terms of different variables e.g. pedagogy, knowledge of the curriculum, technological knowledge etc., the present study focused on teacher competency in terms of Life Sciences subject matter knowledge (SMK). The study was framed by pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The study sought to answer the research question: How do preservice teachers perceive their levels of preparedness and confidence in teaching high school Life Sciences topics at the end of their four years of professional development? In a qualitative study, a total of 77 pre-service teachers enrolled for the Methodology and Practicum Life Sciences course at a university in South Africa participated in the study. Each participant was tasked to identify topic(s)/concept(s) in Life Sciences they felt challenged to teach, provide a critical analysis of the reasons for that and map the way forward to overcome the challenges. This task was meant to provide the pre-service teachers with an opportunity to reflect and at the same time evaluate the goals of the learning programme they had gone through. Pre-service teachers’ perspectives show their attitudes, values and beliefs based on their personal experiences which therefore help them to interpret their teaching practices. The qualitative data was analysed using content analysis. The findings showed that whilst pre-service teachers were competent to teach other topics, the majority felt that they were not fully prepared and hence lacked confidence to teach the history of life on earth and plant and animal tissues in grade 10; excretion in animals particularly the functions of the nephron in grade 11; and evolution and genetics in grade 12. Different reasons were proffered for the lack of preparedness to teach these topics. The participants regarded some of these topics as difficult and complex e.g. genetics. Evolution was considered to be antagonistic to the participants’ and learners’ cultural and religious belief systems. Hence the participants had negative attitudes towards them. Some of the pre-service teachers indicated that they lacked interest in some of the topics particularly the history of life on earth which they considered to be more aligned to Geography, a subject they did not like. As remedies for their shortcomings in the content, the pre-service teachers planned to co-teach these topics with colleagues, and others planned to enrol for content enrichment programmes. These findings have implications for teacher professional development programmes.