Many elementary teachers report feeling unprepared to teach science due to a lack of practice with authentic science. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) provides an opportunity to reconstruct science education to promote student investigation of real scientific phenomena. The purpose of this study is to investigate how a redesigned guided-inquiry physical science curriculum impacts future pre-service elementary teachers’ explanations of scientific phenomena. Research methods for this study consist of quantitatively measuring student understanding of disciplinary and integrated topics through pre/post assessments. Assessments include nine total items representing three physics items, three chemistry items, and three integrated items. Embedded laboratory assessments were collected throughout the semester to measure how student disciplinary and integrated ideas change over the course of the semester. Study participants (n=300) predominantly consist of female students (80%) with a varied representation of diverse ethnic groups including Hispanics (50%), Asian (25%), Caucasian (15%), African American (10%) and other (5%). Initial analysis of Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 data provides evidence that pre-service teachers enter physical science courses with a significant amount of non-normative ideas. Findings across both semesters will provide insight into students’ conceptual difficulties and how a guided-inquiry laboratory addresses such difficulties. This study provides important aspects for teacher education programs to consider in how science instruction could be restructured to support future teachers’ explanations of scientific phenomena.

Impact of guided-inquiry approaches in physical science laborartory curriculum for K-8 teachers

2019 Fall National Meeting

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