Discussion of In-Depth Interview Findings: August

As evident through the semi-structured interviews, half of the in-depth interview participants in this current study expressed some concerns with the area of science at the beginning of the Primary Science unit due to their prior experiences or lack of interest in science, two participants expressed some limitations of their ability to teach science, with only three participants expressing an optimistic view of teaching science. This is supported by in-depth qualitative research of 12 preservice teachers by Yoon et al., (2006), which identified that half of the participants expressed a lack of confidence due to their lack of content knowledge at the beginning of a science methods unit.

In the study by Yoon et al. there was only one participant who recorded a positive response due to previous positive science experiences and high levels of science content knowledge. In this present study, three of the participants expressed high levels of self-belief about science in the qualitative data collected in August 2013. All three participants had previous positive experiences and interest in science, with two participants having studied an unrelated science degree before commencing an education degree, and the other specialising in science as part of their education degree. At this point in the study, all of the current study’s in-depth interview participants expressed that science should be exploratory, hands on and fun, supporting previous research by Hubbard and Abell (2005) and Cassel and Vincent (2011). Lucy, Maria and Kate, as illustrated through the semi-structured interviews, expressed higher levels of enthusiasm and passion towards science than the other in-depth participants. This was supported by their PSTE and STOE scores in the STEBI-B pre-test. This seems to be consistent with the findings of Senler (2016), who highlighted the correlation between higher levels of science teaching efficacy beliefs and a more positive attitude towards science. This is also reflected by John’s beliefs, as he seemed to connect attitude towards science with learning success and enjoyment, which correlates with findings by Niehaus et al. (2012).

For the in-depth interview participants who expressed concerns or limitations in the August 2013 semi-structured interviews, these seemed to relate to either their ability to learn science or teach science effectively. For Kerrie, Mark, Toni and Sarah, they described significant concerns about their own content knowledge in science, which connected with worries about how they would teach it. These findings are consistent with Moscovici and Osisioma (2008), in that unsuccessful science learning in the past was associated with participants feeling scared to teach science. Jamie, while sharing mostly positive self-belief about teaching science, articulated some limitations about her capabilities. Her science background in high school was in the area of biology and she expressed concerns about her knowledge of physics and chemistry. Jamie’s experiences seem to support the findings of Hackling et al. (2014) who noted that high school students’ involvement in the more academic science subjects of physics and chemistry has dramatically declined in Australia in the past decade. In this current study, the wider preservice teacher cohort were asked about the high school science subjects they completed in Year 12. Of the 136 preservice teachers, only four

preservice teachers had studied chemistry and only one preservice teacher studied physics, further supporting the findings of Hacking et al. (2014).

The personal beliefs shared by Maria and Alan are interesting to consider. While Maria conveyed a positive attitude and confidence towards science through the semi- structured interviews, which was reflected in her high PSTE score, her STOE score was lower than the wider cohort mean. A possible explanation of this relates to her previous experience teaching secondary students which may have led to her experiencing self-doubt about her ability to have strong science learning outcomes with younger students. This seems to be consistent with the previous findings of Bleicher and Lindgren (2005) who found that even preservice teachers who had higher levels of science teaching efficacy beliefs often experience some doubt about their ability to successfully teach science to children. As a practising teacher, Maria may be an illustration of how efficacy beliefs are context and subject specific (Bursal, 2012).

Alan was similar to Maria in relation to his PSTE score being higher than the mean of the wider preservice teacher cohort and his STOE score lower than the mean. He had a strong science background but had no previous teaching experience. From the August 2013 interview, Alan was experiencing a discrepancy between his own emerging beliefs about deep ecology and his experiences in his postgraduate education degree. This seems to support the view of Hornstra and Mansfield (2015), who maintain that teaching beliefs are developed through the interplay of experiences as a learner, an individual’s life experiences, the experiences in teacher education and other professional experiences as teachers. However, at this point of the study, it remained unclear as to whether this would have a tangible impact on his science teaching efficacy beliefs in the long term.