Factors contributing to attitude exchange amongst preservice elementary teachers

SCIENCE TEACHEREDUCATION

Deborah Trumbull, Section Editor

Factors Contributing to AttitudeExchange Amongst PreserviceElementary Teachers

DAVID H. PALMERFaculty of Education, The University of Newcastle, New South Wales 2308, Australia

Received 5 January 2000; revised 4 March 2001; accepted 15 March 2001

ABSTRACT: Previous research has shown that elementary education majors often dislikescience and lack confidence in their ability to teach it. This is an important problem becausestudents 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 elementaryteachers who hold negative attitudes towards science, and attempt to convert these attitudesto positive before they become teachers. This study was designed to identify students whoseattitudes had changed from negative to positive (i.e., attitude exchange had occurred) afterparticipating in a one-semester elementary science education course, and to identify thecourse factors that were responsible. Four participants were individually interviewed. Thetranscripts indicated that attitude exchange had occurred for each of the four students. Eachstudent described several features of the course that had a positive influence. These were ofthree main types: personal attributes of the tutor, specific teaching strategies, and externalvalidation. It was proposed that many of the individual factors were effective because theyrepresented either “performance accomplishments” or “vicarious experience” as defined byBandura (Psychological Review, 84, 1977, 191–215).C© 2001John Wiley & Sons, Inc.SciEd86:122–138, 2001.

INTRODUCTION

Over the last two decades, a considerable amount of research attention has focussed onthe science attitudes of preservice elementary teachers. It has been found that many of themhold negative attitudes which appear to have arisen from their past experiences in science,particularly at secondary level (Abell & Smith, 1994; Mulholland & Wallace, 1996; Skamp,

Correspondence to:D. H. Palmer; e-mail: [email protected]

C© 2001John Wiley & Sons, Inc.DOI 10.1002/sce.10007

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO ATTITUDE EXCHANGE 123

1991; Westerback, 1982). They also typically have a poor science knowledge (Lloyd et al.,1998; Schoon & Boone, 1998; Stevens & Wenner, 1996; Webb, 1992) and lack confidencein their ability to teach the subject (Westerback, 1982; Young & Kellogg, 1993). This isa significant problem because of its impact on classroom practice: lack of confidence inscience results in less time teaching the subject (Harlen & Holroyd, 1997; Skamp, 1991);also, when it is taught, it will be taught poorly, employing didactic approaches rather thaninquiry based activities (Abell & Smith, 1994; Appleton & Kindt, 1999; Bencze & Hodson,1999; Harlen & Holroyd, 1997) and finally, it is possible that negative attitudes may bepassed on to students (Westerback, 1982).

This relationship between attitude and behavior fits well with the theory of behavioralchange proposed by Bandura (1977, 1982). He found, for example, that the extent to whichadults were willing to approach, touch, and handle a boa constrictor was strongly corre-lated with their previous personal beliefs about how they would perform at these tasks.He proposed that each individual has a sense of “self-efficacy,” which is “concerned withjudgements about how well one can organize and execute courses of action required todeal with prospective situations that contain many ambiguous, unpredictable, and oftenstressful, elements” (Bandura, 1981, pp. 200–201). Self-efficacy is an accurate predictorof performance—people with low self-efficacy about an activity will tend to avoid thatactivity, whereas people with high self-efficacy will make vigorous and persistent effortsand will therefore be more likely to complete the task successfully. Bandura (1977) alsoidentified two critical components of self-efficacy: “efficacy expectations” are beliefs inone’s ability to successfully execute the behavior whereas “response-outcome expectan-cies” are beliefs that their actions will produce the desired outcome. Self-efficacy is aconstruct of both of these beliefs that work together to determine behavior. Bandura (1981)also emphasized that self-efficacy is highly context-dependent, so a person may have ahigh self-efficacy with respect to one task but a low self-efficacy with respect to anothertask.

Application of this theory to the profession of teaching would suggest that teachers’behavior with regard to the teaching of science would be determined by their own confidencein their ability to teach science (efficacy expectations) as well as a belief that their teachingstrategies would be effective (response-outcome expectancies). Furthermore, their self-efficacy beliefs about teaching science need not be related to their self-efficacy beliefsabout the teaching of other subjects, such as reading or writing. Both of these predictionsappear to be supported by the current research (Enochs, Scharmann, & Riggs, 1995; Ramey-Gassert, Shroyer, & Staver, 1996; Schoon & Boone, 1998). It is therefore important that oneof the main aims of the preservice training of elementary teachers should be to cultivate amore positive self-efficacy by developing their confidence to teach science effectively. Thenext step is to address the question of how to improve their confidence.

It has been suggested that increasing the science content component of their collegecourses would give the preservice elementary teachers more confidence. However, this hasnot always proved to be the case. For example, Moore and Watson (1999) found that themajority of elementary education majors were not positively influenced by their collegescience experiences. Schoon and Boone (1998) reviewed a number of other studies thatinvestigated the effects of science content courses on the attitudes of these students andconcluded that completion of a science content course does not necessarily improve self-confidence, but those courses that were specifically designed for elementary educationmajors were more likely to be of value. It therefore appears that increased science knowledgeby itself will not consistently result in improved self-confidence.

On the other hand, a number of studies have indicated that science method subjectscan be very successful in developing confidence and positive self-efficacy. For example,

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Jarrett (1999) found that an inquiry-based science methods course increased both interestand confidence. Similarly, Bohning and Hale (1998) found that an inquiry based methodscourse resulted in an improvement in self-confidence. Butts, Koballa Jr, and Elliot (1997)found that a methods course involving hands-on experiences, peer teaching, and tutoringdeveloped their students’ confidence. Appleton (1995) found that a methods class using aconstructivist approach emphasizing gender equity resulted in improved self-confidence.Morrisey (1981) reviewed a number of earlier studies and concluded that courses withcomponents of practice teaching, student-centered approaches, and process approachescould positively influence students’ attitudes.

The studies above show that it is possible for college courses to improve preserviceelementary teachers’ confidence to teach science. Furthermore, the research suggests thatthis is most likely to occur when the science content courses are tailored specifically to theneeds of these students, and when the science method courses emphasize inquiry or otherstudent-centered approaches. However, there are two important problems that remain to beaddressed.

The First Problem

This problem concerns the identification of students who hold negative attitudes (i.e., whodislike science and who do not feel confident to teach it). By definition, you cannot obtain ameasurement of self-efficacy unless you use a quantitative approach, so the accepted proce-dure is to select a high quality instrument (such as the Elementary Science Teaching EfficacyBelief Instrument developed by Enochs and Riggs, 1990) and administer it to the whole classof preservice elementary teachers at the beginning of their (say) methods course, and againat its end. This approach can provide irrefutable evidence of improvements in self-efficacy.

However, this technique assumes that the class is a homogeneous group of students, andthere is some evidence that this is not always the case. A number of studies have found thatelementary education students who initially have negative attitudes about science teachingare in fact a minority. For example, Young and Kellogg (1993) found that only 21% ofthe class had negative attitudes at the beginning of the course, and Jarrett (1999) foundthat attitudes about science were typically neutral and that only one third of the studentshad negative experiences of science in high school. Similarly, Appleton (1995) found thatstudents initially had a moderate interest in teaching science, on average. It therefore appearsthat in many classes of elementary education majors the majority of students are eitherneutral or positive about science teaching.

The important point is that the problem does not lie with those students who hold pos-itive attitudes. These students can normally be expected to teach an adequate amount ofscience and to use hands-on, student-centered approaches (Bohning & Hale, 1998; Enochs,Sharmann, & Riggs, 1995) and so they are significantly different from those students whohave negative attitudes and who are consequently of most concern to us. The quantitativetechnique does not specifically identify those students who initially held negative attitudes,nor does it attempt to track them from pretest to posttest. As a result, it is sometimes difficultto tell from the research data whether those students who initially held negative attitudeshave had them converted to positive, or whether their attitudes have improved slightly butare still negative (in which case the original problem still exists), or whether there has beenany change in their attitudes at all (even though a positive change may have been identifiedfor the group as a whole).

The priority should therefore be to identify those students who initially have negativeattitudes, and attempt to implement procedures that will not only improve their attitudes butwill actually convert them to positive. This qualitative change in attitudes, from negative to


positive, will be referred to as “attitude exchange,” in order to distinguish it from smaller,incremental changes in attitude.

The Second Problem

This problem concerns the identification of specific factors that cause attitude exchange.A number of authors have taken the important step of identifying specific course factors thatare perceived positively by students. For example, Moore and Watson (1999, p. 46) surveyedelementary education majors and found that they were most comfortable with hands-on ac-tivities and group work, and preferred “enthusiastic, helpful, encouraging teachers who canmake science fun and make difficult concepts easy to understand.” Similarly, Mulhollandand Wallace (1996) interviewed preservice elementary teachers who had negative attitudestowards science and found that they valued a supportive learning environment, freedom toask questions, a constructivist approach, a slow pace of learning, hands-on activities andreinforcement. Young and Kellogg (1993, p. 287) found that students valued “classes thatprovided interesting facts, were relevant to life, and contained content that would be usefulfor teaching . . . [as well as] small classes, laboratories for hands-on activities, use of discov-ery method in which the professor was a guide, field trips, and use of non-scientific languageto explain important principles . . . [as well as professors who] were interesting and enthu-siastic, and were accessible to students with questions.” Shrigley (1976) found that thirdyear elementary education students valued instructors who presented practical activities inclass, were experienced in elementary classrooms, who could teach both science content andmethods, and who modelled teaching strategies similar to those proposed for children. Thesestudies have provided an invaluable source of data that can be used to inform the teaching ofall elementary education majors at college level. However, the question still remains, “Willfactors such as these actually precipitate attitude exchange and if so, which ones are most im-portant?” In order to answer this question it is necessary to identify students whose attitudeshave changed from negative to positive, and then to investigate what caused this change.

Therefore, the research question for this study is “What are the causes of attitude exchangeamongst preservice elementary teachers?” The attitudes investigated areinterest in science(in this context, interest can be thought of as being an enduring, positive disposition towardsscience itself, as suggested by Jarrett, 1999) andconfidence to teach science effectively(i.e.,self-efficacy), but emphasis was placed on the latter.

METHOD

The Participants

Four preservice elementary teachers were individually interviewed. These students weremembers of a class of about 30 who were enrolled in a one-semester science content/methodscourse (which is described below). This was a compulsory component of a one-year post-graduate Diploma of Education (Primary) program at a university in southeastern Australia.All the students in the class had already completed a bachelor’s degree in another disci-pline, and were now training to become elementary school teachers. Nearly all of them werefemales in the 20–40 years age group.

The interviews were carried out at the end of the semester, when the science con-tent/methods course had been completed. The participants were selected in the followingway. At the end of one teaching session, just before the end of the semester, the normal tutorleft the room and was replaced by a research associate who had no connection with the classand who was not known to the students. The research associate asked whether any of thestudents felt that their attitudes had changed from negative to positive as a result of doing

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this course, and if so, whether they would be willing to volunteer for this research project.There was no reward for being interviewed, participants would remain anonymous, and thetutor would be unaware of who the participants were. Four female students volunteered andthe interviews were carried out at later times by arrangement.

The Science Content/Methods Course

Science is a compulsory subject for students in elementary schools in Australia, so thisscience course was a compulsory component of the preservice program. It was specificallydesigned for elementary education students and was the only science-related course in theirprogram. The three main goals of this course were to improve the students’ knowledge ofscience content, to give them an understanding of teaching methods for science, and to havea positive influence on their self-efficacy for science teaching.

The course was presented as a 2-h workshop each week for 14 weeks. In each workshop,students were introduced to a science content area and to some science teaching methods andtechniques. The science content areas were intended to be relevant to the elementary schoolcurriculum and included topics such as sound, light, water, air, astronomy, animals, plants,electricity, and magnetism. Integrated with these were studies of process skills, teachingtechniques, and assessment strategies. The course was purposely designed to contain morephysical science content than biological science because many elementary teachers are lesscomfortable with physics, so their needs are greater in this area (Carre & Carter, 1990;Grindrod et al., 1991; Yates & Goodrum, 1990). The course also made very heavy useof hands-on activities and small group work, as it was believed that this would contributetowards the development of positive attitudes.

There was no formal field experience component in the science content/methods course.However, as part of their other education subjects (which were studied either concurrentlyor prior to this course) the students regularly had access to real elementary classroomsfor the purposes of practice teaching and classroom observations (demonstration lessons).These experiences may or may not have included science lessons, as the types of lessonsobserved and taught depended on the individual programs operating in each school and ineach class. In addition to these experiences, the students in the science content/methodscourse were allowed to volunteer to teach a children’s physical science program to be heldduring the vacation after the end of semester. The elementary education students were underno duress to participate in this program, and no reward was offered for participation, butit was presented as an opportunity to practice the science teaching methods that they hadlearnt. It was also an important component of this study because it allowed participants todemonstrate their willingness to engage in science teaching. Bandura (1981) argued thatindividuals with high self-efficacy will be more willing to engage in tasks that help themto develop their skills and abilities, so voluntary participation in science teaching would beone type of evidence for improved self-efficacy.

One tutor taught the whole content/methods course. He had taught this course for thelast 4 years and had received consistently positive evaluations from the students during thattime. No attempt was made to observe the class for research purposes, nor to interview thetutor. This was a conscious decision in order to focus attention squarely on thestudents’perceptions of the course, as it is this and this alone that would presumably precipitate achange in attitude.

The Interview Structure

Each interview lasted about 30 min, and consisted of two main phases. The first con-sisted of questions that were designed to establish whether attitude exchange had occurred.


The students were first asked to describe their previous attitudes (i.e., their attitudes to sci-ence/teaching science before beginning the course) and were encouraged to briefly describetheir precollege experiences of science. They were then asked whether/how their attitudeshad changed as a result of the science course that they had just completed. Finally, theywere asked whether they had volunteered to teach in the physical science vacation program,and how they felt about doing so.

The second phase consisted of questions that were designed to identify the factors thatcontributed to attitude exchange. Students were asked, “Were there particular things in thecourse that changed your attitude?” and “Were there any other aspects of the course thathelped to change your attitude?” These questions were asked on a number of occasions ineach interview, with slight variations, and accompanied by relevant probing questions.

RESULTS

Evidence for Attitude Exchange

The following are excerpts from the students’ responses when questioned about theirprevious attitudes.

[My attitude] was very negative. I hadn’t done science much since Grade 10 in high school.It was very negative. Apprehensive more than anything—I didn’t feel like I was very goodat that subject, and that’s probably why it was negative. I was a straight A student except forscience . . . It never clicked for me. I was always a humanitarian (sic) person. I was neverscientifically minded and it was always above my head. (Student A)

Basically I felt [science] was probably too hard. I got out of science as soon as I could atschool. I stopped at the end of Grade 10 and thinking, well great, I don’t ever have to dothat again, . . . I think that it [science] just didn’t fascinate me basically. I was much moreinterested in English, History, languages—that sort of thing—and so the smallest thing [inscience lessons] was able to put me off. (Student B)

I thought,How do you teach science to little kids? That was my main fear. I remember atschool all the other things that scared me—the physics, the chemistry. Maybe it’s that I wasfeeling a bit inept. I wouldn’t have enough knowledge about all the [topics, so] how do Ianswer all the questions? . . . I only did biology. I always felt I could never do physics. Thechemistry stuff used to scare me and I could never understand it, . . . I’m quite confident withthat area [biology]. It’s just these other areas that we teach kids as well, it’s other aspectsof science that because of those thingsI’m not very confident of, I might steer away from[teaching] science altogether.So that’s what my fear was before I came here. (Student C)

My only science experience was biology at high school, so it was fairly restricted as far asthe subject went.I just didn’t think I would be able to teach the topic. I didn’t feel confidentabout getting up in front of a classroom and talking about science.(Student D)

These statements imply that the students had negative attitudes about science and/or teachingscience, and all four of them described negative experiences of science at secondary schoolthat were linked to these attitudes. The students were then asked whether the content/methods course had changed their attitudes, and some excerpts from their responses arepresented below. The italics in the excerpts above and below have been added to identifystatements that could be interpreted as indicating a change in confidence to teach science.

Yes definitely. It’s definitely changed. I’m looking forward to teaching itand I have quite abit more confidence. . . . [This subject was] lots of fun. That’s something I didn’t think I’dever be able to say—that science was fun. But it was lots of fun. . . . If [the tutor] did thesame thing again next yearI’m sure that it would change people’s minds again. [The tutor]

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has helped me gain those experiences that I needed to boost my confidence, and to me thatis what it was.It was all about my confidence. (Student A)

Absolutely. As I say, I wouldn’t have felt at all confident about being able to [teach] inscience. Now I feel, yeah, I can easily do that. That’s great! And I’ve become much moreinterested myself. I’m much more aware of it. . . . I don’t feel anywhere near the confidencefor example, in English, which ironically is my subject. That was my major in my degree.I don’t feel as confident about going out and teaching that as I do about going out and teachingscience. Which is amazing to me! I never thought that would be the case. (Student B)

Heaps. It really has.It’s sort of given me a framework, a structure to actually be able toteach these kids. . . . Seeing that as well has made me more attracted to the subject and moreconfident to teach it. . . . Yes definitely,I’ll definitely be doing science. I feel a lot moreconfident now.I know how I could teach it. (Student C)

Yes, . . . andI would feel quite confidentwalking into a class just with the notes from thelesson and just standing up . . . (Student D)

The statements above are evidence that the students had moved from a situation of negativeconfidence to a situation of positive confidence. There are two further types of evidence forattitude exchange. Firstly, the fact that they had volunteered to be interviewed indicated thateach of them felt that their attitudes had qualitatively changed (because students were askedto only volunteer if they felt that their attitudes had changed from negative to positive). Thisindicates personal awareness of an attitude exchange. Secondly, all four students stated thatthey had volunteered to teach physical science in the children’s vacation program after theend of the semester. They had therefore moved from a situation of avoiding physical scienceprior to the course, to a situation of voluntarily teaching the subject to children (it should benoted that all the students who volunteered to participate in this program did participate).One student stated,

If you’d asked me at the beginning of the course whether I would have taken part in the[vacation program] I would have said, “No”. I’m doing it because I think it will be a goodchance to test out whether I can really convey that enthusiasm that I feel to some otherchildren. (Student B)

Factors Contributing to Attitude Exchange

Throughout the rest of the interview the students commented upon aspects of the coursethat had contributed to their attitude exchange. The transcripts indicated that there was notany one single factor that changed their attitudes, but rather they described a range of coursefactors that had a positive influence upon them. For the sake of analysis it was decided togive priority to those factors that were mentioned byall four students independently, andthese are described below (the capital letters in parentheses indicate students A, B, C, or D).

Personal Attributes of the Tutor. All four students mentioned the tutor’s enthusiasmand confidence as having a positive effect on their attitudes. For example,

He’s interested in the subject. He’s enthusiastic. He wants us all to enjoy science and tobe able to go out there and teach it. And you feel that. You feel that straight away. . . . Hisenthusiasm for the subject has made me be more open to it and in the process of course I’vebecome much more interested and enthusiastic as well. (B)


It showed to me the importance of the teacher with science. That you have to be confident,you have to be happy with it so the kids (students like me) become happy with it andconfident with the topics. (A)

Clarity of Explanations. The students stated that clear explanations using simple lan-guage, with a minimal use of scientific jargon, had positively influenced their attitudes byhelping them to understand the subject:

[The tutor] explained everything so clearly, in terms that I could understand . . . He didn’ttalk in scientists’ talk. He used normal language, so I never felt like it was an “us and them”sort of thing. We were doing it together so that was good. Even though we did go intothe concepts—more scientific concepts—he’d mention the scientific terms but then he’dexplain those in the language that I understood. (A)

He’s got a tremendous clarity of presentation which helps incredibly. . . . And now I canconfidently explain why it is that in the daytime we can see the moon. And that was simplybecause it was explained in such a clear way. And it wasn’t technical. It was correct, but itwasn’t technical. (B)

So I think that feeling confident that [the children] are not going to ask you something thatyou can’t handle is really important. . . . And that’s a benefit because then you don’t feelinsecure about what you don’t know. (D)

A Clear Structure for Each Lesson. All the students stated that, at the beginning ofeach workshop, an overview that accurately described the purpose and structure of thesession had a positive influence on their attitudes:

He would tell us what we would be doing in the day, “and we’ll do this and we’ll do thatand we’ll do this” so I could plan it in my head as well. (A)

Coming to science has been a big relief for everybody. I’ve found that you know you’regoing to come into a class that is well-structured. You’re going to be told at the beginningwhat it is that you’re going to be looking at, and at the end this is what you will have hopedto have achieved. . . . And it goes through. It follows through logically. (B)

Doing Hands-On Activities. All the students stated that hands-on activities were ben-eficial because they created interest. For example,

In other subjects you just don’t do the hands-on sort of stuff. Maybe other subjects make itharder to do that. But in this one it always seems to be hands-on and it really engages you.You always seem to be interested in what we’re doing. (C)

However, different students emphasized different aspects of hands-on activities, such asvariety:

We did so many experiments and hands-on activities. But it wasn’t sometimes just a matterof “OK. Today we’re going to do this, this, and we’re going to do a hands-on activity”. Hewould change it in a way that he would do some activities, and we would do some activities,and at the end we had to say which one was best and why we thought that would be a goodlesson. So there was variety there as well. And that kept me on the ball with science. Someof the activities were just outright fun. I enjoyed them. (A)

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the use of everyday materials:

He does a lot of practical stuff where we’re weighing and measuring and we’re makingthings ourselves. . . . Even if I were in a place where there wasn’t equipment, I would feelthat there are ordinary, everyday things that we can use to achieve the same results. . . . Ithink one of the reasons a lot of teachers don’t teach science is because they don’t knowwhat to use to do it. They can’t easily see these things around them. And you just needsomeone like [the tutor] to help you make the connections. (B)

and the inquiry aspect of the activities:

I think the thing I enjoyed about this was the investigation and discovery . . . and the en-couragement of being able to talk about the experiments. Because often after we’d donean experiment he’d ask, “What did your group find out? Oh that’s interesting. Why doyou think that happened?” That was an important part, because often each group would doan experiment and change it slightly and then we’d all discuss what happened. That wasvaluable. (D)

Encouraging Students’ Questions. All four students explained that regular oppor-tunities to ask questions had affected their attitudes. Interestingly, none of the studentsmentioned the tutor’s questions, instead they only referred to students’ questions:

He was quite willing to answerall our questions no matter how far fetched they were,and everybody appreciated that because it encouraged us to keep asking and wanting toknow more. His willingness to spend 10–15 minuteseverylesson answering anything andeverything I think encouraged a lot of us to keep asking, keep inquiring. Which is what hewanted us to do, I assume. So that you keep wanting to know a little bit more. (D)

I show my confusion on my face and I know he can tell when everybody’s confused andhis great thing was, “Give me some questions”. He was always receptive to questions and Ifelt that was important too. I could ask the stupid questions and I wouldn’tfeelstupid. Andthey were clarified for me. (A)

An important feature of these questioning phases was that the tutor provided a model forhow a teacher should behave when he/she does not know the answer to a question:

He allows the students to question. They’ve obviously got questions in their head. They’llput their hand up and he won’t be able to answer it or he’ll give reasons why he can’t answer.He’ll say as much as he knows, then he’ll say some assumptions he can make and then,“Well I don’t really know the answer”. He did that today. He does it almost every lesson.He comes across as knowing the stuff really well, but because he allows the students toquestion whatever they want from their head, there’s going to be something he can’t answer.And he’ll answer it as far as he can but maybe not draw a solid conclusion—perhaps getthe students to probe and question as well—but to realize you can’t always get an answer,and I think that’s really important in science. (C)

Two of the students stated that knowing how to behave when you don’t know the answerto a question was a very important factor in increasing their confidence to teach science,because it removed the pressure to know all the answers:

When I listen to the way he gives feedback to the students when he doesn’t know the answer.I’ve been looking at that aspect because I think to myself, how am I going to respond to akid that asks a question and I can’t answer it? I’ve noticed he says, “Well that could be yourhomework” or he’ll just admit “I don’t know everything. Teachers don’t know everything”.


I think coming to terms with that is important. Seeing that as well has made me moreattracted to the subject and more confident to teach it. (C)

Practical Validity. All four students cited evidence that the techniques which they hadlearnt in the course actually worked in real classrooms. Seeing evidence of its use in schoolsgave the students confidence in the course material:

I was fortunate enough to see kids actually do that at a demo [demonstration lesson]. Theteachers were doing the [balloon rockets] activity and the kids were just so excited. . . . Itsticks in my mind having seen it done. Seeing the excitement and the kids all questioning.The teachers did it exactly like [the tutor] does it. [So do you feel you’d be confident to usethat activity yourself in the classroom?] Definitely. (C)

Several further factors were mentioned bythree students independently, and these aredescribed below.

Variety of Teaching Strategies. Three of the students commented that the tutor used arange of teaching strategies to create variety, and this had a positive effect on their attitudes:

A huge range of teaching techniques. . . . Every single lesson I was writing not just thematerial but also always noticing the various techniques—how he was doing it. He just hadan abundance it seemed of different ways to do things. That was one thing that I reallyliked. (C)

And the variety of the class was good as well. It wasn’t the same. [Do you think that changedyour attitude?] Yeah, I think it helped. It didn’t change my attitude to science by itself, butit was just an element of the teaching strategies that he used that helped to change myattitude. (A)

Some of the specific teaching strategies that were mentioned by the students were as follows.Three of the students mentioned the tutor’s use of science trivia (interesting snippets ofinformation):

[The tutor’s] ability to put across the basic ideas of all the scientific principles and also tothrow in some interesting information. Interesting facts . . . . And his great little bit at theend about the space junk. I’m sure we’ll all remember that too, which is exactly what hesaid. It’s meant to be you’ll remember that, and when you think about the rest of the thingsit’s a hook into what you did. And that’s a technique we could all take away for any subjectfrankly. (B)

He demonstrated the strategy of using something trivial . . . It was just amazing, and itworked, because he said he used it so that then we would go away and remember aboutthe lesson and . . . I have. I went home and told the kids and my husband about it. It wasfun. (A)

Other specific teaching strategies that were mentioned by individual students were personalanecdotes, dramatizations, and demonstrations.

Direct Modeling of Classroom Practice. The students explained that, during normalworkshop sessions, the tutor often performed demonstrations of specific teaching strategies,

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to show how these techniques would look in practice. In these sessions, the tutor pretendedto be an elementary teacher and the students pretended to be elementary children:

I think it was how each lesson was really clearly set out in the beginning: “Today we’regoing to do this. This part of the lesson I’m going to direct you as teachers—this is how ateacher would handle it. This section of the lesson I’ll teach as if I’m a teacher in front offourth graders—so you know how I’m directing the lesson”. It was really good. . . . It wasgood training to think, well that’s the way the kids will think about it. Each time you didan experiment, that was emphasized without you really realizing it. So you’re constantlythinking like the kids will be thinking. Which I think is an advantage for the teacher to knowwhat’s happening. (D)

It’s interesting. [The tutor] sort of teaches it in such a way that we would have to teach it Isuppose. And we do a lot of practical stuff and that is great because you’ll come to it almostas they [children] are coming to it—or a lot of us are—so you can really appreciate howkids will feel and it’s easy therefore to generate that enthusiasm. (B)

Theoretical References. The students used jargon from cognitive psychology to explaincertain aspects of the course. It is possible that this endowed some validity on the course,but this should not be assumed, and this point is addressed in the Discussion. Examples ofjargon are italicized in the quotes below:

Having everything explained to me in terms that I understand and relating that back. Isuppose that sort ofconstructivist—relating it back to my own prior knowledge so that Icould then build on it. And I liked seeing [the tutor] do that, scientifically as well as a futureteacher. I enjoyed watching that teaching style. (A)

It’s a discoveryprocess. He’ll give you the bare bones, but in a lot of our other subjectwhere you’rein charge of your learningyou’re not necessarily given as good nuts and boltsto start off with. So then it’s not such a pleasure. Whereas it can be a fantastic experienceif you’ve actually got the right nuts and bolts to work with in the first place. (B)

I’m always thinking, wow, he seems to make these abstract concepts really easy throughjust connecting them to the kids’ prior knowledge—their language even—kids might usecertain terms and he connects it to that. (C)

Some other aspects of the course were mentioned by students as helping to change theirattitudes. These included relating the content to real life (two students), relating the contentto the primary classroom (two students), and the attractiveness of the room (one student).

DISCUSSION

One problem with any study of students’ attitudes or beliefs is the difficulty of accuratelyidentifying the attitude or belief itself. Although measurements of “self-efficacy” haveproved to be a useful way to interpret the beliefs and behaviors of teachers, there are manyother types of attitudes, such as anxiety, intrinsic interest, and motivation, which are relatedto self-efficacy (Bandura, 1981). In addition, a number of studies have provided evidencethat there are strong relationships between elementary teachers’ interest in science and theirconfidence to teach science (Atwater, Gardner, & Kight, 1991; Harty, Samuel, & Anderson,1991; Jarrett, 1999). The results of the present study would tend to support these findings.Throughout the interviews, the students regularly referred to both their interest in scienceand their confidence to teach science, and it appeared that a change in both these attitudeshad taken place. In other words, students who had previously lacked confidence in science


and who had a history of avoidance of physical science were eventually able to not onlystate their interest and confidence in the subject but also volunteered to teach it during theirown vacation time (it is recognized that the students’ decisions to participate in the vacationprogram would have also been influenced by other factors such as the amount and type ofinformation given about the task, social conformity, and their interactions with the tutor(Pintrich & Schunk, 1996) but nevertheless, it is unlikely they would have participated iftheir attitudes had not been positive).

There did not appear to be any single overriding factor that brought about this attitudeexchange, but rather the students’ comments indicated agreement on a range of factors thatpositively influenced them. For the sake of analysis, these may be divided into three main cat-egories: personal attributes of the tutor, specific teaching strategies, and external validation.

Personal Attributes of the Tutor

The students emphasized the tutors’ confidence and enthusiasm. Similarly, other studieshave identified college students’ preferences for enthusiastic teachers (Moore & Watson,1999; Young & Kellogg, 1993). However, although the students obviously felt that the tutorwas confident and enthusiastic, the transcripts provided little direct evidence of how theydefined these terms or how these attributes were actually manifested. In other words, therewas little information about what the tutor actually did that showed he was confident andenthusiastic. The question of how students judge whether a science teacher is confident andenthusiastic is not an insignificant one (as evidenced by the influence of these factors on thestudents in this study) and it is intriguing to speculate that future research may offer clearerstrategies for teachers to consciously display these attributes.

At present, however, these intrinsic attributes of the tutor would presumably be difficultfor education students to directly copy and eventually transfer to their own classrooms asspecific strategies. Hence, the decision to treat them as a separate category. It could be arguedthough, that confidence and enthusiasm are thecatalyststhat facilitate the implementationof the other strategies, which are described below. In other words, the strategies below couldbe adopted by any tutor, as long as he/she has the confidence and enthusiasm to do so.

Specific Teaching Strategies

The students stated that they had been positively influenced by explanations using simplelanguage rather than jargon, well structured tutorials, hands-on activities that emphasizedvariety, inquiry and the use of everyday materials, opportunities to ask questions, and the useof a variety of teaching strategies such as science trivia, personal anecdotes, dramatizations,and demonstrations.

These results are broadly similar to those obtained by Moore and Watson (1999), Mulhol-land and Wallace (1996), and Young and Kellogg (1993) who researched the teaching-stylepreferences of elementary education majors (as described in the Introduction). However,some points deserve particular attention. Firstly, the students did not specifically mentiongroup work as having a positive influence. In fact one student stated, “the group dynamicsthing. I think sometimes it’s difficult to do things in groups. But when you’re doing science,I think in particular, a lot of the things you do with kids have got to be in groups, either bigor little.” This statement appears to be rather ambivalent, and it is possible that group workdoes not always have the positive effect on attitudes with which it is often credited.

Secondly, these students placed particular emphasis on the ability of the tutor to modelcertain teaching behaviors. Three of the students stated that, during the normal workshopsessions, the tutor would often pretend to be an elementary teacher and the students wouldpretend to be elementary children. They appeared to find this an engaging experience as it

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allowed them to view the lesson from a child’s perspective. However, a potentially moreimportant behavior was modeled when the students asked questions which the tutor couldn’tanswer. In these situations the tutor either proposed hypotheses (which led to further probingquestions) or stated, “I don’t know everything. Teachers don’t know everything” and thisimplied that the nature of science is that you sometimes can’t get an answer. It appearedthat having a model of how to behave when you don’t know the answer to a question was animportant confidence builder for these students who were not science specialists and who didnot have a broad and in-depth knowledge of the subject. The fact that the students recognizedthat it was not necessary to know all the answers in order to be credible teacher has somesignificant implications for elementary teacher education programs. The question of howmuch science content is necessary for elementary education majors is still an issue of debate(see Jarrett, 1999; Schoon & Boone, 1998). However, science knowledge evolves with timeand school science curricula evolve too, so it is not logically possible for students to learn,in college, all the science content they will ever need to know. An alternative way to viewcollege science content (from the point of view of elementary teacher education) is simplyas avehiclefor the development of positive attitudes. The science content should thereforebe selected with attitude exchange in mind, so it should relate closely to the elementarycurriculum, and should be presented using strategies such as those described above, inorder to facilitate the development of positive attitudes. Although this is an argument forless emphasis on the quantity of science content it would nevertheless be important forstudents to eventually learn an adequate amount of content knowledge. Consequently, twoadditional components of the elementary education course would be (1) learning how tohandle children’s questions when you don’t know the answer and (2) developing the skillsto be a lifelong learner in science. Some of the students’ comments in the present studyindicated that they had begun to develop these skills:

A tutor doesn’t know absolutely everything, so I think that humanized the side of sciencethat we felt oh well maybe that’s something we can all go home and look up and come backand it’s something we can all discuss. It makes it interesting for everybody.

I know that I could find out about [science] and relate it in terms that I could understandand therefore be able to explain it to children.

Thirdly, all the students mentioned hands-on activities, and one interesting aspect ofthese was the use of everyday materials rather than scientific equipment. All of the studentsdescribed hands-on activities using bottles, balloons, string, straws, apples, water, and otherreadily available items. This appeared to have three positive effects: (1) it made the activitymore relevant to elementary classrooms, which often lack scientific equipment. For example,one student noted that, “[The tutor] tried to use resources that we would all have accessto [in elementary classrooms]”; (2) thinking about the selection of materials was a way ofchallenging the students. For example,

We had one experiment where we had to cut a plastic bottle in half and we just couldn’t doit. And we just thought there’s no way you’re going to do that with kids. So we changed itto milk cartons, which were a lot more accessible. [The tutor] was constantly encouraging,“Think about your resources, think about what the kids can do, think about what you wantto achieve in the class”. And just getting us to think in these logical types of frameworksmakes you feel a bit more organized about your thoughts about science;

and (3) it helped to change the students’ views about the nature of science. For example,

It wasn’t what I would call science before. Like having fun, playing with balloons—to methat’s not how I would have classified it before. Even though I knew it was. Every time I


thought “science” I’d think periodic tables, gases, atoms and things like that. So now I think“science” right away I think, Hey, balloon glider. Fun. Hey! And that’s my view of sciencenow, especially in regards to primary teaching.

External Validation

All the students referred to factors outside the course, and these references took twomain forms. Firstly, practical validity (evidence that the techniques worked with childrenin real elementary classrooms) appeared to be important because it was mentioned byall four students. The students typically stated that they had either observed the sciencemethod techniques being successfully used in demonstration lessons, or they had tried thetechniques themselves during their practice teaching experiences and found them to beeffective. This finding has an important implication for the structure of elementary teachereducation programs: it suggests that regular in-school experiences, in conjunction withmethods subjects, would facilitate the gaining of these types of corroborative experiencesand hence contribute to the development of positive attitudes.

Secondly, the students also made theoretical references (by using educational psychologyterminology such as “constructivist,” “discovery,” and “in charge of your learning”) todescribe aspects of the course. This might also be interpreted as a sort of confirmationthat the course content was appropriate and reliable. It should be noted however, that otherinterpretations are possible. A recent study by Abell, Bryan, and Anderson (1998) hasreported a tendency of many elementary education majors to use “buzz words” such as“cooperative learning,” “discovery,” “child-centered,” and “teacher as a guide” when theyreflect upon lessons that they have observed. These authors proposed that the students usedthis jargon as a substitute for real understanding, and that it did not necessarily representa genuine link to other education courses. It could be argued however, that in this study,the important point as far as attitude exchange is concerned is that the students did believe(from the perspective of their own understandings) that the educational approach adoptedin the course was theoretically sound, and this gave the course credibility in their eyes.However, it must be conceded that there is uncertainty about these theoretical references soat this stage their significance must be an open question.

In summary, a range of factors appeared to work together to precipitate attitude exchange,and these factors could be categorized as, personal attributes of the tutor, specific teachingstrategies, and external validation. Furthermore, it is possible to infer some reasons to explainwhy some of the individual factors were so effective. Bandura (1981) argued that one of themost powerful sources of efficacy information were “performance accomplishments.” Theseare authentic mastery experiences in which repeated success develops a strong sense of ef-ficacy. In this study, the quality of the explanations of scientific phenomena, the hands-onactivities, and the opportunities to ask questions to the tutor were important factors con-tributing to attitude exchange. All of these might be interpreted as facilitating success andmastery inunderstandingscience. When students experience week-by-week personal satis-faction in understanding scientific concepts it is easy to see how this could promote positiveattitudes. All four students made comments that supported this interpretation. For example,

A lot of the students have said they really, really like [this course]. It’s the only subject theycan understand out of every other subject we’re doing. (C)

It’s building up my bank of knowledge so that maybe the scientific terms don’t make mechurn as much. (A)

Bandura (1981) also argued that the attainment of proximal subgoals (regular, short-termgoals) can positively affect self-efficacy and interest. It is therefore not surprising that all

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the students in this study described the tutorial structure as having a positive influence onthem. At the beginning of each workshop the tutor gave an overview of what the studentscould be expected to achieve during the session, and this may have helped them to developpersonal goals for each teaching episode. For example, one student stated,

This subject; everybody enjoys doing it because it has that logical step. We can see a result.We feel, Right. I’ve learnt about light today and I can do three experiments on light. Andthat’s what we want and that’s what we’ve got. (D)

Another powerful source of efficacy information is “vicarious experience” or observingthe actions of others. Bandura (1981, p. 208) argued that,

competent models can teach observers effective strategies for dealing with challengingor threatening situations . . . In therapeutic applications of modeling what phobic thinkingrenders frightful, instructive modeling makes predictable and personally controllable.

Significantly, all the students in this study referred to the tutor’s ability to model teachingbehaviors during the college workshop sessions. The tutor modeled a variety of specificstrategies such as hands-on activities, anecdotes, dramatizations, and demonstrations, thetutor modeled how to teach children by pretending to be an elementary teacher, and thetutor modeled how to behave when you don’t know the answer to a question. It is thereforepossible that the tutor facilitated vicarious experience by providing a model of high qualityteaching relevant to elementary school.

In addition, all the students cited evidence from real classrooms that the tutor’s strategieswere valid (practical validity). This could be interpreted as contributing to response-outcomeexpectancies (a belief that actions will produce a desirable outcome; Bandura, 1977) becausestudents were able to see for themselves the positive educational benefits of using thesestrategies.

CONCLUSIONS

This study has provided evidence that attitude exchange can be brought about by a combi-nation of factors, which can be grouped under the three broad headings of personal attributesof the tutor, specific teaching strategies, and external validation. It has also been argued thatmany of the individual factors can be interpreted as either performance accomplishmentsor vicarious experiences (Bandura, 1981). It is likely that both of these were critical factorsin the development of positive interest and self-efficacy for these preservice teachers.

It should be remembered however, that these findings were based on the experiences of avery select group of students—the sample was small and it was only intended to include thosestudents whose attitudes had changed from negative to positive. It would be interesting tocompare their perceptions with those of negative cases—students whose attitudes were notpositively affected by participation in a class. However, this might not always be a simpletask. For example, to obtain a rough guide to general students’ perceptions of the classinvolved in this study, the author was granted access to the course evaluation questionnairesthat the whole class of students completed at the end of the semester (to ensure credibility,these questionnaires were anonymous, and were administered by students, who then directlyposted the completed forms to an external body for processing). The survey included 14Likert-style items such as “This lecturer explains things clearly,” “This subject has beenpresented in an interesting and stimulating way,” “I would commend this subject to fellowstudents,” and “I have learned a lot from this subject.” Interestingly, there werenonegativeresponses to any of the items in the questionnaire (the means for the four items above were


4.9, 4.9, 4.8, and 4.8 respectively out of a possible maximum positive response of 5.0).The survey also provided space for written comments, and these provided no evidence thatnegative attitudes remained in the class. This suggests that it might not always be possibleto identify negative cases in classes in which attitude exchange has occurred.

When interpreting the findings of this study, it should also be remembered that the studentsin this study were atypical in that they already had extensive college experience, becausethey all had bachelor’s degrees. The course itself was also atypical in that it combined bothcontent and methods. Furthermore, it has been rightly argued that studies such as this provideno indication of how long the attitude change might persist after the completion of the course(Morrisey, 1981) or whether the students’ confidence translates into classroom competence(Appleton, 1995). There is clearly a need for further studies to focus on these issues.

However, the importance of identifying and encouraging motivational teaching strategiesat college level cannot be overemphasized. College tutors should be aware that they havethe power to change students’ minds about science, and this can be done by utilizing a rangeof very simple techniques that any teacher can learn to use. In fact, this process is essentialif we are to improve the quality and amount of science teaching in elementary schools.

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Factors contributing to attitude exchange amongst preservice elementary teachers