Preservice science teachers’ epistemological framing in their early teaching

ABSTRACT

Background

In the context of recent research in science education and continued struggles to understand how best to support science teachers, epistemological frames, made up of sets of epistemological resources teachers activate, have emerged as an important focus of research. However, at the time of this writing no research was available to identify the epistemological frames activated by preservice science teachers (PSTs).

Methods

In this research, using qualitative research methods, we studied and applied a coding scheme to identify 10 PSTs’ epistemological framing in their early teaching as part of a science teaching methods course. Three observations and three interviews of each PST served as primary data sources.

Findings

We found three main epistemological frames activated. Further, we identified the contexts in which these frames were activated, where contexts can be understood as situations characterized by different possible dimensions within which resources are activated. We also described dynamics noted by PSTs related to the activation of specific epistemological resources and identified frames.

Contribution

This research is a relatively new application of the epistemological framing framework that has potential to help science teacher educators better understand and support PST learning and practice.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2022.2105649

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Hammer and Elby (2002) characterized epistemological resources as fine-grained and context-dependent to distinguish them from unitary theories that are characterized as context-independent and often invoked as unitary misconceptions students hold. They reference diSessa’s (1993) p-prims as analogues to epistemological resources that are distinct from unitary conceptions or theories.

² The spatial arrangement of the categories are aligned with how Lee & Kim, 2017) arranged them, with the exception of how we included the ‘forms of knowledge” category in the center. Lee & Kim, 2017) named “forms of knowledge” as a category, but did not include the “forms of knowledge” category in the middle of their figures. We felt it was important to include this category in our figures since it provided a more complete characterization of the frame. It was located in the center because we felt that this placement made sense as a way to think about the result of the other three categories or resources interacting or the way this category might influence the activation of the resources in the other three categories.

³ Table 2 includes both the initial a priori codes and those added that were emergent in this research. These are distinguished in Table 2.

⁴ This level of agreement included as agreement those resources we identified as epistemological resources, that had not previously been named in the literature, since there was agreement that the current pool of resources was insufficient and both researchers agreed on the new resource identified in this study.

⁵ Hammer and Elby (2002) define formation as a knowledge-related activity in which learners construct, compose, or fabricate something for themselves, while they define checking as a knowledge-related activity in which learners are “making sure” of something.

⁶ While activation is a verb used to signal the cueing of different knowledge resources, we use it here (in italics) to represent an emergent knowledge-related resource we found participants cuing. In other words, PSTs cued activation as a knowledge-related activity that could support student learning.

⁷ All of the PSTs were eligible for and completed their general science endorsement. Some (e.g., Sarah, Megan, and Emma) focused on co-teaching lessons related to this focus of their licensure when offered a chance to select the curriculum they used for peer instruction.

⁸ While not discussed in depth here, we note that it is important to discuss the dynamics considerations PSTs undertake related to the instructional strategies that might be activated by the constituent epistemological resources of the Delivering Knowledge frame so that PSTs become more adept at thinking about how instructional strategies like interactive direct instruction can be instrumental as part of engaging in instructional strategies aimed at students developing and refining explanations over time, an instructional strategy potentially activated by the Making Space for Collaborative and Iterative Knowledge Construction frame.