Assessing Gains in Science Teaching Self-Efficacy After Completing an Inquiry-Based Earth Science Course

ABSTRACT

Preservice elementary teachers are often required to take an Earth Science content course as part of their teacher education program but typically enter the course with little knowledge of key Earth Science concepts and are uncertain in their ability to teach science. This study investigated whether completing an inquiry-based Earth Science course for preservice elementary teachers improved their self-efficacy beliefs toward science teaching using the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B). The results were compared against the number of years the students had been undergraduates. All students improved their science teaching self-efficacy (including the freshmen) but only the juniors and seniors experienced significant gains in outcome expectancy. The observed gains in self-efficacy were likely due to increases in cognitive content mastery—the process of successfully learning new material, and the gain in outcome expectancy were probably influenced by the number of field experiences within their teacher-education program. Geoscience departments should, therefore, offer inquiry-based Earth Science content courses designed specifically for preservice elementary teachers to improve their self-efficacy and content knowledge, thus, meeting the needs of this critical student population.

Key words: :

• self-efficacy
• preservice elementary teachers
• Earth Science content courses
• inquiry

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Northern Iowa Department of Earth Science and Provost's Office for partial support of this project. This article greatly benefitted from comments by three anonymous reviewers whose suggestions greatly improved the final manuscript. I would also like to thank Dawn Del Carlo, Jill Maroo, Jeff Morgan, and Sarah Boesdorfer, for helpful suggestions on an earlier draft, and Jacqueline Treanor for help with data input and analysis.