Exploring relationships between theory and practice

: beginning teachers’ narratives of science learning and teaching experiences

Abstract

This research was concerned with critically examining a small group of primary trainee teachers’ developing beliefs about science teaching and learning. Central to this study was exploring the relationship between the constructivist approach to science teaching advocated by the trainee teachers’ university-based learning and their developing beliefs and experiences of teaching science in school. It sought to examine how or if these trainee teachers’ beliefs about the teaching of science remained important to them as they entered the profession, whether they altered their beliefs and factors that supported or prevented them from enacting their beliefs in practice.

A narrative inquiry approach was adopted as the means through which to explore the trainee teachers’ developing beliefs and experiences of science teaching and learning across their university-based learning and their school-based placements. Narrative interviews were used as the research method to gather the trainee teachers’ stories and to give them a voice (Maunther and Doucet, 1998). A process of thematic analysis (Braun and Clark, 2006) was undertaken to generate a collective narrative of the trainee teachers’ experiences while the development of ‘personal experience narratives’ (MCCormick, 2004) enabled individual trainee teacher’s experiences to be examined across different points in time.

The findings indicate that at the end of their training these trainee teachers’ science beliefs appeared to align more with a constructivist perspective. The status of science as a subject, external and internal demands within the school settings often appeared to present a barrier to these trainee teachers being able to enact these beliefs in practice. This study makes recommendations as to actions ITT providers may take to support trainee and beginning teachers in articulating and further developing their science specific constructivist beliefs, embed them in their practice, and empower them to make positive contributions to science learning in their school settings.

Date of Award	21 Feb 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Winchester
Supervisor	Marnie Seymour (Supervisor), Alasdair Richardson (Supervisor) & Eira Patterson (Supervisor)