Pre-Service Elementary Teachers' Science Content Knowledge and Confidence Teaching Science Methods with Metacognitive Awareness Activities

Abstract

Few elementary teachers are confident in teaching science or in their science knowledge. This study sought to address this concern by investigating the impact of a science methods course on confidence and science knowledge for pre-service elementary teachers (PSETs). In this study, 23 participants enrolled in a teacher education program at a Midwest US university participated in a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. The participants engaged in course content, including metacognitive awareness activities, for a full semester and qualitatively described their confidence within the pre-post assessment survey. Results were analyzed using an independent samples t-test, mean content assessment scores, and paired samples t-tests to evaluate the effectiveness of the science methods course in improving science content assessment scores for the whole group and each confidence group. Our findings indicate that participation in a methods course that implements metacognitive activities has the potential to influence PSETs’ confidence in science knowledge. We found that students with high and low confidence levels improved their science knowledge after completing the course, as measured by the content assessment.